01 Only Fear (8 page)

“Maggie,” he exclaimed with the exuberance of a friend long parted.

“Owen?” she asked, suddenly awake. The sheets rustled through the phone as she sat up.

Excellent. He’d surprised her. Her reactions would be open and honest. And he wanted a reaction. She thought she could discredit him on public radio, that she could hide her fear behind big, tough words. But he would have the last laugh.

“I told you, I’m Fearmonger. Call me by my name. Owen isn’t my real name, anyway, as you probably already suspected.” He paused, watching his chosen victim’s eyes widen with the revelation. She’d had no clue who he’d pretended to be, or who he really was. He smiled. He’d always loved seeing his own image reflected there in the dark pupils of the victim’s eyes, along with the fear that made them dilate. It had been way too long since he’d enjoyed himself this much.

“It’s time for another lesson,” he said into the phone. His victim whimpered as the tip of his knife caressed one cheek.

“What? I don’t need another lesson.” Fear laced Maggie’s voice. So, the doctor was familiar with the emotion after all. Anxiety wouldn’t be far behind. Too bad he wouldn’t be there to witness one of her panic attacks. The thought of plunging his blade into a heart pumping hard with fear aroused him still further.

He chuckled, watching a drop of deep, rich blood trickle down the creamy cheek before him as he nicked her with the blade. His victim whimpered and tried to pull her face away, but there was nowhere to go. She was strapped down tight to the cold, hard table.

“I have a friend here who would like to explain how wrong you are about fear,” he said to Maggie. “It really does motivate everything.”

With a rip that took flesh off his victim’s lips, he removed the duct tape. She screamed. A rush of adrenaline singed him from nerve ending to nerve ending. She was too afraid to think clearly, or she might have screamed for help, or at least given her location. Instead, the sounds were filled with pain. And fear.

But it wasn’t enough. He could hear Maggie shouting questions to the victim, not crying out in horror.

“Where are you? Who are you? Tell me where you are. I’ll get help.” Maggie was breathless.

He ripped the phone away from the woman’s blood-speckled lips and laughed into it. “No, no, dear Maggie. That’s not how we play this game. We have to get to the lesson.”

“You bastard! Don’t touch her. Don’t…” Her declarations ended on a sob.

Ah-ha.
Success.

“Fear always wins.” He dropped the phone onto the nearby table, still connected so Maggie could hear the victim’s screams as they echoed off the walls. He brought the knife across the woman’s tender palms, her cheeks, her breasts and, finally, across her tender naked thighs to the point where every woman’s animal instincts reigned. When her screams stopped because she’d passed out from the pain—and the fear—he slit her throat, reveling in the gurgle that came with her last breath.

He picked up the receiver with hands slick with blood. A smile curved his blood-spattered lips as he heard the sobs of his student. He’d gotten her attention.

“Maggie. Maggie!” he said more sharply when she continued to sob.

“I’m here.” He could picture the good doctor as she tried to pull herself together.

“That was lesson number two. An extra one, for daring to contradict me on the air today, in front of everyone.” He clucked at her with his tongue. “I expected better from my star pupil. You have so much yet to learn.”

As the line went dead in her ear, Maggie’s eyes darted to the bedside clock. Four in the morning. She’d finally drifted off to sleep, after an hour of tossing and turning, only to be awakened inside her worst nightmare. Though deep down she knew what she was experiencing was real, she hoped it was some sick game. She prayed, for that woman’s sake—whoever she was—that Owen was not some serial killer, and that he was just pushing Maggie’s buttons.

Finding Ethan’s card on the bedside table, she fumbled with the phone.

Shit.
Her hands shook so badly she had to hang up and redial before she got it right. In the meantime, precious time was wasted.

“Yeah?” His sleepy voice sounded like heaven to her.

“Ethan?” She winced as the tightness in her chest threatened to cut off her air.

