The First Victim (20 page)

Alerted by the nurses that there was a problem in Doctor Wright’s room, Doctor Wyatt burst into the room in time to see Emily shake her father one more time.

“Tell the nurses I don’t need them,” the doctor snapped at whoever had followed her into the room. “Keep them out of here.”

Footsteps left the room.

Doctor Wyatt pushed Emily out of the way and reinserted the tube in the patient’s throat, simply saying, “I hope you got what you needed.”

Emily nodded mutely. She’d gotten the answer. O’Neil.

For a split second she’d thought he’d meant Bailey, that the boy she had called her best friend as a child had matured into a monster. She’d just as quickly dismissed the thought.

There was no way the man lurking outside this room, the man she liked and trusted, the man she’d slept with, the man she was in love with, was holding her sister hostage.

Who then? Not Freddy. He was dead.

While the doctor ministered to Donald Wright, Emily paced nervously back and forth across the length of the room.

Then she remembered Bailey’s shrewish grandmother at the funeral hurling invectives at Freddy’s coffin, …
kept my baby boy from me all these years
…

Freddy O’Neil’s brother. Bailey’s uncle. That’s who had Laurie.

She forced herself to take some deep breaths.
Calm, cool and collected. Calm, cool and collected.

Why would he want her to know his identity? Didn’t he think she’d tell the FBI? How could a man who’d eluded capture all these years benefit from a manhunt? It didn’t make any sense. Unless…

Unless…maybe it was one last power trip. He was taunting her, telling her who he was. What good was the knowledge if she couldn’t use it to save Laurie? Maybe he was using the opportunity to take a swipe at the FBI too. Maybe he wanted them to know who he was, because he already had an escape plan in place.

Regardless, her sister’s life hung in the balance.

Emily ran back out into the hall to find Bailey. He’d been right. They had to tell the FBI what was going on, especially now that she knew who had Laurie.

But he wasn’t there. So much for her grand plan.

“Ms. Wright?”

She turned in the direction of the man calling her name.

Williams smiled at her. “Deputy O’Neil had an emergency. He apologized, and asked me to look after you.”

Her stomach flip-flopped and a chill spread between her shoulder blades. “What kind of emergency?”

“Something about his sister. A nurse came running down telling him he had to come quick.”

Weakly she leaned back against the wall. She couldn’t ask Bailey to leave his sister’s side to save Laurie.

“Are you alright?” Williams stepped closer, his concern evident. “Can I get you anything? Can I take you anywhere?”

“Yes!” She pushed herself up off the wall. “I need to get back to The Garden Gate immediately.”

“Okay, I can do that. My car’s right outside.”

They practically jogged out to the parking lot.

Emily’s mind was racing. She had to tell Chase Morgan what she’d found out. Maybe there was time to save Laurie.

They piled into Williams’ car and he peeled out of the parking lot.

“Thank you so much…I’m sorry, I don’t know your first name.”

“It’s Billy.” He pulled a wrapped lollipop from his pocket and offered it to her.

She shook her head. “No, thank you, Billy.” She thought about it for a second and then asked, “So is your name Billy Williams or William Williams?”

“Neither.” He glanced over at her as he pulled to a stop at a stop sign. “It’s William O’Neil.”

The bottom dropped out of Emily’s stomach. “Y-your last name is O-O’Neil?”

Swiveling his head toward her, Williams, or William, or Billy, or whatever the hell his name was, smiled at her before returning his attention to the road. It wasn’t really a smile, more like a predatory leer.

Her heartbeat sped up, adrenaline flooding her system. She had to get away, out of this car. A quick glance in the side mirror revealed a white panel van was following them. A surge of hope shot through her. She’d flag the driver down. She’d be rescued.

She reached for the door handle. They weren’t moving too fast. She could fling herself out of the vehicle. She fumbled for the latch.

“If you do that, you’ll never see your sister again.”

Emily froze, fear and hope mingling in her blood.

“That’s a good girl.” Billy glanced in the rearview mirror and gave a thumbs-up to the driver behind them.

Her heart sank.

Both vehicles turned off into the driveway of a house that had been deserted for the season.

“If you try anything, anything at all, your sister is dead. You stay right here. Don’t move.”

Billy got out of the car. Sitting frozen in her seat, her mind racing, Emily watched him confer with the driver of the van. They appeared to be arguing.

She surreptitiously pulled her cell phone from her pocket. If she could just call for help… Turning it on, she glanced up at the two men, making sure they couldn’t see what she was doing.

