by Mary Stone
Last she could remember, she had stepped outside the bar to make a phone call.
Shelby’d had a long day at work, and she was about to head to bed. After Bree excused herself from the little gathering of friends, she had picked her way across the bar and out through the front entrance. There was a group of college-aged kids not far from the double doors, so she decided to move around the corner of the building to a quieter, darker area. The conversation with the love of her life had been short, but before she took a step back toward the sidewalk, she felt a sharp pinch on her neck.
Before she could blink, the world went black.
Her careful recollection was cut short as the vehicle rolled over what she assumed was a pothole. For a split-second, she felt like she was airborne, though discerning her body’s position was difficult through the lingering haze of whatever had knocked her out. When her head smacked into the floorboard, she heard a startled groan escape her lips.
“You’re awake,” the driver commented.
There was an unmistakable Southern drawl in his soft voice. He didn’t sound surprised or angry. There was no emotion in his voice, and even through the cobwebs in her throbbing head, Bree knew who he was.
The icy rush of adrenaline pushed away the rest of the drug-induced fog as she glanced down to her bound wrists. The tips of her fingers were cold and tingly, and she flexed her hands in an effort to restore the circulation. He had used industrial grade zip-ties to tie her wrists together, but the binds were not inescapable.
Back when she and Shelby had still been dating, Bree explained the detriments of a long-term relationship with a federal agent. Specifically, an agent who worked in the violent crimes division.
Bree and her colleagues hunted down the worst of the worst, and she reminded Shelby that the subjects of their investigations would have no qualms hunting down and kidnapping an agent’s loved ones if it meant leverage.
Shelby had not balked at Bree’s warning. Instead, she had asked Bree to teach her some of her “FBI badassery.” Aside from time at a shooting range and lessons in self-defense techniques, she had taught Shelby the fundamentals to escape a variety of binds, including zip-ties.
“Well, we can’t have this now, can we?”
In a split-second of panic, Bree thought he had read her mind.
“Going to have to give you another dose. Internet said that one’d be enough to last a couple hours, but you know how the internet goes, don’t you? Can’t trust nothing you read on there.”
After the light click of the turn signal, the vehicle slowed until it lurched to a stop. A ruddy orange streetlight glinted off a stainless-steel handgun as the man unbuckled his seatbelt to turn to face her. When he flashed her a smile, Bree felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
There was no mirth, no amusement, and no self-assuredness. There was just…nothing.
“Now, I might be an old man, but I’ll have you know that my trigger finger’s just as fast as it was in Vietnam. I’m goin’ to stick you with this needle right quick, but if you move like you’re goin’ to put up a fight…well…” As he pulled the plastic cap free from a syringe, he shrugged.
With speed that should have eluded someone his age, he leaned toward her, his weapon in one hand, needle in the other.
Squeezing her eyes closed, Bree clamped her hands so tightly that her nails dug into her palm. She knew who he was, and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in her head if she made an effort to overpower him now. Though she did not know his plans, did not know where the dingy van was headed, she had to trust that she would have another opening. A better opening.
She would be smart, and she would bide her time until she knew she had a fighting chance.
Even though she knew the woman wouldn’t respond, Winter had sent two text messages to Bree’s phone. She didn’t pause to wait for a reply before she pulled up Aiden Parrish’s contact information. With a sideways glance to Noah, she pressed the button to dial the SSA’s number. They didn’t have time for whatever territorial pissing match Aiden and Noah had started. Bree had been kidnapped by a psychopath, and her life hung in the balance. Their awkward feelings could wait.
“Agent Black.” Aiden’s greeting was curt, and his tone bordered on irritable.
Winter didn’t bother to address his attempted slight. “The Preacher, I mean, Douglas Kilroy took Bree. He took a picture of her and left it in my mailbox. I can’t tell if she’s dead or just unconscious, but either way, we need to find him, and we need to do it now.”
“Shit,” Aiden spat.
“We’re on our way to her house to see if there’s anything out of place there, anything that might point us in the right direction.”
“We?” he echoed.
“Yeah, me and Agent Dalton.” She didn’t bother to conceal her own annoyance, and she raised the volume of her voice as she met Noah’s wide-eyed stare. “You know what, SSA Parrish, you two can save the dick measuring contest for when this is over, all right? I don’t want to hear a word from you, either of you. I’m so unbelievably sick of watching you each direct all this passive aggressive bullshit toward one another. This isn’t about you finally closing the door on the case that still haunts you, Aiden. And it’s not about trying to be a knight in shining armor, Noah.”
“Now, you listen—”
“Shut up,” she said, unwilling to listen to him say another word. “It wasn’t ever about that, and it sure as hell isn’t about that anymore. Now, it’s about Bree. If I can put aside my vendetta with Douglas Kilroy to focus on doing what’s necessary to get Bree home safe, then you two damn well better be able to do the same. And, if you can’t, then maybe you aren’t fit to carry around a badge!”
It was about time someone said it, she thought. She had drawn the conclusion during the conversation with Gramma Beth, and she wanted to make sure the two men came to the same understanding.