“Maggie?” He was instantly alert. He cursed as something thumped into something else. “What is it?”

“He called. He…” She gritted her teeth to stop them from chattering.

“Who called? What happened? Are you okay?”

No, I am not okay,
she wanted to scream. Definitely not. Not in any way, shape or form. But some woman out there was a whole heck of a lot worse.

She took a deep, rattling breath. “I’m okay, but he…I think Fearmonger killed someone.” Lord help her, she actually hoped the woman was out of her misery. The screams of her pain still echoed in Maggie’s head.

“I’ll be right there. I’ll contact the officer parked outside and make sure he’s keeping an eye on things until I get there.”

The officer outside. She’d totally forgotten him. Her first instinct had been to get to Ethan. He would know what to do.

“Don’t open the door.” His voice was muffled for a second, and she imagined he was pulling a shirt over an expanse of bare chest. “Not to anyone but me.” She heard the sharpness in his voice, knew he was trying to break through her terror, but she couldn’t answer. She could only numbly nod her head. “Maggie, do you hear me? Do you understand?”

She forced breath from her lungs, past her vocal cords. Made her throat work. “Y-yes.”

“Hang in there. I’m on my way.”

Dropping the phone to the bed, she pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them.
That poor woman.
She could still hear her screams of terror. They had seemed endless, but Maggie hadn’t wanted to hang up. What if the woman yelled something important? But in the end, she had no more information than before.

And she had heard the gurgle as the victim released her last breath.

Ethan knocked on Maggie’s door only fifteen minutes later. Record time, considering he lived almost a half hour away, even at four in the morning. But those minutes had felt like an eternity as his mind replayed the panic, the sense of utter desolation, in her voice.

A quick check-in with the bleary-eyed but alert officer still parked across from Maggie’s house revealed nothing. He hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual all night. Ethan scowled at the front door when she didn’t answer his knock, then tried peeking in the living room window. This time, however, the drapes were pulled tightly closed.

Alarm coursed through him and he pounded on the door, every second feeling like a century. He fumbled in his pocket for the spare key he’d insisted she give him earlier. Once through the door, he quickly punched in the new code he’d seen her use only a few hours ago, when he’d brought her home from work. He was relieved to see the red light that indicated it was armed. However, Fearmonger had been able to bypass the alarm once before. That mystery still stumped him, and he knew it worried Damian, too.

Cautiously, his gun in his hands, he moved down the hall to the master bedroom. Soft light spilled into the hallway. There was no sound.

No, wait.
Humming.
He heard humming.

Silently, he crept forward until he could see into the bedroom. He lowered his gun.

Gaping at him, Maggie ripped the headphones from her head. “I’m sorry. I must not have heard the door.”

“Guess not,” he said around a jaw still stiff with tension.

“I thought it would take you longer, and I needed a distraction.” She gestured to the laptop resting on her outstretched legs. The headphones were connected to the computer.

He sucked in a breath as his initial tension subsided. She was a vision, her mussed red hair in stark contrast to her soft white nightgown and sky blue sheets.

“Are you okay?” He moved beside the bed, tugging the edge of her nightgown over her knees, covering the creamy white skin there. Pity.

Her mouth pressed into a tight line as a shudder racked her body. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him, but he didn’t trust himself not to take it further, to claim the soft lips she’d offered him earlier.

“No,” Maggie replied. “I kept hearing her final gasp for air.” She gestured to the headphones again, and he understood. She’d needed to block the sound, even if only for a little while. She looked up at him and his heart melted at the frustration he saw there. “I’m not okay, and I won’t be until he’s dead.” Determination mixed with the fear in her eyes, making them sparkle like sun on gold. At that moment, he had no doubt she meant what she said.

He nudged her aside to make room for him to sit next to her. Resting his head against the headboard, he gestured to the computer. “What are you doing?”

