To Catch a Killer Read online

  He spared a moment’s thought wondering how Kara was faring with the local lawman, and a rare, genuine smile lit his face. He wasn’t in a habit of screwing with his partner but he had to admit watching Kara around the man—tense was the word—was entertaining. What a complete bastard of him, he knew. But he never pretended to be a saint. Not even close.

  He was just stepping into the store, the scent of old building assaulting his senses, but before he could raise a mocking brow at the tourist-heavy fare of T-shirts and coffee mugs, he answered his phone without thinking. Director Colfax’s voice came across the line and he grimaced. Colfax was a right bastard and Dillon usually let Kara deal with him.

  “Where’s Kara?” Colfax asked in a quiet voice that was so unlike the blustery blowhard. His tone immediately put Dillon on alert. “She’s not answering her cell.”

  “She’s no doubt out of range. She went up to a place called Wilkin’s Mine to follow up on that mineral lead. Why?”

  The heavy silence on the other end sent a wave of foreboding rolling across Dillon’s skin. “Why? What’s wrong?” he asked, his stomach muscles constricting for no good reason.

  “We have a situation. It’s personal. Find her, McIntyre. Immediately.”

  Colfax was an asshole but he wasn’t prone to melodramatics. Something bad was in the air. Dillon could feel it as strongly as the cold, foggy air biting through his jacket.

  Shit. He did an about-face and bolted to his car.

  Chapter 7

  Kara trudged up the narrow driveway behind Matthew to the shack masquerading as a house owned by Bernal Poff, also the licensed owner of Wilkin’s Mine.

  “So what does he mine for?” Kara asked, a little out of breath after the sharp hike from the road to the house. The misty air permeated her lungs and made each draw feel like icicles were forming. She was accustomed to the Bay Area damp but she’d forgotten how much colder the northern coast was in comparison. “Gold or something?”

  Matthew smirked. “Or something. Treasure.”

  She did a double take. “Excuse me?”

  “Bernie Poff has spent most of his adult life looking for a treasure that was supposedly buried in Lantern Cove in the late 1800s by an old Indian trader. He bought Wilkin’s Mine when he discovered the old tunnel that supposedly fit the description of the one that concealed the lost treasure.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” Kara said in annoyance. “You’re kidding me, right? People don’t waste their lives on treasure hunts anymore. That’s ridiculous.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not arguing. Just stating the facts as I know them,” he said, going to the door and giving it a solid knock. He gestured for her to be silent and play along. Before she could scowl, he explained in a rush, “Bernie’s not a people person and seems to have a real sour spot for women. So, just let me do the talking this time around.”

  She snapped her mouth shut and tried not to let her ears steam. This was an excellent example of why she’d moved away from this backward place. “Fine,” she stated tersely but it made her teeth ache just to say it. “Make sure you ask him if we can go up to the mine.”

  He had just enough time to nod when the door cracked open a slit. Matthew stepped back so Bernie could get a good look at him.

  “What you wantin’? I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Bernie said from behind the door. “Git off my property unless you got a warrant, lawman.”

  “We’re just here to talk, Bernie. C’mon, now, open the door and let’s talk like gentlemen.”

  Kara slanted an amused look Matthew’s way in spite of her previous annoyance. She’d never seen Matthew cajole anyone before with such a nice way about him. Smooth as silk. She had no idea he had that kind of talent. Seems a bit of Neal had rubbed off after all.

  The door opened a bit wider and Kara stiffened when Bernie’s dour expression soured even more when he saw her. “Who’s she?” he demanded.

  Screw this nice routine. She had a job to do. Stepping forward, she said, “I’m Special Agent Kara Thistle with the FBI. May we have a few words with you, Mr. Poff?”

  “I hate the damn feds! Git off my damn property!” And the door slammed shut. From behind the door, they heard him ranting about the “freedom-stealing sons-of-bitches” and then something about the right to bear arms.

