Fear for Me (32 page)

One she was betting the captain and the mayor didn’t want coming. “They’re going to try and push this away, aren’t they?”

A nod. “No bodies, no deaths.”

“I won’t let this investigation end.” She glanced back at the body. “Where’s his cell phone?”

“No phone was recovered with the body.”

“But Lauren said—”

“Concussion, remember?” he murmured. “The guy might never have even had a cell phone.”

Bull.

“Or maybe it’s lost in the swamp,” Greg continued. “He spent so much time out there. Maybe the guy ditched it.”

Maybe. Kyle was out in the swamp searching the area around Judge Hamilton’s cabin. The techs had investigated, but Kyle liked to get up close and personal with the kill sites.

It was how he worked.

Talking to the dead—that was how she worked. She glanced back at Walker.

“Just what is it you hope to find by studying his body?” Greg leaned closer to her. Curiosity deepened his voice. “We know who killed him. Ross and Voyt admitted to shooting him. It’s no mystery how this guy died.”

“The mystery isn’t his death, but what was left behind.” She reached for a pair of gloves.

“What are you doing?”

“I went to med school, too.” She gave him a grim smile. “What I’m doing is assisting you. I’m not leaving this room until I learn every secret Walker carried on his body.” Secrets she would not let him carry to his grave.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“This city has been under the grip of terror for long enough,” Mayor Louis Daniels said as he crossed his arms over his barrel-like chest and lasered his gaze around the room. “Walker is dead, and it’s time to move on.”

The meeting had been called at seven a.m., in the mayor’s office. Lauren and Anthony had been given a thirty-minute warning, and they’d had to rush over to meet the mayor and the chief of police, Jeremiah Dodge. The homicide captain, Reginald Powers, was there, too, along with a very tired-looking Paul Voyt, the ME, and Anthony’s two marshals, Jim and Keith. In the back of the crowded room, the two FBI agents stood at attention, and Lauren could clearly see the tension in Cadence’s body.

“Now, I’ve read the files the FBI prepared about the so-called alpha team, but I don’t see one single piece of evidence that actually supports the claim that someone else has been working with Walker all of these years.”

Lauren’s heart was drumming in her chest. She’d dressed carefully, grateful for the suit that had been in her travel bag. She knew a power meeting when it was announced, and she wasn’t about to leave this meeting without getting what she wanted.

“Most of those missing-persons cases aren’t even in our jurisdiction,” the mayor continued, voice hard. “And without bodies…”

“We still have crimes,” Paul said, his own voice low.

Should he even be out of the hospital? He was so pale. Lauren cast a worried glance his way.

“Crimes that our DA would have a damn hard time prosecuting.” Louis’s dark gaze cut to Lauren. “Without the body, the jurors always have doubt in their heads. They always wonder, did she just run away? Did she just get tired of the life she had and decide to vanish? Hell, people up and abandon their lives and families every day. It happens.”

“This
isn’t
abandonment, mayor,” Cadence said, stepping forward. “These are very specific victim profiles that match our killers. The ages increase, every year, and the victims share the same hair color, the same general build, the same—”

“Why wouldn’t Walker have rolled on this guy?” the police chief demanded. “He was facing death. The guy should have bargained with everything he had.”

Cadence shook her head. “That wasn’t how it worked in Walker’s partnership. He and his partner had an agreement. When Walker went to prison, turning on the other perp might not have even occurred to him. They don’t
think
like regular people do. They think of blood and death and—”

“The city of Baton Rouge
appreciates
all of your help and cooperation on the Walker case,” Louis interjected smoothly, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “but the Walker case is over now, and so is your job.”

No.
Lauren sucked in a sharp breath. She’d worked with Louis for a long time. Fury wouldn’t work with him. Emotion never did. “I heard Walker talking on the phone to his partner. He
exists
.”

Louis’s lips thinned. “You were terrified, Lauren. You thought you were going to die. You were bleeding, you had a concussion—”

“He didn’t slam my head into the wall until
after
I’d heard the phone call.”

The mayor sighed. “I read your medical report. You also had an injury to the front of your head. One you probably sustained during your abduction.”

