The duct tape binding the man’s lips couldn’t drown out the agonizing pain ripping through him as the doctor proceeded. Blood oozed down the side of his body, pooling on the table and when the doctor raised the thick slab of tissue he’d cut, Hudson had to turn away.
“Christ Almighty.” He leaned forward and pressed his thumb and index finger to his eyes, wishing he could blot the image from his mind.
“It gets worse,” Ian said in a clinical tone that set Hudson on edge.
“If you’ve already seen the goddamn thing, just tell me the gory details instead of making me watch them. After spending a month on the job you had me working in Detroit, I’ve seen enough blood.”
“You’ve never seen anything like this, though.” Ian turned his head and gave him a thoughtful, almost pondering look before returning his gaze to the screen. “Then again, maybe you have.”
As founder and owner of the Chicago-based agency CORE (Criminal Observation Resolution Evidence) Ian Scott knew Hudson’s history, his time spent in the Marines and the declassified missions while he’d worked for the CIA. Not the assignments or unsanctioned activities that had remained buried or likely destroyed by his CIA handlers. Yet Ian’s cryptic remark made Hudson wonder where his boss’s knowledge about him stopped. It also brought back memories he’d thought he’d purged.
The room tilted as the torturous scene continued to play out on the flat screen. Screams filled the room and his head. His mind drifted. For a moment, the florescent light on the screen turned white-hot, blinding, glaring. He forced himself not to squint, forced his body to remain rigid and his heart rate level. They might be able to see the sweat, the blood coating his body, but he couldn’t allow them access to his mind. His fears. His—
A low, keening cry pierced his ears. Hudson blinked and brought the glass he’d been holding to his lips, forcing the memories that had nearly killed him from his mind and focusing on the TV. He wasn’t the one enduring the torture. The man on the screen played that role today, fighting against his bonds with each slice of the doctor’s scalpel.
In one gulp, he drank the whiskey Ian had given him when he’d first arrived. The burn along his throat knocked back the rising bile, until the doctor stuffed one of the bags beneath the man’s loose skin.
Hudson shoved off the chair, taking his glass with him. “Enough, dammit,” he said, and helped himself to Ian’s liquor cabinet.
“We’re almost to the end anyway,” Ian said. “Let me fast forward to...here.”
Fresh drink in hand, Hudson moved back to his seat and faced the flat screen again with disgust. For Ian, for the unwanted memories, for the psycho playing doctor.
The man on the table no longer fought, and Hudson suspected he’d likely passed out from the pain. His skin gleamed with sweat and blood beneath the florescent light. Only instead of gaping holes in his chest, his pectorals were now fat and plump. Crudely sewn, lumpy and...moving.
“Oh my God,” he said the moment a bubbly, bucked toothed smile filled the camera.
“Did I get your attention?” the doctor asked as he moved next to his patient. He gave one newly filled breast a Pillsbury Doughboy press. “Bet I finally got his.”
He drew closer to the camera again. “Now, I could go on like some bleeding heart with a cause, but I’ll spare you the agony. After what you’ve just viewed, I think that’s the least I can do. So here’s the bottom line, Eden.”
Hudson sat straighter and glanced at Ian. “Eden?”
“Eden Risk,” Ian said, and nodded back to the screen as the doctor continued.
Hudson hadn’t seen Eden Risk live and in person for over two years. Hearing her name, though, brought memories he didn’t mind. Her scent, her taste, the smoothness of her skin. Too bad he’d screwed things up with her. They might have had something good. If she hadn’t been so damned hardheaded and he hadn’t been such an ass.
“I’ve been planning this for a long time,” the doctor continued. “But I wasn’t sure how to get my message out there for the world to see. When I saw your investigative series on beauty pageant kids and their moms, I realized you understood a part of what I’ve been grappling with for too many years. Now I want you to be my voice. I want you to make sure this DVD is aired. If it’s not on tomorrow’s six o’clock news, plan on receiving another.”
