A squirrel
jeered them noisily from its perch high above, and a family of white-tail deer took off through the dead leaves in a noisy rush.
“
The McCaffertys only built that place about five years ago and there’s no direct road access between your place and theirs. Good folks but not the kind to mix in your parents’ social circle.”
She slowly turned
three-hundred and sixty degrees. She could see nothing but forest and ridge upon ridge of West Virginia mountainside. Her breath froze on an exhale. “How many people live around here?”
“
Lots of houses dotted around in the woods. Lot of them are empty. Whole county has about fifteen thousand folks and that number’s falling. Not enough coal nearby to attract new folks.”
“
Which is what keeps this county so pretty.”
“
Yeah, but the town is dying a slow death without new industry.” The sheriff’s eyes seem to be trying to pierce the surrounding gloom. “People keep moving out but no one’s coming back.” Including her family now that her father was selling the family home. “It won’t help when people start hearing about serial killers and double homicides.” He grimaced. The weight of the whole community on his shoulders. “I’m supposed to keep these people safe.”
There was
an anger in him that seemed at odds with the uniform he wore.
“
We need to catch these criminals,” Mallory agreed.
“
That we do.” His radio squawked and he listened close. “They got a hit on those prints. Let’s go see who our killer is.”
***
Turned out their suspect was a nineteen-year-old missing person named Kari Regent from DC. The girl—a history major at Georgetown—was supposed to meet her boyfriend in Gainesville a couple weeks ago. The same night Mallory had hooked up with Alex that first time. But Kari Regent had never shown. The boyfriend had assumed she’d changed her mind because they’d had a fight, her parents had assumed she was with the boyfriend. After a week of failing to contact her, the boyfriend had finally called the parents, and they contacted the cops and filed Kari’s fingerprints in the National Missing Person database.
The sheriff let
Mallory use his office in the Greenville Sheriff’s Office which was crammed from roof tile to linoleum with papers. She waited for a photograph to come through her email. The place was quiet as a mausoleum. It was dark and gloomy because the sun set early this time of year. She switched on the lights. Alex had gone to grab them coffee and something to eat. When the image finally downloaded she forwarded it to Frazer and then called him.
“
SSA Frazer,” he said as he picked up.
“
I just sent you an image of a young woman who’s been listed as a missing person.”
“
You think she’s another victim?” he asked, obviously downloading his mail as they spoke. “Huh. She certainly fits the physical type.”
“
She went missing a little over two weeks ago—totally out of character but she was hitchhiking from DC to Gainesville.” Frazer listened intently. Hitchhiking meant she was a perfect candidate for the PR-killer even though she was slightly out of his typical geographical zone. “The twist is they just found her fingerprints on the murder weapon at the site of a double homicide between Greenville and Colby, West Virginia.”
He grunted.
“Your hometown?”
“
Yes. There’s more. The crime scene was like a slaughterhouse. They found men’s size twelve boot prints. Kari wears a size
five
. They didn’t find her footprints anywhere.”
“
What are the locals saying?”
“
They are putting a nationwide APB out on the girl with the warning she’s a suspected murderer.”
Frazer swore.
“She might have hooked up with someone who coerced her into taking part.”
“
Pretty big behavioral swing for a straight-A student who’s a vegan and never skipped a class.”
There was a weighty pause.
“No sightings of the girl?”
“
No. The victims’ car is missing. The assumption is Kari and the guy with big feet, took off in that car.”
“
I’ll put out a nationwide alert for the car.”
“
The sheriff did that... It just feels off.”
“
A lot of things seem ‘off’.” He meant her being at the BAU.
She held her silence. Nothing she could say about that.
She was following orders and getting nowhere with her and Hanrahan’s search for the insider.
“
Considering the proximity to both your sister’s and Lindsey Keeble’s abduction sites, plus the general low crime rate of that area, a double homicide is a little out of the ordinary.”
She watched Alex come in the main door and charm his way past the front desk with donut
s as he made his way through all the workstations to where she stood inside Sheriff Williams’ glass office. She smiled as he winked at her. He was so gorgeous she got tingles just watching him.
