No Darker Place

Nick considered the photos of the crime scenes where the bodies were discovered. Perry did more than dump his victims. He posed them in prominent places so they would be found quickly while his poetic masterpieces were still fresh. No one, not the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, had come close to identifying him, much less catching him, until Detective Gentry survived, providing a break in the case.

Even before Nick had known his name, he had understood one thing with complete certainty. As long as he was still breathing, the Storyteller would return to Montgomery for the one that got away.

“What have you been waiting for?” Nick rubbed at the tense muscles in his neck. He’d been in Montgomery watching Gentry for nearly four months—since her release from the rehabilitation center. His gaze narrowed with the only possible conclusion. “You waited for her to go back to work, didn’t you, you sick fuck?”

Perry would see having the damaged hero cop resume duty before he murdered her a more dramatic and poignant chapter in his killing history. Nick’s gaze settled on the photo he’d snapped of Gentry entering the Criminal Investigation Division last month on her first day back. She’d worn a pair of dark trousers and a matching suit jacket. Muted pink blouse. Rubber-soled loafers. No jewelry. No scarves or other accessories. Her stride had exuded strength and confidence. Watching her from afar, no one would have suspected she had spent long, grueling hours in physical therapy day in and day out for months to regain that strength and confidence. Not to mention the hours of psychiatric counseling. Continuing the counseling was a condition of her return to work. Nick had watched her leave the department psychiatrist’s office each week knowing she had played the part everyone wanted to see. She presented the picture of strength and determination except when she thought no one was watching.

Those were the moments he couldn’t get out of his head.

He reached out and traced her face. “Why did the FBI ever let you anywhere near this case?”

She was a perfect example of Perry’s typical victim. She was tall and thin with long, lush brunette hair that sharply contrasted her pale skin. Her facial features were delicate and finely sculpted. Her eyes were an uncommonly pale blue. Perry wasn’t particular when it came to the color of the eyes, but each victim had a uniquely light hue and eyes slightly larger than average.

Gentry’s eyes brought to mind a clear blue sky. Nick blinked away the notion. How long had it been since he’d noticed the sky beyond assessing coming weather conditions? He couldn’t remember. Research and tracking his prey consumed his nights and his days. One case became another, and then another. Home was wherever his work took him—the desert or the mountains, under a city overpass or in an abandoned house deep in the woods.

Nick moved to the map of Montgomery County he’d tacked to the wall. Every minute he didn’t have eyes on Gentry, he was poring over aerials of the area using Google Earth and driving to remote locations similar to those Perry had utilized before. If Nick was lucky, he would find Perry before he made a play for Gentry.

His phone sounded a warning. Nick reached for it and checked the status of the tracking device he’d planted on Gentry’s car. “Can’t sleep either, eh?”

He snatched up his keys and headed for the door. Apparently neither of them was going to get any sleep tonight. He wasn’t surprised. She went for middle-of-the-night drives several times a week. Detective Gentry went to great lengths to make herself available for the taking. Nick suspected Perry wanted her to suffer a little more before he obliged her and made a move.

“You won’t get away this time.” However else he had screwed up on this one, Nick would see to it that Perry didn’t escape.

The streets of Montgomery were quiet. Most of the bars and clubs would be closed by now. He checked the blinking dot that represented Gentry’s progress and took the necessary turns. When he spotted her black Challenger, he shook his head. The police cruiser was right on her tail. He thought of the neighborhood—a neighborhood known for serious drug and gang problems—where she currently resided.

“You like punishing yourself for surviving—don’t you, Bobbie?” He didn’t have to wonder how she explained that one to her psychiatrist. He’d slipped into the doctor’s office and read over his notes more than once. I need the space to get back to who I am.

“Liar.” She still owned the house she and her husband built before their son was born. She had closed the place up four months ago. The cars she and her husband had driven were still in the garage. A lawn service kept the exterior maintained. Gentry had taken nothing, not even her clothes from the home. She’d bought a new muscle car and moved into the Gardendale house to “find herself.”

He shook his head as he watched her taillights in the distance. “I’ve got you all figured out, Bobbie.”

Trouble was, learning her so well had cost him. Too early just yet to tell how much.

She made a left onto Commerce Street. After parking on the Dexter Avenue side of Court Square, she emerged from her car. The cruiser parked a few yards beyond her. Nick eased to the curb half a block away. Gentry walked to the fountain in the center of the square. Montgomery’s historic downtown district centered on the 1880s fountain, but the fountain’s historic significance and the goddess of youth statue that topped it weren’t the reasons she had come.

It was in this cobblestoned square that Perry had left his last victim before abducting Gentry. Alyssa Powell’s body had been posed at this fountain on December 3. Perry’s decision to make a second abduction in one year and to leave that victim here had forever changed Gentry’s life.

She walked around the fountain, once, twice, and then she surveyed the deserted square. Nick exhaled a heavy breath. She was doing all within her power to draw out the Storyteller, and obviously she no longer cared if anyone knew. The surveillance detail hindered her efforts toward her goal, but that was only temporary. She was a smart, determined lady. When she was ready to ditch the detail, she would make it happen. Nick had to make sure she didn’t do the same to him.

The first time he saw her she had given up. Perry had murdered her husband, and her child had died as a result of the abduction. The torture Perry had inflicted left Gentry vulnerable, but it was the loss of her family that had destroyed her, and she simply hadn’t possessed the wherewithal to go on.

Nick had just finished a hunt. He’d been physically and mentally exhausted, but the news that a victim had survived the Storyteller was too significant to ignore. The Storyteller had been on his top-ten list already. After seeing Gentry and hearing her story from her partner, Nick had made his decision. The Storyteller would be next. He’d been tracking him since.

