by Debra Webb
She didn’t argue. That alone spoke volumes about her state of mind. One of her own was dead. And she understood what the message the killer had left behind meant. She was next on the kill list.
Evan gritted his teeth. He would not let that happen.
Rain had started to fall, streaking the windshield of his rented car. Darkness amassed in the sky, providing relief from the sun for him, but giving Boston the dismal look of a city grieving for its loss. A city under siege by unknown sinister forces.
The city looked murky, depressed…and eerily crying out for justice.
The killing had to stop. Evan had to see to that.
HARDLY AWARE of the time passing, Rowen was startled back to attention as they turned into the long drive of the Azariel estate. The lush landscaping didn’t look so attractive tonight. The meticulously groomed shrubs formed dark, somber statues in the night. She felt as if she’d stumbled into a scene from Dawn of the Dead. Not a good feeling.
The few seconds it took to hustle up the massive stone steps and reach the towering entry doors of Azariel’s castle proved sufficient for the wind to cut straight to the bone. She shivered. Hunter tried to shield her, even offered his coat, but she refused. She understood that the coat protected him somehow. She would not be the cause of more pain for him. As much as she’d thought she’d wanted to do just that, she had been wrong. No matter how much she wanted to hate him, merely looking at him like this weakened her resolve.
He didn’t bother with lifting the enormous door knocker, he just entered the castle as if he lived there.
Rowen swallowed back her trepidation and followed him. She wondered vaguely where the butler was. He usually showed up on the steps in anticipation of her arrival. Surely the guard at the gate had alerted the household to the unexpected arrival of company.
Hunter looked in the parlor first. It was deserted.
“Maybe we should call out to him,” Rowen suggested. They were trespassing. Anything they discovered would be inadmissible in a court of law considering they had no warrant of search and seizure. Not to mention the place gave her the creeps. The last time she’d been here, she’d lost several hours of her life.
Hunter shot a look in her direction and it wasn’t necessary to see his eyes to know she should just let him do what he wanted. The grim line of his lips and the hard set of his jaw said plenty.
She trudged up the stairs behind him and ascertained that their destination was Viktor’s suite. She shuddered. At the cold, she told herself. The biting October wind didn’t go well with this damned cave of a dwelling. Whispered voices echoed in the upstairs hall, but she had to have imagined them since no one was around. She hoped she imagined the sounds.
Okay. Pull it together. She wasn’t usually a fraidy cat on the job. She reserved that for home.
The feeling that someone had come up behind her had her pivoting to look. Nothing.
When she turned back to Hunter he waited outside the double doors that led to Viktor’s suite.
“Are you coming?”
Rowen hurried to catch up to him. She didn’t have her gun. What the hell was she doing here unarmed and unprepared for a confrontation?
She should have made Hunter take her to One Schroeder Plaza, should have demanded they stop by her house for her weapon. Her fingers tightened on the strap of her purse where it draped over her shoulder. She did have her cell phone. She should call for backup.
Before she could express that opinion, Hunter pushed open the doors and strode into the sitting room that served as a reception area for Viktor’s bedroom.
Viktor stood near the fireplace, as if he’d anticipated their arrival and had lit a fire for their comfort.
He looked directly at Rowen. “Come, Detective—warm yourself.”
Hunter held up a hand for her to stay put. Rowen looked from him to Viktor.
“Come now, Hunter,” Viktor said, “you mustn’t deny the good detective a place by the fire. She’s freezing. Can’t you see?”
As if on cue, Rowen shivered.
A twitch of Hunter’s fingers gave her permission to join Viktor at the fire.
Strangely, she obeyed. The heat reached out to her like a beacon, drew her across the room. She held out her hands to warm them. Maybe later she would contemplate why she’d allowed Hunter to rule her in any capacity, but right now she was just too weary and cold to care. That Viktor stood beside her was of no consequence.
“You were there,” Hunter accused.
“I was.”
Rowen watched as the two men moved to the center of the room and appeared to square off.
For the third time that morning, she wished she had her Glock.
She turned from the inviting flames and monitored the evolving scene, her heart thundering. Her mind screamed at her to intervene, but some deeply entrenched survival instinct kept her nailed to the spot.
“Did you kill him?” Hunter demanded softly.
The ferocity of his words made Rowen shiver again.
Viktor laughed just lethally. “Now, why would I do that? Had Finch been a donor, I would have been cutting off my own right arm. Since he was not, what would have been the point?”
“Explain your presence.” Another quietly issued command.
Viktor moved in closer to Hunter. Rowen tensed. Too close. Viktor did not appear to be armed, but he was way too close for comfort.
“You know why I was there, brother.”
The reference Viktor used startled Rowen. What the hell did he mean by brother? Her gaze flew back to Hunter. Apparently it didn’t sit well with him, either.
Hunter said something else to Viktor, something crude that perfectly sized up what he thought of the man’s referring to him so intimately.
“I was there,” Viktor intoned—he hadn’t backed off; neither had Hunter—“to verify the identity of the killer you seek.”
