Blind: Killer Instincts (22 page)

“No, no, I scared him off. I think it was the guy who was on the news. Please, we need help.” She rattled off her address to the woman and answered her questions as best she could.

Ah-ha!

She found the scissors exactly where they should be, in the junk drawer.

Rhonda flipped on all the lights, taking some comfort in chasing away the shadows.

“I’m going to get you out of this,” she said to her mother and sister. The operator was still talking to her in such a frustratingly calm and composed manner. Didn’t the woman understand what was going on here?

She put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the empty cushion next to her mother. The first thing she cut off was the tape over her mouth.

“Oh my God, is he gone?” Her mother gasped, tears running down her cheeks.

“Yeah, he’s gone. Cops are on their way.”

“Rhonda, Rhonda, is your mother okay?” the operator asked.

“I think so,” Rhonda replied.

She cut her sister’s gag off next. If anything, Rachel seemed pissed as hell rather than scared.

“I need to call Emma,” Rachel said, wiggling in her bonds.

“Call her later,” Rhonda said as she started in on the bonds holding her sister’s arms to her sides. Couldn’t she let her little high school friends
be
for a few minutes? Did she have to update the whole world?

“No, he said he was going after her next. I need to call Emma!”

Emma groaned and snuggled farther into the warmth wrapped around her. She’d just gone to sleep. Couldn’t her alarm wait a little while longer?

“Ems,” Jacob muttered, pushing at her shoulder.

“What?” She buried her face against his shoulder.

“It’s your phone.” From the sound of it, he wasn’t actually awake.

She sighed and rolled over, peering at the clock with one eye.

Midnight.

Whoever was on the other end of this call was dead meat.

The phone flashed Rachel Land’s name.

The teenage hostess at the barbecue place? Emma had given her a ride to work a few times. She hadn’t realized the girl’s number was still in her phone.

“Hello?”

“Emma! Thank God.” The girl on the other end sobbed into the phone.

“Rachel? What’s wrong?” Emma sat up, tossing the covers back.

Jacob’s phone blared like a siren from the pile of clothes still on the floor. She glanced over her shoulder, a sense of dread settling in her stomach.

“He said he was going to come after you. Get out! Get someplace safe.” Rachel continued to sob. There were other voices. Female?

“Rachel? Rachel, where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt? I’ll come and get you.” Emma got up and started grabbing for her clothes. Jacob retreated to the living room to answer his call. What were the chances this was a coincidence?

“I’m at home. Mom and I got here and there was a man. He hit Mom and knocked her out, and then he tied me up. He kept saying it was for you. It was crazy!” Rachel continued to babble, but she wasn’t making a lot of sense.

Jacob came around the bed, his face half in shadow, but what she could see didn’t make her feel any better.

“Rachel, hold on a second, okay?” She put her hand over the phone. “What?”

“Rachel Land?” he asked.

Emma nodded.

“Looks like Rachel’s sister chased away the TBKiller. They want us to stay put.” He didn’t seem too happy with the decision.

“Hey Rachel?”

“Yeah?” Rachel sniffled.

“Are the cops there?”

“They just got here. Emma, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve got cops here with me, too. I’m going to be okay. Will you call me later? Let me know you’re all right?” Emma wanted to go there now, but that wasn’t going to fly. She hung up with Rachel and wrapped her arms around herself.

Was this really all connected to her?

“How’s she doing?” Jacob asked.

“Scared, but I don’t think she’s hurt. What about the rest of them?”

“No idea, patrol was just getting on the scene.”

“What—what are we supposed to do?”

Somehow, this whole thing was her fault. Guilt wrapped around her, nearly suffocating her. What could she have done differently? Anything at all?

“Hey.” Jacob grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Don’t do that. I’m here. You’re safe.”

“But it’s all my fault.”

“No.” He shook his head. “This is on him, whoever he is. You didn’t ask him to commit these murders.”

“But if it wasn’t for me, Harold, Laura, Derrick, Amanda, they’d all be alive.” She balled her hands into fists. She wanted to punch something. Or more like someone.

