Fade To Black

by Leslie Parrish

  Realizing he hadn’t been criticizing, merely expressing his own anxiety, she unbent a little. Glancing at the sweat on his brow, the dampness of his unbuttoned dress shirt molding against his broad shoulders and thick arms, she murmured, “How are you holding up in this heat?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I sense you spend more time in an air-conditioned office than in the woods.”

  “You might be surprised. I’ve never been a desk-jockey type.”

  “Have you been a Boy Scout? Because any ten-year-old with half a brain would have known better than to dress like that today.”

  He jerked his head up, as if unused to women throwing snarky comments in his direction. A guy as tough and good-looking as this one probably got lots of compliments and come-ons instead.

  A tiny smile that looked more menacing than friendly, as if it didn’t get much use, appeared on his lips. His eyes narrowed, his dark gaze homing in on her, every ounce of his attention focused in her direction rather than on the search. The full onslaught of that heated concentration suddenly made her heart skip a beat in her chest. “I wasn’t exactly the Boy Scout type. But something tells me you already knew that.”

  That frankly assessing look would have sent any self-respecting good girl running in the opposite direction. Stacey shivered despite herself. Because he was about as far from a Boy Scout as she was from a suburban housewife.

  “Nobody’s ever called me Mr. Nice Guy,” he warned. And again, she had the suspicion he was talking about more than just this moment, this case. As if confirming that he might have spent some of last night thinking about her, too.

  She wasn’t scared off. Because nice guys? They were a dime a dozen in Hope Valley. And she was a good girl who’d been good so long she couldn’t even remember why she kept getting her birth control pill prescriptions refilled.

  She’d started having a suspicion, though, ever since he’d walked into her office yesterday afternoon.

  “Maybe nice is overrated,” she murmured.

  Finally, as if realizing he was watching her a little too closely, building the already thick tension between them, he shook his head, hard. “You’re right about the clothes. But I didn’t exactly pack shorts and flip-flops.”

  She chuckled, unable to picture it, and glad he’d coasted back into safe territory. Away from that confusing awareness that seemed to wash over both of them at the most unusual times. Because if he wasn’t as aware of her as a woman as she was of him as a man, then she had no business calling herself female. Every intuition she owned told her it was true. And the words he’d said when he’d joined her at the diner the previous evening-If we’re going to do this-had repeated in her ears a whole bunch of times since.

  He hadn’t been talking about working together, having dinner or a drink together. Something had made him say those words in that way, and something in her had responded, even if she’d managed to keep her cool and pretend she’d misunderstood.

  She hadn’t misunderstood. She got the message loud and clear. She just didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

  Dean gestured toward her own pants and shirt. “You’re not exactly up for a day at the beach yourself.”

  “At least mine are lightweight and light colored.”

  Unlike Taggert’s dark trousers and long-sleeved shirt. She’d bet money he’d had a long mental argument with himself over whether or not to remove the suit jacket. If they’d been in public, where others could have seen the.40 Glock strapped in the holster at his hip, she doubted he would have, no matter what he’d had packed in his overnight bag for his trip to Hope Valley.

  “Just make sure you drink plenty of water,” she cautioned.

  “I can handle myself,” he retorted as he unbuttoned his sleeves and shoved them up his thick forearms. Every inch of tanned skin he revealed glistened, though they’d been out for only an hour. The muscles flexing in those arms confirmed his strength, the blunt power of him.

  “I noticed,” she muttered before she thought better of it. Oh, boy, had she noticed.

  Fortunately, he either didn’t hear the frank interest in her voice, or didn’t correctly interpret it. “You look pretty capable of handling yourself, too.”

  “I guess,” she admitted.

  “You’ve been on the job somewhere else,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Virginia State Police down in Roanoke.”

  He studied her. Thought about it. “How long ago?”

  “I quit in May of ’oh-seven.”

  She watched him make the connections. Saw the truth click in his brain.

  “You responded to the attack at…”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t even want to remember what had happened that April day on that once-beautiful campus. The nightmares had finally ended. She’d do anything to make sure they didn’t return, and she put up a big mental stop sign to keep the memories tucked away in the darkest recesses of her mind.

  “That’s rough.”

  She nodded, then quickly changed the subject. “And you were a street cop if I’ve ever seen one. Something tells me ViCAP wasn’t your first stop in law enforcement.”

  “ Baltimore Vice.”

  “Knew it.”

  “What gave me away?”

  “Your boss screams fed. You don’t.”

  “Was that a compliment?”

  She stiffened, wondering how to answer. Because it had been. While she had noted his supervisor’s handsome looks, Dean’s outright ruggedness, the rough street edge, appealed to her more. A lot more.

  Common sense said to keep that to herself. To maintain a professional wall, help this man get his job done, and push him out of Hope Valley as soon as possible. But Stacey suddenly wondered if common sense was just a little bit overrated.

  The cop in her said it absolutely was not.

  The woman who hadn’t been touched intimately by a man in more than two years had other ideas.

