All the pretty faces gra.., p.24
All the Pretty Faces (Graveyard Falls), page 24
Josie sank into the seat and fastened her seatbelt. “I’m surprised he’d leave Easton to take the fall.”
“He was locked in a cage as a kid. He’s probably terrified of being locked away again.”
Sympathy registered on Josie’s face. Dane had none, not for a cold-blooded man who carved up women’s faces for fun.
Adrenaline pumping, Dane sped toward the airport, cursing at the traffic as he veered onto the interstate leading to Knoxville. He blinked against the glare of lights—weaving in and out of traffic and passing the slower cars, his siren roaring.
Josie clutched the door handle, unusually quiet.
Dane rubbed her shoulder. “You okay?”
“As all right as I can be with another death on my conscience.” Josie twisted her hands together. “I feel so helpless. Like I should have done more.”
“That’s the story of my life, Josie. But you’re not at fault here, so stop blaming yourself.” Although he, of all people, understood guilt. “You didn’t have anything to do with this psycho or his crimes.”
“Logically I know that,” Josie said. “But he’s sending me those pictures. Do you think he wants to punish me for writing about the Bride Killer?”
Dane gritted his teeth in frustration. “He’s demented. He takes some kind of sick pleasure in hurting women and taunting you. He wants you to make him famous like Billy Linder.”
Dane turned off the interstate and drove toward the airport. Siren wailing, he sped around traffic heading to the main terminal and parked in front of the building.
A policeman met him at his vehicle. “Sheriff Kimball phoned and explained the situation. I’ve alerted security throughout the airport.”
“You know where he is?”
“Yes, he’s waiting at the gate for his flight,” the officer said. “He has no idea we flagged him and that we’re holding the plane until you arrived.”
“Thanks.” Dane and Josie raced inside and met with an airport officer who led them through security and the crowded halls.
When they finally reached the gate, Dane spotted the plastic surgeon pacing by the window, his movements agitated, cell phone pressed to his ear. Dane motioned for the officer to stand back and guard the area, and two more security guards arrived as backup.
Dane kept his eyes trained on Grimley. The intercom blared with announcements for flights that were boarding. Grimley paced, his movements agitated as he kept checking his watch and the flight schedule.
“Stay here and out of sight. We don’t want to alert him that we’re here,” Dane told Josie. “If he runs, get out of his way and let the police handle it.”
Josie nodded and stepped into the corner of one of the airport stores. Dane silently thanked her. He was more concerned about her safety than anything else.
And that scared him. But he didn’t have time to analyze his reaction.
If Grimley panicked, he might try to take a hostage, and he didn’t intend for Josie to get caught in the middle.
Dane cut through the crowd, keeping his head low and Grimley in sight. He needed to get closer before he charged the man.
Anxiety knotted his shoulders. A family of four elbowed their way through to the gate in need of seats, and a group of college kids appeared, laughing and hauling backpacks and fast food. An airline attendant pushed an elderly man in a wheelchair in front of him.
All slowing him down.
By the time Dane had cut through the throng, Grimley had spotted him. Instant panic flooded his face, and he shoved his phone in his pocket, abandoned his rolling bag, and took off running away from the gate.
“Dammit.” Dane motioned to the guards to cover the exits, and gave chase.
Grimley shoved a young woman and her baby out of the way. Dane caught the lady just before she stumbled and fell. He gently steadied her, then raised his badge and shouted for people to move.
Grimley jogged down the corridor past the food court, then jumped onto the escalator going toward the baggage claim and ground transportation. Dane broke into a sprint, waving the guards forward, one of whom was speaking into a mic on his lapel, alerting security to stop Grimley from leaving the airport.
More crowds piled onto the floor as a flight unloaded, and Dane shouted again to clear the area as he jogged down the escalator and raced after Grimley. The man paused at a restroom to glance back, saw Dane, and darted toward the exits.
Dane veered around a group of tourists gathering to catch a hotel van. Two officers stepped to the door to block Grimley from leaving.
