She scanned the woods. The partially barren trees surrounded by the underbrush so thick one could hardly walk through it. Two of the crows had followed her and Billy to the road. They sat on a bare branch a few yards away, watching, warning. This was not a good place.

  She thought of the poor people living in that tent city and wondered how many had disappeared from there.

  “Do you think the people who live in that tent city would talk to you?”

  “Lincoln and another of my detectives are working on that. I don’t know if they’ll learn anything useful. But we won’t know until we try.”

  She wondered if Julian had been to that cave. Did he know about all the victims? About Sanchez/Santos? Was he a part of this?

  Billy slid behind the wheel and closed his door.

  Rowan studied his profile as he drove back toward Winchester proper. She thought of the way he’d touched her only a moment ago. Over the past five or six months things had changed somewhat between them. Nothing significant, only subtle nuances. A certain look. A special touch, like him tracing her cheek moments ago. Without even thinking, she had curled her fingers around his whenever he reached to help her. Had he noticed the slight shift? The whole idea terrified her.

  As much as she would love to explore something more with Billy—God knew she had lusted after him from the time she first understood what a real kiss was—how could she risk the relationship they already shared? More important, how could she risk drawing him further into this insanity with Julian? He would be jealous of Billy just as he had been of her father. Julian would have already noted the subtle deepening of their relationship. He never missed a thing.

  Billy glanced at her as if he’d felt her watching him. She pushed away the worries about whatever was happening between them.

  “I have some things to follow up on,” he said, “but if you’re free later, we could talk about the case some more. Maybe go over the crime scenes together.”

  “Sure.” Anything to take her mind off all those remains and that photo of her mother with the man who likely killed them. Apparently, she needed to keep her mind occupied to prevent following paths she had no business going down.

  “If you wanted to disappear for a while. You know, just get away from all this,” he explained, “the people who care about you would understand.”

  Rowan stared at that handsome profile again. “Are you suggesting I dump the funeral home on Charlotte and go somewhere to hide until this is over?”

  He didn’t answer her for a long time. Then he said, “Yes.” He braked to a stop at an intersection. He turned to her, looked her straight in the eye. “You would be safe that way, Ro. Every new discovery confirms one thing for me—you are not safe as long as he knows where you are.”

  She looked away first. He didn’t look away until he rolled forward, beyond the intersection.

  “He would wait me out. He’s persistent that way.”

  “You’re that convinced he won’t give up or lose interest.”

  She didn’t look at Billy this time. “Probably not. He has nothing left to lose now. To his way of thinking, I ruined everything. All of this is my fault. He might as well have his revenge and whatever else it is he wants.”

  “I see.”

  Rowan stared at him, those two seemingly innocuous words making her uneasy. “You see what?”

  “What you’re saying is that you won’t be safe until he’s dead.”

  He had pulled up in front of the funeral home and pushed the gearshift into Park before she gave him the only answer there was to give. “Probably not.”

  “That settles it, then.”

  She was afraid to ask what he meant with that statement, but then he told her.

  “If I get the chance, I’m killing him.”

  Thirteen

  Rowan rarely used the dining room. The only company she ever entertained was Billy and they generally ate in the living room. Entertained was a stretch. They kept each other company. Talked about work and who was doing what around town. They were comfortable.

  Tonight dinner had been one of their mainstays, pizza. Delivered by the family-owned diner downtown. The remains of the delicious oven-roasted veggie pie were still in the box on the coffee table. Why bother with a formal setting like the dining room when it was just the two of them? Billy was like family, not company.

  But the big family table was perfect for spreading out crime-scene photos and reports. The perfect conference room. Cases had been discussed in this room all summer. Though the local crime rate was usually quite low, she couldn’t deny a surge of exhilaration whenever Billy mentioned wanting to discuss a case. Particularly since, until now, none of them had involved her since the encounter with Julian all those months ago.

  She passed Billy a beer and tapped the first photo from the Henegar murder scene. “This one is different from the other one.”

  Billy shrugged. “Henegar was nailed to the floor and Thackerson was tied to the bed. The end result is the same.” He took a swallow of cold beer.

  “True, but you said the nail gun used on Henegar wasn’t at the scene. In fact, he had no power tools beyond a Skilsaw and a drill driver in his garage.”

  “That’s right.”

  Rowan gestured to the photos of Thackerson. “He was tied to his bed with nylon rope—none of which was found on the property.”

  “The killer brought the supplies he needed to secure his victims. It happens all the time.”

  Rowan pointed a finger at him. “True. But more important, the actual weapons he used to kill his victims were something at the scene. The Bible at the Henegar scene and the soap at the Thackerson scene.”

  Billy’s gaze collided with hers. “Both were personal to the victim. Stan’s own Bible was used. The soap was the only kind in Barney’s bathroom so we know it must have been his preferred brand. The killer knew these items would be there. More important, he was aware they meant something to the victims.”