She remembered hitting the ground. Everything going dark.

“You
were
concussed then. I can’t be sure that your memory isn’t faulty.” He paused as he studied her. “Be honest. If you had a witness who described the same situation you did, would you put her up on the stand?”

Damn him.

“Without any other evidence to back her up, would you let that woman testify to a jury? Even if she
did
testify, would that jury believe her?”

“There are over a dozen missing women who match the profile,” Lauren gritted. “Are we just going to ignore them? Act like they don’t matter?”

Louis shook his head. “No, we aren’t.”

“That’s something,” Anthony muttered, not sounding impressed.

Lauren wasn’t exactly impressed, either. She was pissed.

“Detective Voyt will pull the files for the women missing from Baton Rouge. Clyde will contact the police chiefs in the surrounding areas and alert them to the possibility that—”

“Possibility?” Cadence’s face had flushed. “There is no possibility. There’s reality. Listen to me, I am
telling
you, there is a killer still out there. A brutal, brilliant killer who has been hunting since he was a teen. He’s only gotten better over the years. He isn’t stopping.”

“How do you know that?” Louis demanded. “Sounds like you’re just going on a hunch.”

“I’m a profiler.” Her eyes glittered with anger, but Cadence’s voice was flat. “My job is to figure out killers. And I am damn good at my job. I’ve analyzed Walker, I’ve analyzed the abductions and deaths related to this case. There is a second man. One who has been going under the radar for far too long.”

Louis and Clyde exchanged a long, hard look. “If those police chiefs should want the FBI’s assistance on those cases…”

“What if it were your daughter? What if she was on the list of who we
think
the guy killed?” Cadence pushed.

Beside her, Kyle’s face was a dangerous mask. A muscle jerked along his jaw. “They need to know what happened to these women,” Kyle gritted. “They deserve to know.”

Cadence slanted him a fast, worried glance, then she shifted her attention back to Louis and Clyde. “If it were your daughter, would you still be turning us away like this?”

“We
don’t
have the evidence.” His hand pointed to Greg. “The ME says all the victims within the last few days were killed by one man—Jon Walker. His DNA was found at the crime scenes, on the victims. Just his. No one else’s.” His shoulders straightened. “As far as I’m concerned, until we have conclusive evidence, your services are no longer needed.”

Silence.

Lauren’s cheeks had been flushed with fury, but now they felt ice-cold. After a moment, when her heart stopped shaking in her chest, she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet.

She could feel everyone’s stare on her. “You didn’t answer Cadence’s question.” The words were still without emotion. “You didn’t say what you’d do if your daughter was one of his victims.”

Louis glanced away.

Fine. She exhaled slowly. “You know me, Louis. You’ve worked with me, time and time again. You’ve trusted me on dozens of cases, why won’t you trust me now?”

He still didn’t look at her when he answered, “The city can’t have any more fear. We need to heal, not start searching for new monsters in the shadows.”

He was spinning political BS at her. “What happens when those new monsters come out of the shadows? What then?”

“It’s not going to happen.” The words held plenty of bluster, but not enough confidence for her. “The people here are safe again.”

She considered that. Him. “Maybe it’s easier to pretend that, when it doesn’t hit close to home.” She kept her eyes on him. “It’s close for me. My sister
is
the first victim. Walker
told
me he watched someone kill her. I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t dream it up in my concussed mind. For you to suggest I did…” Now she was walking toward him with slow, sure steps. “It’s an insult to me and to every one of those victims.”

He flushed and started to stammer. He’d do a lot more than that before she was done with him.

“You’re so worried about politics, about the press, that you’re willing to let a killer roam free.” Lauren shook her head. “I’m not doing that.”

A chair scraped behind her. Footsteps, strong and certain, as they crossed the room following her.

“I’m not going to give up on these people. I won’t give up on Jenny. I’m going to keep looking, and I
will
find the man who has taken all of these lives. Then I’m going to make certain the justice system takes what is left of his life.”

“And I’m going to help her,” Anthony said, only his voice was much rougher and angrier than hers.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw the hard fury on his face.