Grimley screeched to a stop and frantically searched for another exit, but Dane caught up with him, jerked his arms behind him, and snapped handcuffs around his wrists.
“Dr. Silas Grimley, you are under arrest for the murders of Charity Snow, Patty Waxton, and Neesie Netherington.” Dane patted him down to make sure he wasn’t armed, but the man was clean.
“You can’t do this, I didn’t murder anyone.” Grimley swung his hands wildly. “I’m being set up!”
Dane clenched his jaw to keep from slamming the bastard against the wall. “Shut up, it’s over, you bastard.”
Then Dane shoved him through the exit to a police vehicle waiting to take him to jail.
Josie met Dane at his SUV.
“Where’s Grimley?” Josie asked when she saw the empty vehicle.
“The county police are transporting him to jail,” Dane said. “I wanted to search his luggage and car.”
Thank God Grimley hadn’t escaped. Maybe they’d get to the truth now.
Dane unlocked the SUV, his jaw tense. “Letting him sit and sweat in a cell for a while will be good for him. Maybe he’ll be ready to talk once I interrogate him.”
Knowing Dane, he wouldn’t be happy until he got a full-fledged confession.
Another officer appeared dragging a rolling suitcase, then settled it in front of Dane.
“Did your security team locate Grimley’s car?” Dane asked.
The officer spoke into his mic, then nodded. “Third level, extended parking.”
“Looks like he planned to be gone a long time.” Dane opened the trunk bed of his SUV, then pulled on latex gloves, set the luggage inside, and picked the lock.
Dane quickly rifled through the contents. Two designer suits, a pair of dress shoes, ties, a photo album. Dane glanced at her with a raised brow, then opened the photo book.
Her stomach clenched at the sight of the pictures—there were pages and pages of the actors who’d come to audition in Graveyard Falls.
Billy Linder had kept a Bride’s Book with photos of his victims, pictures taken after their death.
This book held headshots and photos of actresses in various situations depicting scenes from her book. Granted the scenes she’d written were dark, but they were based on fact. Seeing these reenactments suggested he was exploiting the story line for his own demented pleasure.
A sick feeling washed over her. Did Grimley have copies of the photos he’d sent her? Was he the Butcher?
“I’ll take everything to the lab,” Dane said as he closed the book.
Josie spotted something jammed in an inside pocket. “What’s that?”
Dane unzipped the compartment, then scowled. “A picture of Grimley and Easton together at the nature preserve.”
“You really think he and Easton are partners?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know,” Dane said. “Don’t you?”
Josie bit her lip. “I don’t know yet either. A lot of things point to them working together. And Grimley definitely fits the profile.”
Dane finished searching the suitcase and closed it. “Well, I intend to find out.”
He climbed in the driver’s seat and drove into the parking garage for extended parking. Grimley’s Mercedes was locked, so Dane retrieved a crowbar from his SUV and opened the passenger door. Josie stood back on pins and needles as he searched the interior. If they found the bones from the victims, they could seal the case against Grimley.
The dash and front seat held nothing important: insurance information, a couple of magazines on the latest plastic surgery techniques, and handouts from the conference he’d just attended.
Dane found the lever to unlock the trunk and popped it. A duffel bag had been stuffed inside.
When he opened it, Josie leaned forward to examine the contents. Gym clothes, underwear, extra dress shoes.
Dane dug deeper. Several scalpels were wrapped inside, tucked in a side pocket.
Along with a butchered Mitzi doll identical to the ones left with the victims.
Dane sped back toward Graveyard Falls, emotions churning. He’d considered having Grimley detained in a Knoxville jail, but decided it might be advantageous to have Grimley close to Easton in case he needed to use extra persuasion to coerce Grimley into a confession.
Josie fidgeted with her phone. Hopefully they had the killer or killers in custody, and no one else would die.
His cell phone buzzed, and he snatched it up. “Agent Hamrick.”
