by Karen Rock
Cover Copy
ONE NIGHT ONLY
Special Agent Katherine Bowden doesn’t do girls’ nights out. She doesn’t do blazing hot dances with male strippers or unbelievable, uninhibited one-night-stands. If you ask her ex, all she does is work: study evidence, profile criminals, track them down. And now Katherine’s back home in Dallas, with a new set of all-male colleagues second-guessing her every move, and a possible serial killer hunting women just like her. But just this once, Katherine is going to try all those things she doesn’t do…
Growing up on the Reservation led Nash Hawkins down paths he’d rather forget. When his dream of joining the police force was crushed, he turned his hard body and wicked imagination into a meal ticket. His chemistry with Katherine is like nothing he’s ever felt. And though he’s sure a woman like her won’t want to get seriously involved with him, Nash knows things—things that might help catch a killer.
Nash and Katherine can save lives, if they put aside the desire that torments them both. But the closer they get, the more they have to lose…
Also by Karen Rock
Dangerous Moves
Deadly Games
Dallas After Dark
Karen Rock
LYRICAL LIAISON
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2018 by Karen Rock
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First Electronic Edition: July 2018
eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0613-4
eISBN-10: 1-5161-0613-X
First Print Edition: July 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0616-5
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0616-4
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
“Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.”
—Mark Twain
Prologue
Lancing pain jerked Becca’s head upright and snapped her back to consciousness. Had she dozed? For how long? Time stopped in a black hole. She strained against the ropes looped around her wrists and ankles, another line securing her to the cage’s metal bars. Shadows thickened in the corners of the underground bunker, pressing closer, whispering.
Was he gone?
Please let him be gone and never come back.
But if he doesn’t return, who will find you?
Who will know you were here…know what happened to you?
Her heart slugged inside her broken rib cage, her breath wheezing through her bruised throat. I’ve got to get out of here. If I pass out again, I’ll die.
You’ll die anyway…
Her swollen eyes stung as she pictured her three-year-old’s gap-toothed smile, remembered the softness of Mack’s head snuggled against her as she’d read him bedtime stories. If her kidnapper released her, she’d read to her baby until she lost her voice, until the book fell apart. How she missed him. Missed their happy little life together. In a blink of an eye, everything had changed; she might never hold her child again or tell Mack how much she loved him.
The glare of a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the windowless space. Was it day? Night? Could anyone hear her screams deep down in this bunker? Maybe she’d already died and this—this was hell.
Despite the dank room’s humidity, chilled sweat coated her naked body. She peered down and glimpsed her bare feet against the concrete, her body awash with fear. Dried patches of blood bloomed on the floor around her body. Her blood or others’? Red smears (drag marks?) led out of the cage’s open door to a huge double sink. An electric saw rested on the long counter beside it. A deep shudder shook her from the inside out. She wasn’t the first woman he’d held captive here.
Who’d died here…
Her panic deepened.
“Life is a dream walking. Death is going home,” she’d read somewhere once. This in-between, then, was a graphic, never-ending nightmare.
Would she welcome the end, its sweet release, when it came?
No.
She had to keep fighting. For herself. For Mack.
She peered at the empty stairs leading up to a door. He’d left. For where? And for how long? He’d return, no doubt, with some new “game” to play. Torture sessions designed to make her scream. Beg. Cry.
Did Mack cry for her?
The painful thought pierced her heart, the harshest cut of all. She should have stayed home with her baby instead of celebrating her birthday out with her girlfriends. Her former party-girl life ended when she’d discovered her pregnancy. Stupid her for trying to resurrect her old self, even for just one night, to act without considering the consequences, like accepting a ride home from a stranger. A man who’d seemed harmless…. Now she’d pay with her life.
Her captor intended to kill her. Bit by bit, blow by blow, cut by cut. He enjoyed it. Her screams. Her pleading. Her tears. He drew them out of her, a maestro orchestrating her suffering. It wasn’t her death he wanted necessarily, or even sex. He only wanted her pain.
And she gave it to him.
How she hated herself for it.
She caught a faint odor beneath the acrid scent of bleach, something rotting, moldering. Her stomach cramped, and she dry-heaved. The retching noise cracked in the tomblike space.
He’d designed this torture chamber the way a zoologist designed animal enclosures. Exacting and precise, without the possibility of escape. Only he was the animal and she his prey. How much longer before he lost interest in tormenting her? When he did, she’d die like the other women before her.
Tools hung from hooks pounded into black-covered walls. Her bruised kneecaps throbbed as her eyes skittered over a large rubber mallet. Scalpels lined up on a metal surgical table, deadly sentinels awaiting their next depraved assignment. Beside them was a black stool on rollers. Her captor sometimes rested on it, in between “party times,” watching her with soulless eyes, empty as a shark’s.
