by Cynthia Eden
The place seemed massive from inside. The ramparts stretched out, surrounding them on all sides as the heavy stone walls rose toward the sky. Stairs—old and heavy—led up to those ramparts, as did sloping trails of land.
Gabe was striding toward the wall on the east side, and Eve hurried to keep up with him. “Why are we here again?”
“Because we’re going to every main stop on this island. If something happened to you at one of these spots, if one of these places can trigger your memory, then dammit, we’re going to make that happen.”
Her heart was racing by the time they reached the top of the eastern ramparts. Eve tried to suck in a deep breath to steady herself, but then she lost that breath as she took in the view. The crashing waves pounded below, rolling in again and again, and, in the distance, she could just see . . . “The lighthouse.”
“There are plenty of places to hide in this fort. Plenty of places to . . . get rid of a body.”
I don’t want Alexa to be dead!
He still had her hand in his grip. “Are you ready for this?”
Eve had to drag her gaze off that lighthouse. “Yes.” No.
“Then let’s go.” And he turned to the right. They weren’t heading back down below, into the open field that spread in the middle of the fort. Instead, he was taking her down into what felt like the bones of the fort. A twisting, brick staircase led them lower and lower. The stairs seemed to be crumbling beneath her feet, and she put her left hand on the cold wall for support. Light barely cracked inside as they entered the bowels of the fort.
When they reached the bottom of the staircase, cold air seemed to blow against her face.
“There’s a tunnel here,” Gabe said.
She could see it. A rounded ceiling curved down, and old lights flickered about every ten feet. The tunnel was so long and—
Eve tensed. “Someone’s down there.” Or at least she’d thought that she’d caught sight of someone down there. Now she couldn’t see anyone.
No wonder the old guy thought this place was haunted. The fort was sure giving her goose bumps.
But Gabe had her hand and was leading her forward. The tunnel was so narrow that they had to walk in single file.
“Does it seem familiar to you?” Gabe asked.
“No.” Her answer was immediate and maybe too fast. Because as they headed down that narrow tunnel, Eve did feel something, but it wasn’t familiarity. It was fear.
I don’t want to be here. “We should stop.”
Gabe kept going. “The tunnel ends up ahead.”
She didn’t want to go up ahead. She pulled on his hand. “I don’t remember this place.”
He turned toward her, stopping just a few feet from the tunnel’s exit. His body caged her against the old bricks. “It’s all right.”
It was getting harder for her to breathe. “I don’t want to be here. Let’s go look outside for Alexa. The killer wouldn’t . . . he wouldn’t bring her here. How would he even get inside? I mean, it’s a fort! The place is secure!”
Gabe shook his head. “There are always means of getting inside and methods of sneaking out.”
For a SEAL, maybe. Those guys specialized in their covert operations.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“Easy for you to say,” she whispered back.
“Yes.” He was so close. Or maybe the tunnel was just ridiculously narrow. Either way, she couldn’t seem to take a breath without feeling him against her. His body was so close and his warmth was surrounding her as he . . . just stared into her eyes.
“Gabe?”
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered again, and then he kissed her. Just leaned forward in that dark, too tight tunnel, and, with her trapped against the bricks, his mouth captured hers. The kiss wasn’t light. It wasn’t some brief caress.
His lips took hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth. He licked her. He seemed to savor her, and when he pulled her against his body, squeezing them in that tight space, Eve didn’t give a damn where they were.
“Still scared?” The words were a growl against her lips.
Her breath heaved out. “Not exactly.” She was focusing on another emotion.
“Good.” He kissed her again. “Because anytime you get afraid . . . just remember that I’m right . . .” Another long kiss, one that made her breasts ache and her toes curl. “ . . . here.”
Her hands tightened around his shoulders. “You can’t always be with me.”
He kissed her again. In the darkness of that tunnel, in a place that caused an instinctive terror within her . . .
But I’m safe with him. And maybe that was the key for her. Gabe wasn’t tied with her past. He hadn’t known her until she walked into his office.
He can’t be the man who hurt me.
But the others that she met on that island . . . all the people who rushed in and out of her life, people who claimed to be friends, former lovers, even family . . . she couldn’t trust them.
Because it was too easy for people to lie.
Her eyes squeezed shut as she kissed Gabe back, kissed him with a wild desperation. She wanted to hold tightly to him and never let go. To give in to the feelings he stirred so effortlessly within her.
Be stronger.
But Eve made herself push against his shoulders and pulled her mouth from his. She could do this.
He stared into her eyes. The light in the tunnel was so dim, she wondered how he could see her expression, but he gave a slow nod and backed away.
Then they were heading down the tunnel again. She could still taste him, and her lips seemed to tingle a bit from his kiss. Her steps were faster now. The shadows didn’t seem as thick as they walked, and a few moments later, they were out of that tunnel and walking into a big open room. One that had thick, faded bricks lining the walls. And . . .
“Are those names?” Eve asked as she crept closer to the far wall. She lifted her hand and touched the bricks as her eyes narrowed. Yes, there were names there. Dozens of them. It looked as if some had been carved into the bricks while others were written in chalk. Some even appeared to have been written with a marker.
