She started with the victims.
“He’ll need to take another woman.” Kyle was adamant. “He won’t let a year pass before another abduction. He can’t. You saw that cave. The total darkness. The way he bound Lily. The guy is all about control. When we took Lily, we took his control away. He’s gonna need that control back. Want it back.” A hard pause. “The best way to get it back will be to take another woman.”
She didn’t want Kyle to be right.
The elevator doors opened with a ding. The dark parking garage waited for them.
Cadence’s shoes tapped over the concrete. She headed for the SUV.
Kyle caught her hand, stopping her. “Trust me.”
She frowned. “I do.” He was her partner. She had to trust him with her life.
Last night, she’d trusted him with her body, too.
“I know what I heard on the phone last night. I’m not crazy. Fuck, I might be obsessed, but not crazy.”
“You’re an FBI agent.” She tried to make the words light because the tension in the air was far too thick. Suffocating. “They wouldn’t have let you in the bureau if the shrinks thought you were crazy.”
“There are ways to get past the shrinks.”
That wasn’t the response she’d expected.
“Whatever happens, trust me. Don’t ever stop, okay?”
She managed a nod. Her heart drummed in her chest.
“You can count on me, and I want to make sure I can count on you.”
What was that supposed to mean? She’d never given him any reason to doubt he could trust her.
“What I have to do…” His gaze searched hers. “The things that are coming might not be what you expect.”
He was making her afraid. She glanced around the garage. They seemed to be alone. She edged closer to him, keeping her voice low as she said, “Kyle, stop this. We’re hunting the killer. We’re going to catch him.”
“I know that could have just been a recording last night. You were right before, when you said that.” The words held no emotion, but his grip on her was tight. “A recording from ten years ago, hell, maybe fifteen. It didn’t have to be now.” The faint lines hardened near his eyes. “I replayed that damn call in my mind, again and again. She didn’t respond to anything I said. The words they played…”
Her chest ached.
“But it was her. He hurt her. Tortured her. She was begging for me.” His gaze blazed down at her. “I’m going to make him beg.”
No, no, that wasn’t an agent talking.
It’s the victim’s brother.
“Kyle, we have badges for a reason.”
He pulled her deeper into the shadows, caging her with his body against the concrete wall. “Do you think a man who abducts, tortures, and kills a dozen women—a dozen we know about—should keep living? What if some dumbass DA screws up his case? What if he escapes? What if we stop him, only to have the guy get loose and do it again?”
“You aren’t a killer.” She’d been afraid of this. Deep inside. “You help people. We stop the killers.”
“I will stop him.” His lips twisted and the smile made her even more nervous. He’d never smiled with an edge so cruel before.
This isn’t Kyle.
This was the Kyle the killer wanted him to be. Pushed beyond control. Beyond the limits of the law.
“We’ll stop him,” she said, desperate to get through to him. “Together. We’ll put him in a cage, and make sure he can’t ever hurt anyone else.”
But the cruel smile stayed on his lips.
“Stop it!” The words ripped from her, and she said just what she’d thought. “This isn’t you!”
“Maybe you’re finally seeing who I am.” His head bent. His mouth pressed to hers. Hard. Hot. “Maybe part of you likes who I am.”
The darkness in him.
“I’m seeing more of who you are,” he whispered against her lips.
A car horn sounded in the distance, echoing through the garage.
The elevator doors dinged from just a few feet away.
Cadence pushed against his chest. After a moment—a moment that seemed too long—he stepped back.
“We need to get to the station.” Her voice wasn’t steady. Neither were her knees. “Finish the profile.”
He stared back at her.
“Kyle…”
His hands fisted. “I wasn’t always like this.”
No.
“I wish you’d met me before.”
Two nurses walked from the elevator. The women barely even glanced their way.
“I didn’t need to meet you before,” Cadence said as she tried to make her voice even. “I know you now.” She trusted him. “Let’s go do our job, let’s stop him the way we’re supposed to handle perps.”
They didn’t hunt to kill. They hunted to save lives.
Kyle nodded.
But as they left, he didn’t meet her stare, and unease deepened within her.
The task force filled the interior of the station. Cops, deputies from the county, the local district attorney. The county’s coroner was even in the back, nervously wringing his hands. They’d all come in for the profile reveal and the update on Lily Adams.
Kyle stared at the assembled group, letting his gaze sweep around the room. First they were informing these personnel, then he’d handle the media.
One fucking step at a time.
He and Cadence had finally worked up a joint profile, one reaffirming exactly what he’d thought before.
The SOB will hunt again, soon.
Cadence wasn’t certain of that part, but he was.
They’d taken away the perp’s toy, and he’d want another. He was probably already searching for his next victim.
When Kyle stood, silence stretched across the room. Some of the deputies were young, so young, barely looking like they were old enough to drink. Every man or woman in the room who wore a badge had been checked and alibied out before being able to join the task force.
Kyle hadn’t wanted to take any chances.
