Page 4 of The Last To Know (Hallowed Halls Series #2)

“H ey, babe, what’s going on?” Jack asked when he stepped into the hallway, a little surprised Megan called him out.

“I found something you need to see.” She turned her iPad to him and keyed in a code. The photo of Ani, their daughter, taken at Virginia Beach this past summer, was replaced by an article from The Rochester Times dated twenty-two years earlier. “It’s coverage following the capture and conviction of Oliver Ellison, the serial killer known as the Embalmer.”

Jack took the tablet from her and scanned the article. Ellison had been caught in the process of killing his final victim, whom he had deemed unworthy. The victim had been Ellison’s own wife. The couple’s thirteen-year-old son had found her and tried to save his mother. He’d shot his father in the shoulder, but it was too late to save his mom.

“I know most of this. What am I missing?” He frowned as he waited for Megan to drop the bombshell he knew would come.

“Read this.”Megan jabbed one red-coated fingernail to a particular spot on the screen.

“Young Ellison is considered a hero.” He glanced up. “So?”

“I did a little digging into what happened to the son, whose name is Cooper.” She captured his gaze. Those beautiful dark eyes held a storm inside them. “He was adopted by a family and his last name changed. ”

Jack held his breath. “It’s Cooper. It’s our Cooper?”

She confirmed with a nod. “It is. Cooper was that little boy.” She breathed out a sigh. “Jack, he shot his father and prevented him from escaping until the police arrived. He is a hero, but I’m wondering if he’ll be up to having all this rehashed because we have a copycat mimicking his father’s MO.”

“Oh wow.” Jack ran a hand through his hair. “He never said a word. I wonder why?”

“Well, babe, I can understand why he wouldn’t want to relive all this. Still, you need to speak with him in private before we go any further.”

“You’re right. He won’t want to sit this one out.”

Jack strode back to the door and cracked it. He zeroed in on Cooper, capturing his agent’s attention. Jack mouthed, “A word.”

Cooper didn’t seem surprised to be signaled out.

Jack went back to his wife and leaned against the wall.

Megan interlocked his pinkie finger with hers. It’s funny how that simple touch always seemed to ground him. He loved her so much. Every day, he thanked God she’d chosen to give him a second chance.

Cooper stood before them long enough to see the truth in their eyes. “You know.” He scrubbed both hands over his face. “I’m okay. I can handle this, Jack.”

Jack didn’t answer.

“I’ve got it under control.” Cooper blew out a breath.

“You sure? Because from where I’m standing, you don’t have anything under control.” Jack closed the space between them and clamped Cooper’s shoulder. “I can’t imagine what you went through back then losing your mother in such a horrific way and learning about your father’s secret identity. I’d understand if you want to back out of this one. No one would blame you.”

“I don’t want to back out.”

“I saw your reaction when you saw that woman,” Jack challenged.

Cooper’s hands tightened into fists at his sides before he slowly released them. “It threw me, okay. I haven’t seen anything about my father’s crimes in years. I wasn’t expecting it. But I can handle it. I won’t let my personal involvement get in the way of working this new case.”

Jack wanted to believe his friend. “I can’t have you letting it cloud your judgment, Cooper.”

“It won’t. Whoever killed this woman isn’t my father. That monster’s dead. There were plenty of others to take his place, like the monster who condemned that young woman on the screen as unworthy. I can handle it, Jack,” Cooper said with sincerity.

“I hope you’re right, because it appears we have a copycat matching your father’s MO and you have a lot of insight into this killer, which will be helpful in capturing him before he kills again. But I need Cooper the BAU agent not Cooper that kid who lived through that nightmare,” he stressed.

“You got me—the agent—I promise.”

Jack’s troubled feeling lessened slightly.

“From what I’ve seen so far, there are multiple similarities to your father’s murders.” Jack sensed there had to be more than the display of disappointment from the killer written in that bloody word.

Cooper’s hands shook and he shoved them into his pockets and waited.

“The perp’s using the catch phrase of your father when he rejected a victim he’d targeted. That’s all Embalmer,” Jack told him. “In the twenty-plus years since Ellison died in prison, there hasn’t been a single similar case reported. Clearly, someone has decided to change all that.”

Cooper slowly nodded. “There’s more. There has to be.”

Jack slowly nodded. “When I got the call, the police chief in Grand Island mentioned your father’s case and the similarity to Giselle’s murder. Megan went to work pulling everything we could find about your father’s victims.” He smiled at his wife. “Embalmer brutally murdered the women he found unworthy and embalmed the victims he found faultless to keep for himself.” Jack waited for a response that Cooper struggled to give.

Cooper swallowed several times before speaking, his voice barely audible. “I loved my father. Until that day, I thought he was perfect. He never raised a hand to my mother or myself. He went to every single one of my baseball games. He took me fishing.” A bitter smile curled his lips.

Megan touched Cooper’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Everything changed that day,” Cooper said, his tone growing hard. “It wasn’t long before I found out he had more victims. Some were branded unworthy. Others were embalmed and found in my grandparents’ basement. He’d bricked off a section of the basement and made it airtight to keep them, hoping to preserve them forever.” Cooper shook his head. “If he hadn’t gone after my mother, I wonder if he ever would have been caught.”

In Jack’s opinion, Oliver Ellison wasn’t the type of person to draw attention. He lived a simple life with his family. Had never gotten as much as a traffic ticket. He’d gone to medical school and had become a medical examiner for the county until he’d shifted careers and started working at a neighborhood funeral home. There he’d perfected his embalming skills.

Megan looped her arm through Cooper’s.

“We have a possible second victim,” Jack said slowly.

“Another woman is missing. Where? When?” Cooper fired off the questions as if struggling to take it all in.

Megan let him go and pulled up the details on the iPad. “Her name is Tiffany Beckham. She’s a newscaster in Rochester.”

“That’s less than a hundred miles from Grand Island. Did the station report her missing?”

Megan shook her head. “Not initially. Her parents were the first to realize she was gone. They said she was supposed to come for the weekend and didn’t. They called the station manager, who went to Tiffany’s home. Her car was there. He had a key and went inside. All her things were in place, including her house key and phone. Her purse. He called the police. The parents filed a missing person report shortly before Giselle was murdered.”

“Just like my old man’s MO,” Cooper said with a bitter catch.

“Exactly.” Jack had read Ellison’s files. The women condemned as unworthy were rejected for reasons known only to Ellison. Whatever those reasons were, it seemed to unleash his fury on them. Their murders were brutal. The women he embalmed had died far more peacefully. There was not a scratch on them. A lethal cocktail of lorazepam and morphine ended their lives. It appeared from the medical examiner’s estimated time of death Ellison kept his victims alive for several days.

“If he has Tiffany, she might still be alive,” Cooper said.

“It’s possible. We need to get there and start working the case. I’m going to have to explain your connection to the original perpetrator.” Jack tried to gauge Cooper’s reaction.

“I know,” Cooper said at last, a sad smile on his face. “All my life I’ve lived in the shadow of my father’s crimes. I did my best to move out of that shadow and fought to make sure something good came from the darkness my father created.”

Jack understood how destructive that kind of evil could be. He’d gone through it in his own life with the Angel case. It drove him to the bottle and almost cost him everything. He couldn’t imagine the guilt Cooper carried with him.

Cooper had tried for more than twenty years to forget the actions he’d been forced to take to stop a monster. Now, like it or not, he would have to face those demons head-on, and it would take everything inside him not to crumble under its weight.