Virginia
Present Day
Trish “Mac” McAllister hated being wrong, but this time she wished she had been.
“How long has she been dead?” Mac asked Deputy Dan Wilcox who stood beside her in the wintry Virginia night.
“ ’Bout half an hour. A couple was out walking their dog when they heard her scream. They called nine-one-one right away,” the lanky deputy replied. “I called you after I saw the victim.”
She sent him a grateful smile. “I appreciate your bending the rules for me, Dan. I know you’re risking your job letting me near the crime scene like this.”
He shrugged. “I figure you know as much about this case as we do. Hell, you’re probably a whole lot more likely to solve it.”
Mac wasn’t so certain about that, but she didn’t dispute her friend’s confidence in her. Growing up together, she and Dan had tried dating in college, but came to the conclusion that they made better pals than lovers. Because of their friendship, Dan had been an anonymous source for more than a few of Mac’s news stories. If Dan’s boss ever discovered he was feeding her information, the deputy would be out of a job.
She squatted down beside the murdered woman, the scene lit by two sets of headlights aimed at the body. Mac’s stomach roiled, but she shoved aside her squeamishness. This wasn’t the first time—though she desperately prayed it would be the last—that she looked upon one of the victims of the Piano Man Killer.
Mac switched gears to reporter mode and studied the woman’s body with an impassiveness gained from six years of covering the news for the Staunton Sentinel. The profile appeared to be the same as for the previous four victims: female, between eighteen and thirty years old, pretty with light-colored hair.
Without touching anything, she pointed to a thin wire wrapped with two twists around the woman’s throat. “I’ll bet you a year’s pay that’s a piano wire.”
Dan hunkered down beside her. “I won’t take you up on that one, Mac.” He glanced at the reporter. “You gonna tell me why you were in town this evening?”
Mac shrugged. “Victims number one and number three were killed near here on this same date the last two years. I suspected the murderer would follow the same pattern. I was right.” She clenched her hands into tight fists as helpless anger thrummed through her. “If only I could’ve figured out the exact location.”
Dan laid a hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, Mac.” He stood. “I have to see what’s taking the state CSIs so long.”
Mac nodded and watched the deputy stride over to his official dark SUV, his cell phone in hand. She took a deep breath and brought her gaze back to the young woman who stared with sightless eyes up at the night sky. Drifting snowflakes feathered her eyelashes in an almost obscene caricature of undefiled beauty. Mac swallowed the bile that rose in her throat despite her attempt to convince herself she was too tough, too jaded, to let another violent death bother her.
“I’ll make the bastard pay, even if I have to follow him to hell,” she said with a husky voice.
“Talking to yourself again, McAllister?”
Mac glanced up and spotted Sheriff Lou Longley, Dan’s boss. She bristled at the county lawman’s arrogance and didn’t bother to hide her aversion to the pompous son of a bitch. He was too much like a stereotypical power-hungry sheriff, using his position to do whatever the hell he wanted and not giving a damn about anyone who stood in his way.
Pressing her palms to her jean-clad thighs, Mac pushed herself upright and met his insolent gaze. “What hole did you slither out of, Longley?”
The sheriff’s lips thinned in irritation and a ruddy flush spread across his pockmarked face. Mac savored a taste of triumph, but a glance at the dead woman erased the childish moment of victory.
“How the hell did you find out about this?” he demanded.
Mac crossed her arms and felt the backpack containing her laptop shift its weight across her shoulders. “I heard the call on my radio,” she lied smoothly. She wasn’t about to endanger Dan’s career.
Longley narrowed his eyes. “Takes longer’n fifteen minutes to get here from Staunton.”
“I was in the area.” Mac glanced down at the woman who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and a shiver slid down her spine. “I had a feeling there’d be a murder tonight.”
“Reporter’s instincts?” The sheriff’s sneer gave no doubt as to what he thought of her chosen vocation.
Fury pulsed through her, obliterating any diplomacy she may have had left. “Something called investigative procedure—you should try it sometime.”
Longley’s nostrils flared and he turned slightly, casting one side of his face in deep shadows and giving him an ominous appearance.
Damn, she’d done it again. Every time her path crossed the sheriff’s, she swore she’d hold her temper in check, and every time, she failed to do so. Of course, she couldn’t help that he was a chauvinist pig who thought women belonged barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen—three things Mac had no intention of being. Ever.
“Look,” Mac began, trying to sound conciliatory. “I studied the files of the previous four victims. Two of the women were killed five days before Christmas in this general vicinity. I came down here hoping I could catch him in the act.”
“Instead, you mess up a crime scene.” Longley glared at her. “Get back behind the line, McAllister.” She opened her mouth to defend herself and Longley took a menacing step toward her. “One word and I’ll toss your sassy ass in jail for interfering with a police investigation.”
