shoved back the lace curtains at the long, narrow windows and gazed outside at the dawn light creeping up and across the horizon, spreading a pale pink glow over the dark gray sky. The snowstorm must have ended sometime during the night, but as best he could make out in the semi-darkness, a blanket of white covered everything in sight.
Letting the curtain fall back into place, Dallas closed his eyes and tried to think straight. He had allowed this situation—being marooned for a night with a good-looking woman who somehow had very quickly put the hoodoo on him—to muddle his thought processes. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Genny was a witch who had cast a spell over him.
Dallas chuckled. Yeah, sure. A witch? He didn’t believe in anything he couldn’t experience with his five senses. If he couldn’t see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or feel it, then it didn’t exist. In the real world in which he lived, there were no witches, no faith healers, no ghosts, no psychics, no guardian angels. That sort of stuff was for saps, for the poor misguided souls who couldn’t cope with reality.
He glanced around the room. Feminine, but not frilly. Antique furniture. Lace curtains. Pale pastel colors blended with white. When he spied a large, comfortable-looking chair in the corner, he went over and sat, then lifted his big feet onto the round ottoman. A chill rippled through him, reminding him he was bare from the waist up. He dragged the white crocheted afghan off the back of the chair and wrapped it around him.
As soon as the phones were working, he’d put in a call to a wrecker service and get his rental car hauled out of the ditch, then he’d thank Genny for her hospitality and get the hell out of here as fast as he could. His business was with Sheriff Butler, not Butler’s bewitching cousin.
He needed to make a definite connection between Susie Richards’s murder and Brooke’s murder. Over the past eight months, since his young niece had been brutally killed, he had spent every minute he wasn’t working to try to unearth any evidence that might point to her killer. Sacrificial killing was not unheard of; in fact there had been more in the United States than Dallas had suspected. Many had been connected to some sort of pagan devil worship, but certainly not all. Over the past eight years there had been twenty-four unsolved cases involving murders that were very similar to Brooke’s. And the oddest thing about twenty of these murders was that they appeared to have taken place in sets of five.
With Teri’s and Linc’s assistance these past few months, Dallas had put together a startling hypothesis: someone sacrificed five women living in the same area over a period that averaged between three to six weeks, then disappeared only to show up in another region a year or two later and repeat the same scenario. All these facts had come together only a couple of weeks ago, and Dallas hadn’t had the chance to personally travel to each area and go over all the evidence.
But if his supposition was correct, and if Susie Richards was the first victim, then that meant four women in Cherokee County were in danger. And it also meant that Brooke’s murderer was here.
Deputy Bobby Joe Harte knocked on Jacob’s office door, then poked his head in and said, “Chief Watson just called. He said for you to meet him over at the Congregational Church ASAP. They got a dead body in the church and it looks like the same MO as the Susie Richards’ case.”
“What?”
“That’s all he said. Just told me to tell you to get your ass over there pronto.”
“Damn! What’s going on around here? We haven’t had a murder in Cherokee Pointe in years and now we have two in the county in forty-eight hours.”
Jacob strapped on his hip holster, put on his leather jacket, and yanked his Stetson off the hook by the door, then headed through the outer office. Once outside, he moved carefully over the icy sidewalk until he reached his truck. His booted feet made large, deep impressions in the snow piled up along the edge of the street. He unlocked his black Dodge Ram, climbed inside and started the engine. While sitting there, letting the engine idle and warm, he allowed his mind to wander, allowed himself to question his decision to run for sheriff this past year.
He’d been born and raised in Cherokee County, a poor boy, a quarter-breed, a young hellion who’d joined the navy at eighteen. Ten months ago, when he’d left the service, put his years as a SEAL behind him and come home, he’d been hailed as a hero. When Farlan MacKinnon had approached him about running for sheriff, he hadn’t seriously considered the offer of his backing. But Farlan had been insistent. And what Farlan wanted, he usually got. One of the two richest men in the county, and the most influential man in his political party, Farlan had promised Jacob that if he ran for office, he’d win. The old man had been right. Now Jacob wondered why the hell he’d let Farlan and his cohorts talk him into this job.
A horn honking behind him brought Jacob back to the present moment. He glanced through his partially defrosted back window and saw Royce Pierpont, in his silver Lexus sedan, throw up a hand and wave at him. Jacob returned the wave. Why was Royce bothering to open up his antique shop today? Jacob wondered. There wouldn’t be any tourists in town with weather like this, and probably not many locals either.
Jacob shifted the gear into reverse, backed up, and headed down the street, going slow and easy over the thin sheet of ice still clinging to the asphalt.
A large brick structure that had been built in the early twentieth century and modernized from time to time, the Congregational Church was on the corner of Monroe and Highland. Jacob parked his truck, got out, and headed up the sidewalk. Policemen swarmed like bees inside and out. Looked like the entire Cherokee Pointe police department was here.
Chief Watson met Jacob in the vestibule the minute he entered the building. “Glad you’re here,” he said. “It’s a bloody mess in there.”
“Bobby Joe said you mentioned that this murder was similar to Susie Richards’—”
“Another sacrificial killing,” Watson said. “I saw the pictures of Susie Richards your department took, but I’m telling you that unless you see it for real, you can’t imagine how bad it is.”
“Mind if I take a look?” Jacob steeled himself to view another horrific crime scene.
Chief Watson led Jacob into the sanctuary. Morning sunlight flooded through the stained-glass windows, casting bright rainbows over the wooden pews with their red velvet seats.
“She’s up here, on the altar,” Watson said.
“Hmm.”
Several members of the forensic crew busied themselves gathering evidence. Jacob moved closer, took a quick look, and glanced away.
“Cindy Todd.”
The mayor’s wife lay naked atop the altar, her calves and feet hanging off the end, a gaping wound from breasts to pubic area glistening with blood and exposed entrails.
“It’s enough to turn a man’s stomach,” Watson said, his face pale and sweaty.
“Has anyone contacted Jerry Lee?” Jacob asked.
“I called him right before I called you. Told him to come down to the police department, but I didn’t give him any specifics. Just told him it was important.”
“He came by my office early this morning looking for her.”
“You don’t reckon Jerry Lee could have—”
“Not his style,” Jacob said. “He’d have either shot her or
