Scream for Me (40 page)

Well, she had two more men left to go.

“He hurt Lily.” Susannah pushed the gun against Heather’s temple. Shoved it hard. “I should have stopped him. Why didn’t anyone stop him?”

Dani shoved Aaron away from her. She was so afraid Susannah was about to pull the trigger.

“Why didn’t I?” A desperate whisper. “After what he did to me,
why didn’t I
?”

The tension was so thick that Dani could feel it pressing down on her.

“Susannah!” Aaron suddenly shouted. “Tell them I was with you last night!”

What. The. Hell. The man was an idiot. He had eyes in his head. The guy had to see what was happening.

Susannah blinked. She seemed to weave on her feet.

Footsteps pounded behind Dani. She looked back. Saw both Captain Anniston and James Marsh rushing down the narrow hallway.

Dani’s gaze flew back to Susannah. The woman had taken the gun away from Heather’s head. Now she was pointing it at—

Me
.

“No,” Dani said. Because she knew what was going to happen. With the gun pointed at her, with Susannah’s trembling fingers tightening around that trigger—

“Drop it!” Ben yelled.

But Susannah didn’t drop the weapon. Tears leaked down her cheeks.

“Don’t!” Dani begged her. “You don’t want to do this.”

A blast shook the station.

Susannah’s body jerked.

She smiled as she fell. As her blood spattered.

“No!” James Anniston ran toward her. His shoulder bumped into Dani, jostling her.

James and Ben surrounded the fallen woman. “I had to take the shot.” Ben’s voice was tight. “She was going to shoot.”

The people who’d been frozen before all sprang forward. A thick circle formed around Ben and James.

“Get an ambulance!” James shouted.

Someone was already calling for the EMTs.

They weren’t going to be able to help.

“Are you okay?” Aaron said, his voice shaken.

She looked down and realized Susannah
had
been firing. She’d fired even as Ben took his shot. The thundering sound had been so loud because—
two bullets
.

Blood dripped down her arm. “The bullet just grazed me.”

She turned, glancing back to see where the bullet had gone.

Jason Marsh was on the ground. Blood pooled beneath him.

Oh, hell,
no
. “Man down!” Dani shouted and hurried toward him.

His eyes were wide, shocked. Blood leaked from his lips and from the hole in his chest.

Susannah was smiling when she died
.

Because she’d taken out the man who’d turned her into a monster?

Dani put her hands over Jason’s wounds. Others were coming to offer help but his blood was soaking her. Pouring out far too fast. If the bleeding didn’t stop soon, he’d be dead.

Cadence, I need you
. Cadence would know what to do. She always knew.

Jason’s hand rose. Locked around her arm. She glanced at his face.

“Help’s coming.” She tried to reassure him, even if he was a killer, she tried. “We’ll get you sewn up.”

The bullet was still in him. It had torn its way through his organs. Where had Susannah even gotten that weapon?

Jason shook his head. “Not…”

“You’ll live!”
Lie, lie
. “Just hold on!”

She heard the screech of sirens then. When cops called for an ambulance, the ambulance
rushed
to the station.

Her knees were soaked in his blood. It covered her jeans. Every space of skin on her hands.

“Susannah.” His voice was a rasp. “She…okay…?”

Not based on the sounds Dani heard.

Then the EMTs were there. Pushing her back. Loading him on a stretcher.

Susannah had been loaded up, too. They were put in the same ambulance.

“Fuck, you’re hurt.” Ben grabbed her arm.

She pulled away from him. Stared after those swirling lights.

“Dani!” Cadence was finally there, running toward them with shocked eyes.

“What the hell happened?” Kyle demanded as he rushed behind her.

“Justice.” This came from James Anniston. He didn’t sound satisfied. Just tired. “Susannah said she was here for the man who’d hurt her. Dammit, she was a victim, too?”

One who had been there, all along.

Her arm throbbed. The lights from the ambulance were vanishing.

“She shot him. She took out Marsh. My own detective.” The words were a whisper from Anniston. “My detective…”

Cadence caught Dani’s arm. “You’re going to need stitches.”

