The kettle and its contents were forgotten. Hawk came around to where she was sitting and dropped to his knees before her. He knew what she was saying, but he was hoping that, by some fluke, he was wrong.
“You mean…?”
Carly silently nodded. It was stupid to cry, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to yell, to be angry—and she was—but tears came to her eyes, anyway. Upbraiding herself for this weak display didn’t stem their flow.
She pressed her lips together, drew back the wide, billowing beige skirt from her leg and pulled the material up high so that her right thigh was completely exposed for Hawk to see.
On it was a small, fresh, black letter D. The skin just beneath it was an angry red. Hawk cringed when he saw it. He swore he could feel the same needle inking his flesh.
As if his brain was on a five-second delay, he suddenly heard what she’d said. “He does the tattoo himself?” Hawk asked, surprised.
Carly nodded, telling herself that once this was over and behind her, she would have the tattoo removed, no matter what it took or how painful that process turned out to be.
“Seems to really enjoy doing it, too,” she told him grimly. “Enjoys the fact that he was inflicting pain ‘artistically.’”
Hawk rocked back on his heels, suddenly struck by a thought. What she’d just told him was a brand-new piece of information they hadn’t had before. A few tiny pieces of the puzzle came together.
“That’s probably why,” he said.
Carly looked at him, confused. Was he talking to himself or to her? “What’s probably why?”
He glanced up. It made sense now. “I think I know why our Jane Doe was killed. She had a black D on her hip, except that hers was done with a black marker. She undoubtedly did it in order to blend in. But she didn’t know that the only one who ‘awarded’ those tattoos was Grayson himself.”
As the light dawned, Carly finished his statement for him. “So when he saw it, Grayson knew she had to be an imposter.”
“Right, which naturally made him suspicious. Because of what he felt was at stake, he didn’t stop to ask her any questions, he just had her executed.” That still didn’t tell him what the woman was doing there in the first place, but at least they had one of the answers.
“Executed?” Carly echoed uncertainly, clearly confused.
Hawk nodded. “That was a detail we kept back from the media.” That way, if a copycat killer suddenly emerged, they would be aware of it. He had no doubts a great many sick people existed who would do anything for their fifteen minutes of fame—or infamy in this case. “Each of the women was shot in the back of the head. A single bullet, execution style.”
It didn’t necessarily have to be an execution, she thought. “Or shot when they weren’t looking, so they didn’t know what was coming—or get the chance to plead for their lives,” she suggested.
He hadn’t thought of that. Hawk looked at Carly with a flicker of admiration. “That’s a possibility, too,” he agreed, then grinned. “Not bad.”
“Thank you.” He saw a small smile struggling to emerge.
The tea kettle began to whistle, calling attention to itself and the water that was now boiling madly. Hawk rose to his feet again and crossed back to the stove. He opened a couple of cupboards before he finally located two large mugs.
“He asked me, you know,” she told him, watching Hawk as he poured steaming hot water into the mugs. “Grayson asked if I was serious about becoming one of his ‘chosen followers.’ If I’d said no or that I had to think about it, he would have slammed the proverbial door in my face, just like that—” she snapped her fingers “—and then I probably wouldn’t even be able to get in contact with Mia or talk to her.”
Carly sounded almost a little defensive. After what she’d just been through, did she think he was going to give her a hard time? He wasn’t completely heartless.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Carly,” he told her.
She would beg to differ, Carly thought. “The expression on your face when you came up behind me just now said that I do. You looked damn angry that I was late getting home.”
He shrugged, his shoulder vaguely moving up and down. “I was worried about you.”
Carly relaxed a little. I was worried about you. That had a nice ring to it.
Carly knew that it didn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things, because life had taken them in different directions—since you sent him away, her mind taunted—and even though their paths had crossed one another temporarily, life would soon be back on its rightful track, and he would have his life and she hers.
But his voiced concern still sounded nice, and just for the slightest moment, Carly indulged herself by letting her mind go to the land of what-if?
What if she hadn’t sent him away? What if he’d stayed by choice? Or she had been able to leave without her conscience bleeding, anchoring her here?
What if…?
Snapping out of it, Carly said, “It’s been a long while since anyone was worried about me.”
He knew how independent she’d always been and, thank God, apparently still was, despite her pretense to the contrary for Grayson’s benefit. Truth of it was, he wasn’t all that certain what he would have ultimately done if she really had turned out to be one of Grayson’s followers.
Probably tried to kidnap her the way she was trying to find a way of kidnapping Mia as a last resort, he thought.
Out loud he said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to crowd you or infer that you weren’t perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.” The words were automatic rather than straight from the heart—the way his flash of anger had been. “No offense intended.”
He was backing away. Why? Did he think she wanted him to? Or was it that he didn’t want her thinking that there was something still between them when there clearly wasn’t?
“None taken,” she murmured.