He moved closer to the camera, close enough so that Hudson realized his eyes were blue, not gray, lined with crow’s feet and weariness. “I didn’t want to do this. I doubt I’ll ever sleep right. But they wouldn’t listen and they’ve left me no other choice. Last year over four hundred thousand women had breast implants. Fifteen years ago that number was only thirty thousand. What does that tell you? We are being poisoned by airbrushed images of magazine models. There’s no such thing as perfect, only perception. Isn’t that right, Eden?”
Hudson frowned and rubbed his temple. He didn’t understand what the doctor had meant. Eden was a beautiful woman. Perfect teeth, nose, eyes, hair. Her body could rival the models the nut job referred to. But what had he meant by “only perception?” Did this man know Eden? Did her perception of perfection somehow connect her to this man or even the one lying on the table with new breasts?
Pulling a syringe from a nearby table, the doctor looked to the man. “I need to tend to my patient now. Do as I’ve instructed.” He raised his arm as if to turn off the camera, then stopped. “Eden, take care of yourself,” he said, his eyes sincere, almost worried. “While I’ve been watching you, someone else has been, too.”
The flat screen went black.
Hudson stared at the darkened TV and wondered how Eden had managed to tangle herself in another bad situation. “I take it you got the DVD from Eden.”
Ian nodded.
“Okay. So what do you want from me?” He didn’t bother hiding the contempt from his voice. Ian had a reason for everything he did. He also knew about his blow-out with Eden Risk.
“Your thoughts.”
“My thoughts? Is that all?” he asked not believing Ian one bit. Ian had been behind the scenes when the FBI had begun its profiling unit. He didn’t need Hudson’s opinion, not on something like this.
“For now.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “Guy’s a sick bastard. Uses torture to send a message rather than gain information. Reminds me of...” Reminded him of another sick bastard who had tried to do the same to him.
“Reminds you of?”
He ignored the prompt and continued. “I think he’s using this message he’s sending as an excuse for revenge.”
“Interesting. Why do you say that?”
“He said he’d been planning this. Then there’s the comment about the child beauty pageants. This is personal to him. And the guy on the table with the new…chest? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a plastic surgeon. Maybe implants were his specialty.”
“Excellent,” Ian said with a smile. “My thoughts exactly.”
A throb built behind his eye. Releasing a frustrated sigh, he sagged in the chair. “If you already suspected as much, I’m gonna ask again. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to find him.” Ian pointed to the darkened TV. “And protect Eden.”
“I’m not a profiler, or criminalist or even an investigator. And I’m sure as hell not a babysitter. You’ve got plenty of those guys on the payroll to handle this.”
Ian stroked the side of his glass with a finger. “True. You hunt, you find, you capture. That’s your specialty. Unfortunately, I don’t have anyone else to cover this.”
“What about John? I heard he’s—”
“Busy at the moment.”
Hudson set his glass on the table beside him. He didn’t need the whiskey spiking his temper any higher. While he’d been stuck in Detroit, dealing with gangbangers with an affinity for slitting the throats of their enemies and prostituting kids, he’d learned some interesting gossip from CORE’s forensic computer analyst, Rachel Davis.
The eyes and ears of the com
pany, Rachel had told him how John Kain had met and fallen for Ian’s daughter while working a case in Wisconsin. No one who’d worked for Ian even knew he’d had a daughter. From what Rachel had said, it appeared the daughter had had no idea Ian was her father. It all sounded like a shitty soap opera, and Hudson had let most of it in one ear and straight out the other.
“Busy my ass,” Hudson said. “I heard the whole story. Congratulations on being a father, by the way.”
Ian nodded, yet remained somber. “I know you’re not usually on the investigative end. But you did a lot of investigating with the CIA, and were very good at your job.”
“Were being the operative word.”
Ian shook his head. “Hunting and tracking criminals are just different facets of investigating and you know it.” When Ian appeared to realize he still hadn’t convinced him, he said, “Look, I need you on this. John’s working something else for me. Owen’s in California for at least another two weeks. Russo won’t be back from Texas until later next week.”
