He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not (15 page)

Panic churned in Amanda’s stomach but she fought it down.

“No,” she said, wincing at how loud her voice sounded. “I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her voice.

“Something wrong?”

Yes.
Black Lake was where the killer had taken her and Dana, right off Mill Cove Road. Was Logan looking for clues? Was he in the same cabin she’d been in four years ago? The soda can pinged because she was squeezing it so hard. She forced herself to relax her fingers.

“Amanda, what’s going—”

“I’m fine.” Amanda shoved the can back and stood. If there was any chance she knew something, going back to Black Lake was probably her best shot to remember whatever it was she might have forgotten.

Karen obviously didn’t know about her background, at least not enough to realize the significance of where Logan was. Good, that would work in Amanda’s favor. Because otherwise, there was no way Karen would agree to do what Amanda was about to ask her to do.

Calling Logan now wasn’t an option either. Even though he wanted her to talk about her past, he wouldn’t want her to go to Black Lake, to revisit the cabin where the torture had taken place, where the old Amanda had died and the new one was still struggling to figure out who she was.

She took a deep breath and forced a smile onto her face. “Karen, I need a favor.”

“W
e’re done here.” Logan glanced around the interior of the cabin. He’d hoped that coming to Black Lake, walking off the crime scene, would give him a new perspective, new insight into what the murderer had thought when he’d brought Dana and Amanda here. But the crime scene was too old. The cabin was dry-rotting. The metal bed Dana had died upon had been hauled away long ago along with anything else that might have helped set the scene.

“It was worth a look,” Pierce said. “Even this many years later, we could have found something that was missed the first time around. But you know that already. As many courses as you’ve taken at Quantico, you probably know more than me. What did you do, spend every vacation for the past ten years training at the FBI academy?”

Logan narrowed his eyes at him. “Did you run a background check on me?”

“Let’s just say I was curious to know why the guy who solved the Metzger case would settle for a chief of police job in a little backwater town like Shadow Falls.”

“Watch the insults. This is my hometown.”

Pierce held up his hands in a placating gesture. “No insult intended. Hell, I grew up in Savannah, only moved to Jacksonville a few years ago. Trust me when I say both those places, in spite of their size, have a lot of similarities to this little town. But both of them have enormous opportunities for a career in law enforcement. Shadow Falls doesn’t. So tell me. Why did you come back? And don’t tell me it’s because of that rookie mistake you mentioned the other day.”

“I didn’t lie when I said that’s why I came back.”

Pierce leaned back against the lone window and crossed his arms. “That’s one reason. Not the only reason. What happened in New York? Why’d you leave?”

“Is this going somewhere? Because I have a hell of a lot of work to do if this doesn’t have something to do with the case.”

“Was it a woman?”

Logan strode across the cabin and stopped a few feet in front of Pierce. His fists clenched at his side. “You got something to say, Buchanan, say it. Quit pussyfooting around.”

“All right.” Pierce shoved away from the window sill. “I know you left New York right after your divorce.”

“So much for respecting my privacy,” Logan sneered.

“I’ve seen friends go through that rebound stage, fixating on the first pretty woman that passes their way.”

“I care about this why?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at Amanda Stockton. I want to be sure that you can keep it professional with her staying at your house. Too much is riding on this investigation to let anything personal get in the way of your thinking.”

Logan hadn’t been this tempted to slug anyone in years. The only reason he hadn’t hit Pierce yet was because he knew Pierce was only being an ass because he wanted to catch the killer just as badly as he did.

“What I feel for Amanda is none of your concern. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize this case. All I care about right now is finding the bastard who killed Carolyn O’Donnell.” Logan shoved Pierce.

Pierce shoved him back.

“Um, excuse me, boss?”

Logan and Pierce both whirled around at the sound of Karen Bingham’s voice in the open doorway. Logan let out a string of curses when he saw who was behind her.

Amanda.

I
t took every ounce of courage Amanda had to stand her ground as Logan strode across the cabin toward her, his face as dark as a thundercloud. Her own face felt as hot as the summer sun beating down on her back. She hadn’t heard much, but what she did hear when Karen opened the cabin door was enough for her to realize that Pierce thought Logan was interested in her.

And Logan hadn’t exactly said he wasn’t.

“Amanda, you shouldn’t be here.” Logan grabbed her arm and started out the doorway.

She yanked her arm away from him, gasping when it felt like she’d left half her skin behind. She rubbed her arm and stepped inside the cabin. “Karen didn’t drive me all the way out here for you to send us right back home. I came here for a reason.”

Logan’s eyes filled with regret. He stopped in front of her and gently reached out, his fingers brushing across her arm, soothing away the burn. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.” She pushed his hand away and took a step back to put some much needed distance between them. “The murder last night, was it . . . the same man who came after me?”

He shook his head. “No. That woman’s husband killed her. He staged the scene to make it look like our serial killer, but it wasn’t.” He glanced aside at Karen who stood next to Pierce closely watching them. “This could have waited. You shouldn’t have left the house.”

“Don’t blame Karen. I tricked her.”

“Tricked me?” Karen said, sounding surprised. “How?”

Pierce leaned back against the windowsill. “She didn’t tell you this is where she and Dana Branson were taken when they were abducted.”