  “Precisely.” Rowan felt the surge of adrenaline that came when a case started to come together. “Which would suggest that we’re looking at either a single perp or two perps who worked as a team. Either way, the killer or killers knew the victims. But that deduction alone doesn’t explain why the scenes were treated so differently. The first scene was relatively clean. He didn’t leave the nail gun or anything else he brought with him. Most people have watched enough TV crime shows to know that anything they leave behind becomes evidence. And,” she said when Billy would have spoken, “everyone knows the purchase of goods can often lead the police right back to him or her. We’ve confirmed the nylon rope was newly purchased because we found the packaging in the backyard. That was a foolish mistake.”

  “What we presume to be the packaging,” Billy corrected.

  Rowan gave him that one. “The perpetrator also knew where the security camera system was in Thackerson’s store. The videotape had been removed. Further proof that he either knew Thackerson well enough to have some idea where the security equipment was housed, or he was a pro who knew to look for cameras.” She tapped another photo, this one a close-up of one of Thackerson’s wrists restrained by the nylon rope. “If you study the photos of the wrists and ankles, you note that the knots are not the same. The first two are different from each other, but by the third one he’d figured it out so three and four are the same.”

  Billy looked from one photo to the next. “The killer was nervous or new at tying up a victim. He hadn’t done this before.”

  Rowan counted off what they had so far. “We can safely say that the killer or killers were acquainted with both victims. He—they—knew the victims, knew their homes and understood certain things that were important to them. Though we can’t be certain the relevance of the soap, we know it was the only brand Thackerson purchased.”

  “We’re on the same page so far,” Billy agreed.

  “Now, let’s look more closely at the victims. Henegar didn’t fight the way Thackerson did. My guess is he either suffered some physical reaction to the stress—a heart attack or stroke, which disabled him to some degree—or the perpetrator drugged him.” Rowan realized as she said the words the reasoning for this. “Whatever Henegar’s crimes, he didn’t deserve the torture the same way Thackerson did. Thackerson needed to feel the pain and fear. Or the killer needed him to. Another indication that the killer or killers were somehow involved in the victims’ lives.”

  Billy’s brow furrowed. “I hadn’t considered that aspect, but it makes sense.”

  Something about the two scenes still niggled at her. “I think the overall difference in the scenes confirms that we have two different perps. This one—” she tapped a photo from the Thackerson scene “—was far more confident. He wasn’t afraid Thackerson would best him. He must have known about any frailties he had.”

  Billy looked from the photos to Rowan. “Burt told you about his MS? I meant to tell you but it slipped my mind.”

  So, she was right. “No. I wasn’t aware Mr. Thackerson had multiple sclerosis. The muscle weakness may have prevented him from effectively fighting his attacker, though he would be able to try to resist his restraints since he obviously wasn’t to the point of needing a wheelchair yet.”

  “He was diagnosed only recently. Even his daughter said she didn’t know.”

  “But someone did, or knew him well enough to understand his physical limitations whether he was aware of the reason for those limitations or not.”

  Billy reached out, touched a photo of Henegar’s face and all those crumpled Bible pages shoved into his mouth. “I’m with you on the theory of two killers. I can’t argue with a single conclusion you’ve made.”

  Rowan leaned forward, looked from the photos of one scene to the next. “The feel of these scenes is familiar to me somehow. The soap and the victim being tied to the bed doesn’t ring any bells for me, but the pages from the Bible and being nailed to the floor...” A memory nudged her again and the air trapped in her lungs. “Oh, Jesus. This could have been Julian.”

  No. No. No. She didn’t want two more murders to be about her. She couldn’t bear to keep bringing this nightmare down on Billy.

  Billy’s gaze locked with hers. “You remember something he said or did?”

  “Possibly. I couldn’t download any of the Addington files from the system in Nashville, but April allowed me to have a look. Dressler certainly wasn’t sharing. I do remember there were two victims, maybe three, a long time ago. Perhaps twenty years. Julian had constructed makeshift crosses with two-by-fours. He nailed the victims to those crosses and poured rock salt down their throats.” She shook her head. “I should have remembered. This very well could be him. It’s possible he wants me to see that he can still reach into my life even with everyone around me looking for him.”

  Five months. He had been gone for five months. She had thought that maybe—just maybe—he was dead. She pushed out of her chair, scrubbed at her aching forehead. Her brain was tired of thinking about him. Defeat tugged at her. Of course he wasn’t dead. She should only be so lucky. He wasn’t dead and he wanted her to know it.

  No reason for her to be surprised. Julian wouldn’t go down so easily. But now two people who likely didn’t know Rowan any more than she knew them were dead because of her and Julian’s need to prove something to her.

  “He killed more than a hundred people, Ro.” Billy stood, stretched his back and came around to her side of the table. “How could you hope to remember all the different MOs and the way he staged each scene?”

  That much was true. Julian had changed the way the world viewed serial killers. He had used numerous MOs. But she should have remembered. She knew him better than anyone except maybe his ex-wife. The killing rampage he’d started five months ago in Nashville was somehow her fault. And it was her responsibility to stop him.

