FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (15 page)

“This is going to be hard to hear,” she warned. “I know you were friendly with Lisa Zimmerman’s father.”

He nodded once, indicating he was prepared for what she had to say.

So she told him. How Lisa had died, where and when. Everything the FBI had on that case. Respecting Dean and his team, she made a point to avoid discussing specifics on other murders, expanding only on the facts that affected Hope Valley.

That was enough for any normal person to digest, anyway. She saw no need to describe how those seven other women had suffered. Hearing the details last night had been enough to make her physically ill again.

By the time she was finished, her big, blustery father had grown pale and glassy-eyed. “Lord almighty.”

“Yeah.”

“That poor little thing. This will crush her mother.”

“I know.”

He fell silent, thinking about it, slowly stretching and massaging his pained knuckles by long force of habit. Finally, his gaze focused somewhere on the woods beyond the house, he murmured, “Do you think they’re right? That somebody from around here killed her and those other women?”

She did. Mentally, she had accepted that as a likelihood. But damn, did it hurt to admit it out loud, especially to someone who loved this town so very much. She couldn’t lie to him, though; never had been able to. So she nodded. “I do.”

He closed his eyes, a low, small shudder rolling through him. The cup shook in his hand, and Stacey reached for it, worried his poor, tortured fingers would lose their grip on it and spill hot coffee all over his lap.

But he waved her away, lowering the cup to a small table himself. “I’m all right. Just … not something I ever thought I’d hear about Hope Valley.”

“Me either.”

“I investigated a murder once, you know. More’n twenty years ago. And damned if it didn’t involve two good old boys who’d had a fight out at Dick’s one Saturday night.” He shook his head ruefully. “I can’t help thinking lightning shoulda struck and burned that place clear to the ground by now, with all the trouble it’s been.”

She hadn’t known that, but wasn’t surprised at her father’s sentiments regarding the rowdy tavern. It had been the bane of many of her weekends since taking office, and many of his before her.

“Have you got anybody in mind? One of Lisa’s no-good boyfriends? I heard she was dating some ex-con biker.”

“He’d been in a Georgia jail for a few months when she disappeared,” she said, already having looked at that angle as soon as Winnie had reported Lisa missing.

“I suppose, if there are other cases you’re not telling me about, that it’s got to be somebody who can go out of town without much notice.”

“Possibly, though I think all the other murders were within a few hours’ drive of here.” The Reaper had been able to do his dirty work in a single night, in most cases.

“Still, that many overnights, wouldn’t be easy for a family man to be gone nights, unless he had a reason to be. Night job, or one that required travel.”

“True.”

“I think there are a lot of marriages around here that had some ups and downs because of that girl, so it could be a married man. But I bet you’re looking for a single fella. Somebody who hasn’t had much luck with women.”

Stacey’s brow rose. “Maybe you should go to work for the FBI as a profiler.”

He shrugged. “Common sense. If he’s as vicious as you say he is toward women, he obviously hates them.” Frowning darkly, he mumbled, “That Warren Lee, somebody sure dropped him in a whole barrel full of crazy somewhere along the line.”

“But he hates everybody, not just women. When he goes …”

“He’ll go postal,” he said, finishing her sentence.

“He did act strangely yesterday, though,” she mused, more to herself than to him.

“Stranger than usual?”

“Good point.”

Her father fell silent for a few moments, gazing toward the lawn. Then, in a low voice, he said, “That stepfather of hers is a mean son of a bitch.”

Stacey concurred, but she’d rarely heard her dad use foul language and always made a point of cleaning up her own around him. “Did you ever think, ever wonder …”

“If he abused her? Hell, yes, I wondered. Something made that girl change right after he moved into her mama’s house.”

“I sometimes see bruises on Winnie’s arms,” Stacey admitted. “Whenever I ask her about them she says they’re from work.”

He sneered. “Yeah, those laundry carts have big fists on ’em, don’t they?”

Deep in thought, she whispered, “I never saw bruises on Lisa. But maybe the abuse was different.”

Dad’s hands clenched into fists, though it must have pained him terribly. “I asked her once when she was a teenager.”

