Forty-Eight
Preacher had gotten hot food from Aunt Betty’s and now sat opposite Ava at the kitchen table. He’d take it slow with her as he needed to test her trust. He’d started by giving her clothes and then as she showed her loyalty to him had released both her hands during meals with him
. He wasn’t anyone’s fool and kept his Glock on the table and her feet securely chained to the floor. “Eat your burger.”
“It’s delicious, thank you, Preacher.” Ava nibbled at the bun, her long fingers caressing it in her small hands. “You’re very kind to me.”
Preacher liked it when she held eye contact and smiled at him. He hadn’t cared to become involved with a woman since Delores but Ava seemed different somehow. She greeted him when he came home as if she genuinely was glad to see him. The problem was, he couldn’t push away the need to strangle her. Every time she displayed her long white neck, his fingers tingled to enclose it and squeeze. Yet he enjoyed the company. It had been good to have someone to talk to, someone who didn’t scream or beg. He wanted her to be free but she’d run away again. If he became bored with her, he’d let her go just for the sport. The thought of hunting her down and killing her excited him but he pushed it down and ate his meal.
“You went down to the cellar before, is Isabella still down there?” Ava nibbled on one of her fries.
“You mean Delores.” Preacher picked up a remote control and accessed the split screen to find his last Delores, zooming in on her. He indicated to the screen. “Yeah, it looks like she hasn’t attempted to escape. She follows the rules and gets the privileges.”
“I’m sorry I tried to escape.” Ava looked at him from below her lashes. “I thought you were going to rape me or sell me into slavery.”
His gaze moved over her, examining her eyes. He could tell when people were telling the truth. “I don’t rape women. I think rape is disgusting and I wouldn’t sell a woman. I love women.” At her sigh of relief and relaxing of posture, he changed the subject and gave her a slow smile. “Did you know, I use a chainsaw to create ice sculptures and then display them all over. One of my pieces was mentioned on TV just the other night.”
“Ice sculptures as well as making Delores into a snowman?” Ava smiled at him. “You must be very talented. I’d love to watch you sometime.”
Preacher contemplated Ava’s request. He needed to make a statement piece, a showstopper with Delores but he didn’t have too much time to arrange things and scope out a suitable site to display her. The blizzard-like conditions wouldn’t last more than another couple of days. The weather forecast predicted a lull in the snowfall for next week. He needed the snow to cover his tracks and confuse any CCTV cameras he may have missed. In the nighttime, during heavy snowfall, any footage picked up by CCTV cameras distorted and appeared more like background radiation. To speed things along so Ava could watch him, he’d have to start with Delores alive. Maybe fix her eyes and her mouth before he silenced her screams. He nodded absently. “Okay, I’ll allow you to watch me create my next piece but first you have to do something to prove your loyalty to me.”
“Sure.” Ava met his gaze. “Anything you want. I like being here with you.”
Preacher chuckled. “That’s nice.”
“What do you want me to do?” Ava leaned forward, obviously interested.
Preacher would need time to think of a special test for her. “I’ll tell you later.”
Forty-Nine
“Will we ever catch this maniac?” Jenna unclipped her seatbelt and turned to Kane. The tip of his nose was red from the cold and he looked tired. “He’s eluded law enforcement all over and we have circumstantial evidence and only two potential suspects.”
“Two potentials are good.” Kane pulled up his hood over his woolen cap. “More would be a problem. We can keep eyes on two far easier than ten or so.” He sighed. “I just wish the sketchy CCTV footage from the newspaper office had yielded more than a shadow but at least we have the time the killer dumped the body.”
Jenna pulled on her gloves. “Yeah, which makes me wonder if he lives somewhere as isolated as you imagine. How did he get her into town at five in the morning? The roads would’ve been impassable.” She blinked as a thought occurred to her. “Oh, don’t tell me he’s a snowplow driver?”
“Or he drives a powerful truck with a snowplow attachment like mine?” Kane shrugged. “That’s possible but hundreds of guys have those in Black Rock Falls and if anyone had seen him, they wouldn’t have taken much notice.” He looked at her. “As he seems to move around so easily in the snow, I’d say we add that possibility to our list. I’ll check out the snowplow route times, they’ve been running twelve hours a day lately. He might have just followed one through town.”
“Good idea.” Jenna stared at the ME’s office door and sighed. “Let’s get this over with. I want to get home before I drop from exhaustion. It’s been a very long day.”
The thought of attending another autopsy of a young woman soured Jenna’s belly. She climbed out the truck and headed for the cleared and well salted pathway to Wolfe’s office. She scanned her card on the door to the morgue. Inside, the sadly familiar smell of antiseptic, menthol and death greeted her. As they headed down the long, tiled corridor their footsteps sounded irreverently loud. The morgue wasn’t like a hospital. It was so quiet and she found herself dropping her voice in respect to the dead. This part of the building unlike the pathology labs and Wolfe’s office area, gave Jenna a feeling of hopelessness, as if all was lost.
Jenna removed her coat and hung it on a peg outside the morgue. She stuffed her gloves and hat inside her pockets. An inexorable feeling of helplessness drifted over her as she took gloves and a mask from Kane.
“What is it?” Kane turned to her and grabbed her shoulders. “Are you coming down with something?”
Jenna shook her head. “No, I’m fine.” She tried to smile but her lips quivered. “It’s just all the people who have died on my watch. I feel responsible is all.”
“You didn’t kill them, Jenna.” Kane rubbed her arms but his eyes held a sorrow she hadn’t seen before. “You nearly died a few days ago and you’ve been going hell for leather since without a break. Most people would take days to recover from an overdose and you went back to work the next day. I’m not surprised you’re stressed.”
“I wasn’t in a coma.” Jenna didn’t want an excuse. “Kim was a nurse and she just kept me under. I figure she planned to let me freeze to death. Wolfe used two doses of Naloxone and I was fully alert before I left the cabin.”
“You had no pulse.” Kane looked distraught. “I thought you’d died. Thank God Wolfe was there. I made a mistake, Jenna, that could’ve cost you your life.”
Unable to understand the emotion moving through him, she swallowed hard. “What mistake?”
“When that guy was leaning over you, I just picked him up and threw him at the wall. I felt for a pulse in your neck and found nothing, not even a flicker. You were cold and limp. I wanted to kill the man who’d hurt you but before I could do anything, Wolfe ripped open your coat and listened to your chest. Only then, he gave you the Naloxone.” A nerve in Kane’s cheek twitched. “My fingers were numb from the cold. I missed your pulse and should have administered the spray. You nearly died because of me.”