Together they cautiously stepped out of the SUV, both holding their handguns as they edged toward the truck.
The helicopter pulled away, no doubt looking for somewhere to land, while Hauk circled the vehicle from the north and Rafe took the south. There was no need to speak. They’d both been trained to deal with situations with a silent efficiency.
Waiting for Hauk to give the all-clear sign that indicated there was no one hiding in the tree line, Rafe approached the vehicle, quickly determining that no one was inside.
“Damn,” he growled, turning to glance toward the Gilbert house, which was easily visible across the open field. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Hauk took a position at the edge of the road where he could keep a lookout.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Rafe pointed toward the truck. “Why would he park so far from his hidden lair?”
Hauk sent him a startled glance. “Hidden lair?”
Rafe gave an impatient shrug. “Batcave?”
Hauk allowed a tight smile to touch his lips before his grimly focused expression returned. “He couldn’t leave it in the driveway,” he pointed out.
Rafe tried to put himself in Emerson’s mind. The bastard might be crazy, but he’d managed to remain undetected for weeks.
Which meant he was cunning enough to fly beneath the radar.
“Maybe not, but there’s no way he carried the women he kidnapped two miles down an exposed road.”
Hauk gave a lift of his brows. “I wouldn’t call it exposed. Hell, there’s nothing here but cows and corn.”
Rafe wasn’t deceived. Such a rural area might not have the traffic of a big city, but it wasn’t completely isolated.
There were always farmers, hunters, mail carriers, and conservation officers cruising along the roads. And there would be absolutely no way to predict when someone might drive past.
“You would have to use the main road to reach the Gilberts’ from here,” he said. “Why wouldn’t he have parked on the other side of the property where he could have remained hidden behind the barn?”
Hauk shrugged. “He might have pulled up close to his batcave and unloaded the women before moving the truck to a place that would give him a quick getaway if necessary.”
It made sense. But . . .
“It doesn’t feel right,” he admitted with a burst of fury.
Dammit. He was wasting time, but he didn’t know how the hell to speed up the process.
Hauk nodded. “I agree. Emerson isn’t stupid. If he parked here, it was for a reason.”
Rafe turned his attention to the tracks that led directly into the thicket of trees.
“We need to see what’s on the other side of those trees.”
Rafe moved forward, only to be halted when Hauk grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”
“Up there.” Rafe nodded toward the deer stand that was built in the upper branches of the nearby tree. “I should have a clear view of the area.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Hauk growled, shoving his gun in the holster at his side. “There’s no way you can climb up there.”
Any other day Rafe would have argued.
He had too much testosterone to let a few bruised ribs put him on the sidelines. But today he didn’t give a shit about his manly pride.
There was no way he was going to risk doing anything that might incapacitate him before they could find Annie.
Instead he kept a careful watch on their surroundings as Hauk easily climbed the tree and stepped onto the stand.
“Anything?” Rafe demanded.
“Yeah, I can see the convenience store from here.”
Rafe nodded. The stand would be a perfect place to keep watch. “Anything else?”
“There’s a house less than half a mile away—” Hauk’s words were abruptly cut off. “Shit.”
Rafe’s fingers tightened on his gun. “What?”
“I just caught sight of the sheriff’s car.”
Rafe swore beneath his breath. He’d hoped he could find Annie before he got shoved out of the search by the prick of a lawman.
“Is it headed this way?”
“No.” Hauk moved to the edge of the stand and stepped off the side, easily landing at the bottom of the tree. “It’s parked at the neighbor’s house. The sheriff must have gotten a tip.”
What the hell?
Rafe pulled his phone from his pocket and hit speed dial.
“Teagan,” he said as soon as the connection went through. “Get me a name and info on the house just south of the Gilbert farm.”
Hauk moved to his side as they listened to the tapping of Teagan’s computer.
“It belongs to the Hesters,” Teagan at last said. “An elderly couple. Looks like they live in the house, but rent out their land to a nephew.”
Which meant that they wouldn’t spend much time out in the fields.
“Did you notice any buildings that Emerson could be using?” he asked Hauk.
The older man gave a shake of his head. “A few sheds and a barn. Nothing that couldn’t be easily seen from the house,” he said. “Impossible to know if there’s anything underground.”
“We don’t have time for this shit,” Rafe snarled, a sickening sense of urgency thundering through him. Annie needed him. He could feel her growing terror. He spoke directly into the phone. “Do you have anything else?”
There was no tapping. “Not that . . . Christ.”
Rafe stiffened. There was no mistaking that tone.
Teagan had found something.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“The owners of the house have their mail being forwarded to a condo in Arizona.”
Teagan had barely finished speaking when Rafe was limping back to the truck and pulling open the door. “Let’s go,” he commanded.
Hauk didn’t hesitate as he started the engine and headed the SUV directly through the trees.
“Hold on,” he warned.
Screwing any hope of stealth mode, Hauk gunned the engine, nearly sending them airborne when they hit a shallow ditch.
