Midnight Fear Read online

  Praise for Leslie Tentler’s

  MIDNIGHT CALLER

  “A smooth prose style and an authentic Big Easy vibe distinguish Tentler’s debut…the shivers are worthy of a Lisa Jackson.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Tentler’s novel is filled with suspense and mystery and centered around a compelling plot with a terrifying villain, and two main characters readers will come to care deeply about. This is one riveting read.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A romantic thriller that continually keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “With twists and turns around every corner, Tentler has crafted a dark, contemporary romantic thriller that will enthrall readers. The Vampire-like killings will strike a resonating chord with thriller fans, and her sensual romance between Trevor and Rain will thrill romance fans.”

  —Night Owl Romance

  “Leslie Tentler shows what she is capable of…producing a first-class suspense/mystery novel.”

  —Manic Readers

  “Readers will relish this well-written, tense thriller…the taut tale means leaving the lights on after midnight.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  Also by Leslie Tentler

  MIDNIGHT CALLER

  Look for Leslie Tentler’s next novel

  EDGE OF MIDNIGHT

  coming soon from MIRA Books

  LESLIE TENTLER

  MIDNIGHT FEAR

  In memory of my father, who told me to “go for it.”

  I did, Dad.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Prologue

  Southwest Washington, D.C.

  The muffled cry meant the woman was still alive. Reid Novak tightened his grip on the Glock braced in front of him and moved cautiously forward, his eyes searching the shadows of the abandoned factory. Above him, anemic moonlight filtered through grime-streaked windows set in crumbling brick.

  Another distorted sob. They were close. His adrenaline soared and he felt his heart pound.

  He sensed more than heard his partner’s presence behind him. Although FBI agent Mitch Tierney looked like defensive line material for the Washington Redskins, he possessed a surprising stealthy grace. He moved into Reid’s line of vision, the barrel of his powerful firearm leading his stride.

  “Blood splatter,” Mitch noted in a rough whisper. He jerked his jaw downward to point out the trail of drops. “Party’s already started.”

  Together they inched to the blackened doorway, acutely aware of the rotted wood floor beneath them. Reid looked at Mitch in the tide of darkness, a voiceless communication occurring between them. Then he removed his left hand from the Glock and raised three fingers, giving the count.

  One. Two. Three.

  He turned the corner, Mitch covering him as he burst into the room.

  “FBI!” Reid made a sweeping arc with the gun, his eyes straining to find human form. His breath clouded in the biting cold. The cavernous industrial space held the rusty odor of mildew.

  “Jesus. There,” Mitch growled.

  Faint light from a far window barely illuminated the victim. Her mouth had been covered with duct tape and her hands were bound together as if in prayer. The large knife being pressed against her throat glinted silver. Already, the woman’s white blouse was torn and streaked with blood. Joshua Edward Cahill stood behind her, the planes of his face submerged in shadow. He clutched her against his chest.

  “Drop the knife, Joshua.” Reid kept his voice calm, moving closer.

  “I’ll cut her throat!”

  The woman made a mewling sound as he pressed the knife harder. Her eyes grew large and rolled back in fear. A thin line of crimson appeared on her pale throat. Despite the frigid air, Reid felt a drop of perspiration roll down his back.

  “Damn it,” Mitch snapped, lurching forward. Reid halted him.

  “Look at me, Joshua.”

  “Go away!”

  “You know I can’t do that. Step back and let her go.”

  “So you can send me to prison? Someone told you wrong, Agent Novak. I’m a paranoid schizophrenic with poor control of impulsive behavior.” His derisive tone sounded as if he were quoting from a psychiatrist’s notepad. “I’m not a moron.”

  “No one has to die.”

  “Right.” Joshua’s voice cracked as he took a step toward the floor-to-ceiling window, dragging his captive with him. She struggled until another nick with the knife made her freeze. Reid knew that three stories below lay the icy Potomac, snaking along the ground like a black ribbon edged in snowdrifts. He stood about ten yards away now, his gun still trained on the shadow that was a U.S. senator’s son.

  “We can take you to Dr. Lauderbach,” he bartered. “You trust him, right?”

  “Lauderbach’s an asshole.”

  As he dipped his head into the wash of moonlight, Joshua’s dark eyes appeared beneath a shock of ebony hair. He glared at Reid and tightened his hold on his hostage. The woman was in her early thirties, blonde, with legs clad in dark tights beneath a plaid skirt. She’d lost one shoe somewhere in her nightmare. Panting, her cheeks puffed in and out behind the gunmetal-gray tape concealing the lower part of her face. Reid looked into her tear-filled eyes and tried not to look there again. To do so would be to lose his objectivity, something he couldn’t afford.

  “So what do you want, Joshua?”

  “I want to see my sister! I want to see Caitlyn!”

