Guilty as Sin (21 page)

Kate had seen evidence of worse, done to younger victims, but telling herself that didn’t stop her vision from swimming, didn’t stifle the sensation that if she didn’t get out, now, she was likely to claw out her own eyes to avoid seeing another gruesome image, reading about another vile act.

She sucked in a shaky breath and put the photos aside for a moment to read the details in the medical examiner’s report. It took a moment for her to focus on the small print, but soon she was able to absorb additional evidence the body revealed.

Thin cut on the victim’s neck, most likely left by a chain or necklace. Likely inflicted as assailant twisted the chain tightly around the victim’s neck.
Kate absently lifted her fingers to her own throat, feeling her own skin tingle at the imagined sting of a chain digging into her neck. The wounds were consistent with those found on the other bodies.

Also in keeping with the other victims, Stephanie had been found with the residue of a skin cream with an iridescent ingredient that gave the girls’ skin a subtle sparkle. What kind of sick monster coated his victims’ skin in sparkly skin cream before killing them?

She skimmed down and was about to turn the page when her gaze locked on a piece of evidence that wasn’t included in the other victims’ reports.

She didn’t realize she’d made a sound but suddenly Tommy and CJ were both there, peering over her shoulder.

“What?” Tommy asked.

Kate licked her suddenly dry lips. It took her a couple of tries to get the words out. “Beaute D’or,” she finally managed, and was met by confused grunts. “The skin cream. Stephanie Adler had enough of it on her skin that they were
able to identify the brand. It’s this really fancy stuff, with real gold powder mixed in.”

“And that freaked you out why?” Tommy said.

Kate closed the folder with shaking hands. “My mom used to use it, and Lauren and I were always sneaking it—we liked the way it made our skin sparkle. So when we turned sixteen she got us our own for our birthday.” Silence hung thickly over the room as they absorbed the information.

“You were wearing it that night,” Tommy said, his voice tight. “I remember the way…” He cut off his words, and Kate heard his heavy footsteps as he crossed to the window.

It meant nothing, she was sure. “It’s just a coincidence,” she said, hoping that saying the words aloud would alleviate the tight, tingly feeling creeping up her back and shoulders. “You can get it anywhere, any department store,” she said through the tightness in her throat.

But she couldn’t stop the roll of nausea as she remembered how she and Lauren had so treasured that little jar of gold-flecked cream, used it so sparingly to make it last. The way she’d so carefully smoothed it on her skin that night, anticipating how Tommy would see it shimmer, touch the silky smoothness himself.

For the victims, it had been just one more step in the killer’s sadistic ritual, one more violation as he’d rubbed it over their skin.

She stood abruptly, swaying a little as Tommy and CJ looked up, startled. “I need—I need to get out,” she stammered. “I need air.”

Fueled by her need as much as the humiliation of having them see her break down, Kate darted for the front door, pausing only long enough to grab her keys, a light jacket, and her cell phone.

She walked quickly, blindly down the sidewalk, ignoring
their calls to stop. “Please don’t follow me,” she called in a choked voice. “Please, I just need some space.”

She didn’t check whether they obeyed, just kept going.

Her phone rang several times in a row. Kate powered it off with a twinge of guilt, unable to even have it vibrating in her pocket. She needed to be cut off for a little while.

At home in L.A. she often went on long hikes in the hills to clear her head. Today she instinctively strode to the edge of town where the trails wound their way up into the mountains.

Though she hadn’t been there in years, her sneaker-clad feet automatically followed the path she’d taken dozens of times in her youth even as she struggled to clear her mind and pull herself together.

There was no reason for her to fall apart. But she was forced to admit that no matter how she tried to keep the emotions at bay, being here, in this town, working so closely with Tommy and CJ was a constant reminder of Michael, that summer, that night.

Even if she could keep the memories and rough emotions out of her conscious mind, they were there, lurking. Like toxins seeping into her system, slowly eating away at her, sapping her strength until she broke.

The trail angled up sharply and Kate charged up it as though the hounds of hell were chasing her, as though she could purge the weakness and the sadness from her body through her sweat and fast-moving breath.

And tears, she realized as she felt them rolling down her cheeks.

She walked for miles, barely noticing their passing. As she sifted through her memories of this trail, she guessed she was about four miles from the townhouse, about three and a half miles from where she’d picked up the trail. She
crested the ridge where the trail topped out and looked at the mountains surrounding her and the gorgeous view of the lake.

She took a deep breath, feeling somewhat better. The hike had its usual effect of calming her down, taking her mind away, reminding her that even in a world where people could be so ugly, there was still an awful lot of beauty.

She continued over the ridge, remembering that there was another fork she could take up ahead that would loop her down and around and back to town.

She felt a twinge of unease as she watched a bank of gunmetal gray thunderheads moving in from the south. Soon the wind picked up, whipping her hair around and cutting through the thin cover of her jacket.

When she’d left the house, the sun had been shining and the temperature had been in the high seventies. Now it felt like it had dropped at least fifteen degrees. Kate quickened her pace to a jog as goose bumps broke out over her bare legs.

