The Best Victim

by Colleen Thompson

  As the pickup pulled away from her, the wrecker driver shot Brent a skeptical look. “She looks madder’n a skin’t cat. You sure you want any parta that?”

  A reasonable question, he thought as she turned his way while checking her dog for injuries. Even from this distance, he made out the stiffness of her posture and the torn knees of her jeans, neither of which gave him much hope that she’d be grateful to see him.

  “Yeah, I do,” Brent told him, swearing he would find a way to harness every bit of the raw anger and determination he saw in Lauren Miller and mold them to his purpose. Because it would take that kind of guts and grit to help him hunt down the animal who had tortured his Carrie until she’d broken.

  It would take a woman tough as nails to look away while he permanently ended the Troll King’s chances of legally maneuvering his way out of the situation. While Brent left the bastard awash in the same blood that nightly haunted his own dreams.

  An hour later, he and Lauren were back on the road in Durant’s sedan, with Dumpling comfortably settled on the back seat floorboard.

  “For what it’s worth,” Brent said, hoping it was safe to risk another stab at conversation, “it was a pretty good escape plan. I still have no idea how you managed to fry my fuse so quickly.”

  “Obviously, some man must’ve shown me how to do it.”

  He snorted at her irritation but managed to hold back a smile. “So exactly what was it that happened between you and your knight in shining pickup before he threw you out?”

  “He didn’t throw me out.” Her indignant glare bounced off him. “I was getting out. Leaving on my own.”

  “Apparently, not fast enough to suit him. So what happened? He try something?” Anger cracked through Brent’s composure at the thought of some Neanderthal who couldn’t wait two miles before trying to cop a feel.

  It made him feel like a creep himself for noticing the swell of her breasts, though they were mostly hidden by her jacket. For noticing the way her soft hair framed her face and how pretty she looked, her cheeks pink with a mix of embarrassment and exasperation.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not discuss it,” she said, holding the cold pack they had purchased against one of her knees.

  Though she’d seemed intent on ignoring her injury, he’d found a first aid section in the travel plaza and insisted that one of them put on the antibiotics and bandage her abraded flesh. After skewering him with an annoyed look, she had done the honors, and then swallowed the two headache tablets he’d given her to help with pain and swelling—after insisting that he show her the bottle.

  “So we’ll just go with, you missed me,” Brent suggested.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. That was it. Big Mel got jealous when I told him how you make psychosis look so sexy. Or maybe it’s paranoia. I don’t know. You ever get an official diagnosis?”

  Brent tried to chuckle, but the sting went too deep. Too close to what his superiors, coworkers, even trusted friends had told him. “You, with all your hang-ups, you really want to give me grief about that?”

  “Probably not, considering that you’re the one who has the guns.”

  He frowned at the reminder. “You know, you didn’t have to come with me. Didn’t have to climb into that tow truck on the feeder. There were cops up at that wreck at the intersection. Cops who would have helped you if you’d gone and told them you were being kidnapped.”

  “I know.” She shook her head, a flush suffusing her face. “But all those people. They were watching me from their cars. Staring at me, honking.”

  “Well, yeah. That’s my point, why I couldn’t have done anything, even if I’d been of a mind to.”

  ”You might have your issues,” she said, “but I realized that it’s getting late, and you’re my last shot to get there before five o’clock at this point. And I realized, too, that you won’t hurt me. Because you really do need me for whatever it is you’re scheming.”

  “That’s right, Lauren. I would never hurt you. Even if you decide to walk away from this after I drop you off at the morgue.”

  He felt the weight of her stare, the gears clicking in her sharp mind as she appraised and analyzed his claim.

  “You mean it.” She stated it as a fact, not a question.

  “I mean it absolutely. If it’s what you want to do, listen to whatever the cops and the ME’s office are going to tell you. Accept Jimenez’s version at face value. Then grieve for Rachel’s suicide and move on with your life.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest, hiding those breasts that kept stealing into his thoughts with a relentlessness that made him wonder if his libido was making up for two lost years.

  “Maybe I don’t have a life to move on with,” she told him, “not without my sister.”

