Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #2

by Terri Reed

  “Give me your knife,” Drew said, holding out his hand.

  She took the blade out of the sheath and handed it over.

  He grasped the handle and then turned, leading the way out of the crawl space into the dark confines of the utility room. The only sound was their breathing. At the top of the short flight of stairs, another door barred their way.

  Though she couldn’t see Drew, she heard him try the handle. It was locked.

  “Now what?” Dr. Cantwell asked, her voice bouncing off the walls.

  “You two stand back,” Drew said. “I’m going to bust it open.”

  Frustrated with him, Sami ground out, “Drew, no.”

  “I’m not arguing with you,” he shot back. “Get back.”

  Not liking his he-man attitude, she said, “At least take my gun.”

  “You hang on to it, in case you need it.”

  Dr. Cantwell tugged at her arm. “Come on, Agent Bennett. Sometimes being a team player means letting someone else lead.”

  Great, now she was getting it from both sides. Groping for the wall, she and Dr. Cantwell retreated to the far corner.

  She heard Drew’s grunt as his body slammed into the locked door, then wood splintering as the door gave way. Though Sami couldn’t see Drew, she felt his absence keenly deep in her heart. Dr. Cantwell grabbed her hand and squeezed.

  Where was Drew?

  She held her breath, straining to listen.

  There was a scuffling sound.

  Then the blast of a gun.

  FOURTEEN

  Fear exploded inside Sami’s chest. The echo of gunfire pounded through her head. The walls of the utility room closed in on her, fueling her panic. Was Drew hurt? Dead? She needed to help him.

  “Stay here,” she told Dr. Cantwell.

  The stairs led to the kitchen.

  Caution forced Sami to press her back to the wall and then peek out. The fact that she could make out the counter and appliances barely registered. The back door was boarded up.

  She hurried toward the living room, feeling her way through the gloom that suddenly was chased away by dim light.

  The front door stood wide-open, allowing the moon’s glow to stream into the house. She recognized the form lying prone on his back in the middle of the empty living room.

  Drew!

  Her breath stalled with fear. No!

  Keeping her head low, she inched out, searching for Corben. Acutely aware that she was putting herself in jeopardy, she moved to Drew’s side. Her heart wept. Guilt chomped through her like a hungry tiger. Not again. Only this was so much worse than when Ian was injured.

  Back then she’d felt only anger and guilt, not the despair threatening to rob her of her senses.

  “Please, don’t be dead,” she whispered.

  “Not dead,” Drew said, though his voice sounded strained.

  Tears of happiness filled her eyes. She dropped her chin to her chest. She realized with stark clarity that her feelings for this man went way beyond professional and slid right on into dangerous territory. But now was not the time or place to explore exactly what that territory entailed.

  Drew clutched her arm. “He was here.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that.” She pulled herself together. “Where are you hurt?”

  “Shoulder.”

  She breathed easier. He probably wouldn’t die from a shoulder wound if she stopped his bleeding. “I’m going to take the bandage from your back and put it on your wound.”

  “No time.” Drew pushed at her. “Go after him.”

  “But you could bleed out!”

  “I won’t. He’s getting away. Now go.”

  Dr. Cantwell crawled to her side. “I’ll take care of him.”

  Grateful, Sami nodded. Gathering her courage, she pressed her lips to Drew’s. “I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll hold you to that promise.”

  With grim determination, she rose and headed out the front door, leading with her gun. On the porch she stopped. She didn’t see Corben. She strained to listen for any telltale sign that he was close by. To her left she heard an engine turn over.

  She ran around the side of the house toward a detached garage she hadn’t noticed when they’d arrived. A black Mercedes-Benz shot out, breaking through the wooden garage door.

  She stopped in the car’s path, stood her ground, aimed and fired several rounds into the car, shattering the front windshield. The car careened out of control, swerving into a tree.

  Sami cautiously approached the vehicle. “Put your hands up!”

  Corben didn’t comply. Sami got closer, half hoping, half fearing he was dead. There were still so many unanswered questions.

