Becoming Three

by Cameron Dane

  “Max”—Cade moved in with calm in his voice—“help Ty get everyone corralled outside, right now, and then block off access to the door. Alert the sheriff to the situation.”

  “Not the pretty blond cowboy,” Peter ordered. “He stays. Scarface, you go too.”

  Jasper moved into Jace's peripheral view, fear and helplessness flooding his eyes.

  “Get out of here.” Jace's voice rang low.

  “No.” Peter overrode him, his voice sharp. “He stays, or I kill her right now.”

  Snapped her neck cleanly. Robyn's assessment of Ginger's death washed over Jace with icy cold, and he didn't dare risk Sarah right now.

  “Get behind me,” Jace told Jasper. “Don't make any sudden moves.”

  “Okay.” Worry warbled Jasper's voice, but he did as Jace bade.

  Cade didn't move with Max to disperse the onlookers. “Jace?”

  “I swear to God…” Peter wrenched Sarah's head to an awkward angle, and she squeaked.

  “It's okay,” Jace said to Cade, without looking at him. “Do what he says. Go.”

  Cade backed off. Jace could feel the layer of backup recede as if someone had removed a blanket from his bare back on a cold night.

  The noise in the youth center lowered to a din and then to quiet as Ty, Max, and Cade ushered every other person out of the room. When they were alone, Jace said, “Mr. Robbins, this is not a wise move on your part. Let the woman go and you will have your chance to say your piece and defend yourself.”

  An unnatural glint shone in Peter's eyes. “Look at you,” he said, “attempting to be so stoic. But I can see. I can see how terrified you are that I'm going to kill your woman. You're already thinking about the loss. It's in your eyes. It's taking over your whole face.”

  Jace flicked his attention to Sarah. One glance at the fear drenching her gaze to dark chocolate had him flinching. Unable to stand it, he returned to looking at Peter. “Harming her will only hurt your cause.”

  Shifting his gaze beyond Jace, Peter said, “You're shaking, pretty.” He had to mean Jasper. “Two for the price of one.” Peter made a clucking noise and dug his fingers deep into Sarah's jaw, drawing a whimper from her. “If only I'd known a week ago.”

  “Let her go.” Jace worked with every fiber in him to remain calm. “After you do, you can talk as much as you want, and I'll listen. But it has to be just you and me.”

  In a split second, Sarah tried to grab Peter's arm and drop her weight, but Peter moved even faster. Jace cried “No!” and behind him, Jasper hoarsely shouted, “Sarah!” as Peter pushed Sarah into the wall, pressing the side of her head against one of the kids' framed pictures. He kept her body as a shield between them and said, “Don't move, or I'll smash her face right through this glass. I swear I will.”

  All of his muscles straining, Jace stopped after taking only two steps. Jasper now stood at his side, equally full of tension and terror.

  Sweat soaked Jace under his clothes, but he swallowed his heart back down into his chest and made eye contact with Peter again. “Let me help you end this peacefully.” Only the barest scratch marred his tone. “Tell me what you need, and I will try to help you get it.”

  A creepy-as-hell smile took over Peter's face. “It's so delicious.” He stared intently at Jace and Jasper and licked the side of Sarah's face. “Shit. It's coming off her too. It's nearly as good as the Carltons'.”

  What the fuck?

  “I don't understand what that means,” Jace said. “You need to tell me what you want in order to end this.”

  Her voice a strange squeak, Sarah looked at him and said, “Jace?”

  “Don't think about it, honey.” Jace couldn't help it; he looked at Sarah and couldn't tear away from the horror in her eyes. “We're going to get you out of this.”

  Sarah stared back at him, wincing, and the first tears wet her face. She croaked, “He has an erection.”

  Son of a bitch. Motherfucker. Sick twist.

  Jace lost any sense of professionalism he had ever exhibited in this situation. He didn't take a step forward, but he leaned in and bared his teeth. “Don't you dare even think about it.” The voice of Lucifer himself had nothing on Jace. “I am already going to tear you apart the second I get my hands on you. You don't let her go right now, and I will move it up to murder.”

