Bennett didn’t let his expression alter. “Ivy was going to be with him.” He’d had the same fears about Hugh, especially after last night.
“So messed up.” Cameron’s head sagged forward. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
That was an odd turn of phrase. A bit wary now, Bennett studied the other man. “Just what was supposed to happen?”
Cameron’s shoulders stiffened. Very slowly, he glanced up. “Hugh was supposed to marry Shelly.”
Bennett reached for the manila file on his left. He wanted to see Cameron’s reaction to the photo. “I guess when Shelly changed her hair color, she was too much of a temptation for the killer.”
“She…changed her hair color?”
He flipped open the file and pushed a crime scene photo toward Cameron.
The guy’s eyelids barely twitched. “She’s a brunette now.”
She was also covered in blood. She was your friend. And you’re just staring at her with almost clinical curiosity.
“Stabbed, like the others?” Cameron asked.
“Others?” Bennett cocked his head to the side.
Cameron flushed. “Look, stop it. Stop trying to jerk me around. You think I haven’t been following this case? The minute Ivy was involved, I got involved, too.”
Had he?
“Others…others,” Cameron snapped. “The councilman, that woman at the parade—Evette something or other.”
“Evette Summers” Bennett supplied, still watching the other man carefully.
“Right. Evette Summers.” Cameron cleared his throat. “How damn tragic.”
Bennett’s instincts were on full alert. He’d never liked Cameron, mostly because the guy had always been sniffing around Ivy.
“It’s actually even more tragic than we first assumed.” Bennett pulled the photo away. He noticed that Cameron’s gaze followed the image until it was placed back in the folder. “There are more victims.”
“More?”
“Quite a few more,” he said casually. “Here…and in New Orleans.”
Cameron leaned forward. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“Just how long has this madman been killing? And why hasn’t he been stopped?” Cameron jumped to his feet. “Shelly is gone, murdered…and this animal is still out on the streets?”
“For the moment.” He looked up at Cameron. The guy had taken up a dominant position, towering over him. Why would he feel the need to claim dominance? Bennett had learned a whole lot regarding body language when he’d been hunting with the Violent Crimes division at the FBI.
“You can be assured,” Bennett continued slowly as he rose and faced off against Cameron, “that I will not rest until this perp is apprehended.”
“This perp.” There was the faintest emphasis on that last word. “Good. Good. I hope you catch him and you kill him.” Cameron whirled on his heel and marched for the door.
I never said we were done. “Killing him isn’t my goal. Arresting him is.”
Cameron’s hand was almost touching the door, but he stopped and looked back at Bennett. “They look like Ivy,” he rasped. “I see it, and I know you see it, too. That Evette—her picture was splashed in the paper. I thought she was Ivy at first. And now Shelly is killed—killed when her hair goes dark like Ivy’s…” He yanked a hand over his face. “The killer—the perp—is going to come for Ivy. While you’re in here, showing me pictures of—Shelly was my friend!” He suddenly exploded. “She shouldn’t have died!” He gulped in a deep gasp of air. “But Ivy…Ivy could be next.”
Bennett stalked toward him. “Just how do you feel about Ivy DuLane?”
Cameron laughed, but the sound was bitter. “How do you think I feel? I’ve been in love with her my whole damn life. Hung up on a girl who could never see past you, not even when you left her. When you took her father’s money and roared out of town and didn’t so much as glance back to see that you’d wrecked her.”
Ivy wasn’t wrecked. She was strong. Determined. Smart.
“I stayed by her. I stayed by Hugh. Their father only lasted a year before the guilt ate him up and he put that gun in his mouth.” His eyes glittered. “You think that shit was easy? She mourned without you. All that time—without you.”
“You know I came back then,” Bennett bit out the words. He had come back, so desperate for her. But when he’d gotten to the DuLane home, Cameron had met him at the door. “You’re the one who told me—”
“That Ivy had moved on.” A mocking smile curled Cameron’s lips. “Because I thought that she really might. I thought she’d finally give me my chance. But it didn’t work. She could never see past you. Even though you’re the worst thing that could ever happen to her.”
The sonofabitch had lied to him. “You never told Ivy I was there, did you?”
Cameron glared at him.
Bennett wanted to drive his fist into Cameron’s jaw.
“I would have been good to her,” Cameron said, voice rough. “I thought that night we were together, she’d see…”