  “Could be you’ll find the path to a new life begins with doing all you can to make sure this never happens again.”

  “Revenge, you mean,” she corrected. “That’s what you’re really after.”

  “Revenge won’t bring her back. Won’t bring back any of them.” He parroted what the bureau psychologist had told him, knowing it was the right thing even as he dreamed of smearing the Troll King’s brains across the pavement, of painting Carrie’s name in blood across the sides of buildings.

  Was he sick to think those things, unworthy to live past what had happened? And was he wrong to wish the same, obsessive rage on the shell-shocked woman he had with him?

  He didn’t know; he’d never know, but he was grateful when she let silence spool out in the space between them. It gave him time to breathe a little, to reacquaint himself with the beautiful city, nestled among rolling hills and flanked in part by the sparkling Town Lake. Though many of the trees were bare, he drank in the greenery of the live oaks and magnolias, which kept their leaves all through the winter, allowing himself to shake off the bleak expanses of North Texas. To shake off his own grim mood as he considered how to let Lauren go without losing her forever.

  Soon, they made it to a narrow street, where Brent parked near a nondescript, three-story building. Beside him, Lauren stiffened, glancing at the dashboard clock, which read 4:36.

  “I told you I’d have you here in time,” he reassured her.

  “I only hope they aren’t so eager to go home and start their weekends, they’ll want to rush through this instead of listening.”

  He could have pointed out that they’d have been here a whole lot earlier had she not felt the need to try to escape him. Instead, he assured her, “They won’t rush you on something this important. The reception area might be closed, but they’ll have people on duty all through the night, people who will help you through this.”

  Her body stiffened, the tension rolling off of her in frigid waves. “But will they believe me when I tell them it’s not my sister?”

  “If that’s what you think, once you see the photos.”

  “You mean they won’t take me—that I won’t go in to see her?”

  He shook his head. “Each municipality is different, but I’d say most likely not. They’ll show you a picture of her face, or maybe of some distinguishing mark if she has any—”

  “Rachel has a little tattoo.” Lauren rubbed at her eyes. “A hummingbird on her right shoulder. She begged me to come down for a visit, to come with her to get its match, but I was too—the thought of all those needles piercing my skin…”

  He nodded, adding sharp objects to her list of phobias. Or maybe it was the thought of the germs they might carry. “When you go inside,” he said gently, “I want you to focus on your breathing. On counting how many breaths you take until it’s over.”

  He wasn’t sure exactly why he offered her the lifeline, unless it was because he needed her, her skills and spirit, intact.

  She looked into his face, her own as frightened as a lost child’s. “I wish you’d come in with me.”

  “I’d figure you’d be glad I’m not. Didn’t you just try to dump me?”

  “I’v
e found out there are a lot scarier things out there.” Her blue-green eyes glittered. “And I’m pretty sure this is one of them.”

  He thought about it for a minute, weighing the possibility that she’d still file a complaint, have him arrested for aggravated kidnapping. She had already proven she was more than capable of subterfuge. Still, the fear on her face was so familiar and so piercing, he doubted she would be his biggest issue.

  “I wish I could go in with you,” he said, “but the Austin authorities might very well be waiting to take me in for interfering with their investigation. Besides, you need to hear what they say and make up your mind for yourself.”

  She nodded. “Then I’d better go. Before I do, though, can I have my cell phone?”

  He fished it out of an inner coat pocket but pointedly didn’t offer to return her gun. “Would you like me to check you into a hotel room, take your things there? There’s a Sheraton right down the street, and I’m almost positive they’re pet friendly.”

  Ignoring him, she stared down, her face paling as she looked at the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” His stomach falling, he kicked himself for not sparing the screen a glance in hours. Earlier, he’d deleted some missed calls from Jimenez, but since then, he hadn’t felt her silenced cell phone vibrate.

  She shook her head. “I-I’d better go, before it gets too late.”

  “What’s on the phone?” He reached for it, fearing that the Troll King had already found her, but she snatched it out of range and dropped it in her pocket.

