Dread gripped his stomach, churning it, as he hobbled back to his desk and picked up the receiver. “Detective Colton.”
“This is Dr. Bentley from the medical examiner’s office,” the caller identified herself. “The ME wanted me to let you know that we’re pretty certain of an identification for that murder victim.”
Shocked, Forrest sucked in a breath. “That was quick.”
“For the one in the parking lot,” Dr. Bentley clarified. “Despite how well it was preserved, the other body may take a long time to identify.”
The body in Rae’s backyard.
His mind flitted to Rae Lemmon and to her son—to the two of them being alone in that house where the body had been buried just a few yards from their back door. And that dread gripped his stomach again.
He was more worried about her than he was about notifying the family of the murder victim from the parking lot. But he owed them his full attention; they’d already lost too much.
“Are you still at the office?” he asked the doctor.
“Yes, Detective.”
“I’m going to come down and take a look at the full report,” he said. Her family was going to want more than her identification; they were going to want to know what happened to her.
They were also going to want to know who did it to her. He couldn’t give them that person’s name. Not yet.
But he would. He had to stop this sadistic killer before he killed again. Before he hurt anyone else.
And again an image of Rae’s pretty face flashed through his mind. She’d said she could take care of herself, so she was strong and resourceful. To get into law school, she also had to be smart. Too smart to take dangerous risks. He really had no reason to be worried about her.
But those other women had probably thought they could take care of themselves, too, that they needed no protection. Now they were lying in the morgue. He did not want Rae Lemmon to wind up there.
* * *
Despite how exhausted she was from all of her sleepless nights, Rae couldn’t rest. Sleep continued to elude her. And it wasn’t because Connor was crying.
He was quiet—so quiet that she felt goose bumps of unease lift her skin. Why was he so quiet now?
He was exhausted, too, though. Probably even more exhausted than she was, since he was the one who’d done all of the crying the past few nights. He must have just been sleeping soundly.
Like she wished she could sleep.
But unlike Connor, she wasn’t blissfully unaware of what had been discovered in their backyard earlier that day. A body.
Whose?
Who had been killed, and had that murder taken place right here? In Rae’s backyard? Or in her house?
She shivered at the thought.
Would Forrest come back? Would he want to bring his crime-scene techs into her home?
She’d left before they’d finished up in her backyard. But they’d been gone when she’d returned, leaving behind only that yellow tape that had cordoned off her backyard.
Not that she wanted to go out there ever again.
When she’d left, she’d locked up the house, so unless Forrest had found the key under the flowerpot, he wouldn’t have been able to get inside without breaking and entering. And she’d found no evidence of that.
Unlike the backyard, her house had seemed undisturbed—or at the least just as messy as it had been when she and Connor had left. Would she have even been able to tell if Forrest had searched it?
Of course he must have realized he would need a warrant before she would allow that. She’d made it clear to him that she knew her rights and had no intention of letting him violate them or anything else.
But he’d violated her sleep. Thoughts of him—as much as thoughts of that poor corpse—had kept her awake. Why did he irritate her so much?
What was it about him that bothered her in a way she couldn’t remember anyone else ever bothering her?
She turned to flip to her left side from her right, but the sheets twisted around her, prohibiting her from moving. A curse slipped out from between her lips.
And she tensed. Hopefully she hadn’t awakened Connor. But she heard something else—a strange creaking noise, like something or someone moving across the floorboards.
Then Connor did awake with a cry. But this wasn’t like the nights before, when colic had brought him out of an already fitful sleep. This sounded more like a cry of terror—but it might have held pain, as well.
Jerking at the tangled sheets, Rae fought her way out of the bed. Tripping and stumbling over the ends of the sheets, she picked herself up from the floor and ran from her bedroom into Connor’s. If she’d met anyone between her door and his, she would have plowed them over; she was so desperate to get to her son.
But nobody crossed her path. And nobody stood inside the nursery, but there was something, some lingering presence, some scent...
And she knew that Connor had not been alone the entire night. Somebody had been in his room. She scrambled toward the crib and peered over the railing.
Connor’s feet and arms flailed as he lay on his back, kicking and screaming. She reached down and picked him up, checking his tiny body for wounds or whatever was hurting him as she did.
He was stiff, but nothing felt wounded. She soothed him by rubbing her hand up and down his back, which was damp with perspiration from his exertion, and a few hairs stuck to her palm. Had he been thrashing so violently that he’d pulled out some hair?
Maybe she needed to call a doctor. Or take him to the emergency room.
She held him tightly against her and murmured soothing words as she continued to stroke his back and rock him. Her heart pounded frantically, and his smaller heart echoed that beat...until finally it slowed. And his terrified sobbing quieted to soft, shaky cries.
And with his crying no longer ringing in her ears, she could hear other things. Like that creak again...
But it wasn’t a floorboard this time. It was the creak of a door opening, then the distinctive click of it closing again. She shuddered. Somebody had been inside the house, inside the nursery...with Connor.
She needed to call the police.
She’d been so anxious to get to Connor that she’d left her cell in her bedroom. Had the intruder been in there? Had he taken her phone? Her purse?
She didn’t care if he’d taken everything she owned—as long as he didn’t harm her son. Or her.
She had to make sure he didn’t return. With Connor still clasped in her arms, she rushed out of his room and back to hers. Her fingers trembling, she flipped on the switch next to the door and illuminated the room with the ceiling light.
Her phone lay on the bedside table, connected to her charger, so she rushed over to it. But as she reached for it, she noticed something fluttering on her pillow in the breeze that blew in through the open window. A piece of paper.
But it wasn’t just paper.
When she picked it up, short strands of brown hair rained out of it, onto her tangled sheets. She touched the strands, which were baby soft, and panic gripped her heart.
It was Connor’s hair. She inspected his little head and found where the piece had been cut, just above his left ear. But it looked like only his hair had