Deadly Fear (Deadly #1)(9)

The sheriff and the ME shared a hard glance. Then Davis looked back over his shoulder, as if checking to make sure neither of the deputies had snuck back in to eavesdrop. “Didn’t send the info, but I told Hyde.” Davis’s jaw flexed. “Told him, and he understood. He sent you because he understood.”

Cotton shuffled over to a filing cabinet. The drawer groaned when he pulled it open. “I think you two should see these.”

Luke grabbed the file from him and tried to keep his face blank as he flipped through the pictures.

Shit.

Wreckage. Twisted metal.

Pieces. Not of the car. Of… her. The wreck had torn her apart.

Monica eased beside him. Luke heard the hard breath she sucked in when she glimpsed Sally.

He studied the photos, examining and—“What the hell?”

Monica’s fingers lifted and clamped around his shoulder.

“Guess you see why I was worried about Sally’s death.” A hard, biting blast from the sheriff. “Not every day you see an accident victim who was tied to the steering wheel.”

No, not every day.

Christ. One hand and wrist were still attached to the wheel, hanging by the thick, knotted ropes.

“We found marks on the bumper—someone pushed Sally, hard and fast. That somebody drove her right into that ravine.”

And Sally had been helpless.

But…

But the crimes were too different. With Sally, maybe someone had wanted to off her and claim insurance money that would have come from her “accident.” Maybe the killer had thought the car would blow up on impact, and the bindings on her wrists would have been destroyed. Maybe.

The stabbing, well, stabbings were personal. Intimate.

“Does Sally have a husband, a lover—someone we can talk to?” Monica asked.

Silence.

They looked up at the Sheriff. He licked his lips. “Sally’s husband Jake was killed in a car accident last year. A year to the day of Sally’s death.” He swallowed. “She was in the car with him, barely survived.”

This time, she hadn’t.

Someone had made absolutely certain of that.

“What makes you think these two crimes are related?” Luke asked. Bizarre, yeah, but to say the same perp was out there—

“In the last ten years, we’ve only had two murders here in Jasper.” A heavy pause. “They both happened within the last two weeks.” The sheriff held his stare. “You think we got two murdering SOBs all of a sudden in the area? Or just one f*cked up *?” His right hand moved to rest on the slab, right near Patty. “I’m betting my money on one *.”





CHAPTER Three


Walking through a dead woman’s house, poking through her possessions and rifling through what was left of her life was not really Monica’s favorite thing to do. It was a part of her job, though, a necessary one. Just one that she hated.

Every profiler knew, the first step was assimilation. She’d seen the body, seen the photos, read the autopsy reports, now she needed to work on victim profiles.

Luke flipped on the light as he stepped into Patty’s bedroom. Monica hesitated, just for a moment, then followed him inside the small room.

“Just what do you think we’re gonna find here?” he asked.

Hell if she knew. The locals had already been over the place. The sheriff had good instincts and good training, so she doubted the guy missed much.

But she always went to the victims’ houses on her cases. The houses and then the crime scenes. That was her pattern.

She rubbed the back of her right shoulder. “We need to do a thorough scan of the house, just in case the deputies overlooked something.” What that something was, well, she didn’t know. Yet.

Her gaze darted to the nightstand. A framed picture. A smiling, beautiful Patty, hugging a man, a good-looking guy with glasses.

“Guess that’s the boyfriend,” Luke murmured.

“Kaziah Lone.” He was on her list. Rule number one in these cases: Always talk to the lovers.

Especially on knife kills. An intimate crime, an intimate kill.

Luke yanked open Patty’s dresser drawers, searching through the clothes. “What’s your take on the case?”

Don’t know. “Hyde sent us here, that means he thinks we’ve got a serial.” Or a potential serial. Because sometimes, weeding through the cases and finding the real serials—that was another job he liked to give his team.

More photos lined the walls. Pictures just of Patty, always smiling. Posing with her dark hair framing her perfect face.

Hyde’s report said the woman had done some modeling for an agency in New Orleans. She sure had the look for it.

He shoved the top dresser drawer closed. “But what’s your take?”

His gaze held hers. God, Samantha had been right about his eyes. She’d never seen eyes like his before.

Never been able to forget those eyes.

Or him.

The one man who’d come too close. The one man who’d made her burn, made her desperate.

And he could do it again. One look, and the need had quickened in her. It would be so easy to go back, to let the lust ignite between them. So easy…

When they’d been on that plane and he’d been so close, his scent had surrounded her. She’d remembered the strength of his touch and she’d wanted him. She’d talked tough, but, dammit, she wanted him.