Mac snapped her mouth shut. Though she thought Longley was an idiot, he had every right to do as he threatened. This was his jurisdiction, even though she didn’t think he could find his way out of a paper bag, much less track down a serial killer. But she couldn’t risk pissing off the lawman any more than she already had. This story was going to be her ticket to the top, a journey that would take her sailing past the man who had rejected her and her mother. National Cable News anchor Jefferson Jacoby would be forced to acknowledge that the bastard daughter he’d abandoned was a better reporter.
“Now, McAllister!” Longley’s command broke into her grim thoughts.
Dan appeared beside her and took hold of her arm. “C’mon, Mac.”
As Dan drew her away, Mac sent the sheriff a mocking smile and called over her shoulder, “Don’t forget to take pictures before you remove the body.”
“Get the hell outta here!”
Longley turned away and Mac sent him a one-finger salute. “Whatever you say, Sheriff,” she muttered with as much disgust as she could jam into the four words.
“Jeezus, Mac, think you could make him any madder?” Dan muttered under his breath.
Her temper cooled and she sighed. “I’m sorry, Dan, but your boss is a jackass.”
Dan chuckled. “Tell me something I don’t know.” They stopped at Mac’s ten-year-old Mustang. “You should get back to town.” He glanced around cautiously. “The killer could still be nearby.”
Excitement keened through her as she swept her gaze across their snowy surroundings. “I’m betting on it.”
“Hold on now, Mac. Catching the bad guys is my job.”
“You haven’t exactly been burning rubber to catch this one.”
Dan’s lips thinned. “Damn it, Mac, we’re trying. You think we like seeing women murdered in our jurisdiction?”
She laid her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. It’s just that this story means so much to me.”
“It won’t make him love you,” he said quietly.
Hurt ripped through Mac, but she kept her face free of emotion. Dan was the only one who knew about her father and what this story meant to her. “Maybe not, but it will make him stand up and notice me.”
“For all the wrong reasons. Let it go, Mac. He’s a worthless son of a bitch who doesn’t deserve a daughter like you.”
Dan’s vehement defense brought unexpected moisture to her eyes, blurring her vision. To cover her embarrassment, she looked over at the sheriff who was glaring at her and Dan. “If looks could kill, you and I would be dog meat. You’d best join your boss before he destroys all the evidence.”
“Go home, Mac,” Dan said sternly.
“I betcha Beth doesn’t put up with being ordered around,” Mac said, referring to Dan’s petite, strong-willed, and very pregnant wife.
He merely shook his head, then walked over to the sheriff.
Mac leaned against her car to watch Dan keep his inept boss from messing up the crime scene. Longley glanced up and she met his censuring gaze. Renewed anger shot through her. She hated arrogant men who thought the world revolved around them.
A memory blindsided her as she recalled waking up one night to hear her mother crying in their tiny apartment. Five-year-old Mac had walked into the living room where her mother sat on the sagging sofa with tears coursing down her cheeks. Through the cheap stereo speakers, a man was crooning something about trying to get some stupid feeling again. Mac didn’t think her mother even knew she was crying until Mac asked her what was wrong.
Over twenty years later, Mac could still hear her mother’s answer as clear as if it were only yesterday. “Never give a man your heart, honey. He’ll only break it and leave you with nothing but a hole in your chest that can never be fixed.”
Mac closed her eyes tightly to hold the unwelcome tears at bay. Her father had broken her mother’s heart, and Mary McAllister’s unrequited love for him had eventually destroyed her.
Dan was wrong. Mac couldn’t let it go. Once she got her story on the Piano Man Killer, she’d force her father to acknowledge her publicly as the daughter he’d denied.
Mac opened her eyes and raised her head, taking a deep breath of the wintry air. No man’s ever going to steal my heart, Mom, she vowed silently.
Snow swirled around Mac as she scanned the surrounding darkness. A movement caught her eye and she focused on an area about fifty feet away. A few moments later, she was rewarded with another fleeting glimpse of a man pushing through the brush.
“Dan, over there,” she hollered as the wind snatched her words away. She glanced back at the two lawmen who remained near the body. “Dan!”
Without looking to see if he’d heard her this time, Mac dashed into the brush. Her backpack thumped between her shoulder blades; thorns tore at her ski jacket and one caught her cheek. She swore but continued on, using her arms and hands to take the brunt of the bramble’s attack.
Was this the killer? Or a witness? Either way, Mac was determined to catch him. What she would do when she caught up with him was something she didn’t have time to contemplate. She only knew this man had the answers. She knew it deep in her gut.
Her left foot struck something and she stumbled to her knees, her palms slapping hard on rough wood. It took her only a moment to realize she’d tripped on a set of train tracks. She shoved herself to her feet, ignoring the sting in her hands and knees, and searched frantically for the man she’d been chasing. She spotted him running between the steel rails up the old spur, and forced her bruised body to race after him.
