Deadly Games

by Karen Rock

  “No.” He glanced up at the circling helicopter and touched her hand. His light blue eyes searched hers. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Just a little dehydrated. Be back in a few.”

  Nash slid a hand around her waist, steadying her as she walked on shaking legs back to the road. Within minutes, Nash had her in the back seat of her air-conditioned car.

  “Drink,” he ordered, holding a water bottle to her mouth.

  She grabbed the plastic container and gulped some of the cold, reviving liquid. When she attempted to give it back, Nash shook his head. “All of it.”

  “Yes, sir.” She downed the rest of the water, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes.

  “Better?” Nash slipped his arm around her shoulders and tugged her backward until she rested against his broad chest. He dropped his large hands to her shoulders and oh-so-deliciously began massaging her tense muscles.

  “Yes,” she sighed, melting against him, her body relaxing.

  “What happened back there?”

  “N-nothing.” The fleeting, painful memories stayed just on the periphery of her mind, close enough to draw blood, but not near enough to bring into focus. She knew more than she thought. What had she suppressed and why?

  Her attacker had called her by name. Had he simply used the one Summer screamed or had Katherine known her attacker? Chills chased each other down her spine as she considered the possibility. Nash said the Last Call Killer was apologizing in the torture video. Now her memory confirmed another moment of contrition. Could these killers be one and the same?

  Nash’s soothing fingers stilled. “It was the helicopter, wasn’t it? You had the same reaction at the club.”

  She tensed. No one had spotted her phobia before—mostly because she pushed through it and hid her fear. Yet sensitive Nash noticed.

  Big breath in—long one out. She’d never talked to anyone about Summer once she’d graduated. Yet Nash made her feel safe. For the first time, she wanted to open up about the tragedy.

  “I had a friend named Summer. A best friend,” she began. Nash’s fingers resumed their magic, working through the knots at the top of her spine. “We met the year Robby and I transferred to Wheaton Prep, a boarding school. Since Robby and I grew up on the same block, we’d always been close. But when I went to high school, I hoped to make more friends.”

  She toyed with the water bottle’s wrapper. “I couldn’t believe it when the most popular girl in our grade asked me to sit with her group at lunch. I almost didn’t go. Robby thought they wanted to prank me, but I went anyway. I wanted so much to fit in, to be popular, too.”

  She felt Nash nod. “My parents barely had enough to keep the lights on, let alone to buy me nice clothes or shoes. In my old school, I was teased, but in Wheaton Prep, we all wore the same uniform. I blended in.”

  “Not Robert, though.” Nash’s hands slid to her shoulders, kneading her bunched muscles.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “You’re right.” The water bottle label peeled free of the container in one long piece. “It turned out the invitation was legit. Summer told the other girls—all with more in their trust funds than my parents could earn in a lifetime—that they’d better be friends with me because I was their new, star lacrosse player.”

  “Lacrosse?”

  “It turned out I was a natural. Summer saw me playing in gym and thought I could lead the school to a division championship.” Katherine crumbled the label in her hand. “After I helped them clinch their first title, everyone knew who I was…someone important, to be admired, respected.”

  “What about Robert?”

  She hung her head. Ashamed. “They called him my shadow because he followed me everywhere. He couldn’t make friends on his own. The other girls teased him and I didn’t stick up for him enough.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “I was old enough to know better. I was afraid they’d kick me out of the group, and that mattered more than my oldest friend. I was horrible.”

  “A lot of teens do stupid stuff because of peer pressure. It’s part of growing up.”

  “Yeah. But Robby—he deserved better, especially because he eventually saved my life.”

  Nash’s fingers ceased their hypnotic massage. “When was that?”

  “The last week of school. Most of us were through our finals and waiting for graduation. The school basically became a party, the rules relaxed. There were dorm parties and after-hours parties in the woods every day.”

  A deep tremor began in her toes and rattled up her spine as she recalled the mindless, tragic night. Nash’s arms enfolded her and pulled her closer. “Something happened at one of the parties.”

  “Yes. On the way to one. We’d been drinking hooch all night, grain alcohol mixed with fruit and Kool-Aid. I was pretty hammered by the time we headed out to find the bonfire party, a six-pack in hand. It was dark. Moonless. I remember stumbling through darkness, bumping into trees. Then, then—” She hesitated, her voice slipping back down her throat where it quaked as it hid.

  Nash pressed a kiss to the top of her head before laying his cheek on it, not saying a word. He simply listened. Waited. Gave her the space and the courage to speak at last.

  She released a shaky breath. “Then someone attacked us. The next thing I remember was waking in the infirmary with police outside the door. They told me someone hit me over the head and kidnapped Summer. If not for Robby, who intervened and carried me back to school, I might have disappeared, too.”

  “Robby rescued you?” Nash mused.

  “Yes. The doctors said I had selective amnesia from the drinking, a head injury, and trauma, but I’ll never forget the date: June twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-six.”

  “That’s my mother’s birthday,” Nash exclaimed. “What about Robert? Did he get amnesia, too?”

  “No. But he didn’t see much given the dark. Just me getting hit and Summer dragged off.”

