Her Darkest Nightmare (10 page)

“We called in Kathy Olsen and Patrick Bolen. They managed without her, but they've been running all morning and can't keep up.”

“What about the new girl, Danielle Connelly? She's not here to help?”

“I guess not.”

A cold unease spread through Evelyn. “Have you tried calling to see where Lorraine is?” The question felt like an echo. She'd asked Lorraine the same thing about Danielle yesterday and had never learned what'd kept the girl from work.…

“The phones are still out. We can only call internally.”

That meant Lorraine could be snowed in. Or be sick and unable to let them know. But, storm or no storm, it seemed odd that Danielle hadn't shown up for two days in a row.

The concern on Amarok's face indicated he'd taken note of the fact that they had a couple of people missing. Evelyn guessed he was thinking what she was thinking: What if Hanover House had supplied the victim instead of the perpetrator?

The possibility that they'd lost Lorraine, or Danielle, particularly in such a horrible way, made Evelyn's heart race. Her first impulse was to track Danielle down, then drive to Anchorage to check on Lorraine. If the BMW wouldn't start, she'd get the sergeant or someone else to take her.

But what if she couldn't find one or both women? Absence didn't necessarily equate with death. They could've stayed over with someone last night like she did.…

The best way to figure out whether the victim was one of her employees wasn't to spend hours searching. Not when there was a far more efficient method available to her.

As repulsive as it sounded, she had to take a look at the severed head.

 

6

I actually think I may be possessed with demons, I was dropped on my head as a kid.

—DENNIS LYNN RADER, BTK KILLER

Dr. Evelyn Talbot had caught Amarok's eye—and his full attention—the moment she started coming to town. She was a beautiful woman. But she was also someone who wouldn't last long in a place like this. Other than her work, which kept her in constant danger and served as a perpetual reminder of the trauma she'd suffered, there wasn't anything in Hilltop to hold her. He'd always believed she'd stay, at most, five years before heading back to warmer climes.

Now that they'd had such a violent murder and she didn't have the usual army of police and detectives to rely on, he thought she might go back a lot sooner.

Noticing a light sheen of sweat on her upper lip, he adjusted the heat even though he wasn't sure there was any correlation. She was sweating because she was nervous. Her silence said as much.

“You okay?” he asked as he drove.

She continued to stare at the road ahead but nodded.

“You should take that off.” He gestured at the coat she had buttoned up to her neck.

“I'm fine.”

“I need to warn you about what you're going to see. It won't be easy.”

“I've seen dead people before.”

That was true. She'd seen her friends. Jasper had attacked and killed three other girls before dragging Evelyn off to an abandoned shack—not that Amarok knew exactly how that had all played out. They hadn't discussed it—he wasn't sure she could—and he'd been only nine years old when those murders occurred. He didn't remember what was reported at the time, and the articles he'd looked up once he learned a psychiatrist who'd once been a victim of a brutal assault was coming to town and bringing a bunch of psychopaths with her didn't include the level of detail he was searching for. Even the anchors who had hosted Evelyn on TV during her big push to build Hanover House provided only a short biographical summary.

He wanted to delve deeper. The more interested he became in her, the more he craved all the answers. But he didn't have them yet. The only thing he could say for sure was how deeply the past had affected her. He'd felt it come between them last summer—and then again last night. That meant her medical training and experience in corrections might not amount to shit when it came to this. Being confronted with a severed head, especially one that had been abused to such a degree, would disturb
anyone
.

“You're white as a sheet,” he said. “And we're not even there yet.” Not only that, she was sitting so rigidly it looked as if the slightest bump might cause her to shatter.

“I'll be okay.”

It sounded as if she was trying to convince herself, not him. But he had to trust her to handle what lay ahead. She could possibly identify the victim.

“Where is … where is what you found?” she asked as they arrived at the outskirts of town.

That she couldn't bring herself to be specific made him glance over again. “In the back of Shorty's SUV. He agreed to deliver it to the State Medical Examiner in Anchorage for me. But I radioed him. He's coming back to meet us.”

