Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Jake wanted to kill the bastard.
He glared at the suspect who’d been cuffed to the table and left in the small interrogation room. Not like this area was a hotbed of crime. The sheriff’s station in Hilton Head was small. The staff mostly young, inexperienced.
Except for Honey. Honey knew exactly what in the hell to do with violent criminals. She knew how to make anyone break. Something he admired about her.
Honey stood beside him now in the observation room at the station. They surveyed the suspect through the one-way glass. The station had two interrogation rooms, and the perp was in the biggest one. All eight feet of it.
“Do you think you beat the shit out of him enough?” Honey asked, voice mild.
The man—Adam Rule—had a face that looked battered to hell and back. EMTs had checked him out. No serious injuries. But he was going to hurt for a while. The blood on his face had been cleared away. His right shoulder had been dislocated. Yeah, Jake knew he’d done that to the jackass. The shoulder had been treated, and Adam’s left hand was currently cuffed to the table. A sling immobilized the right shoulder.
That shoulder would hurt for a while. So would the bruises.
You bruised Wren, you sonofabitch. You hit her. I should break your face for that attack. Even better, I should break you.
“Jake?”
“He punched Wren.” His voice came out completely flat even as rage poured through every cell of his body. “He aimed his truck at her side of the vehicle. That man is lucky to be breathing right now.”
“It’s, ah, good that he’s breathing,” she replied, sending him a quick side-eye glance. “Because people who are breathing can make big confessions. They can tell us where missing brides are. They can tell us just how they came to be waiting to ram a truck at you and Wren. They can answer all kinds of pertinent questions like that, whereas a dead man can’t tell anyone jack.”
He forced his jaw to unclench. “Let me in the room with him.”
“Why? So you can finish the attack you started?” Honey snorted. “I don’t think so. That would be a horrible idea.”
“Then let me go in.” Wren’s quiet voice.
Jake stiffened. “Sweetheart…” The endearment rolled from him. Deep. Low. Dark. “You think I intend to let you anywhere near that bastard again?”
“Sweetheart…” Her voice was soft and husky and sent an ache right through him. Her soft steps padded closer to him as she came forward to join them at the small observation window. “You think I’m just going to stand here and do nothing while my friend is missing? I have to help her.”
His head turned toward her. When he saw the darkening bruise along her jaw, hot fury exploded through him all over again. He took a lunging step for the door.
Wren sidestepped to block his path. “I’m okay.”
She kept saying that. She wasn’t okay. The prick had slammed into her side of the vehicle. Jake had tried to turn the Jeep so he could take the impact, but there hadn’t been enough time. And the jerk had hit them again and again. Jake’s head had bounced all over the damn place—especially when the Jeep flipped to the side—and for one freaking, stupid moment, he’d actually blacked out.
As soon as his eyes had opened, he’d reached for Wren. He’d shoved away the remnants of the air bags around him, but when he’d been able to see clearly, Wren had been gone.
Gone.
He remembered roaring her name and feeling like the whole world had just gone dark around him.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Honey mused. “And probably one best executed while I’m still in command.”
Jake whipped toward her. “What? Why the hell would you lose command?” And how was it a good idea to let Wren into that room with the attacker?
“Oh, come on.” Honey rolled her eyes. “The Feds are blasting their way here. We’ve got an abduction in our quiet town. We’ve got the newly discovered daughter of a serial killer. This story is gonna be big, and there is no way a small-town sheriff gets to stay in charge of anything this big. Especially not since I hit them up asking for their help on the Makayla Lane crime scene already. They’re only gonna help if they get to be in charge. Feds never play nicely with others.”
“You can handle a case better than anyone at the Bureau. Hell, you were the Bureau,” Jake pointed out.
“Once upon a time. Yep. Sure. Now, though, I’m a small-town sheriff who is looking hard at complete retirement. I won’t be in command of this investigation for much longer. Just stating facts. I know how the Feds work.” She waved toward the glass. “He confessed to the attack on Wren. He did not confess to taking Makayla. When he is near Wren, the guy loses control. Starts spouting everything in his head. If we want to push him more, before the Feds storm my station, then I say we send her in. Of course, you can also go in as the fierce guard that you are.”