“Guess the kids like to tag the place,” Gabe said as he approached the wall with the names.
Yeah, she guessed they did.
Her eyes slid over the names. John. Ally. Beau.
“This room is so deep in the fort that the park officials probably can’t ever catch the people tagging the bricks.” He was walking ahead, slipping even deeper into the fort. Eve followed him and found another room. Smaller. Even darker. He turned on his phone and used a flashlight app to light up the interior.
More names.
Kate.
Cassie.
Sharon.
Lyla.
Chantal.
Helen.
Jessica.
All of those names had been scratched into the bricks. Not written in chalk or marker, but carved into the bricks—maybe with a knife?
Jessica. Her hand lifted and touched the letters of that name, but when she looked below and saw the last name on that wall . . .
Alexa.
Her heart stopped.
“Gabe!”
“The others are victim names, too.” His voice was grim. “Every one of them in this room.”
She whirled toward him. “What is this?” Fear was back, beating hard and heavy within her as her heart thundered in her chest. All of the names were females, all appeared to have been scratched in a similar handwriting, and . . . my name is there. Alexa’s is there.
We’re all there.
The light from his phone drifted to the left, to the right, as Gabe seemed to inspect the wall. “That section of bricks doesn’t look as old as the rest.”
He was missing the huge damn point! “Those are his kills!”
“The bricks are different.” Gabe stalked forward. Pressed against the bricks with those scratched names on their surfaces. “Newer.”
“We need to get out of he
re.”
Sweetheart, let’s play a game . . .
The voice seemed to whisper through her mind. “We should get out of here, now.” She was already backing away from that wall.
But Gabe was trying to use his phone to call someone. “No signal,” he muttered.
Right. They were in the bowels of hell. No big surprise that there wasn’t a signal there. She turned from him and began hurrying back through the tunnel. They needed to get out of that place ASAP. They had to go find Trey and tell him what they’d discovered.
All of the victims’ names are on that wall!
The killer had been keeping track of his prey. Right there. The guy in the fort’s shop had been right. There were ghosts in that fort, and Eve could swear she felt them all around her then.
Her feet thudded faster and faster in the tunnel. The lights overhead seemed to dim, and—
Darkness surrounded her.
Suddenly, Eve couldn’t hear Gabe’s voice or his footsteps. She could only hear the sound of her own heaving breaths and her desperate heartbeat. She knew she had to run. She had to get away. Because if she didn’t escape, he was going to kill her.
Her hands flew up and slapped against the bricks on either side of her. They were cool to the touch. She could follow those bricks, keep touching them and make her way to safety.
A hand had grabbed Eve, jerking her back.
Time for the game to begin, sweetheart. I’ve waited for you, so long . . . it’s all for you.
Eve screamed and punched out, hitting as hard as she could.
“Eve!” Gabe shook her lightly. “Baby, it’s me!”
And she realized that she’d just punched him in the face. “Gabe! I’m sorry!” In a blink, the darkness vanished. She was back in the dim tunnel, back with Gabe, but that voice—it was still whispering in her head . . .
Time for the game to begin, sweetheart.
“He brought me here,” Eve said, body shaking. “This is where it started. Here.” And she’d been running from him, trying to get away.
But he’d caught her. In that tunnel. It had been pitch-black, and he’d caught her.
“I’ve got you,” Gabe said.
She pulled away from him because those words—they were too familiar.
He had me, too.
Eve ran for the stairs, desperate to get out of that fort because the place felt like a tomb to her, and she was very afraid that was exactly what the place was.
“IT’S A HISTORIC site,” Trey muttered as he and one of his officers stood with Gabe and Dean in the bowels of the fort. “You expect me to just tear into the wall of a historical place like this? Do you even know what kind of paperwork and government red tape you’re talking about?”
The FBI agent, Avery Granger, was peering at the bricks with a close eye and a very bright flashlight. “Let me worry about the paperwork.”
“Those bricks are newer,” Gabe said. The guy had to see that and stop spouting about his paperwork bullshit. “You can look at them and tell that they’re different.” And they were different for a reason. The fire in his gut told him that reason wasn’t going to be good. We need to get behind those bricks.
“The killer was here.” Dean’s voice was flat. “We all damn well know it.”
Trey tapped the bricks. “And what do you think I’m going to find if I rip out these bricks?”
Gabe wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he had his suspicions. “If I wanted to hide a body, that might be one real good place.”
“Shit.” Trey jerked his hand away from the bricks. “He buries them. In the sand. He doesn’t pull some twisted Edgar Allan Poe crap and seal his prey up in the walls!”
Footsteps rustled behind them, and Gabe turned to see Sarah making her way toward them. Her head was cocked, her eyes on the illuminated names. “He would seal up the prey, if this victim was special to him.”
Gabe had called and asked Sarah and Victoria to haul ass over there. Sarah would need to examine the scene so that she could create a stronger profile for the killer, and Victoria, well, if a dead body was there, then she was the woman they needed on point for this one.
“I don’t get it. Wouldn’t someone have noticed freaking new bricks going up at this place?” Dean paced around them. “Hard to miss, don’t you think?”
