“Would you be able to give me a list of those names?” Lincoln asked.

  “Clarence is good,” Rowan commented. “You’ve trained him well, Billy.”

  Pride swelled in his chest. A compliment from Ro was a big deal to him. “Thanks. He’s a quick study. The best detective in the department.”

  “I’m waiting for that other shoe to drop,” Rowan said.

  Billy turned his attention back to the interview. “Any minute now.”

  “Sue Ellen, just one more question.” Lincoln turned to a new page in his notebook.

  “I’m all ears,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “This is becoming monotonous.”

  “Not to worry,” he assured her, “this is the last one, I promise.”

  She turned her hands palms up in a “what?” gesture.

  “Is it true that six months ago you and your father had a very public argument about him cutting you off financially? Witnesses say you said something to the effect that you’d see him in hell before you let him do that to you.”

  “Yancey probably told you that, too,” she snarled. “He’s a total piece of shit. He doesn’t know anything. Yes, I said a lot of stuff. I was angry. People do that when they get pissed off. I didn’t mean any of it. You don’t think I haven’t wished a thousand times I could take that back?” Her voice wobbled and she blinked repeatedly before the tears started to flow. “I hear myself saying those awful things to him every night in my dreams. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. But we got past it. Daddy loved me and I loved him. And now he’s gone.”

  Her hands went over her face and she sobbed loudly.

  “Well.” Rowan folded her arms over her chest. “She should receive an award for that performance.”

  Lincoln passed her his handkerchief. “Let me just check with the chief and see if you can go home now, Sue Ellen. I’m as sorry as I can be for upsetting you like this.”

  She accepted the handkerchief but didn’t respond other than the pitch of her sobs growing louder.

  Lincoln left the room, closing the door behind him. He joined Billy and Rowan in the booth.

  “What do you think?” he asked, looking from Billy to Ro and back.

  “She’s hiding something,” Billy said. “No question about that.”

  Rowan didn’t answer. She watched the woman alone in the interview room. Billy and Lincoln did the same. Sue Ellen Thackerson dried her cheeks with Lincoln’s handkerchief and then tossed it onto the table. She heaved a breath and sat there, her face clean of emotion beyond the impatience radiating from her thin shoulders.

  “She’s patting herself on the back for passing this latest test,” Ro said. “Give her enough rope and she’s going to hang herself.”

  “Yep,” Billy agreed, the word bitter on his tongue.

  Whether Sue Ellen killed her father or not, she had something to do with it.

  “How long should we leave her like that?” Lincoln asked.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes,” Ro suggested. “It will feel like an hour and she’ll grow angrier with every passing minute.”

  The door to the booth opened and Cindy Farris, Billy’s assistant, poked her head in. “Chief, that FBI agent is here to see you.”

  Rowan’s gaze shot to Billy’s. “Dressler?”

  Cindy nodded. “That’s the one. He’s in your office and demanding to see you.”

  Well, hell. “I’ll be right there.”

  Before Cindy could step back and close the door, Dressler, the pushy bastard, appeared behind her.

  “There you are, Chief.”

  He pushed into the room, forcing Cindy to step aside. The booth was hardly big enough for the four of them but that didn’t stop Dressler.

  “It’s all right, Cindy,” Billy said, noting her horrified expression.

  She nodded and closed the door. Billy turned his attention to the federal agent. “What’s this about, Dressler? I usually prefer appointments. Like you, my time is valuable.”

  Dressler gestured to the woman in the interview room. “I’m here to see Ms. Thackerson.”

  “Is that right?” Billy reared back, assessed the man. “And why would you need to see Ms. Thackerson?”

  He knew Rowan wouldn’t have called Dressler about her concerns related to one of Addington’s MO being similar to these murders. And he sure as hell didn’t call. He had planned to later today, but he hadn’t called yet.

  Dressler shifted his attention to Rowan. “Are you working for Chief Brannigan now? I thought you were sticking with burying the dead.”

  “I’m here as an advisor,” Rowan said, “much the way I was in Nashville for Metro. I’m sure you recall the numerous times I corrected your profiles.”

  Billy’s lips quirked with the need to smile. “What’s this visit about, Dressler? I was planning to call with an update this afternoon. You couldn’t call me before driving down from Nashville? I hate to see you waste your time and taxpayer dollars.”

  The fed swung his gaze back to Billy, the frustration lining his face visible even in the meager lighting. “Actually, I was surprised you hadn’t called me already, particularly after the call from Ms. Thackerson.”

  “Is that right?” Billy asked when what he really wanted to say was “What call?”

  “Ms. Thackerson called me with some serious concerns and I came directly here. She’s worried that your department might be overlooking the facts related to her father’s murder.”

  “What facts?” The two words were out of Billy’s mouth before he could stop them.

  “She saw a man who fits the description of Julian Addington talking to her father on two occasions in the past month and now her father is dead. When she described the murder scene, I was stunned you hadn’t called me, Chief.” He shot a look at Rowan. “The Thackerson and Henegar murder scenes could have come directly from Addington’s playbook. There are some stunning similarities.”

