He exploded within her, even as he kept his hips locked down against the mattress. His release pulsed through him, jetting into her. Cadence whispered his name, her breath heaving, as she leaned forward, pressing her chest to his.
He wrapped his arms around her. Held her.
Her heart thundered against his chest. Or maybe it was his own heart. Right then, it was too hard to tell the difference. Too hard to tell anything but how much he loved holding her.
He pushed back her hair, held her against his chest, and didn’t pull his c**k from her. The damn thing was still half erect, and growing more so by the moment. He didn’t want to move, though. He wanted to stay part of her.
“Don’t go to sleep.” His voice was gruff.
“I won’t,” she said softly.
The bedside lamp was still on. The light seemed harsh then, but she might need the light to help her stay awake.
“I know she’s gone.” He hadn’t meant to say the words. Kyle felt Cadence stiffen. “I want to kill him.” He confessed his dark wish even as his fingertips skimmed lightly over the delicate curve of her spine.
“Kyle…”
“I will kill him.” She should know the truth about the man with her. “I’m not planning to bring him in alive.”
It was easier to confess to her when he didn’t have to stare into her eyes and see just what she truly thought of him.
But some monsters didn’t belong in cages. They belonged in hell.
He felt a hot splash against his shoulder.
It took him an instant to realize—Cadence was crying.
Cadence didn’t cry.
His hold tightened on her.
“I wanted to save her,” she whispered.
“So did I.” Maria, Judith, Fiona, Christa—he wished they could have saved all of the victims.
He hadn’t been able to do that. He could do one thing, though. He could stop the perp from taking another woman. From destroying another family.
That he would do.
“From here on out, where you go, I go.” Kyle’s words were flat. His fingers kept sliding over her spine. “If he thinks he’ll get to you again, he’s wrong. He’ll have to come through me first.” That was exactly what Kyle wanted. To face off with the man who got off on imprisoning women in the darkness.
His phone rang then, and Kyle tensed. Would it be the SOB, calling to taunt him again? Another burner phone, another tear-filled plea from his sister?
When he’d found the camera in the caverns, he’d realized he’d been listening to his sister’s recording during the calls.
Once she had begged for him.
The phone rang.
But she was far past begging for anyone then.
On the third ring, his hand slid over to the nightstand. He picked up the phone. “McKenzie.”
“Kyle!” It was Dani’s voice. Excited. “Kyle, I did that check, just like Cadence said. People who’d been in car accidents who went into the hospital.” It sounded like a door shut behind her. “I got three hits. Three. All on men in this town right now.”
Cadence sat up, frowning.
Kyle turned the phone on speaker so she could hear better. “Three? Who are they?” he demanded. But he already knew one…
Cadence had been right all along. To know the killer, you had to learn about the victims.
“The geology professor, Aaron Peters. He was hit by a drunk driver when he was twelve. The guy had to stay in the hospital for almost three months after that. He was in a coma, and the docs weren’t sure he’d ever wake up.”
Cadence’s breath caught.
“Ben told me about Marsh, so I focused on him fast. Seems he was in an accident when he was sixteen. He was driving with his twin sister, Caroline. His sister died at the scene. The guy couldn’t go to her funeral because he was in the hospital. He had a brain injury, and it took days for the swelling to go down.”
The cop had just been at the motel. Was it to check up on Cadence, or for something more?
“Who’s the third man?” Cadence asked carefully.
“I had to dig farther for this one. It was over thirty years ago. Happened just over the state line in Tennessee. James Anniston was hit head-on.”
“The captain?” Cadence asked, surprise sharpening her voice.
“Yeah, he wasn’t hurt too badly, though. He was pinned in the car overnight, had some stitches and was sent home from the hospital a few days later.”
Excitement still hummed in Dani’s voice. “Ben’s rounding them all up now. I figured you’d want to be in on the questioning.”
Damn straight.
“We’re on our way to the station,” Kyle said.
But…Anniston? Anniston was trying desperately to find the women. He’d been the one to call Kyle back down to Paradox.
The other two, yeah, they were the right age. They were the ones with access to the caverns. The ones who seemed to know the area best.
“The tapes are here, too,” Dani added, the excitement slipping away from her voice.
“Tapes?” Cadence asked as she frowned down at the phone.
“Dozens of them. Ben thinks the girls are on here.”
Their lives. Their deaths.
Cadence’s gaze rose and held Kyle’s. “We’re on our way,” she repeated, her voice soft.
The call ended.
Cadence didn’t move. Neither did Kyle.
“They’re leads,” Cadence said, with a slow nod. “We’ll talk to Marsh, Peters, and Anniston, and see if we can get one of them to break.”
Break the way the bastard had made his victims break.
Dani shut the door to her temporary office. Ben had commandeered the space for her so she could work in peace.
She’d already set up her equipment.
Now it was time to watch those tapes.
The chair squeaked when she sat down. Dani leaned forward and cued up the first video.
Static crackled across the scene. Almost instantly, the blinding white of that static gave way to darkness.
The cave?
There was a faint click, as if the camera had been adjusted—and suddenly she was seeing things in the faint tinge of infrared.
She could see the rough outline of a bed. A woman was on the bed.
“Please…”
The softest of whispers.
Dani leaned toward the screen as she narrowed her eyes. Her breath was coming too quickly. Her heart racing.
“I—I want to go home…”
The woman’s hands were bound.
And there was a man standing right over her.
The man had navigated that room. He’d turned on his camera. Then he’d gotten close in that perfect darkness.