Chapter One
The sand dunes were nearly blinding in the late-June sunshine, but that didn’t stop the surge of adrenaline that raced through Seth Hawkins as he pulled his pickup to a halt and cut the engine.
Deadman’s Dunes. It had been almost a year since he’d been back here in the small Oklahoma town of Amber Lake to enjoy not only the company of his sister and niece, but also the thrill of conquering the dunes.
Seth pulled on a pair of goggles against the sun’s glare and then got out of his truck. As far as the eye could see the dunes rose up like an alien landscape located seven miles outside town.
In the distance he could hear the roar of quad and other ATV engines and knew he wouldn’t have the dunes to himself. Not that it mattered, there was plenty of room for everyone.
He’d driven here from his home in Kansas City early that morning and had a leisurely lunch with Linda and Samantha, his sister and niece, but he’d been eager to get out here on the dunes where nothing mattered but the throttle beneath his hand and the elemental challenge between man and nature.
It took him only minutes to unload his dirt bike from the back of the truck. As he strapped on his protective equipment and then pulled on his helmet, he drew in a deep breath of the fresh warm air.
For the next week he wasn’t FBI Special Agent Seth Hawkins—he was simply Seth on vacation, visiting with his only relatives and enjoying some much needed downtime from the job.
He climbed on the dirt bike and kick-started it, the thrum of the engine filled him with a teenagelike excitement. It felt as if in the past couple of years there had been nothing but work, no time for anything but murder and mayhem. He needed this vacation and he intended to spend each and every moment of it just having fun and relaxing.
With this thought in mind, he released the clutch and shot forward, the sand shifting ever ominously beneath his tires as he approached the first dune and after that miles of more dunes that would eventually lead to the large hump that was Deadman’s Bluff.
A hairpin turn at the crest of the hill had to be maneuvered with precision. Otherwise the rider would fly off the bluff and to the sand fifteen feet below. More than one rider had tasted that sand at the bottom of Deadman’s Bluff, although Seth himself had never had the unpleasant experience.
As he flew over the first mound, exhilaration spiked and he would have grinned, but knew that gesture would only get him a mouthful of sand.
He saw the tracks that others had left before him and saw in the distance several riders on quads who were obviously riding together.
Seth hadn’t visited Amber Lake often enough over the years to get to know the locals. He tried to come and visit his sister every six months or so, especially since her contentious divorce five years ago, but most of the time it was just an overnight visit.
But he was here now for a wonderful week and intended to take full advantage of having nothing more on his mind than dinner and dunes.
He’d been riding about a half hour when he spied the other three riders in the distance, all stopped and off their vehicles near an area referred to as the whoop-ti-doos, tiny bumps set so close together they rattled your brain. The young men looked like they were freaking out, two of them jumping around while the third stood as if frozen into a statue.
Was the young man who wasn’t moving hurt? Had he taken a tumble and was now in a state of shock? Seth turned his bike to head toward them and as he drew closer he could hear two of the male voices shouting above the whine of his engine.
Seth pulled up, cut his engine and pulled off his helmet and goggles. “In the sand...” It was a short, dark-haired young man who shouted at Seth. “There’s a dead woman in the sand.”
What? Seth dropped his helmet on the ground, wondering if this was some kind of stupid prank the three were playing on him. He walked over to where statue man stood staring down at the sand just in front of him. Seth followed his gaze and gasped in shock.
A pale face in the sand, a woman’s face, partially visible with her eyes closed. Obviously a dead woman, Seth’s brain processed as the shock quickly passed.
“Any of you have a cell phone?” he asked, having left his own in his truck.
“It’s freaky,” the blond boy exclaimed as he wore a path back and forth in the sand. “Jeez, who would do something like that?”
“A phone,” Seth barked. “Anyone have a phone?” The tall, frozen man stumbled back a couple of steps and pulled a phone from his pocket.
“Call for help,” Seth commanded as he took a step closer to the body. “All three of you get over there by my bike.”
The last thing he wanted was for everyone to trample what was obviously a crime scene. Whoever the woman was, she hadn’t willingly lain down in the sand and buried herself. However, as an FBI agent he wanted to get closer, assure himself she was dead despite the obvious.
