“Hold on, Kyle.” Dani shook her head. He noticed she didn’t look directly at the victim. Danielle never did. The victims always made her too nervous. She wasn’t usually in the field. She stayed safely shut in her office. Behind all those locked doors at the bureau. “We need more evidence before we start saying this girl is his.”
Kyle’s phone vibrated. He yanked it from his pocket. Glanced down.
Blocked caller.
The breath in his lungs became icy. “Cadence.” He snapped out her name right before he took the call.
She glanced at him, her left eyebrow rising.
“Who the hell is this?” Kyle demanded.
Cadence’s eyes widened.
Laughter rasped across the line. “You know.” A dark, rasping voice.
His voice.
“We need a trace on that call,” Cadence said to Dani. “We need it now.”
“Do you feel hunted?” Kyle asked him. He knew he had to keep the guy on the line as long as possible. Dani was already working frantically, typing on her tablet and talking to her crew at Quantico. They’d need to ping cell towers and trace the signal. He had to buy as much time as he could. “We’re closing in on you. I saw you today.”
“I let you. Just like I let you find that poor girl behind the diner. The woman you’re standing over right now.”
Fuck. He can see me. He mouthed the words to Cadence. She eased back. Went to talk with the cops in the area. Then he saw them all spread out.
They’d start searching.
“I don’t buy that she’s yours,” he said, but he did. “This isn’t the way you kill.”
“You think you know me.” The words were mocking. “But Agent McKenzie, you don’t know anything.”
“You take your victims, you keep them. You didn’t keep her.”
“She wasn’t good enough.”
Sick prick.
“My girls have to be just right.” His voice never rose over a low rasp. “I thought the little blonde might work, but she wasn’t like the original.”
Maria.
“I know you, Agent. The man who takes down the killers…you like to see your name in the papers, don’t you?”
He didn’t give a shit about the press. “I’m going to take you down.”
“Maria’s hero,” that rasping voice mused. “How quickly you forgot her.”
“I never forgot!” The rage surged within him.
“Now no one will forget.” Satisfaction was there, thickening the words. “They will all know what’s been done. All know that no one can stop me.”
Bullshit. Kyle would stop him.
“You haven’t asked to talk with her.” The words faded into a whisper. “Don’t you want to hear from Maria again?”
What he wanted was to kill that SOB. “It’s hard to talk with a ghost.”
More laughter. “Why do you think I killed them all? You only found one body in those caverns.”
Kyle’s shoulders tensed. How the fuck did he know that?
Cadence had disappeared into the trees. Dani was still close. “Not yet,” she mouthed to him.
They didn’t need the cell tower pings. The SOB was right there. Kyle’s gaze swept the line of trees. The rolling hills. So many places to hide.
“If they die too quickly, then what’s the point?”
“You killed this one fast enough,” Kyle pointed out. The scent of death was heavy in the air.
“That bitch wouldn’t stop screaming, so I stopped her! You don’t follow the rules, and you get punished.”
“Bullshit,” Kyle called. “You get off on killing, so you do it. That’s why you shot Christa.”
“Christa wasn’t the first one I aimed for.”
“The sheriff’s gonna make it.” He’d better. “Your aim was shit.”
“Yes.” A surprising admission. “I wasn’t trying to hit the sheriff, either.”
He tried to remember who’d been close to the sheriff.
“You took my girl away,” the voice told him, rasping now. “So I’m going to take yours.”
Cadence had been the only other person close to the sheriff. His blood had splattered on her.
His heart slammed into his ribs. I can’t see Cadence. She’d vanished into those woods.
The killer waited in those woods.
“No, no, you’re fucking not!” Kyle snarled into the phone.
Dani’s head jerked up.
“Let me go.”
That voice. Maria’s voice.
“I want to go home. Kyle, I want to go home!”
Tears choked her.
Then all he heard was silence.
“Kyle?” Dani touched his arm. “Kyle, the call is coming from somewhere in a five-mile radius. We couldn’t pinpoint it any better than that.”
