FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (30 page)

“Who knows? I guess after his wife took off, he just needed help with Seth, his son.”

Dean couldn’t help thinking back to their earlier conversation about the profile. He had to say, “So Randy was abandoned by his wife, and raised by a controlling mother. Do you think he was abused as a kid?”

Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to hotly reply. But not a sound came out. Not a single sound.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t considered it,” he said, knowing she was too good not to have. “He’s a trucker, on the road all the time, traveling all over the place.”

“I’ve considered it,” she admitted, grudging but honest. “But he’s a big, obnoxious teddy bear.”

“John Wayne Gacy volunteered as a clown.”

“Yeah, I know. But Randy? I’ve never heard an angry word come out of his mouth.”

Before she could say anything further, another car swung into the gravel lot, parking beside his. She cast a quick glance toward the newcomer, murmuring, “I invited Mitch to meet me out here. Told him he should keep practicing with his good arm while his broken one heals.”

He immediately remembered the guy who had burst into their meeting on Saturday. He’d had some kind of relationship with the victim, and his boss hadn’t known a thing about it.

“You sure his arm’s really broken?” he asked, immediately thinking of the video of Amber Torrington’s brutal murder. Just because the Reaper had shown no sign of a cast didn’t mean Mitch Flanagan could be ruled out. For all he knew, the cast could be a perfect ruse, a visible disguise as well as a reason to miss work.

“Of course it’s broken,” Stacey snapped.

He didn’t argue, knowing her well enough to know she’d get there on her own.

“According to witnesses, including my brother, he argued with Lisa in the bar the night she disappeared. I want to talk to him, but I need to handle it carefully. I don’t want anyone putting the cart before the horse. If people think I’m questioning him, or that he’s a suspect … well, given his family, they’ll have him tried and convicted.”

“Bad background?”

“His father’s a nightmare.”

“Abusive?” He could see her grit her teeth, but didn’t back off. “Stacey, come on; you said yourself it’s relevant.”

Though she shook her head in denial, she admitted, “Yeah. He was pretty rough on Mitch, and I suspect he’s still knocking his younger son, Mike, around.”

“Do you think Mitch or the brother could be our guy?”

“Mike is probably capable of just about anything rotten, but I don’t see a teenager being the Reaper.”

“Just because most serial killers are at least in their mid-twenties doesn’t mean it’s a necessity. What about your deputy? Do you suspect him?”

“Of stupidity. Of being a sucker and falling for the wrong woman. But murder?” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t picture it. But at this point I’m not ruling anything out.” She reached for the door handle and sighed. “So I guess I’d better make a note to check on his broken arm.”

A good-looking guy
in his late twenties, Mitch Flanagan had a lot going for him. Starting with being able to break free of his family’s no-good reputation and make something of himself, despite the odds against him.

Stacey had gone to school with him, though he’d been a few years behind her. But even as a senior, when she’d never spoken to him, she’d heard the snide comments and seen the condescending looks thrown his way. Girls were tempted by the bad-boy rumors, but warned away by their folks. Guys were threatened by his looks and smarts. He’d been a loner, keeping his head down, his nose clean, and his goal in sight.

Escape. That had been his goal. She’d known it then and she knew it now.

It had worked. He’d proved a whole lot of people wrong. He’d kept up his grades, never gotten into a day’s worth of trouble. And by his senior year, most people were almost able to forget his last name.

As far as she knew, he’d left his parents’ home the day after graduation and had never gone back. He’d pulled together enough money and academic scholarships to go to college and get a degree. And her father had hired him right afterward. Stacey had promoted him to chief deputy a year ago. She’d never regretted her choice. Now, though, she had to wonder.

Because she needed her people to be honest with her. And he hadn’t been.

“Hey, Mitch,” she said as he stepped out of his car, careful with his broken arm. His cast, which Dean suddenly had her questioning, was scrawled with a few signatures and some graffiti, probably from the other deputies, all of whom looked up to him.

He was liked. He was sociable. He was smart.

So why on earth had he gotten himself mixed up with Lisa Zimmerman and then covered it up?

“Hi, Stace.” He glanced toward the other side of the car, where Dean stood, watching in silence. “He’s back?”

