New York Times bestselling author Sharon Sala enters the eye of the maelstrom as death and disaster stalk Tornado Alley—aided by an obsessive madman.

As bodies pile up in the wake of a storm—stripped, tortured and grimly posed—authorities must admit the unthinkable. The serial killer dubbed the Stormchaser has returned following a tornado and taken it upon himself to bring the death toll up to where he believes it belongs.

FBI investigator Wade Luckett is back on the case, assisted by an agent Wade knows professionally and personally: his ex-wife, Jo. Neither time nor the tragedy that tore them apart have blunted the ache Wade feels for brave, beautiful Jo. And though she tries to deny it, she feels the same. But the stirrings of renewed romance will have to wait until they catch a killer.

The Stormchaser has no intention of getting caught. He’s set his sights on a new victim. Jo can forget about the lifetime she dreams of spending with Wade. She’ll be lucky to see another day.

Praise for the novels of

“Vivid, gripping…this thriller keeps the pages turning.”

—Library Journal on Torn Apart

“Sala’s characters are vivid and engaging.”

—Publishers Weekly on Cut Throat

“Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist,

she is an inspiration for people everywhere

who wish to live their dreams.”

—John St. Augustine, host,

Power!Talk Radio WDBC-AM, Michigan

“Veteran romance writer Sala lives up to her reputation

with this well-crafted thriller.”

—Publishers Weekly on Remember Me

“A well-written, fast-paced ride.”

—Publishers Weekly on Nine Lives

“Perfect entertainment for those looking for

a suspense novel with emotional intensity.”

—Publishers Weekly on Out of the Dark

Going Twice

Sharon Sala

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is about strength of character and strength of heart, something of which we are rarely aware. It’s not until life throws us a curve, testing our mettle as to how much it takes before we might break, that we even know it is there. But when the need arises and we tap into that strength, it is then that heroes and heroines are born. They are the survivors, but not in just the physical sense. They endure, then they persevere, until finally they prevail.

I dedicate this book to the quiet heroes and heroines who go about their lives without medals or awards, who take care of business and walk away knowing they did what they had to do to take care of the people they love. Their legacy is their reward.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

One

Washington, D.C.

Spring

It was the bird chirping outside the bedroom window that woke up Jolene Luckett, but her mood did not match the peppy sound. Even though it was her day off, it was going to take everything she had to get through it.

After a quick shower, she dug out her favorite pair of jeans and an old Washington Redskins T-shirt. It was a relief to wear tennis shoes rather than the leather half boots she often wore to work, but the soles made little squeaking noises on the hardwood floors as she headed for the kitchen. Yet another cheery sound that felt like an irritation.

A preprogrammed coffeepot had hot coffee waiting. She filled a to-go cup with the hazelnut-flavored brew, grabbed her purse and car keys, and headed out the door.

Next stop was the flower shop. The owner was just opening up, and her stomach rolled as she followed him inside. The smell reminded her of funerals.

“Give me a couple of minutes to get my register up and running,” the salesclerk said.

“I want to look around, so take your time,” Jo said.

She knew what she needed, but it was going to take her a few minutes to work up the nerve to pick it out and pay without breaking into tears.

Music began to play somewhere in the back as she moved toward a display of potted mums. Her grandmother had an entire flower bed of chrysanthemums on the east side of her house when Jolene was a girl. Seeing them made her remember a time when she still believed in happy-ever-afters. Now she knew different, and she also knew she couldn’t stare at plants all day. Not when she had another appointment to keep. As she moved down the length of the room, she caught sight of a table piled high with stuffed toys and immediately looked away. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

The clerk was at the register now, whistling beneath his breath as he worked. She curled her fingers into fists and lifted her chin as if she was readying for battle.

Focus, Jo. Focus.

She walked to the other side of the room, toward the cooler holding large buckets of cut flowers waiting to be made into arrangements. She saw blue flowers, but they were not the kind she wanted, and she moved on to another display with smaller potted plants. There were colorful pansies with their happy faces, and delicate violets with their green velvet leaves. Then she saw the small pots with the tiny blue flowers, and her eyes filled with tears. Forget-me-nots. Perfect. She sorted through them for a bit and then chose the one with the most blooms.

To get to the register she had to pass by the display of stuffed animals again, but this time she stopped. It hurt her heart to look at them, but it hurt even more to choose one, knowing where it was going to wind up.

“Anything I can help you with?” the clerk asked.

Jo flinched. Some FBI agent she was. He’d walked up beside her and she hadn’t even heard him coming.

“No, thank you. I’m just about done.”

As he walked away, her gaze fell on a small fuzzy giraffe. The first time she’d chosen a toy she’d picked a little teddy bear. Last year she’d chosen a small green turtle. This time it would be the giraffe. She picked it up and headed for the register.

The man was talking to her as he rang up the purchases, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember a thing he’d said. She handed him her credit card and signed the slip he gave her.

“Would you like to attach a card to the flowers?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” she said again, then picked up her purchases and walked out the door.

Traffic was heavy as she drove toward North Capitol Street, but it was good to have something to concentrate on.

Her cell phone rang, but she wouldn’t look. Didn’t care—couldn’t care—when she was on a mission this important. By the time she neared her destination, she began moving into the proper lane so she could exit on a service road to get to the entrance.

Her heart was hammering so hard when she drove through the entrance to Prospect Hill Cemetery she felt faint. The first time she’d come here she hadn’t come alone. Wade had still been with her. But no more. She blinked back tears, refusing to admit most of that was her fault. It had been a subconscious reaction to the guilt she felt, pushing him away instead of letting him in to grieve with her.

She drove through the cemetery with a heavy heart, found a place to park at the foot of the hill, and got out with her flowers and the toy.

The sun was warm, but the breeze blowing on the back of her neck kept it from being uncomfortable. As sad as it was to have to come here, it was also a strangely beautiful, peaceful place. She saw an older couple a short distance away, and a woman sitting on a bench farther up the hill—reminders that grieving for the dead was a part of living.

When she finally reached her destination, the weight in her chest was so heavy it hurt to breathe. Wade had insisted on this plot. He’d said it was because little boys needed trees to climb. She knelt in front of the grave marker to brush away freshly cut grass and a couple of leaves. The stone was cold and hard, the opposite of what you would associate with a baby, but she finally reached out and traced the letters carved into the granite: Samuel Joe Luckett.

The Samuel was for his daddy, Samuel Wade.

The Joe was for her, his mother, Jolene.

They had planned to call him Sammy.

Jo’s hands were shaking as she put the flowers against the marker.

“Happy birthday, little guy. I brought some pretty flowers and a new toy. The flowers are called forget-me-nots. I never forget you, because you’re always in my heart, and the toy is called a giraffe. He has a long funny neck, doesn’t he? They have some real ones here in the zoo, but this one is about your size.”

Everything began to blur as her voice broke and the tears welled. “If I could take back what happened, I would do it in a heartbeat. I didn’t know going to work that day would hurt you or I wouldn’t have gone. I know it’s my fault you’re not here, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Her cell phone rang again, and again she ignored it. She knew who it would be. Even though Wade surely hated her guts, he still called her every year on this day. She couldn’t talk to him now. She didn’t want him to hear her cry.

* * *

For the past three years Wade Luckett’s plan had been to fill up his days with so much work that he wouldn’t have to think about what he’d lost. But every year, when this day came around he stepped out of denial, and made himself face what had been the worst day of his life.

He hadn’t slept worth a damn last night and had dressed for work early. The thought of food made him sick, which was a sure sign something was horribly wrong. He drank a cup of coffee while watching the early morning news, and fielded a couple of texts from the office, answered a half-dozen emails, all the while watching the time.