The phone’s screen cracked. He tried to ease the pressure of his hand, but couldn’t. “Cadence.” It was all he could manage right then.
“She’s searching for him now.”
“He wants Cadence.”
Dani stumbled back.
Kyle’s fingers slid over the broken phone’s screen. With one touch, he was calling her, even as he raced for the woods. For the last spot he’d seen her.
Cadence’s gun had been out when she went into the woods. She was a federal agent. Trained. She could handle herself.
Answer the phone. Answer…
Cadence advanced slowly. She kept her gun up as she swept the area. From what she’d heard, it had sure sounded like the perp was watching Kyle at the diner.
Even with binoculars, he’d have to be close.
Where are you?
The land slanted upward. Four deputies had branched out, searching with her. She kept trying to find the telltale glint of metal in the brush. The flash of a lens on the binoculars, but she didn’t see anything.
Insects buzzed around her. The heat of the Tennessee summer had her T-shirt sticking to her skin.
Her phone vibrated, shaking in her pocket. She fished it out with her left hand. “Hollow.”
“He’s after you.” Kyle’s voice. Shaken. Furious. Harder than she’d ever heard before. “The sonofabitch told me that he wants you.”
She retreated a few steps, putting her back against the broad base of a tree. Her eyes kept scanning the area. “I haven’t caught sight of him.”
“Come back down here. Fuck, come on now, Cadence.”
“This is what I’m trained for. I have my vest on and I’ve got my gun.” She wouldn’t give in to fear. “He can see me regardless, and if I start rushing out of here now, then I might just make myself more of a target.” It would be better for her to lie low and search for the perp. You’re hunting me? We’ll see who gets caught first.
“Then I’m coming to you! Where the hell are you?”
“About fifty yards northwest of the diner. There’s a tree here, a pine that’s been stripped of bark.” Like it had been struck by lightning.
“Stay there. I’m coming.” She could hear him running. Hear the hard rasp of his breath.
She also heard a twig snap, to the right of her.
Cadence whirled. A deputy stood about twenty feet away. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to scare you.” A deep drawl accented his words. He inclined his head. The glaring southern sun was behind him, and his long shadow swept forward. A wide-brimmed hat drifted low over his forehead and he wore a pair of sunglasses. He began to retreat from her. “No sign of him in this area. I’m heading on up to check near the top of the slope.” The rising sun was behind him, pushing shadows over his body so that she couldn’t see his face clearly.
Cadence had to squint against the bright sunlight. She had her gun aimed toward the guy’s chest even as her left hand still clutched the phone to her ear. “Keep your radio on,” Cadence ordered as she slowly lowered her weapon. “If you see anything, you call me.”
With a quick nod, he turned away.
Her gaze fell down his body.
“Cadence, Cadence, you
better still be next to that tree.”
The deputy was wearing brown hiking boots.
Hiking boots.
She frowned. He shouldn’t be wearing those boots. The other guys hadn’t been. She’d noticed with a quick, cursory glance that the other deputies were all wearing the usual black boots customary for officers in this area. Not hiking boots.
You wore hiking boots when you knew you would be climbing. The deputies today hadn’t known they’d be searching the woods, not until she’d given them the order.
“Deputy!” she called out.
He didn’t look back. The guy headed into thick patch of brush.
“Deputy!” Her cry sent birds flying into the air.
If she waited for Kyle, the man would be gone.
He could just be a deputy. One who’d come prepared with hiking boots. But why ignore her call?
Just a deputy…
Or he could be their killer. “I’m moving,” she said, clutching her phone with her left hand even as her grip on the gun remained steady. “Heading up the slope.”
“What?” Kyle’s bellow burst in her ear. “Don’t! Just stay where you are until I’m there. Dammit, I’m your backup. Wait for me.”
“Following a suspect.”
“No, Cadence. No!”
She wasn’t a helpless victim. If the SOB turned on her, she’d shoot him straight in the heart.