  “Summer was the target, not you?”

  “We’ll never know, since Robby carried me back before the attacker returned. For days, I listened to circling helicopters searching for Summer. She’s been missing ever since.”

  “That’s why you hate the sound of helicopters.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Summer’s the reason you became an FBI agent.”

  She twisted around to face Nash.

  How did he always manage to see through her? Right down to sinew and marrow. “Yes.”

  “Guess we’re alike.”

  “How so?”

  “I became a P.I. to catch the kinds of assholes who hurt my mother, and you became an agent to arrest the types of monsters who kidnapped your best friend.”

  She stared at him, slack-jawed. Nash had innate ability to read people. A gift.

  “Nash, please take the civil service exam next week.”

  “Why’s it so important to you?”

  “Because you’d make a great officer. You’re intuitive and you get people to talk by making them feel safe.”

  “People?”

  Her face heated, and she willed herself not to look away. “You make me feel safe.”

  His nostrils flared, as though he breathed in her words, filling his rising chest.

  “And because the world needs officers like you,” she continued, fast, before she confessed more of her feelings than she was ready to say or even fully understood. “And most of all, because it’s important to you.”

  “Are you sure this doesn’t have anything to do with you?” A deep note entered his voice. “Us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you take me more seriously if I wore a uniform instead of stripping one off?”

  “No!” she denied, too fast.

  “You’
re not comfortable with my dancing.” Of course, perceptive Nash wasn’t buying her answer.

  “I’m trying to get comfortable with it,” she admitted.

  “And I might not pass the exam this time around…I barely passed it the first time. Or they may reject me after the interview stage again.”

  “But now you have experience. And my and the police chief’s recommendation letters. We wouldn’t be out here searching for Layla if not for you.”

  He shook his head. “Over a hundred people are searching, no one’s spotted anything yet. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  Three sharp whistle blasts cut off his denial.

  “It’s the signal.” She gripped Nash’s hands and stared up into his blazing eyes. “Nash. They’ve found Layla.”

  * * * *

  “Please! Let me through!” screamed Deena Pierce minutes later, flailing in Nash’s arms. He held her tight, absorbing her tears, her grief, her fury as they hovered on the periphery of the yellow tape now boxing off a small ravine. Detectives huddled around a shape just out of sight, Katherine among them. He’d never forget her regretful expression when she’d ducked beneath the tape, leaving him out. Again.

  “I’m sorry, Deena,” Nash murmured in her ear. “We can’t contaminate the scene.”

  “It’s my daughter!”

  “We don’t know that yet.”

  Deena’s legs buckled, and Nash swept her off her feet, carrying her a short distance away before settling her gently on a flat-topped rock. “I have to know,” she sobbed.

  “Agent Bowden will tell us soon.”

  “How? How did my little girl end up here? She hates the woods. Bugs. Oh, God. Why? Why?”

  Nash sat beside her and curved an arm around her shaking shoulders. “Do you want me to call Anya?”

  “No. Not yet. She’s bringing the baby home today.” Her teeth chattered and skin blanched. Was she going into shock?

  “Officer,” he called to one of the uniformed men guarding the perimeter. “Can we get EMS out here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stay with me, Deena,” Nash urged. Her pupils were dilated and her wet lashes clumped together in thick spikes.

  “This—this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Layla was clean. Getting her life together. Did you know she never killed a spider?”

  Nash stared at her, trying to follow her train of thought, just glad Deena kept talking. “I never knew that.”

  “She wouldn’t even kill a fly. She’d trap bugs with a piece of paper and a mason jar and set them free. She said—she said—they didn’t deserve to die. Everything deserved a chance to live. And now Layla’s dead…dead…dead…” Deena’s last word ended in a sob.

  “Mrs. Pierce?”

  Their heads snapped up at Katherine’s grave voice. Her somber, indigo eyes embraced Deena like a hug.

  “Is it Layla?” Deena lurched upright with Nash’s help, leaning heavily on him.

  Katherine nodded. “The body we’ve recovered has a dolphin tattoo on her left ankle with a peace sign balanced on its nose.”

  Her words slammed into him, hard enough to break ribs and rip open his heart. Layla. A girl he’d grown up with. He knew her family. Her friends. This wasn’t just a case, this was personal, a fact he hadn’t fully grasped until the reality that she was not just lost, but gone forever, fully sank in. Pain-filled wrath whirled inside.

  Deena sagged in his arms, nodding and crying. “That’s my baby. Can I see her?”

  “I’m so sorry.” Katherine clasped Deena’s hands. “But our CSI techs need to process the scene. Once they’re finished, she’ll be taken in for an autopsy. You can see her when the forensic team’s finished.”

  “When?”

  “Later tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  Deena buried her head in his chest, her tears soaking through his shirt. “Ohhhhh, my baby. Ohhhhh, my little girl.”

  “Where’s the rest of the Pierce family?”

  “Deena’s daughter’s bringing home a newborn. Her sister’s with Layla’s cousins. They’re back by the road where the officers pushed everyone out.”

  “Mrs. Pierce?”

