Chasing Evil (Circle of Evil) (24 page)

“What about the brother?”

“It’s been one delay after the other getting a court date, and Jerry Price remains a drain on the Boone County taxpayers. It’ll be a blessing to get rid of him. Whiny little pain in the…county budget,” he amended. “You’ll be happy to know that he’s very interested in our investigation. Asks about it all the time. Seems to think he has some information that will help us, while at the same time saving him a trip back to prison.”

“Unless that assistance includes some details about his brother and the structures on his property, we’re not interested.”

Beckett shook his head and slid a little deeper into his chair. It was a wonder, to Cam’s mind, that the man didn’t end up as a puddle on the floor. “I inquired. Of course he’s not talking about a relation. Just some mysterious stranger he met in prison.”

The tip line being manned by the DMPD was full of just that sort of vague information. The manpower required to check out the ‘leads’ elicited from it had so far been a drain on resources. “If Price wants to get my attention, he’ll need to get specific.”

Cam rifled through the sheets on the table in front of him before finding the one he was seeking and holding it up. “Here’s something more promising. There’s also an ostrich ranch in your county. We need to check with the owners about anyone else they might know of who once kept ostriches and no longer do. Bob…”

“I’ll call Joe and ask him.”

Nodding, Cam waited for Beckett to come up for the page he was holding out before going on. “We’ve also got DNA corroboration on another match of one of our victims. Hillary Keogh, age forty-two, from St. Louis. Jenna and Tommy, I want you to contact the case detective in her missing person’s case and familiarize yourself with the details. Talk to the bank personnel who saw her last. Have the detective send the images from the bank security cam for comparison. Loring.” His focus switched to the dark haired female agent. “There’s an ostrich co-op in the state. Check it out. Get a list of past members names and addresses who no longer appear on the site.” She nodded, scribbling on a notepad.

“Patrick and Samuels, search for links between the ID’d victims and the person in the grave they were buried with.” Cam gave a mental shrug. It was a long shot, but needed to be checked out. He surveyed the group gravely. “A lot of you are putting in some long hours on this case. It’s appreciated. And it’s beginning to show results. We’ll run down these leads as quickly and efficiently as possible. Since the sketch we got in Edina hasn’t panned out for us, this is the first solid lead we have for the UNSUB.

“Let’s use it to nail him.”

Chapter 13

Sophia’s legs wrapped around Cam’s hips, her back bowed. His slow movements inside her were excruciating. Urgency clawed for release. Her heels dug into his back punishingly, but he ignored her silent demand. Instead, he paused his movements to untwine her hands from around his neck and raise them above her head. Linking their fingers he began to withdraw from her, inch by infinitesimal inch.

“Cam!” The word was more plea than demand. He responded with a bruising kiss that belied his teasing movements.

“What do you want?” His words were raspy, spoken against her mouth. “Tell me.”

Tossing her head restlessly on the pillow, she arched again, trying to force a closer contact. “I don’t…I can’t...”

He dropped a stinging necklace of kisses along her jawline. “I’ll give you everything you want. Anything. Tell me.”

“You.” She freed her hands to fist one in his hair. The other clutched a muscular shoulder. Her legs crawled higher. “All.” Urgency was churning inside her, thought impossible. There was only need. Fervent and desperate. Desire, dark and molten, was heating her veins. Every nerve inside her stretched as taut as a bow.

His hips slammed into hers then with a force she welcomed. Returned. Sophia met his punishing tempo and demanded more as she reached for something just out of reach.

She could feel his muscles, tight and straining, beneath her fingers. Heard his ragged breathing. Sensed the exact moment when his control shattered, and his movements went wildly unrestrained.

His loss of control had heat, quick stabbing spears of it, arrowing down her spine. Her world narrowed until there was only Cam and her. Bodies twisting and straining as they sped through the darkness on a race for release.

And when hers ripped through her, shattering sanity, scattering reason, his name was on her lips.

It might have been hours later. Was likely only minutes. Sophia still felt pleasantly weak. Lethargic. And absolutely boneless. It pleased her that Cam’s breathing hadn’t yet returned to normal. She could feel embarrassed at her total loss of control had she not been certain Cam had been equally desperate. After the explosive climax she’d be satisfied to never move again.

But a need of another sort was making itself known. And although the last thing she wanted to do was leave Cam’s bed, nature would not be ignored.

Sliding from beneath his arm, she reluctantly swung her feet to floor and stood. He made a sound of protest, but she rounded the bed to head for the bathroom, intent on returning as quickly as possible. Her bare foot stepped on something foreign. Flat and square. “What…”

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Sophia reached down and scooped up what she’d stepped on and hurried into the bathroom. Closed the door and turned on the light. She stared at the object in her hand, gradual comprehension turning to dismay. It was the foil wrapper of a condom.

