Zac made a mental note to check out the whereabouts of Junior later. It was obvious that Senior was going to insist his son was innocent. For now, he turned his attention to why he’d wanted to talk to Curly in the first place. “Do you have a key to the funeral parlor?”

  The man looked confused. “Is this some sort of trick?”

  Zac shook his head. “It’s a simple question. Do you still have a key?”

  “Oh . . . you mean because of the gal that was found there? Curly said she’d been left in the cooler. Nasty business.”

  “Very nasty business.” Zac’s voice was cold. Paige had been murdered on his watch. The knowledge was eating at him like a cancer. “Did you have your own key?”

  He firmly shook his head. “I didn’t need it. There was a spare key kept in the garage.”

  Zac frowned. Yet another convenient explanation. “Who would know that?”

  “Half the town,” Curly said in dry tones. “Jacob didn’t want to be bothered when he was trying to pressure his customers to get the top-of-the-line funeral or was down in the morgue working on the bodies, so he left the key to the side door for the delivery people, the cleaner, the florist, the church organists. Anyone who might need to get in when he was busy. You can ask around Pike and they’ll tell you I’m not lying.”

  That would be easy enough to prove. “Is it still there?”

  “As far as I know.” Curly licked his dry lips. “Is that all?”

  Zac arched a brow at the stupid question. “I’m going to need to know where you were the night Jude was shot.”

  Curly heaved a long-suffering sigh, slumping farther down in his chair. “I was home.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah, alone.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  The older man scowled. “Not really. If I’d killed Jude I would make sure I had an alibi. I’m not stupid.”

  Zac shrugged aside the sharp protest. The man couldn’t have known his connection to Jude would be discovered. No criminal ever thought they were going to get caught. “What about Paige?”

  Curly blinked as Zac abruptly changed the direction of the interview. “Who?”

  “Paige Carr. And don’t try to pretend you didn’t know her,” Zac warned. “She lived across the street from you.”

  “So what?”

  “How well did you know her?”

  “I didn’t.” Curly cleared his throat as Zac narrowed his eyes at the less than helpful response. “Not unless you count me yelling at her to keep her brat out of the road. Do you know how many times she’d be sitting on her porch, staring at her phone while her kid was running wild? It was a wonder the girl wasn’t hit by one of the cars that drive through here like we’re part of the Indy 500.”

  Zac swallowed the urge to remind the man that he had no right to judge the young mother. Hadn’t he been arrested for abusing his son? Instead he shrugged. People were always eager to point out the faults of others while ignoring their own.

  “Where were you the night she disappeared?”

  Curly furrowed his brow. “When did it happen? Friday?” He waited for Zac’s nod. “That’s easy.”

  “Why?”

  “I had to go to the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “Couldn’t breathe.” Curly made a sound of disgust. “Damned cigarettes gave me COPD. I had to be put on oxygen and told to stay the night. And before you ask, my son came around six and brought me dinner. I can’t stand that hospital slop. He stayed until about eight or nine.”

  Zac studied the narrow face. Was Curly lying? Surely he had to know that Zac would check the hospital records.

  He slowly leaned forward. “What if I tell you that your truck was heard coming back to the trailer park in the early hours of Saturday morning?”

  Curly nodded. “Yep. That would have been me.”

  Zac clenched his teeth. Was the man deliberately trying to piss him off? “You just said you were in the hospital.”

  “I said I was admitted into the hospital. I checked myself out around three or three thirty. Against doctor’s orders.” He shook his head in disgust. “You can’t believe the fit they tossed. As if I’m not a grown man capable of making my own decision.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  Curly reached up to pat the upper pocket of his flannel shirt where a square bulge was visible. “I wanted a cigarette. They said I couldn’t have one, so I left.”

  Of course he did. Zac swallowed a sigh and leaned back in his seat. With every passing second it seemed less and less likely that Curly was the murderer. The realization settled in the pit of his stomach like a hot ball of dread.

  “Tell me about your conversations with Jude,” he commanded.

  “I told you. We weren’t BFFs,” Curly growled, his impatience etched on his face. “He left a grocery list on the porch, along with an envelope with cash. I drove to the grocery store in Grange, and then back to the cabin to deliver it. That’s it.”

  “You’re claiming you never spoke to him?”

  “He opened the door the first time I brought the groceries. I asked where he’d been and he said he’d been traveling. I asked where and he got real snippy. Told me to keep my nose out of his business. I wanted the money, and to be honest I wasn’t that interested, so it didn’t bother me when he didn’t come to the door anymore. I left the stuff and drove away.”

  “That’s it?”

  Curly started to nod, only to hesitate as he caught sight of Zac’s expression. There was no way he was getting out of that cell until Zac was convinced he’d revealed every detail about his encounters with Jude Henley.

  “There’s one question he did answer the first night he approached me,” Curly grudgingly admitted.

  “Tell me.”

  “I asked why he’d come back to town.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he was here to pay for the sins of his past.” Curly grimaced. “I guess he was right.”

