“This way, sir.”
An agent he’d never met before led him and Dancer through the businesslike reception area on the twenty-third floor of the federal building, toward an unused conference room in the FBI’s Manhattan headquarters.
Marsh handled the painting cautiously, mindful of the priceless nature of the work and all the excited bodies buzzing around him like bees in an overheated hive. They’d packed it in acid-free paper and bubble-wrap. With laser induced fluorescence the forensics experts might get lucky and find a usable recent fingerprint or trace evidence, but latent prints didn’t last long and chances were the thieves weren’t that stupid. Until they could arrange safe transport to the crime lab, the painting needed to be stored somewhere secure. He didn’t think it got more secure than the heart of FBI headquarters.
Lights blazed. The grinding noise of a fax machine shrieked through the air and resonated through his ears. A tiny portion of his brain wondered what was going down, but the rest was focused on where this investigation might lead. This was the biggest potential break they’d had on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery in years.
Gloria Faraday had dissolved into a hysterical mess, but Philip had turned the fiasco into a media stunt and sworn to help the authorities in any way he could to capture the thieves who threatened legitimate business.
Marsh and Dancer had photographed every piece exhibited at the gallery and requested inventories from Total Mastery Galleries worldwide. More agents would descend tomorrow to go through the books and determine provenance for every item the gallery showed. Marsh didn’t know if the Faradays were innocent or guilty, but with a little manipulation they might lead him to information he’d been hunting for years.
Focused on the job, he flicked an uninterested glance across the bullpen. Enlarged photographs were pinned to one wall. Pictures of mutilated women.
He stopped dead.
Dancer bumped into his back as Marsh turned toward the images. His heart drilled a hole in the wall of his chest.
It wasn’t the brutality of the pictures that rocked his world. It was the pattern of the wounds.
A group of agents huddled over a desk, gesturing toward the photographs and punctuating sentences with sharp jabs and sour expressions. One agent looked up, a flare of recognition zipping through his eyes before he walked over to where Marsh and Dancer stood gawping like a couple of schoolgirls.
The agent stuck out his hand, raised his voice over the goddamned fax machine that still screeched through the air. “Agent Cole, sir. I took some of your undercover courses in Quantico.”
The young agent followed Marsh’s gaze to the photographs, planted his hands on his hips. “This sick sonofabitch got another one down in the Village earlier tonight. We’ve got some guys from BAU consulting and we’re trying to link the last two victims.”
Marsh nodded, but his throat was full of coarse sand and his heartbeat dampened to a mute thud that barely kept him upright. “Where?”
“Sir?”
“Where. In the Village?” He forced the question out over the background noise because, God help him, Marsh was praying with everything in him that he was wrong.
Agent Cole stuffed his hands in his pant pockets. “Grove Street. Scene’s a mess.”
The world crashed and Marsh stumbled slightly.
“You all right, boss?” Dancer murmured, holding him upright with an iron grip on the back of his thousand-dollar jacket.
No. He jerked his head. Not all right. He hadn’t been all right since the day he’d walked away from Josephine Maxwell in a cow pasture in Montana. Right now he doubted he’d ever be okay again.
Forcing his legs to work, Marsh shoved the 17th Century Dutch masterpiece into Dancer’s arms and turned back the way he’d come.
Josephine lived on Grove Street.
Josephine had scar tissue that matched those mutilated women.
Faster and faster he moved. Legs pumping even though he felt like he was wading through zero gravity. Panic stabbed as the noise and bustle of the office exploded through his senses and he broke into a run to the elevator. Ignoring the alarmed glances, he thrust the doors apart and slid inside the metal tomb and rested his head against cold steel. Heard his heart racing through his ears as if it were being broadcast over a loudspeaker. Sweat beaded his brow and scored a line down the side of his face. He loosened his tie, jerked open the top button of his shirt.
Why did I leave her alone? Why didn’t I protect her?
Because she didn’t want you. She never wanted you.
It shouldn’t have made any difference.