She nodded as Dean walked over to join them. “I don’t think you officially met the other day,” she said, quickly introducing them.

Mitch flushed, then shook Dean’s hand, obviously embarrassed by his unprofessional behavior. “Is there news?”

“No.” Few people knew the FBI was investigating other murders in connection with Lisa’s. She intended to keep it that way. If her subordinates wondered why the FBI was involving itself in a local case, they’d just have to keep wondering.

“You still haven’t found her?”

She shook her head.

“But you’re certain she’s dead?”

Dean stepped in. “We’re certain.”

Seeing the dazed, empty look in Mitch’s eyes, Stacey reached out and put a bracing hand on his shoulder. “We need to talk about this.”

“I know.” He glanced at Dean, as if wondering if the other man had to stay, but Stacey wasn’t going to let Mitch off the hook just because he was her friend. The case was much too important for that. Realizing as much, Mitch shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“How long had you been seeing her?”

“About six months,” he admitted. “I pulled her over one night for speeding.”

Wonderful.

“She was upset. Crying. She looked a little banged-up. I thought maybe one of those rough guys she went out with had knocked her around.”

She knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“I found out later it was that bastard stepfather of hers. He …” Mitch’s face turned red, and obvious rage tightened his entire body. “I really considered killing him.”

“I didn’t hear you say that,” she muttered with a frown, even though she understood the sentiment.

Vilifying Stan wouldn’t help, however. They already knew he hadn’t murdered Lisa. Maybe her spirit, yes—he had probably killed that. But hell would have to deal with him. There was nothing she could do to the man now unless Winnie stepped forward to charge him with her own abuse.

“Tell me you’re investigating him for Lisa’s murder,” Mitch said, still tense.

“He’s been ruled out.”

He pounded his fist against the hood of his car. “You’re sure?”

“He’s got a solid alibi, Mitch. He might be a twisted degenerate, but he didn’t kill her.”

His shoulders slumped, as if he’d wanted Stan to be guilty. Like Stacey, he had to want justice for the man who’d abused Lisa all those years.

“Go back to what you were saying. What happened with you and Lisa?”

“We started getting together. Not around here—we’d go up to Front Royal and grab some coffee or catch a movie. She was talking about cleaning herself up, maybe trying for her GED. Doing something with herself. I wanted to help, so we’d meet once in a while and go over some stuff.”

The reformed bad kid tutoring the lost girl. There was something inherently sweet in that. If she’d known about it, she probably would have encouraged them both, even while urging Mitch not to get his hopes up too high.

She hadn’t known, however. Mitch had kept his secrets well. “You fell for her?”

He nodded, defiant. “She wasn’t what everyone thought she was. She was pretty and funny and smart.”

“And an addict,” Stacey said, not unkindly. “I suspect you were in over your head.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, but held on to his control. “One day she said she wanted to stop seeing me. She’d hooked up with some ex-con, started using heavily again. I couldn’t get her to quit.” He frowned. “I thought for a long time she’d skipped town with him, until you mentioned that he was in jail down in Georgia at the time.”

“Let’s talk about the night she disappeared.”

“I went out to Dick’s to pick up my brother.” He cast a quick, nervous glance between Stacey and Dean. “He’s not really a bad kid.”

“Yeah, he is,” Stacey snapped. Seeing the sadness in Mitch’s expression, she grudgingly added, “But maybe there’s a chance for him.”

“You gotta understand. I was the buffer when he was little.”

A physical buffer. He’d been the wall between their father’s fists and his younger brother.

Maybe that was what had drawn Mitch to Lisa. Had he felt some deep, intrinsic need to protect her from her own abusive situation, when he’d once been too young to protect himself and felt guilt over abandoning Mike?

“Once I left, I swore I’d never set foot in that house again.” His face reddening, he muttered, “Our mom’s not interested in anything that doesn’t come out of a bottle. Mike has nobody.”

Having nobody to stand up for him hadn’t kept Mitch from breaking free. But she didn’t point it out. The guy knew it already; he just didn’t want to give up on his troubled sibling.

She got that. Wow, did she ever get that.

