Again he paused at the back of the yard, then glanced up at the sky. It was overcast from the impending front moving into the area, which he took as an omen that he was being protected from being seen. Tonight the air was cool but still. This time he noticed a motorcycle parked in the shadows against the house. Wanting a closer look, he crossed the lawn without issue, then checked out the bike. Something about it seemed familiar. He flashed on the biker he’d seen at one of his delivery stops yesterday, then grunted. Except for the decals. He checked closer and realized they were peel-off decals. It was the same fucking bike.
Son of a bitch! How long had the cops—because who else could it be?—been tailing him?
He flattened himself against the side of the house and moved silently toward the living room windows.
When he looked in, he saw the same man as last night, this time standing at the telescope. Harold’s eyes narrowed. The man was wearing a shoulder holster, and the telescope wasn’t aimed at the teenager’s house. It was aimed straight at his.
The laptop was on the floor beside the same folding chair. The screen was bright enough that, even at this distance, he could see the image on the screen was of a newspaper. Harold wasn’t a techie, but he wasn’t that behind the times, either. He knew lots of people read newspapers online. Then his gaze caught a word in the headline, and he shifted his position enough that he could see it more clearly.
Even at this distance he could read the words THE HUNTER STRIKES in bold black caps. He stepped back in shock.
That wasn’t news. That was history.
He swiped a hand across his face, then looked again. The man was no longer at the window—he was no longer in the room at all. Afraid he’d been made, Harold bolted from the yard and didn’t stop until he was in the alley, behind the cover of a hedge. He looked back to see if the man was in pursuit, but the back door didn’t open. No one was coming around from the front of the house with a flashlight and a gun. Troubled by what he’d seen, he retraced his steps back to his own place. Even though he was safe inside, he felt the walls of his house drawing in on him. Not once in the years he’d been active had anything this dire occurred. So what the hell could they have found twenty years later that would prompt them to consider him a target?
There was only one person who’d known anything that could tie him to the killings: Harriet. But he had no idea where she was, or if she were even still alive.
Holly Slade was the one unknown, but he hadn’t recognized her. She didn’t look like what he thought Harriet would have grown up to be. She sure didn’t look anything like him—and she hadn’t looked like Twila, either. Still, a woman had called the company office, talking about a package that had never appeared. And that same evening he’d seen the woman who turned out to be Holly Slade come out of the gas station, then walk a block and a half up the hill to a parked car, as if she hadn’t wanted anyone to connect her to where she’d been. And it was that same woman he’d followed to the police station—and now he was the subject of a stakeout.
It was all a fucking mystery, but there was one thing that wasn’t a mystery to him. He had to make sure that if the cops did come into his house with a search warrant, the only things they would find would be his clutter and dust. He felt his way through the house without turning on the lights, and then into the spare bedroom, where he began moving boxes. He knew the way so well that he navigated it in the dark without turning on the cellar lights until he’d closed off the stairs from above.
He wanted one last tour around the room, and then he would seal it off for good. It was the only sensible thing to do. As was his habit, he went from plaque to plaque, touching the hair, reading the engraved nameplates, noting names and dates as if this were a display in a hall of fame. He took pride in the fact that he’d ended what he viewed as weakness in the gene pool. These women would not be bearing more children that would continue to diminish humanity. His heart raced faster as he moved from wall to wall, getting high on the memories, until by the time he reached the last trophy, he threw back his head and jacked off in front of the name. She’d ended his streak, but he’d ended her disease-ridden life. He considered it a fair trade.
Calmed by the sexual release, he wiped himself clean, then dug through his workbench for a hammer, some finishing nails and a large bottle of wood glue. With a rueful glance, he turned his back on his past, turned out the light, then climbed up the stairs. Once inside the bedroom, he ran a huge line of wood glue all along the three edges of the opening where the cellar door came to rest, then closed the door on the glue. He walked the edges repeatedly, utilizing his two hundred and sixty-five pounds to set the seal. Then he got the hammer and the thin nails and began driving them into the seam along the crack, taking care to counter-sink the nails into the wood.
