Angela hugged her in return. “Hey, it’s okay. I assume they told you we found Officer Owen Whittaker. He’s going to make it.”

  Debbie nodded, looking worried. “Yes, yes, but he doesn’t know what happened, either. Well, I guess my house was easy enough to get into, but nobody will be getting in here with the gate and the alarm and the door alarm and... it’s great when the dogs are here, too. But... hey, I wanted a visit from you more than anyone else.”

  “The Krewe is a unique unit of law enforcement,” Angela assured her. “Each of our agents is excellent, qualified, and talented, and you are in the best hands possible with any of our people watching over you.”

  “I’m sure. I just... I just wanted you. Anyway, I think I should buy a dog. A big dog like one of the guys your agents have. A big Doberman, maybe. Or a Great Dane or an Irish wolfhound. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a great idea if you want to take care of a dog,” Angela said.

  “I was going to make tea. Would you like some?” Debbie asked.

  “All right. But, Debbie, what we really need to do is talk. I’d like to get you to lie down and close your eyes. Then I’ll ask you some questions and tell you to think not just visually but with all of your senses. I keep thinking if the killer is coming after you, he thinks you know more than you do.”

  “It’s not just random?” Debbie said.

  “No. We got a shooter yesterday who was full of drugs laced with fentanyl. And when we found Officer Whittaker, he had drugs and fentanyl in his system, too.”

  “So, other than cops, this guy goes after junkies?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe those who have helped him, who aren’t so helpful anymore. We believe they intended for the shooter in the woods to die after he created the chaos.”

  “And you found Owen Whittaker.”

  “We did.” Angela frowned. She’d just told her that.

  “No, no. You found Officer Whittaker. In that tree! Who knows to find someone in a tree?” Debbie said, shaking her head with admiration.

  “The important thing is that he is safe and well.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know what happened.” She’d mentioned that already, too. Angela tried to keep her expression blank.

  “This is crazy. I don’t know how he was taken. He doesn’t know how he was taken. There was a car, the car was abandoned, and he was in a tree.” Debbie shook her head and headed into the kitchen. Angela followed, watching her put the kettle on to boil.

  “We’ll find out. Our people are there today with the dogs, tearing through the forest. Oh, and we dug up more older victims of whoever our unknown killer is. We are getting closer and closer. We will have answers soon.”

  “I believe in you,” Debbie said. “Would you grab some cups? They’re up in there on the left. Oh.” She laughed. “You probably know. This is your safe house.”

  “I do know. And sure,” Angela said, reaching for the cups.

  Her hand raked over something sharp, and she frowned, looking down at her palm. No big mark, just a little scratch. She ignored it and said, “It’s not so much believing in me. There is a whole system at work. Several teams are working different angles. And, in all honesty, that’s why I’m here. Don’t get me wrong, we seriously care about your safety. But we do need something from you. Special Agent Patrick Law is also Doctor Law. He specializes in... listening to and understanding people. He believes we didn’t get everything we might be able to get from you.”

  “I thought... I thought they figured out it was drug smugglers or something. I don’t do drugs.”

  “We’re not saying you do. Hm, tea actually sounds good. I’m just going to go check to make sure I reset the alarm after coming in. I’m almost certain I did, but I was so happy to see you.”

  Angela gave her a smile and walked out of the room, wondering why the tiny scratch she’d received was making her feel unbalanced.

  She quickly put through a call to Jackson.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “You okay?” he asked quickly.

  “Fine, but I’d like you to get Patrick out here. I can’t place anything specific, and she may just be chatty and nervous, but... Debbie Nolan knows something, and she’s acting kind of odd. And... wow.”

  “Wow, what?”

  “I scratched my hand getting some cups out of the cupboard. It’s nothing. Just a scratch. But something seems off, and...”

  There seemed to be a sudden wall of strange static in her ears.

  And then...

  Nothing.

