by Cynthia Eden
Fucking bitch.
Alive.
Not the way the game was supposed to end.
His hands shook, so he balled them into fists, and when the FBI assholes walked past him he ducked into the shadows of the parking lot.
The bitch should have been dead. No damn way should she have been breathing when those suits pulled her out of that hole.
He’d had fun with Laura. He’d sealed her up, but hadn’t buried her. Not right away. He’d let her wait. Let her scream. Let her know what was happening.
Hearing the screams had been even better than seeing her face.
You could hear fear so clearly. Those high, desperate cries, those broken sobs. He’d drunk in the sounds.
Then, he’d dumped the earth on her. Nice and slow. Letting her hear it, letting her know exactly what was happening to her.
He’d timed things so perfectly. Laura Billings should have died in that ground. Died trying to gasp air that just wasn’t there. And she’d been close to death…
So close.
But no, those assholes had wrecked his plan and now—now he’d have to change the rules.
Laura would still die. She’d been chosen, and her reprieve would be brief.
He glanced over at the hospital as an ambulance sped through the lot, its bright lights flashing and its siren wailing.
Maybe it would be better this way. Laura had feared the darkness and the confinement before. Now she’d fear him.
So when he came for her, the fear would be even sweeter.
“Hyde is sending backup.” Monica tossed her cell phone onto her bed and put her hands on her hips. “He knows the killer’s notes are coming and he’ll have the techs and handwriting analysts work on them right away.”
“Who’s coming?” Luke asked. “Kenton or—”
“Kenton. Hyde wants him to handle the media fallout on this one. Kenton’s good at that kind of thing.” A pause. “And if there’s trouble, he’ll have our backs.”
Absolute certainty in her voice. Huh. He’d always thought she wasn’t the trusting sort. “Close to him, are you?”
Her hands dropped. “I’ve worked my share of cases with Kenton.”
Oh, so that guy was Kenton, but she acted like it would kill her if she called him anything but Dante. “Sleeping with him?”
Her eyes snapped to his and froze him in his tracks.
Jealousy could be one major bitch. Luke licked his lips. “Ah, what I meant…”
She paced toward him, bright spots of color on her cheeks. Her eyes were glacial and narrowed to slits. “I don’t need this crap from you,” she gritted out and jabbed her index finger into his chest.
He caught her wrist and probably held too tight. “My mistake,” he managed. The words seemed to stick in his throat. “Who you sleep with is your business.” Lie, lie, lie.
Everything about her was his business. Had been, from the moment he’d taken her into his bed.
“You think because I had sex with you…” She paused, lifted that chin up another notch, “that I screw all the men I work with?”
Oh, she’d better not. Kenton’s grinning face flashed through his mind.
“Don’t even think it, man. Not going to happen.” Kenton’s words. Had he meant…
She turned away from him. Straightened her shoulders. “I respect Kenton, do you understand that? We’ve been into Hell with some of our cases, and I have never—not once—seen him lose his control. He always does his job, and he does it damn well.”
Control. Oh, yeah, that had always been important to her. Not so much to him.
“And I don’t sleep with agents on my team, okay? I learned a lesson from you. Business and pleasure aren’t meant to mix.”
But they’d mixed so well.
Not sleeping with Kenton. Thank you, Jesus.
“The guy can have a bad sense of humor, but I trust Kenton to watch my back.” The heat was gone, and the control she loved was firmly back. Pity. He’d liked that flare of steam. “I trust him to do his job, a job I’ve seen him do very, very well.”
He gave a hard nod. “You trust everyone on your team, or you don’t trust anyone.” More words from Kenton.
“Exactly.”
“But that trust only goes so far, doesn’t it? Only as far as the job.” Shouldn’t have said it. But, he was the kind of guy who liked to push.
No, he liked to push her.
Monica froze. “Trusting someone with your life—you think that’s easy?”
“No.” The woman could twist and turn everything. She could trip a suspect up in two minutes, could get those confessions to spill so fast. “I think you trust them because it’s your job, but when it comes to the secrets you carry,” and he knew she had secrets because everyone had them, even him, “you don’t trust anyone.”
Now she did glance back. “Leave it alone, Dante.”
“You mean, leave you alone?” He’d tried that. Gotten a lot of sleepless nights and hard-ons as a result. He sucked in a deep breath and caught more of her heady scent. The case. Stick to the case.
Her eyes held his. Dammit, no one should have eyes that blue.
When she came, those eyes had gone blind with pleasure. Hell.
“Sorry,” he growled and eased back. The better to escape her scent. Her.
She didn’t blink. “It’s been a long day.”
A day filled with crime scene analysis. Witness interviews. And a lot of jack shit. Because the killer was good.
Or he had been, until Miss Laura Billings had survived his attack.
“Get some sleep,” she told him in that perfect, you-don’t-bother-me voice. “The doctor said Laura will be up tomorrow. We’ll find out what she knows then.”
Laura had permanent protection now, courtesy of the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department. A deputy would guard her door every minute.
He’d seen Laura before they left the hospital. She’d been out cold, her breathing so soft and slow she’d appeared to be near death. ’Cause she had been.
