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  Brenda Huber

  she’d been sleeping with. He had lied to her after all, hadn’t he? Lied about what he was. If he could keep something that big from her, what else, then, was he capable of?

  Hadn’t that been how things had started to deteriorate between Jerry and Sarah? The lies, the deceit. Small gambling debts here, a one night stand with a strange woman there. Then it had progressed.

  The accusations, the affair Jerry viewed as retribution against some imagined wrong on Sarah’s part, and then the slaps started. The shoves. It has all spiraled out of control from there.

  No, Cam wasn’t Jerry. She’d already established that. There had to be some reasonable explanation for Cam’s behavior.

  JJ shouldered her way into the woods, pushing limbs out of her way as she scurried in the direction Cam had disappeared. Shadows danced around her, flirting with brilliant slices of dappled sunshine.

  Pine needles crackled beneath her boots, and the scent of the woods enveloped her. She stopped for a moment, peering hard in every direction, struggling to get her bearings. Which way had he gone?

  A faint thud, a muffled curse seemed to rebound off the trees. JJ followed the sound deeper into the shadows, slowly now, hesitant. Just over the edge of a small hill, she caught sight of his gilded head. He was crouched, low to the ground, staring down at something. JJ slipped quietly up the side of the hill, her gaze sliding down Cam’s back, down to the ground before him and the object he’d reached for.

  Blue, floral print fabric billowed in the wind, twinning itself around his legs. The wind changed course, and the fabric shifted, revealing the pale line of a bare, narrow foot and a trim, feminine calf smeared with blood.

  Stumbling back, JJ gasped for air. Her vision blurred for a split second, then sharpened with 330

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  brutal clarity. Cam twisted on his heel, one forearm braced on his knee as his brilliant emerald eyes sliced to her. He held the woman’s limp hand in his.

  The glint of silver resting on her palm reflected a beam of sunlight, making JJ blink.

  A rosary…

  Shaking her head slowly from side to side, JJ

  began back-pedaling down the hill. She clamped a hand over her gaping mouth, but the sob wouldn’t stay locked inside. It was Jerry…it was Jerry all over again. Oh, dear God, how could she have been so blind?

  Cam jumped to his feet, dropping the dead woman’s hand to the ground with a sickening thud.

  “JJ, wait…”

  A small branch rolled beneath her heel, and she wobbled off balance. Righting herself, JJ scurried backward. Angie Berg’s bloodless face, twisted in death, was all she could see. No, no this couldn’t be happening.

  Not again.

  “JJ, honey, please…” Cam extended a hand, palm up to her. She refused to give in to the emotion on his face. All she could see was the blood on his hands. His gaze swerved to the body at his feet and back to her. “JJ…”

  Sobbing, she pivoted on her heel and tore through the woods, running as she’d never run before. A slim branch slapped at her face, slashing pain across her cheek. The familiar burn of tears in an open cut seared through her, but still she ran.

  Loose vegetation rolled beneath her skidding boots as the woods flew past her in a confusing blur of leaves and sunlight. Only when her head began to swim did she realize she’d been holding her breath.

  Gasping, she broke free of the woods. Staggering around the side of her shed, JJ raced toward the front yard, digging madly in her pocket for her car 331

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  keys. Fumbling them free of her pocket, she dropped them on the gravel driveway. JJ skidded to a halt, twisted and scooped them up, her eyes glued to the woods, her chest heaving. He hadn’t come through the tree line yet. But she’d seen him move. He was fast. She had seconds at best. Twisting as she straightened, she vaulted forward, colliding with a warm, hard body encased head to toe in black.

  It took two long heartbeats for the black hood and ski mask to register. Before she could pull away, before she could let loose the scream clawing up her throat, a powerful, leather covered fist shot out and pain exploded in her jaw. JJ had the faint impression of strong arms breaking her fall as the world went dark around her.

