Scream For Me: A Novel of the Night Hunter

  Break the way the bastard had made his victims break.

  Dani shut the door to her temporary office. Ben had commandeered the space for her so she could work in peace.

  She’d already set up her equipment.

  Now it was time to watch those tapes.

  The chair squeaked when she sat down. Dani leaned forward and cued up the first video.

  Static crackled across the scene. Almost instantly, the blinding white of that static gave way to darkness.

  The cave?

  There was a faint click, as if the camera had been adjusted—and suddenly she was seeing things in the faint tinge of infrared.

  She could see the rough outline of a bed. A woman was on the bed.

  “Please…”

  The softest of whispers.

  Dani leaned toward the screen as she narrowed her eyes. Her breath was coming too quickly. Her heart racing.

  “I—I want to go home…”

  The woman’s hands were bound.

  And there was a man standing right over her.

  The man had navigated that room. He’d turned on his camera. Then he’d gotten close in that perfect darkness.

  He just stood there. Watching the woman. Listening to her soft cries.

  “Look at the camera,” Dani muttered. “Come on, bastard, look this way.”

  But he didn’t. His back was to her. His whole focus was on the woman. The woman who whispered, “I don’t like the dark…”

  Three suspects. Three men who were swearing their innocence.

  There were two interrogation rooms at the Paradox police station. One room currently housed a tense and too quiet Aaron Peters. The second room contained a pissed Jason Marsh, a man who was currently being guarded by two fellow cops.

  And their third suspect? James Anniston waited patiently in the conference room.

  “He didn’t argue,” Ben said as he stood with Kyle and Cadence right outside of the rooms. “Just told me, ‘Get me cleared and back on the case.’”

  Cadence glanced over at Kyle. She knew he thought Anniston was innocent.

  At this point, Cadence wasn’t nearly as trusting. “Kyle, give Ben your gun before we start the interviews.”

  His blue eyes narrowed on her.

  Cadence lifted her chin. This was a deal breaker for her. Kyle was ready to kill, she got that, but it wasn’t happening in here. She wasn’t going to let him shoot an unarmed man, even if the bastard was a twisted SOB who belonged in a hole in the ground.

  She loved Kyle too much to let him throw his life away.

  Even as that thought raced through her mind, Cadence actually took a step back. Love? When had that happened?

  Ben cleared his throat, bringing her back, even as his brows climbed. “Uh, something I should know here?”

  Very, very slowly, Kyle pulled out his weapon. Then he gave it, grip first, to Ben.

  Ben frowned at Kyle. “I can trust you, can’t I, Agent?”

  Kyle had already turned away from him.

  Cadence squared her shoulders.

  Time to figure out if one of these three men was a killer.

  We’ll start with Anniston.

  Kyle opened the door to the conference room.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I wasn’t hurt in that accident.” Anniston’s voice was gruff, his gaze faraway as he seemed to revisit his past. “I don’t know what that little lady of yours found, but I barely had any scrapes. They kept me in the hospital just as a precaution.” He rubbed his jaw. “The other driver, now, she was hurt. I could hear her, calling out for help, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”

  His fingers dropped to the table. Drummed. Stilled. “I was a seventeen-year-old kid. She’d hit me. Came right out from nowhere. I was scared as shit. She was dying, begging for help, and I was pinned in the car. I wasn’t strong enough to get the metal off me, and I couldn’t do anything but sit there and wait for her to stop calling out to me.”

  His ragged breath filled the room.

  “When my eyes opened the next day, the first person I saw was a cop. He was there, telling me everything was gonna be all right.” His lips twisted. “He was a damn liar, of course, but he was trying to help me. I knew then I wanted to save people, too. I didn’t want to ever hear anyone begging for help again.”

  Cadence didn’t let her expression change at his words. The killer she was after seemed to crave silence, and Anniston had just confessed he didn’t want to hear victims begging for help. “What was it like for you, hearing her cries?”