When he was finished, he unscrewed the handle from the door, then went back into the kitchen to his junk drawer. He pulled out his flashlight, turned it on long enough to find a small pencil-shaped stick of wood putty and headed back into the bedroom.
Once again he closed the door behind him, making sure that the window shades were down before he turned on the flashlight, and got down on his hands and knees. Spotlighting his work, he began rubbing putty over the heads of the tiny nails to hide their presence. Then he moved to the place where he’d removed the handle and rubbed putty into the holes where the screws had been. It would all be dry by morning, and he would come in and inspect it in full daylight, touch up what needed to be fixed and then drag the boxes back over the opening. The only way that bomb shelter would ever come to light again was if the house burned down around it. Once he finished, he stepped back to examine his work. The tongue and groove flooring looked seamless.
He stripped off his clothes and got back in the shower, even though he’d showered before. It was after 1:00 a.m. by the time he got in bed, but it didn’t matter. He already had a plan, and the longer he thought about it, the more excited he became. It had been a long time since he’d been on this kind of a hunt.
Bud woke up with Holly in his arms. Even before he looked down at her tousled head and the thick dark lashes shading her cheeks, he smiled. He’d dreamed of this moment since her eighteenth birthday. His feelings had startled him to the point that he’d pulled himself away from the family unit for the better part of that year until he’d come to terms with his own emotions. After that, he’d taken great care never to overstep the bounds of friendship. But here they were, and he didn’t know if he would be able to wipe the smile off his face.
Holly shifted slowly, waking, as Bud had, to the fact that she was not alone in her bed. She remembered last night before she opened her eyes, which explained the smile on her face when she looked up and saw him watching her. “Hi.”
Bud laughed. “That’s my girl…ever the master of understatement. Hi yourself. Are you okay?”
“I feel good, if that’s what you’re getting at. In fact, I feel amazing—able to leap tall buildings and stuff.”
Bud’s laughter rolled through her in waves, filling her with such joy that she had to look away to keep from crying.
“’Scuse me, I have pressing business elsewhere,” she said, and got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
Bud propped himself up on one elbow to watch the curvy shape of her bare backside as she crossed the room.
“Lord have mercy,” he muttered, then turned on the television to catch the morning news as he got out of bed and pulled on his jeans. By the time she came out wrapped in a bath towel, he’d found his shaving kit.
He tugged at the corner of the towel, as if he were going to unwrap her like a piece of candy, and grinned when her cheeks turned pink.
“Just teasing, honey. However, you do look good enough to eat. And speaking of food, as soon as I get shaved, I’ll take you to breakfast, how’s that?”
“Fabulous,” Holly said, and then, just to watch him freak, dropped her towel before she went to get clean clothes.
“Oh. You did not just do that,” Bud growled, and yanked her off her feet, then tumbled back onto the bed with her in his arms.
Holly was laughing so hard she couldn’t talk as he planted kisses all over her face and neck, then rubbed his stiff, scratchy beard over the tips of her nipples, before moving down her belly with his kisses.
But when he parted her legs and slid a finger into her depths, he wiped the laugh right off her face. He found the nub of her clit with his thumb, and before she could take her next breath, he took her to a place she’d never been. The climax that hit her came so hard and so fast that she screamed. Bud rocked back on his heels, satisfied that he’d started her day off in a proper fashion, and considered it a smart move that he’d turned on the television earlier. That had been one hell of a scream, but then again, he reminded himself, she was one hell of a woman.
It was almost ten-thirty before Harold spotted the tail. It was the same man he’d seen in the empty house. He recognized him by his small stature and the same bike that had been parked behind it.
“You’re not as good at your job as you think,” Harold muttered, and turned right at the intersection, on his way to his next stop. He had plans for the little bastard that he wasn’t going to like.
Whit Carver was on his way back into headquarters when his cell phone rang. He answered it absently, then focused quickly when Holly Slade identified herself.
