Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

“That’s fine,” he said. He opened his mouth again, about to say how much better he had liked it in bed the other night, when there was a knock on her front door.

Stacey tensed, her eyes shifting in that direction. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

It was the middle of a sunny afternoon in small-town America. Obviously the stress of this case was putting her on edge if the thought of an unexpected visitor had the woman tensing up as though she expected a home invasion. He wished like hell she’d never had to feel that way about the safe haven she’d been clinging to-burying herself in-for the past two years.

“Maybe some kid selling cookies.”

She didn’t relax. Instead, with quiet, measured steps, she approached the door, her head cocked to the side to peer out through the narrow window beside it.

That was when he realized something was really wrong, and remembered the dog. God, no wonder she was edgy. What an idiot he’d been not to think of it immediately. They hadn’t discussed the incident since the other day in the car. With the insanity of the case, he’d let it leave his mind.

“Stacey, wait!” he insisted. “Let me get it.”

She’d already reached for the knob. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not for me, anyway. It’s for you.”

She opened the door. On the other side of it stood both Mulrooney and Stokes.

He didn’t question how they’d tracked him to Stacey’s home, or how they’d gotten the address. Because they both wore twin dark frowns. Nearly tangible tension caused Mulrooney’s suit jacket to strain against his stiffened shoulders, and Stokes’s jaw appeared carved of granite.

“What is it?”

Mulrooney answered, “They couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do…” The truth dawned. “Oh, hell.”

Beside him, Stacey brought a shaking hand to her mouth as she figured it out, too.

Mulrooney explained anyway. “Lily and Brandon tried, but they couldn’t bring down the site.”

“No.”

“It’s worse.”

He didn’t ask how it could be worse. He already knew. “The auction?”

“Over.”

Over. Mere hours after it had been announced. Not even one week since the last one. The unsub was either insane, desperate, or suicidal. “Meaning we have about twenty-four hours to find this guy and stop him from killing another woman,” he said.

Jackie Stokes shook her head. For the first time in the several weeks he’d known her, she appeared less than entirely professional. Her mouth quivered the tiniest bit.

This was bad. Very bad.

“It’s not just murder, and it’s not a woman,” she said. Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to finish.

So Mulrooney did.

“It’s rape, torture, and murder. And this time, his target is a child.”

Mulrooney and Stokes wanted to immediately go and question Warren Lee. The report they’d requested on registered American-made trucks in the area had given them a long list. Too long. But Warren’s name was on it.

Then again, so was her own father’s. Her brother’s. And Randy’s.

Dean was more interested in going back to Dick’s and using the new information they had about Mitch’s fight with Lisa, and the fact that nobody there had even thought to mention it, to try to get more people talking.

Stacey had other ideas. “You remember me saying my father was the sheriff of this town for twenty years? I want to go see him.” She cast a quick glance at Dean. “His arthritis is bad, but his eyesight is very good. And he knows every person who’s lived or died in this town since the day he took office.”

She didn’t really want to drag her father into this, but they needed the help. No way could she and Dean sit here and watch the surveillance videos for the rest of the day. Not if that monster really was going after a child.

Don’t think about that.

She couldn’t go there, not even in her imagination. And knowing how Dean felt about his son, she knew he couldn’t, either. Not while being so horrifyingly familiar with the kinds of atrocities the Reaper was capable of.

Right after Stokes and Mulrooney had arrived, Dean had excused himself for a minute. She’d lay money he’d called his ex-wife, telling her to keep a close eye on their son today. That was exactly what she would have done, anyway.

Dean saw where she was going. “You think your father would do it?”

“Do what?” Stokes asked.

“Look at the surveillance videos,” she explained. “He can watch them. If anybody from Hope Valley shows up, he will spot him.”

“Did you ever ask him about the animal abuse?” Dean asked.

Now it was Mulrooney’s turn to appear confused. “What?”

Stacey debated on how much to say, how much to reveal without risking exposure of her affair with Dean. She also didn’t want to reveal too much to Dean, at least not in front of the others. She hadn’t yet told him about the phone calls that had followed up the bloody present on her porch. The one late Sunday, after Tim had left, had been followed by two more on subsequent nights.

She’d almost told Dean on Tuesday in the car, but something had held her back. Maybe because she didn’t want to dilute his thinking on the Reaper case. She knew, deep down, that they weren’t connected. The caller hadn’t been trying to scare her off, or let her know that he was watching. No, this had felt different. Like he just wanted to throw some spite her way, as if she had done him some personal wrong.

As she had told Dean, there were a lot of men around here who disliked her intensely. Considering that the first call had come Sunday night, one day after their visit to Dick’s Tavern, it had probably been one of those men who hadn’t liked being questioned. Maybe Lester, the weasely little toady.

“Stacey and I were talking about some of the characteristics of known serial killers,” Dean told Mulrooney.

“Which we wouldn’t have to guess at if that damn profile had come through,” Mulrooney said.

Dean crossed his arms. “Still nothing on that?”

“Nope. Get a load of this. Alec Lambert, the agent working on it for Wyatt? Turns out he’s some kind of wild card. Got his ass shot in an undercover operation two days ago. The BAU just got around to letting us know.”

What else could go wrong?

“They’ve given the case to somebody else, but the new guy is starting from square one. He won’t have anything until at least Monday.”

Monday would be too late. And they all knew it.

Stacey cleared her throat, knowing they couldn’t waste precious minutes worrying about a profile that wouldn’t do them any good, anyway. “I want to ask my dad if he remembers any cases of animal abuse from his years in office. Or even if he got calls about lots of missing pets in one particular neighborhood, that type of thing.”

Stokes seemed to have finally regained her equilibrium. “Good idea,” she said.

For the first few minutes since the agents had arrived, the other woman had said almost nothing, appearing completely lost in thought. Stacey didn’t wonder what she was thinking about. Jackie wore a wedding ring on her left hand. And had proudly talked about her kids the other night.

How do they stand it? How do parents do it?

Stacey had wondered before. She’d probably wonder for the rest of her life.

“So you and I will take the surveillance files to your father and ask him about the animal abuse,” Dean said.

“We’ll have to bring the laptop and set everything up for him. He has a computer, though it’s pretty old. I had wireless Internet hooked up for him, but I don’t think he even knows how to sign on to it, and the network’s not secured.”

Stokes had apparently gotten her head back into the here and very desperate now. “Okay, while you and Dean go talk to the former sheriff, Kyle and I will head out to try to interview a few others, people who were a little friendlier with the victim than we thought?”