by Rita Herron
He felt smothered by the anguish filling his chest. He should have died that day, too. Sometimes he wished he had.
But Crystal’s face flashed in his head. Crystal, the woman without a name. The woman he’d wanted to make love to. The woman who made him want to live again.
He rose, padded to the dresser and opened the drawer, then removed the baby rattle he’d found. The one he hadn’t been able to leave behind, or throw away.
Cal would have a fit if he knew Damon had kept it, that he’d broken another rule—destroy any evidence that could connect you to the scene or victim.
He’d kept this rattle to remind him of the woman’s death. And that he didn’t deserve to have a family himself.
* * *
CRYSTAL TWISTED HER FINGERS together, scanning the scenery as Damon drove the country road toward Kendra Yates’s mother’s house. She’d gone to bed aching for Damon and his comforting arms, and this morning, as she contemplated the woman’s potential reactions to seeing her daughter’s face on another, she needed him even more.
But he had withdrawn into a silent shell, thrown up walls to keep her from getting close again and held a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel of the car Jean-Paul had dropped off. The morning had been awkward as they’d shared coffee and beignets, but she’d been grateful for the bag of clothes and toiletries Britta had collected.
Even wearing the simple cotton sleeveless tank, denim skirt and sandals in the air-conditioning, her skin felt clammy with the insufferable heat and nerves. She’d secured her hair off her neck into a ponytail, but perspiration made the unruly tendrils curl even more and cling to her neck. Damon flipped the radio to a local jazz station to fill the silence, but the blues song only let in thoughts of her troubles.
Damon veered down a graveled road past an old service station and several houses that had been nearly destroyed in the hurricane, reminding her of the lost lives and difficulties the survivors faced. She had no reason to indulge in a pity party. Soon she would have answers. Then she could move on.
If they discovered she was single and free, would Damon want to be part of her life? Was that the only thing holding him back? She sensed there was more. Something about the pain in the way he’d played that saxophone suggested that he didn’t want a relationship at all. Just a night of raw primal sex…
Another memory tugged at her consciousness. A handsome man…a seduction. Lies. A man she trusted. A man who’d betrayed her. No, an involvement with this cop was impossible.
The car bumped over the potholes and uneven graveled patches, jerking her mind back to the immediate task facing her: meeting Kendra’s mother.
Damon slowed the vehicle as they approached a battered two-story white Georgian home. The structure begged for paint just as the weed-filled, scraggly yard begged for landscaping. Kendra’s mother had probably suffered hurricane damage and was still struggling to recover.
And now she’d lost her daughter….
Damon cut the engine then turned to Crystal, worry lining his handsome face. “This has to be difficult, maybe even unpleasant for you. Kendra’s mother already endured a terrible shock, and she doesn’t yet know about the transplant. Are you sure you want to meet her?”
Doubts suddenly assailed Crystal. “You think meeting me will make things worse for her?”
“I don’t know. I…It’s hard to say how she’ll react.”
Crystal stared up at the house, her heart full of trepidation. She didn’t want to hurt this woman, but she’d like to repay Kendra by easing her mother’s suffering, if possible. Somehow she felt close to Kendra, felt as if being here was right, that Kendra would have wanted her to meet her mother, to console her in her grief.
“I have to,” she said softly. “Kendra wouldn’t want her mother to be alone now.”
He nodded, his frown softening slightly, resurrecting memories of the night before when just for a moment he’d let down his guard.
But as they walked up the drive to the front porch, Crystal’s knees wobbled, and the hair on the back of her neck bristled. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
Damon rang the doorbell, and they waited, the sultry air stirring scents of honeysuckle and the bayou around them. But no one answered.
A vulture circled the house above the chimney, sending an eerie feeling through her skin. Heat pounded her back, bringing with it another odor she couldn’t define. Something rancid. Damon punched the bell again, but the house remained silent. He reached out and turned the doorknob, and her breath caught as the door squeaked open.