“Listening to old recordings of the show David gave me earlier, at work.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t just sit here, waiting for you. I was hoping Owen, or Fearmonger, gave a clue to who his victim—” her eyes hardened with the word, then filled with tears before she could continue, “—to who the woman he took is. Or where he took her.”

He wished he could reach out and comfort her, run a hand over her silky, tousled hair. She looked like a kid, her eyes wide, her gown rumpled from sleep. But when he caught sight of the gentle curve of her breasts, the shadow of a nipple, the bareness of her lower thigh where her nightgown had ridden up again as she’d shifted to make room for him, all images of a child were wiped from his mind. Instead of reaching for her as he wanted to, he crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits.

“What can I do?” Her voice echoed the misery she must be feeling. The mattress shifted as she swung her long legs over the side and rose from the bed. “I should have been dressing. What was I thinking? We need to go find this woman. Maybe she’s still alive.”

His gaze tracked her as she went to her closet, then to the master bathroom with an armload of clothes. “You weren’t.”

“What?” she called from the other room.

“You weren’t thinking. You were reacting. And there’s nothing you
can
do.” He knew what that kind of helplessness felt like. It was an itch that crawled under your skin and picked at you until you couldn’t stand being immobile anymore.

A moment later, she stood in the doorway in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair loose and flowing about her shoulders like licks of fire. Her fists met her hips. “Are you saying I’m useless? I refuse to accept that.”

He rose from the bed, shifting uncomfortably to hide his arousal. God, she looked like an avenging angel, ready for a fight. “I’m just saying, you’re not in the most rational state of mind right now.”

“I can’t just sit around.” She bit her lip and looked away. He couldn’t resist reaching for her any longer. She came into his embrace easily, without resistance. He held her against his chest as she trembled, his hands entwined in her glorious hair. It was like silken threads sliding between his fingers.

“You’re not. You’re doing what you can.” He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. There, he saw anger and frustration. Not weakness or self-pity, even after all she’d been through. He admired the hell out of her. “Right? Most people in your situation would be cowering in the corner.”

“Been there, done that.” Her response was a whisper across her dark pink lips. She’d been chewing on them since he saw her last. He longed to stroke his thumbs—or his tongue—over them and soothe their rawness.

“I’ve called for reinforcements. Becca is tracking down the source of the call. Noah has been informed and has alerted the other police on this shift to be on the alert for anything unusual. We’ll find her.”

“But in what state?”

Her cheeks were flushed with emotion, and this time he didn’t prevent his thumbs from swiping over them, cooling the heat there. She didn’t seem to notice the action, but touching her did strange things to his gut. Skin-to-skin contact with her tugged at something deep inside. He wanted to pull her further into his arms but was thankful when she pulled away. He felt the loss immediately, but
damn
, what was he thinking? There were boundaries here he couldn’t cross.

“We’ll hope for the best,” he said, inwardly groaning at how pathetic the words sounded.

“And expect the worst.” She tugged her hair into a loose ponytail and stalked down the hallway. He and Sigmund followed.

“Where are you going?”

“Coffee. Want a cup?”

It was only five in the morning, but he sensed that she needed something to keep her active, and they weren’t going to get any more sleep anyway. “And then I need you to tell me what Fearmonger said. Are you up to that?”

Her jaw set with determination, she turned and gave him a brief nod. She was tough.

“Anything to get this bastard.” She recounted the brief, horrific conversation as she went through the motions of making coffee. Sigmund meowed and she automatically moved to fill his food bowl by the refrigerator. “He thinks he’s invincible.”

“Sigmund?” Ethan had been watching the sway of her hips, and the way her ponytail swished against her T-shirt as she moved back and forth, fetching mugs from the cupboard and spoons from the drawer.

Her husky laugh warmed him. “No. Fearmonger.”

“Most serial killers do. They pride themselves in fooling the police, in proving they’re unstoppable.” He leaned against a countertop near her, unable to stay across the room. “But he’s not. He is
not
invincible.”