  Chapter 10

  “Angela! Angela!”

  There was no response. Jackson ended the call and tried ringing her again.

  No reply.

  “What’s wrong?” Brodie asked him.

  “Angela. Her line went dead.”

  “In the safe house? That’s not really—”

  “Debbie Nolan,” Jackson said. “Angela said something seemed off and that she scratched herself on something. Brodie, I need you to stay here. I’m getting Patrick and going back to the safe house. Don’t trust anyone but the Krewe, and don’t get close to anyone. I’m going to get Mark and Colleen and Red over here. I really don’t trust any of these other people. Patrick said every interview has been strange. But I need to get to Angela.”

  “Go. I’ve got this,” Brodie told him.

  Jackson ran out of the cemetery, calling Patrick as he did. He wasn’t quite sure where Patrick was in the woods, but the man managed to get to him just as he reached his car, which was parked close, outside the cemetery wall.

  And he’d come with Brybo.

  “Angela said something was off with the way Debbie was talking. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She also said she scratched herself on something in the cupboard, and she sounded strange. What the hell, Patrick? Could Debbie be the one behind all this?” he asked as the man and dog crawled into the car.

  “Could she be? Yes. And if anyone could pull off something in a safe house, it would be the one staying there.”

  “But you can’t get out without an alarm going off if—”

  “Jackson. Your phone. That sounds like the warning alarm is going off at the safe house.”

  Jackson pulled out his cell.

  And swore softly. There had been no car there. Debbie hadn’t brought one. He had dropped Angela off in his. But they had gotten Officer Whittaker out of Debbie’s house.

  They could get Angela out, too.

  And Debbie Nolan clearly had help.

  “We worried about protecting the woman who caused the whole thing. And now she knows Owen Whittaker is alive, and her shooter is alive. She needs both of them dead. But why Angela?”

  “She’s been a target. I don’t know why, but she’s been a target all along,” Patrick said.

  “There has to be a reason. And there has to be some connection to the other victims.”

  “Angela testified against the one man, but he’s among the dead. Maybe she didn’t want him to be. This girl, though...” Patrick said.

  Jackson put through a call to the team at the hospital and then called the office, asking for the tech department and saying it was crucial. They needed everything they could get on Debbie Nolan. Immediately.

  They reached the safe house, and Jackson headed straight for the computerized lockbox. But before keying in his code, he noted that the gate wasn’t fully closed.

  He drew his gun. Patrick did the same. With Brybo running ahead of them, they approached the house.

  The front door was also ajar.

  Jackson stepped inside.

  “Angela!” There was no answer.

  “Upstairs,” Patrick told him, running up the staircase. Jackson tore into the kitchen. Cups had been set on the table, and a teapot was there with sugar, creamer, and plates.

  A kettle sat on the stove.

  But there was no one to be seen.

  He grabbed a chair and hopped up to see inside the cupboard. A nail protruded—one he was sure didn’t belong there. One that had been set in place, likely by Debbie Nolan.

  “Clear!” Patrick shouted from upstairs.

  “Clear!” he shouted in return.

  Patrick came back into the kitchen with Brybo. The dog whined, sitting anxiously.

  “She got her out somehow. Just like she must have drugged Whittaker and got him out of her house,” Jackson said. “It got tougher here, but beg for a specific agent, be the poor terrified victim desperate for help, and you could play the game again. Though she has to know now that we know, so...”

  “She’s doubly dangerous,” Patrick said. “But, Jackson, what we have to do is find Angela. Debbie doesn’t shoot people. She slices throats, but she hasn’t played with her victims. If she’s the one doing the killing. She figured the tree would kill Whittaker—”

  “So she won’t make the same mistake again,” Jackson said. “Except if she has a thing with Angela, she won’t want to kill her too quickly. I’m betting she can’t believe Angela found Whittaker in the tree. She’ll need to prove she’s cleverer. So...”