Damn straight he’d go in. If Wren went inside.
“I don’t think he took Makayla.” Wren seemed very certain. “I know him.”
Jake waited. She hadn’t said anything about the perp before. But before had been a clusterfuck. People filming them in the street. Deputies swarming. EMTs poking and prodding and that jackass in the interrogation room? He’d been raging at Wren the whole time.
“I knew him as soon as he mentioned Carrie’s name,” she added. “Carrie was my father’s last victim.” Her gaze darted to Honey. “She was the one?—”
“The one you tried so hard to save,” Honey finished. “You still had your hands on her throat when I found you, Wren. Your father had slashed your shoulders to hell and back, but you were trying to save that woman. And for your efforts, her brother just came and tried to kill you.”
Wren shook her head. “He doesn’t know what I did.”
Jake needed to know more. Every single detail about the Sweetheart Slasher and Wren. And to think, he’d once foolishly believed he knew her so very well. Every day, new secrets emerged.
Wren’s attention focused on the man who sat on the other side of the glass. “That man in there—I think he came for me. I don’t think he’s involved in what happened to Makayla, and I think the longer we focus on him, the more time we waste.” Wren straightened her shoulders. “So I’m going in there, and I’m talking to him.”
Honey nodded like it was the best plan ever.
What the hell? Were the women trying to drive him insane?
“He’s cuffed,” Wren reminded him. Like he needed the reminder. “And his other arm is out of commission.”
The whole guy should be out of commission.
“Go with her,” Honey directed him. “You’ve been her shadow every moment as it is.”
He’d been guarding her. Where she went, he went. So, hell, yes, if she was going in interrogation, he was, too.
“But don’t kill him, Jake.” Honey’s admonishment was mild. “No matter what provocation he may give. Like I said, dead men can’t answer questions, and I would sure hate to have to lock you up. It will be awful hard for you to shadow Wren if you’re locked up because you killed a guy who was cuffed.”
She wouldn’t be locking him up. And no one would be keeping him from Wren. Ever.
“We are losing time.” Wren’s deep, dark eyes were on him. “Makayla is losing time.”
Hell. “Let’s do this.” But if the guy moved to attack, Jake would stop him in the most brutal way possible.
Her knees shook. Her jaw ached. Her stomach knotted. She wanted to turn around and run out of the station, but instead, Wren opened the interrogation room door. She walked slowly across the threshold. Her gaze landed on the man seated at the small table.
“You!” Adam Rule tried to bolt to his feet.
But Deputy Timothy Hernandez stood nearby. He surged forward and pushed the guy back down. “Are we going to have a problem?” Timothy demanded.
Wren figured they probably were.
Especially because Jake followed her into the room. Adam’s gaze immediately jumped to him, and fear flashed on the man’s face. “Keep that bastard away from me!” Adam shouted.
Jake leaned against the wall on the left. “Do you often go around attacking women and plowing into random Jeeps? Or was today special for you?”
Adam hadn’t asked for an attorney. He hadn’t asked for anyone. Actually…he had.
He asked for me.
While she’d been watching him from the observation room with Jake and Honey, Adam had shouted Wren’s name, over and over. Well, not her current name.
Margaret.
A name she hadn’t used in so very long. Because Margaret had died. When her father attacked her, when he tried to see wings beneath her skin and Margaret had begged and pleaded, but he’d just kept cutting, that girl had died.
“She has to die. Carrie died. Carrie died. ”
“I know,” Wren said. She wanted to keep emotion out of her voice. To be calm and cold. Honey and Jake could do that. They could stay in control, no matter what. But she wasn’t them. And she was so tired of pretending.
What was the point in keeping her mask? The world had discovered her secrets. Or else the man currently cuffed wouldn’t have come for her.
