Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) (36 page)

She nodded slowly. The guy was good. Really good. He opened the door, and she eased inside, careful not to jar herself by bumping into anything or moving too quickly. Everything hurt. Every muscle, every bone, every strand of DNA.

The room was dimly lit. The bodyguard left the door open and stood quietly to one side, watching her without making her feel like a criminal. Doing his job. She got closer to the bed so she could see Rachel’s face, and gasped. The girl was so pale, and her injuries made Erin feel like a weenie for complaining about a few bruises. There were deep scratches on her face that were going to scar. Both her eyes were swollen shut. Cuts streaked around her lips. Her arm was bandaged. One leg was set in a cast. She was intubated, and on a drip. The sight of all that equipment and all those machines keeping this girl alive made Erin’s heart break.

Tears welled up. She didn’t usually let herself get this involved with victims, but this was
Rachel,
and she’d held her hand through the aftermath of her ordeal and promised her things would get better.

She touched one delicate finger that appeared to be the only unharmed part of the girl’s body. “I’m so sorry I let you down. I’m so sorry you got hurt.” She’d tried so hard not to cry about her own accident, but seeing this young woman like this, who’d been through so much. It felt like someone put a fiery rock in her throat. Her eyes watered, and she couldn’t breathe properly. She swallowed tightly, looked back at Reilly standing near the door. “She’s scared of strange men.” The expression on his face tightened at the implications. “She might be scared of you when she first wakes up. It’s nothing personal.”

He blinked twice and raised his chin. “I’ll keep her safe, Detective. No need to worry. We’ll figure it out.”

She took a last look at Rachel and hobbled to the door, passing the bodyguard with a grateful smile. Rosemary Knight and her husband, Donald, were just walking down the corridor.

They both seemed surprised to see her.

“Detective, you look terrible.” Rosemary acknowledged. Her attitude was a lot chillier than it had been yesterday when she’d been crying in the back of Erin’s now deceased truck.

Erin was going to make a comment about having felt worse, but she realized she hadn’t.
This
was the worst she’d ever felt. Her lowest point. Even getting beaten by her ex didn’t compare to how she felt after being forced off the road and seeing Rachel lying there looking so broken.

“Do they know yet who did this to our daughter?” Donald asked. He stood behind his wife and held onto her shoulders. Maybe they’d found a way of getting past their differences. It was all about coping strategies, Erin knew. Hers had always been to isolate herself, figure things out, make a plan and then deal with it. Darsh called it running away. She called it thinking things through.

“Not yet, but—”

“It’s the same person who killed those girls on Monday isn’t it? It’s a miracle Rachel isn’t as dead as they are.”

Erin flinched. “We’re doing our best—”

Her cheek rang from the slap Rosemary landed on her. She reared back.
Dammit
. Erin rubbed her cheek, shaking her head at Reilly as he stepped in to intervene.

“Your
best
isn’t good enough. Your
best
got my baby in here on a ventilator,” Rosemary hissed.

“I am sorry about Rachel. Call me when she wakes up. You better get back to her.” Erin skirted past them, ignoring her stinging cheek and bruised pride. Anyone else and she’d have hauled them downtown, paperwork be damned. But with these people? Goddamn it, what did they want? Blood?

She forced back the tears that wanted to fall. No way. No way was she gonna cry when she still had to run the gauntlet of the press. She felt vulnerable, emotional. Falling for someone when she felt like this was not a good idea. She needed to rein in the feelings Darsh was pulling out of her. Now wasn’t the time to get involved in something that would probably lead to heartbreak.

She was a good cop, but she wasn’t a magician. This perp had so far outfoxed them, but that couldn’t last, and the guy must be starting to panic with Rachel still being alive. Maybe it
was
him who’d run her off the road yesterday, and not some football fan who hated her guts. Hopefully they were only the first of many mistakes, and it wouldn’t be long until he was cornered like the animal he was.

*     *     *

Darsh stared at
the timeline he’d taped to the wall. He forced worry for Erin out of his mind. She was a professional and needed space to do her job. She’d only gone to the hospital, which was probably safer than staying home alone.

“What am I missing? What the hell am I missing?”

