by Cynthia Eden
Yes, she rather imagined that he was. “When you’re scared, when you’re at the end of your rope, the things you say don’t always make sense.” He was asking her to go after federal agents. Surely, the guy realized just how—hell, how hard that was going to be. And if they attacked without evidence, LOST could find itself shut down. Scorned in the media, severed from all of its government ties. Ties they’d worked hard to cultivate over the years.
“And sometimes, when you’ve got nothing to lose, you say the things that make perfect sense.” He gave her a tight nod. “Think about what I’ve told you. Then decide what you’re going to do, and I’ll figure out just what I’m doing.”
Killing. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he would be doing.
He started to stride past her. Sarah’s hand lifted and grabbed his arm.
“Was that so hard?” His voice was a rough whisper.
She frowned at him.
“Touching me. It’s the first time you’ve done it, without intent to damage.” His lips quirked. “See, I don’t bite. Unless, of course, you want me to.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Huh, and here I thought your deal was that you understood everyone.”
Not this guy. This guy who screamed death and danger but touched her so carefully. “Should I be afraid of you?” The question jumped from her.
He glanced down at her hand. “Everyone should be. But you . . . you’re something different, something special. I could tell it the first time I saw you.” He brought her hand up to his lips. Kissed her knuckles. “I’ll be seeing you again.”
The words were a sensual promise and a deliberate threat.
“Lock the door behind me.”
Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t need to be told that—
“Double-lock it, the way you like to do . . .” He glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Then get on the phone and start calling your LOST friends. And you might not want to tell Dean you found me in your place.”
“Because he hates you.”
“Because I’d rather stop this killer first, then beat the shit out of Dean.”
Now she laughed. “You’re underestimating Dean.” This she knew with utter certainty. “He might look like a suit, a guy who follows the rules, but there is plenty more beneath his surface.” Dean was like her. “He’s not about to let anyone hurt him.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he murmured. “Do more looking beneath the surface because I think you’re taking some folks at face value.” His fingers curled around the doorknob. “Maybe Em can help you. She learned long ago that what you see is never what you get.”
Then he was gone. As soon as the door shut behind him, Sarah lunged forward and flipped the locks. Both of them. Then she snatched her phone out of her bag. She dialed Victoria’s number. The phone rang and rang and . . . rang.
Where are you, Victoria?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NO!” EMMA SHOT STRAIGHT UP IN BED, HER FINGERS curled like claws as she raked at the covers above her. “Get me out!”
“Emma?”
She shoved the covers away and sucked in deep, heaving gulps of air.
“Emma?” Fingertips touched her shoulder, and she whirled, slashing out.
But he caught her hand. “It’s just me, baby. You know I would never hurt you.”
And the wild panic slowly faded. The dream—nightmare—slipped away. She was in her apartment. It wasn’t pitch-black. Dean had left her bedside lamp on, and the soft light spilled over the covers. “S-sorry.” Her voice sounded far too hoarse.
He pulled her close, holding her against his chest, and she could feel the frantic beat of his heart. It matched her own wild rhythm. “Bad dream?” he asked her, and he pressed a light kiss to her temple.
“Bad memory.”
“You were back in the crypt.” He held her tighter. “I’m so sorry, baby. If I could take that away—”
“No, no, I wasn’t there.” Do it. He’d bared his soul to her before. Why had she kept this hidden from him? Because you’re afraid he’ll leave you. But if she wanted to be with him—and she did, more than anything—then Emma knew she had to tell him the truth. What he did with that truth, well, that would be his call.
“I was back at the little cabin in Texas. With my father. With the bodies of those two sisters.” And with the killer. The boy who’d been so close to her own age and who’d swung that knife so wildly. “I thought I was going to die then, too.” Her soft confession. “And I didn’t want to die.”
Just as she hadn’t wanted to die in that crypt.
“Memories can’t hurt you. They’re over. The past is dead.”
Her laugh held a better edge. “It can hurt me. If the truth got out, it would.”
“Emma?”
She pulled away from him. Stood. She couldn’t tell him this story when she was naked. Emma hurried to her closet. Opened it, and realized the guy had even bought her new clothes. A soft blue robe, just like the one she’d had before, was waiting for her on her little white hook.
He’d done so much for her.
She put the robe on with trembling fingers. “Why did you do all this?”
“All what?”
He was still in bed. Watching her. The faint light from her bedside lamp didn’t illuminate much in the room, but she could easily feel the weight of his stare on her. “Fix my place. Buy all my stuff. You spent your own money on it all, didn’t you? And don’t try giving me that LOST bull—”
“I did.”
“Why?” She needed some reassurance before she told him anything else. Before she revealed the secret that could wreck her life, she had to know . . . how do you feel, Dean? This all can’t just be on my side.
“Because I didn’t want that bastard to have taken everything from you.”
She waited.
“Because I wanted you to be happy.”
“Why does my happiness matter to you?”
“Because it’s . . . you!” An angry snarl. “Now stop this and just come back to bed with me, okay?”
She walked to the edge of the bed but didn’t climb back in with him. “I’m not exactly who you think I am.”
“I know who you are.” He sounded so confident.
