by Karen Rose
He slid the twelfth picture onto the table.
“Gretchen French,” Alex said immediately. “We were friends in junior high.”
“I’m looking,” Luke said before Daniel could ask. “Here’s one. She lives on Peachtree Boulevard in Atlanta. She’s a nutritionist. Has her own website.” He brought the laptop over to the table. “Look at her current photo.”
Daniel compared them. “That’s her.”
“Then we start there,” Chase said. Those had been the first words he’d spoken since they began. “Go ahead and look at the last one.”
Alex focused. “Carla Solomon. She played in the school orchestra with Bailey.”
“I see a C. Solomon on Third Avenue, here in Dutton,” Luke said. “That’s all I got.”
“What about the nine you didn’t know?” Meredith said.
“They may have gone to a different school,” Alex replied. “Dutton’s high school was pretty small. Everybody knew everybody.”
“We’ll pull yearbooks from all the local high schools,” Chase said brusquely. “Daniel, you’ve got enough leads for now. Everybody go to sleep. I’ll see you in the office at eight sharp.” He looked at Alex. “Thank you. You’ve been a big help.”
Exhaustion was fuzzing the edges of her mind. “I wish it would help us find Bailey.”
Daniel squeezed her knee. “Don’t give up,” he murmured.
She lifted her chin. “I won’t.”
Wednesday, January 31, 2:30 a.m.
Mack couldn’t stop the chuckle from bubbling out as he nodded at the computer screen. Things were going so well. Gemma was dead and ready for disposal and I’m a hundred thousand dollars richer. Then again, it really wasn’t about the money at this point. It was about making them pay the money. It meant they were afraid. The one who’d paid the hundred grand was so afraid, he was sitting outside his sister Kate’s house watching at this very moment, just in case.
He’d made his point. I’m here. You’re not safe. Your family is not safe.
And it had worked. Kate’s big brother had paid a hundred grand. Her big brother’s whiny friend hadn’t paid a penny, but he’d also been afraid.
He smiled. The one who hadn’t paid the money had paid in another, far more satisfying, way. He’d been successful with the two he’d chosen for his initial assault. They’d been the weakest. Low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking. But the other two were also affected. They were getting nervous. Scared.
Things were starting to happen. Things he hadn’t had a direct hand in. Janet, Claudia, Gemma, all mine. All just pieces of kindling to get the fire going, but now it appeared the fire was going pretty good.
Bailey Crighton had been declared a missing person. Of course Mack now knew exactly where she was, and who had taken her. And why. He actually felt a little sorry for Bailey. She was an innocent bystander, and was now caught up in all this. He knew how that felt. When this was over, if she was still alive, he might go let her out.
He knew someone had tried to kill Alex Fallon. So clumsy. No finesse at all. Now she had a guard, two sharp-eyed GBI agents keeping watch over her little house. And one sharp-eyed agent keeping watch inside. He knew there’d been some kind of gathering at Fallon’s house tonight. Vartanian was getting close.
Took him long enough.
He knew there’d been a big brouhaha at the pizza parlor tonight. Three dead. Sheila among them. Yes, Vartanian was getting close.
And the remaining three were scared. One of the four was dead, a victim of his own guilt and fear. Of course getting run off the road and left to die in an amazing explosion had helped. Which had only gone to prove what he’d believed all along. The group of upstanding pillars of the community would kill one of their own without blinking an eye.
They’d done it tonight to Rhett Porter. From his desk drawer he pulled the last of his brother’s journals. It was half unfinished, because they’d done it five years ago to his brother Jared. Yes, he knew one of the four was dead. By sunrise, everyone in Dutton would know it, too.
Wednesday, January 31, 2:30 a.m.
“Bailey.”
Bailey had heard Beardsley’s last five whispers. I’m here. Please help me. The words were in her mind, but she couldn’t force them to her tongue. Every muscle in her body clenched and ached. More. She needed more. Dammit, he’d made her need it again. Damn him to hell.
“Bailey.”