Coming to, he picked up both steaming mugs and crossed back to the table. He placed one in front of her, then placed the second one on the table where he was sitting. He slipped back onto his chair.
Carly looked down at Hawk’s masterpiece and then grinned. The man had forgotten one key ingredient.
“You know,” she began gently, “it might help to put the tea bags in.”
His attention had been completely focused on her, and he’d been grappling with surges of anger and the very strong desire to strangle the man he had under surveillance. Case or no case, when he thought of the man possibly forcing himself on Carly, all bets were off. In that tiny space of time, he was a man first and an FBI special agent second.
Not something his superiors would be thrilled about hearing.
He glanced down at the two mugs. Each was filled to the brim with water. Tea bags, however, were nowhere in sight. He’d forgotten to put them in. He would obviously never make it as a waiter, he thought ruefully.
“Sorry,” Hawk muttered under his breath as he started to get up again.
Carly stopped him by putting her hand on top of his. When he eyed her quizzically, she nodded at his chair and indicated that he should sit down again.
“You sit, I’ll get the tea bags,” she told him. “I know where they are,” she added. “You’ll only wind up having to go searching through the pantry,” she told him with a soft laugh.
They were right where she’d left them. But when Carly turned away from the pantry, the tin with tea bags in her hand, she found that Hawk wasn’t where she had left him.
He was right behind her, so close that when she’d turned around, her body had brushed against his. She felt the electric tingle immediately. It blotted out the revulsion she’d been battling with.
“Are you that impatient for tea?” she asked, trying to suppres
s a grin.
Her eyes were dancing, he noted. And all he wanted to do right at this moment was make her his again.
“The hell with the tea,” he answered. His emotions were still all in a jumble, and he was at a loss how to sort everything all out. “I thought that Grayson—I was afraid that you—”
None of this was coming out right. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling this confused, as if he was being pulled in two directions at the same time, one labeled duty, the other labeled conscience. And him stuck in the middle.
“Damn it, Carly,” he all but exploded, thinking of what might have happened to her had Grayson an inkling that she was playing him, “I don’t like you taking these kinds of chances.”
She knew that, but she still found it oddly comforting to hear him admit it.
“You don’t have the right to tell me not to do this, you know,” she reminded him, even though she couldn’t suppress the hint of a smile curving her lips.
“I know,” he answered, “but just thinking that something could have happened to you—”
Hawk couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence. Instead, he abruptly pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Kissed her hard, with all the feeling pulsing through his body.
It took Carly a full thirty seconds to find her breath. “The water’s going to get cold,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to keep from cracking if she spoke any louder.
He didn’t care about the damn tea. “It can be reheated.”
His words brought a wide smile to her lips. “Apparently,” Carly said with a soft laugh as she pressed her body against his, “so can you.”
He brought his mouth down on hers again, this time with even more force than before. Kissing her as if there was no tomorrow because, for all he knew, there wasn’t one.
Not for him, not for her and especially not for them.
CHAPTER 12
Hawk had long ago decided that law enforcement work was a combination of danger and boredom with very little in between. On rare occasions, there was also a glimmer of the satisfaction associated with closing a case. But for the most part, it was the former set of circumstances that prevailed.
The boredom also included more than a little frustration. There was no doubt in Hawk’s mind that this particular case, involving dead women and a rampant display of mind control, was the classic example of both of those elements.
It was clearly dangerous because if Samuel Grayson decided that he had become a threat to his utopia, Grayson would have him eliminated without a thought. The frustration in this case was multifaceted, like a Hydra monster straight out of Greek mythology. Hawk found himself frustrated at almost every turn he took. There was the matter of the second victim’s, currently Jane Doe’s, true identity. She matched no missing persons report or any of the fingerprints that were on file in the various databases.
And as of this moment, the facial recognition program, which Jeffers had been running non-stop for the past day and a half, hadn’t found a match, either.
If this woman was an undercover operative, it had to be deep cover because, to date, no agency had attempted to claim her.
Maybe the woman had been a private detective, hired to track down and bring back someone Grayson had attracted to his community and subsequently brainwashed. It was a possibility. Hawk had suggested it to Jeffers the instant he thought of it.
“If she was a private investigator,” Jeffers had pointed out, “then she’d have to have a license and her prints would be on file somewhere—which they’re not,” he concluded with a deep sigh.
The only other possibility, Hawk had gone on to speculate, was that the woman hadn’t been a professional investigator and had undertaken this “going undercover” mission on her own because someone she cared about had been absorbed into Grayson’s society.
Their Jane Doe could have very well acted on the same instincts that Carly had, Hawk realized the next moment. The thought was far from comforting.
Damn but he wished he could get Carly to listen to him and give up this charade. He didn’t want her turning up in some shallow grave just because her sister was one of the mindless and addle brained who was so hopelessly devoted to Grayson.