  She opened the driver’s door. He was hunched over the steering wheel. “Corben, put your hands up.”

  In a swift move, he straightened, bringing Drew’s gun up and aiming toward his temple.

  “No,” Sami screamed, and rushed forward to prevent him from ending his own life.

  He quickly turned the gun toward her and laughed. “Really, Agent Bennett, you thought I’d kill myself?”

  Sami skidded to a halt. In the moonlight, she couldn’t make out his features.

  They were at an impasse. Each aiming a gun at the other.

  “Lay the gun down, Corben,” she demanded. “Come out of the car slowly.”

  “You back up,” he shouted.

  She took three steps back. A strange calmness descended on her, making her hands steady and her voice hard. “Now what, Corben? We shoot each other? Like you shot Drew?”

  He slipped out of the car. He was taller than she’d expected. He wore black pants and a black turtleneck underneath a flak vest with two distinct indentations where her bullets had hit their mark.

  He had thinning blond hair, nondescript features. Just an average guy. The kind people hardly notice. Casebook serial killer.

  He pulled his lips back to reveal straight white teeth. “Nice to finally meet you, Agent Bennett. And you can call me Birdman. I so like that nickname you gave me.”

  “It isn’t an endearment.”

  He shrugged. “Still, it makes me feel special. You’ve been on my mind for a while now.”

  Revulsion curled her lip. “And you’ve been on mine.”

  “I know. I’ve been following you. You and the Mountie.” He shook his head. “That was unexpected.”

  “What was unexpected?”

  “You two falling for each other.” He snorted. “Now he’s dead.”

  Not acknowledging his statement, Sami tilted her head. He didn’t know that he’d only wounded Drew?

  “You don’t seem too broken up about it,” Corben commented. “Curious.”

  Not willing to let him know he hadn’t succeeded in killing Drew, she said, “Tell me something, Corben. Why me?”

  “Your hair,” he said. “I like your hair.”

  She made a face, trying to comprehend his answer. “What?”

  He stepped toward her.

  She gestured with the gun. “Stay where you are.”

  He stopped, a sly smile on his face. “I was at the symposium on serial killers.” He laughed. “I couldn’t resist. I wanted to know what you federal agents could teach me. And there you were, with your shiny blond hair. So pretty. So eager to learn. I knew you’d be a good adversary.”

  His twisted logic made acid burn through her. Her finger flexed on the trigger. But there were still questions she wanted answers to. “What do you mean, you were there?”

  “I’m everywhere, Agent Bennett. Haven’t you realized that yet? I’m a chameleon. An apparition. Always changing, always evolving. It’s easy enough to forge credentials and dress the part of a sloppy detective from some backwater town.”

  “You’re a monster,” she shot back. “Why Lisa? Why did you kill my best friend?”

  “I had to bring you on board somehow,” he said. “She was a fighter.”

  Sami ground her teeth with fury. She was so tempted
to end this here and now, to extract her own form of justice. For Lisa. For all the women Corben had killed.

  A movement to the right, behind Corben, drew her attention. Drew. Her heart leaped. He wouldn’t approve of her taking matters into her own hands. Seeing him gave her strength to stay focused, calm.

  He moved in a crouch to the other side of the vehicle.

  She needed to draw Corben farther out, away from the car, so Drew could get in position behind him. She stepped backward. There was a piece of the puzzle she wasn’t seeing. “How did you move your victims from place to place without being caught?”

  He smirked and matched her step. “Have you ever flown on a private jet, Agent Bennett? There is no pesky TSA and Canpass is such a lovely thing. Easy to join, easy to qualify and even easier to stash anything I want in the cargo hold of the plane.”

  She shuddered at the thought. “I can’t believe you weren’t caught before now.”

  “Tsk, tsk, Agent Bennett.” He shook his head. “It’s all about patience. And years and years of painstakingly building trust.”

  Continuing to move away from him, she asked, “Why did you bring Dr. Cantwell here?”

  He frowned and stepped toward her. “I knew she would tell you about me.”