Though she had devoted her entire life to seek revenge for the brutal slaying of her family, Winter could admit to herself that her half-cocked plan to personally take over the Kilroy investigation had been misguided, to say the least. She would get her revenge, but the fact remained that her parents would not come back if Douglas Kilroy was dead or behind bars. Winter could gut the man herself, but no amount of Kilroy’s blood would bring back what he had taken from her.
What should have motivated her, what should have motivated them all was the desire to prevent another poor girl from returning home to find the mutilated remains of her parents. They could not change the past, but they could change the future, and they could change the present.
Instead, for three months, they’d all behaved like a group of petulant children. All of them except for Bree, and now she was the one who would pay for their mistakes.
Winter half-expected Aiden to berate her for the heated observation, and she half-expected Noah to launch into a spiel to defend his motives. If either man decided to take that route, then she would find Bree by herself.
To her relief, any hint of condescension had vanished from Aiden’s voice when he replied, “I’ll check on her phone activity and see if I can find anything, and I’ll make a couple calls. You two check her house and see what you can find there. I doubt he just knocked her out so he could send you a picture, so she’s probably not there. I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve got something.” His grim determination became more noticeable as he went on, and she could almost picture the look in his eyes as he regained his composure.
“Thank you,” she replied, her shoulders almost sagging in relief. “I’ll call you if I think of anything else. Otherwise, I’ll let you know once we’ve had a chance to check her place.”
“All right. Watch your back, Winter.”
“Yeah, you too.”
The red glow of a stop light glinted off the screen as she swiped a thumb to disconnect the call. She could feel Noah’s intent stare on the side of her face.
“What?” Tucking the smartphone back into a pocket, she snap
ped her head over to narrow her eyes at him.
With a strained, self-deprecating chuckle, he spread his hands and shook his head. “Nothing.” The engine hummed as the red glow switched to green, and he pulled away from the intersection.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “If you’re going to say something, then spit it out. Speak now or forever hold your peace, Noah.”
“No, I wasn’t going to say anything. You were right, darlin’. We’ve all been acting like a bunch of angsty teenagers ever since this thing started. We’ve been acting like this was something we all had to do on our own, like we all had something to prove. It’s stupid, and I’m just glad someone finally had the guts to say it.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Oh. Well, thanks.”
“This is her street.” With one hand, he gestured to a shadowy side street as he used the other to flick on the blinker.
Winter straightened in her seat and turned her focus to the road.
“Shit.” He ground out the word. “That’s her car.”
Before they had even pulled into the sloped driveway to park, Winter unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle. Noah had not yet shifted the pickup out of drive when she pushed out into the chilly night. One hand tucked inside her leather jacket to clasp the grip of her service weapon, she cast a hurried glance to the familiar gunmetal Audi. Nothing stirred, and she spotted no red glow.
As he strode to her side, Noah’s green eyes flicked to hers as he inclined his head in the direction of the modest front porch. She nodded, and their footsteps were all but silent as they hastened up the short set of stairs. When she spotted the gap between the wooden door and the frame, she took in a sharp breath.
The matte black handgun was in her grasp before she realized she had retrieved it. She looked over to see that Noah held his own weapon. The look on his face was grim as he nodded his agreement to her unspoken question.
Glaring down the sights of the 9mm, she shoved the wooden door inward with one hand before she returned her iron grip to the handgun. Wordlessly, Noah gestured to a staircase before he made his way to the landing.
The barrel of Winter’s service weapon led the way as she crept from one dim room to the next, but she didn’t spot so much as a stray piece of paper that looked out of place.
When she circled back around to the bottom of the steps, she had to suppress a groan. A light creak from the side directed her attention over to the wooden stairs.
“Upstairs is clear,” Noah advised.
“Yeah, it’s clear down here too.” With a sigh, she tucked the handgun back beneath her jacket.
“Did you see anything?”
“Nothing.” She looked around the small room. “You weren’t kidding when you said she was a clean freak. What about you?”
“Nothing. You should probably come up here too. You know, catch anything I might have missed.” He raised his eyebrows for emphasis.
“Right.” The tingle of adrenaline brushed down her neck as she hurried to the second floor. Before she even spotted the faint, red glow, she knew she was about to find something significant.
Less than three steps into the hallway, her eyes were drawn to a glimmer of red along the otherwise blue-gray drywall. To the side of an eight-by-ten photo of Shelby and Bree on a dance floor was a screw where another picture should have hung.
“There’s a picture missing.” As she brushed her fingers along the bare spot on the wall, Noah muttered a string of curses under his breath.
“Kilroy was here.” His utterance was not a question.
And Winter knew that his statement wasn’t wrong.
33
In the midst of a frantic search to find a missing Federal Agent, Aiden figured the last place anyone else would be was on the line with a customer service number. Then again, the ability to think outside the so-called box was no small part of the reason for his advancement within the BAU.
He didn’t know what had possessed Bree Stafford to use her work email on her PayPal account, but tonight, he was grateful for the little quirk. Accessing the government issued email account of an agent he technically outranked was far easier than requesting a summary of Bree’s online activity from one of the Bureau’s tech agents. Not only was it easier, it was faster.
