by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
Everything inside of him shut down.
“Okay.” Kate hauled her T-shirt over her head, careful of her wound. Slipping into her jeans, she hopped to pull them around her waist, and Declan shoved out of the bed. “I’ll be right there.”
She tossed the phone onto the bed, turning away from him.
“Kate?” Concern deepened his voice and ignited his instincts with battle-ready precision. “Tell me who was on the phone.”
“That was Ryan. Sorry, Special Agent Dominic.” She turned, biting down on her thumbnail. “He got our message about the connection between the women and started digging into any active missing persons cases the FBI is investigating.” Kate ran a hand through her hair. She did that when she tried to hide the emotions fighting for release inside, but she couldn’t hide from him. The tension along her spine gave her away, and he rounded the bed in order to close the distance between them. “He believes another woman has been taken. And that his partner is responsible.”
“Kenneth Winter. But what makes you think Dominic isn’t involved? That him pulling you back in isn’t some kind of trap? They’re partners. They’re assigned the same cases.” As far as Declan knew, Anchorage PD and the FBI were still analyzing the last scene, and the Hunter had already taken another victim? Damn it. They couldn’t keep up with this guy.
“Serial killing teams are rare, but even so, Dominic’s name isn’t on any of the missing person reports.” Kate shook her head. “I know Ryan. He bleeds red, white and blue for the FBI.”
“So Dominic wants to keep this quiet until he has enough evidence to bring his partner in for questioning,” Declan said. “That’s why he called you back in?”
“He wants as many available eyes on this case as he can get. He’s at a scene he believes is the last known location of a missing woman who fits the Hunter’s MO.” She reached for her green cargo jacket and slipped into her boots. “There’s no rhyme or reason to this unsub’s attacks, and it’s only going to get worse from here. We need to catch this guy. If there’s a chance this latest victim can be brought home before we find her with an arrow through the heart, Dominic is going to take the risk of losing his job to do it.” Straightening, she softened her expression. “He’s going to email me the details in a few minutes, but I really want to finish our conversation.”
“This case has to take priority.” Dominic’s call had bought Declan some time. He’d tell her the truth soon, but right now, bringing down the unsub who’d set this all in motion had to come first. “Don’t worry. We have time. We’ll do what we have to do to get those families justice, then talk about us.”
“So there’s an us?” Her eyes glittered as sunlight speared through the windows. She stepped toward him, slipped her arms around his waist and stared up at him.
“I’ve waited a long time to find the woman in my dreams. Do you think I’m going to walk away after everything we’ve been through?” Twisting a strand of her hand around his finger, he set his forehead against hers. He tilted her chin higher and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. “You accept my past, support me in the present and have given me a glimpse of my future. You’re my armor, and you and I will always be unfinished business.”
That angelic smile of hers overwhelmed her expression, and he couldn’t help but smile back. “Not sure I had a choice in those first two things,” she said. “Finding out your husband isn’t dead after all is kind of a sink-or-swim situation.”
“Good thing your personnel file says you’re scuba certified, then.” His laugh rumbled through him, and for the first time he could remember, the gutting hollowness inside didn’t ache. “Maybe after all this is over, you can show off some of those skills on a beach far the hell away from here.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, hiking herself onto her tiptoes. “Hot sand, cold drinks and nothing but the ocean and room service? I could get on board with that.”
He nibbled at her bottom lip, sliding his arms around her waist. Kissing a trail down her neck, he locked on their reflection in a standalone mirror against the wall. This. This was what he wanted. Her, for the rest of his life. Every wound he’d incurred, every scar left behind, they all paved the way to this moment, to her. Declan would fight until his last breath to protect her.
Her tablet pinged with an incoming message, and she turned in his arms at the sound. “That’s probably the details Dominic said he’d send over. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.
Kate unwrapped her arms and crossed back to the nightstand beside the bed. He watched as she tapped the screen, confusion deepening the distinctive lines between her eyebrows. “That’s not...right.”
“What is it?” He pushed his feet into his boots, the mattress dipping under his weight as he bent to tie them. His gut sank. Had law enforcement been too late? Declan pushed upright, took a single step forward. “Did they already find her?”
“No.” She snapped her attention up and tossed the device face up onto the bed.
Every muscle down his spine tightened as he studied the screen. Surveillance photos taken from outside her apartment—of Declan—dated a few weeks ago.
“Looks like we’re going to have to hold off on that beach vacation,” she said.
Chapter Twelve
“How did you know I like cinnamon in my hot chocolate?” The dates on those surveillance photos couldn’t be right. If they were... Then Declan had been lying to her all this time.
Nausea churned in her gut. Lying about his memories. Lying about not knowing who she was. The photos of him watching her apartment and their home two weeks ago proved that.
“That’s not the question you want to ask, Kate.” He straightened from tying his boots, gripping the edge of the mattress, his attention on her tablet. “Ask me.”
She swallowed around the bile rising up her throat. The truth dried out her mouth and pulled at her body until her knees weakened. It took everything to keep herself upright, but the air had been taken right out of her. Her scars burned as though she’d been shot all over again. Pain spread from her shoulder down through the rest of her arm. Or was it the scars in her heart tearing open again?
