Undercover Hunter

by Rachel Lee

  “You know,” Cade said, startling her a little because he’d been quiet for so long, “the guy you met today. Calvin Sweet.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe he seems trustworthy to the kids because of his job.”

  “How so? They wouldn’t know much about the crisis line.”

  His gaze returned to her, focusing. “He might have given talks at the school about it. Kids sometimes need someone to talk to. Sometimes they need it even more than adults.”

  Excitement crawled across her nerve endings. “Maybe. And since the hotline is under the sheriff’s department, he might seem doubly safe.”

  “Exactly.” He sighed. “Dang, there’s so much we need to know. Now I should add to the list whether any of these kids were having the kinds of problems that might have made them feel they could talk to Calvin. Who the hell is going to admit to that now?”

  “Nobody,” she said. “Gage would have to talk to school authorities who’d be reluctant to release any information about these kids, dead or not. The parents wouldn’t admit to any problems. They might not even have known about them. God, I’d do it, but I’d hate asking those parents if their kids were troubled in some way.”

  “Me, too,” he admitted. “It’s an awfully slender thread, anyway. Doesn’t even qualify as a real clue. Putting those parents through an emotional wringer would be downright cruel, and it still wouldn’t prove that those children had talked to Sweet.”

  She nodded, looking down at the mess on the table. “Still, Gage would probably know if he’d given any classroom talks. We’ll ask him in the morning. In the meantime...”

  She put her chin in her hand and regarded him. “I’ve worked some difficult cases over the years, but this one beats all. I’m grasping at straws.”

  “Might not just be straws. Regardless, you grasp what you can when you have nothing else.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table, heedless of the papers beneath. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about investigation, it’s that the perp is either such an absolute idiot that you’ve got him locked up in twenty-four hours or you’ve got a truly smart perp who eludes you for a while. But sooner or later, DeeJay, they all make mistakes.”

  “He needs to make one before another kid disappears.”

  “Clearly. But that’s not in our control. Which makes this the rottenest case I’ve ever had to work.”

  She couldn’t disagree with that. “Sweet is all we have. That means I need to take him up on his offer to visit his ranch. At the very least, I might be able to dismiss him as a suspect before we waste too much time on him.”

  “Agreed. But make that we. You’re not going alone.”

  She didn’t answer because she had every intention of taking the first opportunity to check the place out. Whether Cade liked it or not.

  “You know, if it is Sweet, he might just have made his first mistake.”

  “Mentioning where he’d lived before?” she asked.

  “No, asking you out to his place. We’ve got his driver’s license info, right? Let’s see if we can figure out where this ranch of his is.”

  Her excitement returned. “What if it’s close to where he hung the first bodies?”

  “Exactly. What if the only time he’d need a vehicle would be to transport the bodies, but he could hike up there any time to admire them and relive the experience? Now that would make sense to me.”

  It would to her, as well. When Cade unfolded the map, she pulled up Sweet’s physical address.

  Then, rising, she pulled her chair around and sat beside Cade as they pored over the map.

  * * *

  Calvin lit a couple of electric lanterns in the barn so he could view his boys. Instead of the usual thrill he got when he studied his accomplishments, his mind insisted on wandering.

  That woman, DeeJay. The need to take her was becoming an audible hammering in his head. His skull felt as if it was splitting. He hated it when the urge became this strong, because there was only one way to get rid of that headache. It could force him to lose control.

  He tried to keep one step ahead of the worst, by acting before the hammering in his head began, and usually he managed. He was proud of his self-control, and while he’d acted more frequently when he left here, it remained that even through the pounding need he recognized the danger in moving too swiftly. He’d heighten the search, and worse he might slip somehow and give himself away.

  He still had too much to do to allow that. So many kids had to be cleaned before it was too late for them. But he also wanted that woman.

  She walked through his mind almost constantly now, limned in a bright aura of color that indicated she was chosen. Most people just looked dull to him, but his chosen ones always gleamed with the beauty of what they would become through him. Perfect angels.

  He looked down at his hands and saw they were shaking. The pile driver in his head narrowed his vision. Sitting with his boys wasn’t going to help, and he’d better get down from this loft and back to the house before he couldn’t see at all.

  Once his vision left him, all he’d be able to do was think about his next move. Who was already a settled question. How was the one he needed to answer.

  He climbed down the ladder carefully, reminding himself to pause to lock the barn. When he got back to the house, he had tunnel vision, a narrow area that he could see. Just enough to get to the medicine chest and take something for his headache. Some of those strong pills he’d found here when he came to bury his mother two years ago. Putting her in the ground had been one of the most satisfying yet saddest events of his life.

  He was past trying to sort through those mixed feelings. He had more important matters to worry about.

  Like DeeJay. He could already envision her wrapped up and hanging among his boys, like a mother. Yes, she would be a mother to them, unlike the other women he’d taken.

  A mother. How fitting. Boys needed a mother to control them, even his purified ones.

