Cynthia Eden - Into The Night

Patrick yanked at the ropes around his wrists. That jerk had tied his arms behind him, securing him to the wooden chair. This shit couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. He’d been living a normal life in Alabama, even had a girl he was thinking about marrying. She’d won this fucking trip up to Gatlinburg, and they’d come together—“Lydia,” he whispered. “What did you do to Lydia?” Because this bastard before him had taken Patrick right out of his cabin.

The guy laughed. Patrick jerked against the ropes. His legs burned.

“She doesn’t know about you, does she? Poor Lydia...she thought she’d found her prince charming.”

“If you’ve hurt her...”

More laughter. “What? You’ll burn me?”

And he heard the slosh of a liquid. He couldn’t see the other guy, but he knew the man had picked up the gasoline again. “The only one who will get burned,” he told Patrick. “That’s you...”

CHAPTER FOUR

“PLEASE, PLEASE, I need help!” The woman with the long black hair was ringing her hands as she stood in front of the check-in desk at the Gatlinburg police station. “My boyfriend is missing!”

Macey slanted a quick glance her way. She and Bowen had arrived at the station moments before—to a scene of pretty much chaos. The police captain had greeted them at the door. Captain Henry Harwell was young, probably in his late twenties, with close-cropped brown hair. He wore a pair of glasses and his gun was holstered at his side.

Right then, he motioned toward another uniformed officer and pointed to the woman. “Help her, now.”

The officer bustled to the woman’s side.

“We searched the cabin,” Captain Harwell said as he began to lead Macey and Bowen back into the station. “Your Special Agent Dark helped coordinate with our team here and we went to the location that the FBI had pinpointed, but no one was there. I don’t know if this is just some damn trick or what is happening—”

“No!” It was the woman’s voice, rising over the din in the station. “You’re not listening to me! I think someone took him! He’s not just off drunk somewhere or lost in your damn mountains! He needs help!”

Macey paused and glanced back at her.

“The cabin had been swept clean,” Harwell continued. “I had my men check and double-check the place, but there wasn’t any sign of anyone. It was a rental, one that had been taken off rotation while some repairs were being made. No one should have been there...” He exhaled. “And sure as shit not some serial arsonist! Damn it, do you know what will happen if word gets out that Patrick Remus is in this town? Do you know how many tourists come here?”

Macey found herself sliding away from the captain and from Bowen. There was something about that woman at the counter. Her certainty that her boyfriend wasn’t just lost or drinking it off...that he’d been taken.

Macey touched her shoulder. “Miss?”

The woman swung toward her. Mascara smudges darkened her eyes.

“Why do you think your boyfriend was taken?”

“Because Patrick wouldn’t just leave me!”

Macey tensed. “Patrick?”

“Patrick Grace.” Now the woman turned to grab Macey’s shoulder. “He was there last night, I swear, he was asleep in that bed next to me. But...but when I woke up, he was gone. The front door was wide-open. Our car was still there. But he wasn’t.” A tear slid down her cheek. “He left his phone, his wallet. Everything. I know something happened to him.”

“Do you happen to have a picture of Patrick?” The name was too much of a coincidence to ignore. When individuals went into the Witness Protection Program, they often tried to keep their new first names as similar as possible to their real ones—it helped them to transition.

And Patrick Remus—the serial arsonist who’d been hiding from the FBI for over two years—must have adopted a new identity while he’d been in hiding. Perhaps that new identity involved a new last name—

“Here he is.” The woman pushed her phone toward Macey. “See him? What will you do now? Get an APB out for him? Put his face on all the news channels?”

Macey stared at the photo before her. On the way there, she’d pulled up Patrick’s old case file and photos on her tablet. The man she was looking at right then had shaved his head and put on about twenty pounds...but she was staring at a face she knew.

Patrick Remus.

“Macey?” Bowen strode toward her. “We need to go back with the sheriff—”

“No.” She took the phone from the woman. “We need to put this man’s face on every news outlet in the area.”

Patrick’s girlfriend gave a quick sob.

“Because he’s been taken,” Macey continued. “And we need to find him.”

Macey turned the phone so that Bowen could see the screen. “Meet Patrick Grace.”

Bowen swore.

“He disappeared from his cabin last night.”

His gaze met Macey’s and Bowen nodded.

* * *

“SHE HAS NO clue who her lover really is,” Macey said as she stared through the one-way mirror at Lydia Chasing. Lydia was in the interrogation room at the police station, a mug of coffee cradled in her hand. Captain Harwell had just finished interviewing her, and Lydia...she seemed on the verge of collapse.

“The perp we’re after...you really think he snuck into her cabin and took Patrick without her knowing?” Bowen’s arm brushed against Macey’s.

“I think he could have done that.” She’d been considering the matter. “He attacked Daniel Haddox first.” She turned to stare up at Bowen. “You saw Daniel’s place—there were plenty of drugs there.” Syringes, medicines...things Daniel shouldn’t have been able to access, but he had. He’d made his own office in the middle of nowhere. He’d probably catered to low-income families, promising them treatment but...had he just taken more victims? Were there more victims out there waiting to be found? “Maybe our killer helped himself to supplies while he was at Daniel’s. Then all he would have needed to do was sneak into Lydia’s cabin, inject her while she was asleep, and he would have been sure she didn’t wake up and...interrupt his work.”

Bowen raked a hand over his face. “And if he didn’t want Patrick fighting back against him, then he probably drugged that guy, too.”

“It’s always easier to transport prey that doesn’t fight back.”

His gaze jerked up to hers.

“We should get blood work done on Lydia. See if anything turns up.”

“Macey...”

“It’s good that he didn’t hurt her,” she continued quickly. “I mean, it’s showing us that he’s focused on specific victims. If he’d wanted Lydia dead, she never would have woken up.” She drew in a deep breath. “This goes along with him being so organized. He knew exactly who he wanted, and he took that prey.”

“What are the fucking odds?” Bowen muttered. “The Doctor. The Pyro. Both so close together...”

“The odds are against that.” She wet her lips. “So I think we have to assume that our perp set this up.”

Now Bowen’s eyes narrowed. “When the captain was interviewing Lydia, she said she’d won this cabin vacation.”

“And that’s something else we need to investigate because my money—” Macey gave a sad shake of her head “—is on the fact that the killer brought Patrick up here. He lured him here because he wanted to kill him. He wanted him close enough that he could bring him into the plan, the trap that was waiting.”

“First Daniel Haddox, then Patrick Remus.” Bowen blew out a slow breath. “Who is going to be next? And how is this guy finding these serials?”

He’s a step ahead of us. More than a step. “He won’t move onto the next one, not until he’s finished with Patrick.”