Torn by Cynthia Eden
THERE WERE SHADOWS beneath Victoria’s green eyes. Her skin seemed paler than before and faint lines bracketed her mouth.
Wade rose when he saw her approaching. He’d been about to head into the M.E.’s office with Dace—they’d spent hours combing over Jupiter Trail and one hell of a lot of time talking with the people who’d been on the scene.
One look at Victoria’s face and he could see the sadness that touched her. She was always like that after working with the dead. Every encounter seemed to take a new toll on her, and he hated that.
“It’s her,” Victoria said. “The victim discovered this morning is Kennedy Lane. He took her, and then, five years later, he . . . brought her back to the same spot.”
Fuck.
The M.E.’s office door opened behind Victoria. Dr. Eleanor Chambers hurried out, moving to Victoria’s side. She nodded quickly at him and Dace, then gave them both case files. “She works fast,” Eleanor said, admiration in her tone. “And her hunches are dead on.”
Wade didn’t look down at the file. He couldn’t take his gaze off Victoria’s face. There was something going on . . .
“We’ve got samples of the soil that were found with the body,” she said. “Soil and Spanish moss. I think she was . . . buried for the last two years. Based on the rate of decay and the condition of the bones, she’s been in the ground and—”
“The last two years?” Dace said, frowning as he asked the question. “Where the hell was she before that?”
Victoria’s lips pressed together and her gaze strayed to the report in his hand. “There were numerous signs of broken bones. Her scaphoid showed repeated fractures—”
Dace shook his head. “Okay, I’m gonna need a translation there.”
“Her wrist was fractured,” Eleanor supplied. “Both wrists, actually. It can be a fairly common break, right where the wrist bends . . .” Her words trailed away as she glanced back at Victoria.
“I suspect the injuries to her wrists occurred because she was restrained.” Victoria’s voice was soft and sad. “If she were tied up or—or handcuffed and she tried to get away, the fractures could have easily resulted.”
Wade’s back teeth clenched. “You’re saying she was ready to break her own wrist if it meant she could get away.”
“I’m saying she did exactly that.”
Fuck.
Victoria cleared her throat. “Based on her other injuries, I believe she was tortured, rather extensively. There were nicks on her bones—very consistent with knife injuries. I counted . . .” She blew out a hard breath. “Over fifty-seven nicks on her bones. All in places where they would not cause fatal harm.”
“Holy hell.” Now Dace was looking a little green. “You’re saying some whack job tortured that woman by stabbing her fifty-seven times?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, and like I told you before, her name is Kennedy Lane. The dental records were a match. We know the victim on the table in there . . . is Kennedy.” Her stare focused on Wade. “I guess LOST can consider this another found victim.” But for an instant, anger—no, disgust?—entered her voice.
“How did she die?” Dace wanted to know. “Was it because of the knife wounds?”
Eleanor shook her head. “None of those wounds were designed to kill.”
“Just to inflict maximum pain,” Victoria said. “And I think the killer wanted us to know that—why else would he deliver the complete skeleton to us? He wanted us to see exactly what he’d done to her. All of the knife marks. All of the broken bones. Everything. He wanted us to know just what she endured . . . before he bashed in her head.”
Dace swore.
“Sorry,” Victoria said. Now her voice was going brittle. “That wasn’t the clinical term. My apologies. The victim suffered a severe contusion to her head. A fatal blow. I doubt she died instantly from it, though. There would have been substantial brain swelling, as evidenced by the faint fractures in the skull itself. A fairly slow death, and one that could have been quite painful.” Her lips thinned. “But maybe not. Maybe after that blow, she stopped feeling anything at all. I can’t say for sure on that. Only Kennedy would know how those last few moments actually felt.”
Victoria was too pale now. Too fragile. Wade wanted to pull her close. To shield her from what was hurting her. The case. The case is doing this. “Kennedy would have known,” he said, his words a rumbling growl. “And so would the SOB who killed her.”
Victoria’s lashes fluttered. “Yes, yes, he would know.” Then she squared her shoulders. “I think my timeline is accurate. You’ll find the breakdown of decay listed in the file, but based on my findings . . . I would say that Kennedy died approximately twenty-four months ago.”
Right, she’d said that Kennedy had been in the ground for two years and . . . fucking sonofabitch. “He tortured her for three years before killing her?” Wade demanded. “Three years?”
“I believe so.” Her voice was barely a whisper now. “He kept her alive and he kept hurting her, until two years ago.”
“Christ.” Dace closed his eyes. “We gave up on her. We just gave up on her. And she was out there. All that time.” He spun on his heel and walked away. He’d tucked the file under his arm as he took angry fast steps, and then he slammed his fist into the nearest wall.
Wade knew just how the guy felt. When he and Gabe had finally found Amy, when they realized that she’d been alive. If we’d only fucking got to her sooner . . . The guilt had nearly consumed him.
He saw Victoria blink quickly and look away from the detective. “There is more.”
