The Seventh Victim (Texas Rangers 1)

“It would be a shame if that was our one and only time together,” she teased.

He was silent for a moment. “I’d like to think this isn’t a one-shot deal.”

A smile curled the edges of her lips. “I think that’s the first time we’ve agreed.”

He traced a strand of hair away from her eyes. She drew circles on his hand. For several minutes she lay next to him, the steady beat of his heart thumping against her ear.

Finally, he squeezed her shoulder and released a resigned sigh. “I need to head back to the office and talk to Raines. I still get the sense he’s holding back.”

Perfect moments like these didn’t last. “What could he be holding back?”

“I wish I knew, darlin’. I wish I knew.”

Chapter 21

Friday, June 1, 10 PM

Raines did not have the home-field advantage in Texas. He was an outsider who had rolled into the state uninvited, bent some laws, and shattered a couple of others. Still, he was convinced if he played it right, he’d unravel the legal tangles and walk out of Texas a free man.

He sat in the interview room waiting for his attorney, Tyler J. Monroe, to arrive. He’d known when he’d arrived in Texas he was going to kill someone, he’d just not known who. Now, it was time to clean up the mess.

The door to the other room opened to Tyler Monroe, a tall, heavyset man wearing a lightweight suit, a white shirt that stretched over a full belly, and dark loafers. He carried an expensive but well-used briefcase. Clear-framed glasses rested on the top of his head. “Detective Raines.”

“I’m not a detective anymore, remember?” Regret coated the words.

Monroe arched a brow as he sat at the table across from Raines. “From now on, I’ll be referring to you as Detective in front of everyone. I want people to remember your honorable service to the public.”

“I am what I am. And no title is going to change that.”

“Titles do matter. They’ve mattered since the first man dragged his knuckles out of the cave. So, Detective, did you come down to Texas to hunt down a vicious killer that savagely murdered six women in Seattle and three in Texas?”

Raines knew how the legal game was played. Give just enough. “I came down here because I thought the Strangler was active again.”

Monroe nodded approvingly. “And you got your man, didn’t you, Detective? Caught him red-handed trying to strangle the life out of an innocent young woman that he’d tried to kill seven years ago.”

“Correct.”

“You saved a woman from a savage murder.”

“Yes.”

The attorney’s glee didn’t sit well with Raines. “You’re a hero.”

He threaded his fingers together. “I don’t feel like a hero. I did what I had to do.”

Monroe smiled. “Just keep saying that. We love heroes down here in Texas. Especially when they are humble. Now let’s see about getting you bail.”

Something about the day’s events made Beck’s gut twist just as it had during his interviews with child killer Matt Dial.

Like then, he had no concrete evidence, but only the gnawing sense that key puzzle pieces were missing. He reached for his phone and dialed Santos as he wound down the dark gravel road, remembering the way Lara had kissed him moments ago on the front porch. A lantern light glowing above her head, she’d told him to be careful. He’d hugged her tight reminding her for the fifth time that she needed to lock her door. She’d laughed. Said it was nice to have someone worry over her.

Worry. It was what he did when he cared. For him love intertwined with fear, loss, and pain. His mother had often said Beck was most prickly when he loved.

Love.

That was a hell of a word to cross his mind now. Love. He couldn’t remember a time when love ever had connected to a lover. Shit. Had he fallen so far and so fast for Lara? Was this worry rooted in love for a quirky artist, or was it a by-product of a cop’s intuition honed by years on the job?

He didn’t have an answer, only knew worry now hung around his neck like a rattler, hissing and ready to strike. When a man was nose-to-nose with an angry rattler, he didn’t stop to question where the rattler came from. He dealt with it. He needed to resolve what prodded his uneasiness.

Ten minutes later he pulled up to the entrance of the long driveway that had belonged to Jonathan Matthews. Three news vans had parked outside the property, held at bay by several uniformed officers. Beck slowed, spoke to the cops at the entrance, who waved him through. At the house the darkness was awash in the glow of floodlights. There were at least seven marked and unmarked cars and the forensics van.

