by Lexi Blake
Charlotte frowned, her eyes narrowing on her husband. “You didn’t say anything about this to me. I thought you were allowing the film crew in because Serena asked you to.”
Big Tag sat back. “I didn’t tell you because you would have talked to Serena. I need you to understand that this has to look good. I know the club runs on gossip, but I can’t have anyone talking about this. I love Serena like a sister, but she can’t keep her mouth shut. You can. You kept it shut for five years when you could have called me and said, ‘hey, I’m alive, baby.’ I’m calling that in here and now and you know why.”
Charlotte softened, her hand moving to cover his. “I do and I won’t breathe a word. I promise. You know I want this to work as much as you do.”
Kai looked over and saw Case’s jaw tighten. There was an underlying current he didn’t quite understand. Every line and expression on Case’s face told Kai that he wanted to say something, but couldn’t.
The question was why.
Charlotte looked back to Special Agent Rush. “All right, so you’ve been tracking a serial killer. What exactly makes you think he’s involved with this particular film crew?”
It was Kai’s turn to lean in. “He doesn’t actually think it’s a film crew member. If you’ll look in the information folders, you’ll see that there’s only one true pattern. The murders have taken place over the course of three years. We have victims in Vancouver, Los Angeles, New Mexico, Australia, London, Croatia, and New York. Every single killing coincides with a film crew being in the city. More specifically, they coincide with a movie or television show starring Jared Johns being filmed in the area.”
“The first victim we know of is a woman named Carrie Reynolds,” Rush explained, his voice altogether too academic. He pressed a button that lowered the lights and started the slide presentation. A brown-haired woman was smiling on the screen. “She was a production assistant on the set of the TV series Polly’s Practice. It filmed in and around LA.”
Kai couldn’t help but groan. It had been Jared’s first big television role. He’d played a secondary character, an EMT who had a relationship with the much older psychologist, Polly. Kai had not watched that show. Nope. Even reading a single synopsis had made him want to pull his hair out. He would never watch a show where all the doctors slept together and with their patients and with the pizza delivery people and probably their dogs. Definitely not one where the lead slept with his brother. Though sometimes he caught Jared’s various commercials for whatever he happened to be hawking that week.
“Is there confirmation that Johns knew her?” Charlotte asked. She looked up from the photos in the folder. “You know, Kai, this guy looks a lot like you. A little younger, more muscular version of you. And look at those dimples.”
Naturally Charlotte picked up on that. “Not that much older, and I would have those muscles if I spent all my time in a gym and had a personal trainer on me twenty-four seven. Forgive me for having actual work to do.”
Alex nodded Charlotte’s way. “The actor in question’s legal name is Jared John Ferguson. He’s Kai’s younger brother.”
“Whoa,” Charlotte said, leaning back. “I did not see that coming. I’ve watched that show religiously and I didn’t see the resemblance until I was looking at a photo of him and sitting in the same room with you. Wow. You have a ridiculously attractive brother.”
“So I’ve been told and yes, there’s proof that Jared knew Carrie, though according to all reports, they were only coworkers.” It was time to bring this back to the discussion at hand. “There’s nothing that states he had a relationship with her that went past the set.”
“Well, there were rumors afterward,” Rush said. “I didn’t put them in the packets because they can’t be confirmed, but there was talk that she’d been seen coming out of Jared Johns’s trailer late one night. However, she was the production assistant. They tend to do things like fetch and carry for the stars. We couldn’t find any of her friends who would say she’d had a relationship with him. They did say she’d spent a lot of time on set and was seeing someone, but she wouldn’t give them a name. She was a quiet girl and she seemed to keep mostly to herself. She was found in her apartment with multiple stab wounds. No sign of forced entry and no prints to be found.”
“Did my brother have an alibi for the night of her murder?” He had to. It was ridiculous to think that Jared would stab someone.