She was only a few miles out of town, and it was all downhill. If she ran, surely she could make it back before the storm hit. Her gaze drifted to the other trail going off to the right, the one that, if she remembered correctly, met up with the fire road in less than a mile. Then it was only another mile back to town. Every cell in her body revolted at the thought. She wouldn’t take that trail if someone held a gun to her head.

Because to get to the fire road, she would have to pass a hunting shack, the same shack where Michael—

A bolt of lightning streaked down from the sky, so close it made Kate’s hair stand on end. The boom that accompanied was so loud she felt the concussion through her entire body.

Tommy stared out his wall of windows. He never got tired of watching the weather change in the summer, the way the heavy dark clouds would blow in over the mountain with stunning speed. The thunder and lightning that accompanied it was better than any pyrotechnic display he’d ever seen.

The rain came down in sheets, streaming down the panes. He opened them, and some of the water leaked through the screens onto the floor of his office. He didn’t care, closing his eyes to inhale the smell of wet dirt and grass, the electricity of the storm giving the air a slightly metallic edge.

During his time as a Ranger, he’d been deployed twice to Iraq. Baking in the desert sun, every inch of his body coated in a fine layer of sand that never seemed to wash away, he’d spent hours, days, fantasizing about the summer thunderstorms in his mountain home. But today the storm didn’t soothe him. Not when he couldn’t get the image of Kate’s pale, pinched face as she fled from the townhouse out of his head.

Seeing her distress so close to the surface conjured up all kinds of urges he didn’t want to deal with, like the urge to pull her close, chase all her demons away.

But he also knew from experience that sometimes when you got to that state, the last thing you wanted was company or comfort. Sometimes you just needed to get away as fast and far as you could and have a little breathing room before you dove back into reality.

He’d forced himself to let her go, and they’d stayed at her place a little while longer before CJ got called away to deal with a situation thirty miles away. Tommy packed up and went back to his own home to make phone calls and put out
several fires that had flared with the other clients he’d been ignoring.

And, if he was going to be honest with himself, after looking at those crime scene photos, reading the reports of what those girls had been through, and discovering the random coincidence with the skin cream, he was ready for a breather too. Helping a client come up with a strategy to identify the corporate spy in his research and development lab had been a welcome distraction.

But after another hour passed without a word, he called the volunteer headquarters, praying Kate had turned up. Tension curled in his gut when they said there had been no sign of her.

The next call was to CJ. “Have you heard from Kate?”

“No. Not since she left,” CJ said.

“Maybe she’s back at her place and just not answering the phone,” Tommy said.

“I’ll get someone to drive over and check,” CJ said, his own voice tight with unease.

The next ten minutes crawled by as Tommy waited for CJ to call back. His adrenaline spiked at CJ’s next words. “Her place is empty, and her car is still out front.”

“She’s probably fine,” Tommy said, as if that could stop the voice screaming in his head to find her now. Christ, the worst-case scenario was that she was caught out in the rain somewhere.

Lightning crackled in the meadow outside his window, and a boom of thunder vibrated through the house, as though to drive home the point that this wasn’t just a little rain shower they were experiencing.

“I’m still over in LaClede,” CJ said.

“I’ll find her.” Tommy was already off the phone before CJ could say another word.

In an instant, he was in mission mode, all fear shoved aside for clear, cold rationality. Kate had her phone with her. As long as the battery wasn’t dead, finding her would be easy.

A few minutes, a few clever keystrokes into her cell phone service provider’s Web site, and he was able to pull up a map with a little blue dot that showed the location of Kate’s phone and presumably Kate herself.

He took one look at the map and swore.

He shoved away from the desk and headed for his bedroom, where he stuffed a couple of shirts, sweatpants, and fleece jacket into a backpack. Then he pulled a waterproof GORE-TEX shell over his T-shirt and cargo pants and headed out for his truck.

The rain was falling so hard and so heavily Kate could barely see. It didn’t help that once she got over the ridge, the trail maintenance tapered off dramatically. While she knew generally the direction she needed to head, several times she’d found herself off the trail, bushwhacking her way through thickets of chokecherry trees and sagebrush. Her bare legs stung with dozens of cuts and welts.

And she was cold. Mind-numbingly, bone-jarringly cold. Her jacket didn’t have a hood so her hair was soaked, strands clinging to her neck in sopping ropes. Not that a hood would have helped, she grumbled to herself. The damn thing was so flimsy it didn’t offer up the least defense to the cutting wind, and the so-called water-resistant fabric proved to be anything but.

She was soaked to the skin, her entire body shaking with cold as she struggled back to the narrow dirt line she hoped
was the trail. Lightning continued to brighten the sky around her, making her heart pound with as much fear as exertion. This section of trail, coming down from the ridge, was all grass and shrubs, leaving Kate the tallest object for several hundred yards. Once she found the trail, she kept her head down, walking as fast as she could toward the outcropping of trees on the other side of the meadow. With the wind and rain whipping in her ears, her gaze intently locked on the trail in front of her, she didn’t hear the male voice calling her name until she was only a few feet away.