  Deena lifted her face and stared unseeingly in Katherine’s direction.

  “We’re going to bring you to your sister…”

  “Sonya,” Nash supplied, his voice hoarse.

  “No.” Deena swiped at her overflowing eyes. “I want to be here with Layla.”

  “The best thing you can do for her is to take care of yourself,” Katherine soothed. “Please. Come with us.”

  Two steps forward then Deena halted. “I want to kill that bastard. Nash, promise me—promise me you’ll get him.”

  “He’ll pay,” Nash assured her, never more certain of anything in his life. He’d catch the Last Call Killer—he wouldn’t quit ’til his last breath.

  As they broke through the periphery of the woods, an EMS tech caught up to them. “Did someone call for medical?”

  “Yes.”

  They helped Deena to the curbside ambulance, and her family swarmed them an instant later.

  After kissing Deena on the cheek and reassuring her he’d keep in touch, Nash and Katherine wandered a short distance away.

  Katherine squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry, Nash.”

  He stared up at the bright sun peeking through gathering clouds, wondering how anything dared look cheerful on such a bleak day. “After the video, my gut told me she was gone, but it doesn’t prepare you for the reality. Do you ever get used to this?”

  “Not used to it. More like you learn how to cope. I tell myself someone needs to be strong. In charge. Clear-thinking. I can’t do that if I let myself feel anything, not when I’m working, if that makes sense.”

  “It does. Though this has to hit home.”

  She stared at him for a long time. “Because of the similarities between these victims and Summer?”

  He nodded. “Party girl. Out at night with friends. Was Summer a blonde?”

  “Yes.”

  “And isn’t Wheaton Prep off I45?”

  “Correct.”

  “Are we dealing with the same killer?”

  Katherine peered up at the shifting clouds. “A part of me hopes so.”

  “You’ve never gotten closure for Summer.”

  “If she can’t rest in peace, I can’t either.”

  “I see.” And he did, the last pieces of the puzzle comprising workaholic Katherine dropping into place, deepening his growing feelings even more.

  His eyes stung. She stood there wearing no makeup and a suit the worse for wear, her platinum-gold hair pulled back in a simple bun. Yet she was more beautiful in her strength, her quiet grief, her conviction, than anyone, or anything, he’d ever seen.

  I want her.

  The thought hit him like a brick.

  He wanted her, of course. That was already an established fact. But this was different.

  I want her for myself.

  He’d been glad when Katherine shot down Robert’s earlier request to go out after the search. When she’d made a date with him the following week, though, it’d unsettled Nash. He didn’t like her going out with anyone, a possessiveness taking hold. He wanted to claim this woman as his. He could no longer deny he’d fallen for Katherine.

  Hard.

  Her strength in fighting through her phobia to solve a case triggering her painful past moved him deeply. She was the strongest woman he’d ever met. Was she strong enough to handle a relationship with a man who took off his clothes for other women every night? She’d already been cheated on and didn’t deserve a relationship where she might ever have doubts…not that there was any doubt in his mind about Katherine. He’d never be unfaithful to anyone, especially her…

  …would cherish her always.

  Love he
r.

  “Hey. What’s wrong?” Katherine asked.

  “What?”

  “You sounded like you were choking.”

  “No. Just…thinking.”

  He loved Katherine Bowden, a woman he might not be good enough for, who might not love him back, but one he now knew he couldn’t live without.

  “Who found Layla?” he asked, forcing his mind back on the case, the here and now, which seemed more straightforward than his wayward heart and future.

  “That’s the crazy part. The preacher found her.”

  “That’s…coincidental.”

  “It would be, if I believed in coincidences. Look. There he is, talking to reporters. And he promised not to give a statement.”

  “Let’s listen.”

  They jogged to the press area where the minister held court with a dozen reporters jostling one another for position.

  “Pastor Williams, what can you tell us about the victim you found?” one of the journalists shouted.

  “She was a lost soul. A fallen woman whose wicked turn to sin and vice led to her doom.”

  Nash’s fists clenched at his sides. The bastard. He’d ring his neck for disparaging Layla. “If he’s so disgusted by sin and vice why join the search for a young woman he’d judge guilty of both?” he asked Katherine from the side of his mouth.

  “I’m wondering that myself.”

  “Do you think he could be our guy?”

  Katherine cocked her head. “He displays narcissistic behavior. Has issues with women frequenting social scenes. Seems to gain trust quickly and was the last person seen talking to Brittany Reins before she disappeared.”

  “I love it when you talk cop to me.”

  She biffed Nash on the shoulder.

  “Women must follow a righteous path,” the preacher droned on to increasingly impatient-looking reporters. “The way to escape their daily lives is to find God, rather than revel in self-destructive excesses.”

  “And he has blue eyes,” Nash observed.

  “Yes—yes, he does.” Katherine rocked forward on the balls of her feet, peering at the man. “Not to mention he found Layla’s body. He inserted himself in the case. Another red flag.”

  “You said the serial killer would be someone who works downtown, who has a reason to be there so his presence doesn’t seem out of place. And he’s autonomous.”