The dance that Wanda was urging Angel and Nate to go to was forgotten after the stress of the day. It was three a.m. the next morning when Angel came sneaking out of the B&B with her bags. Nate was waiting for her in one of the rocking chairs. He’d told her more than once before he took her back to the B&B that he wasn’t letting her leave. He was determined that he could keep her safe, and hopefully when the whole team was back, they could find this animal and put an end to the hell he was making her live. If she’d insisted, he wouldn’t have tried to physically stop her, but he would have followed her. He couldn’t just leave her alone out there to deal with a monster. It took some doing, but Angel finally agreed to stay and went up to her room after her talk with him.
Nate was going to head up to his own room not long after, when he began to worry that she’d only promised him she’d stay to get him to let his guard down. So instead of going to bed, he took up a spot on the front porch so even if he fell asleep, he’d hear her if she tried to sneak out. The bus station was about two miles from Wanda’s and the first bus of the day left at four a.m., so he wasn’t surprised when she finally came sneaking out at three.
“Good morning,” he said with a tired smile. “Going for a walk?”
She jumped and let out a little squeak at the sound of his voice, her hand going to her heart. He immediately felt bad. “Shit! You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, only to dissuade you from sneaking off in the middle of the night.”
“I wasn’t sneaking off,” she lied badly.
He smiled and said, “Oh, then you were going for a walk?”
She narrowed her pretty eyes at him and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I was thinking about it.”
He looked at her suitcase with raised eyebrows but she ignored him. Still smiling at her, though, he stood up. “Good. It’s finally not raining and it’s nice and warm. A walk will probably do me good.”
“Nate, please don’t do this.”
“Do what? I was just going to join you for a walk.”
She sighed. “Please don’t appoint yourself my guardian. For one thing, I can’t pay you, and for another, this guy is obviously a freaking lunatic. I wouldn’t forgive myself if someone else got hurt because of me.”
“Don’t you see, Angelina…”
“Angel.”
“Excuse me?”
“No one has called me Angelina since my grandmother died. I go by Angel.”
Nate found that more fitting, actually. “Like I was saying, Angel, don’t you see that because he is, as you say, ‘a freaking lunatic,’ he is not going to stop hurting people no matter what you do? If he hurts someone else, that’s on him, not you. You’ve already suffered so much because of this son of a bitch. Let me help you take your life back. You don’t deserve to suffer anymore.”
She dropped her bags and sat down on one of the rocking chairs. “What makes you think you can catch him, Nate? The FBI hasn’t been able to catch him and they’ve been working this case for almost two years.”
Nate sighed. “I’m not saying I can catch him, but I do believe I can keep you safe. Besides, I have an advantage over the cops right now…I have you, and you’re what he wants, right? You’re the only surviving witness. Besides, I also have an ex-Army Ranger, two ex-Navy SEALs—one of which can pick off a target from the top of a mountain—and the craziest SOB on the planet that happens to be on the right side of the law. I really believe we can help you. You’d be surprised at what we can do. Besides, if you leave here alone, I’ll never be able to sleep again, worrying about you.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why? You don’t even know me, Nate. I mean, not really. Why are you so worried about me?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know how to put it into words. “I like you.”
She chuckled. “Do you offer your team’s services for free to everyone you like?”
“No, but everyone I like doesn’t need us. Damn…Angel, there’s more to it than that, okay? I really like you. I…feel things when I’m around you. But please don’t think that means I’ll expect anything in return for this. I just don’t want to see you hurt, suffering, or living your life on the run. Okay?”
She bit her lip but finally smiled a little. “Okay. Thank you, Nate.”
He nodded. “Thank you. Now can we get some sleep?”
She laughed. “Yeah, that would be nice.”
They went back into the B&B together just as Wanda was coming down the stairs. She looked at the two of them and at the suitcases Nate had picked up and was now carrying. Nate smiled at her and she shook her head slightly and said, “Breakfast will be ready by six, but I’ll keep it warm till nine or ten for y’all. Get some rest.”
It was Nate’s turn to shake his head. He wondered if there was anything that went on that Wanda didn’t know about. He also wondered what he’d do without her when he moved out and got his own place.
