PRAISE FOR MARY BURTON

BURN YOU TWICE

“Burton does a good job balancing gentle romance with high-tension suspense.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Scorching action. The twists and turns keep the reader on the edge of their seat as they will not want to put the novel down.”

—Crimespree Magazine

HIDE AND SEEK

“Burton delivers an irresistible, tension-filled plot with plenty of twists . . . Lovers of romantic thrillers won’t be disappointed.”

—Publishers Weekly

CUT AND RUN

“Burton can always be counted on for her smart heroines and tightly woven plots.”

—For the Love of Books

“Must-read romantic suspense . . . Burton is a bona fide suspense superstar. And her books may be peppered with enough twists and turns to give you whiplash, but the simmering romance she builds makes for such a compelling, well-rounded story.”

—USA Today’s Happy Ever After

THE SHARK

“This romantic thriller is tense, sexy, and pleasingly complex.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Precise storytelling complete with strong conflict and heightened tension are the highlights of Burton’s latest. With a tough, vulnerable heroine in Riley at the story’s center, Burton’s novel is a well-crafted, suspenseful mystery with a ruthless villain who would put any reader on edge. A thrilling read.”

—RT Book Reviews (4 stars)

BEFORE SHE DIES

“Will keep readers sleeping with the lights on.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

MERCILESS

“Burton keeps getting better!”

—RT Book Reviews

YOU’RE NOT SAFE

“Burton once again demonstrates her romantic-suspense chops with this taut novel. Burton plays cat and mouse with the reader through a tight plot, credible suspects, and romantic spice keeping it real.”

—Publishers Weekly

BE AFRAID

“Mary Burton [is] the modern-day queen of romantic suspense.”

—Bookreporter

ALSO BY MARY BURTON

Near You

Burn You Twice

Never Look Back

I See You

Hide and Seek

Cut and Run

Her Last Word

The Last Move

The Forgotten Files

The Shark

The Dollmaker

The Hangman

Morgans of Nashville

Cover Your Eyes

Be Afraid

I’ll Never Let You Go

Vulnerable

Texas Rangers

The Seventh Victim

No Escape

You’re Not Safe

Alexandria Series

Senseless

Merciless

Before She Dies

Richmond Series

I’m Watching You

Dead Ringer

Dying Scream

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text copyright © 2021 by Mary Burton

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Montlake, Seattle

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542021456

ISBN-10: 1542021456

Cover design by Amanda Kain

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Austin, Texas

Tuesday, March 23

10:15 p.m.

“Call out for help, just like we practiced.” He pressed the phone to the woman’s face.

She moistened her dried lips and said, “Help me, please. He’s going to kill me.”

He cocked a brow, reminding her there was more to the script.

“Please save me.”

Satisfied, he ended the call, removed the battery from her phone, and tucked both in his pocket. He grabbed the wadded cloth, shoved it back in her mouth, and pulled the plastic bag over her head. She moaned and struggled to free her face from the plastic and her hands from their bindings.

His very first one, he had been too afraid to kill. The second one he’d murdered quickly because he thought death would satisfy this nagging desire. But he had been plagued by disappointment. That was why this time he had resolved to savor the experience like a fine cigar.

As he suspected, her slow, steady suffocation intensified his sexual pleasure. The writhing of her muscles. The twitches in the hands and legs bound tight with black corded rope. Her panicked expression amplified by the plastic bag. She was fighting to breathe, endure, and survive. It was a remarkable battle, given her lifestyle. Endurance was embedded deep in everyone.

He pulled the bag off her head, gave her time to inhale deeply and for the color to return to her face. He covered her face again and delighted in her renewed struggle. He repeated the process three more times.

Each time he zeroed in on her pleading, desperate, and frantic eyes, his erection hardened like it had when he was a teenager. Overcome with a craving he could no longer control, he had pushed inside her. The first time, he had come quickly and rolled off her as she’d panted for air. The second time, he had lasted longer, and this third time he’d decided he could repeat this process over and over forever.

But time was running out. Better to leave while the getting was good. There would be a next time. Not with this one, but another—of that he was sure.

He yanked on jeans, a black pullover shirt, and athletic shoes. He knelt beside her and tightened the bag’s drawstring around her neck. Her breasts heaved up and down faster. He gently smoothed his hand over her naked body. “I like it when you fight.”

She stilled but watched him closely under hooded eyes.

