Blind Rage

by Terri Persons

  She gulped the remainder of her wine. “Creed.”

  “What?”

  Cupping the empty wineglass between her hands, she propped her back against the edge of the counter for support. “Ruben Creed has been…accompanying me.”

  “Stalking you?”

  “He showed up at the restaurant yesterday. That was the first time I’d seen him outside the office.”

  “That’s why you looked ready to puke when I came back from the can.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why didn’t you say something then?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t want you to think I was loony tunes.”

  “How can he be…offsite?”

  She took some weird comfort in Garcia’s businesslike description of Creed’s behavior. Her dead partner was “offsite.” “I’m what’s haunted, not the office.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “That’s how Creed explained it. He says—” She looked down at the empty wineglass in her hands.

  “Spill it.”

  She looked up. “He says he scared those bums away for me.” She smiled weakly. “A good thing, right?”

  Garcia went up to her, put a hand on her arm, and walked her out of the kitchen, taking the wineglass out of her hand as they went. “I’m staying the night.”

  Garcia’s offer came too quickly, and it made her nervous. “No, you don’t have to stay. I mean, not for protection…Ruben wouldn’t hurt me. He’s been helping me.”

  Garcia set the wineglass down on the coffee table. “You don’t sound too convinced of that yourself.”

  Bernadette dropped onto the couch. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  He pulled off the towel and rubbed his head with it. “I don’t like this one damn bit. I’ll get dressed and make us dinner. I can crash on the sofa.”

  “It’s my own fault. I let him hang around the cellar. He even started helping me. Doing computer work on the case.”

  He sat down next to her. “Tell me everything, from the beginning.”

  “Don’t be mad. I really need a friend right now. Believe it or not, you might be my best friend. How pathetic is that?”

  He threw an arm around her shoulders. “I feel the same way, except not the part about it being pathetic.”

  Laughing, she looked up at his damp face and tousled hair. She opened her mouth to continue describing Creed’s office appearances and suddenly felt Garcia’s lips over her own. She put her hands on his chest to push him away but instead savored the feel of the hard muscles under his shirt.

  Groaning, Garcia peeled his mouth off hers. “We shouldn’t do this.”

  “Yes, we should,” she said hoarsely.

  Garcia kicked the coffee table away from the couch. Together, they slipped off the cushions and went down on the floor, with him on top of her. “Am I too heavy? I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I won’t break,” she said.

  He cupped her breast through her T-shirt while his mouth went to the side of her neck. She put her hand over his and moved his fingers under her shirt. He trapped her nipple with his large rough palm. “You feel so good under my hands. So beautiful,” he murmured, his mouth gnawing her breasts over the thin cotton.

  Cradling the back of his head, she pressed him closer and arched her body into his. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

  Garcia’s body tensed. He raised his torso off hers and looked down at her with half-shut eyes. “I am so sorry. This is a mistake.”

  “A mistake?”

  He gently disengaged her arms and rolled off her. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he said to the ceiling, and got to his feet.

  She propped herself up on one elbow and watched him. “Where are you going?”

  He scooped his clean clothes off the kitchen chair. “I’ll get dressed and get out of here, if you feel safe. If you’re sure Creed won’t do anything.”

  She ran a hand through her hair and got to her feet. “I want you to stay.”

  “That’s why I need to leave, before this turns into an even bigger mistake for the both of us. For our careers.” Hugging his clothes to his chest, Garcia went into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

  She sat back down on the couch, unsure of what to do. She hadn’t seen this coming, but Creed had. Could he look into the future, or was he simply a good judge of the male character? Both possibilities were annoying.

  The bathroom door popped open, and a fully dressed Garcia walked out carrying the bag of dirty clothes. “I’m so sorry this happened. This was my fault entirely. A big mistake.”

  She followed him to the door. “Stop calling it that. You’re making it sound like a—a checkbook overdraft.”

  He spun around. “I want you so bad it hurts. I haven’t had a serious thing since my wife died, and I have a feeling we could—”

  “We could!”

  “I gotta go home and take another shower.” He turned around, opened the door, and left.

  “We could,” she said to the closed door.

  Bernadette shuffled back to the couch, dropped onto the cushions, twined her arms around her torso, and bent in half.

  “I told you so.”

  She didn’t bother looking up at him. “I was hoping you’d say that. It’s just what I need right now.”

  “You’re going to get in trouble, missy. By becoming attached to each other—”

  “We aren’t attached. We’re both lonely and in need of a good lay. Stop reading so much into it.” She got up from the couch, marched into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator.

  “I could go for a beer,” he said to her back.

  She exhaled an exasperated surrender and reached inside for two bottles. “St. Pauli?”

  “St. Pauli is great.”

  PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY

  Copyright © 2008 by Missing Persons, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Persons, Terri

  Blind rage / by Terri Persons.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation—Officials and employees—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.E815B56 2008

  813'.6—dc22 2007041278

  eISBN: 978-0-385-52667-8

  v1.0

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38 />
  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Copyright