Her Dying Breath (21 page)

“Are you ruling this a homicide?”

Nick swatted at a fly buzzing past his neck. “I can’t give an official statement in that regard yet. The ME will have to determine cause and time of death first.”

“Judging from the way the body was discarded, you believe it was murder?” Brenda pressed.

A warning simmered in Nick’s eyes. They both knew damn well it was murder.

“It appears that way.”

“Are there similarities between this man’s death and the death of Jim Logger?”

He fought to keep his temper. “I can’t comment on that yet. We will release more information once we’ve had ample time to analyze the evidence.”

He pushed past her and strode over to meet Lieutenant Maddison. “Did you find anything?”

“Dr. Bullock said the killer carved the number one into our first victim’s neck. Did she do that with this victim?”

Maddison nodded.

Nick made a sound in his throat. “It’s part of the unsub’s signature.”

“Do you know what it means?” Brenda asked.

Nick glared at her for following him. But at least she’d left her cameraman behind. “We believe she was one of the subjects in the Slaughter Creek experiments. Subject number seven.”

A vein throbbed in Maddison’s neck. “Just when I think they can’t come up with something new.”

“What else did you find?” Nick asked.

“A partial boot print that we’re casting. Looks small, probably a female.” He paused. “We also found fibers in the man’s mouth.”

“Just like before. I think the team is still researching where they came from, but the tech thinks it was from a woman’s pair of panties.”

Maddison’s brows arched. “She stuffs her underwear in his mouth so no one can hear him scream.”

“Then she takes all his clothes with her.” Nick sighed. “Anything else?”

“We also found a small swatch of fabric caught on a bush over there.” He gestured a few feet away to the right, slightly off the trail.

Nick mentally contemplated the crime. The killer could have ducked behind the tree to hide if another car appeared.

“Looks like the fabric yoga pants are made of.”

Nick’s pulse picked up. “Maybe you can get some DNA off of it.”

“We’ll try. If we’re lucky, she left something on the body the ME can identify.”

Nick hoped to hell so. He had a bad feeling the body count was going to rise.

His phone buzzed, and Nick checked the number. His buddy from the bureau, Rafe Hood.

He stepped aside to answer the call, his eyes glued to Brenda as she walked her cameraman back to his van.

“Nick?”

“You’d better have something for me, Hood, because I have another dead man.”

“I’ve been checking into that security company your vic worked for. I cross-checked with other soldiers’ releases, and had a hit on one who worked for the company. A guy named Darren James. He lives over at Willow’s Peak. Report shows he was given a medical discharge due to panic attacks. He worked odd jobs since his release, spent some time as a mechanic, then a short-order cook, before he signed on at the security company.”

Very different jobs. “Anything else?”

“He’s divorced. Wife met someone else while he was overseas.”

Poor guy. “Thanks. I’ll have a talk with him. Maybe he knew Logger. If this victim worked at the same security company as Logger, we may have found our common thread.”

Then it might explain Seven’s method for choosing her victims.

Brenda waved to her cameraman, then smiled at the text her boss Harry had sent, congratulating her on another good segment.

But Brenda wanted more. She was intrigued by Seven and wanted to get inside her head, to know what made her tick. The story behind the story; the one only the killer could tell.

Just as only Amelia could tell what had happened to her as a victim.

Would Amelia remember Seven? If so, maybe she could give Brenda a description of the woman.

Then she could break the case.

She hurried over to see if Nick had any new information. “What do we do now?”

Nick made a low sound in his throat. “
We
don’t do anything. You’re going home, and let me do my job.”

“Have you identified the victim?”

Nick shook his head. “Blood and DNA will tell.”

“Do you have any leads?”

Nick leaned closer, his dark eyes resting on her. “I said go home, Brenda. You’ve done enough today.”

Brenda’s temper flared. “What did I do, Nick? Make you feel something for a change?”

She was referring to the kiss, and he knew it.

“What happened in that car was simply an adrenaline-charged reaction to a bad situation,” he said in a low voice. “Nothing more.”

Brenda traced a finger down his arm. “You can tell yourself that all you want, Nick, but we both know it’s not true.”

“Don’t,” Nick warned as she lifted her finger to touch his cheek. He caught her hand and shoved it down, then released her. “Whatever it was, it won’t happen again.”

Jake emerged from the woods with the crime team, and Nick walked toward them, dismissing her. Brenda wanted to hear whether they’d found anything, but obviously Nick was shutting her out.

So she headed over to ask Louis for a ride home, to get her car so she could visit Amelia again. If Amelia remembered Seven, she might offer Brenda a clue as how to find her.

Nick explained to Jake about the possible lead with the security company. “If we find out that our second victim worked at the same place, it might help.”

“Are you going to question Darren James?” Jake asked.

Nick nodded and told Maddison to call him with the crime scene findings. Deputy Waterstone left to do rounds in the town and answer a domestic dispute.

