All the Pretty Faces (22 page)

The scream woke Ellie from her nap. For a moment the monsters that haunted her in her sleep were so vivid she forgot she was blind. Monsters with grotesque faces and blood dripping down their fangs. Monsters that were half bird, half human just like the man had been.

A loud cry pierced her ears. This one was real and came from down the hall. Some man shouting they were trying to poison him in this place. Another cry from a lady who’d lost her mind and insisted that she was a princess and deserved to be in a mansion. Poor girl was definitely not living in reality. Though maybe she was better off than where she’d been before she was put here.

Then the other woman, Paula—the one she’d connected to—had met monsters just like Ellie. She’d lost her daughter to one.

Ellie blinked back tears. She’d known monsters in her life. Had barely escaped one. Had tried to save the boy from him.

Not a day passed that she didn’t wonder what had happened to that kid. If he’d turned his life around or if he’d become like his father.

Yesterday the nurses had been talking about the murders in Graveyard Falls. The killer marked his victims with talon marks.

He’d left a Mitzi doll with his victims. The Mitzi doll . . .

She’d found a doll in
the boy’s
things one day when he was out. He’d hidden it in that duffel bag that he always kept with him, the one he’d brought from home. Inside, she’d discovered feathers from a red-tailed hawk, a picture of the cages where his father kept the birds, and the bones he collected.

Those tiny, hollow bird bones. He’d carefully shaped them into collages that he hung on his walls. He called those grotesque renditions of animal skeletons his treasures.

They reminded him of his kills. That he had control and power over something.

She’d told him it wasn’t right to exert one’s strength over those things smaller than you. He hadn’t listened.

One cold, dark night she’d walked in on him. He was holding that doll in his hand. For a moment, he’d caressed and kissed its lips like it was a real person.

A second later, he’d picked up a carving tool and butchered its face. His hideous laugh as he mutilated the plastic had sent terror through her. It was the first time she’d been frightened of him.

Afraid he was turning into his old man. Afraid he might someday turn that rage onto a real person.

When she’d asked him what he was doing, he’d lashed out, grabbed the doll, and run.

He’d never come back.

Only now she saw those dolls in her dreams, their faces ripped apart by a sharp blade, their perfect pretty faces destroyed.

Another scream echoed in her head, and a young woman’s face materialized. A brunette. In her early twenties.

Ellie had no idea who she was.

“Please don’t kill me,” she cried. “Please.”

The shiny glint of the blade pierced the young woman’s cheek, and blood trickled down her face.

Ellie clenched her clammy hands together, praying with all her might that the images would disappear. That what she was seeing in her mind wasn’t real.

She didn’t want to watch these innocent women die. Didn’t want to hear their screams of sorrow and fear.

Didn’t want to remember the fear and guilt that had choked her years ago when another young girl had lost her life.

Or the terror that seized her when she’d realized that if she hadn’t been trying so hard to save the boy, the girl would still be alive.

He settled his fingers onto the keyboard. The words flowed freely onto the screen. Another blog.

All the pretty faces lined in a row.

One stab, two stabs, then the pretty goes . . .

Just like the women here in Graveyard Falls.

Except for Josie DuKane.

She was pretty all right. Not perfect. But she didn’t seem to care. That made her even more special.

A scalpel to the dolls’ faces took care of those smiles, though. One stab. Two. Another.

The plastic fell away, brittle and cracking. First the eyes, then the nose, then that mouth that could give a man such great pleasure.

And destroy him with vile words.

Empty holes behind the exterior, a hollowness inside just like the insides of the girls, so like the hollow bones that he liked to pick from the birds and add to this collection. Girls who valued their looks so much that they would pay to go under the knife.

One by one the scalpel ripped apart the damned perfect faces until the dolls lay scattered across the floor.

A deep hunger for revenge gnawed at him. It wasn’t enough.

More had to die.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Dane mulled over the blogs he’d read as Josie continued to skim them. Abuse in children triggered psychotic breaks, schizophrenia, violent outbursts, and rage.

Grimley certainly had suffered. Those blogs were enough to justify a psychiatric evaluation of the man.

Although he still wanted some concrete evidence to take to a judge.

