Targeted

by Lori L. Harris

  “Don’t thank me yet.” Alec turned toward her, the brighter light at his back making it difficult for her to read his expression, but she could sense the rigidity in his body. She glanced down, saw the way his thumb worried the edge of the file, and knew that his hesitation was due to whatever was in it. She’d never been much good at waiting.

  “What’s in the folder, Alec? What is it that you want to show me?”

  He ignored the question. “Before we go any further, I need to lay down the ground rules.”

  “Okay.”

  “I call the shots. No second-guessing my decisions. Or disobeying my orders.”

  Her eyes were once more drawn to what he held. His fingers were no longer moving, but instead crushed the folder. “I understand.”

  “No,” he said. “You may think you do, but you don’t.”

  She lifted her chin, more to appear confident than because she really felt that way. “Maybe you should tell me what it is that you don’t think I understand, then.”

  He advanced toward her. With each step, he tapped the folder against his thigh. Her gaze ricocheted from it to Alec’s face and back again. What did it contain?

  “Your moving in here is going to push him to the limit. He’ll become even more unpredictable, less rational in his thinking. Not a cornered animal, but a rabid, starving one desperate for the meal that will keep him alive.”

  Katie’s fingers tightened on the mug handle. “If this is your idea of a pep talk—”

  He cut her off. “And he’ll do anything to get to you, to satisfy his need.”

  When she would have turned away, he wrapped his fingers around her upper arm. “And here’s the good part, Katie. If he really wants to get to you, if he’s willing to ante up the ultimate price, trade his life for yours, then I may not be able to stop him.”

  The brutally honest words jolted her. But in the next second, when she’d caught her breath, she wondered if he was trying to scare her into changing her mind. But when she looked into his eyes, she realized she was wrong. What worried him most, what he feared most was that he’d fail. That something would happen to her. That he wouldn’t blame himself for one woman’s death, but for two.

  She reached up and covered his hand with her own. “You’re not telling me anything that I haven’t already told myself. So, if you’re concerned that I’m not scared enough, that I might not follow your orders and do something foolish, you needn’t be. I’ve thought my decision through. And let me assure you that I’m terrified, more terrified than I have ever been in my life. So don’t patronize me.”

  “Patronize you?” She could feel the tension in him, and felt it rising inside her as he continued to hold her arm, his eyes filled with not just fear, but also something darker. Something that appeared to be anger, but wasn’t.

  When he released her, she crossed to the fireplace, using the empty mug as an excuse to escape.

  Alec followed. “Decisions should only be made when you are in possession of all the facts. Don’t you agree?” He pulled what appeared to be a black-and-white photograph from the folder.

  “As an artist, Katie, you may be able to appreciate the catchy saying we use at Quantico.” His gaze never left her face as he slapped the black-and-white photo up on the mantel, propping it there as if it were an Ansel Adams displayed on a museum wall. “If you want to know an artist, study his art.”

  She felt her jaw go slack, felt the shock of what she was looking at punch the last of the oxygen from her lungs.

  The picture showed a woman’s body splayed atop bed sheets soaked in blood, her hands and feet bound to bedposts. Candles burned on the nightstand. Blood trailed down the wall behind the bed and had been used to write something, but the smeared letters were illegible.

  She covered her mouth to stifle the soft, harsh cry that climbed her throat. Dear God. Not a woman’s body, Katie reminded herself, but the body of Alec’s wife. Jill Blade’s body. Jill, who in life had taught third grade. Had breathed and dreamed. Had loved.

  Katie wanted to close her eyes and block out the image, but didn’t. Alec was testing her. Testing her resolve. She needed to stand rock steady, show him that she was strong and determined.

  Lowering her hand, she tried to force oxygen in and out of her lungs.

  Don’t personalize the woman. Concentrate on the scene, on the photo. Like a cardiac surgeon in the operating room, she had to disassociate, needed to tighten her focus so that it included only the heart and not the body it beat within.

  She managed a shallow breath. She sensed Alec watch ing her. Just a photo, A horrible picture. It couldn’t hurt her. She had to convince him that she was tough enough for what lay ahead.

  But how could Alec stand to look at it? Even if he’d made a career of studying such scenes, how could he look and remain coldly unmoved by this one? Dear God—how could anyone survive such heartbreak and horror—to live with this dreadful image every minute of every waking and sleeping hour of every day?

  Alec’s voice was low and carried a hint of apology. “The man is no common monster, Katie. He’s what nightmares are made of.”

  He nudged her, forcing her to take a small sideways step, just enough that she realized a second picture now rested inches to the right of the first. And two more at equal intervals beyond that. She hadn’t seen him place any of them.

  “Know the artist.” Alec repeated, and she heard in his voice just how hard this was for him. He wasn’t unmoved by what was in these photos, but hardened by it. How many times had he pulled them out and propped them here? How many times had his nightmares taken him back to that room? To the night he’d found his wife?

  What exactly did that do to a man? What had it done to this man?

  In the second photo, additional lighting had been added, making the writing legible.

  REmEmBEr.

  Nausea crawled up her throat. She wanted to turn away, to run away, but couldn’t.

