Profile for Seduction

by Karen Whiddon

“Lea, I’ve missed you. Do you remember how good it was when we were together?”

  Good? When she’d been his prisoner, chained in a dark, windowless room in a basement? Son of a…

  “I do remember, Feiney. Very well. In fact, I can’t wait to get back there—only this time, you’ll be the one in chains. And I’ll take care of you. Good care. You can count on that, Feiney.”

  She’d stunned him into silence. Hell, she’d even shocked herself. This part of her—dark and twisted—hadn’t been there before he’d captured her. Maybe if she turned the tables, she could finally exorcise it.

  The sooner the better.

  Spinning on her heel, Lea sprinted back toward the building. She needed to notify someone right now and get them to trace the call.

  Evidently hearing the sound of her feet slapping the pavement, Feiney laughed. “Running? Why? You can’t trace me. I’m at a public pay phone and, by the time you send people to get me, I’ll be long gone.”

  He chuckled, the sound sending shivers down her spine. He’d laughed at her often in those endlessly bleak days six months ago. Laughed at her refusal to lose hope, her refusal to curl up in a ball and give up, like all the others had.

  In the end, she’d had the last laugh. Sort of. A team had come for her. Marc Kenyon, from the Tarrant County Sherriff’s Office, had led the charge. No doubt he’d thought that by doing so, he could make up for the screwup, his screwup, that had let Feiney get her in the first place.

  For him, maybe it had worked. As for herself, she hated him. For his screwup, true, but more than that because he’d been the one to see her, weak, near death, naked and covered in filth. She’d been shocked when she’d read in his face how close she was to dying. Marc had freed her, wounding Feiney in the cross fire.

  On the surface, she’d been grateful, Marc had been solicitous, and the Cowtown Killer had gone to prison. Case closed.

  Only not for her and, she suspected, not for Marc either. Lea had gone to the hospital and Marc had dutifully visited her twice, common courtesy among coworkers. She’d choked out her thanks and he’d grudgingly accepted, or so it had seemed to her. He’d had trouble meeting her eyes or even looking at her and, God help her, she’d understood. After all, she’d been the worst failure of his career.

  In the end, Marc had gone back to work, Lea went on medical leave and started therapy.

  “Are you afraid yet, little Lea?”

  She struggled to find an answer, something to say that wouldn’t reveal either the depths of her horror or the fierceness of her determination to track him down and stop him.

  “No,” she lied. “I’m not afraid. And, for your information, I’m not running, I’m walking.”

  He laughed again. “I know you walk for recreation. I hope you’ll be careful out there, all alone in the predawn hours. You never know who might be watching.”

  Trying to breathe normally, she slowed her pace. Warning her? He was actually warning her? Why? Feiney wasn’t stupid. Still walking, she wiped her free hand on her slacks, trying to dry it. Now, more than any other time, she needed to be calm, cool and collected. Despite the fact that the mere sound of his voice sent her spiraling back to that dark time, when she’d been his prisoner and he’d held her life—and her sanity—in his twisted hands. Games. He was all about games.

  Another call beeped in the background. Both of them ignored it.

  “What do you want?” she asked again.

  “We’ve covered that already. You. I want you.”

  “Why?” she asked, proud that she managed to keep her voice level.

  He laughed again. “You’re my love, the only one strong enough to match me. You’re the only one who ever escaped,” he told her. “My only piece of unfinished business. But more than that, you’re special. My soul mate.”

  Gritting her teeth, she forced herself not to concentrate on the sheer blasphemy of his words. Rambling, he didn’t even notice.

  “Darling, I had to escape, so I could find you again. I’m not one to leave things undone. We were meant to be together. Forever and always.”

  He began humming. With a sense of revulsion, she realized he was humming the song he’d played over and over when she’d been his prisoner.

  As a trigger, it worked. The horror of what he’d tried to do to her came rushing back, slamming into her like a sledgehammer to the skull. She nearly staggered, but instead straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath.

