AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
SUNDAY
Roaring Creek
The bell over the convenience store door tinkled and Cassidy Wilder stared in horror at the man coming through the door drawing a weapon. He casually screwed on a suppressor and aimed it at the spotty-faced, red-haired youth behind the counter. Two other people in the store moved away and ducked down out of sight. Heart pounding in her ears, she backed away, dropping down to hide between a display of sunglasses and toiletries. Had he seen her?
“Fill a bag with money.” The male voice was just above a whisper. “All of it—and those scratch games.”
A man who was close by shuffled forward a few inches and pulled a pistol with trembling fingers. The thief moved like lightning, turning his gun and firing.
Bang!
The customer slumped to the ground, his pistol spinning away across the tile. Blood oozed from a hole in his chest and pooled around him. His mouth worked but no sound came from his pale lips. Cassidy crawled toward him, and he stared at her,blinked twice, and then his stare fixed in death. Panic gripped her and she shuffled backward, peering at the gunman between the shelves. He was tall, maybe six feet, and wearing a balaclava, leather gloves, and a long dark coat. His polished boots stuck out from Wranglers, and he didn’t resemble the usual desperate type that held up a store. She heard a voice, a woman asking about the noise.
“Stay back, Mom.” The youth behind the counter pressed himself against the shelves behind him.
A woman appeared from out the back.
Bang! Bang!
Even with the suppressor, the sound of the shots blasted the silence and echoed around the room. Cassidy flinched, terrified and sickened at the sound of two bodies hitting the floor. He’d shot the people behind the counter. Who was next? A woman hiding in the next aisle panicked and ran screaming for the door. Two more shots rang out, and she fell to her knees and crawled, slipping in her own blood, trying to get away. The gunman shot again, and she lay staring into nothingness.
Trembling with shock, Cassidy wrapped her arms around her knees and kept her head down. The store was so quiet she didn’t know what was happening. The stink of gunfire filled the room, mixed with the smell of blood and death. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, came toward her as if the gunman had all the time in the world. Frozen with terror, Cassidy stared at the floor.
“Get up.” The man poked her with his gun. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll spread your brains all over the coffee machine.”
The heat from the suppressor burned through her clothes and she jerked up her head and stared into cold eyes. The muzzle of the gun was aimed at her forehead. Shaking, she staggered to her feet. A bag of money was thrust into her hands and she took it without thinking. The man waved the pistol toward the door. She stared at him, too scared to move.
“See the truck out front? Walk out, nice and calm, and climb inside.” He pressed the gun against her forehead. “One sound, one wrong move, and you die.” He chuckled. “We’re going for a little ride.”
ONE
MONDAY
Rattlesnake Creek
Special Agent Beth Katz sat at her desk at the Rattlesnake Creek FBI field office engrossed in a homicide case file. It was abundantly clear to her that a serial killer roamed the communities in the nearby county of Mischief. It was a case that triggered her carefully disguised dark side. This one she’d investigate on her own, keeping all of her involvement secret, and if the perpetrator proved to be unstoppable, she’d allow her alter ego to rise and take him down. It had been a time since she’d given in to her dormant impulses, and ignoring them hadn’t been easy. She understood her triggers, and this string of unsolved murders was begging her personal attention.
Three deputies worked the case at the Mischief Sheriff’s Department, and they’d created a list of suspects, but the men involved had produced alibis for the times of the other murders. She scratched her head and leaned back in her chair, staring at the long list of young women and girls found dumped all over the communities of Wolf Valley, Buffalo Pass, and Second Thought. The murders all had similarities. The young women and girlswere between thirteen and twenty and had seemingly vanished from the streets and showed up miles from their homes, raped and strangled. Bodies had been found in dumpsters, alleyways, deserted buildings, construction sites, or just alongside the highway.
