“Sensitive,” she said, trying to laugh it off, but feeling like she’d crossed a line and could never go back.
“Never mind him,” Jack Kincaid said, staring at her with dark, probing eyes. “Dillon is a saint.” He took a step toward her and it took all Kate’s training not to take a step back. Jack was no one to mess with. “Me, on the other hand, I’m no saint. But Lucy doesn’t deserve to die to give some bastard cheap thrills, so you’d better not be fucking with us or you’ll be following her to the grave.”
THIRTEEN
AS SOON AS THEIR PLANE LANDED, Patrick got Quinn Peterson’s message about where to meet. He relayed the information to Lucky and Drake, the two men Jack had sent with them after getting them a private plane and pilot. Patrick had a newfound respect for his mysterious older brother after Jack got them the plane, gave him two of his men, and then went back up the mountain. Patrick didn’t understand him or his decision to stay clear of the family for the past two decades, but Jack’s brand of honor and loyalty was rare.
The four men trekked two miles on foot to where Agent Peterson and a small group waited. Lucky stepped forward and pulled a paper from his jacket. “I’ve already mapped it out.”
He’d been working on a map earlier in the back of the plane. “We’re here now, the target is here.” Lucky had the two points circled and pointed to a small red circle off the coast. “The island is two miles out, but I think we go in by sea. A copter would be too noisy.”
“We have an unmarked Coast Guard vessel,” Peterson said.
Lucky stared at him. “In Mexican waters?”
Peterson’s face remained blank.
“We can get to the island inside an hour, rescue the target, and get back here,” Lucky added.
“We have transport waiting at the embassy two hours away,” Peterson said. “And a copter on standby. I just need to call when we have the target. But remember, we need to be careful. This could very well be a trap. Keep your eyes open.”
“I have an explosive-detecting device,” Patrick said. “It’s primarily used for checking for explosives on commercial aircrafts and is calibrated for the most common explosive materials.”
“Then you lead with me,” Peterson said. “Trask likes bombs, but they’re usually simple, time-detonated devices.”
They left in the small, unmarked boat. There were nine men total: Peterson and his team of four; Patrick and Connor; and Jack’s two men.
The island was small, not more than one square mile. If there hadn’t been a large, dense grove of trees in the middle, Patrick would have assumed, from what he could see from the Coast Guard vessel’s deck, that it was underwater half the time. It was also dark, the sun had already disappeared, leaving a spectacular glow on the horizon but doing nothing for their visibility, and they were running slow, without lights. The muggy weather stayed with them, even in the ocean. Saltwater coated their skin and sinuses. It was different here than farther up the coast. Hotter, humid, the air still, the waves warmer even at night.
“There.” Connor pointed to a small inlet.
“No,” Peterson said without elaborating. He motioned for the boat’s pilot to slowly circle the island.
“What are you doing?” Connor demanded of Quinn.
“Recon.”
“My sister could be dying!”
Lucky shook his head. “I don’t think anyone’s here.”
They spent fifteen minutes circling the island before Peterson agreed to dock. They had to approach cautiously for fear of underwater rocks. There was a faint light in the center of the island, which was not much more than a mile at its widest, possibly a house or cabin. No boats, but that didn’t mean anything. Lucy’s captors could have left to get supplies.
Lucky stared at the brothers, his young face stern. “We go in low, quiet. Jack will have my ass if I get one of you killed.”
“I was a cop,” Connor said. “I know how to cover my own ass.”
Patrick squeezed his brother’s arm. Connor was tense, on edge. They all were.
Peterson spoke up. “Watch my commands. I agree with Lucky. Low, quiet, no rushing. Years ago Trask set a trap and we walked right into it. I don’t want to walk into another.”
They navigated the boat into the inlet. Peterson left two of his men on the boat, armed.
Patrick’s gut told him Lucy wasn’t on this island. It was too quiet.
Maybe she was on a nearby island. The map showed at least eight within a three-mile radius. Easy to get the coordinates wrong. After this, they’d have to hit each one and check. They might be close; they couldn’t just give up and go home empty-handed.
They couldn’t give up on Lucy.
A small, one-room cabin stood in the center of the island. A faint, yellow light illuminated the room. Patrick took out the EDD to check for explosives. Green. They slowly approached the structure. The needle wobbled toward the yellow. Warning.
“Hold it. There may be explosives.”
Which could be a sign that Lucy was there.
Peterson held up a finger and motioned for his two men to walk around the cabin. They came back. “Nothing external. No electrical power to the cabin.”
The blinds were drawn. A single door was padlocked on the outside. Peterson checked the door frame for explosives. “Clear.”
Drake and Lucky held back while Peterson’s men cut the lock and opened the door.
At first, the smell hit Patrick. Then he saw her.
In the middle of the room was a naked female body, her face turned away from them. Her long black hair looked wet. A cell phone rested in the palm of her hand, as if she had tried to call for help.
Patrick’s stomach clenched. Lucy.
“Lucy!” Connor ran in.
“Halt!” Peterson shouted and Patrick tried to pull Connor back as the EDD needle moved to the red zone.
