Variable Onset

by Layla Reyne

  Lincoln grabbed his wrist. “What are you going to do?”

  Determination hardening his features, Carter wrenched his arm free and hustled for the door. “I’m gonna give him another option.”

  Lincoln yelled after his partner. He would have chased after him too, if he could just find his damn boots. Another minute of hunting, he found them under a box lid. He shoved his feet inside, grabbed his coat, and shouted another “Carter, wait!” as he turned for the door.

  Only to have his path blocked by Jeremiah. “He’s long gone. Got in the elevator I got off of. And y’all sure do have a lot of domestics for newlyweds.”

  “Fuck.” Lincoln slung his coat at the chair, missed, and knocked over the stacks of Larry and Barry photos. Photos he needed to go back through. He could do that faster if he wasn’t doing it alone. He glanced again at Jeremiah. They’d trusted Jo yesterday; that had worked out in their favor. Time to trust another.

  “We’re not newlyweds,” Lincoln confessed. “And I need your help.”

  * * *

  Carter approached the black Dodge Charger parked in the far corner of FP’s lot, positioned to give the occupant a clear view of the chancellor’s mansion across the intersection. Also Lawrence Petticoat’s current registered address. Carter rapped a knuckle against the Charger’s window and held up a to-go coffee and bag of muffins, an offering for the car’s driver.

  Jo’s tired face lifted into a smile as she rolled down her window. Accepting the goodies, she took a giant gulp of the coffee and sighed happily. “You sure Mark and I can’t steal you away from Lincoln? Or hell, Mark and I can make a quad work.”

  Carter laughed. “I think that might overload L’s circuits.” He still didn’t correct her assumption. Granted, he’d implied as much when they were at Barry and Trudy’s place, still maintaining some semblance of the cover, but there was no longer any reason to do so with Jo. She knew their real identities. He spun the ring on his finger; this was starting to feel like a real identity too. He and Lincoln were even arguing like a married couple.

  “Fine,” Jo mumbled around a bite of muffin. “Keep your dopey happiness to yourselves.”

  He ducked his chin, hiding his smile, and rested back against the door. “He still in there?” he asked, voice low.

  She nodded. “Met with the insurance adjuster at the station last night, then came home. Hasn’t left since.”

  Carter probably should have called ahead and set up a meeting. Pretended to follow up on the course he was supposed to be teaching at some point this week. But he didn’t want to give Larry the forewarning. He wanted to catch him off guard. This was what he was good at. Reading the situation, and the current one warranted surprise.

  “You want backup?” Jo asked.

  He shook his head. “The both of us approaching might set off alarm bells. I want to get in and get a look around before he suspects anything.” Never mind that Jo would probably lock his ass in the car and call Lincoln to come get his deranged husband if she knew what Carter was really planning to do.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  He tapped the Charger’s hood in parting, then crossed the street among the morning sea of students. Where most of them turned into the quad, he walked a block farther, then turned up the walkway of the big mansion.

  Larry answered the door after the second ring. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was doing an admirable Einstein impression, and he had on a flannel robe hanging open over his uniform pants and undershirt. He gave the distinct impression of hadn’t slept. “Come in,” he tossed over his shoulder, already starting back down the hallway and expecting Carter to follow. “I should have called to update you and check in after the explosion, but with Barry missing, that Weathers girl’s murder, school back in session, and trying to coordinate police activity remotely, things are all out of sorts. I just want to find my brother and Trudy, but there’s all this other shit...”

  Carter interrupted his perusal of the meticulously kept, stately old house to consider Larry’s ramble. It sounded exactly as it should for an overworked police chief worried about his missing family members. It didn’t sound like the ramble of a killer but looks could be deceiving, especially if perpetrated by a trained professional. Hadn’t he just done the same moments ago with Jo? He twirled the ring on his finger again.

  “See you ain’t slept much either,” Larry said. “Lincoln okay?”

