Three days later
Seth held tight to her hand as they walked between the firs. Her left hand and wrist were in a brace, her scaphoid and radius broken from her fall. At least she wasn’t left-handed, but she might as well be. She couldn’t do anything—cut a steak, shampoo her hair, or type efficiently on her keyboard. She felt like an invalid with Seth as her caretaker. Sure, having him shampoo her hair was fun, but dictating her reports to him was simply frustrating.
He hadn’t complained once.
After Leo’s grisly death, she’d been focused on comforting Trinity and Jason. Nothing Victoria could do could erase that memory from Jason’s sight. His mother had appeared from Idaho the next day, packed him up, and taken him home to her new husband and young sons. Trinity said he’d texted a few times, complaining that his toddler half brothers were pests, but Victoria suspected he’d quickly grow accustomed to a caring family.
The shed had revealed a history of horrors. The investigators didn’t know how many bloodstains from different victims they were going to find in the mattress. Unlocking the lockbox had opened a Pandora’s box of death. Old square black-and-white photos and fading Polaroids revealed women in various states of bondage and death. No current color photos graced the box. It was theorized that Cesare had gotten too old to act as an angel of death in recent years. The newest items in the shed were in a plastic grocery bag. Investigators found six pairs of women’s shoes, six cell phones, and a few purses.
Cesare had created a small graveyard under the firs. A hundred yards from the house, they’d found the first of the graves. This one had been recently disturbed, the woman’s skull missing.
“I bet that’s the skull that Leo threw through my window,” Victoria had said to Callahan. “I figured out yesterday that it didn’t match the photos or X-rays I’d taken of the missing skulls.”
“So that tells me Leo was aware of the graveyard, too. I wonder if Cesare knew his son had discovered his dark side,” said Callahan.
“From what I heard that night, Cesare was oblivious to anything about Leo,” added Victoria.
Police and investigators had been at the cabin nonstop since the first fire truck had arrived late that night, expecting to help pull a car out of the water. Instead the first responders had been led by Seth to the cabin, where they tried to revive Cesare Abbadelli, who’d consumed an estimated thousand milligrams of phenobarbital. The old man had been unresponsive and his body had shut down within hours, following the identical path of the young women killed by Leo. His autopsy had revealed a body riddled with cancer; Seth estimated he wouldn’t have lived another six months.
Leo was dead at the scene. There was nothing the first responders could do for him.
Investigators had found eleven graves. So far. Victoria had been unable to join the team unearthing the graves. Part of her wanted to be here, making certain every little detail was handled appropriately. The rest of her wanted to never set foot near the cabin. Ever.
The graves exposed young woman after young woman. So far there’d been two exceptions. One young man and an older woman. According to Jason, Abbadelli’s older son and wife had “left town” years ago. DNA comparisons had been requested to see if these two sets of remains showed a genetic connection to Leo.
The rest of the Pacific Northwest police departments were digging into every cold case of missing young women, flooding the Oregon medical examiner’s office with requests. With all the publicity, Victoria had strong hopes that the last two women from the old circle would be identified. Esther Cavallo had pointed out that in the sixties and seventies the church had been known for its outreach program for runaways and women in “difficult” circumstances, receiving referrals from agencies in downtown Portland where women went to seek shelter. Possibly Cesare Abbadelli had used this program to search for women who fit his “type.” Women who wouldn’t be missed, women who needed a strong shoulder to cry on.
He must have stockpiled victims in his shed before creating the white circle in Forest Park. Could he have managed it alone? Callahan hadn’t been certain. He could have drugged the women into compliance. Or he could have had an accomplice. Scratch marks in the corners and around the doorframe of the shed spoke of the terrors of the women locked in his hellhole. The shed had been through extensive strengthening at one point, with heavy-duty boards nailed and glued into impenetrability. It was a prison cell.
Isabel had healed from her head injury. Leo had surprised and attacked her in her home. She didn’t remember anything after being hit in the head. She had no memory of the shed, which Victoria thought was extremely lucky; her own shed memories would last a lifetime. She’d visited Isabel in the hospital, explaining how Leo had claimed she was Isabel’s daughter. The older woman had stared at her for a long time. “It’s possible,” Isabel had admitted grudgingly. “Abbadelli put my baby girl up for adoption. I wanted out of there. At first I’d been thankful for a roof over my head after getting away from a boyfriend who liked to beat on me, but Abbadelli gave me the creeps. I was happy to leave the baby behind. I didn’t want any memories of that man.” She’d offered to give a DNA sample for Victoria to compare.
Victoria hadn’t taken her up on the offer. Yet.
Maybe someday she would.
Dr. Campbell had agreed to postpone his retirement a few weeks to lend a helping hand as a deputy examiner and offer advice as Seth took over his position.
Seth was now Victoria’s boss. And bossy he’d been. “Don’t lift that,” “Don’t do that,” “Let me do that” were the phrases she was utterly sick of hearing from his mouth. She’d moved into his hotel room while her house was cleaned and renewed from the fire damage.
