by Marie Harte
“Now that’s just not true. What about that gift you gave me this morning?” She blushed and glanced around her, recalling the stellar blowjob that had him crying out her name. “You don’t have any mind readers in the family, do you?”
“Just Dana, but she’s not here tonight.”
“Thank God.”
He chuckled and kissed her.
She pushed his chest and broke the kiss. “Don’t start. I want to sit down and plan this out. Your Christmas present to me is catching this creep. He’s waiting for me. You know it, and I know it. Now let’s nail him down and take him out.
Permanently.”
“Hell.”
“Yeah, of my making. Now where is Josh?”
When Josh returned two hours later, she gave him a piece of her mind. He took it in stride, even managing to look repentant when his parents pretended to scowl at him. His other brothers gathered with them around the large dining room table. Kyle and Justin, the twins. And Sam, their middle brother.
Then Josh handed them the file Jack had given him. The lighthearted warmth previously lingering in the room turned cold as the family and Chloe pored through the pages her team had gathered.
After going through all of it, Chloe didn’t know what to say.
“He’s bad news.” Julia shook her head. “Steward Hopkins, age thirty-two, no wife, no kids. A middle manager at the local grocery store. He looks so average, doesn’t he?”
“I’ve seen him at the gym.” Chloe had a hard time swallowing. This man, this monster, had smiled at her and made small talk whenever he’d come in to work out.
How could she not have seen how evil he was?
Xavier stood up and left the room. He returned a minute later with a glass of water. “Drink.”
“Thanks.” She swallowed the whole glass without pause. “God. This guy is a freak of the first order.” She took a closer look at the papers. “Nathan is a genius.”
“Nathan?” Josh asked. “He didn’t look all that smart to me.”
“Be nice.” Xavier chuckled. “Tell us, Chloe.”
She explained. “Nathan’s gift is psychometry, the ability to tell certain things by touching an object. He didn’t get anything from a scrap of cloth I snagged off Psycho Stan. Or should I call him Psycho Stew?” She sighed and pointed to the information in the file. “But when he touched the shirt I’d been wearing when I’d been attacked, the part the stalker had gripped at the collar, he caught a lot of detail.”
Mike Cannon leaned over her and grimaced at the pictures on the table. “At least ten bodies that they know of? All petite women with dark hair, from what it looks like. Sorry to say you fit his type.”
“Yeah.” Chloe made a face. “But the other info the guys dug up shows him moving all over the place. He’s only been in town a year, but Ian dug up some files of local missing persons he thinks might be linked to Hopkins. And from what Nathan has already seen, he’s apparently linked several other names to Hopkins, places where the grocery chain has major stores and unsolved murders involving young, single women.”
She paused and stared at the picture of a smiling woman, one who might have been her twin except for her dark eyes. “Looks like when his engagement with Susan Rikers went south five years ago, he lost his marbles.”
“Makes you wonder what’s really going on in his mind.” Xavier put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed.
Josh frowned. “Jack didn’t mention any police involvement yet, but we’ll pass this on to the proper authorities once we deal with him.”
“Right.” Chloe made up her mind. “There’s no way we can give this to the cops yet. I know how the system works. He’ll leave again, but not before killing more before he’s locked up. If he’s locked up. Hopkins is smart. He’s gone this long without anyone knowing. And the fact that he’s able to shield himself scares the hell out of me.”
Josh agreed. “This guy is tight. I’ve tried to see into Chloe’s future, and it’s getting better, but about the stalker, it’s touch and go. When I look into him, one minute he’s like quicksand and the next he’s crystal clear. Leaving him alive is like inviting people to die. Prison won’t stop him. I can see that much at least.”
“What? What do you mean?” Chloe asked. Josh hadn’t been able to envision much about her or Hopkins, that she knew of.
