by Rita Herron
He barked a laugh. “You can thank your local sheriff for that one. I met him at Haints. A few drinks in and that man has a loose tongue. He bragged that he heard you talking to the deputy. The rest was easy.”
They’d bonded over their animosity toward her. Ellie wanted to scream.
“Did you know that that’s my bar?” he asked.
“You own Haints?” Ellie asked, shocked.
“I bought it because it was across from the cemetery where Cici is buried. And to be close to the cops.” His fingers dug into her arms. “Where I should have been all along, with my fellow officers.” His sinister laugh rang in her ears. “Where I could keep an eye on you.”
“You put that blood on my porch,” Ellie said. “The blood—”
“I took from your precious friend,” he snarled. “Imagine my fun watching it drain from her body. And I didn’t have to go anywhere near your house. Vinny did that for me.”
“But what about Cord? You put his print on Shondra’s truck?”
“Easy peasy.” He laughed again.
“How did you know about his upbringing? About Finton?”
Another sardonic laugh, and he shook her so hard her teeth rattled. “Because I’m the best detective,” he said sharply. “What a mistake the academy made… Once you spilled your guts to the therapist, all I had to do was a little investigating.” He bounced up and down on his heels like a kid with too much energy. “When I learned about his foster family, I knew he’d make the perfect patsy. And finding all those books in his house gave me all the information I needed to plan out the disposal sites.”
“And Finton? You let us think he was part of it. Was he?”
“That sick creep. No. But he was the icing on the cake. With his past and McClain’s, it was easy to make them look like conspirators,” Burton said with a grin. “Really, Detective, I helped you put away a bad guy. I should receive a police commendation.”
He was totally deranged.
Keep him talking, Ellie. She needed time. “Tell me this, Hugh. How did you get that woman to agree to be a fake therapist and help you?”
He pulled at the collar around her neck, choking her. “I have my ways.”
“You held her hostage and abused her,” Ellie said, figuring it out. “Stockholm syndrome.”
“You’d be surprised what a woman will do when she thinks she’s going to die.” He threw his head back and laughed, the ugly sound booming off the concrete walls. “She was easy to manipulate, to train, just like the dogs.”
“You’re a sociopath,” Ellie said, earning another slap across the jaw.
“Once I had her under my thumb, I could make her do anything for me. Not like you or Cathy.”
“Where is she?” Ellie asked.
He shrugged, then brushed his calloused fingers across her cheek. A second later, he snatched off the rubber band holding her ponytail and spread her hair over her shoulders. “Your daddy should have taught you how to be a lady.”
“And yours should have taught you how to be a man,” Ellie said, unable to resist the barb.
He hit her again, this time so hard her head snapped backward and the dog collar cut into her neck. She gagged as he hauled the chain, dragging her after him.
“That’s a good girl, Ellie. Good girl.”
Tears blurred her eyes at the menacing edge to his deep voice, but she blinked them back. She refused to give him the satisfaction of crying in front of him.
Her body ached as he heaved her into the hallway, into another cold room, where the air was thick with the smell of blood. Three metal cages glinted in the dark.
Two were empty, but she saw the outline of a body in the other.
One Hundred Thirty-Six
Bluff County Hospital
Derrick found Randall Reeves perched by his wife’s bedside.
He knocked on the door, which stood ajar, the sound of machines beeping and whirring from inside. Randall looked up, surprised, then something akin to suspicion settled on his craggy face.
Derrick motioned for him to step into the hallway, and Randall kissed his sleeping wife, before striding toward him.
Anger darkened Randall’s face, his tone defensive. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s about Ellie,” Derrick said, knowing time was of the essence.
Randall softened somewhat. “What about Ellie?”
“The Weekday Killer has her.”
Randall balled his hands by his sides and straightened, looking more like the intimidating man he used to be. “How did you let this happen?” he barked. “You were supposed to be working with her.”
Guilt slammed into Derrick. He’d been beating himself up the entire drive over. “I don’t have time to get into everything, but the bottom line is that I went to Ellie’s house and found signs of a struggle in her bedroom.”
The man’s face turned ashen. “No sign of Ellie?”
He shook his head. “One of his victims is in the hospital, but she never saw the man’s face. But he told her that Ellie had to pay for humiliating him. That means the killer knows Ellie personally, that they crossed paths. Captain Hale is reviewing her old cases, but you know her better than anybody. Is there anyone you can think of who hates her?”
Randall pinched the bridge of his nose. “She and Bryce have some tension, but he wouldn’t hurt her or kill all those women.”
“He’s been cleared,” Derrick said, earning a surprised look from Randall. “But think. There has to be someone in her past.”
“You know Ellie. She’s a ball buster and has pissed off a lot of people, but… to want to kill her. I…”
“If you don’t give me something here, it might be too late for your daughter.” Derrick barely resisted beating the damn man. “Think about it. This perpetrator forces the victims to wear a dog collar. Perhaps he trains dogs to fight?”
Randall’s frown deepened.
