Torn - Cynthia Eden Page 0,42

bumps rose onto her flesh. “Who is this?” Her gaze darted around the hallway. Wade was up ahead, already in the captain’s office. Dace was with him. She took a tentative step forward.

“I’m the man who knows . . . all your secrets.”

Her goose bumps were getting worse. “I doubt that.”

He laughed. “Death can be so cruel, can’t it? Taking away beauty. Leaving only . . . bones in its place.”

Now she wasn’t creeping down that hallway. She was full-­out running toward the captain’s office. Wade saw her coming and surged forward, frowning.

With her eyes wide and—­no doubt—­desperate, she pointed to the phone. Him. Victoria mouthed her fear. Her certainty. It’s him.

Wade’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, the captain pushed to his feet. “What’s going on?”

A killer. I think the killer just called me.

“Did you study her bones?” that rasping voice wanted to know. “Did you see the marks I left on her?”

Oh, Jesus. He’d just confirmed her fears. She was talking to the man who’d killed Kennedy Lane. How has he gotten my number? Her private line. “I saw the marks. All fifty-­seven of them.”

That laughter came again. “Is that all? For some reason . . . I thought I’d left more.”

“We need to find out who the hell just called her,” Wade said, his voice a lethal whisper. “Now.”

Victoria stumbled forward. With her free hand she grabbed a piece of paper from the captain’s desk and scribbled down the number that she’d seen on the screen moments before. Then beneath that number she wrote: It’s him.

Dace raced out of the room. She knew that he could contact the cell phone company and get a location on that phone. LOST had even pulled some—­somewhat shady—­strings before and done the same type of search. Dace would need to demand real-­time information about that cell phone—­the company would need to ping the phone every minute or every few seconds so it would report back its location. So in order for Dace to do his job . . . I can’t let this guy off the phone.

“Keep him talking,” Wade said to Victoria, obviously thinking the same thing she was. His voice softer than she’d ever heard it before. “Keep him on the line.”

Well, she knew one way to engage the guy. “Why did you take Melissa?”

Silence.

And fear swamped her. Maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. She wasn’t the shrink. She didn’t know killers. Sarah did. Sarah could get into their heads. She could always say the right thing. But her—­

“I like to see . . . just what people can endure. How far they can be pushed.”

Her heartbeat was so loud she almost couldn’t hear his words as that frantic drumming filled her ears.

“Sometimes, though,” he said—­still in that rough voice, disguising his voice—­“people have to be punished. Don’t you agree?”

“I—­it’s not my place to punish.”

“Liar, liar . . .” He taunted. “I know all about you, Victoria. All those dark secrets . . . are you ready for them to tumble out?”

Fear and rage beat through her. She thought of Kennedy. The pain she’d endured. And Melissa. “You know nothing about me. Or those women or—­”

“I won’t tell. Don’t worry.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

“I like you,” he said. “More than the others. You and I . . . I think we’re the same.”

And she thought he was crazy. But Wade was staring at her, nodding encouragingly, and she was obviously supposed to keep talking to the madman on the phone.

This was out of her realm. She was going to say the wrong thing. She said the wrong thing all the time. Wade should know better. He should—­

“Want to make a trade?” the rasping voice asked her.

“What?”

“We could do it. You can come to me, and I’ll let Melissa go.”

Her lips parted. She stared straight into Wade’s eyes. “A trade,” she repeated, needing Wade to understand what was happening.

“Speaker,” Wade said, barely breathing the word. “Put it on—­”

Speaker. Right. Shit. She should have done that sooner. Her fumbling fingers flew over the phone’s screen. But there was only silence. She sucked in a deep breath and said, “You want me to trade myself for Melissa?”

At her words, Wade lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. He gave a hard, almost violent shake of his head.

But she wasn’t just supposed to let a victim die, was she? If the guy was going to let Melissa go . . .

The caller asked her, “Can I trust you, Victoria?” Still disguising his voice.