He was right. They
’d been through enough hell.
She pulled out the files on her sister
’s case. To anyone else the photograph on the first page looked like a young Mallory, but the nose was too straight, the eyes slightly too large. She touched the old image; a school portrait where they’d both been forced to wear identical blue dresses, hair in matching pigtails at their mother’s insistence. But Mallory had rebelled at school and by the time the photographer got hold of her, her hair had grass in it and was down around her shoulders.
Payton had been the good girl.
The obedient child. Mallory had been the troublemaker, the imp, the pain in the ass. Some things hadn’t changed.
A lump expanded in her throat. No matter how she tried to be objective about her sister
’s case it was impossible. What the hell good could she do if she couldn’t even get past the first page without weeping?
“
Hey.”
The papers went flying.
“Oh, God. You startled me,” she told Alex.
“
Not used to having strange men in your apartment?” His eyes twinkled. He’d pulled on jeans and a T-shirt but his feet were bare. Sexy feet.
“
Not used to having anyone in my space, period.”
A slight smile touched that
gorgeous mouth. “Me either.” He squatted down to the floor while her heart did somersaults in her chest. One look at that smile and she knew she’d fallen for him. This wasn’t good.
“
What are these?” He frowned at the photograph and papers. Rubbed a thumb over the image. “Your sister’s case file?” He looked up.
“
A copy.” She nodded. Too upset with herself to speak.
He read some of the file.
“So the thing you wanted to forget the other week was the anniversary of her disappearance?”
“
Eighteen years.” Her throat was raw with suppressed emotion.
He straightened the pages and put them neatly back in the file.
“Is she the reason you became a fed?”
How many times had she answered that question recently? And every time it made her feel like more and more of a failure. She took the file from his hands and laid it on the desk.
“I’ve been looking into Payton’s disappearance on my days off, but I haven’t gotten any further than the officials did back then.”
He took her hands in his. The warmth of his skin seeped into her fingers. She hadn
’t realized how cold she was until she touched him. There was something in his eyes that made her want to tell him everything.
“
Is she the reason you don’t date?” Those eyes of his bore into hers, demanding answers.
“No.” Except th
e word felt like a lie. “Maybe,” she finally admitted. “I don’t have time to date. I spend all my spare time trying to figure out what happened.”
“She wouldn’t have wanted you to give up your life for her.”
Was that what she’d done? Given up her life? It didn’t feel like it but maybe Alex was right. But how could she carry on as normal when her twin had been kidnapped? How could she move on as though it never happened?
She shook her head.
“I can’t get over the guilt of not saving her...” Dark, brooding thoughts pressed down on her from all sides. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her.
“You were a child
. There was nothing you could do.”
Her eyes moistened and she had to clamp down on the emotion that wanted to drive her to her knees. “She was nine years ol
d, Alex. She was my sister. My best friend—” Her voice cracked. Too much heartbreak. Too much pain.
Alex pulled her to him,
spoke into her hair. “You can’t change what happened. And you can’t let that asshole ruin your life too.”
But s
he wanted so badly to catch this guy. She couldn’t let it go, especially now, with new clues turning up. She leaned back in his arms and looked into his eyes. “My life isn’t going to be normal until this killer is either dead or in jail. It might not be healthy or sane but I can’t just flip a switch and pretend it never happened. I don’t have a lot of time for dinners and movies so you might do better looking for a nice normal woman to date.”
“
What would I do with a normal woman?” He kissed her brow, making her feel like he understood her down to her bones. “Anyway, I already told you, your no dating rules work for me.”
“
Funny.”
“Sexy,” he corrected.
Laughter bubbled through her, bursting the melancholy. “You made me fall off the wagon.”
“
Glad to be of service.” He held her gaze. He still smelled great, but combined with bed-head the whole package made her want to spend the weekend under the covers wearing him out. And that’s what she’d promised him last night. But knowing her sister’s killer was out there somewhere drove her crazy. The idea that she was having fun while Payton was dead made the guilt pile higher...but Payton would still be dead if Mallory was miserable and that was just as hard to deal with.
“
Mallory.” His voice was patient. More patient than she deserved. “I can see you backing away and having a million regrets, but I’m not going anywhere until this guy is caught. We don’t have to fuck each other’s brains out”—the look in his eyes made her shiver—“but I meant what I said last night. You’re in possible danger staying here alone. This guy knows where you live. As a security expert you have to trust me on this.”
She squeezed his fingers.
“Thanks for being there for me last night.”
The light in his eyes changed and he looked away.
