Raven’s eyes whipped around in futile search of the person who’d placed the flowers there. Who’d moved them from the cemetery to her house. Who knew where she lived.
Who? That’s not a question without an answer, said her subconscious. Georges Hanes.
Her vision swam, and so did her head.
Any and all thoughts of separating herself from Lucien’s company flew away. Instead of being a source of stress, he was suddenly the only thing keeping her sane. Just like he had been, three years ago.
“Lucien. Those flowers...” Her throat closed, and she couldn’t manage anything else.
His hand came out to clasp hers, and even though the reassuring squeeze was brief, just the simple touch eased the blockage in her airway.
“I see them,” he said.
“What do we do?”
“We stay calm. We pull over just up ahead, and we wait for the four officers I called in to get here. It should be anytime now.”
For a second, his words distracted her. “Four officers?”
“No risks, Raven.” His tone was grim. “I’m not willing to let Hanes have even a ghost of a chance of getting through our defenses. If I’m not behind the lines, then I want a visible wall.”
In spite of the way she told herself not to, she warmed at little at his protectiveness. She also started to point out that he was one man, and he’d done the job himself, but two police cruisers rounded the block just then, stilling her words. Lucien waved to them from behind the wheel, and one pulled over while the other drove up alongside his SUV. The officer in the driver’s seat rolled down her window, and Lucien did the same.
“Afternoon, Detective,” said the woman. “Everything okay?”
“Not exactly,” Lucien replied. “It’s Constable Davies, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, Constable Davies, there’s been a slight change of plans.”
Raven listened as he first explained about the flowers, then gave instructions on approaching the house. She handed over the keys and recited the alarm code when asked, but guilt dug at her when she realized he was passing off what should’ve been his job. He was the senior officer. The person with the most inside knowledge about the case. Yet he was stuck in the car acting as a glorified babysitter. But she couldn’t make herself protest as the other three uniformed officers got out and joined Davies so they could do their thing. She didn’t open her mouth as he called his boss and reiterated the story, then posited her theory about the note written in blood. It was selfish, but she wanted Lucien by her side.
“Doing okay over there?” he asked as he hung up the phone.
Raven forced a nod and fixed her gaze out the window, watching as the police made their way up her front walk. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t worry about them,” he said, clearly misreading the source of her anxiety. “If this is Hanes, I don’t think he’d deliberately put up a warning, then sit in your house waiting for you to waltz in.”
“No, I guess not.” She sighed without any real relief. “He likes that game of his too much.”
Lucien’s hand came back to hers again, and this time it stayed. “I’m not going to give him any time to enjoy it.”
Raven didn’t say anything back. In spite of the conviction behind his statement, she was desperately afraid that he was wrong. She had a dozen arguments. But she worried that if she voiced them, he might let her go. And she wanted to hold on to him as long as possible. Thankfully, his warm fingers remained clasped around hers for the entire time it took the other police officers to conduct their search. She didn’t even care that his touch was just a platonic offer of comfort. For the moment, she’d take what she could get.
But when the female officer—Constable Davies—appeared at her front door and gave an all-clear sign before she started their way, and Lucien finally slipped his hand free, Raven felt the separation acutely. And belatedly, she realized she’d made a mistake. She didn’t want someone else as her bodyguard. At all.
She turned to him, her face warm, and blurted, “Please don’t leave.”
He blinked like he had no idea what she was talking about. “Leave?”
“Me.” Her cheeks burned even more. “Stay until Hanes is caught again. Please.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere.” He said it almost fervently, and then he startled her by reaching out to touch her heated skin with the back of his hand.
Raven was too stunned by the near caress to react quickly. It wasn’t that Lucien never extended sympathy or kindness. In fact, he always did. But before she could recover from the surprise, Constable Davies was tapping on the driver’s-side window, and Lucien was redirecting his attention to rolling it down.
“Sir,” greeted the uniformed woman.
“Constable,” said Lucien. “What’s the report?”
“The house appears undisturbed. All points of entry were sealed, the alarm intact. No footprints anywhere along the perimeter, and even if the perp somehow ghosted inside, nothing looks to have been overtly tampered with.” She paused, and her eyes just barely flicked to Raven before settling back on Lucien. “Detective?”
