Monster (17 page)

“Bully for you,” Shane muttered. He whistled, and Dragon reluctantly left my side to go stand by him, ready to work. “I don't have time for your shit. I've got real work to do.”

He walked away, taking deliberate steps, back tight with controlled anger.

“I don't like him,” Nora said. Our eyes met, and understanding flowed between us. “I don't know if I'm really suspicious, or I just think he's an asshole.”

“We don't have any other leads,” I pointed out.

Her cousin passed Urso's leash back to me, and I almost fell over with the weight of the dog straining for Shane. He was a goddamn strong dog, he might have even put Dragon to shame. I was impressed again with Annie's handling.

“What's the worst that happens if you're wrong?” I asked.

“I lose my job for harassing a fellow officer,” she said, coolly. I winced. I knew she wasn't exaggerating. There was something rotten in the force.

“Please,” I said. “It's the only time one of the dogs have really scented. Please try.”

I had never thought that I would ever beg someone like that, but my pride wasn't worth Annie's life. Nothing was.

She nodded and walked away.

“Hey, Sandlin, how'd you get that bruise? Looks nasty,” I heard her call as she approached him.

Her cousin looked grim.

“She's gonna get pulled over for P.W.B.,” he said.

Policing While Black.

I'd heard it before.

In some backwater little towns, black officers weren't treated with the same respect as white officers, their word was doubted, their thoughts dismissed. A lot of them got pushed out like I'd been pushed out, moved on to bigger cities, left law enforcement.

It wasn't like that everywhere, but there were a few pockets left to root out.

“She's talked about that guy before,” he continued. “Smug, satisfied. Crappy to women when the brass's back is turned. Thinks he's above the law.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said, nodding.

I watched Officer Allen talk to Shane for a minute. He shook his head and smirked at her, pointed to Dragon. I saw him gesture at Urso and look dismissive.

My blood was fucking boiling.

She went to talk to other officers, men and women I knew, and they all turned away from her. Not dramatically, it was subtle. Every time she walked over to a group, toes would start pointing in the other direction, people would start hanging their heads and avoiding her glance.

“I'm taking Urso,” I said, patting my pockets to make sure I had my phone and keys.

Dan walked over, running one hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. The other held the leash of his little hound mix, a trim and nervous-looking dog.

“What's going on here?”

I filled him in a few short sentences.

He met my eyes with his steady gaze. “You think Officer Sandlin is the Blue Ridge Killer?” he said.

“I don't know,” I said. “I know he's an asshole and Urso caught a strong scent on him. He had no reason to be around Annie.”

“He was there when Annie and Urso found Miss Morris's remains,” he said. “He could have followed up with her yesterday. If he were still on duty, he would have reason to not have changed his clothing.”

“If it's something like that, why wouldn't he have explained it? There would have been a record of it, someone would have known where he'd been,” I said.

“Urso could have made a mistake. He's tired. Everyone's upset,” Dan said. “I know I am.”

I almost laughed. Dan seemed totally unruffled, like a man reading a mildly interesting novel in a moderately uncomfortable chair at the public library.

“It's the only idea I have,” I admitted.

He stared at me for a few long seconds.

“Layla and I will come with you,” he said. “I've told the other handlers. No one should go alone with their dog right now.”

He wanted witnesses, corroboration.

I wasn't the only one who thought something wasn't quite right.

“Let's go,” I said.

He met me at my truck in under a minute, carrying two black duffle bags easily.  The cab of my truck wasn't large, and Layla had to ride between us, with Dan weighed down with both of the bags in his lap and Urso at his feet.

“Does Annie have any other friends we should be calling?” he asked. “I asked Carol a few hours ago, but she wasn't sure how to get in touch with a woman named Heather.”

“She runs the Linden Cafe downtown,” I said. “It should be open soon. Or now. I don' t know.”

He nodded. “I'll call it up while we drive. Where are we going?”

“First thing, out of sight of those bastards,” I said. My voice was grim. No one had stopped me once they saw Dan go with me, but they weren't happy. I half-expected a Crown Vic to trail us.

I pulled over a few blocks away and got out my phone, looking up Shane Sandlin.

I fucking missed having access to the police databases.

Dan was intent on his own phone, but shortly looked up. “I've got an address.”

“How?” I asked.

“Nora.”

I owed that woman a dozen fucking roses. A thousand bucks. Something.

“Let's go.”

We drove in silence. Dan seemed like the kind of guy who was used to sitting and waiting.

Fine by me.

I didn't exactly want to talk right then.

All I could think about was Annie.

Those gorgeous sapphire eyes, the laughing looks that undid me. The way her smile made my cock hard as iron, every time. Her pleasure in bed, hair spread out on the pillows, meeting my thrusts with her own.

Her independence.

The look on her face as she finished up work on her laptop, intent and hungry.

How soft her eyes were when she looked at Urso.

I needed that woman to be okay.

I would do anything for her.

-Annie-

Alone and blindfolded, I tried to get my hands free.

All I did was hurt myself.