“The sheriff is on his way,” one of the guys said.
As Seth approached the woman, he was vaguely aware of the three others talking among themselves, their voices all holding a barely contained edge of hysteria.
There was no question the scene was disconcerting. There was no indication of her body beneath the sand, simply a face half-emerged from the sandy surface, like some art sculpture left behind by a mentally ill artist.
Careful not to step where he assumed her body must be, Seth knelt down at the side of the face and swept away some of the sand that covered her closed eyes.
In all of his years as an FBI agent working violent crimes, he’d never seen anything like this, and he’d certainly seen a lot of evil things.
He brushed a bit more sand away from her eyes and froze as he thought one of her eyelids twitched. A trick of the sun? He touched her skin. Warm...warmed by the heat of the day or by blood still flowing through her veins?
Quickly he dug through the sand by her neck, seeking the place where he might find a pulse. It took him only seconds to find her pulse point and place his fingers against it. He nearly yelped in surprise as he felt the beat of life throbbing there.
“She’s alive,” he yelled. “Get over here and help me. We’ve got to get this sand off her.”
Two of the three ran to help Seth as he began to scoop sand away from her neck and her chest. As he worked on her upper body the other two men worked on her thighs and legs. The tall young man appeared to be in some state of shock still, standing like a robot in front of Seth’s dirt bike.
“Hey, call the sheriff back and tell him we need an ambulance,” Seth instructed the robot. “And tell him to hurry.”
“This is so freaky...so freakin’ freaky,” the dark-haired man said as he uncovered a jean-clad leg.
“Are you sure she’s alive?” the other one asked as he worked on getting the last of the sand off her other leg.
It all felt like a weird dream to Seth. As she was freed of the sand, his mind clicked off details. She was dressed in worn jeans and a blue T-shirt. One foot wore a gold sandal, the other one was bare. Her hair was dark, although it was so embedded with sand it was hard to discern an exact color.
“Sheriff Atkins is here,” one of them said in relief.
Seth didn’t look up from the woman. Once again he sought the side of her neck to assure himself that she was still breathing. At that moment her eyes flew open.
Bright blue, they connected with Seth for one long moment. Before Seth could react, she skittered backward like a crab, her pupils dilating as her eyes filled with an abject terror Seth knew he’d never forget.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now,” Seth said as she continued an attempt to escape, her eyes darting around wildly, like a crab seeking a rock to hide under.
As she moved she made sounds that no human being should ever make, the sound of terror too great for words. She got about three feet away from them and then with an audible moan, she collapsed.
By that time the sheriff had joined them. “FBI Agent Seth Hawkins,” he said quickly. “We called for an ambulance,” he added curtly. “We’ve got a crime scene and a live victim here who needs immediate medical care.”
“We only have two ambulances who serve this area and both of them are currently working a four-car pile-up on the other end of town,” the sheriff said as he raked a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.
Seth immediately assessed that the man appeared not to know exactly how to proceed. “We’ve got to get her to the hospital now.” Seth took control.
“Hey.” He focused on the dark-haired young man who’d helped uncover the victim. “You know where Linda and Samantha Willoughby live?” He shook his head, but the taller blond nodded. “I do,” he replied. Seth threw him his truck keys. “Load my bike and drive my truck to their place. Put the keys under the floor mat.”
Seth turned to the sheriff. “We’re going to put her in the back of your car and you’re going to drive us to the emergency room as quickly as possible. And you might want to contact some of your men to cordon off this scene so there’s no more contamination.”
He didn’t wait to see if anyone followed his orders. Instead he approached the unconscious woman and bent down next to her. He was aware that by picking her up, that by transporting her in the back of a car, he might be doing more harm than good, but her pulse had been weak and thready and he didn’t want to wait around for an ambulance that might never come.
He saw no visible wounds on her, no blood to indicate she had been wounded with a knife or by a gunshot. He knelt down beside her and gently scooped her up in his arms and then stood.
She was a tiny thing, short and slender and even though she was deadweight in his arms, he had no problem carrying her to the sheriff’s car.
