Don't Look Back

by Lynette Eason

  Then Dakota realized what she was doing. He remembered the conversation in the hospital with Samantha. An idea hit him. He pulled out his own phone, a Blackberry, and found the right button. Voice notes. He hit record and held it near Jamie’s phone.

  She looked at him, at his phone, understood what he was doing, and angled the phone closer to his.

  “Speak to me, Jamie, tell me how much you miss your hero.”

  She turned the phone from her and gagged once. Took a deep breath and held still.

  Voices in the background. Listening hard, he tried to recognize the place, anything about the call.

  Nothing.

  “Speak to me!” the voice on the other end roared. Flinching, she pressed the other hand still encased in the glove to her mouth. A barely perceptible whimper escaped. Dakota doubted the person on the other end of the phone heard it.

  “I know you’re there.” Although back in control, Dakota could hear undercurrents of rage in the words. “Well, if you won’t talk to me, then I will talk to you. Tell your friends to stop their searching, their snooping into business that isn’t theirs. Tell them that unless they stop, more people will die. People close to them. Like an Anabelle Richards in San Antonio, Texas. 126 Arrow-wood Drive, I believe it is.”

  Dakota felt the bottom drop from beneath him. How had this guy tracked down his mother?

  “Or maybe a young lady by the name of Jenna Wolfe? I believe she’s staying with her grandparents at the retirement home.”

  Dakota shot a look at Connor, who’d returned from telling Jake and Serena to hold off for a bit. And to be quiet. The man looked furious. He was already dialing a number to provide protection for the people this guy had just named.

  “I know you’re there! I know you’re all there! Stop looking for me, you’ll never find me. I hide very well.” A low laugh that sent shivers through Dakota. This guy really creeped him out. “And tell your bodyguards they’re wasting their time. I can get to you anytime, anyplace. And I will.”

  A shudder wracked her body and Dakota placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently, encouraging her. Letting her know he was there.

  More breathing, a heavy sigh. “Talk to you soon, Jamie, very, very soon.”

  Click.

  Jamie dropped the phone and sank to the floor, burying her head against her knees.

  “No use tracking the number. It’s either a stolen phone or prepaid.”

  “I sent it to Jazz. She’ll take the recording from my phone and see if she can pick up any background noises that might help in pinpointing where this guy made his phone call from.”

  From a distance, their voices registered. Serena had already done her thing. Maya had been photographed and transferred to the black body bag. Jamie felt numb. She’d heard a conversation about protection for Dakota’s mother in Texas and then something about a car being sent to cover the retirement home where Connor’s parents lived and then a shadow for Jenna.

  Poor girl, Jamie thought absently. Jenna had already been through so much. Now, again, she’d have to put up with being threatened because of her father’s job.

  Then Jamie’s mind jumped back to Maya. Smothering guilt pressed in on her from all sides to push away the numbness. Despair closed in, followed by a wave of rage so intense it bent her double.

  “Jamie?”

  A hand on her back. She straightened. Looked up at Dakota. He studied her, eyes widening slightly. She wondered what he saw.

  Then he was guiding her from the room. “We’re talking to the neighbors.”

  “How did he get in, Dakota?”

  She almost didn’t recognize her own voice. Low and hard, it grated. Clearing her throat, she waited for his response.

  “We’re hoping someone saw something.”

  “What about the person watching the house last night?”

  Shifting, Dakota’s eyes left hers for a moment, then came back to hers. “He left around five o’clock this morning. Some sort of family emergency. Got a call on his cell phone that his kid was in the ER. He didn’t wait for a replacement.”

  “I don’t blame him.” She sighed. “So, sometime between five and seven, this guy got in my house, around my alarm system, and put Maya in the tub.”

  “Put her in the tub?”

  “She was killed somewhere else. There was very little blood.” Now she sounded mechanical, professional. She decided it was better than weepy or hysterical – or screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Yeah, Serena said something along those lines.”

  Serena stepped back inside. “I’ll see you at the morgue?”

  Crossing her arms, she gripped each bicep. “I don’t know, Serena. I don’t think I can handle this one. I’m sorry,” she ended on a whisper.

  Sympathy glistened in her friend’s eyes. “No problem, Jamie, I’ll call in someone else if I need to. I can probably handle it myself. This isn’t your area anyway.”

  Jamie nodded and Serena left.

  “Come sit in the den a minute.” Dakota directed her to the sofa.

  “‘For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.’”

  “What?”

  She’d whispered the words to herself so quietly, he hadn’t understood her. She looked at him with deep, soul clenching sorrow and clarified, “First Peter 2:21. I have to quote it when the desire for revenge takes over.”

  Curiosity stared at her. “And it’s wrong to want revenge?”

  “It’s not wrong to want justice, to desire to right a wrong or help put away the bad guys. But revenge, that’s not right. It’s not healthy and I won’t have it in my heart.”

  She’d managed to render him speechless, she could tell. When he found his voice, he asked, “How?”

  “How what?”

  “How do you keep trusting him?”

