Ashton lifted a brow. “Such as?”
“There was a certain type of chewing gum wrapper found at a number of the crime scenes, but so far no one has determined what kind it is.”
“That would matter?” Drake asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. Could be the clue we need. We can’t leave any stone unturned. Here’re the things that we do know. Number one, we are definitely looking for a man. The semen found on all the victims is from the same person. Number two, he takes the shoe of his victims as a souvenir, a trophy. And three, he kills just six women in each locale.”
“That means he plans to kill two more women here in Houston before moving on,” Trevor said.
“Yes,” said Alex.
“What about the fact the majority of the women were handcuffed and stuffed in the trunk of a car? Are the handcuffs used by law enforcement?” Ashton asked.
“No,” Alex replied. “Although they’re just as effective, they’re the kind you can pick up at any arts and crafts store.” He shook his head, smiling. “They tried looking into bulk purchases of the handcuffs and found that they were a hot item for couples who’re into bondage.”
“Is there anything else about the information you’ve uncovered? I understand his first six victims were around Miami, and the next six were in Minneapolis,” Sir Drake said.
“So far, all the women are professional women in some way, with nice jobs—not a prostitute among them. In fact, it seems he deliberately stays away from the seamier side.”
Ashton nodded. “That is interesting. Apparently he’s angry about something—maybe a wife or girlfriend. He’s holding a grudge.”
“Possibly,” Alex said. “I also find it interesting that he seems to stay on top of what the police are doing. Like he might possibly have an inside connection.”
“Or one of those police scanners,” Trevor interjected.
“Precisely. They aren’t hard to come by. I have one here myself,” Alex said. “There’re several places where they sell them in town. I’ll run an inventory check to see if one has been recently purchased that raises a red flag.”
“You mentioned the other killings were in Miami and Minneapolis,” Trevor said thoughtfully. “Now he’s here in Houston. Is that something significant we need to be concerned about?”
“Only if we can figure out a pattern that will tell us where
he’s going when he leaves Houston,” Alex said softly. “But then I don’t intend for him to leave here.”
“At least not alive,” Sir Drake said, standing. He was getting impatient. Everyone knew he was a man of few words but plenty of action. “Okay, where do we start? I’d like to get a move on before Ashton begins tracking him down. He’ll take away all the fun.”
“Then I guess the best way is to set up a trap,” Ashton said, grinning.
“A trap?” Alex said, lifting a brow, hoping Ashton wasn’t suggesting that one of them disguise themselves as a woman and hit the streets of Houston.
“Umm, trap. Did anyone call my name?” said a feminine voice behind them. They all turned around, surprised when Drake’s wife, Tori, walked into the room.
Chapter 22
K
enna looked around the expansive, beautifully decorated great room. She had been to Reese’s aunt’s home once before. It was the same house his cousins Justin, Dex and Clayton were raised in. It had been a home filled with plenty of love, just like the house she’d grown up in as a child with her grandmother after her parents had died. Her grandfather had passed away before she was born, so she never got to know him. But Kenna figured that had he lived, he would have been much like Reese’s grandfather—a crabby old man, who would do anything to protect his family. But then all the men in the Madaris family were that way. That was why it had been the men in the family who’d called the meeting and made sure that none of their wives had come alone.
“I think we all know why this meeting was called,” Clayton Madaris said. “There’s a serial killer in the Houston area, and until he is apprehended we want to make sure our families are safe.”
The first thought that ran through Kenna’s mind was that
technically she wasn’t a part of the family. But evidently the Madarises felt that as Reese’s friend she should be included. Reese hadn’t given it much thought when he’d picked her up from work to drive her there.
Several of his aunts had prepared dinner for everyone, and the children had been ushered upstairs to the game room while the grown-ups held their meeting downstairs in the massive family room. According to Reese, the great room had been an addition to the house when his uncle Jonathan and aunt Marilyn needed a place for their growing number of grandchildren.
“Everyone should be paired up,” Clayton said, interrupting her thoughts. “None of you ladies should be going anywhere alone, not even to get the mail out of your mailbox.”
Dan Green smiled at his wife, Tracie. “I guess that means I’ll be tagging along while you go shopping, sweetheart.”
