01 Only Fear Page 13

  “How’d she die?” But he already knew. In his sixty-two years, he’d learned there were no coincidences in life.

  “Death by serial killer.”

  “Fearmonger.”

  Becca made a sound of agreement. “Has to be, and it was pretty brutal, though he didn’t use his usual MO.”

  “No words in blood?”

  “Actually, there were. Just not the words you’d think. He smeared For Maggie across the woman’s abdomen.”

  Damian wiped a hand over his tired face. He refused to give in to fatigue. He would sleep when he was dead. In the meantime, he had monsters to catch.

  “He probably thinks he’s invincible about now,” Becca said. “Not only getting away with murder, but also successfully breaking a woman out of a locked, guarded facility? That takes some major planning and skill. Yeah, he’s got to be feeling pretty confident.”

  Which was both dangerous and fortunate. He’d probably continue killing at this new accelerated rate, but maybe, just maybe, he’d get sloppy and make a mistake.

  Her butt was cold. And numb. The folding metal chairs at the university’s security office were unforgiving.

  Maggie rubbed the back of her neck, dutifully keeping her eyes on the TV screen on the table in front of her, though she had to fight to keep her mind on the task at hand. Her thoughts kept wandering back to the call Ethan had received from Damian. Fearmonger had claimed another victim. Somehow Deborah Frame had broken out of the state hospital to meet up with him. Fearmonger had done his homework, learning of Deborah’s connection to her. Was nobody safe? Despite the warm night, she shivered.

  “Need a break?” Ethan asked, watching his own video screen beside her.

  “We’re almost done, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was getting late and they were both tired, but between the two of them, they’d managed to get through Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning’s videos of not just the psych building’s parking lot, but of a couple others nearby. Despite gritty eyes and a need to review her lesson plans for her morning classes, Maggie was determined to do her part. At least Marconi was going to replay a recording of an old show, so she and David had the night off from the radio station.

  “I can hang in there.”

  Twenty minutes later, Ethan sat back with a sound of disgust. “Nothing. You?”

  She switched off the screen in front of her. It showed the parking lot outside the psych building, with a nearly clear view of the sidewalk leading into the door nearest the classroom. “Nothing but a couple of mischievous raccoons doing some dumpster diving.”

  Ethan’s screen showed the other side of the building. There had been no footage of the inside.

  “I don’t get it.” Ethan stretched his shoulders and back so that his plain white T-shirt pulled tight across his chest, hinting at the finely sculpted lines underneath. The window-unit air conditioner in the trailer that served as a security office was on the fritz, so the temp in their tiny quarters—more like a supply closet, really—was warm. Ethan had long ago discarded the dress shirt and tie he’d worn for the meeting.

  He rubbed his stubbled jaw. “They both had to enter—and he had to leave—by some means. I just don’t get it. There’s something we’re missing.”

  He shifted forward, leaning his forearms on the table. His T-shirt rode up a little higher on his biceps as they bulged with the movement. The man really should wear short sleeves more often, especially in the heat of summer.

  “T-shirts!” she exclaimed.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Your T-shirt—it reminded me of summer.”

  “Yeah?” The doubtful look he gave her was not encouraging.

  She quickly explained. “It made me think of seasons. In winter, it gets bitterly cold here.”

  “And?” The doubt was still there, but he was going with her, willing to see where she was headed.

  “And I’ve heard students grumbling about how they wished the tunnels between buildings on campus were still open, to avoid going outside.”

  Ethan sat up straight. “There are tunnels?”

  “Well, maybe,” she said, backpedaling. “It could all be legend, I suppose.”

  He lunged forward and hugged her. She was suddenly engulfed by his warm male scent, his sinewy strength pressed against her curves. He pulled away, grinning. “You’re amazing.”

  “Well don’t get too excited yet.” Unless you’ll wrap your arms around me again. If you’ll do that again, by all means, get excited. “From what I’ve heard, if they exist, they’ve been locked for years, maybe decades. I don’t know if anyone has access.”

