When the killer is almost upon her, Jennifer drops to her knees and grabs the fallen gun off the rocks. The man freezes, eyes wide. Jennifer squeezes the trigger.
Nothing happens.
The safety. Jennifer doesn’t know how to unlock the pistol’s push-button safety.
But the pause is all the FBI needs with Jennifer on her knees. Fisher’s shot thunders into the killer’s shoulder and twists him around. Darcy and Reinhold open fire. One bullet slams into the man’s chest while the other grazes his forehead.
Yet the man maintains enough strength to lunge at Jennifer with the knife. But Hunter knocks his sister out of the way and Hensel drives his shoulder into the small of the man’s back.
The killer’s body slams into the shallows with Hensel atop him. There’s a crackling sound as the man’s head bashes against the rocks. His legs flail out, spasm, then drop still as the FBI agents and deputies surround the killer with their guns drawn.
Ten seconds of mayhem, then it’s over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Agent Hensel and Deputy Filmore drag the broken body of the child murderer off the rocks as the hot glare of the helicopter’s spotlight turns night into day. As Darcy huddles with Hunter and Jennifer on the shore, Hensel reads the killer his Miranda rights. It doesn’t matter. The murderer is incognizant to Hensel’s words, losing blood and minutes from death. A Medevac helicopter sets down in a clearing above the ridgeline, but Darcy knows the killer will die before he reaches the hospital.
Agent Reinhold rides with Darcy, Hunter, and Jennifer on the way to the hospital. Once inside, Jennifer peels off her drenched clothes and changes into the dry replacements Laurie brought. Even after she changes, Jennifer’s teeth chatter as if her bones iced over. The doctor, a small man with an overbite, diagnoses Jennifer with a concussion, but Darcy knows the real wounds run deeper. Did her daughter watch Sandy Young and Emily Vogt die?
Darcy requires three stitches for the wound across her forehead. She’s lucky. The bullet missed her head by inches.
Hensel ducks his head inside Darcy’s room after the nurse clears out.
“How are you holding up?”
“As long as I have my children, nothing else matters. What have you learned about Stetson?”
“No priors. He worked as a private contractor, mostly odd jobs, and led a double life. The house in Scarlet River looks barely lived in.”
“So he didn’t do eight years of jail time.”
“No. He was content holding onto Nina Steyer. Reinhold has two theories. One is Stetson lost interest in Nina after she matured and started kidnapping and murdering teenage girls again. The other is he contacted Michael Rivers and began hunting.”
“That would explain why he stalked Laurie.”
“Right. He was following orders. No reason to believe he found an interest in women his age. The Rivers connection also explains Stetson’s obsession with Jennifer.”
“And the private contractor angle makes sense. Stetson had the skills to repair an abandoned house.”
Hensel nods, but there’s a grim set to his jaw as he closes the door behind him.
“There are things you need to know. Stetson kept the girls in a spare bedroom with the windows boarded over. He chained them so they couldn’t escape.”
Injury and rage work through Darcy. What sort of animal tortures teenage girls?
“Bruising around the neck indicates Stetson choked Sandy Young. Darcy, we think he made Jennifer watch.”
A sob comes out of Darcy’s chest. The light in the room seems to fade as she clutches her arms around her chest.
“How does my daughter come to terms with a nightmare like that?”
Hensel falls into a chair beside Darcy’s cot and uncertainly places a hand on her arm.
“I don’t know, but that girl of yours shows more fight than most of the agents I know. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have gotten a clear shot at Stetson. The newspapers will say the FBI and sheriff’s department saved Jennifer Gellar, but she saved herself.”
“But he murdered a girl in front of her. That’s not an image she’ll ever escape.”
“You’ll get her help, Darcy. And if she’s anything like her mother, she’ll survive and become a stronger person.”
“Like me?” Darcy’s laugh doesn’t meet her eyes. “I’m afraid to walk into a dark room alone, and my cousin needs to count my anxiety meds so I don’t overdose. Face it. I’m the last person my daughter should use as an example.”
“And yet you were dead on about Stetson using the stream to travel between his home and Cass Park, and if it wasn’t for you, Cherise Steyer would fall asleep tonight wondering if her daughter is still alive and if she’ll ever see her again. Your instincts remain sharp. You’re still the best profiler I ever worked beside.”
She expects he’ll make another pitch for Darcy to come back to the BAU, but he doesn’t. Maybe that train left the station, or he doesn’t trust her to stay clean. She’s known Hensel long enough to recognize when something is on his mind. He has more to tell her, and she can tell by the way he works the words over in his head that it’s not good news.
“Just say it, Eric.”
It’s late, well after midnight, though she’s lost track of time. Hensel sits back and moves his eyes to the window. Lights flood the parking lot with harsh brightness. The moon is on the other side of the hospital, but she knows it’s there. It will follow Darcy to her grave.
“Tipton didn’t make it,” Hensel says, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “The sheriff never regained consciousness. He passed before they got him onto the operating table. I realize you thought highly of him.”
Darcy lets her head fall back against the pillow and closes her eyes. The last week feels like a blur, none of it real. Tipton didn’t take Laurie’s stalker seriously, and in a panicked state he pressed Darcy and Hensel, the two strangers in town, after Sandy Young’s abduction. He’d overstepped his bounds, but Tipton wanted nothing more than to solve the ten-year-old cold cases and prevent another nightmare.
“He was a good man,” Darcy says, turning away from Hensel to stare out the window. “All he wanted was to protect those girls and bring peace to their families. If there’s a heaven, he’s smiling at what you accomplished tonight, Eric, and he’s shaking his head that Nina Steyer, the girl he searched for, pointed the FBI to the killer. Besides Cherise Steyer, who would have believed Nina was still alive?”
“You did, Darcy, and you had as much to do with catching Eric Stetson as any of us.”
“This county won’t be the same without Tipton.”
“No, but Deputy Filmore is acting sheriff, and from what I’ve heard, he’s a shoe in to win the next election. Tipton was grooming the kid to take over when he retired, and Filmore was born and raised outside of Millport, so he has an in with the voters.”
Hensel notices when Darcy doesn’t respond and clears his throat.
“Anyway, Gil Waggoner still has the charges hanging over his head.”
“Conspiracy to kidnap?”
“It’s questionable if they can make it stick, but Waggoner ignored Tipton’s orders and tried to flee town. State police picked him up outside of Scarlet River.”
“I’m worried about Waggoner, Eric.”
“You’re worried he’s a kidnapper in the making.”
“Or a rapist. He’s working up to it. Waggoner attempting to coax an underage girl into his vehicle is a red flag, and I’m certain he would have attacked Jennifer and me had I not pulled a gun. My guess is he’s used chat rooms to proposition teenagers before. I don’t buy Waggoner’s bullshit story he was only helping Stetson.”