“So I get screwed babysitting.” Damn it. And to Eden Risk of all people.
“Investigating,” Ian corrected, then took a long gulp of his Scotch. After setting the glass aside he folded his hands. “I know you and Eden had a falling out a few years ago.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” She’d ripped his head off for outing her source, a source who had been under investigation by CORE as a serial rapist. A source that had been feeding her false information in order to make her his next victim. Even now his stomach seized and knotted when he thought of what could have happened had the bastard been given the opportunity to find himself alone with her.
Ian’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ve known Eden for years. There’s been a few times when her investigative reporting skills, and even her sources, have helped CORE. I also know she’s not the easiest person to understand or even like. But you’ve watched the film, you’ve heard what the man said.” Ian’s voice rose with irritation. “She has one man sending her DVDs and allegedly another stalking her. Set your ego aside.”
Hudson ignored the jab and searched for another out. Not because he’d been reduced to babysitter, but because of the DVD. Like a divining rod, the film found a way to tap into memories he hadn’t thought of in nearly four years. “Let the Chicago PD handle this.”
“The instructions to stated no police.”
“Since when do you obey the rules?” Hudson rose and reached for his coat. “Sorry to bolt on you. But I’ve been up since four AM and haven’t been home in over a month. I’m not saying yes to anything without a clear head.”
“Eden needs immediate protection.”
Guilt gave a sharp stab to his conscience. Eden might irritate the hell out of him, but he didn’t want to see anything happen to her, either. He slapped his leather gloves against his hand. “Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll do it.”
“You’ll go now?”
Hudson shrugged. “Sure.” He began counting off on his fingers. “First a psycho, then a stalker, it’s not like my night could get any worse. Why not a little reunion with a woman who thinks I’m a total asshole?”
Chapter 2
FOR SOMETHING TO do, Eden Risk sipped the lukewarm coffee. She grimaced at the taste, then set the mug on the kitchen table with an impatient sigh. “You two really don’t need to babysit me.”
“Boss’s orders,” John Kain, CORE’s criminalist and her sister’s fiancé said with a shrug.
Boss? More like tyrant. When she’d called Ian Scott about the DVD, she’d been a little—okay a lot—hysterical. At the time, she’d figured Ian would try to talk her down, give her direction. Instead, he’d sent some huge, blond haired, blue-eyed guy—who could have been the Nazi poster child for the Aryan race—to collect the DVD, and before she could close the door behind him, her babysitters had swept into her townhouse.
Eden looked to her sister for support, but received a shrug identical to John’s. “Sorry. I’m with him,” Celeste said, then pushed her coffee mug aside and twined her fingers with John’s.
Eden stared at their joined hands and then at the two lovebirds. They made quite a striking couple. Celeste with her blond hair curling softly around her peaches-and-cream cheeks, and John with his dark GQ looks. Her sister appeared happy, content. She’d found a good man to love, and by the adoration in her future brother-in-law’s eyes, Celeste found a man who loved her equally.
Eden couldn’t help the resentment.
Not for Celeste’s love life. Eden had no fairytale fantasies of Prince Charmings or white picket fences. Most men were intimidated by her career, her fame, her income. Those who weren’t served one purpose to her and love had nothing to do with it.
The resentment had begun during childhood, but remained buried deep in the pit of her adult belly. She’d always hid the bitterness well, but occasionally had a hard time ignoring it when Celeste called or, like now, sat in front her.
Celeste, the golden child.
Celeste, the natural nurturer.
Celeste, who had shared a unique bond with their mom. A bond, a special love Eden in no way shape or form could have competed against. Even as a child Eden had seen the way her mom’s gaze would touch on Celeste. The wonder, the awe, the unconditional love. And when Mom had been diagnosed with cancer, and their dad and brother had needed help taking care of her, who had come to the rescue?