Ben was still staring at Dani. “It looked like she was shooting you.”

Yes, it had.

“I had to take the shot.” She’d never heard Ben sound so shaken. Wait…

Yes, she had. Back when she’d been in the hospital, fighting to stay alive.

“Is Susannah gonna make it?” Kyle demanded.

Ben shook his head.

Anniston swore and stormed back into the station.

They were left there, with the scent of blood and death all around them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“I don’t understand.” Anniston’s shoulders were hunched forward. “She was one of the women he took? But she was here in town, all those years…”

The police station was a crime scene. The people inside were stunned.

Susannah Jane had died en route to the hospital. Jason Marsh had survived until he got onto the operating room table.

Then died five minutes later.

“He kept her for so long that he brainwashed her.” It wasn’t the first time a victim had turned killer.

Anniston’s head lifted.

Kyle sat in the chair near hers, but he wasn’t speaking.

“A victim can be held for so long.” She hated what could be done to a damaged psyche. “It’s a form of Stockholm syndrome. You bond with the captor. The victim has to have that bond in order to survive. The bond can go so far that in order to function, the victim has to identify with her attacker. She has to become like him. Think like him. Act like him.”

Kill
like him?

Anniston swore. “But she was free, walking around town. She could have come to
me
. I would have helped her!”

Susannah Jane’s freedom had been superficial. She might have been walking around the town, but the perp had still held her captive. He’d controlled her completely through fear. “Just because she wasn’t still being held in the cave,” Cadence said quietly, “it doesn’t mean she wasn’t still a prisoner. Her abductor no doubt kept close tabs on her. He would have
controlled
her, every aspect of her life.”

Anniston shook his head. “I was here. Right damn here for her!”

Kyle’s hands had fisted. “You were here, but Jason was here, too. Jason was in the station. He worked for you. If she’d gone to you for help, Jason would have found out.” Kyle shook his head. “That wasn’t an option.”

“Neither was turning on him,” Cadence said. “She feared him far too much.” Until he’d taken her friend. Until she’d seen it was possible to escape from him.

She’d tried to fight back, but it was too late.

“We’re gonna search his place,” Anniston said. The lines on his face were so much heavier now. The case—
cases
—had taken a heavy toll on him. “Do you think we’ll find more evidence there?”

Yes.

Cadence glanced toward Kyle.

“Is it over now?” Anniston asked.

They hadn’t closed the case, wouldn’t, until they’d tied up the loose ends. But Jason fit as the killer.

A nice, neat bow
.

They still had to go through the videos. Had to ID the remains.

They’d search Susannah’s small home on the outskirts of town. They’d tear apart Jason’s place.

There was still a lot more work to be done. The case wasn’t over, not yet.

Cadence prayed the deaths were, though. “We won’t be leaving town just yet.”

Anniston nodded. “If there’s anything I can do, tell me.”

The reporters were already outside, ready for a feeding frenzy. A serial abductor—and killer—who’d turned out to be a cop. This story wouldn’t go away any time soon.

No matter how much the town might wish it would.

“Identify with the killer.” Anniston couldn’t seem to get past that. “I can’t believe it’s just—”

“There are plenty of theories out there,” Cadence told him as she ignored the throbbing in her temples. “Things like learned helplessness.”

He frowned at her. “Learned what?”

“Helplessness. It’s why battered wives don’t leave their husbands. After so much abuse, you learn to adapt your behavior in order to survive.”

Was that what had happened to Susannah? An adaption? One that came back to haunt her.

They’d never know for sure, not now.

“We’re heading out to Susannah’s place,” Kyle said as he rose. “We’ll keep you updated on what we find.”

Anniston stood, too. “Son, I’m sorry we never brought your sister home.”

“Maybe we did.” He gave a slow nod. “The ME is working to ID those remains. Maybe Maria will get her funeral. Maybe I can take her home.”

Cadence wanted to reach out to Kyle. So she did.