When she woke, there was no telling what she’d say. Would she remember her attack? Remember the bastard who’d grabbed her and left her for dead?
Her face had been slack with terror when the ambulance hauled her away from the crime scene. A fear like that…“She’s not going to want to talk with us.”
“She has to talk.”
“Vics always hate talking about the attack.” One of the hardest parts of the job. Seeing those shattered stares and hearing the hollow echo of pain in their voices. “They just want to forget.”
“Forgetting’s not easy.” Monica sounded certain. “Just because you don’t talk about it, it doesn’t mean you forget. She’ll talk with us. She’ll tell us everything she knows.” More certainty. “Because she’ll want the bastard stopped.”
Vengeance. That he understood, and he knew the victims understood, too. Sometimes, the thirst for vengeance was all that kept them going.
“Go to bed, Dante,” she said again, her voice softer, but still firm.
He turned away from her. Stared at the white connecting door. Walk away.
He could do it. She had.
He stalked forward and curled his fingers around the door knob. “I know it shouldn’t matter.” This was choking him. “Who you see. What you do.” He wouldn’t glance back because this time, he didn’t want to see the ice staring back at him. “But it does. And after today, when death was so damn close I felt him breathing on my neck when we were digging up that girl’s grave…”
He knew death. No mistaking that chill on his spine.
“Sometimes you want to feel alive. When you see death so much, you just… want to feel alive again.” Being with her had always made him feel alive. Running fast and hot and free. He opened the door and the squeak of the hinges seemed way too loud. “If you wanna feel alive, you know where to find me.”
And that was all there was to say.
• • •
When the door closed, Monica let out the breath
that had filled her lungs. She slowly unballed her fists and saw that her fingers were shaking.
Weakness. At a time when she just couldn’t afford anything less than full strength.
But the girl had gotten to her because Monica had recognized the terror in Laura’s eyes. The fear so deep it ate your soul and stole your hope.
Dante had been right. Death had been with them that morning. Laura knew it. She’d felt him coming. Laura’s chest had rattled as the woman fought to breathe—the rattle was proof that they’d been minutes away from finding a corpse instead of a live victim.
When you knew you were going to die, those last moments were the darkest and longest that terror could bring.
She’d seen those moments, seen the fear reflected in other eyes. Eyes that she couldn’t forget, no matter how hard she tried.
Monica looked down at her hands. Those stupid shaking fingers. Another few seconds and Dante would have noticed.
She’d known bringing him on the team was a mistake. She’d tried telling Hyde, but once the boss made up his mind there was no changing it. And, hell, Hyde had been right. He almost always was.
The SSD did need Dante. The guy could get to victims like no other. She’d read through his files, all his supervisors’ reports. He knew how to pry information out of the vics that they’d even forgotten themselves.
He slipped right past their guard, made them feel safe, and got them to tell him their nightmares.
They needed him.
So she’d spewed the tough talk on the plane. Hands off. Just work the case. Blah, blah.
But the truth of the matter was that he was tempting her again. Chipping the ice away and making her feel.
Alive.
And just how was she supposed to hold out against that? Against him?
Because she could spout bullshit with the best of them, but the reality was she wanted back in his bed. She’d missed him, dreamed about him, and just—
Wanted.
She wouldn’t kid herself. An explosion was coming. If he hadn’t left when he did—
Luke had always been so good at working past her defenses.
Monica pulled off her shirt and headed toward the shower. Goose bumps were on her flesh, and she was so tired of feeling cold. Just so tired.
She wanted to feel—
Lust. Heat. Need. Passion.
Alive.
She wrenched on the hot water.
Damn him.
CHAPTER Five
Monica woke with a scream on her lips. Her heart raced, the thud filling her ears, even as she reached for the gun she’d learned to keep close.
Closer than any lover.
Her fingers curled around the cold butt of the weapon. Her grip wasn’t steady. No, her hand shook too much for that.
Nightmare. Memory?
Sometimes, she just couldn’t tell.
The faint light from the bathroom spilled toward her. A beacon. She stared at that light, stared until the trembling stopped and she could breathe without feeling like a fist was pounding against her chest.
But she didn’t lower the gun. Not yet.
Trapped in that coffin. No room to move. Darkness all around.
Monica knew to fear the dark, too.
Trapped.
That damn fist was back. Pounding, pounding…
A car door slammed.
Her head snapped to the right, toward the blinds that covered her only window.
Instinct had her moving from the bed. She spared the briefest of glances toward the clock. Three a.m.
She lowered her weapon and used her left hand to part the blinds, moving them just enough to see into the parking lot.
Probably some late night truck driver. A traveler who couldn’t go any farther or—
A man stood in the darkness near her and Dante’s SUV. The man wore a sweatshirt, one with a hood pulled up high to shield half his face.
She couldn’t tell for certain, not with the darkness, but the guy seemed to be looking straight at her room.
No, straight at her.
The light from the bathroom—was it showing her silhouette? Oh, hell. She shifted a bit to the right and her bare feet brushed against something.
