“That looks like Brandon’s car,” Carina said and started to go after it.
A black Camaro was in the driveway of the house.
“The Camaro is my mother’s,” Kyle said flatly from the backseat.
“Drop me here,” Nick demanded. “Leah could still be in the house.”
Carina didn’t want to leave Nick alone-backup was still three minutes out, but she had to follow the Taurus in case it was Brandon Burns. She stopped the car and Nick opened the door to get out.
“Be careful, Sheriff.”
“You too, Detective.” He was already moving toward the house as Carina did a one-eighty and regained Burns’s tail.
Gun drawn, Nick ran up to the Burns property. He looked left, right. Up, down. The side door was ajar. Quiet. The last time he’d investigated a house that was supposedly vacant, he’d been attacked.
He hadn’t been expecting it then. This time, he was on full alert. He wouldn’t be caught unaware again.
Cautiously, he entered.
The house was dim. He was in the kitchen. A suitcase was next to the rear door. “Police! Stay where you are!” He announced his presence. No answer. No sound at all.
He moved quickly through the house, eyes moving to every potential hiding place.
Lying on the floor in the rear hallway was a blue-faced woman in her late forties. Her neck was bruised, her eyes had hemorrhaged, her tongue was out. Regina Burns was dead.
Nick looked in the room across from the body and saw a naked woman tied spread-eagle on the bed, a garbage bag tied around her head.
“No.” Nick holstered his gun and ripped the bag with both hands. He stared at Leah Peterson. Her eyes were closed, her mouth glued shut. He felt for her pulse. Nothing. How long? She was warm, soft. She couldn’t be dead.
“Dammit, no!” He couldn’t be too late.
A faint heartbeat.
He had to do it. If there was a chance she was alive, he had to try.
Nick ripped the gag off the girl’s mouth and pried open her bloody lips. He breathed air hard into her lungs, waited, filled her lungs again. Again.
Under his watch as sheriff, the Butcher had killed three women. He hadn’t found them in time to save them. And since he’d arrived in San Diego, three more women had died horribly. Leah couldn’t die on him. He would not allow it.
Breathe. He willed her to come back.
He heard movement and voices from the front of the house.
“Police!” he shouted. “I need medics, stat!”
Nick focused on watching the girl’s chest. Breathe, Leah, breathe. Please.
He continued forcing air into her lungs. His mind became blank, every molecule in his being focused on bringing Leah back.
Suddenly, she sucked in a deep breath of air and her eyes opened wide, full of terror. She started thrashing on the bed.
Nick pulled out his pocketknife and cut the ropes. His heart pounded as rapidly as hers. “It’s okay, Leah. It’s okay.”
He found a blanket in the corner of the room and held her close while waiting for the medics. Nick wasn’t a religious man, but he closed his eyes and thanked whatever supreme being was out there. Thanked the universe for not letting evil win this battle.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he whispered as he rocked her in his arms. “You’re safe.”
Leah began to cry.
THIRTY-THREE
CARINA KEPT SEVERAL CAR LENGTHS behind the Taurus. As soon as he stopped at a light, she confirmed that the driver was in fact Brandon Burns.
“Why don’t you pull him over?” Kyle said, anxious.
She considered it, torn. What if Leah Peterson was in the trunk? If she was, she was most likely dead, but what if she wasn’t dead? What if he hadn’t had time to finish whatever sick plan he had for her? What if she were still unconscious in the back of the car, knocked out from drugs or a blow to the back of the head?
“He might have a hostage, I can’t take the chance.” Not until she heard from Nick that Leah was at the house. Dead or alive.
In addition, there was no guarantee that Brandon would pull over. If he felt threatened, he could run, speeding through residential neighborhoods causing injury to innocent people. She didn’t want to endanger civilians with a high-speed chase. Criminals with nothing to lose were the most dangerous, and Brandon Burns was already destined for a life in prison.
Better to take it slow until she had backup.
Brandon drove at just the speed limit and eventually turned onto a major thoroughfare headed toward La Jolla. She continued to keep her distance to give him a false sense of security that he was making a clean getaway. Find out where he was going and trap him.
She called in two minutes later with an updated report and to ask the status of backup.
“We have two patrols on parallel streets,” dispatch said, “per your instructions. One unmarked car is two blocks behind your location.”
“Do we have a status at the Burns house?”
“Negative.”
Damn. She had to know if Leah was in the house or in the car. The thought that she was already dead and Brandon was in the process of dumping her body made Carina both sick and angry.
I can’t be too late.
She was worried about Nick. She’d left him alone, something she should never have done, but she’d had no choice. She couldn’t let Brandon disappear.
Dispatch radioed a 10-78 code from the Burns address. Ambulance needed. Carina hoped that the medics were really needed, that Leah was alive, and that the call was not a formality. And that Nick was safe.
She prayed she hadn’t made a fatal mistake.
Her radio was open for two-way communication and she heard the chatter in the background.
Female, DOA.
Female, stable.
Nothing about Nick. That had to be good, right?
Brandon drove directly into La Jolla. Why? She asked dispatch to patch Dillon into her frequency. “Dillon, I’m following Brandon Burns. He doesn’t appear to realize it. He’s driving into La Jolla. What ’s he thinking?”
“I just talked to Nick. Regina Burns is dead, apparently strangled when she returned home.”
“My mother is dead?” Kyle asked from the backseat.
Carina winced. He shouldn’t have had to hear the news that way.
“I’m sorry, Kyle,” she said.
“Good riddance,” he said, his voice ripe with emotion. “God, Brandon, why?”
“And Leah?” Carina asked Dillon over the radio.
“Leah Peterson is alive. Burns tied a bag over her head and left her. Nick performed CPR and saved her life.”
“Thank God.”
“I don’t like this development. Up until now, Brandon has been calm and rational in his approach. He had a plan and executed it. Now he’s impulsive. I don’t know if it’s because his mother showed up unexpectedly-the officer on scene said her calendar had her returning Monday morning, not today-or maybe because I had Elizabeth pull him into the chat room. I don’t know why, but Burns is now unpredictable.”
“I didn’t think he was predictable in the first place,” Carina said. “Angie and Becca couldn’t be more different in profile and appearance.”
“But I saw the logic in his actions, even if I couldn’t predict who his victim was going to be. His whole purpose was to kill. Everything going into it, the glue, the rape, the washing of the bodies-that was leading up to the finale of the kill. But it was a ritual, each step, even with the changes in M.O., had to be completed before he could kill. Until now. He didn’t rape Leah. He had her body prepared as if he were going to, but then he tied a garbage bag over her head and walked out the door.”
“Maybe his mother’s unexpected appearance saved her,” Carina said.
“You’re probably right.”
“But what is he doing now? Why La Jolla?”