Bucking Bronc Lodge 04 - Cowboy Cop (7 page)

His voice cracked. “And the worst part is that I let him. It’s my fault she’s dead.”

* * *

A
N ACHE SETTLED IN
J
ORDAN’S
chest at the anguish in Miles’s voice, and she couldn’t resist comforting him. She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Miles, it wasn’t your fault.”

His dark tormented eyes flashed angrily at her. “Yes, it was. If I’d gone to her house that night and taken Timmy home the next morning like she’d asked, I would have been there, then Dugan couldn’t have gotten to Marie...” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And Timmy would be safe now, and he’d have his mother with him.”

Jordan sighed softly. “Hindsight is easy, but it doesn’t help. We can’t change the past, Miles, all we can do is work through the grief and move on.”

Miles jerked his arm away from her. “Move on? There’s no way to do that until Marie’s killer is caught. And Timmy is the key to locking him up.”

The poor little guy. Did he feel that pressure from his father?

“I know you’re counting on that,” Jordan said slowly, “but it’s going to take time for Timmy to overcome the trauma. And you can’t pressure him into feeling like he’s responsible for catching his mother’s killer.”

Miles stiffened. “I’m not doing that.”

Jordan reached out to console him again. “I...didn’t mean to imply that you were. It’s just that kids are sensitive and pick up on things.”

“Message received,” Miles bit out. “Now why don’t you go back to your cabin.”

Jordan snatched her hand back, irritated that she’d extended herself when Miles didn’t want her comfort.

Miles’s phone trilled, and he snatched it up. “I have to take this.”

Jordan nodded but waited, determined they end on a positive note.

“McGregor here,” Miles said into the phone. “Yeah? Dammit...” A long labored pause. “All right. Send me whatever you find.” He ended the call with a snap of the phone, then punched another button and cursed again.

“What’s wrong?” Jordan asked.

“Lawmen found the body of the woman who gave Dugan an alibi for the night Marie was killed.” Miles flipped the screen toward her.

Jordan’s stomach clenched. The woman was naked, her throat slashed viciously, a river of blood surrounding her. She gasped.

“That’s exactly the way he left Timmy’s mother.”

Then a noise sounded in the woods, and she jerked her head to the side. This man, Dugan, was a monster.

What if Miles was right and he came after Timmy?

* * *

H
E STOOD IN THE SHADOWS
of the woods, watching as McGregor and the woman talked in hushed voices on the porch. The kid was inside. Tucked into bed.

Safe for now.

But not for long.

The woman, Jordan, he called her, laid a hand on McGregor’s arm, her expression worried. Her voice soft. Tender. Her eyes...almost caressing.

Hmm...interesting.

McGregor’s whore wasn’t even cold in the grave yet, and he was already working on another. Or maybe she was working on him.

He sensed the heat between the two of them. Just like animals that couldn’t stop following their natural instincts.

She was just another slut who would use her body to get what she wanted.

His sex stirred. Hell, how could he blame McGregor? His own body hummed with arousal.

She was pretty in a simple kind of way, not dark and exotic like Marie or the others, but her hair looked silky and her throat...pale and begging to be touched.

He ran his fingers over his thigh, up and down, up and down, his fingers itching to tame that wild hair and wind it around his hand. To tilt her head back and place his mouth on that delicate skin.

To sink his teeth into her flesh for a taste.

To watch the first spurt of blood as he pierced her throat. To smell the metallic odor as it flowed from her body and drained the life from her.

Soon...soon he would have her.

And the kid...he’d take care of him, too. That wouldn’t be easy. But he would make it fast. He would get no pleasure from taking the boy’s life, but the job had to be done.

Then all his loose ends would be tied up.

All except for killing McGregor.

But that would have to wait. McGregor liked the hunt. The game.

He wasn’t ready to give it up either....

Chapter Five

Jordan couldn’t shake the haunted look in Miles’s eyes as she walked back to her cabin.

