Read All the Pretty Faces Online
Authors: Rita Herron
All the Pretty Faces
ALSO BY RITA HERRON
Romantic Suspense
Graveyard Falls
All the Beautiful Brides
Slaughter Creek Series
Dying to Tell
Her Dying Breath
Worth Dying For
Dying for Love
Contemporary Romance
Going to the Chapel
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Rita Herron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503950696
ISBN-10: 1503950697
Cover design by Marc J. Cohen
To Jennifer St. Giles—friend, fellow writer, and plotter extraordinaire.
Thanks for your insight on the cosmetic surgery business and for sending my twisted thoughts down a different path!
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The dead girl stared up at Special Agent Dane Hamrick, her eyes wide with terror, her lips forming a cry for help that had probably gotten lost in the wind boomeranging off the sharp mountain ridges.
It was the tears that got to him. They had dried, but stained with the blood, they created a crimson river down her cheeks.
Dane’s gut tightened. She was so young, pretty, vulnerable. Dark hair, dark eyes. She’d been stabbed in the heart with a sharp instrument. The minute he’d heard that she bore a crisscross pattern across her chest, he’d raced to the scene.
The stab wound was almost identical to the one that had killed his sister, Betsy.
Grief for the young woman clogged his throat, yet hope shot through him. For ten damn years, he’d followed every case with any similarity in MO to his sister’s murder, hoping to finally track down Betsy’s killer. Four young women ages eighteen to twenty-one had been left in an alley—like his sister—except the cause of death varied. Another victim just last year had been marked in a crisscross pattern, but the pattern had been made with a hot curling iron, not a scalpel or knife.
His heart pounded. This case might be the one.
Yet how many times had he been disappointed?
Too many to count.
Still, when Cal—who was on call for his wife because she was expecting a baby at any moment—told him about the case and described the MO, Dane had driven like a maniac from Knoxville to the scene. Betsy’s freckled face as a teenager had dogged him the whole way, urging him not to give up.
To find the man who’d stolen her life.
God, she’d been so excited about her future. She’d just enrolled in college. Then she’d taken that trip to visit the campus—
Sheriff Kimball cleared his throat. “Special Agent Cal Coulter said you’d worked cases with a similar MO.”
“Yes,” he said. He made sure to add an edge to his answer. No need to involve the sheriff in his personal interest in the case.
The guilt he’d lived with since he lost Betsy made his jaw snap tight with anger.
Big brothers were supposed to protect their baby sisters. Not let them get murdered at nineteen.
Did this girl have a brother looking for her? A mother or father or sister? A family who wanted closure?
All the more reason to get to work. Assess the details.
He knelt to examine the stab wound more closely.
Sharp, deep, straight to the aorta. Then the killer had twisted the blade to the opposite side to make the crisscross. She’d bled out quickly. The wound had been inflicted by a sharp instrument—a hunting knife or maybe a scalpel.
Betsy had been stabbed with a common pocketknife. Her wound had been crude, jagged, done in anger.
A crime of passion.
This stab wound appeared planned, the cuts on her even, methodical.
Okay, that was one difference in the MO.
Although it didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t the same unknown subject, or unsub. Killers evolved over time. This one could have murdered Betsy in a fit of rage, then lain low and bided his time, afraid he’d get caught. Slowly he perfected his technique.
He’d awakened his thirst for killing when he murdered Betsy.
“Do you have an ID on her?” Dane asked.
The sheriff gestured toward the woods behind the motel. “Not yet. No wallet or purse or phone on her, but I haven’t done a thorough search of the area yet. The ME is on his way.”
Good. Maybe he could get DNA or dental records to identify her.
They needed a name. Family to contact.
One of them had to make the notification.
His mother’s scream of denial the night the police had shown up at their door echoed in his head as if it had just happened yesterday.
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Who found her?” Dane asked.
“The janitor. He was taking out the trash. Clerk at the front desk said she wasn’t registered as a guest.”
Wind rustled the leaves, tossing dried brittle ones across the victim’s body.
The stench of garbage suffused the air. The fact that this woman had been left near the Dumpster made bile rise to Dane’s throat. “Son of a bitch discarded her like she was nothing.”
“Yeah, pretty cold.” Sheriff Kimball scraped a hand through his hair. “To leave her naked and exposed . . .” He let the sentence trail off, shook his head in disgust, then heaved a breath as if to refocus. “Is this like the other case you worked?”
“There are similarities.” A sheen of sweat broke out on Dane’s neck as he recalled the photographs of his sister.
Betsy had been left in an alley, but she hadn’t been naked, thank God.
This woman was stripped of her clothing. Instead of an alley, her body lay in a tangle of weeds and brush in a ditch, one hand outstretched as if begging for help. Or had she been posed that way for a reason?
The whites of her eyes bulged with broken vessels and had yellowed like an egg that had been cracked, the yolk spilling out. Even more disturbing, tiny slits had been carved beneath her eyes, more tracking down her pale face like the claw marks of a bird of prey’s talons etched in snow.
Betsy had a similar marking below her eyes, although the claw marks had been jagged, done in a fit of rage, not as detailed or perfectly drawn as these.
What did those carvings mean? Was it some kind of signature, or had the bastard simply wanted to inflict more pain?
Ten years was a long time. The killer had aged, maybe become more selective. More sadistic. He could have practiced his skills, perfected the claw marks.
He could be killing for the fun of it now.
Either way, Dane would find this woman’s killer and get justice for her.
