Chapter One
“I can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like this, Sheriff.” Deputy Bart Phillips rose from his stooped position and glanced around the clearing. His pale skin was nearly green. His lips were dry and cracked. More noticeable than anything else, at least to those who considered Bart a friend, was the clear note of defeat in his once-vibrant voice.
Sheriff of the county, Blaine McKinney, paced the line of bodies. “We’re missing something here.”
“That’s a given,” Bart said. “But don’t think for one minute I’ll stick around and go over those bodies again. It’ll be dark soon. Surrounding counties sent in every coroner they had. Our own wasn’t good enough for you. Hell, Blaine, even I knew there wasn’t anything to find here. These corpses are in perfect condition. There isn’t a scratch on ’em anywhere.”
“Corpses? These people are still dead.” Blaine massaged his brow, and released a burdened sigh. “And thirty-two families are waiting back at the station. They want answers. How am I supposed to explain this? What do you suggest I tell them?”
“You tell them the truth.” Detective Pageant Keen stepped forward. “You tell them you did everything you could. I’ll attest to that.”
Blaine slowly turned. One thing about it, the young detective had sure calmed her feisty ass down today. Normally one to work those hips into a natural grind with every stride, Pageant hadn’t hesitated when the call came in. The “call” had been placed at around seven o’clock during their daily shift change. The dew wasn’t even off the ground and they were summoned to a crime scene.
Understaffed, Blaine wouldn’t have blamed Pageant if she’d turned tail and headed home. They already knew how many victims were out here. The anonymous caller had provided that much.
“We need to go door to door and find out who reported this. Somebody out here saw something. We just gotta find them.” Blaine squatted next to the youngest victim. Caren DeLaney, a soccer superstar at the local high school, had the reputation of being a little cocky, but who could blame her? The girl was a straight-A student, had scored a thirty-two on her ACT, and had a sports scholarship waiting on her when she finished her senior year. While her peers had partied, Caren had made the necessary sacrifices to achieve the most in life. “And now that life is over.”
“What’s that?” Bart asked.
Blaine shook off the anger and ro
se to his feet. “I want this county on lockdown. I called the Feds in on this one. They should be here soon.”
Pageant glanced over her shoulder several times, acting quite paranoid. “We can handle this ourselves.”
“We can?” Blaine couldn’t keep the note of sarcasm out of his voice. “And how do you propose we do that. Hmm?” He stalked her. “Somebody came to our town and slaughtered all these people.” He shook his finger at the dead bodies behind him. “They weren’t struck by a blunt object. Their necks weren’t sliced. There isn’t a point of entry or an exit wound. By all accounts, these people just got tired of living and laid down here on the side of the road after reaching a collective decision they were ready to die!”
“That’s what you’re supposed to think.” A bear of a man stepped beyond the shadows. Dressed in jeans and an imprinted T-shirt with a band logo on the front, the fellow wore his shoulder-length hair about like he wore his clothes, loose and hanging everywhere.
“Who let this guy in?” Blaine turned ninety degrees, scouring the faces of officers, men and women who had spent the entire day looking for clues. “Well?” His voice raised an octave.
Finally someone in the back said, “He’s been here all day, sir. I thought he might have been the one who called in the incident.”
Fury sped through Blaine’s veins. He wasn’t sure which made him angrier—the fact that this burly man had gone unnoticed while an investigation was in progress or the fellow’s statement when he appeared where everyone could see him. The way he’d supplied a reply made it sound like someone—the criminal they were searching for, as an example—had deliberately set out to make all of them look incompetent.
Acting extremely suspicious, the fellow took cautious steps as he approached Blaine. He was either guilty of this crime or he was afraid he’d be accused. Blaine resisted the urge to draw his weapon. He glanced at Pageant and then Bart. At least his backup had their hands on the butts of their weapons.
“Who are you?” Blaine asked, realizing he’d never seen this man before. Pleasant, North Carolina’s population of 530 people—498 now—included men, women, and children who had been residents long enough for Blaine to know them by name. “I haven’t seen you around these parts.”