“How long have you had your memories back?” she asked.
“Hard to say.” Piercing blue eyes locked on her, and the room spun. Was that an admission? Veins struggled to break through the skin of his forearms the harder his fingers clenched the edge of the mattress. “They still come in bits and pieces. I don’t remember everything.”
“But you knew who I was before you walked into our house that night, right? You knew I was your wife, and you stayed away anyway. You let me think you were still dead.” Her eyes burned as betrayal hit.
Kate forced herself to take a deep breath to drown the nausea, but his clean, masculine scent filled her system instead. The grief, the pain he’d helped ebb clawed through her, deepening the fissures Brian Michaels had put there in the first place. A combination of sorrow and rage exploded inside her. Hot tears burned a path down her face. Apparently, Declan had only come back into her life to finish the job.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why keep me in the dark? I could’ve helped you sooner,” she said.
He stood, towering over her to the point she had to crane her head back to look at him. “I woke up with four bullet wounds, Kate. I had no memory of how they’d gotten there or who pulled the trigger. For all I knew, you were the reason I was in that hospital bed.” He gripped his fists at his side. “I wasn’t sure I could trust you. I thought if I inserted myself back into your life pretending not to know anything about you, you could help me regain the rest of my memories and get me access to my personnel file with the FBI. Which you have.”
“You used me.” Plain and simple. He’d wanted his life back, and he’d done what he had to do to get the job done. She could still feel his hands on her, taste him, smell hi
m on her skin. Her stomach rolled. She’d trusted him to help her forget, but all he’d done was make the nightmare worse. “And sleeping with me? Was that part of your sick mind game, too?”
“No. That was never part of the plan. But no matter how many times I tried to tell myself otherwise, I couldn’t keep my hands off you, angel.” He reached out with one hand as though he intended to comfort her. “You’re the strongest, most intelligent—”
“Don’t.” Her order came out between gritted teeth. He’d lied to her, used her. He wasn’t the man she thought he was. He’d seen an easy target and taken advantage, but she was the one filled with shame. Gravity pulled at her, urging her to sink to the floor, but she wouldn’t show weakness in front of him. Never again. Another wave of loss swallowed her whole. “I’m not your angel. You don’t get to call me sweet nicknames and make this all okay. You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to pretend what you did wasn’t wrong.”
He didn’t get to pretend she wasn’t grieving all over again.
He dropped his hand, pulled back his shoulders. His expression locked into place, mirroring those times when he hadn’t been able to talk about his work for the FBI. She should’ve recognized that look for what it really was before now—pure apathy. That was what had made him such a good agent, made him the investigator his superiors could rely on, no matter the case. He’d kept himself just distant enough to not let the darkness in, and he was doing the exact same thing to her now—distancing himself. “Who sent you the photos?” he asked.
“Special Agent Dominic. Looks like you weren’t the only person in my life lying to my face.” Dominic had obviously known Declan was alive before setting eyes on him in her office. He’d been surveilling her husband for a few weeks.
But why? Why was everyone keeping secrets? This was her life, damn it. She deserved the truth. She ripped her cargo jacket from her shoulder, biting down against the pain where the Hunter’s arrow had pierced her, and shoved the coat into him on her way toward the bedroom door. “You can have this back. I don’t need it anymore.”
Footsteps closed in behind her, then a strong hand on her arm spun her into his chest. “Kate—”
“I told you not to touch me.” She wrenched out of his grip, put a few feet of space between them. The anger distorted into an all-too-familiar choking sensation. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. “Whether you’re the husband I buried after the shooting or the man who pulled me from that pit, I don’t care. Don’t follow me, don’t insert yourself back into my life and don’t try to apologize. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
She had to get out of there, away from him. Not waiting for his response, Kate headed for the front door. Hundreds of Christmas lights and decorations blurred in her peripheral vision, but where she’d had happy, comforting memories to draw from at the sight, now a tainted mass of betrayal set up residence. She grabbed her overnight bag and wrenched the thick front door open, stepping out into the freezing Alaskan night, and slammed the door behind her.
He let her go.
Her heated breath froze on the air, forming crystalized puffs in front of her mouth. Cold worked into her lungs and cleared her head.
Dominic was waiting on her. They were going to have a talk about how he got ahold of those surveillance photos of Declan. But she couldn’t let the past few minutes—days—get to her. Despite the situation between her and Declan, she had a job to do, too. Another woman had presumably gone missing. She wouldn’t let the new cracks in her armor affect the case. Not again.
The stairs protested under her weight as she forced her way to the SUV. They weren’t far up the mountain. Once the sun rose, Declan could make his way back to the city on his own. She wasn’t coming back here. She hit the button on her key fob to start the engine, and it roared to life. Climbing inside, she hauled her bag into the passenger seat and cranked the heater.
Snow popped and groaned beneath the vehicle’s tires as she headed down the mountain. Every foot gained away from that cabin—away from him—released the pressure building around her heart.