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  Chapter 22

  The blurry outline of a cartoon cat swam before her eyes, eyes that refused to focus. As she struggled to zero in on the cat’s swishing tail, she realized it wasn’t a cartoon, but the kitty cat clock on the wall in her own kitchen. Her jaw throbbed like an abscessed tooth, and her mouth was bone dry, felt stuffed with cotton. Her brain was fuzzy. Moaning, she let her head roll back on her shoulders. Worried it might just keep on rolling right onto the floor, she made to cradle her head in her hands.

  Why wouldn’t her hands move? Tugging, twisting at her wrists, reality began to swamp her.

  The black mask… She struggled in earnest now, but she was bound, gagged, and tied to a straight-backed chair. Blinking rapidly, filled with a sickening sense of vulnerability, JJ forced her defiant eyes to focus.

  “There you are now,” a soft voice called to her.

  Turning her head, she blinked owlishly at the dark figure leaning against her kitchen counter. Those eyes…those eyes were so familiar. Such kind, gray eyes behind that frightening mask of death. He crossed his arms over his chest. The wicked glint of silver flashed in his hand, and, for a moment, her pulse jumped. But no, it wasn’t a knife. He held a cross…a rosary in his hand.

  Questions, demands flooded her mind, but none would spew past the wad of material stuffed in her mouth. Suddenly her captor tensed, laying a leather-encased finger to his lips. His large frame glided soundlessly across the faded linoleum as he snatched a frying pan off the back burner of the stove and 333

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  took up a covert position behind the kitchen door. A spare moment later, footsteps pounded across the back porch.

  “JJ,” Cam shouted. “JJ, are you in here? Come on, please, you have to listen to me. JJ…” Cam bounded through the doorway. His steps faltered for a split second when his gaze connected with hers. The expression on his face was shocked, confused. His hand flew to his hip where his gun normally rested when he was in uniform as he charged forward. She cried out, her gaze shot to where her attacker crouched behind the door. Cam caught the movement of her stare, must have somehow discerned the intention of her cry, but by the time he spun on his heel, it was too late. The skillet was already descending, and Cam didn’t have enough time to block the blow.

  JJ watched helplessly as Cam toppled to the floor. Her muffled scream echoed inside her head.

  Her captor gave a small, satisfied grunt, tossing the skillet back onto the stovetop. He rolled Cam to the middle of the floor, near JJ’s feet, before tying his hands behind his back and securing his feet together with a length of clothesline. He deposited a string of beads into Cam’s palm, winding it around his thumb to keep the silver cross from falling onto the floor, then forced another, identical rosary into JJ’s hands.

  The man in black patted Cam’s back pocket and withdrew a small pocketknife. Then he stood and prodded Cam with the toe of his boot.

  Cam seemed to come awake the same way JJ

  had, slow and groggy. He blinked up at her, then his eyes widened and he twisted around until he was facing their assailant.

  “Who are you?” Cam fought his restraints.

  Under the guise of his struggles, he patted his back pocket, and swore loudly. “Damn it, who are you…what the hell do you want?” 334

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  The killer clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Now, now, Cam. Is that anyway to speak in a lady’s presence?”

  Cam went utterly still at the sound of the man’s soft voice. Slowly, as if savoring the shock on Cam’s face, he flipped the hood of the jacket back. Then, methodically, he peeled the ski mask off, revealing silver-streaked hair and gentle face.

 
; Jarvis English smiled down at them.

  “Jarvis...” Cam whispered. “Why?”

  “Because this is what I was meant to do.” Jarvis settled back against the counter again, crossing his arms over his chest. “This town was going to hell, Cam. Corruption, sin…it spreads like a disease.”

  “You killed them, Jarvis. You killed innocent—”

  “No!” Jarvis stiffened, snarling the word. He sucked in a sharp breath through flared nostrils and relaxed his stance again. Calmer now, he preached,

  “No. They were all guilty. God gave them so many opportunities to repent their sins, to change their ways. They chose the Devil’s path. Don’t you see?

  They chose their own fates.”

  “What are you telling me? That God told you to murder them?”