Next week they were flying to Sacramento to meet Eden.
Oddly Victoria wasn’t nervous. She’d developed a fondness for teen girls that she was positive would extend to Eden. She was an extension of Seth. How could she not instinctively love her?
She hadn’t been out of Seth’s sight for three days. He’d said that when she’d walked away from him that night with Trinity, his heart had feared he’d never see her again. Now he frequently touched her arm, reassuring himself that she was close by. He’d been back in her life for a few days, and she couldn’t imagine her future without him.
Today they’d visited the recovery site. She’d fought the urge to give direction over the shoulders of the diggers. Instead she and Seth had hung back, watching the investigators crawl through the house, shed, and woods. The gigantic scope of the investigation made Victoria’s brain spin. And the main characters were dead. The police might find answers to lingering questions, but there’d never be anyone to punish for the crimes.
At least Brooke had survived. She’d slowly regained function of her brain and body. To Trinity’s relief, she’d known her best friend. But her short-term memory was shot. Her doctors were optimistic that she’d return to full health over time. She’d revealed to the police that she’d communicated with the photographer through his Facebook professional page. He hadn’t been in her list of friends, where investigators had first sought a common ground between the victims; he’d been in her “Likes.” It’d been a moot point, because the page had been removed the day of the deaths.
Seth had finally dragged Victoria away from the site, pulling her down a path away from the bustle of the scene. For once, it wasn’t raining. The sky was a depressing gray, but was holding tight to its water for the moment. Victoria breathed in the ripe wet scent of the trees and damp undergrowth.
“How could Cesare hide his true colors from so many people? And present himself as a spiritual leader?” she asked.
Seth paced silently beside her for a long moment. “I think people saw what they wanted to see. At one time, his personality must have been pretty charismatic to convince people to not see through his fa?ade.”
“And those who did, didn’t report him. I hope Jason gets over his guilt about not going directly to the police with his suspicions about his father and grandfather.”
“He’s lucky no one else was killed by Leo. That level of guilt would have messed him up for life.” He didn’t add how close the both of them came to losing their lives.
“Do you think he’ll always wonder if he has an evil side, directing some of his actions or waiting to come out of his personality at the wrong time?” Victoria said slowly.
Seth stopped and turned her to face him. “You do not have rotten blood in your veins. You are living proof that a good heart can overpower anything that nature throws in your genes. You are not Abbadelli or Isabel. You’re Victoria Peres, forensic anthropologist extraordinaire, dragon-boat queen, high-school teen hero, and my Tori.” He pulled her into him, carefully avoiding crushing her hurt wrist. “I love you, and I never want to be in the position of wondering if some crazy nut has hurt you again. I plan on not letting you out of my sight for a very long time. Maybe never.”
She squirmed in his embrace. “Never? That has a bit of a compulsive implication about it. I don’t know if—”
He cut off her teasing words with a kiss, pressing his lips against hers. She opened to meet him, seeking his heat and reassurance. She moved closer, loving the strength and hardness of his body next to hers. Soft drops of rain hit her cheeks, bringing back memories of their first kiss. Their first kiss this time around. A rare second chance at being together. She wasn’t going to waste it. They’d been given a precious gift, and she would embrace it with everything she had.
“I love you, too,” she spoke against his lips.
If this was an example of how Seth needed to keep her in his sight, she was the luckiest woman in the world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book wouldn’t have happened without the pestering of my developmental editor, Charlotte Herscher. During the edits of my previous novel, Buried, Charlotte told me she found Victoria Peres to be a fascinating character and suggested I write the next book about her. I immediately replied, “No. She intimidates the hell out of me. And the other characters are scared of her.” Charlotte didn’t accept that answer. She wanted to know why Victoria unsettled me, and what had made her into a cold person who pushed away the other characters.
Her questions stuck in my head. I wrote three chapters of Alone with Victoria in a secondary role, but in my head I heard Charlotte’s voice ask, “But why is Victoria like that?”
Victoria took over the book. And I loved discovering her past.
Montlake Romance is a wonderful team, and I’m extremely fortunate to have a home with them and to work with people who are enthusiastic about my books. Thank you to Lindsay Guzzardo and Kelli Martin, my editors extraordinaire. More thanks to Jessica Poore, author team angel, who always knows the right answer.
Thank you to my kids, who put up with a constantly distracted mom and are proud to pimp my books to their teachers. Thank goodness I married a man who is tied to his laptop as much as I am. He understands me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph ? Yuen Lui, 2010
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Kendra Elliot has always been a voracious reader, cutting her teeth on classic female sleuths and heroines like Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Laura Ingalls before proceeding to devour the works of Stephen King, Diana Gabaldon, and Nora Roberts. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon. Now a Golden Heart, Daphne du Maurier, and Linda Howard Award of Excellence finalist, Elliot shares her love of suspense in her Bone Secrets series: Hidden, Chilled, Buried, and now Alone. She still lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and three daughters.