“Why would I trust your conclusions?” Hunter asked archly. “You pretend to be so self-righteous when the truth is you prey on those who are weaker, just as this killer does.”
The smile that slid across Viktor’s mouth then made Rowen’s respiration stutter. There was no question the man was good-looking in a dark, mysterious way, but this smile was pure evil. Fear snaked around her heart.
“Look deep inside yourself, Hunter, and you will find your killer,” Viktor returned with just as much disgust and hatred as Hunter had offered.
Was he trying to say that Hunter had committed these murders? Each time Hunter had shown up after the fact, after a murder. Did he have an alibi for the murders?
Wait. This was Hunter. She shook herself. He wouldn’t kill anyone. She knew him better than that.
But did she? Really? He’d told her about the explosion. Serious brain trauma had resulted. Brain injuries changed people. He wasn’t the same man she had known.
Then again, her gaze shifting to Viktor, she didn’t know him at all. He’d drugged her or hypnotized her that time. She certainly couldn’t trust him.
Flashes of memory slammed into her brain next. Viktor moving over her…his breath whispering against her skin.
No. She closed her eyes and suppressed the images. She couldn’t be sure that had really happened. It hadn’t, she told herself. A dream. No, a nightmare. She’d had it many times. But she’d thought the dark man was Hunter…maybe it was.
Her body shook with the effort of dragging her attention back to the battle taking place between the two men.
“Think about it, Hunter,” Viktor urged. “You know who it is. He was one of yours.”
In a move so fast Rowen had to blink just to be sure she’d seen it, Hunter wrapped the fingers of his right hand around Viktor’s throat and practically lifted him off the floor.
“Liar,” he growled savagely. “I knew my men. They’re all dead.”
What the hell was he talking about?
Before she could think about what she was doing, Rowen had marched straight up to the two and grabbed hold of Hun
ter’s sleeve. “Don’t,” she pleaded.
Ten seconds passed before he relented and released Viktor. He turned what she presumed to be a glare beneath those concealing shades in her direction.
“Back off,” he ordered gruffly.
“You back off.” She stepped even closer, putting herself directly between the two men. “This isn’t solving anything. As interesting as watching you two go at each other is, I don’t have the time to waste.” She turned to Viktor. “If you know something, tell me what it is and drop the riddles.”
Viktor smiled again. This time, it lacked the malice of the last time. “She’s a fiery one, Hunter. I should have taken her when I had the chance.”
Had Rowen not been standing between them, Hunter would have gone for his throat again. As it was, the tension of restraining himself radiated off him in palpable waves.
“Answer me, Azariel,” she demanded. “What do you know about these murders?”
“Hunter should be the one to tell you,” he said cagily.
“I’m asking you,” she pushed, determined not to be distracted by his games.
Viktor reached up. Rowen defied the urge to draw away. She would not allow him to see her fear. He touched her hair, then trailed his fingers along her throat. She trembled, but refused to let him see how his touch got to her.
“I watched you with him,” Viktor said, his voice somehow more compelling than usual. Alluring. “I envied him. Wanted you for myself.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t help myself. After all—” he glanced from her to Hunter “—it’s only human to covet what thy brother possesses.”
Rowen felt Hunter stiffen behind her.
“Get to the point,” she snapped, fed up with the tension vibrating all around her.
“I decided to take you.” Viktor licked his lips. She couldn’t help feeling violated somehow by the movement…as if he’d touched her with that viperous tongue. “You won’t remember that night.”
Rowen felt trepidation thread its way through her. He had to be lying. She’d never met him before coming to his house after his call. And she damned sure had no business feeling any sort of attraction to him.
“Hunter intervened—in a sense took your place.”
The muscles of her throat worked with the need to swallow, but it proved impossible. She didn’t want to believe his words…didn’t want to go where this was headed.
“I could have killed him that night,” Viktor said gently, “and he could have done the same to me, but fate had other plans and we both survived.” His gaze shifted to Hunter once more before he continued. “But that night, that commingling of blood made us the same. Brothers.”
The full implication of what his words meant sent her emotions staggering. She braced herself against the dizziness as she turned to Hunter. “Is he telling the truth?”
Without taking his attention off the man he obviously considered his enemy, he answered, “He’s telling his version of the truth.”
“What does this have to do with the South End Murders?” This she directed to Viktor, since he appeared more inclined to talk than Hunter.
“Ask Hunter about his team,” Viktor suggested.
“They’re all dead,” Hunter snarled. “All of them.”
Rowen held her breath, sensed that the revelations to come would change everything.
“No,” Viktor argued fiercely. “You felt his presence just as I did. Even with the drugs, you knew it was him. He’s here, waiting in that place we once knew.”
“Impossible.”
“He’s here. He’s brought us all here together for one purpose.”
“What purpose is that?” Hunter demanded, unconvinced.
“To destroy the only ones who can destroy him.”
“We’re wasting our time.” Hunter put his hand on Rowen’s arm. “Let’s go.”
As he ushered her to the door, Viktor called out to him, “Mark my words, Hunter.”
