“If that.” Her round blue eyes flashed fury. “A car was leaving the neighborhood, just as I was driving in. Brown Civic. I missed him. If I’d been a few minutes faster…”
Frustration clawed. Dammit, if Jack had answered… He let himself finish the thought. This woman would be alive and we’d have a killer in custody.
“He wasn’t driving a brown Civic when he followed Christy Lewis home,” he said tightly. “But changing cars could be his newest up-yours.”
“I remember his plate number. I’ll call it in.”
While she did, Noah dialed Micki, who was on her way. “We have another.”
“Any snakes this time?” Micki asked and Noah crouched to check Rachel’s ankles.
His stomach lurched. “No. It appears Miss Ward was afraid of fire.”
Olivia finished calling in the BOLO on the brown Civic and crouched next to him, her pretty face twisted in a horrified grimace.
“Aw, hell, Web,” she murmured.
“What did he burn?” Micki asked.
Noah swallowed hard at the sight of Rachel Ward’s blistered flesh. “Her feet.”
Wednesday, February 24, 4:15 a.m.
“I thought I smelled something burning,” David said, leaning over the stove where Eve had left a scorched pot. “You’ll never get this clean. What were you trying to cook?”
“Cocoa.” Coffee had become too much for her churning stomach. Rachel was dead. We were too late. “I got distracted when I was making the first batch and it scorched.”
He took the mug next to her elbow and tasted it. “Not bad.”
“You’re not the only one who can make stuff,” she muttered. “So make your own.”
He took another sip instead. “Where’d you get the recipe?”
“Internet.” She took her mug, sloshing hot cocoa over the sides. “Go back to bed.”
“Can’t. I wake up when I smell stuff burning. I’m a firefighter, remember?” He said it teasingly but she didn’t smile. “Spill it.” He was serious now. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She haltingly obeyed, starting with Buckland and the photos, ending with Rachel. David’s face had darkened through her story. “Does the fact that this Buckland asshole pops up at the same time as a serial killer bother anyone but me?”
“No, it bothers Noah, too. Buckland’s officially on the radar. But Buckland’s been reporting for a couple years. Local color, obituaries. That he’d suddenly start killing people…” She shrugged. “I’m too tired to think.”
“Then go to bed, honey. I’ll take the couch.”
“No, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about Rachel and the others.”
“Not your fault,” he said softly, tilting her chin up. “What happened with Webster?”
“Nothing.”
He sat back, brows lifted. “So… did he kiss you yet?”
His tone was so engagingly nosy, she might have smiled. But the thought of that kiss in the bar, so… proprietary. So necessary. So impossible. Her eyes stung. “Stop.”
“Stop what, Evie? Stop trying to keep you from making a big mistake? I have seen you through too much to let you hide again.”
Misery stepped aside for blessed anger. “I am not hiding. Not anymore.”
“You think just because you’re not holed up in Dana’s shelter anymore that you’re not hiding? Give me one good reason you’ve written Webster off. And don’t tell me it’s because he’s too old, because he’s my age and I’ll have to hurt you.”
She let out a long, quiet breath. “You know why.”
He stared at her in contrary confusion, and then his expression changed again to one of devastated understanding. “Oh, Evie. You can’t possibly…”
“No, I can’t,” she said, twisting his meaning.
“That’s not fair to Webster, or to any other man who might care about you. He might not even want kids. Especially at his age.”
“I thought you were his age,” she said quietly.
“I am. And I want kids. But I would be furious if a woman I cared for didn’t give me a chance because she assumed she knew what I wanted. You think you know people.”
His words had rattled her, but pride ran deeper than anything else. “I do.”
“Because you study them? Watch them? You don’t know shit, kid. You have been standing back and watching the world go by ever since Winters sliced you up.”
She flinched. “You cross the line, David.”
“Well, it’s about time somebody did.”
She stood, vibrating with ire. “Like you’re the expert? You, who stood back and watched the woman you loved marry somebody else? You, who’re still standing back and watching as she has baby after baby, building a family with somebody else?”
David jerked, his face going pale beneath his winter tan.
“Yeah,” she said bitterly. “I noticed. Did you ever think about telling Dana how you felt all those years? Or did you assume you knew how she felt? What she wanted?”
The silence hung between them for what seemed like endless minutes. “I knew how she felt,” he finally said. “She didn’t love me. She never did. She lived her life saving other people, doing crazy dangerous things, with never a thought for herself. She didn’t think about herself until she met…”
Eve felt a sharp stab of regret for the words she’d let fly so heedlessly. “Ethan.”
He nodded unsteadily. “Then her life became precious to her, because she could see what it would do to him to have lost her. Because she loves him.”
She felt lower than dirt. “David, I’m sorry.”
“No. You were right. I did watch her marry somebody else, because I did love her. Still do, I guess. But if Dana had ever given me one indication she felt the same way, I promise you, nothing would have held me back. And if she couldn’t have kids, I would have been sad, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe Webster is just a bump in the road. A practice love, if you want. But just maybe he’s your chance to be happy.
“Evie, don’t stand back and watch it pass by. You never know if another chance will come. It’s time to trust your instincts. I’m going back to bed. Don’t burn any more pots.”
She watched him go, hurting. For both of them. But he was wrong. When it came to men, she had lousy instincts. And it wasn’t just kids. It was everything.
For now, she’d go back to what she’d been doing. Spread across her table were the stacks of usage logs and graphs she and Noah had been reviewing. There had to be something to tell them who the next target would be before it was too late to save her.
Wednesday, February 24, 4:25 a.m.
“You should have told me Jack didn’t answer his phone,” Abbott said calmly, his eyes on Rachel’s small house where a small army of CSU and MEs had swarmed.
Noah leaned against his car, watching the neighbors who’d gathered, wondering if their killer ever came back to the scene to watch. To gloat. “I’m sorry. I should have.”
He’d called his boss with the discovery of a fourth murder, and it hadn’t taken Abbott long to realize his staffing had been shaken up a little. Abbott had been most displeased.
“Next time you call out one of my detectives without my explicit permission, I’m going to kick your ass into next week,” Abbott continued in the same calm tone.
“Fine. Just don’t blame Olivia. She was only trying to help.”
“I won’t. I’m blaming you. When were you going to tell me that Jack’s been late to scenes for three weeks? Or has it been longer?”
“Off and on, longer. Depends on the woman in his bed. The women go their own way, and then Jack is back.” Noah shrugged uneasily. “Tonight, with him not showing up at all… That’s abnormal.”
“He’s on his way. He claims you didn’t call him.”
Noah blinked. “What?”
“That’s what he says,” Abbott said.