  “I’ll never concede.” She spoke her thoughts out loud. “Even then, you wouldn’t have been able to break me. Come and get me, Feiney. Let’s find out.”

  There. She’d just issued a challenge. She had to be careful here. Egotistical maniac he might be, but the man’s IQ had tested in the genius range. Though Feiney had just reiterated that she was the reason he’d escaped prison, he wouldn’t be too eager to go back.

  So she’d play the game. Carefully, adroitly, hoping in the end that she hadn’t telegraphed her moves.

  “Don’t call me again,” she rasped and pressed the end call button. Breathing hard and fast, she stared at her phone as though the electronic device had suddenly become possessed.

  When it started ringing again, she declined the call. Shuddering, she couldn’t seem to stop shaking with a hodgepodge of tormented emotions.

  Through it all, she knew only one thing. Once a captive, she was now a huntress. Only that, nothing more, nothing less.

  And that would have to be enough.

  Oh, God. Wiping at her face, she realized with a numbed sense of shock that tears were silently streaming down her face. She wouldn’t let anyone see her like this. Since her release from captivity, not even her mother had seen her cry.

  Her therapist would expect a call so she could deal with the residual emotions. No. Hell no. Everything inside her recoiled at the thought. She wasn’t up for that long, slow stare and the low-voiced question—always the same—Hmm. How does that make you feel? If she heard that again, she’d gag.

  For some odd reason, her thoughts returned to the tall, handsome deputy. He’d rescued her, and she hated him for it, but she didn’t really know him. Determinedly, she put him from her mind and set about getting back to normal.

  Straightening her shoulders, she rolled her neck to work out any lingering kinks from the stress. She took a deep breath, knowing she’d need a minute to gather up her shredded composure and try to put herself back together. She’d worked through this once and believed she’d come to terms with it. Apparently not. She felt a flash of anger, furious because she sure hadn’t expected to have to work though it again.

  If anything, this strengthened her resolve, making her even more determined to be the one to bring in Feiney. And pray she had enough self-restraint not to kill the bastard.

  “Hey! Lea. Wait up.” Speak of the devil. Marc Kenyon, shouting her name.

  Slowing, she blinked, swiping at her face again, hoping she didn’t look too ravaged. Schooling her expression—game face on—she stopped and turned, waiting while he jogged up to her.

  With a dispassionate eye, she evaluated his well-fitting dark suit—which looked expensive—and starched white shirt and red power-tie. He looked put together and professional, except for his unruly mane of blond, surfer-dude hair. With his classical profile and ever-present tan, he could have been the perfect representative of his home state, California. She suspected that hair was how he did so well undercover. The man didn’t look like a cop. Didn’t act like one either.

  And she hated his guts.

  “What do you want?” Not bothering with civility, she crossed her arms.

  His ocean-blue gaze bored into her. “Are you okay?”

  “What’s it to you? The legendary Marc Kenyon.” She edged her voice with a trace of mockery.

  He ignored this. “I’ve been trying to call your cell. Stan gave me the number. After two tries and getting voice mail every time, I thought maybe…”

  Though he didn’t finish, she knew exactly wha
t he meant. He’d thought Feiney had gotten her. No doubt he didn’t want to be rescuing her again.

  “No worries. I’m fine.” Pulling out her phone, she switched it back on. “Sorry, I couldn’t click over. And a minute ago, I turned it off. Now that that’s established, you can go.”

  “I wanted to talk to you. I know it bothers you that Feiney’s loose and you’re not on the team,” he said.

  “Not exactly rocket science. So?”

  “I know how you think,” he began.

  At his words, irritation flared. She had so much trouble keeping her emotions under control these days. “You know nothing about me,” she snarled. “Let’s keep it that way.” Moving off, she had to restrain herself from swearing as he jogged to keep up.

