Panic flared through the hazel eyes before Annie was on her feet and headed toward the door.
Rafe half rose to his feet before forcing himself to resume his seat.
The woman was bolting because she didn’t want to be bothered by strangers. He wasn’t going to inflict his company on her.
He, better than most, understood there were times when you wanted to be left the hell alone.
“Well, well. As I live and breathe,” Frances murmured. “I never thought to see her here again.”
Rafe frowned. “Why not?”
“She’s Annie White. The daughter of the Newton Slayer.” Frances pointed toward the bottom of the newspaper that had another picture of Don White. In this one, he was standing outside a school, his arm protectively around a small girl with her hair in pigtails. “That’s her with her father.”
Rafe hated gossip. It was one of the reasons his father had left this town. But his unexplainable need to know more about Annie White overrode his usual aversion. “What happened?”
“A horrible story,” Frances said, unable to hide her relish in regaling him with the grisly tale. No doubt she’d told it a hundred times over the years. “Of course it didn’t start out that way. When Don White bought the Johnson farm, we never suspected there was anything wrong with him. It was just him and his five-year-old daughter, so we all did our best to make them feel welcome.”
“There was nothing strange about him?”
“Nope.” Frances paused, her brow wrinkling as if trying to recall the events of fifteen years ago. “Well, he didn’t like to talk about his past, but who could blame him?”
“Why not?”
“His wife and son died in a terrible car accident.”
Rafe grimaced. Jesus. Annie was just a baby when her mother and brother had been taken from her. Having lost his mother when he was just eight, he understood how painful it must have been for her. “Tragic.”
“Of course, we didn’t like to pry.”
Rafe hid his wry smile. “Of course.”
“They lived here for almost five years and he seemed completely normal,” Frances continued. “And that little Annie was as cute as a button.”
“Yeah, she still is,” he murmured beneath his breath.
Frances clicked her tongue, trying to pretend sympathy when she was obviously relishing the knowledge she’d had the scoop of the decade dropped in her lap. Over the next few days the entire town was going to be flocking to the restaurant to hear her account of Annie White’s mysterious arrival.
She was going to be a star.
“Poor thing,” the waitress cooed. “I can’t imagine what a burden it must be to know your father was a cold-blooded butcher.”
Rafe couldn’t imagine, either.
But it couldn’t be good.
He glanced down at the picture of the smiling man. It seemed impossible to believe he could be a serial killer. He looked so . . . ordinary.
“They were certain he was guilty?” he demanded.
“Oh yes.” Frances gave a vigorous nod of her head. “Caught him red-handed with the seven dead women in his old bomb shelter. Even had his own daughter down there. Tied up and blindfolded while he was taking a nap.”
“Jesus.” Rafe clenched his hand as fury burst through him. “Was he executed?”
“You could say that. He had his throat slit in his cell just hours after he was arrested.”
“Another prisoner?” he asked. Not that he cared.
The bastard deserved to be chained to a wall and tortured for the next fifty years, but he couldn’t be sorry that Annie hadn’t had to endure the trauma of a long, drawn-out trial.
“Who can say?” A secretive smile touched Frances’s lips. “God works in mysterious ways.”
“He does indeed.” Rafe lost interest in the dead serial killer. “What happened to Annie?”
Frances gave a shrug. “I heard she went to the loony bin for a while.”
Rafe muttered a curse, his expression hardening. “Hardly surprising,” he said coldly. “Most of us would need therapy after being terrorized by their father.”
Frances’s cheeks reddened, not missing the edge of reprimand in Rafe’s voice. “Oh, it wasn’t that. Or at least not entirely,” she hastily said. “I heard she kept telling the cops that she could see the murders.”
“Shit. He made her watch?”
“No. She said she’d seen the murders in her dreams.” Frances gave a dramatic pause. “As they were happening.”
Rafe blinked. Well, that wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
Of course, after what she’d endured at the hands of her father, she was fortunate if all she suffered was a few nightmares.
“She hasn’t been back to Newton since the murders?”
“Not that I heard of.” Frances gave a sudden frown. “It’s odd her turning up now.”
“Because of the anniversary?”
“No, because Jenny went missing last week.”
The words twisted Rafe’s gut with a premonition of dread. He wasn’t sure why.
Women went missing. For all kinds of reasons. It certainly didn’t mean it had anything to do with the anniversary of a serial killer.
But he’d learned a long time ago never to dismiss one of his intuitions.
There was a sudden ding of a bell from the kitchen. “Order up,” a male voice called out.
Frances sent him a wink. “No rest for the wicked, eh?”
Shoving himself to his feet, Rafe threw enough money on the table to cover his bill plus a generous tip before heading out the door.
Once on the quiet street, he pulled his phone from his pocket and called the ARES office. “Teagan,” he said as his friend answered. “I need your help. Send me all the info you have on a serial killer named Don White. They called him the Newton Slayer. Thanks, amigo.”
He hung up before the techno-wizard could ask him whether or not he’d lost his mind. The second question was going to be why the hell he gave a damn about some long-dead killer.
