Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff (16 page)

Lunch finished, Seth returned to his duty and left Tamara once again. The afternoon crawled by in increments of the nervous sweat of the interviewees, Seth’s growing frustration and the sweltering heat of summer filling the building.

He had to hand it to Tom. With the lawman coordinating the people coming in, the interviewing process was going relatively smoothly, just not yielding any kind of result that Seth could use.

By the time Seth decided to call it a day he was in a foul mood. Someplace inside him he felt the tick of a time bomb that could explode at any moment, resulting in another innocent woman’s horrific death, but he wasn’t any closer to finding the guilty party than he had been on the day he’d dug Tamara out of the sand.

Tamara must have read his mood for the ride home from the office was a silent one.

Seth was certain these murders were about power and control. He knew that the victim profile was brunettes and there was a reason that the killer was burying them in the sand.

The sand was important to the killer. But why? It was part of the ritual. Take a woman, somehow render her helpless and then bury her in the sand. The sand was the key, but what did it mean?

He cast a quick glance at Tamara, who stared out the window as if lost in thoughts of her own. He had to keep her safe. As long as she was with him nobody was going to touch her.

But that meant the killer would have to take another victim. He was already overdue, probably filled with the anxiety of the need of the kill. A bomb ready to detonate and nobody had the answers to stop the explosion of death.

Except perhaps Tamara.

They went to the drive-through at the burger joint to get dinner and now, back at Linda’s, sat across from each other at the table to eat. “I’m going to gain a thousand pounds while I’m here if we keep fast-fooding it,” she said, finally breaking what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable silence.

“I didn’t figure you’d want to cook after a long day at the sheriff’s office and I’m no good in the kitchen unless you can zap it in a microwave.”

“I like to cook. I wouldn’t mind making dinner each night when we got home.”

“Linda has a freezer full of meat. Whatever we use I’ll replace.” He shrugged. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me. I’m male, I’ll eat anything and, to be honest, a home-cooked meal sounds good to me.”

He finished his burger and wadded up the wrapper. “Have you given any more thought to seeing that therapist or maybe a hypnotist to help you retrieve the last of your memories?”

She stared at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted an order of French fries in the center of his forehead. She toyed with her straw in the diet drink, her gaze focused on the cup. “Honestly, I hadn’t considered either option, but if you think that’s what we need to do, then I’ll do whatever is necessary.”

Seth knew what he was asking of her, knew the damage that might come to her by forcing her to remember what her brain was protecting her from, but he was at a dead end, and so afraid of more bodies showing up. His heart broke with his suggestion, but his admiration for her grew by her immediate acquiescence.

He was unable to look at her as he told her he’d look into finding somebody to work with her the next day. Thankfully when they finished eating she went into the living room and turned on the television and he set up his laptop on the table and fed in notes and impressions from the day.

He consciously willed himself not to look at Tamara, not to feel the fear she must be feeling as she thought of being forced to remember the horrible moments just before he’d found her in the sand.

He didn’t want to think about the night to come when there was nothing he’d like better than curl up in bed with her at his side, feeling the silk of her hair and smelling the scent that belonged to her alone. He was half in love with her and hated that he couldn’t control the softening of his heart where she was concerned.

Still, she’d sleep alone tonight in the guest room and he would bunk on the sofa. With the window in the guest room boarded up there was no way anyone could get to her without Seth hearing them. She’d be safe, both from the killer and from any further deepening of the bond that she and Seth shared, a bond that shouldn’t exist.

He wasn’t surprised when at nine o’clock she got up from the sofa and turned off the television and announced that she was going to bed. He felt her questioning gaze on him but he didn’t look up from his computer screen as he murmured a good-night.

He didn’t look up until he sensed that she was gone and had disappeared into the guest room and only then did he realize he’d been holding his breath. He released it on a deep sigh.

