Fear for Me (17 page)

There was a roadblock up ahead. Anthony saw the flashing lights of two patrol cars at the end of Lincoln Road before the road branched and led back to the city.

He slammed on the brakes and jumped from the vehicle. He’d just gone all the way down the road, and hadn’t seen a sign of the sedan. “Where the hell is he?” Anthony demanded.

Matt rushed toward him. “No one’s come this way. We were on scene as fast as we could be, but no one’s passed our way.”

No. No fucking way.

“He got out before you were here,” Paul said as he climbed from the car. His voice was flat. “The bastard took her out before the roadblock could be set up.”

The road was old, and from what Anthony had learned on his one-hundred-mile-an-hour drive there, not well traveled at all. “He likes the swamp.” There was plenty of swamp around. They’d flown by the twisting cypress trees, and he’d seen the black edge of the bayou water gleaming in the moonlight.

Matt took a few more steps toward them. “He
could
have driven through before we got here. We hauled ass, man, but it still took us twenty minutes to get here. The cop”—he pointed behind him to one of the patrol cars—“beat me by a bit, but not much.”

It had taken Anthony ten minutes to get there from Steve’s house, going hell fast. Matt and Paul were right—Walker
could
have gotten away and gone back to town.

But that just wasn’t the way he liked to play.

He’s changed the rules.
The guy had busted out of prison like some kind of alpha dog, and instead of hiding in the shadows like he’d done in the past, had attacked Karen right away with a brutal in-your-face kill directed to hurt Lauren.
The guy thinks he is in charge, so he’s trying to make us dance to his damn tune.
Anthony looked at the dark mass of swamp and woods. “Get Wesley Hawthorne out here.” If they had to search the woods, he wanted the tracker.

“Walker keeps his prey out there, he plays with them…he
is
in the area.” He just had to find out where. His eyes narrowed as he glanced back at Paul. “We passed a little road, didn’t we? A dirt road…” It had been but a blur at the time, but now…

Walker could have taken her down that little road. He never would have made it to the roadblock then.

Paul shook his head. “If we focus our efforts on searching the swamp, and she’s not there”—Paul sighed, his face grim—“we could be fucking killing her.”

Anthony’s back teeth were about to grind to dust. “Then let’s divide our efforts. You go to town.” He pointed to the darkness behind him. “And I’ll search here for her.” His gaze flew to Matt. “Get the tracker, and tell him I need him with me,
now
.”

Every minute that passed would bring Lauren closer to death.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The killer had abducted the DA.

It was a move that FBI profiler Cadence Hollow had feared, ever since she’d heard about the photo Walker kept in his prison cell.

Walker had fixated on Lauren Chandler. He’d
killed
a woman in her house. Cadence had no doubt the man had gone into Lauren’s house intending to kill the DA, but when Lauren hadn’t been home, he’d found Karen instead…
you thought you’d make her suffer by killing her friend.

Every move he’d made had been targeted around the DA, and as soon as he’d seen an opening, as soon as he’d lured Lauren to him, he’d attacked.

Cadence stood at the roadblock, watching the swirl of lights illuminate the scene. One of the marshals, Matt Meadows, was a few feet away, carefully screening a car that was passing. On Detective Voyt’s orders, they were checking every car that came their way, in case Walker had switched rides.

So far, they weren’t having any luck.

Meadows glanced up at her and slowly crossed to her side. “Not him.”

No, she hadn’t expected it to be. Her gaze drifted to the woods—she knew the woods stretched for a few miles, then gave way to the swamp. “Ross went in there?”

“Yeah, the Fish and Wildlife guy, Hawthorne, just went after him. Hawthorne said there are a few cabins back that way that Walker might be planning to use.”

“He likes to take his victims away from civilization.”

Meadows tilted his head as he studied her. “You think Ross is right? You think the Butcher took Lauren back into the swamp?”

“He wasn’t planning to kill her quickly.”

Meadows stared back at her. She’d never met this marshal before the Walker case, and she was discovering he could be tough and tenacious.

“If he had been planning to kill her right away,” she continued, “Ross would have found her body dumped next to the cop’s.” The cop had been lucky. Very lucky from the sound of things. McHenry was in ICU, but the doctors thought he would pull through. Walker hadn’t been interested in killing him; instead, it seemed as if he’d just wanted the cop out of his way.

Walker would have driven a knife into the back of anyone who stood between him and his target.

“He thinks she made him suffer,” Cadence said, “so now it’s her turn.” For the DA’s sake, Cadence hoped Ross found her before Walker started to play. Because once he started…

Cadence exhaled slowly. “You said there was a dirt road a few miles away? One that cut right away from Lincoln?”

He gave a nod.

More cops were pulling in behind the roadblock. Backup that she didn’t think was necessary, not there anyway.

“Marshal, we need to get out to that dirt road.”

That was a whole lot of land out there, and once Walker started cutting on Lauren, he wouldn’t stop.

Not even when she begged him to. Especially then.

The latch snicked.

