The Killing Place, page 12
“An innocent,” he said, his voice almost stilled with awe.
“A godsend,” his lover said, stepping forward.
Try as they might, they had never been able to have a child.
They stared at each other for a moment, and from the look in her eyes he knew he couldn’t refuse her. Not that he ever did.
“Please don’t hurt her,” their target said again, her words choked by sobs.
“We won’t hurt her,” his lover said. “Don’t worry. We’d never hurt an innocent. We only go after the guilty.”
He gritted his teeth, lips pulled back in a snarl. “Like you.”
He slashed the knife across her throat, releasing a great gush of blood.
Another name to cross off the list.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Stuart drove in silence the entire way to Benson. Although his eyes felt heavy and he wanted more than anything else to turn around and head for home, he kept going. The case propelled him forward, but more than a sense of duty it was the need for approval from the sleeping woman in the seat next to him that kept him going.
Because she wouldn’t stop until she got the two killers. Once a case started, she kept going and going, grinding herself down until she nabbed the perps.
What drove her? The answer for his own motivation was easy. His high school girlfriend had disappeared, presumed murdered, her body never found. That had launched him into the army, where he thought he’d go fight terrorists, the worst of the worst. Doing that would give him a sense of fighting the evil that he couldn’t fight in his own childhood. And he did get that, but he also found himself in a confusing political and social mess in a faraway land where he didn’t speak the language and knew nothing about the culture.
Even so, he’d found comradeship. He had volunteered for his second tour of duty less for the fight and more to help his buddies see it through.
After his second tour of duty, he was emotionally and physically spent, and he returned to the States, mustered out, and suddenly felt lost.
It took less than a week to decide to join law enforcement. The Behavioral Affairs Unit of the FBI was the natural choice. They hunted predators and serial killers, the kind who took his girlfriend from him, and while he knew he’d never solve that mystery, at least he could stop others from becoming victims like Stacy.
Yes, Stacy. The same name as Alexa’s half-adopted kid. He should have never told Alexa that, because she got the same bulldog obsession about that old case as she did about the ones they were assigned. When he found out that she’d been digging into it all he had felt deeply insulted. That incident was the most personal thing of his life, and she had no right to meddle in it.
She had apologized, and he believed the apology, but the resentment lingered as a sort of respectful mistrust. If Alexa Chase thought she could solve a case, nothing else mattered. No one else mattered.
What caused that? He wondered as he glanced at her face, frowning even in sleep as it passed from light to shadow, light to shadow from the highway lights along Interstate 10. Did she have some similar hurt in her past?
If so, she had never shared, and he didn’t dare ask.
A sign by the side of the highway said, “Benson 20 miles.”
Stuart checked his phone again, as he had every fifteen minutes or so since they had set out. He kept it on silent so as not to disturb Alexa’s sleep. He wished he could do more for her than that.
Whitehat had finally come through with the data from Jesse Running Wolf’s phone, along with the message to Stuart saying, “If you need anything else, send up a smoke signal.” Stuart felt tempted to say something snarky back, like blowing a cavalry bugle or something, but decided against it. Making assumptions about someone’s sense of humor could be tricky.
Stuart shook his head and grinned. Whitehat was teasing him, knowing he’d be afraid to give the same as he got.
He’d have to look at the phone data later. It was too involved to do while driving. In fact, he shouldn’t be looking at his phone at all. He hated it when drivers did that. But given the circumstances, he could forgive himself.
Next he checked for messages from Stacy. Alexa’s Stacy. He still wasn’t used to the kid’s name, but they’d made a sort of big cousin/little cousin friendship together after spending a couple of weekends at Alexa’s dad’s ranch riding horses.
Stuart bit his lower lip. The kid hadn’t even read his last message from earlier in the day. He’d written, “Alexa would love to hear from you about your new place!” Not too much to ask. He’d noticed how Alexa kept checking her messages, and the way she did it showed she was worried about the girl. She took on a completely different expression than the one she got with her cases. Softer. More maternal. She’d probably belt him one if he told her that, but it was true. Alexa Chase had a maternal instinct a mile wide.
But now he’d have to see the other side of her. The darker, driven side. It was time to awaken the beast.
The sign by the side of the road said, “Benson 10 miles.”
“Alexa,” he said softly.
Her eyes snapped open. “What? What happened?”
“Nothing. We’re almost there.”
“Oh.” She sat up, winced while trying not to show it, and checked her phone.
A flicker of disappointment and concern passed over her features. She must have checked if Stacy had texted. Then she moved on to Whitehat’s email and her features hardened.
She spent the next ten miles going through the data.
“Check the location of Fiona’s phone,” Stuart said as they passed a sign marking the town limits. “I emailed you the link to the trace.”
Alexa got on it. “OK. Keep going east along the main road we’re on now. Two more lights.”
Stuart looked around at the buildings, curious. He’d heard about this town but hadn’t been to it yet. Benson had been a railway boomtown back in the old mining days of the nineteenth century, and the main street had a lot of Old West style buildings. Whether they were real or made for the tourist industry, Stuart had no idea and he wouldn’t guess. He’d guessed wrong when he and Annette had gone on a road trip to Old Tucson Studios, and she’d teased him about it for days.