“Let’s go back to sleep—”

“No.” She pushed Jacob’s hands away. “No, I can’t go back to sleep. Not now.”

She jerked on a pair of pants and stalked into the living room. He followed her, a silent presence.

“Okay, so let me pitch an idea to you.”

She turned to face him. “Okay. What?”

“I think the unsub is someone you’ve met. Someone you know, but not like a friend. I don’t think you’d even know his name.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I want to bounce some ideas off you, make some lists. Do you think you’re up to that?”

“Hell yeah.” She glanced at the kitchen table and counters covered in papers. “I’ll get the card table from the garage. We can start with that.”

Black Widow closed her laptop and set it on the passenger’s seat. She was relying on Mercy too much. The woman had never stepped out of line, but Black Widow had run Killer Club long enough to know the patterns. People joined, they were over-zealous in their planning, but once the execution stage started... Most of them lost their way. But not Mercy. She was almost a founding member. Her list of kills stretched as long as Black Widow’s.

Mercy was a better actor than others.

Like Iron.

Max Fischer had potential, but he saw himself as too much of an artist to follow rules, and rules kept the club safe. The attention from the press and the notoriety he was getting played into his delusions of rebirth, feeding his obsession. But not her plan. If this was what the boy wanted, then he shouldn’t have come to her. Because her rules were law, and you only got one chance to break the law before it broke you. She’d expelled members for even thinking about deviating from their plans.

It could be that she was simply sentimental. Max was about the age of her brother, had he survived their childhood. Her brother had been her first. He’d screamed about night terrors, which had really been her experimenting. Figuring out her MO. Her ritual. In hindsight, killing her much younger brother hadn’t been a good idea. But that was in the past. She’d escaped unscathed.

Max Fischer, however, would not.

She slipped on a backpack she had prepared for this little outing and got out of the rental car. There was no more Iron now. She had to start thinking of him as Max. A member on his way out.

If Max stuck to his schedule, he would have a triple homicide to carry through tonight. That would give her time to explore his hidey-hole and lay in wait for him. She liked to take time to acclimate herself to herself to her victim’s homes, learn a little about them, but she already knew all there was about Max Fischer.

The people in her club thought it was all anonymous, that their identities were hidden behind handles and bounced IP addresses. There were a few smart cookies in the lot, like Mercy and Joker, but most didn’t think through their choices. All they saw were others who wanted to kill, like they did. So she spoon-fed them the lines, gave them a virtual home, and reeled them in.

Eventually she’d kill them all, but it was fun to see their work and know that without her none of it would have happened. They’d all be petty little children masturbating to their murder fantasies. Only a few would have ever risen to the level at which they were now.

The foreclosed home Max had appropriated sat on a street of empty lots. She’d parked a couple blocks away and walked under the cover of night to the little, unassuming house at the end of the street.

She went in through the back door. Locks had never kept her out. She stood in the living room, listening to the utter silence.

Garbage bags were taped over the windows, and several full-length mirrors leaned against the panes. More mirrors hung on the walls, stood propped up on the floor. They were everywhere. She caught her movements out of the corner of her eye, reflected again and again.

It was enough to drive a person more than a little crazy.

There was a pallet set up on one side of the room, while an electric cord ran from the garage to a table that was no doubt Max’s work station. The laptop and other equipment was nowhere to be seen. There was, however, a small mini fridge.

She opened it, and seven sets of eyes stared back at her.

Seven?

He’d only reported four victims. Who were five, six, and seven?

Later, when she cleaned house, she’d have to dispose of them. For now, it was time to dig deeper into Max Fischer’s life, because in a few hours, he was going to die.

Jacob scrubbed a hand over his face. Emma had her head on the coffee table, looking at another set of lists through the glass surface. They were a sorry pair.

He wanted to whisk her away from here. Maybe down to Florida or California. Someplace warm, with a beach and waves. She’d wear an itty bitty bikini, and they’d drink beer, or maybe one of those fruity drinks with an umbrella in it. Somewhere she wouldn’t feel so much responsibility. If he could take the weight off her shoulders for a few minutes, he’d do anything.

“Come on.” He dropped the legal pad on the table.

