As they ate cake and drank coffee, the conversation remained light and easy and Layla found it a relief from the tense air that had surrounded her all day in the cabin with Jacob. But it wasn’t long before the conversation circled around back to Jacob.
“It has to be a woman,” Peyton said as Edie picked up the cake plates from the table. “Somebody broke his heart badly and that’s what brought him back here.”
“I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to be the type to have much of a heart to break,” Layla replied ruefully.
“Don’t let that fool you.” Edie returned to the table. “I think we can all agree that the Grayson men come off tough and immune to emotion, but if you dig deep enough you find a wealth of vulnerability.”
“The tougher they are, the harder they fall,” Peyton said with a nod of agreement.
“All I really know is that something bad happened to him, something that haunts him.” Layla had seen the utter darkness in his eyes, but there had been a moment when he’d looked at her that she’d seen something else, something that had made her heart beat a little faster and her palms grow slightly damp. It had been a flash of naked hunger, a spark of want that had immediately been doused.
She had no illusions where Jacob was concerned and the last thing she needed in her life was another meaningless sexual encounter that would only leave her raw and bruised. Besides, he didn’t even seem to like her very much.
“Earth to Layla.” Edie’s voice pulled her out of her inner thoughts and back to the conversation.
“Sorry, I drifted for a minute,” Layla replied.
“I was just saying that I think nothing will be right with the Grayson men until they find out what happened to Brittany,” Peyton said.
“Benjamin thinks she’s dead.” Edie whispered the words as if afraid to say them aloud.
“Tom refuses to accept that,” Peyton replied. “He thinks as long as there is no body then there’s hope. He wants her home for Christmas. That gives him less than three weeks to find her.”
“There are a lot of places to hide bodies around Black Rock, places where nobody would find them,” Layla said, fighting against a shiver that threatened to sweep over her.
She could have been one of the bodies left in the woods or buried out in some field. If she hadn’t managed to hit her attacker with her shoe and scare him away, Peyton and Edie might have been sitting at this table wondering what had happened to her and speculating about where her body might be found.
The conversation was halted by the men coming into the kitchen. “Are you trying to keep that chocolate cake all to yourselves?” Benjamin asked as he placed a kiss on the top of Edie’s head.
“You know how we women are about our chocolate,” Peyton answered as she handed Lilly to Tom.
Layla watched Jacob, who stood slightly apart from his brothers. Whatever conversation the men had shared hadn’t lifted the shadows in his eyes. If anything, they looked darker.
“Jacob, you ready for a piece of cake?” Edie asked as she got up from the table.
“No thanks, none for me,” he replied.
“He’s probably worried that a little bit of sugar might sweeten up his mood,” Benjamin replied drily, then grunted in surprise as Edie elbowed him in the stomach.
At that moment the doorbell rang and Edie left the kitchen to answer it. She returned a moment later with Caleb in tow.
“What’s up?” Tom asked, obviously surprised to see his little brother.
“I left the office to get a cup of coffee from the diner and when I came back I found this taped on the door.” He held up an envelope with a gloved hand and looked at Jacob. “Somebody knows you’re in town because it’s addressed to Special Agent Jacob Grayson.”
Jacob froze, his features not betraying a single emotion as he stared at the envelope. He made no move to reach for it and for a moment it was as if everyone was freeze-framed in a still photo.
“Open it,” Jacob finally said, his voice deeper than usual.
Caleb nodded and opened the envelope and withdrew what appeared to be a plain white note card. “‘Hello Agent Grayson,’” Caleb read aloud. “‘Hope you’ve enjoyed your time off. I’m ready to play again. Are you?’ It’s signed ‘The Professional’ and there’s a P.S. ‘Brittany says to tell you hello.’”
Layla gasped aloud and looked at Jacob, who had gone sickly pale. He stumbled back a step, his mouth opening and closing as if he couldn’t get enough air.
“No.” The single word finally escaped him in a strangled whisper. Before anyone in the room could move or guess his intent he flew out of the kitchen and a moment later the front door slammed shut.
Nobody stirred as the roar of Jacob’s truck filled the air. It was only when the sound drifted away that Tom looked at Layla. “Looks like you need a ride back to the cabin.”
“What just happened? What does that note mean?” she asked.
Lilly began to cry, as if aware that something bad had just happened. Peyton comforted her while everyone looked at Tom.
Tom frowned. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Jacob obviously has some answers and I intend to stay in that cabin until he gives them to me. Sooner or later he’ll have to show up there.”
It was quickly decided that Benjamin would drive Peyton and Lilly home while Tom went to the cabin with Layla. As Layla got into Tom’s car it was fear for Jacob that caused her heart to beat frantically.
That note had shaken him badly and she knew with certainty that Jacob wasn’t a man who got shaken easily. Something bad was in the town of Black Rock and that bad had just reached out and touched Jacob Grayson.
And she knew with all her instincts, with all her heart and soul, that the bad had only just begun.
