Sinister Secrets

by Amanda McKinney

  “You know this guy?” Ace demanded.

  She snapped her attention to her new bodyguard. “Yes. Agent Fox.” Her voice was unsteady, hell, she was unsteady. “He’s a part-time trainer up at Quantico. I was in one of his classes.”

  “Former trainer,” Noah’s deep voice corrected, not any less pissed-off. He glanced back at Ace with a look that Fiona worried might end with a right-hook.

  Ace glowered back at the agent, then turned to Fiona. “I was just passing by and saw him lurking in your driveway.”

  She glanced over Ace’s shoulder. By ‘just passing by’, she had no doubt he meant that he’d been on babysitting duty, sitting in his truck that was parked outside her house, watching over her while she slept.

  “If I was lurking, you wouldn’t have seen me.”

  “Oh yeah? What are you, some kind of—

  “Ace.” Fiona shot him a relax look.

  Ace shut his mouth and took a quick inhale, although the tight lines of his face said anything other than relaxed. “He says he’s here about that dude you found in the ravine.”

  “Joel Davis.” Noah corrected again, pissed and impatient now.

  Her eyebrows tipped up. Joel. “Ah, okay.” She looked at Ace. “Thanks for checking in. You can head on.” She gave a light nod—everything’s okay.

  Her unofficial bodyguard stared back at her for a moment, before mimicking her quick nod, then saying, “Okay. The team’s meeting at the Black Crow at seven to go over our latest case. See you there?”

  She nodded. “See you at seven.”

  After another intimidating once-over aimed at the agent, Ace turned and descended into the rain.

  Noah’s eyes never left hers. “Hell of a guard dog,” he said, loud enough for Ace to hear.

  “Sorry about that.” She flickered a glance over Noah’s shoulder to make sure Ace wasn’t barreling through the rain about to throw a full-body tackle. She opened the door and stepped back. “Come in.”

  He stepped inside, and she caught the softest scent of rain on his skin. She couldn’t believe Noah Fox was at her doorstep. She closed the door behind him and cringed at her old, faded Quantico T-shirt, and even-older pair of baggy sweatpants she’d pulled on after everyone had left earlier.

  Dammit. She looked like a total trainwreck.

  A wave of insecurity had her clearing her throat. “Of all the things I expected to see when I opened my front door...”

  He leaned in, inches from her face and squinted, with an intense gaze that pinned her where she stood. Intimidating, even in her own home, which she quickly remembered was Noah’s MO. Everyone was scared of Noah Fox.

  “What happened to your face?” He asked.

  Shit. She’d forgotten about the scratches. Wow, she officially could not look any worse at the moment. “Ah, I fell down on a hike.” She shifted her weight. “Anyway… You’re here about Joel?”

  He nodded, peeled his eyes off of her and cast a look around her house. Cabin, more like. It was a small, two bedroom, two bathroom rock and log cabin. Quaint, cozy, and upscale despite the outdoorsy appearance. She cut a glance to the living room and winced at the mess of folders and papers scattered across the coffee table, right next to an empty wine glass—one of those big ones, like a goblet. This particular one had the words Cheers, Bitches, written in bright gold cursive around it—a birthday gift from Harley. Fiona had been working day and night on all the cases she and Roxy had going before her world got turned upside down. Her house was a wreck. Not that she was a neat freak, but she definitely would’ve done a sweep-through if she’d known Noah Fox was going to show up at her front door.

  “I got the call this morning, not long after Joel was found,” he said. “Call came from a Lieutenant Zander Stone. Know him?”

  She nodded. “We work with him a lot. Well, alongside him, I should say.”

  “Pays for a PI to be tight with local law enforcement.”

  So he knew she was a PI, which meant he’d looked into her. She shouldn’t be surprised, but she wondered exactly how much he knew about her. And if he’d already gotten all the information about Joel from Zander, why was he at her house, now? As if reading her thoughts, he said—

  “You found him, correct?”

  “That’s right.” Her stomach soured.

  “I’d like you to walk me through everything. From the moment you saw him, to your initial read of the scene.”

  He didn’t ask if she was okay, or if she was up for going through the gruesome details again. Hell, he hadn’t even asked her how she was doing. His tone was brisk, professional, and to the point, and a bit condescending in her opinion.

  Perhaps she wasn’t the only one that was feeling awkward about their past, assuming he even remembered, of course.

  “Yeah, I can walk you through it. You catch the case?”

  “You could say that.”

  You could say that. A vague answer, then again, Scrapper was known to bullshit his way around an investigation to get whatever he needed to close the case. He didn’t like to lose. Ever. She assumed when the homicide involved one of his own, his resolve only became more ruthless.

  Remembering her manners, she turned toward the kitchen and began down the hall, doing her best to hide her limp. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I’m good.”

  Geez, why did this guy make her feel uncomfortable in her own home—on her turf?

  She picked up her pace and glanced down, feeling the burn of his gaze at her back. Or ass, she wasn’t sure which. Not that it mattered. Her sweatpants were so big it probably looked like her butt sagged down to the back of her knees. She rolled her eyes.

