Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

Hollis was startled by the stark question. “No. No, you’re—I’m trying to help heal you now. So we can get you out of here and back to your body.”

Diana shook her head slightly. “I don’t think that’s the way this is going to turn out.”

“Of course it is. Quentin’s still holding on tight, and soon you’ll start to feel better. You’ll see.” She caught a flicker of distant movement from the corner of her eye and turned her head. “Hey, is that—”

“Shhh. Don’t attract his attention. That’s the fake Quentin, and he’s looking for the door you just opened again.”

“Diana—”

“Hollis, it’s Samuel. And we can’t let him get out of here.”

Serenade

“What I keep coming back to,” Dean Ramsey said, “is why here? Why were we… led here, herded here, lured here—whatever. Why here?”

“Because it’s a perfect shooting gallery?” Tony suggested. He was standing near the open door of the mobile command center, gazing out on a lamplit and mostly deserted Main Street, eerily empty on a cool Thursday evening in April. “Down in a valley, surrounded all the way by mountains that are just close enough for a really good sniper with a really good scope to get off a few really good shots.”

“He hasn’t shot into the town from the mountains,” Miranda reminded him. “Not yet, at least.”

“Something to look forward to. Yay.”

Jaylene said, “Okay, my question is, once we were here and he ramped up the action with his trusty rifle, why produce another tortured body? What’s the point of that? I mean, we’re here, we’re obviously not going to leave without doing our best to find this bastard, so why kill Deputy Silvers? Especially her. That’s two Pageant County deputies killed this week, and neither one of them was even a full-time cop. What’s the point of that if we’re the targets?”

Miranda glanced at Sheriff Duncan, who seemed uninterested, adrift in a pain-filled world of his own, then slid her gaze to his chief deputy, Neil Scanlon. “Am I right in assuming you guys haven’t been making enemies of this sort lately?”

He snorted. “Not lately—and not ever. Hell, this has always been a peaceful town. Until this shit started, there hadn’t been a murder within fifty miles for years.”

“Yeah,” she said, “that’s what I thought.” She tapped a closed laptop on a built-in workstation beside her. “All the torture victims so far—with the exception of Deputy Silvers—connect in some way with past SCU investigations.”

Tony turned, leaning a shoulder against the door frame as he looked at her. “So, if it’s us, why throw another body at us? A taunt? We’re right here and he can torture and kill under our very noses?”

“Maybe. Also a kind of psychological torture. All of us, all the technology and expertise we can bring to bear on an investigation—and he sits out there deciding who lives and who dies. Maybe.”

Alerted by something in her tone, Tony said, “You don’t think that’s it.”

“I,” Miranda said slowly, “think we have two killers.”

Tony glanced quickly at the sheriff and his chief deputy, noting that only the latter was even paying attention to the conversation. “It was always a possibility,” he agreed.

“Yeah, well, with every… event that occurs, I’m more and more certain. I think there’s a cool-headed sniper out there, and I think there’s a twisted son of a bitch who enjoys torture. The sniper is the one planning things. The other one just likes to kill. That could explain Bobbie Silvers—if the torturer is somewhere close enough to have found a target of opportunity. All the deputies were moving around last night, trying to secure the town, check on people after the bomb and the shooting. Maybe she simply knocked on the wrong door.”

Scanlon said, “Are you saying the son of a bitch lives here?”

“I somehow doubt he’s camping in the woods. The kind of torture he’s been doing requires a quiet, private space. Most likely a cellar or basement. Probably not downtown, but close enough.”

Scanlon said something violent under his breath. Mostly.

Sheriff Duncan stirred and said, “I should check on Bobbie’s mother. Neighbors were staying with her, but…”

Quietly, Miranda said, “There isn’t much more we can do tonight, Des, and most of your people have been up as long as mine have. Now that we have reinforcements from the Bureau and the state police, the rest of us should get some sleep. We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

The sheriff got to his feet, unobtrusively helped by Scanlon. “Guess you’re right. Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Scanlon followed his sheriff, murmuring as he stepped past Miranda, “I’ll see to it he gets home.”

When the SCU agents were alone in the command center, Tony said, “Not that I’d ever second-guess you—”

Miranda made a rude noise.

He managed a faint grin. “Okay, so I do that. Why’d you tell them you were sure it’s two killers? I thought we were trying to keep that quiet. I’d bet my next paycheck that by dawn everybody in town will know it.”

“Including our killers.” She nodded. “It’s time to shake things up a bit, put the sniper on notice that we know he isn’t out there alone. My guess, he has to keep some kind of leash on the other one. And maybe it’s slipping.”

“Bobbie?”

She nodded. “Bobbie wasn’t planned. Bobbie was a mistake. And so, I think, was Taryn Holder, the female victim found up in the mountains by Hollis and Diana. The victim we weren’t meant to find.”

Jaylene was frowning. “But she has a connection to a past case. She stayed at The Lodge.”

“Yeah, I’m wondering about that particular connection. The Lodge is a famous place in the area, drawing visitors from all around. She apparently went on spa trips a couple times a year at least, and that would be the location most well-to-do women in these parts would choose.”

“Okay,” Jaylene said. “But if she just happened to get herself slaughtered by our twisted torturer, isn’t that stretching coincidence a bit too far?”

“Maybe not. Look, I could easily be wrong. But I think we should check a little further into the background of Taryn Holder. She might have another connection we’ve missed so far. A connection to whoever killed her.”

“You’re the boss,” Tony said.

“Right now the boss needs to rest,” Miranda said, getting to her feet. “All of us do.”

Dean was also on his feet. “I had a break this morning, so I’m good ‘til midnight,” he said. “I’ll walk you back to the B&B, if you don’t mind, and collect a couple of the agents having coffee and sandwiches there.” He nodded to Tony and Jaylene. “Your relief will be back here in fifteen.”

“Good enough,” Jaylene said, and Tony nodded.

Miranda and Dean were mostly silent on the walk back to the B&B, merely nodding to a few of the agents, deputies, and state cops they passed along the way. There were by now more than two dozen agents on the scene and an equal number of state cops. Added to everyone else already here…

“We’re nearly tripping over one another,” Miranda murmured. “Patrolling the whole downtown area in pairs means there’s a hell of a lot of people wandering around out here tonight. Cable news is still camped just outside the perimeter, despite the warnings; keeping them out of the downtown area because it’s a crime scene won’t hold for long. Plus, there are a couple of really good reporters here now, and the exposure they can provide will only make him more cocky. If we don’t lock this thing down fast, we won’t have a hope in hell of stopping the carnage.”