Free The Search by Nora Roberts

hitched, a quick tremble as she linked her fingers together in her lap and stared straight ahead. “He dug the grave first—not too deep. He wanted them to be found. He liked them to watch him dig so he tied them to a tree. They couldn’t beg, couldn’t even ask him why because he kept them gagged the entire time. He didn’t rape them or torture them, physically. Or beat them or mutilate them. He just took out the red scarf and, while they were bound and gagged, unable to defend themselves, strangled them. He tied it in a bow when he was finished, and buried them.”
    “The Red Scarf Killer. That’s what the press called him,” Simon commented. “I remember this. They caught him after he shot some cop.”
    “Greg Norwood. The cop was Greg Norwood, and his dog, his K-9 partner, Kong.”
    The words throbbed in the air between them like an open wound.
    “You knew him.”
    “Perry laid in wait for them. Greg had a place, a nice little weekend place near Lake Sammamish. He liked to take Kong there, work on his training. Once a month, just the two of them. Boy-bonding, he called it.”
    She laid her hands on her knees, a casual gesture, but he saw the way her fingers dug in.
    “He shot Greg first, and maybe that was his mistake. He put two bullets in Kong, but Kong kept coming. That’s what they reconstructed, and that’s what Perry said happened, trading confessions, information, details against the threat of the death penalty when he knew he’d lose the trial. Kong tore Perry up pretty good before he died. Perry was strong, and he managed to get back to his car, even drove a few miles before he passed out, wrecked. Anyway, they got him. Greg, he was strong, too. He lived two days. That was in September. September twelfth. We were going to be married the following June.”
    Useless words, Simon thought, but they had to be said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah, me too. He staked Greg out for months, maybe longer. Meticulous, patient. He killed him to pay me back. See, I was supposed to be his number thirteen, but I got away.”
    She closed her eyes briefly. “I want a drink. Do you want a drink?”
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    When she rose and went in, he debated going with her, and decided maybe she needed a little time to pull it together.
    He remembered bits and pieces of the story. Remembered now there’d been a girl who escaped, and who gave the FBI a description of the man who abducted her.
    Years ago, he thought now, and tried to think what he’d been doing when the story had been hot.
    He just hadn’t paid that much attention, he thought now. He’d been, what, about twenty-five? He’d just moved to Seattle and had been trying to build a reputation, make a living. And his father had that cancer scare about that time. That had eclipsed everything else.
    She came out with a couple glasses of white wine.
    “It’s an Aussie chardonnay. All I’ve got, apparently.”
    “It’s fine.” He took the glass, and they sat in silence, watching the heap of dogs who’d decided to take a nap. “Do you want to tell me how you got away?”
    “Luck, on the heels of stupidity. I shouldn’t have been out alone that morning on that jogging path. I should’ve known better. My uncle’s a cop, and I was already seeing Greg, and they’d both made a point of telling me not to run without a partner. But I couldn’t get one who’d keep up with me. Track star,” she added with a ghost of a smile.
    “You’ve got the legs for it.”
    “Yeah. Lucky me. I didn’t listen to them. Perry hadn’t crossed over to Washington at that point, and there hadn’t been an abduction for months. You never think it’s going to be you. You especially never think that when you’re twenty. I went out for my run. I liked to go early, then hit the coffee shop. It was a crappy day, gloomy, rainy, but I loved running in the rain. This was early November, the year before Greg died. I had a second, just a second when I saw him. So ordinary-looking, so