The truth was, all he had was a vague fear that evil had returned to Newton.
And that Annie White was in danger.
Annie stopped at the gas station at the edge of town, filling up her tank before she headed back to Denver.
God, she was an idiot.
She’d prepared herself to discover that there was another murderer sneaking around town. Or even that her visions were a symptom of her growing mental instability.
But it’d never occurred to her that she might actually be recognized.
Now she felt raw. Exposed. And vulnerable in a way she hadn’t felt for years.
God forgive her. She didn’t want to be a coward, but she couldn’t bear to endure another round of the lingering stares and finger pointing. Or even the sickening pity that had nearly drowned her after she’d been found in the bomb shelter with her father and the bodies.
For no reason at all, the image of a lean, fiercely beautiful male face rose to her mind.
Rafe Vargas.
He’d been gorgeous. And charming. And sexy enough to make her body tingle with appreciation, even when she’d been trying to make him go away.
The sort of male who could have any woman he wanted.
And now he knew she was . . . broken.
It made her feel ridiculously ashamed.
She shivered as the early morning air cut through her sweatshirt, and replaced the gas nozzle as she headed into the nearby building. The best thing was to return to Denver and hope she could get her job back.
Yes. She would pretend she’d never even traveled to Newton. And the visions . . . well, if she ignored them long enough they would eventually go away. Wouldn’t they?
But first she had to have a cup of coffee.
The bell tinkled as she pulled open the door and entered the warmth of the convenience store that had three small tables at the back where a group of elderly men were gathered to drink their coffee and discuss the weather.
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She deliberately avoided their curious gazes as she headed to the side of the store to fill a Styrofoam cup with coffee. Popping a lid on top, she moved to the front counter where a middle-aged man was filling a glass container with freshly baked pastries.
On cue, her stomach growled, her mouth watering at the sight of the doughnuts and fritters and muffins.
Yum.
Deep-fried sugar and grease.
It was exactly the sort of temptation she usually tried to avoid. But today she allowed her gaze to linger. She’d skipped dinner, and breakfast had been shot to hell.
Why not indulge?
Some days low-fat yogurt just wasn’t going to cut it.
“Morning,” the man boomed, ridiculously happy considering it was barely seven.
“Good morning.”
“Nip in the air,” he unnecessarily pointed out. “Snow can’t be far off.”
She kept her head bent, her gaze focused on the glass case. “Yes.”
Accepting that Annie wasn’t in the mood for chitchat, he got straight to business. “Can I get you something?”
She pointed to her pastry of choice. “A blueberry muffin.”
“You got it.”
She stepped to the end of the counter as he efficiently wrapped the muffin and dropped it into a bag. Setting down the coffee, she pulled out her debit card, her gaze captured by the poster plastered to the back of the cash register.
MISSING.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN?
A REWARD FOR ANY INFORMATION.
PLEASE CONTACT THE NEWTON POLICE DEPARTMENT.
Annie hissed, feeling as if she’d taken a punch to the gut. “Shit,” she muttered.
Deep inside, it was exactly what she’d been expecting, and yet it still came as a mind-numbing shock.
The man placed the bag next to her coffee, studying her with open curiosity. “Something wrong?”
She nodded her head toward the poster. “Is the woman still missing?”
“Yep.” He folded his arms over his barrel chest, his expression one of genuine concern. “Jenny Brown. A local gal.”
“When did it happen?”
“Eight days ago.” He grimaced. “She went to Des Moines and never came home. Most believe she took off with some man she met on the Internet.”
She studied his broad face. Clearly he didn’t buy the story. If he did he wouldn’t have up a missing poster, would he?
“But not you?” she prompted.
“It’s possible, I suppose. It wouldn’t be the first time Jenny ran around on her husband,” he reluctantly admitted. “But it’s not like her to leave her kid behind.”
Annie gripped the edge of the counter, her knees feeling oddly weak. “She has children?”
He nodded. “A little boy.”
They always had children. Except for her.
She studied the picture in the middle of the poster, her stomach churning with fear. “She looks so young,” she breathed, taking in the rounded face and big brown eyes.
“Jenny had a rough start to life,” the man said, his tone defensive. Did he think Annie was judging the poor woman? She hoped not. She hated people who judged the victim, as if being hurt was somehow their own fault. “She was only fifteen when she had her son, but she’s always tried to be a good mom.” He abruptly halted, his blue eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Wait. You’re not a reporter, are you?”
“Good Lord, no,” Annie denied in fervent tones.
The press had hounded her until she’d at last arrived at her foster parents’ ranch. Thankfully, Douglas had threatened to shoot them the first time he caught them on his property.
They’d eventually disappeared.
“We had one bastard down here just yesterday trying to tie Jenny’s disappearance to the Newton Slayer,” the man said, shaking his head in disgust.
“How could that be possible?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “The Slayer’s dead, isn’t he?”
The man scowled. “Of course he is. Had his throat slit in his jail cell. The sheriff claims he has a part of his ashes in that trophy he keeps on his desk.”
