Ruthless (5 page)

Only those sweet little girls hadn’t escaped… they had been taken by an evil not a soul had seen coming.

She needed more coffee.

Groaning, Jess pushed her aching body off the floor. There was a time when her body wouldn’t have grumbled so at being abused this way. Evidently that time had passed. These days she felt every ache and pain of getting the job done. She cut herself some slack—she’d had almost no sleep in the past forty-eight hours. She and Lori had hefted old case file boxes until they were ready to drop. Mainly… she was just weary of running in circles to stop Spears, and now this case that had baffled BPD for three decades was active again.

No use whining. What she needed was coffee. At the counter she twirled the nifty display rack until she decided on a blend of coffee, then she popped it into her single-cup brewer. She stretched her back and shoulders and promptly changed her mind. What she really needed was a long, hot bath and then a serious massage. A hot, sweat-inspiring series of images flashed through her weary brain. Dan making love to her… showering together… more lovemaking.

Her achy body, along with her sluggish pulse, reacted instantly.

The way she felt tonight, they wouldn’t even have to take their clothes off. A good neck rub would work just fine for sending her over the moon—no pun intended.

That was the problem. Whenever she and Dan spent too much time alone—and she was weak, considering this insanity with Spears—they ended up breaking the rules of their working relationship. She was happy with where she’d landed careerwise. Dan had made her a good offer—one she hadn’t been able to refuse. But that made him her boss. For propriety’s sake rules were essential. Their personal relationship could not interfere with work. And until they worked out where exactly that relationship was going, flaunting it publicly was a huge no-no. The last thing either of them needed was for anyone in the department to latch on to the idea that she’d gotten the job because of their personal relationship or that she got any sort of preferential treatment
ever.

Case in point: his incessant need to protect her. She was a big girl. A deputy chief, for heaven’s sake. She could protect herself just like all his other deputy chiefs. Still, she was no fool. Eric Spears represented a serious threat. Just last week, she’d gotten a state-of-the-art security system installed along with nifty little motion sensors on the stairs leading up to her door. Add to that the top-of-the-line deadbolt and the Glock she kept under her pillow, and no one was getting near, much less into, her apartment without her knowing it and their regretting it.

God, how could her life be such a hot mess? Her lover was her boss. Her biggest nightmare was some malignant narcissistic freak who got off on torturing and murdering women,
and now she’d gotten another admirer pretty much just like Spears, only this one targeted helpless children.

And that didn’t even count the stone-cold reality that she was days late on her period—which was the reason she was having coffee instead of wine—or the scary-as-hell fact that her sister was suffering from some weird health issue the doctors couldn’t yet diagnose.

With all that going on, how in the world could she be standing here fantasizing about neck rubs from her boss/lover? Not to mention if she was pregnant—she cringed—that would mean Dan was a father.

“Oh God.” She rubbed at her skull with her fingers to relax the tense muscles there.

Everything was out of control.

The decadent smell of a gourmet dark blend called caramel drizzle helped put those unpleasant thoughts out of her head. The warm mug felt good in her hands. There wasn’t time right now to worry about personal problems. She had a very old, damned cold case to solve.

“If we’re lucky it’ll stay cold,” she grumbled.

Feet shuffling across the wood floor, she refused to consider the other option. If something had roused this killer’s evil urges, he could be planning to strike again.

“One month.” The thought made her stomach roil. Thirty or so days from now there would be a harvest moon. Finding him before that was imperative.

An alarm chime, set to go off when someone started up the stairs toward her apartment door, jarred Jess from the troubling thought and sent a spike of fear right through her chest. Heart pumping, she almost dropped her mug of coffee getting to the small monitor that showed the landing outside her door. No matter that a cop was watching
her apartment above a kindly old man’s garage and that she had the fancy new high-tech security system, the reality was Spears had walked right up to the car of one of her former Bureau colleagues and slit his throat.

She had a new motto where safety was concerned: always be smart and never underestimate pure evil.

Harper.

A couple of deep steadying breaths were required before she got her fingers working well enough to release the locks. The instant her door was open he visually sized her up as if he’d feared the worst, just because she couldn’t get the door open the first time he knocked. God, they were all on edge.

Pull it together.
Smile.
That she was barefoot and sported lounge pants and a baggy tee was no reason to feel embarrassed with Harper. “Sergeant. What brings you out at this hour?”

“May I come inside, ma’am?”

Anticipation had her pulse picking up speed again. “Is everything all right?” She backed up to allow him inside.

He waited until the door was closed and locked behind him. “I did what you asked.”

The air in her lungs felt abruptly too thick to exhale. “You sent the message?”

He nodded. “The response came maybe twenty minutes ago.”

Jess hated to ask this next question but it was essential. “Did you tell anyone else?”

He shook his head, regret on his face and in his posture. Jess understood she was asking a lot. Keeping this from Lori was difficult for him. For Jess, too. Detective Lori Wells had become a very close friend.

“What’d you tell her?” Lori was no fool. She would understand something was up with him coming over here at this hour.

“She went to see that new chick flick everyone’s talking about with her mom and sister. They missed the seven o’clock showing, since we were at the office late, so she won’t be home for a while. Today’s her mom’s birthday. They decided on a girls’ night out.”

Jess nodded. “I see.” She imagined Harper did as well. Her mom’s birthday or no, Lori obviously needed girl time with the two women closest to her, probably to discuss her relationship with the man closest to her.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the two were moving a little fast, in Jess’s opinion. Like she had any room to talk. Just last week she and Dan had confessed their love for each other. They’d both known it was there, but somehow it was different saying it out loud, face-to-face.