  He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “It was hell, Agent Hollow. As close to hell as I ever want to get. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do for that poor woman, no matter how much she pleaded with me.” The echo of pain flashed in his gaze.

  Cadence kept her eyes on Anniston’s face. “When Maria McKenzie vanished fifteen years ago, why didn’t you initially believe she was the victim of foul play?”

  His stare cut to Kyle. Kyle stood just to the left of the table, watching them both carefully. Guilt was etched across the captain’s face. “We’d never had something like that happen around here. She was an eighteen-year-old girl, supposed to be meeting up with friends on a beach trip. Hell, I figured they were following each other—that when her car stopped, she just hitched a ride with them or a boyfriend. I was sure she’d turn up after a few days.”

  “She didn’t.” Cadence’s voice was flat.

  “No, she didn’t.” He gave a sad shake of his head. “I kept looking for her.” His words were directed at Kyle. “You know I never gave up. I kept her picture up in my office.”

  Cadence had seen the picture on the missing board.

  “But the years slipped away, and there was never any news.” He ran a hand over his grizzled jaw. “When Lily went missing, I knew there was a link. The car, abandoned, just like hers. I called you. I knew.”

  From the corner of her eye, Cadence glanced at Kyle. There was no expression on his face. Like her, he knew better than to give away his thoughts or emotions during an interrogation.

  She glanced down at her notes, not that she needed them. She wanted to buy herself time to think a bit more. “You never married. Never had a wife. A family.” She glanced back up at the captain. “Why is that?”

  “My job was—is—my life. I know you think it’s not much, being the captain in a Podunk little town, but what I do matters to the people here.” His shoulders straightened. Pride shone in his eyes. “It matters to me.”

  Time to change tactics. “You lived here your whole life.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then why didn’t you ever think to search the caves for Maria? For Lily? You had to hear the stories about them, you had to know.”

  “I did search them for Maria,” he gritted and those rumbling words had Cadence tensing. “I didn’t see anything. You know how they stretch—”

  “Yes,” Cadence interrupted, locking gazes with him. “I do. I know just how far they stretch because I was there. I watched a woman die in front of me. A woman who only wanted to go home. A woman who’d been held in your ‘Podunk little town’ quite possibly for the last four years.”

  He swallowed again, then his breath rasped out. “If I’d known…”

  “You would have saved her? Because you want to save people?”

  Kyle stalked closer to them.

  “You fit most of our profile,” she told Anniston simply. “You know the area. You were here when the first disappearance happened. You’ve been involved in the investigation since day one.”

  “I’m in my forties.”

  “The original profile was for a man in his thirties, but that was assuming the killer started killing when he himself was younger. You’re still fit, certainly still strong enough to easily navigate through the darkness of those caves.” She leaned toward him. “Is that what you do? Do you enjoy taking women into the darkness? Showing them just how much control you truly have over them?”

>   She searched his eyes. Could she be staring at a monster? Some people thought evil could be seen. It couldn’t. There were individuals in this world who were born actors. They showed only what they wanted you to see. The darkness inside of them might not appear until it was too late.

  Anniston held her stare. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. Didn’t even sweat. Completely confident.

  In control.

  “You have to investigate me,” he said with a nod. “I understand. Rip into my past. You’ll find I have alibis for the disappearances. All of ’em. I was working cases. Hell, I knew Lily. Don’t you think she would have recognized my voice if it had been me on the road with her?”

  “Not if you had disguised your voice, I don’t think she would have.” Cadence’s immediate reply.

  Anniston exhaled. His attention turned to Kyle. “Investigate me. Do what you both have to do, but I’m telling you, it’s a waste of time. The SOB is out there. He’s probably rushing across state lines right now. You’re losing him while you question me.”

  Still no sweat. No tremble of his fingertips. Just a voice vibrating with growing impatience.

  “We are investigating you right now,” Cadence told him as she gauged his reactions. “We’re pulling up all the work logs from your station, and comparing them with the disappearances.”