“Damn, Hauk,” Rafe ground out between clenched teeth, his hands on the dashboard to keep him from being catapulted through the front windshield. “I hope you bought insurance when you rented this thing.”
Aiming for the detached garage, Hauk screeched to a halt behind it. The position gave them a full view of the house as well as the nearby barn.
Rafe shook his head, once again struck by the bucolic peace of their surroundings.
This was a place you planted a garden and went fishing with a stick pole.
It was just wrong to think there was a serial killer lurking in the shadows.
“Stay here,” Rafe ordered, shoving open his door.
Hauk sent him a frown of disbelief. “No fucking way.”
He slid out of the truck and sent his friend an impatient glare. “Look, I don’t think the sheriff was kidding about shooting us if we try to interfere.”
Hauk matched him glare for glare. “Then we wait here for the bastard to do his job.”
Rafe shook his head, holding up his gun to make certain the safety was off. “You know I can’t do that.” Rafe’s voice warned he wasn’t going to argue. “Besides, we don’t know if Emerson is in the house. We need eyes out here to make sure he can’t escape while my back is turned.” He slammed the door shut, only to lean through the open window. “And call Max and let him know what’s going on. And tell him to get my bail money ready. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”
Teagan paced the cracked linoleum floor, his gaze locked on Max as he finished his call with Hauk.
Christ, he hated this waiting.
Especially when he wasn’t in the position to provide electronic backup.
“Well?” he demanded as soon as Max shoved his phone back into his pocket.
“They’re headed to the Hester house,” Max said, clearly no happier than Teagan at being left to twiddle thei
r damn thumbs while their friends were in danger. “Hauk asked me to get Rafe’s bail money ready.”
Teagan’s lips twisted into a humorless smile. “I don’t mind hauling his ass out of jail, as long as he doesn’t have a bullet in it.”
“True.” Max nodded, but it was obvious he was distracted.
Teagan planted his hands on his hips and studied his friend. “What’s on your mind?”
Max turned to study the map. Looking for answers? Or inspiration?
“If the sheriff believed that Emerson was holding Annie at the Gilbert farm, why did he stop at the neighbors’?”
Teagan walked the short distance to join his friend, instinctively sorting through the various possibilities. He’d learned to look for angles when he’d been young and trying to survive on the street.
It was a talent that’d kept him alive.
“Maybe someone called in a tip,” he suggested. “Or he spotted something suspicious.”
Max shrugged. “I have a feeling.”
“A feeling?” Teagan gave a bark of laughter. It was a running joke that Max used scientific equations in place of emotions. “You?”
“I think the sheriff knew the Hesters were out of town,” Max said slowly, speaking his thoughts out loud. “People who leave for months at a time ask the local police to keep an eye on their house.”
Teagan nodded. His friend was right. “And?” he prompted.
“And I think he deliberately led Rafe and Hauk on a wild-goose chase.”
A chill of foreboding raced through Teagan. “It could be nothing more than a way to keep them away from the action,” he muttered, trying not to jump to conclusions. “If the sheriff manages to capture the Newton Slayer, it might make up for having arrested the wrong man fifteen years ago.”
“It could be,” Max muttered, turning his head.
Their gazes locked, both thinking the same thing.
“Or it could be something we’re missing.” Teagan spoke their concern out loud.
“Exactly.”
Max walked to pull the journals out of the oven where he’d hidden them during the sheriff’s unexpected visit, and dumped them on the table. The impact was enough to jiggle a stack of files, and Teagan instinctively reached out to steady them.
He managed to keep the files off the floor, but a dozen black-and-white pictures slid out of the top folder to land on the table.
Teagan frowned, reaching to grab the grisly photos of the bomb shelter. “These are the pictures that were taken out of the courthouse before it burned, aren’t they?” he muttered, his stomach twisting as he studied the pile of women in the corner of the room.
It was obscene.
Wrong on a deep, fundamental level.
Max flicked a brief glance toward the photos in Teagan’s hands before returning his attention to the journals. “Yeah.”
Shuffling through the pictures, Teagan was about to shove them back into the file when his attention was captured by the woman who was separated from the others.
He hesitated, his brows snapping together at the blatant clue he’d overlooked.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Christ,” he muttered.
Max snapped his attention back to Teagan, no doubt sensing his sudden tension. “What do you see?” he asked.
“Where are the pictures of his victims before they were killed?” Teagan demanded, pointing toward the journals.
Max obediently flipped through the pages of the bottom journal to pull out the pictures of the women who were tied and gagged in a wooden chair.
He handed them over with a frown. “What are you looking for?”
Teagan spread the pictures over the table, grimly ignoring the expressions on the women’s faces that varied from terror to heart-wrenching resignation. “The women are all naked.”
Max grimaced. “And?”
Teagan reached for the crime scene photo that had been destined to be burned.
He pointed toward the woman who was lying a few feet from the rest of the victims.
The photo was aged, but it was easy to see the female was wearing a loose denim dress that was popular with pregnant women. “And this one isn’t.”
“She was the final victim,” Max said with a shrug. “He was in a hurry.”
