Even Dani was watching him now. Her fingers had frozen over her keyboard.
“No matter what I said, I couldn’t get the guy to let me in his place, so I finally left. I left, but I came back and started watching the house. That night, he hurried from the house, with two kids with him. A blond boy and a blonde girl, a girl who would have been Sara’s age.”
Ben rubbed at the faint scar under his chin. Kyle had always wondered about that scar.
“I called out to him because I wanted a better look at the girl, and that was when he pulled the knife. He put it to her throat, and he told me that no one was taking his family away from him.”
Silence.
Dani shook her head. “What did you do?”
His fingers fell away from the scar. “I took his f**king family away. He sliced me, but I took him down. Got those kids back to the police station. The girl—”
“She was your missing Sara,” Cadence said.
He nodded. “Gone seven years, presumed dead. But very much alive.”
Kyle was getting the message. But seven years and fifteen—
“And the blond boy?” Ben continued as his eyes stayed locked on Kyle. “Turned out that guy wasn’t his father. The boy had been taken twelve years before. Stolen right out of a hospital in D.C.” He exhaled slowly and never looked away from Kyle. “Now, I’m going to ask you again, McKenzie, and I want a real answer. Do you think that was your sister on the phone?”
His hands had fisted. “It was her voice.”
“Is she alive? Or is he screwing with you? What does your gut say?”
Hope wouldn’t die. Not until he saw his sister’s body. “Yes, I believe Maria is alive.” He looked at Cadence. “I won’t ever believe otherwise, not until I see her body.” The brutal truth. He wouldn’t give up, he’d do anything necessary, until his sister was found.
Found either alive…or dead.
“That’s what I needed to hear.”
“Why the hell did you need to know that?”
Cadence watched him with worried eyes.
“Because,” Ben said, shrugging, “if you thought he’d killed your sister, then I’d have to worry you were just hunting him with the sole purpose of killing him. I needed to know you’d try to bring him in alive.” A pause. “We need him alive. I’ve got at least ten missing women and their family members are just like you. They won’t stop searching, not until they know…one way or the other.”
Then his gaze went to Cadence. “Are we all clear on this? A kill shot is our last resort with this guy. We want a live capture. We need it.”
“I’m clear,” Cadence said, her voice soft. “Don’t worry.”
“I do because if the perp does come for you—and it sure looks like he might—you take him down.”
“Take him down,” she repeated with a faint nod, “but just keep him alive.”
“That’s the plan.”
Dani whistled. “Guys, I’ve got something.”
Their attention immediately shifted to her.
“We’ve got a hit,” Danielle said, her voice cracking with excitement. “I found an owner of a Dodge Charger, a guy who lives about twenty miles from Christa Donaldson’s place. The search was easy, because the car links to Jake Landers.”
“Shirley Wayne’s jailbird ex,” Cadence clarified to Ben’s questioning look.
When Dani looked up from the screen, her smile was cold. “Jake Landers is ex-military, aged thirty-seven, and he has plenty of arrests on file. The first came over fifteen years ago, when the guy got drunk and put his girlfriend in the hospital for two weeks.”
Talk about fitting the profile to a T.
“Seems he didn’t like the fact she wanted to breakup with him,” Dani continued. “Our guy has a real problem letting women go.”
So did their perp.
“At least three women filed restraining orders against him over the years. The man sure has a problem with the concept of rejection.”
Or giving up what he wanted.
“What’s the address?” Kyle asked as he checked his weapon.
“Forty-five Old Mills Road.”
Hell, yes.
He headed for the door. Cadence was right by his side.
Ben hurried behind them. “Remember,” the boss directed, “alive.”
That was the goal.
But one way or another, the guy would be stopped.
The cabin sat in the middle of the woods, its small roof sloping, the porch sagging, and wood near the door rotting.
“This is it,” Kyle said as the glanced at Cadence. They were lead on the approach, heading in first with local backup right behind them. Backup that had been screened, cleared. No one was slipping by in a deputy’s uniform this time.
Cadence nodded, but her gaze, when it found his, was hooded. “Kyle, if this is his place, there could be trophies inside.”
Serial killers often kept mementos close to them.
“Can you handle that?” she asked him, worry threading through her voice.
“I can handle anything.” He wondered if that was the truth. When he’d thought the killer was targeting Cadence, hadn’t he been so desperate to save her that he’d run blindly into those woods? Not stopping when Dani shouted for him. Not stopping for anything, until he could see her.
They had men spreading out in the woods around the cabin. Securing the perimeter. The only road in was already blocked.
It was time to see what waited in that cabin.
He ran forward. They’d gotten a warrant easily enough. In a case like this one, the small-town judge sure hadn’t been about to say no to the FBI. When he reached the door, Kyle shouted, “FBI!”
There was no sound from inside.
He didn’t want to give the guy any chance to hide or destroy evidence, so he kicked in the door and rushed in, staying low, while Cadence covered him with her gun.
The smell hit him almost instantly. The stench of decay. Rot.
Flesh.
She was waiting for them. Tied to a chair, her head sagging forward. Her red hair trailed over her, concealing her face.
Not bones. Flesh.
“Fuck,” he bit off.
The bastard had kept a trophy right in front of him.
Cadence approached the body cautiously.
“How long?” Kyle demanded.
Cadence’s breath came heavily. “We need the ME to be sure.”
Bullshit. Cadence knew bodies. She’d even spent time at a body farm last summer, a place that should have sent her spiraling into nightmares but hadn’t.