“He also said she humiliated him. And he mentioned something about a woman named Cathy. He could have seen Ellie in the news lately, maybe that triggered something in him. We’ve eliminated the family members of the Ghost victims.”
“You mentioned he might have trained dogs to fight?” asked Randall, pacing in the hall.
Derrick nodded.
Closing his eyes, Randall rubbed the back of his neck. “There was an officer at the academy with Ellie. An incident, but it happened a long time ago.”
Derrick’s pulse jumped. “What kind of incident?”
“He volunteered to train dogs for the K-9 units, but he was caught beating one.”
Derrick’s heart raced. “Was there anything else?”
Randall glanced back at his wife’s room, but she hadn’t moved. “Ellie was very competitive and athletic. She ran rings around a few of the men. She was faster, was mentally sharp, and also outshot a lot of them at the shooting range. She filed a complaint against the same man for sexual harassment.”
“What happened?”
“She didn’t share the details. But after she filed, some other female officers spoke up as well. An investigation ensued, and he was dismissed from the academy.” Randall worked his mouth from side to side, his face growing more and more ashen. “After he got kicked out, I heard his wife left him. I… believe they had a child, and they were killed in an accident.”
Derrick’s blood went cold. “He could blame Ellie for that.”
“But why wait until now to try to get revenge against her?” Randall asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe he spiraled downward after that. Or maybe he got help. Who knows at this point? But seeing Ellie in the news being reported as a hero might have triggered his need for vengeance. What’s his name?”
“I think it was something like Herbert— No… Hugh. Burton, that was it. Hugh Burton.”
Derrick had started to walk away when Randall called out his name. “Agent Fox? Please find my little girl.”
Derrick’s gaze met his. He would find Ellie, but not fo
r Randall.
One Hundred Thirty-Seven
Somewhere on the AT
Ellie swallowed back a sob as she stared at Shondra’s lifeless form inside the cage. It was too dark to see if Burton had slashed her throat, but the strong odor of blood and body waste permeated the damp room. Water dripped somewhere close by, pinging on the concrete floor.
Forcing her to crawl over to the cage, Burton unlocked the door and ordered her inside. A clamminess washed over Ellie, and she thought she might pass out. The cage was big enough for a large animal but cramped with her and Shondra inside. It smelled like blood and dog hair, and she bit back a retch.
The door clanged shut, and she felt Burton watching her as she lifted a battered hand to touch her friend. Shondra was only thirty years old––she had her whole life ahead of her. After such a broken past, she’d met a woman who loved her and they’d planned to get married. But she would never get the happiness she deserved.
Now she looked thinner, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Her skin was pale and splotchy, black and blue with bruising. Her hair lay in a tangle, dried blood making the strands coarse. Ellie gently pushed it away from her cheek. Her friend’s skin was ice cold.
One Hundred Thirty-Eight
Stony Gap
Derrick met Bryce, Deputy Landrum, Captain Hale, Cord and half a dozen other deputies at the sheriff’s office to brief them. Bennett had been fast in investigating Burton. Armed with new information, he asked everyone to meet in the conference room.
Captain Hale hung up his phone as he walked in. “That was Deputy Eastwood’s girlfriend, Melissa. She’s hysterical and demanded to speak to Detective Reeves.”
“What did you tell her?” Derrick asked.
“That I’d have her call her,” he said grimly.
Derrick dove straight in. “I believe Detective Reeves has been abducted by the Weekday Killer, and this is him.” He tacked Burton’s photo on the whiteboard. “Sheriff, can you get an all-points bulletin out for him, send his picture to Angelica Gomez and have her run it?”
The sheriff nodded. “What makes you think he’s the killer?”
“He fits the profile and has a vendetta against Detective Reeves. Burton was at the police academy with her. He had trouble there, though. Volunteered to train dogs but was caught abusing them. Later, Ellie filed charges against him for sexual harassment. Her complaint started a wave of others that got him dismissed and ended his career in law enforcement. His life went further downhill from there. His wife, Cathy, left him, taking their six-year-old daughter with her. He chased after them, but the wife crashed and she and the little girl both died.”
Bryce made a strangled sound, causing Derrick to pause.
“Do you know him?” he asked.
“I saw him at Haints,” Waters murmured, pressing his hand to his forehead.
“You talked to him?” Derrick asked, his jaw tightening.
“Yes… I met him years ago at a weapons training seminar, but I had no idea he knew Ellie.” Bryce had paled.
Captain Hale cleared his throat. “What did you talk about?”
“I don’t know,” Bryce said. “We had a beer, that’s all.”
He’d probably found common ground by bashing Ellie. “What did you tell him?” Derrick barked.
“I may have mentioned she was in therapy. I heard her and Deputy Eastwood talking one day.”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” cursed Derrick, barely containing his rage. “You fed him information and he used it to find his victims.”
“I didn’t know,” Bryce choked out. “I… thought he was a good guy.”
“He used that personal information to make her doubt everyone she knew and to frame me,” Cord said gruffly.
Derrick nodded. The ranger had a right to be pissed and walk right out. Instead, he pulled a wall map down for them to study.