Her hands shook as she scrolled through her list of phone numbers. She hadn’t programmed Bailey’s number, but Castle, Mark was at the top of the list. She pushed the call button as her phone flashed the low battery warning.

“Not again,” she muttered. “Please last. Please l—” The phone went dark. It was dead.

“Shit!”

She couldn’t afford to panic. Too much was at stake. She had to keep it together. She wasn’t about to be a victim again. She was a survivor.

She couldn’t do anything until she saw Laurie. Then she’d figure out a way to escape. She’d done it before. She’d do it again. Both of them would get away.

Besides Bailey would be looking for her. He’d figure it out. He had to.

All she had to do was keep her and Laurie alive until he did.
Calm, cool and collected. Calm, cool and collected.
The mantra didn’t do much to quiet her mind, but it did help her to get her breathing under control. Her heartbeat slowed to a gallop. She rubbed her palm which ached as though it had just been sliced open.

Billy ripped her car door open. “Get out!”

Slowly, she climbed from the seat, her legs so rubbery she wasn’t certain they could support her.

“In the van.”

Obediently she moved toward the vehicle parked behind the car.

Billy flung open the rear doors. The overhead light revealed Laurie and Anna lying motionless on the floor. Emily gasped. They were so still she wondered if they were alive.

“Inside!” Grabbing her upper arm, squeezing with bruising force, he propelled her up and into the van. She landed in a heap, her limbs tangling with those of the girls. Both bodies were warm, so Emily didn’t think they were dead, just drugged.

Laughing his satisfaction, he slammed the doors shut, plunging them into darkness.

A moment later he climbed into the front passenger seat. “Talk about making lemonade, huh, Pop?”

If Williams was Billy O’Neil, Bailey’s cousin, this must be Oliver, his uncle.

The unseen driver chuckled. The sound made her hair stand on end. She tried to ease her body off the girls, but the van lurched into motion, sending her sprawling.

“What do you want to do with them, Billy?”

Emily knew that voice. It was the voice that haunted her dreams. It was
him.
All the fear she’d kept bottled up for fifteen years flooded through her. The memories of everything he’d done to her, every vile thing he’d said to her, pelted her mercilessly.

She wasn’t even aware she’d screamed her panic until the driver laughed at her. “Welcome home, Emily.”

Sheer terror sapped all of her energy, and she collapsed on top of the teenagers. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she swallowed them. She had to be strong now, for Laurie. She had to figure out a way to survive this new nightmare.

Bailey O’Neil burst into Donald Wright’s hospital room, startling the female doctor bending over Donald Wright. The woman stared at him with wide-eyed apprehension.

“Where’s Emily Wright?” he asked.

“She left a few moments ago.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

The woman shook her head.

He returned to the hallway, searching it wildly. It was empty. Where the hell was that damn fool Williams? He’d told the dispatcher to wait outside Donald Wright’s room. He’d ordered him to keep Emily here, and now they were both gone.

Guilt churned in his gut. He should have never left her, but at the time he’d thought he didn’t have a choice. As soon as Emily had slipped into her father’s room, Williams had come racing down the hall, panicked.

“Deputy! Deputy O’Neil, you’ve got to come quick.”

“Whoa, Williams. Slow down. What’s going on?”

“It’s your sister, sir. The nurse, she said you should come quick.”

Bailey’s stomach dropped. He’d spent years dreading this moment. The doctors were always telling him that they didn’t know how much time she had left.

“Stay right here,” he told Williams. “When Emily Wright comes out of that room, keep her here. Don’t let her leave. Not with anyone but me. Understand?”

“Understood, sir!” The little twit had actually saluted him, and like a fool, Bailey had returned the gesture.

“I’m counting on you, Williams.”

He took off for Shauna’s room at a dead run. The hallways were devoid of activity, so in seconds, he was at her room. He burst through the doorway, past Mrs. Dall, and tore back the curtain that shrouded his sister’s bed.

His heart stopped at the macabre scene that greeted him.

What he saw didn’t make any sense. There was no medical staff attending to her. There was just a girl in bed with her.

Bile rose in his throat and he had to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming. Mandy Pinsky, he recognized her from the photograph her parents had given him, dressed in a pair of pink pajamas, had been placed beside Shauna. Bailey instinctively knew the teenager was dead. He wasn’t so sure about his sister.

She’d been made up just like Mandy and Jackie Willet. The makeup made them look like a pair of grotesque dolls cuddled together beneath the sheets. He shook uncontrollably as he reached for Shauna.

Her skin was cool. He jerked his hand away as though he’d been burned.

