by Rita Herron
He parked in the thicket of underbrush, then paused and inhaled the fresh night air and sounds of the wild. This property had called to him just as the woods had done lately, arousing natural urges that he sometimes had to fight.
Something was happening to him. Changing him.
It had started years ago. He knew that now. Only he hadn’t understood it.
He bypassed the towering old clapboard house and moved toward the woods. The sliver of moonlight was lost in the pines. He removed his shades, grateful for the black emptiness that swallowed him up. A wolf’s howl echoed from the recesses of the canyon. Another answered.
He stretched his hands in front of him. Flexed and unflexed them.
He was awed by the power they held. And shocked by what he had done with them.
The hands of death. They belonged to him. They held powers he didn’t understand yet. Powers he had to control.
Thankfully, no one in Crow’s Landing knew his secrets.
He crawled into the cavern where he slept at night. Water trickled down the sides of the cave. An inky blackness obliterated the light, offering peace. The sounds of the night creatures echoed off the jagged walls. Cool air brushed his body as he undressed.
Then he stretched out on the sleeping bag on the dirt floor and stared up at the rocky ceiling. He had come here for a purpose, and he wouldn’t leave until he’d accomplished it.
The ache behind his eyes throbbed harder. A reminder of his secrets.
Secrets that set him apart from the others.
Secrets he must keep hidden forever.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
VIOLET JERKED AWAKE, her skin tingling, the Best Friends necklace cold against her throat. She’d been dreaming about Grady. Grady lying beside her. Grady touching her. Grady undressing her. His hands gliding along her naked skin. His fingers gently teasing her thighs apart….
Shaken by the images, she slipped on her robe and padded to the kitchen for coffee. Grady was sitting at the table, hovering over his laptop, a serious scowl on his face. His icy look made her tremble.
He’d been kind, almost gentle, when he’d awakened her during the night to see if she had a concussion. But now he was back to stone.
She tightened her robe and reached for a coffee mug. He obviously hadn’t dreamed of being with her as she had him. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”
“I told you I would.”
“And you always do what you say?”
He leaned back and ran a hand over his face. Thick dark beard stubble graced his strong jaws. His hair was rumpled, his clothes disheveled. He looked tired. Wary. He probably resented her putting him out of his own bed. “Yeah, I do.”
She hesitated. Told her body not to react. Not to remember the warmth of his hands on it. “Then you’re the first man I’ve met who does.”
His dark eyebrow rose a notch. “You don’t like men?”’
She poured her coffee and added sweetener, realizing she’d walked into that one. “Let’s just say I don’t trust them.”
“Because of your father?”
His voice was low, gruff, almost intimate. But he was fishing for information to incriminate her dad. So she simply shrugged. “Chalk it up to a list of bad experiences.”
He gave her a long scrutinizing look, glanced back at his screen, then to her. She circled the table to see what he was researching, but he closed the laptop. Had he been looking at information on her?
Or was she being paranoid?
“We have to talk.”
“If you’re asking more questions about my father, I don’t have any answers.”
Sighing, he stood, grabbed himself more coffee, then leaned against the counter. He was so tall he towered over her, his shoulders seeming even more massive this morning in his wrinkled denim shirt. With fatigue lining his face, he should have looked unapproachable, but his brown eyes had turned smoky, sexier even, his unshaved face giving him a renegade appearance. She itched to reach up and dab away the trickle of perspiration on his cheek.
He sipped his coffee, then cleared his throat. “Another woman was murdered last night.”
Her breath hitched. The vision resurfaced. Violet swayed, wishing she could sink into his arms and let him banish the images.
But she’d never relied on anyone, and Grady was the wrong one to ask for comfort or favors.
Instead, she claimed one of the wooden chairs. “Just like the woman in Savannah.”
“The newscaster said the M.O. is similar.”
“My God.” Violet dropped her head forward, cradling it between her hands. “I hoped I was wrong.”
He didn’t comment. He simply let the tension mount between them until she finally looked up at him.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
That was fair enough, but his comment still hurt. “What was her name?”
“Connie Allen. She was twenty-five, just graduated from Vanderbilt. Planned to get married next week.” He hesitated. “I saw those drawings you did.”
Violet jerked her gaze to his. Did he think she was sick for putting those ugly images on paper?
It didn’t matter. The poor girl. She was just like Amber. She was young, had her entire life ahead of her. “Who would do such a horrible thing?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. Since you supposedly connected with this woman, didn’t she tell you who’d kidnapped her?”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Then how does it work?”
“I really don’t know, Grady. This whole psychic thing is all new to me.” Anger, confusion and a fierce need to make him believe her hardened her words. “I didn’t ask for this to happen. And other than Darlene, it never has before.” She paced across to the window, stared at the big yard where she and her friend used to play. She could almost hear the creak of the old swing. “I wish to heaven it wasn’t happening now. I have enough to worry about with my grandmother in the nursing home and my dead father accused of murder.”
He sipped his coffee, his intense perusal unnerving her more.