The local lawman hurried in front of him and opened the back door to his cruiser. Once Seth and the woman were in the backseat, the overweight sheriff quickly made his way to the driver’s side.
He slid into the car and started the engine and only when they were driving away from the dunes did he radio in location and instructions for somebody named Raymond to grab a couple of men and get their butts out there as quickly as possible to protect the crime scene.
As he talked on the radio, Seth stared down at the woman in his arms. What had happened to her? How had she come to be buried in the dunes?
Despite the sand that clung to her, she was very pretty, with long dark lashes and a hint of cheekbones and shapely lips that at the moment hung slack and partially open.
He thought he’d never forget that moment when her eyes had first opened, when for just a moment her gaze had connected with his. In that first instant, he’d felt electrically charged, as if her eyes had held an appeal he had to answer.
It had lasted only a heartbeat before the terror of whatever she’d endured had obviously coursed through her, momentarily stealing away anything human inside her. She’d been a wild animal seeking escape.
“By the way, I’m Sheriff Tom Atkins,” the older man said from the front seat. “What’s an FBI agent doing in my town?”
“I’m here on vacation visiting my sister and niece, Linda and Samantha Willoughby. I just got into town this morning.”
“Hell of a way to start a vacation,” Atkins said.
“This woman is definitely having a worse day than me,” Seth replied. “Do you know her?”
“I don’t recognize her and this is a pretty small town where most faces are familiar to me.”
Seth once again looked down at the broken woman in his arms. “Hopefully when she comes to she’ll be able to tell you who she is and how she came to be buried in the sand. I’m assuming you’ll question thoroughly the boys at the scene. They are not only potential witnesses but also potential suspects, as well.”
“They’ll be brought in for questioning.” That was all Atkins said as they pulled up to the emergency room entrance. Seth lifted the woman out of the car and carried her in where he was relieved of his burden by an orderly with a cart.
Within seconds, the woman was taken back behind doors that forbade Seth’s entry. Sheriff Atkins had disappeared, probably headed back to the crime scene.
Seth sank down in one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room and drew a couple of deep, steadying breaths. He felt as if he’d been flying on a sickening surge of adrenaline since the moment he’d seen that haunting face in the sand.
He looked up as he saw his sister hurrying down the hallway toward him, her blue scrubs looking crisp and clean. Linda worked as a nurse and had left for her shift here at the hospital when Seth had left her house for the dunes.
“Hey,” she said as she approached.
“Hey yourself,” he replied with a soft smile. At thirty-eight Linda was three years older than him, but the two siblings had always been unusually close, especially since Linda had gone through her divorce from her domineering, verbally abusive husband, Mark.
She sat down next to him. “I heard the strangest story in the break room a few minutes ago. I heard that you went out dirt-bike-riding and wound up here with a woman you dug out of the sand.”
He nodded. “Strange, but true.”
“A couple of months ago another young woman was found dead in the dunes,” Linda said. Seth sat up straighter in his seat, his questions obvious in his eyes as Linda continued. “Apparently some of the teenagers in town decided to have a party out there. From the story I heard there was a lot of booze, some drugs and at the time that the woman was discovered Sheriff Atkins thought it was some kind of a freak accident resulting from partying.”
Seth frowned. “This today definitely wasn’t an accident.” His frown deepened as he thought about the scene. “She couldn’t have been there that long before I got to the dunes. It was almost like she’d been intended to be completely buried but something or someone chased the killer away before he could deliver the final shovelful of sand onto her face.” He wondered if perhaps the three young men who had arrived at the dunes before him had interrupted the murderer or had buried her themselves.
Linda reached over and patted his hand. “Go home, Seth. This isn’t your crime scene. Remember, you’re on vacation.” She stood. “And I’m not, so I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you at home late tonight.”
He nodded absently and watched as she disappeared back down the hallway. She was right. This wasn’t his job. He’d done what he needed to do and there was nothing to keep him from walking away.
Except those startling blue eyes and that moment of connection he felt with her before she’d freaked out and then had passed out. He couldn’t just head home and forget about all of this. Besides, he thought with a touch of humor, he had no way to get home.
He had no doubt that the kids from the dunes would see to it that his truck and bike got back to Linda’s okay. This was a small town and if they screwed with his rides, there would be no place for them to hide.
