by Cynthia Eden
Asher Young couldn’t take his gaze off the gorgeous woman who sat—her body perfectly still—at the conference table. He froze just inside the doorway, sure as hell never expecting for his new client to be her.
Bailey Jones. Bailey Fucking Jones. He knew who she was, of course. Pretty much everyone in the United States knew about Bailey.
Gorgeous Bailey. With her strawberry blond hair, her high cheekbones, and her warm, golden skin.
Bailey . . .
She got away.
For weeks, her face had been splashed in the news. Clips of her had been broadcast on every TV show. Her story had been in every paper.
Ex–prom queen. Golden girl. Grad student. Abducted. Tortured. Left in hole that would have been her own grave . . .
But she’d lived.
She was the only victim to have survived the brutal reign of the killer known as the Death Angel.
Bailey wasn’t looking at him. He’d frozen in the doorway like some kind of dumbass, and she hadn’t even glanced at him. She wasn’t staring at anyone. Her hands were folded in her lap—all nice and neat—and her slender neck was bent as if she were lost in deep thought.
Asher had no fucking clue why she was in Atlanta’s LOST office. Sure, the job of the Last Option Search Team was to find the missing, but Bailey—she wasn’t missing. She’d been gone for days before she’d been discovered in the North Carolina mountains. She was alive. She was safe. She was definitely not in need of their services.
So what in the hell was she doing there?
Asher’s gaze cut toward his boss, and friend, Gabe Spencer. LOST was Gabe’s baby—his buddy had opened this business after Gabe’s sister had vanished. Gabe had found Amy, but too late.
Too fucking late.
Gabe’s blue eyes had narrowed on their would-be client. His fingers were lightly tapping on the edge of the conference table, and Asher could see the sympathy in his stare as Gabe focused on Bailey. When they’d been working together as SEALs, Asher never would have pegged Gabe for the kind of guy who had a soft touch. But Gabe’s expression sure said he was worried about the delicate woman who sat hunched at the table.
Not that Asher blamed the guy. Because there was sure as hell something about Bailey that was pulling at Asher’s own protective instincts.
You know she’s a victim. A survivor.
“Thanks for joining us,” Gabe said quietly as he glanced Asher’s way. Gabe inclined his head toward Asher as he added, “I want you to meet our new client, Bailey Jones.”
She jerked at the sound of her name, and her head lifted. She looked at him—finally looked—and her eyes were the same insane green that he’d seen on TV. So bright and bold. But . . .
There was fear in Bailey’s gaze, so much fear that every muscle in his body stiffened.
They were at LOST headquarters, up on the top floor of a secure facility. LOST agents were all over the place. There was no reason at all for her to fear.
I don’t want her afraid.
That was one of his many issues. Women shouldn’t be afraid. Not ever.
Bailey rose quickly, and the wheels of her chair squeaked as it slid back.
“Hello,” she said, her voice low, husky. Sexy.
Asher strode toward her. He saw her shoulders straighten as he drew nearer, and he offered his hand to her. “Ma’am.” Even he heard the Texas drawl in his voice. “Nice to meet you.”
Those seriously gorgeous green eyes of hers blinked, and then they seemed to sharpen on him. Her gaze traveled slowly over his face as she took his hand.
Damn but her skin was soft. His was callused to hell and back, a side effect of his workout routine. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL. Even though he wasn’t active duty any longer, he still trained the same way. He wanted to be ready for anything his new life as a civilian—as a LOST agent—might throw his way.
As he stood there, her scent seemed to slide around him. A sweet scent; light. Feminine. Lavender?
“Asher will be the lead on your case,” Gabe said briskly. A little too briskly.
Shit. Just how long was I holding her hand? Why am I being such a dumbass with her?
Her gaze had traveled over Asher’s face, lingered just a bit on his chin. No doubt, she was looking at the scar he carried. The white line that slid under his chin was a reminder to him—monsters were fucking everywhere. And people needed to be ready to fight them.