Agent Chen ignored his grumblings. She’d just got back in the office and looked immaculately dressed and freshly showered. He wasn’t sure where she’d slept last night, but it wasn’t in here, and it wasn’t in an office chair. Mad Ninja skills.

He checked his email. There was a team meeting in five minutes. The good news was they got DNA from the hair on Mandy Wochikowski’s sweater. The bad news was there were no hits in CODIS.

His cell rang. “Agent Singh.”

“DOJ called. They want an update,” Jed Brennan said without preamble.

“Nothing definitive, but I’m leaning more and more toward the cases being related.”

“By the same UNSUB? You think Hawke is innocent?” Brennan asked with a hint of disbelief.

“Yeah, but don’t tell it to the DOJ just yet. I have no evidence.” This had been the DOJ’s fear when they requested the BAU’s assistance, but they’d still resist the idea that they’d helped send an innocent man to prison. Miscarriages of justice happened—look at Richard Stone, one of the FBI’s own agents, who’d been wrongly imprisoned for the last fourteen years. “The rapes last year and these murders seem to have been orchestrated by an individual or individuals with some serious smarts.” Darsh rubbed his brow. “I’m not sure there can be more than one genius level predator in a town this small.”

Brennan swore. “The shit is going to hit the fan if you’re right. I take it the local cops missed something?”

“That’s the thing.” He thought of how hard Erin worked on behalf of the victims and how diligent they’d been. “I don’t think they missed anything. I think they had more than enough for an indictment, and the jury had more than enough for a conviction. And I still don’t think he did it.”

“What about the witness statements?” asked Jed.

“We both know they’re notoriously unreliable. I think the drugs and alcohol were used to confuse the victims and distort reality. I’m guessing he wore a customized mask of Drew’s face that he ordered off the internet.”

“Those things freak me out. Now you can fool biometric security systems for under $300 plus shipping.
Mission Impossible
has got a lot to answer for.”

Darsh rubbed the knot of muscle tying up his neck. “He wore the mask when he raped women who were either shitfaced or high, and absolutely terrified. He was imprinting Hawke on them during a period of great stress.”

“So the witnesses thought they were telling the truth.”

“They
were
telling the truth as they understood it.” Darsh didn’t like being taken for a fool. “Hawke believes he was set up, and I think he might be right. It’s this UNSUB’s thing. He likes twisting the evidence, knowing exactly how the justice system will react.” The bastard wasn’t infallible though. He’d already make a crucial error with Rachel Knight. “I meant to call you last night. Someone tried to kill the first victim yesterday.”

“You think it’s the same guy?”

“Seems a stretch to think it was anyone else.”

“Why did he try to kill her? Does he get off on torturing people, or does she know something?”

Darsh flashed back to his conversation with Rachel the other day. Had she told other people what she’d told him and Erin—that she’d started to remember things from her attack? “Probably both.”

He looked out the window. There were press and demonstrators milling around in the parking lot and out front. So far no one had leaked the fact a rope had been tied around Rachel’s mouth like a bridle bit. The exact same type of rope that had bound Cassie Bressinger to the bed during her murder.

“The Knight girl hasn’t woken up yet and won’t for a few days at least. It’s a miracle she survived.” Frankly if it weren’t for what she might know, the doctors said they’d let her sleep for weeks in an effort to let her body heal. Darsh had insisted it was urgent they talk to her as soon as possible. They’d told him there was the very real possibility of brain damage from the car accident. That was the only reason he wasn’t trying to make them wake her up now. He wasn’t big on prayer, but he was praying Rachel Knight woke up with the name of her attacker on her lips.

Jed was talking… “I’m going to request field agents be brought in. The New York Field Office has a team—”

“Not yet,” said Darsh. He wasn’t ready to let this go yet, and he didn’t even want to think about leaving Erin in the middle of the fallout this shit storm was bound to bring.

“I need you back here.” The irony of Brennan asking him to drop the case was not lost on either of them. Jed had a reputation for becoming too emotionally involved in his work. “I’ve only got Henderson, Barton, and Walker fully operational. We’re swamped. Tate is helping us out, as is Rooney, who’s working from home even though she’s not supposed to be working at all. Lazlo reports back on Monday.”