“This is better than anything I’d dared imagine.” The first time had been good, but this was fantastic.

This intentional experience was akin to Dorothy stepping out of Kansas’s gray prairies into the vibrant Technicolor world of Oz. Daydreams never captured the feel of tense flesh, the scent of nervous sweat, or the truly rapid rise and fall of a woman’s chest. The mind had nothing on reality.

He liked this new world, and he did not want to return to the black-and-white realm. This journey was a one-way ticket, and this experience needed to be repeated. The risks no longer mattered. What mattered was duplicating this high.

He straddled the woman and angled her face so that their gazes met. She strained her head up, pressing the soft white skin of her face against the thin plastic. The gag in her mouth made it impossible for her to speak, so she moaned her one last plea for her life.

“You and I are the same in many ways. As much as we try to convince ourselves we’re in control of our addictions, we’re not. It’s just too powerful,” he said. “You understand, right?”

She shook her head, attempted to scream, and expended the last of her oxygen. He tied the drawstring in a bow, double knotted it, and rose on his knees. He lifted her and laid her on a large piece of plastic. He rolled the bottom edge of the plastic over her feet, wrapped the right edge over her, and tucked it in under her body. As she groaned and moved her head from side to side, he gathered the opposite section, tucked it under the other side, and tightly swaddled her. Next, he covered her face, muffling her waning screams.

He reached for a roll of packing tape and yanked a length of it from its spool, the firm jerk echoing in the abandoned room. She flinched. Her struggles resumed, but they were slower and sloppier.

Round and round the tape went, encasing her thin body around the midsection, feet, neck, and finally her face.

Her moans had softened to a dull mewing, and her muscles spasmed only involuntarily now as she consumed the last traces of the oxygen. Like a flickering light bulb, her filament glowed red with the last relics of energy before going dark.

Rising, he wiped the sweat from his brow and stepped back. The cool-night-air temperatures would rise back to the unseasonable nineties tomorrow, and the heat, combined with the magnifying effects of the plastic, would melt her flesh and sinew at an accelerated rate. Left alone here in this old house, she would turn to mush in a matter of weeks. Of course, there was the risk she would be found sooner rather than later. This old house, chosen for several sentimental reasons, had been sold, and the new owner planned a renovation and flip. Given the growing market in Southeast Austin, crews would arrive within weeks.

Really, he needed only about a week, maybe eight days. By then she would be unrecognizable, and it would take DNA to identify her, if that were even possible. Girls like her generally were not in DNA databases.

He rubbed his hand over his sweat-damp hair, glanced at his fingers, and saw the slight tremor. He chalked it up to this euphoric high, which now wielded a crushing power over him.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Tuesday, March 30

10:00 p.m.

The call from dispatch was a jolt to homicide detective Jordan Poe’s system. After a fifteen-hour shift, she had arrived home, eaten a quick dinner, and settled on the couch to watch a movie. She had immediately fallen asleep.

Now, as she bolted up to the shrill ring, she shook off the sleep and reached for her phone. “Detective Poe.”

“Detective, a woman’s body has been found in Southeast Austin.” Dispatch rattled off familiar cross streets and an address less than ten blocks from her house.

“Tell me.” Jordan cleared her throat as she moved toward the kitchen through her darkened house, illuminated by only the television screen’s light.

She listened patiently as the dispatcher told her about the discovery of a woman’s body. No details about manner of death, but the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Translation: the smell would saturate anything porous that came within fifteen feet. Full PPE was suggested.

She made a strong pot of coffee, and as it brewed, she brushed her hair, refashioned it into a bun, and splashed water on her face. Ten minutes later, coffee in hand, she pushed out of her front door, wearing yesterday’s clothes. She slid behind the wheel of her SUV, parked in a small gravel driveway by her bungalow. She had inherited the one-story, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house from her mother twelve years ago, and she had spent a lot of that time renovating it. Many of the homes on her block still had their original owners and had not been updated. But the rush of newcomers to Texas had discovered the East Austin neighborhood with wooded lots, and it was a matter of time before the elderly residents sold.

When she arrived on the scene ten minutes later, she had drained her coffee and convinced herself she was not exhausted.

The one-level ranch was painted a mint green. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence encircling a yard filled with tall weeds. Across the street was a heavily wooded empty lot that had turned into a dumping ground filled with discarded tires, an old stove, and piles of brush.

