by Cynthia Eden
Her gaze slid to Bowen. He knew exactly what she meant. The mistake he made with you, Macey? When you were able to slip away from the bastard?
Macey moved around the table and lifted the sheet so that she could study the victim’s ankles. “More bruising,” she murmured. “The Doctor secured his victims both by their wrists and their ankles so that they could not escape his procedures.”
“His procedures?” The words burst from Bowen. “You mean his tortures.”
The ME’s eyes widened as she stared at him, but Macey’s expression never altered.
Shit. Get the control back. He knew how to handle a scene like this. By the fucking book. The problem was that when he looked at the victim on that exam table, he kept seeing Macey. Kept seeing what could have happened to Macey five years ago if she hadn’t managed to get away.
And he saw what had happened to her. And if that perp was up there, if he was still in the small mountain town...
I’m going to find you. I’m going to stop you. You will not hurt another victim.
“So...it’s his work, right?” Dr. Lopez’s voice sharpened a bit as she came closer to the exam table. She had on gloves, too, and she lifted the victim’s right wrist. “I knew it as soon as I saw these slashes. From the inner wrist all the way to the elbow, exactly like yours and—”
He’d growled. The sound had just slipped out but both women glanced at him. Macey’s face showed no expression, but she was good at keeping her emotions in check. Far better than he was. Mild alarm had flared in the ME’s eyes. “Is there a problem?” Dr. Lopez asked.
Don’t talk about her scars.
But Macey had caught the ME’s attention once more. “The Doctor liked victims who had unique characteristics,” Macey said quietly. “He wanted victims—”
“Like you,” Dr. Lopez cut in again, nodding briskly. “With heterochromia. And that threw me about this victim. Because I thought both of her eyes were blue at first glance. I mean, when I called the FBI, I’d just seen the wounds on her body. I hadn’t examined her thoroughly at that point. But take a look.” Now her hand moved toward the victim’s face. She opened the victim’s right eye. “Blue. And then...” She opened the left eye.
“Blue.” Macey was frowning.
“That’s what it looks like.” The ME smiled. “But right before you arrived, I realized that our vic was wearing contacts. Or, rather, she is wearing one contact.” Very carefully, she removed the contact from the victim’s left eye and placed it in an evidence bag. “And now you have brown.” Again, her voice held a thread of excitement. “She’s just like you, Agent Night! I mean, that must have been what set him off, right? To find another victim with eyes just like yours. That’s probably why he started killing again after all this time. The Doctor found a victim he couldn’t resist. He found—”
The door to the exam room flew open. Immediately, Bowen tensed and his hand flew toward his holster. But the man standing there, breath heaving, wore a brown deputy’s uniform. A star gleamed on his chest. Bowen recognized the guy immediately. Deputy Coleman Quick. Quick had been sent to meet them at the airport. The deputy had been their escort in Hiddlewood, the small town that bordered North Carolina and Tennessee.
“We’ve got another one,” Coleman said, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “The sheriff wanted me to take you two out to the scene right away. Said you had to see it.”
Another one? Already? Shit, that wasn’t good. Two kills so close together showed definite escalation on the part of the perpetrator.
But...
It also means our killer is still here. We can get the bastard because he hasn’t fled the area yet.
Without a word, Bowen lunged toward the deputy and he knew Macey was right on his heels.
* * *
A SWIRL OF blue lights illuminated the scene as the deputy braked his vehicle. Macey and Bowen were right behind Deputy Quick in their rented SUV and, when their vehicle stopped, Bowen quickly killed his engine. Macey reached for the door handle.
But Bowen grabbed her wrist, holding tight. “You don’t have to go in.”
What? Her head whipped back toward him. He couldn’t be serious. She’d come to finally stop this particular nightmare from playing out again and again.
“It’s going to be...” Bowen huffed out a breath. “You know it’s going to be bad inside. After the last vic, I just... It may be too personal for you.”
