Читать книгу Deadly Holiday Reunion - Lenora Worth - Страница 13

FOUR

“The next note,” Ella said on a burst of breath. “This is real, Jake. He’s come back.”

Jake grabbed her hand and held it there between them. “Maybe he never left.”

Ella retreated from him and went to a storage cabinet. She pulled out a set of serving tongs and used them to lift out the stiff paper. Turning, she dropped it on the polished plank table so they could read it.

“Let the games begin. It’s been too long, way too long.”

Jake hit his hand on a chair. “He was here. No telling how long he’s been watching this place.”

“I never told him I was from East Texas,” Ella said, panic rising like bile in her throat. “But he somehow knew and that’s why he brought me back here. I tried not to give him too much information when he had me. I didn’t let on that I even knew these woods or this area.”

But knowing her surroundings had been part of what saved her. That would have to be in her favor now, too. “When I came back here after he’d taken me, I stayed hidden away for the first few months. I should have left the state.” She shook her head. “I’ve put my grandparents in danger. When the killings stopped and we thought he was dead, I got too complacent, too content. I should have left—”

“It’s not your fault,” Jake replied. “We all searched and searched. He was badly wounded but we couldn’t find a trail past the water. Nothing. I always figured he’d gotten away or at least he’d died somewhere else but he’s still on every Most-Wanted List I know. I never dreamed he’d be so bold as to come back.” He looked off into the distance. “I should have kept searching.”

“And I ought to have kept going,” Ella said. “I could have gotten far away from here.”

“He’s the type who’d find you, anyway,” Jake said, his eyes roving around the structure and the woods. “He probably knew you’d lived here as a child, and that’s why he brought you back. If you’d left, he’d have found you and none of us would have been able to help.” He checked the floor for footprints, touched on the ceiling-to-floor screens for cuts. “We never found a trace of him and the murders stopped.”

Ella shivered at the thought of being in that madman’s clutches again. She couldn’t let it happen to Macey. Just knowing a killer had that child made Ella physically ill.

The wind lifted and the forest rustled. Down on the lake, a snowy egret lifted out over the water in a wild flight. What had startled the graceful white bird?

“Maybe you’re right,” Ella replied to Jake on a shaky whisper. “Maybe he’s been hiding out in these woods for years now.” Had he been watching her all that time?

“Hunters and fishermen would have seen him or at least signs of someone living out here,” Jake said, probably trying to reassure her. It didn’t work.

“He’s too smart for that.” Ella moved around, looking here and there, opening the narrow storage cabinets underneath one of the screened corners while she searched for anything to give her a real clue. “But how did he get in?” she asked, her mind recoiling from the nightmare inside her head. “I don’t see how he did it.”

Jake stared up at the stoned wall of the chimney. “Do you have a door on the back of this thing? A place where you can clean it from the outside?”

“Yes.” She hurried to one of the two big screen doors on either side of the chimney and unhooked the inside latch. “I’ll show you.”

“Wait,” Jake said, stepping ahead of her with his rifle raised. He did a quick search of the woods and the path down to the dock and then squinted across the lake canal to the other shore.

“All’s quiet.”

Ella didn’t argue with him or try to rush ahead this time. Instead, she held her own gun at the ready and scanned the paths down to the lake. Nothing. The dark waters of the big lake flowed by in the same way they’d done for hundreds of years. The tall cypress trees swayed in the midday wind, their sighs revealing no secrets. Turtles lay sunning on old broken logs. Brown triple-strand straw from the towering pines dropped in hushed piles to the forest floor only to cover decades of decay and moist, deep earth. What else did these woods cover?

“We have to figure out the clue,” she said, turning to Jake. “He’s on the move and he’s probably got Macey with him.”

“Or he’s left her somewhere, tied up and scared,” Jake said. “Alone.” He lowered his head, his expression dark and full of a helpless despair.

Hearing the crack in his deep Texas drawl made Ella want to take him in her arms and hold him. Or maybe fire a round from her rifle while she screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Here’s the clean-out door,” she said, refusing to give in to the clawing, slithering fingers of fear.

Jake pivoted to the left in front of her. “Did you keep it locked?”

“Yes. Just so no kids or varmints could accidentally get inside. It’s a pretty big door.”

“The lock’s broken,” Jake replied, pointing to the square black-iron door on the back of the stone chimney. “That’s how he left the note.”

“He usually doesn’t leave any signs so the broken lock is significant,” Ella pointed out, the technical facts clearing her head for a brief time. “Maybe he had to hurry and get away. What did the note say again?”

Jake stood, his eyes holding hers. “‘Let the games begin. It’s been too long. Way too long.’”

“What’s he trying to tell us?” Ella paced in front of the clean-out door. She hated that all the horrible memories she’d tried to bury were now resurfacing like dead bones floating in water. “Way too long. Way too long.”

“Does that make sense?” Jake asked, hope in each word.

“I don’t know. I... It’s hard to remember. I don’t want to remember.”

Jake was there, taking her rifle, pulling her into his arms. “I’m so sorry. I thought long and hard before coming here but I’m glad I did. I can’t let him hurt Macey and I sure won’t let him hurt you.”

“I’m okay,” she said, the warmth of his arms shielding her, comforting her, soothing her. “I’ll be okay.”

Jake stepped back as if he’d just realized how close they stood. “We need to stay on top of this. It’s us against him and he knows I won’t bring in anyone else unless he forces the issue. He’s got a grudge going but so do we. It has been way too long. But we get a second chance to bring him in.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” She backed away and wiped her eyes. “Maybe if we take a ride...to...the last place we saw him.”

Ella thought back over the clues so far. “He left a note directing you to the daisy necklace to prove that he’s still alive and then he brought you to me to show he’s not finished with us. That’s two clues.” She pushed at her bangs. “But what does this one mean?”

“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.