Four cop cars were parked along the house’s curb, their blue lights flashing in the darkness. A forensic van was parked in the short driveway, and two techs were setting up a tent and table. Normally the techs used tents to shield them from the hot Texas sun, and seeing as the sun had nine more hours before showtime, the setup told her they expected to be here well into tomorrow.

Before her mom, little sister, and she had moved to Austin, they had lived in Boston. She remembered the snow had come up to her waist on her sixteenth birthday, and the January air was so cold the windchill drove the temperatures below freezing. That was the day her mother had mumbled something about “being done with this shit,” and the three of them had packed the family’s blue Subaru and driven to Austin.

The day’s growing heat brought her back to the moment. She noticed there were still no reporters on the scene yet, and she was relieved. Crime in this area was standard, but sooner or later the press would catch on and this would all get more chaotic.

She rose up out of her vehicle, grateful to stretch her long, stiff legs. She was craving a good workout, but that was going to have to wait.

Jordan’s low-heeled boots, dusted with dirt from yesterday’s crime scene, crunched against the freshly graveled street as she moved toward the back of her SUV and opened the hatch.

Shrugging off her jean jacket, she tugged on the lightweight PPE suit over a black T-shirt and worn jeans banded by a leather belt. Next it was shoe coverings and latex gloves.

She looked up at the ramshackle ranch. A sign in the front window indicated it was marked for remodeling by a developer who had done dozens of projects in the area over the last year. No doubt, the landowner hoped to sell the property to a newly relocated young professional willing to pay a premium.

A couple of forensic technicians wrestled a large light up the two concrete front stairs and into the house. After a moment, they reappeared, faces grim as one plugged a long extension cord into a generator. A press of a button and the generator jolted to life, and the interior of the house lit up.

A deputy moved toward her. He was tall, lean, a bit gangly, but he had the look of a guy who would fill out.

She guessed he was in his midtwenties.

“Detective Poe?” he asked.

“That’s right. And you are?” Hints of her Boston accent drew out the last word.

“Officer Wilcox.” They shook hands. “I was first on the scene.” His face was stoic, but his fingers flexed involuntarily. Easy to control reactions on the face, but there was always another body part that gave the nerves away.

First seconds on a scene were precarious and tense. And if you should be so unlucky as to come across a suicide, murder, or infant death, the emotional gut punch was inevitable. “When did you arrive?”

“Two hours ago. The renovation crew chief called it in. He’s still in his truck. Not happy about having to wait for a detective.”

“We all could think of better things to do, including the victim.”

A slight smile tweaked his lips. “That’s for sure. The crew chief figured the dead person was a squatter or drug addict who had died. It’s not rare in this area.”

“I was told the victim is female.”

“That’s right.”

“Any idea of the cause of death?”

“Offhand, I’d say suffocation. But who knows? It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen.” He shifted his feet and flexed his fingers.

“How long have you been on the job?” she asked.

“A year.”

This scene likely was now in the officer’s Book of Firsts. All cops had a book like that, and no matter how full it got, there was always room for a new horror. “Okay. Let me have a look.”

“Want me to come with you?” Officer Wilcox asked.

“Stay in the yard. Fewer people in the house, the better.”

His relief was palpable. “Understood.”

She slid her mask over her face and crossed the gravel driveway, and as she climbed the two front porch steps, the scent of decomposition hit her hard. She stopped, raised her hand to her nose.

“Jesus,” she muttered. Her first year on the job, she had swabbed Vicks under her nose but learned menthol did not conceal rot. These days, she sucked it up, knowing the brain would cancel out the smell after a few minutes.

“Detective Poe!”

She turned toward Andy Lucas, the senior forensic technician in the department. He was short, had a round face and belly, and his ink-black hair showed no signs of graying despite his recent fiftieth birthday.

“Andy.”

“When you get inside, follow the yellow cones to the body. There’s a lot of dust in that room, so I have a prayer of getting a shoe impression.”

“Roger that.”

“Hey, and thanks for the case of beer,” Lucas said.

“A man only turns fifty once.”

“Thank God,” he joked. “Took me days to get over the surprise party.”

She had helped host the event, which was just as much a department morale booster as it was a celebration of Lucas’s half-century milestone. Because she did not drink, she had left early, but the stories, some of which were pretty damn funny, still circulated two weeks later.

