County Sheriffs 3: Conquering Evil (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting) Page 7

  “Try and get a few more hours’ sleep,” Tanner suggested just before he followed Coop out, closing the door behind him.

  Jasmine Urban was as prickly as they come, but after seeing those scars on that creamy white skin, as well as hearing and seeing the terror in her eyes just as she woke from her nightmare, he knew she wasn’t as tough as she tried to make out.

  He was going to get to the heart of the woman if it was the last thing he did. There was no way in hell he was giving in now. Not after seeing her eyes glaze over with desire when she’d been eying his and Coop’s naked chests.

  She wanted them just as much as they wanted her. They just needed to get through the walls she built up first, but that wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded.

  Tanner followed Coop out to the kitchen after they both stopped back in their bedrooms and pulled their jeans on. He nodded his thanks when Coop passed him a beer. They sat at the kitchen counter without speaking, both of them lost in thought as they drank.

  Coop broke the silence first. “She’s been hurt.”

  Tanner nodded.

  “Do you think she’d tell us what happened if we asked?”

  “I don’t know,” Tanner said. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “She saw our scars.”

  “Yeah.” Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. He wished he could call her boss and ask what the hell had happened to her but knew he wouldn’t get any answers from the feds. He wondered if there had been anything in the media regarding Jasmine, and though the urge to search for her name on the internet was strong, he pushed it aside. Tanner had a feeling that Jasmine would be pissed if he investigated her in any way, even if the information was online for all the world to read. Jasmine was a very closed-up, private person. It would be better if he got the information he wanted right from the source’s own mouth.

  He glanced toward the doorway when he heard a rustle and turned to see Jasmine entering the kitchen. He couldn’t help but eye her sexy little body up and down. She was so fucking gorgeous with her big blue eyes, creamy white skin, and now dark hair that his breath hitched and his cock twitched each time his gaze landed on her.

  “Can’t sleep?” Coop asked.

  “No.” Jasmine sighed. She peered into the fridge, snagged a beer, and nudged the door closed with her hip as she screwed off the top. Tanner shifted in his seat as she pursed full luscious red lips and drank deeply. She eyed him and Cooper as she moved toward the counter and leaned against it before locking gazes with him.

  “I know who the killer is.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cooper had just taken a sip of beer as Jasmine spoke. He sprayed the amber brew across the counter and ended up choking. Those words weren’t the words he’d expected to hear coming from her lips.

  “Who?” he rasped out and then coughed some more. Tanner pounded him on the back, and Jasmine grabbed a cloth and wiped up the mess he’d made.

  “Anthony Wood, aka Billy Bush.”

  “I didn’t find anything on him other than the name change,” Coop said. “Not even a marriage certificate to authenticate his claim to marrying Lucy.”

  Jasmine frowned. “There was no record of marriage. Some people don’t need a piece of paper to consider themselves attached.”

  “They both wore wedding rings.” Coop frowned.

  Jasmine shrugged. “So? Maybe that was their way of committing to each other and showing they were attached.”

  Coop nodded.

  “Why do you think he’s the killer?” Tanner asked.

  “I found a closed file on him when I put his birth name through the FBI database. He killed his mother when he was thirteen years old. Stabbed her to death.”

  “Fuck!” Cooper gripped his beer bottle tightly.

  “Yeah. He had a reason, though. She was a druggy and alcoholic. She abused him sexually and verbally from a young age.”

  “There’s the motive,” Tanner said.

  “Yes, though it has nothing to do with why he kills.”

  “He kills because he enjoys it,” Cooper stated more than asked.

  “He does. It makes him feel powerful.”

  “Why would he kill his own wife?” Tanner asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe she was a nagger, or it could have been because he’s escalating and she was close. He hasn’t been able to get to the woman he’s obsessed with, but couldn’t ignore the urge to kill again. She was right there. Plus, he would also become an indirect victim of the killer. He’s smart. He’s good at playing the devastated grieving widow. We almost fell for it,” Jasmine explained.

  “We need to put an APB out on him,” Cooper said.

  Jasmine nodded. “Now that we know who, it should make it easier to find him.”

  Cooper shook his head. “Not necessarily. He resigned from the resort after his wife died. He might have even left the county.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jasmine murmured.

  “Why?” Coop asked.

  “He dumped his first kill close to the resort. It has some sort of meaning to him now. Psychopaths never deviate from their ritual. He’s also changed his appearance. He has to know Misha gave us as much of a description as she could. We had the color of his hair and I was able to put his age closer to mid-thirties since she got a partial glimpse of his face. There are never any stray hairs at the crime scenes. Being a ritualistic psychopath, he probably shaves his body thoroughly before each kill. He has to. We have more to go on than when he started. He’s going to want to continue with his obsession for as long as possible. That means he’s probably changing his appearance regularly.”

  “But he wears a mask,” Coop pointed out.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Jasmine shook her head. “He’s most likely completely bald now. Colored contacts are readily available. Just by changing the type of clothes he wears can make him look totally different He’s not going to risk one of his victims being able to identify him if they manage to rip that mask off and escape.”

