by LENA DIAZ,
“Without you.”
He nodded. “Without me.”
“Bryson’s way or the highway, is that it?”
He hated the hurt in her voice. He especially hated that he was at least partly the cause. But it would be far worse if he gave in, if he went against everything he’d learned as a Justice Seeker in how to run investigations as well as his profiling experience with the FBI. She’d managed to awaken a hunger in him for justice again, a desire to right the wrongs of his past and prove he was better than the mistakes he’d made. Starting out by making another mistake wasn’t how he’d atone for his sins.
Steeling himself against the censure and sense of betrayal in her beautiful brown eyes, he responded to her accusation. “Bryson’s way was to enjoy his hermit-like existence and never talk to another human being again. I was perfectly happy here all by myself until you showed up. So don’t act like I’m suddenly pushing you to do something that I want you to do. You came here for my help. I was willing to help you the only way I know how, by using my training and experience and following the right steps from beginning to end to build a profile. I would have gathered as much evidence along the way as I could. Then, I would have worked with the police to get them moving on it. None of that is sexy or flashy. It’s a heck of a lot of work. But that’s the way it’s done. Period. And you said you can’t do that, which means we’re done. Follow your own path and I’ll follow mine. There’s a creek full of fish in my backyard. Maybe I’ll get a pole and cast a line. There are worse ways to spend my time. Go home. I mean it. I wish you the best, I truly do. But when I come back inside, I want you gone.”
He wheeled out of the room and a few minutes later he was on the dock, nursing a can of beer as if the twenty-four hours since Mason’s visit had never happened. But as he listened to the creek splashing over the rocks and watched the cars far below that seemed like toys from this distance, he realized that everything had changed. There was no going back. Mason had started a quiet rumble inside him. Teagan had built that rumble into an earthquake that had rocked him from his complacency. She’d reminded him of the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of solving a puzzle, and the reason he’d gone into his line of work to begin with—to help people. But just as he hadn’t helped Hayley when he’d gotten shot, he hadn’t helped Teagan.
He swore and crumpled the now-empty can in his hand. He’d been far too rough on her. Every word he’d said had been true, his truth at least. But she obviously wasn’t ready for that kind of honesty. She wasn’t one of his peers, a hardened or jaded agent who he could talk to without guarding his words. She was a victim, a survivor. She deserved nothing but respect and kindness as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened to her. If going after the Ripper was her way of coping, then who was he to stand in her way? He should have encouraged her. Instead, he’d lectured her on the “right” way to conduct an investigation.
The distant sound of her car starting up in his driveway had his shoulders slumping in disappointment. Not with her. With himself. She’d probably head back to her hotel room, or wherever she was staying, and continue her research like a hamster on a wheel never getting where they truly wanted to go. She needed guidance from someone willing to pursue the angle she wanted to pursue, not the angle that Bryson had insisted was the right place to start. So how could he help her?
It all boiled down to contacts.
He’d joked earlier that he still had a few contacts in law enforcement. In reality, he had far more than a few. After all, he’d only gone on hiatus as a Justice Seeker six months ago. Before that, with his combined years as a Seeker and an FBI special agent, he’d worked with hundreds, maybe thousands of peers in his field. Many of them had become close friends that he still had to this day. Maybe, just maybe, he could give Teagan what she wanted—someone to talk to who’d worked on the Ripper cases.
He pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to Special Agent Pierce Buchanan. There was the usual small talk, asking about Pierce, his wife, Madison, and their toddler, Nicole. That was followed by some groveling and apologizing for Bryson having refused the couple’s many requests to let them visit him after the shooting. But they worked out an agreement. In exchange for Pierce contacting Teagan and offering her an insider’s view of the Ripper murders, Bryson would fly to Pierce’s home in Savannah for a long weekend later this summer. Bryson wasn’t sure if he was the winner or loser in that negotiation. Three of Pierce’s four brothers and his father were in law enforcement. They’d likely show up and grill him about every detail of the shooting and its aftermath.
After ending that call, he made one more.
To the airport.
Chapter Nine
Death and its close cousin, extreme violence, had walked this meandering path before. They’d held hands in the dark shadows beneath these towering live oaks. They’d carefully avoided the bulging tree roots that lifted and cracked the concrete, quietly stalking their prey. Here, in the near-darkness where thick branches and leaves blotted out the hot Florida sun overhead, they’d crouched in this ten-foot-wide space lined on both sides by six-foot-tall wooden fences. The fences were supposed to ensure the privacy of the homeowners whose properties backed onto the nature trail in The Woods subdivision while joggers and walkers enjoyed these paths. But two years ago, these same fences had protected and concealed evil.
This was where Teagan Ray had been attacked, brutalized and then abducted.
There were theories that extreme violence, whether or not it ended in death, left an indelible mark on a place. It tainted the soil, the trees, even the air with its negative energy and could be felt for years afterward. Standing here now with a sense of dread and oppressiveness weighing down on him, Bryson was more inclined to believe those theories than to dispel them. Because it wasn’t the GPS coordinates that had made him stop when he’d reached this spot. It was an overwhelming feeling of doom.