They opened the gates to the cemetery at sunup, but he wouldn’t be the first one there for fear of running into his ex-wife. He still didn’t understand how losing their baby had turned her against him. He wasn’t the one who shot her, and he damn sure wasn’t the one who walked away after it was over. Still, what was past was past. If he could have, he would have gladly died in Sammy’s place, but nobody had given him the option.

For whatever reason, life had kicked them both in the teeth, and today was just the reminder. As soon as he thought enough time had passed, he began gathering up his things. His car keys were in a bowl on the table, and the little yellow Hot Wheels truck he’d picked out at the store last night was right beside them. His hands were shaking when he picked up the truck and dropped it in his pocket. Moments later he was out the door.

He drove to the cemetery with a painful knot in his chest, and the closer he got, the greater the pain became. He took a deep breath as he drove through the entrance, then kept driving. When he saw a car in the distance and the tall, dark-haired woman kneeling at the grave, his eyes filled with tears.

Ah, damn it, Jolene. You still break my heart.

Unwilling to intrude on her moment, he parked, took the little yellow truck out of his pocket and held it like a talisman against welling pain, but the longer he sat there, the worse the pain became.

Without thinking, he reached for his phone and called her, just as he did on this day every year. He saw her react as the phone began to ring and knew before she turned around that she wasn’t going to answer. He watched as she left the grave and began walking back to her car.

Her shoulders were too damn straight.

Her steps were uneven.

He knew she was crying.

After she was gone, he drove up and parked beneath the tree near the grave and walked over. When he saw the yellow giraffe, the pain in his chest bloomed. He looked down at the yellow truck he was carrying and shook his head. They’d always been on the same page with everything.

Then he focused on the name and smiled.

“Hey, Sammy, it’s me, Daddy. I see Mama’s already been here. That’s a great giraffe you have there. I brought you a birthday present, too. You’re three years old today, and I brought you your first Hot Wheels. This one is a little yellow truck like the ones I used to play with when I was three.”

He dropped to his knees, set the truck on the marker next to the giraffe, and then laid the palm of his hand on the engraved name.

“This is the closest I can get to you here, baby boy, but I carry you in my heart.”

Then he got up and walked away, his shoulders a little too straight, his steps staggering. He couldn’t see for the tears in his eyes.

Houston, Texas

Hershel Inman hardly remembered the man he’d been before his wife, Louise, died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and could barely cope with what he’d become, since Louise wouldn’t let him forget it.

She alternated days of crying and begging him to stop killing with preaching at him for his sins. If he didn’t love her so much, and if she wasn’t already dead, he would gladly have strangled her just to make her shut up.

His mission had begun as payback to the authorities who’d come too late to save her, and to God for picking and choosing who lived and who died. Then the FBI showed up, and his power grew as he continued to kill and escape detection. He had been invincible—until he’d made that first mistake and missed a survivor who’d witnessed what he’d done. After that, everything began to unwind. He’d tried to silence her, but the FBI kept interfering, and then, to make matters worse, she married the agent who’d saved her.

Their lives got better and his got worse, ending with the explosion in his getaway boat that nearly killed him. He’d dropped off the radar to let his burns heal and thought about disappearing altogether. But when he closed his eyes at night, all he saw was Louise’s face and the fear in her eyes as the water rose higher and higher around them, so he stayed in the wind, waiting for a chance to strike back.

Spring arrived, bringing with it the chance of tornadoes on a weekly basis through the heartland of America. He knew people would die, but even more would survive, and he thought about starting over with the killings, and wondered if he would be able to contact the FBI team like before. He wondered if they had deactivated the stolen phone he had used to communicate. He told himself if the phone still worked when he recharged it, it meant he was to continue. If it didn’t, then he would disappear.

When it activated, he took it as a sign. He packed his pickup with new camping equipment and headed north out of Houston. Storms were predicted within the next two days. If he got out there ahead of time and set up near where the outbreaks were expected to occur, and if the storms were bad enough, he would be close at hand when the survivors started crawling out of the debris.

Hershel drove north all the way to Wichita Falls, which was near the Texas-Oklahoma border, found an out-of-the-way place to camp and set up his tent.

When the storms started building, his anxiety built along with them. As they finally formed into wall clouds and began moving through the countryside, Hershel moved into action.

“This is it. It’s time to party.”

He checked his shoulder pack for Tasers, ropes and leather gloves, tossing them in the front seat of his truck beside the flashlight. He wore dark clothing with a black hooded sweatshirt to hide the side of his face burned in the explosion, and heavy boots for walking through the debris.

The wind was rising, and the sky was getting dark. It would be sunset within the hour, and the storm would move through the area soon afterward. He got in the truck and started driving north, pacing himself so that he would be coming in behind the weather, and the bigger the storm clouds grew, the more hyped he became.

According to his radio, the tornado watch had just been upgraded to a tornado warning for Wichita Falls, even as he was nearing the city. A side draft from the powerful storm cell made it difficult to drive, and he finally pulled off the road and parked, unwilling to get any closer until it had moved on. He had the radio tuned to a local weather station with a minute-by-minute update on what was happening. When he heard the frantic announcement that tornadoes were touching down in city neighborhoods, he began planning how he could get into the area before police and rescue sealed it off.

As soon as the storms began moving away, he drove straight into the chaos they’d left behind and, as he’d hoped, became just another person on the streets trying to help. He’d thought long and hard about how this would play out, leaving bodies with his mark on them. He’d been dreaming about the condition of Louise’s body when they finally found her—naked and coming apart at the seams. She would have hated the humiliation, but she was dead, so he hated it for her.

Rain was still coming down hard as he jumped out of his truck. He shouldered his backpack, grabbed his flashlight and began moving down the street, quickly getting lost among those who were already afoot.

Some were searching for survivors, while others appeared to have rescued themselves. They were wet, blood-stained and disoriented. Soaked by the downpour and on the lookout for live electrical wires, he kept moving through the area with an eye on his surroundings. At any moment the police or emergency services could show up, and then he would have to move on.

He saw a trio of men already working to free a couple from under what was left of their home. He wanted no part of that and kept running, dodging downed power lines and using the light from the intermittent lightning flashes to see a broader area than what his flashlight beam showed. Finally he heard what he’d been waiting for: a faint cry for help. He stopped, waiting for the cry again, and when he had a location, he headed into the debris.

At first he was just moving broken lumber and huge chunks of insulation, then he realized there was a standing wall with a partially attached staircase behind it. He removed a broken commode, cushions from a piece of furniture, broken table lamps and the water-soaked contents of a closet before he finally got to a door. As he dug his way closer, the shouting got louder.

“I hear you, man. Stay calm,” Hershel said, and the man quit shouting. Nothing like having the victim cooperate in his own demise.

Finally he cleared away enough to see that the man who lived here had taken refuge under the stairs. Hershel got out the Taser, grabbed a piece of rope from his backpack and reached for the doorknob.

An old man stumbled out into the rain.

“Thank you, thank you, you saved my life,” he cried, reaching for Hershel’s shoulder to steady himself.

“I didn’t save it. You don’t deserve to live,” Hershel said, and pulled the trigger on the Taser.

The man dropped to his knees, paralyzed by the electrical current pulsing through his body. Hershel glanced over his shoulder and dragged the man behind the wall, making sure there was no one around. Then he wrapped a short length of rope around the old man’s neck, yanked it tight and held on.

