She smiled. “Very much.”
“I want you to wear it next time.” He looked down at her, his expression serious but his eyes sparkling.
She took the hat off his head, pushed him to the side, and put the hat on her own head.
“Okay,” she said and kissed him hard and long, until they were both breathless again. “If you insist.”
When he figured out that an unmarked police car was watching Maggie’s apartment, he got worried. Very worried.
Then he realized they didn’t have anything on him. If the police knew he’d killed Angie and the others, they would have arrested him. That knowledge gave him confidence.
He drove right on past the car without another thought.
Besides, he didn’t want to kill Maggie. Not yet, anyway. It was her younger sister, Leah, who reminded him of Becca. Her smile, her soft dark hair, her translucent skin. If he wanted to feel the intensity he had with Becca, he had to find another woman like Becca. That’s where he’d gone wrong. Jodi was like Angie, and while at the beginning it was good, it ended all wrong.
But Becca had been perfect, from beginning to end.
And Leah would be, too.
He waited outside her boyfriend’s apartment and frowned. The windows were dark. What were they doing in there? Why wasn’t Leah going home? Her car was out front, right there on the street. She should be leaving. Going home. Not staying here with him.
The idea that Leah was having sex with another man greatly disturbed him. That put her right there with Angie and Jodi, a slut.
He wanted, needed, Leah to be pure. She looked innocent, acted sweet.
Women are liars.
He stared at the window, pictured Leah spreading her legs for a man. Imagined her asking him to fuck her, liking it, wanting it, just like a common whore.
Had she slept with other men? Did she have boyfriends all over town, just like Angie? Maybe she posted pictures of herself online for every man to see, to jerk off to, to lust after.
It was her fault. She deserved everything he was going to do to her.
And more.
Three in the morning. She didn’t come out of the apartment. His hand clutched the door handle.
Wait, his inner voice commanded.
He didn’t know if he could wait for her to come out on her own. He didn’t know if he wanted to wait. But he didn’t know the layout of the apartment, how to get in, how to dispose of her boyfriend.
He wanted to kill the bastard for fucking Leah. That’s exactly what they were doing. It was three-oh-six in the morning. What else could they be doing? Watching cartoons?
So he waited. And watched.
Leah Peterson would eventually leave. And then she would be his.
THIRTY
CARINA WOKE TO A LOW MOAN next to her in the bed. Instantly she was on alert, then remembered that Nick Thomas had slept in her bed last night. Slept, among other very wonderful things.
She glanced at the clock. Four fifty-five. She closed her eyes again. Three hours sleep was not enough. It was Sunday. She deserved to sleep until the sun came up.
“Leave her alone.”
Nick’s voice was as clear as day and Carina rolled over to face him. “Go back to sleep,” she said.
“Stop. Don’t touch her.”
She realized Nick was talking in his sleep. Talking and moving restlessly, which is what had woken her up in the first place. He moaned, a mournful, guttural cry that tore at her heart.
“Nick,” she said softly, touching his face.
His eyes shot open and he grabbed her hand. She didn’t move.
“Nick, it’s me.”
His eyes came into focus and he saw her. “Carina.”
“You were having a bad dream.”
He shook his head.
“Yes, you were. You were talking in your sleep.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” he said, his voice thick. “It was a memory.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“All right,” she said. “Go back to sleep.” She rolled over, trying not to be upset with him. She wasn’t going to force him to relive a memory that gave him nightmares.
He rolled over and spooned himself around her bare back. Touched her loose hair, breathed into her neck.
“You know about the Butcher,” he said finally.
“What I read in the papers.”
“You know he held me captive.”
“Yes.”
“The papers never reported that he raped one of his victims while I was chained in the corner.”
“Oh Nick.” Carina tried to turn to face him, but he held her close against him, her back against his chest.
“He trussed me up like an animal so that any movement tightened the binds. I heard every scream, every assault. It was a living Hell and I wanted to die. I wanted to die because I couldn’t stop it. I was trapped and forced to listen.”
“How did you escape?”
“I didn’t. Search and rescue found us. I didn’t do a damn thing, I couldn’t.”
Nick had never told anyone what had happened in the shack. Not the shrink his doctor sent into his hospital room, not FBI agent Quinn Peterson, not even Miranda. They knew-the evidence spoke for itself-but he’d never talked about it.
Until now. He felt it was important for Carina to know what had happened, to understand how much those days had changed him.
“The Bozeman Butcher killed twenty-two women over a thirteen-year period,” Nick began. He focused on the facts, even though she knew some of them. “My first murder investigation was the Bozeman Butcher’s third victim, though we didn’t know it at the time.
“When I became sheriff, I made it a priority to solve what seemed like an unsolvable case. I brought in the FBI. That didn’t make me popular with everyone, but it had to be done. They’d helped with the original investigation, when we had a survivor, but nothing came of it. No suspects, no evidence. Dead end.”
He’d felt helpless to stop the Butcher, who seemed to kill and disappear at will.
“He usually killed and moved on, to return one or two years later to claim a couple more victims before disappearing again. But the last time, something spurred him on and he kidnapped a coed named Ashley van Auden less than a week after killing Rebecca Douglas. We had evidence from Rebecca’s murder we’d never had before that helped us narrow down previous suspects and revisit the old cases with new insights.
“I had a hunch. It wasn’t based on anything, really, except my knowledge of southwest Montana. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I didn’t think it would lead anywhere. And if I was wrong, and I was partly wrong, I didn’t want good people to be damaged by the hint of suspicion in a brutal murder.
“I was attacked from behind and woke up hours later, bound, with Ashley chained to the floor next to me. And there was not a damn thing I could do to help her.”
“Nick.”
“You read the articles. You know what the Butcher did to those women.”
“Cruel. Sadistic. But you’re not responsible for his actions, and you certainly weren’t responsible for his victims.”
“When you’re neck-deep in an investigation, you’re responsible for everything.”
Carina’s heart broke at the strain in Nick’s voice-he had been living with the guilt for so long, he’d somehow become convinced that what happened to that poor girl was somehow his fault.
“Nick, the Butcher kidnapped Ashley. He tortured her, not you. It happened before he knocked you out. You can’t blame yourself.”
“I know in my head that I’m not responsible for what happened to her, just like you know that you’re not responsible for what happened to your nephew.”
She tensed, and Nick said, “Honey, you do know it’s not your fault.”
“Like you said, in my head I know, but in my heart…” She took a deep breath. “In my heart I live with the painful void where Justin used to be.”