Dressed in the usual politician’s attire of thick wool suit with perfect hair and nails, Senator Margret Tremont looked every inch the power-broker. The woman’s gaze raked him from top to bottom and found him wanting.
“What’s going on here?” she demanded.
“Mom meet Alex Parker. Alex Parker meet my mother, Senator Margret Tremont.”
The air around them vibrated with tension. He wondered if Mallory felt it too.
He held out his free hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Senator.”
“Is this why you didn’t come for Thanksgiving?” She pointedly ignored his handshake and he moved his lips into a cold smile. Not good enough for her daughter—check. Not that he didn’t already know that.
“No, Mom. I told you. I was working.”
“Mallory,” the senator’s West Virginia accent was just noticeable beneath the steel, “I need to speak to you alone, please.”
Mallory’s gaze flicked to him and then back to her mother. The tight look was back around her eyes. All laughter gone. “Mom, I’m busy. Can’t it wait?”
“It’s about your sister’s disappearance.” Her eyes were as hard as glass beads.
“I was just going to the Smithsonian with Alex.” Mallory sounded defensive and angry. She’d decided not to tell her parents about the pajamas until after the crime lab techs had gone over them. The price of deceit was measured in guilt and Mallory already shouldered enough misplaced guilt to last a lifetime. “Can’t it wait a few hours?”
“Maybe Mr. Parker could leave us for a few minutes while we discuss this private family matter.” The senator’s voice sliced the air like a knife.
He’d spent a lifetime obeying orders and all it had earned him was contempt and fear. But it was obvious to anyone with half a brain he’d just spent the night with Mallory and that was never popular with parents. She had every right to be pissed.
Common courtesy demanded he give them some privacy, but as he tried to move away, Mallory’s hold on his fingers tightened and she refused to let go of his hand. He squeezed her back, trying to offer reassurance. Whatever it was he felt for her was morphing into a protective urge that included keeping her safe from her own mother.
The senator’s disdain for him was obvious.
“Just come on in, Mom. Alex isn’t going anywhere.”
The words both thrilled and terrified him. He was playing a foolish game. His feelings for this woman kept growing stronger, more intense. It wasn’t just sex. And he didn’t want to hurt someone who’d already suffered so much.
The senator stepped inside the door and glanced uneasily around obviously worried she’d find physical evidence of their orgy. He let go of Mallory’s hand. “How about I get everyone a drink while you guys talk?”
The senator pinched her lips. “Don’t bother, Mr. Parker. Stay and hear all about the family skeletons. You’ll find out soon enough anyway.”
With that ominous statement she went over to the couch and perched on the edge. For the first time he noted the strain etched around her eyes and mouth. It reminded him that while she was a politician, she was also a mother who’d lost a child.
“Do you still have the signet ring Daddy gave you when you were little?” she asked her daughter.
Mallory frowned and then turned on her heel. She came back a few moments later with a wooden jewelry box he’d spotted on the top of her dresser. She raised the lid and removed a small silver ring and held it up.
The senator opened her briefcase and handed her a piece of paper. “This was just sent to the editor of The Washington Mail. He graciously sent me a photograph.” Her tone dripped venom.
Mallory put a hand over her mouth and sank to the sofa beside her mother. “Oh, God.”
Alex stepped forward and peered at the image. It was a photograph of a signet ring with the initials PR engraved in the middle of a heart-shape. His blood chilled as he looked at the ring in detail. Shit. The coincidence in the timing—the emergence of a killer who carved the letters PR inside a love heart on the chest of young women with long dark hair, and all this new evidence turning up in the Payton Rooney case after eighteen years? Worst case scenario had just become the most likely reality.
“This just turned up?” he asked.
“The editor received it in the mail Friday. His researchers at first linked it to a new serial killer, but it’s so small they knew the ring must belong to a child. Then he remembered Payton and called me to see if I recognized it.”
“You think it’s the real deal, not an elaborate hoax?”
“It’s the real thing.” She pointed to an image showing the hallmark. “It’s made of platinum, not silver. Unless he had access to the jeweler’s records he wouldn’t know that. The police always described it as silver but it was platinum.” She folded her hands back into her lap.
An uneasy feeling slipped through him. He took the photograph from Mallory and examined it closer. When he met her gaze the shadows under her eyes were dark as bruises.
“Who has the ring now?” Mallory asked.
“The editor sent it to your colleagues in the FBI.” The senator was shaking with suppressed emotion. Mainly anger but grief too.
“Good,” she said. So much for one weekend of normal. “The techs will find something to catch this guy. Finally.”
“There’s more.” The senator pulled a folded newspaper from her bag and put it on Mallory’s lap.
Ah, shit.
Mallory blinked rapidly. “They ran the story already?”
“I suppose they didn’t want to give me the chance to sic my lawyers on them.” Her tone was sharp, but for her this might be good news. After all, someone out there knew something about Payton Rooney’s abduction and was taunting law enforcement with crumbs of information. The attention of the press could fuel that monstrous ego and force him into making a mistake.