“I’m trying to reach out to him,” he admitted. “Trying to get him to come stay with me once in a while. The old man’s going to a NASCAR race later this week. I had been planning on picking Mike up, bringing him to the station. Letting him spend some time with some of the decent people around here …” Mitch’s voice trailed off. “I guess that’s not a good idea now, though.”

With an active murder investigation? Definitely not.

“Let’s get back to that night, Mitch.”

“When I showed up at the bar, Mike was about to get his butt kicked. He doesn’t like being laughed at. My brother was trying to pick a fight with a bunch of hard-drinking bikers who got a kick out of a kid thinking he could intrude on their turf.”

The teen was lucky he hadn’t gotten pulverized.

“I was hauling him out when I saw Lisa.” He swallowed visibly and leaned back against his own car, as if his legs had weakened. “She was dancing on top of the pool table. Moving like … like she was, you know, wanting to have sex with any guy there. I asked her to leave and she just laughed at me. So I pulled her down.”

“Bet that didn’t make her happy.”

“No. She scratched me, kicked me. Told me to mind my own business.” His voice lowered, thickened. “Told me she was sick of being around somebody who didn’t know how to have any fun and to leave her the hell alone.” Closing his eyes, almost whispering now, he added, “It wasn’t until after I left that I realized she was crying when she said it.”

“But you did leave.”

He nodded miserably. “Yeah. I took Mike home, then drove around for a while to try to get my thoughts together.”

“By yourself?”

Another nod. Stacey hid a frown, wishing Mitch had gone somewhere with lots of witnesses who could give him an alibi.

Did she think he was the Reaper? No way. But she was standing beside an FBI agent who had to be mentally building a case against the guy with every word that came out of Mitch’s mouth.

“I didn’t want to give up on her, though, especially once I remembered those tears on her face. So I went back.”

Oh, hell
. “Back to Dick’s? What time?”

“I dunno, around closing.” He hunched forward, as if physically ill. “The place was crazy and packed. One of the waitresses said Lisa had just left, though she didn’t see who she was with. I probably didn’t miss her by more than minutes.”

More information nobody at Dick’s had bothered to volunteer. So much for doing one’s civic duty. She could only again surmise that Mitch’s position as her chief deputy had kept people’s lips glued shut.

“If I’d been there earlier maybe she wouldn’t have left with him.” He sounded on the verge of tears. “Maybe I could have stopped her from going with someone bad who wanted to hurt her.”

“Going with him?” Dean asked, his tone sharp. “How do you know she voluntarily left with someone?”

Mitch slowly straightened. “Well, I just figured it. That was the last time anybody saw her, and Freed’s car was there. She had to have left with someone. Obviously the wrong someone.”

He didn’t speculate that she’d been taken. Then again, Mitch didn’t know anything about the Reaper, or the fact that he forcibly kidnapped his victims.

For all his intelligence and his background, he was still, at heart, a pretty innocent guy. She hoped, for his sake, that he never learned the true details of Lisa’s murder. Because, having seen his eyes and heard his voice, she didn’t doubt one thing.

He had loved her.

The Reaper had
gotten direct, personalized requests for his special brand of services before. He’d been offered bribes, had been accosted right in the middle of his playtime, had fielded e-mails filled with promises and pleas.

He’d never accepted.

The thrill of what he did was in the control it gave him. Other than someone else deciding how he would do what he did, the rest was in his hands. And the how was incidental. Only the doing mattered. Only the blood. The anguish. The terror. The pain.

All that was in his control. As was the identity of his prey.

So when others had reached out, offering to pay him to kill a man, or a brunette, or a specific person someone wanted out of the way, he had always refused. He wouldn’t be manipulated or controlled. He would never sacrifice the pleasure he gained from killing his favored victims to please anyone else.

At least, he thought he wouldn’t. Now he wasn’t so sure. He’d never foreseen a situation like this one, where he might actually be forced to do so.

He’d had enough of being forced. Enough of being powerless. And the rage over Warren Lee trying to make him that way again had him ready to erupt in ferocious retribution.

He was a hand grenade with the pin pulled. Ready to land right in Lee’s lap.