No Escape

“I’m just trying to sort this out, son. Did he say he was going to come back, or ask you to meet him again?”

“No. I think he was going to, but then Grant came along and he ran off.”

The younger man was still scribbling when his partner stood and slugged back the last of the coffee, signaling they were done here. “If he tries to contact you again, you need to let Isabelle or one of us know, okay?”

“He’s not going to hurt me,” said Dale.

“I’m sure you’re right,” soothed the older man. “But he’s not supposed to see you without supervision. If he tries anything, we won’t have any choice but to charge him with breaking a court order. Maybe even parental kidnapping.”

Dale snarled, “Good. I want him to go back to jail.”

“Keep your distance, son. It’s the safest thing for both of you and your friends.” He turned to Isabelle. “We’ll file a report in case you need any official documentation that he came by tonight. His caseworker can call for a copy in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

He handed both her and Dale a business card. “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call. Custody battles can turn ugly fast.”

“I understand.”

He gave her a sympathetic nod. “Thanks for the coffee.”

The police left, and Isabelle shut and locked the door. Dale stood there with his feet braced apart and his face grim. He looked like he was expecting a punch, and Isabelle felt the sting of tears. Again. He’d been through so much. All she wanted was for him to be safe and happy and healthy. He had so much potential that that’s all he needed to bloom. It wasn’t much to ask.

When she said nothing, Dale started to fidget like he was nervous. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. You really scared me tonight.” It came out as a whisper, soggy with tears even though she’d tried to stay strong.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t. I also know you’ll never sneak out like that again, right?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Go on to bed and make sure that window is locked. We’ll talk more after you’ve had some sleep.”

Dale scrambled away as if he couldn’t get away fast enough. He was halfway up the stairs when he stopped but didn’t turn around. Isabelle knew he wanted to say something, so she waited silently.

“I’m sorry I made you cry,” he said and hurried up the stairs, two at a time.

Grant moved quietly from window to window, checking each to make sure it was locked. Isabelle’s house was old, and the only secure windows were the ones painted shut. Not that that would keep anyone from breaking the glass.

She needed a security system installed before he left. And maybe a big dog. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about her when he was gone.

Yeah, right. Hardly a week had gone by since he’d joined the military that he hadn’t thought about the sickly little girl he’d left behind and wondered how she was. Her cards and letters had helped ease his mind, but not entirely. And now his fears were no longer all in his head. The danger to her and Dale was real, and he had to do something to fix it.

Grant finished his security check downstairs and went to the second floor.

He heard the soft thrum of music coming from Dale’s room, and without knocking and waking him up, Grant crept inside.

Dale was asleep, his body flung out across the bed, covers twisted around his restless body, barely keeping him warm. Poor kid had been through the wringer tonight, and it wasn’t over yet. Not until Wyatt went back to jail or gave up any hope of reuniting with his son.

Grant grabbed the blanket off his own bed and covered Dale up. After a quick window check, he left the boy in peace, hoping he’d found some solace in sleep.

The light of day was only going to highlight last night’s ugliness. Grant knew that from experience.

He shut Dale’s door and went back to his own room. The bright yellow walls hurt his tired eyes, even though he was sure the color was meant to be cheerful. Isabelle’s touch, no doubt.

He sat on the wide bottom bunk bed, careful not to smack his head on the narrower twin bed above him. He unlaced his boots and toed them off. He’d been so exhausted when he’d crashed earlier that he hadn’t noticed anything about the room other than the fact that it had a bed and he wanted to be in it.

Two small chests of drawers flanked the window. The drawer pulls were molded into the shapes of different animals. On the closet door was a growth chart, void of any markings. A child-sized art center sat in the corner, waiting for the touch of little hands to give it life.

It was a kid’s room, freshly decorated, waiting to be filled.

Was Isabelle expecting another foster child? If so, then maybe Grant was in the way. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so insistent that he stay here.

Then again, people were dying, and Dale’s father was a complete asshole who clearly could not be trusted. Until those problems were removed, she had no business bringing a child here.

Not that it was any of his business. He had no say in her life.

That fact shouldn’t have bothered him nearly as much as it did.

Grant stripped out of his clothes and settled back in bed. He couldn’t let himself get sucked into her problems. He’d talk to the police and see if her suspicions about the deaths were valid, beef up her security, and be on his way.

The thought made him uneasy. Isabelle had no idea how to protect herself. And she had a child. He had to be sure it was safe to leave them. There could be no mistakes.

And once he was sure, he’d hit the road and never come back. This place was full of bad memories, and more were piling up by the day.

If he never saw Isabelle cry again, it would suit him just fine.