“Peyton’s right. This blog is really disturbing,” Josie said. “It’s about the Mitzi dolls and a boy who collects bones. He describes jabbing the scalpel into her cheek.”

A mental image of the women’s mauled cheeks with the bones missing flashed in Dane’s head. “Morbid, but just like our killer.” The pieces fit. Grimley collected animal bones from his kills and could have escalated to collecting human bones.

“I’m going to try to reach Neesie again,” Josie said. “I don’t like the fact that she hasn’t returned my call.”

Her concern triggered Dane’s. What if Neesie was in trouble?

Dane pressed the accelerator, his anxiety mounting as he veered off the main highway toward Graveyard Falls. He wished to hell he had enough evidence to bring Grimley in.

If the men were partners, Easton could be kidnapping the girls. Then they’d meet up and either he or Grimley or both of them killed the victims.

Josie blew her hair from her face as she left another voice mail. “Drop me at the community center. I have to find Neesie.”

If the killer already had her, it might be too late. Dane steered the vehicle to the right and pulled into a parking spot.

He had another email from Peyton. “Let me check this and I’ll walk you inside.”

Josie reached for the door. “Take your time, Dane. I’ll go ahead.”

Dane touched her arm before she climbed from the vehicle. “Be careful, Josie. Stay away from Easton and that McCray man.”

“Don’t worry,” Josie said. “I learned my lesson with Linder. I’ll keep up my guard.”

He hated that that lunatic had stolen her innocence. Although at least now she was cautious and wouldn’t be fooled into trusting a killer.

Josie rushed inside the center, anxious to find Neesie. The last days of auditions were underway, and the crowd was thinning out, the actors who hadn’t received callbacks heading out of town.

Olive stood at the board posting another round of selections. Josie hurried toward her.

“I’ve been wondering where you were.” Olive consulted her notepad. “I’m down to three different candidates for Billy Linder. McCray fits the part better than the other two, but he still makes me uneasy.”

“Me, too.” Josie sighed. “Olive, have you seen Neesie Netherington?”

Olive’s brow furrowed. “No. I left a message for her to meet me for a second audition, but she didn’t show.”

A sick feeling climbed into the pit of Josie’s stomach. That didn’t sound like Neesie. Something bad must have happened to have kept her away.

Dane studied the police report on the murder of Easton’s former girlfriend, the coed at the photography school. Her name was Sherry Bagley. She was twenty-one, from Kentucky, and had come to California in hopes of pursuing her dream of acting.

She and Easton had dated for nine months. According to interviews of her friends, Sherry liked Eddie, but after a while, she said he was creepy, that he wanted to take pictures of her in odd places. He’d wanted her to pretend she was acting out a scene in a movie and let him photograph her.

More than one scene depicted murder.

When Sherry broke it off with Easton, he’d tried to win her back, but his constant attention bordered on stalking.

One night at a frat party, Sherry disappeared. Her girlfriend claimed that he came to see Sherry, but that she blew him off.

Eddie told police that he’d stayed at the party that night until midnight, that he’d had too much to drink and passed out in one of the upstairs bedrooms, but no one could verify his story.

Police questioned Eddie’s father about his childhood history, but his father praised Eddie for his artistic ability. According to Mr. Easton, Eddie was slightly antisocial as a child, but “artists often were.” He’d expected Eddie to follow in his footsteps and become a sculptor, and Eddie did carve wood figurines, including faces and raptors. When his father saw the photographs Eddie took of the birds, he agreed Eddie had a talent for photography.

Police questioned his father about the coed’s death, and he insisted that Eddie wouldn’t hurt a fly. That was the reason he’d volunteered at the nature preserve—he wanted to save injured creatures.

Of course, most fathers would defend their sons. If Eddie was a psychopath, he could easily fool someone with an act.

Had he escalated from carving wooden figurines to women’s faces?

Dane skimmed the names of the students questioned at the party, his pulse quickening when he found Silas Grimley’s name listed.

Grimley had only been fourteen at the time. Why was he at that party?

The man’s reaction to his last name had been odd—had he recognized the name Hamrick because he’d met Betsy?

His adrenaline spiked. Good God, this could be the connection he’d been looking for all along. He might finally get answers, get closure, save his mother.

Dane turned to the background information Peyton had sent on Grimley.

