FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (10 page)

“Nobody envisions something like this coming into their life.”

“What about you? I guess you see this kind of thing pretty often.”

“Not this kind of thing. I was working Violent Criminal Apprehension until a month ago.” He watched the waitress return with his tea, waited until she’d left, then added, “I thought I’d try cyber crimes to get away from some of the darkness.”

Another of her small, rueful smiles appeared. “How’s that working out so far?”

“Not exactly like I’d planned. I think I slept better tracking down average, everyday thugs.” Unable to contain the sudden flare of anger that made his voice shake, he admitted, “But I won’t rest until we’ve stopped this guy.”

Her green eyes held understanding. Of course they did; she wanted him stopped, too, even having known about the case for only a few hours. Anyone who witnessed what the monster was capable of would be chilled at the realization that he was still out there walking among them. She just hadn’t figured out—not yet, anyway—that he might be walking a whole lot closer than she thought.

“I don’t get the Cyber Division angle,” she said. “This perp’s not an embezzler or Internet fraud slimebag. I thought the … what’s it called, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime? I thought they handled this type of thing.”

“NCAVC normally does. But we’re a new type of Cyber Action Team. Every other one in the U.S. is on standby to respond to traditional cyber threats all over the world. Us? We respond only to Internet-related murder.”

“Makes sense, I guess, in this day and age. With your background in ViCAP, a couple of IT specialists, you bring in a range of experience.”

“Yeah, we’re a mixed bag of specialties. Stokes, whom you will meet tomorrow, is a forensics genius. And Wyatt’s been trying to get a behavioral analyst to come over to join us, so far without much luck.” Dean didn’t always understand all that psychoanalytical mumbo jumbo those BAU guys spouted, but they usually got enough things right to make it worth including them in ongoing investigations. Especially investigations into serial murder. “In the meantime, he’s found one who agreed to look at this case and come up with some kind of profile. But I don’t know if they’ll ever actually give us one full-time. That’d be making things too easy on us.”

She appeared confused. Anybody who wasn’t on the inside of the bureau probably would be. Because the machinations and competitiveness—and even spite—when it came to Wyatt didn’t make a bit of sense.

Before he could even begin to explain, however, they were interrupted. “Hey, there, Stacey! How’s my best girl? You been missin’ me?”

Dean jerked back, shocked that he’d been so focused on his conversation with the woman sitting across from him that he hadn’t even realized someone had stopped beside their booth. Glancing up, he noted a beefy, thick-chested guy, probably in his late thirties. He wore dusty jeans and a lightweight flannel shirt with the sleeves torn off to reveal strong arms, the right one paler than the left. His round face, made rounder by a receding hairline of puffy curls, was soft and jolly-looking.

But a longer glance revealed the stranger’s deeply lined brow. And though he smiled down at Stacey, his eyes darted quickly about, nervous as an addict making a buy.

Or maybe Dean was imagining it. Because he didn’t like anyone—least of all a guy who looked like the Webster’s definition of a blowhard—talking to the capable, smart woman across from him as if she were a cute waitress without a brain in her head.

“Hey, Randy,” Stacey said, obviously forcing a smile to her mouth. Dean had known her less than a day, but he recognized the effort she was making to appear normal. He saw it in her clasped fingers on the table, in the stiffness of her shoulders and the tiniest tremble of her jaw as the muscles in her cheeks tried to keep her lips curved up.

Strong fingers. Capable shoulders. Well-defined jaw. Nicely shaped lips.

He shifted in his seat.

“Been wondering how you’re doing. Meaning to stop by and say hello to your dad, too. Just doing a lot of long-distance interstate runs this summer, delivering electronics to the big box stores. Heaven forbid folks don’t have their new wide-screens and Blu-rays in time to catch the new fall shows next month.”

“I’m sure Dad would love to see you,” Stacey replied. She gestured toward Dean. “This is Dean Taggert. Dean, meet Randy Covey. My brother’s partner in crime.”

The stranger chuckled, obviously not hearing the steel in her voice.