As life-altering as that moment had been, there was no place for the distraction just now. Spears had responded to the message she’d had Harper send.

Three more seconds elapsed before Jess had the nerve to hold out her hand for the phone. The hesitation made her all the more furious at herself, but she was flat out worried. No point kidding herself. She was damned worried about what Spears would do next… and about this other monster who’d latched onto her recent infamy.

More than anything else she was terrified for three young women who might very well have no idea that one of them was about to become the main character in a terrifying and lethal game.

Holding her breath, Jess tapped the necessary functions and read the two text messages.

Why waste your time with more games, Eric? Let’s do this.

Since Jess had been stuck with Dan and Black until she’d come home two hours ago, she’d asked Harper to send the text to the only contact number she had for Spears. Her detective hadn’t liked it one bit, but he’d known she would find a way to do it herself if he refused her request.

Truth was, Harper had his own reasons for wanting the Player. Spears’s protégé, Matthew Reed, had almost killed Lori. Harper had a big stake in this game, too.

Braced for another disturbing layer to this nightmare, she read the response from Spears:

Your impatience intrigues me, but this game is for you, Jess. Hold on, it’s going to be a thrilling ride!

“Son of a bitch.” Jess struggled not to lose it in front of Harper. If she’d ever wanted to kill another human being in cold blood she had no recall of the time. She wanted to kill Spears. She wanted to watch him die, a slow merciless death by her hand.

“What now?” Harper’s voice was strained with a fury he visibly struggled to conquer.

Anything she did carried some amount of risk. But she had to do something. “I can taunt him with this new interest from the Man in the Moon in hopes he’ll get jealous and make a move to take me out of this other perp’s reach.”

That fury flattening his lips now, Harper shook his head. “This is wrong, ma’am. You’re taking too big a risk.”

“What should I do then, Sergeant? Tell me.” She almost sloshed coffee before she remembered the mug in
her hand. The anxiety crushing her rib cage prohibited an adequate breath. “How do I get his attention? Divert his path? Because if I don’t figure out a way to intercept his plan one of those women”—she pointed to the duplicate case board she’d created on her apartment wall—“is going to pay for my lack of ingenuity.”

Harper took the coffee from her and carried it to the sink. Jess tore off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She fought for the calm that had totally evaded her since the arrival of that damned package containing the photos.

As if he understood she needed a moment to pull it together, Harper steered her to the sofa and ushered her down. He sat beside her and waited a minute or two before he spoke. “So what do we do?”

Jess stared at the prepaid phone in her hand and struggled to find the right words. Slowly she tapped the impotent letters into the text box. “How about this?”

I’m a little busy with a new case. You aren’t the only admirer of my work.

Harper read the warning. “What if instead of coming after you, he just speeds up the game he’s already set in motion?”

Pointing out the rest wasn’t necessary. Jess glanced back at the photos on her wall. Three beautiful young women who had done nothing to deserve this. God knew this sort of push-the-killer strategy she was contemplating had backfired on her before.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” She deleted the words. “You’re right. You can’t second-guess a psychopath. You’ll lose every time.” She typed in a new message and then hit Send. “Okay.” She handed the phone back to Harper. “You can dispose of that. I won’t need it anymore.”

Harper read the message she’d sent. Simple and to the point:

I can’t wait to watch you die, Eric. See you soon.

“Ma’am, I really am concerned about how this is going to end. What if we can’t protect you? Or anyone else in his path?”

Jess mustered up a smile for him. “I’m going to end this, Sergeant. The only variable is whether or not I can get the job done before he kills again.” If she accomplished nothing else before she took her last breath, she would get this done. She understood part of Harper’s fear was for Lori. Being Jess’s friend could be hazardous.

According to Agent Gant, her former boss at the Bureau and the man in charge of the Spears investigation, there was evidence the Player had slipped back into the country. He could be anywhere… right outside watching the cop who was watching her, for that matter.

Dear God, what if she was pregnant? That was another life she needed to protect.

Don’t borrow trouble, Jess.

Harper gestured to the stacks of files on the floor. “How you coming with this one?”

Jess took her place on the floor once more and picked up the file she’d reviewed last. “The idea that this perp was able to get his hands on each child without obvious breaking and entering, without confrontation, and without anyone seeing him makes me believe he’s a familiar.”

Harper joined her on the floor. Jess resisted the urge to grin at how totally uncomfortable he looked sitting there in that suit with one leg curled under him and the other bent for an arm prop. “None of the families are connected—at least not in any way that was discovered in
previous investigations. Different neighborhoods, schools, churches. Nothing in common at all was found.”

“The investigative work was relatively thorough.” She couldn’t deny Black and his predecessor had done a pretty damned good job. “But there will be something, Sergeant. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Like the girls, Andrea and the others, who were abducted by the Murphys?”

That was the case that had brought Jess back to Alabama—back to Dan. “Yes, exactly like that. This unknown perp saw these children somewhere. Watched them. Maybe even interacted with them. Typically, a hunter has a preferred territory—a comfort zone. The Man in the Moon will have had a place he felt confident doing his hunting. That’s the connection. All we have to do is find it.”

“Before September nineteenth,” he suggested.

“Preferably.” If his past record was any indication, once he’d taken the child there was little hope of stopping him or saving the child. Then again, they had only one set of remains. There was no way to be certain what had become of the other children. So far the remains, presumed to be Dorie Myers, had told them nothing as to manner of death. However the little girl died, she hadn’t suffered any broken bones. Still, there was a whole array of other ways to die that included tremendous suffering.