  “Because I can’t not trust him. Because he is who he says he is and he hasn’t let me down yet. Even when his ways aren’t my ways, he hasn’t failed me.”

  “Guys?” She turned to see Connor standing in the entrance to her den. “We may have someone who saw something.”

  Jamie stood. “What?”

  “Around 5:45 this morning, a neighbor was up and happened to look out his window. He saw a car pull into your garage, then the garage door shut.”

  “What?” Disbelief slanted through her. “How? Only Samantha and I have garage door openers.”

  “This is how your guy’s been getting in.”

  “But even if he got in the garage, the alarm …”

  “He had the code. Only this time, when we changed it, he didn’t have access to it, so he cut the phone line and dismantled it.”

  “Which is why it didn’t work when I came home today.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But to open my garage?” She shook her head.

  “We’re working on that.”

  Dakota spoke up. “What kind of car was it, did the neighbor notice?”

  “Yeah, get this. A light blue Honda.”

  All breath left her for a moment. Then, “That’s the same car.”

  “Yeah.” Connor looked at her. “Guess you’re moving in with me for a while.”

  “It’s not safe, Connor, you know that.”

  “I don’t think it really matters, to be honest with you. I think this guy is someone you know and trust. That if you opened the door and saw him standing there, you’d let him in.”

  “No. No way. I’d recognize him if I saw him.” She gave a nervous laugh. “You’re crazy, Connor. Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t know him? After what he did to me?”

  Connor raised a hand. “Jamie, this guy is good. He’s also mentally deranged. He’s got to be criminally insane, which means he’s c
apable of living a normal life while keeping his secret life extremely well-hidden.”

  “But … but … who?”

  “I don’t know, but I think the first place to start looking is someone you possibly work with.”

  “Do you know how many people that entails?”

  “Yeah. I know. It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Dakota drew in a breath and said, “Let’s start back at square one.”

  “Square one?” Confused, she waited for him to finish.

  “The girls the bones belong to.”

  Once the authorities were finished with her home, Jamie packed a bag and locked up, wondering if she’d ever be able to return. Not holding her breath on that one.

  Back at Connor’s house, Samantha let them in and the foursome settled into the den. Samantha claimed the couch to put her feet up. Dakota, Connor, and Jamie grabbed some drinks and the files of the missing girls and sat down at the kitchen table. Dakota propped his feet on the chair next to him and took a drink from the soda can.

  Pushing her grief aside, she decided the best thing she could do for Maya was to find the person responsible for her death. Jamie said, “I’ve gone over and over these. The reports, the x-rays, the investigation notes. Everything. There’s nothing that appears to be related – except the fact that all the girls seemed to be either going to a party or coming home from one.”

  Dakota’s feet hit the floor. “What?”

  She frowned at him. “What?”

  “The link. You said they all either seemed to be on their way to a party or coming home from one.”

  “Yeah, why? Is that important?”

  He shot a look at Connor. “I don’t know, but it’s definitely something we need to look at a little closer.”

  They spread the files out on the table before them.

  Jamie grabbed the first one and opened it. Dakota took the next and so on until they had them spread from one end of the table to the other. Samantha came into the kitchen, sat on one of the cushioned chairs, and put her feet up on the one opposite. At her husband’s look, she shrugged. “Sorry, I can’t stay away. I need to help.” She shifted so she could see the files.

  Each report noted that the victim was returning home from or heading to a party.

  “That’s it. We need George to add this to his profile. Our guy doesn’t like party girls? Or likes them too much?”

  Jamie slapped the file. “That’s crazy.”

  “But it fits.”

  She stood, paced to the window, and looked out. “Okay fine.

  But how would he know what they were doing? Surely, he’s not one who keeps up with parties on a regular basis. There’s no way he could.”

  “That’s true.” Dakota frowned and went back to the file. “That means there’s another connector somewhere, something else linking these girls.”

  “Someone they all knew.”

  “A teacher?”

  More file consulting. Jamie shook her head. “No, we have six or seven high schools around here in a thirty-mile radius. A couple of them attended the same one, but the majority of them went to different high schools.”

  “Church?”

  “Sports team?”

  They hovered over the papers.

  Samantha sat up, two files clutched in her fingers. “Hey, guys?”

  Connor looked up. “What do you have, gorgeous?”

  Sam flushed and shot him a look. Jamie bit her lip on a smile. Sam looked anything but gorgeous right now, but Connor didn’t see that.

  “I’ve got a connection between these two. It may be nothing, then again …”

  “What is it?” Jamie scooted closer.

  “They were seeing a counselor.”

  “You mean like a shrink?” Dakota asked.

  “Yeah, um … the group Eastside Psychiatric Therapists.”

  “I’ve seen their building,” Connor noted.

  Jamie grabbed the laptop from the coffee table, returned to the kitchen, and punched in her search in the Google box. It brought up the address and the names of the doctors. Five doctors in all, Jamie didn’t recognize any of them.

  She called them out, “Peters, Marshall, Christianson, Paul, Berry.”

  The four looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Maybe George knows them.”

