The meeting broke up shortly after the decision to hold off on labeling their unsub a serial killer had been made. Director Anderson-Wyatt stayed behind, remaining in the conference room with Gage and Chloe after everyone else had gone.
“This civilian you’re going to see, what is it you’re hoping he or she can help with? Specifically.”
Chloe looked to Gage, and he could tell she’d been wanting to know the same thing. She just hadn’t had time to ask.
“Holt McCain is a former SEAL. He was my CO when I enlisted. I served with his brother Jaxon. I taught them everything I know about the Internet, and they taught me how to find people who didn’t want to be found without using the Web. I think Jaxon is still serving overseas, but Holt is retired. He has the best instincts of anyone I’ve ever met.”
“So”—his director flicked her wrist—“you’re thinking . . .”
“I’m thinking he can track Eden’s whereabouts before she disappeared. Fill in the blanks that we can’t seem to. She went off the grid about a week before she disappeared. No credit card or cell phone use except to Chloe.” He didn’t add that there were several other people he wanted tracked, like Paulo Sebastian and Alex. Holt could do the tracking while remaining invisible. Something Gage could do too, but not when he was with Chloe. So Holt’s involvement was necessary for a multitude of reasons. Some of which he had no desire to reveal to his boss.
His boss nodded. “Okay. And if he can’t?”
Gage swallowed thickly. “If he can’t, then I focus my efforts on her friends, coworkers, and the Dark Net. Track her that way and hope like hell I find the missing pieces.”
He didn’t volunteer that Alyson was already doing that. She’d asked not to be involved with the FBI’s formal consultation with civilians. The kind of tracking she had to do involved breaking a lot of laws and a slew of Federal Communications Commission guidelines. She didn’t want anyone knowing exactly what she was doing or how—not even Gage. She said it gave him and Chloe plausible deniability not to know.
He waited for her to either tell him it was a solid plan or the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. She offered neither.
All she said was, “Well go on. You’re wasting daylight.”
15
Chloe didn’t know how long she’d been in the shower. Could have been five minutes or fifty-five minutes. She couldn’t even remember if she’d washed her hair.
The exhaustion, both physical and emotional, had caught up with her.
She was just standing there, letting the warm water pummel her when Gage finally knocked on the door.
“Chloe? You okay?”
The concern seeping through his voice told her she’d been in there longer than she’d realized.
Say something. Reassure him that you’re all right.
But she wasn’t.
The moment he’d told her they were going to the morgue, something inside her had snapped loose. Something vital that had been keeping her sanity intact.
The relief that washed over her when she’d seen that it wasn’t Eden in that morgue made her sick to her soul.
She was happy that someone else was dead instead of Eden.
What kind of sick person was she?
That poor young woman didn’t deserve to be dead either. Judging from the bruising and burn marks, as well as what the examiner pointed out as defensive wounds, the girl had suffered. A lot.
Gage hadn’t said it outright, but it was possible that whoever murdered that poor girl had Eden now. And it wasn’t just possible. It was probable.
“Chloe, answer me or I’m coming in.” The urgency behind the threat snapped her out of her trance.
“I’m fine.” She could hear her own voice quivering, so she sucked in a breath and tried again. “I’m okay. Really.”
The door flew open as if he hadn’t heard her. She gaped at him through the glass shower door.
“Fine and really gave you away,” he informed her without letting his eyes move from hers. “That was the fifteenth fine in the past hour.”
His refusal to look at her naked body was almost insulting.
“You’re not fine,” he said as he opened the shower door and shut off the water. He wrapped a nearby towel around her shoulders and helped her out of the shower. “Look at me, Chloe.”
“I’m okay. It just . . . got to me. Thinking that was Eden, then feeling relieved it wasn’t. But that girl, she was someone’s family. Someone’s sister, daughter . . .”
He stared hard into her eyes until she was worried he was reading her mind. “You’d have to be a robot not to be upset after everything you’ve been through. We both know it’s only going to get tougher from here. Which is why I want you to listen to me.”
She could feel something bad coming. Something she didn’t want to hear. “I’m listening.” She tightened the towel around her, tucking it under her arms and folding them over the front so she felt slightly less vulnerable.
“I think you should stay here. In town. I’ll go see Holt and brief him on everything. I’ll be back in a day—or two—tops. All I ask is that you stay here and stay safe. No poking and prodding around town. I have guys on you, so I’ll know if you—”
“If I what, Agent Pierce? Breathe wrong? Have a moment of weakness worrying that a sadistic psychopath has my sister?” She huffed out an annoyed breath.
The nerve of this man.
“Chloe, I didn’t mean—”
“To piss me off royally? To be an offensive ass? Too bad. You just did and you are.” She moved to hurry around him, but strong hands gripped her shoulders.
“Let me fucking finish, woman.” Once he realized he had her attention, he lowered his voice. “I need to focus on this case. But do you know what I was paying the most attention to during our visit to the morgue?”
She folded her bottom lip inward and shook her head. She’d been so distraught she had no idea what he’d been doing.
