by April Hunt
Knox’s gut churned with a bad feeling. “Then where the hell is she?”
Liam’s computer dinged with a hit. “I got something.”
Knox immediately lasered in on the ping. “George Washington Park.”
Cade’s head snapped up. “That’s right around the corner from the gym.”
“Does the park have a digital signature? Security cams? Red-phoned emergency stations?”
Liam grimaced as he continued working his magic. “That area’s been slated for camera replacements for a while now but it hasn’t been approved yet. I’m pretty sure there are a few mounted traffic cameras, though. I can hack my way into the DMV feeds without much fuss and see if I can spot her.”
“Do it.” Knox clapped him on the shoulder. “And text me the coordinates of that last ping. I can’t sit here and just wait. I’m going to see if I can find her.”
“I’m going with you,” Cade offered.
They headed out immediately, jumping into Cade’s truck since it was the closest.
Knox didn’t expect a friendly chat, and that was okay with him. The longer he went without seeing Zoey, the more her unexplained absence twisted his guts into knots.
She wouldn’t let the people she cared about worry, even in protest. Not in a perfect world and not with the Cupid Killer investigation on high alert.
The second Knox and Cade reached Washington Park, they split, searching every damn trail twice before tag-teaming the walking loop that she would’ve taken around the gym.
“Nothing?” Knox asked the second Cade stepped out from the community center.
“Not a damn thing. Last anyone saw of her was when she’d been in the lobby with Grace.”
“Fucking hell.” Knox punched a nearby mailbox, the impact feeling like nothing more than a feather. “I shouldn’t have let her leave upset. I should have made her stay and talk it out.”
Cade let out a strained snort. “We both know that you could’ve talked until you went blue in the face, but unless she was willing to listen, she wasn’t going to hear a damn thing you said. And trust me, my friend, she wasn’t in a listening mood this morning.”
“And what about you?” Knox went there. Hell, he didn’t have anything to lose.
“What about me?”
“I’m going to make something clear right now, and it isn’t up for debate. I don’t give a shit how it makes you feel. I love your sister. I’m in love with Zoey. And barring her kicking my ass to the fucking curb, I’m prepared to spend the rest of my life proving to her just how much she means to me. Don’t like it? Too damn bad. Because that’s how it is.”
“You know Zoey’s not leaving DC, right?” Cade’s question didn’t hold the malice Knox expected. “Hard to play house from three thousand miles away.”
“I don’t intend on being that far away.”
A slow smile slid onto Cade’s face. “You’re joining Steele Ops.”
“I haven’t said anything to Ro yet because Zoey comes first, always, but yeah.” Saying the words took at least one weight off his chest. “Maybe you should take your head out of your ass too. And I’m not just talking about Steele Ops.”
“One thing at a time, brother. Zoey first. Then job. Then I’ll work on your cousin.”
Knox’s phone rang, and he immediately put it on speaker. “Yeah?”
“I found Zoey walking north on M Street about an hour and a half ago…three blocks down from the community center,” Liam’s voice rang out, “but I don’t see her on any other traffic cams after that…which means—”
“That she never left that three-block radius.”
Knox and Cade moved in unison. They each earned a few glares as they pushed their way past commuters and tourists alike, eventually stopping dead center in the 300 block of M Street.
“I don’t see her.” Knox snapped his head left and right. “Even if she’d been here a while ago, she’s not here now. Fuck.”
Cade’s phone rang, and seeing the station’s number, answered with a “It’s not a good time right now, Adam.”
As Cade tried rushing Zoey’s lab friend off the phone, Knox spotted the deli owner flashing them a curious glance from behind his counter.
Knox stepped through the doors and got a friendly, although reserved, smile. “What can I do for you, young man?”
“I’m looking for a missing friend of mine, and I was wondering if you’ve seen her around any time within the last two hours or so.” Knox pulled up a photo of Zoey from his phone and showed the older business owner.