Because that victim had been so similar to Macey. The eyes. God, her eyes are just like mine.
“I can handle this,” Bowen continued, his voice grim. “I can check the scene and report back to you.”
“I can handle it,” she told him flatly. She wasn’t about to be cut out of this investigation. Yes, it had hurt to see Gale Collins and the wounds on her body—too familiar wounds. But the pain that woman had endured—it had just made Macey all the more determined to stop Daniel. As I wish I’d stopped him years ago. She swallowed. “We have work to do. Let’s get moving.” She pulled her wrist free of his hold and jumped from the vehicle. Voices were rising all around her. Other deputies were already at the scene, and she was sure the sheriff was inside that little cabin. Such a nondescript place. Not high on a mountain, but nestled down low, in the middle of the woods. In the middle of nowhere.
They’d traveled down an old, winding graveled drive to get to the place. And now...
The sheriff appeared in the doorway. His grizzled face was grim and the star on his chest gleamed dully in the light. When he saw her, he tensed a bit, and then his gaze slid behind her to Bowen.
“FBI Special Agents...Night and Murphy, right?” he said. He offered his hand to them. “I’m Sheriff Burt Morris.”
Macey shook his hand. She could feel his calluses beneath her touch. His shake was strong, but not too hard.
He briskly shook hands with Bowen, then said, “I never seen anything like this in all my whole life.” A Southern twang slipped in and out of his words. “And before I retired up here, I worked homicide in Atlanta. But this... Jesus H. Christ. How does someone decide to do this to another human being?”
Daniel’s motivations were still shrouded in mystery. Macey still didn’t know exactly why he’d one day switched from saving victims to killing them.
Morris ran a hand over his face. “You two are the ones who study these guys, right? Take a look and tell me how a person could do that shit. Tell me how. Tell me why.”
Macey squared her shoulders and hurried inside. Her gaze swept over the small living room, and she saw what looked like some kind of makeshift medical office. There were rows and rows of medicine bottles, some medical instruments, even an exam chair.
Was he practicing off the grid? Setting up a practice out here, out of his damn home? A practice and a torture parlor—all in the same place.
“Bedroom,” Morris said from behind her, his voice cracking a bit. “Go in there, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She could smell the odor coming from that room. The distinct scents of blood and death weren’t easy to miss.
The wooden floor creaked beneath her feet. She lifted her chin as she entered the room, squared her shoulders and prepared to find another woman, cut, tortured but—
The Doctor.
Macey took two steps inside the bedroom before she froze.
There was blood. There was so much blood. It was on the ceiling. On the walls. The victim had been restrained, but not on top of an operating room table, as was Haddox’s MO. Instead, the victim in that back bedroom had been tied to the four-poster bed. Thick ropes were around the victim’s wrists and ankles.
There were wounds on the victim’s arms. Long slashes from wrists to elbows. There were deep cuts on the victim’s face. On the torso. Horrible, deep abrasions. But...
“That’s fucking him, isn’t it?” Bowen’s whisper. His breath blew lightly against her ear and she could only nod.
They weren’t looking at a female victim. They were staring at a male who’d been
horrifically tortured before death.
And Macey knew the victim in that bed. The man who’d been murdered...the man who had been a helpless victim, who’d known pain and anguish in his last moments.
That man was the notorious Doctor.
She was staring at Daniel Haddox. The killer she’d been so desperate to find was right in front of her. Only...
Someone else found him first. And that someone had made absolutely certain that Daniel would never kill again.
Goose bumps rose to cover Macey’s skin, and she couldn’t look away from the dead man on the bed.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE STOOD IN front of the motel room door. Door number seven at a small, no-tell-motel-type place. The paint on the door was chipped. The light to her right kept flickering, and Macey knew she should turn around and walk away. Her room was right next door. She was in room number eight. She should go back inside number eight, shut her door and stay in for the night. That was what she should do.
