All the Pretty Faces (5 page)

Just like the woman’s face was slashed in the photograph.

Dane showed the picture Josie had received to Lieutenant Ward. “We need to know if any of your people sent this.”

Irritation lined the man’s face. “You realize that by asking my team, I’m implying that I don’t trust them.”

“I’m sorry,” Dane said. “It’ll take time to trace the text, and if someone on the inside did this, we need to know now. Maybe it’s some kind of ploy to get money for offering Josie the inside scoop.” Hell, he hoped it was. That would be preferable to the killer having sent it. “Maybe he wants to be included in her next book.”

Lieutenant Ward called the team together and explained the situation. “I handpicked you for the team, but for the record and to eliminate the possibility that this was an inside leak, it’s necessary to check your phones.”

The team consisted of three males and one female.

The female showed no reaction. She handed her phone to her boss.

A tall, dark-haired guy with glasses had been snapping pictures with the team’s camera. He set it down on the ground at Dane’s feet, then removed his cell phone from his pocket and shoved it toward his boss. He definitely was annoyed. “I haven’t sent any photographs to the lab, much less anywhere else.”

“I’m sorry about this,” Lieutenant Ward said. “Under the circumstances it’s protocol.”

Dane’s respect for the lieutenant rose a notch. He appreciated that Ward hadn’t shoved him under the bus.

The other two men exchanged irritated looks but complied with Ward’s order.

Dane checked their text history while Ward examined the female’s phone. “Thanks,” he said as he handed it back to her.

She headed back toward the motel room at the end where Dane had smelled bleach. Dane returned the other men’s cells to them while the lieutenant scrolled through the cameraman’s phone. Satisfied, he returned it and then waited to speak until the team had stepped away.

“I told you it wasn’t one of mine,” Lieutenant Ward said.

Dane’s gut tightened. He’d been afraid of that. That the text had come from the killer. Now the lab had to trace it so they could track down the bastard.

Coming back to Graveyard Falls triggered memories of the past in Dr. Silas Grimley’s mind, a past that he’d tried to overcome.

The movie that was being filmed in town had attracted many of his masterpieces. He couldn’t help but want to see how far they’d come after he’d made them pretty.

Would they become the stars in this film? Would he become famous for his cosmetic work?

Although he didn’t want the fame. He understood the pain of being scarred. Of being laughed at and shunned because of his looks.

Very few knew about those scars. Or how he’d gotten them.

Hand trembling, he climbed from his car and walked through the woods. The scent of animals and blood and raw fear filled the air, taking him back to his childhood.

He knelt by the dirt grave where his father’s bones lay and traced a finger over the oval stone he’d put there to mark the spot.

Not that he would ever forget any detail about his father—or his life with the mountain man who’d claimed he was one with the birds.

With a fine sculpting tool, Silas had carved the falcon talons on the rock. He wished he could have carved them into his old man’s face.

But it was too late for that.

Only one other person in the world knew that his father’s bones lay rotting in this ground.

No one else would ever know.

It was
their
secret.

Yes, this dirt hole in the middle of nowhere was a fitting place for a monster.

Silas arranged the tiny bones he’d collected from his last kill on top of the stone, shaping them like the claws of a raptor. He had a collection of bones at home, small trophies he kept to remember the animals they’d come from, and how he had exerted control over them.

Thunder rumbled above, lightning zigzagging across the mountaintops. It had stormed the night he’d been locked inside the cage with the starving birds.

He closed his eyes, rocking himself back and forth, desperate to drown out the hideous screeches. That was impossible.

The birds squawked and flapped their wings, circling him, then diving down to tear at his skin with their piercing sharp talons.

Instinctively, he rubbed his cheek where the ugly marks had once been. Plastic surgery had erased the visible scars, but his fingers brushed pocked and mutilated skin.

Or at least it
felt
that way to him.

The pain that had seared his nerve endings throbbed relentlessly, making his jaw numb. He welcomed the numbness, except then his cheek sagged and his eye twitched. Then he looked less than human.

Like the monster he’d seen in the mirror after the attack.

Another crack of thunder launched him back in time. He’d screamed and cried to be saved.
The click of the lock on the cage echoed in the dark. The flapping of wings followed. Then the screech of the birds as they swooped down for their prey.

For him.

Needle-like talons tore at his flesh. He fought and batted at the birds, but his feeble attempts only angered them. They wanted carrion, and he was it. Tears and blood mingled. His voice grew hoarse from screaming.

Seconds floated into minutes. The world spun. The darkness sucked him in. He closed his eyes and prayed to die.

Hours later sunlight blinded him as he stirred back to life.

Sticky blood pooled on his fingers and trickled down his hand as he lifted his fingers away.

A pop of lightning striking a nearby tree jarred him back to the present.

The wind swirled dust around him, the stench of a dead animal wafting in the air. In the distance, vultures swarmed and dipped down on a hill.

It was their nature to feast on the dead remains of smaller creatures.

Just as it was man’s nature.

He lifted his fingers to his nose and inhaled. The blood was gone, but the scent lingered on his skin.

The blood of man. The blood of animal.

