There was nothing but a breath-filled silence when he was done with the guttural tirade. Just that awful, heavy weight of things that were still unsaid and unresolved pressing down on him. He knew he needed to wait it out and finish this with her now, but there wasn’t any time. He was already late as hell.
Drawing in a shuddering breath, Ben rubbed his hand over his mouth, then let it drop to his side. Forcing himself to look her in the eye, he said, “I need to get to the crime scene.”
She nodded as she swiped at her tears with her fingertips, her voice a small, tight whisper. “Yeah, okay. I understand.”
“I’ll be back,” he grunted. “Just . . . don’t fucking go anywhere.” Then he turned and got his ass out of there, barking at Mike to keep his eye on her and to lock the door behind him.
By the time Ben had driven the half mile to the parking lot where the body had been found, he’d managed to get a grip on his temper. But he was still pissed at himself for acting like such a world-class bastard. Pissed he’d let Mike’s taunting push him into saying things that had hurt her. Not to mention the things he’d said before he’d left.
He’d let his fear of one day ending up like his father or brother govern his behavior tonight. Not that he thought Reese would ever cheat on him the way his mother had cheated on his old man, or Judith had slept around on Alex. But there were other ways for a woman to fuck a man up. Love meant letting Reese have a kind of power over him. Meant letting her into every part of his life—not just as a fun accessory, but as the most important element. Meant opening himself up and keeping nothing from her, which was hardly his fucking strong point. But the alternative—watching her walk away from him—wasn’t something he could live with.
Which meant he needed to figure out what the fuck he was doing, and fast.
Climbing out of his truck, Ben shoved his anger and frustration to the back of his mind, and forced his thoughts onto the job. Despite the number of cases like this he’d responded to in Miami, it always put a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no way to describe the horror of seeing a woman or child who’d been killed. No way to describe how hollow it made you feel. How bleak.
Most of his deputies were there, along with the county’s forensics techs who were collecting evidence beneath the bright glare of the parking lot lights. Robin and another deputy, a lanky twenty-four-year-old named Chris, were busy keeping the media back, as well as a group of beachgoers who’d wandered up to see what all the commotion was about.
Moving around the white screens that had been erected for privacy, Ben made his way over to the medical examiner, an older woman named Maria Surr, who was kneeling beside the body. The victim was lying facedown, her dark hair matted with blood, clothes ripped and stained. He knew from the last phone conversation he’d had that they’d found the woman’s ID. Her name was Sylvia Smith, she was thirty-three, and she worked as a teller in one of the local banks. She was single, but her next of kin had already been notified and were on their way down from Orlando.
“How did she die?” he asked, noting the mottled bruising that covered her arms and legs. Her face was turned away from him, but it was obvious from the amount of blood in her hair that there had also been a significant amount of damage done to her skull.
Maria shook her head. “I can’t say without doing an autopsy, Ben. She took a serious beating, so it could be any number of factors. But I think she was probably killed sometime late last night. I’ll need to run some tests before I can give you any more than that.”
“How soon will you have the results of the autopsy?” He knew there would be a lot of fluid and tissue samples involved, which would then need to be analyzed.
“Depending on what I find, it could be a few days. We’re still short on staff in the lab and my assistant is out on holiday leave.”
Frustration hardened his jaw. Improper staffing and funding was another legacy of his predecessor, and while they’d made significant progress since he took office, there was still a long way to go before the county was where he wanted it to be.
Ryder pulled up in his patrol car, then came over to join them. “Huh,” the deputy grunted, after he’d crouched down to get a better look at the victim’s face. “Is it just me, or does the vic look like she could be related to that girl who was attacked down on the beach last week?”
Ben got a bad fucking feeling in his gut. “They look that similar?”
Ryder gestured toward the woman’s face. “See for yourself.”
Ben was already making his way around the victim’s feet, when Ryder’s next words damn near knocked the air from his lungs. “Come to think of it, she also looks a little like Reese. They’ve got the same dark hair and blue eyes.”
Another few steps, and Ben was staring down at Sylvia Smith’s pale face, a low curse on his lips. Ryder was right. This woman hadn’t been as pretty as Reese, but their coloring was definitely similar. And the same could be said for the teen who’d only been released from hospital on Thursday.
Remembering the woman who Reese had said was attacked in her building back in Boston, Ben left Maria and Ryder with the vic and headed back to his truck, where he had the copy of the police report he’d gotten from the Boston PD. Less than a minute later, he had his answer. The victim in her building had been a brunette with blue eyes, same as the others.
Goddamnfuckingsonofabitch.
What exactly was going on here? Two women with similar looks to Reese had been attacked . . . and now one was dead. Why? Was her stalker trying to frighten her? Or was this how he took out his anger with her? Did he feel slighted in some way? Rejected?
Leighton’s rage-filled image jumped into his head, and it was a plausible theory. The jealous, possessive ex taking out his fury on women who reminded him of the one he wanted, but couldn’t have. But Ben had been getting regular updates from the deputies who were watching the lawyer, and he hadn’t left the Davis since getting to town. And even if Leighton had been paying some other bastard to do his dirty work, what would be the point of hurting these other women? If the purpose had been to scare her, then why hadn’t Reese been taunted with messages about the beatings?
