It was a lot of blood.
Too much.
Cadence shoved her phone back into her pocket. She lifted her weapon and her light.
They slid under the police tape. Went five feet in the darkness.
And found the first body.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It looked like the officer’s head had been bashed in. Blood soaked his temples and streamed down his face.
His throat had been cut open.
Kyle swore at the savagery. To bash the man’s head like that—to get close enough to easily slice his throat—the captain could have done that. He would have walked right up to the guy. The man wouldn’t have even tried to fight back, not until it was too late.
Poor sonofabitch.
“Where’s the other officer?” Cadence whispered. Her light cut through the tunnel. To Kyle, the light seemed so weak in the darkness.
“Help.”
A whisper floated from deeper within the tunnel.
Kyle tensed. He wasn’t sure the voice belonged to the other officer.
One man was dead. Why leave the other alive?
Bait.
Or maybe he was dead already, too, and the perp was trying to lure them into his trap.
“He came back here for a reason.” The place hadn’t been rigged to explode before, but maybe it was because their perp hadn’t been able to set his traps in time.
They’d followed Cadence too soon. Tracked her. Saved her. Before the SOB could destroy the place.
If he’d gotten rid of the evidence at the station, then hell, yes, he could be destroying evidence here, too.
Bait or killer? They had to find out. They advanced with careful steps. Cadence kept her light on the ground, checking for a trip wire, while Kyle shined his beam at eye level, making sure they weren’t about to face-plant into another wire.
“Please.”
The cry came from the right, from the same chamber Cadence had been trapped in.
Her breath heaved out, too loud in the silence. He could feel her fear.
Kyle didn’t want her back in that f**king room.
The big, wooden door was shut. It had been shut before, when Cadence had been trapped. He hadn’t thought of explosives then. He’d only thought of getting to her.
Was the place now rigged to blow if he opened the door?
“Help.” The voice was even weaker.
A man’s voice. The other officer had been a fresh-faced kid who Kyle only vaguely remembered. He’d been young, maybe in his early twenties.
Too young to die.
Weren’t they all too young?
Was that him? Or is it you, Anniston?
“We’re here!” Cadence called out, but Kyle noticed she didn’t open the door. “Identify yourself!”
“Officer Bailey. Ken Bailey…” The words were rasping. “Please…someone has cut me…”
He was being used as live bait.
But they couldn’t leave him in there to die.
Carefully, Kyle pushed open the door. Inch by slow inch. Checking up and down the door’s length for a trip wire.
There wasn’t one.
He slipped into the room.
And felt a knife shove into his chest.
“Please…” A voice grated in his ear. “Someone has cut me…”
It wasn’t the young cop.
Kyle shoved hard against the SOB who’d just stabbed him, but the man just laughed and twisted the knife.
“No!” Cadence’s scream. Then she was there, but she couldn’t attack.
Her light had fallen on Kyle and on Captain James Anniston.
“I’m close to his heart,” James whispered. “So close. All I have to do is yank up my blade. You think you can shoot me before I do that, Agent Hollow?”
She didn’t. Kyle knew it. If she had thought she could take the shot, then Cadence already would have done it.
“He can still survive if I don’t jerk my knife any more.”
The guy was taunting them.
“You won’t shoot,” James muttered. “Because you f**king love him, don’t you?”
Kyle hoped to heaven she did. But it wasn’t just about Cadence. If she didn’t take the shot, Anniston would still kill him. Still kill them both.
A numbness was spreading through Kyle’s body even as his blood soaked his shirt, but he lifted his weapon. Pointed it right at Anniston’s head. “I’ll…shoot.”
Anniston laughed. “Do it, and you’ll never find out what happened to that sweet sister of yours.”
Fucking bastard.
“I know.” Talking was so hard for Kyle. Maybe the SOB had already clipped his heart. The beating seemed off in his chest. “She’s gone. Maria’s…at peace.”
Cadence’s light was on Anniston’s face. Rage twisted his features as he shouted, “She’s not! She’s not gone!”
Kyle’s fingers tightened around the trigger. This was what he’d wanted. What he’d planned all along.
To kill the man who’d taken his sister.
Even if it was the last thing he did.
With the way he was bleeding, it damn well might be.
James jerked the knife from Kyle’s chest. Then he dropped the weapon. Put his hands up. “I can take you to her.”
Kyle locked his teeth against the pain ripping through him. He staggered forward and put his gun right at James’s chest. Payback.
“No!” Cadence’s shout. Her hands were on his shoulders, trying to pull him back.
“You can’t kill an unarmed man,” James whispered.
Yes, he could.
“That’s not the way the FBI works.” The bastard was taunting him.
Screw the FBI. This was how he worked.
“Kyle, there are still women missing. All of the victims haven’t been found.” Cadence’s voice shook with fear. So did the fingers holding him.
Those victims were dead. He knew it.
“You can’t shoot me because I’m not armed.” James’s voice boomed. His current voice, not the scared imitation he’d done of the young cop. The SOB was one fine actor.
“Don’t care if you’re armed.” Dead was dead.
His hands were still up. “Do you care about the others? If you let Agent Hollow come with me now, I can take her to Maria.”
He wouldn’t believe this killer’s lies. It took all of his strength to stand upright as the blood pulsed down his chest. “She’s…dead.”
“Judith wasn’t.” His hands were still up. His eyes glinted under Cadence’s light. “Susannah…was alive. I don’t like to kill my girls, despite what you may think.”