Into the Night(17)
“Just like we are,” Bowen finished.
*
“YOU’VE...GOT...THE wrong man...” Patrick Remus gritted out. He hurt—he fucking hurt. The bastard holding him had doused his legs with gasoline and then lit them on fire. Then the SOB had stood back and just watched while he burned. While the flames ate at Patrick’s pants and his legs.
Then, when Patrick had been screaming, the guy had lifted a fire extinguisher and sprayed at the flames.
“You’re the right man, Remus. I know. The FBI has been searching for you a very long time.”
Patrick’s breath heaved out. “No...no... I—I didn’t do that shit. None of it. Wasn’t m-me...”
The wooden floor creaked as his attacker began to stalk around him. The guy had a mask over his face—a black ski mask—so Patrick couldn’t tell anything about him.
“Of course, it was you. Your prints were found at two of your arson scenes. In Orlando, Florida, where you killed that father of two. In Atlanta, Georgia, at the home of the elderly grandmother you sent to a fiery grave.”
His teeth clenched. “I’m...a different man. I was sick back then. I’m better now! I haven’t burned...anything...” Like this bastard would know the truth.
The floor creaked again. “You think that stopping absolves you of your crimes?”
His legs hurt. “I need a doctor.”
His attacker laughed. “Too bad, he’s dead. I finished him first.”
What?
“I’ve been watching you... I do know that you’ve still been starting your fires.”
Fuck.
“And I don’t like it when people try to lie to me.”
Patrick yanked at the ropes around his wrists. That jerk had tied his arms behind him, securing him to the wooden chair. This shit couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. He’d been living a normal life in Alabama, even had a girl he was thinking about marrying. She’d won this fucking trip up to Gatlinburg, and they’d come together—“Lydia,” he whispered. “What did you do to Lydia?” Because this bastard before him had taken Patrick right out of his cabin.
The guy laughed. Patrick jerked against the ropes. His legs burned.
“She doesn’t know about you, does she? Poor Lydia...she thought she’d found her prince charming.”
“If you’ve hurt her...”
More laughter. “What? You’ll burn me?”
And he heard the slosh of a liquid. He couldn’t see the other guy, but he knew the man had picked up the gasoline again. “The only one who will get burned,” he told Patrick. “That’s you...”
CHAPTER FOUR
“PLEASE, PLEASE, I need help!” The woman with the long black hair was ringing her hands as she stood in front of the check-in desk at the Gatlinburg police station. “My boyfriend is missing!”
Macey slanted a quick glance her way. She and Bowen had arrived at the station moments before—to a scene of pretty much chaos. The police captain had greeted them at the door. Captain Henry Harwell was young, probably in his late twenties, with close-cropped brown hair. He wore a pair of glasses and his gun was holstered at his side.
Right then, he motioned toward another uniformed officer and pointed to the woman. “Help her, now.”
The officer bustled to the woman’s side.
“We searched the cabin,” Captain Harwell said as he began to lead Macey and Bowen back into the station. “Your Special Agent Dark helped coordinate with our team here and we went to the location that the FBI had pinpointed, but no one was there. I don’t know if this is just some damn trick or what is happening—”
“No!” It was the woman’s voice, rising over the din in the station. “You’re not listening to me! I think someone took him! He’s not just off drunk somewhere or lost in your damn mountains! He needs help!”
Macey paused and glanced back at her.
“The cabin had been swept clean,” Harwell continued. “I had my men check and double-check the place, but there wasn’t any sign of anyone. It was a rental, one that had been taken off rotation while some repairs were being made. No one should have been there...” He exhaled. “And sure as shit not some serial arsonist! Damn it, do you know what will happen if word gets out that Patrick Remus is in this town? Do you know how many tourists come here?”
Macey found herself sliding away from the captain and from Bowen. There was something about that woman at the counter. Her certainty that her boyfriend wasn’t just lost or drinking it off...that he’d been taken.
Macey touched her shoulder. “Miss?”
The woman swung toward her. Mascara smudges darkened her eyes.
“Why do you think your boyfriend was taken?”
“Because Patrick wouldn’t just leave me!”
Macey tensed. “Patrick?”
“Patrick Grace.” Now the woman turned to grab Macey’s shoulder. “He was there last night, I swear, he was asleep in that bed next to me. But...but when I woke up, he was gone. The front door was wide-open. Our car was still there. But he wasn’t.” A tear slid down her cheek. “He left his phone, his wallet. Everything. I know something happened to him.”
“Do you happen to have a picture of Patrick?” The name was too much of a coincidence to ignore. When individuals went into the Witness Protection Program, they often tried to keep their new first names as similar as possible to their real ones—it helped them to transition.