Secluded, the clerk had called it.
Leah could verify it was indeed that, since she hadn’t heard a peep from any other guests.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” she asked the moment she stepped inside.
But Alex didn’t give her a quick answer. He released her arm and closed the door, locked it and turned back around to face her. Until he did that little maneuver, Leah hadn’t realized she was standing too close to him. The front of him brushed against the front of her.
Breasts against chest.
Another jolt of memories.
Beneath that coat and suit was a great body. But clearly something was on this sizzling hunk’s mind.
Leah pulled in another breath. “Have you come here to fire me?”
“No.”
Well, thank heaven he didn’t hesitate with that response. Relief flooded through her and turned her legs wobbly. Since she didn’t want to disgrace herself by falling, she caught on to the back of the chair that was stuffed beneath a writing desk.
Alex gave a rough sigh when he glanced at the desk and spotted the notepad where she’d doodled a picture of her badge. And a picture of him with devil horns. The likeness wasn’t very good, but he probably recognized himself.
“But I have come with bad news,” he added.
So much for her relief. Leah just stared at him and waited. She didn’t have to wait long, at least not long for him to spring into action.
Alex went to the closet, pulled out her suitcase. He dumped it on the bed and opened it. “You have to leave with me,” he insisted, and proceeded to gather her clothes from a dresser drawer and deposit them in her suitcase.
Leah latched on to his arm and used her cast to point to the window, beyond which the snow was falling even heavier now. “There’s a storm coming in,” she reminded him. “The roads will be closed soon, if they aren’t already. So unless you’re here to tell me that I need to report to duty ASAP because of some emergency—”
“It’s isn’t safe for you here,” Alex interrupted.
Safe. Now, that was a strange word for him to use, considering she had been a federal agent for nearly seven years and had lived in cold country her entire life. There wasn’t much other than nightmares and Alex that frightened her.
“I think I can handle a blizzard,” she added for good measure.
Alex made a sound deep within his throat, and reached into his pocket and took out something. Not her badge or gun, but rather a plastic evidence bag. Inside, Leah could see a piece of notepad paper.
“It was in a plain white envelope, addressed to me,” he explained. “No prints, no trace. Someone put it on the counter at the diner across the street from the FBI office, and no one could get a description of the person who left it. It’s possible it was placed there a couple days ago.”
That was a lot of explanation for such a small piece of paper, and she figured it had to be important or Alex wouldn’t have risked driving through a storm to bring it to her.
Leah took the bag and turned it so she could study the sheet. Not much to study, though. Just a couple sentences.
You can’t save her this time. Just me and her. I’ll finish what I started.
She shook her head, not understanding. “You think this is some kind of threat meant for me?”
“Turn it over,” Alex instructed.
The chill went through her blood again, but Leah flipped the paper anyway, trying to brace herself for what she might see.
She didn’t brace herself nearly enough.
There. On the front side of the note paper was a familiar logo and equally familiar words.
Ice Lake Resort.
Oh, God.
She swallowed hard and met Alex’s gaze. Leah tried, but couldn’t make herself ask the question.
But he answered it, anyway. “Yes, the strangler is here.”
CHAPTER TWO
HELL. ALEX HAD KNOWN this visit and news would be hard for Leah. And it was. Unfortunately, the hard was just getting started.
He reached for her, because he knew she would need a shoulder for support. He also knew she would push him away, and that’s exactly what she did.
A good thing, too.
Having her in his arms right now might soothe her a little—might soothe him, too—but it would also create a dangerous mix of adrenaline with an old attraction that just wouldn’t die. They had enough hard without adding that.
“The Big Sky Stranglers are at Ice Lake?” she whispered, moving to the other side of the room, far away from him.
Alex shook his head. “Judging from the way the threat is worded, I’m guessing just one of them is here.”
The one who’d actually put his hands around Leah’s throat and tried to choke the life out of her. But Alex knew he couldn’t rule out that the other one was somewhere around. They worked as a pair, even though the profile said the duo was made up of a submissive accomplice and the dominant mastermind.
And the latter was the one who’d no doubt written that note.
You can’t save her this time. Just me and her. I’ll finish what I started.
“He’s here,” she mumbled. The color seeped from Leah’s face. Well, except for that god-awful bruise on her forehead and cheek. Her short, spiky blond hair covered some of it, but not nearly enough.
That bruise and the ones on her neck turned Alex’s stomach.
So did the bleached expression on her face, and in her eyes, which were an identical green color to that bruise. And despite all those visible responses, Alex knew it was worse inside for her.
It sure was for him.
He could put up a front. The cool facade of a badass federal agent. Unfortunately, a cool facade wasn’t worth spit when it came to convincing her that they had to get out of here.
Oh, yeah. Despite what she’d just learned, he was certain Leah would fight him on this.
“I would have called the minute I found out,” Alex continued, “but there’s no cell service up here. I couldn’t risk phoning the resort or lodge.” He’d been worried that the strangler was monitoring the calls in some way, and would immediately kill Leah.