“
I want you to stay up there overnight. Check in with the locals again in the morning and I’ll see if I can come up with anything in the meantime.”
“
You’re kidding.” She didn’t want to stay up here overnight.
“
This could be a good lead, Agent Rooney.”
She heard
an unexpected hint of admiration in his tone, but it didn’t ease her apprehension.
Ugh
. “Fine. I’ll call you if I find out anything.”
“
Mallory?”
“
Sir?”
“
If you’re staying at your old home tonight you should see if you can remember anything else about the night your sister was abducted.” Something she usually tried hard to forget. “I take it Alex Parker is with you?”
Alex opened the door and stood there looking like God
’s gift. How the hell had Frazer known?
“
He’s here.”
“
I found out how he won his Distinguished Service Cross.” She unconsciously braced herself. “His Humvee was attacked going to a supposedly peaceful tribal meeting. It was a set-up, an ambush. They were attacked in a valley and cut off from ground support for more than an hour. No air support available. Parker defended their position, killed many insurgents, kept two of his seriously injured friends alive, and stopped the Taliban from mutilating the bodies of his comrades. He’s a brave guy and his alibi checked out, but...” Her eyes watched the rim of Alex’s irises grow darker and more wary as if he knew they were talking about him. “This killer is serious about getting your attention. Keep up your guard.”
“
My Glock will help level the playing field.”
“
Fine. Just don’t take any undue risks,” said Frazer. “God knows I don’t need the paperwork if anything happens to you.”
“
Gee, thanks.”
“
Let’s get this guy, Agent Rooney. Let’s put him in a cage where he belongs.”
She took the
donut from Alex’s hands. “Amen to that.”
A
lex did not like the situation. At. All.
It was nighttime. They were driving to Mallory
’s family home in the Appalachians, just a few miles from where the recent murders had occurred and the site of her sister’s abduction.
Thoughts exploded in his mind. What were her colleagues up to?
If he hadn’t insisted on accompanying her to Lindsey Keeble’s funeral Mallory would be up here in West Virginia, alone. So what if she was an FBI agent? This guy had killed over and over and had proved he had no compunction about hurting people to feed his sick appetite.
Some might argue Alex was the same but they
’d be missing the point. He worked for the government. Their government. He might be deniable if caught, but it didn’t change the fact he only killed people as ordered. The same way a sniper took out the enemy or soldiers killed in combat. Everyone knew the CIA did it abroad. Was it so big a stretch to think the government would also do it on home soil?
Deniability was king.
If an assassin had taken out the warlord ruling a small town in Herat Province the men in his unit, his brothers, would not have been mowed down like bloody skittles. That’s why he’d said yes to the CIA all those years ago. To save fellow Americans. He didn’t choose targets for revenge. He did not rape, torture or strangle people for jollies. His work was dark and he did it as efficiently and painlessly as possible.
This serial killer had his own agenda and right now he was orbiting Payton Rooney
’s twin like a satellite about to crash to Earth. Alex wouldn’t allow any harm to come to Mallory even though he got in deeper and deeper every time he looked in her eyes.
But
he’d rather break her heart than see her murdered.
His
heart didn’t matter. The fact he still had one was an unpleasant surprise.
He
’d spent most of the day wanting to kiss her and taste her, but couldn’t afford the distraction. Now wasn’t the time. His instincts were screaming that something was off about this whole situation. Something didn’t fit. “We should go to a hotel.”
“
Local ones are full up thanks to the press.” Who’d got wind of the double murder and possible serial killer. “And it’s stupid when my dad’s house is just up the road.”
Up the road
was a relative term in West Virginia.
“
Plus...”
“
What?”
He heard her swallow.
“SSA Frazer suggested I might remember more about the night of Payton’s abduction if I was at the place where it happened.”
And that asshole was willing to throw her to the wolves for a tidbit of information. Or maybe he just trusted her capabilities and Alex was being an overprotective jerk? But if
he’d
wanted to kill Mallory he could have done so a thousand times over—FBI training or no FBI training—and even the idea made him want to puke.