Did he want her again? Absolutely. Was he going to follow through on his desire for her? Absolutely not. He frowned and stared at the screen in front of him where he had typed his list of persons of interest. Hell, he couldn’t even call them suspects. There just wasn’t any hard evidence to tie any of them to the murders. They didn’t have enough to ensure the state a foolproof case and no self-respecting district attorney would go forward with what little they had.

He leaned back in his chair and released another deep sigh. Maybe he should call it a night, too. Last night sleep had been in short supply with the two bouts of lovemaking with Tamara.

And when he had finally fallen asleep he’d suffered nightmares of being stuck in sand, unable to save Tamara, unable to move as he heard the scrape of a shovel nearby.

The last thing he wanted to do was force Tamara to face her nightmares and even asking her to see somebody who would actively chase after them broke his heart. But that was Seth the man thinking.

With the growing anticipation of another kill at hand, he had to put his personal feelings aside and become Seth the FBI agent, who was tasked with finding and stopping a killer and using every resource available to him to get the job done.

He shut down his laptop and then got out of the chair and stretched with his arms overhead, working out kinks from sitting too long.

He checked the back door to make sure it was locked and dead-bolted and then walked to the living room to do the same with the front door. After checking it, he moved to the front window and pulled one of the curtains aside to gaze out.

Night had fallen...another night with no answers, no way to stop a killer from following his dark impulses again. He was about to move away from the window when something caught his eye...the figure of a man just behind the streetlamp post across the street.

Chapter Ten

It looked as if he were attempting to hide, to blend into the lamppost itself. Adrenaline shot through Seth. Why would anyone be across the street from this house after dark?

He left the window and as he went through the living room he grabbed his gun from the kitchen table. He didn’t like things that didn’t make sense and it didn’t make sense that somebody was outside watching this house with Tamara inside.

As he approached the back door his heart pounded a hundred miles a minute. Maybe it was the killer, come back to look for a weakness in the house security that he could exploit in order to get to Tamara.

Quietly, Seth unbolted and unlocked the back door and slid out into the hot night air. His gun was a familiar, comforting weight in his hand and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it if necessary.

With the stealth of a stalking cat, he moved slowly around the corner to the side of the house and then to the corner of the front of the house. He peered out and saw that the male figure was still there, although there was too much distance for Seth to specifically identify who he was.

He had no idea if the man was armed or not, but Seth had the element of surprise on his side. With a renewed burst of adrenaline he shot from the corner of the house and across the street. He threw himself at the person and tackled him to the ground as the man yelped in surprise.

Seth instantly got to his feet, the business end of his gun pointed to the man who was facedown on the concrete. “Get up and put your hands above your head,” Seth commanded. “And if you decide not to comply with my orders, then I’ll be happy to shoot you.”

As the man rolled over on his back, Seth stifled a gasp of shock as he looked into the frightened eyes of Sam Clemmons. “Don’t shoot me, man. I wasn’t doing anything.”

He raised his hands above his head, obviously recognizing the deadly intent in Seth’s eyes. “What are you doing lurking around out here?” Seth asked as he motioned for him to stand.

“Nothing, man. I wasn’t doing anything,” Sam exclaimed. Seth patted him down and found no weapons, then indicated he could lower his hands to his sides. “Last I heard it wasn’t against the law to stand on a street corner.”

“Depends on why you chose this particular street corner,” Seth replied.

Sam looked toward the house and then back at Seth. “I just wanted to see her, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure she was really okay.” He shifted from one foot to the other, a look of sheer misery on his features. “I just stood there, you know.” His voice was soft, barely audible. “While you and my friends were digging her out of the sand I just froze. I didn’t do anything to help her. I haven’t seen her since then and I just needed to see...to make sure that she was all right.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped forward and for a moment he just looked like a pathetic kid. “I have nightmares about it,” he continued, his gaze directed at Seth’s feet. “I dream that I’m riding the dunes and I ride right over her face...” He shuddered, as if the image in his head was too horrific to bear.