  “Tell me right now, Lauren,” he pressed, fear slashing through him at the thought that this was how it began—how he would end up losing her, too. Because once the Troll King truly got his claws into a vulnerable woman’s psyche, she rarely, if ever, managed to break free. Not even a woman as resourceful and intelligent as Lauren had proven herself to be.

  Ignoring him, she grabbed her purse and opened the door a split second before he could hit the locking mechanism.

  “Hold on just a minute!” he said, upset he had forgotten about the child locks on this leg of their journey. But she had bailed out of the car already. A moment later, she was reaching for the back door to claim her dog and luggage.

  His foot flashed to the gas pedal, his instincts telling him that this would be the only way to insure that she would talk to him later. She cried out, her horrified plea for him to stop spiking through his white-hot conscience. As he sped off, she ran after him a few steps, giving him a last glimpse of her red face as he took the corner fast enough that the sedan’s tires squealed a protest.

  “It’s for your own good,” he said, telling himself he only meant to help her as he left Sabine Street behind.

  But as he drove, an image vibrated through his brain, a vision of a small and tasteful tattoo. Though he had never had the occasion to see Rachel’s, he knew damned well that Lauren was about to.

  About to see it for the last time, in colors so vivid they would sear themselves into her brain forever, the wings and feathers blazing against the snowfield of her sister’s death-pale flesh.

  Because of his cruelty, Lauren Miller would have to walk into that cold and faceless building all alone and face the worst hell of her life without even the comfort of the fat, old dog in her arms.

  #

  Lauren’s knees were shaking as she walked up the concrete ramp leading to the building’s entrance. With her throat aching and her nose running, she wanted to find a ladies’ room and indulge in a good, old-fashioned cry—or maybe scream and smash the mirrors since Brent Durant wasn’t around for her to strangle.

  But with time running out, she couldn’t spare a minute for histrionics, nor could she risk pulling the phone out of her back pocket to reread the message that made the world spin around her each time her thoughts glanced off it. So after breathing a quick prayer that the rogue agent would take Dumpling and her bags to the hotel he’d suggested, she swallowed back the threatening nausea and went inside.

  After taking an elevator to the third floor as signs directed, she found an empty waiting area painted in shades of institutional oatmeal and tapped at the frosted window with a knuckle. When no one answered, she knocked harder, praying that the office hadn’t closed early for some reason.

  Moments later, the glass slid to one side, revealing a jowly, middle-aged woman whose dark unibrow made her look permanently annoyed. “May I help you?”

  Her heart stumbling, Lauren could barely force the words out. “I, uh, I was asked to come here, to identify a—they think it’s my sister? Rachel Miller? But I can’t imagine she would…”

  The receptionist’s expression softened. “Ah, yes. Rachel Miller. I was asked to keep an eye out for you, Miss…?”

  “It’s Miller, too. Lauren Miller.”

  “You’re here alone?” The woman rose slightly from her seat and craned her thick neck to look out into the waiting area.

  The wariness in her expression made Lauren suspect that she’d been asked to watch for Brent Durant as well. Would he have been arrested, as he had feared, if he had come inside? Would they send someone to lock him up if she told them to check the Sheraton?

  Yet Lauren simply nodded, too nervous to answer all the questions such a demand would entail. Not until she got through this part, anyway.

  The receptionist pushed a clipboard toward her. “If you’ll fill out this information and let me see a photo ID, someone will call for you in a few minutes.”

  Lauren took the form back to a chair and completed the required blanks before fishing her driver’s license from her wallet. After returning to the counter, she peeked into the open window. But the receptionist had left her desk, so Lauren, unable to resist the impulse, pulled the cell phone from her pocket and opened the messages.

  Her pulse pounding like a war drum, she stared at the name on top of the screen. Her sister’s name, which meant that the text had been sent from Rachel’s phone.

  The text containing six words that sent fresh fault lines snaking through Lauren’s frozen heart. NEED TO TALK TO YOU. SOON.

  To be continued in the next episode. Your book will be automatically updated with Episode Three and you can continue reading from this page.

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