Page 59 of The Killer She Knew

Ford cocked his head to one side, the lantern lighting up more of that face she’d found so handsome mere hours ago. Well, more than handsome, but she wasn’t going to think on her love life right now. “Does that brain of yours ever stop trying to work out the patterns?” He crouched in front of her, showcasing the gun at his hip. Along with the badge he’d taken off a dead man. “Does it ever drive you mad when you don’t get the answers it craves?”

“Do you ever stop trying to be a murderous asshole?” She was kind of proud of that one. Leigh rotated her wrists to test the slack in the zip ties. There was none. If she was getting out of here, it would most likely be in a body bag when the medical examiner recovered her remains and Ford was long gone. But that wasn’t going to stop her from trying.

“Come on now, Leigh.” Straightening to his full height, Ford unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled them back one at a time, exposing muscular forearms. And the stretch of bloodied gauze. From where she’d sliced into him with a moldy shard of mason jar. He turned his back on her, reaching for something near the lantern. She couldn’t see what. If she was being honest, she didn’t want to. It most likely would be bagged as evidence in her murder later. And who really wanted to see how they would die when it came right down to it? “Be honest. You would’ve had me undressed in a matter of seconds if we hadn’t been interrupted during that last kiss.”

Acid charged up her throat, and she stuck her tongue out to counter her gag reflex. She really did have the worst taste in men. “That was before I knew you’d killed nine people. Can’t say murder is a turn-on, even in my line of work.”

“That’s too bad. Because I’m afraid our time together is just beginning.” Ford approached her with a single syringe in one hand, his thumb positioned on the depressor. “No one knows you’re here. Not even your daughter. I made sure she knew you’dbe gone for a while so we could search the building together. No one will be able to hear you scream. And you will scream, Leigh. I’ll make sure of it.”

The last shred of her bravery seemed to rush out of her at the sight of clear liquid in the syringe. Arsenic and cyanide? Leigh tried to press her toes into the floor to add distance between them, but the chair wouldn’t budge. That needle was not going in her eye. “You’re Teshia Elborne’s high school boyfriend.”

“Surprise.” His voice hiked up on the last syllable, but again, it sounded so unnatural. Trying too hard to mimic someone else. “You know, I’d done a damn good job making sure Teshia’s death couldn’t be linked back to me. I did everything I was supposed to. I destroyed evidence, wore gloves, changed and burned my clothes after I left her in front of this building. Never once touching the body. But your buddy Dean just wouldn’t let it go. Probably because I tried to frame him for murder, but then you had to go and give him an alibi. You ruined my plans.”

Ford took a step closer.

Fear spiked in her veins. Raising her heart rate. Interrupting logic. Suddenly, she was all survival skills. Faced with a very real threat she couldn’t run from. Sweat beaded at the back of her neck. “Why?” She wanted that question to sound more stable, but she had to give herself credit. “Why kill her at all?”

“Would you believe me if I told you it’d been an accident? That one minute she was standing right in front of me and the next I’d stabbed her with a syringe.” Ford’s gaze took on a glazed distance. “We had a plan. I was supposed to take over my parents’ farm. We’d planned on getting married after high school graduation, having a couple of kids. All I wanted was a simple life. I thought she did, too, but then she started talking about going to college, seeing the world, finding herself, and all that bullshit people romanticize, but I knew that’s not what she really wanted. Then again, Teshia had never been good aboutfollowing orders. I tried to get her to come around—by force sometimes—but the last time she checked herself out of the hospital without my permission and disappeared. Didn’t take me long to catch up with her, though. Never was very bright, but I never intended for her to die. I loved her. That’s why I followed her to Granite State. I just wanted her to come home, but she wouldn’t listen.”

So he and Teshia Elborne hadn’t been on again–off again. She’d been on the run from an abusive partner. The seat of the wooden chair cut into the backs of Leigh’s thighs as her body tensed against his approach. “But you didn’t stop there. You framed Dean Groves for her murder, used chemicals from his lab to connect him to her death.”

