Jace remained quiet, staring straight ahead. Whether he was ignoring her or contemplating her offer, she had no idea.
“I bought it last year so I would have someplace to go if I wanted...privacy. I didn’t want anyone to be able to find me, so it’s under another name.” Not only did the log cabin in the mountains offer the solitude she sometimes needed and the perfect place to hide if she wanted to avoid being found, she also had a computer there.
“How far?”
A glimmer of hope flickered. “About six hours.”
Checking his mirrors again, he continued driving in silence, except for her occasionally offering directions.
Despite the air of danger surrounding him, his strong profile brought a sense of comfort she didn’t understand. His presence made her feel safe, like she wasn’t alone. He made her lower her guard—a mistake that could prove deadly for both of them.
He’d already been injured trying to help her. Two women had already been killed because of a story she’d written. She wouldn’t have Jace’s death on her conscience, as well.
She hardened her resolve. She had to get away from him. As soon as she did, she’d contact Maris, then find a way to call Ron. He could drop a car off somewhere close by for her, then she could head up to the cabin alone. That was the only way she could keep everyone else safe. Well, she might not be able to keep everyone safe, but she’d save as many people as she could. With an eye toward escape, she gestured to the upcoming exit sign. “There’s a gas station up the road here.”
He hit the turn signal and left the highway.
“It’s on the right.” She couldn’t control the tremor in her voice. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.
As he approached the gas station, he pointed toward the back. “Could you please grab my jacket from the back seat?”
Unbuckling her seat belt, she turned and grabbed a dark windbreaker from the seat behind him.
Phoenix rolled onto his side. As long as he left the dog in the car, her plan—if you could call it that—should work.
“Thanks.” He took the jacket from her. “Could you hold the wheel a minute? I don’t want to waste any time.”
While she held the wheel steady, he struggled to shrug into the jacket. A low hiss reminded her he was injured. She buried the guilt. He could go for help as soon as he was rid of her.
“Slow down.” She studied the woods behind the gas station. She’d have to be fast. At this time of morning, the station would be empty. It would only take a minute or two for him to go in, pay for the gas and return to the car. Unless he used a credit card. If he paid at the pump, her plan was shot. Her hand grew slick on the wheel. Using a credit card would be foolish, leaving a trail and all that. He definitely didn’t strike her as foolish.
The cool touch of metal against her wrist ripped her attention from the patch of woods. Before she could pull her hand away, the handcuff clicked closed.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Hooking the other end to the steering wheel, he grinned. “Just making sure I don’t lose you. Connor was pretty adamant about keeping you safe.”
He rolled into the lot, scanning the area as he approached the pump. When he stopped, his expression turned serious. “Don’t cause a scene here. Please.”
Sitting under the bright lights, she was able to see his eyes clearly for the first time. For some reason she’d expected them to be brown, but he had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Deep, dark blue, like the depths of the ocean, and just as dangerous.
“Phoenix, stay.” He grabbed his phone, stuffed it into his jacket pocket and climbed from the car.
“Hey. Where are you going?” Was he seriously leaving her handcuffed to the steering wheel?
His laughter was cut off as he slammed the door.
* * *
Traffic began to increase as they headed off Long Island. If he didn’t hurry, they’d soon be immersed in the snarl of rush hour on the Long Island Expressway. He stepped a little harder on the accelerator.
Addison sat still, staring through the windshield, arms crossed, silence blaring. She hadn’t said a word since he’d gotten back in the car at the gas station. It wasn’t like he hadn’t uncuffed her once they’d gotten back on the highway. Steering with her cuffed to the wheel—and completely uncooperative—had been quite an ordeal. He bit back a smile. He had a feeling she might not appreciate the humor in the situation just yet.
She shot him a scowl as if she could read the amusement in his thoughts.
“My jacket is on the back seat if you’re cold.” He’d put the heat on when he’d returned to the car and found her shivering, but she’d ignored the offer of his jacket then, so he’d tossed it onto the back seat. He started to reach into the back, but a flare of pain from his side stopped him. A quick stop in the gas station men’s room had assured him the bullet wound wasn’t much more than a graze, but he still needed to clean and bandage it as soon as possible. And it still hurt like mad.
He hit the turn signal and left the Long Island Expressway behind in favor of the Cross Island Parkway, then checked his phone again, even though he knew full well he hadn’t missed any calls.
He’d known Connor most of his life, but hadn’t seen him since he’d announced he was going to marry Maris Halloway. He still couldn’t think of her as Maris Bynes. Knowing how Jace felt about Maris, there was no way Connor would have asked him to babysit her sister if the stakes weren’t life or death. Though he’d applauded Maris’s efforts to expose Addison’s ex-husband and Jace’s ex-partner and one-time friend, Brandon Carlisle, for the snake he was, she’d gone too far, implicating Jace in crimes he’d had no part in and no knowledge of. The woman had destroyed his life by going public with allegations that simply weren’t true.