Mallory unfolded the front page and groaned. Alex cursed. There was a big photograph of Mallory in her FBI guise, beside another one of her and her sister as little girls. He didn’t like the way the media was focusing in on Mallory like this. He examined the senator and could tell she didn’t like it either. The fact she’d been the one to constantly thrust Mallory into the limelight didn’t seem to register.
Alex had no doubt the person taunting the Rooneys was the same person killing these young women and probably the same person who’d stolen their little girl all those years ago. The motif of those initials in that heart-shaped ring was too precise to be a coincidence, the use of the press to garner attention? It all screamed classic serial killer on a mission.
Had he confronted her sister’s killer in Mallory’s house in Charlotte that day? It seemed a little too coincidental to have a random break-in when all this other shit was going down. If he’d been less bothered about his own skin could he already have eliminated this problem?
“I’ve got something to tell you, Mom.” Mallory took her mother’s hand. “I didn’t tell you before because the FBI wanted to be sure first, but I think this seals it.” Mallory told her mother about the pajamas. He could feel the senator’s anger. Fury that her daughter hadn’t told her the instant she’d found out. “Don’t be mad.”
The senator forced a smile and climbed to her feet, brushing off her skirt. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers about where Payton is. I have to go. I have a brunch appointment with a Supreme Court judge.” She paused. “I know you think I was the one who got you this new position in Quantico, Mallory, even though I told you I didn’t.” Alex saw Mallory flinch probably because he was here. She’d insisted and her mother was punishing her for it. “However, I hope regardless of your feelings, you take full advantage of this opportunity to make the FBI step up their efforts to find Payton.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mom, but I can’t promise anything.” Mallory sounded despondent as she hugged her mother.
Margret Tremont narrowed her eyes at him over Mallory’s shoulder. “Look after my daughter, Mr. Parker
. She’s all I’ve got.” Then she surprised him by shaking his hand before she left.
The phone rang. Mallory checked the number and looked up at him. “It’s work.”
He nodded. “You should probably answer it.”
A dimple quivered in her cheek. “So much for our first date.”
“We don’t date, remember?” He took her face in his hands and kissed her. “The Smithsonian will still be there next week.” He could almost see what she was thinking in those large expressive eyes. “You’ll be here too, Mallory. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” But his words couldn’t dispel the cloud of doubt. For the last eighteen years this shadowy figure had haunted her family. Now he was killing women who resembled Mallory and Payton Rooney. Alex was going to make it his mission to catch the sonofabitch and make sure she didn’t disappear the same way her sister had. When he found the bastard, regardless of what The Gateway Project sanctioned, he was going to make sure he never hurt anyone ever again.
***
Mallory sat at the conference table surrounded by the same colleagues she’d met not so long ago. The only difference was they now eyed her like a witness rather than a fellow agent, and looked a damn sight happier about it.
“You really think the person killing these women is the same person who took Payton?” she asked again. This was a hell of a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
“The MO has changed,” Barton conceded.
“He’s been inactive for eighteen years.”
“Not necessarily.” SSA Frazer raised a finger at her and she wanted to raise one back, a different one.
“There’s a gap in what we know about him, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t killing.”
A chill moved through her body but Mal refused to acknowledge it. She needed to be professional enough to discuss this.
Frazer continued. “For some reason about a year ago something happened to trigger a rash of murders in this area, all with the same signature. And now I think they are related to the Payton Rooney case.”
“Who’s probably been dead for eighteen years,” Henderson put in.
Most children who were abducted were killed in the first couple of hours.
Mallory crossed her arms over her chest, wanting to hide what she was thinking because it would sound so out there, but she couldn’t. “I think he kept her alive.”
Frazer stared hard. “Why do you think that?”
She pursed her lips but these guys already thought she was an idiot so who cared. “Because I could feel her.”
“Are you telling us you’re psychic now?” Henderson’s skeptical brows disappeared under her frumpy bangs.
“Not psychic. It’s a twin thing. I can’t really explain it,” Mallory surveyed the faces of her colleagues. Outside, snow had started to fall. Alex was in the car waiting for her. It gave her the impetus to go on. To get this over with. “Our whole childhood we shared a connection. I knew where she was in the house, I knew when she was hungry and even what she was hungry for. I knew when she was sad and when she was hiding a secret.” She dug her nails hard into the palms of her hands. “I can’t explain it, but it was like we were hungry and we had a secret. I didn’t even know that wasn’t normal until I was older.” She licked her lips. “When she disappeared I still felt her even years afterward though it wasn’t as strong. That connection ended sometime around last October. I woke up one morning and she was just...gone.”
Henderson leaned forward across the desk and jabbed her pen toward Frazer. “This is why she shouldn’t be here. She’s going to affect how we view the case.”
“She might be the reason we finally crack it,” Frazer argued. He stared at her for another long moment then looked away. “This is the first year you didn’t appear on TV talking about your sister’s abduction, correct?”
She nodded.
“I think the killer was pissed and wanted to get your attention.” Frazer spoke to his team but never took his eyes off hers. “That’s why he sent you those clothes and the media that ring. He wants you to know he’s out there. He wants you to know he took Payton and killed those other women so you don’t forget him.”
