Deathscape by Dana Marton Page A

this time he wasn’t alone. He’d somehow carried Ashley Price in there with him.
    The woman carried a load of guilt, grief, and despair, along with some pretty dark secrets. They had that in common.
    Hot as all get-out, but a basket case. Then again, anyone who would hook up with Blackwell had to be seriously messed up. He sure as hell didn’t believe the psychic-vision bullshit. She was with Blackwell—either coerced or by choice. Probably the latter.
    For one, Jack had given her a way out: cooperate with the police and be taken into protective custody. But she hadn’t given up anything. Two, he didn’t want to think of her as a possible victim. He needed an enemy he could reach to fight, and right now Ashley Price was the only one within reach. He was going to bring Blackwell down through her.
    He’d rattled her before, had taken her paintings. She’d come close to breaking. He would push her as hard and as far as he needed to, to finish the job.
    His phone rang. Always hoping for a lead, he took the call. Then wished that he hadn’t.
    “ Hi, this is Dr. Beacon,” the shrink Bing had sicced on him at the hospital said on the other end.
    “ I’m in the middle of something.”
    “ We need to make an appointment.”
    “ How about I call you back?”
    “ That’s what you said the last time.”
    “ I really don’t have any problems.”
    “ That’d be a miracle, after what you’ve been through. Denial is normal. What do you know about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?”
    “ I don’t have time to have PTSD.”
    “ Insomnia, trouble breathing, anxiety, hallucinations, paranoia… It’s a long list, Detective. Why not let me help before things get really bad?”
    “ How about this? I’ll call you at the first sign of trouble.” He hung up on the man as Joe, one of two rookies, pushed through the door and dropped his gym bag on the floor, heading straight for the treadmill with a grin. “Fallen and you can’t get it up?”
    He’d been the town football hero back in his high school days, had gone to college on a sports scholarship. Never managed to turn pro, although he’d spent time with a couple of the East Coast teams before coming home and settling back into his small-town-hero life.
    “ Odd that should be on your mind at your age.” Jack rolled to his feet. “Trouble in that department? You’ll get better with experience. Try not to worry.”
    “ I don’t know what you’re talking about, old man. Hot stud is my middle name.” The twenty-something flashed another cocky grin as he began running.
    He was so full of hot air it was a wonder he didn’t float to the ceiling. But he was well-meaning, and he would watch a man’s back if needed, so pretty much everybody liked him around the station and overlooked his strutting peacock tendencies.
    “ What are you working now?”
    Joe picked up speed on the treadmill. “The burglaries.”
    “ Still?” There’d been a rash of burglaries in town over the last few months, a pushed-in back door here and there, small items taken, things that could be quickly sold online. Property crime like that usually picked up as the economy dipped.
    Joe shrugged. “They stop for a week, then start again. I’ll get the sucker.”
    Jack nodded as he passed by the treadmill, ready to hit the shower. “Bing in yet?”
    “ Came in, went out. Someone reported some hunting-camp bunker thing out by Spring Road. Filled to the rafters with guns and knives and axes and some weird shit. Chase went to pick up a flasher. Harper is at a tractor-trailer accident. I’m not sure where Mike is. Nobody’s in.”
    Jack picked up speed, the parting jab he’d meant to throw at Joe forgotten. He rushed through his shower, and stopped by the front desk on his way out of the station. “You got that number I asked for earlier?”
    “ You bet.” Leila slipped a piece of paper across the counter.
    She was the sole admin support, a widow in her late forties with three boys to