When Connor touched the body, the head rolled away. He sucked in his breath.
It wasn’t Lucy. It was another woman, just as young, just as innocent. She had been dead for several days.
“We have to get out,” Peterson said. “I don’t like this.”
“Look at the wall.” Connor pointed to the wall of the cabin. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN, KATE was spray-painted in bloodred, along with a series of numbers that made no sense to Patrick.
The phone in the dead girl’s hand rang.
There was a flash of bright light, and the cabin went up in flames.
Trask watched on his computer monitor as the men entered the cabin. He’d intended to blow the place as soon as they entered, but he’d been curious to see who they were. He would now get visuals to run through his database.
They didn’t look like feds. There were two men, but there appeared to be a third outside the cabin. He wished he’d put up external surveillance, but he didn’t have an unlimited power supply on that island. When he’d left the prostitute there three days ago as part of the trap, he’d needed the generator to keep the cell phone charged.
He’d never expected Kate to fall for the trap, and had she been the one to walk through the door, he wouldn’t have blown the place. There had been a clue—one only Kate would understand—in the room that would lead her right to him.
But he didn’t want the feds or some other pest to track him down and make him rush the show.
Okay, there was a fed there. The blond with the holster. The way he moved, issued orders, definitely a fed.
He’d been right about Kate from the beginning. She was smarter than most, she understood him. He’d already confirmed that she’d fed the government information and they’d acted on it. And she was still watching, waiting, knowing it wouldn’t be that easy to find him.
Trask had to draw her out.
He saw her in cyberspace, among the hordes of people searching the Internet. She was sly, smart, focused. She had come close, before he’d been ready for her. He manually changed his frequency often now in order to thwart her.
But he was finally ready. L
ucy Kincaid was the perfect bait. He’d send her another clue. Or maybe he’d just send her a message.
After he called the cell phone that sat in the dead girl’s hand, Trask closed his eyes to avoid the bright magnesium flash.
Soon the cabin, and all evidence, would be ashes.
And if the feds died in the process, who the hell cared?
FOURTEEN
IT WAS DARK, a thin orange line along the western horizon that quickly disappeared as Dillon watched. He’d found this vista point a hundred yards from the main observatory, with a couple of old benches and a well-worn path. He could picture Kate sitting here watching the sunset and thinking about revenge and guilt and justice.
Kate had angered him. He didn’t like that she’d gotten to him. It was the stress of no sleep and Lucy’s danger that had fueled his anger and frustration. Kate was just the spark that had set it off.
His brothers hadn’t argued about his decision not to go with them, probably because they felt that his presence would only hinder the operation. Maybe it would have. He didn’t have their training, but he did have something they didn’t: a key to the killer’s mind.
Dillon had the utmost respect for law enforcement—he worked with them daily. But the one thing they too often lacked was the killer’s motivation. The easiest way to track a criminal was to learn everything about his past, his family, his relationships, his associations. What drove a person to commit heinous crimes? Money? Fear? Lust?
The key was always there, in the past. Cops had too many cases and had to make too many quick decisions to take the time to process every step leading to the killer. That’s where Dillon came in. When the evidence wasn’t there, when there were no witnesses, when people were murdered and the police didn’t know which direction to go, Dillon could focus the investigation. Give them tools to find the killer and take him down.
Every killer feared something. What did Trask fear? Poverty? Sexual dysfunction? Loss of freedom? Women?
He hated women, that was abundantly clear. But what about a fear of women? He subjugated them to beat down the fear within himself. He was physically strong, but he also had men around him to ensure that the women were kept under control. He restrained the women, even when they were too weak to fight. Rape was about power and anger, but rape as a show? That was ego. Proving over and over that he had control over these women, proving it in front of the world.
For the benefit of everyone, or just one person?
Roger Morton was from a wealthy family, privileged. Yet he became the CEO of a pornography business and was disowned. You didn’t just walk away from millions of dollars to live out a sexual fantasy. There was money in porn, particularly online porn, but initially, Trask Enterprises had just been an up-start company and Roger couldn’t have been pulling in huge sums of money until after the Internet grew exponentially over the years.
Did Trask have money of his own? Investors? If he was wealthy in his own right, that held that he and Roger had known each other because they traveled in the same social circles.
Dillon was certain that Trask and Roger had known each other since childhood. It was not only logical considering the time line of Trask Enterprises, but there was a bond between the men that hadn’t been severed even when they were forced to disappear after Kate exposed April Klinger’s death.
Denise was a wild card. She was definitely the subservient in the relationship; she would do anything Trask asked of her. Yet she hated the women he brought in. Jealousy, deep and hot. What did she think of Trask’s obsession with Kate?
The more Dillon thought about it, the more he became convinced that Trask was luring Kate into a trap he’d created just for her. He would reveal himself only to her, probably threaten someone if she didn’t come alone. And because she had no fear of death—in fact, she welcomed it—she would go, thinking it would be worthwhile if she killed him in the process, regardless of what might happen to her.
