Mason and Jill had their heads close together with a new intimacy, gained from their lip-lock, no doubt. Would Jill go home with him?
Lee made a mental calculation of the odds and decided not. If nothing else, Mason wouldn’t want her left alone tomorrow, and he had a flight. Most likely Jill would go hang out with that weird cop stepfather of hers. A logical assumption.
Lee took comfort in her ability to reason under stress. She was in control, damn it. She wasn’t some stalker, camping out by her prey for hours while wearing adult diapers to keep watch. She reached for the ignition, confident events would continue to roll out as planned even after she left.
Jill and Mason were snagged in the web of attraction, and fighting it would only make things sweeter when Lee made her move. For now, they were putting together the clues she’d left for them. The game was more fun that way. Life was definitely getting more interesting tonight.
Lee put the car in drive, her hands trembling ever so slightly with excitement. If Mason was half as smart as he thought—and he must be to work the types of jobs he did—then he would figure out his connection to all the dead people. If only there was some way to watch the reaction to that revelation. But the signs would come soon enough. He would be in and out of briefings with local cops and security police on base. The people he cared about would have protection.
But “protection” only offered her more options. She could already see the way this would play out, given the research she’d done on Phillip Yost. She’d been denied the satisfaction of a blaze, but there were other ways to toy with people until the time was right to end the game. If her calculations were correct—and they always were—Jill would have a specially trained dog very soon.
And pets only provided Lee with another tool to punish the deserving.
ELEVEN
Rex Scanlon had a really bad feeling about this flight.
He set the hypersonic cargo jet on the release heading. The last time this had been attempted, things had gone way wrong, and Mason Randolph had almost died. Rex was going up with the crew this time in the pilot’s seat, overseeing, hoping like hell he could prevent a repeat of the accident.
Vince “Vapor” Deluca was flying copilot beside him, while Smooth oversaw the back with Jimmy “Hotwire” Gage offering an extra set of hands and eyes in case things went to shit again.
Peering out of the windscreen, Rex marveled at how normal it looked from up high. You’d think going this fast would look different, but unless the plane was close to the ground for something to gauge off of visually, this was just like flying in an airliner. Too bad this wasn’t a craft that needed a lot of stick and rudder from the pilots when it operated at hypervelocity. Computers and autopilots were required to keep such a fast-moving aircraft on the straight and level.
They were only a few days from unveiling this hypersonic jet to a select few in the international community. And one of those generals would have a particular Italian pop star on his arm during social hour.
He forced his hands to relax inside his gloves and glanced down at the time remaining on his center screen just as Smooth keyed the radio. “Sixty seconds to release.”
Rex thumbed his own microphone to speak to the cargo deck. “Everything good in the back, Smooth?”
“Cargo in the green and ready to go. Of course, I thought that before.”
“We’re gonna stick to the script,” Rex shot back. He knew this was a time for business, and they needed to stay focused. Especially for Smooth. His accident on the last flight could very well lead to mistakes on this one, unless he did this exactly as they planned and trained. “Ready for the doors?”
Smooth’s voice came back all business this time, “Roger pilot, back end is up on one hundred percent oxygen, and you are cleared to open the doors.”
Vapor punched a button on the screen, and the back hatch rumbled. He gave a thumbs-up and reported, “Doors show open, thirty seconds to release.”
Rex acknowledged with two clicks of his mic and scanned to make sure they were on heading and on airspeed. He activated the radio. “Control, we are in the green and ready to release. Do we have a green range?”
The range controller answered, “Roger, green range, cleared to release.”
Vapor began a countdown from ten seconds, toward release. “. . . three, two, one.”
Rex had to force himself to breathe. No matter how many flights he logged in, he never lost sight of the fact that this could be his final one. How different this aircraft was from the ones he’d started flying twenty years prior. In the old days, they were all full of gauges, switches, blinking lights, and crappy seats that left you aching for days. This beast had only five computer screens and very few other instruments, although the seats didn’t seem to have made it into twenty-first-century technology.
The radio clicked. His muscles tensed.
Smooth’s voice came over calmly. “All pallets are gone. Release appeared normal. Cleared to close the doors.”
Relief burned along his scalp inside his helmet. He would worry later about the fact that they still hadn’t uncovered the near-fatal glitch from last time. Right now was about celebrating victory. Vapor punched a button, and the doors closed, leaving the aircraft silent.
Rex said, “All releases nominal. No problems.”
Years had gone into working toward this moment. And he would have no choice but to rethink the final unveiling of the plan. Now he had to worry about people in his squadron who may or may not have been tied up in the current murder spree, since apparently the alibis some of his people had provided wouldn’t hold up in reality because of the secrets inherent in their missions.
It appeared some of the alibis used could be false if the individuals had been deployed working on this aircraft. Their schedules had been kept hush-hush, even from family, so no one would know how quickly they’d traveled across oceans.
Thank God he’d tapped Mason to spend time with the camo cop. She seemed to have an inside track in this investigation. Lives depended on the secrecy of his job—but with a serial killer on the loose, lives were at stake in another arena as well. Choices were rarely clear-cut for him, but what a damn mess.