  “Murder is a sin, Cam.” Jarvis shook his head, frowning his disappointment in Cam’s lack of understanding. “I didn’t murder anyone. I punished sinners, just as God wanted me to do. I even gave them rosaries, led them through their prayers. I did everything within my power to make sure their souls were as prepared as they could possibly be when they went to face their Creator.” JJ shuddered, imagining what those poor victims must have felt as they’d been forced to pray with the man who’d come to kill them. What a horrible torture they’d endured, far worse than anything Jerry had done to her. At least he hadn’t toyed with her, hadn’t taunted her with false hope.

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  He’d just gone straight for blood.

  Cam lay at her feet, strangely silent as Jarvis went on, “You should have thanked me, Cam, instead of trying to hunt me down like some rabid dog. I was only trying to help you clean up your town, after all.”

  “Help me?” Cam sputtered. “Help me…by strangling Lori and leaving her…sprawled like that?

  By mangling Mayor Hughes, cutting his hands off?

  By leaving Angie Berg’s children motherless? How could you possibly think you were helping me by cutting Ed’s heart out of his chest?” Jarvis didn’t seem at all interested in addressing the first of his questions, but he latched onto the last. “You and I both know that last had to be done. Ed was a drain on you. He was a humiliation. How were you to focus on guiding your citizens with a father like that constantly distracting you? Sins of the father, Cam…sins of the father.” He jerked as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “How did you… How did you know Ed was my father?”

  “How do you think? I had access to all the files, Cam. Never could quite figure why you always seemed to cut Ed a little extra slack when anyone else would have locked him up for good. I did some digging. A DNA test was a little tricky, but I pulled it off. Did Seth Walker ever know the truth? Boy, it’s a good thing that mother of yours moved away all those years ago, only enough room in a town this size for one whore like Lori. Too bad our little JJ

  wasn’t smart enough to figure that out before she decided to pass out her favors.”

  “Bastard,” Cam snarled, yanking at the rope on his wrists. “Let JJ go. She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Oh, but she does.” Jarvis’s cold gray eyes settled on JJ, and she cringed. How could she have 336

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  ever mistaken those eyes as being kind? They were soulless. “You know, you almost had me fooled. I thought you were so sweet, so innocent. I was going to—” He broke off with an angry frown. Making a visible effort to smooth his features, he droned on,

  “That doesn’t matter anymore. You were too conceited, to prideful over your work. You should have shown more humility over the talents God saw fit to give you. I tried to warn you. I gave you more chances to correct your sinful ways than any of the others. I saw such potential in you, Jillian.” He shook his head, an odd glow began to kindle in his eyes, and JJ had the unsettling impression he viewed her like some science experiment gone sadly awry.

  “You were the one that broke in, trashed her studio,” Cam barked.

  “Oh, yes. That was me.” Jarvis turned his attention back to Cam. “You know, I really should apologize to you, Cam. But it’s your own fault, if you weren’t so good at sniffing out culprits, I wouldn’t have had to distract you with all those vandalisms.”

  “You vandalized all those buildings?”

  “Yes, to my shame. You were getting too close. I could only tamper with so much evidence before I ran the risk of getting caught. I had to distract you somehow, divide your attentions. Then again, I didn’t realize our JJ here was doing such a bang-up job of keeping your attention focused elsewhere.

  Slipped that one right by me, didn’t you?” The unholy glow was back as Jarvis’s malevolent stare centered on JJ once more. Her blood ran cold at what she saw in his eyes. It was the same righteous anger Jerry had skewered her with while he’d slashed his way over her body.

  JJ pulled at her wrists again, twisting, desperate. Her skin stung, and the warm trickle of blood coursed down her fingertips. She wouldn’t die, 337

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  meek and helpless. She mumbled into the gag, fighting to be heard.

  Jarvis stepped forward. A vicious warning snarl ripped from Cam as Jarvis reached for the band of material tied around her mouth. “Here now, where are my manners? Cam and I have been doing all the talking and we haven’t given you any chance to speak.”

