Targeted

by Lori L. Harris

  Three of the red rose petals had missed the bed entirely and resembled a blood trail.

  Alec’s gut twisted. Everything inside him wanted to deny what he was seeing. No one could look at the room and not be shaken by it. Not think about the woman who was to have been lashed down and terrorized. Murdered. It was what nightmares were made of. For Alec it was even more personal than that. It was the nightmare he couldn’t escape. It represented not only the degradation that one human being could inflict upon another, it also represented Alec’s own failure.

  He stepped carefully into the room. One narrow path in and the same path out. He’d been working crime scenes for enough years that it had become second nature.

  Without even counting, he knew there would be twenty-seven candles—the cheap variety, which accounted for the heavy scent of wax. Just as he knew the brand of box cutter on the nightstand—Swain. Just as he knew the picture over the bed had been removed to make room for a different kind of artwork.

  The kind that required blood.

  Eleven months ago, his flight into Philadelphia International had been delayed because of a snowstorm. When he’d landed, he’d thought about calling Jill, but she would have been sleeping. She was a teacher and got up early. The roads were a mess, and it had taken him seventy minutes to go twenty-eight miles. The house had been dark. He’d come in through the garage, stopped in the kitchen long enough to drink a glass of milk—his dinner—and to add kibble to the cat’s dish.

  He’d left his suitcase there, figuring he could undress in the dark and climb into bed without waking Jill. He’d thought the house cold, so had dialed up the thermostat as he passed.

  He remembered that he’d hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, looked up into the familiar darkness above. He’d sensed something wasn’t right, but had quickly written it off. He was just beat.

  He’d taken only the first two steps when he’d smelled it…the heavy scent of blood. His grip on the railing tightening, he’d tried to convince himself he was wrong. That the smell of death had been with him for so many days he was no longer capable of breathing air that wasn’t tainted with its stink.

  And then he’d seen the bloody paw prints left by the cat.

  Alec had taken the remaining steps two and three at a time, his weapon drawn.

  But he was too late.

  The attack had taken place midafternoon—the medical examiner had never been able to put an exact time on it because of the cool temperature in the house and the ceiling fan. Blood had soaked all the way through the mattress, forming a puddle on the wood floor beneath the bed.

  “Alec.” Jack had followed him into the room, and now interrupted the too-vivid memory. “Talk to me.”

  Talk to him? Alec realized he would give anything to talk to his brother. Not about police work and crime scenes, but about coming home, finding his wife murdered. To know deep down inside that he was the reason she was dead. That her death hadn’t been the work of a sexual sadist, but of someone out to destroy Alec. Someone seeking revenge for some perceived wrong.

  But he couldn’t talk to Jack. Not because Jack wouldn’t listen, but because Alec couldn’t make himself say any of those words aloud.

  “Alec?” This time Jack squeezed his brother’s shoulder.

  Alec stepped out from under what was meant to be a comforting gesture. The pink cotton rug deadened the sound of his hard soles. He looked down at the bed. At the blank wall above. In his mind, he saw the bloody message the killer had left him eleven months ago.

  REMEMBER.

  And he did remember. Every second of every day, he remembered.

  Alec looked back at his brother, at the young crime scene tech Martinez. “He’s grown tired of postcards. There’s nothing visceral in paper and ink.”

  Stunned silence followed those words.

  “But why now?” Jack remained unmoving.

  It was as if the question threw some kind of switch inside Alec. He was no longer the grieving husband…desperate to right an unrightable wrong. He was the man who had spent years in the FBI facing the unimaginable. One of Quantico’s best. In reality, he was beginning to believe that he wasn’t all that much different from the men he’d hunted. Of late, he’d started to realize that he was more comfortable staring at photos of the dead than looking into the eyes of the living. He’d told his brother that tonight’s date was just pizza and conversation, but it hadn’t been. It had been a test. To see if he could sit across from an attractive woman and pretend that he was okay.