She checked out the Mischief Sheriff’s Department, and although it was more than obvious these murders were the work of a dangerous serial killer, no assistance had been requested. In fact, in a recent media statement the sheriff had said he was interviewing suspects and suggested a local gang might be involved. The case intrigued her, mainly because the local law enforcement must have been blind not to have noticed the method of killing was identical. It wasn’t a group of men, but one man who had committed these crimes. Not only that, they’d used their local doctors to examine the bodies. The medical examiner for the region, Dr. Shane Wolfe, hadn’t been called in for his opinion. The entire investigation stunk on ice, but it wasn’t a case she wanted to explore with her partner, Agent Dax Styles. Although Styles knew Cutthroat Jack was her father, he had no idea of her dark side—and she needed to keep it that way. He wouldn’t understand that taking out monsters was personal. The Mischief serial killer needed to be stopped and she just happened to be the one to take him down. It might take her a little time, but she’d eventually find him. After taking one last look at the files, she closed them, and using her cybercrime skills, removed any trace she’d been snooping in the Mischief Sheriff’s Department database. She smiled to herself as Styles walked into the office, his K-9, a Belgian Malinois by the name of Bear, at his heels.This one is mine.
Before Beth could greet him, Styles held up one finger and went to the kitchenette to dump takeout bags on the counter. As be bent to push things into the refrigerator, it was obvious he was taking a call from the director of the FBI. Styles wasa maverick—he ran by his own rules—and the director was the only person she’d ever heard him refer to assir, so she leaned back in her chair and watched him with interest.
Styles was all tough cowboy, six-two, muscular without an ounce of body fat, light brown hair that curled at his collar. His work attire was usually Wranglers, cowboy boots, and a Stetson. He was good looking, with soft eyes and a scar on his chin, and she’d seen many more battle scars on his body during their daily workouts. In his holster he carried a Magnum, but she’d rarely seen him draw down on anyone. He had the old-school way of dealing with unrest: he talked some, and if that didn’t work, he’d usually wait for a mess of guys to attack him. That was their big mistake. As a military cop, he’d been trained to take down the most experienced soldiers, so a few hometown boys were just a workout to him. When he disconnected and pulled the wireless earbud from his ear, she stood and went to set up the coffee machine. “So what’s up?”
“That was the director. He has a case for us.” Styles shrugged. “You recall the convenience store robberies over the past few weeks?”
Beth turned on the machine and leaned against the counter. “Only what’s on the news. Holdups are happening all over. The store clerk was shot, I believe. That’s not the type of case we usually take. Can’t the local sheriff handle it?”
“That’s the point.” Styles scratched the scar on his chin, something he often did when he was thinking. “It’s three remote communities. All have their own sheriffs, and there’s not too much cooperation going on between them. It’s not the robberies, although the number of innocent people being shot by this guy is growing, it’s the kidnap and murders that make this different.”
This was the first time Beth had heard anything about an abduction. She frowned and peered into the takeout bag Styles had left on the counter. Smiling, she pulled out an egg saladsandwich and handed a second one to him. It used to be donuts, but he’d come around to healthier eating since she’d arrived. “They never mentioned that on the news.”
“No, because it’s been kept under wraps.” Styles dropped the sandwich on his desk and leaned against the counter beside her. “The robberies have occurred in Roaring Creek, Broken Bridge, and Rivers Edge. He’s hit the Roaring Creek one twice now. The new owners reopened last week, and yesterday someone walked inside, killed four people, and abducted a young girl only sixteen years old.” He sighed, removed his hat, and ran his fingers through his hair. “She’s still missing. CCTV footage shows the same guy, wearing a balaclava and gloves and carrying a pistol with a suppressor. From the footage, the gun has been identified as a Beretta M9A3, the slugs pulled from the victims nine-by-nineteen-millimeter FMJ M882.”
Beth digested the information as the coffee pot steamed behind her, filling the room with the aromatic delight of freshly brewed coffee. “Is he the same person in each case? Have they CCTV footage of all of the robberies?”