She pulled her hand from his and tugged down the long sleeve of her shirt. The sleeve had already been long, though, sliding far past her wrist. “I appreciate your help,” Bailey said, her voice still husky. He hadn’t realized she’d sound that way.
Too sexy.
Yes, everyone knew that Bailey Jones was attractive. Gorgeous. That was one of the reasons the news crews had run her face again and again and again. But there was a whole hell of a lot more to her than just a pretty face. If all the stories he’d read were true, the woman had a spine of steel.
Not a victim. Survivor. And that made her even hotter.
But why was she at LOST? Since Gabe had just said Asher was the lead on her case . . . I should probably figure out what is happening here, fast.
Gabe sat down and Bailey followed suit. Once more, those chair wheels rolled softly.
Asher cast a quick, questioning glance toward Gabe, and then he sat down—right next to Bailey. Again, she stiffened, just the slightest bit, and then seemed to force herself to relax.
Gabe cleared his throat. “You’re familiar with Bailey’s case already.”
Because he was so close to her, Asher saw Bailey’s hands twisting nervously in her lap. “Yes. I’m familiar.” She’d been abducted, held for days, tortured. Then the asshole started to bury her alive. Only something happened. A fire erupted in the killer’s cabin and he got himself trapped in there. He died in the flames. And those flames . . . they brought help to Bailey.
Bailey released a ragged breath. “Everyone thinks it’s over. I get that—six months have passed. Six long months. It should be over.”
His brows lowered as he studied her.
“It’s not.”
Asher just waited. He sure wished she’d look at him again and—
Her head turned toward him, her strawberry blond hair sliding over her shoulders. Her long lashes swept up as Bailey’s gaze zeroed in on him. “There’s another victim.”
“What?” Shock ripped through him.
“The cops . . . they said I must have imagined her. I didn’t. She was there that night. I saw her. I heard her. He had another woman out there—and she was not one of those poor women he’d already killed and buried.” Now her words came faster, but they were still soft. A little raspy. “I saw all of their pictures. The police identified all of the remains in those graves. She wasn’t there.”
He cast a quick glance over at Gabe. Gabe was always very particular about the cases he took at LOST. If the boss had already agreed to help her . . .
Then Bailey said something that made Gabe take notice.
“I’m not crazy,” Bailey said.
His stare shot back to her. “I never said you were,” Asher told her carefully. Crazy wasn’t a label that he liked to throw around, not with his past.
Red stained her cheeks. “The authorities didn’t believe me. And the shrink I’ve been seeing . . . he didn’t believe me, either. Said I made her up in some kind of effort to gain control—to make the whole ordeal seem like less of a nightmare.” Her hands stopped twisting. “That’s bullshit,” Bailey said bluntly, still holding his stare. “I know I went through hell, but I also know I wasn’t alone there. Another woman was in that cabin with me. He had someone else there.”
Okay. Asher rolled back his shoulders as he considered her words. “Like you said, ma’am, six months have passed since that fire.”
Her lips pressed together.
“The property has been searched thoroughly. Cadaver dogs went over the entire place.” She had to know all of this. “If there was another bo
dy—”
“She got away,” Bailey said.
His eyes widened.
“I—I helped her get away.”
This shit definitely hadn’t made the news.
“I got away . . . no, I got out of my ropes. I was going to slip out of the cabin, but I heard her screaming. I couldn’t just leave her there . . .” She licked her lips. “So I rushed into the other room. I hit him. She got away. I saw her run past me when he had me on the floor.” Her hand rose to her throat, but Bailey seemed to catch herself, and her hand dropped back to her lap. “She was my height, a little thinner than me, maybe by ten or fifteen pounds. Caucasian, with long black hair.”
Silence.
He wanted to see Gabe’s expression, but for the life of him, Asher couldn’t look away from her green gaze.
“I’m not making her up,” Bailey said doggedly. “She was real. And I have to know what happened to her.”
Now he was seeing where LOST fit into the equation.
