“Psycho didn’t hesitate,” Bree eventually said.
“Psycho?”
“He didn’t introduce himself and I needed to call him something. He turned off the highway hard. He knew the turn was there. He knew where he was going. He said something.” Bree shrugged Eric’s hands off her neck.
His massage wasn’t helping anymore. Bree was so tense her muscles were hard as steel. She was going to have nightmares for days. When they were engaged, she’d seen a man get hit by a car. He’d died on the scene. She relived that for weeks every time she went to bed. Eric needed to set her an appointment with Victim Services immediately.
One thing was certain. This fucker was never getting close to her again. Even if Eric had to get her out of Winnipeg. The killer had pulled one woman out of Hamilton, fifteen hundred kilometers away. He wasn’t getting another shot at Bree. She wouldn’t be alone either; Eric would go with her if he had to.
“He said he didn’t want to go to the shack. The clearing,” she specified. “He said the room wasn’t ready.” Bree blew out a huge breath, then slumped in the chair. “The rest was all ‘fucking cunt’ this and ‘kill you’ that. He ordered me out of the car. I grabbed a branch. Then he chased me around the car until Marcus showed up. They fought, and he got away.”
She reached for her arm. Neither Dutch nor Mackie said anything, but they looked at him. He knew he was flinching at her unconscious action.
“Hey! I hit him in the face with the branch and he bled. I got a DNA sample!” She twisted in her chair. “That’ll help, right, Eric?”
“If he’s in the system, we’ll have him,” Eric agreed. How much did he love that she was exhausted and still fighting? Unfortunately, he doubted Bree’s Psycho would be registered. They didn’t have a viable sample from any of the previous victims to match it to. Exposure to the elements and dumping them in the water had destroyed any evidence. Pulling viable samples was never as quick or easy as Hollywood’s version of forensics made it look. If the killer was that smart, he probably wouldn’t be on file.
“He’s also going to have a hell of a shiner, and a scar here.” She touched his forehead about his right eyebrow. “I don’t know what damage Marcus did to him but it wasn’t enough.”
“Bree, do you remember what hand he held the knife in?” Mackie asked.
“When he was facing me, like you are, it was that one.” She pointed at Mackie’s right arm.
“That’s everything,” she said. “Can we go? I know we’ll have to do this again, but right now I have a bottle of really good prescription drugs waiting, and my head is killing me.”
“Yes, you’re done,” Eric said. Let Dutch disagree with him. They were going to interview her repeatedly in hopes that she remembered some new detail. But they weren’t going to get anything else out of her until she had a chance to rest so she could process everything that had had happened to her.
First he was going to make sure she was okay. That she was fed and medicated and wrapped in a warm blanket and he was holding her tight enough to keep the nightmares away.
He’d lost her twice now. It wasn’t happening again.