But Macey knew that she wasn’t going to leave. She couldn’t. So she lifted her hand and she banged against that door. Lucky seven. As if anything had been lucky. The night air was brisk, sending a chill over her skin as she waited, and a moment later—
The door opened. Bowen stood there, his hair slightly mussed and a five o’clock shadow on his jaw. “Macey? Has something happened?” His dark gaze darted over her shoulder. “Did the sheriff learn anything new?”
“Not yet.” She’d been at the crime scene for hours, unable to tear herself away, and Bowen had been right with her. They’d made sure there were no slipups at the scene. The Doctor was dead, apparently killed within the past twelve hours judging by the body’s lividity. His victims finally had justice.
So why doesn’t it feel that way?
“May I come in?” she asked when Bowen continued to stand in the doorway.
He blinked and stepped back. “Right, yes, of course.” He motioned for her to come into his room. Like the room next door, her room, the place was small but clean. Clean enough, anyway. Two double beds were in the motel room, and a nightstand was situated between them.
She stared at the nearest bed for a moment.
“Uh, Macey? You all right?”
No, I am far from all right. “I thought we’d put him in jail. I thought we’d catch him and we’d lock him up. He’d go to court, the judge would find him guilty and Daniel would never hurt anyone again.” Because he’d be locked away for the rest of his life. Caged.
Silence. The kind that stretched too long.
She looked back over her shoulder and found Bowen’s dark gaze on her. His blond hair was tousled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it and faint stubble covered his hard jaw.
“He will never hurt anyone again,” Bowen said.
Because the dead couldn’t hurt anyone. Because someone had killed the killer. Her lips wanted to tremble, so she pressed them together. Her stomach was in knots. It had been that way ever since she walked into that bloodstained back room of the cabin. “This isn’t the way I wanted it to end.”
He just stared at her. No judgment on his face.
“It isn’t.”
Bowen took a step toward her. “You don’t have to explain or justify to anyone.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Sure as hell not to me.”
Because Bowen was the man who had killed a serial murderer...long before Bowen had joined the FBI. He’d hunted down the killer himself when local law enforcement wouldn’t help him. When they wouldn’t believe him. He’d found the evidence. He’d found the killer.
And in the end, he’d had to kill that man in order to survive.
Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Am I supposed to be glad that he’s dead?” It wasn’t the FBI agent talking. That wasn’t who she was right then.
I don’t know who I am.
“Am I supposed to be happy that someone found Daniel Haddox and gave him the same pain that Haddox gave to his victims? Is that supposed to make me feel good?”
Bowen was leaning against the wooden motel room door. “I don’t think you’re supposed to feel any way. You just feel—Mace, you feel any way you want. You’re entitled. You were the guy’s victim.”
Her shoulders stiffened at that one word. Victim. She’d fought hard to stop being a victim. She’d joined the FBI so she would never be a victim. She’d be the one who hunted the killers. The one who brought justice. Not a victim. Never that again.
“He hurt you. He nearly killed you. If you want to be glad, then, damn it, be glad. Be—”
She found herself stumbling toward him. The control she prided herself on was in tatters. No, it had been sliced apart.
Only, not with his scalpel this time.
“Macey?”
She put her hands on his chest. “I need it to stop.”
A faint furrow appeared between his brows. “What? What do you want to stop? Tell me, and I’ll fix it.”
She licked her lips. “I need the pain to stop.”
His eyes widened. “Mace...”
“Because it’s been eating at me ever since I was on his table.” A truth she hadn’t shared with anyone else, not even the FBI shrink that her team had to see every now and then to make sure they stayed psychologically healthy while they tackled their cases. When you worked day in and day out with serials, the pressure could get to you. Everyone had to go in for psych evaluations. Only, maybe she didn’t share how she really felt during those visits.
