by Misty Evans
Sociopaths. Understanding one was never easy.
She’d learned long ago that privacy came at a cost, but it had been worth her sanity. The ranch was her personal oasis. She’d started over after Roland left, bringing her work home. The horses, her patients, men like Will who needed someone to believe in them again, even the dogs…it all added up to her life’s mission. If she couldn’t heal herself, she damn well would help others. Especially those who might have made some life-altering mistakes.
Her tangled hair took a minute of work to comb out, then she wrapped it in a high bun and secured it. Agent Holden needed healing, she could see it in his guarded eyes, hear it in his sharp tongue. He had the bearing of a military man, so maybe he’d experienced something like Will that made him irascible. Maybe it was his family or a girlfriend. Whatever it was, it wasn’t her business. He hadn’t come to her as a patient; he was here to protect her.
I can damn well protect myself.
She’d proven that once already.
Still, Agent Holden was a fine looking man and she hadn’t had anyone like him inside her home in a long time. Simple compassion and understanding could do wonders for some people and maybe that’s all he needed. Kindness cost nothing. She could handle that.
She found herself digging out her makeup bag and putting on mascara. A swipe of lipstick too. Makeup was normally reserved for client meetings though lately she didn’t even bother for her clients who were too wrapped up in their own sad worlds to care. And these days she did zero socializing, so a bare face was her norm.
Oh, my. A handsome, testy man shows up at my door and I’m suddenly a fifteen-year-old girl again.
What the hell. Lipstick and compassion never hurt anyone. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.
Adding earrings, she gave the mirror one last glance. Took the clip from her hair—too business-y—and shook out the bun. She looked good, smelled better, and had her armor in place.
Time for a cookie and that cup of tea she hadn’t finished. As she started down the stairs, she realized she was hungry for more than a cookie. Maybe a little psychoanalyzing of a certain intelligence officer working for Victor Dupé’s violent crimes taskforce. That job sounded extremely interesting. What made him tick?
Her pulse sped up at the idea of digging under Agent Holden’s skin. Outside of Will, she hadn’t evaluated anyone but child clients in a long, long time. The concept of adult conversation with a sexy stranger who posed no danger… Well, that might make her night and then some.
Agent Holden was trying to keep up a solid front. Underneath that snarky, tough exterior, lay an emotional guy dealing with some deep, dark, painful shit. She’d bet her multiple degrees on it.
Lucky for him, deep, dark, painful shit was her specialty.
Chapter Three
Dr. Collins returned in a flourish of smiles and a fresh-from-the-shower citrus scent. The two dogs didn’t smell nearly as good.
She’d left her hair down, soft curls falling over her shoulders as she hustled down the stairs. With the dirt and straw gone, Mitch now noticed streaks of blond in the curls. Her jeans were well-worn and sported a fashionable rip on one thigh, but he had the sense that it wasn’t fashion so much as life on a ranch that had caused it.
Nothing special about her shirt—just a picture of a horse and a rider on a plain yellow tee. Except the cotton was tight across her chest, emphasizing full breasts he hadn’t even noticed when they’d been under the robe. The yellow brought out her pretty eyes.
Pretty eyes? Jesus, he was fixated on those damn things.
“How’s the coffee?” she asked, blowing past his watchful stance at the front door on her way to the kitchen.
His gaze fell to her ass like a magnet drawn to steel. He absentmindedly petted the Labs as they greeted him once more.
Tearing his gaze away, he hardened his will. “Weak,” he said, the good manners his mother had taught him once again absent. For some reason, he liked jabbing her. Liked the fact he couldn’t seem to rile her up.
“Hmm,” was all she said.
Obviously, he needed to try harder.
The first floor was secure; he’d seen no signs of unwanted visitors lurking around outside. Phones and sat towers were still having issues, but an e-mail from Dupé had gotten through. He’d been delayed for another hour.
The sounds of banging cabinet doors and soft humming drew him to the kitchen.
A cup sat on the counter, the tea kettle on the stove heating. Collins was digging in the cookie jar. She pulled out two chocolate concoctions with white chips in them and grabbed a napkin from a stack on the small table nearby. Her lips, now the color of fresh strawberries, closed over the edge of a cookie as she took a bite. She pointed to the empty coffee cup in his hand. “Would you rather have tea? There’s still coffee, too, of course, and I couldn’t help but notice that although you thought it weak, you drank it. Perhaps you’d like more?”
“No thanks.”
While she’d been upstairs, he’d kept thinking about her motorcycle comment. Too bad, she’d said. Was she feeling like him, wishing she could ride the hell out of here and never look back?
Didn’t seem like it. She plopped into a chair and eyed him, chewing her cookie. “Any update on Chris?”
“No.”
“Would you like something else while we wait? A soda? A sandwich?”
What was wrong with her? “There’s a murderer on the loose and all bets say he’s coming after you. Instead of tea and cookies, I suggest you get your stuff and we bug out.”
She swallowed, flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder. “I’m not leaving.”
Oh, crap. “I thought we were past the stranger-danger shit.”
“Stranger danger?”