Of course, Alex could have called the sheriff in nearby Graniteville and requested assistance, but he knew he was the only person with a chance of talking her into leaving.
“If he’s here…” Leah said. She cleared her throat, probably so she could manage more than a ragged whisper, and sound more like a law enforcement officer. “Then I can be bait to draw him out, and this time we can catch him.”
That didn’t help his stomach either, but Alex had been expecting it. That’s why he had rehearsed his answer. “In theory, we could do that. But you know his profile as well as I do.”
Leah and he had developed that profile together. The killers were chameleons, able to blend in. White males. Late twenties, early thirties. And the most critical part of the profile—they were serial killers.
“When cornered, they kill,” he reminded her.
Of course, Leah had firsthand knowledge of that. Alex knew the hard way that secondhand knowledge sucked almost as much as the real thing.
“Someone broke into your apartment,” he continued. To speed things along, he went into the bathroom, retrieved her toiletry bag and put it in the suitcase. He got a glare for his efforts. “And I think that someone learned you were here by hacking into your personal computer.”
She nodded. Sighed. Cursed. “I made the reservations online.”
Yes, Alex had figured as much. He had been informed of the break-in after her security company had called him about an intrusion alarm. Later, when he had her off this mountain, he’d tell her that the stranglers had trashed her place so badly it was unlivable. She would have to stay with him until some repairs were done, because he didn’t want her alone with at least one of the stranglers apparently out to finish her off.
Oh, yeah. That info could wait. He’d already dumped enough on her for now, and she was wasting a lot of mental energy tryin
g to look as if she was unaffected by everything.
“You’re leaving with me,” Alex added, making sure he sounded like her boss.
The spark of anger and resistance in her eyes was instantaneous. No surprise. He was straying into touchy territory with that tone of authority.
“You took my badge and gun,” she reminded him. “You don’t have much leverage in getting me to obey an order.”
Alex shrugged. “I have leverage, all right. Because you want your gun and badge back.”
Gotcha, he thought. Those two things were at the top of her what-I-want-most list. Once, months ago, he’d been third.
If that.
Of course, first, second and, heaven help him, even third, wouldn’t stop her from disagreeing with him. So Alex went ahead and launched the argument they were about to have, anyway.
He took out the folded sheet of paper from his other pocket and dropped it on the bed next to the suitcase.
“The composites.” Leah huffed and spared a glance at the sketches of the two men presumed to be the stranglers. “No need for you to show them to me. I see them in my sleep,” she added.
Yeah. So did Alex, and he saw them trying to kill her. Again. And again. And again. In each of those nightmares he tried to save her—and he failed. But Alex had no plans to fail this time.
“Look at them one more time,” he instructed. “You said you hadn’t seen either man’s face when they attacked you last week.”
“Only one attacked me,” she clarified. “Just one.” Leah paused, drew in her breath. “I’m not sure what the other one was doing, because as you know, they’d cut the power in the house. No lights.”
Not an accident, Alex was betting. But Leah’s walking into that ambush had been. She’d been canvassing the neighborhood, showing the composites, when a woman had said the men look like the pair that her elderly neighbor had hired to do some carpentry work. Leah had called for backup. Alex had responded. But Leah hadn’t waited. She’d gone over to check out the possible lead, and had been beaten, then choked.
“Do the composites resemble any of the guests you’ve seen here at the lodge?” Alex pressed. “Look hard.”
“No,” she snapped in answer. But she did ease closer and comb her attention over those sketched images. “There are at least twenty men in that age range staying here. Or they were before news of the storm. I’m sure some have checked out.”
“But not this guy,” Alex reminded her. “He wants to kill you, Leah. And that’s why you have to leave with me now.”
She mumbled something, raked her hair away from her face and winced when she encountered the bruise. That seemed to aggravate her even more. She certainly wasn’t grabbing her suitcase and making a run for the door, so Alex went to her and grasped her shoulders.
“This isn’t the place to make a stand,” he warned. “There are families here. Easy targets. And I don’t want one of them getting in this SOB’s way.”
Leah opened her mouth to argue, but Alex caught her hand, lifting it so the cast was in her line of sight. “Besides, you can’t shoot, and if I were going to agree to such an asinine bait plan, then I would demand that the women and children be quietly evacuated. I’d also need backup.”
Hell.
There went her color again, and she moved away once more. No doubt because she thought his remark was an admonishment because she hadn’t waited for backup six days ago. And it had resulted in a woman’s murder and the attempted murder of a federal agent.
“Don’t,” Leah warned when Alex reached for her.
He ignored her, hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. This time she didn’t fight. She melted against him.
Oh, man.
Not good. The melting reminded him of other times he’d held her. It also reminded him of other things that were best left out of this.
Leah made a sound, a muffled sob, and dropped her head onto his shoulder. She fit. Of course. Always had. And in the back of his mind, Alex wondered if she always would.