“Oh. Zoey.” He smiled. “She’s such a sweetheart, that one.”
Knox’s heart skipped a beat. “You know her?”
“Of course, she drops in every week. I get the feeling she’s not much of a cook.”
The older man’s smile slowly melted. “You said she’s missing? Oh. Dear. I…I hope nothing happened.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
“Maybe Dr. Samuel will be able to tell you more. I offered to call 911, but Doc said he had it under control. Smart guy. Great job. Good-looking too, although my wife keeps insisting that something must be wrong with him. Says no man that perfect wouldn’t have a steady woman in his life by now.”
Knox’s internal alarm blared to DEFCON 1.
He kept his shit together—barely—so as not to scare the eighty-some-year-old. “You saw her with Dr. Samuel? When was this?”
He rubbed a whiskered chin. “Well, I guess it was about an hour ago. I’d been filling a catering order when I saw her stop outside the deli. The poor thing looked ready to keel over, almost called my wife out to help. But then Doc showed up.”
“She was sick?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what was wrong, but Doc sure looked worried enough.”
“But not enough to let you call the paramedics.”
“I guess he figured he could assess her as easily as they could. Took her down to his place. It’s possible he called the EMTs from there. I didn’t hear any lights or sirens, but my hearing isn’t the greatest these days.”
“Is his place nearby?”
“Sure is. It’s the gray brownstone three doors down. The one with the red door.”
Cade stormed into the deli, his cell clutched tightly in his hand. “We’ve got a huge fucking problem. There’s a partial print on the bullet that sliced your shoulder.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Stuart right now. We have a real problem here.” With single-minded focus, Knox pushed past his friend.
“This is fucking real because the prints didn’t belong to him.”
That damn sick feeling brought Knox to a stop. “Who did they belong to?”
“Phillip Samuel. Zoey’s doctor.”
Knox’s head snapped toward the brownstone three doors down. Heart pounding in his ears, it took a few seconds for him to remember how to fucking walk much less run. Then he took off.
Cade’s grip spun him around a split second before he kicked down Samuel’s front door. “Do you want to tell me what the fuck this is about and why you’re about to commit a B and E?”
“Less than an hour ago, Zoey stood outside that deli. Sick. And with Samuel.”
“Shit.” Cade pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay…calm down and let’s think about this before we do something we can’t take back. I know where your mind’s going, but shooting your sorry ass doesn’t equal serial killer.”
“Why me, Cade?” Knox demanded angrily.
“Why did he shoot you? What? Because you’re so lovable all the damn time?”
“I met the man once at the community center, and way after the Great Stuart chase.” Knox’s gaze shifted to the brownstone. “Think about it. The BCK followed his own set of rules for six months. Then out of nowhere, he changes them. He changes them around the time I came into Zoey’s life.”
“But how would he…fuck.” Cade’s face went still. “The cameras.”
“And her break-in? Her necklace? What if
Ginny Monroe having it wasn’t a fucking coincidence? Stuart may be responsible for a shit ton of other robberies, but there’s nothing linking him to Zoey’s place, is there?” Knox wanted to hit his friend over the head. “For fuck’s sake, Cade, tack Zoey’s picture onto the murder board and she’d fit right in with the thirteen other Cupid blondes!”
“Do not fucking move,” Cade warned him, still cursing as he called in backup. He hung up and called another number. From what Knox could tell, it was to an on-call judge to get the verbal go-ahead to search the premises.
Waiting went against everything Knox stood for. His body ached with the need to break down the fucking door and get to Zoey. The only reason he didn’t right then was the light-flashing squad car that came to a squealing stop right in front of them.
Knox wasn’t waiting another damn second. If that Samuel bastard was behind Zoey’s disappearance…if he touched a hair on her head, Knox would make sure that he needed a surgeon himself.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Zoey pried her eyes open. Her brain, once in a deep, foggy blackness, slowly blinked her world back into focus. No longer in Dr. Samuel’s apartment, she lay sprawled over a mattress, her arms bound to a metal bed frame.
