Native Cowboy (11 page)

M
ASON DROVE
C
ARA
to the clinic and waited while she saw her morning patients, two young single women who looked like they were going to deliver any day.

He introduced himself to Cara’s assistant Sherese, an olive-skinned woman with striking dark hair and brown eyes.

“Cara explained about the break-in and Nellie Thompson’s murder?”

Sherese nodded. “I hated to hear about that. Poor woman.” She sorted through a stack of files. “But the baby is safe?”

“Yes,” Mason said. “It doesn’t look like the killer murdered her to get the child. But he had been watching her, stalking her.”

“Lord help us all,” Sherese said. “Nobody seems safe these days.”

“Can you think of anyone who’s been here, maybe an expectant father, disgruntled spouse or ex-husband, someone with issues against the women’s clinic?”

Sherese fiddled with her long braid. “Hmm, there was a man who came in pushing religious fliers on us. Seemed kind of fanatical.”

“Do you still have one of those fliers?”

She scrunched her mouth in thought. “I think I threw them out.” She stood and walked over to a bulletin board where they’d posted information on support groups for single mothers, dates for free vaccinations for children, along with fliers on child care workers and programs for young children. Then she reached into the trash and removed a white paper emblazoned with information on a local religious group and their meeting place.

A man named Reverend Webber Parch led the group.

“Thanks, Sherese, I’ll check this guy out.”

Cara emerged from the back, her arm around a young teenager who looked nervous. “Call me if you start having contractions,” Cara said.

The young woman put her hand on Cara’s belly. “What if you go first, Doc?”

Cara laughed softly. “Then Sadie Whitefeather will deliver your baby.”

The young girl relaxed, then left, and Cara greeted a Native American girl clutching her boyfriend’s hands. The boy seemed to be doting on the girl. Mason grimaced, wondering if that love would last once the child arrived.

His cell phone buzzed, and he checked the screen, a bad feeling crawling up his spine when he saw the sheriff’s number. “Blackpaw here.”

“It’s Sheriff McRae. I hate to tell you this, Blackpaw, but we have another body.”

Mason’s chest clenched. Dammit to hell.

It was true. They had a serial killer on their hands.

Chapter Ten

“Where are you?” Mason asked the sheriff.

“Out at the landfill on Old Coal Road.”

Mason gritted his teeth. “You think it’s the same killer?”

“Yes,” Sheriff McRae said. “He covered the grave in stones just like before.”

“Who found her?”

“Couple of teenagers who were scavenging the dump. They saw a stray dog pawing at the ground. Damn dog dug up just enough for them to see there was a body.”

Sheriff McRae made a disgusted sound low in his throat. “I already called a crime unit.”

“Have you identified her?”

“Not yet.”

“All right, I’m on my way.” He stowed his phone on his belt, then explained what happened to Sherese.

Sherese headed toward the exam rooms. “I’ll tell Cara.”

He glanced at the flier again while he waited on her to return. Cara and the pregnant teen and her boyfriend emerged from the back. Cara’s face was strained, although she tried to hide it from her patients.

“Everything looks good. You have a couple more weeks to go, but call me if anything changes.”

The teenage father looked up at Cara sheepishly. He was trying so hard to be a man. “Thank you, Dr. Winchester. You take good care of my little one.”

Cara patted his back. “You’re both going to do fine,” she assured them.

The couple left together, holding hands.

“Sherese said there was another victim,” Cara said as soon as the couple disappeared out the door.

Mason nodded. “I just talked to the sheriff.”

“How can you be sure it’s the same guy?”

“I can’t until we look at the scene and the victim, but he buried her in the same Comanche ritualistic manner.”

Anguish flickered across Cara’s face. “Let me get my bag and I’ll go with you.” She disappeared down the hall.

Mason wanted to shield her from the sight of another murder, but he couldn’t do that. She was a doctor, the assistant coroner for God’s sake, and too entrenched in the investigation for him to hold back.

Besides, if he’d even suggested it, she would have balked.

Sherese shifted, obviously anxious. “You have to find this creep, Detective Blackpaw.”

“I will,” Mason promised.

Although how many more women would die before he did?

