The Agent's Redemption (Special Agents At The Altar 4) (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The diamond twinkled in the sunlight shining through the window. It was probably a couple of carats—at least. Guilt gripped Jared; he hadn’t even bought Becca a ring. But then their engagement wasn’t real.

Was Harris Mowery’s? The woman looked more fearful than in love. So fearful that she wouldn’t dare contradict her fiancé’s story. She stuck to his alibi.

And the sunlight illuminated more than the diamond on her hand. It shone through the layers of makeup on her face to reveal old bruises. Jared didn’t need to warn the young woman about Harris Mowery; she already knew how sadistic the bastard could be.

Like Becca, Jared wanted Mowery to be the killer. He certainly fit the profile Jared had worked up of the Butcher. But Kyle Smith’s grinning face stared at him from the muted television that hung over the shiny marble fireplace in Mowery’s great room. Jared didn’t need to hear what the man was saying to know that he was
reporting
the engagement of the FBI profiler to the sister of the Butcher’s first victim. He wanted it to be Kyle Smith, too.

Maybe the two men were working together...

The front door creaked open, then closed with a loud slam. “Priscilla! Whose car is in the driveway?” Bristling with anger, Harris Mowery rushed into the great room as if ready to confront a lover. Then, seeing Jared, he drew to an abrupt halt and struggled to summon a grin. “Agent Bell...”

“Thought I would repay the visit you paid to Ms. Drummond’s home,” Jared said.

Harris’s already beady eyes narrowed. “So that’s what this is about? Payback?”

“That wasn’t smart showing up at her house,” Jared admitted.

Harris shrugged. “Thanks to your friend the reporter, everybody knows where she lives—probably even the real killer.”

And that was why she was no longer at her home. She was in Jared’s—her and Alex. They lived together like they were one happy family. But since she’d volunteered to bait the killer, she’d been sleeping in Alex’s room instead of his. The past few days had seemed nearly as long as the past six years without her in his life.

His heart ached as if he’d already lost her. But he hadn’t. Yet. He had a couple more weeks before his
fake
wedding date. That was why he’d stepped up his investigation, hoping to break Harris’s alibi. He wanted to catch the killer before the man had a chance to go after Becca.

Harris turned back to his fiancée. “Priscilla?”

The woman cringed in fear. “Yes?”

“You didn’t offer Agent Bell anything to drink,” he admonished her.

“Yes, she did,” Jared defended the timid young woman. “I didn’t want anything.”

“Well,” Harris said. “I would like a drink, sweetheart. Please fix me one.”

She jumped up from the couch and moved to pass Harris. But he reached out for her. And she instinctively cringed in reaction. Jared jumped up, ready to defend the woman if Harris got physical with her.

But he only kissed his fiancée’s cheek. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Despite the other man’s sugary tone, there was a hardness in his eyes. A coldness that chilled Jared’s blood. When Priscilla passed him, he reached out, too—surreptitiously—and pressed his card into her trembling hand. On the other side of that card was contact information for a women’s shelter. If she didn’t call him, he hoped she would at least call the shelter.

Harris waited until his fiancée was out of the room before speaking again. “But you took care of the problem Kyle Smith caused Rebecca. She’s no longer staying at her house.”

Jared’s blood warmed now as anger coursed through him. “You went back to her house?”

“Of course not,” Harris said.

But Jared didn’t believe him. Harris Mowery had lost all credibility with him.

“I know she’s staying with you now.”

“How do you know that?” Jared asked. Was he the one who’d attacked her at the boutique, then? Whoever had must have followed her and Blaine from his apartment to the dress shop.

“You’re engaged,” Harris said. “So of course she would be staying with you.”

They hadn’t been engaged when she’d moved in, but that was none of Harris Mowery’s business.

“Congratulations, by the way,” the man remarked. “I’m surprised that you’d take the risk, though—what with the Bride Butcher still on the loose.”

Maybe the man was too smart to fall for a trap. Even Kyle Smith had been skeptical of their announcement.

So Jared told him what he had Smith. “I already missed six years of my son’s life. I should have been with him and Rebecca that whole time.”

“Instead of chasing a killer?”

“Oh, no,” Jared said. “I would have still chased him.”

