"The second one was a kindergarten teacher, Meredith Baxter, married. Found in a vacant house three blocks from where she lived."
The second photo on the board was of Mrs. Marilyn Beard, kindergarten teacher, found in a vacant house just a few blocks away from the school where she taught.
"G.o.d have mercy," Eddie whispered as Erin went on, ticking off the details, the similarities. Right up to number six.
She said nothing, waited as Eddie and Seth thumbed through the file until they came to Erica Morrisey, a narcotics detective with the Evanston Police Department.
Jaw clenched, Seth stared at her lovely face as he rose. Hoa.r.s.ely, he rasped out, "You"re the target. The psychologist contacted a friend at the FBI, a profiler. We"ve been warned he already has his agenda, and he will stick to it. We haven"t had any idea what it was and unless something major happened, we wouldn"t be able to stop him in time."
Seth"s hand clenched and he felt the rage building inside him but he managed to keep his voice level. "You"re the f.u.c.king target."
With a tiny smile, Erin said, "I"m the something major, it would appear."
"No," Seth said, his voice almost soundless. G.o.d, that maniac getting his hands on Erin? He felt the insane scream building low in his gut and shook his head vehemently. "No way in h.e.l.l."
Her face sobered and Erin moved across the room, around his desk, until she stood only inches away. So close, he could smell the scent of peaches and vanilla on her, a smell he hadn"t had fill his lungs in more than three years, not since he had walked away from her.
"We can"t stop him. He will find me, no matter what we do. I am his target, and that"s fact, not hunch, not instinct," she told him.
"What aren"t you telling me?"
"Eventually, I"ll tell you everything you want to hear," she said, unconsciously promising him. Someday, before it was all said and she was done, she would tell him what he had meant-what he still meant, what he would always mean-to her.
"But for now, you need to use me. Let me in on the task force, plant a tracking device in my fillings, whatever. Even try putting some poor rookie on my tail, Seth, if you honestly think it would serve some purpose. But use me. Help me stop him so he doesn"t start this again in another seventeen years."
What choice did he have? Seth wondered later that night as he lay in bed next to his fiancee. Eva curled her tiny little body around him, one hand lying over his heart, her leg thrown over his.
But his mind wasn"t on her.
His mind wasn"t on the woman lying next to him, the woman he was supposed to marry later that fall.
It was on the sad-eyed blonde who had left his office after he had reluctantly admitted, even to himself, that this was a chance they couldn"t pa.s.s on.
h.e.l.l, how many cops were given the chance to save the victim before she became the victim?
And he would save her.
Failing wasn"t an option. Because if he failed, the next body he would be called in to see would be hers.
He didn"t doubt that.
After d.a.m.n near going blind over the files, he had come to the inevitable conclusion that the killers were one and the same. And nothing Gloria had done in the news, or hadn"t done, had pointed the finger her way. She had been on his list from the beginning. Side by side with Angela Neally, the reporter who had been found raped and murdered in her home, only a month before the final, and most brutal, murder.
Rolling from the bed, he gave up on the idea of rest. No time any way. He wouldn"t take the time to p.i.s.s for the next month, if it would save Erin.
Padding down the stairs of the large cedar wood house he and Eva had moved into the past spring, he went to the telephone and punched in a number he had known for years.
When her sleepy voice sounded in his ear, the knots in his belly loosened. Would he have to keep her next to him until this whole thing was resolved? d.a.m.n right, part of him whispered.
And he would, if that kept her safe. G.o.d knows, that was what he wanted anyway. Erin. He had just wanted Erin, always, forever.
"Seth," she mumbled sleepily, "if you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, I"m going to go back to sleep."
"How did you know it was me?" he asked with a frown.
"Well, it could be because I have caller ID," she said, rolling onto her back, the silk sheets falling to her waist. Chilled, she pulled them back to cover her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It hadn"t been the caller ID. She couldn"t see the view-box without her contacts. But she had known it was him. "Or it could also be because you"re the only person crazy enough to call me at...2:26 a.m." Her brain was fogged from the pain killer she had made herself take.
She had to get some sleep.
Had to.
Just because visions had told her she would die before she saw thirty didn"t mean she didn"t plan to fight it.
"It could have been him," he said quietly.
"He won"t call me." Even if he did, she wouldn"t know him. He would give nothing of himself away until the day he chained her to a cold cement floor, until the day he broke pattern- * * * * *
It hit her in a flash of silver, the silver chains biting into her wrists, the cold cement beneath her back. The gently sloping floor and the drain that lay in the middle. The drain that would carry away the blood and body fluids that would pour from her body and his as they killed each other, him with his knife repeatedly plunging into her body, her with the nebulous but very real gift she had been born with.
Laughter rang through the air, perfectly normal laughter, and a voice that she knew. A voice that was familiar.
I"m glad I waited for you. I"m glad she turned from me. You"re more than she is, more than she could ever be.
Who? She could hear her own voice asking. Who are you talking about?
"Erin!"
The bellowing from the phone shattered the vision and it leaked away before she could catch her breath.
A short one. But vivid, so vivid.
Wearily, she sat up and said, "I"m here, Seth," only seconds before he could throw down the phone and call for a black-and-white. "I"m half asleep, but I"m here and I"m fine."