An
unopened
condom.

She gave a little shake of her head as if to dislodge the sensual cobwebs that persisted. Her reflection stared back at from the mirror above the sink. Stricken.

Sophia recalled Cam taking it from the drawer of the bedside table. She had a clear memory of taking it from him, intent on sheathing him with it.

And she had an equally vivid memory of him taking one of her nipples in his mouth at that exact moment. Teasing it with tongue and teeth until she’d grasped his head with her hands, whether to stop or prolong the torment, she didn’t know.

What she didn’t recall was what she’d done with the condom after that. One thing was certain, they hadn’t used it. They hadn’t used any protection.

The ramifications of that lapse successfully banished the lingering sensual haze.

In all her life, Sophia had never been so careless.

Of course, decades earlier she’d been on the pill. Had remained on it until a couple years ago when her gynecologist had recommended a break. That hadn’t mattered, not then, because she hadn’t been sexually active after her divorce.

Until Cam.

A quick mental calculation had some of the tension seeping from her limbs. She should be safe, but the fact remained that safety hadn’t even entered her mind last night.

And that fact terrified her. She was by nature a cautious and meticulous woman. But her normal caution had been spectacularly absent from the moment she and Cam had shared drinks at Mickey’s last week.

And Sophia could no longer dismiss the alarms going off inside her over yet another aberration in judgment.

As soon as the dim fractured light began to penetrate the building, Sophia had begun her search. A knothole signified a weakness in the wood. So she identified all the boards along the two wooden sides of the cell that contained one. Limiting herself to those easily within reach, she’d come up with four possibilities. Selecting one, she’d started to work at it.

It was long, tedious labor. The jagged metal end of the clip easily scraped a groove into the aged timber, but it had taken hours just to wear a groove around the knot deep enough to force out the small plug of wood.

Her success had brought a surge of excitement. But that emotion had quickly abated after she’d kicked at the board repeatedly, and it’d held fast in place. So she’d gone back to work, a bit more frantic now, intent on widening the hole.

Pausing to rest her cramped fingers, she took another drink of the tepid water from the now soggy paper cup. After drinking the last few trickles of liquid, she tossed it in a corner. Only then did she wonder if the monster had fed Courtney Van Wheton.

Just the thought of last night had her breath catching. An auditory repeat of the horrible sounds of the assault would creep unbidden into her mind at random moments, an emotional ambush. And yet it was nothing in comparison to what the woman had endured at the man’s hands since her kidnapping. Sophia could hardly bear to contemplate it.

It was that thought, however, that had her redoubling her efforts. She inserted the rough edge of the clip and began scraping at the wood again. The metal often hit a snag in the wood and bent. Each time she’d straighten it, but Sophia worried it would snap in half at some point, making it more unmanageable to wield. Or totally useless.

Better to focus her worry on that than on when the monster would return.

Earlier this morning, she’d again called out to the other woman, but there’d been no answer. Realizing that further effort would be wasted, Sophia had saved her breath. Perhaps Van Wheton was scared. Maybe her injuries prevented her from responding. But thinking of her suffering somewhere nearby kept Sophia working long after the splinters of light allowed in the building grew bright.

Because it kept her stronger to focus on something—anything—other than what awaited her if she failed in her attempt, she let her mind touch on the investigation. She knew each of the agents working the investigation personally. She trusted them.

But most of all, Sophia trusted the man running the case.

Despite the way their relationship had ended, she knew Cam would stop at nothing to find her. She wouldn’t wait for that rescue. Couldn’t count on it. But it warmed something inside her to be certain of his efforts on her behalf.

Just thinking of him had a host of unsolicited memories swarming her mind. Mental images of Cam, jaw squared and determined. Or the way his eyes slitted when he was vaguely annoyed.

The image of how he looked when he was lazy and sated, a slight curve on his lips. The memory of the long smooth stroke of his fingers down her spine.

The pang of loss that struck her then was as sharp and searing as any that emanated from her battered ribs. She blinked away the tears that pricked her eyes. This was no time for regrets or for weakness. It would take all her strength to outwit her captor.

But oh, if she let herself, Sophia could long to relive the time she’d once been weak with Cam Prescott.

Her fingers were cramping more and more frequently. She stopped to flex them. Studying the widening hole, she realized it was nearly twice the width of the original knot that had been removed. About an inch and a half across.