  Ethan was already rising from his chair. He went to the door and stuck his head out, calling to the chief security officer on duty. The short, balding man was growing a paunch but his eyes were sharp. He’d introduced himself as Officer Archie Lewis.

  “Do you have video footage of the tunnels or their openings?” Ethan asked.

  Officer Lewis huffed out a laugh. “No. Waste of time. Haven’t used them in thirty years, except for some maintenance upgrades back in the nineties.”

  “But they do exist?”

  “Oh yeah. The builders thought the tunnels would provide easy access for maintenance issues, as well as a way for students to get between buildings on cold, windy days.” He scratched at his chin. “Unfortunately, vagrants decided to move in during the winter months, and students didn’t feel safe anymore. A couple kids got stuck in one of the old supply rooms down there, too. Took a day to find them. Damn waste, if you ask me, but they shut the things down.”

  “Do you have maps,” Maggie asked, “of where the tunnels come and go? Specifically, the ones that connect to the psychology building.”

  He nodded, grinning. “That, I do.”

  A few minutes later, Ethan and Maggie had purchased a couple sodas from a machine in the hallway. While indulging in a much-needed caffeine and sugar rush, they cleared a table in the tiny break room, where they could roll out the dusty blueprints of the tunnels beneath the school.

  “Wow,” Maggie breathed, aware of just how close Ethan leaned next to her. The hint of salty sweat that dampened his skin had her licking her lips. “That’s quite a labyrinth.”

  “Most of the tunnels are blocked off at their openings.” Ethan tapped a finger on one of the marked doors that had an X scrawled in black over it. “Locked or permanently sealed?”

  “Not sure about all of them,” Officer Lewis replied with a shake of his head. “But I’d guess most of them are just locked. We have a set of keys for them somewhere around here. Locked ’em for the students’ safety, but a lot of the buildings’ pipes run through those tunnels, so I doubt they’d permanently seal them.”

  “Can you find those keys?”

  “Sure thing.” Lewis left to search.

  “Well, they sure wouldn’t want students getting lost in this maze.” She glanced at Ethan’s profile, so intent on the labyrinth spread out on the table. “What are you thinking?”

  “That our guy might just work at the university. He had to get a key to these doors somehow. And it would explain better why Fearmonger seems so attached to you. You spend most of your days and nights here.” He put a finger against his lips as the chief returned. Maggie understood. He wouldn’t want the man thinking they suspected someone within their ranks. Officer Lewis’s accommodating attitude just might take a turn for the worse.

  “Found them.” Lewis held up a ring containing several keys.

  “Thanks.” Ethan took the keys. He didn’t say anything more and the officer took the hint, leaving them.

  “What do we do now?” she asked once they were alone again.

  “I’m taking you to your place to check on Sigmund and get whatever you need, then to Becca’s for the night. She said she’d be done at the state hospital soon and would meet us at her place.”

  “And you?” She suppressed a shiver at the thought he would no longer be with her. Not t
hat she didn’t trust Becca’s capabilities, but just being near Ethan made her feel safer—at least physically. Emotional safety was a whole other issue, and one she didn’t want to explore.

  “I’ll get some rest, too.” But he kept surveying the maps.

  “Bullshit. You’re going to go down in those tunnels. By yourself. At night.”

  Her curse brought a ghost of a smile to his lips. “Did you just say ‘bullshit’?”

  She put a hand on her hip. “I did. It’s something my family says. Whenever someone is, you know, bullshitting one of us. We don’t let each other get away with it.”

  He grabbed her then and tugged her close, his warm lips hovering for just a second before she leaned into him, meeting his hesitant mouth with her eager one. She got the feeling he’d surprised himself by initiating their embrace, but he quickly recovered, deepening the kiss as he slanted his mouth to claim her. His passion, once unleashed, built in urgency and demanded a response, and she didn’t hesitate to give him one. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, digging in and not letting him retreat.

  This was what she’d wanted for the past two days, and it was worth the wait.