She tapped her fingers on the armrest attached to the door. “So we'll meet him somewhere?”

“At my trooper post.”

Silence.

“We'll just take a quick peek out in front.” He didn't want her to think they'd be carrying the body bag into the office. Peering into Shorty's SUV would be gruesome enough.

Again, she made no comment.

He lowered his visor to keep the sun from reflecting off the snow. The storm had moved on almost as quickly as it had hit, but the weather could worsen at any time, obliterating any evidence the killer might've left behind and making it impossible to find the rest of the victim—if they had any chance of doing that in the first place.

When they passed The Dinky Diner, Amarok's stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten. But he couldn't take the time to stop. “How well do you know the woman who runs the kitchen at Hanover House?”

“I let her stay with me for a couple of weeks in October when she and her husband were splitting up. She was”—her voice broke, but she gained control—“sort of like a second mother to me.”

“She's not the one you were thinking of staying with last night.…”

“Yes.” The word, when she uttered it, was barely audible.

“And Danielle?”

“I don't know her as well. She moved to Alaska a few months ago to pursue a relationship that began online, but … it didn't work out. I don't think she's planning on staying long-term. If only for the money, she'd leave right away.”

“You hired her knowing she was a short-timer?” He hoped a bit of small talk might put Evelyn at ease, but it seemed to have no effect.

“Her job didn't require much training. Lorraine talked the warden into it. She was like that, always took in strays.”

Edging to the far right of the road, he slowed to allow a car coming from the opposite direction to squeeze past. “Danielle's been missing since yesterday?”

“I don't know that she's
missing
. She didn't come to work. Lorraine was going to check on her. That's all I can tell you.”

“What does Danielle look like?”

“Long dark hair. Dark eyes. Young. Pretty.”

A girl fitting that description had been drinking at the Moosehead last weekend. He remembered because she'd hit on him several times. “And Lorraine?”

“Short hair, dyed a reddish brown.”

He bit back a curse. “Was she middle-aged?”

When Evelyn winced but nodded, he turned down the radio. “Listen.…”

The hollow misery in her eyes gave him a front row seat to her suffering. “What?”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Damn it, this … shit, this violent shit, was what he'd hoped to avoid when he'd tried to rally the citizens of Hilltop to fight the construction of a maximum-security prison so close to their homes and families. If not for the silver-tongued mayor, Amarok wouldn't have backed down. Then this never would've happened. He felt certain of it. Not here.

Evelyn wouldn't have come to town, either. But that was good, like he'd said last night. Then he wouldn't have started fantasizing about a woman who would only leave him, even if he managed to develop a relationship with her.

“It's not Danielle,” he said as gently as he could.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, but he supposed she was still holding out hope, because she didn't succumb to her grief until they reached his post.

When Shorty opened the hatch of his SUV and unzipped the plastic covering what rested inside, she whispered, “Lorraine.” She would've sunk to the ground if he hadn't caught her. But she didn't dissolve into a puddle of tears or get sick. She came up kicking and swinging—at the vehicle, the telephone pole beside it, the mounds of icy snow piled at the curb, anything within range.

When he grabbed hold of her to stop her before she could injure herself, she even tried to hit
him
.

*   *   *

“Where could the rest of her be?” Her knuckles were bleeding and her toes were aching, but Evelyn finally felt calm. She stared out at the snow-draped trading post–style buildings that lined Main Street, working to put what she'd seen behind her, while the sergeant drove her to her car. Thanks to the murder, he had a lot yet to do, so Jack Call, who owned a small repair shop one street over, was meeting them at Quigley's to be sure she could get her Beamer started.

Briefly, Amarok studied her before returning his gaze to the road. She guessed he was trying to reconcile the woman who'd wanted to make love to him last night with the crazy person who'd just lost control and wouldn't stop fighting until he hugged her so tightly she couldn't get her arms up or gain enough distance to land an effective kick. “I have no idea,” he said. “But I'm hoping that will change. Soon.”

So was she.