  “You’re angry. I can understand that…”

  “Can you?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I don’t think so.” Angry didn’t begin to describe how she felt. Sometimes she thought fury would consume her. She—trained in martial arts, a competent markswoman and a freaking FBI agent, for God’s sake—had allowed herself to be captured by a serial killer.

  Everything she’d endured at Feiney’s hands was almost secondary to that humbling fact. She sometimes felt as if she actually deserved what she’d gotten. This infuriated her even more, making her burn with her emotions, night after sleepless night.

  More than everything, she wanted to kill Feiney. Two things stopped her—one, her deep respect for the law and her job as enforcer of that same law; two, the insidious knowledge that were she to give in to her baser desires and shoot the bastard, she would become him. Or, in her own way, as like him as she would ever become.

  Therefore, she wouldn’t shoot him. No. But she would capture him. She personally wanted to bring him in silently, under cover of darkness, without alerting the media, to bring him in cuffed and chained and then maybe right before she turned him over to the other authorities, she wanted to spit in his face.

  Certainly, loathing guided her, that and a kind of awful certainty that if she wasn’t the one who brought him in, she’d never repair the shattered threads of her self-confidence. Never banish the all-pervasive fear and anger for good.

  This man, Marc Kenyon, had seen her at her lowest moment. For that reason alone, he couldn’t know her.

  “I know you hate me,” he said quietly, surprising her. The bleak look he gave her reminded her of herself.

  “You’re not the only one who is personally involved in this case,” he said, his tone biting. “You may not remember, but I was part of the team assigned as your backup when you went undercover back then.”

  “I remember,” she said, impatient, not completely understanding.

  “Do you?”

  About to answer, she inhaled and nodded instead, refusing to slow her pace. If he insisted on wasting her time talking to her, he could simply keep up.

  “The day Feiney captured you, I was the one monitoring the van. I was the one listening in case you needed backup.”

  Again she nodded, still not understanding. “I know all this. What’s your point?”

  “When Feiney grabbed you, I didn’t understand what was going on. If I’d acted sooner, I could have sent in backup. I could have saved you, gotten you out of there and maybe captured that bastard without you having to go through what you did.”

  At his words, she felt the oddest sensation. Like being adrift on an iceberg in an endless blizzard. A moment later, the feeling passed.

  This was why he thought she was angry with him?

  “Look, Kenyon.” Now she did slow slightly, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I don’t blame you for that. How could you have known? There was no way anyone could have foreseen what happened that night.”

  “We were monitoring your wire. We had two undercover agents watching you. When you disappeared—”

  “I went to the restroom,” she said mildly. “No one could have known he would be waiting there for me with chloroform.”

  He shook his head, the raggedness in his voice telling her he didn’t get it. “Even so, when you didn’t return, I should have sent in the full team.”

  “In what? Five minutes?” She scoffed, deliberately making her voice hard. “Feiney knocked me out and had me out of there in less time than it takes to blink.”

  “We still don’t know how he got you out of there. Since the restroom only had one tiny window, he must have carried you out in full view of our agents.”

  As gently as she could, she pointed out the obvious, even though she knew if he was anything like her, he must have gone over the facts in his head a hundred times already.

  “The bar was crowded. The back door was right next to the restroom. It was simpler than it should have been.”

  Marc only shook his head, unwilling to let her absolve him so easily. “I failed you. I want a chance to make it up to you.”

  Jeez, this was the last thing she needed, especially right now.

  “You rescued me. Imaginary debt repaid. Let it go, Kenyon.”

  “You should never have been there.” He took a deep breath, his rugged features inscrutable. “I let you down.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” she interrupted. “We were part of a team. Feiney was sneaky and smart and he did something we didn’t expect.”

  The hard set of his jaw told her he wasn’t listening. “My job was to protect you. We should have had a man stationed at the back door, near the ladies’ room.”