Karen’s shocked gasp sounded loud in the tiny cabin. “Boss, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come out here if I’d known. Come on, Amanda. Let’s go.”

Amanda evaded Karen’s hand. “No, stop it, all of you. Quit trying to push me around and decide what’s best for me. I’m sick of being coddled and pitied. I’m sick of being treated like a victim. I don’t want to leave. You can’t make me.” She stomped her foot in frustration.

Pierce coughed into his hand. Karen’s eyebrows were climbing into her hairline. Logan’s mouth twitched. Amanda suddenly realized how silly she’d sounded, yelling “you can’t make me” and stomping her foot like a child. Her face flushed with heat and she glared at Logan, daring him to laugh.

He cleared his throat, twice. “Okay. Now that we’ve got that settled. Besides asking about the copycat killing last night, why else are you here?”

The walls of the cabin suddenly felt like they were closing in on her. She wrapped her arms around her middle and took a good look around the cabin for the first time since she’d been here with Dana. She swallowed against the sudden lump in her throat. “Last night, when you said there was another murder, I was so scared. I thought another woman had been killed, that it was my fault, because I couldn’t tell you about what happened.”

“What that maniac does or doesn’t do isn’t your fault,” Logan said, his voice hard.

“I understand that, I do, but I still feel guilty.” She shrugged. “I know it doesn’t make any sense.”

His eyes darkened. “It makes more sense than you know. Are you sure you want to do this? Maybe you should wait—”

“No. I’m ready.” She leaned in close. “Can Pierce and Karen wait outside? If I start talking about . . . what happened . . . I don’t want them to hear—”

“You don’t have to explain. Give me a minute.” He crossed the room and spoke low to Karen and Pierce. They both left, but a moment later Pierce stepped back inside with two folding chairs, the kind people threw in their trunks for quick trips to the beach. He handed them to Logan, nodded at Amanda, then stepped back out and closed the door.

Logan set the chairs up in the center of the room then motioned for Amanda to take a seat. He sat down across from her, so close their knees were touching. He didn’t pull away, so she didn’t either.

“How do we do this?” she asked, her stomach already clenching with dread. “I’m not sure how to start.”

He studied her, clearly worried. “Let’s start with how you met Dana.”

“Didn’t I tell you that at the station the other day?”

“Humor me.”

She shrugged. If he wanted to start by going over what they’d already discussed, she could do that. “When my parents died, I had to sell the house to settle their debts and finish paying for Heather’s education. She was in Knoxville, going to the University of Tennessee, and her only income was from my parents. I auctioned off the house and everything in it. It was just enough to pay tuition and most of her expenses. She still had to get a part-time job but she made it through, earned her degree.”

“You gave everything to her, saved nothing for yourself?”

“Don’t make me out to be a Good Samaritan, Logan. I’m not.”
Far from it
. “I had already graduated and had a job. It was the logical decision. But it was still early in my career and I didn’t have much money. Mom and Dad had still been helping me here and there. With them gone I needed a little extra cash, so I looked in the paper for a roommate.”

“Dana put an ad in the paper.”

“Yes. She was going to the local technical college and needed someone to help with expenses, so I rented a room from her.”

“Apartment, right?”

She nodded. “Her last roommate skipped on the rent. Dana was getting desperate.”

“Didn’t she have family?”

“Her mom and dad. But Dana made a lot of poor choices, burned her bridges. Her parents were trying tough love, trying to wake her up and get her to stand on her own feet. They were devastated when she was killed, blamed themselves for not helping her more.”

He asked about her routine with Dana. After answering several questions, she said, “I don’t know why he targeted us, why he chose us.”

“Figuring that out is my job. You’re doing fine.” He leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees. “I want to talk about the abduction now.”

She took a deep breath. “Let’s get it over with.”

“Tell me about the morning you were abducted.”

“It was Wednesday. I know that because that’s the only day Dana didn’t have classes. I worked from home, even back then, so my schedule was flexible. Dana wanted to go shopping, so I said I’d go along.”

“How did you get to the mall?”

“Dana’s car. She drove.”

“I know it’s been a long time, but can you remember if anyone followed you?”

“There wasn’t much traffic. I don’t remember any other cars.”

“Had anyone called you that morning? Or in the weeks before that? Threatening calls? Hang up calls?”

“Not that I know of.” She shrugged. “If they called Dana, she never said anything.”

“Go on.”

“We parked.” Her hands shook and she swallowed hard. “We parked near the end of the mall parking lot, near the trees and dumpsters. She had vinyl seats that got really hot, so she liked to park in the shade and crack the windows. Anyway, we went into the mall.”

“Can you remember anyone watching you, following you? Maybe you saw the same person in more than one store.”

She frowned and mentally traced their trip through the mall, surprised at how easily the details came back, easier than at the station the other day. “No, nothing like that. Everything seemed fine, a perfectly normal day. We bought a few things, stupid stuff—body lotion, a bracelet. Dana bought a pair of yellow polka-dot socks. I bought a pink tank top. We walked out of the mall and I was going to call my sister. That’s when I realized my cell phone wasn’t in my purse. I remembered using it at the last store we were in, so Dana told me she’d get the car and pick me up. I walked back inside to look for my phone.”