Her Dying Breath (25 page)

She faked a yawn and closed her eyes in an effort to shut them out. Thankfully her mother got the hint and bent over to plant a kiss on her forehead. “All right, sugar. But we really want you to come home with us.”

“Mom,” Brenda said with an edge to her voice. “Please, let it go.”

“Brenda—”

“Dad, I mean it.” Brenda twisted the sheets between her fingers. “I can take care of myself.”

He continued to rub his head in a nervous gesture, his eyes unusually concerned, his jaw strained. He had always looked so calm when she was young.

Now, he looked old and…worried, as if something deeper was troubling him. The town expressed its shock over the Slaughter Creek project, and he was probably exhausted from the gossip and anxiety in the community.

Then again, maybe there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“Dad,” she said as she looked into his eyes. “What’s wrong? Do you know something about Arthur Blackwood or the research project that you haven’t shared?”

“Of course not.” A spark of anger dashed across his face, then he blew out a breath and took her mother’s elbow. “Let’s go, Agnes. Brenda needs her rest.”

Brenda reached for his arm. “Dad?”

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Be careful, sweetheart. You’re playing a dangerous game, working with Arthur Blackwood’s son.”

Before she could reply, he ushered her mother into the hallway.

Brenda studied the closed door. Had she misread her father, or had his warning sounded almost like a…threat?

No, that was crazy…

Her father wouldn’t threaten her. He loved her. He was simply worried about her and wanted her off the investigation.

Because almost everyone who’d known about the research project had been murdered.

And now Seven, a serial killer, was making contact with her as if they were friends.

Nick wanted to go back to the hospital and see Brenda, but that might give her the wrong idea, that he cared more than he should.

Dammit, he did care more than he should, but he refused to let her know that.

“Call me if they turn up anything,” Nick said. “I’m going to visit that rehab facility and see what I can find out.”

Jake glanced at his watch. “Tonight?”

Nick swatted at a fly. “You’re right. I’ll go first thing in the morning. Surely by then, our ME will have an ID on Seven’s second victim.”

“And on this poor woman,” Jake said as the CSI team photographed the charred body.

Nick wasn’t quite as sympathetic. “I hate to say it, but if she had something to do with whoever was shackled and kept here, she probably got what she deserved.”

The scent of smoke, ash, and burned flesh floated to him in the wind. “Look, Jake, I’ll wait here. You have a wife and daughter. Go home to them.”

Jake’s gaze met his. “Times like these, I’m glad I have a family.”

Nick was more the glass-half-empty type. “And I’m glad I don’t. No one to answer to if I don’t come home.” And no one to worry about getting hurt or losing.

Brenda’s face flashed in his mind, and relief that she was okay surged through him.

Fuck. He had to keep his distance from her. She was getting under his skin in a way that he’d never allowed anyone to.

“Thanks, I think I’ll take you up on that.” Jake shook his hand, then strode back to his squad car.

Nick walked past the debris from the fire to the wooden structure housing the stalls, frowning as one of the techs lifted prints from the chains. A female tech sprayed luminol on the chains, and traces of blood glittered in the darkness.

“Mercy,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Whoever was chained obviously cut themselves trying to escape.” She used a pair of tweezers to pluck at something caught in the metal. She scraped a sample and held it up to the light. “These look like epithelial cells.”

“Let me know when you get DNA,” Nick said.

She nodded, then wiped at her brow with the back of her hand. “There’s more blood on the wall of the stall. A significant enough amount to indicate that someone was seriously hurt.”

Nick examined the section she was referring to. She’d already sprayed the luminol, and she was right—blood spatter covered half the wall.

Nick moved to the next stall, disgusted at the sight of blood on that stall as well.

Who the hell had been kept here? And where were they now?

Various scenarios pelted him, all disturbing.

The perp could have set the fire, then moved the hostages to another facility. If so, why leave the woman to be burned? To keep them from identifying her?

Was she a victim or the psychopath who’d held others captive?

Another possibility—the victim or victims had escaped, chained the woman to the pipe, then set the fire and run because she was the monster who’d tortured them.

Or the psychopath had murdered the victims and buried them somewhere nearby, then killed the woman and left her in the fire to take the fall.

Grimacing, he gripped his flashlight and went to search the property for signs of a grave.

Seven scrubbed her arms and hands with the sterile soap to wash away the blood. She’d read somewhere that cutters felt relief when they watched the blood flow from their wrists.

But nothing gave her relief.

Except watching the men die.

She searched the news for Brenda’s reporting on the story and finally found a short clip.

Damn her to hell. She spent only a few minutes at Blindman’s Curve, and didn’t even describe how they’d found the man.

A fiery rage grew inside her.

Why wasn’t Brenda showing photographs of the bodies? She hadn’t mentioned that Jim Logger had been tied up and repeatedly strangled, either.