  The glint of pure insanity glazed Peter's eyes. He moaned, and his eyelids fluttered. “You're making it too hard to resist.”

  Everything happened in a lightning-fast haze before Jace's eyes. He moved in, anticipating Peter's tearing at Sarah's clothes. Instead, Peter flung Sarah away from the wall and slammed her back into it in rapid-fire succession, cracking the side of her face into the framed picture. Sarah cried out as glass shattered, Jasper shouted and ran to her as she slid into a heap on the floor, and Jace tackled the bastard, who was so fucking crazy, he didn't make one step to run for freedom.

  “Jace! Jace!” Jasper's voice had a frantic edge. “Oh God, Jace. Her eyes are closed, and she's bleeding.”

  Jace looked up to see Jasper roll Sarah's upper body onto his lap and try to clean her cheek—and what looked like blood pouring from near her temple—with the hem of his shirt. Her eyes were closed, and her arms hung limply to the floor.

  His heart lurching, Jace released the noise of an injured animal. “Sarah…” Unable to go to his woman right that second, Jace dug his knee into Peter's back. “Son of a bitch.” With ruthless force, he yanked Peter's arms behind his back and cuffed him tight. “You are under arrest for the murder of Ginger Carlton. And that is just to start.” He grabbed the walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Come in and get him before I kill him.”

  Peter moaned, the low, thick sound of a man in the throes of pleasure, and the bile started rising in Jace's esophagus.

  “Ohhhh…oh please. One more moment.” Peter's hips undulated against the floor under the knee Jace had in the small of his back. “I could listen to you like this forever. Look at his agony. He thinks she's going to die. Oh-oh-oh—” Peter's mouth fell open against the floor as he stared across the small distance to Jasper holding Sarah. His eyes glazed as he shuddered, and ecstasy painted his face.

  Jace flipped Peter onto his back and looked down to see a dark stain marring his khaki pants. Knowing it wasn't urine, Jace almost threw up for the first time in his professional career.

  Holy shit. What kind of sick fucker followed Ginger all the way home?

  Duke, Cade, and Max entered the center with their weapons drawn. As soon as they assessed the situation, they holstered their guns and moved in. Duke got on his walkie-talkie and relayed a message to someone outside that he or she could let the EMTs in the second they arrived.

  “Make sure you read him his rights,” Jace informed Max and Cade, as the two of them hauled Peter to his feet. Bitterness burned his throat, but he managed to keep the sickness down. “You might give him a minute to get over his goddamn orgasm, so he can process what you're saying.”

  Sarah stirred, and Jace momentarily forgot about Peter Robbins's twisted mind. He crawled over to her just as her eyes flitted open and she put a hand to her head. Tears swam in her eyes, filming the fear. “I want my mom and my brother.”

  Jace struggled not to cry too. “I know you do, honey.” He brushed the back of his hand against her cheek.

  Jasper heaved an uneven breath and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  “I'm sorry.” Snot came out of Sarah's nose as she looked up at Jace. “I tried to do what you taught me.” Her attention strayed to the man Max led out of the center. “But he was fast.”

  “You kept your head.” Jace wiped her nose with his thumb, feigning lightness, when inside he felt like he had a thousand-pound weight on his shoulders. “You did good.”

  Her face, only pale a moment before, suddenly lost any trace of color. “I'm going to be sick.”

  Jasper turned her sideways faster than she could do herself. She threw up on the floor and lost consciou
sness again just as the EMTs came in and took over.

  Jace followed Jasper, and Ren drove them to the hospital in Jasper's truck.

  What Jace really needed was the nearest bar where he could open a tab.

  * * * *

  After sitting for an hour, Jace shot up from his chair in the waiting room and tunneled his fingers in his hair. The doctor had already come in, told them that Sarah had regained consciousness, but that he and Jasper would not be able to see her until they ran a number of tests and then situated her in a room where she would spend at least one night for observation. This small waiting area, with no windows, felt like it was closing in on Jace and suffocating him.

  He spun to Jasper, who he knew was equally worried about Sarah. Guilt clawed at him, but not even the new worry lines on Jasper's face could penetrate his need. “I'm sorry. I have to get out of here for a while. Can you give me your keys?”

