Fear For Me: A Novel of the Bayou Butcher(15)

Anthony nodded. “I’ll finish the search in here.”

The others slid past them.

There wasn’t much to search in the charred remains. Two rooms. No furniture. Dirt. Mold. Decay.

“This is where it started,” Lauren whispered as she crept carefully around the cabin. This place. With its wooden walls and small rooms. They’d found Walker’s tools in this cabin. The sharpened knives.

The trophies.

Walker had kept trophies from his kills.

Her gaze lit on a heavy chunk of wood that had fallen near the left wall.

“No,” Anthony said, “it didn’t start here.”

The certainty in Anthony’s voice had her glancing over at him.

“This is just where it ended. Where it should have ended.” His eyes narrowed, but his gaze wasn’t on her. It was on the wood near her feet. “Where did that come from?”

“It must have fallen—” But she broke off because she’d just looked up and realized that there weren’t any missing roof slats from above them, and the wall beside her was charred, but not broken. The wood was broken to the left, way across on the other wall, not in that spot.

His hand closed around her arm and Anthony pulled her back. Then he bent and carefully slid the wood, maneuvering it so he could see underneath it.

She peered over his shoulder.

Something gold glinted in the light.

Gold…

“We’re gonna need Detective Voyt and his men out here,” Anthony said as his fingers tightened around the wood.

“A necklace.” She could see it clearly now. Thin, delicate. A woman’s necklace.

“Maybe it’s nothing, just something left by some kid, but—”

“It’s not.” Her voice was sad and certain. She could see the locket on the end. A locket with a rose in the center. Karen’s locket. “It’s hers.”

His head whipped up, his eyes blazing. “Karen’s?”

A nod.

“You’re sure about that?”

Dead sure. “She was wearing it the last time I saw her alive.”

In the next instant, he was pulling her from the cabin. “Don’t touch anything else!”

She knew the drill. Evidence was there—evidence they didn’t want to contaminate because the cabin wasn’t nearly as abandoned as it looked.

Before, Walker had kept his trophies there.

Now that he was back in town, it seemed he was back to his old tricks. He’d killed Karen, then brought his trophy back to the cabin.

It looked like some habits died very hard.

As soon as they exited the cabin, Anthony had his phone out. She listened to him make the call. He was asking for a tech team and telling Paul to get there ASAP.

Then he broke off.

She looked at him, and saw that his gaze had turned back toward the trees that led to the lake.

“We need you now,” he snapped into the phone and ended the call. His gaze lit on her. “Stay behind me.”

He pulled out his gun.

“The killer could still be here.”

Her heart slammed into her chest. She crept behind him as they edged toward the line of twisting trees.

“There are old paths all through this place,” Anthony muttered. “If you’re coming by car, you have to take the dirt road. But you don’t have to get here by car.”

He slid through the trees. One hand locked around her wrist while his other hand remained tight around his weapon.

The trees bent overhead, blocking out the sky and sending faint streams of sunlight trickling over them. It was summer in Louisiana, which meant that it was already hell hot. Sweat began to bead on Lauren’s skin. Every foot or so, her dang shoes got stuck in the mud, so she jerked them off and held them in her free hand.

Insects chirped around them and her breathing seemed far too loud. She was pretty sure she heard the hiss of a snake just a few feet away.

Then Anthony froze. “Tracks.”

She could see them, too. Not from a car, but the single indention of a tire. A motorcycle?

The tracks cut through the mud and led deeper into the swamp.

Yes, some habits died very, very hard. It looked like Walker had come home again.

How many bodies would he leave in his wake this time?



The dogs were barking as they rushed through the swamp. They’d given the dogs Walker’s scent, taken from prison clothes left at Angola. Anthony kept his gun ready, the image of Sheila Long’s body too fresh in his mind.

Killers like Walker were predictable. They followed patterns—twisted patterns. After Karen’s death, Anthony had suspected that Walker might come back to his cabin. It had been the guy’s trophy shop, and sure enough, the killer had been back.

Karen Royce’s necklace was proof of that.

The dogs began to whine. Hell. Not a good sign. The green water of the bayou waited up ahead.

And the motorcycle tracks ended.

“He didn’t just take the bike into the water,” Jim burst out as he threw his hands in the air. He glared at the dogs’ handler. “Make them get the scent again.”

One of the handlers spat on the ground. “Don’t work like that.” He had on the pressed uniform of the Baton Rouge K-9 unit. “You don’t make ’em. They get what’s there for them to find.” The dogs were sniffing near the water’s edge. “This is where he went.”