The Prey

CHAPTER 6

She stood outside the picturesque two-story white colonial, heart pounding, a light sheen of perspiration on her back. Her skin was clammy, and she wondered if she was coming down with something.

The house was familiar, but she’d never been to this part of Nashville before. She glanced at local Agent Tom Krause, a seasoned veteran she’d worked with on another multiple homicide in Tennessee two years before.

Mature trees, evenly spaced, grew tall on the recently mowed lawn. Trimmed hedges stood sentry, marking the bottom of every closed window, every blood-red shutter. Yellow crime-scene tape slashed the serene landscape, a stark reminder of what awaited her inside.

Rowan had walked through hundreds of crime scenes. She’d seen the worst that man could do to his fellow man. Gathering her emotions, she pushed them down as far as she could, deep down, behind her soul. But today, she was having a harder time separating herself from the crime scene. Somehow, this murder was different. Familiar.

She stood in the entry hall of the immaculate home. Clean, comfortable, expensive furnishings, polished wood. There was the general disturbance associated with law enforcement presence, but the house was otherwise neat as a pin. The smell of a lemon-scented cleaner mingled with the coppery scent she knew too well, the metallic taste of blood already in her nostrils, her mouth. She closed her eyes, gathering her strength.

Why was it so hard to proceed?

“Agent Smith, you okay?”

Tom’s voice cut through her hesitation. She snapped her eyes opened and nodded. “Of course, just thinking. Who were the victims?”

Tom glanced at his notepad. “Karl and Marlena Franklin and their children. Suspected murder-suicide, but the techs haven’t been through the scene except to photograph it.”

She nodded and continued to survey the surroundings. The bottom of the staircase landed in the foyer, curving elegantly as it approached the second floor. Displayed on the wall were pictures of a growing family, arranged step-by-step, year-by-year. The mother and father, dark-haired and blue-eyed, together. Together with an infant. Then an infant and a toddler. A toddler and a kindergartner. Two kids and a baby. Two kids and a toddler and a baby. Dark hair, blue eyes, attractive family.

Three boys and a baby girl.

At the top of the stairs was the last portrait this family would ever take together. Three boys, the oldest about twelve. A little girl, three, with dark pigtails and red ribbons in the hair.

Pigtails and ribbons.

Run! Her mind screamed, but she was compelled to move forward. She heard Tom talking, but didn’t hear his words.

Run!

Her feet were rooted in the too-familiar house.

The blood in the first room was confined to the bed. Oldest boy, Packers football fan, baseball awards on his shelves and walls. Second room, bunk beds, more blood. She smelled it, tasted it, breathed it into her lungs and gagged.

“Rowan.”

The voice was far away, and she put one foot in front of the other, leaving Tom behind.

“Rowan!”

She turned into the last door, knowing before she opened it what she would see.

The baby girl’s room decorated in pink and white frills, full of teddy bears and dolls. A picnic had been laid out on the floor, complete with a Babar the Elephant tea set and guests. A teddy bear, a giraffe, and Babar preparing to partake in the meal. Left from yesterday’s game.

An empty seat where the little girl would have sat.

Dani.

The little girl could have been sleeping. Would have been sleeping until her life was stolen from her. Blood soaked her white down comforter. Dear God, how could so much blood come from such a tiny person!

Pigtails.

Dani.

She screamed.

While drinking coffee in the dining room, John listened as Michael filled him in on the police investigation and the FBI’s role. Rowan had fallen asleep on the couch in the adjoining living room less than half an hour before. She’d looked exhausted when John first saw her, and he didn’t doubt that recent nights had been interrupted by the pressure the killer placed on her.

A moan escaped Rowan, and both he and Michael jumped up. They stared at each other for a moment, then John sighed and sat back down. “Your case,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he was making the right decision. Michael had been handling the security measures like the pro John knew he was, but whenever he looked at Rowan, a softness came over his face. A familiar expression, John thought, most recently seen when Michael was involved with that liar Jessica Weston.

Michael approached the couch cautiously as Rowan thrashed in her sleep. “Rowan,” he said softly.

Suddenly, she screamed and bolted upright, her face a mask of terror as she teetered between sleep and wakefulness.

“Rowan! Rowan! Wake up!” Michael sat behind her and pulled her nearly into his lap, grabbing her waving arms. Even across the room John saw how tense Rowan was, her arms locked and quivering, almost in an empty hug.

“Dani, Dani!” she cried in the midst of her nightmare.

“What’s wrong with her?” Tess asked, concerned, as she rose from the workstation she’d created in the adjoining alcove.

“Nightmare,” Michael said grimly.

Who’s Danny? John thought, frowning, his arms crossed over his chest as he rose from his seat.

Rowan quieted as Michael whispered nonsense in her ear and pulled her closer to him, patting her hair and smoothing it down her back. She shook from violent sobs, but no sound escaped.

“Rowan-”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She turned into Michael’s chest and her stifled sob tore at John’s heart.

But John had to get to the bottom of this. “Who’s Danny?” he asked, his voice harsher than intended.

Her head jerked up and she glared at him, her eyes red with unshed tears.