Monica glanced down and saw a small scrap of white paper. Her brows pulled together and she bent, reaching down. She hadn’t noticed that before, but she’d been tired and—
What scares you?
Dammit! The note fell from her fingers, and she shot back up to her feet. Her hand slammed against the blinds, parting a big hole so she could see… him. Still there.
Her heart slammed into her ribs. He lifted his hand and yes, the guy pointed straight at her. Then he whirled away, and started moving fast, running, zigzagging through the parked cars.
Hell, no. Monica yanked on a pair of sweats, screwed the shoes, clutched her gun tighter and wrenched open her door.
She knew how the games were played.
Into the minds of monsters.
The only place she could go.
Luke shot up in bed. The image of a dead woman still floated in his mind. What was—
A door. No, not a door, Monica’s door.
Slamming shut.
“Damn, not again,” he muttered even as his heart kick-started with a slam into his chest. He jumped from the bed, grabbed his weapon, wrenched the door knob, and was outside of his motel room in five seconds flat.
He saw her instantly. A pale flash of skin darting through the cars. Her gun was up. In pursuit.
Luke choked back the call on his lips. He wouldn’t make a rookie mistake and alert any perp out there. His legs moved fast, as he ate up the distance between them. A light mist began to fall, coating his bare arms and chest.
His eyes scanned the lot, searching for—
Monica spun toward him, her gun up. “Dante!”
He froze. A smart man knew to do that when a woman aimed a gun at his heart.
She blew out a hard breath, and the gun barrel dropped. “He’s here.”
His eyes tracked to the right. Then the left. No starlight or moonlight tonight, not with those clouds sweeping over them. The lights in the lot were dim, and he could only see shadows and hear the fast beat of his own heart. “Where?”
She stepped back, the move jerky. “I–I saw him from my window. He was here. He was, but now—”
Now there were two armed agents standing in an empty lot. Dante cleared his throat. “It was a tough day. Finding the vic like that, hell, it would make anyone edgy.”
Monica growled at him. Really growled. And, yeah, wrong place, wrong time, but that rumble had his blood heating.
Talk about being screwed.
“A man was here.” Her eyes swept the lot as rain began to fall. Harder now, not just a light misting. “He left me one of his damn notes. I saw him. He stood right next to our SUV, and the guy pointed at me.”
Luke’s brows shot up. He headed toward the SUV. No broken windows. The alarm hadn’t sounded. “How’d you know he was even out here?”
“I heard a car door slam.”
But not their door. Not unless the guy had found some way of bypassing the alarm. He glanced back at her room. He could see the faint glow of light through her blinds.
The touch of the rain turned into a sting. He tucked the gun into the back of his sweats. “Let’s get inside. Show me the note and—”
“That’s it?” she demanded, voice low but fierce. “Someone’s watching us, Dante. We can’t just—”
He caught her arm and dragged her close, ignoring the gun. “He might still be here and standing out in the open isn’t my idea of the best plan of action.” Raindrops clung to her lashes. Trailed down her cheeks. Her breath rasped out.
Her t-shirt was wet, clinging to her and…
“Let’s get inside,” he said, his voice rumbling out. If that asshole was out there, watching them…
Monica gave a grim nod. Her hair curled slightly in the rain. Her eyes—he could still see them so
well in the dark.
He kept his hold on her as they walked back to her room. His eyes searched the lot. The rain was going to screw them. If anyone had been at their SUV, well, no prints would be found on the outside of the vehicle now.
They went in silently. The air conditioner whirred with a soft purr, and the cold hit them. She shivered, a long shudder that worked over the length of her body. Luke slammed the door shut behind them, locked it, and tried real hard to keep his eyes on hers. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Her wet hair clung to her. “I already told you. He left me a note.”
Temper spiked his blood, heating his body. “So you ran out there without backup? What the hell, Monica? You know better. You think there’s some perp out there, you get me; you come and get—”
“There wasn’t time,” she spoke grimly. “He got away before. I–I think that was him last night, too. I didn’t want him to get away again.”
But he—whoever he was—had gotten away. “Where’s the note?”
Her gaze shot to the floor. “There. I—shit, I didn’t use gloves when I picked it up before.”
He grabbed a tissue from the desk. Used it to hold the note carefully, just by the left edge. Fuck.
What scares you? Same messy scrawl. Dark ink.
No, that bastard was not coming after her.
She shoved back her hair. Water droplets littered the floor. “He’s watching me,” she said, and there was an odd, tense note in her voice.
She wrapped her arms around her middle. Rocked forward. “He’s bringing me into the game.”
Not gonna happen. Laura’s desperate face flashed in his mind.
And Monica’s blue eyes stared back at him.
No one can see into a killer’s mind like Davenport.
She inched back and carefully put her gun down on the nightstand. “I think he was watching last night. I–I think he knows exactly who we—well, who I am.”
And he thought he was going to play his sick-ass games with her? He opened her kit and sealed the note in an evidence bag. “We’re getting this dusted. Maybe the bastard left a print.”
“Maybe,” she whispered, but he heard the doubt and understood. The killer they were after was too good for that. Too organized. Every move, planned in advance.