“I looked in the truck before I came inside. I can see some.” He closed his eyes, and she felt a huge blanket of energy. He opened his eyes, his expression bleak. “I can see enough to know you’ll just be another number, Chloe. If we do nothing, he’ll kill you, and he’ll kill after you. But this time, he’ll stray from his pattern. The next woman will look like you, except for the baby in her belly.” Everyone tensed. “And what he’ll do to her…” Josh looked away, pale and unnerved.
“So we stop him. Now how do we do it?” Chloe and the others finished their evening together by putting a plan into motion, one even his family—most of them—agreed with.
Kyle and Justin thought the idea a good one. Justin nodded at Xavier and Josh. “You two are so lucky. We never had the whole identical swap thing going for us.” He looked sad.
Kyle sighed, and the oppressive atmosphere that had worn on Chloe since she’d seen that folder of Jack’s eased.
“Like I could use another pair of identical twins. Please.” Julia groaned. “Bad enough Xavier and Joshua could get away with it. At least you two aren’t identical.” Kyle glared at Justin as if their being born fraternal was his fault.
Chloe bit back a grin. “Right. Well, I still think Hopkins will go ape-shi—” She stopped when she realized she couldn’t say ape-shit in front of Xavier and Joshua’s mother. “He’ll go crazy when he sees me with Josh. We’ll hide Xavier under the bed, like in the vision. Then when Hopkins attacks, we have the advantage over him.”
“Really? So are we making out in your bedroom before or after your stalker stabs you?” Josh asked with enough sarcasm to choke a horse.
“Josh, we talked about this.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. You just have to do it,” she said in a hard voice.
“Dammit, Josh.” Xavier seethed. “None of us likes this. But we can’t start until we finish this.”
“Start what?”
Julia shook her head. “I swear, they’re smarter than this, Chloe.” She turned to Josh. “A life, sweetie. Chloe and you two need to put an end to this man before he kills more people.”
Chloe looked at their mother. Had the woman she’d been afraid to swear in front of just told her sons to end a man, as in, his life? “You mean put him in jail, right?”
“I mean end him. Period. My boys know what to do.”
Chloe blinked. “I thought doctors were all about saving lives.”
“We are. This man isn’t human.” Julia frowned. “From what that file has shown us, Hopkins has already killed at least ten women.” Mike nodded. “We’ve seen this before, and I know you have.” While with the police department in Florida, Chloe had seen a lot of bad people. But she’d come into contact with only a few true crazies. Most criminals tended to be folks who made bad decisions. Then again, that psycho killer from two months ago had tried to kill her and her friends. Him she wouldn’t have minded gutting. “Okay. You make a good point. So who’s with me?” She locked gazes with Josh and refused to look away. “I’m going. So you’re either with me, or you’re staying home. Your choice.”
Josh fumed. She could practically see the steam coming from his ears. “I’ll be in the damn car.”
“He means truck,” Xavier said absently as he stared after his twin. “I’ll be out there with him.”
He left Chloe with his parents and his younger brothers.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t really want to do this. But I have to,” she told the others. She wouldn’t be human if she weren’t afraid. But she knew that with Xavier and Josh by her side, she could fix this. Could make sure Hopkins didn
’t kill anymore. She’d been given a gift, and it was time for her to use it again.
Kyle and Justin nodded. “We get it,” Kyle said. “But Josh… This isn’t sitting well with him.”
“Xavier either,” Justin said. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.” The twins rose and left together, arguing about something. She’d noticed the two tended to do that a lot. Sam remained behind with his parents.
“You’ll be fine, honey.” Julia hugged her. Another of those signs of affection Chloe couldn’t get enough of. She’d missed her mom so much for so long. And Julia acted genuinely happy to have her in the family. So interested in her, as if she cared about her as a person and not just the woman her sons intended to marry. Chloe still wasn’t sure how she could legally wed both of them, but his parents insisted they could make it work.
Mike and Julia walked her to the door. “Don’t you worry. We’ll be hanging around when it goes down to make sure you’re all right.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. This guy is smart, and we think he’s psychically gifted. We can’t get a bead on him.”