It
snicked
. Finally. The screwdriver had slipped in her hand dozens of times, cutting her again and again, but Lauren hadn’t given up. When she heard that
snick
, she couldn’t remember a more beautiful sound. She shoved against the hood and the trunk popped open. The car was still moving, but Lauren didn’t care. She’d take whatever scrapes came her way if it meant freedom. She jerked upright in the trunk. The car jostled, going too fast, bumping along the rough terrain.
Do it.
Lauren swallowed back her fear, then leaped.

Her palms hit the ground first, then her knees, her shoulders, her head. The impact stunned her for a moment, but the sudden screech of brakes got her moving again.

Walker must have seen the trunk fly up, or maybe he’d seen her swan dive. Either way, she wasn’t sticking around. She grabbed for her screwdriver a few feet away and surged back to her feet. Then she was running. Running as hard as she could away from the car. Footsteps thundered behind her.

She opened her mouth and screamed, “
Help me!
”

His footsteps thundered faster. Much faster than her own. The bastard must have spent time doing cardio in prison. He’d come out even stronger than he’d gone in.

She risked a fast glance over her shoulder, and saw Walker closing in. He was a big, hulking shadow in the night. One lunge, and he’d have her.

One lunge…

She twisted her body to face him as he came at her.

He lunged, all right, and when he did, she shoved her screwdriver into his side.

He was the one to cry out then. A bellow of fury and pain.

Yes, bastard, that’s what pain feels like.
He’d made sure his victims hurt over the years. Now it was his turn to feel pain.

She left that screwdriver shoved deep in his side. Then she spun and ran as fast as her legs would carry her.

But soon there were footsteps racing behind her.

He should have been down. The attack should have bought her some time.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. He yanked her back. Caged her between him and the heavy trunk of a tree.

“Your aim is shit, DA,” Walker snarled at her as his body shoved against hers. “Fucking shit.”

She tried to yank away from him, tried to kick, but he blocked her attacks.

He laughed.

“You’re not getting away from me.”

His breath was hot as it blew over her face.

“I’ve planned for this moment, dreamed of it, for too long.”

Terror was closing her throat. Choking her. She couldn’t get away from him. His grip was about to shatter her wrists. Anthony wasn’t there, Paul wasn’t there,
no one
was coming to save her.

I have to save myself. Have to get away.

Have to live.

Was that what his other victims had thought, too? When Walker had them under his knife, had they been desperate to live just a little bit longer?

“You stole my life,” he whispered as his mouth came close to her ear. “Now I’m going to steal yours.”

It was so damn dark that they could hardly see any tracks along the dirt road. It sure didn’t help that the road had split into three sections as it snaked into the woods and headed for the swamp.

Three sections—three ways for Walker to have vanished.

But Walker
had
been there. Anthony had met up with Wesley Hawthorne, and they’d gotten their lights out and scanned in the darkness. They’d found signs of a vehicle headed this way, a vehicle that had left tire tracks that were consistent with a midsize sedan.

Walker hadn’t returned to the city. He’d taken Lauren and headed for the swamp, the way he seemed to so enjoy when he killed.

Don’t kill her.

“There’s a cabin about two miles up ahead,” Wesley said. The guy wasn’t talking much, and that was a good thing. It was all Anthony could do to control the rage and fear twisting through him.

He’d told Lauren he would keep her safe. Instead, he’d just delivered her to Walker. Fucking
delivered
her.

“There’s water behind the cabin. The bayou snakes and twists all the way back here.”

Anthony’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “If our guy has a boat, then that’s how he was able to get from that damn cabin to here.”

He pushed the accelerator down even more. He swung the vehicle around some trees, then slammed on the brakes.

The sedan was abandoned, its trunk up, not ten feet away.

Anthony jumped from his SUV. His vehicle’s headlights lit up the scene as he advanced toward the Oldsmobile. His gun was gripped tightly in his right hand.

If he’d seen Walker right then, Anthony thought he might have shot the bastard on sight.

But Walker wasn’t there. Neither was Lauren.

The car was empty so that meant Walker had left on foot—with Lauren. Both Wesley and Anthony began to search the ground with their flashlights. The dark made it harder to notice any telltale tracks on the ground. Anthony yanked out his phone, calling Matt and ordering that the K-9 unit be brought into the area. They needed the tracking dogs.

To rush off on foot, Walker had to be close.

“Blood!” Wesley called out.

Anthony’s body tensed. His flashlight lit on the same spot Wesley had found. Sure enough, he saw the spray of red in the illumination from his light.

Lauren was hurt.

“The blood goes to the left.” Wesley was already following the faint trail. He had his gun gripped in his left hand. “The cabin is back that way.”

“Then let’s get the hell there,
now
.” He couldn’t stand the thought of her suffering.
I’m coming, baby. I’m coming.

Their feet thudded over the earth as they followed the blood trail toward the cabin.

She’s alive. She’s alive.
The words played through Anthony’s head again and again. Lauren had to be alive. For him, there wasn’t any alternative. Because if he burst through that cabin door and she was dead—

He didn’t know what he would do.

She’s alive. She has to be alive…