“He really shouldn’t have touched what was mine,” Ford said.

The possessiveness in that single statement dried her mouth. “And the others? The men you killed, the ones whose lives you stole?”

“Do you ever find yourself wishing to be someone else? Wishing you could run away from all the problems in your life and start over? It worked for a while. Becoming those men helped with the guilt of what I’d done to Teshia, but the more lives I stole over the years, the less I could pretend someone else had killed her. After a while, nothing helped.”

Faster than she thought possible, Ford was on her, pulling her head back by her hair. Pressing the tip of the needle against her left eye, he stared down at her. A stranger. Nothing of the man he’d manipulated her to see left in his features. An unrealistic sense of calm came over him. As if this was always meant to be the end between them. Like he’d planned this exact scenario. Had any of it been real?

“Until I learned Dean had caught on to my little experiment about a year ago. Color me surprised when I discovered hehadn’t been charged and sentenced with Teshia’s death and that you had alibied him for the night she died. Well, I couldn’t think of a better way to lure him out of the shadows than by putting you right where I wanted you. But to get to you, I needed your attention.”

Understanding hit. “Alice Dietz.” It’d been a trap. One she’d fallen into without a second thought. “You said you researched me. You knew who I was, knew that I wouldn’t be able to turn down the chance to find Teshia Elborne’s killer and close the case.”

“Closure. I think that’s your need, Leigh. First with your brother’s case, now this one, and I wanted to give it to you. For my own purposes, of course. So I did my homework on you, discovered your ties to Professor Morrow and this university. And there she was. His plaything. She really does look an awful lot like Teshia, doesn’t she?” Ford backed off a few inches. “You really have a talent for understanding why killers succumb to their nasty little urges, Leigh. All this time, after all my research, I thought I’d understood you just as well, but you surprised me with that theory I needed those victims to fulfill needs I couldn’t get anywhere else. It was inspired. But would you believe me if I said you’ve managed to show me one need I could never satisfy with them?”

Dean had been telling the truth. He’d disappeared to find the man responsible for Teshia Elborne’s death. To clear his name. Leigh clutched the end of the chair’s arm, fingernails digging into the soft wood. The needle was one wrong move from piercing her cornea, and it took everything in her power not to flinch.

“You made me want to be understood.” Ford tugged her head back into the chair. “That’s why I’m going to make this last as long as possible.”

THIRTY-SIX

Durham, New Hampshire

Thursday, October 10

7:51 p.m.

“I should be thanking you.” Ford positioned himself within an inch of her face, using the needle to draw a line down her cheek. The bitter odor of chocolate and citrus she’d become familiar with assaulted her now. “You were the one who taught me how killers evolve. What is it you said? They might change their modes of operation, but their signatures are what stay the same. It gave me an idea.”

He released her in a jerk.

Leigh’s scalp prickled as feeling rushed back into her head. The hard angle of her neck relaxed, but it wasn’t enough to purge the pain from her head. Her breath came easier now that Ford had gone back to the small table he’d set up near the lantern. She had to keep him talking. Buy herself enough time to work out her escape. A darkened corridor seemed to be the only way in or out of this dead end of a room, but the tunnels beneath thiscampus were complicated and confusing without any kind of a map. She could just as easily get lost and drown. “You destroyed the generator and radios. You wanted us unable to get supplies or radio for help.”

“Who’s going to suspect a US marshal of sabotaging emergency services when he’s supposed to be there to help?” Ford picked up a second syringe. “Also, you really should be more careful about where you set your things. Especially your gun. Anyone could take advantage.”

Jackass.

“So what happened, Ford?” Was she supposed to call him Ford? This was all so confusing. “You killed Alice Dietz, then what? The US marshal caught up with you, and you decided to become him to keep an eye on the investigation? To keep me close?”

---