  Matthew’s mouth tightened and he gave her a warning look that she felt guilty enough to deserve for some stupid reason. But she wasn’t about to let one asshole recluse get the best of her. She looked at Matthew and pounded on the door. “Now we do things my way,” she said with a sweet smile.

  “Be my guest.”

  “Bernal Poff, open this door or I will have it torn off the hinges. You are impeding a federal investigation and if you don’t want more feds crawling all over your property, I suggest you open this damn door. Now!”

  Silence answered her request. Matthew wore a smirk. “That worked wonders,” he said. “Yet it seems we’re no closer than when we started. He’s not going to open that door.”

  “Yes, he will,” Kara said from between gritted teeth. Damn the man for being right. “Open the door, you old fart.”

  The last part was muttered but Matthew chuckled. “Standard operating procedure, calling people old farts?”

  “I call it as I see it,” she said, irritation for being stone-walled by some crazy idiot sharpening her voice. “So you think you have something better in mind?” she asked in exasperation.

  “I did and I was doing it until you went all G.I. Jane.”

  “That’s the navy.”

  “Whatever. Step aside.”

  Kara speared him with a dark look but was willing to let him try. She wasn’t lying about having this place crawl with feds but it would take a few hours to get them here and she didn’t feel like waiting that long to get a few answers to her questions.

  Matthew knocked again. “Bernie…c’mon, now. There’s no reason to act like this. We just want to ask a few questions. My colleague apologizes if she seemed rude.”

  “I do not apologize,” Kara whispered. “That’s a flat-out lie, Matthew Keenan Beauchamp. I wasn’t rude.”

  “Shh,” he said from the corner of his mouth.

  She buttoned her lip but kept a mutinous expression. She was just about to tell Matthew to forget it, she’d get reinforcements and toss the old coot on his ear, when the door opened a crack.

  “Just you,” Bernie instructed, pointing a stubbed and grubby finger at Matthew. “I don’t cotton to listenin’ to some FBI broad yammer at me. What do you want?”

  “Fine, Bernie. Open the door a bit, please,” Matthew said.

  The door swung wider and Bernie Poff, a short, squat and permanently stunted man stepped into view. Years of traveling the labyrinth of tunnels under the mountain had given him the appearance of a troll. There was no nicer way to describe the man standing at the door. She could see dirt wedged under his nails and she doubted he had seen a bar of soap since the ’80s. If one were to go by appearances, this guy could fit the stereotypical bill for a bad guy—if they were living in a Grimms fairy tale.

  “So state yur business,” Bernie demanded, giving Kara a dark look before skewing his gaze back to Matthew. “I ain’t got all day.”

  “A geologist tracked a very rare mineral to your mine, or at least one in the very near vicinity, and we need to ask you some questions.”

  “Why fer?”

  “The mineral was found at a crime scene. You familiar with the Babysitter case?”

  Bernie grunted an affirmative and his expression softened just a bit. “Seen it on the news,” he admitted. “Someone ain’t right in the head to do that to kids. Is this about those cases?”

  Matthew nodded. “That’s why it’s important you cooperate. We’re not here to bother you about anything else.”

  Bernie eyed Matthew with open suspicion but something else had entered the light of his stare, as well. Kara couldn’t readily identify it but it seemed similar to…fear. That struck an odd note.r />
  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Has anyone else, aside from you, been in the mine lately?” Matthew asked.

  “Hell no. I don’t run a timeshare. This is my land and I keep everyone else off it.” His voice had taken on a possessive—almost paranoid—tone, and Kara’s stare narrowed speculatively. “And I’d know if someone were up there. I’ve got the whole place booby-trapped.”

  Kara’s gaze widened but she held her tongue. She didn’t want the old man to stop talking.

  “All right. I believe you. But my colleague needs to take some samples from the mine. Can you take us up there to do that?”

  Kara held up a small plastic evidence canister. Bernie eyed the canister with suspicion. “Just a sample? You don’t have to go into the mine, right?”

  Kara couldn’t resist. “Is there some reason you don’t want us in the mine, Mr. Poff?”

  “Cuz it’s mine,” Bernie snapped.

