Into the Night(37)

“Three,” Macey said. She drove her elbow back into Curtis’s midsection. He grunted and the knife sliced at her, but she was whirling and she punched him hard in the face. Then Macey was free. She ran toward Bowen and he grabbed her arm, jerking her close with his left hand even as his right still held the gun.

Curtis let out a weak scream and lunged at them, the knife swiping down.

Three.

Bowen fired. The bullet blasted straight into Curtis’s heart. His mouth dropped in surprise, and he looked down at his chest. Curtis even shook his head, as if this couldn’t be happening.

You were a dead man the minute you put the knife to her throat.

The knife fell from Curtis’s hand. His knees gave way and he hit the floor. Then he was trying to put his hands over his heart, trying to stop that frantic blood flow as he toppled to the dirty floor.

Macey ran toward him. The little prick had been trying to kill her moments before but now she was putting her hands on his chest. Applying pressure. Being the doctor that she’d always be...and trying to save the confessed killer.

“Talk to me!” Macey thundered at him. “You were talking plenty a few minutes ago—tell me about the man who took you, tell me—”

His bloody hand reached up to touch her face. Blood smeared across her cheek.

Bowen stood behind her, his gun ready to fire again.

But he saw the life leave Curtis’s eyes.

The man’s hand fell back to the floor. His eyes—

Nothing is there now.

They closed.

*

NIGHT HAD FALLEN, but the old cabin in the woods was illuminated by what seemed like a thousand lights. The place was swarming with cops, feds, crime scene techs and even EMTs.

Cadaver dogs barked, still on the scene, though they’d done their work hours ago.

Bowen stood behind the cabin, his hands crossed over his chest and his eyes on the graves. They’d already dug up four bodies. Four skeletons, because that was pretty much all that had been left of the missing. But there were more graves out there. Curtis Zale had buried his victims right behind the cabin.

A cadaver dog whined.

He said more than ten. They’d found thirteen victims so far. They’d gotten an expert to come out—Dr. Amelia Lang—a forensic geophysicist from the University of Tennessee who’d brought ground penetrating radar. As soon as the cadaver dogs had pawed at the earth, marking their spot, she’d used her equipment.

And they’d found the dead.

“This is...this is the most I’ve ever found,” Dr. Lang said, her voice soft and sad. Bowen glanced to the left and saw that she was also staring at the graves. Her long hair was pulled back but tendrils had escaped to blow in the breeze. “How long was he doing this?”

“Several years.” At first, he’d thought that Curtis had only been hunting for the last two years, but to know the time frame for certain, they’d have to figure out who the other three missing—dead—victims were. Maybe there would be dental records that could provide a match for them. Or DNA that—

“I heard you shot him.” She turned to look up at him. She was small, probably only around five feet tall, so her head tipped back as she met his stare.

“Yes.” He was going to kill Macey.

I could have aimed for his leg. I could have blown the bastard’s knee out. But I didn’t. “I killed him,” Bowen said flatly.

“Did he say anything, before he died? About why—”

Bowen gave a rough laugh. “There wasn’t a why. But he was bragging. Telling us about how easy it was to make the kills.”

Dr. Lang drove her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “You work with serials all the time, right?”

Too much of the time, but it was a job he’d chosen. He inclined his head in response, but his gaze passed over her shoulder and toward the cabin. Where was Macey?

“Why do you think he did it? Why do they all do it?”

“Every monster has a different story.” He looked back at the graves. “Sometimes they were hurt when they were younger. Their minds get bent. Twisted. Sometimes they were just always twisted.”

Dr. Lang took a step back. “Born bad.”

“Something like that. I’ve seen killers who just like the pain they give others. They get off on the torture because they’re wired wrong.” He could be using fancier terms, but screw it. He’d killed a man that day. Macey had been hurt. He was long past the point of politeness. “And I’ve seen killers strike because they were abused so much as kids that they don’t understand right and wrong any longer. They’re in pain and they want others to suffer, too.”

“What about the ones who have no empathy at all?”

He considered that. “Those are the most dangerous ones. When you can’t feel, there’s nothing to hold you back.”

Dr. Lang tucked her hair behind her ear. “I see what the monsters leave behind. That’s what I find. And that’s what scares me.”

There was plenty to be scared of out in the world. Plenty that most people never saw, but because of his job, Bowen had an up-close view of it day in and day out.

He’d surrendered his gun to the local FBI agents after the shooting. There were always procedures to follow after an agent-involved fatality. But he’d fucking hated giving up that gun.