He glanced at the clock on the dash. Five hours had passed since he’d walked out of the crime scene and gone to the hospital to get Lara.

He got out of the car as Santos walked down the front steps, a cell phone pressed to his ear. The Ranger had taken off his white hat and rolled up his sleeves.

When Santos rang off, Beck said, “What do we have?”

He clicked the phone back in a holster on his hip. “Raines just made bail.”

“He’s been in custody four hours.”

“Apparently, plenty of time if you got a hell of a good attorney. Fellow named Monroe represented him.”

Beck shook his head. “Monroe is connected up the ass. How’d Raines find him?”

“He hired him just after he arrived in town.”

“Almost as if he were expecting trouble.”

“He came to Texas to kill Jonathan,” Santos said. “He was just waiting for the right time.”

Beck rested a foot on the bottom porch step. “Raines does what he wants.”

“Which is why I have DPS outside his hotel room.”

“Good. Keep an eye on him.”

“Will do.”

“What else have you found inside?”

“Books. Journals. Each focused on a specific victim.”

Beck stilled. “Show me.”

As Beck stepped into the house, he accepted a pair of rubber gloves and paper booties from a forensics tech and pulled on both. As he entered the study he was struck by Lara’s photograph hanging behind Jonathan’s desk. Small pot lights from the ceiling had been angled so that they shone on and accentuated the image.

Anger rolled over him as he pictured Lara lying in the thick, wet Seattle woods while Jonathan closed his hands over her throat.

“There are fourteen books. Six from Seattle. Lara’s book. The three Austin victims. And six others.”

“Intended victims?”

“Yes. They appear to be works in progress. We’ve tracked down three and they are alive and well.”

Beck and Santos waited for the tech to give them the all-clear and then they removed the first six books from the shelves. All the books were bound in rich red leather with the victim’s name embossed in gold lettering on the cover.

Carefully, Beck opened the first book, which appeared to be filled with news clips. He turned the pages slowly, amazed at how Matthews had collected every mention of the killings in a multitude of papers. The next

four were the same. Lots of news clips. But the fifth and six’s victim’s books had handwritten notes in the margins. They don’t see what I see. They don’t know what I know. I am smarter than all of them.

The seventh book and by far the thickest was Lara’s book. Apparently, he had started this book before the first Seattle killing when Lara was about seventeen years old. There were pictures of her outside her grandmother’s house with her grandmother’s dog, Rex. Playing. Laughing. There was even a snapshot of a smiling Lara standing next to Matthews, who stared down at her with a wolfish grin that unsettled Beck. Matthews had wanted Lara for a long, long time.

A cold anger slid through Beck’s body, momentarily clouding his thoughts. Carefully, he turned the pages in the book, which chronicled Lara’s life in Seattle. There were pictures of Lara at her dorm, in class, and at a school fund-raiser. How many trips had Matthews made to Seattle? Carefully, he closed the book, unable to stomach more now. Later he’d look and study the pages, but not now. Not when emotions ran raw through him.

Beck picked up Lou Ellen Fisk’s book. The first page was a picture of Lou Ellen laughing as she hurried from one class to the other. There were more pictures going about her everyday life. Running. Grocery shopping. Car wash. And then there were pictures of her as she lay dead on the side of the Texas road. She lay in her white dress, her clasped hands folded over her chest. More news clips followed.

Beck set the book down and picked up the book marked Gretchen Hart and then the book labeled Blair Silver. Each featured pictures of the women alive and then finally strangled to death. “The Austin books are different than the Seattle books.” He tapped the stack of Seattle books. “They are just news clips. There are no pictures of the women before or after he killed them. It’s secondhand information.”

“Except Lara’s book.”

“Her book is different from them all. It starts twelve years ago. No, the Seattle killings were different. There is a distance between him and the crimes.”

“Killers change.”

“They do.” Unease scraped. “They do.” But what was it about the Seattle killings that bothered him? He picked up the book marked Pamela Davis. The instant he opened the book he recognized the last victim murdered in Austin before Lara. “We have an ID on the last body. Pamela Davis.”