The old man’s body was seizing. Lightning flashed long enough for Hershel to see the shock and horror on his victim’s face, but he felt no guilt. When the man finally went limp, the release of endorphins that flowed through Hershel’s body was nothing short of elation.

Working quickly, he removed the electrodes from the man’s chest and then proceeded to strip him naked. Once the dead man was completely nude, he tossed the clothes and pulled a piece of Sheetrock over the body. There was nothing sexual about the act. It was all about humiliation and how the family would feel when their loved one was discovered in such a condition.

Satisfied with what he’d done, he stepped out from behind the wall and walked back down to the street just as a pair of young men came running toward him.

“Anyone in there?” they yelled.

“All clear,” he said, ducking his head, and kept moving in the opposite direction.

He added two more victims before the police and rescue workers closed off the hardest hit area, then returned to where he’d parked, jumped in the truck and began trying to find his way out of town. The power was out almost everywhere, and the place felt like a ghost town as he drove carefully through the streets. After a lot of stopping and backtracking, he found the highway he’d been looking for and pulled off the road. He took out the cell phone and sent FBI agent Tate Benton a text. Sending texts now and then had been part of his ritual since the agents began hunting him, and he needed to feed off their frustration to make this work again.

I am not dead, so do not weep. It was not my time. I have vows to keep.

Then he turned off the cell phone so it couldn’t be traced, and plugged it into the cigarette lighter to recharge as he pulled back out onto the highway.

As he drove, he could tell how far the power was out by the lack of house or security lights along the way. About five miles from his campsite, he began seeing the occasional light off in the distance, where people still had power.

When he finally found his turnoff and drove off the highway onto the old dirt road, he pulled around behind the abandoned ranch house where he’d set up his tent and parked so the truck couldn’t be seen. He checked to make sure nothing had been disturbed, and once he was satisfied all was well, he zipped himself inside the tent, took off his filthy, rain-soaked clothes and crawled naked into his sleeping bag. He was asleep in minutes.

Washington, D.C.

Tate Benton was in the den eating salted cashews and nursing a bottle of beer. The television was on CNN, and his wife, Nola, was in her art studio, working on a commissioned painting. He was coming off of a long, drawn-out kidnapping case that had ended badly, so when his cell phone indicated an incoming text, he almost didn’t answer.

Then he glanced at Caller ID and the skin crawled on the back of his neck. The last thing he expected was a message from the Stormchaser.

I am not dead, so do not weep. It was not my time. I have vows to keep.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, and immediately forwarded the text to his partners, Cameron Winger and Wade Luckett.

Within moments his cell phone rang. It was Wade, and he had Cameron conferenced in.

“We’re absolutely sure it’s him?” Wade asked.

“It came from the same phone he used to use,” Tate said.

“I didn’t know the agency kept that old phone activated,” Cameron said.

“That’s on me. I told them to,” Tate said.

“I turned on The Weather Channel,” Wade said. “There’s a tornado outbreak along the Texas-Oklahoma border.”

“Do we wait for the bodies to begin showing up or go now?” Cameron asked.

“He’s already killed or he wouldn’t have sent the message. But we won’t know for sure that’s where he is until the medical examiner makes that determination,” Tate said.

“I’m packing tonight anyway,” Wade said. “I’ll be ready when you call.”

“I’m going to talk to the Director and then I’ll let you know what he thinks,” Tate added.

“I’m with Wade,” Cameron said. “I’ll pack and wait for you to tell us when and where to meet up. And just for the record, this sucks big-time, even though it means I’ll probably see Laura again.”

There was a click in Tate’s ear, and then the line went dead. It appeared Cameron’s attraction to the pretty Red Cross worker they’d met last year was ongoing. He knew the rest of his news wasn’t going to set well with Nola, but he had to tell her what had happened. After the hell the Stormchaser had put her through last year, he hated to let her know the bastard was starting up again.

He smiled when he walked into her studio. The painting she’d been working on for several weeks was almost finished, and the child’s face, which was the subject of the work, looked alive.

“Hey, pretty lady, do you have time to be bothered?”

Nola looked up and smiled. There was a smudge of paint on her cheek and more on her fingers.

“I always have time for you. What’s up?”

“Not-so-good news.”

She frowned. “Oh, no. Please tell me you’re not going to be leaving again so soon.”

He showed her the text and watched the blood drain from her face. Then, without speaking, she put the brush in cleaning solution and began wiping her hands. When she looked up at him, she was trembling.

“I thought for sure he was dead. I wanted him to be dead.”

“So did I, honey, so did I,” Tate said, and slid a hand beneath her hair to rub the back of her neck.

“Do you have a location?” she asked.

“Not yet. There’s a tornado outbreak on the Texas-Oklahoma border, which might be where he is, but we’ll have to wait for the autopsies to know for sure.”

“Dear Lord. Those poor people,” Nola said, and wrapped her arms around him.

They held each other without speaking, lost in the memories of what they’d gone through before.

“You have to stay safe,” Nola whispered.

“I will, honey. He’s not after us. We’re part of the package that feeds his ego. If we’re dead, he doesn’t have anyone to needle, you know?”

“Okay...I get it, but still, he’s not normal. I was with him, remember. He talks to his dead wife like she’s right there beside him.”

“I remember. I remember everything—including thinking I was going to lose you.”

“Am I in danger again?” she asked.

“I don’t think so, but I’ll know more once we find out what he’s done.”

Nola hid her face against Tate’s chest. “I hate this. I just hate this.”

“So do I, honey, but we won’t quit until we get him.” He hugged her close, then leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. “I need to call the Director.”

“And I need to make sure you have enough clean clothes,” she said, and began cleaning her brushes and covering up the painting.

He frowned. “I didn’t mean to mess up your work.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t work now if I had to. I’m going to do laundry. I have this overwhelming need to do something for you to make it all better, and that’s all I’ve got.”

He watched her leave the room with her head up and that familiar take-charge stride, and knew she would be okay. It was the Stormchaser’s latest victims he was worried about.

After a quick phone call to the Director to let him know what had happened, he was given the go-ahead to proceed as the team saw fit and told to stay in touch daily.

He went back into the den and changed channels until he found one giving early reports of the storm front that had just gone through Wichita Falls. It had produced three funnels, one of which had cut through part of the city. Victims were being taken to the local hospitals, and so far two bodies had been taken to the morgue. Tate knew all they could do now was wait and see if the Stormchaser was truly back.

* * *

It took exactly sixteen hours for the news to break that storm victims had been murdered, and by that time five bodies had been pulled from the rubble, three of which had been identified as having survived the storm and killed afterward. And they were all nude, which was a new twist to his M.O.

Tate called his partners, then made a call to the local police in Wichita Falls to tell them what they were dealing with, and that the team was on the way.

Keystone Lake, Oklahoma

Hershel was no longer in the state of Texas. He drove all of the next day, following the storm front as it moved into Oklahoma. According to the National Weather Service, the chances of storms firing up in the northeastern part of the state were high, so he’d set up his campsite at Keystone Lake, near Tulsa. The camping area appeared to be a popular one. He’d chosen a site on the far side of the campgrounds in the hopes that the sound of his portable generator would not disturb nearby campers. He had a waterproof, two-room tent with zip-up windows and a heavy-duty floor, a fan for hot, muggy nights, and a laptop computer with a satellite connection for streaming live TV and keeping an eye on weather systems, as well as the FBI’s investigation of the Stormchaser murders. He liked knowing the media had given him a special name, and he liked hearing that the agents were catching fire for not stopping him last year in Louisiana.

The sun began to set as he was cooking his supper. He ate a solitary meal in the growing dusk, listening to a pack of coyotes announcing their arrival for an evening hunt, yipping in a high-pitched tone that morphed into brief howls.