Well, there wouldn’t be any more of those road trips, now would there?
At this hour, the main street was nearly deserted. A few pickup trucks were parked in front of an all-night convenience store, and a crowd of smokers hung out in front of a dive bar, but other than that little seemed to be going on.
“Pass through two more lights,” Alexa said.
They soon left downtown behind, getting into an outskirt of warehouses and a few lonely homes stuck out in broad patches of desert. A sign announced that they were coming up on the San Pedro River.
“Slow down. We’re nearly there.”
“Where?” Stuart asked, peering out the window. He didn’t see any buildings close by.
They passed over a bridge, only darkness below them.
“What the hell?” Alexa muttered. “Her phone is just north of our position.”
“Maybe someone threw it in the wash?”
While he couldn’t see the riverbed, Stuart had been in Arizona long enough to know most of its “rivers” were actually dry, sandy channels until the rainy season came.
“Could be. Let’s turn around.”
Stuart did a 180, getting an angry honk from a car coming the opposite direction, and retraced their path.
He got to the other side of the bridge and pulled over on the gravel shoulder.
“The phone’s that way, about two hundred yards,” Alexa said, pointing into the brush.
No lights shone in the bushes and gnarled trees grew by the side of the wash. Stuart’s heart sank. They weren’t looking for a phone, they were looking for a body.
“I’ll take the lead,” Stuart said, getting out of the car and drawing his gun.
“I’m fine. I slept for more than two hours.”
“You need twenty hours. I’m taking the lead.”
Alexa muttered something under her breath he couldn’t catch. Even so, she saw sense and fell in a couple of steps behind him.
By unspoken agreement, they pulled out their flashlights but didn’t turn them on. Alexa kept her phone stowed away too. If the killers were still there, they didn’t want to announce their arrival.
Stuart hunched low, checking each step before putting his weight on his front foot. He didn’t want any snapping twigs to bring on a bullet. It was like night patrol in Iraq. The insurgents loved to hide out along rivers and irrigation canals, where the otherwise bleak landscape sprouted up rare vegetation and offered cover. He’d been in a lot of situations like this. Far too many.
He moved with practiced ease between the trees and shrubs, making a bare minimum of noise. It was impossible to keep completely silent, though, and it bothered him. The greenery crowded in too close. Still, he barely made a sound, and what little he did was somewhat drowned out by the occasional car whooshing by on the road.
The real problem was seeing where the hell he was going. The streetlights didn’t penetrate far into the greenery, and Benson itself was only a distant glow to his left. A couple of lights twinkled through the branches from the other bank, but they acted more as a distraction than something to see by. The twisted branches, clutching cacti, and jagged rocks remained more of a suggestion on his vision than actual images. He stepped with care.
Low voices made him pause. He sensed more than heard Alexa perk up behind him.
The voices stopped. Had they heard their approach?
No. The voices resumed, talking slowly and quietly from some point a little further on and to the right. Stuart could not make out the words.
With even more care, they continued forward.
The voices fell silent.
The riverbank began to slope more sharply, and the stones under his feet gave way to sand. The trees and brush began to clear, opening up just a few steps beyond. He crouched behind a bush and peered out at the darkened riverbed.
For a moment he saw nothing. He angled his eyes a little away, allowing his peripheral vision to take in the scene. Every soldier learns not to look directly at something in the dark unless you were about to shoot at it. For some reason, night vision worked better that way. Some science geek in his regiment explained it to him once but he had forgotten what he said.
About fifty yards along the riverbank and a little below where the line of vegetation stopped, he could see three darkened figures lying on the sand. Their dark clothing blended them into the shadows. Bits of trash littered the dry riverbank. A breeze picked up and a white plastic shopping bag blew along the dead river like a miniature rolling ghost.
Three people. The two perps and Fiona. Had they already killed her?
From what he could make out, they were all lying side by side. What was going on? Some weird ritual? Serial killers all had their rituals.
Stuart resisted the urge to shout out his presence and storm down the riverbank. They might have a knife to Fiona’s throat, or fire at him. Just because they killed with a Bowie knife didn’t mean they didn’t have guns too.
Better to close the distance. He moved forward. Alexa, realizing his intentions, followed quietly behind.
Now that they were on the sand, they could move silently and quickly. They began to close the gap. Forty yards. The voices came again, low and casual. What the hell was going on over there? Thirty yards. They wouldn’t get much further without being seen.
Twenty yards. What luck! Almost there.
Fifteen yards. One of the prone figures sat bolt upright.
“Cops! Run!”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
“U.S. Marshal! Stay where you are and put your hands over your head!” Alexa shouted.
The three figures ran in all separate directions. One stumbled and fell after only a couple of steps. Another bolted up the slope and disappeared into the underbrush. A third ran down the slope and sprinted along the empty riverbed.
They were only shadows. She couldn’t see faces or even determine gender.
Alexa ran for the one who fell. Maybe this was Fiona. The killer couple hadn’t finished her off.
