Little Belle Gone (29 page)

“She was a barrel rider, a rodeo star. Pretty damn good one, too, if this article is right.” Elizabeth rose and moved to the board.

She could barely stop her hands from shaking as she squeezed the dry erase marker so tightly that her fingers began to ache. She wrote as deliberately as she could. She wanted to scream, but the desperate need to show these poor girls respect kept her strong. She was part of their club, the only one left to seek their revenge, and she was now more determined than ever to fulfill the promise she made to them with every breath she took. After putting Phoenix’s information next to Danielle’s, refusing to use the nicknames he had ascribed to them, she returned to her desk. As she pulled her chair in, she caught sight of the clock in the corner of her monitor. Looking up at Matt as he slid into his chair and reached for the next folder, she cleared her throat, drawing his eyes to her. She could see the stress, the sadness, in the sapphire light of his eyes. He felt each blow as strongly as she, and her heart ached suddenly to hold him, wanting nothing more than an embrace. A warm touch, to reassure them both that they were still safe, still working toward victory, together. She couldn’t though, no matter how badly she wanted to. She had made it clear to her boss that things like that would never happen and it stung deeply to know what she had done. With Moreano no longer a suspect, she could look back on the exchange with clarity. She wished she had simply admitted their relationship and told him that they made a good team and that their involvement was none of his concern. She could have handled the rage, perhaps she would have even enjoyed it. If he had tried to split them up she could have gone over his head. After all, dating a co-worker was not strictly against the rules and Moreano’s possessive behavior was more than enough to give her leverage.

Smiling weakly, she said, “Can you give me a second. I need to call Mark and Aggie. They should be almost to the airstrip by now. I want to make sure they get on the jet safely, and soon.” Matt returned the fourth folder to his desk and nodded, an indulgent grin lightly curving his lips. He stood and went to the map, adding the third pin, then moved past her into the break room.
Oh, good, I could use some coffee
, she thought, as she picked up her cell phone and called Mark.

A few moments later, she was listening to Mark trying desperately to persuade her, and Matt, to join them in France. Apparently he and Aggie had known they were in love from the moment they had set foot in the library and had given the budding romance their full support. Just now, though, his voice was full of fear and concern. This morning, when she had told him about the killer and the approaching anniversary, she had not realized what the information might do to him. Listening to the terror that was clearly gripping his heart, she wished she had shown more restraint. “Uncle Mark, we can’t just fly away to France. We have to stop this guy, end this. ... No, I know that. ... I know there are lots of good detectives here, but this is
our
case.” Matt bent beside her, setting a steaming cup of fresh coffee along side her hand. She smiled wearily at him as she continued to try and abate Uncle Mark’s concerns. “Uncle Mark, we aren’t staying just so we can keep our jobs, we are staying because it’s the right thing to do. ... No, okay, we are not going. ... No, I’m not going to ask Matt how he feels about it.” She flashed him a look of frustration as she blew a wayward tendril of her rust colored hair away from her face. Matt’s consoling smile made her flush a bit. “Uncle Mark, I love you, but this is something I have to do. Get on the plane and call me as soon as you land. I’ll be fine. ... No, I won’t put Matt on the phone...no. Why do you
need
to talk to him?” Sighing loudly, she covered the receiver with her hand and whispered across at Matt, “He wants to talk to you, probably to get you to team up with him. He seems to think that this will all go away if we go to France with them.”

“I’d love to go to France with you.” His suggestive smile faded in the face of her frustrated glare and he cleared his throat. “All right, all right, as soon as this is over then?” He stood and stretched across his desk to hers, taking the receiver. Sitting back down, Elizabeth listened to his side of the conversation while she nursed her cup of coffee. After only a few seconds, a look of frustrated weariness spread across Matt’s face and she couldn’t keep a satisfied smile from spreading across hers.