  “Shit! If that’s the case, it will be even harder to take this asshole down,” Tanner speculated.

  “Yes. I have a feeling the man we know as Anthony Wood is no more.”

  “He can’t change his features.” Coop shifted in his seat.

  “No, he can’t, but it wouldn’t take much to change the way he looks. I studied a photo of him, which was probably taken at least a few years ago, to what I remember him looking like now. His hair was longer and lighter. He’s also filled out with more muscle, and he has a tan.”

  “Do you think the resort has a recent employee photo of him?” Tanner asked.

  “I’ll call Ken first thing Monday morning to find out,” Jasmine said. “Better yet I’ll go to the resort and see if I can get a copy of his file.”

  Cooper clenched his jaw with fear and frustration about to refute Jasmine going to the resort by herself, but quickly swallowed down his denial. She looked so much like Misha he was scared the bastard would come at her and catch her unaware, but again he kept his opinion to himself. He didn’t want Jasmine getting pissy with him. “Tanner and I will come with you.”

  Jasmine set her now empty beer bottle on the counter and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, drawing his gaze when the action plumped those full, soft, feminine globes up even more. He licked his lips and quickly lifted his gaze to her luminous blue eyes. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Yes, it is.” Cooper scowled.

  “Jasmine, we aren’t about to let you go about on your own with you looking like Misha. That asshole isn’t going to give up until he has what he wants. Misha, and now you, dead by his hand.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  Cooper hated asking but couldn’t seem to help himself. He was worried sick and needed to think of every possible scenario. The last thing he wanted was for this small yet fierce woman to suffer again at the hands of a madman. “And what if you freeze? What then? He could come up on you from behind and knock you out.”

 
“Fuck you, Cooper!” Jasmine spun on her heels and stalked from the room. The loud slam of her bedroom door reverberated through the house.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Tanner asked.

  “No, I’m just trying to protect her.”

  “She doesn’t want or need our protection, Coop. She needs us working with her, not against her.”

  “I’m not against her.”

  “Didn’t look like it from where I was sitting,” Tanner said. “You may just as well have called her a damsel in distress.”

  “I don’t want her getting hurt. Fuck, you saw the scars on her body. You heard her screams of agony and cries of terror.”

  “Yeah, I did, but I also respect her for facing her fears. She’s probably been dealing with shit from the other agents she works with because of her size and gender, and if they’ve seen those scars, because of those, too. She’s supposed to be a black belt in karate, and she’s a trained FBI agent. You need to back off, Coop. Treat her as you would a fellow officer and with the respect she deserves.”

  “I can’t change who I am, Tanner. It’s engrained in me, in us, to protect those smaller and weaker than we are.”

  “I get that, Coop, you know that, but if we are going to have a chance at having a relationship with her, you need to treat her like you would one of the guys.”

  Coop smiled because there was no way in hell he was going to pull that off, especially since she was so feminine, but he knew what Tanner meant. “I’ll apologize to her in the morning.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “She’s smart,” Cooper said as he grabbed the empty beer bottles and carried them to the recycle bin.

  “Yeah, remember that before you open that mouth of yours.”

  “I’ll try.”

  * * * *

  “What the hell are you doing in there, Robert? You’ve been in the bathroom for nearly an hour.”

  He was sick of hearing her voice. Now that he was no longer dividing his time between the two women he’d had in his life and he’d resigned from working at the resort, he’d spent nearly every waking hour in his second de facto wife’s home. That was when he wasn’t out and about delving into his life’s work. He wondered what had ever possessed him to hook up with two women. It hadn’t been that hard to juggle between the two of them in the beginning, but Sonja was getting on his last nerve. He should have kept the other one alive, but the craving had been too strong to ignore and he’d been a little concerned that the lawmen would work out who he really was. Using the grief at his first wife’s demise had given him the out he’d needed, but now he wasn’t so sure he should have given into the urge to kill again so quickly. Plus, he just couldn’t get used to being called a different name.

  After a last glance in the mirror and rubbing his hand over his now gleaming bald head, he winked at himself and turned toward the bathroom door. He pulled it open quickly, nearly smirking when she startled and shrieked and took a step back from him.

  “You scared me.” Sonja’s hand fluttered at her throat as she eyed his clean-shaven head. Her lips tightened as if she disapproved, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass what she thought of the way he looked. “Why do you keep shaving your head? Most men want to keep a full head of hair for as long as they can.”

  “I don’t like the way it gets in my eyes while I’m working.” He pinned her with a cold look. “I’ve already told you that umpteen times.”

  “So you have.” She smiled at him, but that smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  He had a feeling she wasn’t very happy with him anymore, and that was okay because he didn’t like her much either. In the beginning, he’d only courted her to use her as a front to keep others from guessing about his extra-curricular activities, but she’d become more of a hindering burden than the cover he’d being using her for.