“The cases are so different though—”
“Maybe.” He pressed his lips together. “But not necessarily. If you’re right and your sister was alive all these years, then maybe he had whatever it was he needed to curb that killing urge.”
The idea her sister might have been alive all this time made her stomach spasm. And if her theory about Payton being alive was correct should she have told the FBI about it years ago? Should she have explored it more? Pushed the authorities even though she knew they’d already exhausted every lead?
Mallory’s hands were shaking so she hid them under the table. So much for being in control. Barton watched her with a hint of pity but Henderson looked like she was getting ready to deliver a killing blow.
Mallory lifted her gaze to Frazer’s. “Each of the women he kills is his attempt to fill the void created by Payton’s death?”
Frazer looked uncomfortable. “It’s a theory.”
“He’s looking for a replacement,” Barton stated.
“In that case, there’s an obvious factor you aren’t stating out loud, SSA Frazer.” Henderson’s voice was sharp.
He flicked a scowl in her direction but Mallory spoke up. “It’s okay. I think I’ve already figured that the perfect replacement for my identical twin sister would be—in theory—me.”
“Why only in theory?” Frazer asked intently.
“Because we have—had—very different personalities. Pay was a rule follower. Always polite, never argued. She was really sweet.” She caught Henderson’s eye. “I’m not that way.”
“I suggest that if this person ever gets hold of you, you play along with being exactly what he’s looking for,” Henderson said. “Otherwise he’s gonna beat the crap out of you and then strangle you with his bare hands, the way he killed those other girls.”
“I can take care of myself.” She thought of Alex, so determined to look after her that he was camped out in his car in the parking lot. She was going to have to figure out a way to persuade him she didn’t need a 24/7 bodyguard, except...she liked being with him. But she needed to stand up for herself and do her job. This person had taken enough from her already.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Frazer cleared his throat. “It’s possible he’s already inserted himself into your life at some point. Is there anyone you’ve become close to recently?”
Her throat closed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Name?”
She glared at him. “It isn’t him.”
“Then it will do no harm to run a background check. Name?”
She gathered her papers and tablet into her bag. “Alex Parker.”
Barton’s eyes widened a fraction as if she recognized the name.
“He’s a security consultant. He consults for the government, including the FBI.”
Frazer gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Handy. We should have a file on him then. Any other things happening in your life lately that might be considered suspicious?”
Damn, what wasn’t suspect about her life right now? “There was a break-in at my house in Charlotte just before I transferred—I assumed it was just a normal attempted robbery.” Her skin went cold. “But there were two men involved so it was probably just a coincidence.”
“Unless there are two killers working together?” Barton suggested.
Frazer swore and made some notes. “I’ll talk to the detective on the case. Anything else?”
She frowned as she thought about the flat tires in the parking lot. But Henderson would no more admit to that prank than the UNSUB would give himself up. It would probably be a massive waste of time. “Nothing.” Disgusted, she pushed her chair back.
“One last thing,” Frazer pointed the pen at her. “We discussed it on the way to West Virginia.”
Before or
after I puked?
“I want you to submit to hypnosis.” She flinched. “There’s a wealth of information untapped in your brain. I want it.”
She rose to her feet. “Fine. Whatever,” she snapped. She’d stopped caring about making a good impression with these people. The idea she’d figure out who—if anyone—was in league with a vigilante was becoming more and more ridiculous. “When?”
Frazer smiled and she felt like she’d fallen into a trap. “How about right now?”
***
Alex sat in the passenger side of his Audi working on his laptop. He was figuring out the most efficient way to run searches on cell tower information near where each of the PR-killer’s victims were believed to have been snatched, and comparing them to cell phone data from near where the bodies were found. He also wanted to access information about the victims’ phones too. Positional data. It sounded easier than it was because first he needed to hack into all the major phone companies involved and cross-reference. If he found a pattern or a connection with a specific person he’d suggest the FBI gain warrants so they could use it in court if it ever came to that.
He didn’t need court-worthy evidence. Just enough to convince The Gateway Project he’d found the right person. Trouble was, he was finding it harder and harder to believe The Gateway Project had a better way of dealing with criminals than the traditional justice system.
Do what Uncle Sam tells you. Obey orders and your conscience is clean, like any good soldier. But being a soldier on US soil, taking up arms against fellow Americans wasn’t legal. In a court he’d be the one convicted of murder—hell, he was guilty of murder. The legitimacy of the shadowy organization was starting to bother him. Not just because he knew who’d pay the price should their activities come to light, he didn’t like the realization he might not be any better than the monsters he hunted.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman approaching his car. He closed the laptop, rolled down the window.
“Alex Parker?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
From the sharp lines at the side of her eyes when she smiled she was probably early forties. Black hair, black eyes. Trim. Compact. Was she the one who’d let down Mallory’s tires? He’d done a little digging but he hadn’t had much time to run thorough background checks yet. “I’m Special Agent Felicia Barton. Agent Rooney is going to be longer than expected—”
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