Meanwhile, Deputy Landrum looked up from his computer. “I’ve found an air strip near an old abandoned farm east of here. It’s not far from the one where you found that hair. Looks like the farm once belonged to his dead wife’s parents. And that air strip was once used for crop dusting planes but hasn’t been used in years.”
“That’s it,” Derrick said. “That’s where he’d take the victims.”
The deputy gave Cord the coordinates. “We should divide up. I’ll mark off search quadrants so we can cover more territory.”
Derrick’s gaze met his. When this was over, he owed McClain an apology. But now they had to act quickly.
“I’ll get my people to send a chopper so we have an aerial view,” Derrick said. “I’ll head to the farmhouse—he might be using it as home base. Sheriff?”
Bryce squared his shoulders. “My deputies will search north of the farm, in case he took them into the woods.”
“My guys can search the east,” Captain Hale said. “McClain and I will head west.”
Derrick clapped his hands. “Let’s get to it. The weather is getting wild out there. Shondra may be Saturday’s child, but we have to save Ellie before she becomes Sunday’s.”
One Hundred Thirty-Nine
Somewhere on the AT
As Burton dragged Ellie up the stairs, she felt like she was being led to execution.
Upstairs, he forced her to crawl across the cold linoleum floor. It smelled like a dead animal in here. Like urine and mold and… and the gruesome scent of death from the cages below. Muttering the rhyme in a crazy voice, he threw a duffel back over his shoulder, then forced her through the back door. Wind slapped the screen back against the doorframe as he dragged her outside, down four cement steps.
Tugging her to a standing position, still pulling her with the chain, Burton shoved her towards the woods. With the gray stormy skies, it seemed dark, the wind hurling dirt and leaves around them.
The tornado they’d talked about on the weather. It was coming their way.
As Burton chained her to a metal fence, Ellie realized they were on some kind of farm. An old barn sat to the right with pens that could have been used for pigs or chickens. She heard a dog yelping and realized their theory about him training dogs was on target.
Pure raw hatred churned through her as she watched him gather sticks, piling them at the door of the house and all around the outside.
“Ellie’s going to die today, Ellie’s going to die. And they will never find me,” he muttered. “Die, die, die, Ellie. And no one will ever find you.”
Realizing with horror what he planned to do, she struggled with the collar around her neck, yanking and twisting, desperate to free herself. She could see a funnel cloud in the distance, the trees rocking in the wind.
Burton grabbed a gas can and began to spread gasoline all around the edge of the house, dousing the sticks and steps to the porch.
“No!” Ellie cried, knowing that Shondra was still inside.
His laugh punctuated the air as he stepped back, lit a match and tossed it onto the pile. One match after another.
Terror assaulted her as the flames began to spark and spread.
Then he snatched the duffel bag, threw it over his shoulder and returned to unchain her from the fence. She fought, digging in her heels, to try to go back to Shondra. But it was useless. He hauled her into the forest behind the house, and she knew her time was running out.
One Hundred Forty
North Georgia
Derrick swerved onto the shoulder of the road to dodge a tree branch that crashed down, speeding toward the farm. Black clouds raged in the sky, and fierce winds careened through the woods.
The wind beat at the car, knocking him sideways, as if it might lift his vehicle and send it sailing through the air. Clenching the steering wheel, he pulled it back onto the road away from the rocky mountain wall.
Ahead, above the jagged peaks, he saw the clouds spinning and realized he was heading into the eye of the storm. There was no way a chopper could fly overhead now. It was too dangerous.
Praying he wasn’t too late, he flew
around a curve, but almost lost control and went skidding over the ravine.
A loud roaring rent the air, and suddenly a pine limb was falling through the air, straight at his windshield.
Derrick swerved to avoid it, but the branch struck the passenger side of his car, shattered the window and sent him skidding. A second later, metal crunched and glass sprayed him as the car flipped onto its side.
One Hundred Forty-One
Somewhere on the AT
“It’s almost a shame to end this with you,” Burton said to Ellie. “It’s been so much fun watching you chase your tail and fail.”
Ellie’s body ached from the beating he’d given her, but she stifled her emotions. No time for self-pity. She had to get away from him, go back and get Shondra’s body out of that house. Her friend deserved a proper burial.
He dragged her through thorn bushes, poison oak and past a barbed wire fence that tore at her clothing, then down a hill behind the old house. Smoke billowed in the air in thick rolling waves of gray, and flames shot toward the dark sky.
Dried brush crackled and twigs snapped, the damp moss adding to the smoke.
The tornado was almost on top of them, the wind making him sway on his feet, almost tumbling down the hill. She clawed at his leg to trip him, but he kicked her hard and she collapsed.
Glaring down at her, he laughed. “Do you know where I’ve chosen to leave you?”
She shook her head. “Tell me, Hugh. I want to hear everything. Tell me why you chose the rhymes.”
“Well,” he said, his eyes hollow black holes, “my mama used to say that rhyme to me all the time. She’d point out all the girls and talk about how good they were. But Daddy told me the truth. They weren’t what they seemed at all. Just like you aren’t, and all the other women I picked to die.”