“Thank you, Wanda.” She winked at him and he began following Angel up the stairs. When they got to her room he put the bags down and said, “I’m sorry to bring this up again, but the night…when this guy was in your apartment, did you get a look at his face? Can you describe him?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I was asleep. I heard a noise and opened my eyes. It was dark and all I saw was the knife…and his teeth again. He smiled as he…used it.” Nate swallowed hard, like he was choking that down.
“Did the police have any ideas of who he may be?”
“Not that they shared with me,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. Get some rest.”
“Thank you, Nate.”
He smiled and waited for her to open the door to her room. He picked up the bags, set them inside, and waited until the door was closed and the lock engaged before he headed to his own room. Once there, he was tempted to sleep, but he had too much to do. First, he called Cade.
“It’s five o’clock in the fucking morning.”
“Sorry.”
“This better be good, Nathaniel.”
“Depends on your definition of ‘good,’ I guess.” Nate began talking and Cade listened. When he finished telling Angel’s story, Cade said exactly what Nate knew he would.
“Of course we’ll take the case. I’ll be home in a day or two at the most. I think Marcus is back Sunday. I haven’t heard from Grant, have you?”
“No. I’ll call him if you want me to.”
“Let’s leave him for now. I’m not sure what he’s got going on, but it seemed serious.”
“Okay, I’ll let Billy know. He can help me here for now until you all get back.”
“Alright. I’m going back to sleep. I have a big day ahead.”
“Cade?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m so damned sorry about the dogs.”
Cade cleared his throat. He was the last person on earth that Nate could imagine crying, but his voice sounded thick as he said, “I am really not holding it against you, Nate. You had no way of knowing this sick son of a bitch was lurking around. I’m looking forward to catching him for more reasons than one now.”
“Thank you.”
“Be safe. I’ll be back soon.” Nate ended his call with Cade and started to dial Billy before he realized how early it was. Billy wouldn’t be as nice about it as Cade, especially since chances were he had just barely gotten to bed. Instead, he went online and typed in “Rainy Day Slasher/Los Angeles.” He got thousands of hits. He clicked on the first one and began to read. According to news accounts, the killer’s first victim had been found five years earlier—four years before Angel was attacked. To date there had been six victims. The news articles stated that one of the six survived but as he read on, he couldn’t find that they’d printed Angel’s name anywhere. What he did discover after over an hour of reading articles was that a newspaper where Angel used to work, which he knew because he saw her byline on a few Entertainment articles, ran a headline that said, “Southside Gazette Reporter only living survivor of The Rainy Day Slasher.” Her own paper had sold her out. He was fuming over that when he heard the noise. It was just a slight scrape, the sound of a shoe on the wooden floor outside in the hallway. It could’ve been Wanda, but Nate had a bad feeling that it wasn’t.
He stood up slowly and moved as quietly as he could over to his nightstand where he kept his gun. He took it out and made his way over to the door. Turning the handle as noiselessly as he could, he pulled the door open. Just as he did, he saw a shadow disappear around the corner at the end of the hall. He started to follow it and when he made it as far as Angel’s room, she pulled open her door. She looked frightened and she opened her mouth to talk, but Nate gave his head a slight nod and she understood. She stood in her spot as he made his way to the end of the hall. In the next few seconds, things happened so quickly that it would be a while before he was able to process it all. He turned the corner, gun hand first. He saw a flash of metal in the dark and then felt a sharp, burning pain that shot all the way up to his shoulder. His hand was shaking but he kept his grip on the gun as the large, looming figure dressed in a black hoodie and black jeans pushed him back into the wall and ran past him. Nate followed and managed to hold up his gun and aim at the figure’s back as he fought through the pain in his arm.
“Stop!” He saw Angel step back out of her doorway when she saw the man. She tried to push the door closed but as he ran by, the man in black threw out an arm as thick as a telephone pole and hit it. Nate couldn’t see Angel but he heard the thud of her small body hitting the floor. He fired the gun, hitting the man in the shoulder just as he reached the stairs. It threw him forward slightly but he seemed to only use it as momentum. He kept going. When Nate reached the stairs, he saw the man hit the landing and then push Wanda, who must have come out to see what was going on. Wanda flew across the room as the man ran out the front door. Nate wanted to stop and make sure she was okay, but he didn’t want the man to get away, so he kept going. When he stepped outside he saw the man disappear like a shadow behind a house two doors down. By the time Nate got there, he was gone. Frustrated and out of breath, he stood there in the dim light of dawn wondering if this man was, in fact, a shadow.