“You can say whatever needs to be said in front of Ms. Elliot,” he replied.
Davies still seemed hesitant. “It truly appears that whoever left those flowers didn’t come inside.”
“But?” Lucien prodded.
“Just a small thing.” The other woman looked toward Raven. “There’s a frosted window around the back on the second floor. You leave that open a crack, Ms. Elliot?”
Raven nodded. “My en suite. Yes, I usually leave it open. Why?”
“Ever leave something hanging from the frame?” Davies wanted to know.
Raven frowned. “No.”
Lucien cut in. “Whatever it is, Constable, spit it out.”
“My partner, Constable Whitmore saw something sparkling up there when we were examining the perimeter. Didn’t think much of it, but when we went inside, it caught my eye, too. Found a tiny piece of gold taped to a piece of fishing line, and I thought...” Davies trailed off.
But she didn’t have to finish. Raven knew exactly what had gone through the other woman’s mind.
“You thought of me,” she said, meeting the policewoman’s eyes.
Davies nodded, her expression apologetic. “I was a rookie when the Kitsilano Killer case broke. Came through training with the guy who ticketed Hanes on the jaywalking, actually. And I followed the whole thing closely. So I know that the gold mine and the fishing line fit.”
Raven fought to keep from closing her eyes. Her body wanted—instinctively—to help her slam a mental wall into place. To keep the memory at bay. But she knew that shutting down wouldn’t do them any good at the current moment. She made herself look at Lucien, who was studying her with an undisguisedly concerned expression on his face.
“If there was any doubt that this was Hanes, I think it’s gone now,” she stated, pleased when her voice came out strong.
“I don’t disagree,” Lucien replied. “And I think you won’t disagree that staying at your house is no longer an option?”
Raven shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“Good.” Lucien turned back to Constable Davies. “All right. Change of the already-changed plans. Why don’t you and your partner follow us to the Silver Spoon Café, keep us company from a distance? I think Ms. Elliot and I could use a break. Have the other two officers call in Forensics to process the scene. I’ll fill the sergeant in, and we’ll go from there.”
“Yes, sir,” the woman agreed, then turned sharply and strode back toward the house.
Lucien rolled up the window again, then swung his attention to Raven, his smile softening his words. “You wanna argue about any of that?”
She couldn’t make herself smile back. “No.”
He nodded brusquely, then dragged out his phone and placed the promised call to his boss. Raven only half listened to the exchange, and only half noticed when Lucien announced that they were going to get moving. Her mind busy slipping to the past. To the eight days, three hours, and twenty-three minutes she’d been trapped in the bottom of an old mine shift. Bound tightly with fishing line. At Georges Hanes’s mercy. But the worst part hadn’t been the dark and the damp and the terror of not knowing exactly where she was. The worst part had been knowing what was about to happen.
The three previous sets of kidnappings and murders had been leaked to the press and widely publicized. It would’ve been impossible to live in the surrounding area and not be aware. So when Raven’s parents were taken, the police hadn’t messed around. They’d brought Raven and her brother in and warned them that they suspected it was the serial killer’s work. Raven had accepted a 24/7 guard, but Ryan had balked. Become angry. Refused to face reality. Insisted it was all a mistake. Raven had tried to make him see reason. In fact, she’d been on her way home from pleading with him when she was suddenly grabbed from behind, a cloth shoved over her mouth, and then darkness.
She shivered with the terrible memory of it all.
She’d known she was going to die. Without a doubt. Not a single other victim had survived.
But then came Lucien.
His warm hands, reaching for her in the dark. His deep voice, murmuring assurances that she’d be all right. And finally, his solid body, holding her close and pulling her out.
Personal feelings aside, Raven really didn’t need to look any further than that recollection to know why she needed him close again now. He’d been able to save her from Hanes the first time around because he’d managed to decode the clue Hanes had left. Lucien was actually the only one who’d successfully waded through one of the convoluted messages. Which made him the best hope to be able to do it again now. And it was the difference between living and dying. For her. But also for Jim and Juanita Rickson, who were currently in Hanes’s grasp.