  “Maybe,” Jamie muttered. “Do any of the other girls have that in their files? That they were in counseling?”

  A search ensued.

  Two minutes later, Dakota exclaimed, “Ah ha. Look here. Still a Missing Person, but she was receiving counseling at the group.”

  “Which doctor?”

  “Peters.”

  “Keep looking,” Dakota ordered, excitement seeping into his voice, “I think we’ve just found a huge connection with these girls.”

  Connor held up another file. “No mention of any counseling. I’m going to call her family.” He snatched up the file and went into another room.

  “I didn’t have counseling,” Jamie whispered. “So what’s the connection there?” She blinked and shook her head. “Twenty-two files of missing persons matching the demographics. Plus four,” Jamie paused, “five other victims that are linked together because of broken and healed bones and monogrammed handcuffs.” She shuddered. “Could he have possibly killed that many people?”

  Samantha sighed and leaned her head back against the chair. “It’s happened before.”

  “But these aren’t girls with no one out there looking for them. They have families, they’re loved, they’re missed …” She swallowed hard. “How is it he’s been allowed to get away with this for so long? How has no one seen anything? It doesn’t seem possible.”

  Dakota shook his head. “I don’t know, but it’s past time he was stopped.” He looked up at Jamie. “We need to talk about putting you in a safe house.”

  Before she could respond, Connor reentered the room. “She wasn’t in counseling. She’s not an MP anymore either.”

  “What do you mean she’s not a missing person anymore?

  She turned up?” Dakota tapped his file in his hand into his other palm.

  “Yeah, she’s now living in Missouri with an aunt.”

  “And no one thought to let us know so we could remove her from the system?”

  “Guess not.” He shook his head in disgust and picked up another file, then he looked at Dakota. “What’s this about a safe house for Jamie?”

  “I think it might be time.”

  “I can’t go into a safe house,” she protested. “We’ve already talked about this. He’ll just back off and wait me out.”

  “Or escalate and start trying to kill off the rest of our family in retaliation.” Samantha’s words echoed throughout the room.

  Jamie set her lips. “I’m not going into hiding. In fact, I’d like to set myself up as bait.”

  28

  Dakota, Connor, and Samantha immediately nixed that idea. Dakota liked the idea of protective custody much better. He was about to mention it when his cell phone rang.

  He snapped it up to his ear. “Talk to me, Jazzy.”

  Conversation ceased as everyone waited impatiently for him to finish listening to the woman. “Got it.”

  “What?” Samantha pressed.

  “Jazz ran our suspect’s phone call. It did come from a prepaid phone so no tracing it that way, but when she listened to it off the recording I did, she said she picked up an ambulance siren and someone paging a doctor.”

  “The hospital,” Jamie breathed. “He called from the hospital?” “Sounds like it.”

  Grim-faced, Dakota told Jamie, “This guy is escalating big time. He’s stepping up the stakes.”

  “And I’m the grand prize,” she muttered.

  “Not if we have anything to say about it,” he reassured her.

  Jamie watched the men leave to continue the investigation down at the police station. They both wanted to listen to the recording once more, focusing
on the sounds Jazz heard. They’d call when they were done.

  She and Samantha had the assignment of contacting each family of each missing girl to ask when and where she’d received counseling. Several of the files noted counseling, but didn’t mention where they received it.

  Alone with Samantha, Jamie studied the next file in front of her, but her mind wasn’t into the task. “We have a sister.”

  “I know. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. Well, that and the baby.” Her hand moved over her stomach.

  “Did you tell Connor? About our sister?”

  “No, not yet. I haven’t really had a chance to say anything. I think I’m still trying to process it all.”

  “I know. I want to see her.”

  “So do I.”

  Jamie rubbed her eyes. “Sounds like she wants to meet us too.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Samantha eyed her sister. “You have a twin. Not just a sister … a twin.”

  “I know. It’s crazy.”

  “And you never felt like something was missing in your life? Like a part of you wasn’t whole?”

  Jamie snorted. “Nope, not even a twinge.”

  “I wonder what her name is. I was so in shock when Mom and Dad dropped this bomb on us that I never asked what her name is.”

  “I could call.”

  Samantha shook her head. “No, they’ll get around to telling us shortly. I think we should wait to meet her until all this madness is over. I mean, it wouldn’t be a good thing to bring her into this while we have a madman out there stalking you.”

  Tears filled Jamie’s eyes. “Oh, Maya,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  Wrapping her arms around her waist, she bent forward and sobbed. Samantha moved close and hugged Jamie until she was spent.

  Jamie pulled away and scrubbed her face with her palms. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Samantha sniffed and wiped her own tears. “I loved Maya too.”

  “I know. Her funeral is tomorrow. I wonder if he’ll show up.”

  Jaw clenched, Samantha stated, “Well, if he does, you can bet his picture will be taken.”

  A police photographer would be snapping pictures of the crowd the entire service. As soon as the funeral was over, the pictures would be studied, looking for the slightest clue that might lead them one step closer to the killer.