  “Shoulda, coulda, woulda.” It sort of amazed her that she could sound so blasé about this now, talking to him. “We all make mistakes. My mistake was not expecting Feiney to be in that restroom.”

  He stared at her, expression inscrutable. “How could you possibly expect that?”

  She pounced on that. “Exactly. If I couldn’t, how could you?”

  “Surely you don’t blame yourself?” Disbelief rang in his tone.

  “Of course I do.” The only other person she’d ever admitted this to was her shrink. “For a brief period of time, the bad guy won. My job was to keep that from happening.”

  “You honestly think—?”

  “Apparently, so do you,” she shot back. “Isn’t that why we’re both so driven to capture him ourselves, no matter what the cost?”

  Silence, while he considered her words. Then he jerked his chin in a nod, telling her he got it. “I think you have a shot at getting Feiney. You understand him. I do, too—I’ve studied the case obsessively since he went to prison. I want to help you. I think if we work together as a team, we’ll get the bastard.”

  Chapter 2

  This stopped her short. “Are you serious? I’ve been ordered to stay away from the investigation. There’s no way the sheriff’s office will condone this.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  “Why? What’s in it for you?”

  He looked away and somehow she understood he was about to lie to her. Or, if not lie outright, omit part of the truth.

  “I want to sleep at night.”

  “Do cops ever sleep at night?” she shot back. “I don’t.”

  “Did you, before Feiney?”

  “None of your business.” She started running again. Marc Kenyon moved too close to her reality while attempting to evade it himself. Still, he made her damn uncomfortable. She kept remembering the look in his eyes when he’d found her. He’d believed her inches from death’s door.

  “Come on.” Once again, he caught up with her, his easy stride telling her that he was no stranger to exercise. “We would make a good team.”

  “Pithy. And a load of bull. You want to work together and you won’t even be straight with me.” Slowing to her walk, she once again wished she was wearing her running shoes instead of flats. With the right shoes, she just knew she could leave him in the dust.

  As if he could see her thoughts in her face, he pushed his hand through his hair. “You want truth? Fine. We need to work together because we’re the same. Neither one of us
has a chance at feeling normal again until we get Feiney back behind bars.”

  Damn. She opened her mouth and then closed it. What could she say to that? She knew he was right. Of course he was right.

  That didn’t mean she had to like it.

  Still, as she looked at him, handsome and competent and unable to get past what he regarded as his greatest mistake, she felt a grudging sense of kinship.

  Though her office and his worked together, she’d had little contact with him before the Feiney operation. Since then, she’d learned more than she’d wanted to about Marc Kenyon.

  Others called him a rebel. Some said his rescue of her and subsequent capture of the Cowtown Killer had saved his career. She didn’t know and certainly didn’t care.

  After all, she still saw his face in her nightmares. He’d been the first one in when they’d come to rescue her. Looking in his eyes, she’d seen a reflection of how close to death she was, how helpless, how weak.

  She hated him for that.

  Yet she was pragmatic. Had to be. Having a partner and backup made perfect sense. But him? She would have preferred someone else. Anyone else.

  But they weren’t exactly lining up at her door to work with her, were they?

  “Look, Kenyon—”

  “Marc. Call me Marc.” He stared at her, searching her face.

  “Marc.” She swallowed. “I’m gonna tell you the truth.” Or part of it, she amended silently. “Every time I look at you, I see his face.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “Feiney’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s exactly why we need to work together to catch him.”

  Twisted logic, but curiously, it made sense.

  “I don’t know,” she began.

  “Why’d you turn off your phone?”

  Should she trust him? Maybe this would be a good test.

  “He, uh, called me. Feiney.”

  Marc swore. “We need to notify the team.”

  Brightening, she nodded. “Maybe then they’ll let me join them. Hold on.” Turning the cell back on, she punched in Stan’s direct number from memory. The call went directly to voice mail.

  “Stan’s not taking my calls. It’s kind of hard to give him any information if he won’t talk to me.”