Variable Onset

by Layla Reyne

  To catch a killer, a special agent and his former student will need to get close—to their target, and each other. Layla Reyne returns with a stand-alone romantic mystery.

  When the serial killer known as Dr. Fear seemingly reemerges after a cooling-off period, Special Agent Lincoln Monroe wants on the case. He knows his research on the calculating criminal, who targets couples and uses their worst fears to kill them, could prove invaluable. But nothing can prepare Lincoln for the agent waiting for him in Apex, Virginia: a brash and cocky former student. Carter Warren is everything Lincoln is not, and somehow everything he wants. And they’ll be going undercover. As newlyweds.

  For Carter, seeing Lincoln again—and flustered to boot—pokes his raging bear of a crush something fierce. He thinks posing as lovers will provide the perfect bait for Dr. Fear. But pretending to be married forces them to confront fears of their own…like giving in to the very real chemistry between them.

  With evidence pointing to the possibility of a copycat killer, Lincoln and Carter will have to race to separate truth from fiction. But when another couple goes missing, finding the killer will test every ounce of their training, skills and the strength of their bond like never before.

  This book is approximately 72,000 words

  One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

  And don’t miss any of these books from Layla Reyne and Carina Press:

  Dine with Me

  Single Malt (Agents Irish & Whiskey #1)

  Cask Strength (Agents Irish & Whiskey #2)

  Barrel Proof (Agents Irish & Whiskey #3)

  Tequila Sunrise (An Agents Irish & Whiskey novella)

  Imperial Stout (Trouble Brewing #1)

  Craft Brew (Trouble Brewing #2)

  Noble Hops (Trouble Brewing #3)

  Also available from Layla Reyne

  and Carina Press

  Dine With Me

  Single Malt

  Cask Strength

  Barrel Proof

  Tequila Sunrise

  Imperial Stout

  Craft Brew

  Noble Hops

  Also available from Layla Reyne

  Blended Whiskey

  Prince of Killers

  King Slayer

  A New Empire

  Relay

  Medley

  Variable Onset

  Layla Reyne

  To Annabeth, without whom I never would have crossed the finish line on this one.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Single Malt by Layla Reyne

  Chapter One

  Getting called to the principal’s office sucked at forty-two same as it did at fourteen. Sucked even worse when you were the teacher. Standing in front of a room full of agent trainees, Lincoln suppressed his physical reaction to the gray-haired man who’d snuck into the back of his lecture hall. His mind, though, wasn’t so easily wrangled. What had he done now to get on Director Beverley’s shitlist? Missed another useless meeting? Marched in that protest last weekend? Brought his daughter to the crime lab for take-your-kid-to-work day?

  Whatever the explanation, it would have to wait. There were ten minutes left of class, the last one of the first week of Academy. He had led the trainees through a different simulation each day: a preview of the class curriculum and the many facets of forensics. It wasn’t just hair samples and DNA. While the basics of evidentiary forensics—collection, handling, analysis, and presentation—would eat up most of the class lessons, Lincoln also included specialty units. Today’s topic, forensic genealogy, was where Lincoln excelled, where he focused his own work outside of routine case support. He could teach a whole class on the subject, could go on and on with his overview today, but with Director Beverley waiting, he’d have to cut this intro short.

  He returned to the whiteboard and the series of boxes he’d drawn on a chronological line graph. Time windows that had gotten progressively smaller. “All right, we’ve narrowed down the date of this picture—” he aimed his laser pointer at the presentation displayed on the wall monitor, the current slide a group photo from his sister’s law school study abroad class “—to a three-year time window.” He tapped the smallest box on the whiteboard with his knuckle. “Now, can we get this window even smaller? Because if we can—” he changed the slide “—then we can figure out which of these Duke Law class rosters to use to identify the student in red.” His sister because loud was Trina’s middle name.

  “Is this like a positraction thing?” asked a trainee seated halfway up the tiered rows of desks.

  Lincoln laughed out loud. He wasn’t usually a fan of surprises, but an out-of-the-blue reference to one of his favorite movies was a welcome shock. “Are you even old enough to remember that movie?”

  The kid grinned. “Marisa Tomei was hot as fuck.”

  “Still is,” Lincoln concurred. “So was Ralph Macchio, but he didn’t age nearly as well.”

  That garnered a few wide-eyed looks and two unamused scowls, but most of the trainees laughed along with him. He was glad for that, for the evolution of understanding and acceptance that he’d witnessed with each incoming class of FBI agents. He’d been teaching at Quantico for ten years, been an agent for more than fifteen, and during all that time he’d never hidden his bisexuality. His rainbow Chucks hadn’t always been so welcome, but nowadays he attributed any askance looks to his argyle sweaters more than his shoes.

