All the pretty faces gra.., p.4
All the Pretty Faces (Graveyard Falls), page 4
“Good question. Does the doll mean anything to you?”
She had a whole box of them in her closet at home. “I collected them when I was little, but so did half the girls I knew.”
A second passed. “Jesus, I thought that it looked familiar. My sister had one of them, too.”
“Your sister?” Dane hadn’t mentioned family before, but then again, they’d only met for that interview to discuss his surveillance on Yonkers.
“Yes,” he said. “She got one for her birthday when she was ten. I don’t know what happened to it.”
“Maybe you can ask her if it has some kind of meaning that I don’t know about,” Josie suggested.
His breath hissed out. “That’s not possible. My sister is dead.”
Josie’s throat thickened at his abrupt tone. “I’m so sorry, Dane. I didn’t know.”
“Drop it,” he said gruffly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
His pain sounded so raw she didn’t want to probe. “Where are you? I’ll meet you.”
“No. I don’t want you involved in this murder investigation.”
Again, he slipped back to the professional lone wolf.
Josie didn’t intend to let him deter her questions about the woman. Her need for answers overpowered the fear that had nearly choked her on the street. “I already am involved, Dane. The killer sent me this picture for a reason.”
The question was why?
To taunt her with the fact that she wasn’t safe in Graveyard Falls?
Dane mumbled an oath under his breath. He wanted to believe that the killer hadn’t sent the picture to Josie, but considering the book she’d written about the Bride Killer, he couldn’t discount the theory. That damn book had hit lists all over the place and made her name recognizable overnight.
Stars often drew the crazies.
He wouldn’t jump to conclusions, though. He had to consider other possibilities. Sheriff Kimball, the janitor, the motel manager, or one of the crime scene workers could have sent it to Josie. Maybe someone close to the scene wanted to give her the scoop for a new story.
Dammit, he hated the media. Swarming reporters stirred up interest from other weirdos. He’d seen it on numerous cases. Freaks wanting to take credit and get their five minutes of fame gave false confessions.
Reporters exposed family secrets and lies.
Just as they had with his sister. They’d dogged him and his mother, asking questions, making insinuations about Betsy’s sex life, implying she’d run away. They’d practically driven his mother to a nervous breakdown.
“Dane, what are you thinking?” Josie asked.
He willed his mind back to the case. “It’s possible that someone at the crime scene sent you the text. Someone who thought you might want to write about it.”
“If there is a story, I’d like to follow it. This town, the people in it . . . It’s personal to me.”
His fingers tightened around the phone. “Why?”
“You know why. Because the killer has focused on me. Because of what happened with the previous cases.” Impatience tinged Josie’s voice. “Johnny was railroaded into jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Look how many innocent women died because of it. I have to know why this girl was killed, if it had something to do with my book.”
“I don’t need or want a partner,” Dane said. “I work alone.”
He had no desire to be used by a crime writer. He especially didn’t want to be responsible for her safety.
He’d already fucked up with his sister.
The manager appeared on the sidewalk and walked toward him. “Just go home. I’ll come by your place later. We’ll see if the IT team can trace your phone to see where that text came from.”
Josie sighed. “Dane, I have to do something to help. I can’t get this woman’s face out of my mind.”
“I’ll find out what happened to her,” he snapped. “That’s my job.”
“But I’ve studied criminology, I might have some insight.”
“You could also get yourself killed,” Dane said through gritted teeth. “Remember what happened before.”
Josie’s sharp intake of breath punctuated the air. “Of course I remember. Every minute of every day. All the more reason I can’t back down now. I can’t let these crazies win. Besides, being informed might help keep me safe.”
Dammit, she was right about that last part.
He also understood her need not to give in to the fear. She’d had no control when Linder forced her to go with him or when he’d made her cook for his sick mother. For God’s sake, he’d chained her to the insane old lady’s bed.
Once she’d decided to write the story of the Bride Killer, she’d dived in, and there had been no stopping her. Hell, he admired her guts. He’d read the book, and she’d done a damn fine job of reporting the details while respecting individual family members’ feelings.
If the killer had decided to involve her or kill again, he might already have her in his target. Like it or not—and he didn’t like it—she needed his protection.
“All right, Josie. Let me finish here, then I’ll stop by. In light of what happened today, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be at the crime scene.”
She made a sound of frustration but finally agreed.
“Are you staying at your grandfather’s?”
“Yes. I’m not crazy about that place, but it’s free. My grandfather moved into the assisted living home near Knoxville.”
The hurt in her tone tore at him. Cal had mentioned that she and her grandfather hadn’t been close. That he and Josie’s mother, Anna, had been estranged for years because of the Thorn Ripper case.
He wondered how Josie felt being in the older man’s house.
“I’ll see you in a bit.” Dane ended the call, his shoulders knotted with anxiety as he walked over to question the motel manager.
“Sir, did you take a picture of the victim and send it to anyone?”
The man’s white eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Take a picture? What you talkin’ about? I ain’t got one of them fancy cell phones like all those young kids tote around.”