They stepped inside and a vile odor blasted them. “Something’s not right,” she said.
Damon nodded and called the woman’s name.
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
He frowned. “Blood.”
Fear crawled into her. She glanced at the hallway, then around the corner and saw a foot twisted in the doorway, a body sprawled on the floor in the kitchen. Damon unholstered his gun and shoved her behind him. Blood streaked the floor, the walls, the carpet. So much blood.
She covered her mouth to stifle a scream, her stomach clenching. They were too late. Kendra’s mother wouldn’t be able to tell them anything.
* * *
DAMON’S INSTINCTS ROARED, the scent of death so strong that he had to swallow back the bile. He scanned the hall, then spotted a mangled body lying in a pool of blood on the floor and whipped around to Crystal, all the time his senses tuned to high alert in case the killer remained hidden inside.
“Listen to me,” he said in a low whisper as he handed Crystal the new cell phone Jean-Paul had given him. “Go to the car, lock the doors and call Jean-Paul. His number is programmed in.”
Her glazed eyes told him she’d seen the body. Jesus. He shook her by the shoulders. “Go, Crystal. The killer may still be here.”
His words registered, and she nodded numbly, clutched the phone and ran outside. He inched to the door to make sure she made it safely to the car, scanned the property in front and breathed a sigh of relief when she slammed the car door shut.
Inside, a noise jerked his head back to the staircase, and he wielded his gun, ready to fire. His lungs squeezed air from his chest as he slowly climbed the stairs, each creak of the step making him pause to listen for an intruder. Upstairs, the windowpane rattled, and he clenched his Glock as he climbed the last step and twisted around the corner.
Nothing.
He slowly crept forward, searched the two bedrooms to the right, then the third one, which must have been Kendra’s, as photos of her lined a white bookshelf. The windowpane rattled again, and he finally realized that it was only a bird perched on the ledge pecking at the glass.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he finished checking the upstairs, then inched his way back down and checked out the master suite to the left of the foyer, then the den, and finally he found his way back to the kitchen where Mrs. Yates’s mutilated body lay.
Fury raced through his veins as he studied the crime scene. She had been sliced and diced as if she weren’t human. Not exactly a copycat of the first Mutilator, but similar to his last crimes.
Still, it was overkill. The sadistic maniac took pleasure in the act.
To hell with the law. This guy deserved to suffer the way he’d caused these women to suffer.
Fury ripped through Damon’s gut as he remembered the handwritten number one on the photo the copycat had sent them. Kendra had been his victim.
And now victim two—Kendra’s mother.
Would there be another? The Mutilator had killed twelve before being caught. He was joy-killing—harder to create a logic for and trace.
Unlike the first killer though, these victims were related. Mother and daughter, not random victims.
Suspicions mounted. Like Damon, this copycat killer must have thought Kendra might have told her mother something important about her research. Maybe the name of the dirty cop. Or Swafford’s location.
But there was no way they could p
in this crime on Antwaun because he was in jail during this second killing.
He contemplated the killer’s pattern—if their UNSUB intended to murder everyone who knew Kendra or was related to the case, he might come after Crystal. And if he planned to mutilate her this way…
God, no.
He couldn’t let that happen. He’d go back into the dark world of his ops training and kill the sicko first.
* * *
A SIREN WAILED in the distance. The dead woman’s face was etched in Crystal’s mind. As was the photo of Kendra on the wall. And the family picture at Christmas when they were children…
Images bombarded her like small snippets out of a foreign film, a documentary of someone else’s life. Only there were mere bits and pieces—the whole story wasn’t appearing on-screen…as if clips had been cut from the show.
She buried her face in her hands, trying to put the world back together. She had seen Kendra recently. She had known her because…they were related?
She’d joined her at another relative’s funeral. Her father’s…
Grief consumed her, took the air from her lungs. Her father…the car explosion. The man with the wide accusing eyes. The fire eating at his face and body…
My fault…my fault…my fault… she’d cried over his casket.