  “Now, come on,” he said, calling the class back to order. “You’re missing a critical detail.”

  “Give us a hint,” said another trainee.

  “Nope, no hints.” The only hints they’d get in the field were from the evidence itself. “Let’s go back through it. What have we assessed already?”

  “The photo paper watermark,” a trainee called out.

  “Always a good place to start.” He clicked through the slides to the one that showed the paper manufacturer’s logo. “It gave us this block.” He hovered the red laser dot over the biggest box on the graph, then shifted up to the smaller one. “How’d we get here?”

  “The Rome Statute,” another trainee answered. “On the papers the lady in red is holding.”

  “Good. So we know this picture is from a date after the Rome Statute was adopted. That puts us at 1998 or later. Help me narrow that down some more.”

  “The hat,” said the Marisa Tomei fan.

  “Maybe,” Lincoln hedged. “Duke is a popular sports team, and we already know this is a Duke Law class. Does the hat actually help us narrow the time window?”

  The trainee was closer than he knew, but clothing had led more than one investigator astray. Too many forgot to account for hand-me-downs, vintage stores, and other ways in which threads found their way out of time.

&
nbsp; “But this hat does go to time,” the same trainee said. “That Duke logo was introduced in 2000.”

  Lincoln covered his face with his hands and groaned. “Are you a Duke fan?” He elongated the name of his alma mater’s rival, making it sound like D-O-O-K. He couldn’t help it; he was a Tar Heel, it was instinct. The class erupted with laughter again.

  The recruit smiled wider. “Blue Devil for life.”

  Ow, his aching Carolina-blue heart. Then again, his sister, a Double-Duke alum, had been pummeling it for years. He raised his hands, palms out. “Let’s never speak of this again.”

  “But I’m right,” the trainee said.

  Lincoln covered his shiver with a laugh, the I’m right too reminiscent of a certain other trainee from years back. The one who’d been too smart, too cocky, too flirtatious, and too damn attractive for his own good, a menace to Lincoln in his early teaching years, one that still haunted his nightmares—and occasional fantasy. Lincoln hoped Agent Blue Devil wasn’t going to be a repeat. He wasn’t as handsome by half, but he had that same cocksure attitude about him. That said, Lincoln was a lot more confident now in his place at the front of the classroom. He could handle this trainee.

  “Indeed you are.” He drew a new, smaller box on the whiteboard, advancing the backstop to 2000. That was how to use clothing correctly—as a backstop on creation versus the more fallible sunset on wear. He clicked to the class picture again. “There’s another detail you’re missing. Can you spot it?”

  A trainee in the last row slowly raised her hand.

  “Your name, Agent?”

  “Barrois.” Her voice shook, like she wasn’t quite sure about being here, much less speaking up in class.

  Lincoln shot her an encouraging smile. The soft-spoken ones were often the most observant. Like him, they didn’t want to bring attention to themselves; just the opposite usually, observing those around them to minimize their impact. “All right, Agent Barrois, give us the missing piece.”

  “Front row, two over from the end, there’s a girl holding a stack of books. Under them, she’s got a concert flyer.”

  “Good eye, Agent Barrois.” He stepped behind the lectern and spread two fingers on his laptop screen to enlarge and re-center the flyer. “Pearl Jam. Salzburg. June 18, 2000.” Rotating back to the whiteboard, he sketched another smaller box. “So, we’re talking Duke Law, Summer 2000, in Europe.” He shuffled the slides back to the class rosters, to the one in question...and powered off the screen. “And we’ll find out who the lady in red is when we return to this lesson next month.”

  Laughs, groans, and more than a few no fair protests came at him. As did a line of trainees afterward, each of them trying to extract more clues from him. It bode well for an interactive class. Caught up in their enthusiasm, Lincoln forgot about his other audience until Beverley appeared at the bottom of the raised classroom’s steps. Lincoln finished giving Barrois the list of additional resources she requested, then once she’d exited, removed his glasses and turned to Beverley. “Sorry about that, sir.”

  “Was worth it for the My Cousin Vinny reference.” Beverley smiled, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening. But the amused expression faded as quickly as it had come, the director stoic again in a blink.

  “Guessin’ you’re not here for nineties nostalgia,” Lincoln said.

  “‘Fraid not. And I’m afraid your class isn’t going to learn the identity of the lady in red.”

  Fuck. Lincoln mentally rewound the events of the past few months again. No major infractions he could recall. Whatever he’d done, it had to have been relatively minor. Surely not severe enough to cost him his job. “Look, whatever I did—”

  “We need your help on a case, Agent Monroe.”

