Agent Green tapped the side of his stylus on the edge of his computer pad, nodding to himself. “Is there anything we should be looking for that would tell us if the murderer is the Ambient or the host?”
*What is he looking for, phantom cell residue or something? We’re not corporeal.*
“He doesn’t think so.”
“Is there anything that drives them crazy? Anything that could compel them to murder?”
*Don’t say it, John.*
But he had to. Even if it meant pointing his finger at another alien, he had to save Dak. “They are really tactile. Seeing another Ambient makes them very touchy. Dak tripped me into Tracy when he first saw her.”
Green shook his head. “Good to note but none of the victims were hosts—at least not officially on record. If they were, we’d have gotten involved from the onset.”
John brought his fingers to his lips. “We’re still missing something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I feel like there’s something right under our noses.”
Green tapped the off icon on the recorder app. “Well, we’d better figure it out. The clock is ticking. If he keeps to his M.O., he could be picking out his next victim right now.”
The conference room door opened, and Biggs walked in. “I know you didn’t want to be interrupted but I thought you might want to know that the medical examiner confirmed that Gian Doogan and Jonathan McCartney were both killed by the same man.”
No surprise there, but John’s eyes narrowed. “What did you call the second cop?”
Biggs’s cheek twitched—a rare change in expression on the normally stoic sergeant. “Jonathan,” Biggs clarified. “He was known as J.J. in his precinct. His father and I went to school together. I always knew him as Jonathan.”
Jonathan. Gian. Sweat dampened John’s shirt. The similarity, it couldn’t be a coincidence.
“I see your wheels turning,” Biggs said. “What is it?”
The murderer had cut off the genitals, shoved them in the victims’ mouths. The ultimate sign of power and dominance over another man. A sign that he was better. Worthy.
Of a woman…a woman the other man had.
Shit. Why hadn’t he seen it sooner?
“It’s Sean. He wasn’t killing random cops. He was looking for me. He only had a first name.”
“What are you talking about?” Biggs asked.
“He wants Tracy. He must have known she was dating a cop named John. Gian and Jonathan. He was going down a list and slaughtering the competition.”
Green narrowed his eyes. “What, like the terminator in that old movie, taking out everyone with the same name? That’s a little crazy.”
“I’m telling you, this makes sense. We have to bring him back in for questioning.”
Green shook his head. “Even if I thought you were right, we still have no evidence. They will continue to hide behind the law and say you have it out for him because of his history with Tracy.”
John stood, shooting his chair back on the tiled floor. “Then let’s get out of here and find some evidence.” Because now that asshole knows exactly which John he’s looking for.
62
Tracy’s hands trembled on the steering wheel as the sun set behind Sean’s house. The last time she was there, Adonna had been worked up into a heated frenzy and Tracy had been screaming, begging her to stop.
The broken numeral eight beside the front door still hung by its last screw, warning her that nothing had changed. If she got out of the car, there was no reason to think Adonna wouldn’t take this as far as she could.
Coming here was insane. She couldn’t face Sean again. What was she thinking?
Adonna swirled within her stomach and moved into her chest. Tingling, but not insistent. Maybe the Ambient really did want to build trust between them. Otherwise, she’d have taken over and marched Tracy’s body up to the front door half an hour ago.
Trust. It seemed such an odd concept, sitting in front of a house she’d never wanted to see again. A house she wanted to forget and a man she wished she’d never met.
Adonna jittered and lowered in her abdomen.
Tracy’s hesitations were selfish. Adonna was finally building a rapport with her. This is what Tracy wanted: the same symbiotic connection John and Dak had. The relationship would be work, like a marriage. They needed to compromise and learn to live together. Adonna wanted to see this other entity one last time. Tracy had agreed, and she couldn’t withdraw her promise now. In a few minutes, this would all be over. At least she hoped it would.
Shit, this was insane!
Tracy rummaged through her purse and grabbed her phone. She rubbed her thumbs over the edge of the case, concentrating on each curve where the rubber met the touchscreen. John wouldn’t approve. He’d be sensible, find another way. Maybe that’s what she needed right now. The voice of reason.
She tapped on his name in her favorites and waited four rings before his voicemail picked up. It shouldn’t have surprised her that he didn’t answer. It was a miracle she’d seen him at all in these past few weeks.
If he’d answered, maybe he could have come; sat with them to make sure Adonna didn’t get out of hand. But that option was gone now. She’d have to face Sean alone, but she didn’t have to do so in the dark. John needed to know what she was doing. It was only fair.
She settled herself with a deep breath as the voice she’d grown to care so much about faded into a beep. “Hey, it’s me. Listen, maybe it’s better that you aren’t there to talk me out of this. I’m at Sean’s. Don’t be angry. Adonna is crazy about his Ambient, and I’m sure you of all people know what it’s like to have an entity in your head that wants something.” Tracy paused. How could she make this not hurt so bad? “Adonna promises that if I give her one more time with him, she’ll let you and I be together.” She gulped. “I-I’m going to try to hold hands. That’s all you said we needed to do, right?”
Crap. John wasn’t stupid. He knew just as much as she did that Adonna wanted more than hand-holding.
