by Tess Diamond
“Cyrus,” she called. “I’m gonna need you to get out of there. I don’t want any more contamination of my crime scene.”
“You’re pretty bossy for a nerd,” the mountain man commented as he ambled out of the cabin.
“Haven’t you heard? All nerds are bossy,” Zooey drawled sarcastically. “All of you, stay out here,” she directed. “I want to get a feel for the scene without all your reactions clogging up the science.”
Without another word, she disappeared into the cabin. The three of them stood on the porch, falling into an awkward silence as the adrenaline from the initial ambush began to fade.
Paul’s mind was working through it, what this meant. He kept his hand on the gun at his hip, aware that if someone had killed Ryan, he very well might be out there, somewhere, watching . . . waiting.
Who the hell were they dealing with here?
The cabin door opened and Zooey stepped out, a somber expression on her face. In her hand, was a small leather-bound bible, which she gave to Paul after he pulled on the pair of gloves she handed him.
“Last page,” she said.
Paul thumbed to the back of the bible, his heart thumping when he realized what he was reading.
This was the Clay family bible, an old one, where the births and deaths of each member of the family were recorded. And at the very bottom, there was an addition that made his stomach drop:
Baby 2002–2002 Lost with her mother
He took a deep breath, steeling himself and looked to Zooey. “What do we know?” he asked.
“Okay, first of all, there’s no way that guy shot himself,” Zooey said. “The blood splatter’s all wrong. Hell, even the shotgun on the floor’s at the wrong angle. Plus, there is bruising on his wrists that indicates he was tied. Few tests, and I bet I’ll find rope fibers in his skin.”
“So it’s a staged suicide,” Paul said.
“Not a very good one,” Cy muttered.
“He’s right,” Zooey said. “This is pretty damn messy.”
Abby frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. If Ryan was killed by Dr. X’s apprentice . . . our unsub is good enough to frame an infamous serial killer. But he can’t stage a suicide?”
“You’re also right,” Zooey said. “Which is why I say we get the hell out of here. Now. Because he’s probably out there, lurking in the woods, waiting to pick us off, like a creepy, murderous lumberjack.”
Abby looked over her shoulder nervously.
“Your geek’s right, Paul,” Cy said, shooting a sly glance at the annoyed way Zooey pursed her lips. “This is starting to feel like a setup.”
Paul peered at the tree line. Part of him wanted to shout into the darkness: Come and get me. But he couldn’t. He might have, if it had just been Cy and him. Cy was the kind of man who you wanted at your back with this sort of thing. But he wasn’t putting Abby or Zooey in that kind of danger.
Zooey had signed on for that when she joined the FBI. But Abby hadn’t.
“Let’s go,” Paul said, his mind made up. “Get in the truck with Cy,” he said. “I’m going to do one final search of the cabin.”
He waited until he was sure they were secure in the truck with Cy before going back inside.
The evidence box Ryan had taken was sitting on the kitchen table, and Paul went over and grabbed it. For a moment, he just stood in the middle of the cabin, acutely aware of the body out of the corner of his eye.
Ryan Clay had been a narcissistic, misogynistic asshole who loved power plays and apparently also loved taking advantage of teenage girls’ naiveté, if his “relationship” with Keira Rice was any indication, and he was likely the father of Cass’s baby, but he hadn’t killed Cass.
No, he’d been the unsub’s patsy. A failsafe that had been planned years in advance, just in case someone ever got far enough to connect Keira Rice’s disappearance with Cass’s murder.
But why stage the scene so badly? That was the question. Paul puzzled over it as he carried the box back to the truck, setting it in the bed before climbing inside.
As they drove away, Paul kept an eye on his phone, and as soon as they were back in cell phone range, he called Sheriff Alan and told him he’d need to send the deputies out.
There was a crime scene to take care of.
Chapter 25
Abby felt like she’d been through a war where no one was the victor. By the time Zooey had headed off to her motel, and Cyrus had disappeared, practically fading into the mist like some sort of cowboy of yore, it was late.
Roscoe was snoozing upstairs, drooling on her pillow like it was his own, so she went downstairs. She checked the corkboard in the mudroom, seeing that Jonah, her orchard manager, had left her a note that said: Fed Roscoe for you.
She needed to track Jonah down tomorrow and thank him. She hadn’t been checking in at all since Paul had arrived, and that wouldn’t do. Jonah had the orchard running like a well-oiled machine, but she liked to be in the know. She didn’t want him to feel like the burden of the place was all on him while she reaped the profit. One of the big changes she had made after her father died was to give each of her workers a share in the orchard. This land may have been in her family for generations, but she wasn’t going to be the removed owner in the farmhouse, watching like a queen over the serfs who worked her land. All her employees had a hand in the orchard’s success—and they deserved a piece of it. It was only fair, when there were entire families who’d worked for her father for decades.
Paul had left for his house, going back across the meadow, and as tired as she was, Abby felt restless and unable to sleep . . . like she’d drunk too much coffee and the jitters were just starting to set in.
