Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(45)

“FBI, Miss Shaw. Are you in distress, is anything wrong—”

“Connie, it’s me, Clara Avery, and these men are FBI,” Clara called.

The door swung open. Connie Shaw stood there in purple sweats, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her features drawn and pale. She threw herself in Clara’s arms.

“Connie, what happened? What’s going on?”

“Someone was out there—someone in back. I... I’d left the back door open. I was out on the porch, looking up at the mountains. There were deer, two of them, right back there! I came in for my phone and I heard someone...whispering my name!” Connie said, her speech hurried and barely coherent.

Jackson was already gone, heading around back. “Stay with her—I’ll go through the house to the back!”

“I’m not a chicken, not a chicken, not a chicken, but... Not right, not just a person, not just a visitor... He was there, he would have gotten in... I’m so scared!” Connie babbled. “I got here and heard about the murders—Natalie Fontaine...Amelia Carson... I didn’t think they’d be after us...but I’m so scared. I thought...well, their kind of reality TV, they might have really pissed someone off, but I just act on a stage... I don’t do anything evil to anyone, except, you know, maybe by accident and that wouldn’t be evil or mean, just...”

“Connie, calm down. It’s all right,” Clara said. “Sh. These men are FBI. You are all right now.”

She wondered if she had been like this—this hysterical, this scared—when she had found the body of Amelia Carson.

Yes, yes, she had been.

She swallowed hard. Two very competent, strong, well-armed members of the FBI were with them. They were all right.

No, not really, the killer was still out there.

They wouldn’t be all right, none of them—not even the big, strong members of the FBI—if this killer wasn’t caught.

She mentally renewed her passion to do whatever was necessary to help.

She also heard Ralph’s voice in her head.

Sparks!

Sparks...flying between her and Thor Erikson.

Connie was still talking, she realized.

“What’s happening, Clara? Oh, my God, what’s happening? And I was so excited to be on the Fate!”

“Sh, sh, it’s all right,” Clara repeated.

Was it? They’d all been so excited about the Fate.

And now they were all here...fated to be here?

She was suddenly angry; really angry with herself. Nothing was truly predetermined; they were all architects in their own destiny.

This was the fault of a horribly sick, heinous and cruel murderer. And she was going to do whatever it took to help the FBI catch him, even if that included becoming best girlfriends—a bit belatedly—with Amelia Carson.

“It’s all right,” she repeated firmly. “We’re with the FBI. And they have guns. Big ones,” she added, and smiled to herself.

She had no idea of the size of their guns.

*

There was no one in the house Connie had rented, but when Thor stepped out the back door, he studied the lock.

He frowned. It appeared that someone had been trying to jimmy it—which didn’t really make sense, not if Connie Shaw had left it open.

She’d said that she’d heard someone whisper her name.

Had she—or had she been afraid and imagined that she heard the whisper?

The possibilities shot through his head. She hadn’t expected to be so alone, even though she had opted for nature and privacy, so maybe her imagination had run rampant. Maybe the lock had been jimmied long ago—even by the owner, who might have forgotten his keys.

Bull.

Staring at the jimmied door, he pulled out his cell phone and flicked the screen to contacts, finding Theodore McGinty. He called the older man—a close friend of his dad’s, and a stern disciplinarian with all the neighborhood kids when he’d been young.

“Mr. McGinty, this is Thor Erikson.”

“Thor, hey! Ah, hell. It’s not a social call, is it?” McGinty asked. “I thought I was okay—gave the place to a sweet young woman for a week. What, she have a bunch of frat boys in? They cutting up and doing drugs in my house?”

“No, sir, nothing like that.”

He heard McGinty’s groan. “What’s the matter with me?” McGinty asked. “I keep forgetting you’re FBI, boy. This is no minor thing. Lord, I’ve been seeing the news on the murders. Please tell me that...that it’s not as bad as it could be.”

No, it wasn’t as bad as it could be. A killer could have carried out his plan to kill and mutilate a beautiful young woman.

“I wanted to let you know that Miss Shaw isn’t going to be staying here. We’re taking her where she’ll have police protection. We’re watching out for everyone involved with that TV show and Miss Shaw’s cast was being interviewed the day the murders took place. But I also wanted to ask you—have you had any kind of problem with an attempted break-in at any point?”

“Boy, why would anyone break in on an old man who has nothing but great memories?” McGinty asked him in return.

“Looks like someone tried to jimmy your lock.”

McGinty was silent for a minute and then said, “You get that girl out of there, then, Thor. You see that she’s safe. You tell her she’ll get all her money back from me. No, no, sir. No one has tried to break in on me. But, when I’m there, old Oslo is with me, and no one messes with my dog.”