Worth Dying For (A Slaughter Creek Novel) (3 page)

Not because she was vain.

Because it was a stark reminder of the fact that he’d screwed up, and she’d almost died because of it.

The chief introduced her to Dr. Bullock and Lieutenant Maddison. A second later, Rafe’s gaze locked with hers.

Unspoken tension crackled between them. Rafe had the insane urge to touch her. To drag her from the room and lock her up so no man could ever hurt her again.

But he could do none of those things. They were colleagues, for fuck’s sake.

So he cleared his throat and addressed the others. “Let’s get started. I’ve organized photos of the crime scene.” He flashed them on the screen, focusing his thoughts on the case instead of the woman who obviously still had the power to tie him up in knots.

This time the chief would be watching him every step of the way.

He couldn’t show a flicker of personal interest in Liz, or his ass would be toast.

“We have identified the victim as fifty-five-year-old Ester Banning. Her prints were in the system from a DUI when she was twenty-two. She’s from West Tennessee, and worked at a nursing home for years before disappearing a few months back.” He paused for a breath. “She has no family. The paper trail for her went cold about eight months ago. We’re currently tracking down her last known address.”

“So you don’t know where she’s been or what she’s been doing the last few months?” the chief asked.

“Not yet,” Rafe said. But he would find out. Knowing everything about her would help them determine why she’d become a victim.

Liz’s soft voice broke the silence. “What if the unsub abducted her months ago and has been holding her ever since?”

“A possibility,” Rafe said. “Before we speculate further, though, let’s hear from Dr. Bullock on COD.”

Dr. Bullock stood by the display of photos. “Cause of death was exsanguination. She hemorrhaged as a result of the amputations of both hands.” He gestured toward the close-up of the woman’s arms. “The right hand was discovered in the water, but the crime techs dragged the creek, and the left hand was never recovered.”

Liz waved her fingers. “Maybe he kept it as his trophy.”

Rafe contemplated her comment. “That’s also a possibility, although it could also have floated downstream and been scavenged by an animal.”

Liz scribbled a note in her notepad.

Dr. Bullock pointed to a photo of the victim on a slab in the morgue. “There are no indications of sexual assault, and I found no foreign DNA or trace evidence on the victim. Of course the water could have washed away fluids and trace, but I didn’t find bruising or physical evidence indicating intercourse. I did find something interesting, though.”

A collective quiet fell over the room in anticipation of his statement.

Dr. Bullock gestured toward the woman’s face in one of the photos. “Not only were this woman’s hands removed, but the killer also used them as a weapon against her.”

“What do you mean?” Maddison asked.

Dr. Bullock hit a button and enlarged the photo, giving them a detailed view of the woman’s left cheek. Red fingerprints marked her pale skin. “I mean, our unsub used her own hand to beat her.”

“He wanted her to suffer,” Liz said. “Either she’d hurt him, or she reminded him of someone who did. The most common theory with serial killers is that they suffered terrible childhood abuse at the hands of a loved one, often the mother. But the abuser could have been someone else. A family member, neighbor, teacher, priest. Even a coworker.” She paused, tapping her fingers on the table. “If this was his first kill, it could be very personal.” That the woman had been conscious when the unsub severed her hands underlined the depth of his perversion.

Dr. Bullock scratched his head. “The victim also had particularly dry skin in patches, as if she used some kind of strong chemical on her hands.”

“Like hospital soap?” Liz asked. “That would fit with her job at the nursing home.”

Dr. Bullock twisted his mouth in thought. “Possibly. Or she could have been an obsessive hand washer. It’s a form of OCD.”

“Ironic that she kept her hands clean, yet they were the part the killer chose to remove,” Liz commented. Rafe saw the wheels turning in her mind as she sorted through the information, silently analyzing the killer’s thought processes.

That was what she did, and she was good at it. Unfortunately, inside the killer’s mind was a treacherous place to live. The darkness could swallow her at times, pull her down.

Put her in danger.

Rafe folded his arms. “Agent Lucas and I will interview the people at the nursing home where the vic worked,” he said. “Dr. Bullock, let me know if you find anything else.” He angled his head toward Maddison.

“Same for you, Lieutenant Maddison. We need to nail this bastard before he hurts someone else.”

Since the CHIMES scandal had broken, Slaughter Creek Sanitarium had been cleaning house. Almost everyone at the place, from the janitors to the director, was new.

Which made it easier to hide among them and slip in and out as he pleased.

He had a mission to do here, and nothing would stop him. He could manipulate records, files, names . . . hell, anything he wanted. And the police would only find out what he wanted them to know.

Changing names and identities was a way of life for him. A matter of survival.