“It’s Peyton. Listen, Dane, I spoke with the counselor who worked with Silas Grimley as an adolescent. She said Grimley denied the abuse. When he was questioned about his father’s disappearance, he clammed up. She even suspected that he might have killed his old man and buried him somewhere on their property.”
Dane should have figured that out. “Have a team search the area for a grave or body.”
“I’m on it,” Peyton continued. “Grimley suffered from social anxiety and tended to become obsessive about friendships.”
Dane swallowed hard. “Did he talk about my sister?”
“She didn’t mention a name, but she confirmed that he had an unhealthy obsession with a girl who volunteered with the adolescents.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Dane. You think that was your sister?”
“Yes.” Dane ignored her sympathetic tone. Rage at Grimley had taken over. “I’ve wanted answers for a long time. Locking up this bastard will at least mean closure.” Then maybe his mother would heal and return to the living.
Peyton’s sigh punctuated the air. “There’s one more thing. The text the reporter received came from a phone belonging to Grimley.”
Now they were getting somewhere, racking up the evidence they needed to seal Grimley’s coffin.
He thanked Peyton, then ended the call and filled Josie in.
“I’m so sorry, Dane,” Josie said softly. “I understand this is personal to you.”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. Josie’s sweet voice threatened to bring his emotions to the surface. He didn’t have time for that. “Damn right it is. That sicko is going to pay.” Bitterness welled inside him. His sister had wanted to help people, but her loving, giving heart had gotten her killed.
Josie rubbed her temple. “You think he may have told her how he felt, or she figured it out. Even if she tried to let him down easy, he was unstable and could have snapped.”
Dane nodded, desperately trying to rid his mind of the images that bombarded him. Betsy’s shock when she realized the boy she was trying to help was violent. The terror and betrayal she’d experienced when he’d turned on her and stabbed her.
Imagining her last minutes was so painful it could bring him to his knees. It had at one time. He’d bawled like a fucking baby.
No more.
“Dane?” Josie laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”
He shook his head, reigning in his emotions. “I will be, though. Once Grimley is locked away for life.”
They reached the sheriff’s office and jail, and he parked. Josie squeezed his arm again, but he was too torn up inside to do anything but force his legs out of the car.
She followed him, her presence giving him more comfort than he wanted to admit. For a moment when she’d asked if he was all right, he’d almost yanked her into his arms.
Hell, he wanted to bury himself inside her and let her sweet body help him forget everything. Her lips could give him relief. Her body could replace his aches with pleasure.
But he had to focus. Tie up the case.
Make sure Grimley never saw the light of day again.
As he entered, the officers were handing Grimley over to the sheriff.
“You can’t do this,” Dr. Grimley shrieked.
“Shut up.” Dane jerked him by the collar of his starched shirt. “Sit down and be quiet while we process you.”
The plastic surgeon gave Josie a pleading look as if he thought she would help him, but pain wrenched her eyes. Pain this man had caused.
Dane steeled himself. If he’d killed Betsy, he didn’t deserve sympathy.
Sheriff Kimball had already patted him down, and Grimley’s personal belongings lay on the desk. Dane rifled through his wallet. A few hundred dollars in cash.
Debit and credit cards. A one-way ticket to Mexico.
Then a folded photograph Grimley had tucked inside.
It was Betsy. Fucking son of a bitch had kept it all these years. Did he look at it at night and think about her? Did he sleep with it like some pervert?
He grabbed Grimley from the chair. “You killed my sister, you bastard.”
Grimley’s eyes widened in fear as Dane hauled him through the doors to the interrogation room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dane shoved Grimley against the wall. “You twisted freak. You killed Betsy.”
The fury and anguish he’d lived with for so long boiled over. He wanted to snap the man’s neck in two and hear the bones pop.
Grimley’s legs buckled. “You’re hurting me!” he cried.
Dane slid his hands around the man’s throat and squeezed. “That’s nothing compared to what you did to Betsy and those other women.”