  She made herself look at the third. It was a tight-angled shot and showed a bloody box cutter. The instrument of torture. Of violent death.

  Swallowing the bile that climbed her esophagus, she turned to the last of the photos, certain nothing could be any worse than what she’d already seen.

  She was naive, though. He’d saved the best for last.

  She started to shake. It was her bedroom. The box cutter waited on the nightstand where candles had been lit. She was to have died in that room.

  It was to have been her torture chamber.

  This time she couldn’t breathe, the tightness in her chest making it impossible. What had made her think she could do this?

  She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t that brave, that courageous. No one was.

  Stumbling backward, she lost her balance.

  Alec grabbed her by the elbows and kept her from going down in a heap.

  “I’m sorry. But you need to know what could happen.” Like an adult talking to a small child, he lowered his face so that he could look directly into hers, his mouth a grim line. “There’s no cowardice in changing your mind, Katie.”

  The words were right there, ready to come out, when suddenly something inside her bit them back. Hadn’t she sworn that she was done with running, and equally finished with being a victim? Perhaps if Alec could have promised her that it would end in two or three months, even a year, she would have been willing to go back into hiding. But he couldn’t. It could be two weeks or twelve years. And she couldn’t live with that type of uncertainty. Never knowing when or if she’d get her life back.

  “It’s your call, Katie. Nothing has changed. The plans still stand. I didn’t cancel the bodyguard and my brother has a safe place for you to stay.”

  Compassion and pain filled his dark eyes, and for the first time she envisioned what the past eleven months had been like for him. The fact that he hadn’t cited the hours and minutes when she’d asked didn’t mean he didn’t know them. Didn’t mean he didn’t think of the rapidly approaching and morbid annivers
ary.

  He wanted the man who had killed his wife, desperately wanted to see justice done, but was too honorable to use her—his best and maybe only hope of seeing that happen.

  She managed to step back, and he let her go, perhaps sensing that she needed the distance.

  “Katie?”

  “You want the truth? Something I just now realized?” She bit her lower lip briefly as she searched for the right words. “That if you’re exposed to anything—even terror—for a long enough time, it loses its power. It doesn’t go away. It’s still there, but you can somehow deal with it when the day before you couldn’t.”

  She glanced down at the floor. She didn’t know the woman in those pictures, but in some ways, they were going to be tied to one another for eternity. Deep down in both their souls, they knew what made a monster.

  Katie tightened her arms around herself and looked up, meeting Alec’s gaze. “I’m scared. But not enough to make me run. Not enough that I’ll allow myself to be a victim ever again. I want my life back. Not the one this killer has handed me, but the one of my own making.”

  “Okay,” he said. There was quiet acceptance in his tone, as well. As if he understood the path she’d chosen. Perhaps he knew it was the same one he would have chosen for himself if the situation was reversed. “But if at any point you decide you want out, you only have to say the words.”

  She nodded. That moment had already come, but there was no going back.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, having washed her face, Katie hesitated in the kitchen doorway. The room was a gourmet’s theater with dark cherry cabinets, black granite countertops and gleaming stainless steel appliances.

  Alec stood at what looked to be a commercial stove. He’d rolled back the sleeves of his white shirt, and a rust-tone dish towel rested over one shoulder. It was an odd image. The tough ex-FBI man stirring eggs, the picture of domestic talent. Had he done most of the cooking for him and Jill, or had she been equally talented in the kitchen? For the first time Katie allowed herself to think about Jill Blade, not as a victim, but as a living, breathing person. What had she been like, the elementary school teacher? They’d been married for nearly six years. Had it been one of those rare, truly blissful marriages?

  Katie had been engaged once, several years ago, to a young doctor she’d met at a charity art auction. The engagement had lasted for nearly a year before she and her fiancé had mutually called it off. They’d realized that they made better friends than lovers. She expected to get married someday. Having been raised in a loving family, she wanted the same. But up until the past two years, most of her energies had gone into establishing her career in the art world.

  Katie suddenly realized she was being stared at by a large black cat sitting at Alec’s feet. As she stepped inside the room, the cat got up and strolled across the flagstone floor.

  Casting a glance over his shoulders and spotting her, Alec removed the towel to wipe his hands.

  “Have a seat.”

  She noticed the two placemats on either side of the bar top, and she slid onto the closest leather stool. The cat rose up on its back legs and sniffed her almost as a dog would.

  “Where are your manners, cat?” Using a foot to nudge aside the animal, Alec placed the plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of her, along with a second mug of coffee.

  She stared at the eggs for several seconds. Her throat stiffened at the idea of food. “I’m not hungry.” She pushed the plate away as he sat opposite.

  He shifted it back in front of her. “Eat. You’ve lost weight.”

  She wondered how he could tell. The oversized rugby shirt and shorts weren’t exactly form-fitting. And he’d rarely seen her in anything that showed off curves. She’d always left tight-fitting, low-cut and skimpy to her twin. From the time they’d exchanged cradles for toddler beds, Karen had seemed to need to be the center of attention. First her parents’, later it had been attention from the opposite sex.