Her fingers tightened on the counter until her knuckles turned white.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
She couldn’t think about her father now.
Even after all these years, it still hurt too much.
“Then why would the reporter suspect the missing girl is the work of the Slayer?”
“Just looking to sell his story,” the man said. “Tried to imply we arrested the wrong man and the Slayer is still out there.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “We shut that down right quick and in a hurry. Then he said it must be a copycat, but if that were true another girl would already be missing. Everyone knows the killer took women every two days. Regular as clockwork. Well, except for the sheriff’s wife, who was taken just the day after Kathy Benson.” He blinked as Annie made a small sound of distress, and belatedly punched in the cost of the coffee and the muffin into the cash register. “I assume the reporter’s next guess would have been that the Slayer’s ghost was taking women, if we hadn’t run him out of town,” he muttered, clearly trying to lighten the atmosphere.
Annie swiped her debit card, anxious to be away from the man’s distracting chatter. “Probably.”
“So, are you just passing through?” the man demanded as he handed her the receipt.
Annie wanted to say yes. She’d already made the decision to leave.
Hadn’t she?
Jenny, after all, was probably off playing house with some other man.
Or in Vegas with a friend.
There was no reason at all to connect her disappearance to the previous murders.
But even as her lips parted, she knew she couldn’t just drive away.
“No,” she muttered, turning to head toward the door. “It looks like I’ll be staying.”
He was standing in the upstairs of the abandoned house when he caught sight of the slender figure posed at the edge of the woods.
At last.
His heart fluttered with excitement.
It’d been so hard to wait. So terribly hard.
But he couldn’t play without Annabelle.
“So you’ve come as I prayed you would,” he whispered, his hand touching the dusty pane of glass. “Such a good girl. I’ve missed you, sweet Annabelle. Now we can continue our game. And this time, my love, we finish it. Together . . .”
Chapter Three
The Newton Motel was intended for convenience, not comfort.
The L-shaped building was constructed in the 1940s, with rooms that were barely large enough to fit a double bed and dresser, with an equally cramped bathroom attached.
The customers were deer hunters, road construction workers, and those people forced to attend a wedding or funeral with no desire to stay with their local family.
They’d never been intended for a visitor who was going to spend long hours trapped in the room.
After thirty-six hours of pacing the floor and waiting for news about the missing victim, or even a damned vision, Annie had to get out.
Climbing into the bright yellow Jeep that her foster father had given her the day she’d passed her final test to qualify as a CPA, she headed out of Newton to LaClede, just twenty miles to the south.
It wasn’t a large town by any stretch of the imagination, but it did have a few chain restaurants along the highway where it wasn’t unusual for strangers to eat. She might be claustrophobic, but she wasn’t ready to face Frances and her rabid curiosity.
Taking a seat in one of the booths, she ordered a burger and fries, keeping her gaze on the large window that offered a view of the brightly lit parking lot. She didn’t actually think she would be recognized, but a young woman alone always attracted interest.
She’d demolished most of the burger and half the fries when a shadow fell across the faux wood table and a familiar male voice overrode the elevator music playing in the background.
&nbs
p; “Now, this is a nice surprise.” With an arrogance she assumed was written into his DNA, Rafe Vargas slid into the high-backed seat across from her. He flashed a smile that displayed his perfect white teeth, the warm scent of male cologne teasing at her senses. “Hello, Annie.”
She frowned even as her stomach fluttered with excitement.
Dammit.
He was just so freaking gorgeous. It didn’t matter that his dark hair was ruffled from the brisk autumn breeze. Or that a five o’clock shadow darkened the jaw of his perfectly chiseled features. Or that he was casually dressed in a gray hoodie and black jeans.
His dark male beauty and raw charisma attracted every female in the crowded dining room like bees to honey.
“Mr. Vargas.” She frowned as he made himself comfortable, his feet nudging hers beneath the table. “What are you doing here?”
“I had a meeting with my real estate agent to sign some papers.” He nodded his head toward a middle-aged woman who was pulling on a trench coat as she headed out the door. “She promised this place had fantastic pies. Clearly she’s never eaten my famous deep-dish apple crumb, or she would know what a good pie is supposed to taste like.”
She ignored his attempt to charm her. “You’re buying a house?”
“Selling one.”
“Selling?” She was instantly suspicious. “I thought you said you weren’t from here.”
He shrugged. “It belonged to my grandfather, Manuel Vargas.”
“Oh.” Annie had a vague recollection of a thin, dark-haired man who drove a battered pickup. “I recognize the name. I’m pretty sure he helped my father during harvest season.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory of the man’s scowl whenever she tried to show him the new doll she’d just gotten for her birthday. “He used to park at the barn and walk to the field. I think he was trying to avoid me.”
“Yeah. That would be him. He never was fond of kids,” Rafe muttered, glancing toward the waitress who’d appeared next to the table. “I’ll have a glass of whatever you have on draft.”
The young woman with long, dark hair and a plump face smiled with open invitation. “You got it,” she breathed, leaning down so she could display her considerable cleavage. “And anything else you might want.”