Vendetta (18 page)

“No.” Nikki brushed away the concern. “I'm probably just overreacting.”

“Get some rest then. We'll see you in the morning.”

“Fine. Give me two more hours.”

“Three,” Sam countered. “And this time, Nikki, you sleep in the guest room. Tyler—”

“This recliner's perfect for me.”

“You always were a bully,” she said to Sam, not trying to hide her relief.

“We'll all do better in the morning, Nikki, and you know it,” Tyler said.

“Six o'clock, and not a minute later.”

Nikki glanced at her watch. Something had woken her up. The faint smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the air. She searched her mind. Bridget had gone missing. They'd come to talk to Sam. And
he
'
d
called.

She shivered in the darkness, her eyes finally adjusting to the light, and wondered why the room felt so chilly. She didn't remember the room being so cold when she went to bed.

She looked toward the window. Lacy white curtains fluttered in the breeze. She scurried out from under the comforter into the icy room and checked the window. It was open. Her fingers gripped the sill. No wonder she was freezing. She reached for the thick robe lying across the end of the bed, wondering why she hadn't noticed the open window before. Irene must have aired out the house and forgotten to close it.

Nikki started to shut the window, then paused as movement outside caught her attention. A figure stood silhouetted at the end of the drive, staring at the house. The hairs on her arms stood up. She grabbed her service weapon she'd left on the
bedside table. She couldn't find her shoes in the dark, but if she didn't hurry, he'd be gone.

Tyler snored softly on the recliner in the living room. She knew he'd bark at her for going outside without any backup, but she didn't wake him.

She slipped through the front door and looked toward the end of the driveway.

Whoever she'd thought she'd seen standing there in the darkness was gone.

She tugged the robe tighter around her waist, then started slowly down the drive, careful to stay hidden in the deep shadows of the tree-lined drive. Her bare feet pressed against the sharp gravel in the driveway, but she ignored the discomfort. Surely she was letting her imagination run away with her. Just because she hadn't noticed the window was open when she'd gone to sleep didn't mean someone had opened it while she'd slept. Fatigue had a way of playing with one's mind.

She eased down the drive, shivering with the drop in temperature. The brief weather report she'd caught had predicted lower than normal temperatures over the next forty-eight hours due to a spring storm moving in across the mountains. She held her weapon in front of her, every one of her senses alert for signs of movement along the driveway and street. Just because he'd called her on the phone didn't mean he was nearby. But that window had been closed. She was sure of it. And he knew she'd been with Sam. Which meant he was here. Watching her. Waiting for her. Taunting her.

Something clattered ten feet ahead of her. A cat screeched, then ran out from behind a trash can on the curb, vanished a moment later into a hedge.

I'm
starting to lose it here, God. I need some direction
. A way to put an end to this . . .

Nikki shook her head, heart pounding, still trying to sweep
away the cobwebs that had formed from not enough sleep. She'd been running on empty both physically and emotionally. And she knew what happened when fatigue settled in.

You started seeing things that weren't there. Plots. Conspiracies . . . Maybe the figure had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination. She looked down the quiet road for any signs of movement. Streetlights cast yellow beams across perfectly manicured lawns. Porch lights reflected off cars in the neighbors' driveways. A dog barked in the distance. The wind rustled in the trees. But beyond that, the night was quiet.

She kept walking toward the road, fully awake now.

Where are you?

She was ready to put an end to the games. He'd had the upper hand for the last twenty-four hours. She needed to find a way to turn the tables. To put him on the defensive.

“Nikki?”

She spun around and pointed her weapon at the figure in front of her. “Tyler?” She dropped her gun to her side. “What in the world are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same question. Something woke me up, so I went to check on you. When I realized you weren't in your room—and noticed that the front door wasn't locked—it didn't take much detective work to deduce you'd gone out of the house. What I don't know is what you're doing out here by yourself.”

She took a step deeper into the shadows. “I . . . I thought he was here.”

“Where?”

“I don't know, but I woke up and the window in my room was open. When I looked outside, I thought I saw a man standing at the end of the driveway.”

“You probably just had a bad dream, Nikki—”

“No. He was standing right there”—she pointed to the end
of the driveway—“looking at the house. He wanted me to see him. Wants me to know that he's out here watching me.”

“If you're right—if he is here—that means he's playing with you again. And you shouldn't be going anywhere alone.”

Her phone beeped as a text message came in.

She unlocked her phone and read the message.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Catch a killer by his toe.

Any doubts that her imagination had been working overtime vanished.

“What does it say, Nikki?”

She handed him the phone so he could read it.

Tyler grabbed her arm and started toward the house. “I want you back inside. Now.”

Nikki followed him to the house. Once inside, he locked the door behind them.

“I'm going to send him a text,” she said, pressing reply on the message.

“And accomplish what?”

She hesitated. “I don't know.”

“You need to report this to the local authorities and your team. I don't want you handling this alone anymore.”

Nikki made the call, then sat down on the couch, her fingers tight around her heart necklace. What if she'd put Sam and his wife in danger by coming here? And Bridget . . . she was still out there somewhere. Scared. Alone . . . If she was still alive. Twenty-four hours had passed. She knew how he worked. He would toy with her, kill her, then vanish. Just like he'd done with the others.

“We're going to find her,” Tyler said, reading her mind.

She shook her head. “You can't promise me that, just like you can't promise me I'll ever find the answers to Sarah's abduction.”