Driving through the town like a man strictly out to enjoy the afternoon, Hawk observed the town’s citizens, looking for evidence he could work with.
He wasn’t sure just how much longer he could keep his mouth shut around Carly about the role she was playing. He made a right at the next corner with the intentions of doing one last round. He’d made his initial protest to her, then had intended to let the matter go because Carly wouldn’t be browbeaten or bullied into backing away. When pushed, she had a tendency to dig in, not flee or relent. He’d learned that a long time ago when her father had taunted her that she would never amount to anything. She became the only reason they didn’t lose the farm years ago.
But knowing the way she reacted didn’t keep him from voicing his opinion rather loudly the other night when he’d thought something had happened to her.
In a way, it had, he reminded himself. She’d been tattooed—branded—by that sick S.O.B. Hawk was now more worried than ever about her safety. Grayson was paying too much attention to her. Whether it was because he was suspicious that she wasn’t on the level or because he had singled her out as one of his particular “favorites,” Hawk didn’t know, and it really made no difference to him. The end result was the same. It placed Carly in danger.
And he didn’t like it.
One way or the other, he had to get her to leave town for her own good. Even if, by getting her to leave, he would be getting rid of the one bright spot in his life—not just here but in general.
For the past ten years, Hawk had been all about the job, all about his duty and whatever case he was working on. Nothing distracted him, nothing divided his focus. He’d had no real personal life, moreover, no desire to open up that part of himself where his feelings had once resided.
But being with Carly this short space of time, whether he liked it or not, had abruptly changed all that. It made him remember that there was another side to life, a side that didn’t involve guns, dead bodies and covert operations.
A side that involved a reason to smile.
Don’t get used to this, Hawk silently ordered himself. All of this—the good part—would be in his past in what amounted to less than the blink of an eye. And the less he invested himself in it now, the easier it would be for him to regroup and move on later. He needed to remember that.
“Words to live by,” he said sarcastically, under his breath.
The other source of his frustration, currently at the top of his list, was trying to reach Micah. For three weeks now he’d had the same kind of luck: none.
It was as if the man had just disappeared off the face of the earth after that initial communication.
Or, Hawk thought grimly, Micah’s brother had had him killed, just like, he was certain, Grayson’d had everyone else who had incurred his displeasure killed.
If that did turn out to be the case, he had no idea where to begin looking for Micah Grayson’s body—other than perhaps in or around the town where Micah had arranged to meet him, he supposed. Still, that was a large area to cover.
Could Grayson have learned about the proposed meeting, seen it as a threat to what he was doing and sent one of his henchmen to eliminate his twin brother? He might have even done it himself, Hawk speculated. Grayson might have taken a certain pleasure in ridding the world of his double, so that there was and would continue to be only one person with his face.
Who knew what went through that psychopath’s mind, Hawk thought, his frustration mounting as he felt that he was facing yet another brick wall.
There just had to be some faster way to get answers, but for the
life of him, Hawk didn’t know how.
* * *
Carly struggled to keep her smile pasted to her lips. It was far from easy. Not when she was standing in the doorway of the community center’s all-purpose room, looking at the ongoing preparations for Mia’s upcoming wedding.
Samuel had put several of his more dedicated female followers to work, festively decorating the area. They went about their appointed tasks, fashioning roses out of construction paper and adding gaily-colored streamers to every square inch of the community room.
To Carly, it looked as if a colored paper mill had exploded. In addition to streamers, balloons would soon flood the room. Because of helium’s somewhat limited life span, the balloons would be brought in during the last leg of the preparations so that they would appear robust and full of promise on the big day.
Unlike the actual situation.
When one of the women looked up and saw her, Carly suddenly found herself being pressed into service, despite her protests. After all, she was the sister of the bride. Her sense of pride and loyalty should have had her insisting on helping right from the beginning, one of the volunteers, a woman named Janice told her in no uncertain terms.
Carly would have liked nothing more than to leave—for a number of reasons, most prominently her incredibly strong disapproval of this match. But she knew it would look suspicious if she flatly declined Bubblehead Lady’s tersely worded suggestion. And that in turn would only wind up calling for a closer scrutiny of her behavior.
So she forced herself to cheerfully say, “Of course,” in response to Janice’s urgings to “Come help us get ready for Mia’s wedding.”
She’d give them an hour, Carly decided, then beg off to run some imaginary errand. They couldn’t find fault with that, right?
Mentally she began the countdown.
And in the meantime, she worked to create paper wild roses—pink ones—and she listened. She didn’t have to listen for very long to hear something distasteful.
Perfect Wyoming Complete Collection: Special Agent's Perfect Cover ; Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue ; A Daughter's Perfect Secret ; Lawman's Perfect Surrender ; The Perfect Outsider ; Mercenary's Perfect Mission Page 12