Noting that she did not introduce him by title, Dean again appreciated the woman’s common sense—a rarity among some of the local cops he’d worked with, or so it often seemed. But there had been no need to ask Stacey to keep his identity, and the reason for his presence in Hope Valley, a secret.

The burly man extended a thick hand, pumping Dean’s with quickness and courtesy. “Nice to meet you. New in town? You stealing the prettiest little peace officer this side of the Mississippi?”

Mulrooney
. That was who the newcomer reminded him of. Or he would have, if he were sarcastic and crude rather than aw-shucks friendly.

Give him sarcasm and crudeness over jovial friendliness any day. “Just visiting.”

“Randy lives out by my dad’s place. He’s an old friend of the family.”

“Old is right,” the man said, sounding rueful. “Me ’n’ Stacey’s brother, Tim, kept this one from getting into too much trouble growing up.” He suddenly glanced toward the door, where a young man hovered. “Son, say hello to the sheriff.” Randy extended his arm toward the guy, who was probably around nineteen or twenty. Meaning Randy had probably gotten pretty lucky as a teenager.

The kid didn’t much look like his brawny father. He was tall, lean, with white-blond hair and vivid red craters gouged into his cheeks from his losses in the acne wars. Despite the heat of the day, he wore long, oversize jeans that dragged the ground, which would probably reveal four inches of baggy boxer shorts if he weren’t also wearing an oversize jersey that fell to his knees.

“Hi, Seth.” Stacey smiled at the boy.

“Hey,” he mumbled. He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, his feet shuffling. Typical son, trying to remain invisible and pretend he wasn’t related to Randy, who was, as all parents did, somehow embarrassing him.

God, he hoped Jared did not grow up to be like that. And that his ex didn’t get her wish and make sure Dean wasn’t around enough to help raise him the right way.

“Well, we better rock and roll outta here,” Randy said. “We’re gonna be in hot water for being late for supper. If Mama finds out we stopped here for some onion rings first, there’ll be hell to pay.”

Not quite sure whether the man was referring to his wife, or really talking about his mother, Dean murmured good-bye, then watched the duo leave the diner. “Mama?” he asked once they were gone.

Stacey rolled her eyes. “Randy’s wife walked out on him when Seth was little. Randy moved back in with his mother, who helped raise the boy. It’s a shame, really. Last year Randy was dating a good friend of mine, Angie, who runs the new Internet café. But I don’t think Mama liked that. She’s a sour old thing.”

“How about yours?” Dean asked, suddenly wanting to see that smile again. “Did she like that her sweet little girl took over as sheriff?”

Instead of a smile, he got a snort. “I was never a sweet little girl.” She glanced down, stirring her iced tea with her straw. “Dad did his best, but he never managed to drill many feminine qualities into me.”

He would argue that point. Noting the softness of her hair, the innate elegance of her movements, the huskiness of her voice that called to some deep part of him, he’d challenge anyone to call this woman anything but feminine. Strong, independent, yes. But still every inch a woman.

“My mother died when I was a baby, so it was just me, Dad, and my brother.”

He opened his mouth, trying to come up with whatever kind of lame condolences people offered when they found out about the loss of someone else’s parent. Not that he usually knew what to say to that sort of thing. Did anyone?

But before he could even find the right words, Stacey said, “About the case.”

So much for personal stuff and sharing. Which, frankly, relieved him. He wasn’t good at that. And the fact that she didn’t appear to expect him to come up with something inane to say made his opinion of her go up even higher.

But it also made him wonder, did she ever allow herself to be vulnerable? How many rooms did she have in her subconscious to tuck away all the emotion she didn’t allow herself to deal with?

“We’re talking about a serial killer, aren’t we?”

He could have thrown up defensive walls, given her the not-at-liberty-to-talk-about-it line. But something told him he didn’t need to go that route, not with Sheriff Rhodes. She was tough. More important, he had the feeling they were going to need her. She’d proven her worth earlier by pointing them in the direction of the crime scene. And if this small town was like every other one he’d ever been in, she’d know every person here and could prove invaluable at narrowing down potential suspects.

“Yes, we are.”

