Rising Heat (93 page)

I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. Oh my God. And then I looked at Detective Cutter, at the concerned look on his face as he stared out the windshield. “What has that got to do with Hawk?”

He turned to look at me. “It’s a Native American ritual, one that dates back to way back when.”

“What is?” I asked, my pulse racing.

“Cutting out the hearts of their enemies and then eating them—”

I couldn’t help the denial that rose in my throat. “Detective Cutter, you can’t possibly think—”

“The Iroquois, and several other tribes, or so Westin learned, used to cut out the hearts of their enemies and eat them to gain their strength, their power.”

My eyes wide, I stared at him. “And you think that Hawk would do something like that?”

I was afraid.
Could
Hawk possibly be the stalker? The killer? Is that what Cutter was suggesting? Impossible! Yes, I was angry at Hawk. Yes, he might be carrying some burdens and secrets, but this? Outrageous!

“I’m sorry, Tracy, I didn’t mean to make you cry—”

“I’m not!” I denied, and then realized I was. Impatiently, I brushed the tears from my cheeks. Shook my head. “Detective Cutter, you can’t actually think… can’t actually believe the killer is Hawk, that he would do anything like that!”

“I don’t want to,” he said. “Believe me, I don’t. But his history…” He paused, brushing his fingers over his face. He sighed heavily. “No, Tracy, I don’t believe Hawk would do something like that. But where is he? Why would he disappear all of a sudden? Where has he gone?”

“Have you checked with his mother? Surely you can find someone in his family?” I shook my head. “Detective, he’s probably just up at his cabin, licking his wounds. I wasn’t very kind to him yesterday. I know he felt bad about what happened, but I wouldn’t accept his apology. We… we had kind of started a relationship,” I admitted. “We got closer than we should have. I think you already knew that, and Westin too.”

He nodded. “I figured as much.”

“And Westin,” I said. “He’s overreacting, overreaching. I know he doesn’t like Hawk, but to suggest something like this? Is he the one spreading these rumors around the police department?”

“He said no, that he only looked into the Iroquois culture when he remembered that the victim’s hearts had been—”

I stared at him in horror. “The police officer? Was his—?”

Cutter shook his head. “No, he wasn’t mutilated that way.”

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. “Look,” I said, turning to face him. “I don’t believe for a minute that Hawk would do something like that. Call me foolish or naïve, but I don’t believe he’s the killer. I think you know he isn’t. Rumors and gossip have a way of getting around faster than wildfire, Detective. You know that.” I paused, staring out the windshield. Where
was
Hawk? “He has to be at his cabin. He’ll be back.”

“Do you remember the way up there? I’m… concerned about him.”

Did I? I might be able to find it, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. I shook my head. “I don’t think so. The first time, when his mother drove, she took so many twists and turns, and a roundabout way of getting up there. Hawk did the same thing when we went up there a couple of times. I’d just end up getting hopelessly lost. It’s in the middle of nowhere, more than an hour’s drive from Seneca, probably even more.” I shook my head again, reaffirming my statement. “There’s no road to his cabin. They pretty much just follow old deer trails, or wind their way among the trees until they get to it. I’m sorry.”

He sighed.

“He’ll come back,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I felt so certain, but I think I knew Hawk well enough by now to know the cabin was probably the one place he would go.

Neither one of us said anything for several moments, each busy with our own thoughts. Then I turned to him and told him what I planned. Not every detail, but the general gist of it. He tried to talk me out of it, but at this point, I didn’t think I had any other choice. I told him that, too.

“Tracy, we can’t protect you if you do that,” he said.

I almost laughed, not in a mean way, as I gestured around me at the parking lot. “I don’t think you can protect me anyway, Detective. Neither can Hawk. No matter where I go, or what I do, the bastard finds me. I don’t feel like I have any other choice. Either I stay here like a sitting duck, just waiting for him to find me, or I hit the road for a few days. Maybe if I disappear and he can’t find me, he’ll make a mistake, come out into the open.”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “Hawk won’t either.”

Neither did I.