As Winter had pointedly reminded him, the hunt for Douglas Kilroy was no longer a personal affair for any of them. Not that it should have ever been a secretive vendetta in the first place, he thought. Winter was right. In pursuit of their own ambitions, they had each lost sight of the real reason they were after Douglas Kilroy.
Douglas Kilroy was a madman who had brutally raped and slaughtered close to a hundred women. He was a sociopath, and he was not fit to walk freely among them. The man was a scourge—the worst of the worst—and their duty was to put an end to his rampage before he claimed another victim.
“Uber customer service, how can I help you?” The cheerful voice snapped him out of the solipsism, and he bit back a sigh as he rubbed his eyes.
“Hi, yeah, I think I’ve got an unauthorized charge on my account.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear about that. Could I have your first and last name, and your email address, please?”
Without hesitation, he rattled off Bree’s email address and advised the representative that he was Bree Stafford. Aside from a slight pause, the young man gave no indication of doubt.
“It’s a charge for seventeen dollars and sixty-eight cents.” Eyes fixed on the text of the email receipt for the payment, Aiden scratched the side of his face and leaned back in his office chair. “It was made tonight, just a little bit ago. Sometimes, my fiancée uses my account, and I was wondering if you could tell me what the address was? I’d hate to go through all the trouble of filing a claim just to find out my fiancée was the one who made the payment.”
As the rep read the street address to him, Aiden typed the location into an online mapping service. According to Bree’s Uber payment, she had ordered a ride to a restaurant and bar called The Lift. The inspiration for the name and the décor was a ski resort, though Richmond was not known for its snow-capped mountains.
“You know what, that address sounds familiar. I think I’ll ask my fiancée if she made that payment before I file a claim on it. Thank you for all your help.”
“No problem, sir. I, I mean ma’am.”
At the panicked correction, Aiden felt the start of a smirk tug at the corner of his mouth. He wasted no time before he pulled up Winter’s number.
“Yeah?” The line had hardly rung once before she answered.
“I saw your message about her car still being there,” he started. “She took an Uber to a bar called The Lift. The receipt said she paid for the ride about an hour and a half ago.”
“Wait, how’d you find all that?” He didn’t miss the skepticism in her query.
“It’s called social engineering.” There was a patronizing tinge to the simple statement, but his patience had already worn too thin for him to care. “I tricked someone at Uber into giving me the address. It was faster than trying to get one of the tech guys to go through her internet history or track her phone. Look, that was the last charge. That means she went to that bar and either didn’t leave, or someone showed up and took her.”
“There was a picture missing in the upstairs hallway at her house. It was Kilroy. It had to have been.”
“No doubt,” he agreed. “I’ll text you the address. In the meantime, I’ll look to see if there’s anything I can dig up about where he might have gone. Call me after you’ve had a chance to canvass the bar.”
“Okay, I’ll do that. Talk to you soon.”
“Yep,” was his laconic response. With a clatter, he dropped the smartphone to the surface of his desk. He doubted he would be able to unearth any solid leads for Kilroy’s location from where he sat in his office, but he knew for certain he could not sit by and do nothing.
He would not, could not, have the blood of a fellow agent o
n his hands. They had to find Bree. There was no alternative.
As Noah pushed through the set of double doors, the smell of fried food and beer wafted past him. On a normal day, the scent would have been enough to make his stomach grumble, even if he had just eaten. Tonight, however, a growing pit of dread made the idea of eating all but laughable.
He swallowed back the bout of nausea and started toward the cluster of patrons crowded around a horseshoe shaped bar. Mouths gaped open and eyes went wide as he flashed his identification to clear a path for him and Winter. In an effort to assuage their trepidation, he offered what he hoped was a charming smile.
“We’re just here looking for someone,” he started. Along with the pleasant expression, he turned up his disarming folksy drawl. He watched the unease vanish from the faces of a college-aged couple as he held up his phone to show them a picture of Bree. “We’ve got reason to believe she might be in danger. Have y’all seen her here tonight?”
The young man and woman shook their heads in response.
“All right, thank you for your time. Enjoy your evening.” As he tipped an invisible hat to the duo, he wondered if the gesture was too over the top.
“Hey,” a voice called.
In tandem, he and Winter turned to the source.
“Let me see that picture,” the bartender asked. Wiping her hands on a white towel, she peered up at him with eyes that glinted like a pair of emeralds.
“Have you seen her?” One elbow resting atop the wooden bar, he held the phone up for the young woman.
As she brushed a piece of auburn hair from her fair face, she shifted her gaze back to his and nodded. With one hand, she gestured toward a circular table in the far corner of the open room.
“She only had one drink, maybe two. She was hanging out over there with those folks before she went outside.”
On a normal night—a night that did not involve the kidnapping of a fellow federal agent—he thought he might have turned the charm up to eleven. Her skin was like flawless porcelain, her dark, auburn hair a stark contrast to the pale shade. Moreover, the silver band she wore on her left hand was on her middle finger, not her ring finger.