But halfway down, the lights on the console flickered. Same with the headlights as the SUV’s RPMs sank to zero. The engine died, and Kate pressed her foot against the brake pedal. Pitch blackness filled the interior of the vehicle as she rolled to a stop. Pressing the start button, she listened for a sign of what might be wrong with the engine. “Come on.”
The battery must’ve died from the dropping temperatures. Lucky for her, Sullivan Bishop required every member of the Blackhawk Security team to carry extra ammunition, weapons, first aid kits, survival gear and an additional car battery. Never knew what kind of mess their clients or the weather would get them into, and it was always better to be prepared than caught unaware.
Pulling her phone from her jacket pocket, she sent a quick message to the team. She was back on the Hunter’s case, at least for now, and she’d need their help. She tossed the phone into the passenger seat, then unholstered her weapon, checked the magazine and loaded a fresh round into the chamber. Shoving it back into her shoulder holster, she pushed open the door with her uninjured arm and hit the small dirt road.
With a single glance into the surrounding trees, Kate walked to the back of the SUV and squeezed the lever for the tailgate. No sign Declan had followed her. The last thing she needed was for him to come out here to try to help. The muscles in her jaw ached. He’d done enough damage for one day.
The soft hissing of the tailgate’s hydraulics drowned the steady sounds of the great outdoors. Hauling the battery and an extra flashlight from the back, she swung open the driver’s-side door and popped the hood, her boots slipping on the thin layer of compacted snow.
How long had he been surveilling her, studying her? Kate blinked to clear the burning from her eyes as she hefted the SUV’s hood. Following her?
Streaks of green and purple painted the sky in rivulets overhead, each strand branching off from a central point as the aurora danced in full display tonight. Millions of stars peppered through the thin veil of color, only adding a minuscule amount of light for her to see the vehicle’s engine. Clenching the flashlight between her teeth, she twisted the bolts of the dead battery free with a wrench.
She was scheduled to meet Dominic in thirty minutes. Every minute counted when a victim went missing, and the longer she was out here, the less chance the FBI—the less chance Kate—had of finding the Hunter’s latest victim alive.
Kate wrapped her fingers around the flashlight and swiped the back of her hand beneath her running nose. Hell, it was cold. Rubbing her hands together, she blew hot air into her palms in an effort to keep circulation moving. She’d close this case, she’d move on with her life, and she’d help those clients she could. Without Declan.
Within a few minutes, the new battery was in place, and she settled in behind the wheel. Kate pushed the start button.
Silence.
“Are you kidding me?” What else could be wrong with the damn thing? She glanced in the rearview mirror, back up the road toward the cabin. She was going to have to go back up there, going to have to confront Declan again while she waited for a tow truck and a ride-share to make it to her meeting with Dominic. The other option was freezing to death.
Kate shook her head. Okay. Maybe freezing to death wasn’t such a bad idea right about now.
She sensed movement from the back seat, and she automatically reached for the gun in her holster. A stinging pain pinched at her neck as a gloved hand closed over her mouth.
She wrapped her fingers around her gun’s grip, but her body grew heavier with every pump of her heart. She couldn’t get it out of the holster. Panic flooded her as the hand slipped from her mouth and took the weapon straight from her holster.
“Can’t have you ending the fun before it begins.” A black ski mask appeared in her rearview mirror as her eyes grew heavy. Darkness crept around the edge
s of her vision, then pulled her down into blackness as the drugs took effect.
“You’re mine, Kate, and nobody is going to take you from me this time.”
* * *
SHE WAS DECLAN’S weakness, always had been.
Now she was gone. She’d wanted him at his lowest, and he’d thrown it in her face. By holding her away from the truth in an effort to keep her in his life, he’d only managed to push her away.
Declan held on to the cargo jacket she’d pushed at his chest, his fingers poking through the hole over the left breast. Where their killer had pierced her shoulder with an arrow. He was still out there, still hunting. Declan rolled the side of his mouth between his teeth and bit until blood spread over his tongue. What kind of bastard did he have to be to lie to the only woman who’d been willing to help him, to trust him? He was a damn fool.
And for what? A few more details on a life that didn’t matter? He was never going to be the man she’d married. Even if every memory that’d been stripped from his head came rushing back, too much had changed since then. He’d changed.
“Damn it.” She shouldn’t be out there alone. If he left now, he could catch up, ensure she was safe until she reached her meeting with Dominic. Then he and his former partner could have a talk about boundaries. Sending Kate those surveillance photos had crossed a line. But in the end, he was as guilty as Dominic. He’d watched her apartment, memorized her routines, investigated her clients. He’d learned everything he could about her before stepping foot in the house that night to ensure she hadn’t been involved in the shooting. It had all been part of the plan.
Only, he hadn’t expected to fall for her in the process.
Declan strode to the cabin’s guest bedroom, shoving his arms into his coat along the way. He’d have to make sure to thank Kate’s teammate for preparing for the apocalypse next time he saw Vincent. Arming himself with a handgun, a fresh magazine and a burner phone from the stash of supplies, Declan loaded a round into the barrel, checked the safety and holstered the weapon.