Cold Image

by Leslie A. Kelly

  At least, that described the person she’d once been. The one raised in Brookline, the daughter of those Lincolns.

  Now? Honestly, she wasn’t sure who she was. She only knew she had changed. It wasn’t just tonight. It wasn’t simply meeting this insanely attractive man. Honestly, it wasn’t even the loss of her brother.

  If she had to put her finger on it, the change had really begun when she quit her job and went overseas to work in a place foreign to anything she’d known. She’d given up security, even luxury when it came to her parents, in exchange for dust and heat, rage and violence, blood and death. Everything that had happened since had contributed to the new person she was becoming. A person who could flat-out tell a man she wanted to seduce him…and then allow him to seduce her in the most wicked, delicious, unbelievable way.

  “Do I need to apologize?” he asked, apparently noticing her introspection.

  She shook her head. “Do I?”

  “Not a chance.” Without another word, he lifted her again and set her back in her chair.

  “Do you ever let people get in and out of their seats on their own two legs?” she mumbled.

  “Sorry. If I don’t put some distance between us, I’m gonna do something stupid.”

  “And what we just did wasn’t stupid?”

  A wolfish smile tugged at his mouth. “Oh, many things, but not stupid. Damn, Katie, you make me nuts. I’ve never done anything like that in my life.”

  Katie. Nobody except Isaac had ever called her that. She liked the way it sounded from Derek’s mouth, liked the warm, satisfied expression on his face as he said it.

  Not that he could be satisfied, not the way she had been, anyway. But she knew by the way he’d put her back in her place, and was now moving his chair around to the other side of the small table, that they were finished with that part of the evening. There would be no more PDAs in Son of Sammy’s tonight, at least not from the P.I. and the shrink.

  “Just so you know, nothing’s changed,” he told her.

  Her jaw fell.

  “I had to touch you, had to let you know you tempt me to pure sin. We still have a job to do, though. Sex will seriously mess that up.” He reached over and pushed a strand of her hair away from her face. “But remember one thing. When this is over, Kate…I’m coming for you.”

  Her breath left. So did her shock. While a sassy, inner Kate wanted to reply, Like I just came for you? she was too turned on by the dark, erotic promise in his eyes to reply.

  He must have seen the dreamy look on her face, realizing how easily they could fall back into that place where nothing else mattered except the want and the smell of sex in the air.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  She cleared her throat. “Okay. I’m sorry. We should get back to work.”

  “I know.” Derek sipped his beer, then lifted his hand to wipe his lips. Suddenly closing his eyes, he groaned as he took a deep breath. Inhaling her scent.

  She began to quiver all over again. “You’re not making this easy.”

  “Jesus, I’ve never wanted to solve a case more in my life.” He dropped his hand and looked at her, realizing what he’d said. “Not just because of…”

  “It’s okay.” And it was. She knew what he meant. He wanted to find out what was going on at Fenton Academy as much as she did for many reasons, not just because they had set their personal relationship to pause until it was over.

  “Let’s move on.” As painful as that promised to be. Reaching into her purse, she grabbed Taylor’s emails and dropped them onto the table. “Maybe you’ll find something useful in these.”

  “Kate, you know I…”

  She glared at him. “Derek? Either take me in the back hallway and have me against the wall, or shut up and focus.”

  He coughed into his fist. She couldn’t tell if he was shocked, amused, or frustrated. Whatever the case, her demand worked. “I’ll read them tonight,” he said.

  “Have you learned anything more about the boy who went missing last week?”

  “Not much. Nobody’s talking about it, other than the Eli, the kid I told you about it.”

  She couldn’t believe this was happening again. “The culture of silence at the place stuns me. How could that many adults be so completely blind?”

  “I don’t know if it’s blindness, intimidation, or fear.” Sitting back, he crossed his arms and frowned. “I’ve been trying to get a minute alone with this teacher, Andrews. He’s a bit squirrelly. I think I make him nervous.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” she muttered. “What about the bartender?”

  Derek offered her a quick biography of Robby Morganstern. The guy was only twenty-one, despite a face that wore more years than that of hard living. He was from Virginia, and was the son of a city councilman. He’d embarrassed said councilman one too many times and had been dumped at Fenton.

  “Doesn’t sound like the school whipped him into the shape a politico father might want.”

  “No, it didn’t. He was lucky—he only landed there as a senior. Not enough time to really grind him under the boots of out-of-control authority.”

  Like Isaac.

  “He made it through the year and ran like hell when he turned eighteen.”

  “Ran?” Her heart skipped a beat.

  “I meant he ran off from his family after he graduated,” he said, sounding sympathetic. He knew what thoughts had skirted across her mind. Like the possibility that Isaac really was alive out there. Maybe working in a weird bar, maybe living a life on the fringes. But alive.

  He’s not. You know he’s not.

  No. She would have heard from him. Even if in hiding, even if chained to a wall, were he alive and conscious, Isaac would answer her mental pleas to let her know he was all right.

  Derek told her a few more details about the academy, none of which surprised her. She’d known about the strict atmosphere, the violent discipline, the vicious faculty, and harsh conditions. Her brother had told her about some of it. The rest she’d filled in on her own.