The man had lived with his father in the woods, where his father was a falconer. Due to abuse, he was removed from his father’s custody and placed in a foster group home. Eventually he’d been returned to his home, where he stayed until his father disappeared one night.

Police had found human blood in the cages where the man kept the birds as well as traces of both Silas’s blood and his father’s. They had questioned Silas about his father, but Silas claimed that he had been staying at the foster home, and that his father was often gone for days on hunting trips.

They had never located the man or found his body, so the case went cold. For all they knew, Grimley Sr. had abandoned Silas.

While at the group home, Silas volunteered at the nature preserve where his father’s falcons had been moved.

At sixteen, Silas had undergone extensive cosmetic work by a plastic surgeon. Apparently the housemother in the group home where he’d been placed had seen an article about a plastic surgeon who did pro bono work and contacted him. When he’d met Silas, he’d handled his case for free.

The surgeon’s name was Dr. Bryce Kirk.

Kirk might have more insight into Grimley.

Dane texted Peyton to check with the doctor. Some physicians required patients undergoing plastic surgery to see a therapist. Peyton could find out if Silas had.

A psych report on the man might shed insight on whether or not Grimley was a killer.

Josie fought panic when she couldn’t find Neesie. She just prayed the young woman was safe.

She headed down the hall, but Porter McCray stormed toward her. “You told that casting director not to hire me.”

Josie took a step back. “That’s not true.”

“Yes, you did.” He grabbed her arm and shoved her up against the wall. “I asked you to practice with me, to give me insight into Linder’s character, but you refused. You didn’t like me from the beginning.”

Josie stiffened, her pulse pounding. “Take your hands off me, Mr. McCray.”

“Do as she said.”

Josie breathed out in relief at the sound of Dane’s gruff voice.

McCray didn’t turn around, though. Instead, he squeezed her arm tighter, still in Linder persona. “You’ll be sorry for this.”

Dane yanked the man away from her, his look lethal. “Is that a threat?”

McCray glared at Josie, then shoved Dane and strode down the hall.

Josie was trembling as she watched him disappear. If she hadn’t thought he was dangerous before, she did now.

Dane was tempted to beat the crap out of McCray for frightening Josie. The damn man was off in the head.

He also wanted to drag Josie into his arms and promise her that no man would ever hurt her again.

How could he promise that after he’d failed his little sister?

He scrubbed his hand through his hair. He might not be able to promise anything, but he’d damned well do his best. “Are you okay?”

Josie nodded, although her lower lip quivered. “I can’t find Neesie, though. She got a callback for a second audition with the casting director but didn’t show. She might have booked a session with Easton.”

Dane glared at her. “I told you not to go near him.”

“I was coming to ask you to go with me,” she said, her chin jutting up.

Still angry over McCray’s manhandling, Dane gestured toward the door to the studio, then led the way. He knocked but didn’t bother to wait for an invitation to enter. He stormed inside, wanting to catch the man off guard.

Cameras were set up, backdrops of various scenes propped in the corner, one depicting a waterfall, which he assumed was Graveyard Falls.

“He’s not here,” Dane said.

Dane noted a schedule posted on the board. “Neesie Netherington was supposed to meet with him this morning.” God, he hoped the killer hadn’t gotten to her.

Josie hurried through the room, opening doors and closets in search of the young woman. “Look at this, Dane. I didn’t realize there was a back door.”

Neither had he. Dane scowled as he opened it. It led to the back parking lot. Easton could have easily come and gone from the studio with no one knowing. With the hall door closed and the sign indicating he was shooting, everyone would assume he was in the room, giving him an alibi when he could have been anywhere.

Dane scanned the parking lot and surrounding area, but didn’t spot Easton or his van.

Pulse racing and remembering that Neesie had said she’d seen a Mitzi doll, he went to search for it. If it was here, he’d know Easton was involved.

This time he had a chance to find the missing girl, to save her. It wouldn’t make up for Betsy or the other victims, but every life mattered.

He surveyed the studio. Cameras, set props, lighting equipment. Coffee cups and soda cans littered the trash can. A closet was behind the screen, partially blocked from view. He checked it, but the door wouldn’t budge.

Curious about what was so important it was locked away when the man’s expensive camera equipment was left in the open, he picked the lock.