Seth wasn’t sure what to believe. Sam Clemmons knew the dunes probably better than anyone in town. He’d been at the scene of the discoveries of both Rebecca and Vicki. He was a maladjusted loner who had come from a difficult background. All strikes against him and yet Seth wasn’t sure what to believe about him.

He seemed genuinely distraught about how the events had unfolded on the day Tamara had been found. He also seemed concerned about her well-being, but for all Seth knew he could be a great actor covering his reason for being here.

Sam was right about one thing. It wasn’t against the law to stand on a street corner. He lowered his gun and scowled at Sam. “Go on, get out of here and don’t come back. I don’t want to see you anywhere around this neighborhood again.”

Sam gave a curt nod and then took off running in the opposite direction. Seth tucked his gun into his waistband, raked a hand through his hair and expelled a breath of tense air.

He knew from experience it would take a while for the adrenaline that flooded through his veins to dissipate. He entered the house the way he’d left it, by the back door. Tamara stood in the kitchen, clad in her sexy short pink nightie, her eyes wide as she clutched a butcher knife in one hand.

“Put that away before you cut off your own finger,” he said. “Everything is under control.”

She slowly lowered the knife. “What happened? I got up to get a drink of water and saw the back door open and you nowhere to be found.”

Her eyes still held a hint of panic as she set the knife on the counter. “We had a Peeping Tom of sorts,” he said. “I went outside to see who it was and what he was doing standing just across the street watching this house.”

“Who was it?”

“Sam Clemmons.”

“Wasn’t he one of the guys who found me?” She sank down at the kitchen as if her legs were too weak to hold her upright.

“Yeah, he’s the one who froze and didn’t help dig you out. It appears he’s suffering a bout of guilt over that and just wanted to get a look at you, assure himself that you’re okay.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you believe that?”

“At this point I don’t know what to believe. All I know is that I had no viable reason to arrest him and so I told him to scram.” He tried to keep his gaze focused on her face and not drifting down the length of her half-naked body. “Show’s over, go back to bed.” His voice was curt and sounded more like a command than a suggestion.

He could tell that his tone had irritated her by the way she whirled on her bare heels and stomped down the hallway. He felt a moment of remorse, but shoved it aside. It was time to withdraw from her, to remind both himself and her that this was all about a job and nothing more.

He slept on the sofa with one eye open for the remainder of the night and by morning his foul mood had only intensified. She was quiet during morning coffee, but didn’t appear to be mad and somehow that made it worse.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you last night,” he said once they were in his truck and headed for the sheriff’s office.

“It’s okay. I know you’re under a lot of stress.” She flashed him a bright smile. “This wasn’t exactly what you had in mind when you came here for a vacation.”

A night of his time here was far more than what he’d ever expected from a vacation, but he didn’t say that aloud. He didn’t want to think about the night he’d spent with her. “No, it wasn’t what I had in mind,” he agreed. “But I’m glad I was here. Sheriff Atkins would have probably requested some FBI presence anyway. It just made it easier with me already being here.”

He turned into the parking area in front of the sheriff’s office, shut off the engine and then turned to look at her. “I’m thinking of calling in some reinforcements from the bureau. I’ve got a buddy, Mick McCane, who I know recently finished up a case in Arkansas. Maybe he can come out and give us a fresh perspective on everything.”

She unfastened her seat belt and gazed at him somberly. “You know you don’t need to call in reinforcements. What you need to do is find a way to break through my mind, and if that means being hypnotized, then find somebody who can do that for us.”

“Are you sure that’s the way you want to go?” he asked, his heart stepping up his rhythm as he recognized once again what might lie ahead of them...of her.

“At this point I think it’s the only way you’re going to catch the killer. I have to go back, Seth. I have to go back to the moments before I landed in the sand dune. The key to solving the murders may be there and once that’s done we can both get on with our lives.”