  “Robby also remembers whispers about something the boys call the charnel house.”

  She shivered, assuming the students had learned the unusual term from a recent horror movie. It was pretty apt in connection with Fenton Academy. Given the history, and its violent and death-infused past, burial sites and body-storage would probably have been necessary.

  “He said he doesn’t actually know anybody who’s seen it, and few of the boys had heard of it. But there were whispers when a kid disappeared during Robby’s senior year.”

  “We’re not talking about Building 13?”

  “No. He had firsthand experience with that place, which is used regularly. This is something else.” Derek pulled a folded napkin out of his pocket. “The kid was dumped in solitary enough that he remembered the route to 13.” He shook his head. “I’ve been looking all over this week. I guess I came pretty close a few times, but just missed it. Robby drew me a map. I should be able to find it now.”

  “You can find it? Or we can?”

  His mouth tugged up at the corner. “You’d really go back there again? After everything that happened the first time?”

  “Bogs, mucky kisses, gators, mosquitos—” Oh, God, the mosquitoes, he’d been right about the bites, “—and snakes don’t compare to finding out what happened to Isaac.”

  “You’re calling my kisses mucky? As I recall…”

  She glared. “Don’t start that again.” Having finally gotten her focus where it needed to be, she didn’t want to be drawn back into thoughts of how that man’s mouth had felt on hers. Not to mention those hands. God, those strong, rugged hands.

  “Sorry. But no, I don’t think we should risk being seen together. I have enough free time when we’re not in camp that I should be able to check it out alone. If anybody sees me, I can play dumb new-guy. Not so easy to do if the number one person on their Top Ten Most Unwelcome list is caught there with me.”

  “Und
erstood.”

  “You’re not going to argue about it?”

  “Why would I argue about something that makes perfect sense?” she replied, confused.

  His laugh softened the hard planes of his face and made his dark eyes gleam warmer under the strange light. “I was thinking about the women from work. Olivia would agree but stick out her bottom lip. Julia would just be fighting to go back out there.”

  Julia. His boss. His gorgeous, sexy boss. And more?

  Don’t ask. It’s none of your business. Who cares? Boundaries, Kate!

  Pandora overrode the inner voices. “Were you and Julia ever…involved?”

  His hand tightened around his beer mug. “Why would you ask that?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest. She’s beautiful.” Of course, so was Olivia Cooper, but she could never envision Derek with the willowy, fragile-looking blonde.

  His shrug was almost too deliberate, too determinedly nonchalant. “Once. Not anymore.”

  Her heart tightened a tiny bit. She couldn’t say why. She and Derek had shared a couple of kisses. Something might happen between them in the future. That didn’t mean she had any right reacting to who he might have slept with in the past.

  “We’re better as friends,” he added.

  “But you still care about her.”

  “Yeah. Like I’d care about anyone who’s lying on the tracks, waiting for a train to roll over them.” He sighed. “This love affair with her ghost is gonna end badly. Someday, the dude is gonna go all Patrick Swayze and leave Demi Moore to make her clay pots alone.”

  She understood. The longer it went on, the less chance there was that the sexy, vibrant Julia Harrington was going to move on with her life with a real man. It was sad, and she understood now why Derek seemed to fall into a mood when his boss’s name came up.

  “Don’t say anything to her. It’s a touchy subject.”

  “Of course I won’t.”

  Derek continued filling her in on what he’d learned. It sounded as though he already liked the boys he was teaching, and was taking the boot camp assignment seriously. She hoped some of Isaac’s classmates had a better time of it than they otherwise would have. It was not really comfort at the loss of her brother, but it might at least be one positive.

  “You want another, or are you ready to get out of here?” he asked when he’d finished talking, she’d finished questioning, and they’d both finished their drinks.

  “I don’t think my liver could handle another.

  “Okay.” He swished the curtain back. Heads turned. Every pair of black-outlined eyes stared, as if to see if she was sprawled out on the table with two puncture wounds in her neck and a blood trail running down her throat.

  The hush of expectation disappeared when they saw a normal couple emerge. She only hoped no one had heard that normal couple having a wild sexual encounter behind the curtain.

  The crowd had grown. Every table was filled now, and people stood around them. The dance floor was a wall of moving bodies trying to find a beat in the weird music filling the space. Vampires apparently liked to party on Friday nights, like regular nine-to-fivers.

  Maneuvering through, Derek stayed close, one hand on the small of her back. The touch was probably meant to be protective, but again caused embers to burn and lava to flow. That faint brush of skin on skin was as erotic as an embrace, and she felt it all the way down to her toes. Her breath came faster, her cheeks heated, and she wished she hadn’t had the warm wine.

  “Going so soon, sexy?” a deep voice asked. “Don’t you want to stay here where it’s dark and so very…red?”

  Kate swung her head and saw a handsome, blond-haired, black-clad man gazing not at her, but at her companion. She wondered how Derek would respond. She didn’t think he was the type of alpha male who’d grow irrationally furious that another man was coming on to him, but she’d been surprised before.

  “No thanks.” He pointed toward Kate. “The only red that interests me is on her head.”