Dried twigs crunched beneath her boots, the wind swirling dust around her ankles. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of night creatures livened the air, but the hiss of cold from the images bombarding her made her shiver with the thought of death.

After seeing that picture of the murdered woman, the one who’d helped Dugan, she understood the depth of Miles’s anguish. She didn’t know the woman, yet she felt a sad ache for her and her family, and a fury toward the monster who’d butchered her.

Miles had seen Marie lying in a bloodbath like that.

And so had Timmy...

“But why would Dugan kill the woman who gave him an alibi?” Jordan asked, unable to decipher his motive.

Dugan shrugged. “Because he was done with her.”

If he truly was a sociopath, that made sense. “Or maybe she realized what she’d done and decided to come forward.”

“That’s possible, too.”

A limb cracked on a nearby tree, and she jerked her head toward the woods. A shadow moved...or had she imagined it?

She paused, searching the area, but suddenly everything went still. The leaves didn’t move, the wind quieted, even the air seemed to freeze as if waiting for danger to strike.

Miles’s warning about Timmy taunted her. She had to stay alert.

Deciding she’d imagined the noise, that it was probably an animal foraging for food, she shook off her nerves and hurried back toward her cabin. But each step she took, she sensed someone behind her. Someone watching her.

Something that felt sinister and dark hovering above her as if she had now garnered a stalker.

Clouds shrouded the stars tonight, yet the distant lights of the campfire burning low as the boys settled down for the night reminded her that the ranch was safe. Brody had security. Miles was armed and guarding Timmy.

And she was far away from the gang who had stolen her brother’s life.

She was safe tonight as well.

The porch light she’d left on broke the darkness, and she ordered herself to relax. Miles had the sheriff, and deputies were hunting Dugan and his accomplice. All she needed to do was to focus on Timmy and his recovery.

She dug in her pocket for her keys, climbed the porch and let herself inside. But the moment she stepped through the door, she sensed something was amiss.

Instantly, she scanned the den and adjoining kitchen. The books she’d brought to read, the files on the gang, her computer, everything was exactly where she’d left them.

She crossed to her bedroom, and sighed with relief when she didn’t see anyone inside. Just her clothing, which was all in place. Even the pillows were stacked on the bed the way she’d arranged them.

Her experience with the B-2-8s’ intimidation tactics had taught her to pay attention to details.

They had vandalized her apartment, scrawled graffiti on the side of her car, all warning signs that she had been targeted for testifying against them, the police suggested.

That was only one of the reasons she’d come to the BBL. But her main focus was not to escape, it was to help other lost kids.

She had to do that or it meant Richie had died for nothing.

Another twig snapped, the sound of footsteps maybe? She craned her neck to look out the window and peered through the darkness, but a dozen different night shadows moved. Horses galloping in the distance, cows grazing, the wind picking up steam and hurling tumbleweeds across the dirt paths.

The ranch housed dozens of employees and far more campers, yet it seemed deserted and spooky tonight.

Then an image of her little brother’s face appeared.

She closed her eyes, shook her head and shut the curtain. God help her, she was losing it, becoming paranoid.

She had to get a grip.

Hoping to calm herself, she poured a glass of wine and carried it outside to the porch. She’d keep vigil for a while, chase the ghosts away.

One sip and she tried to relax. She hugged her jacket around her and let the good memories of her childhood back into her soul. The times she and Richie played soccer together. The zoo trip when he was Timmy’s age and he’d made monkey noises the entire ride home. The way he’d crawled into her bed when he’d had a nightmare.

She’d promised to always keep the monsters at bay.

But she’d failed.

She glanced through the window at the ranch land. She wouldn’t fail this time.

The kids would be up tomorrow filling the ranch with their chatter and laughter, the ranch bursting with life.

An hour of studying the landscape told her she had imagined all the shadows and turned them into monsters. Finally the wine lulled her and she yawned, went inside, locked up and crawled into bed.

But sometime later during the night, she stirred. The whisper of someone’s breath bathed her cheek. The husky sound of a murmured voice.

The coarse touch of a man’s hand against her cheek.