  “You injected her with something.” Sami took another step back.

  He followed. “Propofol. I stole some when I visited my aunt at the hospital.”

  “Lonnie would be so disappointed,” Sami said, infusing her voice with as much disdain as she could. “What was on her computer?”

  “She kept pictures of me on her computer.” He spat on the ground. “I don’t like pictures.”

  Taking another step back, she asked, “Who paid for this house?”

  He sneered and matched her step. “He did.”

  “Do you mean James Clark? Your father?”

  “My father.” Corben spit on the ground. “He may have spawned me, but he was never my father.”

  “But he provided a house for you,” Sami pointed out.

  “Only because he didn’t want his real family to know about us.”

  “Is that what your mother told you?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  Dr. Cantwell came out of the house, drawing their attention. Her hair had come undone, the silver streaks winking in the moonlight. “Corben, don’t do this.”

  Keeping the gun in his hand aimed at Sami, Corben looked at the doctor. “You should stay out of this, Dr. Cantwell. I let you live. You should be happy with me.”

  “Haven’t you killed enough people?” She walked toward him, her hands out, palms up in supplication. “I’m sorry I failed you.”

  Corben’s face twisted with confusion. “You didn’t fail me. You released me from the nightmares.” He cocked his head to the side. “Don’t you remember? You took me back to that night and helped me see everything so clearly. That’s how I found him. It took me two years, but I did it.”

  “The regression therapy wasn’t intended to make you a killer.”

  His laughter grated on Sami’s nerves. Unfortunately, the therapy that was meant to help had been the catalyst to his murder spree. She continued walking backward.

  His gazed whipped to her. “Where are you going, Agent Bennett?”

  Still moving backward, Sami asked, “What happened the night your mother was murdered?”

  “I’m not telling you.” Corben stalked toward her.

  Dr. Cantwell moved so that she stood between them. “I’ll tell her.”

  Sami took a step to the side in time to see Corben’s expression go from gloating to bewilderment.

  “You don’t know either,” he said.

  “But I do,” Dr. Cantwell said. “Your mother made you stay in the closet. That’s what you told me. She locked you in the closet often, didn’t she?”

  Sami wanted to feel sympathy for him, but all she felt was pity and anger. Becca Kraft had damaged not only her son but so many other lives.

  Corben grabbed his head, the gun now aimed at the sky. “Yes. She made me hide in the closet. She said my daddy was coming and he didn’t want to see me.”

  “But you didn’t stay in the closet, did you?” Dr. Cantwell said, her voice gentle and coaxing. “You snuck out and saw a man hurting your mother.”

  Drew rounded the car and crouched by the front bumper.

  “Yes.” Corben went to his knees. “He had a knife.”

  “You never saw his face, though, did you, Corben?” Dr. Cantwell stepped closer to him. Sami matched her steps until the doctor was within arm’s reach.

  “No, I didn’t see his face. Just the bird on his jacket.” Corben lurched to his feet. “That ugly bird staring at me. Every night. That bird would attack me. Over and over. Just as he had my mother. There was so much blood.”

  Sami met Drew’s gaze. He nodded, the signal he was going to launch an assault. She sent up a prayer that he’d succeed without any more harm to himself. Keeping her weapon aimed at Corben, she grabbed the back of Dr. Cantwell’s shirt and dragged her to the ground.

  At the same time, Drew launched himself at Corben, taking him down.

  They wrestled in the dirt. Sami’s breath caught and held in her throat. She couldn’t let Drew do this alone with a wounded shoulder. Jamming her gun into her holster, she piled on the fray, struggling to pin Corben’s gun arm down. But he was stronger than she’d anticipated. He wrenched his arm free. She grappled to reclaim her hold, determined to make him yield.

  Sirens split the air as several cars came screeching to a halt in the driveway.

  The loud blast of the gun going off reverberated inside Sami’s head.

  Drew and Corben stilled beneath her. There was blood everywhere. Sami pushed back on her heels, scrambling to draw her gun even as her heart froze in her chest. Who’s blood was it that ran into the dirt? Was Drew hit? Corben?