She shook her head. “No, you don’t. I lied to you.” She’d never told another soul this story, not even Jax. And Jax wouldn’t have judged her. She knew that. He would have backed her up completely. But this darkness was hers to carry, and she’d never wanted to share it, not until now. “I want you to know all of me. Good and bad.” Even the parts that were all twisted together.
“Emma . . .”
“My father didn’t kill Phillip Trumane.” There, she’d done it, and once she made that confession, Emma found that she couldn’t stop. “When we ran into that cabin, Phillip was waiting with the dead girls. He lunged out, and the first thing he did was drive his knife into my father’s chest. He stabbed him four times before I could pull the guy off my dad.” Because her dad had shoved her away when he saw the boy coming at him.
“My father hit the floor. His breath was wheezing out. He was begging me to run, to get out, to get help, but I didn’t move.” This was the darkest part. The hardest part. “I didn’t stay because I was afraid. It wasn’t like . . . fear froze me.” Because she’d heard stories about that happening. People were so afraid, they couldn’t move. “I wasn’t afraid. I saw the bodies behind Phillip. I saw my father’s blood on his knife, and I was furious. Enraged. I wasn’t going to run because if I left, Phillip could get away. He would hurt someone else.”
“You were so young.”
Her age wasn’t an excuse. “I knew exactly what I was doing. And I knew my father was dying.” There’d been too much blood for her not to know. “He was the only one I had. The only one who ever took care of me. Wherever my father went, his whole life, he made sure I was there, too. He protected me, all the way to the very end, and I wasn’t going to let that little bas
tard get away with what he’d done.”
She bent and her hand moved down her body. “When I was thirteen, my dad told me to start carrying a knife on me.” Her fingers fluttered around her ankle. He’d given her the ankle sheath as a birthday present. “He kept one on him, too. The places we went, they weren’t always the best, and he wanted me safe.” Her voice softened on that last word.
Dean rose from the bed. She backed up a fast step, but he made no move to touch her. Finish it. She just had to get these last words out, then the choice that followed, it would be his.
Stay with me. Turn me in. Walk away.
“I pulled out my knife. I don’t think Phillip even saw it. His eyes—they just looked glazed. Wild. He was still talking about his girlfriend. About how no one would ever take her away. They were going to be together forever.” Her breath seemed to chill her lungs. “I lunged at him. Too late, he seemed to realize what I was doing, but I had my knife in his chest by then.” Her hands lifted. In the dim light, she couldn’t see the marks there. “I’d never stabbed anyone before. I kind of thought that he’d just go down. He didn’t. He attacked. Slicing and swinging, and I put my hands up to stop him.”
Dean caught her hands. Held them tightly.
“Then I was afraid. I thought he’d kill me, too, and my hand flew out, and I grabbed my knife. I yanked it out of him.” And that was when the blood had really flowed. “He was surprised,” she remembered. “It was like he’d never felt the knife go into him, but he felt it come out. It sliced across his chest, cutting him so deep, when I yanked it back.” How many times had she relived that terrible night? Some images would never fade from her mind. “He looked down, and blood soaked him. He fell after that. Fell, and tried to crawl over to his girlfriend’s body.”
While Emma had stood there, shaking, the knife in her hand.
“My father was still alive. He whispered for me to put the knife in his hands. For me to say it was his and to put his weapon in my ankle sheath.” She’d been crying by then because her father’s voice had grown so soft. “Protecting me, always.” Until the very end. “With his last breath, he said he was the one to kill Phillip, and the cops bought his story.”
“Emma.” His fingers tightened on hers. “You could have told them the truth. Your life was on the line in that cabin, you did what you had to do—”
“No. I killed him because I wanted that bastard to die.” They needed to be clear on this. “I could have run. I was at the door. I could have left and gone for the cops. But I didn’t want that jerk in therapy for years while my father was in a grave.” This is what she needed him to understand. The darkness inside of her. When Jax had said that Emma had a type—this was what he’d meant. She went for men who could understand the evil that was out there . . . because she had evil in her. She had—
“You were a terrified teenager.” He drew her closer to him. “That guy was a psychotic with a knife. If you’d tried to run, he probably would have stabbed you in the back. You were defending yourself.”
She shook her head. Dean wasn’t understanding. “I knew all about money and power. I knew that boy’s parents would buy his way out of that mess. They would have said he was crazy, and he would have gone to some psychiatric facility. He never would have seen the inside of a prison. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I was going to make him pay!”
And she had.
“What do you think this does?” His voice was a growl. So rough. So angry.
“I think it makes you see me for who I am.”
“I already see you just fine.” He tipped up her chin. Stared into her eyes. “I told you what I did to Ricker. You think I’m going to stand here and judge you after that?”
“You didn’t kill him . . .”
“When I find the bastard who took you, I will kill him.” Said with absolute certainty. “What does that say about me? About who I am?”
Jax’s words whispered through her mind. Still have the same type, huh, Emma? Never can play it safe, not even with the guys that look the part. But she shook her head. Dean was more than that, so much more. “You try to save the missing, you try to help—”
“I will fucking destroy anyone who hurts you. Don’t you realize what’s happening here? Between you and me?”
