All the Pretty Faces (26 page)

Dane sped back toward Graveyard Falls, emotions churning. He’d considered having Grimley detained in a Knoxville jail, but decided it might be advantageous to have Grimley close to Easton in case he needed to use extra persuasion to coerce Grimley into a confession.

Josie fidgeted with her phone. Hopefully they had the killer or killers in custody, and no one else would die.

His cell phone buzzed, and he snatched it up. “Agent Hamrick.”

“It’s Peyton. Listen, Dane, I spoke with the counselor who worked with Silas Grimley as an adolescent. She said Grimley denied the abuse. When he was questioned about his father’s disappearance, he clammed up. She even suspected that he might have killed his old man and buried him somewhere on their property.”

Dane should have figured that out. “Have a team search the area for a grave or body.”

“I’m on it,” Peyton continued. “Grimley suffered from social anxiety and tended to become obsessive about friendships.”

Dane swallowed hard. “Did he talk about my sister?”

“She didn’t mention a name, but she confirmed that he had an unhealthy obsession with a girl who volunteered with the adolescents.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Dane. You think that was your sister?”

“Yes.” Dane ignored her sympathetic tone. Rage at Grimley had taken over. “I’ve wanted answers for a long time. Locking up this bastard will at least mean closure.” Then maybe his mother would heal and return to the living.

Peyton’s sigh punctuated the air. “There’s one more thing. The text the reporter received came from a phone belonging to Grimley.”

Now they were getting somewhere, racking up the evidence they needed to seal Grimley’s coffin.

He thanked Peyton, then ended the call and filled Josie in.

“I’m so sorry, Dane,” Josie said softly. “I understand this is personal to you.”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. Josie’s sweet voice threatened to bring his emotions to the surface. He didn’t have time for that. “Damn right it is. That sicko is going to pay.” Bitterness welled inside him. His sister had wanted to help people, but her loving, giving heart had gotten her killed.

Josie rubbed her temple. “You think he may have told her how he felt, or she figured it out. Even if she tried to let him down easy, he was unstable and could have snapped.”

Dane nodded, desperately trying to rid his mind of the images that bombarded him. Betsy’s shock when she realized the boy she was trying to help was violent. The terror and betrayal she’d experienced when he’d turned on her and stabbed her.

Imagining her last minutes was so painful it could bring him to his knees. It had at one time. He’d bawled like a fucking baby.

No more.

“Dane?” Josie laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head, reigning in his emotions. “I will be, though. Once Grimley is locked away for life.”

They reached the sheriff’s office and jail, and he parked. Josie squeezed his arm again, but he was too torn up inside to do anything but force his legs out of the car.

She followed him, her presence giving him more comfort than he wanted to admit. For a moment when she’d asked if he was all right, he’d almost yanked her into his arms.

Hell, he wanted to bury himself inside her and let her sweet body help him forget everything. Her lips could give him relief. Her body could replace his aches with pleasure.

But he had to focus. Tie up the case.

Make sure Grimley never saw the light of day again.

As he entered, the officers were handing Grimley over to the sheriff.

“You can’t do this,” Dr. Grimley shrieked.

“Shut up.” Dane jerked him by the collar of his starched shirt. “Sit down and be quiet while we process you.”

The plastic surgeon gave Josie a pleading look as if he thought she would help him, but pain wrenched her eyes. Pain this man had caused.

Dane steeled himself. If he’d killed Betsy, he didn’t deserve sympathy.

Sheriff Kimball had already patted him down, and Grimley’s personal belongings lay on the desk. Dane rifled through his wallet. A few hundred dollars in cash.

Debit and credit cards. A one-way ticket to Mexico.

Then a folded photograph Grimley had tucked inside.

It was Betsy. Fucking son of a bitch had kept it all these years. Did he look at it at night and think about her? Did he sleep with it like some pervert?

He grabbed Grimley from the chair. “You killed my sister, you bastard.”

Grimley’s eyes widened in fear as Dane hauled him through the doors to the interrogation room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Dane shoved Grimley against the wall. “You twisted freak. You killed Betsy.”

The fury and anguish he’d lived with for so long boiled over. He wanted to snap the man’s neck in two and hear the bones pop.

Grimley’s legs buckled. “You’re hurting me!” he cried.

Dane slid his hands around the man’s throat and squeezed. “That’s nothing compared to what you did to Betsy and those other women.”

Grimley coughed for air and tried to pry Dane’s hands from his neck. “I didn’t kill them—”

“Dane, stop it, this isn’t the way.” Josie’s soft plea barely registered above the noise of his hammering heart.

He cursed. He hadn’t realized she’d come into the room.

Footsteps pounded, then Sheriff Kimball appeared beside him. “Let him go, Hamrick. We’ll do this, but we’re going to do it the right way.”

Pain throbbed in Dane’s chest. His fingers were frozen around the man’s neck. He couldn’t move them. “You don’t understand, he killed my little sister.”