  It was definitely time to move on, but first, he needed to get to the one that had eluded him. She’d fought him so hard and that had had the adrenaline pumping through his system. Having her fight instead of just looking at him with terror had made his work exciting for the first time in years. That bitch had been scared but she hadn’t let the fear rule. She’d even managed to punch him in the nose. He would have loved to have spent hour upon hour torturing her until all the fight was gone from her, but he hadn’t had the chance. Oh, the others had tried to escape his clutches in the first few minutes, but then that fear induced inevitable look had come into their eyes. That had made his kills seem as if they were an everyday occurrence. Plus, she was the only victim to ever get away from him. He wouldn’t be satisfied until she was dead. He couldn’t leave the county let alone the state until she’d breathed her last. The compulsion to finish what he’d started was too strong to walk away.

  When the job was complete, he would set up shop in Los Angeles where he’d have his pick of some of the best-looking women in the country. No more girl-next-door for him. If he played his cards right, and he always did, very soon he would be living the high life.

  * * * *

  Jasmine was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She’d spent the rest of the night working, and her hard work had paid off. She’d used Billy Bush’s DNA genome in the FBI’s database and couldn’t believe what she’d discovered. After he’d killed his mother, Billy Bush, also known as Anthony Wood, had been sent to foster home after foster home, and though that wasn’t unusual, what horrified her was the amount of unresolved murders in the areas he’d lived in. She wasn’t completely sure but her gut was telling her she was right. It couldn’t just be coincidence in regards to the missing women when Bush was also in the area. Could it? If she was right and deep down she knew she was, he’d been killing from the age of thirteen years old, and though he’d killed regularly as he’d matured, the psychopath hadn’t been caught since the judge who’d tried his mother’s case had had the file sealed. If that hadn’t happened, Jasmine suspected that Bush would have been locked behind bars never to be released.

  The more she’d delved into the kid’s life, the more horrified she’d become. There were reports from some of the foster homes stating that Bush wasn’t mentally stable since he’d changed his name on a whim and wouldn’t answer to anything other than the name he’d chosen for himself, no matter the consequences. He’d kept to himself, but on more than one occasion, his temper was reported to have rivaled Mt. Vesuvius when let loose.

  Everywhere the kid had been, teenage girls and then women had been reported missing and had never been found. Jasmine didn’t need to find the bodies of those missing to know what had happened to them. Her gut was in a tight ball letting her know that all those girls and women had died.

  Chills raced over her skin, causing her body to erupt in goose bumps, and the fine hairs on her body stood on end. For a moment or two she wondered if she’d bitten off more than she could chew by changing her appearance to look like Misha, but if this was the only way to catch the sick fuck, so be it.

  She scrambled from the bed and headed into the bathroom for a quick shower. After she was dressed and had brushed her teeth and hair, she gathered up all her hard work into a pile and headed out to the kitchen. Cooper and Tanner had been up and moving about for a while, and she suspected that the others had arrived while she was showering because there were way too many voices coming from the kitchen. She glanced about as soon as she entered the kitchen to find Clay, Spence, Misha, Dawson, Kent, and Bella all sitting at the large dining table. Plates of food had been set out as well as coffee mugs and silverware.

  “Hey, Jasmine,” Bella called as she looked up. “You look tired. Did you sleep?”

  “Not really,” Jasmine answered honestly.

  “You look exhausted,” Misha said. “Maybe you should have a nap this afternoon.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Yes you do,” Cooper said in his gravelly voice. “If you don’t get some decent sleep, you’re going to get sick.”

  Jasmine decided to ignore that comment, th
ough she suspected he was right. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on this way without collapsing, but she wasn’t about to give in until that sicko was behind bars. “Did they fill you in?”

  “Not yet,” Tanner answered.

  “What?” Clay met her gaze after taking a sip of coffee.

  “Anthony Wood is the serial killer.”

  Misha gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her face paled, and she shook her head. “You can’t be serious. The poor man just lost his wife to that madman.”

  Jasmine hated shocking Misha because the woman had actually worked with the killer, but she wasn’t about to lie just to placate her. “I’m deadly serious.” She went on to explain how she’d come to her conclusions but hesitated over revealing the fact that the psychopath had been killing for a very long time.

  “There’s more,” Tanner said as he stared at her. “Let’s hear it.”

  Jasmine gave a slight shake of her head as she covertly glanced at Misha and Bella.

  “Don’t try and protect us.” Bella’s voice wavered before she cleared her throat. “If you’re right about who the killer is, then that bastard killed my sister and Misha’s best friend. We deserve to hear all of it.”

  Jasmine glanced at the women’s men and sighed when they nodded. “He’s been killing since he was thirteen years old. He started out by killing his mother. He was put into the various foster homes around the state of Wyoming. Everywhere he’s been, young girls and women disappeared.”

  “Oh God. Were they ever found?” Misha asked.

  “No.”

  “How are you going to catch him?” Bella asked. “Didn’t he resign from the resort?”

  “He did,” Misha replied.

  “He’s still here,” Jasmine stated.

  “How do you know that?” Bella asked.

  “Because he has unfinished business,” she answered.

  “But you don’t even know where he is.” Bella shivered. “He could be scoping out another victim and whoever it is won’t even know he’s watching them.”