“I’ll always be there for you, Mallory, but I need you to know something else. I’m not good at relationships. I fuck them up. I let people down. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
A twinge of regret shot through her chest, but it was tempered by experience. She didn
’t need worthless promises. She’d rather have unstable truth. No one knew what the future held and only money was bankable and even that could get stolen. She looked at her sister’s file. “We all let people down.” An idea struck her. “Hey, maybe I should hire your company.”
“
What for?”
“
Finding out information. Your company must use hackers.”
He tilted his head.
“Nothing illegal unless the government asks us to break in.”
“
They ask you to break in?”
“
It’s usually a choice between us and the Chinese, so yeah, they ask us. Pay us for the privilege even—double when we breach their security undetected.” His grin suggested his firm had done it more than once.
“
Then digging up phone records from eighteen years ago should be a piece of cake?”
He backed away a step and she didn
’t blame him. “Except it’s illegal and you work for the FBI.”
Mallory bit her lip.
“I know. But all legal avenues have been exhausted. Now the only things I have left are invading people’s privacy.” Except for those old news articles about stolen children. It hadn’t escaped her mind that the box of printouts might have come from the same person who’d sent the pajamas. But that had been addressed to her work, not her home, and none of the stories had thrown up any definite links yet. Anyway, she’d handled the information repeatedly and it was probably useless forensically. “I’m hitting brick wall after brick wall.”
“
Is this
all
you do with your time off?”
She looked up and met those smoky eyes.
“Pretty much.” One side of her mouth pulled back. “Exciting, huh?”
“
When was the last time you took a day for yourself?”
Her fingers gripped the file hard enough to bend the cardboard.
“When I go on vacation I can’t stop thinking about her. About what might have happened to her.”
He closed her laptop, grabbed her hand.
“You need to step away from this before it completely takes over your life.”
“
I think that horse already bolted. I wouldn’t know what else to do with myself—”
He kissed her.
Hard. Deep. When he released her mouth she was trembling.
“
Didn’t you say you wanted to spend the weekend with me?”
“
I did—I do.” She glanced at her sister’s file and the familiar guilt crept into her brain.
“
Good.” Tugging on her arm he dragged her to the bathroom and turned on the shower. “We’re both going to take one weekend and pretend to be normal people.” He slipped the robe down her shoulders.
“
But—”
He gripped her robe tight around her upper arms, trapping her, and kissed her again. Hunger for him rose up inside her and her lips followed his when he pulled back.
“Your sister wouldn’t resent you one weekend of living your life, Mal. If she was anything like you she’d want to you to be happy.”
He stripped off his shirt, shucked his jeans and lifted her into the tub like she weighed nothing at all. When she was wet all over and begging him to take her,
a tiny portion of her brain finally realized it was okay to just forget for a little while.
T
wenty-four hours later, Alex gripped Mallory’s hand as he pulled her toward her front door. “We’re going even if I have to drag you all the way there.” The irony didn’t escape him. He preferred his own company and was a workaholic, but he’d rather spend the afternoon strolling around DC with Mallory than anything else he could think of.
S
ince he’d got out of jail he’d found a new appreciation for fresh air and walking. After nearly thirty-six hours of being cooped up he needed to be outside, to get Mallory out of the apartment and into the real world again. Maybe he could be good for her, short term.
“
Fine.” She rolled her eyes, but she laughed too. The sound went straight to his heart. He didn’t know the last time he’d enjoyed being with another person; of connecting with someone and taking pleasure in their company. He was setting himself up for disaster but the more time he spent with her, the more he was determined to do his damnedest to coax her away from the obsession with her sister’s case. Catching the bastard would be the most effective scenario. He hoped the FBI lab had found something useful on that new evidence.
“
We’ll grab you some groceries on the way home.” Her cupboards were empty except for ketchup, some tins of soup and a box of stale crackers. “Even the mice moved out in disgust.”
“
Watch out, Mr. Parker. I’ll start to think you care.”
“
I do care.” That admission felt foreign on his lips but like he told her yesterday, it was true. He pulled her to him and kissed her deep and turned it into something light. “I need to keep up my strength around you.”
She pressed against him and he couldn
’t believe he was growing hard again. She’d turned him into a walking hard-on and frankly his lack of control was starting to piss him off. He wasn’t a randy teenager. He was thirty-four and she was driving him crazy.
“
We could order pizza,” she whispered against his lips.
“
We’re going out to get some fresh air, otherwise I’ll start to think you’re ashamed to be seen in public with me.” A thick wedge of emotion lodged at the back of his throat.