“Mark, I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do. You know, even better than I, how stubborn she can be. … I understand, sir, I care about her, too, but there are just somethings that you can’t change.” She tensed a little at his admission, but as no one else had been close enough to hear it, she soon eased. Matt shook his head a little as he listened to what she could only assume was a well planned sales pitch. “Sir, I don’t know if you are aware, but I, that is to say my family, have no need for money. My parents are Regina and Benjamin Barrow. … That’s right. ...Oh do you? How nice. Perhaps when you get back from France we can all have lunch at the Club, but I must insistently agree with Elizabeth. You need to get on the plane, sir. … I swear on my life I will keep her safe.” Elizabeth blushed as he looked at her, love gleaming powerfully in his eyes. “Yes, sir, we will. ...Okay, have a good flight. … Bye.” Once he was finished, he handed the phone back to her and she hung it up. “That was awkward. He really loves you, you know that? Oh, and apparently, your Aunt and Uncle belong to the same Yacht club as my parents, so if, excuse me, when, this is done, we are all having lunch. That should be loads of fun.” He gave her a teasing smile as he lifted the fourth folder off his desk again.

“I thought you said your mother would like me?” She knew she shouldn’t speak of such things, not here, but she couldn’t help it. The sheepish grin that widened Matt’s handsome face made her heart kick.

“Oh, I’m not worried about her liking you, I’m worried about you being able to tolerate them. They are not nearly as...humble as Mark and Aggie.” Shaking the file in his hands lightly, he tore his gaze away from her. Elizabeth readied herself for the next search as he began to read. “Oh, this one is yours. I guess we should have expected that.” He laid the file open on his desk and lifted her complete, and unredacted, case file from earlier into his hands, adding it to the sparse folder before he closed it and moved to set it aside.

“Wait, I want to see that.” Elizabeth reached out to take the file, sure he would simply pass to her upon hearing her request, but he didn’t. Looking frustratedly across the desks, she frowned. “Matt, give me my file.”

“Liz, I think maybe Pannel was right. This...it has things in it that I don’t think you should see. They won’t help us solve this case and, frankly, I don’t think you should read them.” He was completely serious, which infuriated her. She stared at him, her mouth slightly a gape. “Don’t look at me like that. While you were downstairs earlier I read through it. It’s pretty gruesome. I’m not really sure what he was hoping to recover by taking it, but honestly, I didn’t see anything other than pain in its pages.”

Elizabeth’s frown deepened. She had accepted, even expected this sentiment from Pannel, after all, he still saw her as the child in the hospital bed, but from Matthew? “Are you afraid it will damage my sensibilities? Throw me into a spiral of depression and despair? That I’m not strong enough to handle the horrible truth? That my fragile mind will crack under its weight?” Her voice was growing dangerous as angry color flushed in her cheeks. She could feel the wild rage within her starting to bubble, leaking its way to the surface. Much to her dismay, Matt seemed to be enjoying it. The angrier she became the more entranced he seemed to be with her visage, growing more and more physically agitated with each passing second, as if she was attempting to seduce him with an erotic display. What seemed to bother her more was that his reaction was causing a similar affect on her.

“Not at all. Actually I was afraid of the exact opposite, Detective Cord.” His wickedly warm smile sent a ripple of heat through her hips.
Damn him
, she thought wistfully as her anger waned on its own. “I was concerned that reading this might send you into a rage. Frankly, I like seeing you stirred up, but I need a calm and cool headed partner right now to help me. Not an incensed warrior goddess ready to exact justice. How about we save that for when we find the guy?” She knew he was trying to protect her again. Her anger gone, she smiled meekly at him and held her hand out. She listened to the regretful sigh that racked his body as he handed the file over, his brow furrowing at the thought of her reading it.

Elizabeth watched over the edge of the file as Matt sought solace in his coffee cup. As she read the lines that had for so long been denied to her, she tried desperately to fight the raw horror growing in her belly. She had sworn that this very reaction was not going to happen and yet here she was, transforming into that helpless fourteen year old again, reliving, in graphic detail, her terror. She was about to close the file, admit that it was far harder for her to read than she had thought, when something scrawled in Pannel’s handwriting caught her attention. Given any other killer, it would have meant nothing, but the words ‘he was in too much of a hurry’ drummed on her brain. Their guy was never in a hurry. He was methodical and cruel, but never rushed. Looking for the line that correlated with the margin remark, she found what she was searching for in the evidence list, specifically the knife’s entry. Straightening in her chair, she looked over at Matt again. He hadn’t taken his sad eyes off of her and found the new excitement in them quite interesting.

“What? Did you find something?”