“You’ve been chasing him for six years, Agent Bell,” Mowery said, his voice patronizing. “But you’re not any closer to catching him.”

Jared grinned. “Oh, I’m close now.” He took a step toward Mowery. “Very close.”

Harris uttered a nervous laugh and stepped back. “If you’re close, you know that it’s not me. I have an alibi.”

“For Lexi’s murder.” Maybe he’d hired it done because he’d known he would be the prime suspect. “Not the others. Not Amy Wilcox’s.”

That anger gripped him again, flushing his face and bald head. “My fiancée—”

“Would say whatever you told her to,” Jared assured him. “She didn’t contradict you.” She wouldn’t dare.

Harris smirked. “Because it’s the truth.”

Jared shook his head.

“Because she loves me.”

“Because she’s afraid of you.” She was obviously more afraid of Harris than she was of going to prison for being an accessory to murder. Jared had mentioned that threat to her. Maybe he was the one who’d made her so fearful. But he hadn’t given her those bruises. He’d asked, but she’d denied having any.

“You’re letting Rebecca and her wild accusations about me get to you,” Harris said, and then he uttered a heavy sigh. “But of course you would, she’s your fiancée now. So when’s the big day?”

It would never happen if Jared had his way. Not that he didn’t want to ever marry Becca. But he wanted a real wedding—not a fake one to trap a killer. “We’re trying to keep the wedding small,” he replied. “And private.”

“So I shouldn’t look for an invitation?” the man teased. “Well, I would at least like to send a gift. Where will it be held?”

“Again—trying to keep it private,” Jared said. “For her protection.”

“So if something happens to her,” Mowery asked with that unsettling grin, “will you become the prime suspect, Agent Bell?”

Jared wanted to hit the guy. Hard.

“You wouldn’t like that, would you?” Harris taunted him. “Of course I would believe you’re innocent, though.”

Of course he would because he knew who the real killer was: him.

“It’s just so crazy to suspect the fiancé,” Harris continued. “Like Rebecca suspecting me. Why? Why would I have killed my fiancée? I really
wanted
to marry Alexandra. I would still marry her today.”

Priscilla, walking back into the room with his drink, paled, all the color draining from her face. Her hand, holding the glass, began to shake so much that the alcohol sloshed over the rim. Now she knew—she wasn’t the woman Harris really wanted to marry.

He didn’t even notice her reaction, or he noticed and didn’t give a damn. He continued speaking to Jared as if she hadn’t even entered the room. “Wouldn’t it be more likely that the man she hadn’t married was her killer?”

“What do you mean?” Jared asked. He’d interviewed the man before but he’d never brought up another suspect.

“Look into Lexi’s ex-boyfriend,” Harris suggested, “the man she dropped for me. That’s the guy who probably killed her and, no doubt, all the others.”

“Becca never mentioned Lexi having an ex-boyfriend,” Jared said.

Harris shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t know her sister as well as she thought she did.” He grinned. “Or maybe you don’t know your fiancée all that well.”

“I know that no one wants to find Lexi’s killer more than Becca does,” he said. So much so that she was willing to risk her own life to catch him.

Harris shook his head. “She only wants her killer caught if that man is me.”

“Don’t you want her killer caught?” Jared asked.

The other man drew himself up taller than his stocky frame. Was his lack of height another reason he picked on women? Hurting them made him feel like a bigger man?

“Of course I want Alexandra’s killer caught.”

“Then why didn’t
you
ever mention this ex-boyfriend before?”

Harris shrugged. “George Droski was an insignificant man. I forgot all about him.”

Jared doubted that, but he wondered about Harris’s timing in mentioning him. He’d had an unbreakable alibi for Lexi’s disappearance. But his alibi for Amy Wilcox’s abduction was shaky at best. Before he turned to head for the door, he caught Priscilla Stehouwer’s gaze on him. And he suspected she might call him and the shelter.

* * *

W
HILE
R
EBECCA
HAD
submitted her résumé and references to a few hospitals in the area, she hadn’t been asked to interview yet. Which was probably a good thing because planning her fake wedding had become a full-time job.