  Chapter 14

  It was early afternoon when Rachel returned to the Henley cabin along with Zac and an official search warrant. She didn’t have much hope of finding Tory. The cabin wasn’t large enough to hide anyone. There was a small living room, with a sagging couch and a leather armchair along with the narrow kitchen they’d glimpsed through the back window earlier. There were two small bedrooms with a bathroom crammed between them.

  It was built for an occasional weekend of fishing. Plain and functional.

  Standing in the largest of the bedrooms, Rachel studied the narrow closet. It was the only one in the cabin and she’d had a vague hope it might reveal . . . something. Anything. Instead it had a few shirts and jeans that could have been purchased at any big-box store.

  She reached to pull one of the shirts off the hanger, studying the cheap knit material.

  “This wouldn’t fit Curly Senior or Junior,” she said. The two Boltons were both too skinny to wear a large.

  “Nope. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess they belonged to Jude Henley,” Zac said, standing beside her.

  “Agreed.” She hung the shirt back in the closet. “But where’s the rest of his stuff?”

  Zac frowned. “What stuff?”

  She turned to wave a hand toward the boxes piled in the corner. They’d already been through them to discover clothes, toiletries, old magazines and letters, and a small television.

  “The Curlys were here for a day and had more crap tossed around than Jude.”

  Zac slowly nodded. “Either he only brought a few things because he didn’t intend to stay for long, or he avoids owning objects that would give away his identity. He’s lived on the run for twenty-eight years.”

  She agreed with Zac’s logic, but she wasn’t sure if it explained the extreme lack of belongings. Even if you planned to be at the cabin for a short time, there were things you would have to bring with you. “There’s another possibility.”

  He sent her a curious glance. “What’s that?”

  “Someone cleaned out the place after he was shot.”

  “Ah.” Zac slowly nodded. “True.”

  “Did you find a wallet on him? Or a phone?”

  “Neither.”

  “Nothing in the truck?”

  “Nothing recent. The paperwork and receipts in the glove box were all from the years before he supposedly died. I assumed because it hadn’t been driven since then.”

  His words only confirmed Rachel’s suspicion that someone had been through the cabin. Even a serial killer on the run would need a phone, if only a disposable one.

  So the question left was how thorough the mystery person had been in eliminating any clue that might help them.

  Returning to the main living room, Rachel walked in a slow circle. She ignored the empty beer cans and paper plates tossed on the floor. She didn’t doubt those came from the Boltons. Instead, she searched for anything that might belong to Jude. “Assuming we believe Curly—”

  “That’s a big assumption,” Zac interrupted in dry tones as he conducted his own search. “I intend to go to the hospital later to check his and Junior’s alibi.”

  “Agreed.” She’d already considered the possibility that the two men had been working together, or that Junior had kidnapped Paige and hidden her at the funeral parlor before visiting his dad at the hospital. Later he could have returned to kill her. “But hypothetically speaking, let’s say that Jude has spent the last twenty-eight years on the run, indulging his evil urges and managing to stay off the radar.”

  “No easy task.”

  “Why risk it all by returning to Pike?”

  Zac halted in the center of the room, his brows pulling together as he considered the question. “Curly said that Jude claimed he was here to pay for the sins of his past.”

  “Do serial killers possess the ability to feel guilt?” Rachel considered her own question before giving a sharp shake of her head. “My training tells me that a psychopath is like a tiger. He doesn’t change his stripes.”

  “I agree it seems unlikely, but I suppose age might have caused him to reflect on . . .” Zac fell silent, as if he’d been struck by a sudden thought. Then, without warning, he was pulling his phone out of the pocket of his jacket. “Shit.”

  “What is it?”

  His expression was impatient as he hit the screen. “The medical examiner sent Jude’s autopsy report, but I was too focused on searching for Tory to look at it.” A female voice floated through the speaker and Zac turned away to talk to his deputy. “Lindsay. I need you to go into my office . . .” His words became indistinct as he moved into the kitchen.

  Several minutes passed before he walked back to stand next to Rachel.

  “Got it,” he announced.

  “Were you looking for something in particular in the autopsy?”

  “In my experience there’s one time in any man’s life when he reflects on the choices he’s made.”

  She studied him in confusion. Was he talking about himself? Or maybe his father? “When is that?”

  “When he is forced to confront his own mortality.”

  She remained confused. “Death?”

  “Jude Henley was dying.”

  “Oh.” She blinked at the unexpected explanation. “He does that a lot.”

  Zac’s lips twitched. “No shit.”

  “What was he dying of?”

  “Brain cancer,” he said. “They missed it in the initial autopsy because of the damage caused by the bullet.”

  “Was he being treated?”

  “There’s no indication of a recent surgery or radiation therapy. According to the medical examiner he had only a few months left to live.”

  Rachel paused, needing a second to adjust to the latest development. Did the fact that Jude was dying change anything? Yes. She didn’t believe that a monster could develop a conscience, but facing your own mortality would surely alter your priorities.

  But how?

