Snick.
A handcuff clapped around her right wrist, then her left. Then using her hair, he tugged her back to her feet and steered her for the door. “You like games, don’t you? Well, I have a game for you, professor. And you’re going to love it.”
Trent
Trent reached under Jeff Schneider’s bloody body. Finding the column of his neck, he felt for a pulse. A soft, irregular rhythm beat under his fingertips. “He’s still alive. Barely. Call for an ambulance. Now.”
“On their way,” someone shouted.
Cassidy raced up beside him and fell to his knees. “I’ve got him.”
Trent didn’t argue. Leaving Schneider in the detective’s hands, he scrambled to his feet and rushed into the police station.
The station swarmed with FBI and deputies. Subera stood in the center of the entry hall. He spun to face Trent. His eyes were dark. His face heavily lined. “The cop in the conference room is dead. Throat cut. Name’s Don Largent.”
“Risa?”
Subera shook his head. “Not here. No sign of her.”
Dryden had Rees.
Dizziness twisted through him. He shook his head, willing it away. He had to focus. He had to concentrate.
“We put an APB out for the black-and-white he stole.” Subera’s face sharpened with concern. “There’s no sign that he killed her, Burnell. She’s probably still alive.”
Of course she was still alive. Killing her was only part of Dryden’s fantasy. And acting out the fantasy was paramount. “He’s going to hunt her.”
“The Young cabin?”
“Maybe.” Trent hoped it was that easy. “Have the men you sent reached the cabin yet?”
“Not yet. Local cops might have.”
Trent spun on his heel and headed for the door. Young’s cabin was nearly thirty miles away. He had no time to lose. “Call me when you hear anything. I’m going to meet them there.”
Negotiating around the ambulance and emergency medical team attending to Schneider, Trent made it to his car and then out onto the highway. His mind raced, fast as spinning wheels on pavement.
It didn’t feel right. None of this felt right.
If Dryden had set Nikki up to make the phone call, he would have known law enforcement was on the way. He’d have counted on them wasting time staking out the house, evacuating the surrounding neighbors, setting up their assault. He’d have figured out that the operation would drain the deputies and FBI personnel from Lake Loyal, leaving only the normal skeleton crew of LLPD officers.
But that wasn’t all.
Dryden also would have known that once they found Nikki, she would tell them about the cabin where he’d hunted Farrentina. She would tell them he’d left right after her phone call. And they’d rush back to the police station to find Schneider’s and the other officers’ bodies and Risa gone.
Dryden could have easily prevented all of that. All he’d had to do was kill Nikki. But he’d chosen not to.
Why?
Certainly not love. A psychopath like Dryden wasn’t capable.
And why would he take Risa to the cabin he’d used before? The one Nikki knew about? The place law enforcement would look first?
He wouldn’t.
But if not Young’s cabin, where?
Trent’s head pounded. His heart ached so hard it took his breath away. If ever there was a time for him to think how Dryden thought, to feel what Dryden felt, to be part of Dryden, that time was now.
He swung the car onto a wide area of the highway’s shoulder designed for drivers to appreciate the view. Below him, through a space in the trees, Lake Loyal resembled hammered pewter. The town lined the eastern side of the lake, a mix of old cabins slowly being overtaken by mini mansions dotted the north. A park and forest preserve circled the rest of the lakeshore. Beautiful, natural, the type of place people weary of modern life could go to recharge.
Last night, for a moment at that bed-and-breakfast, Trent had felt as if he and Risa were carefree tourists. Relaxing. Recharging. Reclaiming their lives.
Now he felt empty.
Trent pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.
Think.
He needed to think.
Trent had studied Dryden. Surely he could come up with the place the psychopath would take Rees—the object of his obsession—to play out his fantasy.
When Dryden had killed his wife, he’d taken her to his hunting cabin in the north woods. A place where he had escaped the humiliation of his life. A place where he’d hunted prey weaker than himself. A place where he was king and master.
He no longer had such a place.
So where would he go?
Trent opened his eyes and raked a hand through his hair. The answer had to be there. Buried somewhere in Dryden’s mind. Somewhere in his past behavior. Born from his insecurities, his desires, his twisted rage.
He’d taken Farrentina to Young’s cabin to stage his hunt, because he knew the guard would “bust a gut,” as Nikki had said. He’d displayed Farrentina’s body on Rees’s front porch to scare her. To taunt law enforcement. And then the locket they’d found… Dryden’s way of announcing to Trent that Rees was already his. That he was going to steal her out from under their noses. And with his bold entrance into the hotel, his slashing of the hotel clerk’s and Deputy Perry’s throats—he’d almost succeeded.
This time he had.
Trent gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles ached. The answer was there. He could feel it.
Before Dryden had gone to prison, his choice for a hunting site had been deeply personal. A place he felt strong. A place where he was the master. All that had changed after he’d broken from prison. Now it seemed his choices were all designed to exact revenge. On Young. On Risa. On law enforcement.
Who would Dryden revenge himself against this time? Who would Rees’s death hurt the most?
Trent’s heart stilled in his chest. A pain erupted behind his eyes, so sharp he lowered his forehead against the steering wheel. He knew just who Rees’s death would hurt the most. And so did Dryden.
Trent himself.
He slammed the butt of his hands on the steering wheel. Pain thundered up his arm. He knew where Dryden had taken Rees. Trent had set up the place himself and had made an effort to show Dryden right where it was. And now the killer had taken Risa there, planned to let her loose, hunt her, kill her, and display her body.
Trent lost a part of himself to Dryden two years ago, but he wasn’t going to lose Rees. He’d die first.
And he’d take that murdering son of a bitch with him.
Risa
Hands bound by handcuffs, Risa stared out the rain-spotted windshield at the canopy of trees stretching over the road and struggled to force the images of Farrentina Hamilton’s body from her mind. She couldn’t think of what Dryden would do to her if she didn’t get away from him. She had to focus. She had to play this right.
If she didn’t, she was dead.
Next to her, Dryden draped a hand over the wheel of the stolen police car and wove around the curves as if he were on a Sunday drive without a care in the world.
But Risa knew his nonchalance was only a show. She could feel the violence coiled under his skin. See the contempt burning in his eyes every time he looked at her.
And she could taste the fear, like rusted tin creeping up her throat, gagging her, choking her.