  No matter what Billy and Dressler believed.

  This was about her and she had to find the way to end it.

  Focus. First and foremost, she needed focus and objectivity. Her education in the field of psychiatry and her experience in homicide had taught her well. She needed to think, to analyze his full intent and to determine his method. Emotion was her enemy. The feelings of anger and regret and guilt would only get in her way.

  Keen focus, now, starting this minute, was essential.

  “Whether he’s behind these murders or not, he isn’t the one who did this.” She gestured to the table and the photos spread there. “The inexperience and uncertainty are obvious. The person or persons who executed these two men will have left evidence. You only have to find it.”

  “If we find that person or persons, maybe we’ll find a trail to Addington.”

  “Perhaps. But he won’t make it easy.” Julian was far too brilliant to be caught so effortlessly. She decided to keep that conclusion to herself. Billy wouldn’t appreciate hearing her deduction about Julian’s intelligence level. She hated to admit it, but it was true. Damn him.

  Moving on, she said, “Tell me about the next of kin in each of these murders.” They had talked about this before but Rowan needed to hear any new details and it wouldn’t hurt to refresh her memory on the older details. So much had been going on she wasn’t so sure she trusted her recall ability just now.

  “Wanda,” he began as he guided Rowan into the living room, away from all those photos, “was a quiet girl, according to the family and friends we’ve interviewed. She was anxious to start her own life and to have children of her own so she married at fifteen.”

  “A man two decades older who already had two sons and apparently didn’t want any more.” Those details had struck Rowan from the beginning. There was always the chance Wanda simply hadn’t been able to conceive. Either way, she had grown up raising another woman’s children. A worthy accomplishment, without doubt, but had doing so made her happy...made her feel complete?

  Rowan curled up in her favorite chair while Billy settled in her father’s chair, with nothing but a small table between them. He reached for a leftover slice of pizza. She watched him eat. It wasn’t like she’d never seen him eat before. But there was something immensely comforting about sitting here with him eating pizza. Comforting and comfortable. He was the one person in the world who made her feel completely at ease. Utterly relaxed.

  There was a time when Julian had made her feel that way. Something else she would not share with Billy, though she suspected he was aware of how very close she and Julian had once been.

  Rowan looked away to avoid Billy glancing at her and reading the thought in her eyes. She had felt nothing for Julian other than respect and admiration. She had adored him as a dear friend and mentor. There was never anything even remotely sexual between them. What she felt for Billy lingered on the fringes of sexual. Deep down it always had. She realized that now. As a girl she’d lusted after him like every other girl in school. But they had always been merely friends. Good friends, like family, but nothing more. In the past few months that closeness had gradually deepened. Felt more important, more intense. Neither she nor Billy had set out to prompt that attraction—at least she didn’t think he had. It had come naturally.

  They danced so close to that line—the one that stood between friendship and something more, something deeper, more physical and emotional at the same time. But crossing that line could damage the amazing friendship they had shared since they were children.

  Could she take that risk?

  “None of her friends mentioned Wanda having any issues with her husband.”

  Rowan blinked, pushed away the troubling thoughts. “Maybe she was afraid to talk about it. Are most of her friends also members of the church where her husband was a deacon?”

  He nodded slowly, as if contemplating the implications of that question in terms of how much Wanda might share with those particular friends. People had different levels of friendship. Church friends were rarely shown the dirty laundry.

  “All her friends are church friends.”

  Rowan smiled. “All the ones you know about are church friends. There will be at least one other, even if they’ve drifted apart over the years. Someone with whom she dared to share her deepest, darkest secrets.”

  His gaze lingered on Rowan’s lips, then he said, “What about you, Ro? Who’s privy to your deepest, darkest secrets?”

  At one time she would have said Julian. The reality of how very foolish she had been twisted like a knife in her chest. “You. Who else?” The smile that stretched across his face told her the answer had made him happy, though it wasn’t entirely true—at least not recently. She couldn’t bring herself to share certain thoughts and feelings. “What about Sue Ellen Thackerson? She’s single. Young. She probably has quite a few friends.”

  “A few,” he agreed. “They all said the same thing—she never got along with her daddy. He didn’t like her lifestyle so he cut her off financially after her last divorce.”

  “Really?” Interesting, and brimming with motive.

  Billy finished off his pizza and chased it with a swallow of beer. “She was a bit of a wild child growing up and she didn’t change a whole lot after she hit adulthood. No violent crimes. No domestic issues to my knowledge during her marriages.”

  “She’s the one who lives in the trailer park.” Billy had mentioned she was unemployed and drove a clunker. More motive.

  “According to the landlord, she was served an eviction notice a couple of days ago.”

  Motive and serious stress in her life. “Do you mind if I talk to one or both? I’d like to see their reactions to certain questions.”

  “You’re the expert. I didn’t deputize you for nothing.” He grinned. “Besides, I’ve offered you a position in the department about three times now.”