Debra Webb - No Darker Place

He reached down and stroked Adams’s lean rib cage. She shuddered deliciously. His cock stirred. Another hardworking, dedicated woman. Despite being a full-time home health nurse, Gwen still picked up every available shift at the hospital. She was saving up to buy a home. Poor thing. He wondered if Chief Peterson had paid her well to take care of Bobbie. Gaylon hoped so; after all, accepting the extra work was going to cost her so very, very much.

“There...there was one other visitor,” she said suddenly.

He drew his hand away, giving her a moment’s reprieve. “What visitor? You never mentioned another visitor.”

“I just remembered. It was on the last day she was in a coma.” Her brow creased in concentration. “Her partner was sitting with her that day. He told me to take a break. When I came back, he was waiting in the corridor outside her room and there was another man inside. I assumed it was a family friend, so I took a few more minutes and went to the bathroom. When I came back, the door was open and this man I’d never seen before was sitting next to her, holding her hand.”

“Holding her hand?” Rage coiled hard and fast. “Who was this man?”

“I don’t know. Detective Newton started talking to me. I guess the man left while we were talking.”

“What did this stranger look like?” Gaylon thought he knew everyone who had come into contact with his detective since he touched her. If there was another man and he got in Gaylon’s way, he would die in the same tragic manner as her husband had. Bobbie Gentry belonged to him. Only he could finish her story.

“He had longish dark hair, maybe down on his collar. He was tall. I only got a glimpse of his face, and then his profile.” She shook her head, instinctively tugged at the restraints binding her hands above her head. “I don’t know. Bobbie’s partner must have known him. I never saw him again.”

Gaylon had watched Bobbie running tonight. He noticed a man he couldn’t place at her door. He’d assumed this was a cop from her department. Perhaps not. “If I bring you a picture, would you recognize him?”

She blinked back a new rush of tears. “I think so. I’ll try.”

He trailed a finger between her nice breasts. “You’re doing very well, Nurse Adams.”

A sob tore from her throat. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Now, now. You know I’m going to hurt you—the only question is how much.”

The sound of whimpering had her twisting her head around to see where it came from. “What was that?” Her worried gaze collided with his. “Is someone else here?”

“That’s none of your concern.” His cock hardened again as he thought of what he had in the other room and the way it was going to hurt Bobbie. “Now be quiet before I change my mind about how much I need you.”

Gaylon stood and walked to the window. He peered beyond the dirty glass. In the distance he could just distinguish the taller of the buildings that was downtown Montgomery.

In her wildest imagination, Bobbie Gentry could not possibly conceive what was coming.

Four

Economy Inn, West South Boulevard

Saturday, August 27, 1:30 a.m.

Nick Shade taped another photo of Detective Bobbie Gentry on the wall. He stood back and surveyed the new additions to the timeline he had created. The data he’d collected during this hunt were far more extensive than he usually gathered. The instinct he’d recently started to ignore warned again that he had ventured too close on this one.

What the hell had he been thinking going to her house?

He plowed his hands through his hair. He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. But had there really been a choice? He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Gaylon Perry had proven significantly more resourceful than he had anticipated. For such a singularly focused killer, whose carefully choreographed world had been so abruptly turned upside down, Perry had regained his balance and scurried out of reach in the blink of an eye.

Nick could only watch and wait for his return.

Fury tightened his jaw. “I knew you’d come eventually.”

Nick studied a photo of the forty-year-old English teacher. His generic brown hair and eyes were less than memorable. His soft jaw and weak chin along with a slim build disguised his physical strength. Classroom videos showed a soft-spoken man who interacted comfortably with his students. Those same students, as well as Perry’s colleagues at the high school, considered him to be kind and compassionate. And yet fourteen murders, not counting Gentry’s husband, had been attributed to him. The community of Lincoln, Nebraska, was still reeling from the news. Parents were sickened at the idea that their impressionable teenagers had been taught by a sadistic serial killer.

According to the statements Gentry had given, Perry had mentioned other murders. A total of twenty-three. Based on his sophisticated signature, Nick felt confident that number was closer to right than the one previously thought. The Storyteller’s first victim, as far as the cops knew, had been dumped in a quiet Louisiana town when Perry was twenty-seven. He had followed that pattern annually until last year. The MO was simplistic, yet it was that very simplicity that had protected Perry for so long. Each year between June 1 and mid-July, he took a victim from one of the southern states, kept her for three to four weeks, torturing her relentlessly before tattooing a sadistic poem on her back and then murdering her. The body was immediately dumped in another state. Each step was carefully planned and executed.

Nick considered the photos of the crime scenes where the bodies were discovered. Perry did more than dump his victims. He posed them in prominent places so they would be found quickly while his poetic masterpieces were still fresh. No one, not the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, had come close to identifying him, much less catching him, until Detective Gentry survived, providing a break in the case.

Even before Nick had known his name, he had understood one thing with complete certainty. As long as he was still breathing, the Storyteller would return to Montgomery for the one that got away.

“What have you been waiting for?” Nick rubbed at the tense muscles in his neck. He’d been in Montgomery watching Gentry for nearly four months—since her release from the rehabilitation center. His gaze narrowed with the only possible conclusion. “You waited for her to go back to work, didn’t you, you sick fuck?”

Perry would see having the damaged hero cop resume duty before he murdered her a more dramatic and poignant chapter in his killing history. Nick’s gaze settled on the photo he’d snapped of Gentry entering the Criminal Investigation Division last month on her first day back. She’d worn a pair of dark trousers and a matching suit jacket. Muted pink blouse. Rubber-soled loafers. No jewelry. No scarves or other accessories. Her stride had exuded strength and confidence. Watching her from afar, no one would have suspected she had spent long, grueling hours in physical therapy day in and day out for months to regain that strength and confidence. Not to mention the hours of psychiatric counseling. Continuing the counseling was a condition of her return to work. Nick had watched her leave the department psychiatrist’s office each week knowing she had played the part everyone wanted to see. She presented the picture of strength and determination except when she thought no one was watching.

Those were the moments he couldn’t get out of his head.

He reached out and traced her face. “Why did the FBI ever let you anywhere near this case?”

She was a perfect example of Perry’s typical victim. She was tall and thin with long, lush brunette hair that sharply contrasted her pale skin. Her facial features were delicate and finely sculpted. Her eyes were an uncommonly pale blue. Perry wasn’t particular when it came to the color of the eyes, but each victim had a uniquely light hue and eyes slightly larger than average.