“I don’t know what else to do, Detective. I’m tired of waiting for something to happen. I can’t work, can’t sleep, can’t eat… I just need to go away for a few days, see if that shakes something loose. I hope to God that he doesn’t target someone else. What I’m trying to do is draw him out into the open, to encourage him to make a mistake—”

“To tell the truth, Tracy,” Detective Cutter said. “What you’re thinking about doing may make him angry. You’ve decided to play the mouse to his cat. You’re going to make him chase you.”

“Yes,” I whispered. And I hoped to God I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life, that my plan wouldn’t end up killing me. That Detective Cutter wouldn’t find me one day soon, lying in a bathtub, a ditch, or even in my truck, stabbed multiple times, my heart cut out. I almost heaved, right there in front of him, but I choked it back as I turned to look out my driver side window.

He tried to talk me out of it. Understandable, really. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him of my plan. Now he felt responsible for my well-being. But I think he knew, deep down, that none of us had a handle on this guy. He was taunting not only me, but Hawk, the Seneca police, even the FBI. He felt he was untouchable. He was lurking out there in the shadows, or maybe even in public, with no one the wiser.

It was time to do something about it.

“Tracy, I’m officially recommending that you don’t do this. I can’t stop you. I can’t arrest you. I wish to God I could, but I can’t.” He shook his head, staring out the window, his gaze passing over the parking lot. “At least give me the number to that new throwaway phone of yours.”

I hesitated. “Don’t you have it on your phone? In your received call log?”

He looked at me. “Your call was transferred from the front desk to the phone on my desk. I don’t have your cell number.”

I pulled the phone from my pocket and accessed the number. He added me to his contact list and showed me that he listed the number under “T”.

“Can you keep that private?”

What I was asking him was not to share the information with anybody. Not his partner, and not with Hawk. The plain fact of the matter was that I didn’t trust Westin anymore. I got the feeling that he was trying to smear Hawk, yet another way to get revenge over something that happened in the past. My disappointment in him was great, but my disappointment in Hawk even greater.

I don’t know why I asked, but I did. “Do you know why Hawk got into that fight at the bar? Why he was arrested?”

Cutter said nothing for several moments. “I don’t have the particulars of why he got into the fight. As to why he was arrested? He beat the guy unconscious. If other patrons at the bar hadn’t stopped him, he might even have killed the guy.”

I stared at Cutter, stunned. I didn’t want to believe that Hawk would do anything bad, but maybe he hadn’t left his bad reputation behind him after all.

I guess I’d been wrong about him all along.

By the time Detective Cutter left my truck, walked back to his SUV and drove out of the airport parking lot, my thoughts were once again spinning. My emotions hovered between dismay, disappointment, and relief. Maybe it was best that I found out about Hawk sooner rather than later. Maybe I was making the right decision about leaving town for a few days. Maybe not.

I had no one to talk to, no one to ask for guidance. Oh, I knew what Detective Cutter thought. He didn’t think it was a good idea, and that I was taking too big of a chance. But what else could I do? Play nomad indefinitely? Sleep in my truck every night? Worry about every shadow, every vehicle, and every face in the crowd? I was tired of living like this. I wasn’t going to allow myself to become frozen.

I was scared, no doubt about it. I didn’t want to die. Who did? But I didn’t know what else to do, and that’s what I just kept repeating to myself. What options did I have? Hide in Hawk’s cabin for the rest of my life? I knew the stalker would eventually find me there too. He was a ghost, a shadow person. He was out there, maybe looking for me right this minute.

I needed to go home and grab some things. I didn’t even have my overnight bag anymore. It was probably still sitting in Hawk’s office. The gun he had loaned me was probably still in his glove compartment. Should I get another one? I didn’t have the money for that.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for the rest of the day. Should I try to go home now? To sneak into the house and get a few belongings? Or should I wait for nightfall? I opted for waiting. No sense in being obvious or careless. The airport parking lot seemed as safe a place as any I could think of at the moment. I certainly didn’t feel like driving into town, giving the stalker a chance to spot my truck. I wanted to access my bank account, see how much money I had in my checking. I would have to do that when I got home. Quickly log on, check, then log off.