“I know. I just . . .” He sat down on the couch beside her and took her hands. “I want to fix this for you so badly.”

“I know, but no one can fix this. Just like Katie, no one can bring back Sarah or those other girls. Even if we find him, there are still no guarantees we'll find Bridget alive. You were right. I don't know why, but he's been playing with us all along. It's as if killing the girls isn't enough. He wants to prove to me—to all of us—that he's better. That he's in control.”

She'd worked through the situation over and over in her head, but all she'd managed to realize was that once again, he was winning.

She stared at a dark spot on the floor. “I can't do this anymore, Tyler.”

“Can't do what?”

She hadn't consciously thought of quitting. Not yet. But now that she'd spoken the words out loud, it suddenly seemed like the right thing to do. Her mom and dad had cautioned her from the beginning about taking the position. Friends had warned her that she was too close emotionally. Even her pastor had questioned her decision. And they'd all been right. She was too emotionally close to the situation to be able to handle this kind of work. She'd thought she'd be able to separate the past from current cases, but so far all she'd managed to do over the past twenty-four hours was unravel.

She pulled her hands away from him. “I'm going to turn in my resignation.”

“What are you talking about? If you quit, you let him win, Nikki.”

“He's already won.”

Justice had never been served with Sarah and the others, and now, another girl was more than likely dead. And he was free to go out and do it all again.

“No. He hasn't won.” Tyler tipped up her chin with his
thumb, forcing her to look at him. “He only wins if you stop trying to save them. Which is why you can't quit. This isn't over.”

“You don't understand.” She wadded up the afghan between her fingers. “I've searched for him for ten years. Ten years, Tyler, and in the end, he's still free and there's nothing I can do about it. I can't bring Sarah back or the other girls. I can't erase the guilt. And when I think about what he might have done to her, I can hardly breathe. When I think about what he could be doing to Bridget right now . . .”

“You're wrong, Nikki. I do understand.”

Her breath caught in her throat. The living room clock ticked off the seconds in the background. Loss had marked both of them. Taken away pieces that could never be replaced. And pulled them into that place of darkness she fought every day to escape.

He dropped his hand into his lap. “Every morning when I wake up, a part of me begs God for a chance to redo the past. I would do anything to be able to have traded places with Katie. Because I should have been the one who died, not Katie. And now . . . now I have to face every day without her. I have to be both mommy and daddy to Liam, when I don't know how. And in losing her . . . her death was my fault.”

Nikki's eyes widened at the confession. “Your fault?”

The three of them had gone boating that day, Tyler, Katie, and Liam, on the forty-foot sailboat Tyler had inherited from his father. No one had expected only two of them to return alive.

“Katie had been feeling off that week,” he said. “She was so tired of being pregnant and bloated. I thought a day on the water would make her feel better.”

Nikki shook her head. “I still don't understand how anything that happened that day was your fault.”

“She hadn't told me she was having dizzy spells, but the water got rough that afternoon. I should never have taken her
out there. It was my job to protect her, and I wasn't there. I couldn't stop her from dying.”

Katie had slipped, hit her head, and fallen into the water. By the time Tyler managed to pull her out, she was gone.

He sat beside her, jaw tense, his gaze lost in the heartaches of the past. “I served in the Middle East for three tours and somehow managed to cheat death while good men died around me. They gave me a Purple Heart for being wounded in the line of duty to my country, and yet I let Katie and our baby die. And after all those arguments we had over my leaving the military . . . suddenly none of that mattered anymore.”

“You didn't let them die.” Nikki couldn't fight the emotions anymore. Her eyes burned with tears, but her heart hurt even worse.

It had been an accident. No one—not even the police—had blamed him after the initial investigation had been completed. It had simply been one of those freak accidents no one had control over.

Like Sarah.

Nikki pushed away the thought.

“Her death was an accident . . . Not your fault.”

“I know. Deep down I know that, but sometimes . . . I just can't stop thinking, if I could go back and change that day. If I'd been with her at that moment instead of below deck . . .”

But neither of them could go back and change the past. She looked up at him and caught the deep sadness in his gaze. Just like with her, he was going to carry this guilt with him the rest of his life if he didn't learn to let it go.

“Tell me how we can let go of the past.”

“I don't know.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her against him. “I don't know. But what I do know is that I've seen you with Bridget's brother and mom, and you have a source of empathy that most can only pretend to have. You've been there.
You understand, and they respond to you. And that matters. Because it matters to them.”

Nikki closed her eyes for a moment, still not convinced. “But it brings the loss of Sarah rushing back every time. I'm tired of living through those moments again and again. The moment we realized Sarah was gone. The panic and worry and frustration of not being able to find her. I thought helping others would help me let go, but if anything it makes her loss even more real.”

Like a knife reopening wounds that had never completely healed.

“Which is why no one—especially me—would fault you if you walked away from this,” he said. “But I truly believe if anyone can find this guy, it's going to be you.”

A light flipped on in the hallway. Nikki looked up as Sam walked into the living room.

“Morning,” he said with a yawn. “I was hoping you'd sleep in a bit more, Nikki. It's not even six yet.”

“I woke up a little while ago . . .” She hesitated, not wanting to say why or what she'd seen.

“He was out in the driveway,” Tyler said, speaking her fears out loud. “And he sent her a text. He's playing with her. With all of us.”

“This has to stop,” Sam said. “While you go back to town, I'm going to keep going through these files. See if I can find something we missed. Call in a few favors and see if I can find something that matches up to what's going on today.”