A predator’s gaze.
Sweat and tears mixed on her bruised face, and strands of her blood-matted blond hair hung before her eyes. On a hanger attached to a rod holding women’s clothing, she glimpsed the white sundress he’d slashed off her and the rose-gold necklace her parents had given her for her birthday.
“Mommy, pretty,” Mack had cooed when she’d hugged him goodbye, not caring when he’d mussed her hair. She’d lingered, showering his full cheeks with kisses, torn between leaving him and taking one night for herself.
Now she’d never kiss him again.
Would he remember her?
A needle of despair punctured her lungs, and all the air seemed to leak from them. Anger swamped her next, followed by panic and fear, rushing through every cell in her body like a tsunami. Her muscles strained against the ropes.
“You asshole!” she screamed, her voice hoarse. “Get me out of here!” Her head drooped. “Let me see my baby,” she whispered.
The gleam of the hunting knife he’d left tantalizingly close, just outside the ajar cage door, caught her eye. Shame flared inside at her remembered whimper when he’d brandished it. He’d laughed, wanting her to stare at the blade, taunting her with promises of what he’d do with it when he returned.
Becca’s aching jaw clenched.
Could she reach it?
Forcing her body to relax, she discovered the slightest bit of slack in the rope encircling her ankle. Slowly, torturously, she wiggled her foot until, to her joy and relief, her heel popped free. The rest of her foot followed.
Her heart drummed as she stretched her leg toward the knife. One toe grazed the blade.
Not far enough.
Don’t quit. Think of Mack.
She drooped lower, swinging her body back and forth in the ropes, the momentum pushing her farther and farther forward until, at last, her foot landed on the knife. She grasped the handle between her toes, scraped it across the floor, and lifted it carefully until it touched her palm. Her numb fingers sawed the rope binding her wrists. She held her breath, hoping, praying she didn’t drop it. That he didn’t return.
Finally, she heard a twang, and to her incredible relief, her hands were free. She cut the rope around her waist and ankle, her pulse raging in her veins, deafening her as it whooshed by her ears.
She crumpled to the floor, stunned and elated, muscles tingling with the return of full circulation. Free.
Get out of here.
Move it. NOW.
Mack needs you.
Heart slamming, Becca hauled herself to her feet and quickly limped to the stairs. She paused on the first tread. What if he was up there? A new horror rose at what he’d do to her for trying to escape. But she forced her panicked mind back on Mack. On escape.
She grabbed one of the mallets from the wall. Gripping the railing, she climbed, her head spinning so hard she thought it might fall off her shoulders.
Focus.
Her hand grazed the doorknob. The mallet handle slipped in her slick palm. Please let the door be unlocked. Her skin prickled, and acid burned in the back of her throat.
Please, please, please…
The handle turned smoothly and she froze, stunned. Was her captor cocky or was she walking into a trap? Another of his games…. Her grip on the mallet tightened.
When she put her ear to the door and heard nothing, she cracked it open and paused. Still no sound. It swung away to reveal a pitch-black room. She slipped into the darkness and paused, letting her eyes adjust, the wooden floor cool beneath her raw, burning feet. The only light was the mottled moonlight streaming in through the windows of what might be a den.
An adrenaline rush flooded her, dread mingling with euphoria mixed with hope. Becca took her second step, preparing to run—when a shadow detached itself from a distant corner and glided forward. A familiar, ugly laugh erupted.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said in a low monotone, the lack of emotion in his voice paralyzing. “Let’s party, bitch.” She could practically smell the lust and violence on him as he grabbed her wrist.
No!
She marshaled her last bit of strength and swung the mallet, smacking the side of his head. The satisfying thunk reverberated in her ears.
“Fucking slut,” he hissed, his fingers now around her throat, squeezing the air out of her as he shoved her backward. She arched away from him, struggling, straining against his relentless grip, petrified. Her baby needed her. This couldn’t be the end. Then something hard slammed into her skull, a sickening, shattering smack that sent her tumbling, head over heels, back down into her private hell.
The world faded out.
Chapter One
“Painkillers, ladies?”
At the shirtless waiter’s question, the women crowded at Special Agent Katherine Bowden’s table whooped and grabbed their rum tiki drinks. Which round was this? Katherine wrapped her fingers around the glass’ sleek stem and paused. She’d lost track after the third fireball shot.
Or had it been the fourth?
Her fuzzy thoughts struggled to converge.
If the hard-partying group didn’t slow down soon, she’d get knocked on her ass. Fast.
“He can circle my wagon any time!” One of the three Brittanys Katherine had met tonight leered at their cowboy server. Wranglers rode low over his sleek hips and stopped above pointed-toe boots. A silver buckle rested atop his bulging zipper and a black cowboy hat accentuated his angular, handsome face. Dallas Heat, the city’s hottest male strip club, was bringing it tonight.