She’d been wrong about Ryan. That was clear now. She would feel a flash of guilt for thinking he was a murderer, but apparently, the man preyed on Keira Rice, got into a predatory, illegal relationship with her, and then had never come clean when she disappeared. So she was saving all her sympathy for Keira—and the other girls missing along I-5.
What had happened to Keira? Abby racked her brain, trying to think of the most likely scenario. Their unsub had a type. That meant he sought the girls he took out. Probably stalked them for a while. And Keira had been taken later in the year than the other girls. Had it been harder to get to her? Taking her from a motel parking lot was risky. It was the first time she’d gone to a soccer meet without her parents. Had the unsub just been waiting for his chance to take her, and when she snuck out to meet Ryan, he took advantage of the opportunity presented?
That seemed the most reasonable explanation. If Ryan had showed up late—or Keira had snuck out early—then Ryan could have missed Keira’s abduction completely. She could’ve been gone before he even pulled into the motel parking lot.
Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this, she thought miserably.
Even though Paul had held her back from seeing the actual grisly scene, she couldn’t help but imagine it, her damn imagination dreaming up scenarios from his warnings. She still felt sick that she’d ever let someone who preyed on teen girls touch her—even though she’d been a teenager herself at the time—and questions about Ryan and Cass still whirled in her head. Paul had shown her the Clay family bible, where Ryan had memorialized his and Cass’s baby. It made her stomach hurt, thinking of Cass so alone and so scared as she died in that orchard.
Unable to stop the disturbing thoughts, Abby found herself grabbing a flashlight and heading out into the night, to walk the rows of trees, hoping that if she tired herself out, she could get some sleep.
As she reached the end of the fifth row, she saw movement across the meadow. For a moment, she almost ran, residual fear from what had happened earlier rushing through her body.
But then the clouds over the moon shifted, and she saw it was Paul.
A new kind of tension filled her as she stood there, at the border of the meadow and the orchard, on the edge of . . . something.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked when he was just a
foot away from her. His flannel shirt was buttoned crookedly, like he’d done it in the dark, or too fast. It made her want to smile. Such a small, charming, clumsy little thing. It made her want to reach out, to slip the buttons free, and push the shirt off his shoulders.
He shook his head.
“Abby,” he said.
Just her name. But it made her heart flutter. It made her want to sway into him. To take comfort in him.
To love him the way he deserved.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he said. “I . . .” He reached out, and his palm was cupping her cheek and his eyes were on hers, lit with a fire she’d seen before, that she’d run from before.
This time, she wasn’t running.
“I’m done,” he declared fiercely. “I am done feeling guilty. And I’m done denying things. I’ve followed the rules,” he said, and she felt caught in his gaze, like a moth lured to a light, unable to look or move away. “It’s who I am. But you . . .” He stroked the back of his fingers down her cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered closed at the touch, and when they opened, his own were raw with honesty. “You make me want to break all the rules,” he whispered.
He kissed her then. It wasn’t the first kiss or their second or even their third. It wasn’t the kiss of clumsy six-year-olds, bashful and laughing. It wasn’t the kiss of hurt teenagers, unable to deal with their grief any way but together. And it wasn’t the kiss of adults, angry and lashing out and finally, finally getting what they both wanted, even though it was the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong way.
He kissed her like he knew her, because he did. He kissed her like it was the start of something new, because it was.
He kissed her because it had been long enough, denying what they both wanted, what they needed:
Each other.
Chapter 26
Kissing Abby—really, truly, kissing her, like he’d wanted to do for so long—was like discovering the two of them all over again. The boy he was. The girl she had been. The man he’d become. The woman she was now.
She was all curves and freckles in the moonlight, leading him through rows of trees like a siren. He wanted to chase her, to pound up the stairs of that old farmhouse and make that rickety old bed squeak until the morning hours.
But they didn’t even get upstairs. They barely got up off the porch before he was kissing her again, unable to resist, unable to go any longer without touching her, without having her wrapped in his arms.
He wanted to trace every freckle on her skin, to press his lips to each sweet mark. And when he licked over the spattering of dots along her collarbone, she gasped, her fingers twisting in his hair, pulling just slightly, sending a shock of heat right to his cock.
He’d never wanted anyone like this. It was roaring to life in him—denied for so damn long—that it had complete control of him as she whipped his shirt off over his head. He felt out of control and utterly focused at the same time as he pressed her against the wall, greedy, consuming kisses filling the long moments between their gasping breaths.
His hands slid underneath her simple gray t-shirt, the soft skin of her stomach and rib cage—and the sound she made—a Goddamn revelation as he slipped her shirt off. Her skin was like milk sprinkled with specks of saffron and his mouth skated down the lush curves of her breasts, down her stomach, and then he was on his knees and his hands were on the button of her jeans and he was looking up at her, a question in his eyes.
He’d spent so long denying this that now that he wasn’t ignoring it or her or this—this intense, alive energy between them that had always been there—he didn’t know where he wanted to start. He wanted to rise to his feet and kiss her again. He wanted to stay on his knees and worship her.