I feel more than pressure. I feel pain. It’s what I always feel. And I need it to stop. “I thought it would end when we caught him. Closure, right? Isn’t that how it works? I catch the man who hurt me, who killed so many others, and then the pain goes away because he is locked away.” No longer hunting in the dark.
Bowen’s hands rose and curled around her shoulders. She liked his touch. It was warm and she felt so cold. But then, she always felt warmer when she was around Bowen. Warmer, safer.
“He’s dead,” she whispered. “But the pain isn’t going away.” And Macey felt a tear slide down her cheek. “Why won’t it go away?”
His face hardened. “Macey...”
“Make it go away.” She shouldn’t be saying these things to him. She shouldn’t be in his room. She shouldn’t be near him, but...
Bowen wants me. I’ve seen it before. In his eyes. In the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching him. When he thinks no one is watching. He’d never said anything wrong to her. Not a misplaced word. Never done anything wrong. But...she’d sensed the awareness between them. The attraction.
She’d ignored it. Or tried to. Maybe he’d slipped into her dreams some nights. His dark eyes and his strong hands. His sexy mouth. But those had just been dreams. Dreams that worked their way past the nightmares she had so often.
I thought the nightmares would stop when we finally caught Daniel. The nightmares and pain. But the pain Macey felt was still just as strong as ever.
Will the nightmares be just as strong, too? Because maybe she wasn’t going to ever get over the attack. She’d wanted to be strong, but she just felt so twisted on the inside.
He’s dead. He’s dead. And when I first saw the body...the first thing I thought was...
He’d gotten what he deserved.
Pain twisted within her even more. What am I becoming? “Make it go away,” Macey said again. She tightened her hold on Bowen’s shoulders and pushed onto her tiptoes. “Please.”
His lips parted as if he would speak, but she didn’t give him the chance. Macey pressed her lips to his. Her kiss wasn’t seductive or teasing. It was desperate. She was desperate. And he—
His hands tightened on her shoulders and he slowly pushed her back.
Oh. My. God. The pain in her chest just got worse.
His eyes seemed to have gone even darker as he stared at her. “What are you doing?”
She’d thought she was kissing him. Her cheeks burned.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous
this is?” His hold on her shoulders didn’t ease. If anything, his grip grew harder as a muscle jerked along his jaw. “You don’t want to play with me.”
She wasn’t playing. And she wasn’t going to hold back. She couldn’t, not then. Macey was far too raw for any sort of games. “Do you want me?”
He sucked in a sharp breath.
“Because I think you do.” She was putting it all out there. Macey couldn’t think about consequences in that moment. She didn’t want to think of them. Pain seemed to be eating her up from the inside out, and she wanted to escape that pain.
Pleasure—pleasure would combat pain. But she wasn’t going out and hooking up with some random stranger. She couldn’t. Not with her past. She was always too afraid of the secrets others might be keeping. Secrets meant danger.
Bowen wasn’t some stranger. Bowen. She trusted him. He was her partner. Her friend. And that night, she wanted him to be more.
“Yes.” He seemed to hiss the word. “I fucking want you.” His voice had never sounded so rough to her before. Her heart thudded in her chest. “But I’ve been doing a damn fine job of keeping my hands off you.”
Yes, he had. Never a wrong touch. Never a wrong word. “They aren’t off me now,” she whispered.
His eyes narrowed. “Macey, you are playing with fire.”
Only because she wanted to get burned. “I don’t want your hands off me. I want them all over me. I want you.” There. She’d done it. Laid her pride bare to him. He’d pushed her away when she kissed him, so maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut, but Macey wasn’t herself that night. She felt as if she’d shattered into a million pieces and then been put together all wrong. Everything was wrong and she just needed the world to stop spinning so wildly, for just a few moments. To just stop.
“Be careful what you say.”
“I’m always careful. Every moment of every single day.” Even before her attack, she’d been so careful. The studious college coed. The diligent MD student. The hardworking resident. She’d been the good girl all her life, and what had it gotten her?