Giddyup.
“Circle your wagon?” Katherine echoed, swallowing a small hiccup and straightening her tilt. Or was the world slightly off-kilter? She lowered her untouched drink. Only a couple sips separated pleasantly buzzed from hot mess. Check that. A hot mess with a badge.
Never a good look.
Brittany circled her finger above her thighs, winking. “You know…tripping the switch…?” At Katherine’s continued blank expression, she rolled her eyes. “Megan wasn’t kidding about you. Honey, you need a sexorcism. Time to get rid of those cobwebs down there.” She nudged Katherine’s side, then gasped. “Do you have a gun under your jacket?”
“Probably,” she admitted, hiding her wince as she pulled her Glock, concealed by a covert carrier, from her waistband and tucked it into her oversized handbag.
You can take the FBI agent out of the bureau, but….
“Do you have handcuffs, too?” asked another Brittany, leaning in. She licked her lips and eyed a stripping fireman jiggling his muscular ass as he whirled around a pole. “Those could come in handy.”
The Brittanys high-fived each other and turned expectantly to Katherine. She extended her fist for a bump, saw her mistake, and unclenched it, swatted the air, realizing, belatedly, the Brittanys had moved on and were now drinking.
Nope. Not awkward at all.
Katherine nudged her drink farther away, feeling like a fish out of water as she compared the women’s bright, strappy dresses and black stilettos to her plain navy suit and sensible shoes. They were meant for chasing, not getting caught—the story of her freaking life. When an interrogation had morphed into a marathon confession this evening, she’d run out of time and dashed straight here from her FBI office, coffee stain and all.
You could have at least removed the gun.
She was here to party, not bust the damn place.
Booking perps was more her line than raising hell, though. It’d been fifteen years since she’d had a wild night, not since…
She hurled that dangerous thought back into its cell and locked it down. Tight. Tonight was about forgetting. Not remembering. Especially not the blackest, most terrifying moment of her life.
“Thanks, babe.” Katherine’s friend from prep school, Megan Warren, signed a receipt, then stuffed a cash tip in the server’s waistband. She trailed her fingernail along his ridged abdomen. “And keep ’em coming.”
“’Cause we like to come!” one of the women chortled, the rest of the group exploding in laughter.
“Nice ass!” another quipped at the departing waiter. He paused, slid them a smoldering, over-the-shoulder side-eye and grinned, before disappearing in the sea of women grooving along with the onstage dancers.
“Having fun?” Megan hollered at Katherine across the table, as vivacious as ever. Back in high school, she’d been in the privileged clique who’d taken Katherine, a scholarship student from the wrong side of t
he tracks, under their wing.
“Of course,” Katherine yelled back. Her cheeks creaked into a smile wide enough to hurt.
“Of course?” Megan raised a skeptical eyebrow, then motioned for one of the Brittanys to swap places with her in the zebra-patterned circular booth. “What’s wrong?” she asked once she slipped in beside Katherine.
A whiff of Megan’s trademark raspberry-and-coconut bodywash drifted beneath Katherine’s nose. “I thought you were excited to come out…or did I just wear you down?”
“No. Really. This is great.” She twisted the umbrella piercing her drink’s pineapple wedge, determined not to drag Megan down. When they’d reconnected on Facebook recently, Katherine had learned Megan was in the middle an ugly custody battle with her ex. She deserved a wild night to blow off steam.
“Then how come your eyes look shrink-wrapped? And what’s with all the teeth? I can see your fillings.”
Katherine dropped her moronic grin. Busted. “That obvious?”
“To me.” Megan wagged a finger, a call-you-out metronome. “I knew you when you loved a good time.”
“That was forever ago. I don’t know that person anymore,” Katherine admitted, peering around the animated crowd.
“Let me introduce you.” Megan stood and waved her cocktail with a flourish. “Ladies and sluts!”
“No judging!” a Brittany chastised, grinning.
“But we know who you are,” another Brittany teased with a giggle.
“Let’s raise a glass to Katherine, my newly single friend.”
They hoisted their drinks in unison, like musketeers drawing swords, united in a naughty-and-noble cause. “She signed her divorce papers yesterday”—Megan peered at Katherine through a mass of Texas-high red curls and false eyelashes—“and is free of a cheating son of a bitch who sucked the fun right out of her. Tonight, we’re giving her an infusion of good old-fashioned debauchery. Who’s with me?”
The women’s hearty cheers chased back the humiliation that had dogged Katherine since she’d walked in on her husband and a fellow Behavioral Analysis Unit agent eight months ago. Word was the two had gotten engaged recently. So much for her being just a fling….