  Lincoln’s name and a gust of cold air shook Carter out of his thoughts. Larry stood across the kitchen from him, halfway out an open door. “I’m in the cottage there,” he said, jutting his chin at a second unit behind the mansion.

  “Bathroom out there?” Carter asked.

  “Yeah, but the plumbing’s frozen. That one on your left there—” he pointed toward the open door just behind Carter “—is the only one that works right now. I’ll be in the cottage when you’re done.”

  Was the plumbing frozen or was he hiding something—someone—in that bathroom? Judging by its structural outline, the in-law unit couldn’t be any more than five hundred square feet. Carter would hear or smell if there were a problem. Surely Larry wouldn’t invite him in if he were hiding something in there. He could run, though, while Carter poked around the mansion bathroom. He’d have to depend on Jo if that happened. “I’ll be right out,” he told Larry, then slipped into the bathroom.

  Everything was neat and ordered, not what Carter expected of a single bathroom shared by two bachelors. The chancellor probably had housekeepers. Carter bet Lincoln kept the bathrooms in his house like this. He quickly checked the shower, tiles, toilet bowl, and medicine cabinet. Took some pictures. Inside the cabinet were the usual toiletries—shaving cream, hair gel, and the like, and several prescription bottles, all Ryan’s. He snapped more pictures. Nothing else of note. He flushed the toilet and washed his hands for effect, dried them off, then headed out to Larry’s unit.

  Which was a total mess, nothing at all like the main house, nothing at all like the meticulousness of a serial killer who hadn’t, in twenty-five years, left a shred of evidence at any crime scenes. The cottage was small, as Carter had expected. An open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area, and down a short hallway, a bedroom and bathroom, doors open to both. Not hiding anything. The living area was largely taken up by an oversized desk and stacks of cardboard boxes. “Sorry for the mess,” Larry said, as he moved papers out of a chair for Carter. “Still getting used to these digs.”

  “When did you move in?”

  “After Harry died. He’d stayed with me and June, my late wife.” He sank into the leather chair behind the desk and shuffled more papers around. “She passed a while back, and then Harry too, and I didn’t want to stay out there alone.”

  “Out there?” Carter asked.

  “On the lake. June’s family had a patch of property she inherited. Not as big as the Petticoat land but good size. Big enough for three of us but too big for just me. And I wanted to be closer to town and the station.”

  “Nice of Ryan to let you crash here.”

  “We’ve been friends since childhood. His family never had much, and we had more than enough. He’s returning the favor now, and I don’t think he much liked being in this giant old house by himself.”

  “And you needed to keep an eye on him.”

  Larry froze, two files in hand.

  That was the reaction Carter was waiting for. He was right. There was something here, and Larry had just confirmed as much. And given Carter a reason to go forward with his plan. Lincoln was gonna kill him for it, but they had a killer to catch. Lincoln was doing what he could, and Carter had helped him on that path as much as he could. But it wasn’t enough; he could do more. Had to. Barry’s and Trudy’s lives depended on it.

  Larry slowly lowered the files. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You needed to keep an eye on him,” Carter repeated.

 
; Larry looked anywhere but directly at Carter as he stuffed papers into files. “He doesn’t make a big deal of it. He functions just fine. But still, if he had an episode—”

  “You mean if he fell off the wagon and got high again.”

  Greenish-blue eyes zoomed to him, narrowed, and hardened. “Who are you?”

  Carter shifted forward, elbows resting on his knees. “You know that already. I’m guessing your BFF told you. Or at least who I am. You already knew who Lincoln was. You lured us here, after all.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re Carter Polk, a former soldier who now does survival training. Your husband got a job here, Harry’s old job, and you’re going to do a course for my department.” Larry’s posture remained stiff, but his voice rose with each pronouncement.

  He seemed genuinely surprised, which gave Carter pause, but not enough to deter him. There was something here; he was sure of it. He lifted a hip, pulled out his badge, and tossed it onto the desk, opened. “Try again.”

