Scream for Me (38 page)

She looked into his eyes and only saw fury. So much for the mask he’d tried to don.

“I don’t believe your story.” Kyle’s words snapped out. “You’re the one who closed down the caves, the one who said they weren’t safe enough for anyone else to go in. Why? I think you just didn’t want someone stumbling into your sick playground.”

Even though his chest was still heaving, Aaron straightened his shoulders.

The nervousness of his body seemed to ebb.

“I know about your sister,” Aaron muttered.

Wrong
thing to say.

Kyle froze.

“You want her killer, and you’ll do anything to close her case, even blame me.” Aaron shook his head and jutted out his chin. “Screw that. I’m not saying another damn word without an attorney. You
won’t
pin this on me!”

Kyle lunged for him.

Cadence yanked him back and hauled him outside before he could rip into Aaron. Or rip him apart.

She had the feeling that was exactly what Aaron wanted. To push Kyle.

To make him lose control.

She slammed the interrogation room door and jerked her hand to get a uniform to stand guard.

Then she pushed Kyle into the nearest empty room. “
Don’t
let him push you.”

“He was lying.”

“We don’t know that.”

“His body language was all over the place! The man was shaking, sweating. He couldn’t make eye contact for shit. He was
lying
.”

Her gut said he was, too. “He gave us an alibi. We need to get Susannah in here and find out what the hell is going on.”

He gave a curt nod. His whole body was locked tight. She could almost feel the heat rolling off him.

“We’ll talk to Marsh, and while we’re doing that, we can send some cops to pick up Susannah.” Right then, Aaron was at the top of her suspect list, but she wanted to see what Marsh had to say, too.

“Let’s go.” Kyle tried to pull away.

She just made sure to block his path. “When we’re in those interrogations, I could be standing across the table from an SOB who threw me in a dark hole with a dying woman hours ago.”

His pupils grew, swallowing the brightness of his eyes.

“You think I don’t want to go across that table? That I don’t want to shove my elbow into that man’s throat and watch him struggle to breathe, just like Fiona struggled?” Her words flew out.

Her control was cracking.

“I
can’t
,” she snapped. “We have the badge. We have to do this the right way. You have to help me, and I have to help you.”

His hand lifted. Brushed against her cheek.

Wiped away a tear.

Then his head bent. He pressed a kiss to her cheek.

The drumming of her heartbeat was far, far too loud. She wanted to grab him and hold tight, but she locked her arms at her sides.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Her eyes squeezed closed. “Hold it together, because it’s all I can do to…” No, she wouldn’t say any more.

He would know, anyway. Didn’t he always know?

His lips feathered over hers.

Then his head lifted. “For you,” he told her.

She nodded, understanding.

They left the room and went to find Ben. It was time the cops tracked down Susannah Jane.

When they finally entered the next interrogation room, Jason Marsh was sweating. But when he saw them, he didn’t jump to his feet. Didn’t shout a denial of his innocence as soon as he saw them.

He just shook his head. “Look, I’ve got an alibi, okay? I was at Striker’s. I hooked up with Susannah, and I was with her until I got the call to join the search.”

Cadence didn’t let her expression alter.

“You were with Susannah Jane?” Kyle asked carefully.

Jason jerked his head in agreement. “Yeah, go talk to her, and we can clear things up real damn fast.”

Kyle glanced toward Cadence. “That’s interesting, because according to Aaron Peters, he was with Susannah last night.”

Jason straightened in his chair. “No fucking way.”

“Looks like one of you is lying,” Kyle murmured.

Jason’s fisted hands slammed into the table. “Not me! Dammit, do you think I would have done that to you? I mean, hell, that’s not me! I would never have hurt you!”

“You were the one who first took us down into the caverns,” Cadence said, not answering his question. It was getting harder and harder to keep her voice calm. Was he the man who’d taunted her last night? The one who’d ordered Fiona to kill her?

“I checked with dispatch,” Cadence told him. She had, right before starting the interviews. “They tried to contact you twice last night. You didn’t respond.”

“I wasn’t on duty! I didn’t know.”

“Then you called back thirty minutes later, asking where the search team was headed.” She stared at him.
He was the right size. His background fit
. He was the only one of the three suspects who had actually faced blindness. Temporary, according to his records, a result of the accident that killed his sister. “If you hadn’t talked to dispatch by that point, how did you even know a search team had formed?”

“Heather,” he bit out. “She called. Left a message on my voice mail. I got her calls before I heard from dispatch.”

Ah, yes, Heather. “You and Heather have been involved—”

“The same way you and McKenzie are.” His lips twisted. “Sometimes, partners get close.” Anger hummed in his voice.

Cadence didn’t look at Kyle. Her focus stayed on Jason. “You and Heather are involved, but you were still
close
with Susannah last night?”

“Heather and I aren’t serious. Susannah Jane was just there to pass the time.”

The man’s opinion of women sure seemed low enough to fit with their killer’s.

“Was Lily a girl to help pass the time, too?” Cadence asked, pushing in the dark, but wondering. Jason was a good-looking guy. The town was small.

His eyes widened, just a bit. “Lily and I were over a long time ago.”

Her breath eased out slowly as another suspicion was confirmed. Linked to the victims. Linked with the caves. Linked with a past that perfectly matched their profile. The guy might as well have a bow tied around him. The blood seemed to pump faster and harder in her veins.

“You have a nice southern accent,” Cadence noted, and she let her own drawl slide through. “The more you’re in the South, the easier it is to pick up.”

Kyle glanced toward her, a furrow between his brows.

“Once you leave…” She let the faint drawl vanish. “You can lose that drawl easy enough.”

“Didn’t know you were a southern girl.” Jason studied her with a hard gaze.