“No.” Teagan pointed toward the pictures that Emerson had taken of the women, the tip of his finger lingering on a shallow bowl of water and towel that’d been left by each of the chairs. “He stripped and washed them before he killed them,” he said. “It was a ritual he wouldn’t have skipped. Not for any reason.”
“Fuck.” Max stepped away from the table, his face white. “She was the sheriff’s wife.”
Teagan’s thoughts had veered in the same direction. “She was still warm when the deputy arrived, right?” he growled.
“Call Rafe,” Max snapped, already pulling out his own phone to speed-dial Hauk.
Teagan returned to his pacing, a bad feeling lodged in the pit of his stomach. “He isn’t picking up,” he growled as the call went straight to voice mail.
“Hauk,” Max spoke into his phone, clearly having more luck. “The sheriff’s not there to arrest Emerson. He’s intending to execute him,” he said, not giving the other man a chance to interrupt. “Get Rafe the hell out of there.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Annie watched the sheriff with a numbed sense of disbelief.
A part of her understood she was in shock. Otherwise she would be screaming at the top of her lungs.
Instead she watched in silence as the lawman warily moved down another few steps, his eyes darting around the basement as if afraid there might be someone hidden behind the jars of pickles.
He was wearing his uniform, and in his hands he had a pistol that was pointed directly at Martin.
“That’s the man,” her brother muttered, heading to stand next to the cot.
“Don’t move,” the sheriff growled, halting halfway down the steps.
She gave a slow shake of her head.
Distantly she was aware of a bone-deep fear racing through her, and a primal urge to survive. But within her bubble there was nothing but horror at the growing acceptance this man had committed cold-blooded murder.
“You’re supposed to protect people,” she rasped. “Instead, you killed an innocent woman.”
The round face twisted with a sneer that was blatantly absent of any guilt. “It was my wife,” he drawled. “And she was far from innocent.”
Annie shuddered, feeling as if the entire world had gone mad. “Oh my God.”
Brock leaned to the side, keeping the gun trained on Martin as he glanced over the railing, trying to see behind the stairs.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Brock said. Then, returning his gaze to Annie, he gave a small shrug. “Or more precisely, it wasn’t premeditated.”
She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “Then why?”
He moved down two more steps. “I discovered she’d been banging the local football coach and that she’d told one of her girlfriends that the baby wasn’t even mine. Bitch.” His eyes narrowed as Martin shuffled his feet. “I told you not to move.”
Martin hunched his shoulders, his face twisted with anger. “You’re a bad man.”
“Not bad,” Annie muttered. “Obscene.”
The sheriff shrugged. “I did what anyone would do.”
Did he really believe that?
It seemed excessive, but there were men who were so shallow that nothing was more important than their inflated ego.
Graham Brock seemed like that kind of man.
“Cheating doesn’t deserve a death sentence,” she stated in grim tones.
“Like I said, it wasn’t planned.”
She studied his pudgy face. There truly wasn’t the smallest hint of remorse. “Are you trying to say it was an accident?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He took another step, swaying slightly, as if he was having trouble with his balance.
Had he been drinking? “I told her that morning to pack a bag and get into the car. I intended to drop her off at her loser boyfriend’s house,” he continued. “Then I got a call to swing by the White farm and check out a suspicious smell in the garage. It was on my way and I didn’t want to have to drive back, so I stopped.” He gave a short laugh that echoed eerily through the basement, his gaze shifting to Martin. “I had no idea what I would find in that shelter. You truly are a demented freak.”
Martin scowled. “I was protecting my sister.”
The sheriff’s lips twisted. “I wish I’d known that you were responsible at the time,” he said. “I saw Don White passed out on the bed and I assumed he was the Slayer. It was too good an opportunity to miss.”
“Opportunity?” A horrified breath was wrenched from her throat.
You had to be an amoral SOB to be able to stumble across six dead women and consider it your lucky day.
“I’m not stupid,” he insisted, taking another step as he glanced toward the stack of bikes. He was dangerously twitchy. One sudden movement and he was going to start shooting. Annie didn’t like her chance of survival, or her brother’s. “My wife was not only a slut, but she was the daughter of a shyster lawyer,” Brock continued, the words falling off his tongue with ease. Obviously he’d spent a lot of time convincing himself that his wife deserved to die. “There was no doubt she was going to try and take me for every penny she could get her grubby little hands on.”
Annie gave a slow shake of her head, feeling the urge to puke. “You’re crazy.”
“No, your brother is the whack job. I’m just a man who sees the potential to get rid of a problem.”
Martin took a step forward, his hands clenched into tight fists. “Don’t call me that.”
“Martin, don’t,” she hissed, trying to keep him from provoking the sheriff. Her brother clearly needed to be locked away from society, but she was terrified he might be shot. “Your wife was a human being, not a problem,” she said in loud tones, drawing Brock’s attention back to her.
The man curled his lips with disgust. “She was trash.”
Annie sucked in a sharp breath, abruptly realizing that this man must have been the one who’d dragged her down to the shelter and tied her up. “Did you intend to kill me?”