Jim and Juanita.
Raven realized she’d been so wrapped up in her own fears that she’d nearly forgotten that the older couple were in far more pressing danger. Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, and the message that had been left behind on the wall in the caretaker’s office popped to the front of her mind.
A life is owed to me. So I’ll take one every day until you give me yours.
Then a horrible thought occurred to Raven, and her eyes—which she hadn’t even realized she’d closed—flew open.
“Lucien,” she said. “What if he did mean it literally?”
“What?”
“What if Hanes literally meant that he’d take a life every day?”
And Lucien’s silence told her that the idea had already been on the big man’s mind.
Lucien racked his brain for some soothing words that wouldn’t sound like a lie. Or like a put-off. Since the moment Raven suggested that the words were a new kind of clue, taking the place of Georges Hanes’s standard notes, he’d had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. In a way he knew was uncharacteristic, he’d avoided digging in to figure out what it was his gut was screaming about. Raven’s fear-filled question slammed it home.
Maybe Hanes did mean it literally. The clue written in blood was a classic escalation. The man could have spent the last three years plotting newer and sicker things. And who knew how far he’d go?
He’d confessed his crimes, but his motivations had never been truly clear. The man targeted families, but little was known about his own. The psych evals had concluded that his victims were chosen because of family-related trauma, but if it was true, Hanes had never admitted it. Background checks and research had led nowhere. His backstory was concluded to be a lie, and though he had a steady stream of short-term employment and had traceable living arrangements—late rent and irritated landlords galore—no one laid claim to him as friend or relative. There was an assumption that he’d either masterfully stolen an identity at a young age or created one with great skill. Either way, it was impenetrable. A frustrating wall between law enforcement and Hanes himself.
None of that matters right now, Lucien thought, mentally gritting his teeth.
What did matter was that if Hanes wasn’t providing a clue—if he was just stating his plan—then it wouldn’t take Raven long to figure out how she could stop a rampage.
Like she’d been following his silent train of thought, she spoke up just as Lucien pulled the vehicle to a stop in the Silver Spoon Café parking lot.
“If I turn myself over to him,” she said softly, “he’ll let them go.”
Lucien cut the engine, swung her way and uttered a one-word reply. “No.”
His sharp tone made her flinch, and he felt bad about it, but no way was he going to let her think he’d even consider the option. Without waiting for a protest, he slammed his finger to his seat belt. Then he hit hers for good measure, too. He ignored her audible inhale, pushed his door open, then hopped out and strode to her side of the SUV. Her blue eyes were wide, but he ignored that, as well. When he took her elbow to help her out, he was careful not to do it roughly, but he didn’t give her a chance to pull back, either.
“Lucien...” she said as her feet hit the ground.
“No,” he repeated.
He guided her up to the little restaurant, dropped her elbow long enough to open the door for her, then took a hold of her again. He led her to a corner table, sat down across from her and met her eyes. And for good measure, said it once more.
“No.”
She made an impossible-to-describe face. One part amused. One part frustrated. One part worried. And a final part that looked too much like determination.
“You didn’t let me say anything,” she told him.
“Does the anything you’d like to say involve trading your life for someone else’s?” he countered.
“I can’t let Hanes kill people.”
“I can’t let Hanes kill you.”
She winced. “My life doesn’t outweigh theirs.”
Lucien fought a growl and reached across the table to take her hands in his. “And your life isn’t something to throw away, either.”
“I’m not throwing it away.”
“Trading it and throwing at away are the same thing.”
Her mouth opened like she was going to argue, but the server’s greeting cut her off. “Afternoon, folks. I’m Lauren. Our lunch special today is grilled cheese and tomato soup, but can I start you off with some coffee or some water?”
Lucien was grateful for the momentary distraction from their discussion. He turned a smile toward their very fresh-faced server and quickly ordered a coffee while Raven went with her usual tea. For about ninety seconds, things seemed normal. It didn’t last.
Lauren-the-server snapped her notebook shut, smiled back at Lucien, revealing a row of braces, and said, “Thanks very much. I’ll bring you and your wife your beverages in just a minute.”
