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Ice Covered Heart

Page 118

by Cynthia Eden

“She was.” From the guard who waited near the cell’s door. “I saw her a few times. Wondered why a girl that pretty would come see that twisted prick.”

Now they were getting somewhere. Hunter scanned the other sketches. The diner. The freaking diner. Nate had sketched the outside of the building. And…

A sketch of the old sorority house.

Detailed. Clear. Yeah, Nate was a good damn artist. He was also a sadistic, murdering SOB.

Another image…

The Shiloh estate. Where Nate had grown up. Where Gabriel currently lived.

“Who else came to see him?” Hunter demanded. He’d get the visitor records, but he wanted a visual description just in case anyone had lied on the log-in file. It would certainly be easy enough to fake credentials. “Other women?”

“Uh, yeah,” the helpful guard replied. “Lots of women come to see him.” He grimaced. “Dude gets marriage proposals every week. Freaking Ted Bundy, and they want him. One woman even tried to strip and run through the yard not too long ago.”

Great. “Anyone who sticks out in your mind for doing something other than trying to get naked?”

Shelby was silent, just staring at the sketches.

“Well…” The guard ambled into the cell while the warden frowned at him. “That young reporter—the guy—he comes in at least once a month. Says he wants to do a documentary.”

“Shamus Quint.” The warden straightened his shoulders. “He’s also profiling me. Describing what an outstanding job I’m doing at this facility.”

Uh, sure. Hunter believed Shamus was feeding the warden a load of bullshit just so he could get access to Nate. Outstanding, my ass.

“The two minutes are almost up,” the warden warned.

“A professor came in, too,” the guard spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “I know because he kept making a big deal of everyone calling him doctor. But Nate didn’t like talking to him. The doctor stopped coming, and the pretty co-ed—the one in that fountain sketch—she started coming.”

Right. That tracked. Nate hadn’t wanted to talk with Gabriel, so Gabriel had just sent his perfect prey in his place.

“You need to leave.” The warden glanced at his watch. “Now. Those two minutes are up.”

All right. Fine. “We need the letters that Tiffany Blake sent to him. Did you make copies when they arrived?”

The warden squinted at him.

Hunter took that as a no. “The letters have to be in this cell.”

But now the warden shook his head. “He probably trashed them. Those letters must be long gone.”

Dammit.

Shelby reached out. She touched the careful sketching of the sorority house. “This is really thick paper.”

“It, uh, has to be thick,” the warden explained as his attention shifted to her. “That’s what the therapist said. Thick paper. Because the subjects might press down too hard and paper could tear and it could⁠—”

She flipped over the paper. Then dropped it instantly.

As it fluttered to the floor…

He saw that Nate had sketched an image on the back of the paper, too. A woman, her body sprawled in a doorway. With a dark shadow that had to be blood all around her body.

“Oh, shit,” the warden breathed.

Shit, indeed.

Hunter grabbed the other sketches. He ripped them all down, pulling the masking tape easily off the walls. “Therapy.” He flipped them over and slapped them on the cot, one after the other. “Sadistic pricks like Nate would enjoy reliving their crimes.”