Chapter 4
Jacob roared out of the driveway that led onto the Grayson property and out on the highway. He slammed his foot down on the gas pedal as he clenched the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white.
Not again. The words screamed inside his head. He couldn’t go through it all again. He wouldn’t go through it all over again.
He reached out and flipped the heater fan on high, but he knew he’d never be warm again. The chill of pure evil had gripped him and would never let him go.
Eventually he eased back on his speed, not so much concerned for his own safety but for that of anyone he might meet on the road.
His thoughts raced. How had the bastard found him? He’d been so careful to lay low. When he’d left Kansas City he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Only a handful of people knew he was back in Black Rock and he’d trust those people with his very life.
Maybe he didn’t know for sure that Jacob was in Black Rock. Maybe it had just been a guess that Jacob had come home to the bosom of his family to lick his wounds.
This thought brought him little comfort. The madman was in Black Rock and, if his note was to be believed, he had Brittany in his grasp.
He wanted to stay in his truck and drive forever. He wanted to continue west until he reached California and drove into the ocean. But, he’d driven for twenty minutes when he finally turned the truck around and headed back toward the cabin.
Although he wished he could drive to the ends of the earth, he knew he had to go back. There was no way to escape, no matter how far he drove.
He had no intention of getting involved in a madman’s game again, but Tom needed to know what he was up against. It was time for Jacob to let his brother know what had brought him home.
If Jacob had paid more attention to the crimes happening in Black Rock, to the disappearances of women over the last couple of months, he might have guessed sooner that The Professional was back at work.
Now there was no guessing. The Professional was back and if they didn’t find him then the women he held would die. His own sister would be killed.
But I can’t do it again, he thought as he turned onto the Grayson property. He refused to be a part of the game a second time.
&n
bsp; When he drove past Benjamin’s house he noted that all the vehicles had disappeared from out front. Caleb would have probably gone back to the sheriff’s office but he wasn’t sure where Tom or Benjamin might have gone.
Layla. He hadn’t even thought about her when he’d reeled out of the house. Surely somebody had taken her back to the cabin.
When he reached the cabin he had his answer. Tom’s car was parked out front and he saw the slender silhouette of Layla watching from the front window.
For some reason, the sight of her standing there, as if anxiously awaiting his safe return, touched him. But any positive emotion he might have felt couldn’t be sustained beneath the weight of what had happened, what he now knew to be true.
The Professional was back.
He turned off the truck engine but remained seated, dreading the idea of going inside and facing the demons that had been chasing him for the last six months.
Faces flashed before his eyes, the faces of the women he’d let down, women who had wound up dead because of him. Raw emotion churned in his stomach, making him feel half-nauseous.
When he finally did step into the cabin Tom was seated in his recliner and Layla rushed toward him, her eyes filled with concern. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
He was surprised that it mattered to her, that she cared at all. He hadn’t been particularly kind to her in the time they’d spent together. He reached out and touched her cheek, a gentle touch as he shook his head. “No, I’m not all right, but I’m here now.”
“And you’re going to tell me what’s going on,” Tom said, the familiar hint of steel in his deep voice.
Jacob nodded wearily and stepped away from Layla. He sank down on one end of the sofa while she sat on the other. He looked at his brother and for a long moment wasn’t sure where to begin.
“Who is he?” Tom asked.
“A serial murderer,” Jacob replied. His chest tightened painfully. “He contacted the FBI after he’d kidnapped three women in Kansas City. He gave us their names and the locations he’d taken them from. I was put in charge of the case and coordinated with the Kansas City Police Department.” The words fell from his lips with the bitter taste of dread, of failure. “Everything he told us checked out so we knew he was the real deal.”
He leaned back against the sofa cushion, as if the softness might alleviate the difficulty of talking about the events that had unfolded in that case.
“I don’t know why he focused in on me, but he did,” he continued. “He started calling me, taunting me with details of the kidnappings and the women he had in captivity. He told me what he was feeding them and how they all begged for their lives. He said he was taking care of their basic needs like the wicked witch who plumped up Hansel and Gretel before trying to cook them in her oven.”
Neither Tom nor Layla said a word, but waited for him to continue. His thoughts reeled him back in time and his stomach knotted tight. “He alerted me when he took the fourth woman and said he had room for five. Told me that when he got his fifth victim it would be party time.”
“Party time?” Layla finally spoke, her eyes huge and her pretty features unnaturally pale.
Jacob looked at her and frowned. “Maybe you should go into the bedroom while Tom and I talk.”
Her chin lifted and her blue eyes narrowed. “Not a chance. If what we believe is true, then I was almost at one of his parties and I want to know everything.”
Once again he was struck by the strength that shone from her eyes, a strength that radiated from the square set of her shoulders. Once again he realized there was definitely more to Layla West than her love of high-heeled shoes and her need to fill any silence with the sound of her own voice.
He looked back at Tom. “He called himself The Professional and his plan was that once he had five women he’d torture and kill them one by one. He fed not so much on the actual kills themselves, but rather on the terror of the women as they waited their turn to die.”
