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Her mind skittered away from that. “Of course not.” Her editor was the only reason law enforcement had known where to find them.
“Autry’s death is on Thorne. He’s the one who killed him.”
A doctor had told her Autry’s death was caused by an overdose after Thorne injected him. He’d died inside that cage. Regret wasn’t necessarily guided by logic. Neither was forgiveness.
“Why are you here?” Raiker was like a random jack-in-the-box, popping into and out of her life, his presence a reminder of the nightmare she’d endured. The regret she harbored.
“Why don’t we sit down?” He lowered himself into an armchair and indicated for her to do the same. But she remained standing, defenses firmly in place.
“Stephen Thorne has escaped the psychiatric facility that housed him.”
Reese swayed as if absorbing a punch. Her arms crossed at her waist, hugging herself for stability. “When?”
“Two days ago.”
She moistened her lips. “How is that possible?”
“He likely had help.” Adam’s tone was grim. “With the planning, at least, if not the execution. Monsters elicit fascination in some. The San Bernadino Sheriff’s Office, aided by US Marshals are investigating. They brought me in for insight on the killer." There was a meaningful pause before he added, “As far as we know, you’re his only survivor.”
A slow ribbon of trepidation unfurled down her spine. “He wouldn’t come here?”
Raiker didn’t immediately answer. Just fixed her with that unblinking stare.
She wheeled to pace. “How would he find me? He’s not like you. He lacks skills and resources.” But he’d still managed to plan locations and methods to avoid capture for over two years on his killing spree, she remembered sickly.
Because her knees had gone to water, Reese went to the couch. Sank onto its edge. Thorne. Free. Tension bloomed inside her. “Seems like you should be focused on finding him then.” That would have been her intent at one time. To follow the story, no matter where it led. Aided by the unwelcome curse of being able to glance inside the darkest guilty minds. She’d left that behind in Thorne’s cellar. She hoped to God it never came back.
“There’s a decent security system in this building.” She cut a look his way. Clearly he’d circumvented it each time he’d visited her.
“Yes, I’ve checked it out. It appears to be sufficient.”
“Not sufficient enough to keep you away, though,” she said pointedly. “You really think he’d come here?” She couldn’t see it. From what she’d picked up from Thorne, he’d run as far and hard as possible, a wounded animal seeking safety.
“We need to prepare for the possibility.”
She flinched, both from the message and the tone, even recognizing that he couldn’t help the raspy edge to his voice. Her gaze traced the old scar across his throat.
“We’ll take precautions. You told me about your conversation with him. It bothered him enough that he wanted to remove your vision so you could no longer ‘see’ him. He equated your visual acuity with your…ah…ability.” He fingered the edge of his eyepatch. “LeCroix had a different motivation. He wanted only to inflict pain and trauma. Carving out one of my eyes was for his pleasure. But Thorne might seek to destroy the only person who peeked inside his mind and got far too close to what experiences shaped his antisocial personality disorder.”
LeCroix. On his second visit to the hospital, Raiker had told her a few details from his last case for the FBI. After coming out of anesthesia, her guard had been almost completely non-existent. Because he wasn’t a man to willingly divulge personal details, she had to believe it’d been an effort to build rapport so she’d share as willingly. He was renowned for his psychological profiling and investigative techniques.
Whatever his reasons, she couldn’t deny that it’d worked on some level. She might still wake up screaming some nights, unable to move her limbs or head because of imaginary restraints, but the memory would morph to a mental image of Raiker, a decade earlier, strapped to what had probably been a very similar table in the rabbit warren LeCroix had built beneath the bayou home in the depths of the Louisiana swamps. When Reese recalled the bone-deep agony of liquid lye splashing into her eye, her mind also sprang to Adam’s ordeal. Empathy provided a distraction from her own remembered suffering.
She studied him. Beside the scar that bisected his throat, one ran vertically down his cheek. More furrowed the backs of his hands. She doubted LeCroix had stopped there. The cane andhis limp suggested more damage. It all only embossed his lethal aura. She’d never seen Adam less elegantly dressed than he was now, clad in an immaculate Armani suit. None but the unwary would underestimate the sheen of danger he carried. Reese may have lost the “gift” she’d once had, but her journalistic instincts were intact.
“I appreciate the warning,” she managed flatly.
“You used to be a better liar,” he observed, a note of humor in his voice.
“I used to be a lot of things.” She’d once been the daughter of loving parents, regularly tormented by her mentally ill older brother until her mom and dad agreed with Ben’s doctor that he needed a different environment. The rest of her childhood had been uneventful until the accident that had killed her parents and landed her in Julia’s care. She’d eventually found peace here, although it’d been up to Reese to make her own place in her aunt’s hectic schedule. She’d fended for herself when Julia went on assignment and covered up her aunt’s weeks-long absences with teachers and counselors.
Her gaze returned to Raiker, who didn’t appear ready to leave. There was something more he hadn’t told her.
“How do you know Thorne is still in the state?”
He gave a negligible shrug. “Security cameras. Ring doorbells. Traffic cameras. Reported sightings.”
Reese snorted at the last. She knew how unreliable tip lines could be. “Do they have a last known location for him? Because I would have expected him to get as far away as possible from this area.” She realized it’d be implausible for Thorne to ignore the demons in his mind that fed his compulsion. But she also didn’t think he’d feel safe without putting thousands of miles between him and the law enforcement who’d be in pursuit.