He shook his head at those thoughts. It was more scientific than that. He’d stopped here because he’d tried to mentally place himself in the role of a man stalking prey. This is where he’d have lain in wait for a potential victim. It was a particularly dark spot, with thick overgrown bushes providing the perfect cover. And over two years ago, unfortunately, Teagan was the one who’d happened through here at just the wrong time. And she’d paid for that dearly.
After the initial attack, the belief was that she’d been drugged. Still able to walk with assistance, but not coherent enough to fight back or even understand what was happening to her, she was led by her abductor to wherever he’d parked his vehicle. Or, at least, that was the theory. There weren’t any witnesses to fill in those details.
Her first lucid memories, after the attack on the path, were that she was blindfolded and tied up in the shack where he’d taken her. Two weeks later, when he’d left on one of his so-called supply trips that he took every few days, she’d miraculously escaped. But she’d gotten lost in the wilds of the Florida backcountry for days. By the time a hiker had found her, she was dehydrated and sunburned and half out of her mind. Once she’d recovered enough in the hospital to explain that she’d escaped a kidnapper, over two days had passed. The police used scent dogs to backtrack to the shack where she’d been held. Turns out she’d been about an hour and a half from her hometown of Jacksonville, deep in the woods outside of Live Oak, near the Suwannee River. But the abductor wasn’t there, and he never came back after that.
The owner of the shack was cleared. Not because Teagan couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. She couldn’t pick anyone out of a lineup. She’d been drugged, blindfolded, deprived of water and food. Her abductor had kept the shack mostly dark, with room-darkening drapes and few sources of light. He’d told her from the beginning that he planned to kill her. But until then, he was super careful, obviously in case she somehow escaped, which she did.
Because of his extreme care to conceal his identity, she’d told
the police she could probably pass him on the street and would never know it. That was likely one of the reasons she had put her education and the rest of her life on hold to try to find the man who’d attacked her. Knowing he was in prison and could never hurt her again would no doubt be the only way she could ever live without the fear of him finding her again, and finishing what he’d started.
Too bad her abductor hadn’t been the owner of the shack. That would have made everything neat and tidy and it would all be over by now. But the owner lived in Canada, where he went to work every day and had plenty of people to vouch for that. The shack was where he stayed two or three times a year when he came down to work at clearing the land around it in preparation for building the retirement cabin he dreamed about.
Bryson made some notes on the police report, marking things on the map of the trail that he’d noticed today. Then he tucked the report into his jacket pocket and took one last look around. He intended to walk all of the paths in this community today if his hip could handle it, or use his wheelchair if he had to, which seemed likely by how badly his hip was already throbbing. He wanted to see whether there were other good ambush spots on other trails. If so, then maybe someone with homes backing up on those paths might have spotted a man walking the trails back then, choosing his ultimate hiding place. There could be some witnesses who didn’t even realize they’d seen something important.
There were 4.1 miles of nature walks and trails in this community, according to its website. Other statistics that he’d gleaned about The Woods were that it had 811 homes and 18 man-made ponds. It boasted a so-called natural setting, thus the name. From his perspective, that meant there were a heck of a lot of trees and overgrown bushes, providing great hiding places for would-be attackers. But because the community was gated, the residents had been lulled into thinking they were safe.
Maybe that explained why Teagan had thought nothing of walking through this overgrown, dark, far less traveled section of the trails as the sun was going down. Her parents lived just a few streets away, and she’d been home from college on a visit. Having grown up here without any major crime incidents in an upper-middle-class area that was generally considered safe, she had felt there was nothing to worry about. In a perfect world, there shouldn’t have been. But unfortunately, there were some very bad people sharing the same air as the rest of them, and Teagan had the misfortune of coming across one. Wrong place, wrong time.
Or did that really explain it? Could the attacker have been after her specifically?
That was one of the questions Bryson needed to answer. The assumption all along in the police reports, and by Teagan and her parents as well, had been that she was a randomly chosen victim. There wasn’t any evidence to the contrary. But Bryson wasn’t the type to assume anything.
A low growl had him turning around, leaning on his cane with one hand as he flipped back his jacket with the other to grab the pistol holstered on his hip. But he didn’t pull his weapon. Instead, he let his jacket fall back into place and rested both of his hands on the cane to steady himself as he glanced from the impressive, still-growling German shepherd to the gorgeous young woman holding its leash.
Teagan.
The accusation that she might have somehow gotten Pierce to tell her where he was and then followed him to Jacksonville died on his lips unspoken. She hadn’t expected to see him here. It was evident by her wide eyes and the way her left hand was pressed against her throat.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “I thought you’d be in Savannah by now.” His accusatory tone did exactly what he’d intended. It gave her something to focus on instead of the fright from seeing a man standing in the shadows where she’d once been attacked.
She dropped her hand and gave the dog a command that had him sitting on his haunches. His tongue lolled out as if he hadn’t been poised to rip out Bryson’s throat seconds earlier.