Alibis can be faked. That knowledge sat heavily in his gut. No, he didn’t want to take chances, and so far, all of their stories were checking.
That didn’t mean he trusted them, though. The only person he trusted 100 percent was Cadence.
Jaw locking, he said, “I want you patrolling the highways.”
Cadence rose and handed out prepared files to those gathered in the station.
“Our killer hunts after midnight, but before dawn. He sticks to unpopulated roadways like old highways or the untraveled paths most folks wouldn’t stumble across. He disables the victims’ vehicles.” Time and again. “He makes his victims vulnerable. Then he goes in to save them.”
“Save them?” This came from Jason as he flipped through the file he’d just been given. “How the hell is he saving them?”
Of course, he wasn’t. “He offers them a ride. Gets them to unlock their cars so he can get close.”
Then he took them.
“He had Lily Adams in his car within two minutes,” Kyle said.
Two fucking minutes. That had been the length of that damn phone call.
“He’s fast, methodical, and very, very good at covering his tracks.”
Cadence returned to his side. “No prints were found on Lily’s vehicle. The perp may have been wearing gloves when he approached her. Or he could have wiped the car down after he took Lily.”
Now more folks were flipping through the files.
“Thirteen women.” Kyle threw out the number and waited for the gazes to lift back to him.
He wanted them focused on what he was saying. They all needed to be searching the roads. They needed to know what—who—they were searching for.
“Once a year, our perp goes out and abducts a woman. He’s hunting in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. We’re alerting authorities in all of those areas so they can be searching, too.”
There were mutters then. Did the
men and women realize what a large target zone they were facing? Too bad. But maybe he could narrow things a bit for them. “He likes hunting down here, probably because it’s his home. He feels comfortable here.”
Silence, the uncomfortable kind.
Yeah, I’m fucking saying the killer could be right here, in your town. He could be the guy who works at the diner. The man who runs the repair shop. He could be here.
“Lily is the only victim to have been recovered at this point.” Lucky number thirteen. They’d yet to identify the woman in the Statue of Liberty chamber. “The others were never found. But based on Lily’s encounter…” The memory of his sister’s voice, pleading for help. “We don’t think he kills his victims right away.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jason said. The guy looked shaken. “Just how long does he keep them alive?”
“We don’t know that.” Kyle wished he did.
“It’s possible.” Cadence’s voice carried easily through the room. For an instant, he thought he heard a slight drawl in her voice, but it vanished as she continued, “It’s possible they stay alive for the full year. When the year is over, he kills them, and hunts again.”
Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. “Twisted freak.”
Heather Crenshaw shifted in her chair. “Could any of the victims still be alive? Are we sure he kills them?”
The ME hurried forward. Dr. Hank Crane was in his sixties. His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes watering, and his hands moving in a nervous rhythm. “We know the remains of one victim are in my lab. I can’t ID her, not yet, but based on decomposition, I’d say she’s been dead for at least eight years.”
“That’s one body,” Heather said, swallowing. “What about the other ten?”
“They could be buried in the caverns. They could be hidden somewhere else,” Cadence said.
“Or maybe they’re still alive?” Heather pressed.
“The odds of that are low,” Cadence told her. “This man, he’s what we’d view as a collector. He sees a woman he wants and he does anything necessary to get her. He keeps her, breaks her, and when he’s done with her, he kills her.” She pushed back hair that had fallen over her forehead. “He dosed Lily Adams with enough drugs to kill her. She was dead for five minutes while we waited for rescue personnel. He didn’t want Lily to escape, and I don’t believe he let any of the other victims escape, either.”
Then Cadence stepped to the side and pointed to the photos covering the wall behind them. “When it comes to his prey, our perp is very particular.”
“Those women don’t look a thing alike,” one of the deputies muttered.
“It’s not how they look. It’s how they act.” Cadence squared her slender shoulders. “These women never caused trouble with the law, they weren’t late on their taxes, their acquaintances all described them as being good friends, easy to talk with. Folks who knew them said these women liked to help others.”
“They were good people,” the captain said, frowning. “They didn’t deserve this.”
No one would deserve this.
“How would the guy know this stuff?” Jason demanded. “Some of these women were just passing through town. There’s no way he could have so much information on a stranger.”
“He could’ve gotten the information if he talked with them.” The obvious answer. Cadence delivered it softly. “If he sat with them for a few hours in a restaurant. If he overheard them talking with someone else. I believe this man is very, very good at figuring people out. At seeing what makes them tick. He realized very quickly that these women would be the perfect prey for him, so he took them.”
“Perfect prey?” Now this came from James. “What does that mean?”
“It means these are women who were likely to respond quickly to his commands. Women who weren’t going to argue, weren’t going to question.” Her voice was smooth, emotionless. “These women would want to survive, and they’d follow his orders if it meant freedom waited for them.”
“Wouldn’t most people react that way?” Heather wanted to know as her fingers tightened around the file in her lap. “To survive, hell, wouldn’t we all do just about anything?”
Kyle knew she was right. When it was your life on the line, you’d do any damn thing.