He wanted to do everything and anything she ever wanted or dreamed.
She stepped out of her jeans, and then she was standing there, pressed up against the wall of her hallway, dark blue lace and smooth skin and all his. He couldn’t quite believe it.
She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, staring at him, just a hint of challenge in her face, and when he made no move toward her she made a little impatient noise.
Her palms, searing hot, cupped his face and she pulled him to her, kissing him. Her teeth nipped along his bottom lip like a dare, her tongue darted out to soothe the spot like an apology. His fingers tightened around her hips as she hitched herself up against him, her thighs—those strong, glorious, freckled thighs of hers—wrapped around his hips.
“Fuck, Abby,” he groaned. He could feel the heat of her against the ridge of his cock, pressing painfully against the fly of his jeans. He kissed her, sweeping her hair off her neck and dragging kisses up it as she unbuckled his belt.
Keeping his hand on the delicious curve of her ass, he kicked his pants away and staggered over to the couch, tilting backward onto it. She let out a laughing little shriek, falling on top of him, her legs falling to each side of his hips and with a wicked smile, she moved her hips against him in an agonizingly slow circle.
He choked out her name, the friction making his eyes roll as she reached back and unhooked her bra.
He was the luckiest fucking man alive, he thought, as he cupped one of her breasts, tilting up to kiss her.
She made a little teasing, tutting sound, and then she was lifting off him. The loss of the heat of her body, the lushness of her weight against him, was enough to make him clench his fists. But then she tugged down those blue panties she was wearing and he was clenching his fists for another reason.
“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he groaned, rearing up and grabbing her, tumbling her into his lap, gloriously, beautifully naked and his.
Mine, he thought, as her fingers wrapped around his cock, guiding it to the core of her. She was so slick, so wet, so fucking hot as he slid into her. He was almost overcome by it, the heat, the way her muscles flexed around him and her head tilted back, like she was savoring how full she felt.
He thrust into her, his hands going to her hips. He could feel her getting wetter around him as she ground down on his cock in quick little bursts, her lip caught between her teeth, her eyes fluttering closed as the pleasure—the sensation—built.
He wanted her to come. Wanted to see how her cheeks flushed, how she moaned, how she would tighten around him. He wanted every moan and shudder as she writhed on his cock, lost in the feeling.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he gritted out, rearing up to kiss her, his hand dropping between their bodies, his knuckles brushing just barely over her clit.
Her nails dug into his shoulders and she shattered, rippling around him. The sight of it, so erotic, so beautiful, so her, was all it took. Two more thrusts into her pulsing heat and he was coming, his forehead dropping to her shoulder, his arms tightening around her as pleasure like he’d never known rushed through him.
For a long time, after, they remained clinging to each other, panting, the aftershocks and intimacy almost too much.
Paul didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what she wanted to hear. So he just stayed silent, stroking her hair, savoring the feel of her in his arms.
He knew how he felt. He’d known for two years now. Ever since that night he’d kissed her and then ran.
The time to talk would come later.
He’d been a coward with her, before.
He wouldn’t be again.
Chapter 27
She woke with Paul wrapped around her, his long nose pressed into the curve of her neck, his arm looped around her possessively, drawing her close. She snuggled into him, stretched out her body, feeling like she was finally aware of each and every part of her.
For a moment, she was so distracted by this, by the marvel of him in her bed, with him in her arms, that she didn’t realize that something had woken her.
His phone was vibrating on the bedside table.
“Paul,” she whispered, nudging him.
He murmured, his hold tightening on her. “’Nother five minutes,”
he muttered.
“Paul.” She poked him again. “Your phone.”
“Hmm?” He jerked up, squinting at the flash of light from the incoming call. He grabbed it, sitting up in bed. “Georgia?” he said into the phone. “It’s two in the morning. What in the—”
His entire body tensed up next to Abby. Her head whipped toward him, the air in the room suddenly changing, as he said, “How long has she been gone?”
Gone? Who was gone? Abby sat up, staring at him urgently. His expression was frozen, his throat working fiercely. “Georgia, I’m on my way. I don’t care what the sheriff says about needing it to be twenty-four hours. Tell him he issues the alert or I’ll have the FBI director call him personally. Okay? I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Stay calm.” He hung up, looking at Abby.
“Who?” Abby asked.
“Robin,” Paul said, and his voice cracked on his niece’s name. “Fuck. He took Robin.”
“Oh, my God.” Abby leapt out of bed, grabbing her shirt and tossing Paul his own. “We need to go. Are we sure it’s him? Maybe she’s at a girlfriend’s house? Maybe her car broke down?”
“She was supposed to come straight home from her wrestling meet,” Paul said. “She didn’t come back. She wouldn’t run away. Her phone’s turned off so we can’t track it. She’s his type—she has long, curly dark hair and a sweet face. And she’s my niece.”
Abby yanked her jeans on as he did the same. A horrible dread was building inside her as he got quieter and quieter. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll drive.”
She sped down the highway in the dark, her heart in her throat as Paul made call after call.