“If you think I want to see these women die, to hear them cry out for help and know I can’t do anything, you’re wrong.” She wrung her hands. “Darlene and I were friends—I could maybe understand that connection. But I didn’t know these other women.”
Another long silence stretched between them. “Why do you think you’re connecting with them then?” he finally asked.
“I have no idea. Laney said it’s a gift, but how can it be if I can’t use it to stop the murders?” The pure desolation she’d felt the night she and her grandmother had fled Crow’s Landing haunted her. “Do you have any idea how much I wanted to find your sister? How much I loved her?”
Emotions choked her, and she swung away from Grady, unable to allow him to see her pain. Seconds later, she felt his hands stroke her arms. Then he turned her to face him.
“I know you loved her,” he said, his voice gruff.
“That’s why we have to make sure her killer pays. No matter who it is.”
Violet nodded, seeing that the emotions in his eyes were as tumultuous as her own.
“My father thought my vision was evil. That I was evil.”
“No, Violet.” Grady’s voice softened. “There’s nothing evil about you.” He pulled her against him. She leaned her head on his shoulder for the briefest of moments, savoring the feel of his comforting arms around her. He stroked her hair, and she breathed in his scent, remembering the thirteen-year-old boy who’d played marbles with Darlene. The teenager Violet had had a crush on. Now a virile man. She wanted to stay in Grady’s arms forever.
But in her heart, she knew that they were still at odds. He wanted to pin the crime on her father, and she didn’t want to believe her dad was a murderer.
Today, she had to find some evidence to prove Grady wrong. And figure out who was killing these women.
* * *
IT WAS
WRONG to get too close to Violet, but Grady hadn’t been able to resist pulling her into his arms. She seemed so lost, so upset over his sister’s death, that childhood memories suffused him. Her and Darlene skipping rope under the sweet gum tree. The two of them playing dress-up. How they followed him out to the pond where he used to go fishing. The stubborn way Violet fought back against the bullies who’d teased her about being white trash.
She wasn’t white trash, couldn’t help being part of the family she’d been born to any more than he could.
Were Violet’s so-called visions real? Or had she invented them because she was ill, or to divert attention from her father?
Grady pulled back slightly, studying her big blue eyes, trying to find sanity. He wished like hell he wasn’t so drawn to her. But the way she trembled in his arms made him feel alive for the first time in forever.
“Tell me everything you saw and heard in this vision.”
Her eyes widened. Then she glanced down at her hands. She’d been clinging to his shirt, but she slowly eased out of his arms. He missed the contact immediately. Felt the heat try to draw him back.
And told himself not to give in to it.
Hell, maybe she’d trip up, and he’d catch her lying.
Instead of reaching for her, he removed a pad from his pocket, ready to take notes. Anything to occupy his hands.
She tucked a strand of her unruly hair behind one delicate ear. “Both times, I heard the woman whispering, ‘Help me.’ It’s like I’m looking through their eyes, feeling their fear. They were so afraid, Grady. They were both aware they were going to die.” Her voice broke, and she took a deep breath to settle her emotions. “And they couldn’t move to stop him.”
“He tied them up?”
“Yes. He drugged them, too.”
Grady jotted down her description. “What does he look like?”
“I can’t see his face, but he’s pacing. He was holding a hypodermic needle. He injected the woman with something, then carried her someplace dark and left her for a while.”
“He returned later?”
“Yes, around midnight. That’s when he k-killed her.”
“How does he do it?”
“He strangles them,” she said, her voice a throaty whisper. She stared out the window now, her expression faraway. “But first he bathes them as if he’s performing some kind of cleansing ceremony, then he wraps them in a sheet.”
Grady stifled a reaction. The sheet matched the description he’d read on the police report, but she could have guessed that. “Can you hear anything in the background that might indicate where they are? A railroad train, cars, a boat?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Does he talk to the victims?”
Violet’s gaze swung back to him. “Yes. He speaks in a singsongy kind of whisper. Then he murmurs a Native American phrase.”
Grady frowned, his attention piqued. In the police report he’d just read, they’d mentioned a phrase the killer left in a note. That information hadn’t been made public yet. How could Violet know? “What is the expression?”
“He writes the phrase on a piece of paper and adds, ‘For the father.’ Then he plays this whistle he’s carved from bone and tells them it’s the song that tells the story of sacrifice.” Violet shivered, the sound echoing in her mind. “It’s so eerie, then he says, ‘Pin peyeh obe, my sweetness, you must die.’”
“Pin peyeh obe?” Grady scratched his chin. It was the same expression as in the police report. Although they hadn’t mentioned anything about a whistle carved from bone. An image of his father’s whittling came to mind. No, the idea was crazy…his father wasn’t a killer.
“Do you know what the expression means?”
Violet nodded. “I asked Laney Longhorse.”
“You told her about this?”
“Yes, I had to know the meaning.”
“And what did she say?”
“It means look to the mountain.” Violet rubbed her arms to ward off the cold. “From a mountaintop, you can see things in a broader perspective. You must look at the future and generations to come.”