He slipped into the basement room where the experiments had taken place. The Commander had hidden his files in a secret space, and none of the investigators had found it.

But he remembered it.

He listened to make sure no one was coming, then crossed the dark room to the corner, removing the bricks and the folder inside.

He thumbed through the file, relief seizing him when he located the page he needed. He dropped it into the metal wastebasket, lit a match, and tossed it in as well. The page caught immediately, flames curling the edges and quickly turning the thin paper into black ashes.

He watched the glow flicker, a stream of smoke filling the metal container, then slowly die.

The page was dust. History.

And just like that, the information was erased. No one, including the Commander, understood the bond they had all formed.

That they would do anything to protect each other.

Chapter Three

N
ick’s heart pounded as he met with the warden at the maximum-security prison where his father had been incarcerated. For time’s sake, he and Jake had split up. Jake was interrogating their sister, Seven, in hopes she’d finally confess where the sixth subject was hiding out.

He could be their latest killer.

Nick’s job was to find out more about the prison escape, in case it threw light on the Commander’s plans.

“How the hell did this happen?” Nick asked.

The warden rubbed at his head, his face agitated. “We’re conducting an internal investigation now.”

“You think one of your own helped him?”

The warden sank into his chair with a muttered curse and turned to address Chet Roper, one of the head guards. “What do you think, Roper?”

“I don’t think so,” Roper said. “But who knows? Anything’s possible.”

“I want you personally to look into it,” the warden said. “Put out some feelers.”

“Yes, sir.” Roper left the office as if he was on a mission.

Nick studied the warden. “You trust him?”

“He’s one of our best,” the warden said. “Former military. As tough as they come.”

“Do you have any clue what happened?”

“Not yet. But I will. We had your father under surveillance every minute of every damn day. All his conversations were recorded. His visits, which were restricted to you, your brother, Brenda Banks, and other police who questioned him, were also taped.”

“What other police?” Nick asked.

The warden checked his records. “Two detectives tried to persuade him to give up the other victims of the experiment and his accomplice in overseeing the project. You can look at their notes yourself. They got nowhere.”

Nick nodded. He would have been notified if they had.

The warden drummed his fingers on the desk. “There were also two CIA agents. Each of them had clearance.”

He’d already spoken to them. A dead end. “What about a cell mate?”

The warden shook his head. “We kept him isolated. No cell mate. He even took his meals in his cell.”

Yet somehow his father had orchestrated an escape.

“What about my sister?” He hated calling her Seven instead of using her real name. But Seven was the name his father had given her, and the only one she’d ever known.

He would remedy that when he saw her. He’d tell her what his mother had called her.

“No contact at all.”

Nick frowned.

“That said,” the warden continued, “the inmates in here are intelligent, manipulative, and manage to get contraband no matter what measures we take. Hell, they can make a shank out of anything.”

Nick knew good and well how prison life worked. Gang wars, rape, beatings, weapons, phones, narcotics . . .

Some snuck drugs in through body cavities. Women filled balloons with dope and stuffed them in their bras. One sick fuck had even sewn a weapon inside a dead cat and left the cat by the exercise yard for a convicted child molester to find.

“I want the Commander’s mail sent to our TBI analyst. If someone’s using a code and we crack it, it might lead us to whoever helped him.”

The warden murmured agreement. “I’ll keep you abreast of our investigation. As of now, the entire prison is on twenty-four-hour lockdown.”

Nick shook his hand and thanked him, although he didn’t hold out much hope that they’d find his father’s accomplice. For all they knew, some psycho woman who’d sent him a marriage proposal had snuck him a weapon through another visitor. His father might literally be getting himself some ass while he and Jake were chasing their tails looking for him.

Liz forced herself not to react to Rafe as she climbed in the passenger side of his SUV to drive to the nursing home. But his scent invaded her nostrils, making her dizzy with memories and the need to be closer to him.

God help her. She could not do this again. Couldn’t allow herself to fall under his spell.

“You know I don’t want you working this case,” Rafe said, cutting into her thoughts.

So much for him feeling something for her.

No, he
did
feel something. Disdain.

Liz squared her shoulders. “I’m a good agent, Rafe. Just because—”

His brow shot up. “Because you and I messed up last time.”

Yes, they had. They’d jumped into bed when they should have been following a lead, and a woman had died because of it. “We won’t make the same mistake,” she said. “
I
won’t make the same mistake.”

His jaw tightened as he looked back at the road. “Neither will I.”

Her stomach fluttered at his gruff tone. She knew what he meant—that he wouldn’t sleep with her again. Rafe had never loved her, but he had climbed into her bed because it was convenient.

Not because he wanted a long-term relationship with her.

She had to remember that.