Tracy shuddered again. She needed to get this over with. Now. She spoke into her phone. “Please don’t freak. I really care about you. I’m doing this to give us a chance. I hope you’ll understand.” Tears trailed down her cheeks as she hit the red button, ending the call.
Adonna reeled inside her, but not in the happy, sparkly way she had for the entire trip. She seemed more solid. Like swallowing a crust of bread and not washing it down with water. Maybe she finally understood how hard all of this was on a human.
The walkway and the door loomed before her, but staring at them was not getting her any closer to being done with Sean. She slipped from the car, tugged her shirt to straighten the wrinkles, and headed up the walkway, avoiding an uplifted crack in the cement.
The door swung open before she knocked. Sean smiled. “This is a nice surprise.”
Tracy gasped and took a step back. A little part of her wished he wasn’t so damn good-looking. She lowered her gaze to the concrete patio.
Now that she was standing here, she had no idea what to say. “I-I’m surprised to find you home.”
He propped himself against the door frame. “Well, that’s doubtful, darlin’, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” His body made a perfect, posed angle, as if he’d jumped off a perfume ad.
She forced herself to make eye contact. “Oh, well, I wanted to see you.”
“Now that, I believe. Want to come in?”
Like she had a choice. Adonna’s entire essence pressed against the front of Tracy’s body, almost as if her host’s skin was the only thing keeping the Ambient from leaping out and taking Sean on her own. Tracy slipped past him without answering.
Sean closed the door behind him. “So, do you have something to give me?”
“Excuse me?”
“My toothpicks. I left them at the restaurant.”
Damn. He did leave them on purpose. “Actually, no. John was going to put them in your mailbox th
is morning.”
“Well, let’s add dependability to the list of things your wonderful inspector is lacking.”
He sprawled back on the couch, the same couch he’d eased her onto while Adonna got her rocks off with his entity. Adonna tingled as the memory surged between them. Part of Tracy longed for the explosion that had erupted through their bodies.
She shook the thought away. So many times in her life she’d been alone, even when involved in a relationship, leaving her feeling unappreciated and deficient. John had broken through that, lifted her up and made her feel special, wanted, understood. Tracy didn’t want Sean. She was done with him and every other guy like him she’d ever been with. She straightened as warmth spread through her. John wasn’t lacking, not at all.
Tracy touched her chest as her breath hitched. She needed to go find John and beg him to forgive her for even considering this.
“I’m going to take a wild guess here, darlin’, and say that you didn’t come here on your own.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’m guessing that this electrical energy between us is driving you crazy and that alien inside you is going absolutely batty over it.” He shifted his weight. “You see, this dude inside me, he wants to jump your bones like no tomorrow. I keep telling him I don’t like brunettes, but he can’t stop thinking about what it was like touching you.” His gaze dragged over her. “I think he got off more on me running my fingers up your skirt in the restaurant than I did.”
Tracy shook her head. “That wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t think so, but it was your body. That was your heat, not your ghostly gal-pal.”
Tracy gritted her teeth. “Alright, this is the deal. My Ambient wanted to see you again. I told her one time only to say goodbye. That’s it. I’m serious about John.”
Sean laughed. “Come on, darlin’. If you were serious about the cop, you wouldn’t be here. You know what that thing inside you wants and I think you need to admit that maybe you want it, too.”
She stepped back, hands shaking. “Well, that doesn’t matter, right? You don’t like brunettes.”
“You know, I think I owe my little alien tourist a favor. He did save my life and all. Maybe just once, I’ll make an exception.”
Tracy backed against the wall as he approached. He dragged his fingers through her hair.
“We don’t have to do anything. Just touch.” She turned away.
Sean leaned down. “Funny. My little hitchhiker is having second thoughts now, too. He wants me to leave you alone.” His breath tickled her cheek. “But I don’t think I want to. I liked the way he squirmed when I roved my hands over your skin. I liked the way my fingers tingled as I twisted them inside you. And I know you liked it, darlin’.”
No. God, no. “I’m in love with someone else.”
“But you want me.” He grabbed her chin and forced her to face him. “That’s a heck of a pickle, isn’t it?” His mouth closed over hers.
Tracy tried not to respond, but Adonna’s excitement surged through her veins. She kissed Sean back, welcoming the suction that drew her tongue into his mouth. He pulled her from the wall. She should stop this, demand a light touch, but her body succumbed to the whirling within her.
Adonna sparkled around Tracy’s lips. The Ambient teased with light touches. Sean growled, his hand tightening around her waist. Tracy trembled as his other hand slid under her shirt.
A small part of her screamed, but the emotions flooding from Adonna tromped every uncertainty. His touch kindled a rushing fire across her skin. Every pore ignited, flared, exploded, and shrieked to be covered in everything that was him.
Adonna was going to get more than touch. She would get it all, and Tracy was powerless to resist this drowning need, this unbearable pressure bearing down on her soul.
She didn’t argue as Sean eased her onto the couch.
63
“I still see no reason to think there is a connection between the murders of the women and the cops.” Green grabbed a jar of peanuts out of his bag.