“From what we can tell, he was out all night. He spent the night at a party at a friend’s house. We’ve very quietly investigated this. The people at the party that night were wasted. They remember someone giving Carrie a ride home, but no one can remember who.”
That was unhelpful, but then it reminded him of what Jared’s life had always been like—a never-ending wave of parties he could barely remember and girls whose names he forgot. “Let’s move on to the second victim. She was in London where Jared was filming some science fiction movie.”
“Yeah, something about an alien princess and her warrior,” Rush agreed. “Her name was Veronica Kath. She was not working on the actual production. She was a local who worked at a bakery. She delivered to the set every day for the course of the filming. She was found dead in her apartment two days after filming wrapped. Six stab wounds. Unfortunately, we didn’t put her in as a victim until a few weeks ago. The police in London had an open case file, but it was marked as a homicide committed during a robbery. There was a rash of robberies in that part of London that spring.”
“So we’re not certain she was a victim of the killer we’re pursuing,” Eve said.
Rush shook his head. “The MO is the same and I think the killer is using the same knife. Our best guess is it’s a jackknife. Not the best blade in the world, but when you’re close enough it’ll do the trick. The same types of wounds on each victim. Again, no fingerprints were left but there was a lot of chaos at this scene, which is what threw the police off. There was a struggle.”
“Anything on CCTV?”
“It’s a crowded part of London and there’s no direct camera on her building, but we have a couple of males going past the building at the time who match Johns’s height and general build. I do have confirmation that he stayed in England a week after filming ended. There’s zero indication that he sent flowers, attended the service, or gave any indication that he knows the woman is dead. Or any of them.”
“Do we have anything that links him to the victim?” Charlotte pointed to a picture of Jared in his Dart costume. “Because it’s not a bunch of muffins. This man does not eat carbs.”
Yep, there was a reason he didn’t talk about his brother. “There’s a picture of him talking to her. It was put on the film’s social media site. They did outtakes every day and one of them was a shot of Jared leaning over and talking to a pretty brunette who turns out to be the victim.”
“In each case, it’s the same,” Rush said with a frustrated sigh. “There are no firm links to Johns. There’s rumors and innuendo, and most of the time the victim died and wasn’t acknowledged at all by the crew because they were in the process of moving to the next set.” He clicked through a series of photos, all of them smiling girls. “We have stories that Johns met Mila Maric at a Croatian nightclub he frequented while he was filming there. She was found in a back alley. Leslie Paul was a New York based actress who was an extra on Johns’s last film. Her body was discovered in her apartment. I can go through them all but the information is included in your packets along with our profile of Johns.”
Kai felt his jaw tighten at the mention of that profile. “Yes, I read it. Your profiler claims Jared could be killing in an attempt to punish his mother. She couldn’t be more wrong. Jared loved our mother.”
Rush’s eyes came up, locking with his. “You’re too close to the situation.”
“I am a fully trained psychologist and I’m perfectly capable of divorcing myself from the situation long enough to seek out the truth. Jared is many things, but he’s also the kid who brought home
every stray he could—animals, people. He collected them.”
“And the violence in his background?” Rush challenged.
“He was arrested twice for fighting when he was in high school. Both times the charges were dropped because it was self-defense. He hasn’t been in legal trouble since.”
Rush shrugged. “Perhaps because he has people around him who take care of the situation. Look, Ferguson, if I could have left you off this case I would have. I don’t like bringing in family to situations like this, but it was the only way to get close to this guy.”
“There’s another way,” Kai shot back. “You man up and bring him in for questioning. We can do it right now. I’ll call him in and we can settle this without all the spy shit.”
“But the spy shit is so much fun,” Big Tag drawled. “And have you thought about what would happen to Jared’s career if the feds brought him in for questioning? The tabloids would be all over him. His endorsement deals would dry up. He could be proven innocent, but that taint never goes away.”