“Sure you can,” Sam said from behind her. “Give me another day, and I’ll tell you exactly where he is.”
“Sam, I don’t think—”
Sam cut his father off, and the two started arguing.
“Go on.” Julia pushed her out the door. “Don’t worry about them. It’s an ongoing thing.”
Chloe left with a kiss on her cheek, comforted to be part of a loving family.
They squabbled, but they didn’t shoot at one another. And no one seemed to be running from the law on charges of murder or grand larceny. So far so good.
She saw Josh and Xavier frowning at one another and sighed. After opening the door, she climbed over Xavier and sat between him and Josh. A funny thing, she thought as they drove away in silence. Ever since Xavier had first communicated with her, she’d been able to tell the two apart. Yet even his parents and siblings still got them confused.
That more than anything seemed to seal the deal for their parents about her.
“I love you guys, you know that?” Their frowns lightened but didn’t completely disappear, and she continued. “I want a life with you two. I can’t stop thinking about one day having babies.”
The frowns turned to sly grins.
“Yeah, I know how much you two like to practice making them. But I’m serious. I can’t let this guy, or any others we meet in the future, run our lives. If we don’t take control, we’ll always be at the mercy of someone or something else. I’ve done that, lived most of my young life in the shadow of thugs and my father. I’m done with that. That’s why I became a cop, why I joined the PWP.” She put her hands on their knees and squeezed. “It’s why you two gave me the information I’ve needed to put the bad guys away and protect myself. Josh, I trust you’ll see what you need to to keep me safe. And Xavier, I trust you’ll be there to protect me when I need it. Together, all three of us will take this bastard down.” She grinned. “Like your mom said. We need to end him.”
“Man, she’s good,” Xavier said to Josh.
“I know.” Josh still sounded glum. “But if you want to really draw this bastard in, we do it my way.”
“As long as it involves elements from your vision, I’m good with it.” She paused. “Sam said he’d help too.” When Josh and Xavier looked at one another, she raised a brow. “Okay, out with it. Your dad didn’t seem too happy about his interference either.”
Josh tightened his hands on the wheel. “Sam has a special ability.”
“We all do, but Sam’s is more dangerous when he uses it.” Xavier explained,
“He can astral project. He leaves his body and sees whatever he needs to. Not sure how he does it, but a few times he’s had a problem getting back—to his body. It’s kind of scary, let me tell you.”
“Hell.”
“Yeah.” Josh sighed. “But if he volunteered, I’m not going to turn him down.”
“Me neither.” Xavier nodded. “The boy gets more and more control the more he uses his ability. But my father’s a huge worrier. He’s more a mother hen than Mom.”
“Yeah. I get that. She was all Dirty Harry about ending Psycho Stan. She’s a little scary.”
They grinned at her.
Xavier lowered his voice. “Yeah. So treat her sons right or suffer the wrath of Doctor Death.”
Chloe paused. “You do mean Doctor Death in an alliterative way and not literally, right?”
The silence made her think hard about joining this most unusual family. For all of two seconds. “Damn. I think I love you guys even more.”
Chapter Ten
Josh felt much better about things now that they knew what the bastard looked like. Sam had done well. They’d had enough of a head start to wave Chloe and Josh—her new boyfriend—under Hopkins’s nose before the asshole managed to disappear once more. But now that they had his scent, Josh knew they’d catch the guy.
To say it was an odd way to spend a Christmas Eve was an understatement, but if it got rid of the asshole, he was all in. Well, now that they were doing things his way.
He and Xavier had gone round and round about his vision, and Josh thought it now made sense. Even Chloe had agreed.
She wore the same shirt he’d seen in his vision, one of his overlarge flannel shirts, and a pair of panties. That was it. Xavier had been hiding in her house all day, getting ready for the big moment. The poor bastard had to be uncomfortable, but he’d endured it without protest. Well, without audible protest. He’d bitched like a motherfucker to Josh about it all damn day long.
