“Thanks.” Halden nodded, even though he had to have already known where the evidence was. He had turned his attention back to the map. “We’re still missing the vehicle for victim three and the body for victim four.”
“We’re hoping to find Jillian Rivers alive,” Alvarez said, and Stephanie Chandler caught her gaze.
There wasn’t the slightest bit of hope in those ice-blue eyes. “Let’s just hope there aren’t others out there. We’re all assuming our killer started with Theresa Charleton, but that’s just because she was the first body found. He could have started earlier and we just haven’t located either the victims or their vehicles. This is pretty rugged country.”
“Wouldn’t the notes have had other initials if there were other victims? Hell, is it hot enough in here?” Pescoli pushed back her chair and walked to the thermostat. “Seventy-five? That’s like an effin’ sauna! Aren’t we in some kind of energy crisis?” She played with the electronic temperature control before returning to her seat. “Sorry,” she said, but didn’t appear the least bit contrite.
Chandler didn’t miss a beat. “Signature serial killers rarely alter their signature, though their MOs can evolve as they experiment and learn. But this guy’s different. We already mentioned that he’s not raping them, there’s no hint of sexual activity of any kind and he crosses race lines. Charleton and Rivers are Caucasian, Salvadore is Latino and Ito, Asian. This guy is organized, but he’s all over the map.” Chandler looked at the large topographical map on the far wall. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Sheriff Grayson’s cell phone rang sharply and he shoved his chair back from the table. “All right, then. Anything we can do for ya, let us know. We’ll take all the help we can get to nail this son of a bitch.”
Jillian’s head pounded.
Her ankle was on fire.
Her chest ached every time she moved.
She opened a bleary eye and looked around a darkened room lit by kerosene lanterns and a fire burning in a woodstove. She was warm, but sensed that was new. She’d been cold. So very, very cold.
And she’d heard someone moaning…
Or had she cried out herself?
She blinked, trying to figure out where she was. Bits of memory assailed her. The drive in the snow, spinning out, her tire blowing, glass shattering.
Someone had come to her rescue.
A man in dark ski wear who had yelled at her.
She remembered that and not much else.
So why wasn’t she in a hospital?
What was this dark cabin all about? She was lying on a cot of some kind, tucked in a sleeping bag. She tried to push herself into a sitting position and the pain pounding in her ankle made her cry out.
Oh God, what had she gotten herself into?
She remembered the fear. First of being trapped in the car and never found this winter. Then she’d sensed a presence, something evil in those woods, and seen a dark shadow.
Obviously it was the man who rescued you.
Some rescue. She now seemed trapped in this stone-and-rough-timber room with a single small window that offered little light. Or was it dark? Dear God, how long had she slept?
She thought she remembered someone coming into the room and tending to her, but she wasn’t certain…Oh God. She lifted one arm and saw that it was encased in a sleeve she didn’t recognize. Some kind of thermal undershirt that was too big, the cuff of the sleeve pushed up. Her other arm was the same.
And she wasn’t wearing a bra.
Someone had taken off the clothes she’d been wearing and redressed her in this oversized insulated shirt.
She tried to push herself up to a sitting position, but the pain in her leg made movement impossible, and when she lifted her head, she became dizzy. Her mouth tasted horrible, as if she hadn’t brushed her teeth in a week, and she wondered how long she’d been lying here, unconscious. She shifted and realized she had some kind of splint on her leg. Touching her face, she felt bandages.
Whoever had brought her here had tended to her. On a small bedside table, little more than a stool, was a tube of some kind of antibiotic ointment and a plastic glass with a straw.
From the cot, she eyed the stone wall running up to the ceiling and the woodstove in front of it. Behind small glass doors were glowing coals, embers from what had probably been a larger fire.
She figured he had to come into the room fairly often to feed the fire and check on her and she remembered, vaguely, sensing another person close to her.
Damn right he was close…he undressed you, tended your wounds and put you to bed…he wasn’t just close, he was damn near… intimate.
The rafters creaked loudly and then she heard the rush of wind and felt the walls shake.
Was she alone in the cabin?
Though no one was in the small room with her, there was a single door and beneath it a strip of light, indicating there was illumination in the next room. She thought about calling out, then decided against it. Something about this was off, really off, and she had to be careful. The man in the ski mask who had rescued her, the man whose face she couldn’t identify, had brought her here rather than to civilization.
Why?
Because he didn’t have a vehicle?
Because of the storm?
But he could somehow get her to this cabin? How did that work?
Was it near the spot where her car slid off the road? Was it near town? Or remote? There was no way to tell unless she dragged herself to the window and peered out. Currently, with her damned leg, that was impossible.
She lay quietly and listened but heard nothing over the rush of the wind, the creak of old timbers and the soft hiss of the fire.
The only way out of the room was through the single doorway, or the small window, mounted high and seemingly crusted with ice. Was it day? Night? She couldn’t really tell. Maybe dusk? Or dawn? She had no idea. Out of habit, she looked at her left wrist, but her watch, which she rarely removed, was missing.
Great.
She eyed the window, situated six feet off the floor and so small she couldn’t possibly push herself through.
Not that she could leave anyway. Not yet. She couldn’t move her leg, and even if she did somehow hobble over to the wall, pulling the cot and hoisting herself to the glass pane, what then? The chance that she could slip through was slim, and then there was the problem, if she didn’t get stuck, of being outside in a storm that continued to rage and pound this cabin in furious gusts.
For now, escape was out of the question.
But he must have a vehicle. A four-wheel-drive truck, or SUV or damned dog sled…If you could find a way…
Or she could ask him.
Just come out with the questions she had. The worst he could do was lie.
Right?
Or was she kidding herself? She thought she remembered something about some missing women in Montana, women whose cars had been wrecked or something. She couldn’t remember the details, but the overriding memory of a menace gripped her. A man who had been hurting these women…single women traveling through Montana.
A fear like no other drove straight into her heart.
What were the chances that she’d had a wreck and the lunatic killer had found her and—
Stop!