  “Look at me.” Jasper stood and grabbed Jace's arm. Knowledge beyond his years lived in his gaze. “Where are you gonna go?”

  “I won't go out and drink.” Jace said it easily; he looked into the eyes of a man he cared about more than just a little bit, and the lie rolled right off his tongue. “I promise.”

  Jasper handed over his keys but said, “I'm worried as shit about her”—he pointed toward the hallway beyond the small private waiting room—“but I'm tryin' to tell myself she's gonna be okay.” Jasper shifted his shoulders back and stood tall. His gaze didn't waver, and Jace saw before him a quality man.

  “I got enough on my plate right now,” Jasper whispered. “Please don't make me start worryin' about you too.”

  “You don't have to worry about me. I promise.” Jace curled his hand around Jasper's neck and leaned down close. “Call me when they'll let us in to see her, and I'll come back.” He pressed a hard kiss to Jasper's forehead, holding there for a moment and absorbing his strength before pulling away. “Bye.”

  He left Jasper without looking back.

  * * * *

  Jace pushed into the station a half hour later. Sober as hell. He had slowed Jasper's truck down as he passed by three bars after leaving the hospital, but that lie he'd found had tripped so easily off his tongue when talking to Jasper was a damn sight harder to turn into reality when faced with getting piss drunk. Jace found he didn't want some bartender calling the station, then whoever took the call contacting Jasper, and Jasper having to leave Sarah to come pick his wasted ass up off the floor. He didn't want news of his getting drunk finding its way to Sarah either.

  Fuck, though. He goddamn itched for something numbing to take the sharp points off the thorns cutting him up inside. Pictures of Sarah in the arms of a madman, then lying on the floor crying and getting sick, floated in front of Jace's eyes. He moved to his desk with renewed purpose, and once he got into his e-mail, he typed out a terse note to his best friend.

  Get the hell home. Right the fuck now. Someone hurt your sister today, and she's in the hospital. It could have been really bad, and you would have missed seeing her. She wanted you and your mom when she opened her eyes. Understand something, Hunter. My loyalties are no longer to you. They belong entirely to her now. And yes, you goddamn know exactly what that means. If you didn't want it to happen, you should have let me tell her the minute you were sent stateside, and then you should have gotten your ass home the second the VA hospital released you. Come. Home. Now. – Jace

  After sending the message, Jace got up from his desk, walked down the hallway, and slipped into the viewing room. From this side of the glass, Max and Carson watched Cade and Duke work. Peter sat opposite them with nobody at his side.

  “Where the hell is his lawyer?” Jace asked.

  “He is acting as his own counsel,” Max answered with a snort. “Not that it matters.” She put her attention back on the scene inside the interview room, her eyes narrowing. “He's just playing cat-and-mouse games with Cade and the boss anyway. He hasn't confessed to knowing Ginger, let alone Sonya, even with the photo on the kid's cell phone. Juan is looking at what is on his credit cards, at airlines, car rentals, possible gas purchases, and even bus manifests to see if we can uncover a travel plan that preceded Peter showing up on Monday.”

  Jace listened to Peter spouting some nonsense about witnessing his first crime in his mind when he was a young teenager. While staring, Jace caught his own haggard features in the reflection of the glass. Frustration, anger, impotence, and pain etched his face, making him look like a stranger.

  Or maybe it's the real me; I just don't let anybody see him.

  “You won't find it,” Jace said softly, focusing on Peter. “This son of a bitch is too slick to leave a physical trail of something that's completely in his control.” As Jace stared through his own muted likeness to the man on the other side, his skin crawled with the too-vivid memory of

  Peter spilling himself on the youth-center floor. “I think I know how to get him to talk. Excuse me.” He let himself out of the viewing room and came to a pause at the door to the interview room. While rolling his shoulders to force out the tension, Jace breathed deeply, searched for a center of calm, and didn't move until he knew not so much as a speck of emotion lived on his face. Then he let himself inside.