John ignored the signals Michael sent him to shut up. Something about this was important.

Rowan pushed herself away from Michael, reached to the small of her back, and removed her Glock from its holster. She checked the ammunition, put the gun back, and stood in the middle of the living room. John watched her control the terror of the nightmare, focusing instead on her obvious anger toward him. Why? He had only asked an obvious question. One Michael should have been asking instead of consoling her.

In the back of his heart, John wanted to wrap his arms around Rowan as well. But unlike his brother, he put sentiment on the back burner when lives were at stake.

“I need to call my boss. Ex-boss,” she corrected. “I-I had a memory of a case I worked on. My last case. I’m wondering if there’s some connection.” She shook her head and closed her eyes. “I don’t see how,” she said, almost to herself, “but why else would I dream of the Franklin murders now?”

“Franklin murders?” John repeated.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Brutal murder-suicide. Or so we suspected at the time. There were some doubts, but I wasn’t involved in the investigation. I need to see the file, though, and it’s not in the box of cases Quinn brought over.”

John nodded. He noted she grew composed as she became proactive. So different from the pain-filled woman who’d woken from a violent nightmare only moments ago.

“Who’s Danny?” John asked again. “One of the victims?”

She looked at Michael, not John, her eyes once again shielding pain he’d seen only a moment before. She shrugged. “Another case. I’ve spent most of the day reviewing crime scene photos and notes. Everything’s all mixed up. I don’t know what I was dreaming about.”

Dammit, John knew she was lying. She’d had a nightmare about Danny, whoever he was.

He sensed she wouldn’t go into any more details now. Maybe it was all mixed up in her mind. But there was something there, something he needed to pull out. Maybe something her conscious mind didn’t even realize was important.

“I’m going to call Roger,” Rowan said, and she left the room without a backward glance.

Michael strode over to his brother and poked him in the chest. “What the hell were you doing? Interrogating her? Couldn’t you see she’d just had a nightmare?”

John’s jaw dropped. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting, Mickey? There’s something trapped in that pretty little head of Ms. Smith’s, and it’s about time someone started asking the tough questions. Hell, I don’t think she even knows what it is. But we need to push, we need to get to the bottom of this. The FBI is on top of it because she’s one of theirs, but they aren’t here in this room, are they?”

“You’re doing it again,” Michael said.

John blinked. “What?”

“Taking over my case.”

John threw his hands up in the air, a rare outward sign of frustration, and stalked over to the dark windows that reflected Michael’s angry expression and Tess’s watchful eyes. This wasn’t a new argument.

“I’m not taking over your case, Mickey,” John said, though he itched to do just that. Michael had reasonable plans, but in John’s mind they sounded like they would take too damned long to implement. Maybe Michael was trying to coddle Rowan into opening up, but John was more of a straight shooter. He expected everyone else to shoot straight as well.

“Could have fooled me,” Michael said under his breath.

“There’s more going on here than we know. Dammit, she knows something that could get us all killed. It’s probably some damn FBI security issue, but screw it if I’m going to let you or Tess get hurt because the frickin’ FBI won’t share information!” John turned back to face his brother. “And if she doesn’t consciously know it, it’s locked in her mind and your sweet-as-pie commiserating isn’t going to draw the truth out of her.”

“I was a cop for fifteen years, in case you’ve forgotten,” Michael said, taking a step toward John. “I may not have been a big, bad Delta commando, but I sure as hell know how to protect myself and my charge.”

“Not if you can’t see past her pretty face!”

Michael clenched his fists, vibrating with anger. “You just can’t let me forget about fucking up with Jessica.”

John mentally hit himself. He didn’t want to hurt his brother. “I’m sorry, Mickey. I didn’t mean to compare the two situations. But geez, can’t you see there’s something else here? I’m not going to let you put your life on the line for a woman-for anyone-who isn’t forthcoming. Obviously these Franklin murders are important if she’s having nightmares about them. I just think we need to find out more about Rowan Smith. She holds the key.”

Finally, Michael looked at him. “You’re right, John. Tomorrow morning, when we’ve all had some time to think about this, we’ll sit down with Rowan and pick her brain.”

“Good plan,” John said as he approached his brother. He reached out and squeezed Michael’s shoulder. “We’re a team on this, Mickey. Like always.”

“Are we?”

John almost didn’t hear Michael, though they stood only two feet apart.

He said equally as softly, “Yeah, Mickey, we are.”

But he didn’t think his brother listened.

With a sigh, John whipped out his cell phone and dialed a Washington contact. “It’s Flynn. I need some information.”

They looked so sweet sitting on the sofa together eating popcorn and watching some stupid-ass love story on television. The popcorn came from an old-fashioned popper, not the new microwave bags that were ready in four minutes. No, the kind where you put oil in the bottom and butter on top of the lid and heated up the kernels until they filled the bowl. Like his mother used to do.

The portrait of a perfect family, the book said. Perfect? What a joke!