Raven was quick to correct her. “We’re not married.”
“Oh!” said the server, looking from their still-clasped hands to their faces with a genuinely surprised expression, and then she groaned. “I’m so sorry. My boss, Joanna, keeps telling me I need to be more careful when I’m talking to customers. But when I walked up, you just sounded like...you know what? Never mind. I’ll get your drinks for you. On the house.”
When she turned and scurried away, Raven extricated her fingers from his, and said, “We can’t do this. We can’t just sit here and eat soup and let people think we’re a couple while we pretend that an easier way will come up.”
“You know me better than that,” Lucien replied.
“Do I?” She shook her head. “It’s been three years. A lot can change in that amount of time. A lot has changed. I went to school and I got a new job. You turned down a promotion, which I think the ‘you’ I knew wouldn’t have done. There’s my cat. Who I’m going to need to ask my neighbor to feed, by the way. And maybe you got a pet, too. Maybe you got married. You could literally have had three kids in that space of time.”
The more she said, the shakier her voice got, and Lucien realized she was close to the edge. Her self-sacrifice was sheer bravery, but under that, she was terrified. And trying not to show it.
“Raven, listen to me,” he said. “I know you feel like you’re responsible for Jim and Juanita being taken, but what Hanes does or doesn’t do isn’t under your control. Think about this for a second. You were alone at the cemetery. He could’ve tried to take you then. He left the flowers and took Jim Rickson instead.”
“Because of his game.”
“But that’s not his game, is it? He doesn’t bargain. He leaves bread crumbs.”
Raven closed her eyes, exhaled heavily, then opened them again and met his gaze. “Can you tell me—in all honesty—that you don’t think there’s a chance that Hanes is just trying to finish the job?”
“I can tell you that it doesn’t fit with his profile. He likes to win, but he wouldn’t do what he would see as cheating in order to do it.”
“And you think he’d see this as cheating?”
“It couldn’t be anything else. You won his game. He wouldn’t just waltz in and change that.”
“Unless he changed the rules.”
“He might do that, Raven,” he admitted. “But I can say with a-hundred-percent certainty that it wouldn’t be like this.”
Her body sagged. “Then how do I help Jim and Juanita?”
He paused in answering as their server dropped off their drinks and took their order. Her eyes only lingered on their hands—which, Lucien noted, had become unconsciously tangled together—before she slipped away again. It was a good moment to try to redirect the conversation. Or to point out that it wasn’t Raven’s job to help the middle-aged couple. Lucien opted for something else.
“You help them by helping me,” he said instead.
“Helping you?”
“Come back to the safe house with me. I’ll get the sergeant to send over whatever he can from the Kitsilano Killer file. We’ll put it together with what you know about the Ricksons, and we’ll try to work out what Hanes’s message means.”
“So you actually do think it’s a clue like the ones from last time.”
“I do. Let me tell you what makes me so sure that he’d stick to his own pattern.”
She leaned forward a little, and he was relieved to see her expression brighten with hope as he explained what his connection—a longtime guard at the prison—had told him about the killer. The other man was regimented in his day-to-day routine. Compulsive, they called him. The guard even made a joke about Hanes Standard Time until Lucien shut him down with a glare. The only time he ever made any kind of waves when was he was forced to go outside the routine. Fire drills. New programs or new staff. It actually made him an ideal inmate. If there could really be such a thing.
Their soup arrived, and they paused their conversation to let Lauren set it down. Lucien picked up the thread again as soon as she was gone.
“Hanes has only deviated from his regime twice,” he said. “Once, when he had been battling pneumonia. And again now, with his escape. That’s it.”
“But why now?” Raven asked.
“I’m not an expert on psychoses or anything, but based on my experience of compulsive criminals, my theory is that something—some change—triggered him to run. And if I were going to stretch that... I’d say he probably wants to fix whatever that change was.” Lucien paused and set down his spoon as his mind leaped forward, connecting dots.
“What?” prodded Raven, picking up on the sudden change.
He shoved back his chair. “C’mon. I’ve got an idea. We’re going to need to write it down, and I think we should do it in private.”