“I don’t think I want to hear any more right now.” Dace slapped his hand against the wall and leaned forward. “Alive. For three years. And we were barely searching for her. No one was looking while that sick prick took his time with her and he just—”
“He has another victim.” Victoria’s words were low but they seemed to echo like a scream in that hallway.
From the corner of his eye Wade saw Dace’s head whip up. “Say again?”
But it was Eleanor who spoke. “I told you, her hunches are dead on.”
Wrong choice of words there, Doc.
“The hair shouldn’t have been there. Not after the body had been in the ground and exposed so much that—” Victoria sucked in a sharp breath. “The condition was too good. And the color was wrong. Kennedy’s hair wasn’t blond like that, it was much darker. Blond hair that shade—” Her gaze darted to Wade’s.
Fuck me. “Melissa Hastings.”
She nodded. “Eleanor pulled a lot of strings and got a rush comparison for us. It’s still tentative, because there are more tests that have to be done and those tests take one hell of a lot of time. But the markers are there so far. They’re matching. I think . . . I think that hair belongs to Melissa. I think the man who took her also took Kennedy, and . . . he wanted us to know. That’s why he left the hair there. He wanted us to know exactly what he’d done.”
He took another woman.
“If he kept Kennedy alive,” Wade said, his muscles tightening, “then he’ll keep Melissa alive, too.” They just had to find her in time.
“Let’s see if my captain stops us from putting out that full-scale search now,” Dace said, then he ran down the hallway.
Victoria didn’t move.
Neither did Wade, not yet.
“I’ll, um, fax our results to his captain. That should help things along,” Eleanor said as she backed into her office.
Then they were alone. Dace’s pounding footsteps had faded away. Wade closed in on Victoria. He had the odd feeling that if he moved too fast, he’d spook her. “Are you okay?”
She blinked, three times, too fast. “Of course. I—I was just doing my job. An exam on remains, nothing more.” A faint and ever-so-vacant smile curled her li
“Don’t bullshit with me.”
Her smile wavered.
“She isn’t remains. Not to you. None of them are. They are always more. They’re people. They’re victims. They matter.”
Her long lashes swept down and a lone tear slid down her cheek. “She suffered so much, Wade. So much.”
“We’re going to get the bastard.”
She shook her head. “That’s not our job. We find the missing. We aren’t supposed to hunt the killers.”
“If you believe that, then I don’t think you fully grasp the reason why Gabe brought me and Dean on board with LOST so early.”
A faint furrow appeared between her brows.
“I was a homicide detective, love.” The tender endearment slipped out. A tell he’d have to watch. “Dean was violent crimes with the FBI. Sure, Gabe might give some lip service to just finding the missing, but he wants justice for them. He wanted justice for his sister, and he got it, even though the price was fucking high.” He clamped his lips together because the end for the bastard who’d taken Amy—that was one secret he’d carried for a long time. He’d backed Gabe up during those dark times and crossed a line that had made him turn in his badge.
Because when I lied—under oath—there was no going back for me.
“Justice.” A shiver slid over her. “I want Kennedy to have justice.”
So did he. “And Kennedy isn’t the only victim. We can find Melissa. We can bring her back.”
The faintest flicker of hope lit Victoria’s gaze.
“We will bring her back,” Wade said. Because he didn’t want to lose another victim. And he sure as hell didn’t want to think that Melissa Hastings would be trapped for years, used as a sick bastard’s torture toy.
HER RIGHT WRIST slid out of the rope. At first Melissa was so stunned that she actually froze. Her fingers were nearly numb, there was so much blood, but—
My hand is out.
She started shaking her fingers, trying to get the feeling back into them, and then she reached for her left hand. She’d get the knot untied and then she’d get the hell out of there. She would not give up. She would escape.
She worked faster, harder, her fingers desperate on the ropes. She had to be free before he came inside. She didn’t even know who he was but . . .
But I know he’ll hurt me.
The knot slipped beneath her bloody fingers, loosening . . .
CHAPTER SEVEN
VICTORIA HURRIED TOWARD Police Captain Harry Vann’s office. He was on board—fully now, according to Dace—with the search for Melissa. He wanted to put every available resource into her search. There was hope. And Victoria was both elated and terrified.
What if we can’t find her? What if we just keep knowing she’s out there and that he’s hurting her? And the years pass right by . . .
The muscles in her back had knotted from spending so many long hours examining the remains. She’d wanted to be as thorough as possible, and the daylight hours had slipped away. A glance through the window showed her night loomed, and the sight of the darkness made her shiver.
Her phone rang, the sharp cry jarring her to a stop. Unlike Wade, she didn’t have some cool, rough music ring tone that played when her phone rang. It was just a normal beep. High and long. She automatically yanked out the phone, but she didn’t recognize the number on the screen. Victoria started to ignore the call, because she was so intent on going to talk with the captain, but some instinct nagged at her, and she put the phone to her ear. “Hello.”
A rush of air—as if someone had just taken a sharp breath.
“Hello?” Victoria repeated again, her fingers tightening on the phone.
“You found her.” The voice was low and rasping. She had to strain to hear the man’s words. “You found Kennedy.”