“How about the janitor? May I speak to him?”
“Sure,” the manager said. “I can tell you that he didn’t take no pictures. He’s my brother. He was so shook up when he found that girl, I had to give him one of my nerve pills.”
He led Dane inside the motel lobby where a pale-faced man around seventy in work clothes sat slumped on a tattered vinyl sofa. His hands shook as he slurped coffee from a disposable cup.
The manager hobbled over and nudged his brother. “Lemont, you didn’t take no pictures of that dead woman, did you?”
Lemont’s expression bordered on sickly. Dane stepped back, afraid he was going to throw up.
“Pictures? Why would I take pictures?”
“I told you,” the manager said with a wave of his gnarled hand. “Why you asking?”
“Just routine,” Dane said. The fewer people who knew Josie had been sent that text the better.
He thanked the men, then went to talk to the sheriff. “Kimball, did you take a picture of the crime scene and send it to anyone?”
Sheriff Kimball removed his hat and scraped a hand through his shaggy dark-blond hair. “No, of course not. Why?”
Dane debated whether to trust the man, but he needed help, and the sheriff was on the right side of the law, so he explained about the text.
“Shit.” Sheriff Kimball shook his head glumly. “You think the killer sent it to her?”
“Either that or someone here did.” Dane studied Kimball for a reaction, but Kimball showed none. “Someone who wanted to let her know that another killer struck in Graveyard Falls.”
“Well, hell,” the sheriff said. “That’s not good. Although if the killer sent it to Josie, we might be able to use that at some point to smoke him out.”
Dane’s insides knotted. “That is not an option,” Dane snapped. “Protecting the town and Miss DuKane are our top priorities. You got that?”
The sheriff’s frown deepened the lines around his eyes. For a minute, Dane thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he made a clicking sound with his teeth and muttered, “Yeah, I got it.”
Dane silently chastised himself for overreacting. If he didn’t know Josie, he might have made the same suggestion.
Only he did know Josie. And he wasn’t about to let this sick son of a bitch get to her.
Had the killer sent the picture to spook Josie or as an invitation to play a game of cat and mouse with him?
Would that game turn into a hunt?
Anxiety riddled Josie as she drove back to her grandfather’s house. She rationalized that she was being paranoid, that she’d imagined those hands shoving her into the street, but what she’d felt was real.
Determined not to be caught off guard, she scanned the neighborhood and property for strangers.
She’d come to Graveyard Falls two years ago to visit her grandfather because he was ill. As a child, she’d never understood his animosity toward her or the terrible rift between her mother and him.
The moment she’d set foot in the old house, tension simmered in the air. Dark secrets and sadness permeated the walls as thick as the dust that had settled into the weathered wood and crevices.
Even now, sadness lingered as if it weighted the air and made it stale, hard to breathe. Wind whistled through the eaves so sharply that it sounded like a baby’s cry.
She flipped on the lights as she entered, the wood floor creaking as she crossed the room to the table where she’d left her notes on the Bride Killer and Thorn Ripper cases.
Staying here was both unnerving and cathartic. She’d wanted to make peace with the fact that her grandfather hadn’t wanted her, that he’d put Johnny in jail when Johnny was innocent, and wrecked her mother’s life. For years she’d wondered why he didn’t love her, if she wasn’t lovable.
If he hadn’t been so stubborn and sent her mother away, he would have known that she wasn’t Johnny’s child.
Even if she had been, she hadn’t done anything wrong. A decent man would have loved his grandchild no matter what.
She rolled her shoulders.
It didn’t matter. What was done was done. All she could do was accept it and move on.
Just like she’d had to accept the abuse in the Linder home and what they’d done to innocent victims.
Although acceptance and forgetting were two different things. The sight of the victims’ jewelry hanging on Charlene Linder’s skeletal bones was forever etched in her mind.
She studied the photograph she’d received today.
Was this a random murder?
Or would there be another?
Shaken, she went to her bedroom to change clothes, but she froze at the sight on her bed.
A Mitzi doll.
No, not just a Mitzi doll.
This one’s face was slashed, blood dotting its porcelain features.
Just like the woman’s face was slashed in the photograph.
Dane showed the picture Josie had received to Lieutenant Ward. “We need to know if any of your people sent this.”
Irritation lined the man’s face. “You realize that by asking my team, I’m implying that I don’t trust them.”
“I’m sorry,” Dane said. “It’ll take time to trace the text, and if someone on the inside did this, we need to know now. Maybe it’s some kind of ploy to get money for offering Josie the inside scoop.” Hell, he hoped it was. That would be preferable to the killer having sent it. “Maybe he wants to be included in her next book.”
Lieutenant Ward called the team together and explained the situation. “I handpicked you for the team, but for the record and to eliminate the possibility that this was an inside leak, it’s necessary to check your phones.”
The team consisted of three males and one female.
The female showed no reaction. She handed her phone to her boss.