Josh had spent Christmas Eve walking around town with Chloe, now a veritable winter wonderland with all the accumulated snow. He’d kissed her in public, patted her ass enough that he’d annoyed her and successfully staked his claim, and still managed to buy her a few things she’d hemmed and hawed over without her knowing.
“The guy’s off his rocker with jealousy. He was frothing at the mouth with it,” Sam had told them earlier in the day.
So now Josh and Chloe stood in her bedroom, laying it on thick, or at least trying to. They needed to make their loving look real, but Josh’s attention remained splintered between her and her stalker.
“I felt him enter the house an hour before you got here, but he threw some weird kind of psychic blanket over me. He’s here in the bedroom, but I don’t know where.
It’s weird. I couldn’t see him, but I heard him,” Xavier sent them both. “I just wish I knew exactly what more he can do than shield himself. Damn. Never mind me. The floor’s hard, and you get to make out with Chloe. Well, bro, make it look real.” Chloe frowned at Josh, glaring at him to make his move. But he couldn’t. Not with that bastard watching. How could he expose Chloe to that kind of sickness?
He’d swear he could feel the fucker getting excited. Sexually aroused just from the sight of her.
Or was that just him sexually aroused?
He buzzed inside, awkward and needy and just plain weirded out.
“I don’t know if I want to change my name.”
He frowned at Chloe. “Huh?” Talk about an out-of-the-blue comment.
“When we get married.”
He froze. She’d attracted Xavier’s full attention as well. “Say that again.”
“When we get married, I don’t know if I want to change my name.” The thought of Mrs. Chloe Cannon gave Josh chills, the good kind. “Bullshit.
You’re taking my name.” Our name. A surge of aggression hit him hard.
Chloe toyed with the buttons of her shirt, and Josh sucked in a breath. Her tits were unbound and played havoc with his control. Chloe had large breasts, and when she didn’t wear a bra, she attracted more than her share of notice. “How about you convince me, Joshie?”
Joshie? Despite the hated nickname, his dick rose. “Why should I?” He couldn’t stop staring at her hand toying with the buttons at her breast. “Xavier, by all that’s holy, keep an eye
out, would you? I feel him here, but I can’t see him.”
“Me too. Don’t worry. I always get the shit jobs, but I come through in the end, don’t I?”
“I know. It’s just…I feel weird. He’s doing something to me, I think.”
“I don’t care. Use it, because this ends tonight. Make it look real with Chloe, damn you. Like that’s a stretch.”
“Why should you?” Chloe drew him back to her with those husky words.
“Because you want me on my knees sucking down your cum, don’t you?” She chewed her lower lip and looked at him from beneath her lashes. Damn if she didn’t seem really into this, the danger ratcheting her arousal. He knew the signs, because he felt the same.
The same and more. A perverted sense of entitlement and arousal filled him like a disease. “Bro, the family’s out there, right?”
“For God’s sake, just do her. Yes, they’re out there. So are a few of her people.
It’s up to you to draw the guy in, I’m telling you. Remember, you’re not in the picture when she’s in the vision, but I am. So do her, then split. We’ll take it from there.” Chloe drew her shirt apart and played with herself. Her fingers delved between her legs. “Come on, baby. You know how I get when I’m horny.”
“Oh man,” Xavier moaned within the walls of Josh’s mind.
He didn’t need to see any more. “Fuck. I’ll show you why you should change your mind. Turn around,” he growled.
She raised a brow.
“I said turn around.” Josh ripped off his shirt and unbuttoned his pants. He didn’t wear underwear, so when he parted his jeans, his cock met instant relief from the pressure of denim.
“Up on your toes and spread your legs.” He didn’t think he sounded like himself, and by the look on Chloe’s face, she thought the same.
Except instead of looking scared, she looked crafty. Strangely satisfied.