  No drink for him, but she’d led him to the kitchen, so she decided to get herself something. She glanced at the clock and decided it was a fine time for an adult beverage. She grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped the top and leaned against the counter which was cluttered with dirty dishes.

  His dark eyes watched her as she sipped. He stood stoically in the middle of the room and while most people would sit, lean up against something, or need to busy their hands with something, he didn’t. He was here on a mission and didn’t have time to worry about awkward body language. That wasn’t Scrapper. His confidence was the first thing that had attracted her to him years earlier, along with every other warm-blooded female at Quantico.

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you that Zander hasn’t already. I found Joel at the bottom of a ravine early this morning. I’m assuming you went to the scene?”

  “My first stop. They’d already bagged his body.”

  “What time did you get there?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “You flew from DC?”

  “Yep.”

  So he hadn’t moved, which made sense considering the wife and all. Did he have kids now, she wondered.

  He continued, “Was at the airport an hour after I got the call and caught the next flight. Drove straight to the site. Hell of a drive.”

  “Mountain roads are rough around here.”

  “Made me wonder why you’d be hiking in that terrain. In the woods. Before daybreak.”

  Her mouth clamped shut. Exactly how much had Zander told him? Roxy had made him promise not to say anything about the evil witch, and because Lieutenant Stone was like family to the Knight sisters, his promise was as good as gold.

  “Early morning hike.” She said before taking another quick sip.

  His eyebrow tipped. He didn’t believe her.

  “Anyway,” she continued quickly. “He was leaning against the rock, fully clothed, with a bullet hole through his head. It was as if someone had strategically placed him. Gut says he wasn’t shot there.”

  “Why?” He crossed his arms over his chest and she caught a glimpse of the tattoos that covered his arms. The tattoos. She remembered he had them all over, which added to the sexy, bad-boy allure that was Noah Fox.

  “Well, if he’d been shot standing, his body wouldn’t have perfe
ctly slid down to the seated position he was in. If he’d been told to sit first, the shot would’ve been at an angle because there was a huge boulder directly in front of him. No way he could’ve been shot point blank like he was. Anyway, his wallet was in his pocket. No cell phone.”

  “You said ‘bullet through his head’.”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s not. The bullet’s still in his brain. He died instantly.” He cocked his head. “You didn’t check him over? Look at the rock behind his head to determine if the bullet went through, and if it had, look for the brass on the ground?”

  She shifted her weight, feeling defensive. What was with the hostility in his voice? If Noah did, indeed, remember their last encounter, it wasn’t a good memory. That much was obvious.

  “My friend showed up within a minute after I found him.”

  “You girls need to choose better hiking locations. And better times of day… and better weather conditions.”

  “She, Scar, short for Scarlett, just got a new dog, so she was taking him out. Wanted to meet up.” Why the heck did she go into that? If you’re lying, offer only limited information. A lesson straight out of Quantico.

  Skepticism washed over his face. The uncomfortableness in the room slid up a notch, but now, she also felt a slight embarrassment that perhaps he was disappointed with her for not checking the back of Joel’s head.

  “I checked his wallet and saw his driver’s license,” she continued. “Then noticed a receipt for a one-night stay at a local motel.”

  “The Towering Pines Inn.”

  “Right. Did the ME say how long he’d been dead?”

  “The official autopsy will be tomorrow morning, but she estimates around six hours from when you found him.”

  Her stomach dipped. “So around midnight last night.”

  He nodded.

  “What about his cell? Have you found it?”

  “No.”

  She shrugged. “Well, there’s really nothing else I can tell you. My friend came, I hiked out, we reported the body, and that was it.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “He looked familiar, instantly. I knew I knew him.”

  “Do you have any idea why he’d be here? In Devil’s Den?”

  “No…”

  “You two knew each other in training, right? Friends?”

  She thought back to their brief encounter at the smoky bar years earlier. “He was a year behind me, but I’m assuming you already know that, and friends? No, I don’t think you’d call us friends. I only spoke with him once when we ran into each other at a bar, and then saw him at my graduation. That was it.”

  “Yet he came to Devil’s Den, where you live, and never bothered to reach out?”

  Her eyebrows knitted together. “Why would he?”

  “It’s a small town.”

  “Small town or big one, we barely knew each other so even if he’d been elected mayor or something, it doesn’t mean he’d give me a call.” She set down her beer and narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going with this?”

  He stared at her for a moment. “Joel was a lonely guy. Type that would travel to spark a relationship.”

  She stared back at him, rivaling the intensity in his steely eyes, and this time, stood a little straighter. “I get that it’s a coincidence that we went to Quantico together, then ten years later he happens to travel to the town that I moved to, and gets shot down. But that’s all it is, a coincidence. How do you know he was lonely, anyway?”

  “Because he told me.”

  “Were you two close?”

  “I wouldn’t call us close.”

  “Enough for him to tell you that he was lonely.”

  “Roommates tend to do that.”

  Her mouth dropped. “You two were living—

  “Would you be willing to share your phone records with me?” He interrupted.