He thought back to his own pathetic family. His father could be strong, but most of the time had been a weak fool. Letting his mother run the roost when she was nothing but a whiny bitch. Always demanding this and asking for that. His father worked hard to put food on the table and had given them a nice house in the suburbs, and his mother just bitched bitched bitched and asked for more more more.

Money. That was all the bitch thought about.

He heard his mother’s high-pitched voice like it was yesterday.

He’d been going through his mother’s purse for money when he heard her coming down the hall. So he hid in the closet, keeping the sliding door slightly ajar so he could see if she came toward him. It was night and she thought he was in bed.

He was eight, but he’d been taking money for as long as he could remember. Today he needed more ammunition for his BB gun. He remembered when his dad bought it for him-it was the coolest thing his father had ever done. When the bitch protested, his father just told her if he wanted to buy his son a BB gun, he damn well would.

He smiled, knowing why he needed the ammunition. It had taken thirty-six of those little pellets to finally kill Mrs. Crenshaw’s stupid, whiny cat.

For his next birthday, he was asking for a.22.

His mother went about doing all those girlie things at her table, taking off her makeup and brushing her hair, when his father walked in.

“Hi, honey,” his mother said. “You’re home late.”

“I have children to feed and clothe,” his father said, mad about something.

“I-I know, I just missed you, that’s all.”

She stood and walked over to him, kissed him. Yuck. They always did that kissing thing and it made him sick.

His father sighed and patted her stomach. It was starting to grow big. Another baby. Why did they have to have another one? Weren’t there enough brats in this house?

His father loosened his tie and his mother said, “I looked at beds today for the girls. Since they’ll have to share a room, I thought maybe getting them matching beds would be nice.”

“Why didn’t you ask me first? You didn’t buy anything, did you?”

“No, no, I just looked. I thought-since you got that bonus-we could afford to get a few things around the house that we’ve been needing; you know, nothing extravagant, but-“

“Is that all you care about? Money?” His father slammed his fist so hard on the dresser that bottles of perfume and other girlie stuff crashed to the floor.

“No, honey, you know that-but with the baby coming I thought-“

Slap!

“Shut up about the damn baby!”

His mother sobbed. “You said you were happy.”

Time seemed to stand still, and his little heart beat so fast from fear and a sort of excitement he didn’t quite understand. What was his father going to do?

Finally, after a minute or two, his father ran a hand through his short hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean-I’m just under so much stress at work.” He bent down to kiss her red cheek.

“I know. I know.” She was sobbing, clinging to him. “It’ll be all right. I can go back to work and-“

He pushed her away. “Work? Never. We made a deal. You have the kids and keep the house and I earn the money to support us.”

“I know, and I love being a wife and mother, really, but if we’re struggling, if we’re going to lose the house, if-“

Slap!

“Why do you want to go to work? Does this have anything to do with George Claussen’s visit last week?”

“George? I-he said I could have my old job back if I wanted it. Part-time, while the kids are in school. And when the baby comes-“

Slap!

“You and George are screwing around behind my back, aren’t you?”

“No!”

Slap!

“Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m not!” Sobs. More sobs. All girls did was cry. Especially his mother. She always cried and his father always gave in. Stupid!

He hated her.

“You will NOT get a job. We don’t need it. I will provide. I will always provide for you. You believe me, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“Y-Y-Yes, I-I’m so sorry, I don’t want to go to work. You are a wonderful father and husband. I love you so much.” She sat sobbing on the floor, repeating garbage over and over.

“Oh, honey.”

As he watched from the closet, he saw his father’s rage disappear as he picked his mother up off the carpet and hugged her.

“I’m sorry, so sorry. I didn’t mean to-I know you would never cheat on me. I know you love me.”

“I do love you. I love you,” she sobbed, clinging to him.

They’d made love on the bed as he watched from the closet. He’d heard about sex, but he’d never known exactly what it meant.

He did now.

At first he thought his father was going to kill his mother. She was grunting and crying and had this high-pitched moan. For a minute, he got a rush thinking that his mother would be dead and gone, and that stupid baby in her stomach along with her.

But she didn’t die. And his father apologized over and over again. He said he loved her, loved the baby, loved everything in the world.

Wimp!

Wimp.

He shivered in the night. The wet Portland air reminded him of growing up, which reminded him how much he hated his family.

He looked back through the patio door and smiled. The picture-perfect family, sitting and laughing on the couch. He chuckled. No family was perfect. People had thought his family was perfect. For a while, anyway. What a joke!

Inside the house, the mother-Ms. Gina Harper, divorced-stood and stretched.

Time for bed, she mouthed.

The older girl, a teenager, yawned and slowly rose from the couch. The younger girl, five or six with dark, curly pigtails, protested. Gina Harper picked her up, tickled her, and carried her from the room. The older girl glanced in his direction, an odd look on her face, then gathered up the popcorn bowls and soda cans, turned off the lights, and followed her mother and sister.

His heart beat double-time at the thought that she’d sensed him. That somehow she knew her fate.

That she would be the next to die.

But of course she hadn’t seen him, hadn’t even known he stood on the brick patio outside the family room door. He’d prepared carefully.

This time there would be one minor deviation from the book, but it was one he was sure the author would appreciate.