  As for her husband...he needed to plan that out, too. If both of them disappeared, not a soul would look for them. Everyone would just assume they’d finished their job.

  But he must not make a mistake. His mother had taught him that and the lesson had served him well.

  He closed his eyes as the last of his vision faded, and then, as the medicine began to make him drowsy, he forgot about everything.

  * * *

  Elsewhere and much later, Cade and DeeJay felt drowsy, too. Having parsed all their too-slender evidence yet again, until they felt brain-fried, they had tumbled into bed together for some glorious lovemaking.

  Now they lay side by side, holding hands beneath the covers, replete and trying not to think about the looming threat.

  Cade stirred. “You think about the future much?”

  DeeJay rolled onto her side, still holding his hand. “How so?”

  “Well, we’re a pair of workaholics, that’s obvious. I wondered if you had any long-term goals besides becoming the director of the FBI.”

  That surprised a tired laugh out of her. “Really?”

  “Really.” He paused, and when she didn’t say anything, he volunteered an answer. “I told you about my hobbies. I like camping, hiking, skiing. You?”

  The sad thing was she’d never looked beyond surviving the next day, solving the next case. “I read.” That much was at least true. “And work out.”

  “Right. Me, too. But that’s day-to-day stuff. One foot in front of the other kinds of hobbies. I meant longer term. Even if you become director of the FBI someday, what do you see apart from the job? There has to be something apart from the job.”

  She rolled over a little more, ignoring the fact that she was now lying on their arms and hands, and rested her other arm across his chest. “I’ve been too busy fighting to rea
lly think about it.” Even as she said it, she knew it was true.

  “That’s kind of sad. I’m not saying you’re wrong, it’s just kind of sad. Sometimes I actually get around to thinking longer term. That’s why I was engaged once long ago. I figured that someday there would be kids, and when I was old I could watch the sunset on my own porch with grandkids playing around me.”

  She released a breath. “That sounds beautiful.”

  “Yeah, it does. It really does. Eventually. I’m getting closer to forty, and the closer I get the more I think about the parts of life I’ve missed. That’s why I asked. Because something about this case has made me start thinking about it.”

  She raised her head a little, trying to see him in the dark, then let it fall back on her pillow. “The kids?”

  “I don’t know. And I think these two workaholics have spent enough time on that damn case for right now. So let’s talk about something else. You ever think about having a family?”

  “It’s crossed my mind,” she admitted. “Once or twice. But like I said, I’ve been so busy...” She trailed off. “That’s a lousy excuse, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so. Look at us right now. We’re so busy trying to get a handle on this case we barely have time for anything else.”

  She ran her palm across his chest, feeling the nubs of his small nipples. “We found time for this.”

  He laughed quietly. “Yeah, we did. But don’t evade. I’m into some serious self-exposure here.”

  “Sorry.”

  He released her hand, rolled onto his side and drew her into a hug. “There’s more than work. I’ve been filling a lot of time and finding my escape in the woods, in traveling a bit. You were probably busy most of the time in the army, but now you’re here and, believe me, you won’t see that kind of constant action. So what else would you like to do? Move on to a busier job or something else?”

  She didn’t know how to answer. Her biggest long-range plan had been getting her college degree. And then when she had become an officer, getting her own command. Life had truncated that. Well, to be fair, she’d truncated it herself by refusing to follow an order to let go of an investigation. Rightly or wrongly, she had done it and had known what the consequences would be. Had she been wearying of the army?

  “Let me think for a few,” she finally said.

  “You don’t have to. I was just curious. For some reason I’ve been starting to feel that I’ve been too job obsessed. Doesn’t mean you have to feel that way.”

  But he’d hit on something she had never really thought about before. It was okay to be a cop 24/7 if that’s what satisfied her. But eventually that would go away. Retirement was inevitable if she didn’t get herself killed. She’d left all those possibilities hanging out there as some kind of amorphous thing that would take care of itself in time.

  “I haven’t made any plans,” she said slowly.

  “I didn’t ask about plans, really. Just...I don’t know, longings. The way you’d like things to wind up eventually. I get the family part, but I’m sure doing little enough to make it happen.”

  “Same here.” And as she said it, she realized it was true. In some way she had always assumed there would eventually be a spouse and kids, that it was just part of human makeup. She hadn’t done a thing to make it happen, though.

  And if you did nothing, you got nothing.

  “Oh, boy,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Heavy thoughts here. I’ve been assuming in a vague way that things would take care of themselves. But they won’t, will they.”

  “Not if we remain workaholics.” But amusement laced the words. “We’re a pair.”

  “I guess so.” She liked cuddling with him and wondered why he’d brought up this entire subject. It made her uneasy at some level even as she acknowledged the justice in his point. Was he wondering if she was looking at him as potential mate material?

  Was she?

  Not for the first time she wished she could read minds. Maybe her focus on work had been nothing but a smoke screen to conceal the other lacks in her life. Surely her biological clock ought to be ticking like mad by now. She’d heard other women talk about it but had never experienced it, probably because she didn’t leave room in her life for it.