“You let me into your home. You made me coffee and offered me cookies. If you have a problem going somewhere with a ‘strange man’, you can put that fear to rest now. I’m not a stranger anymore. I’m the good guy trying to save your ass.”
She smiled at him, not a happy smile, but a patient, tolerant one. Her slender fingers worked over a napkin. “This is my home. I have horses, dogs, a man who lives on the property. Clients who depend on me and need their therapy sessions. I can’t simply pack up and leave, Agent Holden.”
A man lived on the property? Interesting. Employee or something more? Was that why she didn’t want to leave? “If you end up dead, what good are you to any of them?”
“You are blunt, aren’t you?” She took another nibble of her cookie. “I won’t let Chris Goodsman kill me. At least not without one hell of a fight.”
Forget her ass that he couldn’t keep his eyes off of, those lips were a thing of beauty. She had a couple of cookie crumbs on the bottom one. He suppressed the urge to reach out and wipe them off.
The kettle whistled. Collins left her chair, licking her lips and catching the crumbs on her tongue, nearly making Mitch moan. She poured hot water over a tea bag. “I understand this puts you in a tight spot with Victor. I’ll talk to him and let him know it was my decision and you did a fine job of trying to talk me out of it.”
He didn’t care about Dupé and his assignment at the moment. What person in their right mind would put themselves in harm’s way for no good reason? “It’s only until Goodsman is caught.”
“Which could be hours or it could be months.”
Months. Thank God all he had to do was get her to the safe house and then he could be done with her.
She played with her teabag, hurrying the steeping process. “There’s no guarantee he’s coming for me. He may already be at the Mexican border and the authorities will never catch him. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to live in fear and give up my life? Sorry, that’s not going to happen.”
“Do you really believe that? That Goodsman will run and disappear and never come after you?”
The tea bag stayed in the cup as she returned to her seat, sipping at the warm liquid. “Chris lives for fame. Going into hiding and living a
life of seclusion doesn’t seem like his style, but sociopaths are often unpredictable.”
Then why the hell would she sit there drinking tea when the man might be outside? “Pack your bags and let’s get the hell out of here, Dr. Collins. The safe house is very nice, I assure you, and I’ve got to be honest, even with those guns you say you have, you’re no match for a guy who killed his fiancée and managed to escape jail.”
“Haven’t you been honest all along?”
What? The woman was a loon. She was also his responsibility until Dupé showed up. “At least go with me to the house tonight. We can come back in the morning and take care of the animals, check on your…the man who lives here…and reschedule your clients.”
“So you haven’t been completely honest with me.”
“What does my honesty have to do with any of this?”
“You’re good at deflection, aren’t you? Turning things around so you don’t have to reveal anything about yourself. Except by doing that, Agent Holden, you’re actually telling me a great deal.”
“Stop psychoanalyzing me.”
“Sorry, habit.” She gave him that smile again, not looking sorry at all. “I’d really like to enjoy my tea and talk. I don’t get many visitors who don’t need my services. What branch do you work for under National Intelligence? Or is that top secret?”
She leaned forward, her eyebrows waggling.
Seriously? Mitch rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t force her to leave. All he could do was keep her safe until Dupé arrived and then he could bail. He’d have to text Dupé and give him the news—Dr. Collins wasn’t going anywhere.
Yeah…that news could wait. He needed a break from NI, and he liked working with the taskforce. No way he wanted Dupé to know he couldn’t handle this simple matter. He preferred getting through the holidays by focusing on the arsonist, but for now, he had to ride out the force of nature sitting before him.
Maybe he could still get Collins to that safe house. If he played nice, got her to trust him, he could talk some sense into her. Dupé never had to know he sucked at being a bodyguard.
“I’m sort of a…subcontractor,” Mitch said. “I work for different agencies, depending on the situation and what they need.”
“That sounds fascinating. Doing what?”
Positioning himself at the back door, he stared out the slender window at the night. The wind had kicked up—bad for the wildfires—but other than trees blowing around, nothing else moved. He glanced back at her. “Let’s call it…threat management analysis.”
She chewed her cookie and rolled a finger for him to go on.
Talking about job specifics was a no-go. Ditto for talking about himself. He stayed quiet, giving her only a mirror impression of her fake smile.
Giving up wasn’t in her nature. Either that, or she refused to take the hint. “How did you end up on loan, as you called it, to Victor’s taskforce?” she asked.
Victor. Again with the first name that suggested a certain level of friendship, of intimacy. Mitch never thought of Dupé—the freakin’ director of the FBI’s West Coast division—as Victor.
The taskforce wasn’t a secret, although keeping the identities of the agents on the taskforce under wraps was crucial. If he watched his p’s and q’s, he could give her a little background on them and up his chances of getting into her good graces. And, maybe if he was lucky, he could gain her trust and be the one asking the questions. She seemed to be in a chatty mood. Anything to convince her to leave. Get her to that safe house and out of his hair.