  “Angela is definitely alive,” Patrick said. “We just have to find her.”

  “And she’s in that cemetery—or the woods. Somewhere,” Jackson said. “Brybo! We’ve got to go. Find Angela!”

  Brybo barked, and they headed out of the house.

  Jackson got a call back from Michael Banyan in the tech department and put the phone on speaker.

  “We couldn’t find anything on Debbie Nolan,” Banyan told Jackson. “But I thought about Angela and what Debbie would likely do next. I realized she would have looked for a name change a while back. We researched that and struck gold. Debbie Nolan is really Jennifer Tanner. Her father was a drug runner the Krewe played an essential part in putting away. In fact, Angela was the one to figure out that he was heading into a Miami harbor, and the Krewe and the Coast Guard caught up with him there.”

  “It’s revenge,” Jackson murmured. “It’s revenge, plain and simple. All right, put an APB out on her and Angela. Video from everywhere—"

  “On it, sir,” Banyan promised.

  Jackson looked at Patrick and gunned the car as he took in the day.

  The sun was already setting.

  And they were returning to the old cemetery surrounded by woods. They’d have an hour of dying sunlight left if that, beautiful golds and mauves already streaking across the heavens.

  Then, darkness would descend.

  Light or dark, they would find Angela. Because she was still alive. He didn’t know why, but he was sure in his heart that if she wasn’t, he would know.

  * * * *

  Angela reached out, inching her way along the stone of her strange prison. Memories were returning, bit by bit, and then in a rush.

  Suddenly, they seemed to flood into her mind. She remembered all of it.

  She’d been drugged.

  The scratch hadn’t been just a scratch. Whatever little piece of metal had snagged her had been set in the cupboard on purpose and laced with something.

  Knocking her out just enough to get her out of the safe house.

  Making her compliant enough to get her to wherever she was... but not enough to leave her unconscious for a long time or dead. No, Debbie wanted her to suffer and know that she was far more cunning than any Krewe member.

  Well, she had been. She’d played the ultimate victim.

  What was more benign than a cup of afternoon tea?

  But why? Why give herself away? She might have gotten away with all this so far, but she would have to know once she was out of the safe house, the Krewe would be on to her.

  Angela was startled to hear a voice, muffled and from some distance. It was Debbie’s voice, and she sounded delighted.

  “I’m betting you’re awake by now! Ah, Angela, clever Angela who does all her research, who figures everything out. Well, you’re awake, and now you can crawl around in the dark for eternity. Of course, when they find me—”

  “They’ll arrest you,” Angela said, her voice surprisingly strong.

  “Me? Little old me? Poor girl, her defender taken once, and then the woman sent to guard her useless and incompetent, causing her to be abducted again, knocked out, only to wake in the darkness of the woods and escape in terror.”

  “Debbie, there are cameras all over that house.”

  “There were cameras. All disabled now. You know, I was almost part of Robertson Technologies. But, anyway, I’ll just be so pathetic when they find me...”

  “I already told Jackson you were guilty,” Angela said. She was exaggerating, but Jackson would have known once she went silent that something was wrong.

  And she had said that she felt Debbie knew something and was acting strangely.

  “You bitch!” Debbie said. “You are going to die in the darkness all alone and screaming, but no one will hear you! Die, like you made my father die.”

  “I made your father die?”

  “You put him in prison. And he died there!”

  Who is her father? Does it matter?

  “Well, maybe you’ll die in prison, too,” Angela said quietly.

  “Bitch!” Debbie cried. Then... nothing. Angela knew that wherever Debbie had been, she was no longer. Only the darkness was there. The stone below her was cold, and she closed her eyes against the darkness for a minute. They were by the woods or in the cemetery.

  She had known there was something wrong with the crypt. It clearly had an underground catacomb, and she was in it.