He couldn’t imagine that any one of the men or women in uniform who worked for him could be responsible for those brutal killings, but bottom line, he couldn’t risk it. He’d started clearing security channels just before takeoff. With luck, once he landed, he would have the okay to talk to authorities.
He couldn’t reveal details of specific dates of test flights or travel schedules, but he could work with investigators to ensure everyone they’d cleared was in fact unavailable. Tricky, but doable.
One task at a time. For now, he had a flight to complete. He couldn’t assume everything was flowers and rainbows just because the cargo drop had gone well. “All right, intrepid airmen, time to get this puppy on the ground. Smooth, is everything still good with you in the back?”
“Roger that, sir. Everything’s tied down and ready to end this flight.”
“Roger that. Vapor, get us clearance back to the field, and I will slow us down.” Not an easy task in a plane that could go this fast. He pulled back the throttles while Vapor called for clearance.
“Control, we are slowing and requesting clearance direct to base.”
“Roger, you are cleared to descend to flight level two-five-zero and turn right to zero-three-zero. We have some civilian traffic just north of the range that we need to let pass before you swing around. Why don’t you strangle your lights for a couple of minutes?”
Vapor turned off their exterior lights. No need to have an airliner full of people see something whiz past their windows at Mach snot. Rex kept pulling back the throttles until they settled in at a very normal-looking 400 knots. He tapped Vapor and pointed at the airspeed on the screen.
Vapor nodded, his helmet freaking huge on the guy’s big bald noggin, and keyed the microphone. “Control, we are at 400 knots and flight level two-five-z
ero.”
“Roger that. Lights back on, and please squawk three-two-two-one.”
Vapor’s hands flew over the screen. “Lights configured and squawking three-two-two-one.”
“Radar contact twenty miles north of the field, cleared straight in.”
“Roger, that,” Vapor answered. “Hey, Smooth, you certainly are doing a bang-up job at keeping a close-up eye on that camo cop. Anything we should know about, Romeo?”
Smooth keyed up. “And why should you know about it?”
Jimmy Gage chuckled over the airwaves. “Actually, our Smooth here has been going through a dry patch in the dating world. I just thought it was because of all the TDYs, but now that I think about it, he mentioned crossing paths with her in the mess hall. Maybe he’s been waiting to make his move.”
He dimly registered his crew bantering back and forth. It had been—what?—over a year since Heather died, since he was able to be a part of that easy conversation among a crew. The death of his wife hadn’t just ripped his heart out, it had alienated him from these guys far more than the differences in rank ever could.
Rex lined up on the field and began to slow further. At 200 knots he called, “Flaps.”
Vince moved a handle on the control panel and reported, “Flaps in transit.”
Rex continued to slow, setting up for landing. At 180 knots he called, “Gear.”
Vince moved another handle, and the gear settled down below the aircraft. “Down and locked, three green. So what was that about Smooth’s declining love life?”
“Since you asked,” Jimmy answered, “I can’t recall him dating anyone since Erin Murphy.”
Vince shook his head and whistled low. “God, that poor woman.”
Smooth snorted. “Gee, thanks for the compliment, brother.”
The airwaves went silent for a stretch of static before Rex asked, “You haven’t heard about Ms. Murphy, have you? I can’t believe the cops haven’t questioned you, since you’re in her recent past.”
Smooth clicked his mic. “Sir, I’m getting a bad feeling here.”
Vince shot a quick look at Rex before saying, “Smooth, prepare yourself. Erin Murphy is dead. She was killed outside her apartment.”
Rex wished he wasn’t stuck strapped in this seat unable to do a damn thing for Smooth. He understood full well that moment of crushing loss, the weight of knowing someone you’d cared about was gone forever. It had taken him a whole year for thoughts of his wife to recede enough where his knees didn’t buckle out from under him every time he thought of her.
Silence popped and snapped over the airwaves again before Smooth answered. “Colonel,” his voice thudded through, heavy and dark, “we need to talk.”
Jill needed some answers.
Sitting at a stark table with six chairs, she looked around the vault room, underground at Nellis Air Force Base, and figured she wasn’t going to find any clues on the bare walls. She didn’t know what to think of the turn of events.
Two hours ago, an official car from Nellis had pulled up at Uncle Phil’s. A nondescript guy in a dark suit had flashed ID from the air force’s Office of Special Investigations and informed her she needed to come with him. The brusque agent only said it had to do with the Killer Alien and that at this time, it was best not to speak with anyone else. Beyond that, he wouldn’t answer anything, not even about the guy who’d broken into her place.
She’d freaked for a second, wondering if “suit guy” was the serial killer with forged credentials. But his partner driving the car had equally good credentials, and the vehicle bore an authentic government license plate. Just to test things, she’d insisted on bringing her work gun, and they hadn’t argued. The whole encounter had been so surreal she could have half sworn she’d really been swept up into a sequel to Men in Black with two men in suits, one of whom could have been Will Smith’s even hotter cousin.
