Touching Evil (30 page)

“We know he’s smart enough to stay off well-traveled roads,” she mused.  The offender had avoided traffic cameras by doing just that after he’d kidnapped Van Wheton.  “So if he does head west, that’s likely what he’ll do.  And he may travel close to a cemetery where the first six victims were buried.”

He jerked around.  Shot her a surprised look.  “How do you know?”

She gave a slight shrug.  “Those areas are familiar to him.  You might want to check with Fedorowicz, see if Baxter ever mentioned traveling out of the Des Moines area.  If Baxter doesn’t think Moxley’s vehicle is safe, he could have taken Lucy’s or Gavin’s.”  She broke off suddenly, listening hard at the cell she still had to her ear.

A powerful wave of relief surged through her.  “It sounds like the medics are there.”

As if summoned by her words, the cell Cam was holding sounded.  Sophia listened, barely daring to breathe as he spoke tersely to whoever was on line.  She trailed behind him as he strode out of the room toward his bedroom, trying to glean a sense of what was happening at Lucy’s house.  Cam pulled a pair of pants out of his closet, sat on the edge of the bed and drew them on with one hand.  Then he strode to the dresser and pulled a pair of socks from his drawer.  “Thanks for the update.  Keep me posted if there are any other developments.”

He tossed the cell on the bed when he sat down again to drag on socks.  “It’s okay to disconnect.  We’ll trade.”

With an odd sense of reluctance Sophia hung up and crossed to hand the phone to Cam, picking up her own.  “Well?”

“Connerly’s in rough shape.”  He stood, went back to the closet to choose a shirt.  “At least two GSW’s.  Lost a lot of blood, but breathing.  Only vehicle in the vicinity is Benally’s from the description.”

“So Baxter has Gavin’s or Moxley’s,” Sophia surmised.

“Moxley’s car was over twenty years old.  If he’s smart he ditched it close to Lucy’s.  He’ll have taken Gavin’s.”  Cam buttoned up a wine-colored shirt and jammed the tails into his gray pants before fastening them and going back to the closet for a suit coat.  

“That makes sense.  He’d suspect we’d know about Moxley.  He’d realize it wasn’t safe to keep it on the road too long.  Unless…”  When her voice tapered off, his gaze sharpened.

“Unless?”

“Unless he’s suffered a complete mental break.”  Which, of course made him even more unpredictable.  

Cam shrugged into a suit coat and shoved his feet into a pair of black dress shoes.  Going to the dresser, he picked up his credentials and then snagged the phone off the bed, placing a hand on her back as he went toward the door, guiding her out of it.  “While you get dressed I’m putting out BOLOs on Moxley’s and Connerly’s cars and having road blocks set up on westbound roads in a four county area.  It’s a lot of miles to cover and he’s got a head start.”

“So you’ll alert state police in Nebraska.  Possibly South Dakota.”
His hand left her back and swept under the shirt to give her butt a pat.  “I’ll make

a cop out of you yet.  We’re leaving in five.”

That put a hurry in her step.  His sense of urgency was contagious.  The thought of Lucy trapped with a known murderer had the blood congealing in her veins.  “You barely got dressed in that amount of time,” she called over her shoulder, but the protest was automatic.

Lucy was in danger.  Gavin was critically injured.  The real concern wasn’t how long it took her to get dressed.

It was whether it was already too late.

Chapter 14

The trunk of a car was no place for self-recriminations.  But they were uppermost in Lucy’s mind while she twisted and squirmed, trying to free herself.

If it hadn’t been for her, Gavin would never have been at her place.  Would never have encountered the deranged killer that seemed to think he and Lucy were soul mates.  The truth of the observation seared through her.  If she’d had the courage to have that talk he’d wanted at the office, it would have been over.  He’d have gone back to his hotel room, perhaps with a bruised ego, but alone.  Safe.

Something inside her mentally jeered at the thought.  Connerly was about as easy to get rid of as a burr on a shaggy mutt.  And spending last night with the man had only made him more determined.  The only way to have avoided him following her home was if she’d stayed all night at his hotel instead.  

And that thought was as agonizing as the memory of leaving him bleeding in her kitchen.

