Page 17 of A Dark Place

The smug smile on his face disappeared. His opponents were changing the game. Trying to shut him down. But they couldn’t because he was unstoppable.

He’d set it all up. Everything was taken care of. Soon, they would be gone, and the would-be killer would be known. And he would be free to continue his quest. Perhaps he would finally take care of his nagging wife. Move on to a new location. A new killing field.

He smiled at the promise of the future in another part of the country. Perhaps the world. Maybe he’d find himself an apprentice. Train him in the art of killing and then ruin his life. But there were loose ends to clear up first. He couldn’t just pick up and move without handling them. First he’d have to get rid of the cabin. There was always the chance that someone might connect the house to him and figure out the truth.

He couldn’t allow that to happen. No matter what it cost him or who he had to kill to keep it hidden, his dark past must never be revealed.

Chapter Seven

“Let’s take a walk,” Olivia reached for Asher’s arm and led him from the building. He moved like a man in a daze. Holden’s latest threat was taking its toll.

They reached the parking garage. Olivia hit the key fob and unlocked her personal vehicle. She and Asher got inside.

“You can’t let him get to you.” She stared at him for the longest time.

He shifted toward her and half-smiled. “I know, and I can handle him, but I just hate that he’s coming after you now because you’re my partner. You don’t deserve that.”

She entwined her fingers with him. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” As she stared into his dark brown eyes, feelings she’d tried to deny in the past resurfaced. How could she have feelings for Asher? She still loved Sawyer.

“I know you can.” He was close enough for his breath to brush her cheek, his gravelly tone a huge distraction.

She wanted—well, she wasn’t sure what she wanted, but Asher was like family. She sat back in her seat and stared out the windshield. “Holden wants to know where Lizzy is so that he can bring in the entire Strike Force team. This has nothing to do with Van Gogh.” Her heart drummed in her ears, and she didn’t look at Asher as she did her best to return to calm.

“Exactly,” he said in what she could almost believe was a less-than-steady tone. Or maybe it was her imagination. “Holden is working for the people who are trying to frame the president and Strike Force. He has no interest in finding a killer.”

“It would certainly look good if he brought them in,” Olivia said almost to herself. “We can’t let that happen. I’ve kept up with what’s happening, and I’ve been following Strike Force’s website for a while. There’s no way they did this. Holden and the rest of these people have to be stopped.” It made her furious to think that innocent people were being targeted because a few bad men were manipulating the direction of the world.

Asher reached for her hand. “I feel the same way. Right now, what we can do is bring down Van Gogh Killer before he finds his next victim. Since we took out his next plausible victims, he has to be furious. And we don’t know what direction he’ll take from here. We need to go over every piece of evidence we’ve gathered from the past crime scenes. All the information we have on the victims. Anything that will help us find this guy before he goes ballistic.”

Olivia sighed deeply. “All right. Let’s get started. There has to be something we’ve overlooked that will help us find this guy.”

They climbed out of the car and headed back toward the building. Before they entered, Asher grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. “Watch your back, Olivia. Holden is coming after you now, and he’s up to something really bad.”

The look in his eyes confirmed he was serious. “I will, I promise.”

He still held her arm and said, “I have a bad feeling about Holden. He’s not who he claims to be. He’s far worse. And he’s dangerous. When you put a man who has no limits in charge of an agency that’s supposed to be there to protect citizens, it’s bad.”

She searched his eyes. “What are you saying?”

A car horn beeped some distance away, and he looked past Olivia to the sound. “I don’t know what I’m saying. But you can’t tell anyone about what I told you.”

A tingle of apprehension sped between her shoulders at the dead-serious look on his face. “You got it. No one knows but me.”

They entered the building and went down to the level where the evidence from all the Van Gogh killings was stored. The fear that Asher’s words instilled in her followed Olivia every step of the way.

Several members of the task force were combing through the evidence.

“Where do you want to start?” Olivia asked him.

“The beginning. Let’s go back to the first victim.” She and Asher found the box that contained evidence recovered from the scene.

How did Holly Fleming fit in with the other victims? Or Sylvia?

They claimed a couple of chairs away from the others working the case.

“At the time Holly was taken, Lizzy wasn’t part of Buckley’s plan, or at least we don’t believe she was,” Asher said and swiped his hand across the back of his neck.

Olivia grabbed one of the laptops nearby and brought up the case file for Holly Fleming. “She wasn’t a student at any of the universities. She worked at a law office and was twenty-nine years old.”

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