The increasing deluge of icy snowflakes buffeted her cheeks. The incline grew steeper, and Mac panted, her breath coming in wispy white clouds. She blinked often to keep her quarry in sight. A stitch caught in her side and she pressed her palm against it.
Suddenly, the man stopped and she stumbled to a halt about ten feet from him. Unable to speak as she gasped for air, Mac studied him closely through the falling snow as he did the same to her. Although he wore a heavy coat, she could tell he was average height and medium build, probably in his late twenties.
Brown hair covered his head and his pale face held no extraordinary features.
Had this nondescript man murdered five women?
Her gaze lifted and she found herself staring into penetrating eyes that reminded her of a snake hypnotizing its victim. Dread shot through her veins. Why hadn’t she made certain Dan had heard her call?
Real bright, McAllister. This’ll teach you to look before you leap.
Yeah, if I survive.
“What’re you . . . d-doing here?” Mac demanded in between breaths, hoping sheer bravado would make up for her temporary lack of sense.
He remained silent, his body taut, like a violin string. Or a piano wire.
She shivered, uncertain if it was from the weather or the fear that ballooned within her, growing until it felt as if the Goodyear blimp had taken up residence in her chest. “Did you kill those women?” she blurted.
Jeezus, McAllister, you keep going like this and they’ll find a wire around your neck, too, Mac’s reality check taunted.
Something flickered in the man’s hollow eyes and he shook his head slowly. “Nobody, nowhere, no when can catch me.”
The man was definitely firing on too few cylinders. “What’re you talking about?” she demanded.
He lifted his wrist, glanced at the cheap watch and abruptly cackled. “Midnight. Congratulations. You’ve come the closest.”
He spun around and leaped forward, vanishing like a curl of smoke in fog. Mac blinked, then searched for a sign of him. She ran forward to the place where he’d seemed to disappear. Nothing.
A shiver slid down her spine. How could someone vanish into thin air?
The snow whipped around her in ever-increasing fury, and she turned her back to the northwest gale. She had to find shelter until the storm eased and she could make her way back down the steep slope. The unused rail spur would take her up to The Chesterfield, a former resort long since abandoned. At least its crumbling walls would give her a modicum of protection from the storm.
Ten minutes later, Mac, with her teeth chattering, stumbled into the dark ruins. Much of the building’s roof was missing, but a corner still remained and Mac hurried over to the area beneath it. She dropped to the debris-covered floor and leaned back against the wall, gulping in deep drafts of air as she wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees.
A few snowflakes drifted and eddied around her, but at least she was out of the main force of the blizzard. As her heart settled down to a less-frenzied beat, she reached into her pack to retrieve her cell phone. It wasn’t there. Damn. She had forgotten it in her car.
She pulled a flashlight from the backpack and sent the bright beam dancing around her refuge. Layers of dust and bits of plaster littered the interior, along with broken pieces of chairs and tables. Scraps of old newspapers fluttered with the arctic breeze that swept in through the generous gaps in the walls. There was no sign of the man she’d chased, and she breathed a sigh that was both relieved and disappointed.
The memory of him disappearing before her eyes brought a new shiver, this one of fearful foreboding. Nobody could simply disappear like that, unless you believed the gossip rags at the grocery checkout. His magic act had to be merely a product of her exhaustion.
Convinced by her logical explanation, Mac glanced around the room and noticed a chest a few feet away on the floor. She frowned. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d plopped down. It had been there, hadn’t it?
“First, the suspect disappears, then a trunk appears. Pretty soon, you’ll be seeing dragons and fairies,” she muttered to herself.
She sighed and shivered anew. Moving around might help her keep warm. The trunk drew her nearer. She ran her palm across the surface, which was surprisingly free of dust and animal droppings. Had someone left it here recently?
With light fingers, she traced the faint indentations of carved letters. She aimed her flashlight at them. “EMS,” she murmured to herself. A company or a person?
Kneeling in front of the chest, she lifted the lid cautiously as her breath roared in her ears. When nothing jumped out at her, she smiled wryly. “Where’s a genie when you need one?”
She played her flashlight across the contents, which appeared to be antique items in mint condition. “What the hell?” she muttered.
On top of the pile lay a dueling pistol, gleaming in the single light beam. A brass nameplate was next to it, and a bright gold chain wrapped around one point of a shiny sheriff’s badge. She touched each item reverently, sensing they were significant, but to whom?
At the bottom of the chest rested the only object that looked as if it belonged in this time-forgotten hotel: a rusty pair of handcuffs that lay in two pieces. There were some letters etched on one side of them, barely detectable beneath the layers of rust—EJY. Mac reached for the two cuffs and wrapped her fingers around the corroded metal.
A sense of weightlessness engulfed her, sending a wave of nausea through her. Suddenly caught in a black whirlpool, she was paralyzed, unable to move her limbs. Panic raced through her and she welcomed the silence that enfolded her as consciousness abandoned her to the whims of insanity.