The mournful sound made Hershel shiver. He wasn’t by nature a man who enjoyed sleeping out under the stars, and the thin walls of his tent weren’t much more reassuring. As it grew darker, he put out his fire, started up his generator and went into the tent to settle in for the night.

He kicked off his shoes at the front and padded across the floor to the sleeping bag beside his laptop. His choices were limited, but he finally found reception from a local station. When he saw footage of the agents in Wichita Falls standing at his first kill site, he upped the volume. He knew them well enough by now to read the frustration on their faces and actually laughed out loud.

Shame on you, Hershel Inman, laughing about people dying. You’re sick and mean, and I’m ashamed I was ever married to you.

Hershel frowned. Everything had been going just fine and now Louise had to put her two cents into his business again.

“Well, you can just be pissed all you want, Louise, because you went off and left me. I didn’t leave you.”

I didn’t leave you on purpose, and you know it. I died. I didn’t want to die, but I died anyway.

Guilt hit Hershel like a kick in the belly.

“You blame me for not getting your insulin. It’s my fault you died. My fault. Why don’t you go ahead and say it!”

I never said it was your fault. But I died, and that’s not my fault, so don’t you dare say it was.

Hershel shut down the laptop, but the night air was still. Without any breeze coming through the screen windows, he knew sleeping would be uncomfortable. He set up his fan so that it would blow on him during the night, trying to ignore the constant sound of Louise’s rants.

“I’m going to bed now, so you need to go away. How do you expect me to sleep when you’re talking in my head all the time?”

I don’t talk to you, Hershel. I’m dead, remember?

“Then who am I hearing if it’s not you?” he yelled.

Don’t ask me. You’re the one who’s crazy. Remember? You’re the one who turned into a killer. I just died. Now you go away and let me rest. I’m tired, too. I’m tired of watching you break my heart all over again.

Hershel zipped and locked up the flap to his tent, and then threw himself onto his sleeping bag. He wanted the knot in his gut to go away. His euphoria from his kills was gone. He needed the storms to come back. Rain washed him clean, and killing made the pain go away. He fell asleep to the rattle of the generator, and when it ran out of gas toward early morning, he never knew it.

Two

Washington, D.C.

Jo Luckett was at her desk, tying up the loose ends of her last case when her phone rang. She answered absently, still locked into what she was doing.

“This is Jo Luckett.”

“Agent Luckett, this is Julie. Hold for Director Thomas.”

Jo’s focus immediately shifted as her boss came on line.

“Good afternoon, Agent Luckett. Good job on closing that case.”

“Thank you, sir. Good teamwork, as usual.”

“Speaking of teamwork, what do you know about the Stormchaser murders?”

She tensed. Her ex-husband was on the team, but she was certain that wasn’t what he meant.

“Probably not much more than what anyone would hear on the news, why?”

“He’s killing again. We’ve activated the original team, but I’m adding you to it. Julie emailed you the file. Familiarize yourself with all the details and await further orders. At the moment the team is on the move. Once they get settled, I want you to join them.”

Even though her stomach was in knots, she answered firmly. “Yes, sir.”

There was a pause, and she thought he would hang up, but he didn’t.

“Will you have a problem working with your ex-husband on this?”

“No, sir, of course not,” she said shortly.

“Good. Agent Benton is lead investigator. You will take your orders from him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want this man stopped. Find his money trail. Find the aliases he’s been using. Do what you do best and make that happen, understand?”

She got the message. Her skill at tracking perps via the latest technology was needed once again.

“Yes, sir, of course, sir.”

She hung up and immediately checked her computer, found the new message from his office and pulled up the attachment. The file was massive, far more than she had time to go through at her desk. She forwarded it to her laptop at home, then finished the report she’d been working on and filed it.

She wouldn’t let herself think of what the days to come would be like. She hadn’t had more than a half-dozen brief encounters with Wade in the past three years, and the thought of working with him made her sick to her stomach. She’d loved him so deeply—then, in one reckless afternoon, destroyed their world and their unborn child. She couldn’t imagine how this was going to turn out, but all she had left was her job, and she wasn’t going to fuck that up, too.

Tulsa, Oklahoma

On day three, Hershel pulled a hit-and-run during the storms that hit Tulsa, taking out three more people who had initially survived. He was back at the campgrounds at Keystone Lake long before daylight, sleeping peacefully while the city waited for sunrise, fearing the scope of the disaster.

The air at the scene of the debris field left from the tornado was hot and heavy, mingling with the scents of decaying food and diesel from the big machines the cleanup crews were using farther down the next block.

The yellow crime scene tape around the area where the two agents were walking marked the spot where the first body had been found. As soon as the body was identified as a murder victim, cleanup efforts in the immediate vicinity had been shut down, although the site had been so badly compromised, there was no way to tell what was storm-related and what might have been left by the killer.

Over the next sixteen hours the medical examiner had found two more murder victims among the bodies that had been recovered, and all three shared the same cause of death. They’d been rendered helpless with a Taser, and then they’d been strangled.

Once the media caught wind of the news, they quickly linked these victims to the earlier killings in Wichita Falls, Texas, and that was when the FBI had shown up, still following in the Stormchaser’s path of destruction.

* * *

Two hours later police cruisers from the Tulsa Police Department blocked off access to both ends of the street as the FBI agents moved through the third crime scene. A couple of news crews had stationed themselves at the far end of the next block with their cameras trained in the agents’ direction. They weren’t interfering with the investigation, but the long-range lenses could make it appear as if they were filming on-site.

Wade Luckett was standing less than a yard away from the bathtub where the third body had been found. He checked the picture on his iPad against the scene before him, then turned to look for Tate, who was standing a few yards away. “Hey, Tate, here it is,” he said.

Tate moved across the debris field for a closer look. “You’re right. And check that out. There’s a wall between that tub and the street, another impromptu barrier between the body and immediate discovery.”

“Just like in Wichita Falls,” Wade said, and then added, “Have you heard from Cameron today?”

“Yes,” Tate said. “They located the guy who thought he witnessed the killer leaving the James Atwood crime scene. He’s interviewing him sometime today. He also said that Laura Doyle showed up yesterday with the Red Cross.”

“He’s still sweet on her,” Wade said.

Tate grinned. “Sure looks like it. They stayed in touch after we came back from Louisiana last year. I know this because my lovely wife keeps me apprised of the important things in life.”

Wade heard the pride in Tate’s voice and remembered how close they’d come to losing Nola Landry to the Stormchaser last year.

“Okay, so she’s a great wife and phenomenal artist, but I’m all about her cooking.”

Tate laughed. Wade Luckett was never full.

Talking about cooking made Wade hungry, which prompted him to dig some gum out of his pocket and pop it in his mouth as he got back to business. He pulled up the pictures on his iPad, eyeing the similarities between the first scenes in Wichita Falls and the ones here in Tulsa.

“What I don’t get is how the hell he gets on site so fast. How does he manage to commit these murders while rescue crews are still at work?” Wade asked. “He hid among the Red Cross volunteers before, but there’s no sign of him with them now.”

“Obviously he can’t repeat that scenario because we know what he looks like. Although I would guess he has some burn scars now, after surviving that boat explosion,” Tate said. He was the profiler in the team and they depended on his instincts and knowledge.

“We’ve furnished both the Red Cross and local authorities with a photo of Hershel Inman, but it doesn’t mean much, not when we know how skilled he is at disguises.”

Wade stepped around the broken headboard of a bed, saw what was left of a child’s stuffed teddy bear and had a moment of déjà vu, remembering finding the giraffe at his son’s grave.

