Out Of Control (3 page)

Garrett
shook his head. A little too vehemently? “Not possible. It was a stranger. No
one in this county would do anything like that.”

“But
sometimes—”

“Everyone
wants to bury the past and move on,” he cut her off. “A lot of families whose
children were molested and killed still haven’t gotten past it after all this
time. Talking to them would be nothing less than cruel.”

“I
can assure you, I’m extremely circumspect when dealing with survivors.”

“I’m
sure you are. Still…” He sighed and pushed back his chair. “All right. I’ve
done my best. I guess there won’t be any talking you out of it. Your reputation
precedes you. And legally I can’t keep you from looking at back issues.”

“So
you have them.” She tried to keep the satisfaction out of her voice.”

“Yes,
but they’re on microfiche and those rolls are packed away.” He swallowed some
of his coffee, made a face, and set the cup down again. “I’ll need until
tomorrow morning to get them out. Where are you staying?”

“Actually,
I haven’t checked into any place yet. Maybe you have a suggestion.”

She
didn’t know if the expression on his face was a smile or a grimace. “You’ve got
your choice between Azalea Bed and Breakfast or the High Ridge Motel.”

“Which
one would you recommend?”

He
grunted. “Neither, to tell the truth, but at the motel you won’t have Betty Ann
Morrison sticking her nose in your business.”

Dana
rose from her seat. “Thank you. And thanks for agreeing to help.”

He
shook his head. “Don’t mistake what I’m doing for a blessing on this project. I’m
just hoping you’ll do your research, find nothing, and go away quietly. Ten o’clock
tomorrow work for you?”

“That’s
fine.”

Every
pair of eyes followed her as she made her way to the front door. On the
sidewalk, she stopped a moment and looked around. Her skin crawled, as if the
predator was actually there, watching her. All these years, she’d been
convinced he was still here, hiding behind a familiar face, concealing the evil
that swirled within him.

Her
mind still on her conversations at the newspapers, Dana barely glanced at the
large black pickup parked across the street from
The High Ridge Messenger.
And the man watching her through the passenger window.

****

Just
who the hell is she?

Sheriff
Cole Landry sipped on the giant cup of hot coffee from Freddie’s Gas and Go,
watching the woman walk out of the newspaper office and climb into her car. Everything
about her screamed “big city.” She was maybe five four, with streaky blonde
hair pulled back in a ponytail so tight it had to give her a headache and a
slender body in jeans and a blazer. Her eyes were hidden behind huge
sunglasses. Everything expensive. Even he could see that.

He
was sure she wasn’t from around here. As sheriff of Salado County, population
twenty-five thousand, there were few people he didn’t at least have a nodding
acquaintance with. And with just five thousand people in High Ridge, strangers easily
stood out. This one more so than usual.

She
was definitely a different breed of animal. Tension radiated from every line of
her body. He’d known plenty of women like her—tightly wound, obsessive about
control even in bed, emotions locked down. Down and dirty sex, then get the
hell away.

But
something about her made the back of his neck itch. And worse than that, made his
cock sit up and pay attention. What the hell was someone like her doing in his
nice quiet slice of the world? The place he’d spent summers on his uncle’s
ranch. The place he’d retired to when he left the Marines—burned out from Iraq
and Afghanistan—and bought a small spread of his own. And how lucky was it that
Salado County was looking for a new sheriff at just that moment?

So
far it was mostly speeders, Saturday night fights, a little shoplifting.
Nothing to raise the blood pressure. But he had a feeling this woman was going
to kick him straight out of his comfort zone.

He
took another swallow of the coffee. Usually, he waited to reach the office
before pouring his first cup, but he’d had to stop and see Freddie about some
minor vandalism at the store and the coffee had looked and smelled better than
anything Grace, his dispatcher, brewed. The stop put the stranger square in his
sites.

Finishing
the last of the dark liquid, he crushed the Styrofoam cup, turned on the engine,
and headed for his office. He was barely inside before someone yelled to him, “John
Garrett’s on the line for you.”

Good.
Maybe he’d get some answers.

****

Needing
something in her stomach besides airline peanuts, Dana took the time to grab a
sandwich at a nearby diner. She had only vague memories of the town she’d grown
up in, culled from the mind of a seven-year-old. But research told her High
Ridge was just like all the other small Hill Country towns. Limestone
buildings, ranches whose rolling acres held herds of cattle and horses, the
local high school and weekend rodeo serving as centers of activity. As she
drove down Main Street she thought she’d stumbled into a Charles Russell
painting.

How
many times had she Googled both the town and the county, searching for…she sure
didn’t know what. If it had to do with the children’s murders, she didn’t find
it. Somehow, the sheriff at the time had been able to shut down the flow of
news, and newspapers outside the county carried only a smattering of details of
the crimes.

What
had she expected coming back here? A sudden message from outer space telling
her who destroyed her life and killed her sister? That certainly wasn’t
happening. Instead, what she got the minute she passed the boundary sign for
Salado County was the familiar cold fist of terror that never released its
grip. Not once in all these years. It was the single force that drove her.

The
High Ridge Motel was every bit as dreary as Dana expected, but no worse than
dozens of others she’d stayed at. This one was distinguished by the fake
antlers on the wall in the lobby, the terra cotta tile floor, and a potted
cactus that had to be a hundred years old. The bedspread in her room was fake
animal hide and the furniture a very cheap oak.

At
least it would do for one night. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be leaving this
town any time soon. Tomorrow she’d do what she often did—find a short-term
rental.