“You, Chloe. I was distracted. I’ve been distracted since the moment I saw you. And the more time we spend together, the more I’m drawn to you.” He closed his eyes. “When you shut down back there, all I could think about was how to get you to open back up.”
She felt her mouth open slightly and wondered if he heard the little gasp of air that escaped.
“Gage.”
“This trip to see Holt, it’s long. Long stretches of nothing for miles and miles.”
“You’re scared of me,” she said softly. “You’re probably the first person who’s ever been scared of me.”
He laughed, a low throaty chuckle that rumbled through her core. “Doubt that. Pretty sure Paulo Sebastian was afraid of you.”
She let a minuscule smile lift her lips. “Maybe.”
“I’m scared of losing focus, Chloe. I did that before, remember? You know what it cost me. I can’t let that happen here. I won’t.”
She nodded. “Well, you just saw me naked and you barely even noticed. So I think you’ll be okay.”
They remained in a deadlock stare for a long moment. Chloe used the time to appreciate the way his dark lashes framed his eyes. Such a contrast from his light irises.
“I noticed, Chloe,” he practically growled at her. “Believe me, I fucking noticed.”
With that, he stalked out of the bathroom, leaving her alone. In only a towel, she should’ve been cold. But she was strangely warm all over.
“I’m coming to Joshua Tree with you,” she hollered from the bathroom.
There was silence, then the sound of a door slamming.
Chloe stared at her flushed reflection in the mirror. Every emotion she felt seemed to be radiating from her eyes. Fear for her sister, concern for her own well-being in the face of Gage’s rage and frustration, and something else. Something unfamiliar. A spark she couldn’t quite identify.
With so much chaos and confusion, only one thing was certain.
Long stretches of nothing for miles and miles.
This was going to be th
e longest road trip of her life.
16
“So tell me more about the sabbatical you’re taking from work?” Gage asked once they had reached a steady speed on the interstate.
Chloe smirked. “Like you haven’t hacked the paper’s personnel files and found out already.”
Gage grinned. “Fair enough. But I’d rather hear it from you.”
Her chest lifted as she inhaled. “There’s a state representative positioning himself to make a run for president in the next few years. He’s as dirty as they come. I might’ve crossed some lines trying to prove it.”
“You?” Gage let out an exaggerated scoff. “Cross lines? No way.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Touché.”
She sighed. “He’s on this family-values platform, and he’s had some questionable interactions with prostitutes and bookies. I might’ve pretended to hit on him at a bar, given him my number, sent a text with a virus, and leaked the contents of his phone to a competitor when my editor wouldn’t run them.” She chewed the inside of her cheek and waited for his reaction.
“Not the most ethical behavior. But sometimes the ends justify the means.”
She exhaled her relief. “Agreed.”
She’d been judged enough already for what she’d done. But she stood by her decision. At least she could sleep at night—well, before all of this happened.
“Sending viruses, hacking cell phones. Maybe our careers aren’t all that different. You probably cross paths with guys like me all the time.”
Not in this lifetime.
Chloe was glad he couldn’t read her mind. “I see some local officers and federal agents here and there, conduct phone interviews mostly. I just compile what’s emailed or faxed to me for my articles. I’ve only been at the scene of a crime when bodies were still present a handful of times. I don’t envy you that.”
Gage’s mouth tightened at the corners, as did his grip on the steering wheel. “It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for sure.”
“There was this one case,” Chloe began, her eyes drifting past the passing scenery to somewhere far away. “Worst one I’ve ever reported on.”
“Those are the ones that will haunt you.” Gage set the cruise control on the truck, since traffic was light and moving at a constant pace.
Chloe nodded. “This man, just a regular guy, thirty-four, married, two daughters and a son, all under ten, mild gambling and drinking problem. Lost his job. Snapped.”
Gage racked his brain to try and recall if he’d heard about the crime in Boston. “How long ago?”
“Three years,” Chloe said softly. “Three years ago next month.”
He couldn’t sort through the data in his brain fast enough to pull it up.
“He shot them, one by one at the breakfast table.” Her voice was hollow, like it belonged to someone else. “They were so small, so helpless. I lived nearby, so I made it to the scene before the cleanup crew. I could see it, when I was there with our photographer. It was like watching a movie in my mind. One I wish I never had. They’d just been sitting there, waiting for dad to come eat. The wife was at the stove. He shot her first. Right in front of their kids. She’d dropped a skillet full of scrambled eggs.”
“Chloe.” Gage reached out without thinking and touched her bare knee gently. Not as a come-on, just for comfort. For both of them.
She propped her elbow on the window’s edge and pressed her fingers to her mouth, as if that would keep the words in. But he could tell she needed to get it out, so he listened. Sometimes with something so toxic and soul staining, letting the pain and horror out was the only way to get any relief.
“He shot the girls next, in the heads and chests. Then his son, who was in a high chair.” She choked on the last words. “Then he turned the gun on himself. It was like . . . like something out of a horror film. There was blood everywhere—splattered on the floor, the walls, the furniture.”
Her gaze was so far away from him. Her body was in the truck, but he knew she wasn’t. Not really. She’d left some part of her in that house that day, and she was revisiting that part now.
