and he’d never seen the monster behind the mask. Joe had been the
one to sit down with him after Laura left. He’d listened. He’d bought
him beers, and Rafe had gone over everything that had happened to
her.
“The fucker enjoyed listening to me,” Rafe said, finally
understanding.
Cam nodded, his lips a grim line. “Yes, he would. He would enjoy
the misery he caused. Being so close to the case had to have given
him an enormous amount of satisfaction. He was able to manipulate
things his way. And when Laura got too close, he tried to kill her.”
“Is the radio working?” They had tried a couple of times already.
Bile rose in Rafe’s throat at the thought of Laura being in the same
state as Joe, much less the same room.
Cam switched some dials on the radio he held. “This is Cameron
Briggs. Can anyone hear me?” He groaned. “And no one is
answering. What the hell? The station is supposed to be manned. I
know there are at least five people in that building. Why aren’t they
answering?”
Rafe hit the gas again, cursing the fact that the motel was on the
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outskirts of town. “Try the direct frequency for the sheriff.”
Frustration dripped from Cam’s voice as he closed the laptop and
set it at his feet, his whole attention focused on the radio in his hands.
“I’ve done that twice now, Rafe. I’m not getting anything. I’ve even
tried to switch the frequency to see if I can get anyone in town to
answer.”
Rafe pounded his fist on the steering wheel. “Something’s wrong.
I know it.”
His every instinct was screaming at him that this situation was
ripe with danger. Something had happened.
“I’ll see if I can get Logan. Maybe he’ll know what’s going on,”
Cam said.
When Nate Wright had radioed in earlier, Joe hadn’t been at the
station. He’d been on site, possibly making sure he’d cleaned up
properly after himself and getting rid of pesky little pieces of
evidence. Joe had always joked that he, himself, was the smartest man
he knew. That arrogance had seemed like a funny quirk. Now Rafe
could see that Joe truly believed it. He thought he was above the law.
Cam changed the frequency again and let out a little shout of joy
as he got an answer. “Thank god. Logan. Logan, it’s Cam and Rafe. I
need to know if the SAC is still at the crime site.”
Logan’s voice crackled over the line. “Your SAC is a jerk. He had
me bring all this crap out here and now he’s gone. I asked some of the
forensic guys and no one’s seen him. And the forensic guys are
looking at me like I’m an idiot. I fucking hate that. He wasn’t at the
station when I left. Is it standard FBI procedure to disappear in the
middle of an investigation?”
Rafe’s skin went cold. “Who’s at the station with Laura?”
There was a slight pause, and then Logan didn’t sound quite so
pissed off. “Nate. Nate’s there. I’ll get him on the radio.”
The connection got quiet for a minute.
“He wouldn’t take her in the middle of the day.” Cam’s words
came out almost like a prayer.
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“He’ll do anything it takes.” God, Rafe needed a gun. Why had he
given up his gun?
Logan’s voice came back on the line. “Nate isn’t answering. No
one’s answering. I’m getting in my Bronco right now. I can be there
in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes was too long. Rafe turned onto Main Street. Unlike
the other times he’d been on the street, it was almost deserted. The
line of businesses and restaurants was eerily quiet. There was one
truck parked outside the Trading Post. It was big and black. Rafe
recognized it because he’d thought sincerely about firebombing it
with its owner inside. Now Rafe couldn’t think of a single person he’d
rather see more than Wolf Meyer.
He stopped the SUV in the middle of the street just as Wolf
walked away from the front door of the Trading Post, scratching his
head at the closed sign.
Wolf was dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans, and boots. He looked
very military and substantial. Rafe hopped out, leaving the engine
running.
“Hey, have you got any idea what’s going on? Why the hell is
everything closed in the middle of the week?” Wolf asked.
Rafe didn’t have time to answer the man’s questions. “I need a
gun.”
Wolf Meyer looked like a man who had kept a gun handy.
Wolf went from confused to stone-cold professional in a
heartbeat. He moved toward his truck. “What’s happened with
Laura?”
No hesitation from the ex-SEAL. “We figured out who the killer
is, and we think he’s after her. Nate took her in to be interviewed
while we were getting the files we needed, and now we can’t raise
anyone from the station.”
“Fucker.” Wolf pulled back the front seat, and his hand
disappeared. “There’s no way Nate lets anything happen to her. We
have to think that Nate’s not answering for a reason.”
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“Yes, he’s either run with her or he’s down.” Rafe didn’t even
want to think about that. If Joe had killed the sheriff, Rafe wasn’t sure how he was going to live with himself. Of course, if Joe killed Laura,
Rafe wasn’t sure he wanted to live at all.