The blood that made him want vengeance.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ellie Pratt was going to hell.

She knew it as sure as she knew that these hills held evil. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d been part of that evil a long time ago.

She wasn’t proud of it. But she’d do it again if she had to.

Course some folks thought just because she possessed the second sight, the devil had gotten into her. She’d tried to tell them she didn’t want to see the awful things that came in her mind. They just appeared out of nowhere.

As a child, she’d been haunted by strange premonitions. She’d seen kids falling on the playground before they actually fell. Had witnessed a kid being beaten by his mama five miles away. She’d even read minds on occasion. One time when a boy had been thinking about bringing his papa’s rifle to school. That had been a good thing.

But other times she’d made the mistake of telling other kids about her visions, and their parents had snatched them away from her like she was a monster. The teacher had warned her she’d better keep quiet and stop causing trouble. The preacher had said she was possessed.

Others called her crazy.

Crazy was the only way she knew to be.

The bones in her knees creaked as she took a dip of snuff, tucked it in her lip, and worked it to one side. The rich tobacco taste melted with the juices in her mouth and sent a rush of nicotine through her, calming her agitation.

The brisk wind chilled the air, hinting at another winter storm, although it was high time spring came to these mountains and warmed up the earth. The old people in this place where she lived needed sunshine and flowers, not more snow and the icy sleet that slashed the roof of the nursing home like nails driving into tin.

Shivering, she wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and dropped into the porch swing outside to watch the vultures swarm a hill in the distance.

It might be cold, but she needed to breathe fresh air. This place smelled like medicine and shit. Like people dying.

She wasn’t ready for death.

She was here now, and she’d make the best of her time on earth. She glanced toward the hills, but the sharp peaks and ridges were a gray blur. Her eyesight was almost gone, had been failing for a long time.

It happened the day after she’d done the awful deed. Next morning, when she woke up, the world up and turned a murky gray on her.

God’s way of punishing her.

She saw the birds in her mind. The predators.

Each sound they made in the distance painted a clear picture of them soaring across the sky, their wings spread, then diving down to snatch up a bite of carrion.

The vultures always reminded her of
him
.
The monster man.

Oh, she never spoke his name. Had been scared to say it aloud for years.

Doing so might somehow conjure him up from the dead. Or arouse suspicions from the law, and they’d find her and lock her up for what she’d done.

She pressed one hand to her scarred cheek. He’d torn her face up bad when she’d tried to save the boy, then laughed at her as he licked her blood from his fingers.

He
was proof the devil lived in these hills.

One day she reckoned she’d be joining him in hell.

Shoot, she’d been living on borrowed time for a decade now. Soon she’d burn in that fiery pit below.

That’s what happened to people like her. People who didn’t turn the other cheek.

Her vision picked up a flash of light in the distance. Lightning. God’s way of reminding her he had the power. The thunder, his way of yelling his wrath.

Then the world became a fuzzy mixture of gray and nothingness again, and she was being swallowed by the storm.

Losing her sight made her hypersensitive to the sounds and smells around her. The wail of the wind. The snapping of limbs breaking off. The crunch of leaves as the animals scampered through the forest. The scent of crackling wood burning in a fire.

The gnashing of teeth as one animal feasted on another’s carcass.

The smell of death.

For a brief second, her vision cleared and she saw
him
. He stood in the shadows of a hemlock, his beady eyes watching her. Her heart began to hammer, and her arthritic hands shook. She pressed her fingers to her chest and fought a dizzy spell, certain her reckoning was near.

Slowly the image faded, and the world slipped into a black hole. She welcomed the dark.

His voice whispered her name as if it was floating from his grave.
“You’ll pay one day, Ellie. You’ll pay.”

Not a vision but a memory. Although sometimes she got the two confused, lost touch between reality and the images that came to her, showing her glimpses of the future. A future that held ugliness that she didn’t want to see.

Lord knew she’d tried penance, had gone to church every time the doors were open the past ten years, and made deals left and right for forgiveness. The deal with the devil she’d made before that would come back to haunt her in the end.

A sharp cry rent the air, and she pivoted to determine where it was coming from. Not outside.

Inside the nursing home. The same cry that had filled the hall so many times this week.

Pain-filled and gut-wrenching, like someone being ripped apart on the inside.

She felt that pain, too. She was an empath, her granny said. Sometimes that pain got to be too much.

Ellie gripped the arm of the swing and pushed off the ground with her feet. To distract herself from the woman’s anguish, she began to sing an old hymn, “I’ll Fly Away.” The nurses had told her to leave the woman in that room alone. That she didn’t like visitors.

Ellie couldn’t stand that haunted sound. The nurses were wrong. That lady didn’t want to be alone.

She wanted a friend.

More dark images assaulted Ellie. Memories or a vision of what was to come?

The birds flying at her.

Then another scream. A young woman crying. Blood spurting from her chest. Her eyes wide in shock. Her hand reaching out for help.

Ellie pressed a hand over her heart and fell back into the swing. Who was that young woman?

What did she have to do with the lady crying in her bed down the hall?