  Stacey honestly wasn’t sure which of them was right. Their current situation demanded that she maintain a professional footing. Even so, she found herself unable to outright lie. “Yes, Special Agent Taggert. Unfortunately, I think it was.”

  Suddenly averting his eyes, he swiped the back of his forearm across his sweaty forehead. As if he’d bitten off a little more than he could chew, given their current location. She didn’t know him well yet, but she suspected Dean wasn’t used to this. He didn’t know what the vibes between them were, what they meant, and where they were going. Hell, neither did she. But she wasn’t about to pretend they didn’t exist-there was that honesty thing again.

  Having had enough of dancing around it, she cut to the chase. Stacey had learned as a kid that directness usually worked best with men. After all, she’d been raised in a house full of them, with no woman around. Maybe if she’d had a mother, she’d have learned the art of subtlety.

  From her father, however, she’d learned bluntness.

  “Are you seeing anyone?”

  His jaw unhinged.

  “Look, we both know there’s something here. What you said when you showed up at the diner last night proves it. Let’s just get it out in the open so it doesn’t get in the way of our work.”

  Silence. He simply studied her, as if shocked that she’d been so candid. But finally, he admitted, “My divorce was finalized ten months ago.”

  Oh. He’d been married. She had, of course, checked out his left hand to make sure she wasn’t letting herself get interested in someone unavailable. She just hadn’t figured him for the marrying type, which was probably pretty unfair, since most people saw her that way, too.

  She’d get married someday. Probably. Maybe. If she found someone who understood her position on the whole kids issue. And if someone who could stand up to her-physically, mentally, emotionally-ever happened to wander into Hope Valley.

  Her gaze lingered on him a moment too long… Not going there. “Divorced, huh? Bet that was fun.”
r />   His gruff laugh acknowledged her sarcasm. “She remarried weeks later.”

  “Ouch.” Knowing it was none of her business, she asked anyway. “I take it she… knew the guy before you two split?”

  “Knew him? Oh, absolutely. In every way.”

  Bitch. Stacey had never laid eyes on the woman, but her intrinsic honor and basic values revolted at one who’d cheat. Who’d cheat on him. “That’s rough.”

  He shrugged. “But maybe not so surprising. We got married right out of college. For some reason she thought being married to a cop would be exciting and impressive.”

  Snorting, Stacey replied, “Guess she doesn’t read statistics very much.” Divorce rates in law enforcement were staggering.

  “She figured it out. Then she urged me to go for the FBI. I guess saying she was married to a special agent sounded more romantic at the watercooler than, ‘My hubby busts dope dealers on Charles Street.’ ”

  “ViCAP. Uh-huh. I’ve heard that’s a regular hotbed of romance.”

  His shoulders started to shake as, unbelievably, he began to laugh. They were sweating and shooing away mosquitoes, looking for a crime scene in the middle of nowhere, talking about something two near-strangers almost never openly addressed, and able to laugh about it.

  She liked this man. A lot.

  “We’re both better off. My son, however, is not.”

  Sucking in yet another surprised breath, Stacey absorbed that tidbit. A hard-ass FBI agent. A former street cop. The sexiest, toughest-looking man she’d ever seen.

  And a father.

  Tension churned in her stomach, but she quickly swallowed it away. She was contemplating a fling with the man. Not any kind of long-term relationship. So the fact that he had a child was completely irrelevant. “How old?”

  “He’s seven.”

  “Custody?”

  “Not even standard. I get to take him to play at Mc-Donald’s every Wednesday night, and he sleeps on a futon at my apartment one weekend a month.”

  Wow. Less than standard, indeed. Thinking about it, she quickly realized a possible reason. “Is it because of the job?”

  His eyes widened, the sun bringing a gleam to the brown depths, revealing a glint of emotion, either at the unfairness of his situation, or the fact that she’d figured it out so quickly. Or both. Then he moved again, into a pool of shadow cast by a towering overhead tree, and glanced away. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Look, I know it probably doesn’t help, but honestly, I’d much rather have had a part-time mom than none at all at that age. I know it isn’t enough, but the time you spend with him is really important.”

  He fell silent and Stacey instantly regretted the words. She wasn’t one of those people who always brought every conversation back to herself. In fact, she couldn’t stand those types. Yet that was exactly what she’d done: taken his sadness over a recent divorce and how it affected his son and related it to her own childhood drama.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No,” he replied, watching her, quiet and contemplative. “Actually, you’re right.”

  Stacey realized they’d taken a step forward. They were no longer near-strangers sharing an unexpected attraction. They’d first spoken less than forty-eight hours ago, yet they’d already reached a crossroads in their relationship, where secrets were revealed and hurts shown. And they’d passed it.

  In the silence of the morning, where even the birds were too heat-exhausted to chirp, their stares locked. Words clamored to escape her throat-an invitation to dinner, to have a drink, to grab a beer later.

  “Guess we should get back to it,” he muttered before she could say anything.

  “Sure.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Might be a good time to check in with the others first, though. See if they’ve found anything.”

  If they had, she probably would have heard the shouts of her own men from their search quadrant a quarter mile away. But she didn’t point that out.