“I know,” Wren repeated. “Because I was there when she died.”
Another surge upward.
Timothy pushed him right back down. “Uh, Wren, don’t know why you came in, but you should go back out?—”
“Honey sent me in.” It was the only idea Wren currently had. She pulled out the chair across from Adam. Sat down. It was either sit down or her knees might give out and she’d fall. “Your name was the last thing to pass from Carrie’s lips.”
Adam shook his head.
“She couldn’t speak then.” Wren put her hands on the table. “My fa—” Wren stopped. Squared her shoulders. “My father had slit her throat. Blood was everywhere. I tried to help, but there wasn’t anything I could do. She looked at me, and she mouthed your name. You were her last thought.”
“You fucking bitch,” Adam breathed as tears filled his eyes. “I am going to kill you.”
Jake stalked away from the wall. He, too, put his hands on the table. But only so he could lean in toward Adam. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Adam didn’t look his way.
But, no, clearly, he didn’t.
Adam has nothing to do with Jake’s past. This is all about me.
“I’ll educate you, quickly. Wren belongs to me,” Jake said. And—wait, his voice wasn’t flat and cold. Not unemotional at all. It seethed with rage. With deadly intent. “Anyone who tries to hurt her? They have to go through me. I will annihilate those who try to hurt her. If the authorities hadn’t arrived on that scene earlier, you’d be a dead man right now.”
Adam finally looked at Jake. Fear made him look.
“Hi, there,” Jake said with a shark’s predatory smile. “I’m the man you need to fear for the rest of your life. Me. You see, Wren? The woman you hurt? She’s kind. She feels pity for you. I don’t. I think you’re a grown-ass man who tried to hurt my Wren. You used your fist on her. A man doesn’t ever raise his fist to a woman. I don’t care how much grief you’re feeling. You don’t do that. So I think I’m looking at a fucking prick who deserves to get the hell kicked out of him. And the more you threaten my Wren? The more I intend to rip you apart. You need to realize that there won’t always be a deputy close by. One day, it will just be me and it will just be you.”
“Uh, Jake…” Timothy began. “Uh, I don’t think you’re supposed to?—”
“Who told you my real identity?” Wren asked. She would not waste more time.
Adam’s head whipped back toward her.
“You were waiting because someone told you who I really was. You’ve been angry for years. Understandable. You lost your sister. Grief can twist you up and it can destroy you from the inside.”
“That’s no fucking excuse,” Jake snapped.
Adam hunched back in his chair. “Got a call last night. Then a text. Your picture. Said—said everything about you. That you were in on the crimes with your father?—”
“She was a kid!” Jake thundered.
Definitely still high on emotion.
“ She was a victim! You think he didn’t hurt her, too? ” Rage boiled in Jake’s words.
Adam blinked.
“You got a phone call,” Wren said as she tried to get things back on track. Her hands pressed hard against the wood of the table. “And a text. Was the caller a man or a woman?”
“It was some—some stupid robotic voice. I hung up the first time, thought it was a joke.” He licked his lower lip. Winced. “Called back. Said—said the Sweetheart Slasher’s daughter was alive. That I had to stop you because you were just like him.”
She didn’t react. At least, not on the outside. But inside? Her heart raced faster. The knots in her stomach got so much worse.
Jake leaned forward a bit more. “So you jumped in your vehicle, and you rushed here to stop Wren?”
“Wren?” Adam seemed to taste the name. “Is that who you are now?” Adam squinted at her. “You pretend you were never Margaret? That you’re someone named Wren?”
That was exactly what she did. Pretended, over and over again.
“I drove in from Greensboro.” Adam’s breath heaved out. “You were five hours away from me all of this time.” He shook his head, as if in wonderment. “Five hours.”
Wren swallowed.
“Do you know what happened to my family? After Carrie? My dad drank himself into the grave. My mom cried every day until she died. And me? I was the helpless kid who watched his world collapse.” His teeth snapped together. “I hate you. I hate your father. The caller told me he was dead, so I can’t get to him, but I damn sure got to you.” He smiled. “I got to you, and I am going to kill you.”