It looked a lot easier in the movies.

Between tries, I lay still, muscles aching, my wrists screaming in pain that I was trying to ignore. I knew that the heavy stomps away could have been some sort of act, he could have crept back in, he could be watching me from only a few feet away.

I didn't know if I was alone or not.

The thought made my flesh crawl.

Not all of the woman and girls who had gone missing had turned up as bodies. Some of them were yet to be found. I didn't know if I was sharing a room with a captive or a corpse.

I took deep breaths through my nose, trying not to vomit.

If I threw up while gagged, I could choke to death.

It might not be as bad a way to go as whatever the Blue Ridge Killer had planned for me, but I wouldn't let it happen. I'd worked so hard to give them a chance to find me.

Well, I'd tried to.

I'd made a thump.

That was all.

I had no phone for them to track, no clues left like breadcrumbs. I was pinning all of my hopes of discovery on Quinn hearing that thump.

And then waking up.

And then thinking something was weird.

And then calling the police.

And then the police taking him seriously.

I didn't know why I had any hope at all, but I did. A calm certainty stole over me, a certainty that Quinn Markham was going to save me, no matter how shitty I'd been to him. A certainty that the man I was starting to love would know when something terrible had happened to me. Would move heaven and earth to find me.

If Quinn cared for me, he would.

I had no doubts about that.

Cocky as he was, he had a serious look around him, a determination to keep what was his.

And I was his.

Body and soul.

If he'd have me.

If I lived.

-Quinn-

The home we pulled up in front of was completely unremarkable. A McMansion, maybe a dozen years old. Large, but not huge. It looked bright and clean. Not to take the place you'd expect a serial killer to live.

I've been a cop long enough, though, to know how little that meant. Beauty and ugliness hid in the strangest places.

I wasn't an officer of the law anymore. I didn't have to worry about procedure. Everything I was doing here was already trespassing.

None of that mattered. If Shane was the killer, they could tie him to the other deaths. Even if I got Annie's case thrown out, if she lived justice would be done.

If she didn't, I'd take justice into my own hands.

I'd kill the motherfucker myself.

If he wasn't… I had to hope he was. I didn't know how to find anyone else.

We all got out of the car. Dan offered his dog a whiff of a scent article, but Urso didn't need it.

He was straining at the leash again, trying to get to the driveway.

I unclipped him.

Fuck it.

Dan walked away from the truck as deliberately as he did anything else, duffle bag over his shoulder, Layla on her leash, nose to the ground.

Urso took off to sniff around the garage door, sitting and barking.

I tried the garage door. It was locked, of course.

“Around here,” Dan called, and I whistled for Urso to follow them around the side of the house. He came, reluctantly, whimpering.

There was a locked door with a curtain over the window.

“I think it lets into the garage,” Dan said. “See how the foundation changes, there? This is still on the garage slab.”

I nodded.

“I'm going in,” I said. “If you want out, say so now and you can walk away before I do.”

He fixed me with a stern gaze, and I saw the held-in anger behind the calm.

“I've been present to find three corpses of teenage girls that should have been going to Prom,” he said. “Shane's a strange man. I didn't like the way he looked at Annie and Officer Allen.”

“Let me get a rock,” I said.

I smashed in the window and Dan helped me wrap the jagged edges in a jacket from his bag.

It was enough to reach in and turn the lock.

As soon as the door was open a crack, Urso nosed it open and shot through the gap like two hundred pounds of fur and vengeance.

We all followed him, Dan flicking on a light.

There was a car under a tarp. I flicked the cover off. My eyes met Dan's. The black sedan didn't surprise either of us.

“Annie,” I called. “Annie?”

The hunt began.

Urso found the trapdoor before any of the rest of us, barking and scratching at a tool chest. We looked all the way around it and finally pulled it out from the wall, revealing the secret hatch.

I took the steps two at a time, not even caring if there might be some sort of trap.

Dan held Urso back bodily, just in case. I was glad he thought of it, but I didn't even care. I was so focused on finding her.

She was on the floor, bound and blindfolded and gagged, her face barely visible, but I knew it was her.

I would have recognized her anywhere.

When I saw her chest rise and fall, I was filled with relief so profound I almost fell to the ground.

“Dan,” I called. “She's here.”

“Got it,” he called back.

Annie was alive.

That was all that mattered.

I knelt beside her.

“I'm here, honey,” I said. “I'm here and I found you and it's going to be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. I'm going to kill that motherfucker and then everything will be okay.”

My desire for bloody revenge on Shane Sandlin and my victim response training were fighting each other, and I was babbling, saying whatever popped into my head.

I got her blindfold and gag off and pulled her into my arms as she cried, cradling her close to me.

I reveled in the smell of her hair, her soft skin against mine.

She sobbed, tears running tracks down her cheeks, as I held her. I knew that everything was going to be okay.

The next few hours were full of people and confusion, but we had each other. Annie screamed and clutched at my arm when they tried to pull me away from her, so they let me stay with her.

By her side was where I belonged. Forever.