“Maybe. Was the murder weapon, the knife, recovered in any of the other scenes?” Her voice was shaking, just like her hands. It was probably nothing,
but then again...

“Let me check, but I can tell you right now that you’re going to have to look up the New Mexico case again. That one had nothing.” She pulled up the page she had left open on her computer and began looking through the article for the information she needed while he got files one and two back out. After a few seconds, he cleared his throat and said, “That’s a no to the murder weapon in cases one and two. He left nothing, just like ours. How about you?”

“Same here. The paper said there were no clues left at the scene, not even a weapon.” She chewed on her bottom lip as she stared blankly at the screen ahead of her.

“But at your scene he did leave it. Strange.” She had to smile a little. Matt was a brilliant detective, something she had almost forgotten. Nodding she passed him back the case file on her desk, pointing to the comment along the margin. “Oh, I didn’t get to this page. In a hurry? Our guy is never in a hurry. He doesn’t make mistakes. Not like this.” Elizabeth nodded again. “Okay, so maybe there
is
something here. Why would he have rushed your attack and not any of the others?” His eyes searched her for an answer she didn’t have. Sighing, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the cold steel of her desk, staring at the crease running down the center of her thigh.

“I don’t know, Matt.” She closed her eyes, trying to do what she swore she never would, go back to that day. She could hear Matt’s voice, distant and faint against the memory she was struggling to pull forward. The man at the door, he had said something to her parents. Something that terrified them, launched her father into a rage and her mother into horror. She had heard it, she must have. Elizabeth struggled to listen, desperate to know. There, buried in the pain and fear, she found her courage, and with it came a clarity. He had said that he was sorry, but that he couldn’t wait to collect his Belle any longer. He was being forced to flee and he needed her first.

Elizabeth’s eyes snapped open. “Matt, he had to run. He was in a hurry to get me because he had to run. I don’t know what from, but he jumped the gun on my attack. That’s why he was sloppy, that’s why he left the weapon behind.” She lifted her head to find him on the verge of panic. Apparently, he had been trying to talk to her for the last five minutes but she had been miles away, lost in her memories, searching for the truth. “I’m fine, I just needed to concentrate. Sorry if I scared you.” She moved her chair around the side of the desk again, unable to bare the look on his face for another second. Sliding up beside him, she placed her hand on his leg, just below the edge of his desk. It was a dangerous move, but he was worth the risk.

“So do you think maybe he was in some kind of trouble? Maybe with the police?” Matt’s voice was calming down, her touch seemed to be soothing him just as it soothed her.

“That’s all I can think. He doesn’t seem concerned with anything else.” She sat for a moment simply looking at the board. Then, she stood and moved toward it. Lifting the marker, she began adding her own details to the list. She could feel the heat of Matt’s gaze on her back, the sheer power of his eyes on her flesh was enough to make her flush again, but this was important. She belonged on this list, on this board. Belonged with these girls. In a twisted, horrible way, they were a family. They were her sisters. Finishing, she didn’t turn, but asked, “Can you go ahead and read number five? Let’s finish getting everyone up here before we change directions.”

The rustle of papers was followed by Matt’s deep, clear voice. “Victim number five is Patricia Alexander of Carthage, New York. She was fifteen. Killed in 2007. Hey wait, I remember this case, from the news. People were really excited because it was solved so fast.”

“Solved?!” Elizabeth spun on her heels to face him.
How can it be solved if he is still killing people?
Her mind raced. “Is it a match to our other cases? M.O.? Scene?” Matt was reading the file in his hands, his brows pinched in concentration as she stood over him, waiting impatiently.

“Perfect match. Though this time there were more victims. She wasn’t an only child. Two boys, four and eight were also killed. The phrase was ‘Ring around my Posey.’ I’m guessing you can imagine why.” His face contorted in disgust mixed with rage. She almost turned away from the look. She stood puzzling over the revelation. All the other victims had been only children. It had never occurred to Elizabeth that he would even hunt a girl with siblings. Her answer was now brutally apparent. “She was a poet, nationally recognized. The man accused of the crime was a sex offender who lived down the street. Apparently he had used nursery rhymes to lure his victims before, so that’s how they connected him to this case. The D.N.A. sample they collected from her was run against him, but since she was sexually active at the time, a non-match was discarded as a possible consensual partner outside the case.”