She watched four fingers curve under the wall. Beardsley had torn a little more of the floor away. Hysterical laughter welled from somewhere deep inside her. They were trapped. They’d die here. But now Beardsley could wave good-bye.
The fingers disappeared. “Bailey. Sshh. He’ll come.”
He’ll come anyway. Her eyes closed and she prayed to die.
Wednesday, January 31, 3:15 a.m.
Mack crept up the stairs silently. Breaking into a cop’s house should have been harder to do. He’d passed the impressive gun cabinet on the first floor, wishing he could take what he wished. But tonight was about recon and stealth, not weapons. If he cleaned out the gun cabinet as he was so tempted, the fact that he’d been here would no longer be a secret. And he wanted it to be a secret.
He’d come prepared to knock the man out with a little chloroform on a handkerchief, but he was in luck. His prey was passed out drunk, still wearing his shoes. Carefully he patted the man’s pockets, smiling when he felt a cell phone. Quickly he noted the cell’s number and all numbers of incoming and outgoing calls.
Knowing how to reach out and touch this man in a way he’d trust was a very important component of Mack’s plan. He slipped the phone back down into the man’s pocket as carefully as he’d taken it out. He checked his watch. He’d need to hurry to be able to dump Gemma’s body and still start his morning deliveries on time.
Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 5:05 a.m.
Thunder and lightning. I hate you. I hate you. I wish you were dead.
Alex woke with a start, shaking and freezing cold. She sat up in bed, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. Hope slept soundly and Alex resisted the urge to touch her golden curls. Hope needed to sleep. I hope she doesn’t dream like I do.
Between them, Riley lifted his head, his sad basset eyes looking up at her. Alex ran a shaky hand over the dog’s long back. “Stay,” she whispered, and climbed out of bed. Pulling her robe over her nightshirt, she left the room, carefully closing the door behind her. She didn’t want to wake Daniel.
The man was sleeping on her sofa. He’d refused to leave, even with Agents Hatton and Koenig sitting outside. She stood for a moment, rubbing her arms for warmth, looking down at him, too many thoughts racing through her head.
He’s a beautiful man. And he was, with his blond hair and strong jaw and those blue eyes that could be kind, but also ruthless as they bore through her defenses.
He lied to me. No, not really. Intellectually she knew how difficult it must have been for him to know what had happened to Alicia and not to tell her. To know his own flesh and blood had in some way been responsible.
I’ll see you in hell, Simon. At least Wade hadn’t been her flesh and blood. She thought about how he’d forced his way between her thighs at that party so long ago. He’d thought she was Alicia. Alex remembered his genuine shock when she’d said no.
Did that mean at one point Alicia had said yes? It was a disturbing thought to mix in with all the others that bombarded her mind. Alex had known Alicia was sexually active and Alex had thought she’d known with whom . . . but Alicia and Wade? The mental picture made her skin crawl. What kind of girl had Alicia really been?
What kind of monster had Wade been? She thought of the pictures she’d seen, perverted and horrific. Wade had raped those girls. She’d lived under the same roof with him for years and never suspected he was capable of such . . . depravity. Cruelty.
Alicia. Sheila and Rita. Gretchen and Carla. And Cindy. They’d all been raped. And poor Cindy had killed herself. The depths of depression she must
have experienced. Alex knew those depths well. Poor Cindy. Poor Sheila.
And the nine others she didn’t know . . .
Daniel had carried their faces in his mind for a week. Poor Daniel.
His handsome face was stern, even in sleep. He’d removed his suit coat, his only apparent concession to comfort. His muscled chest rose and fell under the shirt he’d unbuttoned only enough to loosen his collar. His tie was tugged away from his throat, knocked askew. He still wore his gun, holstered at his hip. His shoes were still on his feet. He was ready, even in sleep.
Again, the pictures assaulted her mind. After seeing thirteen of them, it didn’t take much imagination to conjure what Alicia’s must have looked like. She thought of the first time Daniel seen her in the GBI office. The utter shock on his face.
She thought about the way he’d looked at her, right before he’d kissed her, tonight and earlier today in his car after she’d nearly been killed. What do you want from me? she’d asked. Not anything you’re not willing and . . . anxious to give, he’d replied.
