Page 23 of Security Breach

“In a way, you were.”

“How do you figure that?”

“The only way I could function was to ask myself what you would do. Anyway, the dispatcher told me to get out of the house.” She stopped again.

“Did you?”

The trembling resumed. “I heard a noise. I started to turn, and someone hit me. The blow knocked me to the ground. A baseball bat landed on the ground beside me. I looked up and saw a man dressed in black, a bloody knife in his hand. I must have passed out because the next thing I remember was waking up in the ER with a medical team working on me.”

“Are you still seeing a black circle where his face is supposed to be?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re doing great, Em. Ignore his face. Close your eyes, and focus on his hands. What do you see besides the knife? What color is his skin?”

“He was Caucasian. He had a scar on the webbing between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and a tattoo.”

David frowned and pulled his phone from his pocket. He did a quick search and showed her the screen. “Did you see something like this?”

She shifted. A second later, she gasped. “That’s it. How does the killer have the same scar?”

He urged her to lay her head against his shoulder again. “It’s called a shark bite, an injury that occurs when people hold a pistol improperly, and the slide catches the webbing on the recoil. If the cut is deep enough, it leaves a scar like that one.”

“Great. He’s handy with guns as well as baseball bats and knives.”

David slid his phone away, then trailed his hand up and down her back. “Was your head wound bad?”

“Not really. I lost a lot of blood from the knife wounds.”

He stilled. “The killer stabbed you?”

“Twice.”

“Where?”

“My left side and just below my collar bone. According to Agent Jordan, the Butcher was just getting started when he was scared off by the police sirens.”

Oh, man. He’d come close to losing her forever that night. David tightened his hold on Emma. “Thank God they arrived in time.”

“When I woke up in the ER, I couldn’t remember anything that happened. The pain in my head was horrible, and I kept throwing up. The next few hours are a blur. Sometime during the night, the doctor allowed the police to question me. The police detective told me that Dad was dead, too, and the FBI were sending agents to talk to me. I was so sick and weak I didn’t understand half of what he told me. After the doctor asked the detective to leave, he gave me pain medicine.”

“I’m so sorry you went through that alone, Emma.”

She swiped at her tears. “The FBI should have caught this man before that night. If they had, I’d still have my sister and parents.”

“The killer will pay for what he did. When did the feds arrive?”

“Sunrise. I remember wishing that Anne could see the beautiful start to another day at the beach. It would have been our last full day. We were scheduled to return to Maple Valley the following day.”

“Do you remember which agents came to see you?”

“Agent Jordan and another man. I don’t remember his name. He was nice to me, though.”

“Is that when you heard about the serial killer?”

She nodded. “Agent Jordan said I needed to go to a safe house because the killer would be furious I was still alive. I had never heard of the Butcher.”

“The feds have kept him out of the news cycles.” They might receive tips from the public if they spread the word. “How long were you in the hospital?”

---