Th
e killer playing this game with Mallory and her family was dangerous. But he didn’t know the truth about Alex and that was her secret weapon—she just didn’t know it.
“You think the PR Killer is the same
person who killed that couple last night, don’t you?” he asked.
She darted a glance at him. “The MO’s different...but yes. I do.”
“You think he’s local?”
She swallowed and then nodded. He did too.
If not local, then at least living here for the time being.
They turned down a small road, headlights cutting through an avenue overhung by
majestic elms. The landscape felt stark, everything battening down the hatches for a long hard winter. He glanced at Mallory’s profile rimmed in icy green from the dashboard lights.
If he was the killer he
’d have put an electronic monitor on her car so he’d know exactly where she was without her knowing it—assuming he hadn’t already seduced her in a bar and planted bugs in her apartment. He rolled his eyes.
Asshole
.
Alex had checked the car earlier and there was no tracker device. That could change
at any time, which is why he was always checking and double-checking everything constantly. A guy like him couldn’t be too careful and neither could Mallory. Lack of a tracking device didn’t make him relax his guard. Just meant the bad guy either wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, or hadn’t had access to her vehicle yet, or had figured out another way to reel her in. Like a double homicide or the funeral of a local girl.
His brain was firing in all directions.
It was black as coal as they traveled this lonely lane. Who knew this forest wilderness existed just a few hours outside DC? No streetlights. No neighbors. No moon. No stars. Plenty of unsolved crimes...
Whoa
.
Mallory pulled up
along the circular drive at the front of a huge house.
“
This
is where you grew up?” He whistled. It was impressive as hell.
They both eyed the red-brick three
-story mansion lit up a fiery orange by the headlights.
“
It
is
a little over the top for a family of four,” she admitted.
“
It’s bigger than the White House. Fuck, Mallory, you could fit the ranch house where I grew up in that thing about sixty times over.”
“
Eastborne’s been in the family for over two hundred years.”
“
You come from some serious old money.” It was a hell of a motive for kidnapping. So why had they never received a ransom demand? He unclipped his seatbelt.
“
I earn FBI wages nowadays so you don’t need to be intimidated Mr.
I-own-my-own-security-firm
.” She rolled her eyes and made him laugh. Her irreverence was another of her plus points. She didn’t have a lot of use for status and he liked that about her. “It was actually a lot of fun growing up here before Payton was taken. Great place for a game of hide-n-seek when we had friends over to play.”
You could be lost for months in a place this size.
He didn’t say it. It didn’t seem appropriate given what had happened to Mallory’s sister.
She didn
’t need to tell him that the fun had stopped when her sister had gone missing. It was implied by the sadness in her voice. “Lucas Randall lived nearby?”
“
His parents kept a summer house about five miles west and we hung out a lot.”
There were no lights on inside the mansion. The whole place had an abandoned feel to it despite the well
-manicured lawns and fresh paint.
“
Your dad lives in Webster?”
“
Yeah, he has a nice little house about five minutes from where he works.” She sat contemplating the house as if it were a living entity. “He grew up here and still comes up some weekends but...” She pulled a face. “It’s just so massive with such a sad association. He wants us all to get together one last time for Christmas, even Mom—they’re still friends—but after that he’s selling up. He’s been talking about it for years, but I think he means it this time. He says it’s time for the house to find a new family.” She crossed her arms tight across her chest and he wanted to pull her to him but there was no room in the damn car. Tears shimmered but didn’t fall. “He’s right. Payton loved this house. She wouldn’t have wanted it to stand empty.”
He took her hand. She had lovely smooth hands with long fingers and short fingernails that felt good on his skin.
“Parents who’ve lost children often don’t want to move from the family home. They worry the child will find his/her way back and they won’t be there when they come home.”
She nodded.
“I guess after eighteen years Dad finally figured out Payton wasn’t coming home.”
People did get rescued after long bouts in captivity but it was rare.
“Do you think he’s wrong?”
She shook her head.
