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He caught her swift inhale. And then, softer, he heard her say, “And I want to know if you really do love me or if I’m just some twisted obsession that you have.”
His jaw locked.
He drove them home. The Jag snarled.
Warden Curtis Flint stared down at the body of the dead inmate. The blood had pooled around him. Pooled. Splattered. Gone every dang place.
Everett Thomas’s eyes were closed, and sure, protocol dictated that their emergency medical team still try and save the man, but, clearly, no saving was going to happen. You couldn’t save the dead.
“How many times was he stabbed?” Douglas asked. Douglas was on his feet, with a bandage around the side of head. Weaving a bit. He’d told the DA to stay back. But Douglas was one stubborn bastard. Something he admired.
Curtis angled his head to try and count. “I see at least…fifteen?” Probably more. Three shivs had been dropped on the ground when the prisoners were rounded up.
“Why was he out here?” Douglas’s low question went just to Curtis. “I thought he was being taken back to his cell.”
“Each prisoner is entitled to time in the yard. Even those in solitary.” His head turned so that he could meet Douglas’s suspicious gaze. “The question we should be asking is…why the hell were those other inmates out here?”
Inmates who’d seemed to come with one goal. Kill Everett Thomas.
“Guess they weren’t fans,” Douglas muttered.
No, they clearly had not been.
And neither was I.
He didn’t think anyone was going to be mourning Everett Thomas’s death.
“You have a murder board in your den.”
Beau dropped onto the oversized couch and watched Avalon as she slowly closed in on what was, indeed, a murder board. One he’d carefully crafted with help from Lane and Ophelia. And a few other players in town.
Players that Avalon had not met yet. It had truly been a team effort.
She wore black pants and a black top. Black ballerina flats. He’d bought those clothes for her—and the black bra and panties that she also wore. She hadn’t said a word about him knowing her exact sizes. But she was clearly aware of his…oh, how had she phrased things?
Twisted obsession.
“These are the first three houses that burned. The houses that were hit before mine in New Orleans. The houses and pics of the victims.” She tapped the large, black-and-white photos that showed the aftermath of the fires. “A forty-year-old wife and mother died in the first fire. A seventy-year-old retired grandfather died in the second. And a newly married twenty-five-year-old male perished in the third.” Her fingers trailed to the fourth picture. The aftermath of her fire. Only the skeleton of the house remained. Blackened. Charred. “And I would have been victim four.”
He remained on the couch.
“Do you think they were trapped inside their homes, too? They were all home alone. Something that I have always thought linked the crimes. We were all in the houses by ourselves.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Different ages. Male. Female. Different races. Usually, serial killers have a victim type. But, then again, there aren’t exactly a whole lot of serial killers who use fire as their weapon of choice.” She swung to look at him. “Arsonists like to watch buildings burn. They like to watch the fire grow and twist. I always felt like this person just wanted to watch us suffer.”
Beau slowly exhaled. “I believe they were trapped, yes. In Darius Cramer’s file…” The grandfather. Grieved so much by his family. “There was mention that the windows in his bedroom were nailed shut. The investigator noted it in passing. The house was going through renovations, so he suspected that Darius had been working on the windows before the fire.” A shake of Beau’s head. “That’s not what me and my team think.”
“Your team.” She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “Do elaborate. What does your team think?”
“Ophelia and Lane went to New Orleans. They found the old arson investigators. Two worked the cases originally. They dug up all the old case files for Ophelia and Lane. They talked for hours. They…” An exhale. “We believe no one was random. The victims were all deliberately selected. Targeted. All the attacks occurred between midnight and two a.m. No one else was in the homes. Just the vics. Neighbors weren’t even around at the first two scenes. The fires were caused by an accelerant that was poured throughout the home. In your case…” His nostrils flared. “I remembered smelling gasoline when I got up the stairs. He’d soaked your house.”
She shuddered.
“Lane and Ophelia found at least two other cases after yours. Not in New Orleans. One was in Birmingham, Alabama. About a year after you graduated high school. A girl your exact age—she was the victim then. Found in her bedroom. Trapped inside. Dead.”
She jerked.
“Then three years after that, another woman was the victim of a similar fire in Nashville. First responders were called to the scene at one thirty-three a.m. They rushed in to try and help her. Too late.” His gaze drifted to his murder board. “Zoe Dagger’s photo is behind you.”
She looked back. Shivered. “She…she kind of looks like me.”