“In my line of work,” Gage said, returning his hand to the steering wheel, “I’ve learned that even the most normal-seeming people can have a monster inside them. Demons. A darkness that the littlest thing can trigger into action.”
Chloe took a deep breath and returned to him. “There was a huge stack of bills on the counter. He was in debt and about to lose everything, and he got fired due to company cutbacks and that was it.” She gave a slight shake of her head and a strand of hair came loose from her ponytail. “Debt. That was enough to make him brutally murder his entire family and commit suicide. I think that’s what I found the most terrifying. Something that, in the grand scheme of things, was manageable. They could’ve moved to a smaller house or stayed with relatives, he could’ve applied for unemployment while looking for another job, gotten food assistance for the kids and—”
“Chloe. Breathe.”
She forced a smile that was more of a grimace.
“Some people aren’t strong enough to deal. They take all kinds of ways out. Drugs. Robbery. Murder. Suicide.”
“But those were his babies. This wasn’t a case of mom’s addict boyfriend or whatever. They were his own flesh and blood. I just could never wrap my head around it, you know? Sometimes I close my eyes and I can still see them. So innocent.”
Gage inhaled a lungful of air-conditioned truck-cab air. He knew her well enough by now to know that she’d hate how vulnerable and exposed telling him that story would make her feel. So he gave her his own horror story.
“I’m still tracking the worst pedophile I’ve ever come across.” His throat constricted with rage at the thought of what he’d seen the man peddling on the Dark Net. He blinked the images back into the tight mental drawer he kept them locked in. “Calls himself the Candy Man. When I track him down, and I will eventually, it might be the end of my career. I might be going to jail after choking the life out of him with my bare hands. Part of me prays it comes to that, that he resists arrest, and it’s him or me.”
“I thought my job was intense. But the violent crime victims I see are usually already gone.” Chloe winced. “I can’t imagine doing what you do. Seeing what you have to see.”
Gage didn’t want her to even so much as catch a glimpse of the dark shit in his head. “Please don’t imagine it.” He lifted one shoulder noncommittally. “No one is vying for my job, that’s for sure.”
“Something to be said for job security?” Chloe offered another grimace.
He nodded with a slight smirk playing at his lips. He didn’t know anyone else he’d be as comfortable discussing all the ugliness in the world with.
“So how’d you end up in this particular sector? The Dark Net, I mean?”
“I was a hacker breaking through firewalls for the highest bidder. I got arrested after making my way past some government fail-safes, and it was either jail or the military. Which is nuts, because being a SEAL got me high-level security clearance. But I used my powers for good, and then the FBI recruited me. When the Dark Net began to emerge as a serious channel for unthinkable crimes, I was one of the only agents without kids. Me and Ramirez. She’s currently single, a lesbian, and has no plans to adopt. So they stuck us on Dark Net duty. My hacking skills combined with her stone-cold demeanor—I guess they thought we’d be the ones best able to stomach it.”
“And are you? Able to stomach it?”
Gage thought about it. “Sometimes. Sometimes not so much.”
Chloe was quiet for a moment and then she turned to him, angling her entire body toward him.
“I’m sorry you have to deal with so much darkness, Gage. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad it was you that Alexis led me to and that you took my sister’s case.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to let his gaze collide with hers. “Me too.”
17
&
nbsp; Chloe was not prepared for Holt McCain’s home. It was more like a compound.
At the end of a long, dusty dirt road, a pole stood beside some shrubbery. Gage pulled up to it and punched in a passcode. They drove for what seemed like a dozen more miles until a large industrial metal fence parted slowly for them. Gage waved at a camera hidden in a tree that Chloe wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t pointed it out.
She’d dozed on and off during the drive but she was fully awake and aware now. “Who is this guy?”
“You’ll see.” Gage chuckled. “Let’s just say he knows entirely too much about what the US and foreign governments are capable of. So he covers his ass. Always.”
They parked in front of a large beige metal building with bay doors that looked like fire trucks could fit through them.
“His private arsenal,” Gage said, answering her questioning glance.
“Jesus.”
“He would have to have the passcode and an invite also.”
Chloe smirked as she followed him to a sprawling one-level brick ranch with a beautiful wooden porch. “So how’d you get one?”
“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”
Chloe rolled her eyes.
Gage grinned. “I got his brother out of a bad situation overseas. Jax is our age, a hothead, but a damn good soldier. His unit got blocked in by insurgents in the mountains during our deployment.” For a moment, his eyes glazed over, and she wondered what he was picturing behind them. “Jax is a protector by nature. He wouldn’t leave his men behind, and he got trapped under fire. I went in and pulled him out.”
“Wow.”
“Glory lasts about five seconds over there. Then you go right back to covering your six and praying you don’t get dead before dinner.” Gage shrugged and his eyes refocused. “Feels like a lifetime ago.”
“But Holt was your CO. He must’ve been grateful.”
When they reached the porch, Gage placed his hand gently on the small of her back to guide her up the stairs. His touch made it difficult to focus on his words, but she did her best.
Blood & Lace Page 9