A soft hand stroked his back. “I’m sorry, Dane,” Josie said, “but you can’t let him turn you into a killer. Betsy wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“You don’t want this case to get thrown out because you were related to the victim and mishandled it,” Sheriff Kimball said.

Dane’s throat thickened, making it impossible to talk. His hands shook with the force it took not to completely crush the man’s windpipe.

An image of Betsy at nineteen lying dead taunted him.

Then when she was twelve. Betsy with pigtails and knobby knees, grinning, poking her tongue out at him.

Betsy at eight playing dolls and dress-up.

Then at fourteen, Betsy playing soccer and raising money to help feed hungry kids.

Betsy in that coffin, her complexion milky white and unnatural, the light gone from her eyes, the smile replaced by tight lips the damn mortician had glued together.

The world spun, rage and grief blinding him.

“Come on, Dane,” Josie said gently. “Let him go and you’ll get justice for your sister.”

The sheriff shot him a warning look while Grimley sputtered for help. Dane clenched his jaw, gave Grimley’s neck one last squeeze to scare the bastard, then jerked his hands free.

Grimley flailed his arms to stay upright. Sheriff Kimball quickly ushered him into a chair. “Sit down and stay there,” Kimball ordered.

Josie rubbed slow circles along Dane’s back, a reminder that good did exist somewhere in the world. Yet she’d seen the violence just like he had and lived through it.

Dane stepped away from her touch, his unleashed fury like air trapped in a bottle about to explode. Hurt darkened Josie’s eyes, but she didn’t speak.

He couldn’t talk either, couldn’t explain all that was going on in his head. Everything was wrong. His mother’s anguished face. Betsy’s lost life. His fight to find her killer.

Had he finally achieved that goal? If so, what then? For ten years, finding her killer had consumed his life.

Grimley rubbed at his throat with long, thin fingers. Fingers that were adept at using a scalpel to carve women into beauty queens.

Yet he’d also shattered so many lives.

Grimley would not get out of jail, not ever.

The sheriff laid Grimley’s briefcase on the table. Dane took the cue and regained his professional air. He’d get a confession out of this creep, then lock him up forever. One by one, he laid excerpts from the man’s blog on the table. He stabbed a finger at the last story about the birds.

Grimley folded his arms and body as if he could collapse inside himself. Yet his eyes twitched back and forth, a sliver of pride in the depths. He recognized the entries. They were part of his story. His life.

“Here it is, you cocky bastard,” Dane said. “You describe exactly what you did to those women. Now tell me about it yourself.”

Josie studied Grimley’s body language, mentally profiling him.

Just as Billy Linder had been abused, so had Grimley. His abuse wasn’t sexual, but physical and mental. Living with those horrific scars and being shunned by peers, especially women, was reflected in those stories. In his career choice.

Probably in every aspect of his life.

A myriad of emotions played across the plastic surgeon’s face. Fear. Panic. Anger. Guilt.

Although his demeanor changed as he studied the last entry.

“Good God,” the doctor muttered. “I didn’t write that story.”

Josie straightened, analyzing his tone. He sounded sincerely shocked.

“Don’t bother to lie, Grimley,” Dane said. “We read through all of your entries. This last one describes the way you carved the talons on the young women’s cheeks.”

He shook his head in denial. “Wait, you don’t understand. I wrote the other blogs, but not this one. Don’t you see? Someone’s trying to frame me.”

“I don’t fucking believe you,” Dane said. “You killed my sister and Easton’s girlfriend, then you came to Graveyard Falls and murdered three other women just for fun.” Dane jabbed his finger on the blog entry. “You collected bones from the animals you killed, and now you’re collecting them from the women you murder.”

Grimley gaped at him. “The killer took a piece of bone from the victim’s faces?”

Josie twined her hands together, waiting for his response.

Dane slapped his hand on the table. “Yes. What did you do with them? Are you making a collage out of them like you do the animal bones?”

“I—this is not me. I didn’t do this.” Grimley looked ashen-faced and confused.

Josie mentally reviewed the facts to determine if they had the right man.

All the evidence pointed to Grimley as the Butcher.

A history of abuse. A horrific trauma during childhood.

He’d tried to turn his life around by giving back to those in need, but like an amputee suffering a missing limb, Grimley probably still felt those scars and reacted as if others saw them as well.

The patient mishap could have triggered his old insecurities. He was admired by the women he’d made beautiful, yet the lawsuit threatened to end his career—he was in danger of losing that admiration.

If Betsy had been his first kill, he’d probably reacted out of jealousy. Even if she’d rejected him gently, that rejection triggered the pain of the other times he’d been rejected by girls, and he’d exploded.

Although Josie had to consider Grimley’s age. An adolescent would have had the strength and power to kill another teenager. And with his intelligence, he’d climbed the ranks of his profession awfully quickly.

Grimley pushed the journal entries away. “I want a lawyer.”

Sheriff Kimball glanced at Dane. Dane cleared his throat. “All right, but, Grimley, if you cooperate and help us, we might arrange a deal to keep you off death row. If you lawyer up, that deal goes away.”