“The Southern California Violent Crimes Taskforce deals with drug kingpins, gun runners, human traffickers, and the like,” he told her. “Many of the criminals they’re after have dealings with terrorists and people on Homeland’s watch list. My expertise with national security and counterterrorism comes in handy on occasion, and sometimes they need a warm body to fill a hole when a bunch of them are undercover. Dupé requests my assistance, and if I’m in country and available, I make every attempt to meet that request. Gets me out here in the sun and surf.”
“Do you analyze threats to the United States or to the taskforce itself?”
“Both.” Time for quid pro quo. “How do you know Director Dupé?”
She gave him that smile again, letting him know his deflection wasn’t going unnoticed. Fuck that. He didn’t care.
“Victor and I met at my first criminal trial,” she said, her hands around the tea cup. “I was an expert witness for the defense; he was an expert witness for the prosecution.”
Mitch could imagine those fireworks. Time for some reverse psychology. “How’d that turn out?”
“Like I said, it was my first trial. I was wet behind the ears, as Victor loves to remind me, but I knew my subject matter well. The defendant suffered from disassociate amnesia and had no memory of committing the murder she was charged with. Victor, on the other hand, had profiled her and believed she was a serial killer who’d gotten away with multiple murders over a span of several years.”
Keep her talking. “Who was right?”
“We both were. The court ruled the defendant mentally unstable at the time of the crime and she was remanded to a psych hospital for further evaluation. There, under hypnosis, it was revealed she had multiple identities and one of those identities admitted to several other murders. That personality took over and committed the crimes, and she had no memory of them.”
“Damn.”
“Classic textbook for both of us, yet neither Victor nor I suspected she suffered from disassociate identity disorder. I had interviewed her but she didn’t fit the classic DID model, so I ruled it out. She claimed there was no deep trauma in her past that would cause such a mental break. We had no records of other physical or mental issues.”
“So what caused it?”
She shrugged. “We don’t know. I believe there might have been a trauma in her early childhood that caused a break with reality. Probably happened to her around age two. Unfortunately, no amount of therapy or further hypnosis was able to identify the original cause, but I suspect she witnessed the death of her grandmother who died in the home around the time our perpetrator was two years old. The grandmother supposedly died in her sleep, but me being me, I could spin another story that would fit with the defendant’s psychosis. She may have witnessed one of her parents killing the grandmother, or she herself may have been playing—experimenting with a pillow or something—and somehow managed to asphyxiate the grandmother, who was quite frail according to reports and regularly took a sleeping pill.”
She obviously relished retelling this case, but an exit was beginning to look further and further away. “Wow, you have quite the imagination. Who did the gal kill?”
“She was a nurse standing trial for killing a patient in the long-term care facility of the hospital she worked for.”
“The others were patients too?”
“Every one of them. Frail, older people, on many medications that extended their life, but certainly not the quality of it.” She kept her hands wrapped around the teacup but didn’t drink. “Victor and I crossed paths again down the road with Chris Goodsman. Marlie Klein, the woman he killed, was actually Susie Warren, a girl who went missing from Gum Pond, Arkansas, back in 1997. She was five years old. The FBI believed her mother’s boyfriend kidnapped her when her mother ended up in jail for a petty crime. The mother never reported her missing. Somehow, she ended up in Los Angeles, living in a commune of other people much like her—outcasts from society with dubious backgrounds. Chris met her while she was waitressing at a club he frequented.”
If she was going to recount every detail, he was going to have to make other arrangements in case trouble came to them first.
“I don’t remember any of that coming out when she died.”
“Victor kept it quiet. He was hoping to catch the man who had kidnapped Susie. It’s his One—the case he never solved. He was a field agent in that area when it happened, and it still eats at him after
all these years and all of his career success.” She seemed to know Dupé better than he did. In that case, he would know how difficult she could be.
Back to reality and the here and now. “If we’re going to continue to stay here, we should move to a safer room. I’ll kill the lights.”
“You’re good at your job, aren’t you? Hyperaware of everything, even while carrying on a conversation with me.”
“You really should get a security system—cameras, motion sensors, the works.”
She sat back and studied him, tea still cupped in her hands. “The dogs are my security system. They alert to strangers.”
Dogs were a good alert system. “That’s great if you’re scaring off a burglar, but two dogs alone won’t stop a killer.”
She gave him an amused look, even though her eyes went hard. “That’s what the gun is for.”
Damn, she was stubborn, and he was bent, because that look on her face was turning him on. She wasn’t scared in the least. Accepting, yes. Ready to defend herself, absolutely. But could she take on Goodsman and make it out alive?
Mitch’s phone rang. Turning his back on the doctor and doing a stroll through the main floor of the house, he answered. “We’re good,” he told his boss by way of greeting. “Collins is safe.”
“Are you on your way to the safe house?” Harris asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
There was no way around it—he had to tell Harris the truth, but he still hesitated. Failure sucked. “She refuses to leave the ranch.”
For the next minute or so, Mitch listened to Harris rant. He tried getting in a few words, but Coop was on a roll. Dupé would have both of their hides for this, yada, yada, yada.
By the time he’d checked all the doors and windows a second time, and satisfied himself that there were no unwanted visitors creeping in the shadows outside, he’d walked two full circles around the first floor. On his second round, he realized the house was dark. The kitchen light was off.