  Delicious sensations swarmed over her as he groaned and wrapped his arms even tighter around her. She lost herself in the moment. In the heat. Oh God, the heat. And she’d thought the room was hot. This was downright combustible.

  After a long moment, his lips left hers with obvious reluctance, but he didn’t move far. His breath fanned her burning cheeks. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  She pulled out of his embrace. “Just what every girl loves to hear.”

  He grimaced. “Shit. That didn’t come out right.” He caught her back to him when she tried to step away. “I just meant, with everything you’ve been through this week, now’s not the time to…”

  She said the first thing that came to mind. “Combust.”

  His smile was back. “Yeah,” he agreed softly. With a brush of his thumb over her lips, he pulled away and started collecting the maps, rolling them up again. He was clearly avoiding further discussion, but she wouldn’t let him back away.

  “So why did you?”

  He paused in his actions, but didn’t meet her gaze. “Kiss you? Because I had to. You’re so damn sweet.” He heaved out a breath. “Nobody except my mother has worried about my welfare in a long time. It’s…seductive.”

  She snorted. “You’re comparing me to your mother? At a time like this?” Her surprise erupted into laughter and she pushed her fingers to her mouth as he scowled at her.

  “I meant…” He looked so flustered that she quickly sobered.

  “I know what you meant. And I’m sorry I laughed.”

  “I’m not very good at this.”

  “Kissing?” She gaped. “You’re kidding, right? Because that was incredible.”

  He gave a lopsided grin. “Yeah, it was. But what I meant is…” He blew out a breath. He was clearly struggling to find the right words to describe his feelings. And that was the sweetest, most touching thing she’d ever seen from a man. “I’m not very good at letting my guard down.”

  But if he could be vulnerable with her, wasn’t that the ultimate sign of trust? And that endeared him to her all the more. “You can trust me with your feelings.”

  “But that’s just it. I don’t want you to care about me.”

  She ached to reach out to him, to touch him, to make him turn and look at her. But he was throwing up caution signals everywhere, so she held still.

  “And when this is over,” she said, “if I get through this, then what?”

  His jaw hardened. “There is no ‘if’ about this. You will be safe. That’s my priority. You’re my priority.”

  “Well, now that is what a girl likes to hear. But I don’t want to hear you’re going down into those tunnels alone. Fearmonger seems to be everywhere.”

  “If it’ll get you to Becca’s for some rest, I’ll call in another agent to go with me. I promise to wait for them to arrive before I go in.”

  She could see the idea didn’t please him.

  “And, of course, I can call Noah and Maria to come over, if they’re not too busy.”

  “At—” she glanced at the clock on the wall, “—ten o’clock at night?”

  “This case is everyone’s priority.”

  “Man, oh, man,” Noah muttered, peering into the darkness of the tunnel opening Ethan had selected as a starting point. “We need some megawatt flashlights.”

  That and a semiautomatic weapon might make Ethan feel less creepy about the black void that gaped before them. At least Maggie had agreed to let him drop her off at Becca’s, so she was safely away from whatever he’d find in here. And his gut told him he would find something. Besides, whenever Maggie was around, his attention was inevitably on her.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her. Even now, his mind was on her sunflower scent and the softness of her lips under his as he’d taken what he’d wanted for days now. It had taken some serious refocusing to get his attention off the searing heat of that kiss.

  While he’d waited, as promised, for Noah to arrive as backup, Ethan had pored over the tunnel maps again, asking Officer Lewis for recommendations on which ones went to the building where Sharon had been murdered. A tunnel that connected the basement of a dorm to the basement of the psych building was chosen as a starting point for their search. This particular dorm was mostly empty in the summer, with only a dozen or so students staying there, a couple of floors above the entrance to the tunnel. An ideal place to blend in or sneak around.

  Lewis moved forward and handed Noah another flashlight. “I’ll wait here for you guys. This tunnel hasn’t been opened in decades. Feel free to scare away the spiders on your way through.”