Parking
in front of her room, she hauled her suitcase and laptop inside her room and
flopped onto the bed, still fully dressed and exhausted. The lack of sleep the
night before and the flight and the tension of the morning finally caught up
with her, and in seconds, she fell into an uneasy sleep. A sleep haunted by
dreams of an old barn and the high cackle of a man’s voice.

Chapter
Two

Dana
pushed open the door of the
The High Ridge
Messenger and hoped Marian
Jordan didn’t shoot her on sight. When she woke that morning, she was no more
rested than before she fell asleep the day before. Her dreams were especially
disturbing, and she had to look carefully around the room to be sure Kylie’s
little body wasn’t lying somewhere for her to find. Sleeping in her clothes
hadn’t helped, and a shower had barely washed away the rumpled feeling.

When
the grumbling of her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since lunch the day
before, she made herself stop at the Gas and Go for coffee and a sausage biscuit.
Now the food sat like lead in her stomach. She forced her mouth into a smile
for John Garrett when he came out to greet her.

“I
can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this.” Dana stood in his office,
hoping he would give her what she wanted and leave her alone to work with it.
Like every other man his age in the county, he was somewhere on her suspect
list and being around him made her nervous and edgy.

“You
won’t thank me when you start reading this muck,” Garrett told her. “But if you’ve
got your mind set on it, I might as well get you what you need. I suppose you
won’t give me any peace until I do.”

“I
like to think of myself as persuasive,” she told him. “And I’ll be fine. It won’t
be any worse than other research I’ve done, I can promise you.”

He
motioned for her to follow him. “Come on. I’ll take you to the storage room
where everything is kept. Lucky for you, those issues are on microfilm and not
lying stacked in some box somewhere. Who knows what shape they’d be in by now?
I’ll set you up at a machine and leave you to it.” He shook his head. “I wish
you joy of it. I have to warn you, though. This town won’t give you much
cooperation if you try talking to anyone.”

“I’ve
already figured that out,” she told him in a dry voice.

The
room he led her to was obviously not used on a regular basis. A long table
pushed against one wall held two microfiche machines, a printer, and dusty
cartons labeled by years with rolls of microfiche in them.

“Help
yourself to the coffee out there if you want,” he told her. “Although after you
start reading this stuff, you may need something a lot stronger.” He walked
away, muttering to himself.

Dana
wiped her palms on the fabric of her slacks, her hands suddenly damp with
perspiration. Setting a note pad, a pen, and her pocket PC next to her, she
took a deep breath and loaded the first roll of film onto the machine. With the
first turn of the handle, she crossed into territory from which there was no
turning back.

She
moved through the film one frame at a time, each story branding itself into her
brain. By the time she’d been at it for two hours, her eyes burned, her
shoulders ached, and she had to force herself to fight back the nausea.

She
finished sooner than she expected. The paper published weekly and they never
ran more than two stories about each incident, as if by downplaying it, they
could pretend it didn’t happen. The stories were light on the details of the
bodies, but even the flimsy descriptions were enough to rip her heart open.

Dana
had read stories and reports of horrific crimes as she gathered research for
other books. Been revolted by the inhumanity of what people can do to each
other. But this. This created a special hell all its own. Even the barest of
details of the mutilated young bodies, the scant particulars of the rapes were
enough to give anyone nightmares.

Tears
burned in Dana’s eyes and her heart pinched, hard. What kind of monster could
do something so hideous to innocent, unsuspecting children? To her and Kylie?

Oh,
God. Kylie. Dana was supposed to have protected her, to make sure nothing ever
happened to her. She’d certainly done a lousy job. Pieces of that night slammed
into her like a fist, knocking the breath from her body. Kylie’s screams echoed
in her head, over and over, a reminder of her failure to save her baby sister.

Her
stomach heaved, and she shoved her chair back from the table. Racing for the
rest room, she barely had time to lock the door to the stall before the miniscule
contents of her stomach roared out of her. She retched until there was nothing
left, until dry heaves shook her and left her gasping for air.

When
she heard the outer door to the rest room open, she flushed the toilet and
leaned against the wall.

“Miss
Moretti?”

She
recognized Marion Jordan’s icy voice.

“I’m
here.” She hoped her voice sounded stronger to Marion than it did to her.

“Are
you all right? Mr. Garrett said he saw you hurry past his office and thought
you might be ill.”

And
wouldn’t you just love that.

“I’m
fine. Thank you.” She opened the door of the stall. “I think I ate something
that disagreed with me.”

The
woman’s face was rigid with disdain, as if throwing up was no less than Dana
deserved.

“Well,
if you’re sure you’re all right…”

“I’m
fine. Thank you.” Dana splashed cold water on her face, rinsed out her mouth,
and blotted her skin with a paper towel. “Tell Mr. Garrett I appreciate
everyone’s concern.”

“All
right then.” Marion turned to leave, then stopped. “Shall I tell him you’re finished?”

“Yes.
I’m getting ready to put everything back.” Dana knew she had to get out of here
for a while. Other cases she’d written about had been approached
dispassionately. The details, no matter how gory, had not disturbed her on a
visceral level. But this was different. This was personal. This had happened to
her.

Back
in the dusty room, she stored away the cartridges she’d been using, shoved her
belongings into her briefcase, and picked up the stack of articles she’d sent
to the printer. She’d pay for them on the way out.

As
she passed John Garrett’s office, she noticed the door was closed and heard the
low hum of male voices. She wondered idly who he was meeting with that required
a closed door and if it had something to do with her.

Paranoid
much?