  Her eyebrows flew up as the shock—and tone—of his question momentarily stunned her. “Look, Agent Fox, Joel and I have never said more than twenty damn words to each other, and that was a decade ago. I don’t know why the hell he came to Devil’s Den, or who killed him. But I can promise you one thing, he sure as hell didn’t come here to see me and take care of his loneliness.” Her eyes narrowed to slits, and before she could catch herself, she said, “I don’t go around kissing random people, unlike some people I know.”

  His dark eyes flashed with anger. A loaded silence settled between them, and she realized her pulse had picked up sometime during her rant.

  Finally, in an icy-cold tone, he said, “That’ll be it, Miss Monreau.”

  And, with that, he turned and walked out of her house.

  CHAPTER 4

  Her heart pounded as she stood in the hall and watched him drive away.

  What. The. Hell?

  She was completely dumbfounded at the last ten minutes. She uncrossed her arms from her chest—her fists so tight her nails pressed into her skin—and stomped back to the kitchen. Her hand was unsteady as she grabbed her beer and sipped—make that chugged—half the bottle. She pressed the cold glass against her chest as the memory from ten long years ago replayed in her head.

  She had just walked out of a grueling three hour behavioral science lecture that had stretched past dinnertime. She decided to blow off some steam at the gym before grabbing dinner and hitting the books—a routine she’d established her first week at the academy. While most of her fellow trainees chose to relax at the bar after a long day, Fiona found much more of a release in the ring.

  She’d stashed her backpack in her locker, changed into a black tank-top and leggings and grabbed her bright orange cotton wraps. She tightly wrapped her knuckles and wrists as she passed through the cardio room where the hum of treadmills drowned out the newscaster on the TV, then through the massive weight room, and finally into her favorite room filled with six boxing rings, centered around punching bags and dozens of mean-looking punching dummies. The lights were dim, the room was hot with the musky smell of sweat and pent-up anger.

  She nodded as she passed two beefed-up agents, soaked in sweat. One sent her a wink, the other fixated on her breasts as they passed. The rock music blaring from their headphones lingered a moment after they stepped out of the room.

  She was alone. Just the way she liked it.

  Already beginning to feel a renewed rush of energy, she slid into the last ring in the corner and focused on the beige dummy grimacing back at her. She’d kicked his polyvinyl ass more times than she could count, but every time she returned, he was right there, unmarked, unfazed by her, and for some odd reason she considered it a challenge. She imagined him as some untouchable evil-doer running around the world killing innocent people, and it was her job to take him down.

  She’d named him The Reap—her spin on Grim Reaper.

  It was go-time.

  She stretched her neck, loosened her arms and shook out her wrists. The Reap was in for one hell of a fight tonight.

  She focused on her opponent, sucked in a breath and sent a jab to his left jaw. A little love peck, a warm-up for what was to come. She stepped back, then lunged forward with a right hook, followed immediately by a left, then a torso kick. Adrenaline burst through her veins.

  She loved it.

  Hand-to-hand combat training had quickly become her favorite class. Something about the rawness of it, no guns, no knives, no tricks, just brute force. Two people engaged in the greatest test of strength, both mental and physical. Someone always had to lose, and luckily for Fiona, that person was rarely her. She’d consistently taken down men double her size, using their strength and weight against them. She’d learned how to use her weakness—her size—and her quickness to her advantage. Combining that with her God-given grit—one of the trainers had once told her she had—she was lethal in the ring.

  Sweat began to bead on her forehead, the stress of the day started to fade, the weight of new agent training lessening, if only for a few minutes.


  Her legs tingled as she practiced kicks, and pounded The Reap over and over again. She was lost in the fight when suddenly—

  “You’re not turning your hips over.”

  It took a minute to register that the voice in the room was not coming from The Reap himself. She dropped her arms, chest heaving, and turned around.

  “And, you’re extending too early.”

  Wearing a navy T-shirt that melted into his sweat-soaked muscular chest, sweatpants, and running shoes, Special Agent Noah Fox stepped into the ring. His handsome—make that incredibly sexy—face was flushed, and his hair drenched. Apparently, he’d skipped dinner to get in some gym time as well. Although he was older, his body rivaled any twenty-something she’d seen in the ring.

  It had been a week since she’d seen him and based on the cut above his eye and bruising on his cheek, he’d been busy working a case that ended with physical contact. Not that she was surprised. Noah had led her class’s first hand-to-hand combat course, and within the first few minutes two things became evident: Every female in the room had trouble focusing on anything other than his bad boy good looks, and the guy lived and breathed the physical fight.

  His dark eyes focused on hers as he walked across the mat.

  A droplet of sweat rolled down her face.

  She worked on catching her breath as he stepped up to her, and without preamble, grabbed her hips. A rush of sexual awareness shot through her. He shifted her weight and slid behind her.

  “To do a roundhouse kick—which is what I’m assuming you were going for…”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Yes.”

  “To do a roundhouse kick—correctly—your grounded leg needs to be turned away from your opponent.” He tapped her foot with his shoe. She maneuvered, awkwardly, until her toe was pointed away from The Reap. He gripped her hips harder and shifted them forward. “Now, turn your hips over.” She caught the scent of his deodorant as he pressed behind her. She had an urge to look over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, but Noah didn’t seem to care.