The corner of Grimley’s mouth twitched. His hands were still cuffed, the metal clanging as he fidgeted.

Dane didn’t wait for a response. He slapped the photographs they’d found in Grimley’s car on the table, spreading them out for the man to see the brutalized faces of the women he’d carved.

“Three victims, all who knew your buddy Easton, all who had cosmetic work done by you—all butchered by a surgeon’s scalpel.”

Grimley’s pallor turned green, his hand trembling badly as he rubbed his forehead.

“Look at them,” Dane ordered. “Those talon marks remind you of anything?”

One by one, the doctor traced a finger over the claw mark on the victims’ cheeks. When he looked up at Dane, horror darkened his eyes. “I made these women pretty. Why would I destroy my own masterpieces?”

Dane hesitated, but a muscle ticked in his jaw, indicating he was barely controlling his rage. “Because you wanted more from them and they rejected you. Like my sister did.”

A shadow fell across Grimley’s face, and he looked down at the handcuffs again.

Dane slid his sister’s picture in front of the man. Josie’s lungs tightened.

Betsy was so young and beautiful, a softer, feminine version of Dane, a kid who’d had her future snuffed out by a vicious crime.

“You recognize her?” Dane asked coldly.

Grimley dropped his head into his hands and moaned.

The temptation to soothe Dane tugged at Josie, but she didn’t dare interfere with the interrogation. Pressuring the suspect was part of the process.

“There’s no use lying,” Dane growled. “You met her at that group home, then she volunteered at that nature preserve and met Easton.”

Grimley pressed the heels of his fists against his eyes as if he could obliterate the images. “I loved her,” he said in a choked whisper. “Betsy was the first girl who was ever nice to me. She didn’t care about my scars.”

Josie clenched her hands together, wishing she could help Dane through this part. Grimley’s expression bordered on childlike, his adoration for Betsy glittering in his eyes.

“You loved her, but you killed her anyway,” Dane said with a condemning stare. “You took her life when all she did was to be kind to you.”

“You don’t understand what it was like,” Grimley said brokenly. “I had nightmares about being locked in the cage with those birds. They tore my face and arms and hands apart. Then Betsy came along and . . . she didn’t even notice them.”

Dane stood, shoulders rigid as he paced the room.

Sheriff Kimball stepped in front of Grimley, and for once, Dane allowed him to take the lead. That was a big step for Dane, one Josie admired.

“Go on,” Sheriff Kimball said. “What happened?”

“I . . . tried to make up for what happened,” Grimley cried. “I got counseling and learned to control that rage.”

Dane’s boots clicked as he strode back to the table. Hands braced on the surface, he leaned forward, pinning Grimley with an intimidating stare. “What do you mean—you tried to make up for what happened? You can’t
make up
for ending someone’s life.”

Grimley rocked himself back in the chair, one hand rubbing at his jaw as if feeling for the scars he’d once had.

“Tell me, dammit,” Dane bellowed. “My mother is catatonic because of my sister’s death. The grief and agony of knowing her killer was free while Betsy lay in the ground completely destroyed her.”

Grimley startled, then squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second, his face strained.

Josie sensed Dane was hurting. She had to do something to help. She walked over to the table and slid into a seat across from Grimley.

The sheriff gave her a questioning look, but she gestured for him to let her try to reach the man.

“It’s time to tell the truth,” she said softly. “In your heart, Silas, you know that you’ll feel better once you relieve yourself of this burden. I have a feeling you’ve wanted to do it for a long time.”

“I have. I felt so bad, so guilty, I hated myself.” His voice broke. “I never meant to hurt Betsy.”

Dane started to speak, but Josie held up a warning hand. “Let him finish. He wants to tell you what happened.” She patted the doctor’s arm. “Don’t you, Silas? You loved Betsy.”

He nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s true, I loved her so much, but . . . in the end she didn’t want me, and I just lost it and I . . . killed her.”

Nausea churned in Dane’s stomach.

He reached out to choke Grimley, but Sheriff Kimball held him in place. “Let him talk, Hamrick. You don’t want his confession to get thrown out of court.”

The sheriff’s words jolted Dane back to reality.

Hell no, he didn’t.

He was face-to-face with his little sister’s killer, the man who’d stolen her life and destroyed his and his mother’s. He wanted the man to suffer the way he had.

The way his mother still was.

Tears leaked from Grimley’s eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

“You stabbed her,” Dane said bluntly. “How can you not mean to do that?”

Grimley’s glazed look suggested he’d slipped back in time. “I loved her,” he said. “She was so nice and sweet, and pretty. Not model gorgeous but she was lovely inside and out.”

“Yes, she was,” Dane said in a low voice.

Grimley used both hands to claw at his face. “I was a fucked-up kid back then, and for the first time in my life, I thought I was lovable—she made me feel that way.”

Tension vibrated in the air as Dane struggled not to slaughter the man.