“Oh God. Oh God, Shauna.” He’d loved her so much. Worshipped her when they were kids, refused to give up on her as an adult. He reached out again and smoothed her hair. Its silky texture, so familiar, was his undoing.

For the first time in his adult life, he sobbed. He was still crying when he’d had the presence of mind to call Sebastian Black.

He probably hadn’t made all that much sense, but Black had seemed to understand, and promised to be right over.

A night-shift nurse, someone he didn’t know, had come in to check on her patients. Thankfully, Bailey had recovered enough composure to stop her in the doorway. She’d never seen the two bodies. He asked her to make sure no one else came in without his permission.

Sinking down into the chair beside Shauna’s bed, a chair that he’d spent so many hours in, talking to his sister, waiting for her to wake up, he tried to wrap his mind around what had happened. Why had The Baby Doll Strangler painted his sister, why kill her? What pleasure could he have found making a comatose woman his latest victim?

He liked to toy with his prey, torture the girls.

Emily.

The killer could still be in the hospital, and he’d left her alone.

Jumping up, he’d sent the chair tumbling. He blew past the nurse he’d asked to stand guard, and raced through the deserted halls. Lungs burning from his exertion, he tried to outrun the gruesome images filling his mind. He had to protect Emily. He had to get to her in time.

But she was already gone when he got to her father’s room.

He spun around in a circle, unsure of where to go or what to do. He’d lost her. “Emily!” The scream was probably loud enough to disturb everyone in the building, but he didn’t care. He pounded on the wall with his fists, imagining it was The Baby Doll Strangler he was hurting.

The maniac had invaded his town, murdered his sister, and now he had the woman Bailey loved.

Bailey paced the halls of the hospital waiting for Chase and Sebastian. He’d barely been able to choke out that The Baby Doll Strangler had struck again when he’d called. Chase had said to stay where he was and that they should meet him at the hospital.

He hadn’t told them about Laurie…or Emily.

As soon as the two agents burst through the hospital doors he blurted out the terrible news. “He’s got them. He’s got Laurie and Emily.”

The two partners exchanged a worried look.

“Where are the bodies?” Sebastian asked.

“This way.” Bailey led the way, jogging through the hall. “He sent a text message to Emily, along with a photo of Laurie.”

As they entered Shauna’s room, Bailey’s stomach heaved treacherously when once again faced with the grotesque sight of two bodies intertwined on the bed. Their outfits and makeup were identical.

“This is all my fault,” Bailey muttered, bending over as the guilt knifed through his gut. “Emily thought her father knew who had her, so I brought her here, and—”

“You, what?” Sebastian bellowed.

Bailey cringed. “Look, I know I screwed up.”

“Damn right you screwed up. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Enough, Sebastian. Do you know who has them?”

Bailey’s stomach lurched. That smug little son of a bitch had been laughing at him. Biding his time. Waiting to get Emily. “Williams. Has to be. I asked him to watch out for her, and I came and I found…” He glanced at his sister and his voice began to shake. “I found Shauna and when I went back they were gone. I already called in an APB on him, but it’s not like there are many officers out there to look for him.”

Sebastian moved nearer the bed to get a closer look at the victims.

“Where would he take her?” Chase asked gently.

“I don’t know. Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?” He scanned the room as though the clue he needed was right there, waiting to be seen.

“What if you were wrong, Chase?” Sebastian mused softly as he bent over the bed.

They turned their attention to him.

He looked up. “How long has your sister been like this?”

Confused, Bailey shook his head. “Dead? I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe?”

“How long was she in a coma?”

“Sixteen years.”

The two FBI agents shared a look.

“Before or after Emily was kidnapped?”

“A year before. It had to have been almost to the day. I remember because they both happened on School Spirit day…”

“You’re sure?”

Bailey rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. It was the worst day of my life…besides this one.”

“Timing might make sense,” Sebastian muttered.

Chase shot his partner a warning look. “What happened to her?”

Bailey struggled to figure out what they were thinking. It was so hard to focus. First his dad died and now Shauna. And on top of everything else he was going to lose Emily. Forever this time.

“Bailey, you need to tell us what happened to your sister.”

“She fell. My dad came home and found her collapsed at the bottom of the stairs. He tried to revive her but…” A cold chill raced down his spine as the horror of what the two agents were hypothesizing suddenly became clear. “Oh my God, you’re thinking that Shauna was The Baby Doll Strangler’s first victim? And that Emily was his second? The pattern. Two girls?”

The implications of the words spilling out of his mouth hit him like a swinging heavy bag. He had to brace himself against the wall to stay standing. “He’s reliving it all again? Acting it all out.”