  “Why now? Maybe he sees my leaving Philadelphia as a sign I’m moving on. He can’t let that happen.” Alec continued to examine the room, seeking subtle changes in the scene—a new twist—that might suggest that the killer was evolving.

  Alec placed his hands in his pockets. For the first time in his career, they were shaking, not just with anger, but with fear, too. For the woman in the other room. He immediately closed out that line of thought, wouldn’t allow himself to go there quite yet.

  “He needs to maintain control. Control is very important to him. You can see it in the precision of everything he does.” Alec checked out the top of the dresser, the room’s small bookshelf. “He tidied up in here. Dusted. Rearranged her books. Probably went through them. He’d want to know everything he could about her.” Not because he was interested in her, but because he wanted to know what had drawn Alec to her.

  “How can you know that?” Martinez asked, his voice filled with skepticism.

  Alec swung his gaze to the man briefly. “Because the mantel in the living room hasn’t been dusted recently. The end table showed signs that someone attempted to swipe away the worst of it with a hand, but didn’t shift the lamp aside to be thorough—probably Katie when she got home tonight. Books are piled on the end of the sofa. The ones that fell onto the floor have been left there.”

  Alec closed his eyes in an attempt to stave off the headache building behind his right eye. “Living rooms are usually kept ready for company, but our bedrooms, that’s where we can be ourselves. We can toss the magazine we’ve been reading in bed onto the floor, get up in the morning and step over it and never concern ourselves with the possibility that we’re slobs.” Several magazines were neatly stacked on the corner of the nightstand.

  “And Katie?” Jack asked. “A waitress in a restaurant where you have breakfast? Why choose her?”

  Alec thought back. “It’s been suggested that I observe Katie more than other people. A few, including you, Jack, took it to mean that I had a romantic interest in her. Perhaps the UNSUB saw the same thing.”

  “He’d have to be damn close in order to do that,” Jack said. There was a grimness in both the words and his tone.

  Alec suspected his brother wasn’t just thinking about tonight’s assault. Jack was thinking about the monster who walked among them. What it meant for Deep Water.

  Turning, Alec glanced at his brother first, and then Martinez. The look in the tech’s eyes was wary now.

  Alec had known it would eventually get out, the people in Deep Water would learn who he was. And once they did, they would look at him differently. Just as his coworkers had treated him differently when he’d returned to duty two months after he’d buried Jill. They were comfortable looking at the dead; accustomed to facing a victim’s family. But when the victim was the spouse of one of their own? Well, that wasn’t so easy for them. It forced them to recognize that they weren’t any safer than the rest of the population. That their families were equally vulnerable. And if there was one thing no agent wanted to feel, it was pregnable.

  “Any possibility it’s a copycat?” Martinez asked.

  Alec shrugged. “The scene’s incomplete—no blood, no body—which leaves open the possibility of a copycat.”

  “But you don’t think it is, do you?” Martinez asked.

  “No. Even the best copycat killer usually makes a mistake with at least one of the props. The number of candles is the same, the brand of knife, the use of sur
gical tubing…”

  CALMER NOW that she was alone, Katie set down the glass of water on the side table. What was it that the police chief wanted Alec to see in her bedroom? The candles?

  She carefully tested her right cheek again, tracing the bone with only her fingertips. Yep. Still hurts. As did her neck and back and rib cage. And then there was her left knee. She flexed the joint to test it. Not as bad as it looked. Of course, come morning that might change.

  Maybe Alec was right about the trip to the hospital. And after the hospital? What then? Where would she go?

  She’d get a hotel room. There was no way she was staying in this house tonight or any other night. Maybe once the bruises faded, she’d fly out and see her parents, spend some time with them.

  She was going to get her life back for real this time. Just as she had after her sister’s death. It had taken some time and had been tough, but she’d done it. She was strong. That’s what her father claimed. Karen may have been the bold one, but Katie was the one with the real strength in the family.