Setting down the clip, she moved to the opposite side of the stall. The hole was near the center of the board, nearly three-quarters down its length. Reasoning that the area of the board furthest from the supporting post on the other side would be the weakest, she took aim again. Running across the cell she kicked at it with all her might. Was gratified to hear a sharp sudden crack when her heel met the wood.

She tried over and over, ignoring the pain in her heel from its continued contact with the unyielding lumber. The pain was meaningless in the face of what the other woman had endured last night.

And it was a reminder of what was in store for her in a few hours if she failed.

The thought fueled her strength, and Sophia gave another hard kick at the hole she’d created.

Then stared, in dumfounded delight, when the board finally split in two.

# # # #

Because it was just a few miles down the road from headquarters, Cam traveled to the Farm Service Agency himself. And then cooled his heels in the waiting area for several minutes as several jean clad farmers showed no sign of hurrying through the business they were discussing with the clerk at the counter.

Finally, he skirted the line of customers remaining and rounded the counter to approach an older clerk working at a computer.

“Excuse me.”

The look she gave him should have blistered several layers of skin. “You’ll have to wait your turn, sir. There are others ahead of you.”

He flashed his shield. “I’d like to speak to your manager.”

Her lips pressed into a thin disapproving line. “I’ll see if he’s available.”

Rising, she went to a closed door a few feet away and preceded her entrance with a perfunctory knock.

Cam scanned the place. Other than the young woman manning the counter there was only one other employee in the vicinity, but several empty desks suggested absentee colleagues. A moment later the older woman slipped back out of the manager’s door, a disappointed expression on her face. “Mr. Jeffries can see you now.”

Starting toward the office, Cam was met by someone who had to be the manager, although he looked for all the world like a fourteen-year-old kid. If fourteen-year-old kids wore Dockers with polo shirts and needed to shave.

“Agent Prescott? Justin Jeffries.” The younger man stepped aside and motioned him to his office. And then closed the door upon the avid interest being shown by the woman who’d announced Cam.

Closer examination had him revising his original estimate. The manager actually looked nearer to twenty. Which still had to be years off the mark, but made him feel a little better.

“Have to say, getting a visit from DCI is a first.” Given his youth, Cam figured the manager had a lot of firsts ahead of him, but took the chair Jeffries offered and waited for the other man to seat himself behind his desk.

“I’m looking for a crime site that we have reason to believe currently or once held ostriches,” he began without preamble. “Chances are it’s a rural area and I thought there might be a federal farm program operators could be signed up for.”

The manager shook his head. “If there were, we wouldn’t be able to let you look at the records without a subpoena. But we don’t have programs for livestock producers, except the dairy program.” He gave a sudden flash of perfectly even white teeth. “From what I know about ostriches, I don’t think they’d qualify.”

“But you do have records of all the farms in Polk County.”

Again Jeffries shook his head. “We have records of the commodity producers who are currently or have in the past signed up for a federal farm program.” He pointed to a large county map on the wall. “This is our most current one map. It probably details most of them, but wouldn’t include a lot of the acreages. The producers are highlighted by the yellow dots.”

Already feeling like this had been a wasted trip, Cam rose, his eyes on the map. “Ever heard of anyone who keeps ostriches in the county?”

Jeffries stood as well. “Not currently. I know there’s an operation in Boone County, because the county director there has mentioned it before. But there hasn’t been one that I’m aware of in Polk County since I was a kid.”

Attention caught, Cam remained in place. “That long ago, huh?”

Jeffries grinned again. “Born in ’85. Know what was significant about the eighties in rural Iowa?”

“Unlike you,” Cam said dryly, “I have vivid memories of the eighties. You’re talking the farm crisis?”

“Exactly. Farms going under after being overextended by banks, paying outrageous inflationary interest. Livestock and crop prices bottomed out. Lot of farmers were desperate to turn a profit, and that’s when some turned to raising ostriches and emus. There’s still a market for their feathers, meat and leather. A neighbor of my grandpa’s had a herd. You know what you hear about them eating anything? My brother and I were over at the farm looking at them once. I stuck my comb through the fence and an ostrich ate it right out of my hand. Could see the comb go all the way down his throat, too.” The young man laughed at the memory. “They’re actually supposed to be kind of smart, but it was hard to believe it that day.”

“Where was this?”

Jeffries looked surprised. “The ostriches? Next farm over from my grandpa’s, north and east of town. Maybe about eight miles from here.”

“Can you draw me a map?”

“Sure.” Jefferies got out a pad of paper and started drawing just as Cam’s phone began to vibrate. “The house is gone now and all that’s left of the place is this really great old barn. The pasture the birds used to graze on has been plowed under, though. Unlike the eighties, producers these days can’t complain about grain prices. A lot of them are farming fencerow to fencerow, conservation be damned.”