So what if Anniston was there to watch? She took Kyle’s hand in hers. Curled her fingers with his.

Together, they walked to the door.

“Thank you,” Anniston said. There’d been no anger from him. No demands of an apology after he’d been suspected as the killer.

The guy seemed to know just how the cases worked.

Cadence glanced back at him. Anniston was watching them with a steady stare.

“I just wish I could’ve done more to help you.” Anniston spoke again, voice solemn. “Something more. Anything.”

They left his office. The cops in the station looked shell-shocked. Heather was swiping away tears on her cheeks. “You never suspect your own,” she whispered as they passed by her desk.

Cadence hesitated near her.

“I should have seen.” Heather swallowed. “We were so close, and I never knew what he was.” Another swipe of her hand over her cheek. “I feel so stupid.”

“You shouldn’t.” Killers were good at deception. The man had spent plenty of time perfecting his craft. Fifteen years.

“Captain Anniston said for me to go home,” Heather told them. “What will I do there? Or here?” Her gaze locked where Jason had fallen. “Maybe I should go home.”

She turned away from them.

“We need to get over to Susannah’s place,” Kyle said quietly, “before some reporters hungry for an exclusive bust inside and ruin any evidence.”

Cadence could hear the reporters outside the station. They’d pretty much staked out camp there. The story was too juicy to ignore. Especially when a cop was tagged as a serial killer.

They pushed open the station’s doors. The questions flew at them.

“Is it true one of the victims
helped
the killer commit his crimes?”

Not just one of the victims. Two had.

“Detective McKenzie, have you found your sister?”

Kyle didn’t even slow down. He figured someone had leaked that tidbit to the press.

“Was Detective Marsh the killer?”

The SUV’s doors slammed closed. Kyle pulled away from the station.

Silence.

Cadence stared down at her hands. She wished she had been at the station when Susannah arrived.

Could she have saved her?

Maybe.

Or maybe Susannah had just been ready for death.

Maybe she’d been ready since she woke up, locked in a tomb deep within the ground.

“It consumed me,” Kyle said.

At his rumbling words, Cadence glanced over at him. His words had seemed hesitant, when he was never the sort for hesitancy.

“Finding her was all I had. It kept me going for years. The thought I’d bring her home.”

He drove easily through the twisting roads, following the GPS instructions as they filled the interior of the SUV.

“Then I met you.”

He never took his gaze off the road.

“Something else started to consume me.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Kyle.”

“I don’t know how you feel about me. But I wanted you to know. Cadence, sometimes I feel like I’m not even fucking alive if
you’re not near me.” His hands had tightened around the wheel. “Love is supposed to be easy, isn’t it? Kind and good. The way I feel about you…it’s dark. Sometimes, I worry it’s closer to obsession.”

They were leaving the small town. Heading for the outskirts. Heading to Susannah’s home.

“If you want to get the fuck away from me, hell, maybe it would be for the best.” He shook his head. “But I’m not even sure I could let you go. I feel like I’d spend the rest of my life—”

He broke off, but she knew what he’d been going to say.

Looking for you
.

“I’m not going anywhere, Kyle.”

Her hand touched his.

He slanted her a fast glance.

“I’m right where I want to be,” she told him.
Beside the man I want to be with
.

“I’m going to let go of the past, Cadence,” he promised her. “I know it’s time. I want a present. I want a life, with you.”

That was what she wanted, too. Hope beat inside of her, warming her when she’d felt cold for so long. Kyle had always been the one to push them forward, to keep hoping for the victims. Cadence had been afraid to hope. She’d seen too much death. Been forced to tell too many grieving families that their loved ones would never come back.

But Kyle had taught her to see past the darkness. No, he’d taught her that even
in
that darkness, hope still lived.

“We’ll tie up the loose ends. Then we’ll put this town, this whole place, behind us.”

A new start. Together.

Cadence nodded. Her breath seemed to ease, and the shadows of the past that had weighed her down for so long suddenly didn’t seem quite as heavy.

They didn’t speak again during the drive.