  “He mentioned paying for the sins of his past, and we just assumed he was referring to the murders he’d committed.” She spoke her thoughts out loud. “But it might have been for faking his own death. Or abandoning his brother. Or a dozen other things we haven’t discovered.”

  Zac nodded. “Whatever it was, the regret was compelling enough to drive him back to Pike and risk exposing the fact he was still alive.”

  Rachel considered the various possibilities. He hadn’t reached out to Jacob, unless the older man was a better actor than she suspected. Or anyone else in town who was willing to confess they knew he was still alive.

  Did that mean he’d come to see whoever had shot him in the head? Had he suspected he would be in danger? Was that why he’d hidden in this cabin? Or was it just the fear of being seen by someone he knew?

  She paced across the floor, struggling to make sense of her muddled thoughts. “Do you think Jude followed whoever killed him to Pike? Or did the killer follow him?”

  “And what is the connection between them?” Zac added.

  She sent him a rueful glance. “More questions without answers.”

  His jaw tightened. “And Tory is still missing.”

  Rachel sympathized with the frustration that smoldered in his eyes. Being in the cold case division meant that she rarely felt as if she had a ticking clock over her head. The pressure of trying to use the past to figure out who was stalking the streets of Pike and at the same time needing to locate the missing woman was taking its toll on both of them.

  “Have your deputies finished searching the Boltons’ places?” she asked.

  “An initial sweep didn’t turn up anything beyond a bag of weed and a bottle of prescription painkillers.”

  “No weapons?”

  “Curly Senior had a shotgun in his truck.”

  That wouldn’t be unusual. Everyone in town had a shotgun in their truck. Including her father, who rarely hunted. “Nothing to connect them to Tory?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Damn.” Rachel continued her pacing, passing by the rough wooden shelves that were nailed to the wall. “I . . .” The words dried on her lips as she noticed the old stack of books that were shoved at one end. There were a couple on fishing and one that offered campfire cooking recipes. It was the top book, however, that captured her attention. Not only was it free of dust, but the smooth red leather was shaped like a photo album. “What’s this?”

  Zac walked to stand beside her as she pulled the object off the shelf and flipped it open to reveal pages covered in news clippings.

  “A scrapbook?” Zac guessed, his hand reaching out to touch the yellowed article that was neatly taped at the top of the page. “Horrific accident steals two lives,” he read the headline. “James and Justine Henley, two beloved citizens of Pike, were killed in an automobile crash outside town in the late-night hours. An investigation is pending.”

  There were a couple more articles related to the crash taped at the bottom. Curious, Rachel turned the page, puzzled by the pictures of an unknown woman with long, dark hair and a thin face. There were at least a dozen photos of the female, taken from a distance and some so fuzzy you could barely make out her features. She turned the page to discover more pictures. This time, however, she recognized the brown-haired young woman with the petulant expression.

  Staci Gale.

  Lifting her head, she met Zac’s shocked gaze. “A scrapbook for a serial killer.”

  * * *

  It was midafternoon by the time Zac and Rachel returned to his office. They’d quickly photocopied the various newspaper clippings as well as the pictures in the scrapbook before bagging it up and sending Lindsay to deliver it to the CSI office in Madison. The sooner the professionals could start processing the thing for fingerprints or DNA the better. Not only to prove that the album belonged to Jude, but to see if anyone else had handled it.

  Next he’d enlarged and enhanced the copies before he’d printed them out and spread them across his desk. Together, he and Rachel shuffled through them, standing close enough for her shoulder to brush his arm. He tried to ignore just how right it felt to be so close to his ex-wife, but between the stress and his lack of sleep, his defenses were at an all-time low. His awareness of her was as inevitable as the rising sun.

  All he could do was savor the welcomed heat of her body and the sweet scent of soap that clung to her skin.

  Rachel, on the other hand, was fully focused on the task at hand. A good thing one of them was.

  “Staci.” She stacked the photos of Staci Gale into a pile. “Maureen Godwin.” She stacked another pile, a hard smile curving her lips. “Kim Slade.”

  “Your instincts about the boyfriend were spot on. He was innocent.”

  “A damned shame that the cops back then didn’t realize a serial hunter was hunting in the area.” She shook her head. “How many women might have been spared?”

  Zac waved a hand toward the photos still spread across his desk. “We have photos of at least twenty unidentified women.”

  “It’s . . .” Rachel shuddered. “I don’t have words.”

  “No one does.” His voice was harsh. When he’d started photocopying the pictures, he’d assumed there were duplicates. His mind couldn’t wrap around the possibility that there could be so many women destroyed at the hands of one man. No. Not a man. An unconscionable beast. “There are some things too awful to speak out loud.”

  Rachel leaned her hip against the desk, her pale face tense with a grinding fear. The same fear that churned in his belly.

  “If we could identify these women, it might help us capture the monster who’s walking in Jude’s footsteps.” She pointed out the obvious.

  “Do you have a database to run them through?”

  “Yes. And I’ve emailed the photos to the office.” She heaved a small sigh. “Unfortunately, we can’t be sure the women are in any system. Neither Staci nor Maureen were reported missing.”