Emma lifted her head, blinking at him.

“Let’s grab something to eat. We aren’t going to see anything standing here and staring at this stuff anymore.

She didn’t respond, but she did get to her feet and shuffle off to the bedroom. While she freshened up, he checked his phone for the hundredth time. He hadn’t heard anything since a second call from Brooks to touch base. Being off the case was trying his nerves, but he wouldn’t change a thing.

Instead, he sent the cop stationed outside a warning they were about to leave.

In a matter of minutes Emma emerged, fresh-faced, her hair brushed, clothes changed, and even a little make-up hiding the dark circles under her eyes. He guided her out to his Jeep, glancing at the unmarked police car across the street. The officer waved at him, and he nodded back.

As he pulled out onto the street, Emma reached for his hand. He brought her knuckles to his lips and squeezed her fingers.

He’d refused to think about what he would have done had it been Emma tonight in Rachel’s place. He could only hope that there was something at the scene of the crime that would help them figure out who the hell TBKiller was.

They chose an IHOP near the highway. Barely past sunrise, it wasn’t yet busy, and they got a table in the corner, where he could watch the comings and goings of people.

Now that TBKiller’s ritual was disrupted, there was a chance the stress of not being able to complete his so-called mission might push him to do something extreme. Jacob didn’t think the guy would escalate to approaching Emma in a public place, but his kills could become a thing of convenience instead of the well-planned imitations. All thoughts he kept to himself.

“Know what you want?” He flipped through the menu, though he didn’t need to.

“Not really.”

“Want me to pick for you?”

“Yes.” She shoved her menu at him and crossed her arms on the table top.

He chuckled and flagged down the waitress. He doubled his order and asked for an extra pot of coffee. They were going to burn through that in no time.

“If you could go anywhere at all, right now, where would it be?” He reached across and took her hand in his once more.

“Somewhere remote. Far away. Like, a mountain cabin in Colorado or something.” She smiled and rubbed her thumb over his knuckles.

“The mountains? Not the beach?”

“You said right now.” She chuckled. “Right now I don’t want to see anyone.”

“Even me?”

“Okay, anyone except you. I could even settle for a decent hotel, room service, and a box of condoms.”

“Hey, I got my own this time.”

She smiled for the first time in hours.

“Is that a blush I see?” He ducked his head to glimpse her face when she tried to look away.

“Shut up.” She twisted in her seat, but he held fast to her hands.

“No way. Miss this? Never.”

“I’m going to the beach without you then.”

“That’s not fair.”

She peeked at him through her lashes.

At some point, she’d dropped the tough girl routine with him. The Emma he saw now was someone she hid from the world.

He took her other hand and held them between his own.

“Let’s go to Colorado this weekend.”

“What?” That got her attention. She searched his face, disbelief etched between her brows in the little lines on her forehead. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” It was crazy and totally out of character for him, but it wasn’t like he’d been all that happy. Maybe what he needed was her. To shake up his life. To show him what he was missing.

“Can we do that?”

“Why not?”

“Well if they catch,” she glanced over her shoulder, “you-know-who, won’t we have to answer questions or something?”

He grimaced.

“Okay, so maybe in two weeks.”

“Okay. All right. I’m in.”

“Fantastic.” He pulled her hands across the table once more and kissed the first knuckle on each.

He’d never gone on trips with women before. He’d never wanted to. They were only ever distractions from his work. A way to fill his off hours. Emma was different. He wanted to spend time with her, peeling back the layers, and be with her. There would be bumps in the road. Inevitably they’d butt heads or want different things, but she was worth working through that.

“And you should bring your bikes. Maybe you could teach me how to ride?”

“That would be awesome.” Her smile nearly split her face. She was beautiful when she smiled. Radiant.

He smiled back and they laced their fingers together, staring at each other. That he’d found her during an investigation was crazy. There was nothing about how they’d begun that was normal. Which meant there weren’t any rules. Hell, he didn’t think Emma was suffering from hero syndrome for a second. She wasn’t exactly the damsel in distress to need a hero anyways, and that was actually fine by him. They could lean on each other, instead of him carrying them both.