“Mr. Taggart is correct.” Rush began shuffling through papers, straightening and organizing. “If we brought the suspect in for questioning, the press would be all over him and us. The last thing the FBI needs is bad press, so we’re working this quietly. I like Johns for the killings, but he wasn’t the only one at each site. He has an entourage and they go with him everywhere. Our in-house analyst has offered profiles of each of them. We’ll be watching Johns and the rest of the team very carefully.”
Charlotte whistled as she looked through the reports. “Wow. This could fill a book of bad behavior. The publicist has a drug problem. His agent’s ex-wife accused him of assault and battery. Nice one. Why would anyone go by Squirrel?”
“He’s like a puppy, always chasing after something new and shiny,” Kai explained. He hated the fact that his life was spread out on a piece of paper like some fiction for everyone to read. It was Jared’s file, but Kai had lived it, too. “Or at least he was as a kid. He struggled in school. The nickname stuck.”
“He’s got a nasty background,” Eve murmured. “His father went to jail for beating his mother and he was left behind. It says here he spent some time in your home.”
“He was one of the strays Jared brought home. He lived at our place for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still living close to Jared.”
“The trainer’s been accused of selling steroids,” Big Tag pointed out. “There’s not a single one of these guys with clean hands. And I can tell from this picture that the assistant has crazy eyes. We should look into her. It’s always the chick with the crazy eyes.”
“Unfortunately, he’s often right.” Charlotte closed the file. “I’ll very quietly look into these guys. I don’t buy that it’s Kai’s brother for several reasons. He’s too hot to be a killer.”
“Yes, because a man’s ability to do pull-ups while wearing three pounds of makeup means he couldn’t possibly be a murderer,” Big Tag shot back.
Charlotte’s eyes sparkled in the low light of the conference room as she obviously baited her husband. “He’s the real deal, Ian. He was on that Ninja warrior show as a celebrity guest and he got all the way through the course.”
Watching Ian and Charlotte mix it up sometimes made Kai long for a partner he could spar with. Like he and Kori sometimes did. That woman didn’t bother to temper herself around him any more than Ian did around his wife.
“Those aren’t ninjas, baby,” Ian replied. “Those are dudes who spend a lot of time in the gym. When they can do all that shit while someone’s shooting at them, I’ll call them special. When they can do all that shit while someone’s shooting and be invisible and stab someone at the end, then I’ll call them ninjas. Jared Johns is a meathead who trains fourteen hours a day so he can look pretty on a salmon ladder. I have no idea how he got cast as Pierce Craig. I finally sat down and read that book.”
Everyone with the exception of Special Agent Rush seemed to go still.
Alex seemed to stifle a laugh. “And what did you think of Serena’s hero?”
“You know what? I have no idea why the guys are so hard on her. Serena is a damn fine writer. This character has the douchiest name and sometimes he’s a big old pussy, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. Everyone gets all over him, but the dude is doing what’s best for his team. I read the whole series and I don’t get why it took so long for readers to warm up to this guy. He’s obviously the hero. Some of the books were better than others, but every time this guy steps on the page, the book lights up. I think she’s got something with this character.”
“Did he seem familiar at all?” Kai couldn’t help but poke a little. “I’m only asking because you have so much in common. Pierce Craig runs a security agency. You run one.”
Big Tag waved it off. “That’s Serena writing what she knows. I get that. And there are a few similarities, although Pierce Craig was in Delta Force and I was a Green Beret. My only issue is he’s practically a saint, but all the people around him are assholes. He’s a very misunderstood guy.”
“And not very self-aware,” Charlotte concluded with a gleeful smile. “I think we should leave it at that. Like I said, I’ll get someone looking into the entourage.”
Rush shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. We’ve got our best people on it.”
“Your best people don’t include my sister, and you have to follow all those inconvenient rules. We don’t have to do that.” Charlotte pushed her chair back. “I’ll share whatever we find. I’m going to go and get ready since it looks like I’ll be having a long talk with the subs tonight. While I have you here, Kai, did you spend any time with our mystery sub?”