She’d believed him then. She wasn’t sure she believed him now.
He felt guilt. Deep, soul-searing guilt. Daniel Vartanian sought atonement.
Alex didn’t want to be any man’s atonement. She didn’t want to be any man’s charity project. She’d done that already, with Richard. And it had been the most abysmal of failures. She didn’t want to be a failure again.
She knew the moment Daniel woke. His eyes opened deliberately, as he did everything else. And when he focused that bright blue gaze on her face, she shivered. For a moment he stared, then rolled to one hip and held out his hand.
And she knew it didn’t matter what she did or didn’t want. It only mattered what she needed, and at that moment, she needed him. He sat up against the corner of the sofa and drew her into his lap. She went, greedily absorbing all his warmth.
“Your hands are like ice,” he murmured, carefully covering them with his own.
She burrowed her cheek against the hard wall of his chest. “Riley hogs the covers.”
“That’s why he doesn’t sleep with me at home.”
She lifted her face to look at him, needing to know. “Who does?”
He didn’t try to misunderstand. “No one. Not in a very long time, anyway. Why?”
She thought of Richard’s new wife. “I need to know if I’d be first or second string.”
She thought she might see his one-sided smile, but his mouth remained completely serious. “First.” He swept his thumb across her lip, sending a tingle down her body. “You were married before.”
“And divorced.”
“Were you second string?” he asked, so very quietly.
“More like water boy,” she said with a half smile of her own.
Still he didn’t smile. “Did you love him?”
“I thought I did. But I think I just didn’t want to be alone in the night.”
“So he was there for you . . .” His eyes grew intense. “. . . in the night.”
“No. At the beginning he was a resident in the hospital where I worked. We dated a few times. My roommate had moved out and before I knew it, he’d moved in. I saw him at the hospital, but our off-hours didn’t seem to mesh well. He wasn’t home a lot.”
“But you married him.”
“Yes.” They’d kind of wandered their way into marriage, she and Richard. She honestly couldn’t remember the moment he’d proposed.
“Did you love him?”
It was the second time he’d asked the question. “No. I wanted to. But I didn’t.”
“Was he kind to you?”
She smiled then. “Yes. Richard is . . . he’s a nice man. He’s good to children and he likes dogs . . .” She stopped when she realized the direction her words were going. “But I think he viewed me as something of a challenge. His own little Eliza Doolittle.”
He frowned. “Why would he want to change you?”
For a moment she stared. His words were a sweet balm, easing the disappointment she’d felt at never being quite what Richard needed, or what she’d wanted to be for both of them. “Most of it was me, I think. I wanted to be . . . interesting. Dynamic. Unbridled.”
He lifted his brows. “Unbridled?”
She laughed self-consciously. “You know.” She waggled her brows and he nodded, but still didn’t smile.
“You wanted to make him come home to you.”
“I suppose so. But I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be. What I wanted me to be.”
“So he left?”
“No, I did. Hospitals are like small towns. Lots of secrets hidden below the surface. Richard had affairs. All very discreet.” She held his gaze. “He should have just left me, but he didn’t want to hurt me.”
Daniel winced. “Point made. So you left?”
“He met someone, luckily not one of the nurses. I couldn’t have stayed then.”
He was frowning. “I thought you left.”
“I left him. By this point we’d bought a house, and I let him have it. But I wouldn’t leave the hospital. I was there first.”
He blinked at her. “You gave him the house, but not the job.”
“Exactly.” She said it matter-of-factly, because to her, it was. “He’d finished his residency and had signed on as a full-time ER doc. Everyone expected me to leave, I think. To go to pedes or surgery or something. But I like the ER. So I didn’t leave.”
He looked nonplussed. “I guess that makes for some awkward moments.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I moved out of the house a year ago and the new wife moved right in behind me. They’re . . . good together.”
“That’s magnanimous of you,” he said warily, and she laughed ruefully.
“I guess I liked him enough not to want him to be unhappy. Meredith, now, she’d like to see him strung between two anthills and dipped in honey.”