Six feet away, a single light bulb flickered off charred remains of an already dank room. The place looked as if it had been burnt to a crisp and only half rebuilt before being abandoned entirely.
She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of something—or someone—and slowly realized the tickle beneath her nose came from the oxygen cannula fastened to her face.
“You’re up.” Dr. Samuel walked into the room from a door on the left.
Dressed in the same T-shirt and shorts he’d been in at his place, he smiled at her as he did whenever she stepped into his office, and looked a mile away from the part of killer doctor.
“I have to apologize, Zoey.” He looked almost sincere. “In the excitement of the moment, I dosed you with Fentanyl before taking your diminished cardiac output into account. But you have nothing to fear. I’ll be more careful in the future. The last thing I want is to harm you in any way.”
Zoey almost laughed at how absurd he sounded. She wiggled her numbing fingers. “You don’t want to hurt me and yet I’m tied to a bed?”
“I’ll release the bindings in time.” He sat on a nearby stool and looked at her intently, his eyes glittering. He leaned over to stroke her cheek and she flinched away, the move pulling his smile into a frown. “I’ve waited for this moment for so long, suffered so many failures and setbacks. You finally being here hardly feels real to me.”
Zoey swallowed around the dozen rusty nails lodged in her throat. “Where exactly is here?”
Dr. Samuel returned to his feet and moved to a small side table. One by one, he pulled a set of syringes from his black bag and set them aside. “At the start of our new life. I’m going to make sure you have everything you want…everything you deserve. Happiness. Health.”
Zoey twisted her hand, testing the binding on her wrists. “Do I deserve to be free?”
He paused, glancing at her from over his shoulder. “Of course. And like I said, it’ll happen. In time. First, we need to get you healthy again. I hated messing with your medications, but it was a necessary evil.”
“You messed with my meds?”
“I needed you to need me.”
He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly, that Zoey blinked. “But how? I was on the same meds as… Amplify.”
He flashed her an eerily proud smile. “You’ve always had such a sharp mind. I knew it from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
“Is it even a real medication?”
“Oh, yes. It was on the market for a short period of time…about long enough to have an official medication data sheet. Unfortunately, it had unexpected side effects.”
“Wh-what kind of side effects?” She almost didn’t want to know.
“Decreasing the threshold of certain cardiac meds.”
Looking back, Zoey wanted to kick herself in the ass. At some point, her regular, everyday life had changed, and she’d glazed over it without realizing. Not that it would’ve done her any good.
Her doctor had been the one to cause the change.
“I usually research new meds, but—”
Tears welled in his eyes. “But you trusted me…as you did with our last few dosage changes. That’s a good thing. All successful relationships are based on trust.”
Zoey was stuck between wanting to laugh and cry.
Dr. Samuel flicked the tip of a syringe and discarded an air bubble. She redoubled her efforts to pull her arms free.
“This is only Lasix. To manage your increased fluid load.” Samuel pushed the clear liquid into the IV line embedded in her left forearm. “I know this all must seem a little severe, but you have to believe that I did this for the greater good. For our greater good.”
“Drugging me. Kidnapping me. Murdering all those innocent women was for the greater good?”
“They were not innocent!” Dr. Samuel threw the used syringe across the room.
Zoey jumped, startled by his abrupt change in mood.
In the snap of his fingers, his eyes went from placid to wild. Ripping his hand through his hair, he paced. “They lied. They manipulated. They wove me into their twisted games and then they had the gall to think there wouldn’t be repercussions. I tried so hard to give them a chance, but they just weren’t you.”
“You killed them because they weren’t me?”
“I’m sorry, Zoey.” In another dizzying switch, Dr. Samuel softened his voice. He dropped to his knees and gripped tightly on to the fingers of her bound left hand. “I’m so sorry that I ever thought that I could replace you.”
He was sorry…
Not for killing thirteen women.