  “You’re FBI?” Wide-eyed, Larry leaned forward and read, not touching it, as if the badge might bite. “Special Agent Carter Warren.” He glanced back up at Carter. “Are you out here about Stacy? But wait, you were here before that...” He paled and straightened, swallowing hard. “Ryan knows who you are?”

  “He does. And he knows who my partner is too. Special Agent Lincoln Monroe.”

  “Wait, partner? You’re not married?”

  “Undercover.”

  “But the two of you—”

  Carter gambled, with the truth for dice. “Love at first sight, eight years ago when I walked into his Academy classroom. Finally got my chance on this case.” He jerked aside his collar, flashing the hickey Lincoln had left on his neck. “Reality is better than I’d imagined. Living with and around him every day, getting to know him and his fears and sharing mine with someone too. Watching him survive the station fire and play at the church service, even though it terrified him. It made me prouder, made me fall for him even harder. And now I want to do the same. Prove to him I’m not just the hotshot rookie who disrupted his classes, that I can pull myself up from a nobody lost after an accident on the side of the road, from the foster kid who got repeatedly brushed aside, to become a good agent and a man who’s good enough for him.”

  Gasping, Larry slumped back in his chair.

  “Prove to him that I can find Dr. Fear.”

  Larry stopped breathing altogether, his eyes locked on Carter.

  “That I gave Dr. Fear another target besides Barry and Trudy Cousins, because I know Lincoln and I are strong enough to face our fears together and survive.”

  Larry’s wide eyes narrowed, and his face hardened once more. The rapid transformation lifted the hairs on the back of Carter’s neck. Larry had become Chief Petticoat right before his eyes. Possibly also Dr. Fear. “Get out,” he barked.

  “Not denying it?”

  “You came into my home and accused me of a being a serial killer, of kidnapping my own brother and his wife. You think you know me. You don’t know a damn thing about me. Just like I clearly don’t know a damn thing about you.”

  Carter stood. “Guessing that course gig is off the table?”

  Larry tossed his badge at him. “That’s the only guess you got right this entire conversation.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lincoln came to as pressure dug into either side of his neck, pinching the muscles and holding him face down against the table. His heart leaped, his pulse raced, and tension arced through him. Fight or flight? Both? If he lifted his head and upper body off the table with enough force, pushed back the chair hard enough, maybe he could escape...

  “It’s just me, L. Relax.” Rumbly, soft, and not the Georgia accent Carter affected for the townspeople. Nor the unaccented voice he used for FBI interactions. Nor the Jersey he teased Lincoln with from time to time. This voice was a slow, sexy drawl, and the way Carter said the last syllable of relax reminded Lincoln of his college roommate, a Texan.

  Texas. Was it just another accent or was it where Carter had spent his childhood? Bounced around foster homes in the Lone Star state until he’d enlisted? Except, from the hours of research Lincoln was definitely not doing each night, it looked more and more like the accident that had made Carter an orphan had occurred here in Apex. So how had he wound up in the Texas foster care system and not Virginia’s?

  Lincoln’s curiosity peaked, then waned, as Carter dug his fingers into tight, aching muscle. Lincoln’s mind and body noodled. “Not the smartest move,” he said, covering the threatening moan. “Sneaking up on an FBI agent.”

  “Unless you are an FBI agent. And it’s still probably not the stupidest move I’ve made today.” Carter’s fingers kneaded higher, ruffling the ends of Lincoln’s hair, before he removed his magic hand and sank into the chair beside Lincoln.

  Lincoln did groan then, in protest, and Carter chuckled. He hauled him upright by the back of the shirt, and Lincoln scrubbed his hands over his face, chasing away the sleep. “I thought I made a stupid move today too,” he admitted. “But it wasn’t. Maybe yours wasn’t either.”

  “You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

  “I asked Jeremiah for help.”

  Carter lurched forward in his seat, a hand on the back of Lincoln’s chair, the other grasping the edge of the table. “You what?”

  Lincoln reared back, as much as Carter’s boxing-in allowed. “He’s not a suspect.”