Trina was breathing so hard she almost didn’t hear the faint squeak of floorboards overhead.

The killer was back.

She jerked at the metal rod inside the toilet tank, but it didn’t come free. All she managed to do was bend it so that the water started rushing out of the tank in a deafening hiss.

Now she couldn’t hear anything. He could be coming down the stairs right now and she couldn’t hear it.

Panic flooded her body, making her hands shake. A quiet sob of panic tore from her chest. She had to stop before he caught her.

Trina let go of the rod, but the tank was refilling and she still couldn’t hear over the noise of water.

Inside her prison, the light bulb blazed to life, searing her eyes.

The lid to the tank was still off. He was going to catch her.

He slid a key into the lock. Metal scraped metal as it turned.

Trina grabbed the lid and set it in place. Her hands were soaked, and water dripped off the edge of the lid.

He was going to know what she’d been doing. He was going to see the water and know. And then he’d punish her. He’d kill her like he had Henry.

Terror gripped her and squeezed hard.

The doorknob rattled as he turned it.

Trina grabbed the washcloth with one hand while she turned on the sink with the other. She swiped away the telltale wetness with the cloth.

He opened the door.

She plunged the cloth into the streaming water and covered her terrified face with the cloth to hide any signs of guilt.

He husband’s killer walked in. She could hear his heavy footsteps on the concrete floor.

Trina spun around and held the dripping cloth to her chest, praying it would hide any water spots she might have gotten on her while fiddling in the tank.

“You’re awake,” he said, giving her a smile that made his blue eyes sparkle. “Did you sleep well?”

Trina refused to answer such a ludicrous question.

He set a tray of food on the foot of her cot. Her stomach turned at the sight of it, but she needed to eat and retain what little strength she had left.

“Eat,” he ordered.

Trina stared into his face, loathing everything about him. His neatly combed hair, the wide bulk of his shoulders. But most of all, she hated his blue eyes. They were eerily bright, clear, and they missed nothing.

“Why are you keeping me here?” she asked him for the hundredth time.

And for the hundredth time, he replied, “It’s not your turn yet.”

Trina didn’t know what he meant, but her instincts told her it wasn’t good. “My turn to die?”

“Eat,” he told her again, and this time there was an edge of steel in his voice. “Now, or I’ll take away the food and put you back to sleep hungry.”

Put her back to sleep. A chill of revulsion raced over her skin, making her stomach turn even more. Chocking down the sandwich he’d made her wasn’t going to be easy, but Trina was going to find a way.

The next time she woke up, she was going to get that metal rod out of the toilet and kill the fucker.

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CHAPTER SIX

Late the next morning while Isabelle was at school, Grant used the key she’d loaned him to let himself back into her house.

She was right. The police weren’t going to be jumping to help them without more evidence. Three of the people who’d died had done so in other states, so it was well out of their jurisdiction. And they weren’t about to bring in the feds unless they had some solid proof. The best they were willing to offer was to give Grant the phone numbers for the right people to contact about the out-of-state deaths so he could ask them questions.

From the tone of the detective he’d talked to, they weren’t likely to be of any more aid than the local police were. Which meant Grant had to figure out whether or not he believed Isabelle’s theory. If he didn’t, then he’d go on his way, after making sure Wyatt was back behind bars where he belonged. If he did believe her, then that changed his course of action dramatically.

Neither Isabelle nor Dale was due home anytime soon, so Grant fixed himself a pot of coffee and laid all of the information Isabelle had given him out on the kitchen table. He’d purchased a map of the United States along with a notebook to help him organize the details.

He marked the map with the location of each death, then he assigned to it the name of the victim and date it had happened. He drew a line across the map, linking the dots in chronological order, but it didn’t show any sort of pattern. No straight line, no circle or partial circle, there was no single highway connecting the cities. They jumped all over. That was a dead end.

Grant recorded other details in his notebook, hoping it would help him see some kind of pattern that would prove someone was acting alone. The times of day for each death differed, as well as the method of death. The victims had nothing in common other than the fact that they had all lived at Edgar Lavine’s foster home at one time, which wasn’t enough for the police to get involved.

Isabelle had included a small amount of personal information about each of the victims, but it looked to be only the kind of facts that the state would have on file for any foster child. There was a list of foster homes where each child had lived, and again, the only intersection was Lavine.

Grant compared the dates of the deaths to any significant date he could find in each file, hoping for a match. Birthdays were a bust, as was the date that each child came to live with Lavine. There was nothing he could see significant about the dates that each one died, though it would have been handy toward proving murder if they’d each happened to be killed on the anniversary of the day they entered Lavine’s home or something similar. Maybe that would have been enough proof to get the police on the case.