Hunter paused to look back at him. Rowen did the same. In that infinitesimal moment before Viktor spoke, Rowen felt her world shift. Understood unequivocally that this enigmatic man, either by cooperation or merely by comprehension of the events to come, represented some inexplicable threat to her existence.
“The woman is next.”
Chapter Ten
Rowen kept quiet all the way back into Boston. She’d ordered Hunter to take her home where she could change and pick up her Glock. He’d agreed without argument.
She made a quick call to Merv to bring him up to speed on her whereabouts and offered him a fabricated explanation of where she’d been earlier that morning when he’d first tried to reach her.
Lying to your partner was a cardinal sin in her line of work, and she knew it better than anyone. She would owe Merv a huge accounting when this was over.
Assuming she survived.
The woman is next.
The message written in Finch’s blood on that white sheet made her shudder even though the water spraying down on her was as hot as she could tolerate.
Rowen wasn’t sure she would ever be warm again.
How had Viktor Azariel known about the message? She refused to believe he had any sort of psychic powers; but then again, it wasn’t entirely outside the boundaries of reason. She couldn’t say she didn’t acknowledge that heightened senses, ESP and the like, existed. She just hesitated to lend any credence to the man’s whole bizarre way of life.
He’d said he had envied Hunter…had wanted her for himself. A quivery sensation went through her and her nipples pebbled. Her fingers trailed down and over her breasts, and she closed her eyes as they tingled from her touch. She thought of Hunter and all they’d shared before. She’d only made love once since her time with him. That one time had been a mistake and had left her feeling empty and disillusioned. So she’d thrown herself into work. Had sentenced his memory to her dreams and there he’d stayed…until now.
How could he come back after all this time, after what he’d done to her, and make her feel this way?
Her eyes flew open as she considered that perhaps it was Viktor who turned her on so irrationally. No. She forced her mind away from that scenario.
He could be part of this, for all she knew. In reality, he was involved on some level.
Whether or not he was a good guy, totally twisted in any case, she couldn’t say.
Forcing herself to go through the cleansing rituals, she contemplated the sound judgment of leaving Hunter alone downstairs. He could be gone when she went in search of him, following up on the suggestion that one of his old team members was the murderer in this case. But she doubted he would leave. His need to protect her appeared to override all else.
She just didn’t understand his motivation. If he hadn’t cared enough about her to stay three years ago, why would he care if she lived or died now?
Maybe she wanted to believe he regretted that long-ago decision, but that was really stupid. She was thirty-one. Fantasies were for teenagers still writhing in puberty. She was too smart to do this to herself anymore.
But she wanted to. As if to punctuate the epiphany, her body pulsated with need. Every part of her, she realized as she moved the soap over her skin, felt heavy and achy. She didn’t like feeling this way.
Finch was dead, she reminded herself. So were Ellen Green and Carlotta Simpson. She mentally ticked off the names of the other three victims. She didn’t have time to be thinking about her own selfish desires right now. Nailing this killer had to be her one goal.
Nothing else could get in the way.
Not even Hunter.
After emerging from the shower, she patted her skin dry and made fast work of blow-drying her hair. Time was wasting. Every second she spent on anything else was one she could have focused on the case.
Wearing navy slacks and a matching blazer, along with a white blouse and comfortable flats, she finally felt presentable. She’d pulled on her shoulder holster and nestled her Glock where it belonged.
Generally she wore
her hair in a serviceable bun or French twist. But she hadn’t bothered this morning, so it hung down her back. She refused to consider that the hairstyle had been an unconscious choice to please Hunter. He’d always liked her hair down.
When she moved down the stairs, she found him poring over a local map.
“Have you found something?” The smell of fresh-brewed coffee wafted from the kitchen and, even before he answered, she’d started in that direction.
“I’m not sure.”
Frowning, Rowen poured herself a much needed cup of coffee and rummaged for a breakfast bar. She tried to recall Viktor’s words to Hunter—in that place we once knew.
That had to mean something specific to Hunter.
Maybe he was holding out on her.
Rowen returned to the parlor where he sat at her desk, hunched over the map. She walked over and looked over his shoulder. Boston Harbor. The islands?
“You and Viktor shared an adventure on one of the islands?” she guessed.
“We did.”
She sipped her coffee in an attempt to slow her temper, then said, “Can you be more specific?”
He didn’t look up. “It’s complicated.”
“You know what?” Rowen set her coffee mug on the closest table and tossed her breakfast bar next to it. Hunter looked up this time. “I’m out of here,” she said flatly. “I have a series of murders to solve. I don’t have time to play twenty questions with you, Hunter.”
“Give me five minutes, Rowen.”
Where had she heard that before? And why the hell did her insides quiver every damned time he said her name?
She heaved out a disgusted sigh. “I don’t know, Hunter. I’m reasonably sure I’ve already risked my shield by allowing you at that crime scene this morning. Five more minutes might be more than I can spare. A cop is dead. This city is in a panic.” Every station she’d scanned on the radio as Hunter had driven across town had been reporting the danger of citizens going out of their homes at night. The danger was real. Even the police weren’t safe, the announcers urged.