Lenora Worth - Deadly Holiday Reunion

“Games?” Jake stared off into the woods. “Wait a minute. Didn’t he take you when you were at a park? Near an old baseball field?”

Ella closed her eyes, her heart careening out of her body, her pulse roaring in her ears like a tornado over dirt. “Yes. Right across from the campgrounds on the other side of the lake. Yes.”

Jake held his hands on her arms. “What else, Ella? Way too long. What does that mean?”

Ella gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “He told me it had taken me way too long to find him. That I was too late. Too late.”

“The fourth body,” Jake said, his tanned skin turning pale. “It took us way too long to find the fourth missing girl.”

“She was dead,” Ella said, shaking her head. “Dead when I found her off the path into the woods. Dead. And so he took me.” She started shaking. “He kept telling me that over and over while he dragged me to an old van. ‘Took you way too long. It’s on your head, Agent Terrell. You took way too long to get here.’”

“We have to go to that park,” Jake said. “Now.”

Ella swallowed the scream inside her head and hurried after him. “We need to preserve the note.”

Jake nodded and rushed into the screened gazebo and grabbed the white sheet, not even bothering to keep his prints off it.

But when they got to his truck, he took out his evidence kit and slid the square of paper into a fresh manila envelope and tagged it. Then he placed it in a safe compartment inside the big black case.

“I’ll have to report this and give both the note and the necklace to the nearest state crime lab,” he said. “I didn’t tell the Tyler Police where I’d be on Caddo Lake, only that I was going to do some investigating of my own.”

Ella got in and stared at the place she loved, seeing it now through the eyes of a killer. He’d been here, moving around her yard, touching things in her restaurant. Leaving her a definite message that dared her to come and find him. This farm had become her safe haven and now he’d ruined that with his evil touch.

“I’ll get you,” she said, her hands knuckled into tight fists, her rifle touching on her jeans. “I’ll find you and I won’t let you hurt another innocent young girl.”

Oblivious to her pledge, Jake jumped in and cranked the truck and peeled out. “Where do we start?”

Ella pressed at her growing headache. “The park. It has to be the place. He wants us to go there for some reason.”

“Maybe he’s playing out how things went down with you and him five years ago.”

“He won’t live to see the ending this time,” Ella blurted. Then she sent Jake a remorseful glance. “I’m sorry. I know the law dictates I apprehend him and bring him in and I know the Lord says I should forgive my enemies. But I’m having a hard time with that right now.”

“I’m not judging,” Jake replied. “He’s got my daughter. My little girl. Forget what’s right or wrong. I want him dead and I want to make sure he suffers before he dies.”

Ella closed her eyes. “We’ve both got a lot of praying to do.”

Jake’s expression brewed like an approaching storm. “I’ll pray, all right. I’ll pray that I find my Macey and that this time, I’ll be able to shoot him dead when I see him.”

* * *

They made it across the county and to the park in record time. Caddo Lake covered a big area that straddled the state lines between Texas and Louisiana. Thousands of acres of water and wetlands that twisted and meandered into bayous and swamps lay before them. But Ella remembered how single-minded Jake could be when he had his teeth into a case and now he was a father on a desperate mission. A father trying to save his only child.

How would they ever manage to do that in this vast expanse of woods and water?

She took covert glances over at him, thinking age and maturity looked good on Jake Cavanaugh. He was tall and lanky with a loose-limbed kind of gait that always drew feminine sighs. He had the look of aged leather and sharp spurs, his golden-brown hair too shaggy, his tan hat broken and worn down into a perfect fit across his broad forehead. Right now, his five-o’clock shadow only added to the dark, worry-streaked scowl on his face.

Jake, back in her life. The nightmare starting all over again. Macey missing and with a psychopath. It was too much to comprehend.

But she had to absorb all of it, for Macey’s sake.

For Jake’s sake.

This morning, her life had been perfectly mundane and ordinary, her quiet, busy everyday routine carrying her from sleep to sleep, her weary muscles and bones toughening and strengthening with each step.

This morning, she’d been so close to a peaceful acceptance.

And then he’d come walking back into her life.

The man she’d loved for so many years.

The man she’d left behind because duty and ambition had propelled her out of control. But Jake had saved her, not just from a killer, but from herself. He’d saved her and then he’d walked away again because she was too fragile and broken to see what she had right there in front of her. She’d lost a second chance with a good man.

The man who’d come to her for help with the one thing she’d tried so hard to forget.

The Dead Drop Killer.

“Any idea where he kept you?”

“I don’t remember,” she replied. “I rarely saw the light of day.” She shrugged. “When I ran away, I looked back and saw a dark building. A cabin maybe?”

Jake nodded. “I’ve got people searching for any vacant cabins or fishing camps.”

Ella saw Jake looking past her and off to the right.

They’d reached the park. It was now overgrown and abandoned, a place of haunting memories and nightmare dreams. Rusty swings twisted in the wind, the old chains clinking like tattered bones. The merry-go-round squeaked against the unseen push of air, fighting the memories of laughing children.

Ella fought against those same memories. But they wrapped around her and stifled her in the same way that the gag and the blindfold the killer had placed on her had done. She remembered opening her eyes to the horror of his hideous mask after he’d jerked the blindfold off her face. Remembered thinking she’d never see her dear, sweet grandparents again.

She’d promised them this morning that she’d be careful, that she’d return to them. But first she had to expose her mind to the memories and the nightmares and the buried, hidden things.

Dear God, I don’t think I can do this. I don’t know what to do.

She opened her eyes and saw Jake staring at her.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I’ll track him and I’ll take care of him.”

“No,” she said, gaining strength because she hated to witness his pain. “No. I can’t let you do this alone, Jake. I won’t let you go without me. We have to find Macey.”

Jake leaned over and touched a rough-edged finger to her cheek. “You’re the only one I knew I could trust.”

“Let’s search the playground and the woods,” she said after she opened the truck door. Then she turned back to him, the rasp of his roughness still soft on her skin. “But Jake, sooner or later, we’ll have to call for help. We might not be able to do this without a team.”

“I know,” he replied. “But I’m afraid he’ll kill her either way. He’s not only holding my girl hostage. He’s got both of us in a choke hold, too. So...I have to go after him.”

Ella got out of the truck and took a deep breath, then looked up at the beautiful blue sky. “Lord, we aren’t really alone. You’re here. I can feel You. Let that poor scared girl hear You, too. Please.”

But the next thing Ella heard was a heart-stopping scream coming from deep inside the woods.