Somehow he was in his car with no memory of having got there, peeling out onto the street. Traffic wasn’t heavy on the Avenue of the Americas. Yellow cabs mostly. He wove in and out of the steady stream and jumped a red light.
Sweat filmed his body and made his starched white shirt stick to the skin across his shoulders. He blasted fresh air into the suffocating interior of the BMW, the draft scouring his face, helping him regain a little control.
Pictures flashed inside his brain. Sliced flesh. Pooled blood. He tried to put the images of death and silky, matted hair out of his mind, but it was impossible. Perspiration dampened the palms of his hands and made the grip on the steering wheel slippery. He wiped them on his thighs. Nausea coiled in his stomach, but Marsh seized it and clamped down hard on the panic—let his training take over. Blowing lights and breaking speed limits, he pulled onto Grove Street in record time.
A beat cop tried to bar his way, but Marsh flashed his badge and was waved through. Parking behind a squad car, he got out, slamming the door behind him, the noise echoing off tightly packed buildings like a gunshot.
When the echoes faded it seemed unnaturally quiet. The hiss of traffic far away. The rustle of slender branches nothing but a gentle crackle on a cold wind. Marsh focused on the black door one hundred yards up the street. It stood wide open. Lights from the foyer flooded down the three stone steps and metal railings threw skeletal shadows across the sidewalk. Crime scene tape sealed off the area. Police officers kept a subdued crowd of reporters and spectators at a distance.
Josephine’s house.
Atheist or not, he started praying.
He held his badge high, pushed through the onlookers, and dipped under the tape past a green-looking rookie. They exchanged a silent look and Marsh nodded, climbing the three steps, his heart vibrating in his chest. He braced himself. He was a professional. Everything was under control. A gurney with a body on it was pushed out the door, the wheels squeaking.
Josephine…
He reeled and averted his eyes. The woman he loved was dead because he’d been too stupid to realize she was in danger. Too cowardly to risk rejection. He took a deep breath as the gurney rattled inelegantly down the steps and was lifted into a waiting wagon. He grabbed the railings, not knowing how to walk or even if his legs worked anymore. Grief wanted to shove him to his knees and make him howl. The woman he loved had been murdered and he’d never get the chance to make things right. Why hadn’t he tracked her down? He hadn’t stopped thinking about her for months, why the hell hadn’t he at least called?
“Who’re you?”
Marsh looked up into the sharp eyes of an NYPD detective and reminded himself this was a murder investigation. He wanted to know what the hell evidence they had and how close they were to nailing this sick fuck.
Marsh took a handkerchief out of his top pocket and wiped his brow. “FBI.” He fumbled for his shield and hoped to hell it didn’t show that inside he was dying.
“Another one? Jesus-H.” The balding detective stood back to let him through, rubbing at his moustache. “At least we got a lead this time.”
A lead? “You working this case?”
The detective flicked a glance over his sweat-drenched appearance as if deciding whether or not to trust him. Whatever he saw must have worked.
“I worked the first two vics. Ran it through ViCAP, got hits in D.C. and Ne
w Mexico.” He glanced over to the gathering crowd as if mentally tallying faces. “The feds took over and then Interpol got involved. We figure this perp has been active for more than a decade. The Blade Hunter, the press calls him.” The cop gave a derisive snort and his moustache quivered as an Evidence Response Team dusted for fingerprints in the hallway behind him. “Sick bastard. Cutting up blondes all over the world.”
Marsh pressed down hard on the bridge of his nose, swallowed the bile that formed as he envisioned photographs of Josephine’s dead body pinned beside those of the other women.
“You’re not on this case, are you?” A suspicious note entered the detective’s tone.
Marsh’s phone vibrated on his hip. Grateful for the momentary respite in answering the cop’s question, he held up his hand in apology. He pulled it out, found a text message from Dancer asking him what the hell was going on.
“SAC Marshall Hayes? To what do we owe the pleasure, sir?”