The man swung his arm forward and officers drew on him. Several rookies yelled, “Freeze!”
Blaine grimaced. He shot one of them an independent scowl and reached for the stranger’s hand. “Sheriff Blaine McKinney.”
“Randon Shane.” He shook Blaine’s offered hand. “I was just passing through.”
Blaine tilted his head at the bodies. “You have something to do with this?”
If Mr. Randon Shane wanted to act like a backslapping, good ole boy, Blaine could roll that way. In all the years he’d been in law enforcement, one attribute had helped him more than anything else—he easily picked up on personality traits and then used them to interrogate his subjects.
“No, but I’ve been following the one who did.”
“Have you now? Well then, Mr. Shane, why don’t you enlighten us?” So much for passing through. “But before you do, how about you flash a badge?”
“I don’t have any credentials that would matter here,” he said, seemingly interested in Pageant. His nostrils flared as he lifted his chin. He stumbled backward then, but quickly rebounded by taking a few steps to the left and scouring the crowd.
For a minute, Blaine thought the man was drunk. Taking a moment, he tried to store everything about the stranger to memory. Pageant studied the newcomer with keen interest. Curious, Blaine shifted his gaze between them. “Do the two of you know each other?”
“He looks familiar,” Pageant easily admitted.
“I’ve never seen her before in my life.” Randon turned away from Pageant and paced in front of the victims. “You’re looking for a cold-blooded killer or maybe even a group of experienced assassins.” He paused and shook his head. Standing over the listless body of Caren DeLaney, he seemed to lose his train of thought. “How old was she?”
“Seventeen,” Bart replied, the last officer to holster his weapon. “She’s an only child.”
Randon’s face turned red. He balled his fists and stepped away from the dead. “He feeds off their life source.” He walked about fifteen feet and crouched down next to the town’s postmaster. Retrieving a flashlight from his pocket, he followed a pair of footsteps to the main road. He then motioned for the others and shone his light on the well-defined pattern in the mud, prints that started on one side of the yellow crime scene tape and continued on the other. “Sheriff, you’ve got a break in the case that no one else has had. Someone in your town knows exactly what this guy looks like. More importantly, he or she can tell you why they were able to escape when thirty-two others weren’t so lucky.”
Chapter Two
Randon tossed his leather jacket on the queen-size bed as soon as he entered the small motel room. He picked up the phone receiver and wasn’t surprised when it rang straight to the front desk.
“Yeah?” The voice belonged to the clerk who had offered gruff service with a forced smile when Randon had checked in.
“Can I call out?” Randon asked.
“You just did,” the front desk clerk said. “What’d ya need?”
“Never mind.” Randon disconnected the call and retrieved his cell phone. He dug through his duffle bag for his phone charger, plugged it in the wall, and went to the bathroom to shower.
Ten minutes later he emerged, dressed, and looked at his phone. Kurt had tried to touch base. The texts ranged from “Where the fuck are ya?” to “We’re on our way, you bastard. You’d better be dead or getting some damn good sex. If ya aren’t, I’ll either kill ya or fuck ya myself.”
Randon grabbed the keys to his bike, slung his jacket over his shoulder and paused long enough to return Kurt’s text. “Bring it on, brother, but before you do? Notify the others. He’s here.”
His phone rang out with Kurt’s rapid response. Randon answered with a quick, “Yeah, hello?”
“You’re sure?” Kurt didn’t waste time with pleasantries.
“Thirty-two dead. I must’ve just barely missed him. Their bodies were still warm when I found them.”
“Did you call it in?”
“Didn’t have to. The cops showed up right after that.” Randon considered the timing. “I’m gonna say I missed him by about five or ten minutes.”
“Are you psychic now?”
“Somebody got away. I need you guys here as soon as possible. Sheriff says he’ll lock down the town but this place is surrounded by mountains. If the killer is still within these county lines, he’s out there in those mountains. I can almost smell him.”