Or that her latest conquest had been dumped in the woods like a piece of trash.

Fucking assholes. They deserved everything they’d endured and worse. Did the police think withholding details from the public would enable them to find her quicker?

A bitter laugh escaped her. She wasn’t an idiot.

No, the Commander had trained her well.

Did they allow him to read the paper in prison? Had he watched the news report and recognized her skills?

She placed the skin she’d taken in her treasure trove and slipped it inside the wall of the cabin, where she’d carved a nook to hide it.

The cops were probably anxious for a suspect.

She’d give them one soon.

But first…first she had to hunt again. She licked her lips, tasting the sweet scent of the man’s fear as he took his last breath.

Yes, it was time for another man to die.

T
he next morning Nick grabbed a cup of coffee at the drive-in doughnut shop on his way to Angel Mount Rehab.

He hadn’t slept for thinking about Brenda and her so-called accident.

Irritable from lack of sleep, he punched the hospital number to check on her as he wound around the hills. Angel Mount sat on the other side of the mountain. The town had been named after a folk legend about an angel who could be seen in the fog over the ridges on a cold winter’s day. Legend claimed that years ago her car had flown over the edge of the overlook, and that you could still hear her screams from the ridge at midnight.

Others said that she rose in the midst at dawn, whispering a song about the life ever after—that any time someone died in the valley, you could see her angel wings as she helped guide deserving souls to heaven.

The phone buzzed a dozen times before someone finally answered. At least it wasn’t one of those aggravating automated machines that sent you through a thousand disconnected choices.

“I need Brenda Banks’s room, please.”

“Certainly—one moment.” The sound of the phone ringing echoed over the line. Once, twice, three times.

Finally Brenda picked up. “Hello.”

“How do you feel this morning?”

“Like I need to go home so I can sleep. You know they wake you up every hour to check on you. It’s ridiculous.”

“Glad you’re in a good mood,” Nick said wryly.

“What are you doing?”

Nick maneuvered a turn, forced to slow when a truck pulled out in front of him. “I’m on my way to the Angel Mount rehab facility.”

“Why are you going there?”

“A man named Darren James worked for the same security company as Logger. I found a card with the address on it in his things.”

“What did he tell you about Logger?”

Nick debated whether to tell her, but so far she’d kept her word not to disclose information without his permission. “Nothing. Darren James is dead.”

He could hear the sheets rustling in the background. “What?”

“I found his body at his place. Shot in the temple at close range.”

“I don’t understand,” Brenda said. “If it was Seven, why would she shoot him, when she strangled her other victims?”

“She didn’t kill him,” Nick said. “It looks like a professional hit.”

“You think this murder has to do with your father and the project?”

“We’ll definitely investigate that possibility.”

Nick slowed into the curve, relieved when the truck in front of him turned down a dirt road. “But there’s something else Jake found.”

“What?”

“He was looking for abandoned cabins and areas where Seven might be hiding out, and found this place that had recently
burned down. There were three buildings. The first was a dorm. There were chains next to the metal beds, and a dead woman in the ashes, handcuffed to a metal pipe.”

“Oh, my God. Someone murdered her?”

Nick heard movement and decided she must be out of bed, pacing the room.

“It looks that way,” Nick said. “But it gets worse.”

“Worse than leaving someone in a fire to die?”

“Yes. One of the buildings held metal tables and medical equipment, scalpels and shit. There were also stalls with chains covered in blood, and there was blood on the walls. Another room had an underground pit. One where someone had been forced to stay.” He paused for a breath. “I also found a card from Stark Security.”

“The one where Logger worked?”

“Exactly.”

Seconds passed. “Do you think your father performed experiments at that place, too?”

“It’s one theory. If things had heated up at the sanitarium, he could have relocated there to avoid detection.”

A heartbeat of silence stretched between them. “Nick…”

“I stayed there half the night with a crime team,” Nick said. “They collected a shitload of forensics to analyze, and we have the female victim to identify.”

“I’m getting dressed. Pick me up and—”

“No, Brenda, you need to stay in bed.”

“I’m fine,” Brenda argued. “I want to help.”

“No, you’re not fine. Now cut yourself some slack and trust me to do my job.”

“I do trust you,” Brenda said softly.

That trust did something to him, stirred emotions he didn’t want to have.

He disconnected the call just as he reached the ridge where Angel Mount was located.

A silver angel was perched on the front of the stone building, a fitting mascot, given the facility’s name. Nick parked next to a blue pickup, noticing a few other cars in the lot, along with an ambulance and a row of what appeared to be handicapped vans.

To the left, walking trails wove through a garden area, park benches set along them for resting or relaxing. Three other buildings were connected to the main one through covered breezeways. Wind swirled dried leaves around Nick’s feet as he made his way to the front door.