He was sad for the end of his marriage and the loss of his son, but he was still damn mad at Jolene for shutting him out. He’d been just as devastated as she was by the baby’s death, and yet she’d taken all the burden of grieving as her right only, and acted as if he’d lost nothing but the time he’d invested in the marriage.

He looked away from the toy and then glanced up as a police car sped past three blocks up, running hot with lights and sirens. He wanted this killer caught and put away so bad he could taste it. Then he shook off the anger and got back to the work at hand.

“So, taking it as a given that Hershel Inman’s appearance has changed, he’s apparently changed his method of killing to go with it.”

“If you think about the kill sites, it makes sense, though,” Tate said. “The first victims were stranded in rural areas by high water, so the sounds of gunshots would not be a concern. Now that he’s moved into a city, that kind of noise would be noticed. His method now needs to be swift and silent. The Taser would render the victims both mute and immobile. Strangling them afterward would be simple if they couldn’t fight back, and leaving the bodies naked further feeds his need for domination.”

“That’s damn cold,” Wade said.

Tate thought about how close Hershel had come to killing Nola. “Yes, and so is Hershel Inman’s heart.”

* * *

Hershel would have been pleased if he’d known they were talking about him. He hadn’t seen them in months. Now here they were going through the rubble while he was sitting less than two hundred yards away, watching. They weren’t so damn smart after all.

There were only two of them this time, which made him wonder where Winger was, but then he let it go. As long as he had their attention, he didn’t care how many people they sent to cover his handiwork.

He rolled down the window, aimed his camera, and took several pictures of the agents as they poked through the debris. Every time the camera clicked, he imagined he was looking through the sight on his rifle, pulling the trigger and taking them out one by one. When Luckett stopped digging around and started to turn around, he rolled up the window and drove away.

* * *

It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon and Cameron Winger was in the police station in Wichita Falls, Texas, waiting for his witness Coyle Hardison to show. Clouds were building back in the southwest part of the state again, and some forecasters were predicting another round of storms. He knew Hardison had left the city after the storm, but when contacted by the FBI he had willingly agreed to come all the way back from his grandfather’s ranch over two hours away to give his statement again.

They had given Cameron use of an interrogation room, and he’d already set up his camera to record the witness’s statement when there was a knock on the door. He turned around just as an officer escorted a young man inside. The man was dressed in blue jeans, work boots and a T-shirt. When he saw the agent, he promptly took off a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and ran a hand through his hair to smooth it down. There was a healing cut on his forehead, a bruise under one eye, and both the backs and palms of his hands had bruises and shallow cuts, as well. It appeared he, too, had suffered some from the storm.

“Agent Winger,” the cop said, “this is Coyle Hardison. Do you have everything you need to proceed?”

“Yes, I do, and thanks,” he told the officer. He started to shake the young man’s hand and then stopped. “Uh, sorry, it looks like you need to skip handshakes for a while, but thank you for coming back. Have a seat and we’ll get started.”

“Yes, sir, happy to help,” Hardison said.

The officer shut the door as the young man sat down. He looked a little nervous, but also curious.

“Are you going to film me?” he asked.

Cameron nodded. “Yes, but it’s only protocol. Just relax and answer the questions as best you can.”

“Okay,” Coyle said, then locked his fingers across his belly and leaned back.

“State your name, age and occupation.”

“Coyle Hardison, twenty-two years old, and I work in construction.”

“How did you come to be in the neighborhood right after the tornado hit?”

“I live there. At least I used to before my house blew away.”

“How did you know James Atwood?”

“We lived in the same neighborhood. I’ve known him and his wife, who died last year, just about all my life.”

Cameron moved to stand beside the camera, making sure the man was facing it as he answered.

“You stated earlier to the police that you believed you saw the Stormchaser. Would you please explain what you saw, in detail, and what led you to this conclusion?”

Hardison nodded, and then began to relate his story again.

“It was right after the tornado had gone through my neighborhood. Me and my friend Charlie Reeves were out checking on neighbors and helping in any way we could. It was still raining, and we were making our way down the street, dodging debris and downed power lines when a guy came out of the dark from behind a big pile of rubble, walking straight toward us.”

“Did you know where you were at the time?”

“No, not at first. You couldn’t tell anything in the dark, but I remembered just after we saw him, we also saw the street sign bent over at a ninety-degree angle, and that’s when I realized we’d just passed Mr. Atwood’s house.”

“What time was this?” Cameron asked.

“It was less than thirty minutes after the tornado went past, but I can’t be more specific than that.”

“Okay. Describe the man you saw.”

“It was very dark. The power was out all over that part of town, so it was hard to see where we were going. Some people were out and about. You could hear some people calling for help and others yelling. It was weird, hearing all that without being able to see who it was, and the rain was hard enough that it buffered the sound. We had a flashlight, but we were shining it down on the ground to make sure we weren’t stepping on any hot power lines. There was a flash of lightning just as I looked up. That’s when I saw him, and then only for a moment. But I can say for sure he was middle-aged, wearing all dark clothes, and with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head. It was hard to tell, but I think there were scars on one side of his face.”

Cameron’s heart skipped a beat. That fit with what they believed Hershel Inman must look like now.

“Could you tell how tall he was, or his general build?”

Hardison closed his eyes momentarily, and Cameron guessed he was pulling up that memory. Then the young man blinked and stared straight into the camera.

“He was average height, maybe five-ten, but for sure not six feet. His clothes were plastered to his body from the rain, so you could see his build. He had what you call a barrel chest. Oh, and he was bowlegged, and he had a small black pack slung over one shoulder.”

Cameron was certain now that the guy had seen Hershel Inman, and that ended the slim possibility of a copycat killer.

“Did you happen to see him get into a vehicle or notice him leaving in any specific direction?” he asked.

“No. We just passed him and kept going. I never looked back. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry. Your information has been very helpful. Is there anything else you can think of?”

Coyle Hardison frowned. “No, but I hope you catch the bastard and fry his ass. Mr. Atwood was a really nice old guy. I used to mow his yard when I was a kid, and his wife would give me cookies and lemonade after I was done. He was really sad after she died, and I’d say Mr. Atwood is probably the only one who doesn’t regret dying, because now he’s with his wife.”

Cameron got up and turned off the camera.

“Thank you for coming in. You’ve been very helpful.”

Hardison nodded and left the room.

Cameron packed up his stuff, thanked the police for their assistance and then headed for the parking lot. The heat and humidity hit him like a slap in the face, adding to the chaos in the city as he walked out of the building. He saw the line of thunderheads building back to the south and hoped they weren’t in for another round of storms. By the time he loaded his things in the back of his rental car and got inside, he was sweating. He turned on the air conditioner and then called Tate.

* * *

The local newspaper, the Tulsa World, had run a picture of Hershel Inman alongside a brief backstory of the Stormchaser’s murder spree last year in Louisiana, and then connected it to the ongoing investigation. The FBI had also given them an artist’s rendering of what Hershel Inman might look like now with burn scars on his face. They’d known it would set off a firestorm of sightings that would most likely lead nowhere, but there was always the chance that one of them would pan out.

The Tulsa Police Department had their own detectives running down the leads, and funneling the more promising ones to the FBI agents, who interviewed the witnesses further. So far nothing had clicked.

It was late in the afternoon, and Wade and Tate had stopped at a Quik Stop. Tate was pumping gas, and Wade had gone inside to get cold drinks and snacks, when Tate’s phone began to ring. When he saw it was Cameron, he walked away from the pump to answer.

