by Katee Robert
This was something else.
“Saul, heel.”
He responded instantly, taking up position approximately six inches off her left foot. She watched him closely, looking for the telltale signs that he smelled someone else. There was nothing but attentiveness as he waited for her next command.
The pink thing hung at eye level against a tree. It had to have been nailed there, because she didn’t see any way it was being held up. Lei stared. She should walk away. Hide. Pretend this isn’t happening. Instead, she carefully picked her way through the underbrush to its position. All the while, she kept one eye on Saul and one on the area around her. There were too many trees for a long-range attack to be effective, but she didn’t expect this killer to employ sniper tactics. No, he wanted to be up close and personal when he killed.
But there was no wind to hide his scent behind. If he was close, Saul would smell him and give warning. She stopped in front of the tree, her mouth going dry. The pink thing was a purse. Pink and glittery and something a college-age Lei would have loved. It hung on a nail that had attached a plastic Ziploc bag to the bark. The bag held a generic-looking card envelope with her name scrawled on the side. Lei-Lei.
“Saul, guard.” His primary skill set wasn’t to be a guard dog—not like Prince—but he knew the command well enough to watch her back. Lei dug out her phone with shaking hands and took a picture of the purse and the bag. She should wait for the cops but . . . She dialed and held the phone to her ear.
“Lei? The damn motion-sensor cameras are going crazy.” Emma’s voice went shrill.
“I’m close to mile marker three. I found something.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“A purse. Someone left it and a note for me. I have to come back for gloves and something to put it in that won’t contaminate the evidence.” Whatever evidence was left after sitting on a tree for God knew how long. She didn’t have high hopes that the killer had managed to prick his finger and leave some convenient blood for them to trace. “Someone came here, so there’s video of it. You just need to find it.” The problem with the damn motion-sensor cameras was that they really needed a full-time team to filter through all the input. “Shut off all the cameras except this one. I need you to watch it.”
The thought of the killer coming in behind her and snatching the purse made her skin crawl. He could be watching her right then, and she wouldn’t . . .
Stop that. I would know. Emma would know. The cameras would pick him up. Whoever this guy is, he’s not a freaking ghost. He’s just a man.
A man can be killed.
“Lei, if I shut off the other ones . . .” Emma took a shuddering breath. “No, you’re right. Even if he didn’t orchestrate the other ones going nuts, he definitely took advantage of it. I still have the normal ones around the house up and running, and that’s enough. I’ll watch this one until you can get back there.”
“Thanks.” She hung up and started back toward the house, already dialing a second number—one she’d put in her phone after the Feds left yesterday.
“Agent Young.”
Something in her chest threatened to relax as his smooth voice came over the phone. She gritted her teeth and picked up her pace. “It’s Lei Zhang. We have a problem.”
“Lei? What’s wrong?” A pause. “We’re less than thirty minutes away.”
That almost brought her up short. Last she’d heard, they’d been headed for California and Travis and . . . They found something. She knew they’d be back eventually because the killer obviously had plans for Lei and Emma, but she hadn’t expected them here so quickly.
She gave herself a shake and kept jogging. “I found something on our property. A pink purse and what looks like a greeting card or something with my name on it.” With the name Travis used to call me. “I was going to get gloves and—”
“We’re on our way,” Dante spoke firmly. He didn’t try to tell her not to worry or snap that she didn’t know what she was doing. He just stated that they would be there in that calm and soothing voice of his. “Go back to the house and lock the doors. We’ll be there in twenty.”
She started to tell him she was more than capable of retrieving a purse without screwing up evidence, but . . . he was right. She might work with cops regularly, but she wasn’t a cop. More than that, even if she was, she would have been yanked off this case the second they realized how connected she was.
Ignoring that order was stupid. This killer was focused on her, and as much as she’d like to just duke it out and be done with it, letting the Feds do their job was the only real option. “Okay. I’ll meet you back there.”
“Thank you.” There was something like relief there. As if he thought she’d go rogue and tell him to fuck off.
Considering that was exactly what she wanted to do, she didn’t blame him for assuming the worst. She hung up and picked up her pace.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dante tore up the driveway, the tires of the rental sending gravel flying. He slammed to a stop as soon as he saw Lei jogging out of the trees on the other side of the little lawn. Clarke smacked him. “Fuck, man, you aren’t in NASCAR. She’s fine. Calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“No, you’re not. You have a wild look in your eyes, and you’re going to scare the shit out of her if you get out of the car right now. Leash it, Dante. This girl is either a suspect or a victim, and you can’t run out there and start yelling at her because she went for a jog on her own damn property.”
Considering that was exactly what he was in danger of doing, he paused and took a slow, measured breath, striving for calm. He didn’t have a claim on Lei. He didn’t have anything resembling a claim on her. They’d had exactly one conversation. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Don’t sweat it. Just maybe wait to ask for her number until after you’ve caught the guy that wants to make her into a human pincushion.”
He shot Clarke a look. “That’s not helping.”