Now, instead of researching crime data on the Internet over a bagel, she waited in the vault room with the OSI guy and his partner. At least he’d owned up to a name, Special Agent Barrera. But everything else apparently had to wait for the rest of his guests—
The vault door clicked, then hissed louder than the vent recycling air. Her stomach rumbled for food, the bagel long gone, and she hadn’t eaten anything else in hours. Not to mention, it really sucked being dragged out in ripped jeans and a Hello Kitty T-shirt that was a hundred years old. God forbid she keep anything in her life that wasn’t kick ass, or her rep as a tough girl would be shot for good. She would just have to brazen it out while displaying a bow-wearing cat on her chest.
The vault hinges gave an exaggerated groan that set her teeth on edge. If tentacles wrapped around that iron portal, she was feeding the darn thing Agent Barrera.
Mason walked in wearing his flight suit, followed by his squadron commander and her boss, Gallardo. Her eyes zipped back to Mason. He didn’t have the same ready grin as the man she’d met back in sector two-five-zero that night he’d fallen out of the sky. His brows were drawn back in a grim, determined line. Still, she relaxed for the first time in two hours, seeing him.
Oh, right, and seeing her boss, too.
Agent Barrera slid slickly to his feet and gestured to the empty seats. “Thank you for joining us on such short notice, Miss Walczak. I believe you’re already acquainted with Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon and Sergeant Randolph.”
“Yes, sir. Has there been any word about the intruder you arrested in my home?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Barrera’s deep brown eyes slid over her with a brief flash of compassion. The weary circles under his eyes were darker than his chocolate-brown skin and attested to how much overtime he’d put into this investigation. “We realize you’ve already had an upsetting couple of days. So far, it appears he’s telling the truth. There’s even footage from a security camera of him entering your place, and he didn’t spend any time in your garden. Although oddly enough there is a patch of missing footage from before he arrived, like somebody messed with the tape. Looks like we have a techno-savvy villain on our hands.”
Her garden, where she’d found the killer’s alien-like signature she wasn’t supposed to have told Mason about. She glanced at Gallardo for direction on what to say.
“They already knew about the dirt swirls. Their intelligence is in contact with local authorities. You were lucky this time, Walczak.”
She relaxed a little, but not for long. Mason’s tense shoulders broadcast that something bad was coming. When had she grown so attuned to nuances in his body language? Jeez, spend one night with a man wearing a hospital gown, and apparently she became an expert on him. And there had been that toe-curling lip-lock . . .
Agent Barrera leaned closer as if suddenly trying to make friends with her. “We believe we have uncovered the reason you were targeted.”
She sat up straighter.
“Our link is thin”—Barrera paused, glancing at Mason then back—“but it appears all the victims had a connection to Sergeant Randolph.”
A chill settled in her chest. “What’s the connection?” she asked, looking at Mason.
“Connections, plural,” Mason answered. “I didn’t put everything together until this morning when I heard another victim’s name and realized I knew both people. In checking with Agent Barrera to confirm all the names, well, I knew all of them.”
What a hellish realization that must have been for him. She was tortured over knowing Lara, only one of the murder victims. She couldn’t imagine if five of her friends had been attacked so viciously. “How? When?”
“The woman who survived the attack, Annette Santos, worked in the same office with me two years ago. I heard that Annette was attacked a while back, but I didn’t make the connection to the serial killer.” His fists went white-knuckled. “The second victim, the first known to die, was Lara Restin, a nurse from the base hospital.” He looked at Jill. “As you know, I dated her a couple of times.”
Agent Barrera pulled a pencil and pad fro
m inside his jacket, all PDAs and cell phones having been checked in before they entered the vault. “Why did the two of you break up?”
“Nothing traumatic. She decided after a couple of dates that it wasn’t going anywhere for her, so she broke it off. I still can’t believe—” He looked away, clearing his throat. “The third victim, Craig Walker, played intramurals with me, baseball, but not on the same team. Definitely a thin connection at best, since at some point I’ve played intramurals with nearly everyone on this base.”
Scanlon nodded for the first time, his easy support of his men obvious to her, even if she hadn’t been privy to all of the guy’s words to Mason back in the medical facility. “True enough. The same can be said for the fourth person, Heidi Green, who worked at the base barbershop. We all went there at some point.”
Mason scrubbed a hand over his head, his hair askew from what appeared to be helmet head. “Heidi gave a great cut but never talked much. She wasn’t there when I went in last week, the day after I got back from a TDY. I didn’t ask.”
Scanlon tapped beside Barrera’s pad. “There was no reason to assume anything other than it was her day off. But now suddenly Jill Walczak has a suspicious break-in with somebody leaving this signature mark like the serial killer did. When Sergeant Randolph pointed out the connection, we decided it was time to inform the OSI.”
Jill’s mind raced with possibilities. She considered the notion that they could be looking for a whacked-out, jealous woman—a strong possibility, without question. Still, serial killers were almost always men, so they needed to explore both sides of the gender issue. “Could it be a boyfriend who got pissed off or a husband? Wasn’t the fifth victim married?”
Mason’s eyes were cool. “I don’t date married women. She and I saw each other before she hooked up with him. We met when she worked in the commissary.”
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