Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

case at the time. Got this file.” He tapped it with a finger.

      “Find out anything?”

      “The Rock Springs strangler killed a bunch of women, mostly prostitutes. Left their bodies in fields. Strangled ’em by hand, but didn’t mark ’em up. Then he stopped. Cops on the case think he was killed or incarcerated for some other crime or just went to ground. Hard to know.”

      “Doesn’t really fit the m.o. for Sheila Dempsey or Emmy Decatur,” September said.

      Weasel sighed. “That’s what I thought, too. I’ll ask D’Annibal what it’s all about when I give him the file.”

      His desk phone rang and he frowned at it. “Now, who’d be callin’ my direct line?”

      He snatched up the receiver, said, “Detective Pelligree,” listened for a moment, then said in a surly voice, “No comment,” and slammed down the phone. “Jackals,” he muttered. “Don’t ever let ’em get you on camera.”

      “I take it that was the press.”

      “Bastards,” he muttered harshly.

      Gretchen came into the squad room at that moment, looking pissed herself. “The girlfriend of Martin’s at the front. For once Urlacher’s fuckin’ protocol is working. She’s asking for you.”

      “Me?” September asked.

      “Yeah. Jesus. Will this day never end? I see George isn’t here.” She threw a dark glance toward his desk.

      “I’ll go see what Jo wants,” September said. She realized Gretchen’s surliness was a cover-up for her own emotions. Meeting Emmy Decatur’s parents at the morgue and having them definitely identify the victim as their daughter had been a low point. Mrs. Decatur just wept into her hands and Emmy’s father kept saying, “Emmy was such a beautiful girl. Such a beautiful girl. So, beautiful . . .”

      Gretchen wandered over to Wes’s desk as September started out and asked him, “What do you think of the Dempsey and Decatur killings? Different than Zuma. More intimate.”

      “They’re just different flavors of the same sickness,” Weasel said. “They feel like revenge. Payback.”

      “Y’think?” Gretchen asked, interested.

      “The Zuma guy goes in all balls out. Blows ’em all away. He’s rampant nuts. Somethin’ set him off and maybe he’s coverin’ his ass or maybe he’s just all-out crazy and pissed off. But this one . . .” September looked back to see him frown down at the photos on his desk. “This one’s smaller, more intimate. He’s cagey about it. At least so far. He’s sendin’ a message but it’s obscure and personal and he’s not sure yet how far he’ll go. He’s testin’ the waters.”

      September walked to the front where Jo Cardwick was pacing the floor of the reception area. Upon seeing her, the girl just collapsed into September’s arms and bawled like a baby. Under Guy Urlacher’s worried eye, she led her to a chair and simply let her cry, remembering as she did that Jo said Trask had seen some old pictures of people at Olivia Dugan’s apartment just before the whole Zuma massacre, and that Olivia had been sorta crazy about them.

      What did that mean? Who was in the photos?

      I can’t think. My head hurts. I had to kill her. I couldn’t wait. I had to take her out to the fields and dispose of the body. My fingers tremble from the feel of those soft bones at the base of her throat and I harden just remembering. But she knew too much. She knew my plans for Olivia.

      I’ve lost Olivia . . . lost her . . .

      But I can find her again.

      Olivia . . . Olivia . . . Lllliiiivvvv . . .

      I close my eyes and stroke myself, feeling the heat.

      I imagine her cool, white throat in my hands.

      I scream her name as I climax. “Lllliiivvvv!”

      You are mine.

      You can’t realize the truth. I have to stop you.

      Stop you.

      Stop you . . .

      Chapter 17

      They drove through the town of Rock Springs around four o’clock, the August sun hot on lawns of bleached grass and two-lane asphalt roads shimmering with heat, giving the illusion they were slick with water. The original clapboard buildings from the late 1800s had been mowed down and replaced along the edge of the small stream that ran behind the buildings. Garrett Hotel had been rebuilt in its original style though the Garretts were long gone and the Danners, the other family so prominent when the town was first getting started, had all but moved away, too.

      Liv knew of the local history from placards around parks and street names and varying school pageants that had celebrated the town and its inception. Now she looked out the Jeep’s window, her chest constricted. She hadn’t been back since she was sent to Hathaway House. Albert and Lorinda had moved while she was a patient, and she’d never seen fit to return.

      But Patsy and Barkley Owens still lived here. Not all that far from the small house where Deborah Dugan had supposedly taken her own life.

      They passed the east end of the town and Liv got a glimpse of Fool’s Falls as it rushed in a froth down a cliff-face into the stream that ran behind the town and meandered on its way to the city of Malone.

      It was strange to be here. She felt disembodied. Moving through a place she’d only lived in a dream.

      Auggie pulled up to a curb near Patsy and Barkley Owen’s address. “You ready?” he asked as he switched off the engine.

      “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

      Liv had placed a call to Patsy, saying she’d been given her address by Everett LeBlanc and that she was Deborah Dugan’s daughter. Patsy had sucked in a short gasp of breath, waited five seconds, then choked out an invitation to come by.

      So, here they were.

      She stepped out of the car and shaded her eyes. There weren’t many trees on this street, but from the looks of the roots and stumps, there once had been. Her T-shirt was sticking to her back and she was glad it was dark blue, so maybe her sweating was less noticeable to others.

      Auggie’s T-shirt, dark gray, was also sticking to him. It was growing ever hotter as the day moved on.

      Liv searched her feelings and realized that dread was the overriding one. Meeting Everett had taken a lot of energy and now with Patsy, she just felt zapped. Maybe it was an improvement over paranoia and fear, although those emotions were just below the surface along with an abundance of sexual desire. She was awash in emotions after trying for years to forcefully shut them down.

      The walkway to the front porch was tidy, the dry grass edged, clipped short, and sporting more brown patches than green. The Owens weren’t wasting water, except maybe on the two window boxes of petunias that flanked the front door and looked a little worse for wear from the beating sun.

      Auggie rang the bell and stepped back and a few minutes later a trim, middle-aged woman with brown hair and green eyes opened the door. The cautious, almost bruised look around her eyes was hauntingly like Liv’s own expression; one she’d seen many times in the mirror. Liv looked at Patsy and she stared right back, and only when Auggie said, “May we come in,” did she seem to come to herself and step aside.

      “You’re . . . ?” she asked Auggie.

      “Olivia’s friend,” was his terse reply.

      “Barkley—my husband—is . . . um . . . coming home from work. He does maintenance at the golf course in Malone and usually sticks around on Sunday in case something goes wrong, but . . . he thought I might need him . . .”

      Liv drew a deep breath and said, “I’m really sorry to just burst in on you.” Then she handed