Chapter 17 #2
“Was,” Preston emphasized. “Someone took it from there. Turned off the tracker, then turned it on again. Sloane has a friend who told her the coordinates for the device. We came here, and then I saw the a mound of dirt that was higher than the ground around it. One to two inches higher. I saw it, and I started digging.”
“And you just what, happened to have a shovel with you?”
Was that suspicion in the sheriff’s voice? Sure seemed like it to Sloane.
“You try being buried alive twice.” Preston’s voice held no emotion. “See if you decide to start carrying around your own shovel.”
Debra’s shoulders slumped. “This is a mess. An absolute clusterfuck of a situation.” She edged closer to them.
“The Feds are coming in fast and hard. Two burials. Two days. This is a quiet town. A safe place. We don’t have crimes like this.
We don’t have—” She broke off. “Bridget was my goddaughter.” A hard shake of her head.
“She…” Another hard shake. “Get out of here. Go home. Take your bodyguards with you. There will be more questions, but this scene is a mess, and I have to handle things. I have to take care of Bridget.”
She turned and hurried away.
But Adam whirled and stepped into her path after just a few steps.
“She didn’t suffer.” Adam’s voice was loud, carrying easily. “Tell me she didn’t—she didn’t suffer, right? She was…Bridget was gone before he put her in the ground. She didn’t suffer.”
There had been scratch marks on the wood. Bridget definitely had not been gone before he put her in the ground.
“Come on, Sloane.” Preston’s rumbling voice. “There is nothing for us here.”
Nothing but death. They’d arrived too late. If they’d found out about the bracelet sooner, if they’d tracked the signal sooner, could they have saved Bridget?
They headed for the Range Rover. Two deputies glanced at her. A tech stared hard. Cursing, Preston moved in front of her. Why was he doing that?
“Keep your fucking eyes up,” Preston snarled.
What?
Then understanding dawned. Her white shirt was probably see-through. Nope. No probably about it. It was see-through. Muddy in plenty of spots, but the rain and the cold had her nipples pebbling. Great. Just great.
But Preston was blocking anyone else’s view. He led the way, keeping the umbrella positioned over her head at the same time. Every step, he was her shield.
He opened the back of the Range Rover. Dug around and hauled out a blue blanket. “Here.” But then he was wrapping it around her. Curling it over her shoulders and pulling it over her chest even as he tried to balance the umbrella. “It will…uh, keep you warm.”
“And covered? So I can stop flashing everyone?”
“They need to keep their damn eyes off you. This is a crime scene. They should be focused on the vic.” With that, he curled a hand around her waist. One on the waist, one on the umbrella. Still trying to protect me from the rain.
A few more steps, and Preston opened the rear passenger door for her, but she didn’t enter the vehicle. Instead, Sloane turned toward him. Her hand slid over the door. “Do you think he left a carving on one of the trees near the grave?”
“He’s playing with us. So, yeah, my gut says the sonofabitch did. Marking his territory. Claiming his kills.”
He didn’t kill us. Not yet. A terrible suspicion swirled inside of her, and she hated to voice it but… “I don’t think we were the first.”
His head lowered toward hers. “What?”
“You don’t do all of this without a practice run. If we’re looking at a copycat, I don’t think he would start with you. You don’t go after the big game without making sure that you’re ready.” You’d start smaller. Easier. “He already had a second coffin. Don’t you see what that means?”
“Get in the car, Sloane.”
She did not. “It means he had the coffins ready. Multiple coffins,” Sloane stressed. “He’s been planning this.”
“I don’t even know what this is! An attack on me? Killing some innocent woman?”
Her gut told her there could have already been another victim before Preston was taken. “You don’t immediately jump into the deep end when you’re learning to swim. You have to get used to the water. You have to learn your strokes—”
“You have to learn how to hold your fucking breath.”
Yes, you did. “Predators escalate. They don’t start at the top. I-I think he didn’t start with you. I think there could be another victim out there. Someone we have not found yet.”
Gently, he pushed her into the vehicle. Slammed the door. She stared up at him through the glass, reminded way too much of how she’d felt when Debra Tooni had loaded her into the back of a patrol car and Preston had watched her drive away.
But he wasn’t just watching now. He hurried around to the opposite side of the vehicle. Her head turned as she watched him. He was locking a hand on Frankie’s shoulder. Leaning close to whisper to him and to Noble. She frowned and—
A fist thudded into the window near her.
“Shit!” Sloane jumped and put a hand to her heart. What was up with people pounding on the window of the vehicle? First Noble and now—who the hell was this? Her head whipped back toward the window. Water streaked across the glass.
The fist hit again. Then a face came in close to the window. Adam’s face.
She couldn’t roll down the window. It was electric and the vehicle was still turned off. Sloane grabbed the handle. She shoved open the door. The blanket Preston had given her fell off her shoulders.
Adam’s hand curled around her wrist. “You got out.”
Yes, yes, she was getting out of the vehicle—
“You got out of the grave, but she didn’t. Why didn’t Bridget?” His grip tightened. He was holding the wrist that had been bruised from the handcuff, and his hard grip had her sucking in a sharp breath as pain cut through her.
“She was a good person. The first friend I made when I came to this town and took the EMT job. She wanted to help everyone she met. Her job was to help people.” A ragged breath. “Why didn’t she get out?”
“I—”
“Let her the fuck go. Now.” Preston’s rumbling voice.
But Adam just tightened his grip. He never looked away from Sloane as the rain poured down on them. “She was stiff and cold. She wouldn’t open her eyes. She’s gone, and you’re—”
Preston grabbed Adam and hauled him away from her. In a flash, Preston pinned the EMT to the side of the vehicle. “I said…let her the fuck go.” Preston drew back his right fist.
She grabbed his arm. “Preston, no! No! Look at me!”
His head turned toward her.
“He’s grieving. He’s in pain.”
“He was hurting you.”
Her wrist ached, and she’d felt the bones grinding together when Adam had tightened his grip on her.
“I-I’m sorry.” A stammered apology from Adam. “I didn’t mean—” He broke off. “Bridget didn’t get out.” His body seemed to deflate.
She pulled on Preston’s arm. But he didn’t step back. He did lean toward Adam. “Grief is never a reason to hurt Sloane. Put your hand on her again like that, and we will have a problem.” Preston let him go. He tucked Sloane back into the vehicle while Adam stumbled away.
Sloane wrapped her arms around her stomach as Preston climbed in the Range Rover. With careful hands, he put the blue blanket back around her.
Frankie settled behind the wheel. For a moment, they just stared at the scene.
Then Frankie cleared his throat. “Didn’t…
didn’t quite understand what it was like.
I mean, I knew what happened to you, boss, but, uh, seeing it firsthand…
Digging up the dirt. Finding the coffin.
Seeing the scratch marks…” He shook his head.
“The bastard has to be stopped. That’s just some twisted bullshit.
” He cranked the Range Rover. “That poor woman.”
“He will be stopped.” Preston’s flat reply. Then, lower, rasping, “I stopped him before, and I’ll do it again.”
And Sloane knew that Preston had just confessed. It was a confession that she hadn’t thought that he’d make. Not to her. Not to anyone. But…
Sloane believed he’d just confessed to killing his father.
Because the gunshot wound to the back hadn’t killed Mitchell Donahue.
It had been the broken neck that had sent him to hell.