Eden toyed with the mug handle while guilt toyed with her conscience. God, she was becoming a true bitch. If it hadn’t been for Celeste their family would have fallen apart after Mom died. She’d sacrificed so much for them all, and had helped their dad keep the family diner afloat while he’d dealt with his grief.
Now her sister sacrificed her sleep by playing babysitter along with her fiancé. Damn Ian and his big mouth. Celeste had come running the moment she’d thought Eden had been in trouble.
And instead of gratitude, all Eden had offered was attitude. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted John and Celeste to leave and give her a chance to come to terms with the events of the day now that her head and fears had cleared.
Eden slid the mug back and forth between her hands and forced a smile. “Well, your boss is being overly dramatic,” she said to John, then looked to her sister. “I hate keeping you here this late. Aren’t you bakers supposed to be up by four in the morning?”
Celeste looked away for a second, but Eden noticed John squeeze her hand. “The Sugar Shack hasn’t had its grand opening yet. Remember?”
“Oh, sorry.” Eden frowned. She should probably know this. “I’ve been so busy lately I guess I must have forgotten.”
“Must have forgotten?” John shoved away from the table when his cell phone rang. “Celeste sat here and told you about the bakery less than thirty minutes ago. Right after you two discussed the weather and right before you talked about your dad’s new girlfriend.”
Little snippets of their earlier conversation began to filter through her head as John left the room. “Damn.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She offered Celeste an apologetic smile.
“Seems like you’re always sorry for something lately,” Celeste said as she reached across the table and took her hand. “What’s going on, Eden? I swear we talked more when I was still living in Wisconsin. At first I thought it was just me. That maybe you were upset about Ian being my father and us ending up as half-sisters. But you don’t return Dad’s calls or Will’s, either. And Lloyd said you’d acted like you’d never seen him before.”
With her free hand, Eden rubbed her temple where a headache had begun to build. She could care less that Celeste didn’t share a biological father with her and their brother Will. Their dad, Hugh Risinski, had adopted Celeste upon her birth, and to Eden, that made her a Risinski no matter what. Hell, considering she’d changed her name from Risinski to Risk the moment she’d left home, and that she hadn’t been the most family-oriented daughter, Eden had no room to judge. Rather than grapple with that issue—a discussion
which they’d yet to share—she asked, “Lloyd who?”
“Lloyd Nelson. He was the big blond guy who’d picked up the DVD five minutes before we showed. Don’t you remember him?”
“No, should I?”
“Yeah, considering he’s Will’s partner. Oh wait. Let me guess, you forgot our brother was gay, too.”
Ouch. “No. I guess I just didn’t—”
“Care enough to return his phone calls. Or take half an hour out of your busy schedule to stop by his new apartment, not to mention the art gallery.”
“I was at the gallery when Will had his opening,” she said defensively and tore her hand away. She had been at the gallery and had never been more proud of her brother and his accomplishments. Just because she wasn’t all sugar and spice like Celeste, expressing her emotions with an added fluffy dollop of whipped cream and a cherry on top, didn’t mean she didn’t care.
“For ten minutes. God, Eden. I swear I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”
Here we go again.
And Celeste wondered why she wasn’t interested in talking. Their conversations always boiled down to what was wrong with her. “Probably because you never really did.”
Celeste released a sarcastic half-laugh. “And you’re full of it. I know you. And I know that your need to control every aspect of your life is destroying you.”
Eden shoved away from the table and shot out of the chair. “Get all that out of your crystal ball?” she asked just as John stepped back into the room.
He looked at her first, then to Celeste. She hadn’t missed the accusation and contempt in his gaze, and she could care less. Let him—let Celeste—think what they wanted. Because neither of them, nor the rest of her family included, knew the entire truth.
“Ian has someone on the way,” John said to Celeste. “He should be here any minute.”
“Good,” Celeste said, and patted his arm. “Could you give us a sec?”
He smiled at her sister, then sent her an “eat shit” glare. “I’ll grab our coats.”
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