He wouldn’t stop until he got it for Betsy, too.
Coming back to Graveyard Falls had been a mistake.
The tightening in Josie DuKane’s chest clawed at her, a sign of another panic attack.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to take slow, deep breaths. To fight through the terror. But the Bride Killer case had been her first personal contact with murder. Then she’d become one of his victims.
Except she had survived. The other girls had died, been strangled with a garter by Billy Linder because they hadn’t lived up to his expectations as the perfect wife.
Images of Billy tying her up—taunting her, ordering her to cook for him and his sick mother, then threatening to kill her when she failed—flooded Josie.
God. She’d worked so hard to overcome the trauma of the past two years. Therapy and staying at home where she was safe, surrounded by her family. Pouring her heart out into the journals that described her turmoil over being held hostage.
At first her entries had been almost incoherent, ramblings about the nightmares that refused to let her sleep through the night. The other victims’ faces had floated toward her like ghostly images, their cries to be saved piercing her ears.
Why did you survive? Why didn’t you save us? We didn’t deserve to die so young.
Guilt made her question herself. Was there something she could have done?
Logically the answer was no. She hadn’t been involved in the case at the time. She’d met Billy Linder at church when she’d gone to pray for her mother and grandfather. Billy had seemed shy, harmless, had talked about taking care of his ailing mother.
The woman was barely alive when Billy carried Josie to his house. A house filled with dead animals Billy had preserved.
Even months later, at night when the lights went out, the eyes of those dead animals stared at her, haunting her with their piercing, vacant looks. Sometimes those eyes blended with the dead girls’ eyes. Their horrified eyes accused her of letting them die.
Those nights she’d wake up screaming.
Her sister, Mona, and her mother had encouraged her to see a therapist, and that had helped. Then she’d started the journals.
She gripped the door handle of her car, tears pooling behind her closed eyelids.
She had to get out of here. Couldn’t face the town today.
Even if they had come to see her.
Her phone buzzed, jarring her, and she glanced at the number.
Mona. Thank heavens. Mona must have sensed she was in trouble. Her sister had a knack for understanding people, which made her a great therapist. It was the reason Billy had called Mona for advice on finding the perfect mate.
Mona’s compassion and understanding had helped get through to Billy at the end, and then Mona had saved Josie’s life.
Josie punched Connect and whispered her sister’s name.
“Josie, are you all right?”
“No.” Her heart stuttered. She hated being weak.
“Ah, sis,” Mona said softly. “I’m sorry. I knew it would be difficult for you.”
“I shouldn’t have come back. You and Mom and Johnny were smart to leave this town.” For some reason, Josie thought it would be cathartic if she told her story and talked to residents and the victims’ families.
Some had been supportive. Sympathetic. Had readily agreed to interviews.
Others had been furious about the book and accused her of taking advantage of them.
She hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone.
“I’m not sorry I left,” Mona said. “Even though Mom inherited Grandfather’s house, neither one of us wanted it. There were too many bad memories.”
Josie mumbled agreement. “Trust me, I don’t plan to stay here any longer than necessary.” She wanted to make sure they portrayed the story accurately. This was a true crime film, not fiction, and she didn’t want them embellishing the story too much. Or disrespecting the victims’ memories.
“I think you’re brave to go back and face everyone,” Mona said. “After all, the people have to sympathize with you. You were abducted by the man who tore apart their lives. You helped bring him to justice.”
Mona’s calm voice and reassuring words helped to tamp down the panic.
“I’m proud of you for writing the book,” Mona continued. “Now that movie production company is turning it into a film, everyone who watches it will understand the victims’ and their families’ suffering.”
Josie dabbed the perspiration from her face with a tissue. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
Worry reverberated in Mona’s sigh. “I still wish you’d let me come with you, sis.”
Renewed strength swelled inside Josie. All her life she’d felt alone, but now she had a sister. Had it not been for the murders, she would never have known that Mona existed. Her mother had kept that secret well.
After the abduction, she and Mona had bonded over their shared experience with Billy. No one else truly understood what it had been like to listen to his sick ranting, to pretend to go along with him until help could arrive. To see that homemade wedding dress hanging on the door waiting for his wife.
She shivered at the memory. “I appreciate the offer, but you have to take care of yourself and rest. That baby you’re carrying needs you.”
“He needs his aunt, too, so please be careful.”
Josie’s lungs squeezed for air again. She had received some hate mail after the book launch—some people thought she was sensationalizing the murders. A couple of complaints sounded sinister, bordering on threatening.
She wasn’t sensationalizing the murders or the victims’ lives. She wanted to speak up for them.
“It’s just a press conference,” Josie said. “What could go wrong?”
Dane greeted the medical examiner, Dr. Wheeland, while Sheriff Kimball went from room to room at the motel canvassing the guests. Wheeland had helped Cal with the Bride Killer case and was a by-the-books, detailed doctor. Dane could use his expertise now.
With the small size of the motel and its location on the outside of town, at least he didn’t have to deal with rubberneckers driving by or other locals cluttering the scene.
The skies were darkening, though, adding to the somber mood. They needed to work quickly before the rains started and washed away evidence.
“Do we know who she is?” the ME asked.
Dane shook his head. “No ID yet. The way he posed her could be significant. Her body is contorted at odd angles.” Could be he wanted her to look macabre because she reminded him of someone else. Someone from his past who he hated or who’d hurt him. “Look at the broken compact mirror in her hand.”