The fury and hate in his eyes was terrifying.
Wren sucked in a breath. “I?—”
The door flew open. “Enough of this bullshit.” Honey stomped her way inside. Her right hand flew up as she pointed at Adam. “You think you’re the only one in this world who knows pain? Like you get some damn monopoly on it?”
“I—”
“The woman in front of you tried to save your sister. Do you hear me? Let me repeat, just in case. Save her. And you know what happened for her trouble?”
“Honey, no,” Wren whispered.
Jake turned to frown at Wren.
“She almost died for her trouble. Her father was going at Carrie. He’d sliced her across the throat, not deep enough to kill because he was a sadistic bastard who enjoyed screwing with his prey. Wren jumped between them. She fought her father. She was a freaking kid! Her dad turned on her. Used his knife on her.”
Her father’s voice barreled through Wren’s head. You’re trying to save her? Margaret. Oh, my Margaret. You’re the angel I’ve been looking for all this time. His eyes had been so dark.
She had her father’s eyes.
You must have wings beneath your skin, if you’re an angel. Let’s see if we can find those wings.
She rolled back her shoulders and swore she could still feel the pain from those old wounds.
“Your sister ran out and left her,” Honey announced starkly. “She left a kid bleeding so she could escape.”
Wren’s gaze skittered back to Adam. “Your sister was just trying to survive. I wanted her to survive.”
But there had been no angel wings beneath her skin. Her father had found that out far too quickly. He’d tossed her aside. Gone chasing after Carrie.
Wren released a long breath. “But she didn’t get to survive. He found her. She hadn’t made it far enough. He caught your sister, and he brought her back, and this time…” She could taste the bitterness of the memory. “The wound on her neck was much deeper. I tried to stop the blood flow.” She had tried. “I put my hands on the wound, and I applied as much pressure as I could. She mouthed your name. And…” Wren stopped.
Silence in the room. The thick uncomfortable kind of silence that she’d always hated.
But Honey stopped the silence. “We got a tip about the Sweetheart Slasher’s location. Someone had spotted a car believed to be linked to him.” Honey strode closer to the table. Her leg bumped into the edge. “I was FBI back then. We went in with a full team, and when we crashed down into that basement, I found a blood-covered kid crouched over your sister. At first, I thought they were both dead. Then the girl blinked.”
She’d been too afraid to move.
“So don’t you dare give me your bullshit about this woman needing to die.” Honey curled a hand around Wren’s shoulder. “She didn’t hurt your sister. She tried to help her. She carries scars because of what she did, and you—you’re a dumbass.”
Adam shook his head.
“Someone is manipulating you,” Honey continued fiercely. “Using all that hate and pain you got trapped inside of you. You’re a weapon. The bullet in a loaded gun. They aimed you and pointed you at Wren, and you took off. Now you’re in here, about to get locked away, and you don’t even know that you were a pawn in someone else’s game.”
Adam started to lift his right arm. Winced.
“The phone call and text you mentioned getting last night.” A muscle jerked along Jake’s jaw. “That was you, being set up by the person we’re currently after. A man who kidnapped a woman last night.”
“H-he didn’t say anything about a kidnapping!”
“Was it a he?” Jake demanded to know. “Because you said the voice was robotic.”
“I-I don’t know! It was robotic! He told me—told me who she was.” His eyes latched onto Wren. “Told me that you’d be at that house this morning. That you would be on that road.”
Honey swore. “He gave you the missing vic’s address?”
“I…” Adam glanced at them all. A frantic sweep of his eyes. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening! I was told the Sweetheart Slasher’s daughter was going to be there—that she’d be in the black Jeep. I waited, and when she came down that road, I-I…hit her.” He blinked. Then repeated, softer, “I hit her. Because…she’s evil.” His gaze fell to the table.
“There’s not a mean bone in this woman’s body,” Honey declared.