“Sure it is.” She climbed out of the car before he could form a response, which was just as well.
Dante watched his partner cross to Lei, still fighting for control. Part of him wanted to haul her into her fortress of a house and tell her to stay there until they caught this guy, but it wouldn’t work.
Get out of the car. Act normal.
It wasn’t a problem he’d ever had before. Dante was professionalism personified. It was how he operated. How he’d always operated. He’d never come across someone who’d gone through quite as much as Lei Zhang, but that didn’t mean he had an excuse to act like a damn caveman. Since cleansing breaths weren’t doing a damn thing, Dante shut off the car and joined Clarke and Lei out on the lawn. “How far out?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Hello, Agent Young. Nice seeing you again.”
Damn it, he was making a mess of things. He ran a critical eye over her, searching for any sign of distress. Nothing. Nothing but strong legs leading up to criminally tiny shorts and a fitted tank top that showed off surprisingly toned shoulders and arms, considering her small stature. She’s no victim. He knew that. Of course he knew that. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She paused and blew out a breath. “No. I’m not okay. Every single year, I swear we’re going to take down those goddamn motion cameras, and every year I put it off because I’m afraid that when we really need them, we won’t have them. Now, we needed them, and they didn’t even function properly. It pisses me the fuck off.”
Clarke nodded. “I’ll go see how Emma’s coming with the videos. Grab the gear and get the purse.”
Subtle, Clarke. And then she was gone, leaving them alone. Well, them and the dog. Dante nodded at it. “What breed?” He’d been curious before, but it hadn’t seemed like a good time to ask. No reason not to now—especially if it gave the added bonus of distracting Lei a little. The dog looked like something out of a nightmare, its black-and-gray fur covering a body that was too big to be a
German Shepherd. If he met it in the middle of the night, he might start to believe all those old legends about black dogs that his nana used to tell him when he was a kid.
“German Shepherd and Great Pyrenees.” She ruffled the dog’s massive ears. “Saul’s parents had a fling, and it was me or the shelter. We decided we’re suited, and the rest is history.”
He highly doubted that it was as simple as that. Dante didn’t know much about the training that went into a cadaver dog—at least not outside theory—but it was a whole hell of a lot of work. And you’re stalling. He walked back to the rental and grabbed a pair of gloves and a plastic Ziploc bag. “Show me the purse, please.”
“Let’s take the four-wheeler.” She spun and headed for the small lean-to situated near the back of the house. There was a single four-wheeler tucked there, along with a variety of lawn-care stuff, tools, and a gargantuan stack of firewood. She grabbed the keys off the hook on the wall and shrugged when she caught his surprised expression. “We have a whole hell of a lot of security. No one is going to hike up here to begin with, and even if they did, we’d know they were there long before they got this far.” A shadow passed over her face. “At least, that’s what we thought.”
He reached out before he could tell himself it was inappropriate and touched her arm. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Yeah, I know.” She swung a leg over the four-wheeler and started the engine. “Come on.”
Dante didn’t let himself think too hard about it. He just swung up behind her. The move plastered him to her back, sealing them together from shoulders to thighs. He froze for one eternal second. Move, damn you. She felt . . . soft and supple, and he had no business thinking any of that. Dante shifted back to grab the metal rack behind him. He couldn’t keep from touching her completely, but at least he maintained some distance.
Lei gave herself a little shake and twisted to look at Saul. “Saul, home.” The dog whined, obviously not liking the command, but she narrowed dark eyes and pointed at him. “Home.” He whined again, but this time he trotted to the back door, shooting wounded looks at her every few feet as if he expected her to change her mind and call him back. She pulled out her phone, and a few seconds later the back door opened, and Saul slipped into the house with one last mournful look over his shoulder. Lei sighed. “Sometimes when he thinks I’m being stubborn, he tries to disobey like he knows better.” She shook her head. “Damn dog.”
There was such fondness in her tone that Dante found himself leaning forward. “Does he think he knows better . . . a lot?”
“Every damn day.” She threw the four-wheeler into gear and edged them out of the lean-to. From the tension in her narrow shoulders, she would have liked to have torn back to where she’d found the purse, but she took them down the narrow path at a reasonable speed. The trees reaching over the path discouraged any speed close to sprinting, and Dante still had to duck to avoid getting clocked.
“You run out here a lot?”
“It’s our property.” Again, that thread of anger and fear was present in her voice. The unsub hadn’t invaded her home, exactly, but he’d dirtied what was once a safe place for her. Knowing what he did of Lei, Dante suspected she’d be out on that path again within a day, just to prove to herself that she wasn’t terrified out of her mind, but she wouldn’t lose herself in running. She’d be on alert and ready for confrontation.
Instead of grilling her, he satisfied himself with studying the trees as they cruised by. Dense forest. They were right on the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, and since the closest pass was Loup Loup Pass, time had left Stillwater mostly untouched. The town was too far for Seattle residents to live and commute, but just close enough so that people fleeing city life skipped right over it in favor of Wenatchee or Bend or Spokane.