  “The fewer people who—”

  “Know the better, yes, I remember, but he knows where everything is in here.” Lincoln swept an arm toward the rows and rows of archives outside their workroom, boxes and file cabinets full that Jeremiah had expertly raided. “He knows what to look for and where to find it.”

  Carter’s knuckles went white. “And I don’t?”

  That stung and took Lincoln’s observation completely out of context. “That’s not what I said.”

  “So you just picked the first person who came down here?”

  And stung some more. Lincoln angled to meet him head-on, his own anger rising. “Earlier you said you realized how hard this was for me. Do you have any idea how hard it was telling Jeremiah the truth? How disappointed he was when I told him we’d be leaving? That I wasn’t here to help him? The poor kid is drowning, and I took away his fucking life raft. So no, I didn’t just pick the first person who came down here. I picked the person most likely to help us, even though he was the hardest person to tell.”

  The stiffness in Carter’s arms gave way, his elbows collapsing, and he dropped his chin to his chest. “Fuck, L, I’m sorry.”

  “We’re tired and on edge, I get it, but don’t take it out on me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lincoln reached out and loosened Carter’s fingers, one by one, from the death grip they still had on the table. “Don’t take it out on the furniture either.”

  Carter snorted an exhausted laugh. “What’d you find?”

  Dread settled in the pit of Lincoln’s stomach. His news wasn’t going to help Carter’s dark mood either. He drew four piles of photos toward them. “Pictures of Larry from around the time each cycle started.”

  Carter spread out the pictures. His eyes narrowed, and his jaw tightened, lines forming at the corners of each. He was seeing the same thing Lincoln had—a happy man, not one who looked distressed or like he needed an escape from his life.

  “He’s smiling in all these,” Carter said.

  Lincoln gestured to a pile on the adjacent table. “In those too.”

  “What are those?”

  “Pictures of Larry in and around town during Dr. Fear’s cycles.”

  Carter’s voice rose. “He’s got an alibi?”

  “Technically, he could have gone back and forth but it makes it a lot harder. And that doesn’
t square with the profile.”

  “But that—” he jabbed a finger at the alibi stack “—doesn’t square with the way he acted this morning.”

  The dread in Lincoln’s gut dropped to his feet, a lead weight taking his stomach with it to the floor. “You went to see him? Without me?”

  “You were busy here.”

  “He’s our prime suspect.”

  Carter gestured, arms wide, at the stacks of photos. “You’re telling me he’s not.”

  Not the point. “You went there without backup.”

  “Wasn’t needed.” Carter shot out of his seat, too quick for Lincoln to grab a wrist or handful of fabric. “I didn’t intend to make an arrest.”

  “What did you intend to do?”

  “The same thing I’ve intended to do since we started this. Give Dr. Fear another target.”

  Lincoln stood more slowly, unsure of the steadiness of his legs. “What did you do, Carter?” he asked, voice shaking, sure he wouldn’t like the answer.

  “I told him who we were.”

  Nope, didn’t like it one bit, but Lincoln’s knees weren’t wobbling anymore, infused instead with indignation. “You told him who we were? After you just reamed me out for telling Jeremiah the same. Jeremiah, who we’d eliminated as a suspect, BTW.”

  Carter sneered. “BTW.”

  “What?” Lincoln snapped.

  “You’re forty-two and you talk like a teenager.”

  “Because I have one! You’re thirty-two and you leave your shit all over the place. What’s your excuse?”

  Carter rocked back a step. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”

  Lincoln tried to rein in his voice, tried to get them back on track. “I feel like you’re so focused on Larry being Dr. Fear that you’re looking for confirmation instead of assessing the whole picture.”

  “Are you saying I don’t know how to do my job? Or do you just not care anymore, now that Ollie’s kid’s been rescued?”

  So much for back on track. Anger took the wheel, speeding around dangerous curves. “That’s horseshit.” Lincoln spread his arms toward the tables covered in work. Covered in how much he’d cared since dropping everything and rushing here last week, staying here even after Ruby and Chase had been rescued. “Does this look like I don’t care?”