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“The killer contacted me. Chose me.” Douglas hooked a thumb at his chest. “These photos and notes are my property. I’m just showing you as a good citizen who—”
“Who just wants to profit from all this tragedy!”
“I’m the people’s voice! And your conscience!”
“Oh, Christ, Douglas, don’t even try that bullshit with me.” Grayson was on his feet now, leaning across the desk where the damning evidence was strewn.
“Don’t you get it, Sheriff? You have to play ball with me. Star-Crossed, he’s going to send me more information, maybe even call me. So I’m on the field whether you want me to be or not!”
“Give it to him,” Alvarez said.
“What?”
“Who cares who breaks the story first? Give him 370
Lisa Jackson
the exclusive, with guidelines . . . rules that he has to play by. He’s right. Star-Crossed might contact him again, use him as a conduit.”
Douglas was nodding and some of his smugness evaporated, if only sightly. “Trust me, I want this guy put away as much as you do.”
Grayson doubted it.
Alvarez placed a hand on his arm, a reminder to keep his cool when all he wanted was to throw Douglas’s skinny little ass in jail and throw away the key. God, he was frustrated. But even sitting around and talking about it, they were running out of time. There was a chance, albeit a slim one, that they could still find the women in the notes alive. She was right.
Grayson knew it.
But he hated to give in to blackmail.
“Don’t fuck with me, Douglas,” he warned, pointing a finger in the reporter’s face. “Don’t you goddamned mess with me, you got that? You play by my rules.”
“Let’s go!” Alvarez said.
“Just so you know, I have copies of these,” the reporter reminded him, leaving the scattered letters strewn across Grayson’s desk. “And don’t you fuck with me, either, Grayson. It wouldn’t be smart.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Keep going.
Don’t stop.
You’ll find your way out of here! Regan was exhausted. She’d followed the length of two tunnels and found nothing, no exit, no other secret chamber where the bastard locked his victims away. Her legs threatened to give out and she could barely hold the handle of the poker as she made her way along the length of what appeared to be a main tunnel and each of the offshoots she’d explored until she was certain they would go nowhere. Her task seemed impossible and she was certain she’d been at it for hours. The flashlight’s beam was turning yellow, dying slowly. She couldn’t get lost in these tunnels without any source of light. Reviewing the marks she’d made on the floor, she inched her way backward to the room where the creep did his work, the one with the big table 372
Lisa Jackson
and armoire, the place where he kept his treasures, pictures of his kills, and the notes he planned to leave with his next victims. She couldn’t be here, but she didn’t know how to leave!
Ears straining, she made her way back to the doorway she’d entered into the tunnel and listened, barely letting out her breath, trying to determine if someone was on the other side. Unlike the door to her room, the one in which she’d been held captive, this door was snug in its frame, no shaft of light pierced the tunnel gloom.
She waited.
Heard nothing.
No footsteps of a big man walking across stone. No crackle or hiss of a fire.
Biting her lip, flashlight tucked under one arm, poker raised to defend herself, knife tucked in her waistband, Pescoli slowly opened the door . . . to find the room where he worked cold and dark, only a few tiny embers giving off any light. Relieved, she surveyed her surroundings and listened hard, hoping to hear the other woman, the sobs that had whispered through this old mine, the muffled cries of a woman distraught and frightened.
Again she was met with silence.