She cradled the phone against her shoulder as she studied the images on the computer screen in front of her. Her head began to pound and all the bright colors of the collage of wedding bouquets ran together before her eyes. “They’re all beautiful, Mrs. Payne—”

“Penny, please,” the wedding planner corrected her. “And you have to pick one.”

Why? It wasn’t a real wedding. And even if it was, Rebecca wasn’t certain how interested she would be in every little detail. Lexi had tried to include her in the planning of her wedding, but Rebecca had been too busy to weigh in on any of her sister’s decisions.

If only she’d given Lexi more of her attention...

“You know this isn’t a real wedding,” Rebecca said. The chief had assured her that the wedding planner was fully aware of the situation and the danger.

Mrs. Payne chuckled. “Yours won’t be the only
not
real
wedding I’ve had in my chapel.”

“It isn’t?”

“No,” she replied. “But, you know, every single one of those
not real
weddings turned into
real
marriages.”

“Mrs. Payne—”

“Penny,” she was corrected again. “And in order for this to appear to be real, you have to pull a marriage license. So that actually makes it real, Ms. Drummond.”

“Rebecca,” she corrected the woman. Despite her headache, she managed a smile.

“So, Rebecca,” the woman continued, “you should make all your selections based on what you’d want at your
real
wedding—because this just might wind up being exactly that.”

That was damn unlikely to happen. Jared was still furious with her—so much so that he’d barely spoken to her since Dalton Reyes’s wedding. Of course she hadn’t given him much opportunity since she’d started sleeping in Alex’s room.

She missed him. Missed lying in his arms. Missed his kisses. His caresses.

She ached for him. Not just for his lovemaking but for his companionship. If their wedding was going to be real, she would have wanted his input. He probably would have left the decisions up to her anyway, but she would have persisted until he at least offered his opinion.

She knew what his opinion was now—that she was being reckless. The pain throbbing in her head intensified. She had to squint at the pictures on her computer screen. But she made selections for the bouquet and the flowers and the cake.

“Alex will love the double chocolate,” Mrs. Payne said.

The woman was sweet to have remembered her son. But then Alex—and his precocious personality—was entirely unforgettable. How well would he remember her if something happened, if the FBI agents and the bodyguards weren’t able to protect her?

Now tears blurred her vision. But she blinked them back. She had to focus. She had to keep her wits about her—more so now than ever. If the agents and bodyguards didn’t protect her, she would protect herself.

She wouldn’t become the Butcher’s next victim. And she would make certain that Amy Wilcox was his last.

“That’s great,” Penny said. “Your wedding will be beautiful.”

If it was, it would be bittersweet: a perfect wedding with no hope of a marriage. But would she even make it to the wedding? No other bride the Butcher had targeted had made it down the aisle.

“And you’ll come here to be fitted for your dress,” Penny continued. Her sweet voice held no happy lilt now. It had gone flat with seriousness. She knew what Rebecca knew: that was when it would happen, when the killer would try to grab her like he had all the others. “The seamstress will come here—as well as other personnel.”

FBI agents and bodyguards. They would protect her; at least Chief Lynch was convinced that they would. Jared wasn’t as confident. He still thought it was too big a risk.

But Dalton’s bride had been safe; nothing had happened to Elizabeth at her fitting or at the wedding. The happy couple was off on their honeymoon now.

What would Jared do if the killer didn’t try to grab Rebecca at her dress fitting? Would he call off the wedding or would he see it through—to give the killer another opportunity to grab her?

Maybe she’d done all this planning for naught. “I’m sorry,” she told Mrs. Payne. “I hope this all hasn’t been a waste of your time.”

“Not at all,” the other woman assured her. “As I said, all of the not real weddings I’ve held have become very real marriages.” She clicked off before Rebecca could tell her that was doubtful to happen in this situation.

Jared was even angrier with her for putting herself at risk than he’d been over her keeping their son from him. She’d like to think that was because he cared about her—more than he was willing to admit. But if he really cared about her, why wouldn’t he admit it—especially now if he believed he could lose her?

Rebecca was still holding the phone when it rang again. Mrs. Payne probably had another question for her—another question Rebecca would have to answer alone since Jared wanted nothing to do with their wedding.

Or with Rebecca.