Stunned, Stacey felt her mouth fall open. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. You were with the VSP when the worst of it happened. She went so wild, and I had to haul her in for dealing. When she begged me to let her off, saying she was pregnant and desperate, I flat out asked her if Stan was the father.”

“Oh, my God,” Stacey mumbled, never having heard this part of the story.

“She denied it. Told me if I went to Winnie about it she’d run away forever.”

Which just made it more likely.

“I knew by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t lying about the pregnancy, but I guess she miscarried, or went out of town and took care of it. Never saw her have any baby. She was probably, oh, fifteen at the time.”

The story stunned her and broke her heart all over again for Lisa. By the time Stacey had come back to Hope Valley, she’d simply accepted the girl as the town tramp and druggie, not even recognizing her. If she hadn’t left, if she’d moved back after college, might she have been able to do something? Lisa had looked up to her once, had treated her like a big sister. If she’d been around, could she have helped her escape the nightmare her life had become?

A nightmare that might have included sexual molestation by her stepfather?

She couldn’t even bear to think about it, that poor little girl slowly turning into the helpless, desperate young woman she’d become, so hungry for escape and for love that she sought them both from any man who’d show her a little attention.

The dark thoughts churned in her mind; her stomach clenched and heaved. And in the darkest corner of her brain the images anchored and took root. Bloody images.

“Could he have wanted to shut her up?” she whispered. “Or maybe she was older, strong enough to turn him down, and he snapped?” Had that sent the man on the path of savagery the Reaper had let loose upon the world?

Her father said nothing, continuing to rock, slowly, absorbing the possibility just as Stacey was. Finally, though, he mumbled, “It’s a damn tragedy. I can’t imagine how different things might have turned out if her daddy hadn’t died in that accident.”

Stacey didn’t even want to think about how Lisa’s world had blown to bits with her father’s death and her mother’s remarriage to a complete bastard, one in a long line of mean men, if the stories about the Freeds were true. Lisa’s life might have been very different, indeed.

“I know.” Reaching over, she took her dad’s hand as gently as possible, thinking not for the first time how lucky she and her brother were. Her life might have gotten just as screwed-up as poor Lisa’s had he made some different choices. Lord, when she thought about how Tim and Randy used to scheme to get their widowed father together with Randy’s widowed mother … She shuddered at the very thought of having grown up with that wicked witch of a stepmother. But her father obviously had much better taste. He’d steered well clear of Alice Covey, and all the other divorcees and widows who’d set their eyes on the handsome widower, devoting himself just to her and to Tim.

Which was one reason she was so happy he’d finally reached out and grabbed some personal happiness with Connie.

Thinking about her brother, she said, “Tim came to see me the other day.”

His mouth turned down at the corners. “I heard.”

Oh, she’d just bet. She doubted the news had come from Connie, who tried to avoid upsetting Dad as much as possible. Her brother had most likely come out here screaming at the injustice that his bitch of a sister wouldn’t help him out in his time of need. As if she and everyone else hadn’t been doing exactly that since the day he’d come home two years ago, injured and so messed up in the head she barely recognized him.

“Dad, he’ll never help himself if we keep bailing him out. He doesn’t need his family to keep rescuing him, or his buddy to keep dragging him into trouble.”

“Randy’s been there for him.”

“I know. But a friend who encourages him in his anger and resentment, who takes him illegally out-of-season hunting, or drinking seven nights a week, is not what he needs right now. He needs to get back over to the vet hospital and talk to that shrink. He shouldn’t have stopped going after only a couple of months.”

He met her stare evenly. “I know you’re right. Logically, I know that.” His free hand dropped over hers, covering it. “But he’s my boy. I look at him and I see those scars and I think about what he’s been through and …” He didn’t ask her. Didn’t make the request out loud. But he made it just the same, with his pained eyes.

Shaking her head, knowing tough love would be the first thing her father would suggest for anybody else’s kid, she pulled her hand away. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

She wondered if he’d be thanking her if Tim never got his shit together, never emerged from the dark cloud of anger that had swallowed him up and eradicated any sign of the guy who used to play football and bass guitar. The one who used to smile.