Still, despite the fact that he was on vacation, he couldn’t walk away from this until he had some answers. He wanted to know her condition, assure himself that she was physically okay. He wanted to know her name. He needed to know what had happened to her.
He jumped up from his chair as his cell phone rang. Seeing on the caller ID that it was his boss, Director Forbes, calling from Kansas City, he answered and walked with the phone outside the building doors and into the early-evening sun.
“Hope you’ve enjoyed the first few hours of your vacation because it’s officially over,” Director Forbes said. “I just got a call from Sheriff Atkins requesting your aid in the investigation of a serial killer who is burying women in sand dunes. Apparently you’re already a part of the most recent case.”
“A serial killer?” Seth felt as if he were missing a significant piece of a puzzle. Linda had mentioned one woman whose death had been ruled some sort of an accident, but nothing else.
“The sheriff has managed to keep the details of the other two murders under his hat. This woman you found is apparently the third victim in as many months. Since you’re already there in town Sheriff Atkins would like you to assist his team, and it sounds like you need to be there. Three women buried in the sand sounds like a case where the locals might be in over their heads. They definitely could use your help.”
“Yes, sir,” Seth replied, fighting an overwhelming irritation that the sheriff had gone directly to his boss before mentioning to Seth what he intended to do, and he’d neglected to tell Seth that this wasn’t the first woman found buried in the sand dunes.
As the conversation ended Seth noticed with dismay that the wind was picking up. A little wind out on the dunes would destroy any hope of collecting any evidence that might have been there.
He went back into the waiting room and within half an hour Sheriff Atkins showed up once again. “Any word on the victim?” he asked.
“Nothing so far. The only thing that’s happened is that I got a call from my director indicating that I’m now on this case. Why didn’t you tell me while we were in your car that this was the third woman found buried in the sand dunes?”
Sheriff Atkins winced, the lines on his face appearing to deepen into bone-weariness in the span of a heartbeat. “I wasn’t sure what I had going on here until you found this woman today. This makes number three and that officially makes it bigger for me to handle. It’s obviously a serial killer at work and I know as FBI you’d have more experience with this sort of thing.”
Whatever else he might have said was interrupted as a doctor came into the room. “Tom.” He greeted the sheriff with a nod.
“And this is Special Agent Seth Hawkins,” Sheriff Atkins said. “Doctor William Kane. How is she?”
“Other than being a bit dehydrated and showing some sand abrasion, she appears to be surprisingly fine physically. Her vitals are stable, but we’re giving her fluids and we’ve drawn blood for a tox screen.”
“Is she conscious?” Seth asked. “Has she said anything?”
“She’s conscious and we’ve moved her to a regular room, but she came to so agitated we had to give her a mild sedative. She’s calm now but so far she hasn’t said a word to anyone,” Dr. Kane replied.
“Can we see her?” Seth asked.
Dr. Kane hesitated a moment and then nodded. “But I have to warn you that she appears to be emotionally fragile. I don’t want her upset. I understand that you have questions and want answers, but right now my main concern is her health and welfare.”
“Understood,” Sheriff Atkins agreed.
“Room 223.”
Seth took the lead down the long corridor that would take him to her room. He told himself his eagerness to see her, to talk to her was because she was now his case. It was official business.
Room 223 was in semidarkness, the curtains pulled across the windows to shield the late-day sun, and only a small light illuminated the area just above the bed.
Seth nodded in surprise at his sister, who rose from a chair next to the bed at their entrance. “We did the best we could to clean her up, but there’s still a beach-full of sand in her hair,” she said in a soft whisper. “I think she’s asleep right now, but it’s hard to tell. She hasn’t made a sound since you brought her in.”
Linda moved away from the bed as Seth stepped closer. Sheriff Atkins remained just inside the doorway, as if perfectly happy to take a secondary role to Seth.
Seth gazed at the woman in the bed and then looked up at the sheriff. “You sure she isn’t a local?” he asked, his voice low and soft.
“Fairly sure,” Tom replied.