“They could have been put in years ago,” Gabe said, because he’d already considered that point. “The other bricks have been here for a hundred years, but these . . . hell, they look like they’ve been put up in the last decade.” A rough estimate. Techs would be able to tell them for sure.
Avery was poking around the top of the wall. “These bricks . . . two of them are loose.”
Trey swore.
Avery poked harder. He shoved. He yanked, and one of the bricks came flying back at him. “Definitely loose.”
“So much for doing paperwork,” Trey muttered. “So how about now you worry about not destroying more evidence, Agent Granger.”
“If I see something inside,” Avery said as he leaned up on his toes and shone his light into the darkness, “then I’ll worry about paperwork and I’ll—”
He broke off.
Gabe kept his eyes on the agent.
“We’re going to need that paperwork,” Avery told them all, “and an excavation team, now.” He looked back at Gabe. “Because I can see a fucking skull in there.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DARK CLOUDS WERE ROLLING IN WHEN GABE returned to the condo. The cops and the FBI agents had worked for hours, painstakingly removing the bricks until they’d cleared the remains.
Bones wrapped in old clothing—a dress. A woman.
He shut the condo’s door behind him. Wade had just left the place—the guy had been keeping an eye on Eve, and Gabe knew Eve was pretty pissed about that fact. But after the way she’d reacted in that tunnel, he’d needed someone to keep watch on her.
He rubbed his jaw. Mental note. The woman has a killer right hook.
“Who is she?” Eve asked. She was standing in front of the balcony doors. Her hands were wrapped around her stomach. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He’d made arrangements for more clothes to be brought to her.
“Gabe.” Her voice snapped, and he realized he’d just been staring at her. “Who is she?”
“We don’t know.” That was true, so far. Because the woman’s remains were indicating that she’d been down in that fort for about ten years, but the other missing women—women they’d thought were the Lady Killer’s victims—hadn’t been missing that long. “Victoria is working on IDing her, and when it comes to this kind of thing, Victoria is the best.”
“How long was she down there?” Eve hadn’t moved from her position near the balcony’s doors.
This he could tell her. Victoria had already been able to make an estimation, based on the victim’s decomposition rate. “About ten years.”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s a long time.” She turned away. Glanced out the glass balcony doors. “A very long time to be locked up in the dark.”
He stepped toward her. The thick carpeting swallowed the sound of his footsteps. “Sarah thinks we may be looking at the guy’s first victim.”
Eve glanced back over her shoulder.
“He kept her away from the others. She was special. The first always is.” There was usually a trigger involved with the first kill, then, after the serial got a taste for the power that came with killing . . . there was no stopping him. “But with first kills, the perp can be sloppy. Disorganized. He hadn’t perfected his technique yet—”
Eve flinched.
Shit. She wasn’t a LOST agent. She was a victim. And he was screwing this up by being too clinical. “He may have made mistakes with her,” Gabe said carefully. “Left DNA on her. Left behind some clues that we can use to track him.”
Eve nodded.
“Finding that woman was key.”
Her gaze dropped. “I was in that tunnel before . . . I remember being
there.”
Careful now, he advanced on her. “That’s why you took that swing at me.”
“I heard a man’s voice, he was telling me that it was time to play.” She turned back toward him. Eve licked her lips and again she wrapped her hands around her stomach. “He called me sweetheart and said that he’d been waiting for me.”
Another step brought him close enough to touch her, but he didn’t, not yet.
“He said . . . he said that it was all for me.” A faint furrow appeared between her golden brows. “And I hear his voice—over and over—a rasp in my head that won’t stop.”
“Do you recognize that voice? Does it sound like anyone you’ve met on the island?” He nearly held his breath as he waited for her response.
She shook her head. “No. I just . . . I can’t stop hearing him now. ‘It’s all for you.’ That’s what he said. ‘It’s all for you.’ ” Eve sucked in a deep breath of air. “Those women who died—the other victims were all blondes with green eyes. Just. Like. Me.”
He knew where she was going with this. “Eve . . .”
“I thought I was just another victim. Unlucky enough to look like the others.” When her gaze lifted to meet his, there was no missing the guilt in her eyes. “But what if all of those women were unlucky enough to look like me? What if they all died because they reminded him of me?”
“Eve, that’s not likely.” He had to touch her. He kept his touch light as he grasped her shoulders. “If Victoria is right and the guy killed the first victim on the island ten years ago, then you would have just been a teenager—”
“Jessica Montgomery’s birthday is April second. If I’m her . . . I—I . . . I would have been sixteen then.”
“You fit his pattern,” he told her, because that was obvious. “But you didn’t cause him to kill anyone.”
“I’m not so sure of that.” Her voice was a stark whisper. “He was playing a game, and he said . . . he said he’d been waiting on me.”
ALEXA WAS STARING at him.
Not screaming. Not begging. Just staring. He smiled at her, loving the stillness that surrounded her.
His hand went to her wrist and he carefully removed her bracelet. It was so like Jessica’s. They both must love diamonds. Diamonds had always looked so lovely against Jessica’s skin.