A tall, dark-haired guy with glasses had been snapping pictures with the team’s camera. He set it down on the ground at Dane’s feet, then removed his cell phone from his pocket and shoved it toward his boss. He definitely was annoyed. “I haven’t sent any photographs to the lab, much less anywhere else.”
“I’m sorry about this,” Lieutenant Ward said. “Under the circumstances it’s protocol.”
Dane’s respect for the lieutenant rose a notch. He appreciated that Ward hadn’t shoved him under the bus.
The other two men exchanged irritated looks but complied with Ward’s order.
Dane checked their text history while Ward examined the female’s phone. “Thanks,” he said as he handed it back to her.
She headed back toward the motel room at the end where Dane had smelled bleach. Dane returned the other men’s cells to them while the lieutenant scrolled through the cameraman’s phone. Satisfied, he returned it and then waited to speak until the team had stepped away.
“I told you it wasn’t one of mine,” Lieutenant Ward said.
Dane’s gut tightened. He’d been afraid of that. That the text had come from the killer. Now the lab had to trace it so they could track down the bastard.
Coming back to Graveyard Falls triggered memories of the past in Dr. Silas Grimley’s mind, a past that he’d tried to overcome.
The movie that was being filmed in town had attracted many of his masterpieces. He couldn’t help but want to see how far they’d come after he’d made them pretty.
Would they become the stars in this film? Would he become famous for his cosmetic work?
Although he didn’t want the fame. He understood the pain of being scarred. Of being laughed at and shunned because of his looks.
Very few knew about those scars. Or how he’d gotten them.
Hand trembling, he climbed from his car and walked through the woods. The scent of animals and blood and raw fear filled the air, taking him back to his childhood.
He knelt by the dirt grave where his father’s bones lay and traced a finger over the oval stone he’d put there to mark the spot.
Not that he would ever forget any detail about his father—or his life with the mountain man who’d claimed he was one with the birds.
With a fine sculpting tool, Silas had carved the falcon talons on the rock. He wished he could have carved them into his old man’s face.
But it was too late for that.
Only one other person in the world knew that his father’s bones lay rotting in this ground.
No one else would ever know.
It was their secret.
Yes, this dirt hole in the middle of nowhere was a fitting place for a monster.
Silas arranged the tiny bones he’d collected from his last kill on top of the stone, shaping them like the claws of a raptor. He had a collection of bones at home, small trophies he kept to remember the animals they’d come from, and how he had exerted control over them.
Thunder rumbled above, lightning zigzagging across the mountaintops. It had stormed the night he’d been locked inside the cage with the starving birds.
He closed his eyes, rocking himself back and forth, desperate to drown out the hideous screeches. That was impossible.
The birds squawked and flapped their wings, circling him, then diving down to tear at his skin with their piercing sharp talons.
Instinctively, he rubbed his cheek where the ugly marks had once been. Plastic surgery had erased the visible scars, but his fingers brushed pocked and mutilated skin.
Or at least it felt that way to him.
The pain that had seared his nerve endings throbbed relentlessly, making his jaw numb. He welcomed the numbness, except then his cheek sagged and his eye twitched. Then he looked less than human.
Like the monster he’d seen in the mirror after the attack.
Another crack of thunder launched him back in time. He’d screamed and cried to be saved. The click of the lock on the cage echoed in the dark. The flapping of wings followed. Then the screech of the birds as they swooped down for their prey.
For him.
Needle-like talons tore at his flesh. He fought and batted at the birds, but his feeble attempts only angered them. They wanted carrion, and he was it. Tears and blood mingled. His voice grew hoarse from screaming.
Seconds floated into minutes. The world spun. The darkness sucked him in. He closed his eyes and prayed to die.
Hours later sunlight blinded him as he stirred back to life.
Sticky blood pooled on his fingers and trickled down his hand as he lifted his fingers away.
A pop of lightning striking a nearby tree jarred him back to the present.
The wind swirled dust around him, the stench of a dead animal wafting in the air. In the distance, vultures swarmed and dipped down on a hill.
It was their nature to feast on the dead remains of smaller creatures.
Just as it was man’s nature.
He lifted his fingers to his nose and inhaled. The blood was gone, but the scent lingered on his skin.
The blood of man. The blood of animal.
The blood that made him want vengeance.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ellie Pratt was going to hell.
She knew it as sure as she knew that these hills held evil. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d been part of that evil a long time ago.
She wasn’t proud of it. But she’d do it again if she had to.
Course some folks thought just because she possessed the second sight, the devil had gotten into her. She’d tried to tell them she didn’t want to see the awful things that came in her mind. They just appeared out of nowhere.
As a child, she’d been haunted by strange premonitions. She’d seen kids falling on the playground before they actually fell. Had witnessed a kid being beaten by his mama five miles away. She’d even read minds on occasion. One time when a boy had been thinking about bringing his papa’s rifle to school. That had been a good thing.
But other times she’d made the mistake of telling other kids about her visions, and their parents had snatched them away from her like she was a monster. The teacher had warned her she’d better keep quiet and stop causing trouble. The preacher had said she was possessed.