“With two murders so close together,” Nick said as he and Jake stood by his car, looking out at the woods where the body had been dumped, “our killer has to be staying somewhere nearby. She also has to know the area.”

“Good point,” Jake said. “Where has she been all this time? We know Amelia has been in and out of the sanitarium, but lived in Slaughter Creek with her family.”

“Grace Granger and Joe Swoony lived here, too.”

Jake ticked the names off on his fingers. “Emanuel Giogardi became a hired killer, but he still kept a place in Byrne Hollow, where he killed himself. And Bertrice Folsom’s family lived outside town.”

“I’ll start checking out rental properties, cabins off the grid,” Jake said. “Places a killer might hide. There are a lot of those in these mountains.”

“A needle in a haystack,” Nick muttered. “But it’s worth a shot. Meanwhile I’ll have a chat with Darren James. See if he knew Jim Logger or anything about the Slaughter Creek experiments.”

They shook hands, then went their separate ways, each determined to stop Seven before any more bodies were added to the count.

Nick jumped in his car and turned onto the mountain road, taking the turns slowly as he drove toward Willow’s Peak.

The wind kicked up, sending the trees swaying with its force, the cloudy skies threatening another storm. The tips of the ridges still sparkled with snow and ice that hadn’t melted, the mountain temperature not yet warm enough to thaw out the freeze at the top of the ridges. Tornado season loomed, threatening to wreak havoc and take lives.

His shoulders ached from fatigue—and from the tension of his self-enforced control. Damn Brenda for shaking that control.

He veered onto a narrow road called Goat Pen Lane, his mind still trying to make sense of the crime scene. Cows grazed in the pasture to the right, two horses roaming by the wooden fence.

His car bounced over the ruts in the graveled road, gears grinding as he shifted and climbed the incline. A sharp drop-off to the side forced him to hug the center of the road, tires spitting gravel as he chugged up to the top of the ridge.

A few lone stars glittered as Nick parked in front of the log cabin. A Ford Bronco sat near the house, which was lit up, as if someone was at home.

He climbed out and walked up the front steps to the porch. The moon hung low, fighting its way through the clouds, and a coyote howled from somewhere nearby. Nick’s hand automatically went to his gun, but he kept it in his jacket, pausing to listen for sounds inside the house.

The TV was blaring, so he pounded on the door with his fist. But no one answered. He tried it again, then stepped to the side of the door and peered through the window.

The den in the front of the house held a faded sofa and two mismatched chairs, but little else. From there, he saw a kitchen with an oak table and some scarred chairs. To the right, a staircase led upstairs.

He checked his watch. It was late. Maybe the man was in bed. But why leave all the lights and the television on?

He jiggled the door, and it swung open easily. Nerves knotted his shoulders, but he stepped inside. “Mr. James?”

The house was quiet except for the sound of the wind, whistling through a window somewhere in the house.

“Mr. James, are you here? My name is Special Agent Nick Blackwood.” He inched through the den, flipped the TV sound down with the remote, and checked the kitchen. The window above the sink was open, the view of the valley below highlighted by the moon’s glow. The kitchen looked clean, no dishes in the sink or on the counter.

He crept back to the front of the house, then climbed the staircase. “Mr. James, are you up here, sir?” He identified himself again, then paused, listening again, but nothing moved or stirred.

A quick look in the first bedroom to the left showed that it was clear. The bed was neatly made with a quilt. No clothing in sight.

He inched to the next room, then cursed.

A man’s body lay on the floor by the window. He glanced at the bathroom, but it appeared empty, so he walked over to the dead man. Blood pooled on the floor below his head.

He had been shot in the head at close range. A through-and-through.

A professional hit.

Not Seven’s MO.

Suspicions mounted. His father had hired a hit man to eliminate anyone associated with the Slaughter Creek experiments.

Both Logger and James had worked at Stark Security, and now both were dead.

Was that the reason they were killed? If so, what did the security company have to do with Seven?

Brenda checked her watch, hoping it wasn’t too late, but she stopped by Amelia’s anyway. The lights were on, so she rang the doorbell. The wind chimes tinkled in the breeze, the smell of honeysuckle and flowers drifting to her.

Spring had always been her favorite time of year. A time of regrowth and rebirth, of warm weather and barefoot days at the park.

Only she couldn’t erase the images of the dead body from her mind.

The door creaked open, and Amelia stared at her with wide eyes. “Brenda?”

“I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I wanted to talk to you again.”

“Sure, come in,” Amelia said. “It’s nice to have a friend. Everyone in town steers clear of me. They all think I’m crazy.”

Her gaze met Brenda’s, and the two of them laughed. “I guess I was…am,” Amelia said.

Brenda shook her head. “You’re doing great, Amelia. If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t have come.”

“Really?” Amelia pressed a hand over her paint smock as if embarrassed to be caught a mess. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her face void of makeup, paint splattered on her hands and clothes.