  Kate chuckled, not entirely surprised by his cool rejection. He might have used her merely as an excuse to brush-off a come-on, but she was pleased by it nonetheless.

  “I don’t blame you,” the other man said. He turned to face Kate and stepped in closer. Lifting a so-pale-it-looked-dead hand, he slid his cold fingers into a strand of her hair, fingering it sensuously. “I would love having that warm redness spread all over my body.”

  And that was when Derek reacted. This wasn’t the amused, almost bored guy he’d been earlier with the vamp in the booth, or the blasé one who’d rejected a proposition from a man. His mouth pulled tight, turning his jaw into a boulder. His eyes narrowed, muscles rigid, and shoulders bunched, he grabbed the stranger’s wrist and wrapped strong fingers around it.

  “Get your hand off her right now.”

  He might as well have been a little kid saying, “Mine.” God, that He-Man was so hot.

  The blond froze, like an animal sensing danger. “No offence meant. I was hoping the three of us might…”

  “Let. Her. Go.” Derek edged in, looking down into the not weak-looking stranger’s face. “I don’t want to pull a single strand out of her head making you.”

  The fingers disentangled. The hand fell away. The stranger swallowed hard.

  Derek, his eye twitching, his jaw locked, continued to stare. He still looked furious. Not to mention dangerous.

  The other man backed up a step. “I’m sorry. I assumed, since you were here…”

  “You assumed wrong.”

  “I see that now.” Gulping, he looked over at Kate. “I apologize.”

  She murmured her acknowledgement, willing the guy to just walk away.

  He got the message and edged back, like someone trying to escape the gaze of an angry bear. Right before he disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor, he cast a quick glance at Kate, and mouthed, “Wow.”

  “Let’s go.” Though Derek’s anger wasn’t directed at her, it was still intimidating, and tangible. Heaven wouldn’t have been enough to help that threesome-seeking stranger if he’d persisted.

  “So the guy who sat down at the table wasn’t a problem, but this one was?” she asked, a little confused.

  “Drac was a kid,” he said with a sneer. His scowl returned. “This one touched you.”

  That, it appeared, had been the red line.

  As they left the bar and he walked her to her car, staying close and staring away anyone who even stepped in their path, Kate knew she had some serious thinking to do.

  Why would Derek have been so calm and easy reacting to a come-on from another guy…but almost lose his mind when the same guy had touched her? It made no sense.

  Yes, they both knew they were going to have sex once this case was over. Yes, she was already developing complicated feelings for the man. But a future affair and one-sided feelings didn’t mean they were in any kind of relationship.

  So why had he acted like a jealous, possessive, protective lover? Because he felt that way about her? Because, no matter what she thought, something was growing between them that was about more than physical attraction, and more than this case?

  She didn’t know. Nor did she feel like figuring it out as a doctor.

  She was, instead, content to lie in her bed that night and try to make sense of it…as a woman.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing this.”

  Hearing Vonnie repeat the same thing she’d said at least a dozen times already, Taylor ignored her roommate and continued to set things up. She closed the blinds, shutting out the bright sun. She wished they could have tried this at night, but it was not until two this morning that she had finally felt like she had the knowledge to proceed, and Vonnie would have killed her if she’d woken her up.

  “Please don’t go through with it.”

  Number fifteen on that sentence.

  “You know it’s never going to work.”

  Number seven gajil
lion and four.

  Taylor placed the last heavily-incensed candle on the table beside her bed, which she had moved to the middle of their dorm room. “If you’re so sure of that, then why don’t you stop fighting with me about it and help me try?”

  Vonnie’s brown eyes were narrowed with worry and with annoyance. How could she argue with that? Either Taylor’s plan would succeed, or, in Vonnie’s opinion, it would certainly fail. At least if she made the effort, Taylor could tell herself she’d given this her all.

  “Come on, you know you’re dying to be able to say I told you so.”

  Vonnie glared. “No, I’m dying to not watch you die!”

  Oh. Taylor’s teasing died from her lips. Of course Vonnie would evaluate this from all angles, but would, in the end, be most affected by personal experience. And, honestly, fear. Vonnie—so damned smart, so incredibly strong—still had her share of nightmares. So of course those fears still lingered in the back of her oh-so-brilliant brain.

  Taylor was afraid, too. Not all the time, not anymore like she had been for months after their escape from a serial killer. But she still tensed when somebody walked too closely behind her, snuck up on her, or touched her when she wasn’t expecting it.

  Funny, Isaac had been the one guy who’d understood. Maybe that’s what had drawn her to him when they met. During the campus tour, she’d seen him react when someone had dropped an unexpected hand on his shoulder. It’s what had opened a conversation between them, one that had carried over into their emails long afterward. Isaac hadn’t been in the grip of a serial killer—at least not by the time they met—but he’d admitted there was abuse going on at that school of his, which had made him jumpy and nervous. That was one reason Taylor simply could not let his disappearance go. Aside from feeling a connection to him, she’d simply liked the guy. A lot.

  Maybe his sister and the Extrasensory Agents would be able to find out what happened to him. But if Taylor could help—by gaining her sister’s help—she was going to do it.