“I pulled the school records for the victims,” Cadence said. Cadence was always the thorough one. “In school, these girls never had so much as a warning in their discipline files. They followed the rules, they were—”
“Good,” Kyle finished. He knew it was what the killer wanted. “He takes the good girls for his collection.”
“And he figures this out,” Heather asked with both fear and confusion sliding over her face, “just by talking to them for a while? That’s what you’re saying? The guy knows who they really are that fast?”
“Our perp is highly intelligent,” Cadence said, voice calm and clear. No fear flashed on her face. “I believe we’ll find that he’s well educated, and that he might have even spent time studying psychology. He knows people. He knows these women. I think he approaches them and asks them questions. He learns from their own words and actions whether they would be the type of prey he wants.”
“He’s looking for control.” Kyle knew the SOB wanted to control everyone and everything around him. That’s why you called me, isn’t it? To prove you were the one with all the power. But guess what, asshole? I’m taking that power away.
“What happens,” James asked as he rolled his shoulders, “when the victims aren’t…good? What if he makes a mistake? No one is damn good all the time.”
No, they weren’t. Most folks had a darkness inside.
I do.
“The profile is showing”—Cadence’s voice was calm and cool, still with no emotion as she talked about life and death—“that our killer is extremely dominant. When he takes the women, he exerts complete control over them. He keeps them in darkness, controlling one of the most vital things to them—light. He binds them, imprisons them, and it’s by his will whether they live or die.”
“But what happens when they break his rules?” James still pushed to know.
“He punishes them.” Simple. Stark. “If the girls break his rules, he could kill them. If they stop being what he wants, what he thinks them to be…” She licked her lips. It was her first sign of nervousness. “I believe, in his mind, the victims would lose value.”
Twelve victims.
“We’re looking for a man who is physically fit.” Cadence cleared her throat and continued with the profile as the gazes of those gathered drifted to the victims. “He would have to be fit in order to carry the victims, to get them through the caverns. The man is probably in his midthirties or early forties and Caucasian.”
“Is he a cop?” Jason demanded. Kyle had known the question would come up. It had to. “Or was the guy just tricking Lily?”
This was where they had to be careful, because they didn’t know yet. Kyle inclined his head toward Jason and revealed what he could, saying, “The killer would have chosen a dominant profession for his career, one in which he was in charge. He could be a cop, could be in the military. We’re still developing his background.” He exhaled slowly. “But there is one thing I believe, one thing we all have to be ready for. This man will be hunting again, soon. We need you out on the roads. We need you to be vigilant. We don’t want another woman taken.”
It was why they were going to the media next. They wanted word to spread, because the guy had a kill zone stretching across four states.
If a woman found herself on a long, lonely stretch of road and she was approached, they wanted her to exercise extreme caution.
“He’s hunting again, and if we don’t stop him, another woman could vanish.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cadence stared at the entrance to the caves. Darkness was falling, the setting sun casting a red glare across the sky.
A crew had been doing excavation work all day long, and had barely made any headway. The hours kept craw
ling by, and they had gained damn little ground.
“It’s too risky,” Dr. Aaron Peters told her, shaking his dark head. The geology professor had come up from Auburn University, rushing to get to the scene. He’d been the lead on the cavern exploration years before, and the man who’d ruled them too unstable for the public. “Every time we try to advance, more of the ceiling falls in on us.”
She exhaled slowly. “There could be bodies inside those caverns. Victims. There are families out there, waiting to hear about their daughters.” Would this be their grave now? Forever?
“I’m not saying it can’t be done.” His voice was grim. In his late thirties, Dr. Aaron Peters had high, sharp cheekbones, and a slightly rounded chin. His green eyes shone in the waning light. “I’m just saying it’s going to take time.”
“That’s not exactly a luxury we have,” Kyle said as he came to stand with them.
In those caverns, the killer could have left clues behind, something that would help them to track the man.
“If we rush, we risk hurting the living men and women who have to go inside.” Aaron’s jaw locked. “I’m not risking the living for the dead.”
Kyle’s arm brushed against Cadence. “Dr. Peters, how far did you explore when you were up here five years ago?”
Aaron’s gaze darted to the cave. “Not nearly far enough. She’s got secrets, plenty of them.”
“You didn’t find the exit behind the falls?” Cadence asked him.
“I did, but we’d had a surge of storms then. The water was so high that the entrance was covered. You needed to swim through in order to gain access, and that wasn’t something most folks were going to do.” A shrug. “So I didn’t tell the locals about it. Didn’t see the point.”
“Was there anything else,” Kyle said, “that you didn’t tell the locals about? Something you didn’t see the point of them knowing?”
Aaron’s shoulders stiffened as he focused on them. “I didn’t see bodies, if that’s what you’re asking, Agent. I didn’t see some poor woman being held inside a chamber. I saw caverns. Stalactites, stalagmites. Miles of caves I wanted to search, but they were too damn unstable.” Anger pulsed in his words. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a crew waiting on me.”