“It’s just a theory,” Chase said. “But it does make sense…”

“He can’t return to where he took Emily. Or at least I don’t think he will,” Sebastian said. “So the question is, where did he hurt your sister?”

“Because that may be where he’ll take the Wright sisters.” Chase finished the thought. “Where exactly was she?”

“The house I grew up in. My grandmother still lives there,” Bailey said. “I can take you.”

The three ran out to the parking lot and piled into the agents’ car. Sitting in the backseat, Bailey tried to figure out exactly what was going on. “Williams was just a kid. He’s not old enough to have hurt Shauna or taken Emily.”

“Maybe he isn’t the one who took Emily. Maybe he saw who did and followed,” Chase suggested.

They rolled up to his grandmother’s house with their headlights turned off. Sebastian killed the engine before they reached the driveway, not wanting to alert Williams they were near.

A light was on in a first-floor room. “Somebody’s still up,” Sebastian said.

“Let’s hope somebody’s still alive,” Chase muttered

They all pulled out their service weapons.

“I know the terrain. I’ll go in first, get his attention. You might be able to get the drop on him that way,” Bailey said.

They crept up the driveway, taking care not to make any noise.

There were no sounds coming from the house. The eerie silence kicked up the adrenaline that was already pulsing through Bailey’s system. He hadn’t been this on edge, this afraid, since the day Emily and Evan had stumbled into his path. His palms grew sweaty, the gun slipping in his grip. He exhaled slowly and deliberately. He couldn’t afford to let his nerves get the best of him. Too much was at stake.

He reached for the screen door, swinging it open carefully. It didn’t so much as creak. The front door was unlocked too. Guns at the ready, they entered the home. Bailey taking point. Chase in the rear. It felt surreal to be executing a tactical maneuver in the house he’d grown up in.

The faint, pulsing light of a muted television cast spooky shadows over the room.

Suddenly Bailey tripped over something lying on the floor. He fell to the ground with a resounding thunk. So much for a sneak attack.

“FBI!” Sebastian and Chase shouted as Bailey scrambled to his feet.

There was no noise or activity anywhere in the house. Everything was still, quiet. Too still, too quiet. Bailey felt along the wall for a light switch. “Got it,” he warned the other men before flipping it on.

Keeping their guns pointed, they blinked against the glare. The only thing out of the ordinary was the old woman on the floor.

Bailey’s grandmother didn’t live here anymore. Her lifeless eyes stared up at them, a dozen lollipops crammed into her mouth.

“Shit!” Sebastian muttered. “This just gets better and better.”

Bailey’s heart sank, not because he was mourning the passing of the bitter old woman, but because he was pretty sure they weren’t going to find the Wright sisters here.

Still, they systematically searched the house. There was no trace of them.

Bailey returned to study his grandmother’s body with professional detachment. Unlike the others, she hadn’t been arranged to look as though she was peacefully sleeping. Her violent death was plain to see. Had the killer returned to the site where he’d attacked Shauna, not expecting to find the old lady? Or had she been his intended victim?

Sebastian studied the family photographs that lined the walls. “There are two sets of fathers and sons in these pictures. Bailey and his dad with the sister, and another guy and a younger boy.”

“My uncle and cousin…” Bailey supplied. Trailing off, trying to weave the strings connecting the past and present together into a tapestry that revealed a clear picture of what was happening. “My uncle left town a long time ago…right after Emily escaped…” Just saying her name made Bailey reflexively look out the window in the direction of the Wright house, just as he had done so many times as a kid. It was so late at night, that he found it odd that there was another house on the lake, all lit up. He stared at it. “I know where they are!”

Sebastian jerked his gaze over to him. “Where?”

Bailey jutted out his chin. “The house that’s all lit up? That’s the Wright house!”

Hope and dread coursed through Bailey as they tumbled back into the car and raced toward the Wright house.
Please, God, let Emily still be alive,
Bailey prayed silently. He’d never forgive himself if anything had happened to her. Never.

Sebastian drove halfway around the lake at a breakneck speed.

“Everything is connected to Emily,” Bailey admitted grimly as they tore up the road. “If my father knew and didn’t do anything about it…”

“We don’t know that, Bailey,” Chase said.

“But you’re thinking it. How could—”

“Focus, O’Neil!” Black ordered sharply. “We’ve got lives to save. That’s what you should be thinking about.”

“You’re right.” He had to concentrate on the task at hand.

“Except now. The father’s got an accomplice now, the son, an apprentice,” Chase theorized.

“That’s why they changed the pattern, and started taking two girls at the same time. They weren’t escalating, as much as they were competing.”