“You’re my supervisor,” she whispered, in the same warning tone he’d used.
Yeah. She knew him. Knew what was going through his mind and body. But hey, he knew her, too. And Alex was certain that the guilt was eating away at her like battery acid. There was no way she wanted more guilt by endangering anyone other than herself.
“Leave with me,” he insisted. Alex brushed his mouth on the unbruised part of her forehead. “You can heal. Get back your gun and badge. And then we can catch these guys the right way.”
He waited for a response, the seconds crawling by before she finally eased back a little and met his gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?” he snapped, because he thought she was about to disobey his order to leave. But her apology wasn’t about that. Alex could see it in her eyes.
“I killed that woman.”
He cursed. “No, the stranglers killed her.”
“Because I botched things.”
“Because you were doing your job,” he corrected. Alex huffed. “Look, you made a mistake by not waiting for backup, but you couldn’t have known what would happen when you went there to ask about her newly hired handymen.”
She shook her head. “I should have known.”
“Right. Because of the ESP that the Bureau issued you when you became an FBI agent.”
Leah gave him a flat look. Good. That look was better than the I’m-sorry attitude, and maybe it meant he’d finally gotten through to her.
“Finish packing,” he told her.
And this time she didn’t fight back. Oh, she huffed and mumbled something derogatory about him, but she went to the dresser and took out the remainder of her clothes. No. Make that her underwear. Alex got a glimpse of the pink panties that Leah favored.
Always pink.
“Don’t say anything,” she mumbled.
Alex felt the corner of his mouth hitch a little. During their time as lovers, he’d often questioned her about her penchant for that particular choice. It wasn’t a color she wore anywhere else on her body. Yet for some reason all her bras and panties were cotton-candy pink. Finally, just weeks before their breakup, she’d confessed that the girlie undies were her way of rebelling. Something feminine and frilly to clash with the conservative clothes she had to wear to do her job.
Yeah, that was Leah, all right. A woman of contradictions, who had a rebellious side. However, she didn’t always hide that rebellion the way she did her pink panties.
Alex’s smile went south when he heard sounds outside Leah’s door. Footsteps and a frantic shout.
“Help!” a man yelled.
Alex automatically reached beneath his coat to his shoulder holster and drew his gun. “Stay behind me,” he ordered, when Leah started toward the door. “This might not have anything to do with the strangler.”
He kept that possibility in mind when he opened the door and peered into the hall. The man calling for help was there, and so was a maid in a dust-gray uniform. The woman’s eyes were wide with fear, and she was shaking almost violently.
“I’ll get the manager,” she told the lanky, dark-haired man, then scurried down the corridor.
Using his left hand, Alex pulled back his coat so the man could see his badge. “What’s wrong?”
“Look in there....” He tried to say more, but his voice cracked. He lifted his trembling hand and pointed to the room across the hall from Leah’s. The door was partially open, but not wide enough to see what was wrong.
“Stay put,” Alex warned Leah again, and shot her a glance over his shoulder to make sure she did. If the strangler was in the room, ready to jump out at them, he didn’t want Leah in the line of attack.
With his gun aimed and ready, Alex stepped forward and used the toe of his boot to ease open the door.
Hell.
CHAPTER THREE
NOTHING SHORT OF paralysis could have made Leah stay put. Especially after she heard the single word of profanity leave Alex�
��s mouth.
Something was wrong, and even though she wasn’t duty-ready, she was better than no backup at all.
Leah grabbed her personal handgun from her purse, and even though it caused a sharp pain in her arm, she gripped the weapon in her right hand and hurried to join Alex. She stepped around a stack of white towels that appeared to have been dropped, and looked into the room. From over Alex’s shoulder, Leah could see what had caused his profanity.
Her heart dropped to her knees. Oh, God. Not again. Please. Not again.
But it was.
The woman was sprawled on the floor.
She wasn’t moving, and her blank, lifeless eyes were wide-open and fixed on the ceiling.
“Get the manager and a doctor down here now,” Alex ordered the man in the hall who was wearing a lodge uniform, Leah noted.
The guy nodded and sprinted away as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there. She couldn’t blame him. Death wasn’t pretty.
Then her training kicked in, and she made a mental note of his general description, which she would need to complete the paperwork. She made a mental note of the area, too. And the room.
No. The crime scene, she corrected.
Because that’s no doubt what it was. This woman probably hadn’t died of natural causes.
Leah glanced up the hall and spotted someone else. A short guy with shaggy blond hair. He wore glasses and was holding a bulky cardboard box, but he must have realized something bad was going on because he froze in place.
“I’ll cover you,” Leah murmured to Alex.
Thank God he didn’t argue—because he didn’t have a choice. He had to check on the victim, make sure the danger wasn’t still present, and then secure the scene.
Alex eased into the room, pivoting his gun from corner to corner as he scanned the area and the bathroom. Leah checked, too, but didn’t see anything other than the dead woman.
Ice Lake: Gone ColdCold HeatStone Cold Page 9