He rolled his shoulders, hoping to relieve some of the tension knotting his muscles, and tried to shake off his concern about the ominous silence from his cell phone. He turned his attention to Addison’s silence. It was past time for her to start talking.
“Do you want something to eat or drink?” He gestured toward the brown paper bag balanced across the cupholders between them.
If looks could kill, he’d have dropped right there, probably sending the Outback sailing off the Throgs Neck Bridge.
“Look, I’m not going to apologize.” He didn’t feel bad about cuffing her, since he’d promised Connor he’d keep her safe and her intention to run had been clearly written all over her delicate features. Though he did have to admit a certain amount of regret that she was so angry about it. It wasn’t like he’d left her defenseless with Phoenix in the back seat. “I have no idea what’s going on here, except that Connor asked me to sit on you until he can get here. I can only assume he’ll explain more when he arrives.”
She nodded and returned her attention to staring at the highway.
He dug a water bottle from the brown paper bag, opened it and took a mouthful. So what if she didn’t want to talk. Better for him if she just sat quietly until he could meet up with Connor. “It might help me keep you safe if I knew what was going on.”
She blew out a breath and her rigid posture relaxed. “I don’t know what’s happening, except that a killer seems to have based his murders on the murders from a book I wrote. And I certainly don’t understand what Connor’s involvement would be—I don’t even know him. And I didn’t think Maris even knew I wrote a book.”
She shook her head, then dug through the bag and pulled out a bottle of water and a package of ibuprofen. She shot him a grateful look.
He grinned. “Does that mean I’m forgiven for the handcuff incident?”
“Don’t try my patience, mister.” A small smile played at the corner of her mouth before it settled into a frown. Lowering her head, she massaged her temples. “Can I please use your phone?”
“What do you need the phone for?” Not that he wou
ldn’t let her use it, but he had to be careful.
She tilted her head and lifted a brow. “Because I need to make a call.”
“You know you can’t tell anyone where you are, right?”
“My agent was on his way to my house. He’s probably there already and in a total panic that he can’t find me.”
“Okay. But please keep it short. Don’t tell him where you are. Don’t tell him where you’re going. Just tell him you’re safe and leave it at that. Okay?” As much as he wanted to trust her judgment, her safety was critical, and he didn’t know who her agent was. Actually, he didn’t have any background information on her or her associates at all.
“Yes, sir.” She rolled her eyes as she held her hand out for the phone.
“And hit star sixty-seven before you dial. You’re safer for the moment if no one can figure out who you’re with.” Jace grinned and pulled the phone from his pocket, but when she grabbed it, he gripped it tighter. “And after you finish, you’ll answer my questions?”
Holding his gaze with hers, she nodded once and took the phone. Her leg bounced repeatedly while she dialed and pressed the phone to her ear. “Come on, come on...”
“Would you mind putting it on speaker?”
She lifted a brow.
“Sorry, I’d like to be able to judge his reactions. Until we understand more about what’s going on, it’s safer for everyone to limit the number of people involved.”
She nodded. “I can understand that.”
Odd she didn’t jump to defend her agent if they were friends. He’d have to remember to ask about their relationship.
She hit the speaker button just as Ron answered. “Ron, it’s Addison. Where are you?”
“Where are you? I’ve been trying to call for the past half hour. There are cops all over your house.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“No. I tried to call you first.”
So the man had arrived at a woman’s house in the middle of the night and found cops all over the place, but he didn’t go in to see what was going on? Didn’t check to see if she was hurt, or worse, even when he couldn’t reach her by phone?
“All right.” Addison took a deep breath and massaged the bridge of her nose.
“What’s going on? Where are you?” Though Ron’s voice remained level, his tension vibrated through the connection.
“I’m fine.” She glanced at Jace. “I’m with a friend of a friend. I can’t say where I’m going right now, but I’m safe.”
He paused for a moment. “How will I get in touch with you?”
“I’ll call when I can.”
“I need to be able to reach you, Addison.” Annoyance crept into the man’s tone. “I’ve already heard from your publicist and your editor. There are rumors they might delay the release of book two because of this mess.”
“Uh...okay. I’ll be in touch. Thanks, Ron.” She ended the call over Ron’s protests and handed Jace the phone without looking at him.
He took it and studied her profile, strong, determined and yet delicate and fragile. On the verge of breaking? He resisted the urge to reach out to her, to reassure her everything would be okay. He wouldn’t lie to her, and, without knowing what they were up against, he had no idea what the outcome would be. “Want to tell me what’s going on now?”
“What do you mean?”
“For starters, who was the man in your house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a guess. It would be much easier to protect you if I had some idea what to expect.”
She tucked the tangled mess of long, auburn hair behind her ear, then swallowed two ibuprofen and half the bottle of water. “About a week ago, a woman was murdered.”