Her mother’s scream echoed in her ears. “Jacqueline!”
Sobs racked Crystal’s body, and she rocked herself back and forth in the car. Jacqueline—was that her name?
Yes, it sounded right. And Kendra was her cousin, although they’d lost touch.
Until the day of her father’s funeral. Then she’d appeared out of nowhere. Pulled Jacqueline aside, warned her that her father had been murdered. That she knew the killer.
And that she might be next on his list.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THOUGH HE WANTED DESPERATELY to go to Crystal, Damon first spoke with Jean-Paul, his partner, Detective Carson Graves, and the crime-scene unit outside the house to explain what he had found.
Jean-Paul wiped sweat from his brow. “At least they can’t hang this on Antwaun.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Damon said. “But we need to search the house. My guess is that the killer thought Kendra might have told her mother something important about her investigation. Maybe she even sent her some kind of evidence.”
Jean-Paul looked grim as he climbed the porch. “Let’s just hope the killer didn’t find it first.”
Damon nodded. “I need to check on Crystal.”
“Go ahead,” Jean-Paul said. “I’ll oversee the crime scene.”
Blue lights swirled against the gray sky, and the heat bore down on him as Damon made his way to his car. His heart pounded with fear. Dammit, he couldn’t let another woman down.
Crystal had turned on the air conditioner and sat in the passenger seat, her hands clenched, her eyes staring at the house, a haunted expression on her face.
He opened the driver’s door and climbed in, then took her hands in his. “Crystal, I’m sorry you had to see that. Are you okay?”
She turned to him with tears in her eyes. “I…had a memory. Just a flash but…I did know Kendra, and her mother. Kendra was my cousin…We hadn’t seen each other in a long time, but recently we reconnected.”
Damon’s interest perked up. Maybe Kendra had confided something about what she’d been working on. The name of the dirty cop. Swafford’s location. Another enemy she might have made. Maybe she’d been researching the original Mutilator case. Crystal looked so fragile, he hated to push her; unlocking the truth might be the only way to keep her safe. “What else did you remember?”
“She came to the funeral.” Her chin quivered as she grappled for control over her emotions.
“What funeral, Crystal? I don’t understand.”
“The car explosion I saw in my nightmares. It wasn’t me inside the car, it was my father. His wide eyes, accusing me. The fire, the flames. And then he…died.”
He squeezed her hands tighter, wanted her to know he was there. “He had an accident and you witnessed it?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think it was an accident. I think he was murdered. That it was my fault. I heard my mother scream…my name. I think it’s Jacqueline.” A strangled cry erupted from deep inside her. “Oh, God, Damon, Kendra said she knew the killer—that I was next!”
Damon froze, his adrenaline pumping blood through his veins at an accelerated speed. Crystal knew her first name.
And if Kendra had warned Crystal she was in danger, likely the accident that had stolen her face and memory wasn’t an accident at all.
So who had killed her father and why was he after her now?
* * *
GUILT CLAWED AT JACQUELINE’S chest. Her father was dead; she knew it in her heart. Worse, she felt she was to blame. But how?
“Were you driving the car that caused your father’s death?” Damon asked in a low voice.
“No.” She struggled to recall more details but they eluded her. Though she felt they teased at the edge of her mind, within reach.
“What else do you remember?” He smoothed her tear-dampened hair from her cheek.
“I remember seeing Kendra, she was standing beside me at the graveyard. She insisted we had to talk.”
“And Kendra knew who killed your father?”
She nodded, though she was still confused. “She said that I knew him, but I don’t remember his name. And I still feel like it’s my fault he died, then maybe I deserve to have died, too.”
He lifted her chin with his thumb, gazed at her intently. She expected to see disgust, condemnation, but understanding glinted in his hard eyes. “Crystal, Jacqueline…There are all kinds of reasons we feel guilty when a loved one dies. Maybe you and your father had had a disagreement of some kind, a falling out and you hadn’t had time to reconcile.”
