“Oh fucking hell.” Jacob got to his feet and quick stepped out of the way as Max came to and began thrashing around. “Get out of here, Emma.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You aren’t leaving me, you’re letting me do my job.” He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the bedroom.
“But...”
Someone pounded on the front door.
“FBI.”
The boxes tumbled around in the room as Max struggled even more.
“Jacob,” she yelled as Max stood up, his hands free.
Jacob whirled to face the threat. The front door burst open, and officers spilled into the house. Lights from the backyard indicated more coming that way.
Max stepped into the doorway, a smaller knife in his hand.
Blood dripped down his left arm.
He stared straight at Emma and said, “I’ll see you again.”
“Fuck never,” she said before she could think better of it.
Her words turned into a scream as Max plunged the little knife through his ear. He gurgled something and fell forward, landing on the knife.
“Oh my God,” she said over and over again as shudders took her.
A pool of red formed around him in a matter of seconds.
“Emma, Emma, come on.” Jacob wrapped his good arm around her and ushered her out of the house.
The quiet street was alive with people, lights and cars. She blinked around as officers and people rushed past them.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” Jacob pulled her in, hugging her to his side.
She wrapped her arms around his waist. Who cared about a little blood when they were still breathing? She buried her face against his shoulder. He squeezed harder and shifted.
“Fuck,” she bellowed, backing away and cupping her hands over her nose. “That hurts.”
“That’s probably because your nose is broken. Come here.” He took her by the hand. This time, she hugged him and kept her aching face up. “We’re alive.”
Emma sucked in another deep breath and blinked back tears. She was not a girl who cried, but damn if that wasn’t a lot to process.
“We’re alive,” he whispered again and kissed her brow.
She clutched him tighter and rested her forehead on his shoulder. Yup, blood was dripping from her face. Just great. But—she was alive to bleed, and laugh, and love.
Jacob closed the door to his house, flipping the locks into place. He shuddered and twisted the locks once more. Max had to have come in by way of a window at Amanda’s. He’d have to check those as well so he could rest knowing Emma was safe.
Emma had already kicked off her shoes and padded into the kitchen.
The sun was creeping up over the horizon, bathing the room in a warm glow. He still flipped on all the lights. It would be a while before he would be okay walking into a dark room. Those images of Max with a knife, Emma against his chest, would stick with him. He’d almost lost her back there.
How had someone he’d just met come to mean so much to him? The idea of his future without Emma in it made his chest constrict and his stomach tie into knots.
She was alive.
He shook the dark thoughts from his mind and followed her.
“Can I get you anything?” He carried her bag into the den and set it down on the couch.
“Something to make my face stop pounding would be awesome.” She sounded completely congested. Her face had swollen, and dark bruises were forming on her cheek bones.
But she was alive.
“I could give you some of my drugs.” He pulled the pharmacy bag out of the pocket he’d stuffed it in and rattled it at her.
“You need that more than I do.”
He’d popped one pill on the doctor’s orders after getting the stab wounds looked at and hadn’t been able to walk a straight line. Between them, they needed a ride from the hospital to his house. It was a pretty pathetic situation, but they were alive.
“Want something to eat?” he asked.
She shook her head and glanced away, through the back doors into the yard. The officers had shown him the set-up at the house behind Amanda’s. It had appeared as though Max’s plan was to force them from the duplex to the house and go through the ritual there. They’d even found Max’s laptop with the surveillance running. He’d left out all except the most necessary details when filling Emma in on things. She didn’t need to know. Because while she was tough, she wasn’t unbreakable.
He went to her, pulling her into another hug. She might not need it, but he did. For the span of a few minutes, he’d been certain she was going to die. A hundred outcomes had flashed through his head, all of which resulted in her death.
She clenched him tight, proof he wasn’t the only one who needed support.
Losing her would be losing part of himself. At some point she’d stolen his heart, and he didn’t have a hope or a prayer at getting it back, not that he wanted it. His heart was better left in her hands. So long as she stayed among the land of the living.
The words, those three little words, stuck in his throat.
They’d faced death and lived; yet admitting how he felt still scared him.
Emma stared up at him with a very serious, somber expression. There was no light, no laughter. She’d pulled her hair into a knot on top of her head, tendrils hanging around her face. His heart clenched at the thought of the pain she had to be feeling and the torment she’d been through tonight.
If only he’d been a better protector...
“I love you,” she said.
He stared at her. Had he passed out? Was this a dream?
“I know it’s stupid, and fast, and you’re probably going to read me some psycho-analyzing bullshit, but I love you. And I could have died tonight without telling you that.” Her voice trembled and her gaze dropped to his chest. A fat tear rolled down her cheek, the first he’d seen.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry.” He could handle anything—except her tears. And her death. So two things.
“Look, don’t make this awkward, okay?” She sniffled but allowed him to lift her chin. He hadn’t really thought a tough, independent woman like Emma, who had to have a line of guys waiting for their chance, would tell him she loved him.