Grimley coughed for air and tried to pry Dane’s hands from his neck. “I didn’t kill them—”
“Dane, stop it, this isn’t the way.” Josie’s soft plea barely registered above the noise of his hammering heart.
He cursed. He hadn’t realized she’d come into the room.
Footsteps pounded, then Sheriff Kimball appeared beside him. “Let him go, Hamrick. We’ll do this, but we’re going to do it the right way.”
Pain throbbed in Dane’s chest. His fingers were frozen around the man’s neck. He couldn’t move them. “You don’t understand, he killed my little sister.”
A soft hand stroked his back. “I’m sorry, Dane,” Josie said, “but you can’t let him turn you into a killer. Betsy wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“You don’t want this case to get thrown out because you were related to the victim and mishandled it,” Sheriff Kimball said.
Dane’s throat thickened, making it impossible to talk. His hands shook with the force it took not to completely crush the man’s windpipe.
An image of Betsy at nineteen lying dead taunted him.
Then when she was twelve. Betsy with pigtails and knobby knees, grinning, poking her tongue out at him.
Betsy at eight playing dolls and dress-up.
Then at fourteen, Betsy playing soccer and raising money to help feed hungry kids.
Betsy in that coffin, her complexion milky white and unnatural, the light gone from her eyes, the smile replaced by tight lips the damn mortician had glued together.
The world spun, rage and grief blinding him.
“Come on, Dane,” Josie said gently. “Let him go and you’ll get justice for your sister.”
The sheriff shot him a warning look while Grimley sputtered for help. Dane clenched his jaw, gave Grimley’s neck one last squeeze to scare the bastard, then jerked his hands free.
Grimley flailed his arms to stay upright. Sheriff Kimball quickly ushered him into a chair. “Sit down and stay there,” Kimball ordered.
Josie rubbed slow circles along Dane’s back, a reminder that good did exist somewhere in the world. Yet she’d seen the violence just like he had and lived through it.
Dane stepped away from her touch, his unleashed fury like air trapped in a bottle about to explode. Hurt darkened Josie’s eyes, but she didn’t speak.
He couldn’t talk either, couldn’t explain all that was going on in his head. Everything was wrong. His mother’s anguished face. Betsy’s lost life. His fight to find her killer.
Had he finally achieved that goal? If so, what then? For ten years, finding her killer had consumed his life.
Grimley rubbed at his throat with long, thin fingers. Fingers that were adept at using a scalpel to carve women into beauty queens.
Yet he’d also shattered so many lives.
Grimley would not get out of jail, not ever.
The sheriff laid Grimley’s briefcase on the table. Dane took the cue and regained his professional air. He’d get a confession out of this creep, then lock him up forever. One by one, he laid excerpts from the man’s blog on the table. He stabbed a finger at the last story about the birds.
Grimley folded his arms and body as if he could collapse inside himself. Yet his eyes twitched back and forth, a sliver of pride in the depths. He recognized the entries. They were part of his story. His life.
“Here it is, you cocky bastard,” Dane said. “You describe exactly what you did to those women. Now tell me about it yourself.”
Josie studied Grimley’s body language, mentally profiling him.
Just as Billy Linder had been abused, so had Grimley. His abuse wasn’t sexual, but physical and mental. Living with those horrific scars and being shunned by peers, especially women, was reflected in those stories. In his career choice.
Probably in every aspect of his life.
A myriad of emotions played across the plastic surgeon’s face. Fear. Panic. Anger. Guilt.
Although his demeanor changed as he studied the last entry.
“Good God,” the doctor muttered. “I didn’t write that story.”
Josie straightened, analyzing his tone. He sounded sincerely shocked.
“Don’t bother to lie, Grimley,” Dane said. “We read through all of your entries. This last one describes the way you carved the talons on the young women’s cheeks.”
He shook his head in denial. “Wait, you don’t understand. I wrote the other blogs, but not this one. Don’t you see? Someone’s trying to frame me.”