Oh, but Honey was wrong.
There is plenty of darkness in me.
“You’re being used,” Jake told him. “You’re just another means of attacking Wren. Another way to make her suffer.” Jake shoved from the table. He shot a disgusted glance at Adam. “He’s a distraction. While we’re with him, the killer we’re really after is making his plans. He’s got Makayla, and he could be kill—” He stopped.
Too late.
Wren kept her spine straight. “He could be killing my friend.”
Adam shook his head. “I-I don’t know what’s happening!”
She would explain things. Nice and slowly. “A woman is missing. Her name is Makayla Lane. She was taken last night by someone who seems to have been imitating my father.” She didn’t stumble over the word father. Not this time. “If you were told to be at that exact location today, told I was going to be there, then it’s probably because the person who called you is the same individual who abducted Makayla.”
“I don’t know any Makayla!”
She believed him. “I don’t think you do. But the killer knows you. He knew that you would come running to get your revenge on me.” And the timeline wasn’t adding up for her. If the killer had found out about Wren’s identity through some sort of info on her phone…no, no, there wouldn’t have been time to locate Adam. The killer must have known about him before. “Have you talked recently to anyone about the Sweetheart Slasher? Or about your sister?”
“Yeah.” Slow. “Yeah, I posted in one of those online chats a few weeks ago. A true crime chat. It’s for the families of vics.”
“We’re gonna need to know what specific chat,” Honey insisted. “And we’re gonna need full access to your phone, now. ”
Some of the fury had faded from Adam’s eyes. “There’s really a woman missing out there? Like, like my sister was missing?”
“Yeah, asshole, there is.” No sympathy from Honey. “And you’re gonna help us find her. So cooperate, got me? Cooperate fully. Right the hell now.”
This was a fucking shitshow.
Tom had managed to get back in the house long enough to grab clothes. The place was a crime scene. And gawkers and reporters were everywhere. People were watching every single move he made.
He’d gotten changed out of the pajamas. Some deputy had said the pajamas were evidence. Tom had switched into khakis and a dress shirt and actual shoes. He’d snagged his phone and called his father. The old man had freaked. Said this was going to be horrible publicity for the family and the business.
Like Tom gave a shit about the publicity. He wanted Makayla back. Makayla and her sweet smile and her soft touches and the way she could just make him feel good when he was near her.
He’d slept while she’d been taken.
Slept.
How much of a failure could he be?
His phone rang just when he was preparing to march back up to one of the deputies. He didn’t recognize the number, and he started to ignore the damn thing but…
Sudden instinct had him shoving the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Tom?” So faint. So soft.
His Makayla.
“Makayla.” He started motioning toward the deputy. The woman wasn’t looking his way. “Baby, are you okay? There was blood, and I’ve been so worried!” He bounded toward the deputy.
“Tom, I need you to help me.”
“Anything!” He was almost to the deputy. She’d turned her back on him while she talked to some of the gawkers.
“You have to bring Wren to him.”
He froze.
“If you d-don’t, he’s going to kill me.” Fear broke in her voice.
“I’m getting the deputy?—”
“Don’t tell anyone.” Tears made the words barely understandable. “He’s…hurting me. Tom, please! Please!”
He could not move a muscle.
The deputy turned around. She frowned at him.
“Please,” Makayla rasped in his ear.
“Yes, Dad,” Tom said, very clearly. Did his voice sound funny? Too sharp? He cleared his throat. “I’m still at the scene. They don’t have answers. They don’t know where Makayla is.” He nodded to the deputy, then spun on his heel. He wanted to race away from the deputy and the people who’d been staring with wide eyes at him and the whole scene. Instead, he forced himself to move slowly. One step at a time.
“You have to bring him Wren,” she said, the tears still clogging her voice. “If you don’t, he…he said he will cut off more than just my finger. It’s her or me, and, God, Tom, please don’t let me die! ”
“I won’t.”
“You love me, don’t you, Tom? Please, please…don’t let me die. ”