She hurried forward.
“I’m almost to you, Cadence, stay there. Just stay!”
She hadn’t become an FBI agent so that she’d hide and wait for someone else to protect her.
She burst up onto the slope. Cadence saw the back of the deputy. “Freeze!” she shouted.
The phone fell to the ground. She gripped the gun with both hands, her left coming up to steady the weapon as she took aim.
The deputy froze. His back was still to her. “What’s the problem, ma’am?”
“Turn around!” She wanted to see his face. Needed to see it. The wide hat covered his hair.
Slowly, the man turned. His weapon was drawn.
“Drop it!” Cadence yelled.
He hesitated.
“Drop it or I shoot.”
“Ma’am?”
He dropped the weapon.
She advanced. Cleared the brush enough to realize…
This man wasn’t wearing hiking boots. He had on the regular black shoes of the deputies. The breath left her lungs in a hard rush. Not him. “Where’s the other deputy? The one who just came this way?”
“I didn’t see another deputy. This was my search zone.” His voice was shaking. His eyes wide and nervous.
Probably because her gun was aimed at his heart.
“Cadence!” Kyle rushed to her side. “What the hell is happening?” He already had his gun out, and aimed at the deputy whose whole body was now trembling.
“It’s not him,” she whispered. “There was another man, dressed as a deputy. He had on hiking boots.” Her gaze darted to Kyle as she lowered her weapon. “He was right here.”
A muscle jerked in Kyle’s clenched jaw.
She glanced away from him. Let her gaze sweep the line of trees stretching as far as she could see.
The killer was playing with them.
She was tired of his game.
CHAPTER TEN
The FBI unit director was pissed.
Special Agent Ben Griffin marched back and forth in Sheriff Coolidge’s small office. Since the man was still in the hospital—recovering, thankfully—they’d taken over his space while they were in Maverick.
“What the hell is happening here?” Ben demanded. “A witness is dead. On our watch. Do you know how this is gonna look to the press? In the press?”
Kyle didn’t really give a damn how it looked to them.
But the killer cares. Kyle knew he did. The SOB had brought up the papers. You want the attention, don’t you? He’d hunted fifteen years in secrecy, but now he was trying to catch as much attention as he could. Shooting a sheriff. Dumping a body at the diner. You want all eyes on you.
And they were.
“This perp is jerking us around,” Ben snapped. “He’s slipping right through our fingers.”
He’d been in those woods. Killing close to Cadence.
Ben’s steely blue gaze pinned him. “You know you should be off the case.”
Kyle lurched to his feet. “The hell I should!”
Ben waved that away. “It’s too personal. The connection to your sister, the way this fellow is calling you. You can’t be objective.”
He wasn’t going to be shoved to the side on this one. “It’s because of my connection that you need me. He’s not going to contact any other agents. He won’t. He’s pulling me in because he likes screwing with me.”
“It’s a dangerous game,” Ben said. His stare focused on Cadence. She sat in the chair just a few feet away. “One that could wind up hurting someone.”
Ben had already been briefed on the phone calls. He knew everything the perp had said. Everything he’d threatened.
“I’m not afraid of him,” Cadence said, lifting her chin.
“I am,” Dani muttered from her position behind the desk. She was tapping frantically on her laptop.
Ben glowered at Cadence. The guy had trained her, even worked as her partner before his promotion. Sometimes when he looked at Cadence, there was an intimacy in his stare that put Kyle on edge.
Had they been lovers?
“You’re never afraid when you should be,” Ben muttered to Cadence. “That’s part of the problem. The guy said he was targeting you. He was going to take you out. If he’d been better with his gun, you wouldn’t even be here now.”
Ben’s attention turned back to Kyle. “Don’t you see the risk we’re running? You’re already emotionally involved. He’s using that. Getting you twisted up so you can’t effectively hunt him.”