On the other end of the line, his heart was racing in his chest. "Don"t do that to me, Erin," he muttered, guilt snaking through him as he heard Eva climb from the bed. "h.e.l.l, you trying to give me a heart attack?"
"No, I"m trying to sleep. Go and help your fiancee go back to sleep, Seth."
The phone clicked in his ear and he lowered it, stared at it even as Eva descended the stairs hurriedly, her small heart-shaped face worried, a little scared.
With a sigh, he hung up the phone and turned back to her, a.s.suring her everything was fine.
But he lied. Things weren"t fine, and he wasn"t sure when they would be.
Erin lay curled on her side, staring into the darkness. A fine sweat covered her body and she wanted to get up and shower, to wash away the fine residue of fear the vision had left her with.
But she hurt too much to move.
She had counted, all over her body, how many times that knife had cut into her flesh. Or how many times it would cut into her, she thought. Fifteen times, fifteen times before she gave up the fight. Her body ached from the rape that hadn"t yet happened. And her mind had withdrawn. If she opened her mouth, all that would escape was gibberish.
He would die, too.
In the vision, each time his knife had cut into her, power had streaked from her mind and flayed through his. Tearing it apart as he tore her body apart, until blood leaked from his nose, his ears, his eyes.
And he still kept cutting her.
Time pa.s.sed and her ragged breathing slowly steadied, her mind stopped chasing itself in circles. She would take him with her. He would die, just as surely as Erin would.
But she didn"t want to die.
Part of her was tempted to hop aboard a plane and fly away. Far away. She had money. She could buy a small, isolated house and never leave it. Mama and Daddy had left her with money, lots of it, and she"d spent so little. She had never made a home, why bother, when she"d die before she could enjoy it?
She could buy herself a new face, a new name. She was smart enough, sharp enough to lose herself in the wide world, to blend in and disappear. She could be safe. She didn"t have to die.
But that wretched ability to see also showed her what would, or could, happen if she fled.
The murders wouldn"t stop.
And the killer wouldn"t be caught before many more women lost their lives.
And if she ran, she would see the faces of the lost every night for the rest of her life.
Pressing her face into her pillow, she sobbed.
Chapter Three.
Seth left the bed before the sun rose.
Sleep had eluded him.
Eva had fallen back into the sound sleep of innocence, her face free from worry, her eyes clear and trouble-free.
And he had lain beside her with his mind running around in circles. He"d always followed his instincts, and they had served him well, for the most part. Maybe not as sharp as Erin"s, but he doubted anybody he knew had instincts quite as clear, quite as sharp as hers.
But his had served him well.
And right now his stomach was a slippery, cold little knot of fear that wouldn"t loosen. He was afraid. Part of him, his gut, told him to put Erin on a plane to somewhere, anywhere but Avalon. Somewhere she would be safe.
But the other part, the cop, knew that Erin was their best chance of stopping the animal that was not only killing women, but raping them and torturing them so horribly that death was little more than a sweet release. A cop, a sharp, smart cop would have a chance that the other women hadn"t had.
Maybe.
He was going to bug her. Slip a little transmitter on her so that even if she disappeared, they could trace her. She may have been joking when she had made that comment about putting a tracking device in a tooth filling, but he was going to do it.
She wasn"t going to die.
Seth wouldn"t let it happen.
The results of a sleepless night showed on her face early the next day. Splashing cold water on her face, she tried to wash the cobwebs away. It wasn"t even six a.m. but she wouldn"t sleep anymore, so after she finished showering, Erin dressed in a pair of sweats and fixed a cup of coffee.
Taking it with her, she sat in the window seat and pulled out her journal and put her pen to the ivory paper, blanking her mind. Sometimes it surprised her, the thoughts that flowed when she wasn"t aware-this was one of those times. When she looked down and read what she had written, her belly clenched.
Something has changed. Something doesn"t feel quite so dark anymore.
I"m not sure, but I think it"s Seth. Having him and Eddie-but mostly him-around, makes me feel...safer. More secure. Something inside me feels a little different. A little less afraid.
I think I have a chance of living through this. And it is because of Seth.
Seth is planning on planting a bug on me without me knowing.
Eddie is going to be the one to do it, today at lunch. He"ll try to slip it into my purse, and another one on my body somewhere, I think probably my necklace.
The meeting with the chief is going to get ugly. Colton doesn"t like Seth, and he doesn"t want him on this case.
Seth"s going to be lucky if he doesn"t get fired before this job is over.
I need to talk to him, try to convince him to keep his cool.
Like he"ll listen to me. He"s a good cop-the best cop I know. But he"s so d.a.m.n hotheaded.
If I live through this, it"s going to be because of him.
I need him here, not in jail or in the unemployment line.
Eva is going to leave Seth.
"Well, f.u.c.k," Erin murmured, her soft, cool voice sounding droll in the silence of the room. "Aren"t those just the cheery thoughts I need to start my day?"
Eva leave Seth? Now that the thoughts were written, it was clear in her mind. It wasn"t always that way. Sometimes, things came as visions, like last night, clear, like a movie rolling in front of her eyes. Others were misty and vague, not even true thoughts, more like an idea, or a hint of one, that needed to be grasped, molded and once she wrote it down, it became more real.
But now...she couldn"t see what happened. The gift worked that way, sometimes. That"s how it worked this time, thankfully. Erin didn"t need to see the details of Seth"s love life, thank you very much. But Eva was leaving Seth.