“Yes, Mona, I’m fine.” Josie wished she hadn’t phoned her sister. She didn’t want to upset Mona. But she’d been so shaken over finding that doll that she’d needed to hear her voice.

Because that doll meant that the killer had been inside the house. He knew where she lived.

How to get to her.

“Mom is really worried about you, sis,” Mona said. “I told her you were strong and could handle being back in Graveyard Falls. How did the press conference go?”

Mona’s confidence grounded Josie. Calmed her. “It was fine,” Josie said, although after that press conference, the close call in the street, and the doll, she’d considered running.

“Are you sure you’re all right? Because if it’s too upsetting to stay at your grandfather’s house, no one will blame you for leaving. You can stay with me and Cal.”

She jutted up her chin. “Thanks, but I’m not slinking away like a coward. I won’t allow what happened to change me.” Although it had changed her. Made her paranoid. Distrustful.

She was fighting that fear and paranoia with every ounce of her being.

She wanted to be whole again.

Her doorbell buzzed, and Josie hurried to the door. “Sorry, someone’s here. I have to go.”

“Who is it? Don’t open the door for just anyone.”

The trauma with Billy Linder had obviously made Mona paranoid as well. “Stop fretting. It’s not just anyone, it’s Agent Hamrick.”

Mona’s loud sigh echoed over the line. “God, Cal said he was working on a murder investigation in Graveyard Falls. I can’t believe it. I bet the people are frantic.”

“It is disturbing,” Josie admitted.

“Do you know something about it?” Mona asked.

She considered confiding everything to her sister, but that would only worry her.

She’d protect Mona and her baby with her life. That meant she needed to stay away from them for now. She wouldn’t call until she was ready to leave Graveyard Falls.

“He’s just starting the investigation. I may use it as my next project,” she said instead.

Tension thrummed between them. “Please be careful, sis. I just found you. I don’t want to lose you.”

Josie’s heart swelled with tenderness. “Don’t worry. I’m fine. I can’t wait to hold my nephew.”

She said good-bye, then hung up and unlocked the door. Anxiety bunched her shoulders into tight knots as Dane pushed through the door. His gaze skated over her with concern and a sliver of something that looked like anger.

He’d made it clear he didn’t want her involved, but the killer had involved her by sending that text.

“I left investigators processing the crime scene, and I want to see that doll, but first let’s talk about what happened on the street.” Dane lifted her hands and studied the scrapes from where she’d hit the pavement. “You sure you didn’t see who pushed you?”

She shook her head. “No, I wish I had. Maybe I imagined it. I was shaken up over that photograph.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Or maybe the bastard is toying with you.”

A shudder coursed through her. That was exactly what she was afraid of.

Dane gently touched her shoulder. “Dammit, Josie, you need to get out of town.”

The protectiveness in his tone made her want to lean into him for comfort.

She stood ramrod still instead. She had to stand on her own.

Dane was here to work a case. Nothing more.

The dead girl’s eyes haunted her. She didn’t intend to let him push her onto the sidelines.

She would get the story one way or another.

Dane clenched his jaw at the sight of the scrapes on Josie’s palms. The damn woman could have been killed today.

He had a bad feeling she wouldn’t run from trouble. She’d dive right in, just like she had when she’d decided to write the story about the Bride Killer.

Worse, his body hardened when he looked into Josie’s sparkling green eyes, and that pissed him off.

He didn’t have time for such nonsense.

An awkward moment stretched between them, and then she backed away and led him through the entryway to a den. The house was old and filled with outdated furniture and antiques. It also seemed dark and depressing, as if it had no life to it. There were no family pictures of the sheriff and his daughter, Anna, or of Josie.

After reading Josie’s book, he understood the reason.

Finding out Johnny was innocent had helped reunite Josie’s mother and Johnny, but it only widened the chasm between the family and Sheriff Buckley.

“Would you like some coffee or a drink?” Josie asked.

“No, thanks.” Dane didn’t intend to stay long. “Show me the doll.”

Josie pushed her tangled hair from her cheek and led the way to her bedroom.

Dane pulled on latex gloves. Anger seeped through him as he examined it. “He carved the doll’s face just like he did the woman’s.”

Josie swallowed. “That’s blood, isn’t it?”

“Yes. My guess is it belongs to our victim.” Dane was unable to keep the disgust from his voice.

Another heartbeat passed.

“It has to be a message of some kind,” she finally said.

Dane rubbed his chin. “The broken mirror, and the doll—you think he’s saying he killed the girl because she was like the doll. Not real?”

“That sounds feasible,” Josie said.

And very perceptive.

Dane gestured to the doll. “Get me a bag to put it in. Maybe he messed up and left a print. We might even be able to trace where he bought it.”

“That’s going to be hard. Those dolls are available in every store I can think of, and online.”

“True. We’ll still look into it.” He surveyed the room while Josie hurried to the kitchen and returned with a bag.

“How did he get inside the house?” Dane asked. “Was there a window open?”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. He imagined the sense of violation she must be feeling, and gripped the doll to keep from going to her.

“Josie?”

She startled as if she’d been lost in thought—or fear. “He could have come in the laundry room window. That lock is broken.”