Marsh glanced up from his cell phone. A tall wiry Supervisory Special Agent from the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico reached over the local detective’s shoulder to shake Marsh’s hand. Lifting his gaze further, Marsh connected with the cobalt eyes of the woman who haunted his dreams.
Josephine.
His world spun. He gripped the doorjamb tighter, fingernails cracking the smooth black lacquer paintwork. His breath rasped in his throat as the world leveled and relief burst loose inside his chest.
Alive. She was alive.
Beautiful.
Dressed in black jeans and a black sweater with a drab army jacket thrown over her shoulders, her skin appeared almost translucent under the fluorescent light. Fear and vulnerability tightened her expression, but she hid it by narrowing her gaze. Her lips curled in their usual scathing manner.
He didn’t care. She was alive—and apart from looking a little shaken up, she seemed as pissed as the last time he’d seen her. She’d pulled her silver-blonde hair back into a ponytail. Her deceptively delicate features were set in a heart-shaped face that disguised a vicious tongue and a mean temper. For the last six months he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.
Why her? It didn’t matter why. He’d thought she was dead and it had reduced his life to meaningless ashes.
Marsh wiped the sweat out of his eyes and remembered the SSA’s name. Agent Nicholl. He was a damn good agent.
His heart settled back into a normal sinus rhythm and he took a deep breath absorbing the fact that she was not dead, not bleeding, not hurt. A huge rush of relief swamped him and suddenly it didn’t matter that they didn’t even like one another. Because, despite all the differences between them, despite their complicated unconventional dealings, she was alive and he wasn’t ever letting her go again.
* * *
Josie curled her fingers into fists and stared down at the face of the one man she’d hoped to avoid for the rest of her life. Make that two men she’d hoped to avoid—both of whom had showed up tonight. She glared at Marsh, wishing she was anywhere but here. Wishing she was a better person, a normal person.
Last time she’d seen him, she’d acted like a brat and told him she couldn’t stand him. He’d helped rescue her from a hostage situation, and had feigned ignorance to protect her best friend Elizabeth Ward from being arrested. Instead of thanking him, she’d been a bitch. And she’d spent every day since regretting her actions.
Butterflies the size of vultures took flight in her stomach. Marshall Hayes looked as slick as ever, but thinner, the lines around his mouth cut sharper, deeper. His hazel eyes pinned her and for a moment the relief she saw there staggered her. But then the cold hard mask of law enforcement slammed down over his features and he blanked his expression until she wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except someone had tried to kill her.
She swayed slightly, her tongue welded to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t swallow. Panic began to build and she started to tremble. She’d tried to lock her reactions up inside, needed to survive the police interview so she could get the hell out of NYC. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gone on the lam.
“I came to see Ms. Maxwell.” Marsh was speaking to the tall fed, Special Agent Dickwad, though his eyes never left hers. The second fed, the cute one whose name she’d already forgotten, hovered on the stairs beside her trying to persuade her to come down to FBI HQ to make a statement.
She’d rather stick needles in her eyes.
“You two know each other?” asked Special Agent Dickwad.
Marsh smiled. She looked at his calm features and envied his cool authority. Marshall Hayes drew power around him like Superman wore a cloak. Arrogance and integrity shone from the lean lines of his face—Mr. By-the-Book. But he was more than that. Much more.
He returned her gaze unflinchingly, those intense eyes looking deep inside her soul as if searching for something…
What had the cop asked? Did they know each other? Reacting instinctively, knowing she’d shatter if Marsh showed her the slightest kindness, Josie laughed, wincing inwardly at the brittleness of the sound.
“Oh, we know each other, all right.” She flashed a suggestive smile, knowing the effect it had on most men. Except Marsh. He was immune to her charms, suspicious of anything except her barbed tongue.
The NY detective grinned, spreading his moustache in a wide arc. Special Agent Dickwad colored up and fed-number-two coughed up his sleeve. Marsh stared at her as if she were a small child whom he was patiently waiting to behave. Anger rose inside her, frustration and fear coalescing into anger. Anger was good. Sure beat the hell out of being scared out of her tiny mind.