  But even though she couldn’t read Cade’s mind, it hardly seemed important when she couldn’t read her own. What did she want long-term, aside from the job? Realizing that she had no real answer to that was as disturbing as the question itself.

  * * *

  Cade held her comfortably and was disappointed. Evidently he’d invested more of himself into this prickly pear than he’d realized. He wanted more from her than a fling that would end as soon as this case was resolved.

  He wasn’t sure it had risen to the level of wanting marriage and a family with her, but it had definitely become a lot bigger than a fling. He liked her, respected her and wanted to keep her around.

  Apparently, the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. His ego took a ding from that, but so did his heart. Well, what had he expected? She’d been job focused from the start, so intensely that he was surprised they’d managed to tumble in the hay.

  It wasn’t that this case wasn’t important to him. He cared about those kids, and he cared intensely about catching the killer. But he also knew how to take occasional breaks to refresh his mind. More often than not he’d had to remind her how important that was.

  He wondered if it was really obsession on her part, or hiding. Given that she had been raped and then treated despicably by those who should have helped her, he could understand if she refused to look beyond her job. She might have built a shell around herself, created by keeping her focus always in one direction.

  People had all kinds of methods to protect themselves. His had become avoiding women partners. Hers may have become avoiding all the rest of life.

  If so, that was damn sad. He wanted to break her out of that shell, but knew that doing so could conceivably hurt her. After all, he wasn’t ready to make any promises and maybe she wouldn’t want him anyway. You couldn’t just waltz in and break down someone’s defensive walls then waltz away.

  All he could do was what he was doing: making it safe for her to be vulnerable with him. Beyond that, he didn’t dare tread.

  It was odd, though, that for the first time in his life he felt he’d met a woman who suited him in every way. They shared a passion for their work above the ordinary, and the rare times they left work behind they fit well in every respect.

  But he’d better not let it grow any more. She had just said she wasn’t ready to go beyond the job. Her shield and lance high, she would focus on work and shut everyone out.

  Including him.

  Chapter 12

  A new deputy showed up at their door in the early morning. Introducing himself as Micah Parish, he was a large man who did indeed wear his Cherokee ancestry proudly. The years had been pretty kind to him. Tall and straight with dark eyes and black hair that was just beginning to show threads of gray, only weathering had added to his age.

  “Gage told you I’m okay, right?”

  DeeJay nodded and invited him in. “News?”

  “Maybe. Been talking to our old sheriff, Nate Tate. He and I go all the way back to Vietnam. A lifetime ago, it feels like. Then sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

  DeeJay and Cade had been indulging in coffee cake for breakfast. Micah was happy to accept a piece.

  “The thing about Nate,” Micah said while he ate and sipped coffee, “is that nobody sneezes hereabouts that he doesn’t get wind of it. Gage is clued in, but Nate goes past that to a level that’s almost scary. So Gage put your concerns to him about this Calvin Sweet.”

  DeeJay leaned forward to hear better. Cade, on the other hand, seemed to settle back, wa
tchful and waiting.

  Micah’s voice was deep, his manner almost deliberate.

  “So Nate did some ruminating and called me this morning. If he’s forgotten anything about the people around here, you couldn’t prove it by me. He said Sweet didn’t rise to radar level very often. Quiet boy, caused no problems. His father committed suicide when he was a youngster, so his mother raised him. Nate remembered the mother pretty well, called her a sour, disapproving prune who had little to do with anyone around here. No family, no friends. Said he felt sorry for anyone who was raised by her. Anyway, there were a couple of times, just a couple, when teachers questioned the boy about whether he was being mistreated at home. He denied it and while it came to Nate’s ears, there was no evidence to pursue. Some felt he wasn’t getting enough to eat, but there were no signs of physical abuse. You can’t go all Dirty Harry on someone because a couple of times some teachers felt there might be something wrong.”

  “And that’s all?” DeeJay asked.

  Micah smiled very faintly. “Depends on what you’re looking for. A good kid who never made waves, who appeared too thin for his age. But there was one time he wound up in the emergency room with a severe concussion. They both claimed he’d been fooling around in the barn loft and fell. He was released a few days later, and seemed fine. Nate tried to get more information about the accident, because he’d heard from the teachers who were concerned about the boy’s treatment. Nothing. Sweet and his mother both explained it away well enough. Accidents do happen.”

  Now DeeJay was holding her breath. She looked at Cade, who nodded, his expression intent.

  “Head injury,” she said. “Very often involved in these cases.”

  “But not enough for a warrant,” Micah said flatly. He looked at DeeJay. “Gage said you got an invite to go out to Sweet’s ranch.”

  “I did. I was thinking about it.”

  “Well, hell. You don’t need me to remind you what kind of line you’d be walking. You’re a law officer, not a civilian. You’re limited to what’s in plain sight unless you have a warrant. You don’t suppose some killer is going to show off his victims to you, do you?”