Lucy didn’t put much faith in hope.  Hope was believing her mother’s empty promises that things were going to change.  That the newest job was going to bring them riches.  That the latest boyfriend was going to be their ticket off the reservation, which her mother had despised.

Her little brother and sister had clung to false hope long past the age Lucy had stopped believing.  But they could do that.  Lucy had gone to work by that time to bring in enough money to put food on the table.  She’d made sure there was a Christmas tree each year with a small present for each.  Hope was useless.  Determination was always the solution.

Until now.  Because she had no logical reason to believe Gavin was alive.  She’d gone to medical school.  She knew what that amount of blood loss meant.  But she stubbornly clung to the hope that she was wrong.  

Because believing otherwise made it almost impossible to gather the courage to plot her escape.

The zip ties seemed to grow tighter the more she struggled against them.  Lucy had seen a YouTube video once showing how to break loose from the bonds.   After several minutes in which she only managed to cut off her circulation even more, she was ready to track down the person in that video and beat an apology from him.  

The trunk in her sensible mid-sized sedan would have allowed room to turn over.  To move around in a search for anything in the area that could help her escape.  But Gavin’s small sports rental barely had room for her.  An amenity that had likely escaped him when he’d signed the agreement.  But she hadn’t felt any objects rolling free around.  In all likelihood, the space was empty save for her.

She stopped her struggles for a moment to consider.  At some point the offender was going to have to stop the vehicle, if only to relieve himself.  At that point it was likely he’d allow her out to do the same.  When he did so, she had to be ready.  The way to inflict real damage would be to swing her legs up and out to kick him in the face.  If her ankles weren’t free, her success would be improbable.

And running away with her ankles bound would be impossible.

The tight confines of the trunk had her curled in an almost fetal position.  With only a little more maneuvering she could bring her knees closer to her chest, and reach her ankles with her bound hands.  Trying to break free of the binds might not have worked, but having two hands to work at them could be more successful.

The memory flashed through her mind then, in sudden vivid Technicolor.  

Gavin had badgered her unmercifully to tell him what the initial for her middle name stood for.  She’d steadfastly refused to tell him so he’d resorted to guesses.  Silly outlandish guesses.  

“Is it Yamaha?”

“Idiot.”  Her slur was punished with a quick pinch on her ass.  “That’s Japanese, not Navajo.”

“Yasmin?  Yolanda?  Yankee?  Yancy?  Yapany?”

“No, no, no, no and eww.”

He fell silent for an instant, his hand running over her spine almost absently.  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“But I don’t care what your middle name is.”

He rolled her over in the bed.  Settled himself over her with his weight on his forearms.  “But if you tell me, I’ll shut up.”

“Finally,” she teased.  “An offer I can’t refuse.”  But it had taken a few more moments to tell him.  Not from any reason to keep it secret, but because sharing the detail was a small intimacy that made her a bit uncomfortable.

Which, in light of their position was ridiculous.  “It’s Yanaha.  It means brave.”

“Yanaha.”  Gavin drew the word out as if savoring it.  “It suits you.”  He pushed her hair away from her face in a motion that seemed almost caressing.  “Because something tells me you’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met.”

The memory had her eyes blurring.  She blinked away the tears, infuriated by the weakness.  She didn’t feel brave.  She felt vulnerable and weak and terrified for Gavin.  She told herself that he wasn’t weak either.  But she’d autopsied victims with gunshot wounds.  Knew the damage bullets did as they tore through a body.

The thought of what they’d done to Gavin’s had the vise in her chest tightening.

The car came to a stop and she stilled.  When it pulled forward a moment later the anticipation streamed out of her body.  The pause hadn’t been long enough for a traffic light, so it had only been a stop sign.  And not one on a highly traveled road.  If the man had a brain he’d avoid the Interstate.  Iowa was crisscrossed with county and gravel roads that were lightly traveled and even more lightly patrolled.

The thought only made her resolve harden.  In this instance, as in most of life, she had only herself to rely on.  When the car stopped, as it would have to at some point, she was going to be ready.

But it wasn’t only escape she was after.  She was going to make this man pay for what he’d done to Gavin Connerly.