Finally that one side of his mouth lifted, lifting her heart with it. “Note to self,” he murmured. “Don’t piss Meredith off.”
She nodded once, pleased to have been able to make him smile. “Exactly.”
But too quickly his smile faded. “Were you dreaming again tonight?”
Thinking about the dreams made her cold again. “Yes.” She rubbed her arms to get warm and he took over, pulling her against him, rubbing her back briskly. The man was like a furnace, warm and strong and male, and she snuggled closer, wanting more.
And finding it in the pulse of his hard arousal against her hip.
She sucked in a breath, suddenly much warmer. He wanted her. And she wanted him. But before she could decide what to say or do, he shifted, settling her away from his lap, and all that wonderful, sensual heat disappeared. His arms came hard around her and he tucked her head under his chin. “I’m sorry,” he murmured against her hair.
She pulled back to see his face. He was wearing a guilty look. “Why?”
He glanced at Meredith’s door. “Look, I promised you that nothing would happen that you didn’t want to happen.”
“Yesterday, in the car. I remember. And so? Nothing has happened.” She lifted her chin. “Not yet anyway. That could change.”
His chest expanded and his blue eyes grew dark. Still he resisted. “If Hatton hadn’t come knocking on that door last night . . . I was trying to . . .” He closed his eyes, his cheeks darkening. “I wanted you. If we hadn’t been interrupted I might have tried to push you into something you weren’t ready for.”
Alex considered the most appropriate response. He was trying to take care of her, and while she found it sweet, she was leaning toward being very annoyed. “Daniel.” She waited until he opened his eyes. “I’m not sixteen anymore and do not want to be any kind of a victim in your eyes or anybody else’s. I’ll be thirty on my next birthday. I have a good job. A good life. And the good sense to make my own decisions.”
He nodded, respect in his eyes. It was grim, but it was respect. “Understood.”
“But, Daniel.” She hooked her finger inside his loosened tie, trying for sultry, but sounding wistful instead. “I still want to be . . . unbridled.”
His eyes flared. Then he was kissing her and she could feel the heat and power of his mouth. Then he was rolling her beneath him and she could feel the heat and power of his body as he thrust against her, his movements hard and deliberate. His hands held the sides of her face, his fingers shoving into her hair and he moved her head, this way, then that, until he found the perfect fit.
And then he feasted, a low groan that sounded like her name rumbling from deep in his throat. Alex held on, determined to enjoy every minute of the wild ride for as long as it lasted. She met him thrust for thrust and when he nudged her mouth open she complied, learning the varied textures of his lips, his seeking tongue.
Too soon he lifted his head to drag in a lungful of air. He looked down, his eyes dark and hot and slightly dangerous. “That was . . .”
“Really good,” she whispered, startling a soft laugh from him.
“Really good? I expected more from a woman who comes up with ‘unbridled.’ ”
She arched her brows. “That’s because I wasn’t yet. Unbridled, that is.”
His lips twitched, but his eyes remained intense. “Next time you will be,” he murmured. “Now go back to bed.” He started to shift, to lift his body from hers and in a split second of certainty she knew what she wanted. With both hands she grabbed his belt and yanked him back, pressing her heels down into the sofa and her body up into his until she could feel him throbbing against her again, hot and hard. “I don’t want to.”
His eyes widened, then narrowed. “No. There’s no way. Not here.”
Feeling a power of her own, she held on to his belt when he tried to move again, realizing that if he’d really wanted to be gone, he would have been. He wanted this, too. She rolled her hips in what she hoped was a blatant invitation. “Why not?”
He was looking at her with an incredulity and a . . . carnal craving that made her own desire treble. “You want a freaking list?” he whispered.
“No, I want you to shut up and kiss me again.”
Relief had his shoulders slumping. “That I can do.” And he did with a kiss that started sweet, but quickly became hot and wet, dragging her back down into the swirling mass of needs and wants that she had no intention of escaping. She tugged at his shirt until she’d pulled the tails free and was free to explore the smooth skin she’d only glimpsed before. He groaned into her mouth. “Alex, stop.”