Seeking consolation in the mundane, Evelyn forced herself to take particular note of the progress the locals had made in getting back to normal life. Hilltop handled the many storms that rolled through so well, so quickly. According to dialogue that'd come through on the sergeant's radio, even the phone lines were back up.

But one thing wasn't the same and never would be.…

Evelyn flinched as the image of Lorraine's head, with all its contusions and bruising—and one missing eye—conjured in her mind. That sight would haunt her for the rest of her life, just like the equally gruesome memory of finding Marissa Donovan, and two more friends, covered in blood, stripped naked and erotically posed. After twenty years that vision hadn't faded one bit, and probably never would.

“Shock value,” she muttered.

Amarok unzipped his coat. “What'd you say?”

It hurt just to draw breath. She wasn't sure why. “That was what the killer was going for: shock value,” she said, louder, more certain. “What's worse than finding a dead body?”

He didn't answer, but she could tell he was listening.

“Finding a body part,” she filled in. “And what's worse than stumbling across an arm or a leg?”

“A head,” he replied. “I get it. And I'm sure it adds insult to injury to remove one or both eyes.”

“Exactly.”

“But there was no ‘stumbling across' this. The killer put her head on a broom handle and stuck it in the snow at the back door of the only bar in town.”

“Because he didn't think he could get away with doing it at the front.”

“And if you're right, if he was going for effect, it's a bit more sinister to do it in an alley.”

“Very Jack the Ripper–ish,” she agreed. “Which arouses a great deal of fear.”

When he rubbed his jaw, she guessed he was as tired as she was and felt guilty for keeping him up as long as she had last night. Hilltop, and Lorraine, needed him so badly today.

“You're very familiar with the type of person who would do this,” he said.

“I should be.” She'd been studying and interviewing killers, serial and otherwise, for over a decade. And that was in addition to her personal experience. Not only had she been victimized by a murderer, she'd also been in love with one, which gave her a much closer look at the behavior and the reality.

“You could be valuable to the investigation—if you stay.”

“If I
stay
?”

“Last night, you mentioned buying a ticket home.”

“I wasn't completely serious. I've still got a lot of work to do here.” Even if she were ready to give up, she wouldn't leave Hilltop without doing everything possible to make sure that whoever killed Lorraine was put behind bars. Maybe Jasper had gotten away with what he'd done to her and her friends. He'd gotten away with what he'd attempted last summer, too. But the individual who'd caused Lorraine's death would not go unpunished.

Amarok's tire chains clanked on patches of heavily salted pavement as he turned into the parking lot where her car sat beneath a foot or two of snow.

Jack was waiting for them in a tow truck with his “Call Me!” logo on the side. A plume of exhaust streamed out of his tailpipe as he let the engine idle. He looked busy with paperwork or maybe a call on the radio.

Evelyn wanted to let the sergeant get on with his work, but she had one more question. “What about Danielle?” she asked. “I can tell you realize what this could mean for her.”

When Jack looked up, Amarok waved to let him know they'd seen him. “I'm heading to her place right now to have a look around, make sure she's safe.”

“You won't find her.”

“How do you know?” he asked with a scowl.

She opened the door and got out. “I can feel it in my gut.”

 

7

Even psychopaths have emotions if you dig deep enough but then again, maybe they don't.

—RICHARD RAMIREZ, THE NIGHT STALKER

Jack got her car started by tightening a few cables and hoses, then giving her battery a jump while she watched from inside the convenience store. After that, Evelyn headed to HH. She was still wearing the clothes she'd had on yesterday and it was late afternoon, but she couldn't go home. She had to talk to Hugo, see if he had any knowledge of the murder or if what he'd said had simply been some bizarre coincidence. While she was there, she also needed to break the news of Lorraine's murder to everyone who knew her at the prison. Evelyn felt she should be the one, but it wasn't going to be easy. Everyone loved Lorraine, especially Glenn Whitcomb, the CO who tried so hard to look out for her. He'd never really had a mother—had been raised by his older sister since their father died when he was twelve—which was probably why he and Lorraine had become so close. Evelyn couldn't imagine how hard he was going to take her death.…