If only.
“I didn’t take the knife out.” Her words were wooden. “That would have just made her bleed out faster. The knife stayed in, I tried to keep her calm.” Every breath Cadence took seemed to hurt her. “She just wanted to go home.” Her shoulders slumped as the rain pelted her. “I couldn’t stop her.”
Fiona Slater was finally free.
Cadence looked back at the entrance to the gaping cavern. The bushes had been shoved aside. More men armed with bright lights were slipping inside.
Some were coming out.
“Every man here…” Cadence fixed her stare back on Heather. “Take their pictures. Get their IDs. Check them all.”
Heather’s brows climbed. “Didn’t he run away through the tunnel?”
Had he? Or had the guy just been waiting for his moment to escape? “He blends. He slips away.” Nausea was rising in her throat. She couldn’t seem to stop weaving on her feet. “Every man here. Get a record of everyone.”
Heather nodded and hurried away.
“Agent Hollow?” The EMT pressed. “I need to examine you.”
She turned to look at him. His shoulders were narrow and he was small in height, barely around five foot five.
“You’re not fine.” He emphasized her word. “With a concussion.”
“You know that,” she muttered. “I know that.” The killer didn’t.
Her knees buckled.
The EMT caught her and pulled her into the back of the ambulance.
He’d counted six skulls. Six gleaming skulls in the darkness.
Six victims.
And one glittering necklace. A silver chain. A half-moon hung from the chain, a moon encrusted with small diamonds.
The necklace lay in the dirt, right next to a skull.
He couldn’t take his gaze off the necklace.
Maria. Blood pounded in his temples. He sucked in deep gulps of air even as a hard tremble ran the length of his body.
“Agent McKenzie?”
He’d been reaching for the necklace. His hand fisted. “Tell the techs to use every care here. These are people.” Not bones. Loved ones.
Women who’d been beautiful in life. Happy.
His light swept away from the necklace.
He made himself advance carefully through the maze of caverns, using the rope to make certain he didn’t get lost in the endless night. His light swept ahead. No trip wires. No sign of anyone up there.
His light hit on the outline of wood. Just like the wood that had blocked the chamber Cadence had been held in.
Another door. A very old one.
“I heard that back during the war,” came the voice of Hollings behind him, “Confederates had secret gunpowder rooms hidden in the area. They stored guns and weapons, trying to keep ’em out of Union hands.”
Their hideaways had been left behind, the perfect prison for their perp to use.
A long, heavy bar slid across the front of the door. A bar designed not to keep people out.
But to hold someone in.
He wrapped his hand around the bar. Was another victim inside? He pulled it back, and the old metal groaned.
When the door opened seconds later, he was holding tight to his gun and his light.
His light swept the interior of the chamber, landing on a bed, a bucket…
“Agent McKenzie?”
He turned at Hollings’s hesitant voice. His light hit the man, and the video camera in his hand.
“A camera. It was right here,” Hollings said, “half in the wall.”
He kept them down here, and he watched them.
The sick SOB.
“We’re gonna need Dani.” The camera wouldn’t be able to transmit too far. Not down here with all the rocks. They had been going down as they walked. He’d felt the incline.
The man would want to see his prisoner. Watch her all the time.
Kyle stalked out of the room. Hollings was with him. Fuck, the rope didn’t have any more slack. There were no sounds of other footsteps behind them.
Or in front.
To keep searching, they were going to need more help.
He wasn’t ready to give up.
The camera…the room…
He’d seen hell. So had the women the perp had taken.
Hell was a small, five-by-eight-foot chamber. A room with no lights or windows. A room smelling of human waste and decay.
A room with no hope.
Only death.
Deep inside, Kyle knew the room had been the last thing his sister had ever seen.
I’m going to kill you, bastard. I don’t care about doing what’s right. You’re not going to see the inside of a cell. You won’t f**king get off that easily.
A calm settled over him. Chilling him.
The death wouldn’t be easy because the SOB didn’t deserve easy.
He deserved to suffer, as all his victims had suffered.
Kyle would make sure he didn’t get an easy end.
“Looks like we’ve recovered the remains of six victims in those caverns.” Ben Griffin’s voice was soft. “Seven, counting Fiona.”
Cadence flinched at his words. She hadn’t even realized he’d been next to her. She’d been sitting there, her eyes glued to the entrance of the cavern.
Fiona Slater had just been brought out. Judith had already been secured inside a black body bag. The growing sunlight peeked through the remnants of the clouds and fell on the bag.
Fiona was free.
“You did a good job, Cadence.”
Good job, her ass. Cadence pushed to her feet. The dizziness was mild this time. She only staggered a little bit. She dropped the blanket that had been wrapped around her shoulders and squared off with Ben. “He got away.”
Ben shook his head. “They’re still searching the caverns.”
“He left the minute the FBI arrived. As soon as he realized what was happening, he was gone.” She waved toward the scene. “He was one of the ones who just walked right out of the cavern.”
Ben frowned at her.
“He’s authoritative. He knows the area intimately. He’s dominant. Smart. He’s…one of us. He’s working the case because I’m betting he was tipped off the minute the authorities started closing in on this place.” Her words came, faster and faster. “The reason no one has ever been found? He knows what the authorities are gonna do before they do it.”
“Cadence.” His voice was so calm. It made her want to scream. “Cadence, you need to go back to your motel. Get some sleep. You recovered eight victims.”
“Fiona Slater was alive seven hours ago. If I’d really done my job, she would still be alive right now.” A brutal truth. One that would haunt Cadence the rest of her life. “Her death is on me.”