She wanted to believe that was true, but she sensed whatever had happened was much more serious.
“Now, think, chère. You see his face. What is your father’s name? Your last name?”
She closed her eyes, pictured him again. Tried desperately to see the name on the tombstone…But the shadow of darkness that shrouded the lettering felt like death all over again. Only a black wall of pain and grief remained.
Damon’s quiet breathing filled the car. She wanted to lean into him, let him help her forget the horror inside her aunt’s house. The realization that she might have in some way brought about her father’s death. Maybe even her cousin’s.
“I need to go back inside, help Jean-Paul,” Damon said, cutting into her thoughts. “When we’re finished, I’ll let you look around. Maybe seeing some of Kendra’s things, her room, photos, might help.”
She nodded, desperate now for more answers, wanting to fill in that black screen with the story of her life.
“Will you be okay out here alone?” he asked.
She nodded, then squeezed his hand in return. “Yes, go. I want you to find the man who did this to my cousin and her mother. And maybe you’re right. Maybe seeing Kendra’s things will trigger my memory of our conversation that day.”
But a sliver of fear caught in her throat. If Kendra had shared her suspicions or something about the other stories she’d been working on, maybe Jacqueline’s own accident hadn’t been an accident at all.
Maybe her earlier sense that someone had tried to kill her was reality, and that the shooter who’d run Damon off the road had been gunning for her. Maybe it had been her father’s killer, and he wanted to silence her, to keep her from remembering who he was—because maybe she could identify him.
* * *
MRS. YATES’S BODY had sustained countless stab wounds. Every inch of her that could be sliced had been. The number of wounds, the depth, and the blood splatters on the wall indicated a highly vicious attack. It was so unnecessary that it sickened him.
Blood pooled beneath her head and torso but also dotted the floor and formed a stream where she’d tried to craw
l away from her attacker. Clumps of her hair had been pulled out and lay in the dried blood.
“Poor woman never had a chance,” Jean-Paul mumbled.
“No. And this level of overkill has to be a message. We just have to figure out what the hell the killer is trying to tell us.” Damon knelt and studied the floor, searching for signs of mud, dirt, a shoe print, anything that might help them pinpoint the perp’s identity. Meanwhile, the CSI team was photographing the scene, beginning to dust for prints and searching for trace evidence.
Damon stood and surveyed the room. Drawers had been pulled open and rifled through by the killer, the desk in the corner disturbed, the remainder of the first floor and the den adjoining it obviously searched. He was sure the rest of the house had been as well.
He conducted a preliminary search himself but found nothing, then pulled aside one of the crime techs. “Be sure to bag any notes, messages, computer disks, anything that might have information on it, even if it’s a goddamn grocery list.”
The tech nodded, and Damon headed upstairs. Jean-Paul followed him, and although it was obvious the killer had already combed the place, they spent the next hour searching the bedrooms, closets and Kendra’s room. Judging from the frilly comforter, rose-print wallpaper and collection of photos on the desk, Kendra’s mother had preserved her childhood room. Her high-school and college yearbooks filled a shelf along with several copies of the New Yorker and books on writing. A photo album of her with friends and family was jammed in the corner, so Damon took it down, deciding to show it to Crystal/Jacqueline and see if it jogged her memory.
Finally, in the lower desk drawer, he found a pink diary that looked like something a teenage girl might have. When he opened it, he discovered it was from when Kendra was only thirteen. Interestingly enough, the entries were written as if she were a reporter, indicating she’d had career aspirations to be a journalist early on.
She couldn’t have dreamed back then that her job would get her killed.
He was just about to put the diary in the drawer when a key fell from the inside. He first thought it belonged with the diary. But when he examined it, it didn’t fit. It was slightly larger, more like a lockbox or safety-deposit key.