* * *

C
ARA AND
M
ASON
lapsed into a strained silence, both lost in worry over the case as they drove toward the dump. By the time they arrived at the dump on the country road, her nerves were completely frayed.

The stench of the landfill clogged the air as they climbed out, and Cara paused to catch her breath while Mason retrieved his crime kit.

“You don’t have to do this,” Mason said, his voice gruff.

“Yes, I do.” Cara lifted her medical bag from the car, then forged ahead, leading the way to the sheriff’s car.

“Where are the kids who found her?” Mason asked.

“They were pretty shook up, so one boy’s father picked them up.”

“They were clean?” Mason asked.

The sheriff nodded. “Just a couple of adolescents,” McRae said. “Father assured me they’re good students. They had a science project, something about recycled products. That’s why they came here. I have their contact information in case we need to follow up.”

“They didn’t see anyone?” Mason asked.

“Naw. And we haven’t dug her up yet,” McRae said. “Waiting on you and the crime lab to do that.”

Cara spotted the mound of dirt and stones and paused.

For a moment, the cruelty of the killer’s disregard for the woman’s life, and her death, immobilized her. The poor
woman’s eyes and forehead had been exposed, but the rest of her body was still underground.

She glanced around the landfill, a chill engulfing her at the stench and piles of trash and garbage. “This is...even more vile,” she said. “Why bury her out here in this pit?”

“Because he saw her as trash,” Mason suggested.

Cara frowned. “It’s different from Nellie.”

“Yet the same,” Mason said. “It’s almost as if he didn’t care if this woman wasn’t found.”

“Like she didn’t deserve our attention,” Cara said, repulsed by the killer’s lack of respect for another human.

“Yet he still used the stones when he could have just left her here,” Mason added, as if that fact perplexed him.

“Which means this ritual is important to him,” Cara interjected. “It’s so ingrained in his belief system that even if he wanted to discard her body differently, he couldn’t do that or he’d defy his own faith.”

Mason began to snap pictures while Cara snapped a few of her own. By then the crime unit arrived. They photographed the grave site, then Mason worked with one of the techs and the sheriff to comb the area for forensics. The problem was that there was so much territory and junk along with tire prints from garbage trucks that it would be hard to pinpoint anything out of place.

Cara donned latex gloves, and she and the second crime tech brushed the dirt away to reveal the woman’s face. Cara prayed she wasn’t one of her patients, but as soon as the tech exposed her hair, she knew her prayers had gone unanswered.

The woman’s name was Yolanda Farraday. She had brought a baby boy into the world two months ago and then given him up for adoption because she was terminally ill.

Tears filled her eyes.

Had the man who’d killed her known that she was sick?

Or had he assumed she just hadn’t wanted her child?

* * *

M
ASON CURSED AS HE
scanned the area near the grave site. The son of a bitch had to know that burying the victim here would make finding any evidence nearly impossible.

Which was probably another reason he chose the spot.

He found a button near the grave and bagged it. It looked like it came off a military jacket, but had a feeling it would be a dead end. The button could easily have come from the trash pile.

“This is a nightmare,” the crime tech said. “Like a needle in a haystack.”

Mason squinted as the Texas sun shimmered off the metal in the trash pile. The temperature was rising which would only make the stench intensify as the day wore on.

“Hell, we didn’t turn up anything that would help us at the first crime scene. No surprise if he was just as careful here.”

“I’ll take another look around,” the crime tech said.

“Look for any signs of a navel fetish,” Mason told him. Although he hadn’t left one with the first victim—he’d given that gift to Cara.

Antsy to check on her, he handed the button off to the crime tech to log into evidence, then returned to the grave site. Cara’s skin looked ashen as she leaned over the grave.

“Cara?”

She glanced up at him from where she was kneeling on the ground, and he saw the victim’s face, deathly white, covered in dirt, her hair a stringy mess, tangled in the soil.

“Do you know her?” he asked, half praying she didn’t, that he was wrong and that this case didn’t revolve around her and the clinic.

But pain flashed in her eyes and she nodded. “Her name is Yolanda Farraday. She’s thirty-four.”

“Her injuries?”

“The same as Nellie,” Cara said in a gravelly voice.