As she made for the figure, who was struggling to get to his or her feet, Alexa resisted the urge to turn on her flashlight. The other two were out there somewhere, and she didn’t want to advertise her position and invite a shot.
Stuart bolted down the riverbank and chased after the one that went that way. Good choice. He had played football in college and hadn’t gotten out of practice. On open terrain, he could run down just about anybody, even if they did have a head start.
The suspect she was going for managed to get to his feet. Yes, definitely a man. She got the vague impression of a skinny man in loose-fitting clothing. He started into a run, but Alexa had the speed and bore down on him. Her every muscle ached, but this was too important, and she made the pain give her strength, determination.
She grabbed him by the collar, spinning him around and tripping him. She gasped as her knife wound sent a burning trail up her side, but got what she wanted—the perp face down in the sand.
Alexa knelt on his back, harder than she intended because she basically fell onto him. The guy cried out in pain.
“This is police brutality!”
“Shut up,” she growled, cuffing him.
Once she got him cuffed, she glanced around. A soft rustling came from the underbrush up the slope. From the other direction, Stuart called out, “I got him!”
“Him?”
“Yeah. I got the male perp. Who did you get?”
Two men?
“I’m not sure,” Alexa admitted. “Get back here.”
Alexa struggled to her feet, the cut to her side and several bruises protesting, and made her way up the slope. The rustling continued. Whoever it was, they weren’t doing a very good job of sneaking around.
Maybe it’s a trap.
As soon as she got to the line of vegetation, she cut to the right for several yards before entering it. She tried to keep quiet, but wasn’t nearly as good at that as her partner. The shouting of the two apprehended suspects and the loud rustling of the third she pursued made it so that it didn’t really matter.
Two males? Could they have been so wrong? And why would Fiona be running if they had identified themselves as law enforcement?
The rustling grew louder, followed by a thud and a curse in a female voice.
Sounds like she fell.
Alexa took that opportunity to swoop in, ignoring the sound she made, until the fugitive was in her sights.
A skinny, almost emaciated woman was getting to her feet while trying to untangle herself from a bush. Maybe this wasn’t Fiona. Maybe this was the woman who helped the man with the Bowie knife.
Careful now.
“Freeze!” Alexa shouted.
The woman yelped, held up her hands, and fell down again.
Ignoring the pain lacing through her body, Alexa ran up to her.
“Stay where you are. Identify yourself.”
“I don’t have nothing on me,” the woman shouted.
“Fiona Richards?”
“That’s my maiden name.”
“You’re safe now, Fiona.”
“Huh?”
“I said you’re safe. What were they going to do to you?”
“Nothing. They’re my friends. We didn’t do nothing!”
Alexa paused, then groaned. Suddenly it became all too clear.
Fiona was a drug user. Rebecca Beachy had said so. She hadn’t been kidnapped. She was down by the wash, using.
And in the excitement, Alexa hadn’t noticed that her speech was fast and choppy, and she had fallen twice in the pursuit.
“Is there anyone else out here?” Alexa asked.
“No.”
“Just the three of you?”
“Yeah.”
Alexa turned on her flashlight and shone it in Fiona’s face. She saw a haggard woman with bad teeth exposed in a grimace. Stringy, unwashed black hair framed a prematurely wrinkled face.
Fiona raised a hand to cover dilated eyes.
“Come with me,” Alexa ordered.
Fiona stood. Alexa turned to go back to where she had left Fiona’s companion, and immediately turned back around.
Just in time to catch Fiona reaching into her pocket.
Alexa walked over. “I’ll take that.”
She retrieved a small bag of meth. Alexa searched the rest of her pockets and came up with a pipe, chewing gum, and fifteen cents.
“Those aren’t mine,” Fiona said.
“I’m not arresting you, Fiona. I need to talk with you.”
“I don’t know nothing!”
“You OK in there?” Stuart called over.
“Yeah. I got Fiona.”
“I got two male perps, cuffed and in a row.”
“Hold on for a minute. I want to talk to her alone.”
A male voice called out, “Bitch, if you tell that pig anything I’ll rip your damn head off!”
“I don’t know nothing,” Fiona said, shaking. “I don’t know where they get it. They just share it with me.”
Alexa looked over the wasted body, the open sores, and disgusting teeth. Yes, this woman knew where to get meth. She probably knew every dealer within a hundred miles.
“I’m not after that,” Alexa told her. “I have some questions for you about Helen Beachy.”
Fiona cocked her head. “Helen? I haven’t heard from her in months.”
Months. Not years.
“Do you know what happened?”
“Happened?”
“Helen’s been murdered.”
Fiona stared. For a moment she stood as still as a statue, then she began to shake. At first it was a minor tremor, but soon it grew and grew until she shook so much she looked like she was going to fall over.
“I’m sorry,” Alexa said. “I know you two were friends.”
Poor woman. She’s lost so much, and now this.
“It’s them! It’s them!” Fiona wailed, her voice cracking. “I knew they’d get her. That’s why she ran away. And now they’re after me!”