“Nate’s going to be a tough kill,” Wolf said, his voice gruff as he
pulled out a black bag. He unzipped the bag and started pulling out
what looked like an endless supply of things with which to kill
people. Rafe knew he’d come to the right place. “Sig Sauer P226.”
“I’m familiar.” The minute Wolf put that big black gun in his
hand, Rafe felt infinitely better. Rafe quickly checked the chamber
and made sure it was loaded and ready to go. “How many more do
you have?”
Wolf grimaced. “More than I should have. And a couple of
knives. Taser unit. Two shot guns.”
“Are you planning on starting a war?” Cam asked, holding his
hand out for his weapon. He proved he was familiar with fire arms,
too, when Wolf handed him another P226.
Wolf reached back in his truck and came up with a scoped rifle.
“My mom and potential future step-dad,” he stumbled on the word,
groaning just a little, “they might be crazy, but they are right about
this town. It’s dangerous. I’m loaded and ready to go. Russian mob.
Stalkers. Biker gangs. Hell, aliens. I’m ready to take them all down.”
Rafe would use the help. He’d use anyone if it meant getting
Laura back alive and whole. He couldn’t fail her again. “Will you
come with us?”
“Of course.” Wolf slammed the truck door shut. “What are you
going to do with this guy? Do you have enough to arrest him?”
“I’m going to get him alone, and I’m going to kill him,” Rafe said.
Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew he shouldn’t have
spoken them out loud, but he
couldn’t take them back. He meant
every word.
Wolf stared at him for a moment. “See that you do. And then tell
me what your alibi is. I’ll back you up. So will any man in this town.
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They won’t be able to prosecute you. Just make sure you get rid of the
gun. And wipe it down first.”
Wolf sounded like he knew a little bit about how to play dirty, but
then Rafe was sure the SEALs had taught him that. They didn’t play
fair when the country’s safety was at stake, and Rafe didn’t intend to
play fair, either.
Wolf nodded as he started toward the sheriff’s department
building. It was only a block away, but it seemed like a mile to Rafe.
Rafe turned to his partner, the only person in the world who
understood how much was at stake. “Let’s go get her.”
He watched Cam swallow down his fear and turn stony cold. “I’m
ready.”
Rafe walked toward the sheriff’s department, his mind set to the
task.
* * * *
Cam went in the front door, gun at the ready. Wolf followed
behind him while Rafe went up the alley to sneak in the back. Cam’s
heart was in his throat. He checked his emotions so he wouldn’t take
one look at Joseph Stone and pull the trigger.
He was shocked at just how normal the station seemed.
A young woman dressed in a long skirt and loose shirt walked out
into the main room as Cam and Wolf walked in. Her eyes went wide
as she saw the guns in their hands. “Deputy Briggs? Is there
something I should know?”
Hope. He remembered Nate introducing her as Hope. “Where’s
Laura?”
“She’s in with the sheriff. I was just taking a little break.” Hope
strode over to open her boss’s door, and then a little shriek came out
of her mouth. “Sheriff!”
Cam ran. Now some of the others were coming out of the
interrogation room. Edward actually called out for him to stop, but
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Cam ignored him. He felt bile in his throat when he saw the sheriff
slumped over his desk. The desk was in complete disarray. He’d
knocked over a thermos, and coffee was everywhere.
“We need to call a bus,” Rafe yelled from the small room in the
back. “Brad is down.”
“I’m fine.” Brad sounded cranky, but Cam was focused on the
sheriff. Wolf got in behind the big man and tried to pull him up.
“He’s got a pulse.” Wolf struggled as he forced Nate Wright’s big
body up. “Come on, Sheriff. It’s time to wake up and possibly purge.”
Where was Laura?
Chaos ruled all around him. He couldn’t place all the voices
shouting.
“Call Caleb. Half-alive sheriff is more important than dead
reporter.”
“We have to get him on his feet.”
“What happened to Special Agent Conrad?”
“Where’s Laura?”
Where was Laura?
“Stop,” Cam shouted. His roar filled the room, and everyone
stopped. “Hope, get Caleb over here. Edward, you stay. Wolf, get the
sheriff into the bathroom. Everyone else, get out of here. When Logan
gets here, send him in.”
“I need to sleep.” The sheriff tried to shove Wolf away.
“No, Sheriff, you need to spend a little time in the bathroom.”
“Can’t. Gotta keep it open for Callie.” But the sheriff was on his
feet, stumbling toward where Wolf wanted him to go.
Rafe helped Brad sit down. “What the hell happened?”
Brad’s forehead was swollen above his right eye, and his face was
covered in blood. It seemed to have stopped, but Brad held a towel to
his head anyway. “I walked in to ask the sheriff about the recording
equipment, and I found him like that. I realized something was wrong,
and I tried to get your girl out of here, but she attacked me. I hit my
head and then nothing.” He turned to Edward. “Just where the hell
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were you?”