They lapsed into a strained silence as he wound around the mountain. Winter was setting in, the temperature freezing, a sea of dead leaves blanketing the ground. More fluttered down in the wind, the gray clouds adding a dismal cast to the sky.

The nursing home was on the same side of the mountain as the sanitarium, although the two facilities were run separately. The building was weathered and aged, paint peeling off the cinder-block walls. The flower beds were patchy, overrun with weeds, the windows needed cleaning, and the garden area to the left needed serious landscaping.

As Liz stared out the window, her mind turned to the case. She was still contemplating the fact that the woman’s second hand hadn’t been recovered. The killer could have performed the amputations to keep police from identifying her—or to get rid of trace evidence in case she’d fought him and had skin cells or DNA under her fingernails. That was the logical explanation.

But other possibilities entered Liz’s mind, ones far more gruesome. If the unsub had taken the hand as a trophy, it could be part of his signature.

Of course she needed more details to put together a profile. If the latter was true, they were dealing with a psychopath.

Which meant the man might have killed before.

And he would kill again.

Rafe parked in one of the guest spaces, next to an older Chrysler. A few other cars, probably belonging to the staff or visitors, were scattered around the lot.

They headed to the entrance in silence, their earlier conversation lingering in the air, creating more tension. Inside, Liz scanned the reception area. A few potted plants added a little color to the drab interior. The walls were painted white, but the paint had faded and yellowed, and cheap, outdated landscapes hung askew over threadbare plaid couches that needed to be tossed.

The receptionist sat behind a counter and window in front of them. The sounds of food carts, machines, and footsteps rumbled. A gray-haired man rolled his wheelchair toward a side door, an elderly woman walking beside him. She rested her hand on the man’s shoulder affectionately, and Liz’s heart swelled. They must have been married a long time. Now the man needed care that his wife couldn’t give him. How sad.

Still, they were lucky. Very few people found a love like that.

She had lost hope for it herself.

Rafe stepped up to the counter and smiled at the plump middle-aged woman with curly hair. He introduced them, and they both flashed credentials.

“What can we do for you?” the receptionist asked.

“Ma’am, we found the body of a woman named Ester Banning in Slaughter Creek. This nursing home was the last place listed on her work history.”

The receptionist’s eyes widened. “Ester is dead?” Her voice rose a notch.

“Yes. So you knew her?”

She nodded, a frown pulling at her brows.

“How long did she work here?” Rafe asked.

“A couple years, but”—she leaned closer—“the patients complained about her.”

Rafe narrowed his eyes. “What were the nature of the complaints?”

“Some patients said she was mean to them,” the receptionist continued. “But I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Did she ever actually hit anyone?” Rafe asked.

She chewed her bottom lip for a second, as if debating how much to reveal. “A couple of folks. Regina in Eleven A and Myra in Three B. But nothing was ever substantiated.”

Rafe made a low sound in his throat. “We’d like to talk to those patients, please.”

The receptionist fidgeted. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. We lost Regina last month.”

“What happened?” Liz asked.

“Heart failure.”

“Did the hospital perform an autopsy?”

She shook her head. “There wasn’t any need. She had an enlarged heart.”

“What about Myra?”

“I’m afraid she won’t be much help,” the receptionist said. “Poor woman had a stroke six months ago. She’s paralyzed on one side, hasn’t said a word since.”

“Was Ester still working here at the time?” Liz asked.

She nodded. “Yeah, but the director fired her afterward. Said too many people complaining would draw unwanted attention to the nursing home.”

Of course it would, Liz thought.

“What about these two ladies’ families?” Rafe asked.

“Well, Regina had a son. He was upset and threatened to sue the facility.”

“What happened?” Liz asked.

“His mama died, and he dropped the case.” The receptionist fidgeted again. “To tell you the truth, I think the hospital might have given him some kind of settlement.”

“What about Myra’s family?” Rafe asked.

“Her husband passed on two years ago. She has a daughter and son. They visit every now and then, but not regularly.”

Rafe removed his phone from the clip on his belt. “Get their contact information and addresses for me, please.”

“Sure. I’ll need to talk to our director though,” she said. “She’ll have to sign off on releasing the paperwork.”

Liz shifted as the receptionist phoned the director. Maybe this was as simple as a man wanting revenge against an abusive caretaker, not a serial killer.

She had a bad feeling, though, that her first instincts were right. Call it women’s intuition, gut instinct, or maybe just the fact that she’d worked too many cases and seen too much darkness.

An image of Ester Banning’s severed hands flashed in her mind, and worry gnawed at her. The cruel, calculating violence of the crime suggested the man was a psychopath. Which meant he had enjoyed the kill.

And he would do it again if they didn’t stop him.