Matt Lazlo was a former Navy SEAL whose boat and home had been destroyed on Christmas Eve. Matt and his pretty girlfriend had barely escaped with their lives. Rumor was the Russians had been trying to eliminate Scarlett Stone before she could prove her father’s innocence. Naturally, they’d denied any involvement.

“Lazlo found somewhere to live yet?” asked Darsh, stalling for time.

“He’s working on it. We need you back here, D,” Brennan told him.

Darsh pulled at the shirt collar that suddenly felt too tight. “Look, Chen only just arrived. We’re actually getting somewhere. This town is a powder keg. Some guy was beaten up yesterday when he entered the wrong dorm room, and the cop in charge of the investigation was forced off the road and almost died.” He closed his eyes, and the horror of seeing her mangled truck infused him with fresh determination. “Give us another seventy-two hours—”

“Twenty-four, and then I need you back. The locals can deal with it.”

“Forty-eight, and I
promise
I’ll bring this thing to a close.” He locked gazes with Chen who grimaced.

Jed laughed on the other end of the line. “I’m glad this gig is a temporary assignment. I’d rather deal with bad guys than stubborn agents any day. Keep me informed. I need to call the DOJ by the end of the day.” He hung up.

Erin knocked on the door and came into the room. Ully Mason followed, as did Harry Compton and the chief. They shut the door and sat down at the table facing the white board.

Erin looked exhausted, and her mouth was strained.

“The Knight girl still with us?”

Erin’s lips pinched into a thin smile. “Yeah.”

“She’s in rough shape, though,” Ully added. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for her to wake up.”

Darsh willed Erin to look at him, but she was avoiding his gaze just like she had yesterday morning. Despite the fact he didn’t think she should be at work today, he’d thought they’d been okay. She’d woken up in his arms, and it was the best thing he could remember happening in a long time.

Maybe she was pissed because she’d been replaced as lead investigator by Harry, mainly because she’d almost died yesterday. He knew it rankled, but it was an understandable decision. She hadn’t been taken off the case, although he could tell the chief was tempted.

“Where are we in finding the vehicle that forced Detective Donovan’s truck off the road yesterday?” the chief asked out of nowhere.

Harry answered. “Techs pulled black paint from the panel of Erin’s truck. We’re sending it to the lab, but from what Erin said, it was a large black SUV. We’ve put out calls to all body shops in a thirty-mile radius to contact us if they come across a vehicle matching that description with damage to the front passenger side.”

The chief nodded. His eyes were narrowed and face pinched. He was chewing gum like it was a race.

“You’ve all met Agent Chen?” Darsh introduced Ashley and noticed Ully checking her out. Considering Darsh was sleeping with a fellow member of the team, he couldn’t exactly judge him. Damn. That was a first.

“So I’ve been going over the timeline, and Agent Chen is conducting background checks on numerous people with law enforcement or criminology training, as well as anyone connected to the football team or the families of the victims,” he began. They went over the case in detail like they had numerous times.

“What I still don’t get,” Erin said after twenty minutes rehashing details. “Is how the perp knew Rachel Knight was alone in her room the night of her rape? And the other thing that bothers me is how did he get into Cassie and Mandy’s home without forcing the locks?”

“I think he has a key.” Harry’s eyes gleamed. “I think our guy gets close enough to the victims to steal their keys or keycards and make copies before he attacks.”

Erin nodded. “Still doesn’t explain how he knew Rachel was alone when every other night, Jenny was there with her.”

“Rachel said her roommate was going to a party,” Darsh recalled. The same way Cassie and Mandy’s roommate had been going to a party. “Is it possible the attacker knew the other girl, or was at that party? Maybe he knew she shared a dorm with Rachel and went after her when he knew she’d be alone?”

The spark in Erin’s eyes flashed to life. “I interviewed Jenny. Her and her boyfriend weren’t at the party for long that night. Planned the whole first time thing with a lot more care than most college romances.”

“Could the UNSUB be a friend of the boyfriend?” Agent Chen suggested. “Guys talk about sex, too, right?” Her brow questioned them all.

Ully smirked. Darsh gave him a quelling look.

“We trash-talk each other about sex, but we don’t
talk
about sex,” Darsh argued. “But if they knew he was a virgin?” He frowned. “Yeah, he’d probably have mentioned the big night to someone.”