Her hands shook as she recapped the bottle and pressed what was left of the cold water against her forehead. Pain contorted her features. When she next spoke, it was so quietly he had to strain to hear her over the hum of the tires against the highway. “And it was my fault.”
Though it probably made him a total jerk, he couldn’t help thinking that if she was anything like her sister, she could be right. Of course, he doubted Maris would show half the regret and guilt obviously plaguing her sister. “How was it your fault?”
She sighed and sat back, dropping the bottle into the cupholder. “Like I said earlier, I wrote a book. The first murder, which happened last week, mimicked the crime scene in the story exactly, down to the last detail.”
“The first murder?”
“Yeah. The second copycat murder took place last night, exactly one week after the first, just like in my book. Again, the crime scene was an exact replica.”
“How do you know the crime scenes match?”
She hesitated.
“I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be honest, just that it’s...” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s difficult to talk about, to even think about.”
He gripped the wheel tighter to keep from reaching out and brushing her tears away, allowing her the moment she seemed to need.
She sucked in a deep, shaky breath and squeezed her eyes closed. “I received emails. They had pictures of the...scenes.”
A pang of sympathy caught him off guard. “The bodies?”
She nodded, sobs racking her delicate frame. “Before...” She swallowed hard. “During and...after.”
Her soft cries touched a part of him he’d thought long hardened, and he allowed her a little space. He didn’t reach out to her, though he wanted to, needed to place a hand over hers to offer support and comfort and lend her the strength she would require to make it through whatever came next.
But she seemed so skittish, so wary, he was afraid she might take his gesture the wrong way. He wouldn’t be able to do anything for her if she was afraid of him. He was going to have to earn her trust, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t come easy.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t afford to waste too much time. As soon as the sobs started to ease, he gently resumed his questioning. “Was the email address they came from familiar?”
She shook her head without looking at him. “No. They each came from different email addresses. There was nothing familiar about either of them.”
“Was there a message?”
“Yes. The murder scenes from my book were written out in the body of the emails. Word for word. Even the punctuation error that somehow made its way through the entire editing process was there. The pictures were attached. And the subject line of each email was The Final Victim.”
“The final victim?”
With the heels of her hands, she rubbed her eyes. “The title of my book.”
Recognition surfaced. Though he’d spent most of the past four years in a haze of self-pity, even he’d heard the name, though he couldn’t remember where. “Isn’t that kinda big?”
“It’s been on pretty much every bestseller list since it came out six months ago.”
So much for narrowing down the killer to people who’d read the book. Anyone could have read it. “What else can you tell me about the book that might help give us an idea what he’ll do next?”
Addison leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. If not for the occasional hitch in her breathing, he’d have thought she dozed off. She shifted to face the window, and he could no longer tell if her eyes were open or closed. “I think the most important thing is the game itself.”
“Game?” If not for such dire circumstances, the thought might have intrigued him. “What do you mean?”
“The title of the book, The Final Victim, refers to either the lead detective or the killer.”
“I don’t understand. How could it refer to either of them?”
“The killer was fixated more on the detective herself than the other victims,
determined to prove he could outsmart her, desperately wanting to kill her but unable to get close enough, so he devised a game to lure her out. He’d kill one woman each week until she either killed him or slipped up so he could get his shot at her. The game only ends when one of them is dead.”
Definitely intriguing. His curiosity got the better of him. “Why did he want to kill her?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t gotten that far. Something from their past, though, some incident where they ran across each other before the murders started. At least, that’s what I hinted at in book one. I’ve also alluded to the killer being a cop or crime scene investigator, someone close to the investigation, but The Final Victim is the first in a series, and I didn’t name the killer in book one.”
“So he wasn’t caught?”
She shook her head.
Jace blew out a breath and leaned his head back against the headrest. “How many women does he kill in book one?”
“Five.” She sobbed. “The last of which is the detective’s sister.”
THREE
The car door clicked shut softly, jolting Addison from her nightmare. Her eyes shot open, and she sat up straighter in the seat. She pressed her thumb and forefinger to her eyes. Not a nightmare. Reality. How she’d ever fallen asleep with the mess her life had become was beyond her.
They’d made it to the rest area just outside the small town in the valley below her cabin. Not that it was much of a rest area—a small brick building housing restrooms and a couple of vending machines and a stretch of grass with a few picnic tables. No matter, as long as it was deserted.
She squinted against the morning sun’s bright rays. At least they’d made it through the night without getting caught or killed. That was a plus.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and flipped down the visor, relieved to find a small mirror. She opened it and cringed. A stranger’s bloodshot eyes stared back at her from amid deep, puffy dark circles. She pressed a tentative finger to the small gouge in her left cheek. It stung, but not as badly as she’d expected. The scratches crisscrossing the rest of her face barely hurt. No sense even trying to tame the rat’s nest of her hair without a full bottle of conditioner. She picked a few small twigs and a piece of leaf out of the mess before pushing the mirror closed and flipping up the visor.
Crime Scene Connection Page 3
