Fatal Burn (West Coast 2)

Shannon felt sick at the image.

Someone had gone to a lot of trouble.

Someone was making a macabre point.

Someone was out to get every member of her family.

Not just your immediate family—Mary Beth as well.

Travis spoke as Robert and Shea silently smoked. “Whatever is happening includes more than just your family, since my daughter was abducted.”

Robert exhaled gray smoke. “But she’s Shannon’s daughter, too. Still blood.”

“True, but another woman was killed in Oregon. Dani’s piano teacher, Blanche Johnson.”

“Wasn’t she murdered so that he could kidnap your daughter?” Robert asked Travis.

“Maybe. Or, it might have been a separate act. Dani wasn’t at Blanche Johnson’s house that afternoon. At least there’s no evidence of that. She was missing from school before her scheduled lesson, which had been cancelled anyway.”

Shea shook his head and frowned.

“So why was the woman killed?” Robert asked.

“That’s what the police are trying to figure out.”

“Was there any image left behind? Like the complete star or something?” Shannon asked, still trying to make sense of the tragedies.

“No star, just a simple message, left in blood and written on the wall: Payback Time.”

“Jesus, payback for what?” Robert muttered. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Is Dani part of the payback?” Shannon asked, hardly able to say the words.

Travis’s scowl deepened. “We don’t know. Yet.”

Shannon held on to his arm and glanced up at him. What more did he know that he hadn’t shared?

“Look, I’ll break the news to Mom,” Shea said as the silence grew awkward. He tossed the remainder of his cigarette onto the pavement and ground it out with his heel. “I’ll stop by tonight.” He looked over his shoulder to the news vans still parked on the scene. “She gets up early and I don’t want to have her wake up and see what happened here on the television.”

“She’ll be devastated,” Robert muttered.

“Aren’t we all?” Shannon asked.

“I think we all had better brace ourselves,” Shea said as a cat slunk between the bushes, then trotted across the street. “It’s not over yet.”

Shannon’s stomach clenched. Goose pimples rose on her skin. Who was the madman? What did he want? Dear God, couldn’t they find Dani Settler and end this? “Has anyone called Aaron?” she asked.

“Why wake him?” Shea asked with a shrug. “He’ll get the news soon enough. I heard about it from someone in Dispatch and Robert, you were called by Cuddahey, right?”

“Yeah, Kaye called me when the call came in to the station. I’ll tell Aaron tomorrow. Right now…I just want to get home. To my kids.”

“I’m shoving off, too,” Shea agreed soberly. “Nothing more we can do here. Shannon, you need a lift?”

“I’ll take her home,” Travis interjected.

Neither brother commented, but as Travis and Shannon walked the short distance to the street where his truck was parked, she felt her brothers’ gazes following her. She heard a reporter call out to her, but she just kept walking. She was in no mood for inane questions, or recriminations or dredging up of a past she knew would be regurgitated in the news all over again.

Bone-tired, she just wanted to go home.