She stepped over the extension cord, walked heel to toe beside the yellow cones, which led her into the small main room. Artificial light shone on faded rose wallpaper peeling off old shiplap, four barred broken windows, and clumps of hay nestled in shadowed corners.

She moved toward the illuminated area and the victim. Female, with a slight frame, and naked, she was wrapped in a thick layer of plastic. Her hands were bound, and there appeared to be a bag over her head and a gag in her mouth.

The manner of death stirred memories Jordan had worked hard to forget. Closing her eyes, she drew air into her lungs, her desire to avoid the stench overruled by the need to breathe fully. Tight bands of anxiety squeezed her chest. She closed her eyes, pushing away the past and allowing her mind to settle. This was now. Not two years ago. And she had nothing to worry about.

Slowly, her thoughts collected, and she opened her eyes. Chalk up another experience for her Book of Firsts.

As she did at all fatality scenes, she mentally reclassified the dead person from Human to Evidence. This woman could no longer speak, but her body still might have secrets to share.

The body was badly decayed. Gases had already built up in the belly and burst through the skin, leaving a real oozing mess encased in the plastic. The covering around the body had slowed the bugs attracted to decomposing flesh, but a few had found a small opening and begun nature’s work. Another two weeks and there would not have been much to find.

The plastic bag over the victim’s head was secured in place with a thin drawstring tied in a double-knotted bow.

Jordan had responded to a couple of accidental autoerotic asphyxiation deaths. The people who played this dangerous game cut off oxygen to the brain, sexually stimulated their bodies, and then, seconds before orgasm, released the bag or neck restraints. The rush of oxygen was supposed to heighten the pleasure, but the trick was to remove the bag or rope in time. In both prior, unrelated cases, the victims had been men. One had worn a belt around his neck, whereas the other had chosen a thin cord. Each had passed out before the big O and suffocated to death.

Even if this woman had started this dangerous trek willingly, it was clear she had not been alone at the time of her death. Had the dead woman’s sex partner panicked and wrapped and dumped the body?

At this stage it was impossible to tell the victim’s ethnicity. Her skin appeared to be brown, but Jordan knew that could be from decomposition. Her hair had been icy blond, but the color looked as if it could be found on any drugstore shelf.

Age was another detail that was hard to call. But if Jordan had to guess, she would have said the victim was young.

Footsteps behind her had her turning to see Andy and the other tech, Marsha Brown, enter the room. In full PPE, they looked more alien than human.

“We’d like to get started on the footprints,” Andy said. “They’ll be the first ruined.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Jordan said.

“Are you sticking around?” Andy asked.

“Just standing back and observing.”

As Jordan backtracked her steps to the front door, she imagined other motives behind this killing. With the border 220 miles away, human trafficking was common here. Though coyotes raped and sometimes killed their victims, they generally discarded the bodies on a barren patch of earth in the open sun. Some might take the time to cover the remains with a little dirt or brush, but she had never seen any wrappings this elaborate. Drug dealers and pimps were not strangers to violence, but they rarely went to such lengths with their dead, unless they were sending a message.

The house was marked for renovation, so whoever had left Jane Doe here had known she would be found eventually. Maybe he wanted her found. Maybe it was a sign of misguided respect or contrition for what he had done. Maybe it was a message to someone. Or maybe he simply wanted his work displayed.

But until she could find out more about the victim’s identity, any stab at motive would be conjecture.

Her attention was drawn back to the bound hands tied with precise, tight knots. Like the drawstring, they were double knotted.

Jordan guessed the killer had played with the tension on the bag before he killed her. How many times had he brought her up to the point of death and then carefully loosened the drawstring so she could suck in enough oxygen to stay alive? Had she been a willing participant or a victim? Jordan had seen a lot of crazy shit over the years, but her money was on murder.

Had she been the killer’s first victim? Had he been playing out this erotic scenario for months—if not years? The thick plastic wrap and packing tape, even finding this location, required planning. Forethought. Jordan remembered the woman she had found bound, gagged, and struggling to breathe two years ago, when she’d still been a patrol officer. She’d saved that one, but she had been minutes away from losing her.

“Christ,” she muttered. “What do the footprints look like, Andy?” she asked. “Any idea how many sets?”

“From what I can see, there’re the deputy’s prints as well as another set.”

“Only one other?”

“Yep. The contractor smelled the decomposition and didn’t enter the house.”

“We can assume they are the killer’s prints, and he likely carried her in here?” Jordan asked.

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