  “We’ll get her for you, man,” Mitch offered, the sagging hardwood planking emitting a groan beneath him. Reid feared his partner might go crashing through to the next floor. “You’re lying—”

  Mitch advanced a step. “We’ll send a unit for her. Have her here in fifteen minutes. But you’ve got to give us something. Give us the woman—”

  Joshua’s voice rose, steeped in panic. “You step back! I’ll slit her goddamn throat!”

  Mitch did as ordered—no easy task, Reid realized. His partner was wired, his big shoulders hunched under the navy Bureau jacket like a cat ready to spring on its prey.

  “Caitlyn took my journal, didn’t she?” Joshua cut his gaze to Reid. Betrayal burned in his eyes. “She gave it to you.”

  “That doesn’t matter—”

  “It does to me!”

  Reid tensed as Joshua dragged his captive closer to the window, coming to a stop only when his back met the filthy glass. Where were th
e sharpshooters? There should be a helicopter overhead by now. The trickle of blood pooled in the collar of the woman’s blouse. Reid’s mouth went dry. Joshua’s hostility was escalating. They were running out of time.

  “Caitlyn gave me the journal,” he acknowledged. “She cares about you. She wants you to get help.”

  Hearing this, Joshua’s face crumpled. He sniveled and scrubbed a hand over his eyes but didn’t remove the one that held the knife to the woman’s throat. Reid’s index finger remained poised on the Glock’s trigger. Could he get off a clear shot? The woman made an effective shield. If his bullet missed its mark by even an inch…

  Joshua muttered under his breath, his words rippling with vulgarity and promises of violence. In his peripheral vision, Reid saw Mitch closing in again. His partner apparently sensed the same build of energy around them, hinting at the growing doom.

  “You said nobody has to die.” Joshua’s dark eyes glittered.

  “Nobody does—”

  “What if I want to?” He let out a high-pitched sob. “What if I want to end it right now?”

  “Joshua…listen to me. Don’t.”

  The crack of rotting wood filled the room.

  “Fuck!”

  Reid saw Mitch fall through, his legs disappearing into the hole that had opened up in the floor. His gun skittered away as his arms flailed to gain purchase on the remaining planks.

  Joshua struck. The knife’s cold metal flashed across the pale throat in a fierce move, with Reid’s gun discharging a fraction of a second later. He barely noticed the weapon’s kick that flared pain into his wrist. Struck in the shoulder, Joshua fell backward into the window, crashing through it in a burst of shattered glass.

  The woman dropped to the floor like a broken doll. Blood rushed from the gash in her throat. Reid landed on his knees beside her, already knowing it was too late. Her body convulsed as he leaned over her, trying to apply pressure to the wound with his hands. Arterial spray covered his jacket. Behind him, Mitch had hauled himself from the splintered wood. He now hung halfway out the window, looking down into the Potomac where Cahill had disappeared. He barked orders over his radio to the team below.

  “Find him! Find that little son of a bitch!”

  Reid’s attempts to control the bleeding were useless. He looked into the woman’s eyes, all need for objectivity gone. Her fear faded as her gaze became fixed, the pupils dilated. A feeble last rattle of air left her body. He felt her fluttering pulse stop. “No. No!”

  Mitch laid a hand on Reid’s shoulder. He shook it off, anger and helplessness choking him. There was no point in CPR. His throat burned. The air around him smelled of gunpowder and blood.

  “Carotid’s severed—she’s gone,” Mitch stated, voice flat. “Let it go.”

  Reid sat back on his heels, his palms slick with blood. Above them, a helicopter roared over the building, its spotlight searching the river. The gaping hole where the window had been let in a glacial blast of January wind. He shuddered, the icy air seeping into his chest and making it hard to breathe. Already, he could hear the mechanical crank and rattle inside the ancient elevator shaft, telling him paramedics were on their way. But there was no hurry now. He continued to hold the woman’s still-bound, lifeless hand.

  For two weeks, Joshua Cahill had been a suspect in the serial murders case. His father had done everything possible to keep the joint police and FBI investigation away from his son. But in the end, Reid had been right. Whether Senator Braden Cahill was worried about his own reputation or was in serious denial about Joshua’s mental illness was up for speculation.

  “Damn near fell through to the next floor.” Mitch had returned to the window to scan the black water. “You think he’s dead?”

  “Maybe,” Reid answered softly. “I don’t know.”

  He closed his eyes against the scene. Pain bloomed inside his brain, the beginning of another migraine. He’d desperately wanted to end Cahill’s spree at five victims. But tonight, one more woman had been added to the gruesome, senseless list. Should he have taken his chance? Fired in that instant before the weakened floor gave in? Before Joshua had made his choice?

  Rising from the floor, he prepared himself for the onslaught of questions that would be launched at him. Questions that would start with SAC Johnston and no doubt travel all the way down from Capitol Hill.

  1

  Two Years Later

  Near Middleburg, Virginia

  I trusted you, Caity.

  Caitlyn Cahill jerked awake, her heart racing. It took a second to realize she’d been dreaming again. Still, her brother’s face—his voice—had been as clear as if he’d been standing next to her bed. In her dream-image of Joshua, he gripped a large kitchen knife and his eyes were black with hatred.