“I’m not crazy,” Bailey said again. “She was there, and I want you to help me find her. The sheriff in the area—he won’t do anything. The authorities found the killer’s body in that cabin, and as far as they are concerned, the case is closed.” She gave a hard shake of her head. “It’s not closed. She was there.”
There was so much intensity in her voice. So much certainty in her face. Yeah, okay, now he understood why Gabe had agreed to take the case. I believe what she’s saying, too. Her emotions were too real, too raw to be denied.
“Bailey wants us to find that missing victim,” Gabe said.
Right.
“And she wants to go into the field with the agent who will be leading the case.”
What? A civilian in the field? Asher started to shake his head.
“I’m going,” Bailey said flatly. “That was part of the deal. I am going to be involved in the investigation. I need to be involved.”
Now that sounded like one real bad deal to him, but he wasn’t the boss.
The boss was Gabe, and the guy was nodding. Hell. Asher inclined his head toward Bailey. “Fine. But when we’re in the field, just remember to follow orders, got it?” Because he didn’t want to do anything that might put her at risk. Her safety would be priority one. Finding the missing woman—if she was out there—that would be priority two.
For an instant, a ghost of a smile tilted Bailey’s full lips. “Sounds as if you were in the military.”
Some habits are definitely dying hard. “Yes, ma’am,” he told her. Her smile had made her eyes go lighter, pushing away some of the shadows. He wished all the shadows would leave her gaze.
There was a light knock at the door, and a moment later, Gabe’s assistant appeared. “I’ve got the paperwork ready,” she said.
“Great.” Gabe waved her in and then nodded toward their new client. “Bailey, you can stay in here while you fill out the forms. Asher and I need to talk outside.”
Bailey nodded. Her smile had vanished, too fast. Asher wished her smile had lingered longer.
Asher followed Gabe out of the conference room, and, yeah, maybe he looked back a time or two, just to make sure that Bailey was okay.
Gabe jerked the conference door shut, stopping him from taking a third look back at Bailey. “Be very careful with her,” Gabe warned.
Asher’s brows rose.
“I’ve got a contact at the sheriff’s office up in Brevard, North Carolina . . . I called their office as soon as she appeared. There was no sign to indicate another victim was in the cabin with Bailey. Deputies searched, but they turned up jack shit.” His voice was a low whisper. “And there are a few people up there who think that Bailey’s captivity took too much of a toll on her. That she might be . . . having a breakdown.”
Anger hummed beneath Asher’s skin. “You heard the woman . . . she’s not crazy.”
“She was stabbed eleven times, strangled, and left in a hole to die. That shit would make anyone crazy.” Gabe yanked a hand through his hair.
“If you think she’s crazy, then why take her case?”
“Because when I looked in her eyes, shit . . . I wanted to help her. She’s been through hell, and maybe we can give her the closure she needs.”
“You don’t think there was another victim . . .”
“I think I want you heading up to the mountains with her. I want you searching that area and looking at what is left of that crime scene. If you find a lead for us, if this pans out, then I will move heaven and earth to find that other woman.”
“Just me? No other team members?” Usually the LOST agents worked with a partner.
“Not yet.” Gabe dropped his hand. “I’ll get Wade to pull all the missing persons’ reports from NamUs and see if we have any hits that match up with the description Bailey gave us. It’s possible there was another victim there, and when she got away, she never looked back.”
She just left Bailey? With that killer?
“See what you can find out in the field.” Gabe glanced toward the shut conference door. “Like I said, that woman in there needs closure, and we can give it to her.”
Asher thought she needed a hell of a lot more than just closure. But they’d start there.
“Your first solo trip with LOST,” Gabe murmured as he lifted his brows. “You ready for this?”
He thought of Bailey’s gaze. Of her fear. “Hell, yes, I am.”
Bailey made sure her steps were slow and steady as she headed toward the elevator. Now that the big meeting was over, she was almost shaky with relief. She’d done it. Actually made it to LOST and convinced them to take her case.