Ah, this was one McKay-Taggart subplot he did know about. Roughly three weeks before, a woman named Mia Danvers had applied for a slot in the training class. She’d come highly recommended from an Austin club and had the money to pay for a full membership. The timing had been perfect as Big Tag was trying to find unattached subs and Doms. She also seemed to have the money and connections to forge her identification. Mia might not know it, but she’d been made the minute someone put her file in Adam Miles’s capable hands. Someone had done a decent job of putting together her cover, but Adam, like Charlotte’s sister, Chelsea, was phenomenal when it came to hacking personal data. He’d had a full write-up on the lovely blonde within two hours of getting her file.
“She’s a reporter. Why is she still here? Is there a reason we haven’t given her the boot?” Case asked. “Hell, I’d like to know why she was allowed into the class in the first place.”
“Because I’m curious,” Big Tag said. “She’s a freelance reporter. What’s she reporting on? According to Adam, she hasn’t sent anything to an editor except a few opinion pieces that are unrelated to anything having to do with Sanctum. She doesn’t typically write undercover pieces. For the last couple of years, she’s mostly written about Austin business. Now she shows up in Dallas? She’s asked a bunch of questions about McKay-Taggart.”
“Not to mention the fact that Danvers isn’t her birth name,” Kai threw in. He’d figured this out a while back. He’d gone to Ian about Mia Danvers. It was precisely how her file had ended up with Adam. Nothing in her evaluations made him think she was violent, but he’d suspected she was hiding something. “Lawless. It’s her brother who interests me. Apparently they’ve tried to hide their family ties. At least on paper. There are four siblings, but only one still uses the family name.”
Rush was suddenly sitting up. “Lawless? Are you talking about Andrew Lawless? As in 4L Software?”
Ian nodded. “Yes, she’s the sister of Drew Lawless. Her other brothers are legally known as Riley and Brandon Lang. This family has done a lot to hide their connection and stay private. Adam said it took him a very long time to unravel all the paperwork and link them together. Riley and Brandon work for 4L, but as far as we can tell not even the employees there understand they’re related to the boss. It’s very suspicious. I want
to know why a billionaire’s sister is snooping around my club asking questions about my business.”
“Because she’s working for The Collective,” Case shot back. “It wouldn’t be the first time that group sent in a reporter to gather information and cause chaos, or do you forget the London op from a few years back? Which is precisely why we should shove her out on her pretty ass.”
Charlotte put a hand on her brother-in-law’s shoulder. “Or we keep her close and watch her. She’s here for a reason. Let’s figure out what it is. If we toss her out, they’ll likely send in someone else and then we’ll have to start all over again.”
“If she’s Collective, I doubt she understands what she’s involved in.” Kai had spent time with Mia. While she was hiding her identity, he didn’t buy that she was working to bring down McKay-Taggart. She was a woman he would bet would try to do the right things. “Read my profile on her, Case. She’s the kind of woman who could be reckless if she thought it was for a good cause. I think she’s actually in need of some protection herself.”
Case shoved back and stood. “She’s not getting it from me. She wants to come in here and try to take my family down? She has no idea. She can get her ass back to Austin. Her brother’s billions mean nothing here.”
Case stormed out, the door slamming behind him.
So that seemed like a firm “no” on reading Mia’s file and giving her a fair shake. “Her story’s more complex than he thinks.”
Ian closed his file as well, standing and indicating that this particular meeting was over. “That whole family is fucked up, but it doesn’t mean that her brother’s not involved in The Collective. I go through what he did and maybe I’m not so picky about my business contacts either. Anyway, I’ll talk to Case. I think he’s our best bet when it comes to figuring out why she’s here. She’s shown zero interest in her training Dom. I think she wants a Taggart, and Case is the only one whose penis isn’t tethered to a female. And Kai, I know this isn’t easy for you. I appreciate everything you’re doing.”