John just glared at him, rearranging photos of the Alexandra Nixon crime scene. Art had learned to trust John’s instincts over the years. This kid was far too green to understand the power of going with your gut.
“You sure you don’t want to check out that call for backup in Pitman?” Green asked, shaking a handful of nuts out of the jar.
John leaned on the table in the war room. “It’s not our guy. Dispatch mentioned minors. He’s never involved kids before.”
Green threw a peanut in the air and caught it in his mouth. “What about the shooter in Deptford mall?”
“Too public, not his style. We don’t have time for a wild goose chase.”
John clenched his teeth as Agent Green munched on the nuts. Apparently, crunching helped the kid think, but after a few hours, the sound ground through what remained of John’s nerves. Why couldn’t he just chew gum?
Refocusing, John considered a picture of the first victim: Diana Worth, twenty-six, from Haddon Township. Single mother of two. No family in the area. That first crime scene had been clean other than the perpetrator’s DNA. No blood and no sign of struggle. Their killer had become more violent with each murder. Only one victim had resisted: the first woman to have her limbs ripped from her. He scanned pictures of the grizzly scene tacked up on the war board. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t human.
Dak shivered. *You can’t still be thinking that one of my kind did this.*
No, John didn’t believe Dak could do something like this, but what about another Ambient? Was Green right? Would the entity and the host have to be in cahoots to pull off a murder?
John rubbed his temple. “Am I stronger because of you or would you have to give me strength?”
“What?” Green asked. He tossed the finished peanut can into the trash and wiped his hands on a paper towel.
“Sorry, I was talking to Dak.”
*I think you are probably always strong since I’m living inside you. But maybe you can’t conceptualize that strength, so you don’t use it.*
Green stretched. “Please tell me you two have had some kind of epiphany.”
“No, I’m still coming up dry. I wish I knew if I was dealing with a psycho alien or a psycho human.”
“The answer is here.” Green picked up an evidence bag containing a dead flower found outside the door of the third victim’s house. “He’s telling us a story. We just haven’t figured out the plot yet.”
John shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. If he were, he’d be straightforward, boastful. He’d place the clues on the body, like he did with Melissa Harpoona. He’d be taunting us with them.” John rifled through the evidence, fingering a bar receipt dated nine months ago. “I think he’s dropped random things to keep us off balance.”
“Well, it’s working.”
John stood and placed his palms on the table. “No. It’s not.” He gathered the photos and placed them to the side. “It’s not about the victims right now, it’s about him. It’s about the things he’s left.” John carefully spread the evidence across the table between himself and Green.
“I don’t get it. We looked at all this already. Clark and Evans had their top people on it.”
“But they weren’t looking for what I’m looking for.”
Green cocked his head. “Care to enlighten me?”
“They were looking for the common denominator. They were trying to piece together the puzzle.”
“Isn’t that our job?”
“But our psycho would know that. He dropped a bunch of clues that meant nothing. He did it on purpose.”
“To send us on a wild goose chase?”
“No. To cover his own ass—just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
John picked up the smallest bag on the table. The wooden splinter he’d picked out of Melissa Harpoona’s garden. “In case he screwed up.”
Green’s brow arched above puffy red eyelids. “Tha
t stick could be anything. It could have come in the mulch for all we know.”
John brushed his fingers over the Forensics note. Wood from a clingstone peach tree. Could a peach tree have been mulched? Of course, but not likely when all the other mulch around it was black. Every other clue had to do with dating. A flower, a bar receipt, a movie ticket stub, and then this single sliver of wood.
Tilting the bag to avoid glare from the overhead lighting, John furrowed his brow, taking in the red and blue ink on the splinter. Could this be it, the one piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit? He could be reaching for straws, but straws were something when nothing else made sense.
Across the table, Green picked at his gums. He shrugged. “Sorry. I have a nut stuck between my teeth.”
John tensed. The toothpick container in his jacket pocket suddenly weighed him down. He grabbed the case, turning the embossed metal into the light. His hand trembled as the image of the peach within a red and blue circle burned into his brain. He flipped the canister over.
Made from 100% recycled clingstone peach trees.
Carington Farms, Fort Valley, Georgia.
Bile pooled in John’s stomach.
Sweet Jesus. This is what he’d been looking for.
John tapped out a toothpick. His stomach clenched, seeing the red and blue stripes on the ridged end. He held it beside the evidence bag.
Green stood, inching closer. “Holy shit.”
Dak squirmed, deepening John’s sense of dread.
Sean had shown up out of nowhere at the restaurant, almost as if he’d been stalking Tracy. Or maybe that wasn’t Sean at all. Maybe the Ambient saw something it wanted and took Sean right to her. The Ambient wanted Adonna but Sean wanted…
*Tracy!*
John fumbled for his phone. Tracy’s missed call appeared on his screen. He tapped on the message. Little pieces of his soul chipped away as he listened to her recorded voice. Every nightmare about finding someone he loved dead crept to the surface, weakening him. He shut the visions out. He couldn’t be weak. Not now. Tracy’s life depended on it.
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