“With respect,
Mayor
”—the word was a snarl from Anthony—“I don’t answer to you. Neither do my men. If I want to stay in this area, if I want to hunt that bastard, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Disgust tightened his lips. “I’m sure the press will love to discover how disinterested you are in all of these missing women.”

Louis blanched. “I’m not—”

“We’ll find your evidence,” Anthony told him. “I guarantee it. Then you can try to dig your way out of the grave the press will make for the mayor who didn’t give a shit about all of the lost lives.”

Louis’s gaze fell to the floor once more.

“By the way…” Cadence’s voice rang out.

Louis stiffened.

“Here’s a tip to remember…” She and Kyle strode toward Louis. “You don’t get to tell the FBI that we’re done. We don’t need you to tell us when to investigate a crime, especially one we believe crossed
state
lines.”

His rose to his feet. “What—”

“You should have read the case files better,” she said, cutting over him. “One of the victims was last seen just over the Texas border. If we’ve got a multistate killer on our hands, which I believe we do, the case follows under our purview. We
will
keep investigating, with or without the Baton Rouge PD’s assistance.”

His cheeks couldn’t flush much darker. “I think this meeting is over.”

“Yes,” Lauren agreed, “so do I.” She’d already taken steps to have her office covered for the remainder of the week. Cases had been taken, schedules rearranged. She’d made sure the DA’s office was set so nothing would fall through the cracks.

She wasn’t giving up. Not now. Now when she was so close.

They left the office. Lauren’s steps were far too fast as she hurried down the stone steps outside of city hall.

“Lauren!”

She stopped at Cadence’s call. The other woman rushed after her. “I’m not giving up,” Cadence said.

“Neither am I,” Lauren vowed. She couldn’t believe Louis. He was more worried about PR, about Baton Rouge being killer central, than he was about the victims. About
saving
lives.

“I examined Walker’s body last night,” Cadence told her. Kyle wasn’t with her. Had he stayed to tell Louis just what he thought of him?

“What did you find?” Anthony demanded. His shoulder brushed against Lauren’s.

“Inside the grooves on the bottom of his hiking boots, I found dried seeds from a weeping willow.”

Lauren’s heart stopped.

“I know that doesn’t seem like much, but willows aren’t exactly thick on the ground in the swamp. And it
did
come from the swamp. I got a botanist from LSU to look at the seeds and based on the soil embedded in the seeds, he figured out an area where he
thinks
the willow could be located.” She gave a little nod. “The area is in a ten-mile radius around Walker’s cabin.”

She almost couldn’t breathe.

“Before he died,” Anthony said, his deep voice rumbling, “Walker mentioned a weeping willow tree. He wanted me to tell Lauren about it.”

Cadence’s eyes widened. “The tree holds significance for him. Sometimes”—Cadence’s voice was soft as she continued—“killers will mark a space that is special to them by planting certain flowers or using a marker to—”

“You think Walker and his partner planted the willow near Jenny.” It was what Lauren thought, too. It had to be Jenny. Why else would Walker try to send the message to her?

Cadence nodded. “Maybe one of the killers even felt remorse for the act.”

Remorse shown by a willow that would weep year after year. If they’d planted a tree for Jenny…
could they have planted trees for other victims, too? Others we didn’t even know about yet?

“I’m heading for his cabin,” Anthony said.

Paul was coming down the steps.

“No.” Lauren shook her head. “
We’re
going.”

Anthony gave her a grim smile.

“Lauren…” Paul called out.

She hurried toward him. Hugged him. “Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

“Like someone else I could name, I’m not exactly a fan of those places.” His gaze darted over her. “I’m sorry. Louis is being a dick. I’ll keep working the case. You know I won’t let your sister just—”

“Thank you.” She stepped back from him.

Cadence had hurried away, moving to talk with the ME, and Anthony stood behind Lauren, steady, silent.

“Thank you for all you’ve done on this case, for Jenny. For me.” Over the years, he’d always been a good friend. They hadn’t made it as lovers, but that was because she
couldn’t
love anyone else, not when she longed for Anthony so much.