She’d fought like crazy to get the sheriff and his deputies to listen to her back home. They’d pitied her. They’d looked sadly at her. They’d told her to see her shrink again. But they hadn’t helped her.
And with the way things were going lately, the fear that she had . . .
Something has to change.
Her life was a wreck; she knew it. She’d withdrawn from pretty much everyone around her. Before the abduction, she’d had . . . well, not a lot of friends, but at least a few who were close to her. Now, she couldn’t stand to be near them. They tried to talk to her as if everything were normal, they’d told her to move on . . .
I can’t.
She’d tried, though, dammit. A month after her kidnapping, she’d even tried to go back to work. She’d gone onto the college campus, headed in to teach her history class, and as she’d stood up at the podium, staring at the students, she’d just been aware of the . . . whispers. The pity. The stares that wouldn’t stop.
Bailey had broken out into a cold sweat. She’d barely made it through the lecture, and then, when the class was over, she’d been violently ill in her office.
She’d gotten damn lucky. A new position had come open at the college—or maybe her boss had just pitied her, too, and he’d moved folks around so that the job became available. But now, she didn’t have to lecture in person. She could still teach the history classes she loved, but they were online these days.
No stares. No whispers. No pity.
She hated pity. Almost as much as she hated the fear that still held her in its too-tight grip.
But I’m breaking free now. I’ve got LOST on my side. Bailey jabbed her index finger into the button on the elevator’s panel. The doors opened as if on cue, and she hurried inside. Her breath released in a low rush as the doors began to close. Bailey finally let her shoulders sag. She could stop pretending just for a moment and finally—
A man’s hand slid between the closing doors, activating the sensors and causing the mirrored doors to immediately reopen.
Dark eyes. Dark hair. Dangerous. Deadly.
Asher Young.
All of the air in the elevator seemed to disappear. She took a step back automatically, and her shoulders pumped up against the mirrored wall behind her.
His hard jaw tightened even more. “I don’t want you to fear me.”
Too bad. The
se days, I fear everyone and everything. She couldn’t remember the last night she’d slept without waking up in a cold sweat, and every little sound she heard had her jumping.
She’d even started to feel as if she were being watched. Even in her home with its new top-of-the-line security system, she couldn’t feel safe.
Maybe I won’t ever feel safe. That would be another gift that the Death Angel had left her.
Carefully, she pulled down the sleeves of her shirt. She hated all of her scars. More twisted gifts to always mark me.
Asher stepped fully into the elevator and he hit the button that would take them down to the parking garage. When the doors closed, oh, jeez, the elevator immediately felt even smaller. Or maybe he just seemed bigger.
She figured the guy had to be around six foot two or three, and he was all muscle. Wide shoulders. Powerful arms. Built. The kind of guy that would have drawn her stare before her abduction.
Before I became scared of everyone.
And she hated that fear. So much. The Death Angel was long gone, burning in hell. So why couldn’t she get her life back together?
“You can trust me,” Asher told her.
“Trust doesn’t come easily for me,” she replied. Actually, it didn’t come at all for her. Not these days. Once, she’d looked out at the world and never seen any darkness. She’d trusted blindly, dumbly.
Not any longer.
Asher. She made herself look at him again. An intense guy. Handsome, in a rough way. Dark brown eyes, a strong Roman nose. His hair was thick and nearly jet black, a little long. The faintest hint of stubble covered his hard jaw and on his chin, her gaze was drawn to the white scar that slid over his skin.
A scar from a knife? Bailey thought so. After all, she’d become very familiar with the marks left after an attack from a knife.
The elevator dinged. The doors opened. More people slid inside and Asher stepped closer to her. She sucked in a quick breath and caught his scent—rich, masculine. His shoulder brushed against her arm, and Bailey flinched. Dammit. She hated it when she flinched. She hated the way she’d become.
LOST was located in a downtown Atlanta high-rise. There were plenty of other offices in the building, and the people in the elevator had come from those other offices. One guy—a blond in a dark suit—glanced back at her with a flirtatious smile.