She heard voices raised in a heated conversation. Someone else was here. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard another person. Another man. But she hadn’t seen anyone but Russell.
She heard the snick of the key in the lock and curled into a ball. Her black hair fell across her face. She peeked through her nearly closed eyelids, watching Russell stride into the room. He was bare-chested.
He stood over her. “Cara, are you awake?”
She didn’t respond. Through slitted eyes, she watched as he lifted the water bottle. “No more of this for you,” he said. “I want you alert.”
Why? What was he going to do to her?
He sat beside her on the bed. Roughly, he yanked her against his chest. Her cheek rested against his damp flesh. He smelled like sweat. She twisted her arms to hide the cut rope and the blood on her arm.
Cradling her head against his arm, he stroked her hair off her forehead. “You’re mine, Cara. You belong to me.”
His voice was as gentle as an adoring lover, and she fought the bitterness that curdled in her stomach.
He caressed her shoulders. At her elbow, his hand strayed to her breast and he cupped her. It took an effort not to lash out. Not to complain. She had to make him think she was unconscious and pray that he wouldn’t notice the cut strand of rope.
“You’re mine,” he whispered. “You’re different from the others.”
Others? Had there been other women?
“You’ll see it my way,” he said. “You’ll realize that we’re meant to be together. It won’t be much longer. Only a few hours until dawn.”
And then what?
Abruptly, he shoved her out of his arms. She fell back on the bed, forcing herself not to move, not to speak.
He left the room, and she heard the key in the lock.
She had to escape before sunrise.
DASH UNHOLSTERED HIS PISTOL and adjusted his Kevlar vest. A night breeze rushed against his face but the wind did nothing to cool his agitation. He was on the verge of apprehending the Judge.
He’d selected a team from the Santa Fe FBI and the local police, including Detective Meier, who had been alert enough to notice the e-mail from the Judge on Cara’s computer.
Tracking the e-mail had led through several blinds but finally produced results. The messages had originated with Russell Graff, age twenty-four, a former student of Dr. Cara Messinger. Russell had lived in San Francisco until three years ago when he’d left for college in Santa Fe. His departure coincided with the time when the Judge serial killings ceased.
As soon as Dash had a name, gathering information was relatively simple. A phone call told him that Russell Graff had left the site of the archaeology dig in southern Colorado where he had been working. He’d used a credit card to rent an adobe-style bungalow at the Broken Bow Resort on the outskirts of Santa Fe.
At one time, this seedy collection of run-down huts might have merited “resort” status. Not anymore. A poorly maintained dirt pathway wandered around an unfilled swimming pool. Twelve broken-down bungalows formed an outer circle. Even in the dark, Dash could see myriad cracks in the stucco walls. The wooden doors were scarred and scratched. Windows were filthy. Only two other renters had to be evacuated.
Dash and his team surrounded Bungalow Seven, rented by Russell Graff, aka the Judge. His car wasn’t here, but a light shone through the crack in the curtains.
Dash signaled to the two men with the battering ram. Silently, they moved into place.
With a glance toward Meier, Dash whispered a reminder. “We need to take him alive.”
The detective nodded. “There are other murders to solve.”
Murder? Dash hoped not. He hoped they’d be in time to rescue Dr. Cara Messinger.
He gave a nod to the two men with the ram. They drew back and let go. The door crashed open.
Dash raced through. “FBI. Freeze.”
His warning echoed through empty space. He ran through the front room and kitchenette, charged into the bedroom and bathroom. His men swarmed into the place, searching for a man who wasn’t here.
Dash should have known that the capture wouldn’t be so easy. For years, this serial killer had eluded the FBI’s top profilers and forensic ViCAP experts.
Was Russell Graff the Judge? Or had they been wrong? Had the trace on his e-mail been a mistake?
Dash stood in the bedroom of the bungalow and faced the mirror. His gun hung loosely at his side. With his other hand, he pointed to the mirror.
“That’s one hell of a clue,” Dash said.
The reflective surface was almost completely covered with photographs of Cara and scribbling that would provide hours of analysis for the profilers.
Dash knew they were on the right trail, and they didn’t have much time. It was after midnight on Saturday. Technically, it was Sunday—the fourth day that Cara Messinger had been missing.
The Judge always killed on the fourth day.
RUSSELL’S HOARSE CRY ECHOED through the night, piercing her eardrums. “You’re mine, Cara.”
She ducked behind a juniper and wished herself invisible. The aftereffects of the drugs he’d been feeding her had distorted her perceptions while, at the same time, sharpening her senses. The fresh scent of juniper and earth mingled with the rank smell of her own fear. Which way should she run? Where should she go? She couldn’t think, couldn’t decide.
After she’d worked free from the ropes and climbed through the window, she’d faced a vast, surreal vista of low sage, cactus and trees. Faraway porch lights glimmered from other small houses. There was a two-lane road. No traffic. In the distance, she’d spied an intersection and a lit gas station attached to another building. A diner? A convenience store? Go there. They might be open all night.
Her instincts had kicked in then, warning her not to make a beeline toward the neon signs. She’d be too easy to track, too easy to find.
Instead, she’d run in the opposite direction. Her long khaki skirt tangled around her legs. The hard, rock-strewn soil tore at her bare feet.
The waning moon hung low in the west. She circled toward the gas station. Then she heard him. He screamed like a wild predator. An animal. “You’re mine.”
Terror raced through her. Hiding behind the juniper, she heard gunshots. Not just one. He fired a whole clip. As she huddled in the dark, she imagined the bullets tearing through her body, leaving ragged, bleeding tatters in her flesh. A hallucination. She hadn’t been hit. But she felt the wounds; they were as real as the cut on her arm.
She remained utterly still, a rabbit hiding from a hawk, and she prayed. Someone would hear his rampage. Someone would call the police.
Though her heart raced, a heavy pall of exhaustion weighted