“It’s only awkward if you don’t mean it.”
She glared at him.
“Don’t make fun of me,” she said.
“I’m not. I’m just saying...I was standing here thinking how much...how much I love you too, and that it scared the shit out of me to think about saying it.”
Her glare lost its heat, her eyes widening and jaw dropping.
“I thought it would be too much to put that on you, but—”
“Say it again.”
He took a deep breath and the last bit of tension left his body.
“I love you.”
She blinked at him, as if she wasn’t sure he was serious.
“I went to meet you expecting you to be something you weren’t. You’ve surprised me, pissed me off, made me laugh, and more than anything, you make me want you. So yeah, I was too scared to tell you I loved you first.”
Her smile was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She relaxed, leaning into him. “It’s not weird?”
“I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will call us crazy.” He shrugged and tried to keep his gaze away from her mouth.
“Kiss me—gently, okay?”
He chuckled at her insistence and, very carefully, pressed his mouth to hers. The things he wanted to do to her would have to wait. She lifted up on tip-toes.
“Ouch.” She twisted away, cupping her hands over her face. “Not fair!
She laughed despite the pain.
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she grumbled.
“Come here.” He gathered her to his chest and squeezed her as tight as he could without aggravating his shoulder or her broken nose.
There would be a Colorado
in their future, and much, much more.
Black Widow threw the remote across the room. “No! God damn it.”
The top story was about the TBK copycat’s suicide.
Max hadn’t run, he hadn’t done the honorable thing and taken his own life before there was a scene. Hell, she hadn’t even been able to clean this mess up.
She paced the length of her living room, seething. She’d planned for an instance like this, but this was too early. There were still plans in the works. Max’s shortcomings could seriously fuck up the chances for the rest of them to succeed.
Which was all the more reason for the club to go to ground, to hide, retreat.
There would come another day, another time to kill.
Epilogue
O
ne month later...
Jade Perez shuffled the latest case file back into its folder. A little paperwork and she could call it done.
“Hold the phones, don’t go anywhere.” Lali Smith, their tech-kitten—as she called herself—strode between the desks, a stack of papers in her hand.
“What’s happened?” Brooks had his coat over his arm and briefcase in hand. It had been another long week and they were all ready to go home.
“OKC forensics finally sent over the autopsy report and tox screen, and I think you’re all going to want a look at this.” Lali handed the papers to Brooks, her lips tightly compressed. She was a petite, slender woman who often made Jade think of a butterfly, though Lali was rather sedate. Like her, she was a woman edging into the men’s club, and she had to play by their rules.
Brooks flipped through the report. “Conference room. Now.”
Mullins and Abraham groaned. The two were no doubt lining up their ladies for the evening. Not only did the guys work together, they’d gone in on a sizable house last year. If Jade didn’t know they were into women, she might wonder.
She gathered her notebook and tablet, heading to the room. Truth was, she’d been waiting for this report after the initial autopsy had been performed. In short order, the whole team was seated at the half-circle table facing the projection wall.
Lali lost no time in pulling the report up on the screen. “According to the ME, Max Fischer didn’t have any drugs in his system.”
“What about his arm?” Mullins had his own notepad out and flipped through the pages.
“Right—they were able to examine the scar tissue and it appears as though he’d performed some scarification on himself.” Lali flipped through a few of the digital pages until a picture landed on the display. “It says Killer Club. How creepy is that? But that’s not the really weird thing. Remember the coroner said he found something strange in Max’s stomach? Well it turns out it was a piece of bone. A circular disk, probably a femur, that matches the DNA of a missing girl from Calgary who went to Chicago for the weekend and never came home. Make it even weirder, Killer Club was carved into that as well.”
The room was silent for a few moments while they all took it in.
“Max attempted to remove the scar, correct?” Jade asked.
“Correct.” Lali replied. “It looks like he started with a knife, and when that didn’t work out, he used a clothing iron to disguise the words.”
“Someone doesn’t want the idea of this Killer Club to get out,” Mullins remarked. He clicked a pen and shook his head.
“Lali, were you able to recover anything from Max’s laptop?” Brooks asked.
“Not a lot. He’d wiped it of almost everything. I got a few recent emails, some browser history, and the surveillance footage from that night, but everything else is gone.”
“We don’t have proof he used that laptop to make the letters?” Mullins sat forward.
Jade rolled her eyes. “You seriously won’t give up the idea that Detective Payton and Emma Ration are involved somehow, will you?”
“I’m just saying they fit.” Mullins shrugged.
“Mm, except their alibis check out, both in the real world and digitally. I have credit card activity and security footage of both of them during the time of death on at least two of the victims.” Lali shook her head and didn’t look at Jade. They were in agreement that the couple couldn’t possibly be involved, but Mullins could be pig-headed. “Also, Detective Payton just applied for a credit card at a major jewelry store. Wonder what that’s for?” Lali glanced at her, flashing a smile.