“This is Tate. What did you find out?”

“The witness definitely saw Inman. He described a middle-aged man, average height, barrel chest and bow legs. And the guy was dressed in dark clothing with a hoodie pulled up over his head. He only got a brief look as lightning flashed, but he thinks the guy had some kind of scars on one side of his face.”

Tate sighed. “Well, it’s confirmation we’re dealing with Inman again, although after we got that text, we pretty much knew it. I don’t suppose we hit the jackpot and got a vehicle description or anything specific to go on?”

“No. The guy was with a friend and didn’t even put two and two together until he found out James Atwood was one of the victims. They had lived in the same neighborhood, and that’s the area where the witness ran into Inman. So what do you want me to do?” Cameron asked.

“Head to Tulsa in the morning. I’ll text you the info on where we’re staying.”

“Okay.”

“Drive safe,” Tate added, then hung up and finished refueling the car.

Wade came back carrying cold bottles of Pepsi and a couple of candy bars, handed a pop to Tate, then offered the candy bars and waited for him to choose. Tate chose the Snickers.

Wade frowned. “I was gonna eat that one,” he said.

Tate shrugged, handed it back and took the other one.

“I was gonna eat that one, too,” Wade said, and then grinned at the confused look on his partner’s face. “Just kidding. Take both of them if you want. I have three more.”

Tate grinned, took the candy bars and got back into the car. He opened the cold bottle of Pepsi and took a big drink, grateful for the cool liquid as it went down. As soon as Wade was inside, they drove away.

All of the tornado damage had been on the far northwest side of the city, and the people displaced by the storm had booked up a large number of available hotel rooms. They finally found a suite at the Hyatt Regency on 2nd Street, which provided amenities they didn’t have the time or inclination to check out.

Tate pulled into the underground parking garage beneath a security light and in plain view of multiple cameras. They headed into the hotel, each man lost in his own set of thoughts. Out of habit, Tate paused at the front desk to check for messages.

“Anything for Tate Benton or Wade Luckett?”

One of the clerks spoke up.

“Yes, sir. Something arrived for Mr. Benton about an hour ago. One moment, please.”

She went into a back room and came out carrying a manila envelope.

Tate frowned as he took it from her. There was no return address or postage mark and nothing to indicate it had come from a courier service. All it had was his name on the front. He looked inside as he was walking away, and then made an abrupt U-turn and went back to the front desk.

“Excuse me. Who received this?”

“I don’t know, sir, but I can check.”

“Thank you,” Tate said.

Wade followed him back. “What’s wrong? What’s in it?” he asked, and opened the flap as Tate handed over the envelope.

When he saw the photos of him and Tate taken earlier that day at one of the crime scenes, the hair rose on the back of his neck.

“Son of a bitch! He’s here!”

Wade pivoted toward the open lobby, eyeing everyone within sight. Behind him, he could hear the desk clerk telling Tate that a bellhop brought the envelope in from outside.

“Is he still here?” Tate asked.

The clerk pointed to the bell stand and a tall, slim man with red hair and glasses. “His name is Rob.”

“Thank you,” Tate said, and headed across the lobby.

“I’m going outside,” Wade said, and bolted toward the front entrance and then straight to the valet stand. He flashed his badge, then pulled Inman’s picture up on his phone and started showing it around to the hotel employees who were coming and going parking cars.

“Look close,” he said. “It’s important. Did any of you see this man? He won’t look exactly like this now, because we believe one or both sides of his face will have burn scars. He gave an envelope to a bellhop named Rob. Did you see him? He might have been wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up.”

“I just came on duty,” one valet said.

“I was parking cars all afternoon. All I saw were car keys coming at me,” another said.

“Who was manning this stand?” Wade asked. “Who was in charge?”

“Mario.”

“Where is he? I need to talk to him,” Wade said.

“He went home. He’s off duty now,”

A valet came running up from the parking garage, and turned in the ticket and keys of the car he’d just parked.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Wade flashed the picture and explained himself all over again.

“Did you see him? It would have been around an hour or so ago, talking to Rob.”

“Yeah, I saw someone talking to Rob. He gave him a twenty just to carry an envelope inside. That dude is lucky. He’s always getting the big tips.”

“Did you see where the man went? Did you see what he was driving?”

The kid shrugged and pointed. “He wasn’t driving. He walked that direction and then went behind the hotel.”

Wade looked up. “Do you have exterior security cameras back here?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to talk to Mr. Comfort. He’s the manager.”

Wade wasted no time returning to the front desk, where he hailed the first available clerk.

“I need to speak to your manager.”

The desk clerk looked nervous. He could already tell something big was going on that had to do with that envelope.

“I don’t think he’s in his office.”

“Can you page him?”

“Yes, sir. Just give me a few minutes.”

Wade glanced over his shoulder. Tate was on his way back.

“The kid identified Inman,” he said.

“So did one of the valets,” Wade said. “He said when Inman left, he walked around behind the hotel. I’m waiting on the manager to show up so we can check the security cameras. We might get lucky and see what he’s driving.”

“Good call,” Tate said.

“Either he’s getting careless or he’s getting cockier,” Wade muttered.

“He’s challenging us. These pictures are an in-your-face statement. I’d say his failure to kill Nola and then getting injured made him feel helpless. He’s angry. That’s why he’s gotten so personal with his victims. Before, he killed from a distance. Now it’s up close and personal, and leaving them naked is a reflection of his own humiliation. He doesn’t want to be the only one who was shamed,” Tate said.

“That makes sense,” Wade agreed. “But it also makes him more dangerous.”

The desk clerk returned.

“The manager will meet you in his office. If you’ll follow me?”

They followed the clerk through a maze of hallways, then into an office.

“Mr. Comfort, these are the FBI agents staying in our hotel.”

“Thank you, Walter. Gentlemen, how can I help you?”

“This is Agent Luckett, and I’m Agent Benton. We need to see footage from the security cameras around the perimeter of your hotel,” Tate said.

The expression on the manager’s face became one of instant concern.

“What’s wrong? Has something happened that’s going to endanger our guests?”

“At this point we don’t think so,” Tate said.

“How far back do you need to look? We don’t keep them beyond—”

“Just the last couple of hours,” Wade said.

The manager picked up a phone and made a call, then escorted them to yet another location.

“This is Rick Chavez. He’s in charge of hotel security. He’ll help you from here.”

“Thank you, Mr. Comfort. We appreciate your cooperation,” Tate said.

Chavez looked to be in his mid-forties and was built like a linebacker: broad shoulders, stocky body, with the biceps of a bodybuilder.

He eyed both men curiously, and then waved at some chairs against the wall.

“Mr. Comfort gave me the timeline you wanted to see. Pull up a chair. I don’t have popcorn, but the movie is ready to roll.”

“I’ll stand, if it’s all the same to you,” Tate said.

Wade nodded in agreement.

Chavez shrugged, checked the discs and started the playback.

Moments later four different screens were playing footage of the hotel exterior. They leaned in, watching eagerly for signs of Hershel Inman’s arrival.

Three

A few minutes into watching the footage, they saw Hershel walk into camera range, carrying the envelope, but there was no sign of a vehicle on any of the screens. They saw him approach the bellhop, hand over the envelope and the money, and then the bellhop walked out of camera range into the hotel. But it was what Hershel did next that startled them. He paused, looked straight up into the camera, then turned and walked away.

“Look at that!” Wade said. “He wanted us to know it was him!”

Chavez frowned. “Who are we looking at?” he asked.

“The man who’s been killing survivors of your recent tornado,” Tate muttered.