  A ghost of a smile, so confident, slid across his face. “Good. Then you’ll clear me within the hour.” But then that smile faded. “Only maybe I can make that faster for you.” His hands twisted in front of him. “Remember how you said the killer had to be fit, strong?”

  She remembered their profile clearly.

  He lifted his hands. Cadence could easily see the faint tremble. “I’m taking early retirement in three months. Just waitin’ for the paperwork to go through.” Sadness drifted through his words. “Your agent accessed the accident reports because those are out in the open. She wouldn’t have been able to get into my recent medical history.”

  Cadence sat back, her gaze sweeping over him.

  “I had the stroke five months ago. The trembles still come in my hands, I still get weak on the right side of my body.” He shook his head. “I’m not the man you’re looking for because I can’t be him right now. I’m not strong enough.” There was almost…shame…in his voice. “My own body turned against me. Docs said that if I didn’t slow down, I could have another stroke, one that might just kill me.”

  “Christ.” Kyle expelled a hard breath. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  James’s chin jerked into the air. The trace of shame vanished and ragged pride glinted in his eyes. “Because what’s happening to me doesn’t matter. The victims—they are the ones who matter.” His gaze cut back to Cadence. “You were sure right on that one, ma’am.”

  Cadence’s hand curled around Kyle’s arm before they entered the interrogation room housing Aaron Peters. “Are you okay?”

  Kyle nodded. “He should’ve told me.”

  “He isn’t a man who likes to admit weakness.”

  His gaze held hers. “This bastard has destroyed too many lives.”

  Yes.

  He cleared his throat. “When will they identify the bodies?”

  Not the bodies. The bones.

  “The first step is to compare dental records.” Something that was already being done. “If there is enough for a match, then the IDs will happen very quickly.” Just as they’d happened fast with Jake Landers and Judith Lynn.

  Footsteps hurried toward them. Cadence looked to the left. Saw Dani. Dani’s eyes were wide. Her lips pale.

  “What’s wrong?” Cadence asked her as she moved closer to her friend.

  “I started watching the videos.” Dani pushed back her hair. Lowered her voice. Because she didn’t want Kyle to hear her? “He recorded the women in the dark. Used infrared.” Her lips trembled. “They’re crying—begging—for help.”

  Just as Maria had begged on the calls Kyle had received.

  “It’s going to take weeks to go through all the footage. I identified Judith Lynn and Bridgette Chambers.” Her exhale was rough. “There are so many tapes. God, those women.”

  Cadence gave a quick, hard shake of her head. She didn’t want Dani to say any more, not with Kyle just steps away.

  Dani’s gaze slid to Kyle. “I haven’t seen any of your sister yet.” Her voice was a little stronger.

  “You probably won’t. I think the SOB took those.” His words were flat. “He used her tapes to call me. To make me hope she was alive.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dani whispered, sounding miserable.

  Kyle inclined his head. “I am, too.” He cleared his throat, looked at Cadence. “Come on,” he told her. “Let’s see just what the hell the professor has to say.”

  Cadence squeezed Dani’s hand, then headed for the interrogation room. Kyle opened the door. As he opened the door, it was like a mask slid over his face. The grief vanished. Only the cold agent remained.

  Aaron immediately jumped to his feet. “I didn’t do it!” He shook his head, a frantic move. “You’ve got the wrong guy! It wasn’t me!”

  His eyes darted back and forth between them. Nervous energy hummed from his body.

  Kyle pointed to the chair. “You need to sit back down, Professor.” The bite in his voice made the title a taunt.

  Aaron gulped and hurriedly sat back down. “I know how this looks. I was in the caverns. I should have found the women, but I didn’t see them! I’ve told you that already!”

  Yes, he had. They just weren’t necessarily buying his story. They’d sure found the body in the Statue of Liberty chamber easily enough.

