slams and punches just kept coming, and each of them brought one more wave of the nightmarish images. That’s because Eric had shot both Gemma and Kellan’s father three times. She supposed Eric considered that his signature. One of them anyway. Leaving notes at the crime scenes was the other. And the picture on Kellan’s phone was that of a note.
“‘Too late again, Sheriff Slater,’” she read aloud. “‘Tell Gemma that Iris didn’t suffer. I made it fast as a favor to her. And then tell Gemma that she’s next. I know where to find her. Three-twenty-three East Lane, Austin. Our girl didn’t go too far, did she?’”
As hard as it was to read those words, Gemma tamped down the rising fear and tried to view this as a profiler. The note was meant to taunt Kellan and her.
And it had.
Along with twisting her insides into knots. Judging from the tight muscles in Kellan’s body, it had done the same to him. However, this wasn’t proof there had been a breach in WITSEC.
“How would Eric have gotten access to WITSEC files?” she mumbled.
Gemma waved it off though before Kellan could even speculate. Eric was smart, and he was a whiz with computers. He’d even joked once that he would have made a fairly decent hacker, and then had added to the joke that Caroline and she would have made even better ones. Eric wouldn’t have needed help from anyone in WITSEC to get into the files because he could have done it himself.
“So, Eric knows where I am,” she concluded. “He killed Iris to...what? Send me into a panic? A rage, maybe? To hurt me by murdering someone I knew? Because panicked, angry people don’t always think straight, and they make mistakes.”
Kellan huffed. “Best to save your criminal analysis for Eric. When the FBI was looking for him, he was right under your nose, and you didn’t even know it.”
Because Kellan glanced at her again when he said that, she saw the glare in his eyes. She saw it soften, too, when he regretted giving her that jab.
But in this case, it was true, and she deserved any jab he might send her way. That’s because Eric had been her student in a criminal justice class before she’d made him her intern. He’d worked side by side with her, case by case, and until the night he’d tried to murder her, she hadn’t known he was a serial killer.
That was the ultimate taunting.
“I believe Eric was here,” Kellan continued a moment later. “He killed Iris last night so he had plenty of time to get from Longview Ridge to Austin. Plenty of time to watch you and wait for you to leave so he could break into your house.”
Yes, but why hadn’t Eric just stayed and waited for her? Had he found out Kellan was coming, and Eric hadn’t wanted to deal with a lawman? Especially one who wanted him dead.
Still, that didn’t feel right.
Of course, she’d learned the hard way that it was a mistake to trust her feelings when it came to Eric.
“There’s Owen,” Kellan said, his voice shattering the silence.
Owen, as in his brother Deputy Owen Slater. And he was yet someone else who would want to face down Eric.
“Owen’s been working with Austin PD to set up spotters on the road,” Kellan added. “Don’t worry, Owen didn’t tell the local cops who you really are. He said you’re a witness in an upcoming trial and that we need to get you back to Longview Ridge.”
Her legs suddenly felt like glass, but she forced herself to stand. Gemma also glanced out the window. Owen was indeed out there, sitting behind the wheel of a black car.
“Are you really taking me to Longview Ridge?” she asked.
“Best not to say where we’re going in case Eric bugged the place.”
Oh, mercy. She hadn’t even thought of that. But she should have. Eric had succeeded in rattling her, and he had likely figured that was the first step in getting to her.
“Don’t bring anything with you,” Kellan instructed when she reached for her purse.
Yes, because Eric could have planted tracking devices on clothes or anything else in the house. She’d had her purse with her when she’d gotten groceries, but maybe Eric had managed to put a tracker on it before that quick shopping trip. Or even while she was at the store. She couldn’t take her phone either because he could use it to pinpoint her location. Then, he could follow wherever Kellan was taking her.
Kellan motioned toward his brother, and Owen got out of the car. Like Kellan, he already had his weapon drawn, which meant any of her neighbors could see that and become alarmed. Maybe alarmed enough to come outside and try to figure out what was going on. No one had shown much interest in her in the nine months she’d been there, and now wouldn’t be a good time to start.
“Move fast,” Kellan said, and that was the only warning she got before he took hold of her, positioning her right next to him. He opened the door and got them moving.
“Aww, don’t be that way,” someone said.
Eric.
The voice came from behind them, from inside the house, and Kellan must have recognized it, too, because he dragged her to the ground next to the concrete steps.
“Don’t leave before we have time to play,” Eric joked.
And the killer laughed just as the shot blasted through the air.
Hell. Kellan wanted to kick himself for not getting to Gemma sooner so this wouldn’t happen.
But he hadn’t been sure who he could trust, hadn’t known how the info about Gemma’s location had been breached. His brother Jack was a marshal and would have been his normal contact for something like this, but Jack was in Arizona escorting a prisoner. That’s why Kellan had tried to handle this himself.
Now none of that mattered because they could both be gunned down by a serial killer.
Kellan scrambled over Gemma, pushing her all the way to the ground so he could cover her with his body. It wasn’t an ideal position, nothing about this was. They were literally out in the open with only the steps for cover. That wouldn’t do squat to protect them if Eric came around the side of the house and through a back door. Of course, if he did that, then Owen would see him.
“Were either of you hit?” Owen called out.
Kellan shook his head and hoped that was true. Beneath him, Gemma was trembling. No doubt reliving a boatload of memories, too. But he couldn’t tell if she’d been injured, and Kellan didn’t want to risk moving off her to find out.
While Owen made a call, no doubt to get them backup, his brother had taken up cover behind the door of the unmarked cruiser. It was bullet resistant, which meant if Kellan could get Gemma to it, she’d be a whole lot safer than she was here. But there was a good twenty feet of space between them and Owen. That was twenty feet that Eric could use to gun them down.
Well,