Seth sank down into the chair that Linda had vacated, satisfied to simply sit and watch until the mystery woman woke up. He had no idea how long Sheriff Atkins was willing to stand in the doorway, but Seth was committed to sitting all night if that’s what it took.
It didn’t take all night. They’d only been waiting about fifteen minutes when she drew a deep intake of breath and opened her eyes. Almost instantly the tension level in the room shot through the ceiling.
She half rose from her prone position, eyes wild until her gaze landed on Seth and then she appeared to relax a little bit and leaned back into the pillow.
“You’re safe now,” he said softly. “You’re in a hospital and nobody is going to hurt you again.” He realized her eyes weren’t just a simple blue, but had silver shards around the pupils, giving them a depth that drew Seth in.
“Can you tell us your name?” Tom asked as he stepped up to the foot of her bed.
She looked at the sheriff and then back at Seth and tears began to fill her eyes. She clutched the sheet that covered her and Seth noted that her fingernails were medium-length and polished with a pretty pink gloss that had dulled slightly, probably from sand abrasion.
Still, no broken nails, no obvious defense wounds, no wounds at all on her. So, what had happened to her and who had attempted to bury her in the sand?
“Can you tell us your name?” Seth repeated gently, aware of the tremor that had begun to show on her face, in her shoulders.
Slowly, she shook her head and closed her eyes, as if seeking the numbness of sleep once again. Seth and the sheriff remained in the room for another fifteen minutes or so and then left her room and stood just outside it in the hallway as Linda resumed her seat next to the sleeping woman.
“We found nothing at the crime scene,” Sheriff Atkins said as they began to walk down the hallway. “The wind started howling out there and sand was blowing everywhere.” He released an audible sigh. “I was hoping we’d get some answers by talking to her tonight.”
“She’s obviously still traumatized. We’ll probably get some answers in the morning. She needs to rest tonight.” Seth was as frustrated as the sheriff, but nothing could be done for the remainder of the night. “I would like to get the files from the other two crimes that you believe are linked to this one.”
“You’re staying at your sister’s house?”
Seth nodded. “It looks like I’ll be there until we get this mess cleaned up.”
“I’ll have one of my men bring you the files sometime this evening.”
“One more thing, I’d like the names of the young men who were out there on the dunes with me when our mystery woman was found,” Seth said.
“The short one with the dark hair is Jerome Walker. He’s nineteen and home for the summer from college. The blond is Ernie Simpson, also nineteen and works at the hardware store.”
“And the tall one?” Seth asked, thinking of the kid who had stood as if frozen in shock while all the activity had gone on around him.
“Sam Clemmons. He’s twenty-one, spends his evenings working part-time as a bartender at a tavern on Main and most of his days out at the dunes riding.”
Seth mentally took note of each name, intending to check them all out. Just because they’d been there to help him didn’t mean they’d had nothing to do with how the woman had gotten into the sand. It was possible they’d been burying her and had only stopped and pretended to discover her when Seth had shown up. At this point everyone in Amber Lake was a potential suspect.
“I’m glad to have you on board,” Sheriff Atkins said as they stepped out into the waning light of day. “The first young woman I just assumed was some kind of freak party accident. When the second one showed up a month ago I had a bad feeling. And now this...” He allowed his voice to trail off and then continued, “I’m just glad your director allowed you to join me on this.”
“I’ll meet you at your office at seven tomorrow morning and then together we’ll head over here to see if our Jane Doe can wrap things up for us. If this is some kind of a serial killer at work, then she might be able to give you a description, some information that will lead to an arrest.”
Sheriff Atkins raked a hand through his hair. “I hope so. You need a ride back to your sister’s place?”
“No, thanks. We’re close enough that I can just walk there.” Linda’s house was only three blocks away and Seth needed to expend some of the adrenaline that still coursed through him. The walk would do him good.
“Then I’ll see you in the morning.”
Seth watched as the sheriff got into his cruiser and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Only when the cruiser had disappeared from view did he begin the walk to Linda’s place.
It’s just a job, he told himself, like so many he’d worked before in his career. But, even though that was what he thought, he knew it was more than that. Something had happened in that split second of eye connection they’d shared, something that made him decide long before he’d been officially assigned to the case that he was in until the end.