Scream For Me: A Novel of the Night Hunter (For Me #3)(7)
Author: Cynthia Eden

His past was his own. Bloody, dark. Twisted.

“This is a quiet area,” James continued. “We have drunks like that jerk Phillip Long, but we don’t have crimes like this.”

Yes, you do.

“The last time I saw you,” James said, glancing up at him, “you were here asking me for help.”

Begging, more like. He’d been so desperate, so wild to find his sister or any clue that would tell him where she had gone.

At first, he’d wondered if his family would get a ransom call. They were wealthy, and they could pay anything a kidnapper wanted for Maria’s safe return.

No demand was ever made.

There was just…nothing.

“Now I’m the one who needs your help.” James’s voice roughened. “You hunt guys like this. I’ve followed stories about you, seen the headlines in the papers.”

He didn’t seek out those headlines. He just tried to help where he could.

“You got here so fast. Maybe we can find her alive. Whatever you need, whatever I can do, tell me.” The captain’s sigh was ragged. “And I’ll do it.”

A light knock sounded at the door.

Kyle glanced over and saw Cadence standing on the other side of the glass. She hesitated a moment after her knock, then swung open the door.

“Am I interrupting?” Cadence asked carefully.

Kyle shook his head. He’d have to tell her everything soon enough, but going through the hell of his past wasn’t his favorite activity.

“It’s time for the interviews, Kyle.” She gave a little inclination of her head toward the captain. “I’m going to need to interview you, too, Anniston.”

James flushed, but gave a grim nod. After what they’d heard on the machine, there would be no getting around the interviews.

Or accusations.

In small towns like this, it was easy for people to turn on each other. Kyle had sure seen it before. Fear was the worst kind of virus, ravaging everyone in its path.

“I’ll wait outside,” James said as he edged past Cadence. “Ma’am.”

She didn’t speak until the door closed behind the captain. Then she pushed back her shoulders and lifted one eyebrow as she faced Kyle. “We could have a really big problem in this town.”

Yes.

“The sooner we figure out who was on that road with Lily Adams, the better.”

Tell her.

“I called Dani at Quantico.” Danielle Burton was Cadence’s go-to girl when it came to information retrieval. “I asked her to pull all the missing-persons cases in the area for the last five years. This could be a one-shot crime, but just in case…”

Five years wasn’t gonna cut it. “She might want to go back further.”

Cadence frowned.

He headed toward her.

“Just how far?” Cadence asked as her head cocked so she could study him better. “Are we talking, say…fifteen years? That was when your sister vanished, right?”

Every muscle in his body seemed to clock down. It looked as if he was about to see just how far Cadence had dug into his life. Had she discovered his desperate searches, his—

“This isn’t your sister’s case.” Sympathy was there, shining in her eyes. “Is that the real reason you brought us here? Because it was another disappearance, in the same town—”

“In the same way. With a car, abandoned, and a girl gone in the dead of the night,” he growled as his hands fisted.

Get your control. Hold on to it.

Kyle’s head bowed as he sucked in a sharp breath.

Then he felt a touch on his arm, featherlight. The scent of flowers deepened around him.

“What are the odds of that?” he managed as his head lifted, and he found Cadence standing less than a foot away, still touching him. Staring up at him with worry on her delicate features. She was close enough for him to pull into his arms. How many times had he wanted to do that? Pull her against him and use pleasure to make them both forget the nightmares waiting out there for them.

Don’t do it. You can’t. He cleared his throat, kept his control. “Another disappearance. Same place, same way. It shouldn’t happen, Cadence. You know it shouldn’t.”

Her eyes searched his. “You think it’s the same perp? After all this time?”

He’d clenched his back teeth so hard they ached. “After the case in Louisiana, is it so hard for you to think it could happen?” Kyle gritted out the words. “Look at the Bayou Butcher, look at how long he’d been killing.” A fifteen-year span for the crimes wasn’t impossible. Not if the killer had been careful enough.

Smart enough.

“I wondered…when you insisted we come down here…just how closely this could be linked to your sister.”

Now he realized she’d come for him.

“I’m so sorry for what happened to her.” The emotion in her voice was real. “Please know that I am. Sorry for what happened to her and for what her disappearance did to you. But Kyle, this case is about Lily Adams. Her daughter is at home, crying for her mother. We have to focus on Lily right now.”

Not Maria.

“You’re the one always telling me to have hope,” she said. “We have hope in this case. We have a chance to find Lily.”

Not Maria.

Maria wasn’t ever going to be found. He’d tried to come to terms with that, over and over. “I know the job.” His own voice was hard, grating, when hers had been so soft. “And I’ll do it.” He pulled away from her and headed for the door.

“Kyle!”

He hesitated, his fingers wrapped around the doorknob.

“I am sorry about what happened to your sister.”

How far had she dug? Had she talked with the family he had left? His old friends? Had she learned how desperate he’d been back then as she discovered every secret he had? He didn’t know her secrets, and that didn’t seem fair.

I want them all. No, he wanted her, as exposed as he was.

“If I could help you find Maria, I would,” Cadence told him. “Maybe after Lily, if we find new evidence while we’re here—”

He yanked open the door. “They’re waiting on us.”

The cops. The perp.

All were waiting.

As for Maria…

He knew she’d stopped waiting to be rescued long ago.

“Officer Crenshaw, you knew Lily Adams, didn’t you?” Kyle asked as he leaned across the small table in the only conference room available at the Paradox station.