Rafe shook his head. “It wasn’t Edward. It was Joe. We need to
figure out where Joe would have taken Laura.”
Edward’s face went a stark white. “It can’t be Joe. Joe is out at the
crime scene. He told me to handle the cameraman because he needed
to focus on evidence.”
Cam was sick of everyone hiding their heads in the sand. “He
killed his wife, and now he has mine. You’re the closest one of all of
us to him. Where would he go?”
Edward shook his head as if he was trying to wake up from some
nightmare. “He loved Marla. He loved her so much. I was so sure of
it. He was devastated when she died.”
“Edward, snap the fuck out of it.” Cam needed a different tactic.
Just because Edward was blind didn’t mean he was stupid. “I need
you to focus. You know more about the actual facts of this case than
anyone. Stop thinking of him as Joe. He’s the Marquis de Sade.
Where would he take her? Where would he go?”
Edward swallowed, and for a moment, and Cam worried that he
wouldn’t answer.
“Somewhere isolated,” Rafe prompted the profiler.
Edward nodded. “Yes. Isolated. He prefers places that no one
looks at. Places that blend into the background. It’s why he worked in
abandoned warehouses. There was plenty of space and no one to hear
screams. He could work in privacy.”
“He’s not going to find a warehouse out here,” Cam said. There
wasn’t anything industrial about Bliss.
There was a bang as the door slammed opened, and Caleb Burke
rushed in. “Where’s Nate? Do we have any idea what he ingested?”
“Some type of sedative,” Cam guessed.
The doctor slammed his bag on the desk. “Shit. And we have no
idea how much? No chance it was anything acidic?”
“I don’t know,” Cam answered, feeling utterly helpless.
“Joe has a prescription for sleeping pills. I would assume it’s that.
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It’s a very common prescription. He could easily call it coincidence if
anyone thought to ask,” Brad said. “I saw it in his hotel room the
other day.”
Caleb strode toward the bathroom. “Holly, have that charcoal
ready.”
Cam turned, and Holly stood in the doorway, a mug in her hands
and tears in her eyes. Caleb had come prepared. “He has Laura?”
“Yes,” Rafe replied. “We’re trying to figure out where he would
take her.”
“Would it be the same place he took that reporter?” Holly asked.
Cam could see plainly that she was forcing herself to hold it together.
Her hands shook and there was a pale fragility to her face.
Of course. He already had his kill spot. “It has to be close. He was
here this morning. When is the first time anyone remembers seeing
him?”
“We all got the call at seven,” Brad said.
“I heard him in his room far earlier than that.” Edward sounded
stronger now. “I have the room next to his. He was in his bathroom
running the shower at four this mor
ning. The walls are paper thin, and
I am a horrible sleeper. Anything wakes me up. Unless someone else
was using his shower, he was in his room at four.”
Now they were getting somewhere. Cam looked into the
bathroom. Wolf had Nate upright, one hand around his waist and the
other under Nate’s arms.
“You’re going to swallow this.” Caleb didn’t sound like he would
take no for an answer.
“Don’t wanna,” Nate said, struggling against Wolf’s hold.
Caleb didn’t back down. “And I don’t want to get covered in
vomit, but that’s probably what’s going to happen.”
Cam did not want to watch that. “Have you figured out the time of
death on Jana Evans?”
“According to liver temp, I would say no later than 2:30 this
morning.” Caleb held up Nate’s head and tipped back the small
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container he held. “I would leave now. It’s about to get messy. Ipecac
doesn’t take long. Wolf, get him over the sink. I need the contents of
his stomach for testing.”
Cam stepped out just as the ipecac began to work. “Did you hear
that?”
Cam noticed Logan had arrived. His face betrayed no emotion as
Logan stared at the bathroom. “Is Nate going to be okay?”
“I think so,” Cam said. “Caleb’s taking care of him. Now, we’re
trying to figure out places to look for Laura.”
Logan nodded. “I got that. I heard Joe was in his room at 4:00,
and the reporter was killed at roughly 2:30. He’s got to be in the area.
He couldn’t be farther than Del Norte. Creede is forty minutes away.
There are only a couple of spreads between here and there, and all of
them are occupied right now. We have a lot of land, but our
population is small. We all know each other.”
“There are no new developments?” Rafe asked, frustration evident
in his tone.
“No.” Holly’s hands were shaking slightly. “You would have to
go about a hundred miles east to Alamosa to find any real
development projects. We have some summer cabins, but they’re
mostly privately owned. I could call and see if they’re occupied.”
“You do that. Have Hope help you.” Cam took the mug out of her
hand. “I’ll pass this to Caleb when he needs it. Also, check on