A door squeaked. Such a faint sound, but it immediately cut through her cry. For an instant, Hannah didn’t even breathe.
Then she heard the creak of the floor. Her head twisted on the bed, and she saw his black boots . . . coming closer to her.
And—snap.
He had her camera. He was still taking pictures of her, the sick jerk.
Snap.
Snap.
“Come on, now,” he murmured. “Don’t you want to smile for the camera?”
An animalistic growl burst from her, and she bucked on the bed, desperate to get free. But the ropes just ground tighter into her wrists and her breasts scraped across the rough covering on the bed.
My breasts scraped across . . .
Hannah froze. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized that he’d taken her clothes away. She’d been preoccupied by her pain and the fear. She’d been desperate to get help and she hadn’t even realized that he’d stripped her.
What else did he do to me? How long was I out?
His fingers trailed over her shoulder and she flinched.
He laughed.
Snap. The camera’s flash had gone off that time, blinding her for an instant.
“These will be so good,” he murmured. “Just what I need.”
Her mouth was bone dry. “Please,” Hannah whispered. “Let me go. I won’t tell anyone about you.”
He put down the camera.
Hannah sucked in a deep breath, relieved. Maybe that was all he needed to hear. Maybe—
He reached under the bed and pulled out a knife. A long, gleaming knife with a curving blade. “I’ve heard this is the best knife to use if you’re skinning deer. You’re not a deer but . . .”
She whimpered.
“I need people to know about me,” he told her as he ran the blade of that knife over her left shoulder blade. “I need everyone to remember. You’ll help me do that.”
Wait—so he wanted her to talk? She could do that. “L-let me go,” Hannah said, frantic, “and I’ll tell them anything you want! I’ll make sure everyone always remembers, I’ll—”
The knife jabbed into her side.
“Of course you’ll tell them. Your body will tell them everything they need to know.”
When the knife slid out of her, Hannah screamed again.
Bailey jumped to her feet, her heart racing in her chest. “Did you hear that?”
Asher turned toward her.
“I think I just heard a woman screaming.” Her whole body had gone onto high alert. She strained, trying to see if she could hear the cry again, but there was only silence. Bailey waited, waited . . .
Asher touched her arm. “Are you sure you’re okay, being out here?”
Her gaze snapped up to his. What was he saying? That she was imagining things? Going crazy? “I heard a woman screaming.”
“Tonight . . . or in your memories?” His dark gaze slid away from her as he focused on the blackened remains of the cabin. “I’m sure plenty of women screamed at this place.”
Too bad no one was ever around to hear our cries. “He . . . he reinforced the walls,” Bailey recalled. “When he built the cabin, he did it then. He told me I could scream as loud as I wanted, and no one would ever hear me. He bragged . . . about those walls.”
“Charming bastard.”
There had been nothing charming about him.
Goose bumps rose on her arms. “I was sure I heard a woman screaming.” The cry had been fast and desperate, fading away almost instantly.
Asher didn’t speak for a few moments. He seemed to turn and sweep the area with his gaze. The sunlight had faded away, vanishing into the night. Night always came so fast in the mountains, and the darkness brought the cold with it.
“Let’s go to the front of the cabin,” he said.
She nodded and headed to what would have been the front entrance to the cabin. Bailey sucked in a deep breath and her gaze slid over the mountain and the trees. She didn’t see any light. She didn’t—
There.
For an instant, her heart actually seemed to stop because there was a light out there. It seemed to be in a line straight across from the Death Angel’s cabin. The glow gleamed like a candle in the darkness. “Asher . . .”
“Yeah, I see it, too.” He pulled out his headlamp. She’d packed her own at her house, but Bailey had been impressed to see him pull one out of his saddlebags. She was getting the impression that Asher was the kind of guy who was prepared for anything.
Her eyes narrowed as she stared at that light. “How far away is it?” The night was so deceptive, and that little light was incredibly faint.
“Probably at least four miles, maybe five.” His voice was grim. “Won’t know for certain until we start hiking.”
And in the mountains, Bailey knew it would probably take at least an hour just to hike two miles. Or at least, that was what it had taken her in the past. And I was hiking in the daytime then, my trail clearly visible.
“Let’s wait a bit,” Asher advised. “Make sure there aren’t any other possible locations for us to scout.”
More lights. Right. She swallowed and tried to grab on to her patience. When she’d first seen that light, Bailey had wanted to run wildly toward it.
Is that how she felt, too?
“Want to mark the location, though,” Asher added. “In case that light goes dark. We’ll be heading due west.”
She shifted from her right foot to her left. Inside her boots, her toes curled nervously. Darkness was all around them. That one light was the only bit of hope she saw.
But Bailey waited . . .
He stared down at his prey, his whole body shaking. Talk about an incredible fucking rush. Her blood had sprayed onto him, onto the wall. Every freaking where.
She’d been helpless. His to control totally. And he had.
She wasn’t crying any longer. Not screaming or begging. She barely seemed to breathe. Soon enough, he knew she’d stop that, too.
His hold tightened on the camera. He’d have to wipe that down, ever so carefully, before he dropped it off. But first . . .