Kenna held back her laughter. Traci looked horrified at the thought. “But—but…I thought all the murders were committed at night,” Traci stuttered.
“So far,” Clayton said to his sister, trying to hide his smile. “But you never know when his pattern may change, so going shopping with your wife is a good idea, Dan,” he said to his brother-in-law.
“What about those of us who have business trips and don’t want to leave our wives and families alone?” asked Clayton’s other brother-in-law, Raymond, who was married to Clayton’s other sister, Kattie.
“Then she can stay with us until you return,” Clayton said. “I take that back. She can come here and stay with the folks until you get back.” The room burst into laughter. Reese leaned over to Kenna and said, “Kattie has a tendency to redecorate other people’s homes, even when they don’t ask her to.”
Kenna looked over at Kattie, who smiled sweetly and shrugged. “I get bored easily.”
“What about my shotgun?” Luke Madaris Sr. said loudly.
“Keep it handy, just in case,” Milton Madaris suggested.
All eyes turned to Jake Madaris. “Nothing wrong with keeping it handy, Lucas, but it’s not a good idea to load it right now,” said Jake.
Lucas Sr. looked disappointed. “Not even one bullet?”
Jake hid a smile. “Not even one bullet.”
“And if you’re worried about your and Carrie’s safety,” Jake’s wife, Diamond, said, “the two of you can certainly move in with us for a while. We have plenty of room.”
Lucas’s face broke into a huge grin. For any man to be under the same roof as the former Hollywood starlet was a dream come true, even if she was his sister-in-law. “Why, thank you, Diamond. I might…I mean Carrie and I might take you up on your offer.”
“So does everyone understand?” Clayton asked. “We’re in this together and are committed to protecting each other.”
He turned his gaze toward Reese and Kenna. “Reese, what about Kenna? She works downtown, and we all heard what happened this week with her car breaking down. Can we be certain nothing like that will happen again?”
Kenna was surprised by the question and was just about to reassure everyone she was fine when Reese interrupted. “She won’t be in any danger again. Until she has reliable transportation, I’ll be taking her to work and picking her up in the evenings.”
“Really, Reese, you don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do, sweetheart.” Then he surprised her by leaning over and kissing her on the lips.
She swallowed, almost afraid to look around as the entire room got quiet. She saw every single person staring at them. Some looked surprised, but most didn’t. It was Reese’s mother who cleared her throat and asked softly. “Kenna? Reese? Is there something we need to know?”
“No,” Kenna said quickly
“Yes,” Reese said just as quickly.
Clayton chuckled, clearly amused. “Well, when the two of you decide what the answer is, please let all of us know.”
A deep scowl appeared on Sir Drake’s face. “What are you doing here, Tori?”
“I should be asking you the same thing.” She glanced around. “Evening, gentlemen. Did you think you could keep me out of your little party?”
Ashton shook his head and chuckled. “We’re curious as to how you knew we were meeting.”
“Drake talks in his sleep,” she said.
“I do not! So how did you know?” Sir Drake asked.
She smiled. “I overheard you on the phone with Ashton when you thought I was putting the baby down for her nap.”
Drake lifted a brow. “In other words, you eavesdropped.”
She waved off his words. “I never eavesdrop.”
The three other men in the room simply stared at her. She smiled. “Okay, maybe I do sometimes. But still, you should have told me what’s going on. I’ll forgive you, Alex, for not knowing better. But these other three
do
know better.”
Alex felt relieved that he was being given a reprieve. He’d seen Tori in action when she’d brought down a man twice her size. He thought the same thing now that he did then—that he wouldn’t want to run into the former Marine and CIA agent, who was an expert in martial arts, in a dark alley. “I planned on telling you tonight,” Sir Drake said.
“You should have told me
last
night,” she countered. She then turned on Trevor and Ashton. “And when Corinthians and Nettie find out what the two of you are up to,” she said, referring to their wives, “I hope they make you sleep on the couch for a year.”
“Oh, you’re mean,” Ashton said, frowning.
“A regular drill sergeant,” Trevor added with a scowl.