Chavez jumped. “The Stormchaser? That’s the Stormchaser?”

Wade nodded. “That’s him.”

“Son of a bitch,” Chavez whispered. “Are we in danger here? Should I put on extra security?”

“That’s not been his pattern,” Tate said. “He targets people who have survived a natural disaster and kills them at the disaster site.”

“Good Lord. He’s a piece of work,” Chavez said.

“Can you make us copies of that footage?” Tate asked.

“Yes. It’ll take me a few minutes to burn them for you.”

“We’re in room 444. Would you have them sent up when you’ve finished?”

“Yes, sir,” Chavez said.

They left the room with mixed emotions. Hershel Inman continued to move among them like a ghost, taunting their inability to take him down. He was there, and then he wasn’t. They knew what he looked like—now they even knew exactly what he looked like with the burn scars—and they still couldn’t find him. Frustration was high, and by the time they reached their room they were ready for a change of pace.

“I’m going to take a shower before I start writing reports,” Wade said.

“How about some dinner? Do you want to go down to the restaurant or order in?” Tate asked.

“It’s your call,” Wade said.

“Room service,” Tate said.

“I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” Wade said.

“Except for three candy bars and a Pepsi,” Tate countered.

“That’s not eating. That’s just passing time,” Wade said. “I want a medium-well rib eye, steak fries and a salad. You pick dessert. I’m heading to the shower.”

“A man who knows the important things in life,” Tate mumbled as he reached for the menu to check his own options.

* * *

The doorbell rang as Jo Luckett was in the kitchen making coffee. She grabbed the cash she’d set out and ran barefoot through the apartment. She could smell the pizza even before she opened the door.

A few minutes later she carried the food into the kitchen, transferred a couple of slices to her plate, made a glass of iced tea and set the cinnamon sticks aside to have with coffee later. She carried her plate to the living room, plopped down on the sofa with her food and took her first bite before turning on the TV.

She’d been reading Stormchaser files all afternoon. Both the killer’s brutality and random choice of victims made it all the more important to take him down as soon as possible. Now she was ready to take a break.

But no sooner had she turned on the evening news than she realized they were airing coverage of the murders in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She upped the volume and took another bite, paying more attention to the tornado damage than she did to what the news anchor was saying. She’d grown up in California and gone from UCLA straight to FBI training. She’d only seen footage of tornadoes, had never been near one, and hoped she never had to be. They were horrifying enough on their own, without the added insult of living through such a storm only to be murdered in the aftermath.

The program continued with interviews of the Tulsa police chief and then members of one murder victim’s family. She finished her first piece of pizza and had started on her second when they segued to another piece of footage. When they mentioned the FBI investigation, she set the food aside and upped the volume. Within moments she saw a long shot of one man standing in the midst of a massive debris field. Tate Benton. She could see the yellow crime scene tape around the area, and police cars parked out on the street, obviously to deter sightseers or locals who might interfere with the agents as they viewed the site. But when another man walked out from behind a broken wall, she froze.

It was Wade.

Sound faded as pain shot through her head hard and fast.

The scent of pizza was suddenly sickening.

She hadn’t seen him in over a year. He looked good. He looked fit. She wondered if he was happy, if he was seeing someone. What on earth had made her think she would be able to work in close quarters with him? What was that she’d told the Director? Oh, right. No problem, she’d said. Lord.

She was watching his every move to the point of obsession when she noticed movement in the shot behind him. Someone in an older-model black pickup was rolling down the window. The driver had something in his hands. There was a moment when she’d thought it was a gun, and then she realized it was just a camera and breathed easier. Just another lookie-loo taking pictures.

She carried what was left of her pizza into the kitchen and dumped it in the trash, then put the rest of the food in the refrigerator, and the whole time she was giving herself a pep talk. She could do this. She’d never wanted to do anything with her life except be in the Bureau. All she had to do was focus on the job.

She sat back down with her laptop, pulled up the files she’d been reading and went back to work. One hour passed and she got up for a cup of coffee, then kept reading, making notes as she went. Another hour passed and she got up to go to the bathroom. When she returned her steps were dragging. Seeing Wade had resurrected every ugly memory of her last months with him.

She sat back down again and within moments realized she was reading the report detailing Nola Landry’s kidnapping. When she got to the part about Agent Cameron Winger being attacked and ending up in the hospital, she sat staring at the words. What if it had been Wade? Who would they have notified? Then she pinched the bridge of her nose to stop the tears and took a deep breath. What was the matter with her? She was no longer his family.

After a few moments she closed the laptop and went straight to her bedroom, changed into a different T-shirt and put on her running shoes.

It was after 7:00 p.m., but there was still plenty of light. She pocketed her cell phone and door key and headed for the park across from her apartment building. Staying fit was a big part of the FBI protocol, but this wasn’t about physical fitness. She needed to break a sweat, to wear herself out until she was too tired to think about Wade and death and babies that didn’t survive.

After a half hour at a steady pace she lost focus on everything but the run: feeling the blood surge through her veins, the expansion of her lungs as she breathed in and out, the burn of muscles as time continued to pass, testing her endurance.

She was bathed in sweat and still running when the sun went down, and then she ran all the way out of the park and back to her building before she finally stopped. In an effort to cool down she took the stairs up to her third-floor apartment rather than take the elevator, but even as she went inside she felt as much panic now as when she’d first left.

Her FBI training kicked in as she measured the pros and cons of what she was going to face, and came to one simple conclusion. There was no way to outrun the past.

* * *

Cameron arrived at the hotel in Tulsa before noon the next day and left his rental car’s keys with valet parking.

He shouldered his luggage and headed for the elevator, bypassing the front desk as he went. When he knocked on the door, Wade let him in. He could tell by the look on Wade’s face something more had happened.

“Don’t look so glad to see me,” Cameron said.

“Sorry,” Wade said. “We’ve been looking at security tapes all morning. I’m glad you’re here. Did you have any trouble on the road?”

“Not a bit,” Cameron said. “Where’s Tate?”

“There’s a small conference room attached to the suite. He’s in there. That door leads to a bedroom with two beds. You’re with me.”

Cameron dumped his things in the bedroom and then followed the sound of voices into the conference room. It had a long table, a half-dozen chairs and a small sink and counter at one end of the room. He saw a bucket of ice, some soft drinks and a couple of uneaten doughnuts under a plastic cover. He made himself a cold drink, grabbed a doughnut and then moved toward the computer screens set up at one end of the table.

“Glad to have you back,” Tate said as Cameron walked up behind him.

“Good to be here. What’s going on?”

Wade pointed to the photos spread out across the table as Tate hit Pause and stopped the security footage.

“We had a visit from Inman,” Wade said.

Cameron jerked, almost spilling his drink.

“Here? He came here?”

“Long enough to drop those off,” Tate said. “Those were taken of us at one of the kill sites yesterday morning. We got him on the hotel security cameras paying a bellhop to bring them to the front desk that afternoon. The cameras caught him coming to the front door and leaving around back, but we didn’t get a look at what he was driving. So we confiscated video from as many businesses in the immediate area as we could get in the hopes of spotting him in one of the vehicles passing by. No luck so far.”

“Wow,” Cameron said. “He’s right under our noses again, and we still can’t get our hands on him.”

“Yes, and once again the media is having a field day with that,” Wade grumbled.

Cameron knew how he felt. They’d been making excuses for a year as to how he got away.

Tate’s phone signaled an incoming text.

“The Director sent us an email,” he said, and went to get his laptop. He pulled up the message, then read it aloud.