“Until I was ten.” Cadence nodded. “Then I moved up north to live with my aunt. That was when I realized I could make the accent come and go anytime I wanted.” Her head cocked as she studied him. “You grew up in Chicago until you were fifteen. That accent of yours—I’m betting you use it when you want and drop it when it suits you.”

No expression was on his face now.

“Maybe Lily didn’t recognize your voice at first because the accent was gone,” Kyle threw at the guy. “Once she saw your face, she
knew
, didn’t she?”

Jason shook his head. “You got this all wrong!”

“You moved to Paradox right around the time Maria McKenzie vanished,” Cadence said. “Just a few months before.”

Jason licked his lips and slanted a fast glance toward Kyle. “I didn’t know her.”

The glance at Kyle had been far too nervous. Cadence’s instincts went into overdrive. “You
shouldn’t
have known her since she was just driving through town. A pretty girl, in a fancy car. I bet it would have been hard for a girl like that to pass a teen boy, unnoticed.”

His shoulders had tensed. “Go talk to Susannah. She’ll back me up. Aaron is the lying asshole, not me. He’s the one you need to be questioning. He’s got family up here, too, in case you didn’t know. He’s been spending his summers in Paradox most of his life.”

“Don’t worry,” Kyle told him. “We’re questioning him, too.”

Jason’s breath heaved out as he glanced at Kyle. “Look, man, I’m sorry for what happened to your sister. To all of ’em, but I didn’t do it. I’ve been trying to help them, not hurt them.”

Trying to help them…

The words seemed hollow.

Goose bumps had risen on Cadence’s arms.

A knock sounded on the door behind them.

Cadence backed away from the table. She opened the door. Ben was there, face tense. “I need to talk with you and Kyle.”

She motioned to Kyle.

“Find Susannah!” Jason called after them. “She can clear all of this crap up!”

The door shut.

Ben’s jaw had locked. “Two suspects…both telling us that the same woman can back up their alibis.”

“So one’s lying,” Cadence said. “Obviously, but—”

“That woman is missing.”

“What?”

“I got an APB out for her right now, but she’s not at home, not at Striker’s, and none of her friends have any clue where she could be.” He yanked a hand through his hair. “Her car is still at the bar. No one knows where the hell she is.”

“Are there any signs of foul play at the bar?” Cadence asked but there hadn’t been, not with the other abductions.
Only with me
.

“I know we’ve been over this, but”—Ben’s breath hissed out slowly as his brows lowered over his eyes—“could we be looking at another team of killers? I know you worked the case with them before.”

Cadence shook her head. Ben was talking about the alpha team she and Kyle had helped take down in Louisiana. “The perp used Fiona to help him last night. He wanted to show his total power over her, to prove he could get her to do anything he wanted. If our guy has help, it would be—”

“One of the other victims,” Kyle finished for her.

A victim whom he’d brainwashed—
broken
—into believing her only method of survival was to do exactly as he ordered.

“Both of those men just offered up Susannah as their alibis. That can’t be coincidence,” Kyle said.

“I think we have to consider there could be two people working these abductions.” Ben was adamant. “It
could
be happening.

Cadence wasn’t buying that theory. “It’s personal for him. The way he talked to me last night. The way he’s kept the skeletons.
Everything
he does is personal.” Intimate. “He’s not the type to share, don’t you see that? This guy is about controlling, collecting. Not sharing with a partner.” That was why his only partner would have been a woman. One of his girls.

Susannah Jane…

Cadence’s breath exhaled slowly. “Where’s Dani?” Dani could pull up Susannah Jane’s life in about two minutes for them.

Ben pointed to the room on the right.

Cadence threw open the door.

“
Kill me!
” A woman’s voice shouted. “I don’t want to stay in the dark anymore. Just
kill me
!”

Dani spun toward her. There were tears in her eyes. A trembling hand rose and froze the infrared image on her screen.

Cadence looked over her shoulder. Kyle had tensed. Damn, she
hated
his pain.

Through clenched teeth, he managed, “It’s not Maria.”

“No, no, it’s not.” But she didn’t want him hearing any more. Not then. Not when she’d had to fight to stop the guy from attacking their suspects. If he saw too much, heard too much, she might not be able to control him.

Cadence softly shut the door. “Dani, I need you to run a check for me.”

Dani swiped away her tears. “Sure. Anything.”

Cadence started to speak, but then she frowned as she stared at the screen. The woman. Her long hair. The strong point of her chin. The line of her jaw.

Cadence’s heart began to beat faster.

“Susannah Jane,” Cadence whispered.

Dani shook her head. “I don’t remember a Susannah being on our list of missing persons.”

“No, I want you to pull up everything you can find on a Susannah Jane Evers. She’s a waitress over at Striker’s. She’s also the alibi for two of our suspects. And she’s missing.”

Cadence leaned toward the screen. Her eyes squinted as she tried so hard to see through the darkness.

Dani’s chair rolled away with a squeak of her wheels. She started typing quickly on her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

“No Social Security card,” Dani muttered. “Nothing turning up on her. Are you sure that’s her legal name?”

Cadence stared back at the grainy image. “That’s the name she gave us.” Cadence reached for her phone. A few moments later, she had the owner of Striker’s on the line. He dug through his personnel files for her, and she rattled off the Social Security number he had for Susannah Jane.

“That’s not your girl.” Dani glanced over her shoulder as Cadence ended the call. “That number is for a Donald Evers, a guy who died in a boating accident about five years ago.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tried to ditch their past with a stolen ID.”

It wasn’t just about having a stolen Social Security number. Susannah worked at Striker’s, where Lily had been abducted. Where the police had gone to question suspects. Now she was the alibi for two men.