One side of her mouth kicked up and she said with
perfect seriousness. “Alex, you’re built, gorgeous, and wealthy—the perfect man—and no one has ever taken care of me the way you have. Why would anyone ever be ashamed of you?”
Because I kill people?
Because he took out human targets the same way most people swatted a fly? He looked away. The truth was dark and repulsive and unfortunately real. Well, she wasn’t going to know the truth. It would hurt her and then she’d bust his ass. Not going to happen. He was being as honest as any covert operative could afford to be.
He couldn
’t take a weapon where they were headed but he didn’t think this asshole would go for a direct confrontation when Mallory had company. Alex was pretty sure, between the two of them, he and Mallory could handle most threats. He opened the door and stopped dead.
Except this one
.
The shock on the woman
’s face made it almost worthwhile being discovered. Until she turned that disappointed gaze on Mallory.
“
Mom,” said Mallory.
Dressed in the usual politician
’s attire of thick wool suit with perfect hair and nails, Senator Margret Tremont looked every inch the power-broker. The woman’s gaze raked him from top to bottom and found him wanting.
“
What’s going on here?” she demanded.
“
Mom meet Alex Parker. Alex Parker meet my mother, Senator Margret Tremont.”
The air around them vibrated with tension. He wondered if Mallory felt it too.
He held out his free hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Senator.”
“Is this why you didn’t come for Thanksgiving?”
She pointedly ignored his handshake and he moved his lips into a cold smile.
Not good enough for her daughter—check
. Not that he didn’t already know that.
“No, Mom. I
told you. I was working.”
“
Mallory,” the senator’s West Virginia accent was just noticeable beneath the steel, “I need to speak to you alone, please.”
Mallory’s gaze flicked to him and then back to her mother. The tight look was back around her eyes.
All laughter gone. “Mom, I’m busy. Can’t it wait?”
“
It’s about your sister’s disappearance.” Her eyes were as hard as glass beads.
“
I was just going to the Smithsonian with Alex.” Mallory sounded defensive and angry. She’d decided not to tell her parents about the pajamas until after the crime lab techs had gone over them. The price of deceit was measured in guilt and Mallory already shouldered enough misplaced guilt to last a lifetime. “Can’t it wait a few hours?”
“
Maybe Mr. Parker could leave us for a few minutes while we discuss this private family matter.” The senator’s voice sliced the air like a knife.
He
’d spent a lifetime obeying orders and all it had earned him was contempt and fear. But it was obvious to anyone with half a brain he’d just spent the night with Mallory and that was never popular with parents. She had every right to be pissed.
Common courtesy demanded he give them some privacy, but as he tried to move away, Mallory
’s hold on his fingers tightened and she refused to let go of his hand. He squeezed her back, trying to offer reassurance. Whatever it was he felt for her was morphing into a protective urge that included keeping her safe from her own mother.
The senator
’s disdain for him was obvious.
“
Just come on in, Mom. Alex isn’t going anywhere.”
The words both thrilled and terrified him. He was playing a foolish game. His feelings for this woman kept growing stronger, more intense. It wasn
’t just sex. And he didn’t want to hurt someone who’d already suffered so much.
The senator stepped inside the door and glanced uneasily around obviously worried she
’d find physical evidence of their orgy. He let go of Mallory’s hand. “How about I get everyone a drink while you guys talk?”
The senator pinched her lips.
“Don’t bother, Mr. Parker. Stay and hear all about the family skeletons. You’ll find out soon enough anyway.”
With that ominous statement she went over to the couch and perched on the edge. For the first time he noted the strain etched around her eyes and mouth. It reminded him that while she was a politician, she was also a mother who
’d lost a child.
“
Do you still have the signet ring Daddy gave you when you were little?” she asked her daughter.
Mallory frowned and then turned on her heel. She came back a few moments later with a wooden jewelry box
he’d spotted on the top of her dresser. She raised the lid and removed a small silver ring and held it up.
The senator opened her briefcase and handed her a piece of paper.
“This was just sent to the editor of
The Washington Mail.
He graciously sent me a photograph.” Her tone dripped venom.
Mallory put a hand over her mouth and sank to the sofa beside her mother.
“Oh, God.”
Alex stepped forward and peered at the image. It was a photograph of a signet ring with the initials PR engraved in the middle of a heart-shape. His blood
chilled as he looked at the ring in detail.
