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PART IINew Start
Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
—JOHNMILTON
All beginnings are hard.
—GERMANPROVERB
Chapter Eleven
Panic. It overwhelmed, rang in her ears, closed her throat.
“What is this? What does it mean? He can’t possibly think of us as a couple. We never—it wasn’t serious that way, not even when I thought he was…”
“Rozwell doesn’t have relationships in the normal way, Morgan.” Beck spoke carefully. “We believe you’re the only woman he’s targeted who survived, and as far as we know, this is the first time he’s left a trophy he’s taken from a target on a subsequent victim.”
“Trophy,” she repeated.
“Items he may keep,” Morrison explained. “We know, as we’ve recovered some items, he tends to sell or pawn the more valuable, but there’s no evidence leading us to believe he disposes of all. It’s probable he keeps one or more objects from his victims.”
“As trophies.”
She’d heard of this, of course she had. She read books, she watched movies. But it brought fresh horror.
“Like—like a deer head on the wall. But he didn’t keep my locket.”
“He placed it on this victim, knowing we’d identify it as yours—even without the photos inside, we would have identified it as one of the items stolen on the day of Ms. Ramos’s murder.”
“Why would he do that?” But she knew. She already knew. “To scare me,” she said before either agent could speak. “To let me know he hasn’t forgotten about me. To—to allude we’re connected. Why does he care?” she demanded. “He won. He killed Nina, he killed my closestfriend. He took everything from me. I lost everything I’d worked for. I lost my home.”
“You lived,” Beck said simply.
“Nina didn’t.”
“He didn’t want Nina. He killed her out of necessity, not desire. For the first time, he failed. He missed. You lived,” Beck repeated. “And you’re rebuilding your life.”
Step-by-step, she thought. Brick by hard-won brick.
And now?
“You’re saying—or he is—he’s not finished with me. You’re telling me he could try again. What am I supposed to do?” She pushed up, hugging herself as she paced. “Move again, go into hiding, change my name? And what good would any of that do? If he wants to find me, he’ll find me.”
“He wants you to be afraid,” Morrison said. “He wants to live in your head. You live in his. And that burns, Morgan. It scrapes against his ego, and that burning, that scraping caused him to make a major mistake. We’re forewarned, and so are you.”
“What good does that do me?” She dropped into the chair again. “Now I live looking over my shoulder every day, waiting for him to come after me? What about my mother, my grandmother?”
“I’d advise you to install a security system.”
“We have one,” Morgan said wearily. “We never use it.”
“Start,” Morrison said flatly. “Morgan.” He leaned forward. “I’m not going to say you have nothing to worry about, but you have advantages here.”
“How about you name a few, because I’m not feeling it.”
“You know what he looks like. He changes his appearance—hair color, facial hair, colored contacts, glasses—but you know him. He can’t use his usual methods with you. He has to devise another way, and you can put up roadblocks there. Security system’s number one.”
“You work nights,” Beck continued. “Buy a panic button, have your keys and the panic button in your hand when you leave work. Have Security or other coworkers walk you to your car. Check the tire pressure and gas gauge in your car before you drive anywhere. Never leave it unlocked, and check the back seat before you get in.”