  “First,” Billy said, “I wouldn’t call the similarities stunning.” He kept the part about not knowing one damn thing about some guy who matched Addington’s description being seen by Sue Ellen to himself.

  “Similarities nonetheless,” Dressler argued.

  “It’s the chief’s job to confirm hearsay,” Rowan pointed out, “before making a call to other law-enforcement authorities. You’re aware of this, Josh. It’s standard protocol. The Bureau certainly wouldn’t want to be called out every time a cop in some town thought they had a connection to a federal case. What a waste of resources that would be.”

  Anger gripped the federal agent’s face then. He glared from Rowan to Billy as if he wasn’t sure which one had made him more angry. “I’d like to speak to her now, Chief. Unless you have reason to deny my request.”

  “We’re only too happy to have you assist on this one, Agent Dressler.” Billy gestured to the interview room. “She’s all yours. I will have my lead detective observe, however.”

  “Excuse me. I have to take this.” Rowan had her cell phone in her hand.

  Billy’s attention was divided between Ro and the man now bellowing about being left out of the loop one too many times by Billy and his department. But it was the worry dancing across Ro’s face that concerned him. He couldn’t care less about Dressler’s complex. Ro wouldn’t have taken a call in the middle of this if it wasn’t important.

  “Excuse me,” Dressler said to Lincoln as he exited the booth.

  He entered the interview room, closing the door behind him. With all the arrogance of the fool he was, he introduced himself to Sue Ellen and took a seat.

  Rowan put away her phone and lifted her gaze to Billy’s. “That was the security company. The alarm is going off at the funeral home. I have to go.”

  “I’ll take you.” Billy’s cell vibrated against his hip as he spoke. He answered without taking his eyes off Ro.

  “Chief, this is Officer Sails. I think maybe you might want to come to DuPont Funeral Home. Someone has broken in through the back entrance. There’s a body, Chief. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Well, hell. “Be right there.”

  Seventeen

  Rowan watched the landscape go by a little faster than was comfortable. She glanced at Billy. He was driving like a bat out of hell. Whatever the officer who had called told him couldn’t have been good. If he attempted to send another text while driving so madly, she might just make a citizen’s arrest. She’d called Charlotte to ensure she was okay. She wasn’t supposed to be at the funeral home, but Rowan had needed to be certain.

  “The officer who called, he’s sure Freud is okay?”

  “Freud’s in the backyard.”

  Thank God. That was the downside to allowing him free rein when she was gone. If someone broke in, they might hurt him to prevent him from attacking, as was his instinct. That he was in the backyard and safe begged the question of how someone managed to get him out while they got in?

  Unless Freud recognized the intruder.

  Rowan’s heart rose into her throat. Would Julian dare come back here?

  Billy took the left onto Second Avenue way too fast. Her stomach flip-flopped. Staring forward, she tried distracting herself by thinking of Sue Ellen Thackerson sitting in that interview room weaving her elaborate lie to Special Agent Josh Dressler. Rowan shook her head. Hopefully he would see through it before he wasted too much time. Then again, as long as he followed that lead maybe he would leave Rowan alone.

  Like that was going to happen.

  Of course, it was possible Julian was here, but why would he approach Sue Ellen’s father? Julian was far too careful, far too calculating. Thackerson was not connected to Rowan in any way. What would be the point? Julian would never waste his time in such a way.

  Billy cut into the parking lot in front of the funeral home and she grabbed the armrest to steady herself. He squealed to a stop and Rowan took her first deep breath since he’d put her SUV in Drive. There were a number of other questions she had considered asking him, but with the way he drove she didn’t want to distract his focus.

  “Thank God,” she muttered as she climbed out. He didn’t seem to notice her discomfort.

  Two police cruisers sat in the parking lot, lights throbbing.

  That certainly couldn’t be good. Freud’s frantic barking echoed from beyond the funeral home. The sound allowed her to relax marginally.

  “I should check on Freud.”

  “Freud is fine. You need to come with me.”

  She glanced at Billy as they hurried forward, crossing the parking lot in a near run. “Is there something else I need to know?”

  Oh, hell. The nursing home had left a client. If the body had been stolen...

  She grabbed Billy by the arm and pulled him to a stop. “Tell me another body hasn’t been taken.”

  She needed to hear those words. Now. Right now.

  If the dark expression on his face was any indication, the news was perhaps worse than she had imagined. “What, damn it?” she demanded.

  “Nothing was taken,” he said, his voice dangerously low.

  His tone sent a new streak of adrenaline searing through her. “If nothing was taken, what did happen?”

  “Whoever broke in left a body. That’s all I know.”

  She supposed that was better than the other way around. Wait, no. Not if someone had been murdered. “I don’t understand.”

  Billy started moving again. “The perp broke in through the back so we’ll go in through the front. No need to trample on any possible evidence. Crime-scene unit will be here ASAP. Burt, too.”

  At least now she knew to whom those texts he’d sent while driving had gone.