Smiling, he lifted the camera to his eye and snapped another picture.
After all, he had to make certain that everyone understood just how very serious he was.
The Death Angel wasn’t gone. He wasn’t supposed to be forgotten or laughed about.
He was real, he was strong, and he was going to make certain that everyone remembered what it was like to fear.
Especially you, Bailey.
Because he knew exactly who he’d be targeting next. This girl . . . she’d just been the warm-up.
Bailey Jones would be his main attraction.
One more picture, and then he turned away from Hannah. He’d wait until she was good and cold, and then he’d dump her. But for now, he had to clean his ass up.
And he had a delivery to make.
They’d been hiking for an hour when the light vanished.
One moment, it was there, the only beacon they had out in the woods, and in the next instant, it winked out. Bailey had been in the lead, walking—okay, nearly running—toward her goal, but when the light disappeared, she stopped.
Asher’s hand curled around her shoulders. “You okay?”
No, no, she was far from okay. And she knew this could be nothing more than a wild goose chase. Them, heading into the mountains in the night, searching for a needle in a haystack . . .
Or a light in the dark.
“They must have gone to sleep,” she whispered. They. The people who controlled the light. What if it was just campers? Someone who’d turned on a lantern for a bit? People who hadn’t even been in that area when the Death Angel had burned that long-ago night.
I could have Asher out here for nothing.
“If they’ve gone to sleep, then we can wake their asses up,” Asher said simply.
Automatically, she glanced back at him. Her headlamp hit him in the face, and his eyes squinted closed.
“Sorry,” she muttered, adjusting that light. “I just . . . this could be a waste.”
“Could be.” But he didn’t sound overly concerned about that option.
She turned around, began walking determinedly forward. Due west. “The light could mean nothing. We both know that.” It was easy to say the cold, hard truth when she wasn’t looking at him. “So why are you out here with me?”
“Um . . . because you hired me?”
So that means you have to put up with my crazy ideas? Crazy . . . like finding a victim everyone else believes isn’t real.
“I’m out here,” he said, continuing before she could reply, “because I don’t think we’re going after some camper’s light. That light we saw was too big, too strong. It was from a cabin, not a tent. It was steady, unwavering. And I want to meet the owner of the cabin up here—the cabin that was damn close to the Death Angel’s hideout. Because, if we could see that owner’s place at night, then it sure as hell stands to reason that—whoever this guy actually is—he saw the lights come on from—”
“From the Death Angel’s cabin,” she finished, the words tumbling out and her steps moving even faster.
I asked Wyatt if he interviewed any cabin owners in the area. He’d told me that the nearest person he spoke with was over twenty miles away from the Death Angel’s place.
More and more people were going off the grid these days. Perhaps Wyatt hadn’t even realized that this guy had been out there.
There was so much land out there. Lots of hikers slipped into the entrances to the Pisgah National Forest or the DuPont State Forest. They could hike for hours—days—there. Public and private land were side by side in so many areas up in the mountains. She knew there had been a real pissing match that went on with the FBI and the local authorities because of all the land-control issues. As if their territorial arguments had helped anything.
Women still died. And the killer . . .
“I’d like to know”—Asher’s deep, rumbling voice flowed around her—“just what the owner of our mystery cabin may have seen while he or she was up here. All those long winter nights . . .”
Because the Death Angel had taken most of his victims during the winter. The cold isolation of the mountains had worked to his advantage—no tourists had been hiking during that time, so he was unlikely to have been disturbed.
“The Death Angel had to use a fire for warmth. There must have been smoke coming from his place. Our mystery owner had to see something.”
If we can see him . . . then he should have seen us.
Her doubts slid to the back of her mind. Yes, there was a damn good reason why they were out trekking in the night, and she wouldn’t second-guess herself again. It was her shrink, it was Wyatt—it was all the people who kept telling her that she was confused. She’d let them get to her.
Not again.
Not freaking again. The ground inclined beneath her feet and Bailey pushed forward, going fast, and when she saw a rough, heavy stone overhang to her right, she sidestepped it easily. Her boots moved carefully and—the toe of her boot hit a clump of dirt that was hollow. The buzzing started almost instantly and then she saw the small, swarming wasps flying up toward her light.
Yellow jackets. Oh, shit, she’d forgotten about them—and about just how bad they could be in the fall when their nests were full. That hollow chunk of earth she’d hit with her boot must have been their home. She gasped as one stung her, a sharp jab that burned her hand, and Bailey jerked back.
“Bailey!” Asher cried out her name.
But her boots had already slipped. Dirt and rocks rolled beneath her feet and Bailey’s body tumbled to the right, twisting and tumbling down the incline. Only it wasn’t the small incline that she expected. Not so small at all. Bushes and twigs hit against her face and arms and when her body finally stopped tumbling, she was in a hole.
Deep. Dark.
She’d lost her headlamp.
Her hands flew out, but she couldn’t touch the surface of that hole. Her feet were in water—a stream?—and her fingers sank into the dank earth around her.
A grave. I’m in a grave again and I can’t get out. I can’t—
“Bailey!”