  She had the nightmare at least once a week.

  With a slow release of breath, she sat up and looked at the clock on the nightstand. Outside her bedroom window, she heard only familiar morning sounds. Although it wasn’t quite light yet, a meadowlark chirped from a branch in the stately orange-leafed oak, and a horse’s whinny drifted up from the stables. Caitlyn had taken refuge in the rolling horse country of Northern Virginia, using her trust fund to purchase the rambling, two-story farmhouse with stables and acreage.

  She’d had to get away.

  After Joshua’s capture, after her father’s fatal stroke, there had been little left in Washington to keep her there. The high-society lifestyle she’d been raised in had come to an abrupt end. Ostracized was the more specific description of her treatment. At times, she admitted only to herself that she wished Joshua had died from his gunshot wound, or drowned after his fall into the Potomac, instead of law enforcement fishing him from its icy depths. But then she felt guilty, then guilty again for thinking of her brother instead of the six innocent lives he had taken.

  He was sick. But was that an excuse?

  Nothing could ever explain what he had done.

  When Joshua’s trial was over—a three-week maelstrom involving forensic evidence and psychological testimony—Caitlyn had quietly packed and left without a word to those who had once been her family’s supporters and friends. She understood anyone with the last name Cahill was a pariah now, and that it was best for others to disassociate lest they carry residual dishonor.

  Her father, Senator Braden Cahill, hadn’t been able to bear the weight of Joshua’s sins. He’d collapsed during a press conference announcing his resignation, and died a week later. Then her mother, Caroline, had lost what was left of her mind.

  The Rambling Rose stables and farm had provided the distraction Caitlyn needed, had given her a purpose that made it possible to go on living despite the notoriety and shame. She’d transformed the stables into a therapeutic equine center that helped disabled and disadvantaged children by allowing them to groom, care for and ride horses. Caitlyn had given her time, energies and funds to create the nonprofit, animal-assisted therapy program. In her mind, Rambling Rose was a way to somehow try to make up for the evil her brother had done.

  It was late October, and the crisp early morning air made the old house chilly. Caitlyn pulled a roomy cable-knit sweater on over her pajamas, then padded downstairs to make coffee and prepare for the day. A bus full of special needs children from D.C. was expected in a few hours, and she needed to arrange for box lunches—turkey sandwiches, yogurt, apples and oatmeal-raisin cookies—from one of the quaint restaurants in nearby Middleburg. Caitlyn also planned to lead the afternoon program herself, taking the more advanced children out for a ride along the forested path. On top of that, Eli Burton, one of the area’s large-animal vets, was coming out to check on a weanling.

  The coffeemaker had just begun its steamy drip into the carafe when the telephone rang. Caitlyn picked up the handset, settling it between her right shoulder and ear as she rummaged in the stainless steel refrigerator looking for the last carrot muffin.

  “Ms. Cahill?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Ha
l Feingold.”

  She closed the fridge door. The reporter’s name caused a churning sensation inside her stomach.

  “I apologize for the early hour. You may remember me. I covered the Capital Killer investigation for the Washington Post, but I’m out on my own now.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Feingold,” she said.

  “I wanted you to know that I’m working on a book.”

  “About my brother?”

  “About your family, actually. About their role in the murder investigation.”

  Caitlyn hated the faint tremor in her voice. “I won’t give you authorization.”

  “I don’t need it, Ms. Cahill,” he replied in a calm tone. “It’s a matter of public record. Not to mention your father was a public figure. One could argue you are, as well. You played a key role in your brother’s arrest. You took his journal to the FBI after the judge—a friend of Senator Cahill’s—refused to sign the search-and-seizure warrant on the Logan Circle property. A very brave decision. I know what it did to your family—”

  Caitlyn’s words were clipped. “Goodbye, Mr. Feingold.”

  “The book is happening with or without your cooperation. I’m offering you the opportunity to present your side of the story. You should consider it.”

  Caitlyn stared at her image in the window over the deep farmhouse sink. The glass created a mirrorlike reflection, and she ran a hand through her sleep-mussed, honey-blond hair. She didn’t want the book in print, didn’t want it to create any renewed interest two years later. She couldn’t live through it again.

  “Ms. Cahill? I’d like to come out and speak with you in person. Perhaps we could talk about you writing a preface—”

  “Please don’t,” she whispered, and disconnected the phone. It actually didn’t surprise her that someone wanted to write her family’s story; it had all the characteristics of a bestseller. Two foster children brought into a loving, prominent family and given everything they needed to succeed. Only one of the children couldn’t fight his internal demons and became one himself. Caitlyn had been adopted as a newborn, but Joshua had been years older when he was taken from his abusive, drug-addicted mother. According to psychologists, the damage had already been done. But it had taken years for the evil to seep out. The fact that D.C. had no capital punishment was the only thing that had kept Joshua off death row.