  Katie, on the other hand, had preferred the background. Or maybe, realizing that she’d already been relegated there, she’d accepted it.

  That had changed after her sister’s death. She’d come out of her shell, gradually at first, but more so when she’d attended the Ringling School of Art and Design, and had discovered that she, too, could shine.

  Alec reached across and placed the fork in her fingers. “Rule number one,” he said in a low voice, “in any competition. Stay stronger than your opponent.”

  She silently dipped the fork into the eggs.

  “And rule number two?” she asked after several bites.

  “Be better prepared. Have a plan. And have a contingency one, too.”

  “And do you have both?” She tore a corner off a toast wedge. She preferred more butter, but didn’t bother to add it. The toast stuck halfway down her throat, and she used orange juice to wash it free.

  “I have one,” Alec said. “I’m working on the other.”

  “Can you tell me something about it, then?”

  Setting his empty juice glass down, he seemed to weigh the request.

  “We start by creating the illusion that you’re no longer afraid of him. You go back to work and back to painting.”

  Back to work? She took a hurried sip of coffee. She hadn’t expected him to say that, and wasn’t certain how she felt about the idea. But she assumed he wouldn’t ask her to do it if he didn’t think she’d be relatively safe. Besides, the deal had been that she wouldn’t question his decisions, so it probably wasn’t wise to do so with the very first one.

  “We’ll let it be known that we’re now involved and that you’ve moved in here. Maybe even suggest that we’ve been seeing each other secretly since shortly after you came to town. That should keep his focus solely on you.”

  Katie curled her finger into the mug’s handle. “And then what?”

  “We wait for him to make his move.”

  She sank her teeth briefly into her lower lip. “You mean we wait for him to come after me.” She’d told him to use her, and it appeared as if he’d taken her at her word.

  Unable to sit still, she picked up the plates and carried them to the stainless steel sink. The expansive window above overlooked the backyard. The swath of lawn quickly gave way to the natural beauty of century-old oaks, draped with Spanish moss. Against the blue of the early sky, the moss resembled hanks of torn, decayed cloth.

  Katie’s fingers trembled, and she quickly set the plates in the sink. She’d picked Deep Water because of its wild, “old-Florida” beauty and the chance for solitude, for the slower pace it offered. But now, looking out at those branches, remembering her attack, she would have given anything for royal palms and a mobbed beach.

  “What about the other waitresses? If I go back to work, won’t there be some danger for them?” She turned the water on. Instead of drumming against the sink bottom as it would have in a cheaper model, the water was nearly silent as it hit the thick-gauged stainless steel sink.

  “He won’t go for you at the café.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because I know him. I know how he thinks. More importantly, I know what he needs.” He raked a hand through his hair and followed her to the sink with the mugs, setting them on the counter. “The ritual is just as important as the killing. He needs time and privacy. He won’t go after you in public because there’s too big a chance he won’t have either. He’ll wait until he can get to you in private.”

  She felt her pulse kick a little faster at the idea. “How private?”

  His mouth tightened. “We’ll need to provide him with opportunities. But not right away. We’ll let him get comfortable. Let him regain the confidence he lost when his first attempt failed.”

  “Won’t he know he’s being set up?”

  “Yes. But he believes he’s better than anyone else is. He’s smarter, faster, more determined. And he believes he can get by me.”

  She sponged off the plate.

  “You really thi
nk it will work? That we’ll be able to catch him?”

  As usual, his eyes gave away nothing. But his fingers did when they reached out and touched her. They weren’t quite steady as they closed over her crossed forearms. Was he worried? Not that his plan wouldn’t work, but that it might work too well, but that in the end, he wouldn’t be able to keep her safe?

  She looked up at him, her gaze meeting his, and yet all she could seem to think about was his touch, about how much she needed someone to hold her.

  She wanted to feel… It didn’t matter what, so long as it wasn’t fear. She glanced down to where his hand rested on her sleeve. What would his fingers feel like on her bare skin? She envisioned them stealing beneath her shirt to press warmly against chilled skin. Katie felt herself tremble. Realized just how screwed up she was. She could find the courage to face a monster, but she couldn’t ask Alec to hold her.

  “You’re going to have to trust me on this, Katie.”

  His fingers tightened briefly before falling away. She missed the connection immediately.

  Reaching around her, he turned off the water. As he started to move away, she placed her hand against his chest. And when she did, both of them went instantly still.

  Tension radiated from his body. From her own, as well. Her breathing became shallower. She recalled his heart hammering beneath her palm the night he’d rescued her. How safe he had made her feel.

  Raising her chin, she met Alec’s gaze. Seeing the desire there, her pulse kicked a little harder, and her throat tightened. When she’d reached out for him, she’d intended to ask him to hold her. She’d thought the only thing she wanted from him was to feel safe.

  But looking into his eyes, she felt anything but that.

  Uncertain, Katie dropped her gaze to his throat. Smooth skin. The scent of his cologne reaching her. The open collar of his starched shirt left a triangle of skin exposed.

  What would his chest be like? What would it feel like to lay her hand over his heart without a shirt in the way? To feel smooth male flesh beneath her palm instead of starched cotton?