Damn him. Her gaze swept the lot once more. Long gone now. But he’d wanted her to know. He’d wanted to make absolutely certain that she knew he’d been close enough to touch.
Or to kill.
CHAPTER Six
Monica stared at the body. The closed eyes, the parted lips. The raw and bruised fingertips.
Laura Billings had cheated death once. She hadn’t been so lucky the second time he came calling.
The muffled sound of sobs reached her ears. The mother. Monica’s hands clenched. Mary had thought she’d gotten her daughter back.
So very wrong.
She cleared her throat and forced her gaze to lift from the body and lock on Davis’s hard stare. “What happened.” Not a question. “You had a guard here. Why the hell am I looking at a dead woman?”
Their only witness. Killed when a deputy was less than fifteen feet away.
Unbelievable.
A muscle flexed along the sheriff’s jaw. “If you’re saying my man—”
“We’ve got a dead woman on your watch.” Monica stepped back for the crime scene tech. “That’s what I’m saying.” She could have screamed right then. They’d needed Laura. So close. So close to ID’ing the killer and now—
Now he’d finished his job with Laura. Dammit.
A ripple of movement beside her. “I want to talk to the deputy,” Luke snapped.
Yeah, so did she. She jerked her thumb toward the door. “Outside.” The scent of death was just growing thicker in the room.
Thought I’d managed to save one. Finally.
But the killer had just been waiting. Biding his time—and screwing with me.
She eased around the techs at the door and caught sight of Laura’s parents. Her gut clenched.
Mary’s watery eyes found her. “You… I thought you… s-saved her.”
Staring into those eyes, seeing the pain… Monica swallowed. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.” So cold and brittle. “We’ll do everything in our power to apprehend—”
Mary blinked. She shook her head and seemed to fall apart. “I don’t want him c-caught!” she cried. “I want my baby back!”
Monica turned away. “I need to talk to… that deputy,” she spoke through gritted teeth as her temples throbbed. “And she… needs to be taken away from the crime scene.” Mary didn’t need to see them wheel out her daughter’s body.
Luke pressed his hand against the base of her back, guiding her forward. They rounded the corner and saw more uniforms and nurses. One woman—fresh-faced, pretty, with thick curls—sat huddled behind the desk with her shoulders hunched and her chin down.
Deputy Pope stood next to her, his dark head bent, a trembling hand running over his face. Beside him, another deputy, tall, with a shaved head and a small brown goatee, stood with his hands clenched.
“Vickers!” The sheriff’s voice barked behind her and the taller deputy flinched. “Son, you got one hell of a lot of explaining to do!”
His head whipped up. Pink stained his cheeks and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I-I swear, sir… I-I didn’t leave my post all night—”
This was so not the place for an interrogation. Too many eyes. Too many ears.
Monica pointed to the small white door across from the nurses’ station. “That the break room?”
Curly nodded.
“Good.” Monica drew in a deep breath. Jesus, she hated the smell of hospitals. “Go in there, deputy.” Once inside, he wasn’t getting out until she figured out exactly what had happened.
He nodded and shuffled forward.
Curly reached for her bag. “I-I’m going home. I’ll talk to you later, Lee,” the nurse said.
Right. Like that was going to happen. Monica fired a glance at Luke.
He gave a slight nod and said, “Ah, miss, we’re gonna need to talk to you.”
Her baby blue eyes widened.
“So why don’t you just stay put a bit.” He flashed a smile. One with lots of teeth. “And we’ll all have a real, nice talk soon.”
Davis motioned and Melinda Jenkins, another deputy, stepped up beside the nurse. She’d been waiting for Monica outside the hospital. Petite and soft-spoken, but with a no-nonsense attitude. Good thinking on Davis’s part to bring Melinda in, especially with that dazed stare Lee was flashing at the nurse.
The nurse’s hold on her bag tightened. “B-but I didn’t do anything!”
“You were the nurse on duty, weren’t you?” Monica asked quietly. She knew the answer. Davis had pointed out the blonde when he’d led her off the elevator.
A grim nod.
“Then you were here when the killer struck. You saw him.” A pause. “And he saw you.”
That pretty face paled.
“I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere, ma’am,” Luke said, his drawl deepening, deliberately, she was sure, to make the nurse feel like she was talking to another good ole boy. “We need to ask you a few questions because we sure need your help.”
Melinda sidled close to the nurse. Real close. Monica met the deputy’s dark eyes and knew that Curly wouldn’t be getting away.
“Why don’t you come with me, honey…” Melinda said in that gentle voice of hers.
“But—but I just wanna go home.…”
“Ah, Sissy Sue, I’m afraid that’s just not an option right now.” Still soft, but no missing the steel.
Monica realized she could like Deputy Jones. If only she’d been on duty for the night, maybe Laura would still be breathing instead of being wheeled to the morgue.
She drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. Davis stood by her side, his whole body tense. “One other thing you need to know about tonight, Sheriff.”
His brows pulled low.
“The killer made contact.”
Davis’s jaw dropped. “Bullshit.”
“Not quite. He called me,” probably right before the bastard had gone after Laura, judging by the lividity of the body and the waxy color of the flesh. “He knows we’re hunting him.” Her gaze held his. “And I think he likes it.”
Deputy Andrew “Andy” Vickers looked like he wanted to cry. Maybe he was crying. Luke narrowed his eyes and braced his legs as Monica began questioning the guy. Sheriff Davis stood to the right, shaking his head in disgust every few minutes.
“I didn’t leave! I didn’t!”
“Then who did you see?” Monica pressed. “This hallway was cleared. No other patients. Just Laura. Who did you see on her hallway? And why the hell didn’t you step up and stop—”