  “Let’s get to work.” Ethan took a step into the tunnel. Somewhere nearby, something dripped, plopping against the cold concrete floor or one of the mossy pipes that ran down the tunnel. Cool air that could only come from underground in July whispered across his cheek like a caress.

  Noah shook his head. “This is like some bad movie. Late at night, all alone, no power—why is there no power again? Oh, right, because we’re stuck in some scary movie.”

  “No,” Ethan said, “because they can’t find the transformer until morning, when the university grounds manager gets here. I don’t want to wait that long. The first day of the second summer-school session starts in a few hours and I’d like to figure out if Fearmonger was even down here, and whether we need to round up a crime-scene team first thing in the morning, before some student decides to try to stumble through here and ruin any…” Ethan’s voice drifted off as Noah turned on his double beams of flashlights.

  “Holy mother,” Noah whispered, his tone reverent. “Looks like your guess was accurate.”

  The beams were effective, illuminating the next fifty feet or so until fading to darkness. Deep red glistened where light struck the concrete walls.

  “Shit,” Ethan muttered.

  “Yeah.” Noah moved forward so that his lights swung deeper into the tunnel. The red continued. Big. Small. Cursive. Block. The word was repeated from ceiling to floor, all the way down the tunnel, as far as they could see.

  Fear.

  “Definitely the work of Fearmonger.” Ethan kept his voice low. He doubted the guy had stuck around, but one never knew.

  Noah swung one beam toward the walls as the other lit their way down the tunnel. But they didn’t move forward. Instead, they backed out of the tunnel as Ethan dialed Damian’s number. It was close to midnight but his boss answered on the first ring. Ethan suspected the man never slept.

  Perhaps what he saw when he closed his eyes was just too much.

  “What have you got, Ethan?”

  “The killer used the tunnels.”

  “You know this for sure?” The excitement of the hunt colored Damian’s words, infusing new life.

  “The walls of the tunnel we opened are covered in blood, used to write fear, li
ke at Maggie’s place. Noah and I don’t want to go any farther and risk destroying evidence.” But gathering trace evidence in the filthy tunnel would be next to impossible, other than verifying that the blood was Sharon’s, which Ethan didn’t doubt. Or maybe they’d luck out and find a footprint. But this guy had been so careful, there was little chance that luck would be on their side.

  “Have campus security monitor the entrance,” Damian ordered. “Then go home and get some rest. I want you to have a clear head when the crime-scene team gets there in a few hours.”

  “Is Maggie safe?”

  “Becca checked in a little while ago. They’re set up at her place for the night. Sigmund’s a little restless at being uprooted from his home, but everyone’s safe.”

  The trace of humor surprised Ethan. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  Damn, he wished he could be there with her. When he’d told her the news about Deborah Frame, she’d gone pale as chalk. She’d recovered quickly, but he knew she had to be thinking about it, maybe even having nightmares about it. And he wanted to be the one to comfort her. An excuse to wrap her in his arms again? Maybe, he conceded. He was quickly losing ground in his efforts to remain objective where she was concerned.

  “Go home and get some rest.”

  “Yeah.” He’d try, but he had a feeling Maggie’s pale face would haunt him.

  He hung up and joined Noah and Officer Lewis, who looked grim. “I need someone to guard this entrance until we can process the scene. And if you have the manpower—”

  “I’ll get it,” Lewis said, his jaw set.

  “Good. Have your people examine the other tunnel entrances for possible points of entry, but they can’t go in. Make sure the access points are locked and secure. I don’t know if this guy’s used the other tunnels, and we don’t want any students wandering into them. Who knows if he might be hiding out in one.”

  Chapter Ten

  As Maggie concluded her eight o’clock class the next morning, she wiped the brand new whiteboard clean. They’d replaced the old one. She didn’t think she’d have been able to write on the same surface the killer had marked with Sharon’s blood. Gone was the police tape that had sealed off the classroom. In fact, everything looked just as it should. As if a monster had never been there.