It didn’t fucking add up. And the same could be said for the bitchy receptionist. When Ben had asked Ryder to do a background check on Lizzie Jennings, he’d been thinking that maybe she had some kind of weird hate thing going for Reese. It could explain the mutilated cat, and the threat that had been left with it. Even the text messages could have been the woman’s sick idea of a joke. And like Leighton, she could have someone working with her, since they knew Lizzie hadn’t been driving the truck on Friday. But again, how did the attacks on these other women play into it?
Fuck. No matter how he put all the pieces together, he couldn’t get them to fit.
At the sound of someone approaching, Ben lifted his head, surprised when he saw Alex coming toward him, dressed in his customary jeans, black T-shirt, and black boots. “What are you doing here?”
“I called Mike. He said I could find you down here.”
Ben set the file on the backseat, closed the truck’s door, and looked at Alex. If his brother was here to argue about Reese, he was going to wish he hadn’t made the trip. “What do you need?”
“I don’t need anything,” Alex told him, crossing his arms over his chest. “I just wanted to let you know that you’ve got a bigger problem on your hands than Reese.”
“She’s not a fucking problem,” he ground out, wondering if his brother was ever going to stop being such a miserable jackass.
“Whatever she is,” Alex said in a hard voice, “that guy you’ve had me looking for isn’t her stalker. He’s been watching you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re the one he’s been running surveillance on. He’s one of Houghton’s crew.”
Ben didn’t say anything at first. He just stared back at his brother, hoping this was some kind of bad joke. But he’d known, in his gut,
that something wasn’t right. Ever since he’d first set eyes on that dark-haired bastard, he’d known there was something familiar about him. He just hadn’t been able to pull it all together.
Lowering his arms, Alex reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “When you told me the guy looked familiar to you, I started thinking it might be someone you had come into contact with during a case. Some prick who might have a grudge against you. The Houghton case seemed the logical place to begin, so I started going through all the data I’d helped you collect on the son of a bitch back when you were investigating him.” Unfolding the sheet, he handed Ben a copy of a grainy black-and-white photograph. “You can see that’s your guy with Houghton. He shows up in a couple of other surveillance photos, as well.”
Ben narrowed his gaze on the image, wishing that he could tell Alex he was wrong. But there was no arguing the fact that this was the man he kept seeing. The photo showed the bastard standing beside Houghton on the dock where the drug lord moored his yacht, Houghton’s arm thrown around his broad shoulders. He couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but it was the same tall, leanly muscled physique and rugged, hard-edged features. The guy looked like he could kill without batting an eye, but then, that was a basic prerequisite of working with Houghton.
Christ. He didn’t want to think about what this meant, his brain cramping as he tried to focus on the facts of the situation. “Do you have his name?” he asked.
Alex shook his head. “I can’t pull any personal information on him. Whoever he is, Houghton’s keeping his identity well protected.”
Ben took a deep breath, then crumpled the paper image in his fist.
“Whatever he’s after,” Alex murmured, “you need to get Reese out of your house, man.”
“Fuck you.” His brother had made it no secret that he thought he was crazy for getting involved with her, but Ben wasn’t going to stand here and listen to this shit.
“I’m not trying to get into it with you,” Alex said, holding up his hands. “If you don’t want to break things off, you could always put her in protective custody with the Feds.”
“When Houghton already has a mole in the system?” he snarled. “We both know how hard it is to keep wraps on something like that. All it takes is one person making a slip and they’ve got her.”
Rubbing two fingertips across his jaw, Alex’s pale gaze was as cool as his tone. “Then you need to cut her loose. Publicly. Let them know she means nothing to you.”
Ben didn’t even bother telling him to fuck off again. The look on his face said it for him. But there was a part of him thinking here it is, the perfect reason for you to cut and bail. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with any more of that infuriating emotional crap. Wouldn’t have to keep walking around with his insides twisted in a fucking knot, trying to shake off who he was so that he could be the kind of man she deserved. One who could open his goddamn mouth and tell her how he felt. Who didn’t get scared shitless when she told him she was in love with him. If he was going to end it, there wasn’t going to be a better time than this—and yet, he couldn’t do it. He’d just have to go home, sit her down, and tell her what he’d learned, and then . . . Shit, he didn’t know.
Lighting up a cigarette, Alex took a long drag. “What are you going to do?”
“Not a fucking clue. So just shut up and let me think,” he growled, walking away. He didn’t want to think that Houghton would go to this much trouble to screw with him, but then, he was partly responsible for the man being in prison. Who knew what the jackass might do?
Goddamn it, he should have seen this coming. Should have made the connection days ago, instead of wasting all this time that could have been spent dealing with the situation. He sure as hell would have moved Reese to a different location, where he could keep her better protected. A lone stalker he was fully capable of taking down on his own. But if Houghton’s man came after him, the odds were high he wouldn’t be alone.