Damn sick bastard.

Cara pushed to her feet, swaying slightly, and he caught her. “Do you need to sit down?”

She shook her head. “It’s not fair, Mason, it’s just not right.”

He swallowed back his own disgust. Worry for her superseded anything else. “I know.”

Cara gestured toward the body. “No, you don’t. The way he left her here, it’s not right.”

“Of course it’s not right,” he said, anger lacing his voice. “He’s a maniac.”

“But if he’s mad at these women for giving their children up for adoption, he should learn the whole damn story.” She walked to the edge of the landfill near a cluster of trees and leaned over as if she had to get some air.

He didn’t blame her. Between the putrid odors of the landfill and the dead body, his own stomach was churning.

Concerned about her and the baby, he strode over to her. “Cara?”

A low sob ripped from her throat. “Yolanda did agree for another couple to adopt her child, but it wasn’t because she didn’t want her baby.”

Mason frowned. He understood that sometimes people felt trapped in their circumstances whether it was poverty, lack of education, an abusive relationship. “What happened?”

Cara wiped at a tear trickling down her cheek. “She was diagnosed with cancer shortly after she learned she was pregnant. She couldn’t carry the baby and undergo treatment, so she chose to give her baby life instead of saving her own.” She sniffed. “That’s the kind of unselfish woman she was.”

Mason chewed the inside of his cheek. Had the killer known her history?

If he had, would it have made a difference?

Or was he too demented to possess any sense of moral decency at all?

The sheriff approached, his boots crunching the gravel. “Are you finished, Dr. Winchester?”

Cara nodded and dried her eyes. “Yes.”

“Cause of death?” the sheriff asked.

“It appears to be exsanguinations, just like Nellie Thompson. He cut out her reproductive organs, as well. But we’ll need to verify that with the autopsy.”

“So we definitely have a serial killer,” Sheriff McRae mumbled. “The press is gonna be all over this.”

“We aren’t going to reveal the details of the crime,” Mason said. “We have to hold back or we’ll have copycats trying to take credit for the murders.”

“So what do we say?” Sheriff McRae asked.

“I’ll talk to one of the profilers from the bureau. She can handle the press and offer a profile to help law enforcement and citizens know who to look for.” He showed the flier he’d taken from Sherese to the sheriff and Cara.

“Do you remember this guy, Cara?”

She studied it for a moment, then shook her head. “He could have left it with Sherese when I was gone. You know I divide my time between the BBL, the Winchester Clinic and the res.”

“I’m going to question this preacher,” Mason said. “Then we’ll head to the res. You can talk to Sadie Whitefeather while I meet with Liam Runninghorse about the knife the killer used.”

“What about the knife?” Cara asked.

“It’s a handmade Native American piece,” Mason said. “Since this killer has used the same M.O. twice, he probably used the same type of weapon. If Runninghorse knows someone who favors this knife, maybe it’ll lead us to the killer.”

* * *

H
E SAT PERCHED
on top of his black stallion, watching as the sheriff and that half-breed Blackpaw combed the grounds near the grave. He’d done his homework on Blackpaw.

The bastard boy had become a tracker for the police.

But he had Indian blood in that brown body of his. And a mean streak that he tried to channel into hunting down those who broke the law.

He was a worthy adversary. A man who would play the game until the end.

Until death came for one of them.

It would be for Blackpaw, but the man didn’t know it yet.

He smiled, his blood heating as he’d watched tears fall from Dr. Winchester. She acted like a damn saint.

But she wasn’t a saint. She was just as much a whore as the woman in the ground now. Just as much of a sinner.

No, worse. She led the other lambs astray. Taught them to give away their young.

But his people treasured their children more than life itself.

And for her transgressions she had to pay.

A vehicle arrived to transport Yolanda Farraday’s body, and he watched the men lift her from the grave. Dirt and debris fluttered down like brown snowflakes, her human remains stiff with rigor and ready to begin the descent into ashes.

He glanced down at his palm and traced a finger over the strands of hair he had removed before he’d put her in the ground. He would thread them into the navel fetish he planned to leave on Dr. Winchester’s pillow tonight just as he had threaded Nellie Thompson’s hair through the first one.