“Any purchases?” Jade asked. She couldn’t help herself. She might not understand love, or even know how to feel it, but it fascinated her.
“None yet, but I might watch out so we know when to send congratulations.”
“Okay, focus.” Brooks pulled out his seat and sat down. “What are the chances we’re looking at a club of killers?”
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Dangerous Attraction
Part One
November 2015
Part of the Seven Naughty SEALs boxed set.
A new romantic suspense serial featuring Travis Ration, a former SEAL who has been to the ends of the earth and back. This time he’s not only battling his inner demons, he has to save her from the terror that stalks the night.
Warning: It won’t end happily ever after—this time.
Part Two & Three due out November/December 2015
Travis Ration hunched over the hotel desk and flipped to the first page of the autopsy report. The lights from the Vegas strip cast globes of colored light onto the paper, but the glitz and glamour held no sway for him. Only the poor woman.
She was blonde. Like the rest. Pretty. A Vegas native named Linda. She’d been social, so her disappearance had been noted within hours by friends and family, but by then it was too late. Whoever was in the business of abducting blonde, attractive young women was good. And if the list of missing blonde women were a hint, the perpetrator had operated in the Las Vegas area for years—without anyone connecting the dots.
There was a serial killer in Las Vegas, and no one wanted to admit it.
“Hey man, ready to go?” Mason Clark, a new hire to the Aegis Group security firm, stepped into Travis’ room, one hand braced on the door.
“No, man. Hit the strip without me.” Travis didn’t glance away from the report.
It read almost exactly like the last one had. Judging by the time of death, the girls lasted for anywhere from seven to twelve months before being murdered and dumped. Linda was an exception. She’d been missing for almost two months. What was really telling was that from the time of death to the next abduction was somewhere in the twenty-four hour mark, which meant these crimes were well thought out. The perpetrator organized and focused on the details. Travis hadn’t even touched on the disturbing facts yet.
“No? What are...No, you are not on that again.” Ethan Turner, Travis’ best friend, groaned and shouldered past Mason. “I thought you were going to take a break from this.”
“I said I was taking a break from work.” Travis picked up the hotel pen and jotted down the injuries and observations that were different from the previous victims. That was where he’d fine the clues. The guy doing this was too methodical to deviate from his plan, so when and where he did was important.
“What are you doing?” Mason crossed the room and peered over Travis’ shoulder.
“He’s playing hound dog for the FBI.” Ethan popped the top on a long neck from their freshly stocked mini fridge.
“What is this?” Mason snagged the first page of the report with the autopsy pictures clipped to it and dropped it almost immediately onto the ground. “What the hell?”
Travis punched Mason in the thigh, not hard, but enough the other man bent over and rubbed the spot.
“Don’t fuck with my stuff.” Travis grabbed the piece of paper and the photographs. He straightened the documents out, ensuring all of the pieces were securely in place befor
e putting it back in the folder.
“What the hell is that? Why do you have pictures of a dead woman?” Mason’s eyes were wide, his lip curled. They’d all seen death. Everyone who worked for the Aegis Group had served over seas. They’d all killed. But they weren’t all good at it. Travis had reservations about Mason’s hire, but he wasn’t the boss.
“None of your damn business,” Travis replied.
“Is this a job or something?” Mason glanced between Travis and Ethan, who shook his head and took another swig of his beer. The Aegis Group was a private security company on paper, in reality, they performed a wide range of services that often skirted the law.
“Don’t worry about it,” Travis said.
“The fuck we won’t.” Ethan gave Travis the thousand yard stare. Travis was pretty sure Ethan was about to try to deck him for the hell of it.
“I thought we were here for a protective detail,” Mason said.
“You are. I’m not.” Travis flipped the folder closed. FBI and CONFIDENTIAL were stamped across the front of the brown surface.
“What did you get us into this time?” Ethan took two steps toward Travis, and stopped, the beer clenched in his right hand.
“You aren’t involved,” Travis replied.
“The hell I’m not. What is this?” Ethan pointed at the folder.
“Just something I’m looking into.”
“Is this why you wouldn’t go home for Christmas?” Ethan’s gaze narrowed.
Travis studied Ethan, the blood shot eyes, the clenched hand. This wasn’t about Travis or his side gig researching potential cases for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, a specialized FBI team that tracked down the worst kinds of killers, something he’d gotten involved with after a copycat murderer recreated the horrors from his family’s past.
“Molly refused to split Christmas with you, didn’t she?” Travis shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet, ready to move if Ethan rushed him. The worst fight they’d had happened the day Molly told Ethan she wanted a divorce. Some emotions could only be worked out with fists.
For a second, no one moved or spoke. Travis was not looking forward to a hotel bill for trashing the place.
Blind: Killer Instincts Page 22