Grady tried to make sense of the phrase in the context of a murder, but he couldn’t grasp the relevance. Still, how had Violet known the killer had used that expression?
Should he go to the FBI and tell them what she’d seen?
Yeah, right. They’d think he was crazy. Besides, she hadn’t really seen anything specific enough to be helpful. If the visions were real, why was she connecting to the victims?
Did she know the killer personally?
* * *
“ALL EVIDENCE POINTS to the fact that we’re dealing with a serial killer.” Special Agent Norton passed out identical files to the members of the recently formed task force seated around the conference table. The chief of police in Nashville had joined the group, along with two detectives from the Nashville PD, two locals from Savannah who’d flown in for consultation and a profiler from the agency. They all were going to work together to find this maniac—if, indeed, they established that they were dealing with a serial killer.
He gave each member time to review the details in the files. “So far, we haven’t found a connection between these two women, but I have agents exploring that now.” He turned to the Savannah police officer, Barton. “Do you have any leads on the Collins woman’s murderer?”
Barton shook his balding head. “So far, the boyfriend’s story checks out. He appeared genuinely distraught over her death. The vic was five-five, light blond hair, green eyes, last seen by her roommate leaving her dorm room the evening she went missing. Unfortunately, we have no real clues. She was well-liked, friendly, faithful to her boyfriend, even attended church.” He made a disgusted sound. “Not an enemy in the world.”
“She had one,” his partner said.
“Unless he’s choosing his victims at random,” Chief Humberstone suggested.
Nick nodded. “It’s possible.”
The profiler, Special Agent Adams, cleared her throat. “It is, but let’s keep searching for the connection. Usually these guys have a method behind the madness. This guy has taken the time to bathe the vics and wrap them in a sheet—that indicates a more personal connection, or at least that he’s conflicted about what he’s doing.”
“Conflicted means he’s emotional?”
“It means he’s trying to protect or preserve them for someone, even if he hates them himself.”
“Interesting.” Nick chewed over the information. “How about the second victim?”
“Connie Allen,” Special Agent Adams said. “Five-seven, brown hair, blue eyes, graduated from Vanderbilt with a degree in international studies, engaged to be married next week.”
“The fiancé?” Nick asked.
“Completely devastated,” Chief Humberstone said. “Had to give the poor guy a tranquilizer.”
Norton frowned. “He’s not faking it?”
“I’ve seen a lot of fakes. This guy’s the real thing. And he has an alibi—he was in Atlanta on business.”
Norton nodded. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Still, check out his relationships with the family, see if he has any priors, other girlfriends who might tell a different story.”
“Will do.”
“My agents are checking out other possible connections, everything from Internet chat groups the women had visited to health clubs, vacation spots and family members.” Norton turned to Special Agent Adams. He’d heard she was good, but hadn’t realized how attractive.
Shit, he needed a damn woman like her distracting him. She was a do-gooder who believed in all that behavioral crap. And she was married at that. But she messed with his libido, made him want to forget his own personal problems and the ugliness of the case and crawl between the sheets with her. Not that she was interested, or that he would encroach on another man’s territory, even if the couple was having problems…
Besides, he had his own dark secrets, reasons
he couldn’t get involved, reasons a relationship would never work.
“Agent Adams, do you have anything to add?”
She crossed her legs, and every man in the room eyeballed her. “Have we discovered anything missing from the victims yet, something the killer might be taking as his treasure?”
“Nothing with the Collins woman,” one of the Savannah officers stated.
“Not on the second vic, either,” the detective said. “She was wearing a hunk of an engagement ring, but he didn’t even bother to take it.”
“Keep looking,” Nick said. “These guys almost always keep some kind of trophy.”
“Have you worked up a profile yet?” the chief asked.
“I’ll need more time to do a complete one,” Agent Adams said, “but my preliminary analysis suggests our guy’s in his mid-twenties, maybe early thirties, probably Caucasian, although the Native American phrase indicates he might have an ethnic background. Either that or he’s obsessed with Native American rituals. He’s also a religious fanatic or one of his parents was. It’s possible he might have studied religion, as well.” She indicated the picture of the bone found beside the victim. “This whistle looks like it was carved from a crow’s bone. If my memory proves correct, historically the bone whistle was used in religious ceremonies. Native men were practically tortured—”
“The sun dance,” Norton said. “I thought those ceremonies were banned years ago.”
Adams shrugged. “You think our killer adheres to the rules?”
He shook his head, his stomach churning. The dance had been so violent that it had been eliminated, although some natives had continued to practice behind closed doors. If this guy belonged to some cult practicing that ritual, they had a real sicko on their hands.
“Anything else, Adams?”
She shrugged. “Just that he’s a hunter. We may not know how or why he’s choosing his victims, but he has a purpose. He’s methodical, maybe psychotic or obsessive-compulsive. He could be on meds, but he’s not taking them. And he derives great pleasure from the hunt.”