  She shot Matthew a look. If the samples matched, that meant whoever had killed the Nobles boy had been tromping around in Bernie Poff’s mine for whatever reasons. But she supposed they’d cross that bridge later…when they had more people with guns.

  Matthew and Kara were back in the car and heading back down the mountain when Kara tried to access her voice mail.

  “Damn. The service here sucks,” she said, holding her phone up to see that she had no reception. “How far until we get service?”

  “We’ve got to get out of the trees first. Probably when we hit the highway again. Why?”

  “I have to check in with the team. We rarely go this long without radio contact. Dillon is probably calling me all sorts of names in that British accent of his.”

  Matthew kept his face neutral but the urge to say something unflattering about her pretty-boy partner was strong. It wasn’t just that Brit-boy was too good-looking to be taken seriously, it was that he knew Kara as she was now, whereas Matthew only had memories. And why should that bother him? Hell, he didn’t want to dig into that bucket of chum. He just knew that the Brit rubbed him the wrong way and every time Matthew saw him, he wanted to put his fist through his pretty face.

  “So…you two an item or anything?” he asked. The question was casual but the feelings squeezing his chest weren’t. Why should he care even if they were? He almost rescinded the question but Kara answered before he could.

  “Dillon? He’s my partner and he’s become a friend but no, there’s nothing between us. Never has and never will. He’s not my type.”

  That simple admission made whatever was squeezing his chest loosen, which was a good thing, but at the same time it seemed to scale back the controls on his mouth, which was not a good thing.

  He cocked his head as he contemplated her answer. “So, was there another Neal for you out there?”

  Kara seemed to stiffen and he knew he’d struck a tender nerve. He hadn’t meant to…but maybe he had. Who knows? His feelings were always a jumbled mess when it came to Kara.

  “Why do you think it would be so easy to forget Neal?” she asked quietly, the barely cloaked echo of her anguish shocking him. “I loved him. He was my world. When he left it, a part of me died with him. But that’s hard for you to believe, isn’t it? Because I didn’t go to the funeral?”

  Her quiet accusation hit home and he answered with honesty. “There are other reasons.”

  Kara looked away but not before he caught the shame in her eyes. “Yeah. I live with that guilt every day. You have no idea.”

  Matthew remained silent. Confessions of a dangerous sort filled his mouth but prudence kept them from spilling. Instead, he just backed out of the conversation with a terse apology. “Forget what I said. The past is dead. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Kara gave him an odd look—like a scared, trapped rabbit’s—but jerked her head in agreement. “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  They rode in excruciating silence all the way back to the motel. Matthew didn’t know what was worse, the tense quiet or the dialogue running through his head, berating him for being a sanctimonious prick all too eager to crucify Kara not only for her sins but for his own, as well. God, he’d nursed that anger against Kara for so long it burned bright and hot with just the smallest breath of air to fan it alive again, but he sensed a sadness in her that threw him off. He’d never imagined that perhaps Kara had been hurting, too. And that stung worse than anything else. He’d been too wrapped up in his own pain and guilt to consider what Kara had been going through. Perhaps it was time to let bygones be bygones….

  He turned to Kara, ready to make amends and try to repair their tattered, yet joined, past, but the bloodless expression on Kara’s face as she held her cell phone to her ear sent a terrifying zing straight to his gut.

  “Kara? What’s wrong?” he demanded, irrational fear buzzing in his ear for no reason other than the way Kara’s hand was shaking. “Kara? Talk to me!”

  When she looked at him, she whispered in a strangled cry, “Oh God, drive faster.”

  Chapter 8

  Kara’s fingers were numb from twisting her hands into knots as Matthew drove as fast as he could without putting them over the edge of a cliff.

  Matthew had given up trying to pry out of her what was wrong. It wouldn’t have mattered. Her vocal cords were paralyzed. Fear slithered in and around her heart, squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her.

  Matthew threw the Jeep into Park and she bolted from the vehicle. She nearly collided with Dillon. He gripped her arms tightly and stared into her eyes.