  She glanced around the room. So why was she cowering here? Standing, Katie limped to the foyer entrance. She rubbed her arms compulsively, but it wasn’t because she was cold. It was just the adrenaline still kicking around her system.

  The front door was closed, but a breeze poured in through the broken glass of the upper portion. The young cop assigned to guard it stood with his back to her and didn’t look in her direction.

  She got as far as the kitchen before stopping. Glancing inside, she saw that the back door had been closed, but the chair she’d used to break the glass in the upper portion still hung there, two legs inside, two outside. She allowed her gaze to take in the rest of the room slowly. Streaks of red ran down the front of the painted cabinets. Wine, but for a brief moment it almost looked like blood.

  For as long as she could, Katie fought the urge to glance over her shoulder, then, when the small hairs at the back of her neck had climbed to attention once more, she gave in to the need. Of course, she was the only one in the room. Drawing a cleansing breath, she decided that she had every right to be nervous. That it was a perfectly normal response to what she’d been through.

  The sound and strobe of a camera flash prodded her back into the hallway and toward her bedroom. What was it that they were doing in there? How many photos could you take of candles? And then it occurred to her that maybe her attacker had come in through her bedroom window.

  The scent of candle wax lingered still, a second one accompanied it. Something sweet. She frowned. Perfume? Flowers?

  Another flare of light. She could see Martinez now, just inside the door, the camera aimed toward her bed. He wasn’t talking, but she could hear the low murmurs of Alec and his brother. Martinez looked up when she was still five feet from the opening.

  He lowered the camera. “Ma’am? You shouldn’t—”

  “What is it?”

  She hadn’t been able to see Alec from the hallway, but he managed to head her off before she could get to the door. He caught her by the shoulders and forced her backward, away from the door. His grip on her was firm but gentle. When their gazes met, she saw compassion in his eyes. She’d seen the same compassion two months ago in the eyes of the police officer who’d given her the news that the assault charges against Carlos were being dropped.

  She tried to look past Alec’s shoulder. Martinez was still taking pictures. What had happened in her bedroom?

  She forced her gaze to meet his again. He looked troubled, the lines in his handsome face more pronounced. “It would be best if you waited in the living room.”

  “Best? This is my home.” She tried to push past him again, but he blocked her. This time when their gazes met, the look in his eyes was cool, remote. Professional. Just like the cop two months ago when he’d explained how restraining orders rarely worked, that a self-defense course and a thirty-eight would be more effective when it came to protecting herself. She’d taken the course, but had refused to buy a gun.

  “You shouldn’t go in there, Katie. You have to trust me on that.”

  “Why? What’s in there? What could be any worse than what has already happened to me tonight?” Even as she said it, she knew she wasn’t being rational. If they were trying to keep her out, there was a reason. And that reason was that they didn’t think she was strong enough to handle it.

  She lifted her chin. “I’m not some weak female. If I was, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be huddled out there on that couch where you left me.” Raising her hands, breaking his hold on her, she backed away from him, and he let her go. “I’ve had a bad time of it. I admit that. But I’m strong enough to face whatever is in that room.”

  Though he continued to block her way, he suddenly looked very tired. Worried.

  “Whatever is in there, Alec, can’t be any worse than what’s going through my mind right now.”

  His jaw hardened and the look in his eyes became one of unwilling acceptance. He wasn’t happy about her insistence, but he would comply. “Are you sure, Katie? Really sure?”

  “Yes.” But she wasn’t.

  As Alec started to step past his brother, Jack stopped him. “She’s been through an awful lot already.”

  “I know. But daylight won’t make it any easier. It doesn’t end for her here tonight. It’s just the beginning.”

  Those confusing words echoed in her mind as she forced herself to take the final step.