“Why would I be in Savannah?” She sounded genuinely confused.
It was his turn to be surprised. “Didn’t you get a call? From FBI special agent Pierce Buchanan?”
She shook her head. “No. But I haven’t checked my messages since leaving your place yesterday. My phone number listed in the folder I gave you is a landline at my apartment. It’s not one that I share with many people. And it’s not registered under my name.”
The truth sent a wave of anger and sympathy straight through him. “You carry a burner phone, don’t you? You’re worried that your attacker might trace you.”
Her gaze was her answer, darting toward the fences on either side of the path and the thick trees and bushes blocking the view of anyone behind them. He wondered why the homeowners association hadn’t voted to clear out these dangerous hiding places, especially after what had happened to Teagan. But mostly, he wondered why she was here.
He took a step forward, hesitating when her dog emitted another threatening growl.
“Zeus, stop.” She shook the leash and the dog quieted, but his dark eyes followed Bryson’s every move. “Why would an FBI agent be looking for me?” Her eyes widened again. “Have they found something? In Savannah? Oh no. Someone else wasn’t attacked, were they?”
Ignoring the new round of growls from her dog, he limped toward her, stopping just out of lunging distance. “No. I’m not aware of any more attacks linked to the man who hurt you. Pierce is a good friend of mine who lives in Savannah. Because of his experience with serial killer cases, he ended up assisting on the task force in Kentucky. We worked the Ripper case together. After you left yesterday—”
“After you threw me out, you mean,” she accused. “I thought you Justice Seekers were supposed to be honorable and help people in need.”
He smiled, pleased to see a return of the sassy confident woman he’d met in Gatlinburg. “Yes, well. I was on hiatus from the Seekers at the time. So you weren’t officially my client. But I did want to help you. So after I threw you out, I called Pierce and asked him to give you an insider’s reading of the Ripper cases and to answer any questions that you had.”
Her brows crinkled in confusion. “Why would you do that? You told me that looking into the Ripper case was the wrong approach.”
He started to move closer, but Zeus stood up, his ears flattening. Shooting her dog to defend himself was the last thing he wanted to do, so he took a step back.
“I’m glad you have Zeus with you, for protection,” he told her. “That’s smart.”
She winced and looked away.
Understanding had him filled with regret. “I wasn’t trying to say that you shouldn’t have been out here without him that first time.” When she didn’t answer, he leaned to the side, trying to get her to look at him. “Teagan?”
She sighed and met his gaze. “What?”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He waved his hands along the path. “None of this is your fault. A woman should be able to dance naked through the streets without worrying about some Neanderthal attacking her. It’s never the victim’s fault. The only person to blame is the monster who hurt you.”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You sound like my parents.”
Now it was his turn to wince. “Ouch.”
She laughed, then winked, looking more like her old self again. “Don’t worry. There’s exactly zero chance of me confusing Hot Guy with my parents.”
“Good to know. I think. Assuming I’m Hot Guy?”
She grinned. “Definitely.” Her smile dimmed, and some of her earlier uneasiness had her glancing around again. “I’m staying with my parents for a few days. And like I do every time I see them, I walk this trail. Not because I want to go...where it happened...some survivor’s weird hang-up or something. But because it’s the same routine I had before the attack. I’ve walked these trails almost daily since I was a little girl. And I refuse to change that because of...because of what happened. He took so much from me
. It might seem silly, but letting him take away my joy of nature and long walks would be letting him win.” She patted the dog beside her. “My only concession now is to bring my mom’s dog Zeus and Annie along.”
The dog seemed to be licking his lips in anticipation of sinking its teeth into his hide—if dogs had lips.
“Wait. Annie? Who’s Annie?”
She slid her hand into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a compact .22-caliber pistol. “Meet Annie.”
“Let me guess. After Annie Oakley?”
Her gorgeous smile made another appearance. “Very good, Sherlock. Maybe you should be an FBI agent.” She shoved it back into her pocket.
“Been there, done that.” He gestured toward her pocket. “Should I ask for your concealed carry permit?”
“That depends. Did you become a police officer since the last time we met?”
“Touché. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. I won’t call any of my JSO contacts to tell them about Annie.”
“Is that how you got past the gates? Someone from the Jacksonville Sherriff’s Office told the guard to let you through?”
“Actually, I got in the old-fashioned way.”
“The old-fashioned way?”
“Ben Franklin. A bribe.”
He’d expected a laugh. Instead, her face turned ashen.
“Teagan? Are you okay?” Risking the wrath of Zeus, he leaned toward her.
Predictably, the dog barked and pulled against the leash trying to reach him.
She frowned and yanked him back. “Zeus, enough. Friend. He’s a friend.” She motioned toward Bryson. “Hold your hand out for him to sniff, palm down.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I’m serious. Let him smell you.” She slipped her hand under the back of the dog’s collar. “Friend, Zeus. Friend.”
Telling himself he was an idiot, he did as she’d asked, holding his hand out.