  “Look, maybe the guy moved them. I had to get permission from the county before I went in with my team. Anniston and all the members of the city council had to approve my request. Word was in the local papers. I mean, hell, everyone knew I was heading into the caves back then.” Aaron licked his lips. “He knew what I was doing, and he had time to move them.”

  “You are the expert on the caves,” Cadence said, cutting through his words, trying to catch his focus. “You knew about the entrance at Death Falls, but you didn’t tell us anything about the entrance on the northwest side of the mountains.” The entrance she’d been forced to walk through at gunpoint. “Do you expect us to believe you didn’t know about that entrance?”

  “I didn’t get to explore the caverns fully! After four days of study at the first site, the walls started to tremble.”

  Had someone given that tremble a little help? The perp, who’d been worried the professor might go too far and discovery things he shouldn’t?

  “You never heard anything in the caverns?” Cadence pressed. “Did you, or anyone on your team, see anything that made you suspicious?”

  He shook his head. His fingers were tapping on the tabletop. “Nothing. I swear, I would have gone to the cops if I had!”

  She didn’t sit in the chair across from him. Kyle didn’t sit either. They both stood and studied the man who was shaking before them.

  “You didn’t return to your motel room last night.” That had been easy enough to check, since the guy was booked at the same no-tell motel she was. “The clerk was watching. He said your crew came back, but you didn’t.”

  He blinked a few times, clearing watery eyes.

  She leaned across the table toward him. “Where did you go?”

  Aaron surged to his feet. “It wasn’t—”

  Kyle wrapped his hand around the guy’s shoulder and shoved him right back down into the seat. “Don’t fucking move.”

  Aaron gulped.

  “You were with me at the site. You followed me to the falls.” Cadence kept her voice flat. “Were you the one who sabotaged my wipers? You knew I’d have to pull over if they stopped, but you also knew I wouldn’t let my guard down if a man came toward my vehicle. So you sent Fiona—”

  “No!” He lunged up again. “I don’t know any Fiona!”

  In an instant, Kyle had grabb
ed the man and slammed him against the wall. Kyle’s forearm shoved under Aaron’s chin, pinning him in place.

  Oh, hell. “Kyle!”

  “Did you take those women?” Kyle demanded, his voice lethal. “Is that why you don’t have an alibi for last night? You took Cadence, you wanted to hurt her.”

  “No.” A gasping wheeze.

  “Where the fuck where you then?” Kyle snarled.

  “Picked up a waitress…named Susannah Jane…We hooked up behind the bar…”

  Cadence remembered Susannah Jane. Lily’s coworker who had been so concerned.

  “Ask her! Please…just ask…” His face was turning bright red.

  Cadence touched Kyle’s shoulder. “Let him go.”

  He held the man for a moment longer.

  Kyle, let him go.

  Grudgingly, he released the man.

  Aaron sucked in deep, gasping breaths. A normal shade slowly returned to his face as he gasped. “Freaking…police…brutality…”

  They weren’t the police. They were the FBI.

  Kyle was still crossing the line.

  She looked into his eyes and only saw fury. So much for the mask he’d tried to don.

  “I don’t believe your story.” Kyle’s words snapped out. “You’re the one who closed down the caves, the one who said they weren’t safe enough for anyone else to go in. Why? I think you just didn’t want someone stumbling into your sick playground.”

  Even though his chest was still heaving, Aaron straightened his shoulders.

  The nervousness of his body seemed to ebb.

  “I know about your sister,” Aaron muttered.

  Wrong thing to say.

  Kyle froze.

  “You want her killer, and you’ll do anything to close her case, even blame me.” Aaron shook his head and jutted out his chin. “Screw that. I’m not saying another damn word without an attorney. You won’t pin this on me!”

  Kyle lunged for him.

  Cadence yanked him back and hauled him outside before he could rip into Aaron. Or rip him apart.

  She had the feeling that was exactly what Aaron wanted. To push Kyle.

  To make him lose control.