“Good morning, Miss Slade. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay,” Holly said. “If you’re free this morning, I have to talk to you.”
Whit glanced at his watch. “Yeah, sure, where are you now?”
“About five minutes away.”
“I’ll meet you down at the entrance. That way you won’t have to wait for an escort up.”
“Thank you. See you soon,” Holly said.
“So it’s a go?” Bud asked, as Holly braked for a red light.
She nodded. “We’re almost there. I want you to meet Detective Carver, and I promise I’ll be up front with him about seeing my…about seeing Mackey before I went to the police.”
Bud had been adamant and wasn’t settling for anything less. They couldn’t afford slipups with this much at stake.
A few minutes later they were walking up the sidewalk toward the police station. Bud saw a middle-aged man with a full head of gray hair exit the building, then stop.
“Is that him?” Bud asked.
Holly looked up. “Yes,” she said, then started smiling as she reached the door. “Detective Carver, this is my…uh, this is my—”
Bud grinned and extended his hand. “Robert Tate, but I go by Bud. The relationship part is new, and she doesn’t yet know what to do with me.”
Carver laughed. He liked the big cowboy on sight, and the humor only added to the man’s charm. “Detective Carver, and you can call me Whit. Follow me. We’ll talk in the office.”
A few minutes later Whit had them settled at his desk, offered them coffee, which they politely refused, then sat down, kicked back in his chair and eyed Holly closely.
“So, what do you want to talk to me about, Miss Slade?”
“Call me Holly, please, and I’ve come to give you a little bit more information, as well as confess to something.”
Whit frowned. “The info is good. Confessions at a police station rarely are, so how about we get the bad over with first, okay?”
“You remember when you told me to stay away from the warehouse where Harold Mackey works?”
Whit sat up with a jerk. “Tell me you did not go there.”
“Not after you told me not to. The thing is…I’d already done it before I saw you. He didn’t know it. I just wanted to look at him. I couldn’t remember what he even looked like. I thought maybe if I saw him, I might remember something important—something that might help your case against him.”
There wasn’t anything to be done about it now. “You’re sure there’s no way he would recognize you, no reason why he’d be suspicious of you in any way?”
“I doubt he’d recognize me if we passed on the street. I didn’t recognize him at first. I just waited until he went back to the warehouse.”
Whit frowned. “So how did you find out where he worked and when he would be getting off work?”
“There was a woman named Lynn Gravitt who worked with my mother. I talked to her. She’s the one who told me about Harold Mackey still being in St. Louis, and where he worked.”
“She knew his work schedule?” Whit asked.
Holly hesitated.
Bud frowned. There it was again, that expression that made him nervous. What else didn’t he know about what she’d done?
“Dang it, Holly, this isn’t the time for secrets, remember?”
“I might have called the warehouse and asked what time he got off work.”
Bud groaned.
Whit Carver’s frown deepened.
“And you didn’t think that would make him suspicious?” he asked.
“I pretended to be a courier with a package that needed to be signed for.”
Bud groaned again.
“I’m assuming you never showed up with anything to be signed for, right?” Whit asked.
“Right,” Holly said.
“So a man with secrets to hide finds out about a phone call from a courier asking about his work hours, then never gets the promised delivery. What do you think he’s going to do?”
Holly suddenly felt faint. She looked at Bud for help, but he wasn’t talking.
“I didn’t think,” she whispered. “I just needed to see him.”
Bud put his arm around her for moral support, while wondering how fast he could get them on the first plane back to Montana.
Carver was already playing catch-up in his head. “I need to let my undercover guy know that Mackey might be watching for something to happen. Are there any other surprises you have for me?”
Holly was near tears. “I’m sorry.”
Bud gave her a quick hug. “Tell him about the dreams you’ve been having.”
Whit reached for his notepad.
“I’m pretty sure that when I was little, I actually saw him with his stash of trophies from the murders. I think that’s why my mother got me away from St. Louis so fast.”