A light hit her in the face. Asher’s light.
Her hands pressed to the dirt around her.
“It’s okay,” he said, speaking slowly, easily. “I’m here. Everything is all right. You’re in some kind of riverbed. Mostly dry from the look of things.” He leaned down and offered his hand to her. “I’ll get you out.” Again, his voice was so easy and calm.
Her drumming heartbeat shook her chest. She could smell that dank earth. Just like before. Trapped in a hole, that smell, pain . . .
No, it’s not before. It’s not the same. Get a damn grip.
Her hands reached for his.
“Good job, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
He lifted her up, as if she didn’t weigh anything, and a moment later she was on the ground beside him. Bailey started to pull away—
“Are you hurt? Shit, but you just scared the hell out of me.”
She’d scared him? Bailey had thought it would take a whole lot more than her tumble to scare the SEAL. “Yellow jackets.” She’d nearly forgotten the sting to her hand. “One stung me, and I—I just lost my balance.” I freaked the hell out.
He was still holding her.
He was—
Kissing her. Deep and hard and wild. He pulled her closer, lifted her up against him, and seemed to devour her mouth.
Desire ignited within her. Bailey didn’t want to think about why she shouldn’t be kissing him back. There were too many reasons to pull away from his embrace.
And only one reason to stay close. I want him.
His mouth lifted a bare inch from hers. “I can’t have you hurt. I couldn’t reach you—don’t ever do that shit to me again.”
Then he kissed her once more. Kissed her with that wild fury that she was coming to crave. Their bodies were pressed together, and she could feel his growing arousal shoving against her. Asher was such a big guy, strong and powerful, but she wasn’t scared in his arms.
He made her feel safe. And she hadn’t felt safe, not like that, not this way, in so very long.
Over six months.
Her tongue licked over his lower lip then slid into his mouth. When he gave a low growl, heat spread through her. She liked that animalistic sound. It made her feel sexy. She was doing that—turning him on that much. So much that Asher was literally growling with desire.
Me, with my scars. Me, with my weaknesses. Me.
A shudder worked along the length of his body. Slowly, he eased back, but his hands stayed curled around her shoulders. Her lashes lifted as she stared up at him.
“You know I want you.”
Did he have any idea how sexy his voice was? That rumble cut right through her.
“Will I get to have you, sweet Bailey Jones? When we’re out of these woods, will you still kiss me like that?”
Don’t be afraid. Not any longer. Not of him. “When we’re out of these woods,” she said, “I’ll do a whole lot more than kiss you.”
“Bailey . . .”
No other man had ever said her name quite that way. With so much raw hunger.
She stepped back, breaking his hold on her. “But for now, we need to get to that cabin.” Before she took another inglorious tumble off the side of the mountain.
Or before she gave in to the urge to strip him and just take the pleasure she wanted. Right there.
What better way to banish the ghosts that haunt me?
“The cabin,” he agreed, voice still rumbling. “Let’s get the fuck there.” He bent and picked up his headlamp. She didn’t even know when he’d taken that off, and hell, how was she supposed to find hers? When the yellow jackets had swarmed, she’d lost it in her tumble.
But . . . Asher put his headlamp on her head. “No, I—”
“I can see plenty,” he tol
d her. “And I’ll be right with you every step of the way.”
Those words warmed her. She liked having him with her, liked having a partner who believed her.
They headed back up the incline, making sure to avoid the yellow jackets that still swarmed. They hiked in silence, but for every step that she took, Bailey was hyperaware of Asher.
Her body was so tuned to him. When had that happened? They’d just met, yet she ached for him. In the woods. With yellow jackets flying around them. With dirt beneath her nails. With sweat slickening her shirt.
She ached.
Never let it be said that I have good timing.
In fact, she pretty much had shit timing.
They didn’t speak again, not until they left the thicker bushes and entered a narrow clearing, one that led them to a small wooden cabin. It just sat there, its windows dark. Its porch sagging. For all the world, it looked as if the place had been abandoned for years.
But there was a light on here before. I know there was. I saw it.
It didn’t look as if the owner of that cabin was sleeping inside. It didn’t look as if there was an owner. Just a place that had been forgotten. When they crept closer to the cabin, her borrowed headlamp hit the front window—a spiderweb-like crack slid across the glass.
“Is this the right place?” Bailey asked him quietly. Maybe they’d gone in the wrong direction after she fell. Or maybe there was another cabin, farther over.
Asher went straight to the front door. He lifted his hand, banging against it. Once, twice . . .
There was no sound from inside.
A dirt drive led to the cabin. Her light shone on that dirt and she saw the clear impression of tires. Someone had been there before, but no vehicle was around now. “No one’s home,” Bailey said, frustration beating inside of her. They’d come all this way and they hadn’t—
“Help . . .”
Bailey’s head whipped back toward the cabin. “I heard that.” A rough call, desperate, but real.
“Yeah,” Asher said grimly. “So the hell did I.”
She rushed up the porch toward him.
Asher lifted his leg and he kicked in the door. The wood went flying inward, chunks breaking off as part of the door shattered.