Gaylon Perry wasn’t the most intelligent serial killer he’d hunted, but he possessed incredible willpower. He allowed himself one theatrical event each year, and then he returned to school in the fall and carefully maintained his seemingly normal persona until summer rolled around again. Last November his mother’s death had caused him to act out of character, to make a move beyond his meticulously maintained boundaries. Then a second trigger had prompted a dangerously impulsive move.

That trigger had been Bobbie Gentry.

Since Perry had taken several broad steps outside his established MO, maybe Nick should move his grid search closer into the city. Perry would want to be near her. He would need to see Gentry often. To relish her flagrant actions of invitation. Her every move was like foreplay to the serial killer who had already come so very close to ending her life.

Nick wanted to shake her. She had to know she couldn’t do this alone.

As if she’d felt his censure across the night, she climbed back into her Challenger and drove away. Her official shadow rolled behind her. Nick allowed some distance and then he followed. She returned to her house on Gardendale and backed into the driveway. Nick watched until she was inside and the house went dark again before he returned to his motel.

Once he was between the sheets, he closed his eyes and waited for exhaustion to take him. Between now and then one face and one voice would taunt him. He hadn’t slept a single night without thinking of Bobbie Gentry since back in February, when he’d held her hand in that hospital room and made that damned promise.

She wouldn’t remember and he couldn’t forget.

In that sterile room all those months ago he’d watched her sleep, absorbing the pain and desperation emanating from her weak and broken body. He had known then that Perry would come after her again. She would be the key to stopping the sadistic bastard. From that moment Nick had learned all he could about her. He’d searched the home she’d shared with her husband and child; over and over he’d watched the videos they’d made. He knew her every move, her every look, her serious side as well as her playful one. The nuances of her voice and the sound of her laughter. He understood her vulnerabilities, few though they were, and her infinite strength.

The woman he had spoken to tonight was nothing like the one captured in those videos with her family and friends. He thought of the way she had smiled before...the way her eyes lit with happiness in the videos. The light was missing from her eyes now, and he was yet to see her lips form a real smile.

Something about her—something he couldn’t quite name—haunted him. Reached a place inside him that no one had touched in a very long time. The longer he remained near her, the more powerful that inexplicable link became.

He never permitted personal involvement to develop during his hunts. His life as well as his sanity depended on maintaining distance. Somehow in the past few months he’d lost the ability to distance himself from Bobbie Gentry.

Something he and Perry had in common.

Five (#u2ef781e5-dc56-5d2d-b98d-c0ecc3b52fea)

The hum of her cell phone vibrating woke Bobbie. She reached toward the floor and snatched it up. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again in an effort to force her bleary eyes to focus. She hadn’t come to bed until after four. It was... 7:30 a.m. glared at her from the screen of her cell. Groaning, she rubbed her eyes and read the name flashing beneath the time. The boss.

Bobbie bolted upright. “Morning—” She cleared her throat. “Ma’am.”

“I need you at the office ASAP, Detective.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Owens ended the call and Bobbie stared at the phone. Had the chief forgotten to tell Lieutenant Owens about the admin leave? Doubtful. Something was up.

Bobbie pushed to her feet; her right leg protested. She winced and made a path down the hall to the bathroom. One glance in the mirror confirmed she looked as bad as she felt. Good thing she’d showered after her run last night. She dragged a brush through her hair and wrestled it into a ponytail. She washed her face, rolled on deodorant and took care of other necessary business.

She reached for the door and froze. For the first time since she left the rehab center she found herself without a weapon. Her Taser, her knife and both her handguns were still in her bedroom.

Fear expanded in her chest, sliding over her muscles, creeping along her limbs and lodging in her throat. The Storyteller was alive and he was close, and she was in this damned bathroom with no window for escape and no weapon. Sweat coating her skin, she steadied herself and struggled to suck in air around the swelling fear.

Bobbie flattened her hands against the door and closed her eyes. Listen. You know his footsteps. You know the sound of his breathing. She forced herself to quiet. Slowed her respiration. Her heart and pulse rates followed suit. The roar of the blood in her ears hushed. Then she held her breath. The low hum of the air coming from the floor vents...and silence.

Drawing in a gulp of air, Bobbie concentrated on the doorknob. Slowly her hand descended to wrap around it. Braced for battle, she twisted the damned thing and jerked the door open. No one jumped at her. No sound of running footsteps echoed. Nothing but the darkness and the stale air being circulated by the old HVAC system.

“Coward,” she cursed herself as she stormed back to her bedroom.

Just another secret she kept from the world. Bobbie Gentry was a coward. Without at least one of her weapons she was nothing but a sniveling scaredy-cat. No matter that she’d taken every defense and hand-to-hand combat class she could find between here and Birmingham, she was still a coward.

The world knew the Storyteller had taken her family, but they didn’t understand he’d taken something else from her as well...some vital piece she couldn’t name.

Doesn’t matter. She peeled off the T-shirt and shorts she slept in and tossed them onto the bed. She didn’t need that piece to do what she had to do.

Stepping into a pair of panties, she scanned the floor for her shoes. The black leather loafers lay next to the closet door. She pulled on a sports bra and grabbed a pair of socks. Yanking the plastic from a freshly laundered suit, she surveyed the row of pullover blouses that were basically alike except in color. Scooped neck, short-sleeved, functional. She grabbed a white one. The navy suits and black suits were all the same. Serviceable and comfortable.