  “I could use a water break, anyway,” she said.

  Taggert lifted his radio and got a brief report from Special Agent Stokes, leaving Stacey a moment to pull herself back together. And to remind herself of all the reasons she should not be letting herself grow more interested in this particular FBI agent.

  He lived a dangerous life, worked a dark and bloody job. He was fresh off a divorce, a single father. He lived in a world she’d intentionally left behind when she’d moved back here from Roanoke.

  But none of those things chased away the interest, the pure, electric attraction she felt for the man whenever she looked at him. Instead, she kept going over what she already knew about him, what she already liked about him.

  He was strong and determined. Stubborn, even. Like her.

  He was good at his job, wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of doing it to the best of his abilities. Also like her.

  He was smart. Intuitive. And deep down, beneath all the gruffness and the swagger, he had both a sense of humor and a genuine warmth. The latter appeared at the oddest of times, like when he’d tossed her that gum, when he’d tried to prevent her from watching the video of Lisa’s death. Even now, when he’d genuinely appreciated the comment she’d made about his son.

  Oh, yes, Dean Taggert had more depth than she’d first imagined.

  And aside from all that, he was incredibly masculine, incredibly tough… incredibly big. Incredibly sexy.

  That last one doomed her. Because despite resenting the darkness he’d brought into her safe, secure, nice world, she couldn’t deny she wanted him. That was all, just plain wanted to go to bed with him.

  It had been a long time since she’d been so aware of a man. Longer since she’d been so aware of herself as a woman. That it should happen now, in the midst of this horrific case, confused her more. Not two minutes ago, in the middle of this nightmare, she’d had one of the most intimate conversations she’d had with a man in years.

  No doubt about it, working with Taggert was messing with her head, putting strange ideas in it at the strangest of times. She’d found her stare tugged back to him time and again this morning, watching the way his white dress shirt grew damp with sweat and molded itself against his thick chest and muscular arms.

  Unlike his boss, Taggert looked as though he knew how to get down and dirty. Despite the clothes she’d harassed him about, he seemed more than ready for some rugged action with that powerful body and that rock-hard determination in his jaw.

  Get over it already.

  She had to get over it. Because she needed to work with the man. Taggert was leading this investigation, and he was desperate to solve it. He hadn’t told her the whole story, but she knew enough to know they were working against a clock here. This killer could be stalking his next victim right now. The thought that he could be someone she knew, someone she’d interacted with here in Hope Valley, made her stomach heave.

  Anything she could do to help, she would. That included setting aside her response to the man and being one of seven people sifting through hundreds of acres of woods, looking for evidence that had probably been washed away months ago.

  Utterly futile, perhaps. But she owed it to Winnie. And to Lisa.

  By three p.m., Dean was beginning to regret not bringing the shorts he’d mentioned to Stacey. Heat radiated from each molecule of air, baking and assaulting the senses. His clothes clung to every inch of him, and his eyes had glazed over. His sunglasses didn’t help; they merely steamed up, so he’d shoved them into his pocket early this morning and hadn’t touched them since. If he had to inhale one more mouthful of hot, pine-scented air, dry and redolent with the must of decaying trees and ancient dead leaves, he was gonna gag.

  The great outdoors. Give him the D.C. Metro during rush hour any day.

  “Nothing,” he muttered. “Absolutely nothing.” The three teams scouring the perimeter of the fence hadn’t turned up anything other than the
remnants of an old, illegal campfire and a few crushed beer cans, there for a month at most.

  “We’ve still got a lot to cover,” Stacey reminded him.As if he needed reminding. With only seven of them working, this was shaping up to be a weeklong project. They’d expected to have more help with Brandon and Lily, but Wyatt had kept them in the city for today. Another auction could be taking place at any time, and the IT experts would be more valuable trying to track it than searching for the bloody needle in this forest-wide haystack.

  “I know, but we’ve got to be thorough.”

  He’d seriously considered doing a trade-off when they’d all broken for a quick lunch: letting Stacey partner up with one of her men, leaving him with just about anybody else. Because despite the fact that he liked working with her, those moments this morning when things had gotten a little on the personal side had been a bonehead move.

  He had no time to get personal. No interest in getting personal. No room in his life for anything resembling personal.

  Right?

  Keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll start to believe it.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to hear himself say that when his head was filled with nothing but her words: We both know there’s something here.

  God, she was so direct, one more thing he really liked about her. That and the way her sarcastic sense of humor emerged every once in a while. The things he knew about the woman-the details she’d let slip-only made him want to know more. And despite the way she’d answered his question the previous night, he suspected he understood what she was doing here in small-town Hell Valley.

  April 2007. Virginia Tech. Christ.

  “I dunno. I somehow think I’ve seen this tree before,” she mumbled as she leaned against a staggeringly tall pine. “Or maybe it was one of his nine thousand brothers.”

  He got the point.

  “Can I be honest?” she asked. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m afraid this is a waste of time. The guy’s smart. Would he really have left anything for us to find?”

  “It’s possible. You’d be surprised at the mistakes criminals make.”