  “We will find her,” he promised.

  She jerked a nod, but how many times had she uttered those same words to terrified parents only to know in her heart the chances were slim that their child would come home safely if they didn’t find them within forty-eight hours.

  “What’s going on?” Matthew asked, staring her down, demanding an answer. Her mouth worked but tears rushed to the surface. Dillon answered for her. His voice grave.

  “We think the Babysitter has taken Briana.”

  “Who is Briana?” he asked.

  Dillon caught the minute shake of Kara’s head but chose to ignore it. “Kara’s daughter.”

  She felt rather than saw Matthew’s shock and when she turned to slowly meet his gaze, the stark expression in his stare confirmed it. “How old?”

  Swallowing, she looked away before answering, not wanting to see what would flash in his eyes at her response. “Nine.”

  Clinging to her professional training, she pushed Matthew out of her head and tried not to key in on the panic twisting her thought process. To save Briana, she had to keep her head on straight. Instead, she turned to Dillon and said, “Tell me everything you know.”

  Matthew’s knees locked as an automatic response the moment he felt his leg muscles weaken. It felt as if he’d just taken a roundhouse kick to the sternum yet nothing had touched him. Kara avoided looking him in the eye. He could attribute that to the situation, but he was fairly certain guilt had something to do with it, as well.

  A daughter. Kara had a daughter. The night they shared broke free from his cache of memories and slammed into the mental theater of his mind, obliterating everything else. Her skin, bathed in moonlight, the surf crashing against the rock, the smell of the sea mingling with that of Kara’s personal scent and the overwhelming guilt they both shared afterward. It was all imprinted—no, branded—into his memory. Was it possible they had created a child that night? His mind balked. No. It had to be Neal’s baby. But he couldn’t deny there was a possibility…and that child was in danger.

  “The housekeeper found Mai. Her throat was cut,” Dillon began. Kara’s eyes watered but she remained silent so Dillon wouldn’t stop. Matthew felt the grief coming off her in waves and he wondered who Mai was to her. He assumed it was the child’s nanny. “No sign of a struggle. It looks as if the perp snuck up from behind. She probably never knew what
hit her and died almost instantly.”

  “And Briana?” Kara could barely get the words out. “What of Briana?”

  “The housekeeper searched the house but there was no sign of her.”

  “What makes you think it’s the Babysitter?” Matthew interjected.

  Dillon paused, his countenance grim. “It’s the first time he’s left something behind that wasn’t hidden. A note. Come chase the weasel.”

  “The bastard is taunting us. I told you he was spelling out the words to that cursed nursery rhyme with his previous victims,” Kara said, disgust curling her lip. Her voice lowered to a harsh whisper. “When we catch him…I’m going to kill him.”

  Suddenly Dillon looked uncomfortable, causing Kara to look at him sharply. “What? Why are you giving me that look?”

  “Kara, this is hard to tell you but you can’t be on the case any longer. As evidenced by that comment, you’ve lost your objectivity. Colfax pulled you off, effective immediately.”

  Kara exploded. “Like hell I am. My daughter is out there with a maniac and you think I’m just going to go home and twiddle my thumbs while hoping for the best? I think you know what my answer to that is, so let’s stop wasting time and find this bastard before—” she swallowed and blinked back a wash of tears “—before…before…oh, shit…we just have to find him.”

  Dillon’s face pulled into a concerned frown but he shook his head just the same. “Kara…you’re a liability to the investigation now, you know that! How many parents have we had to deal with under similar circumstances? More than we would like, and a frantic, grief-stricken parent isn’t going to be helpful. As hard as it is, trust in us that we will do everything in our power to find Briana. Trust us.”

  Kara’s mouth worked but no words came out. Matthew sensed a breakdown was coming and he knew Kara was not the type to blubber like a baby in the company of others. When she cried, she chose to do it in the shower, where no one could see her. He knew this simply because when growing up, Kara had often run to Matthew’s house when her pop had gotten out of hand and smacked her around a bit.