Goose bumps rose onto her flesh. “Who is this?” Her gaze darted around the hallway. Wade was up ahead, already in the captain’s office. Dace was with him. She took a tentative step forward.
“I’m the man who knows . . . all your secrets.”
Her goose bumps were getting worse. “I doubt that.”
He laughed. “Death can be so cruel, can’t it? Taking away beauty. Leaving only . . . bones in its place.”
Now she wasn’t creeping down that hallway. She was full-out running toward the captain’s office. Wade saw her coming and surged forward, frowning.
With her eyes wide and—no doubt—desperate, she pointed to the phone. Him. Victoria mouthed her fear. Her certainty. It’s him.
Wade’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, the captain pushed to his feet. “What’s going on?”
A killer. I think the killer just called me.
“Did you study her bones?” that rasping voice wanted to know. “Did you see the marks I left on her?”
Oh, Jesus. He’d just confirmed her fears. She was talking to the man who’d killed Kennedy Lane. How has he gotten my number? Her private line. “I saw the marks. All fifty-seven of them.”
That laughter came again. “Is that all? For some reason . . . I thought I’d left more.”
“We need to find out who the hell just called her,” Wade said, his voice a lethal whisper. “Now.”
Victoria stumbled forward. With her free hand she grabbed a piece of paper from the captain’s desk and scribbled down the number that she’d seen on the screen moments before. Then beneath that number she wrote: It’s him.
Dace raced out of the room. She knew that he could contact the cell phone company and get a location on that phone. LOST had even pulled some—somewhat shady—strings before and done the same type of search. Dace would need to demand real-time information about that cell phone—the company would need to ping the phone every minute or every few seconds so it would report back its location. So in order for Dace to do his job . . . I can’t let this guy off the phone.
“Keep him talking,” Wade said to Victoria, obviously thinking the same thing she was. His voice softer than she’d ever heard it before. “Keep him on the line.”
Well, she knew one way to engage the guy. “Why did you take Melissa?”
Silence.
And fear swamped her. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. She wasn’t the shrink. She didn’t know killers. Sarah did. Sarah could get into their heads. She could always say the right thing. But her—
“I like to see . . . just what people can endure. How far they can be pushed.”
Her heartbeat was so loud she almost couldn’t hear his words as that frantic drumming filled her ears.
“Sometimes, though,” he said—still in that rough voice, disguising his voice—“people have to be punished. Don’t you agree?”
“I—it’s not my place to punish.”
“Liar, liar . . .” He taunted. “I know all about you, Victoria. All those dark secrets . . . are you ready for them to tumble out?”
Fear and rage beat through her. She thought of Kennedy. The pain she’d endured. And Melissa. “You know nothing about me. Or those women or—”
“I won’t tell. Don’t worry.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“I like you,” he said. “More than the others. You and I . . . I think we’re the same.”
And she thought he was crazy. But Wade was staring at her, nodding encouragingly, and she was obviously supposed to keep talking to the madman on the phone.
This was out of her realm. She was going to say the wrong thing. She said the wrong thing all the time. Wade should know better. He should—
“Want to make a trade?” the rasping voice asked her.
“We could do it. You can come to me, and I’ll let Melissa go.”
Her lips parted. She stared straight into Wade’s eyes. “A trade,” she repeated, needing Wade to understand what was happening.
“Speaker,” Wade said, barely breathing the word. “Put it on—”
Speaker. Right. Shit. She should have done that sooner. Her fumbling fingers flew over the phone’s screen. But there was only silence. She sucked in a deep breath and said, “You want me to trade myself for Melissa?”
At her words, Wade lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. He gave a hard, almost violent shake of his head.
But she wasn’t just supposed to let a victim die, was she? If the guy was going to let Melissa go . . .
The caller asked her, “Can I trust you, Victoria?” Still disguising his voice. Still playing some game.
No, you can’t trust me.
“Because if you betray me, the world will know what you did . . . that friend of yours . . . your LOST agent . . . he’ll know, too.”
What was going on? How had the guy learned so much about her? About Wade? Because he had to be talking about Wade.
“But then . . .” His sigh carried over the line. “You’ve always been the monster, hiding in the room.”
He knows. He knows. Her gaze flew away from Wade’s. She couldn’t stare into his eyes right then. She was too afraid of what she might see. “Tell me where to go,” she ordered, voice breaking a bit. “Tell me where to come for the trade.”
“Jekyll Island.” His voice was even lower now. “Always a good place for a hunt . . .”
He hung up. For an instant Victoria just stared down at her phone. No, no, that wasn’t right. He needed to tell her more. He had to tell her where on that island to trade for Melissa. When to meet. She spun around and nearly ran right into Dace.
“Got the location,” he said, voice excited. “Fucker actually used Melissa’s phone—arrogant SOB. But we have an address on the bastard—let’s go get him, now.”
She took a step back. It all seemed so easy. The killer had just called them and basically handed over his location. Too easy. Nothing had ever been that easy before, and the situation made her nervous. But Dace and his captain were whirling and rushing into the hallway, already in hot pursuit.