I sat in the truck, contemplating my plan. Finally, I left the car to go to the bathroom. I sat down at the food court early in the afternoon for a little while, tried to act like just another passenger. If anyone recognized me from the night before or my previous bathroom breaks today, no one said anything. Every minute felt like an hour. Every minute that passed, I went over my decision, wondering if I was making the right one, and then reaffirmed that I was. Over and over again.

I trusted Cutter not to give my phone number to Hawk or to Detective Westin. I had only used it a couple of times. Maybe the killer wouldn’t be able to somehow trace this one. I wasn’t holding my breath though. He had managed to somehow trace an untraceable phone once — or it had been given to him — and I had no doubt, that if he was so inclined, he would do it again.

So, I waited. Waited for the afternoon to wane, for dusk to just begin threading its way toward the west from the eastern horizon. Time to go. Now or never. I’d had enough of watching the geese, the birds, and the occasional chipmunk or squirrel scavenging for food or anything else of interest in the parking lot.

My heart began to pound. In dread? Relief? Was I doing the right thing? I had no way of knowing, but my mind was made up and I was determined to go through with it. I would take a roundabout way to my house, make sure I wasn’t being followed, and park inside the tree line somewhere close to my property. I would quickly sneak into my house, do what I needed to do, and then head back to my truck.

I needed to rent a car, but I would have to do so as unobtrusively as possible. And then, I would disappear. I wasn’t sure what would happen, or if anything would. Would my disappearance draw him out? Or would he take the opportunity to give chase as Cutter said?

But life went on. I was tired of being stuck in this limbo where I would be until either the guy was caught or I was dead.

Was Hawk thinking about me? Was he worried? Was he trying to find me? I knew that if Detective Cutter got in touch with him, and Hawk managed to get any information from him, he would’ve shown up at the parking lot. Then again, it seemed as if Hawk now had troubles of his own. He had just become a suspect of rumors, based on his background, his heritage. Was that Detective Westin’s doing?

I knew he couldn’t possibly be the killer. At least I think I did. I remembered every moment we spent together, every touch of his fingers, his lips on my skin. I would’ve known, wouldn’t I? I would’ve been able to sense something dark and evil in him, wouldn’t I?

Was it possible to sleep with someone, to open your heart and soul to someone, to give of yourself to that degree and not sense something wrong? Or was I just blind, naïve, and willing to believe the best of everyone?

“No,” I said aloud. “Hawk is not the killer. You’re being stupid.”

I frowned, angry that Westin would even suggest such a thing. But is that what Cutter said? That the suggestion that Hawk might be the killer had originated from his partner? No, he hadn’t. All he said was that Westin had been reviewing autopsy records. That he made a connection between the missing hearts and some Native American cultures. The Iroquois were not the only ones who did that.

I sighed, waiting impatiently as dusk fell over the airport. My butt was numb, my legs stiff, my shoulders aching with tension.

Time to get the hell away from here and hope to God I would live to see another day.

A
s I drove away from the airport and back toward town, I kept a careful watch in the rearview mirror. No one was behind me. A couple of cars passed me going in the opposite direction, but none of them slowed down, turned, or otherwise gave me the impression that they were following me.

I didn’t intend to go all the way into town, only to my house. My mind was made up. I was going to run and I’d need some of my things.

At this point, work was the furthest thing from my mind. I don’t think I would ever look at work the same way as I did before that police officer was killed while watching my home. I had always been focused on me, my work, and my privacy so that I could do just that.

Actually, my world was quite small, most of it spent in front of a computer screen. Who needed in-the-flesh friends when you had contacts with people all over the world? No, I didn’t know them personally, but how many Facebook users actually knew all their “friends”? I would have to get back to work eventually, somehow. I knew I had a little bit of money tucked into savings, but certainly not enough to stay on the run for long.

By the time I got within a mile of my property, I began to slow down. No one was on this rural road, but I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. There was no way in hell I would drive down my driveway and have someone see my truck parked by the house. Decreasing speed a little bit, I drove by my property. The crime scene tape was gone, but in my mind, I still saw it flapping in the breeze, the police car behind it, and the officer dead inside.