  Duke and Cade both said his name with reprimand in their tone, but Jace didn't respond. He positioned himself in a corner and looked right at Peter Robbins. Jace stared at a monster, looked right into his soulless eyes, and let the pieces of protection he'd just erected around himself outside fall away, one bit at a time, for Peter's amusement, until only the damaged, vulnerable, pained man he'd seen in the reflection remained. He watched interest spark in a murderer's gaze, pink heighten the color in his cheeks, and him shift in the chair, letting his legs fall open some.

  “You did this to me.” Jace's voice cracked, and he made no attempt to cover it. “You don't start talking”—he let all his pent-up fear and pain show through and used the man's own twisted fetish against him—“I walk away.”

  Peter spoke right to Jace. “It's your pain that I love and need, you see.” He said it as if he shared a preference for one kind of cola above another.

  “You have it.” Jace let more than his own emotion into his voice; he let what he had absorbed from the victim's family and Beth out of the compartment where he kept it locked away. “Tell me about Ginger.”

  “Ginger was incidental.” Peter shrugged. “A means to get to the family who loved her so desperately.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “I met her in Austin, and we spent a lovely weekend together.” Peter confirmed Max's suspicion. “We kept in touch, although she never knew my real name. Ginger was very chatty”— a faraway smile touched his lips—“and I'm a very sympathetic listener. By the end of two days in Austin together, I knew all about her family.” He put his hand to his heart, but his eyes held disturbed glee. “I knew about all the cowboys and about her feelings for a woman that tormented her. Her devoted family already had me hooked, but when she confessed about the secret girlfriend, any doubt I had that she would be my next disappeared.”

  Peter slipped his hand under the table and covered his crotch. “My goodness, Deputy. You have no idea how each layer of truth I revealed to Cilla and Howard about their daughter took them to heights of grief I have not experienced in nearly two years. I even found out where Beth lived, and while I could only observe her through a window twice, her devastation carried me to a couple of incredible releases.”

  Sickness nauseated Jace, but he forced himself to maintain this bizarre connection Peter felt with him. “Why the elaborate posing after you killed Ginger?”

  “I have to make it interesting for you guys,” Peter responded with ease. “It also has to be sensational and distinctive enough that a family will believe a psychic could see it in his or her mind, and that divine assistance will be needed to help solve such a terrible crime. I commend you.” The man spoke as if they were the best of friends. “You didn't fall into the ritual
trap the way so many hick towns would. I also believe you uncovered her life of prostitution before it revealed itself to me in a vision when I came to Quinten.” At Jace's raised eyebrows, Peter said, “You're surprised I actually am psychic. I assure you; it's true.”

  “So then why do you need to murder women on your own?” Jace felt dirty and naked and on display, but he couldn't leave until they had it all.

  “Sometimes I meet people who ignite my need beyond my ability to say no to the hunger,” Peter answered. “Plus, you'd be amazed how many people are murdered that no one cares about one bit.”

  “People like Sonya Mayer.”

  “A necessary evil.” Again, Peter shrugged. “I took no joy in her death.”

  “No one to care about Sonya if she died.” Jace couldn't help the rancor that slipped into his tone. “So no need to make it any more than a simple task of cleaning up a loose end and taking out the garbage. Right?”

  “Now you're beginning to understand.”

  Jace thought about that poor girl nailed to a tree, and at the same time, sifted through the dozens of conversations he'd listened in on and participated in regarding her murder. “What about your alibi? Was there another necessary evil? Sonya was average size and probably not strong enough to help you with this particular crime on her own. Is there another body we haven't found yet? Maybe a man?” he asked, as more lights in his mind starting flicking on. “Someone who could have used your debit card and bought a movie ticket before joining you here in Montana to help you nail a woman to a tree?”

  Peter beamed and clapped. “I was in Montana for almost two weeks before I went home and flew in to aid the grieving family. When I write about you, Deputy, I'm going to be very complimentary.” As he took a sip of his water, he held Jace's gaze over the rim of the paper cup. “Should I include a love scene with your lovely girl and pretty boy?” An aroused hue rushed the whole of his face. “Or can I hope when we meet again there will be yet more pain on your rugged, masculine face?” He flicked out his tongue, licked, the corner of his mouth, and rubbed his hand over his crotch. “I love it most when a big man can't control his sobs.”