“I’m adding Agent Jolene Luckett to your team. She’s been studying all the files for the past two days. Use her as you see fit. If you’re planning to move locations, wait for her before you leave. She arrives tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. at Tulsa International Airport.”

Tate had gone numb right after the first sentence, and was trying to figure out what possessed the Director to do something like this. Granted Jo was a whiz at tracking down people through the internet, but Wade didn’t deserve this.

Tate wouldn’t look at Wade, and he could see Cameron doing the same as he went to refill his soft drink.

Wade took a deep breath, walked to the windows and shoved his hands in his pockets. He had an overwhelming urge to hit something.

“I never knew the Director had such a sense of humor,” he drawled. “I can handle working with my ex-wife. Either one of you have a problem with it?”

“Not me,” Tate muttered.

“I’m good,” Cameron added.

“Fine. Then that settles that,” Wade said. “I hope the Director knows he’s just upped the team’s traveling costs. She doesn’t snore, but I’m damn sure not sharing a room with her.”

Tate laughed and Cameron grinned.

Wade grinned, but inside he was screaming. There was no way in hell this was going to work. And at the same time he thought that, he wondered what her reaction had been when she got her orders. He would lay odds she wasn’t any happier about this than he was. Still, if she didn’t make waves, he wouldn’t, either.

“So what are we doing for dinner?” Cameron asked.

Wade turned around. “I don’t know about you, but I think after that piece of news, the Director just bought us some fine dining.”

Tate was inclined to agree. “I say we check out the hotel restaurant.”

“Do we need a reservation?” Cameron asked.

“I’ll find out,” Tate said.

Wade heard them talking, but the words were all running together. Except for seeing her a few weeks ago at the cemetery, he hadn’t come face-to-face with her in over a year and a half. She was so angry, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why she was angry with him. He hadn’t shot her, nor was he responsible for the death of the baby she’d been carrying. He’d never been so scared, never prayed as hard as he had that day. Losing the baby had been terrible. But losing her would have been unthinkable. Or so he thought, until she turned into someone he didn’t know and walked away. He had yet to wrap his head around why. Hell, maybe working with her would be good after all. Maybe he would finally get some long-overdue answers.

* * *

Jo had already packed except for the small stuff. Now all she had to do was run a few errands and catch a very early flight tomorrow. According to her info, one of the team would pick her up at the airport. She hoped to God they didn’t send Wade. She didn’t want one-on-one time with him right off the bat.

The more she thought about what she was going to be doing, the more anxious she got. She’d been gone for almost a week on another case and home only two days when she’d gotten this call. There were bills due, a prescription to get refilled, some toilet articles to replace, before she headed out again. Unfortunately there was nothing she could buy to protect her from the inevitable gut reaction to seeing Wade. It was such a bitch still being in love with the man she’d divorced. This wasn’t the first time she’d second-guessed her reason for doing it, but she had been slightly insane from her guilt and grief at the time, and it was too late to explain all that now.

She sighed. Whatever would be, would be. Either they would get through it or they would wind up killing each other. One way or another, this day had been a long time coming.

* * *

It had been five days, maybe six, since this killing spree began. Hershel had actually lost count, but it didn’t matter. He felt safe and sheltered at the campground at Keystone Lake.

The first thing he did after he woke up that morning was turn on the laptop to see what was happening, and the first thing he saw was his own picture. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen it on-air, because it was being aired daily in conjunction with the murders, and he feared it was only a matter of time before someone took a closer look at him camping out here.

He’d spent over an hour last night watching the Weather Channel, trying to second-guess where the next serious storm threat might hit. There were a couple of places he could go and wait for it, but he couldn’t go home—not ever again. Once he would have just grown a beard, changed cars and locations, and disappeared under another name like he’d done after the Louisiana floods. But he had healed with severe facial scars, and the ability to grow a full, healthy beard was gone. He could always go to Mexico and disappear, but that felt too much like running away. If he did that, it would mean they’d won, and that didn’t set well.

He rolled out of his sleeping bag, reached for his jeans and began to get dressed. A few minutes later he was out of the tent and heading for the public bathrooms. Although it was still early, the day was already showing signs of heat. The air was still and muggy. Even the little ground lizards seemed uninterested in his passing, lying motionless beneath the underbrush.

Very few of the other campers were up, and the ones who were seemed occupied with making their breakfast. He saw one camper heading off toward the lake with a rod and reel, possibly to go catch his meal. It seemed like an iffy proposition to Hershel. In a pinch, he would rather rely on bread and peanut butter.

He made quick work of the toilet and washing facilities and was on his way out when he heard voices just outside the doorway. The last thing he wanted was to come face-to-face with someone and have to acknowledge their presence, so he stopped.

A few moments later the voices faded, and he took a quick look to make sure they were gone before heading out, walking with his head down. The next time he looked up he saw a little girl sitting on the picnic table near his tent.

“Hi!” she said. “I’m having breakfast.”

He frowned and kept walking, hoping his silence would deter her. It didn’t.

“My name is Louise. What’s yours?”

He stumbled. What the hell? Was this the universe making fun of him, or was this his Louise trying to communicate?

He turned around and gave her a closer look. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old and didn’t look a thing like his Louise. The moment he thought it, he told himself he was a fool. Of course she didn’t look like Louise, because she wasn’t Louise.

The little girl took another bite of the sweet roll she was eating, then licked her fingers as she waited for him to talk. When he didn’t, she offered up another question.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

“Go away,” he said shortly, and moved toward his truck.

She got down off the picnic table and followed him, still eating and licking her fingers between bites.

“Does your face hurt? I fell off my bike and skinned my knee. It hurt a lot. Did your mama kiss your face and make it better? My mama kissed my knee and put three Cinderella Band-Aids on it.”

“Get lost, kid,” Hershel muttered, and began unhooking his generator. He needed to get the hell out of here.

The little girl frowned. “Getting lost is dangerous. I’m not supposed to get lost,” she said, and took another bite, chewing while she talked. “You said a mean thing. You shouldn’t be mean to people. It’s not nice. Do you go to church? You should go to church. It might make you nicer.”

Hershel froze. For just a moment he could hear his Louise nagging him, talking about God and changing his ways. He looked back at the kid again, wondered if Louise had somehow sent her, and then shook off the thought.

“Go back to your own campground,” Hershel said, and turned his back on her.

“I’m gonna tell my mama on you! I’m gonna tell her you told me to get lost.”

Hershel spun around, but she was already running back across the campground.

“Damn it.”

He wasn’t into offing kids, but this complicated his situation. This little altercation could bring unwanted attention, which he didn’t need. It was time to leave.

He began loading up the heavier pieces of his camping equipment, and then packed up what was inside the tent. As soon as it was empty, he took it down, as well, working with one eye on the campsites behind him, hoping he didn’t see some irate parent coming his way. Still, it verified what he’d been thinking all along. No more public campgrounds for him.

It’s your own fault.

Hershel groaned. Now Louise decided to show up. If she’d spoken up earlier, he wouldn’t have been so antsy with the kid.

“Well, hell, Louise, of course it’s my fault. You continue to remind me that everything is my fault, including your demise.”

Leave now, Hershel. Stop now and go to Mexico. We talked about it once. You can go there now and disappear.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore. I’ll go when I’m ready and not before.”

You are a mean man, Hershel Inman, and you are going straight to Hell.

“Yes, so your little doppelgänger said a few minutes ago...or words to that effect. Now beat it. I need to finish packing.”

You’re going to be sorry...be sorry...be sorry...

Hershel was livid. Louise’s nagging was so off the wall she was beginning to echo. He threw the rest of his things into the truck and took off from the campground without looking back.

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