“You get what you deserve,” she said. “So now, what were
you saying, Ashton? You mentioned something about setting a trap.”
“You
won’t
be involved, Tori!” Sir Drake stormed. “This killer is crazy.”
She smiled. “All the more reason for him to finally meet a woman who can kick his ass. I’d like to see how he likes being the one thrown into a pit with rattlesnakes.”
Alex cleared his throat. “The mayor wants everything legal.”
“And I’ll keep things legal. I won’t intentionally harm a single hair on his head,” she said, smiling sweetly.
Every man in the room gave her a skeptical look.
“Okay, I lied,” she admitted, grinning. “But he deserves everything he has coming to him. And if he gets a few bones broken, his face smashed in and his eyeballs ripped from their sockets before the cops arrest him, so be it.”
A smile curved Ashton’s lips. “You’ve been hanging around Sir Drake too long.”
Drake slowly crossed the room to his wife. “You were supposed to be at that meeting tonight with the other women,” he said, his voice low, husky and surprisingly tender.
“I’m supposed to be here watching your back,” she countered in a voice just as tender.
He reached out and caressed her cheek. “If anything were to happen to you…”
“It won’t. You’ll have my back,” she said, entwining her fingers with his. She glanced behind him at the others. “All of you will. You all know me. I can hold my own.”
The room got quiet and everyone looked at Drake. It would have to be his decision. After all, she was
his
wife. Moments passed as Drake stared at Tori. Then he reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist and held her against him. “If he harms you in any way, I’ll kill him,” Drake growled against her lips.
Tori chuckled. “If he harms me in any way I’ll kill him myself.”
Sir Drake couldn’t help but smile at that.
“Is she in or not, Drake? The two of you are getting too mushy over there to suit me,” Trevor said.
With his arms still draped around his wife, Drake nodded and said, “Yes, she’s in.”
Reese followed an angry Kenna through the front door. She had refused to say a single word to him all the way home. “I really don’t know why you’re upset.”
She swung around to face him with fire in her eyes. “You kissed me—in front of your family.”
He frowned. “It was just a kiss, Kenna. A small one.”
“Yes, but friends don’t exchange kisses on the lips like that,” she said, tossing her purse on the table.
“I still don’t see anything wrong with what I did.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’ve got them all thinking that we’re more than friends.”
He threw up his hands in frustration. “First of all, most of them thought that anyway, and secondly,” he said, following right on her heels into the kitchen, “we
are
more than friends.”
“We’re not!” she denied, swinging around so fast they almost bumped into each other. “We’re only testing the waters to make sure things work out between us, which I figure they won’t because I’m not the type of woman you’re interested in. So no one was supposed to know we were lovers, Reese.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Kenna continued her spiel. “Now, thanks to your kiss, your whole family knows, and I can only imagine what they think of me. They probably think I moved to Houston just to start something and that I’m some kind of stalker. They probably think that Alyson suits you a lot better than I do.”
Reese didn’t say anything for a moment as he tried to control
his anger. Then he spoke in a low, tense tone. “If for one minute you assume my family thinks Alyson would be better for me than you are then you really don’t know them at all. And if you assume I think something like that, too, then you don’t know
me
either.”
Evidently she saw the ferocious expression on his face and chose to keep quiet. As far as he was concerned that was a good move on her part, because he was past angry. He was in full-fledged rage, and he’d never been this mad at Kenna before. Not even close.
“You are one piece of work, lady,” he said, feeling steam coming from his ears. “You can’t see what’s right in front of your eyes. I’ve tried showing you and you still can’t see it. You are not only the friend I’ve come to know and trust, but I’ve fallen in love with you, Kenna. I was trying to put my words into action by showing you instead of just telling you how much I love you. And if you can’t handle it, then I don’t know what to say.”
Heaving a sigh of frustration, he then turned and stormed out of the kitchen.
Kenna stood rooted in place, shocked. Did Reese just say he loved her? She shook her head, thinking she had a few screws loose, but then she knew she hadn’t heard wrong. He
had
said he loved her. Yes, he’d actually said it, and he’d said it like he really meant it. And he was mad, literally pissed, that she didn’t believe, couldn’t believe that he wanted her and not Alyson.