He sure wouldn’t if he kept hanging around with Randy, the two of them getting drunk and raising hell like a pair of teenagers. Randy had gotten Tim into enough trouble when they were growing up, for stealing and fighting. She truly wished her brother hadn’t renewed the friendship when he got home, not just for his own sake, but also for Randy’s. And Seth’s. It couldn’t be easy having a father who acted like a reckless teenager.

“I should run. You’ll think about the case, won’t you? Let me know if you can come up with anything you think could help?”

“I will.” Rising, he put his hands on her shoulders and, staring at her with worry in his eyes, he said, “You be careful. Let those FBI guys take the lead on this. The last thing I want to even think about is you going head-to-head with someone so evil.”

Evil. Yes. That described the person they were after. Could Stan Freed, while a mean and possibly degenerate brute, be that evil?

“I know this isn’t what you bargained for when you came back here to take over for your old man,” he murmured, staring into her face as if looking for signs that she might break. As if he feared the violence that had followed her here to her small hometown had assaulted her personally and she’d be unable to bear the strain.

It hadn’t. She’d bear it. Period.

“I’ll be fine.” She kissed her father on the cheek, acknowledging his right to fear for his daughter, rather than support the sheriff. Then, turning to walk down the steps, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled, and said, “Tell Connie I said good morning.”

His surprised chuckle made leaving him alone on the porch a little easier. It also gave her what she knew would be one of her few bright moments of the day.

With Stacey’s office
as the base of operations, Dean, Stokes, and Mulrooney headed there first thing in the morning after making a quick pit stop at the little coffee shop, where they’d all filled up on liquid fuel. Grabbing an extra cup for Stacey, he realized he didn’t know how she took her coffee. Or even if she drank it. Didn’t know a lot about her at all, as a matter of fact. He just knew that as he entered the sheriff’s office promptly at eight thirty, his pulse picked up its pace a little in his veins. Because he wanted to see her.

She met them right at the front door. “Good morning.”

Unlike yesterday, when they’d been tromping in the woods, Stacey again wore her crisp, starched uniform, probably because of where she and Dean were headed in a few minutes. She’d need that self-protective armor when she made the notification to Lisa’s mother.

She eyed the foam cups of coffee in his hands. “Thirsty?”

He extended one. “Wasn’t sure how you take it.”

“In this weather, usually iced. But considering how little sleep I’ve gotten the past few nights, I’ll take anything I can get.” She reached for the cup, her fingers brushing against his. “Thanks.” She sipped, then glanced at Stokes and Mulrooney. “You guys doing okay at the inn?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Jackie replied.

Mulrooney stretched, arching his back, sticking his belly out. “I slept like a baby. A baby having nightmares about a black-cape-wearing bogeyman, but a baby.”

Dean merely grunted, as usual not quite sure how to take Mulrooney’s odd sense of humor. But he had to concede that when the older man was on his game, he was pretty intuitive. Mulrooney was also pretty brave, given the stories Dean had heard.

“Let’s go into my office,” Stacey said.

They followed her, sat around her desk; then Dean filled her in on the morning’s developments. “We got a call from Wyatt. Turns out the PD in the Maryland case had a tire print at the dump site that they just now let us know about. It’s a 7.50R16LT. Pretty standard-issue on late-model American-made light-to-medium-duty pickups and SUVs.”

She frowned. “Which describes vehicles driven by half the men in this county.”

“It’s something.”

“Didn’t you say one of the victims was …” Her voice the tiniest bit shaky, and she quickly rephrased her question. “There was a semi truck involved somewhere, right?”

Dean shook his head. “The MO was out of an old movie that involved a semi, but the unsub didn’t use one. It’s clear on the video that he was driving a monster SUV, which he’d stolen.” He didn’t want to think about whether the less powerful vehicle had made the victim’s death any worse, but he suspected it had taken longer. “It was found a few days later, in another town, and treated as a standard auto theft. The locals didn’t know it was involved in a murder until we brought the case to them last week.”