“You want the keys to your handcuffs back, Hayes?” Propping one hand suggestively on her hip, she grinned at him, super-confident, super-sexy. The last thing she expected was the savage flash of anger that flared in his eyes. Involuntarily she took a step back, and banged her heel on a riser.
“Cut the bullshit, Josephine. Tell me what happened.”
Alarm bells jangled as her survival instincts took over. She shivered. He was more dangerous than most people realized. She’d never forgotten that about him. Had never forgiven him for not falling for her act.
“I don’t think Ms. Maxwell knows much, sir,” Special Agent Dickwad whispered in an undertone that suggested she was a simpleton. As she’d spent several hours fostering that image, it shouldn’t annoy her so damn much.
The fed’s manner turned even more obsequious and she rolled her eyes. “The victim—a woman called Angela Morelli—was found dead in the ground floor apartment. We believe Ms. Maxwell disturbed the killer as he was leaving the building. Maybe he figured he’d risk taking a second vic, but one of the neighbors came home and raised the alarm.”
She sucked in shallow little breaths to hide her distress, but was dismayed when tears blurred her vision. A woman had died here tonight and this guy spoke like she was just another data point.
She used both hands on the banister for support and closed her eyes. Is it my fault? If she hadn’t been back late from her appointment would he have left Angela Morelli alone? Except, being an artist, she didn’t have a fixed schedule. The bastard had been hiding in the stairwell waiting to ambush her, but he’d already butchered Angela in cold blood.
She wanted to run and hide but everywhere she turned there was someone in her face, pushing at her for answers she refused to give. She sensed Marsh standing close. After all these months she still recognized his scent; his heat. Her mouth went dry and her heartbeat raced. She opened her eyes, nerves exploding, all her panic buttons screaming to get the hell away from him because he was one of the few people with the power to hurt her.
“You fought him off? This experienced serial killer?” Marsh’s hazel eyes swept over her with disdain. “With these?” He poked her bicep and she jumped.
Rubbing her arm, she pinched her lips over words too dangerous to say. Anger boiled beneath the surface of her skin, circling like a shark looking for a kill. She was stronger than she
looked and the sonofabitch knew it. Never the model of restraint or propriety he was trying to goad her into making another mistake. They had too much shared history for her to con him and she’d treated him too badly for him to swallow a single word she said.
She should never have drugged him all those months ago. She’d planned to kiss him until he passed out and she could escape, but that plan had blown up in her face. They’d had sex, once, blisteringly hot sex. But he hadn’t seen her naked, didn’t know the secrets carved into her skin. No one knew except the man with the knife.
“Leave me alone.”
Detective Cochrane sniggered. The two feds supposedly running the show looked at each other with raised brows and a great big question mark. Marsh went to touch her again, but she flinched and one side of his mouth twitched, telling her how much she’d given away with that one small movement.
Backing up a step, she addressed the second fed, who’d questioned her in the apartment. “I’ve told you everything I know. I’m done here.”
Marsh followed. “Is that right?”
His eyes were so intense they glowed. He grabbed her around the waist and she gasped in shock at the contact. Somehow he turned her around in his arms, slid her effortlessly in front of him like she weighed nothing at all, her feet dangling uselessly over the step.
“Get off me!” She struggled, kicking and hitting, but her fists bounced off him with no real effect. His scent enveloped her, crisp expensive cologne over strong healthy male. The sensation of his hands burning a familiar path over her skin excited and infuriated her all at the same time. But after what she’d been through tonight, the last thing she wanted was some guy manhandling her like a freaking doll.
Through her fury she watched the stunned expressions of the men below her. Then she realized Marsh was lifting her sweater.
No. No. No. Dammit!
She panicked, grabbed onto his forearms, felt the strength in those muscles. She twisted harder, but his arms were a vise, holding her to him.
Cold air caressed bare skin for the second time that night. His arm shielded her nudity, one hand cupping her breast like it belonged there. His absolute determination burned through her struggles and she went rigid with fury.
Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors Page 173