  As soon as they entered the lobby, the smell assaulted her senses. Rowan covered her nose with her hand. The stench of a decomposing corpse was unmistakable. The embalming process didn’t stop the decomposition process; it merely slowed it down. Exposed to room temperature and the very air everyone breathed, the process was going to do what it would.

  Moving through the doors marked Staff Only, they didn’t get far before Rowan spotted and recognized the body.

  Carlos Sanchez, or whoever he was, was lying on the floor not five feet from the back door. His face was the only part of him that was recognizable. From the neck down his body appeared to have been skinned.

  “What the hell?” Billy crouched down near the body to get a better look at the face.

  Rowan sank to a crouch next to him. “The perp skinned him very precisely.”

  “To destroy the tattoos?”

  She nodded. “Most likely. The tattoos told a story. Whoever removed them didn’t want us to know that story.” She moistened her lips. “Julian skinned three victims.” She gestured to Sanchez. “Like this, leaving the faces intact.”

  To the officer hovering at the back door and looking as if he might lose whatever he’d consumed last, Billy said, “Tell Detective Lincoln to pick up Owen Utter and bring him over here.”

  While Billy reviewed the area in and around the point of entry, Rowan studied the body. His lips had been sliced apart. Since she had glued them in place, that would have been the only way to access his mouth. The wire she’d used to keep his jaw closed had obviously been removed. She leaned closer still. There was something in his mouth. Paper?

  “Billy.” She looked up as he turned back to her; dark, worried eyes searched hers. Her chest constricted. Something like this could happen to him...

  Billy might die trying to save her...

  She blinked, banished the horrifying thoughts and forced air into her lungs. “I need gloves. I think there’s something in his mouth.”

  He was at her side in three long strides. He pulled a pair of gloves from his jacket pocket and handed them to her. She tugged them into place as he pulled on a pair of his own. She reached for the dead man’s jaw, levered his mouth open. The corner of paper protruding from his teeth was part of a small page tucked into a plastic sandwich-size bag.

  Her heart thumped hard against her sternum.

  Julian.

  He had left her notes in this manner before.

  Carefully, she withdrew the bag, then removed the page from the bag and unfolded it. That she did this without her hands shaking was a flat-out miracle.

  They’re here, watching you. Be careful, Rowan. They all want you. Julian

  “Is that his handwriting?”

  Rowan nodded. The bold strokes were unmistakable.

  “You have any idea what he means?”

  She shook her head, nausea preventing her from opening her mouth.

  “Has he ever said anything like this before?”

  The tension in Billy’s voice rose with each word.

  “No.” She moistened her lips. Forced out the rest of what she needed to say. “But Herman did.”

  Billy stared at her, the heat of it burning her profile. She met his gaze. She hadn’t told him about Herman’s final words to her. She’d intended to when the right time came. The right time had come and she’d been behind the curve.

  “Explain that to me, Ro.”

  The disappointment in his words tore at her. She shouldn’t have kept this from him.

  “Before he pulled that trigger, he said, ‘you’re all that’s left of her and they will all want you.’”

  Betrayal flashed in his eyes and it was like a kick to her side. When he spoke, his voice was low and harsh. “Any thoughts on what he meant by that statement?”

  She shook her head. “None.”

  “Anything else you haven’t told me?”

  “No.” Her answer might be another lie. Right now, she wasn’t sure of anything. What she’d told him, what she hadn’t. Who said what.

  She thrust the note at him and stood. “I need some air.”

  Her legs felt wobbly as she moved away from the corpse. Her hands shook as she tore off the gloves. She thought about going outside, but the newshounds would be gathering out front. There would be more cops. The backyard and porch needed to be preserved. She couldn’t go outside.

  She made a left and went to her office. She closed the door, sagged against it and shut her eyes. Voices and images whirled in her head. Her mother smiling at her. Her father’s warm smile. Billy’s grin. Julian praising her work. Herman bringing her breakfast and laughing in that jolly way of his. The sound of the bullet exploding from the gun and tearing his head apart burst in her brain.

  Rowan opened her eyes and stared at her desk and the chair where Herman had been sitting that day.

  You’re all that’s left of her, Ro, and they will all want you.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  She crossed the room and collapsed into her chair. The her was obviously her mother, Norah—the woman she apparently hadn’t known at all. It was the they that she couldn’t classify or quantify.

  Worse, how could she have loved and trusted her father—lived with him until she went off to college—and not known that things were not right somehow. He had to have recognized that something was wrong, particularly after Raven’s death. And Herman. They had been friends, like family, for as long as she could recall. How could he have kept secrets from her? Lied to her?

  A soft knock on her door forced her to her feet. She righted her sweater, pushed her hair behind her ears and rounded her desk. With a deep breath, she opened the door.

  Billy stared at her for a moment before he asked, “You okay?”

  A sound burst out of her, not quite a laugh. This was a conversation they’d had before and her answer was much the same as the one she’d given the other time. “Are you out of your mind, Billy Brannigan? No, I am not okay. I doubt I’ll ever be okay again.”