She was scared to hope.
“Then let’s be clear.” He kissed her. “I love you.”
No. Emma shook her head.
“I. Love. You. And I don’t care if it’s too soon or too fast. You’re the only one who has ever gotten this close to me. I think about you all the time. I want to make you smile. I want to give you the whole world. And when I lost you . . .” His voice roughened. “Everything went dark. Everything. I wasn’t sane without you. I need you that much. So much that I don’t want to think of a life without you. I can’t.”
“Dean?”
“Tell me you feel the same.” The words were as close to a plea as she’d ever heard from him. “Tell me you need me. Hell, just let me know you feel some of the same desperation that I—”
Now she kissed him. Emma shot up onto her toes. Her arms locked around his neck, and she pulled him close for a hot, frantic kiss.
He didn’t turn away. He heard my darkest secret, and he said he loves me! Me! Happiness poured through her.
And then the phone rang.
She kept kissing him. Whoever was on that phone could just wait awhile. This moment was more important than a call. Dean loved her. She had a high that was better than anything going on right then—
“It’s my phone, Emma, and that particular ring sound means it’s Sarah.” His voice was gruff as he pulled away. “I have to check in with the team.”
Right, right. His team. Emma put her hands behind her back.
He loves me.
Dean grabbed for his phone, but his left hand reached out, and he pulled Emma’s right hand from behind her back. His fingers twined with hers. “Sarah, what’s happening?”
Emma saw his body tense.
“Are you sure she’s not there? And she’s not answering her cell?”
Emma strained to hear Sarah’s response.
“Have you checked in with Elroy? She had a meeting with him earlier today. She told us that she had to update him. Yeah, yeah, but that was hours ago, so maybe the guy put her to work on something else.”
Silence.
Emma’s bright glow of happiness had faded because there was worry in Dean’s voice.
“I’m on my way down there. Screw what the FBI says, this is my team. I’ll get the others to meet us.” He put the phone down.
“Dean, what’s happening?” Because lines of worry were etched onto his face.
“Sarah can’t find Victoria anywhere.”
And Emma remembered waking in a tomb.
SARAH PUT HER phone back down as she slowly turned around in the morgue. The room felt ice-cold to her, and, when she’d come in moments before, the place had been pitch-black.
The guy at the check-in desk on the first floor hadn’t remembered seeing Victoria leave. He’d seemed confident she would still be working in the lab.
She wasn’t.
Sarah walked slowly around the room. There weren’t any signs of a struggle. Everything looked as if it were in place. Where are you, Victoria? She’d called her friend, over and over, but Victoria hadn’t answered her cell.
A knot had formed in Sarah’s gut. Ever since Jax had told her that he’d arrived to find her hotel-room door unlocked . . .
But there had been no sign of a struggle there, either. And if someone came for Victoria, the woman would fight.
If she had the chance.
The lab was too icy. And Sarah hated that smell. It stirred up too many memories from her past. A glance at those lockers, oh, no, but she did not want to go back there. She’d barely survived all that her father had done before.
She rushed forward. She’d wait for Dean and the others outside. She wasn’t just going to stand around in there and—
/> Sarah shoved the swinging door open, and she nearly slammed straight into Elroy. His arms flew up and grabbed her. “What the hell? Dr. Jacobs?” His hands dropped almost instantly. “What are you doing here?” he demanded as he glared at her. “I told you before, you are off the task force. Only Victoria Palmer is clear to keep working with us.”
Because you need her? You can’t make the case without her?
Her gaze raked over his face. The lines there seemed deeper than before. A light shadow of gray stubble covered his jaw, and his clothes were rumpled.
When a man just watches a sixteen-year-old girl fall six stories, and he doesn’t even check on her when she hits the ground . . . I make a point of learning who he is.
“Did you hear me, Dr. Jacobs?” He snarled as he took a menacing step forward. “I told you that—”
Her spine straightened. This guy wasn’t going to bully her. Try again, jackass. I’ve dealt with men far more dangerous than you. “I’m here because I’m looking for Victoria. We had a meeting, and she never showed. She’s also not answering her cell.”
For an instant, uncertainty flashed across his face. “I . . . had a meeting with her today, too. When I went to talk with her, the lab was empty. I thought she’d just stepped out. I got busy with all the press conferences and the FBI brass breathing down my neck, so I didn’t get to check back in.”
He hadn’t checked in again? Am I supposed to buy that? “She was running priority tests on the remains pertinent to your case, and you didn’t even think of checking in again?”
His cheeks flushed.
“When Julia Finney fell to her death, why did you just stand there?”
The flush deepened. “What kind of question is that?”
“One that deserves an answer. I mean, shouldn’t you have stepped forward, checked for a pulse, tried to stop the bleeding—”
“Her neck broke! She broke!” He grabbed her arm and started hauling Sarah down the hallway. “There was nothing I could do, and you, Dr. Jacobs, you are done here. I’m escorting you out, and I’m going to make absolutely certain you don’t get any further access to this building.”
His grip was on the verge of painful. She double-timed it to keep up with him, and when they saw the guard at the check-in desk, the guy shot to his feet.