*  *  *  *

“Iowa State Patrol is out in force on major highways and county roads.”  Cam was addressing his team by radio, on a channel reserved for their use.  “Sheriff departments in neighboring counties have called in all available personnel to help patrol some of the lesser traveled blacktops.”  He shot a look at Sophie as he drove.  “Dr. Channing thinks there’s a good chance Baxter is familiar with the gravel roads and rural blacktops, especially around the town cemeteries where the first six bodies were discovered.  She thinks he may be drawn to travel those areas.”

If Baxter knew they were after him, he’d travel north or south before heading west.  But the man had no way of knowing that Gavin had lived to warn them.  They were banking everything on the accuracy of Connerly’s information.  Cam had a feeling this was their last shot at catching Baxter.  And Lucy Benally’s life depended on their success.

He finished by giving the agents their assignments.  Cam was putting a lot of stock in Sophia’s prediction and had placed his people in each of the counties where the first six victims had been buried.  He himself was heading toward Dallas County.  Sophie wanted to run by the small home housing Klaussen.  According to Feinstein’s office, the woman had left to go job-hunting that morning, with the stated intention of having dinner with a friend.  She hadn’t returned before the call out.

When he was done Cam looked at Sophie.  Found her regarding him.  “Patrol on the western sides of the counties will have roadblocks on every major road and highway.  And we also have blocks set up every possible place he could cross the Raccoon River.  Unless he plans to swim, there’s no way for him to cross without detection.”  His assurance didn’t chase the worry from her face.  

“Klaussen’s disappearance worries me.”  Her hands were tightly folded in her lap.  “It seems likely that if Vance ordered Baxter to kill me, he’d also want to get rid of Van Wheton and Klaussen.  All of us can provide evidence linking him to several crimes.”

“Even if Baxter had known where Klaussen was being held, she was fine when she left Sheldahl this morning.  It’s unlikely that he would happen upon her while she was out searching for jobs.”

“Unless he lured her somehow.  Maybe he was the dinner date she mentioned.”

Dawn was breaking behind them, lightening the sky a fraction at a time.  “She said she’d never seen him.  And we know she saw the sketch, so she’d be forewarned.”

“I’d feel better if you added her car to the descriptor the patrol is looking for.”

After a moment he reached out and did that.  Set the radio down again and said, “Satisfied?”

“Not really.”  She gave a shake of her head under the drab wig.  Cam found himself anxious for the day she got rid of it for good.  And not just because it would mean that she was finally out of danger.  A memory of her long blonde hair spread out over his belly and thighs had him warming for an instant, before he firmly yanked his attention back to the matter before them.  “Klaussen is a loose end.  And Vance isn’t the type to leave loose ends.”

He scanned the upcoming intersection carefully, flipping on his LED dashboard strobe and going through it without breaking speed.  Debating whether to share his next thought, he finally said, “She might have taken off.  We didn’t have cause to restrict her movements, but the fact that she didn’t come home last night suggests that as a possibility.”  

“I hope you’re right.”  Sophie shifted into a more comfortable spot.  “Certainly it beats my fears.  That we’re going to find her dead and abandoned the same way you found Martha Moxley.”

The words had barely left her lips when his cell rang again.  It might be time, Cam thought wryly, to just glue the damn thing to his ear.  But the unfamiliar voice on the other end of the call quickly caught his attention.  “Department of Human Services,” he murmured to Sophie and saw her straighten expectantly.  But it was several more minutes before he was able to answer the questions that were clearly written on her face.

“Fedorawicz was right.”  Cam finally ended the call.  He slowed for a tractor pulling out of a farmyard.  Passed it.  “Baxter had plenty of reason to be screwed up.  His mom loaned him out to pedophiles for cash.  Beat him.  Burned him. When he was nine her boyfriend had gotten a little too rough with her and left her tied up in the apartment.  She tried to get the kid to untie her and he attempted to strangle her instead.”

“My God.”  Sophie’s voice was faint.  “That kind of abuse…the damage it’d inflict would take years of intensive therapy.”

“Given the numbers of bottles in his medicine cabinet, therapy wasn’t all he needed.”  He reached for his sunglasses to block the glare of the early morning sun.  “Way it sounds, she never regained custody.  But once Baxter ran from his last foster home, DHS lost track of him.”

“So he stewed in his psychosis long enough to re-enact that scene with from his childhood.  Strangling his mother over and over with every victim.”