  The minute the gag slipped free, JJ lurched forward in her chair, until her tied arms jerked her back. “You sick, twisted, psychotic son of a—” The back of Jarvis’s hand cracked across her face. His chest heaved with sudden fury, his nostrils flared. Outraged moral anger dripped from every word. “If you can’t speak like a proper lady, I’ll gag you again. Filth like that is the Devil’s work.” Even with her head reeling and stars spinning before her eyes, she could see Cam jerking violently on the floor. The growl that tore from his chest was feral, dangerous. “Touch her again, and I’ll kill you, you bastard.”

  Jarvis ignored them as he strode from the room.

  In a moment he was back, toting a large red gasoline jug. “You know, I had plans for you, Jillian. Very special plans. Then you went and turned yourself into a whore. The prideful whore of a freak. You’re just like the others, unrepentant. Unworthy.” He slowly twisted the cap from the jug. The heavy, cloying scent of gas filled the room.

  “I realized something when I set that warehouse on fire.” He smiled down at Cam now. The demented smile of one who’d lost all grip on reality. “Fire is biblical, too. The warehouse was a symbol, just as He’d intended the burning bush to be a symbol. Fire will cleanse your souls.” Jarvis hefted the jug, sending them a reassuring smile. “If you start reciting your prayers now…if you truly mean them, 338

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  mind you…perhaps God might hear you yet and forgive you.”

  Jarvis splashed gas around the kitchen, over the counter, across the table behind JJ, along the floor in front of the doorway. Each wet slosh punctuated by a line from the Lord’s Prayer. Then he disappeared down the hallway, leaving a trail of lethal liquid behind him. Despite her best efforts, a whimper slipped past her guard. How could it all end like this? Oh, God, she’d thought Cam had been the killer. She’d run from him.

  “Cam…I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Honey, don’t cry. It’s all right, baby. I know. It’s all right. I’ll get you out of this, I swear I will.” Cam rolled around, squirming on the floor until he lay on his back near the cabinets. Lifting his feet into the air, swinging them wildly, he tipped the strainer onto its side. Silverware tinkled across the counter. The creaking footsteps overhead paused.

  Cam snaked his feet up for one more swipe and knocked the wooden handle of a knife over the edge of the counter.

  The silver blade streaked toward the floor, the tip embedding into the linoleum only inches from Cam’s hip. Twisting, wiggling backward, his chest heaving, Cam began rotating his shoulders, faster and faster.

  His breath expelled
on a sharp whoosh and he flinched, but he kept sawing at the rope. The frayed restraint snapped free, and Cam wasted no time. He sat up and hacked his way through the bindings around his ankles. By now, smoke had begun to roll down the hallway. The deadly crackle of flames grew louder. Orange glowed through the hall and zipped into the kitchen, setting the room ablaze in a matter of seconds.

  In a flash, Cam was on his knees before her, 339

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  cutting her free. Billowing black clouds began to fill the kitchen. Her lungs burned as she fought for each breath. The room swam before her, a blurred smudgy mess through the haze of involuntary tears.

  Cam scooped her up into his arms and sprinted through the flames guarding the rear door.

  A wave of fresh, cool air washed over them as he bound down the steps. He didn’t set her down until he was well clear of the house. She coughed, unable to catch her breath. “Here,” he thrust something sharp, metallic into her hands. Her car keys. Where had he found them? Cam took her by the shoulders and propelled her toward the Jeep. “Get out of here.

  I have to go after him, have to stop him before he hurts anyone else.”

  “Cam—”

  He cut her off with a kiss. Fast, hard. “Please, JJ, go…get down to the office, tell Emma what happened.”

  Cam whipped his shirt off over his head, tossed it to the ground. “Whatever happens, honey…remember that I love you.” He stripped the rest of his clothing away in record time, stole one last kiss, and shifted. He was gone in a streak of golden fur. JJ stared after him for a moment, too shocked to function. Then, with shaking hands, she scooped his clothes up and scurried to the Jeep.

  She’d sit inside. She’d lock the doors, leave the motor idling.

  But she would not run.

  She’d never run away ever again.

  JJ didn’t have any idea how long she sat like that, hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes straining for any movement in the tree line around her. She’d only been able to bring herself to glance once at her house. The sight of greedy flames dancing in the windows, consuming the house she’d 340

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