She sighed. “I know. But neither are his victims, and they’re the ones who’ll suffer.”

The ringing of his cell phone had him moving reluctantly away from her. What was with this constant need to touch her whenever she was near?

As he answered the phone with a gruff greeting, Damian’s voice filled his ear. “Noah located the victim.”

He tensed, already sensing from Damian’s tone what the answer to his next question would be. “And?”

“She’s dead.” Damian’s voice was calm but Ethan sensed the man’s frustration. “And the son of a bitch didn’t make it easy.”

Blowing out a breath, his gaze swiveled to meet Maggie’s. She was hugging herself, her mug of steaming coffee untouched on the counter. “Where?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral so as not to alarm her. There would be a time for that soon enough.

“The university,” Damian said. “A janitor on his early-morning shift found her and called the police.” As his boss paused, Ethan’s gut ached. There was more to this, and it wasn’t good. “The woman’s mutilated body was in Maggie’s classroom.”

“In her
classroom?
” Forgetting to keep his voice neutral, or to resist the desire to touch Maggie, Ethan moved close again and reached for her hand. He squeezed her cold fingertips, hoping the simple gesture reassured her that everything would be okay when it certainly wasn’t. And wouldn’t be. Not for a while, anyway. This bastard was making things way too personal. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Ten,” Maggie interrupted, pulling away to dump her steaming coffee in the sink.

“Make that ten,” he echoed to Damian before hanging up.

“I’m sorry we can’t let you any closer, Dr. Levine.” Detective Maria Santos, Noah Crandall’s partner, seemed a nice woman. Her brown eyes were as warm as they’d been a little over twenty-four hours ago, when the pair had come to Maggie’s house to investigate the break-in.

Maggie clasped her shaking hands tightly together. It was the only way she could keep from rubbing at the ache in her chest. She’d been sitting this way, outside the psych building, since Noah had asked her to take a look at a photo of the victim’s sliced-up face and—
dear God
—it was Sharon. Young, innocent, vivacious Sharon Moss, to whom she’d just spoken hours before. Except her beautiful face had been sliced in several places. Sharon’s screams echoed in Maggie’s ears as she imagined how much she must have suffered. Maggie bit her bottom lip hard enough to make herself focus.

“You know you can’t go in there.” A lock of sandy-blond hair fell onto Noah’s forehead, concealing the lines of concern there.

“I understand. It is a crime scene. I just thought, maybe…” What? That she would have more luck than the police? Her lips trembled and she pressed them together. This was entirely her fault. All of it. And now Sharon was dead.

She jumped to her feet, wanting to walk until she ran out of sidewalk. But she couldn’t. She owed Sharon justice. So she ended up standing there, feeling useless.

“I provoked a serial murderer. What was I thinking?” She shouldn’t have prodded him. It hadn’t led to anything helpful. “I’m responsible,” she whispered, horrified.

“You didn’t know.” Ethan’s voice came from behind her, his comforting hand suddenly there, a warm weight on her shoulder, anchoring her. She resisted the urge to lean into it. But she remembered how he’d grasped her hand earlier, in her kitchen. His support—however brief—had kept her from crumpling into a heap on the floor. “You didn’t know he was a serial killer. I didn’t tell you until afterward.”

“Still, I sensed something strange.” Pressing her fingertips to her stomach in an effort to stifle the sudden nausea, she swayed. She felt a hand at her waist, steadying her, and looked up to find Ethan taking her weight against him. “I killed Sharon. Maybe not with my hands, but…”

He nudged her gently back down onto the concrete steps and squatted down beside her. “Don’t be an idiot. Fearmonger killed her. You didn’t know.”

Maria hiked up her slacks and crouched down beside them, her mahogany hair falling over one shoulder. “Ethan’s right. The killer is solely responsible, and he’s trying to manipulate you. You’re just as much a victim in this as Sharon Moss. We’ll find this guy.”