She jerked awake, gasping for a breath, searching the room. Someone had been standing over her.

The curtain was flapping against the wall, the window open, the scent of sweat lingering behind.

* * *

M
ILES STUDIED THE PICTURE
of the latest dead woman, Renee Balwinger, his heart hammering. She fit the profile of the others Dugan had murdered.

Attractive, dark hair, brown eyes, lived alone...

He strode into the cabin, spread out the files of the first four victims he’d brought with him and began to study them, searching for some connection they might have missed.

The first four women:

Sandra Broderick—thirty-four, married once, divorced two years ago, worked as a waitress at a saloon in Santa Fe.

Gwen Peterson—thirty-two, separated from her husband, hostess at a steak house in Corpus Christi.

Eileen Gates—thirty, divorced, managed a motel outside Dallas.

Ruth Norman—thirty-four, engaged, worked at a rental car place at the airport.

Once again, he considered why Dugan had targeted them. At first glance, he and the sheriff assumed the victims were random. They lived in different areas, didn’t know one another, did not frequent the same malls, stores or gyms. Their computers hadn’t turned up anything either—they weren’t friends on Facebook, no business or prior school connection. None of them belonged to a singles group or dating service online either. Even their Twitter accounts, which only two of them had, did not cross.

Dugan had to have met them the old-fashioned way—randomly at their jobs. Which meant something about that first meeting had triggered his interest. Then he’d focused his obsession on them.

Miles took another moment to scan the notes he and Blackpaw had taken on each woman. Of course they’d first looked at ex-spouses, boyfriends, lovers, and although there definitely had been some animosity between Sandra and Eileen and their exes, both due to alleged affairs the women had had, both men had alibis. Gwen’s husband had insisted that he had asked for the separation because he’d found a younger woman, but one of Gwen’s friends had implied that Gwen had hooked up with another man the day after the separation.

He flipped to the page detailing the FBI profiler’s statement. According to their specialist, the killer was narcissistic, had an inflated ego, was charming, handsome and could easily persuade a woman into going with him.

Which fit Dugan to the T.

Most serial killers took a trophy from their victim, creating their own signature. The Slasher had done so by not only cutting the women’s throats, but he had taken their wedding and engagement rings.

That in itself implied that infidelity was part of the pattern the killer used in choosing his victims.

Although Ruth was engaged, so far they had uncovered no affair. Of course, Dugan could have perceived her friendliness as flirtation and read her wrong.

Either that, or the fiancé was in the dark.

He massaged the base of his neck where tension knotted his shoulders and shot down his spine as he read further.

None of the friends or family of any of the victims had recognized Dugan or admitted to seeing him with the four victims, and Dugan’s name hadn’t appeared on a rental car agreement or motel registry. Which didn’t mean he hadn’t used the services, only that he’d been smart enough to pay cash or use a different name. He had paid for dinner at the steak house where Gwen worked, but buying dinner didn’t constitute a crime.

Frustrated, he pulled the file on the fifth victim, the woman who had died while Dugan was in prison.

June Kelly. The same physical characteristics—dark hair, brown eyes.

June apparently lived with her boyfriend, Wally Carlton, who was in the marines and currently deployed. She’d been a single mom, the only victim with children so far—well, other than Marie—and worked at a coffee shop outside of Austin.

According to friends, she had been faithful to her husband while he was overseas, but one of her husband’s friends who had recently returned from Iraq had been spending a lot of time with her and her little girl.

Maybe they had passed the friendly stage to something more?

Dugan had certainly traveled around. He probably thought choosing victims from different counties would slow the lawmen down from connecting the crimes, but computers made communication between departments easy.

Still, Dugan hadn’t physically murdered June. Someone else had.

Because they’d been impressed with Dugan’s work and wanted to win his approval? Because they were working together? Or because he wanted the same glory and fame the press had dolled onto the Slasher?

If the men were partners, the murders could have been a game. They might have even taken turns committing the crimes, establishing alibis for some to throw off the cops, then showing off their kills to one another.