Shit
. The coincidence in the timing—the emergence of a killer who carved the letters PR inside a love heart on the chest of young women with long dark hair, and all this new evidence turning up in the Payton Rooney case after eighteen years? Worst case scenario had just become the most likely reality.
“
This
just
turned up?” he asked.
“
The editor received it in the mail Friday. His researchers at first linked it to a new serial killer, but it’s so small they knew the ring must belong to a child. Then he remembered Payton and called me to see if I recognized it.”
“
You think it’s the real deal, not an elaborate hoax?”
“
It’s the real thing.” She pointed to an image showing the hallmark. “It’s made of platinum, not silver. Unless he had access to the jeweler’s records he wouldn’t know that. The police always described it as silver but it was platinum.” She folded her hands back into her lap.
An uneasy feeling slipped through him. He took the photograph from Mallory
and examined it closer. When he met her gaze the shadows under her eyes were dark as bruises.
“
Who has the ring now?” Mallory asked.
“
The editor sent it to your colleagues in the FBI.” The senator was shaking with suppressed emotion. Mainly anger but grief too.
“
Good,” she said. So much for one weekend of normal. “The techs will find something to catch this guy. Finally.”
“
There’s more.” The senator pulled a folded newspaper from her bag and put it on Mallory’s lap.
Ah
, shit.
Mallory blinked rapidly.
“They ran the story already?”
“
I suppose they didn’t want to give me the chance to sic my lawyers on them.” Her tone was sharp, but for her this might be good news. After all, someone out there knew something about Payton Rooney’s abduction and was taunting law enforcement with crumbs of information. The attention of the press could fuel that monstrous ego and force him into making a mistake.
Mallory unfolded the front page and groaned. Alex cursed. There was a big photograph of Mallory
in her FBI guise, beside another one of her and her sister as little girls. He didn’t like the way the media was focusing in on Mallory like this. He examined the senator and could tell she didn’t like it either. The fact she’d been the one to constantly thrust Mallory into the limelight didn’t seem to register.
Alex had no doubt the person taunting the Rooneys was the same person killing these young women and probably the same person who
’d stolen their little girl all those years ago. The motif of those initials in that heart-shaped ring was too precise to be a coincidence, the use of the press to garner attention? It all screamed classic serial killer on a mission.
Had he confronted her
sister’s killer in Mallory’s house in Charlotte that day? It seemed a little too coincidental to have a random break-in when all this other shit was going down. If he’d been less bothered about his own skin could he already have eliminated this problem?
“
I’ve got something to tell you, Mom.” Mallory took her mother’s hand. “I didn’t tell you before because the FBI wanted to be sure first, but I think this seals it.” Mallory told her mother about the pajamas. He could feel the senator’s anger. Fury that her daughter hadn’t told her the instant she’d found out. “Don’t be mad.”
The senator
forced a smile and climbed to her feet, brushing off her skirt. “Maybe we’ll finally get some answers about where Payton is. I have to go. I have a brunch appointment with a Supreme Court judge.” She paused. “I know you think I was the one who got you this new position in Quantico, Mallory, even though I told you I didn’t.” Alex saw Mallory flinch probably because he was here. She’d insisted and her mother was punishing her for it. “However, I hope regardless of your feelings, you take full advantage of this opportunity to make the FBI step up their efforts to find Payton.”
“
I’ll do what I can, Mom, but I can’t promise anything.” Mallory sounded despondent as she hugged her mother.
Margret Tremont narrowed her eyes at him over Mallory
’s shoulder. “Look after my daughter, Mr. Parker. She’s all I’ve got.” Then she surprised him by shaking his hand before she left.
The phone rang. Mallory checked the number and looked up at him.
“It’s work.”
He nodded.
“You should probably answer it.”
A dimple quivered in her cheek.
“So much for our first date.”
“
We don’t date, remember?” He took her face in his hands and kissed her. “The Smithsonian will still be there next week.” He could almost see what she was thinking in those large expressive eyes. “You’ll be here too, Mallory. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” But his words couldn’t dispel the cloud of doubt. For the last eighteen years this shadowy figure had haunted her family. Now he was killing women who resembled Mallory and Payton Rooney. Alex was going to make it his mission to catch the sonofabitch and make sure she didn’t disappear the same way her sister had. When he found the bastard, regardless of what The Gateway Project sanctioned, he was going to make sure he never hurt anyone ever again.
***
Mallory sat at the conference table surrounded by the same colleagues she’d met not so long ago. The only difference was they now eyed her like a witness rather than a fellow agent, and looked a damn sight happier about it.