It was that realization that calmed Dillon more than the time away from Kate’s room. He knew what she would do; he would have to be watchful that she didn’t take off without him.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Jack saunter down the path, fully armed, wearing the guns and ammo and equipment comfortably.
“She’s trouble,” Jack said, collapsing on the stone bench that afforded him the best view of the path.
“She’s letting the past eat her alive,” Dillon said. He looked pointedly at Jack. “I’d always thought you’d done the same thing, but now I don’t think so.”
“Don’t go there, Dil. Let’s just do the op and go our separate ways.”
“The op.” Dillon shook his head, stared at the vast darkness around them. The temperature had dropped dramatically when the sun went down.
“You have to think of it as an operation. Distance yourself from the emotional complications.”
“Lucy is my sister. I can’t do that. It’s not an operation. It’s her life.”
“I’ve dealt with a lot of life-and-death situations. You don’t have to explain it to me,” Jack said. “That’s why it’s even more important to separate your emotions from the job.”
Dillon understood what Jack was saying—he’d heard it from Carina and Connor and other cops who went out and dealt in murder. If you got emotionally involved with the victims you wouldn’t survive on the job.
But there was a reason doctors didn’t operate on relatives and cops didn’t investigate the murder of someone they cared about. You can’t separate your emotions from people you know and love.
“Any word from your men?” Dillon asked.
“They checked in when they had the island in sight, then went radio silent. That was twenty-five minutes ago.”
“Shouldn’t they have gotten back to you by now?”
“Not if they’re doing it right. Circle the island, verify security measures, find a safe place to dock, approach with caution. It’s unknown territory; they can’t just run in without reconnaissance.”
Dillon hoped that they had found Lucy. Safe. That they were bringing her home. Maybe he could convince Kate to come back to the States and seek some closure for what had happened with her partner and her lover five years ago.
But Kate wasn’t his patient, or his problem. She’d gotten under his skin, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t carefully extract her. He couldn’t save every lost soul in the world. Look at Nelia. He’d never told anyone in the family that he’d flown up to Idaho two years after Justin’s murder to talk to his sister Nelia with the purpose of bringing her home.
Nelia was nothing like he’d remembered. The light was gone from her eyes, and she told him she was dead inside. The only thing keeping her from suicide was the belief that she would go to Hell and never see Justin again. Faith? Perhaps, but it had done nothing to console her. And neither had Dillon. Everything he’d tried had failed.
When he’d finally suggested she see a psychiatrist so she could deal with her grief, she’d said, “I don’t want to let it go. It keeps Justin in the small part of my heart that still beats.”
Doctors should never counsel their own family. If they found Lucy, he could help with her immediate needs, but he would have to send her to someone else to heal.
When they found her. Because they would. They had to.
“What’s she like?” Jack asked quietly.
“She’s sassy. Smart. She has a scholarship to Georgetown. Knows four languages fluently and thrives in debate. Beautiful. Kind. She has a mouth on her, but what Kincaid doesn’t?” Dillon smiled sadly. Lucy had their parents wrapped around her little finger, but her elder siblings received the brunt of her sarcasm.
“Why did you walk away from the family, Jack?”
“I had my reasons.”
“Are they still valid?”
“My business, Dil.”
“As always, Jack.”
They sat in silent anger for several minutes and Jack changed the subject. “What do you know about this guy who has Lucy
?”
“Not enough. I haven’t met him. Psychiatry isn’t a hard science. We base our interpretations on experience, facts, and personality, but human beings all react differently to stimuli.”
“I get that.”
“Trask is sexually damaged. I don’t think he can truly enjoy sex without hurting or killing the woman in the process. He hates women, but I also think he fears them and the power they have or could have over him. It’s deep and long-standing. Something happened to him in his youth, by an authority figure, possibly his mother. It twisted sex in his head.”
“So it’s his parents’ fault?” Jack didn’t hide the contempt in his voice.
Dillon took a deep breath. Hadn’t he just gone through this with Kate? “I didn’t say that. I’m trying to understand Trask. If I can understand him, then I can use that knowledge to stop him. Serial killers often have abnormal childhoods. Not all of them, but a huge percentage. Yet there are other children who are abused and lead tragic childhoods who never grow up to rape or kill. Trask would have showed signs of sociopathy from an early age. His parents may not have recognized it. The FBI notes on him indicate that he likely has a genius-level IQ. He has proven his intelligence by hiding his identity, his whereabouts, his Internet feed.”
“Why Lucy?” Jack asked. “I mean, out of all the teenagers in the country, why her?”
Dillon hadn’t thought about that. He’d been so focused on Trask and finding Lucy, he hadn’t dwelled on a victim analysis.
“I don’t know. They met online, he was prowling for someone. But Lucy might fit some profile only he knows about.”
“What about the other victims? Are they all young and dark-haired?”
“They’re all young, under thirty except for the FBI agent he killed.” Dillon mentally reviewed the files. “They run the gamut from Caucasian to light-skinned Latinas. Brunettes, blondes, a redhead.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s an equal-opportunity killer.”
Kate stared at the link that popped up on her computer.
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