  Time seemed to slow. A shudder of fear and denial worked its way over her. Neither man moved.

  “Drew!”

  Please, God, she silently begged. I can’t lose him.

  Drew had worked his way past the barriers of her heart and made her care, made her long for a life beyond the badge. Somewhere along the way she’d lost control of her emotions and fallen in love with him.

  The thought knocked the breath from her lungs, and she willed Drew to get up, to be okay.

  Finally, Drew pushed Corben’s still body aside and stumbled to his feet. He kicked the gun away.

  A rush of relief flooded Sami. She tucked her weapon into her holster and flung herself at Drew. He caught her with his good arm. He felt solid and warm and so good. She squeezed her eyes shut, savoring the moment. He swayed on his feet. Concern arched through her. She pulled back to look at him. His face was ashen, his eyes slightly glazed. He’d lost a lot of blood despite Dr. Cantwell applying a bandage to his gunshot wound.

  Suddenly Detroit police officers surrounded them. A second wave of relief made her limbs turn to jelly.

  “I called the cavalry. I found your cell phone on the living room floor.” Drew kissed her quickly and murmured, “We’ll finish this later.”

  It was a promise she would make sure he kept. Paramedics led Drew away to an ambulance while Sami gathered the frayed edges of her composure and reluctantly turned her focus back to the job of dealing with the officers and Corben Kraft.

  *

  “Good work, Agent Bennett.” Special Agent in Charge Granger beamed at her with approval. The moment the news came of Corben’s arrest, Granger had boarded a plane and flown to Detroit. Sami and her superior stood in the conference room of the Detroit FBI field office.

  The Federal Bureau had taken over custody of Corben Kraft. Right now he was detained in a secure room until the transport unit was ready move to him to the maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado, to await his trial. Dr. Cantwell had formally diagnosed Corben with antisocial behavior disorder and stated for the record he was both a psychopath and a sociopath, since
he exhibited behaviors inherent to both disorders.

  Whatever label his mental illness took on wouldn’t save him from the punishment he was due. For that, Sami was grateful.

  Sami rubbed at a kink in her neck. “It wasn’t all me, sir. We wouldn’t have captured Kraft if not for Dre…uh, Inspector Kelley.”

  With Sami and Drew’s statements and that of Dr. Cantwell, Corben Kraft was going to prison for the rest of his life. Though his incarceration wouldn’t bring back those who’d lost their lives at his hand, there was peace in knowing Corben wasn’t free to kill again.

  Granger nodded. “Too true. I’ve spoken to his superintendent, praising the inspector’s efforts. You both deserve commendations for apprehending Kraft.”

  “Thank you, sir, but that’s not necessary for me. I was doing my job.” Drew, however, had taken a bullet in the shoulder and for that he deserved a medal of valor, a parade…a kiss.

  It had been several hours since she’d seen Drew loaded aboard the ambulance and whisked away. The paramedics had been optimistic that the wound wasn’t fatal, but she needed to know for herself that he was okay. She glanced at her watch. The last time she called the hospital, she’d been told he was in surgery.

  “Sir, I would like to request permission to go to the hospital and check on Inspector Kelley. He should be out of surgery by now.”

  “Of course,” Granger said. “I’m sure Inspector Kelley would be happy to learn that Corben is safely behind bars.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Samantha,” Granger called, halting her steps.

  She pivoted. “Sir?”

  “I thought you’d be interested to know that the Legat in Vancouver has announced his retirement.”

  “Okay, thank you.” Though she wasn’t sure why he’d think she’d be interested. It wasn’t as if she had the qualifications to apply for the position.

  She hurried from the building and hailed a taxi. Once settled in the back passenger seat, she mulled over Granger’s comment. With the legal attaché retiring, there would be an opening in the FBI’s Vancouver sub office. It was an interesting thought, and maybe in a few years, say in ten or so, she’d be qualified for such a post. But it would be highly unlikely that the new Legat would be ready to vacate the position so she could step into it.