Lei and Emma had chosen well.
He mulled that over as Lei took a turn, tension bleeding back into her body as they traversed the last mile. “Why cadaver dogs?”
“Because no one deserves to stay lost.” She barely spoke loud enough to be heard over the engine. “Most of them didn’t turn up dead of their own volition. Someone killed them and dragged them out into the middle of nowhere in an attempt to keep their deeds hidden.” Lei glanced over her shoulder at him and brought the four-wheeler to a stop. She turned it off. “Those victims deserve to come home. Their families deserve closure. And the monsters who put them in the ground deserve to be brought to justice.”
Just like Travis Berkley was. “You don’t have to feel guilty for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.” Again, against his better judgment, he reached out and touched her arm.
Her dark gaze flicked to where he’d touched her. “Thank you, Agent Young. I’ve spent the last twelve years just waiting for a man to come along and let me know that it wasn’t my fault that my psychotic boyfriend raped and killed twenty-one of my sorority sisters. Now I can move on with my life and take up charity work, get a corporate job, marry some handsome former football star who’s started to let himself go, and have three-point-two kids. How did I ever survive this long without your permission?”
Dante jerked his hand back. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” She climbed off the four-wheeler and started into the trees. “I’ve met men like you before. They see a broken, fragile thing in need of protection. I don’t need your permission to move on. I know it wasn’t my fault. Even if I was suffering from crippling survivor guilt, the work I do helps people. Discounting that with some bullshit pat answer that I’ve heard a thousand times is not helpful. I expected better of someone on Britton’s team.”
Shit. He did know better. Dante sat there for several precious seconds, calling himself seven different kinds of a fool. He was a goddamn professional, and he’d been after Lei like some lovesick puppy. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She stopped and seemed to really look at him. “I mean, I get it. You’re a profiler, and it’s your job to psychoanalyze everyone around you, but do me a favor and shelve that crap while we’re together. I’ve had enough of shrinks crawling around in my head. I don’t need you there, too.”
“I admire you, to be honest.” He joined her on the ground and followed her through the gap between two trees. Their destination was obvious—a bright-pink purse nailed to a tree. “Not many people would have survived what you did. Not only survived but flourished.” He still sounded like he was babbling, but there was no help for it. He wanted to repair the damage he’d done with his careless comment. “My question about the cadaver dogs wasn’t rooted in why you felt the need to help find the lost ones—it was the method. There are a lot of jobs, both in police departments and in the private sector, which would accomplish the same thing. Your friend holds one of them.”
Lei stopped a few feet from the tree and took a deep breath. When she released it, she rolled her neck. “Damn it. Look, I’m freaking out right now. We were safe. We moved on, as much as you can ever move on. I’m used to people looking at me like a circus sideshow freak, so I snap back first and ask questions later.” She gave a half smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Shall we collect the evidence?”
“Yeah.” Dante dug his phone out of his pocket and snapped pictures from every angle. He noted the card with Lei’s name written on it in the same careful block lettering that they’d found on the postcard. There wasn’t a chance in hell of keeping her and Emma out of things, not with the unsub sneaking onto their property and delivering gifts. If they ignored him and the bread crumbs of evidence found in Berkley’s cell, he would just get more aggressive. That might be the right play in some situations, but this wasn’t one of them. The chance they had to save the two missing girls meant the whole situation required careful handling. He didn’t like playing by this unsub’s rules—the good guys weren’t likely to come out ahead as long as they did—but their priority had to be keeping the kidnapping victims from becoming murder victims.
A chance
, no matter how small, was something they had to pursue.
He pulled on a pair of gloves and passed the Ziploc back to Lei. “Hold this, please.” They’d go through the purse once they were safely back at the house. Stillwater’s sheriff should be there at that point, and he could officially process the evidence and see that it got to the Seattle PD. Dante was authorized to do it himself, but he needed this to be as official as possible. He wanted this case wrapped up in a goddamn bow once they caught the unsub.
Dante extracted the purse and the bag with the card in it and put them into the Ziploc Lei held. The purse looked like one that would be owned by a college girl, and he suspected it would lead back to one of their missing victims. Once Lei sealed the bag, she passed it back to Dante.
Neither of them spoke as they climbed back on the ATV and headed for the house. What was there to say? He didn’t have comforting words to cover up the truth—the unsub had made this into a game, and Lei was at the very center of it.
Lei didn’t draw a full breath until the house came into sight. She wished she could blame her nerves on Dante’s comment, but it wasn’t the truth. The safest she’d felt since she found the purse was with him behind her on the four-wheeler, his big thighs bracketing hers even as he tried to be polite and give her space. She knew better than to rely on a man to take care of her—she did—but there was something just soothing about his presence, as if he’d sanded down the jagged edges inside her simply with his proximity.
She’d bet he could walk into the middle of a brawl and have both sides talking about their problems over a beer inside of fifteen minutes.