“She’s gone. She’s not coming back.” She spoke with such certainty that he looked at her intently but didn’t comment. Whatever her reasons, Mallory didn’t want to talk about it.
“
Let’s get inside. It’s freezing out here.” She pushed open the car door, her face pale in the overhead light. Staying here tonight wasn’t going to be easy.
He never left home without a go-bag and
obviously neither did FBI agents. Alex took their two overnight bags out of the trunk, along with both laptops. She climbed the steps to the front door and inserted a key. “The housekeeper went to visit her sister for Thanksgiving and isn’t back yet.”
Alex
had forgotten it was heading toward Christmas. Usually he spent the holidays working. “She lives here alone?”
Mallory nodded
. There was a beep and she dashed over to an alarm panel and punched in some numbers. “I hope she didn’t change the code because this sucker goes straight to the cop shop.”
It was a good system but one he could bypass in ten seconds with the right equipment.
At least there was some security here because the old-fashioned sash windows and multiple entrances were a security fucking nightmare. The alarm stopped beeping.
The air smelled of clean pine needles with the faint tinge of cloves and old wood
smoke. She flicked a switch and a massive black and white marble-tiled entranceway with a huge wraparound staircase was illuminated by the sort of chandelier that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Buckingham palace.
He held up his hand to shade his eyes.
“I think I’ve gone blind.”
“
Funny.”
She closed the door and flicked the deadbolt and reset the alarm. Alex looked around. There
were antiques and marble statues. Who had life-size statues inside their home?
Mallory grabbed his hand.
“Leave the bags at the bottom of the stairs. I’m starving. Mrs. Buxton, the housekeeper, usually stocks the freezer with soups and casseroles, especially this time of year and...” Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of something sparkling in a nearby sitting room. She dropped his hand and went to stare at a twenty-foot Christmas tree. The room was dark but there was enough light coming from the foyer to see a gracious room decorated for the festive season complete with a Martha Stewart worthy tree.
It made his heart clench. He hadn
’t experienced this sort of Christmas since his mom died and theirs had been on a much more modest scale. The pain of that loss was still a physical ache in his chest.
Mallory reached out and touched one of the baubles. It was a misshaped crystal star.
“Payton made this in school.” As if unable to stop herself she slipped it off the branch and kissed it, before putting it back on the tree, her touch lingering. “I still miss her.” Her voice cracked.
He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. He could relate. He still missed his mother and his grandfather and his
friends. But he knew they were dead and never coming back. You had to move on. “We’re supposed to miss them. That’s their gift.”
Huge amber eyes met his.
“Pain is a gift?”
He nodded.
“It proves they meant something to us. That even years after losing them we still feel them. Here.” He touched a hand to his heart feeling foolish. He didn’t go in for mushy crap and he was straying dangerously close. But she needed this. She needed comfort.
There was one sort of comfort he was good at so he pulled her flush against him, watched a gasp transform her face just a split second before he kissed her. His mouth coaxed her lips open, aching for a taste. Her tongue hit his in a wet slide and instantly he was hard.
Jesus H Christ, what is it about this woman?
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeper, harder as if she wanted to climb inside him. Maybe sex was better therapy than any shrink could offer. Heat rose up
with a wave of lust. His control snapped and all thoughts were gone except one. To get inside her as fast as possible. He yanked her blouse out of her pants, backed her against the wall, undoing the button and zipper on her slacks. He needed her, now. He slid his hand under her shirt and pushed her bra out of the way as he cupped her breasts. Her holster got in the way but it was also a turn on. Her head went back on a groan. Her skin was velvet warm. Nipples tight and beaded. His mouth chased a quiver down the line of her throat to her shoulder and he nipped her just hard enough to make her fingernails tighten on his flesh. He liked that. Liked it a lot. One-handed he shoved her pants down and undid his own as she kicked hers off. He fumbled in his pocket for a condom, taking back control of her mouth. His heart thumped as his blood raced through his veins. There was no time for foreplay. No time for finesse. He covered himself and lifted her, spreading her thighs around his hips as she guided him straight to her center. She wanted this as much as he did.
With one hard thrust he was buried deep in her heat.