A chill slipped down his spine as he thought about Reese being back at his house without him. Yeah, she had Mike there with her, and he knew Mike could handle himself. But there was something about all of this that just didn’t feel right.
Calling Chris over to him, Ben asked, “Where are the kids who made the call about the body tonight?”
“We took their statements and let them go. But the anonymous tip actually came in just before they called.”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “What anonymous tip?”
With a shrug, Chris said, “Someone called in the body right before the kids found her. That’s all I know.”
“Son of a bitch.” Chris was asking if he wanted him to call dispatch to get more information, but Ben turned his back on the worried-looking deputy, already pulling his phone from his belt. Terrified this had been some kind of setup to get him away from the house, he called Mike’s number, but there was no answer. Then he called it again. “Pick up the fucking phone,” he snarled, but the call went to voice mail for the second time and Ben’s stomach dropped.
Shoving the phone in his pocket, he started running back to his truck, shouting at one of the techs for them to inform Ryder that he was now in charge of the crime scene. Then he shouted for Alex to hurry and get his ass in the truck, telling him they had a problem. As Ben jumped behind the wheel, Alex quickly climbed in on the passenger side. Ben brought him up to date on the situation as he drove, taking the turns like a fucking maniac as he floored the gas pedal. He slammed on the brakes before he even reached the end of his driveway, jumping out of the cab while the truck was still rocking. When they found the front door of his house standing wide open, the fear in Ben’s gut turned to lead.
“Wait!” Alex hissed, grabbing his upper arm when he started to rush inside. “You can’t just go barreling in there! What if it’s a trap?”
“I don’t give a shit if it is,” he snarled, jerking his arm free. “I’m not waiting out here when that bastard might be in there with her!”
They went in with their weapons drawn, and found Mike almost immediately. Their younger brother was lying facedown in the middle of the living room floor, the right side of his head wet with blood. Alex crouched beside Mike’s body and checked his pulse. “He’s alive.”
“Stay with him,” Ben choked out, his goddamn heart threatening to burst right out of his chest as he searched the rest of the house for Reese. But she wasn’t there.
Standing in the back hallway, he turned and rammed his fist into the wall, plaster exploding in a white cloud, while his knuckles throbbed and bled. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against the smooth surface and tried to get his fucking thoughts straight. His gut told him it was her stalker. If Houghton’s guy had been trying to screw with him, he would have taken them both. But this was about Reese. The bastard had wanted her . . . and now he’d taken her. But where, damn it? Ben didn’t have a clue. The only thing he knew with any certainty was that he’d screwed up so fucking bad. Damn it, he never should have left her! And why the hell had he driven away tonight without telling her that he loved her?
Like the stubborn jackass that he was, he’d fought it till the very end. But he’d known, deep down, where this was headed right from the start. There hadn’t been any point in trying to avoid it. He’d just been chasing his own damn tail. But the truth was simple: He loved her. So much that it hurt. So much that it was driving him out of his mind. Making him act like a total prick.
And now he’d made the most colossal fuckup of all, and let some twisted son of a bitch get his hands on her.
“She’s gone,” he said roughly, standing in the doorway to the living room. “I’m going over to the Davis to question Leighton. Whatever it takes, I’ll make him tell me everything he knows.”
Alex gave him a careful look. “What are you going to do about Houghton?”
“I don’t know,” he grunted, holstering his gun. “Right now, I don’t fucking care.”
No, all he cared about was getting Reese
back. Once that was squared, he’d deal with whatever else came his way. Stalkers, drug dealers, scum-sucking slime. Bring it on. He was ready to take on whatever the universe wanted to throw at him, so long as it kept her from getting hurt.
For a moment, he thought Alex was going to argue with him, and Ben gritted his teeth. Jesus, as if there were anything in the world he would put above getting back the woman he loved.
He actually felt a sharp burst of relief when Alex nodded toward the door. “I’ve got Mike, and the ambulance will be here any minute now. You go and find Reese.”
“I’ll call as soon as I’ve finished with Leighton,” Ben said, tossing the words over his shoulder. But when he jerked the door open, he nearly plowed right into the jackass. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled.
Leighton’s mouth was pressed into a hard, flat line, the corner of his bottom lip still scabbed over from where Ben had punched him. “I hate your guts just as much as you hate mine,” he said, “but I . . . I need your help.”
Ben’s right hand was already curling into a fist, when he noticed how fucking pale Leighton looked. Holding on to his control by a thread, he jerked his chin for the lawyer to go on.
Instead of saying anything, Leighton held up the phone gripped in his hand, turning it so that Ben could read the message on its screen:
You want her? Come and get her.
There was a photo beneath the text. An image of some kind of beach cabana, but he couldn’t tell where it’d been taken.
“I know who it’s from,” Drew croaked in a thick voice, dropping his hand to his side. “It’s Lizzie.”
Fisting his hand in the front of the guy’s shirt, Ben yanked him off his feet and slammed him against the door. “What the hell is she after?” he roared, getting right in the lawyer’s face. “And who the fuck is working with her?”
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