  The white candles were the first thing she saw—not the one or two she’d expected, but too many to count—and then the rose petals, splotches of blood spattered across snow. Katie backed away a half step. She didn’t own white sheets. Had never owned a set. Which meant… Suddenly, she registered the plastic tubing tied to the headboard.

  The trembling started deep inside. She hugged herself, her fingers digging into her arms. Images slammed through her. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid if she did, she’d hear his voice again, calling her Katydid. Telling her that she was going to die.

  Her knees weakened beneath her. She was shaking her head slowly, as if in denial. She should have listened! Why hadn’t she listened? As she turned to run, Alec caught her. Intent on escape, she shoved at his chest with her forearms, but he held on.

  “Get out of my way!”

  Instead of doing as she asked, he tightened his hold.

  “I can’t,” he said softly, his voice raw with regret.

  Not I won’t, but I can’t.

  Suddenly she was holding on to him as she had in the kitchen, her fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, and then releasing their hold. Over and over and over again. As they had earlier, after several seconds, his arms tightened around her, and she found herself locked against his hard body, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

  But all she could think about was the room behind her. How if Alec hadn’t asked her out tonight, or had been running late, she might be already dead.

  “Come on.” He helped her out to the living room, sat her back down on the couch. The last time he’d sat her here, she’d thought her problems couldn’t get any worse. She’d been wrong.

  When he passed it to her, she numbly took the freshly filled water glass, but just held it in her hands, rotating it as if she were suddenly blind and searching desperately for a Braille message on its surface. Some answer as to why this was happening to her.

  How had she managed to get herself mixed up with a man like Carlos Bricker? She was cautious where people were concerned—especially since Karen’s death—and her instincts were usually pretty good. So how had Carlos managed to fool her so completely?

  And more importantly, why hadn’t he come himself? If he hated her that much, why send someone? She thought she knew why, though. If she turned up dead, Carlos was bound to be a prime suspect. But then again, his new girlfriend might be willing to give him an alibi for the attempted assault of his ex-girlfriend. Carlos could be very charming and persuasive; he could easily convince the new gir
lfriend that the ex was just out to get him. But when it came to a murder charge, she might not be so willing to provide an alibi. Because new girlfriends eventually became ex-girlfriends. And what went around came around.

  She didn’t look up when Alec sat in the chair facing her. She’d told him she was tough. That she could take whatever was in that room. Well, she wasn’t quite that strong.

  Katie rubbed her forehead as if the action could erase what she’d seen. It wouldn’t. She suspected she’d be seeing that room in her nightmares for many years to come. Maybe for the rest of her life.

  “How much money does it take to buy…to buy someone to do this?” She rotated the glass faster now. It was a stupid question really, but she still found herself wondering what it had cost the creep. Recently, he’d had money problems, so maybe he had even sold some of her paintings to pay for the hit on her.

  “Your ex-boyfriend has nothing to do with what happened here tonight.”

  It took a second for his words to sink in. When they did, she raised her gaze to his for the second time in seconds. “What are you saying?”

  “This nickname. Katydid. Is there anything in your bedroom that has that written on it? The back of a photo? Inscribed on something in your jewelry box? In a book?”

  She looked down at her hands, at the dried blood beneath her nails and at the sterling ring on her right hand. She fingered the band. Her sister had given it to her only weeks before her death. The inside was inscribed: To Katydid, My better half. It was the only piece of jewelry she owned with an inscription, and she never removed it.

  “Maybe the back of a photo.” She tightened her grip on her hands. “But I don’t understand… Who else would want to harm me?” And then she saw it in Alec’s eyes. “You know who it is? Who did that to my room?” How was that possible?

  “Yes.” He was composed. Too composed. Guarded.

  “But how can you know who it is?”

  Exhaling sharply, he looked away. When he looked back, his expression was even grimmer. “Eleven months ago, while I was still with the Bureau, I came home after two weeks on the road and found my wife murdered. Our bedroom looked exactly like yours does tonight.”