“Dear God,” Layla murmured softly.
“So, what happened?” Tom asked, a muscle knotting in his jaw line.
A blackness reached out to Jacob, the darkness of utter despair, of a pain too deep to acknowledge, too wide to endure. He clenched his hands in his lap and stared down at them as he was cast back to the past.
They’d interviewed hundreds of people, checked and double-checked family members and friends of the victims in an effort to find a connection that might lead them to the guilty party. But it had all been in vain.
“Jacob?” Tom softly prompted.
“We did everything we could to figure out who this man was, what his connection was to the victims, and we eventually came to the conclusion that it was random, there was no connection that we could find.”
“And random makes things even more difficult,” Tom said.
Jacob nodded. “Anyway, the story was picked up by a reporter and became a big deal,” he continued. “These kidnapped victims weren’t prostitutes or drug addicts, they were all from good families, young women with jobs and people who loved them. The press ate it up. Somebody leaked that I had personal contact with the perp and the reporters were all over me.”
It had been a terrible time. He’d been eating, breathing and living the case. “I was exhausted, sick by the conversations I was having with the creep, suffering nightmares when I did finally manage to close my eyes. A reporter caught me at the wrong time and I snapped. I told him that the perp called himself The Professional but he was nothing special, just another garden-variety creep preying on helpless women.”
He raised his head and looked at his brother, his heart beating a thousand miles a minute. “That night after the piece ran on the news The Professional called me. He was crazy with rage. He told me he was smarter than all of us, more cunning than any killer we’d ever chased. He promised to show me just how good he was and when he hung up I knew it was going to be bad.”
Once again the darkness threatened to consume him. He got up from the sofa, unable to sit still as he finished the horrible story.
He picked up a log and threw it on the already hot flames in the fireplace, needing more warmth as he continued. “I got a call from him the next morning. He told me I’d pushed him over the edge, that he’d gotten his fifth victim and had his party and now he needed a little party cleanup crew.”
Jacob turned and faced the fire and in the dancing flames he saw the faces of the women who had been depending on him to find them, the faces of the women he’d let down. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, but the accusing faces refused to disappear.
The air in the cabin was suffocating and held an air of dreadful expectancy. Above the crackle of the fire he heard Tom shift positions in the recliner, felt Layla’s gaze burning into his back.
“He gave me the address of an old abandoned warehouse in the river district of Kansas City. He said that if we hurried we might find them all still breathing. My team rushed to the location.” He paused, the emotion he’d been fighting crawling up the back of his throat, constricting his chest to the point that he wasn’t sure he could continue. He turned around and looked at his brother.
“And they were all dead,” Tom said flatly.
Jacob nodded and drew in a deep breath. “They’d been tortured and killed sometime during the night. According to the coroner, there was as much as two hours between the first death and the last.”
“Jacob, they were dead no matter what you did. You aren’t responsible for what happened,” Tom said, his gentle voice doing nothing to ease Jacob’s torment.
“Don’t you get it? If I hadn’t shot off my mouth when I did then maybe we would have had more time,” he exclaimed. “Maybe we would have been able to find those women before he killed them.” A flash of anger swept through Jacob. It was so easy for somebody who had not been involved to attempt to absolve him of any guilt.
He sank down on the sofa once again and buried his face in his hands. For a long moment nobody spoke.
Jacob’s heartbeat thundered at his temples, making him feel sick to his stomach.
He finally raised his head and looked at Tom. “I’m not going through this again. I can’t get involved with this. I came here so that I wouldn’t be involved in any more crimes he might commit.”
“According to the note you got, you are involved,” Tom replied. “He knows you’re here, Jacob.”
Jacob shook his head. “He might know that I’m somewhere here in town, but he must not know that I’m here at the cabin. Otherwise that note would have been left here on my doorstep, a way to show his power and control.” He shook his head more vehemently. “I’m not playing his game. I’ll tell you what you need to know, what information we got before, but I’m out of this.” Unable to stand himself or the situation another minute, he got up and went into the bathroom.
Once there he sluiced cold water over his face and dried off with a hand towel, refusing to look at his reflection in the mirror.
He threw the towel on the sink and then leaned against the door. He couldn’t be responsible for what was going on now with The Professional. He couldn’t be a part of it again. If he said something or did anything that resulted in more deaths, he’d never survive.
It was better to do nothing.
If he hadn’t shot his mouth off to that damned reporter, if he hadn’t belittled the killer, then maybe the murders wouldn’t have happened when they did. Maybe he would have been able to glean more information from the phone calls he received from the man. Maybe…maybe…maybe…all the maybes in the world didn’t change what had happened.
He stayed in the bathroom until he could no longer hear any conversation going on in the living room, then he opened the door and walked out.
Layla was alone, seated on the sofa where she’d been when he’d exited the room. He didn’t look at her but rather threw himself in the recliner and stared at the blank television screen.
“Tom said to tell you he’ll call you first thing in the morning,” she said.
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