“All he’s doing”—Kyle kept his voice flat, cold, because now wasn’t the time for emotions—“is making me more determined to stop him.” He gave a grim nod. “He’s slipping up.”
A furrow appeared between Ben’s dark brows.
“He’s too confident, cocky, when he talks to me. He said he knew we’d only found one body in the Paradox caverns.”
Ben’s gaze narrowed. “We didn’t release any information about the remains to the press.”
No, they hadn’t. Cadence had been very, very careful during the press conference.
But when they’d briefed their task force in Paradox, he and Cadence had told them.
“He’s involved in the investigation,” Ben said.
Yes. “You know it happens. Killers insinuate themselves in the investigation all the time,” Kyle said. The perps did it to keep tabs on the investigation—and because they liked the rush of thinking that they were outsmarting the authorities. This perp was all about competing with the authorities. The guy wanted to show them all just how strong he was.
“He was wearing a deputy’s uniform today,” Cadence said and she rolled her shoulders, as if pushing away a heavy burden. “He got everything right about the outfit, except for his shoes.”
The bastard had gone hunting for her, but when he’d approached her in those woods, he must have realized Cadence had already been alerted.
She’d been waiting with a gun. So you had to back away, didn’t you?
“I checked all the deputies after I met up with Kyle. They were accounted for. This guy slipped into the perimeter, and I’m guessing he’s done it before.”
“He could have walked right into the Paradox station,” Kyle said. “Passed by the officers there just as easily as he did today.”
With a hat pulled low to hide his face. The right clothes, a badge. The badge would get you anyplace.
A lesson the killer had learned.
“The press is calling him the Night Hunter.” Ben barred his teeth in a grimace. “You know how I hate those fucking names. You give a serial a name, you give him powe
r. Fame. They just kill all the more.”
Dani stopped talking and slanted a fast glance at Ben. “He killed two girls in the last twelve hours. I think we’re safely in the ‘kill all the more’ zone already.”
She went back to typing.
Ben went back to studying Kyle with that narrowed gaze. “You heard your sister’s voice again. In the second call.”
A slow nod.
“Is it a recording or the real deal?”
“There’s too much static, I can’t tell for certain.”
Ben wasn’t backing off. “You tell me the truth ’cause you know I’m damn good at catching a lie. Do you think your sister is still alive? Even after all this time?”
Kyle could feel the weight of Cadence’s stare on him. “I want to believe she’s alive.”
“That’s not an answer,” Ben snapped, sounding aggrieved. “Do better.”
“The killer wants me to think some of the girls are still alive. He all but said they were.”
“Killers lie,” Cadence stated as she pushed back her hair with a tired hand. “It’s what they do.”
When they weren’t killing.
“There could be other bodies in those caverns.” Cadence’s voice was cautious. He knew she didn’t want to tell him that his sister was dead.
Even though that was precisely what she thought.
“Or someplace else,” Ben added. “The guy’s hunting grounds sure stretch far enough.” Then Ben scrubbed a hand over his face. “You know how I caught the FBI’s attention? Back when I was a cop, hitting the streets of Brooklyn?”
Kyle shook his head.
“I was running down a cold case. A little girl, five years old, who’d vanished from a shopping mall. Every year—every single year on July seventh, the parents came to the station, looking for their little girl. Hoping we had some news. Hoping we had something.” His gaze had turned to the past. “When the date started rolling around, the other cops would get nervous. They’d all but told those parents they weren’t ever getting the girl back. It had been seven years. Hell, you know what the odds are on a recovery like that.”
They all knew the grim stats.
“I got cold case duty, I read through the files, and I thought, ‘Hey, why not?’ Why not just go back and see if any witness remembers anything else? Why not try to give the parents something new this time?” He swallowed. For an instant, his gaze seemed haunted. “The girl was playing at a park when she vanished. I had a list of the parents who’d had their kids there that day. I started on the list. The first two didn’t remember jack. When I went to question them, their kids were running behind them, playing, and I could tell they just wanted me to get away from them.”