  There had to be a tunnel that led to the woods. Maybe Gervais Conte had not been the one to build it. Still, she was suddenly certain she had figured it out. Debbie and her accomplice or accomplices had carried out their murders in the woods and used the tunnel to bring the dead into the cemetery.

  All she had to do was...

  She touched something and moved her fingers over it.

  Suddenly realizing that it was bone.

  Yes, she was in a crypt, or rather the space beneath it. Likely some kind of catacombs or something. There had to be a tunnel, and Debbie had been in it when Angela had heard her speaking.

  There was a way in. Therefore, there was a way out. And Angela would find it.

  Because she was going to live. As she began to crawl, she heard another voice. “Angela, Angela! I’ll get to Jackson. I’ve found you, oh, hallelujah! You’re going the right way, doing the right thing. This stretches from the crypt to the woods. But I didn’t know it. Keep going, keep going, keep going...”

  “Colonel?” she whispered in the darkness.

  “At your service, ma’am.”

  * * * *

  “There is something else in this crypt?” Benjamin Robertson asked, his expression one that appeared to offer real confusion. “I came here with my folks, even as a kid, because my however-many-times-great-grandfather was a hero and I had to know it,” he said, making a pained face. “I just don’t...”

  “You don’t know how people got into it either, right?” Jackson asked him.

  Robertson sighed, looking down. “Me, I guess. I don’t know. My father was old and sick, but he was still my father. The day of the funeral... I was off. I don’t know. Maybe I left it open. Who the hell wants to admit they might have been an unwilling accomplice to murder?”

  “Now that sounded like the truth,” Brodie said dryly.

  Jackson was there now with Robertson, Brodie, and Patrick. And Brybo. Jackson was glad that Brybo was with them.

  Robertson kept a nervous eye on the dog.

  And Jackson needed to know what the man knew about the tomb.

  “Are there three graves under the floor?” he asked.

  “I’m telling you, if there are, I don’t know anything about them.”

  Jackson stared hard at the man. He felt his phone vibrating and quickly answered it.

  Mark was on the other end.

  “We’re out here in the woods, and the dogs are going crazy. Someone is definitely out here. Not Angela, but maybe...”

  “Someone who can lead us to her,” Jackson said. He glanced at Brodie. “Heading to the woods. I’ll have you gentlemen keep Mr. Robertson here company.”

  “Am I under arrest?” Robertson asked.

  “Only if you attempt to leave,” Jackson told him. He looked at Brodie. “The writer’s a no-show?”

  “Haven’t seen him yet,” Brodie said. “I tried his phone. No answer. “

  “Right. I’ll be back.”

  Jackson ran across the graveyard at full speed. While the woods were dense and darkness was falling, he didn’t need directions. He heard Red and Hugo barking and howling up ahead, sounding as if in pursuit. Following their woofs and growls, he chased after them and found them at the base of a tall oak with wide-spread branches.

  Mark and the others ran up just as they reached the tree.

  “Get the hell down from there!” Jackson shouted.

  “Oh, my God! You’re yelling at me. That horrible man came, and he made Angela believe he came to tell her something important. She let him in and... oh, God! I don’t know what he’s done with her, but... I’m so scared. And now the dogs are after me!”

  “We’re here now, Debbie. You can come on down safely. We’ve got the dogs!” Jackson called out.

  “I’m scared!”

  “It’s all right. You have to tell us about the man. We need to find Angela.”

  “I don’t know... I don’t know what he’s done with her. And he’s probably gone, anyway. He’s probably run away, and... I’m so scared. I can’t believe all this horrible stuff is happening to me!”

  “Come down, we’re here. We’ll protect and help you,” he called.

  He heard shuffling. A minute later, Debbie dropped to one of the lowest branches and then to the ground. She had tears in her eyes and a pathetic expression on her face as she looked at him.

  “Mark, would you be so kind as to arrest Miss Jennifer Tanner?”

  The young woman’s expression changed immediately and she turned to run.

  “Red, Hugo, go for her!” Jackson said.