He regretted that none of them had measured up to her.
Guilt attacked Zoey in the form of rising vomit, a sensation worsened by Dr. Samuel caressing a knuckle over her cheek. “From the first time I listened to my father talk about you, I knew you were special. My father did too. I saw it in his eyes, in the way he dropped everything to rush to your side at a moment’s notice…by the number of times he missed special occasions to make sure you got what you needed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m not. Because when he retired, he entrusted your well-being to me, and it’s a job that I’ll honor until my last breath. Your life is mine, Zoey. Your heart’s mine…and mine is yours.”
She pulled her face away from him as far she could. “My heart’s mine. And I sure as hell don’t want yours.”
Dr. Samuel blinked as if smacked. He stood, flaring nostrils distorting his once-handsome features. “That’s not you talking. That’s him. I tried dealing with him before his poison touched you too severely, but I failed. I failed to protect you from Steele, but I won’t fail again. I’ll make things right. I’ll make sure nothing comes between the two of us again.”
Realization would’ve dumped her from the bed if she hadn’t been tied down. “You’re the one who shot Knox.”
“He’s an obstacle. Obstacles are meant to be overcome, and once we do, we’ll finally get the life that we deserve.”
Zoey didn’t need Grace’s psychology degree to know that talking sense into Dr. Samuel wouldn’t work.
She shifted, hand bumping into something sharp. The bed frame. As she inspected the jagged edge, warm wetness coated her right index finger. With one eye on a now pacing Samuel, she stretched her arm and did it again, this time on purpose, and this time with the nylon rope binding her wrist.
Pain laced into her hand as she occasionally missed her target, but she didn’t stop, slowly sawing away while Dr. Samuel stared into the distance.
“Things had been perfect after your surgery. You came to me.” Eyes hollow and unfocused, he didn’t seem to see her anymore. “You counted on me. Seeing you in my office was the highlight of my day, a
nd then in the blink of an eye, you were gone. You moved on. Without me.”
Zoey winced as she missed her mark, the bed cutting deep into her palm. “The surgery fixed what was wrong. Y-you fixed me.”
She nearly gagged playing along, but she needed to distract him long enough to free her arms. And then she’d figure out the rest.
Dr. Samuel shook his head. “I made you too strong…too independent.”
A muffled shout whipped Zoey’s attention to the metal door across the room. “What was that?”
“Just another way to bring you to me…a mistake…but I didn’t have time to take care of it before you practically showed up on my doorstep.” He slowly stalked closer, hovering as he stared down on her with a bone-chilling smile. “You’re not to worry about it. I’m going to handle it like I did the others…and then I’m going to heal you like I did before.”
Zoey chiseled her tongue off the roof of her mouth. “And then?”
“We’re going to start the rest of our lives…My Heart.”
Zoey’s heart rate ratcheted up about five hundred beats. If there was ever a time she wished her brother and Knox had implanted that GPS tracking chip under her skin, it was now.
Knox’s skin buzzed as he stood on Phillip Samuel’s front stoop, waiting for Cade to finish doling out instructions to Officers Natasha James and her partner, Deacon Black. The two beat cops hustled around back.
“Get your head in the game,” Cade warned, joining him on the steps. “Going in there half-cocked isn’t going to do anything but create problems.”
“So you want me to what? Hold Samuel’s hand and get him a glass of water while I patiently wait for him to share what he knows? That may be the cop style, but it’s not mine.”
Cade drilled him with a glare. “The cop style means we’ll get the bastard and make sure he pays. Your method increases the likelihood that the sicko gets off on technicalities. Think smart, Knox, or I’ll make your ass stand on the sidewalk.”
“Like hell.” Knox cracked his knuckles. “The only thing I can think about right now is Zoey.”
Cade dropped an understanding hand on his shoulder. “Me too. And if this bastard had anything to do with her going MIA, we’ll make sure he experiences a world of hurt. The right way.”