Her lips moved and her eyes drifted shut for a moment as she compartmentalized that information. Anyone in charge of the law in a town this size would react to having a nationally sought-after serial killer operating in her jurisdiction. For someone who knew the victim personally? Well, she was in for a rough time, no doubt about it.

“What do you have on him so far?”

“Not much. Most of what we know is from the videos.”

“Can’t even imagine them,” she whispered.

“Believe me, you don’t want to try.”

Dean’s jaw stiffened as a flood of images from the Reaper’s sick home movies flooded his brain. There was so much darkness to this case that even he, an experienced professional, had found himself having a few nightmares in the past few nights. Nightmares involving those poor women, sometimes with the faces of his sister or mother replacing one of theirs. There had been even worse ones involving his son, though thank God none of the crimes had involved children.

She obviously read the viciousness of it in his silence. Because, for some reason, she reached over, extended her hand, and brushed it across the back of his. The touch was brief, devoid of anything more than simple human-to-human understanding. But it made his hand thrum for a full minute after she’d pulled hers away.

“How many victims altogether?” she eventually asked.

Flexing his hand, then fisting it on his lap, he got down to business. He ran down the pertinent details, giving her surface information that he’d share with any law enforcement official helping with the case, because that was what she was. Nothing more.

Something told him he’d need to remind himself of that throughout his stay here.

She listened in silence, her eyes occasionally closing, emitting a soft sigh of dismay here or there. He didn’t get into details, especially not in-depth descriptions of the horrors playing out there in cyberspace to the twisted masses. But even the simplest explanation was enough to cause nightmares.

“So all the other bodies have been found. Lisa is the only one missing,” she finally said when he’d finished.

“Correct.”

“But no other victims were from around here. Lisa was our only missing person, and we haven’t had a murder in this area since my grandfather was sheriff.”

“Lucky you.”

She nodded absently. “This guy was likely some stranger who wandered in off the interstate, saw Lisa getting drunk in Dick’s Tavern, followed her as she stumbled out, and acted on the opportunity. Then he took off for his next town, next crime. Maybe he hid the body because it was his first murder, and he wanted to give himself time to make sure he could get away with it.”

Dean said nothing. There were holes in Stacey’s theory. He didn’t point them out to her. She’d work it out in her own head, and reach the conclusion that would shock her even more. Her mind was quick and astute; she had spotted that unusual flash on the video and had known it meant something. She’d soon realize she’d seen something else equally as important.

“But a stranger couldn’t have known what a perfect victim Lisa would be, that nobody would really take her disappearance seriously,” she whispered, gazing into the air over Dean’s shoulder, though, in truth, probably looking at nothing that existed here in this diner. She was visualizing
that
night. “Everybody at Dick’s Tavern had been around at least a few times before. No newcomers. Dick confirmed that for me himself.”

That made the thing she had missed even more important, though she couldn’t realize that yet. Dean, however, immediately saw it was important, one more tidbit to confirm what he and the rest of the team already suspected. More than suspected: From the moment a bureau lipreading expert had told them what Lisa Zimmerman had said to her killer before her death, they had known.

“And he had to be someone familiar with the area to know where to take her where he could have a big enough clearing to move around, use spotlights, move his camera, all without being disturbed.”

“Yes,” he murmured.

The wheels in her brain clicked almost visibly. She’d grasped it. Her shocked gasp confirmed as much. “We’re not talking about some stranger off the interstate.”

Dean shook his head.

“The suspect was familiar with this area. He probably even spent some time around here beforehand.”

“It goes further than that,” he explained, knowing it was time to fill her in on what else they’d been able to learn from the video of Lisa’s gruesome death.

“What?”

“At one point, she looks at him in shock and says, ‘You?’”

Her jaw dropped. She understood. But he made it absolutely clear anyway.

“The Reaper personally knew his victim. And she most definitely knew him.”

After he’d finished
his twenty-minute-long phone call with the head of the Cyber Division, Wyatt considered joining Taggert and the very capable Sheriff Rhodes at the diner. Dean had texted him, not wanting to interrupt his calls, saying he’d run into the sheriff there and thought they could manage a somewhat decent meal.