  Lincoln snapped his mouth shut. Not the direction he’d anticipated—his mind tended to jump to worst-case scenarios—but this wasn’t an unfamiliar swerve. He’d been pulled onto cases more often lately, especially those involving forensic genealogy. A colleague’s instrumental role in catching the Golden State Killer had brought increased attention to their specialty. Judging by the grim countenance on Beverley’s face, the case he was here about today was on that same level.

  Lincoln suspected he knew which one. It had been all over the news this week, and he had a file cabinet full of research about this particular killer. He had wanted to offer his assistance earlier, especially given his personal connection to the latest pair of victims, but he’d been with the Bureau long enough to know the protocol. And to know his personal connection could work against him. The higher-ups would rope him in if and when he was needed. And now here stood Beverley.

  “Which case?” he asked.

  “Dr. Fear,” the director confirmed.

  Lincoln’s old friend stage fright nipped at his heels, but along with it was excitement, bubbling out to his fingers and toes. The same excitement that carried him into this lecture hall every day, that made him eager instead of terrified to stand in front of each new class of future agents and share what he had learned and the methods he had perfected. But he wasn’t only here for the Bureau’s trainees. There were field agents to support, his own curiosity to assuage, and mentors he owed his badge to. Beverley was offering him the chance to put all of his knowledge to work on a career-making case.

  Stage fright could fuck right off. “How can I help?”

  * * *

  Lincoln would be lying if he said he hadn’t walked past the Dr. Fear situation room a time or twenty since news broke of the serial killer’s reemergence. Yes, he understood how protocol worked, but he was a trained investigator, same as every agent at Quantico, and according to his daughter, he had the disposition of a lovable-yet-pissy house cat. Curiosity went hand in hand with his kind. Maybe, he’d thought, someone would notice him pacing outside the situation room. Would ask him in and request his input on the subject of his thesis, who had struck again after a dozen years of dormancy.

  But no one had ever asked him inside, and today no one asked his opinion as Beverley ushered him into the room. The case agents, several from Violent Crimes, acknowledged them with cursory nods, then those around the table returned to their laptops and those in front of the television flipped the channel to another news program. Five sets of photos flashed on-screen, all of them couples. Three of the pairs were the last set of Dr. Fear’s victims from twelve years ago, a different pair were the victims found earlier this week, and the last pair were the couple who’d disappeared yesterday: Chase Wyatt and his fiancée, Ruby Kirk, the latter the daughter of Senator Oliver Kirk, the former federal agent who’d last tracked Dr. Fear.

  And Lincoln’s mentor.

  “Is there a new development?” Lincoln asked, as Beverley led him toward a door at the far end of the situation room. Something had to have prompted the director to finally bring him in.

  “We’re not sure yet.”

  Was that the first time he’d ever heard Beverley utter an equivocation? Confused the shit out of Lincoln. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  Beverley opened the door, and Lincoln promptly shut the fuck up. Standing around the table in the smaller conference room was a who’s who of DC Metro law enforcement—FBI DC’s Special Agent in Charge, MPD’s chief of police, the top US marshal for DC—and a haggard-looking Senator Oliver Kirk. Beverley closed the door behind them, and despite six men shoved into a room suited for four, it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. “What’s going on?” Lincoln asked, his voice megaphone-loud in the eerie silence.

  Oliver lifted his gaze, meeting Lincoln’s from across the room. “I need your help, L.”

  Lincoln didn’t hesitate. Shoving aside anyone in his way, he rounded the table and dragged the senator into a crushing hug. Probably not Lincoln’s most professional moment, but this was the one person who, in a time when Lincoln hadn’t been sure of anything, had been sure of him. By the force of the embrace re
turned, Oliver needed the comfort too. “Anything, Ollie, you know that.” Lincoln drew back and patted his mentor’s scruffy cheek. “I’m honestly a little ticked it took you this long to bring me in.”

  “Not my call.” Oliver sank into his chair and pushed out the adjacent empty one for Lincoln. “I would have assigned you as soon as the first bodies dropped.”

  “That was my call,” the DC SAC said, as the rest of the men took their seats. “Those bodies were in our jurisdiction.”

  “Technically, ours,” the chief of police countered.

  Lincoln side-eyed the marshal, awaiting his useless contribution to the pissing match.

  The marshal shrugged. “I’m just the referee.” Maybe not so useless.

  “Violent Crimes has been coordinating here,” Beverley added.

  Lovely, an interagency pissing match too.

  Oliver’s hand on his arm forestalled Lincoln’s eye roll. “When Ruby was taken,” he said, “I told them I wanted you on the case. Something feels...off. Dr. Fear’s victims were never personal, as far as we could tell, and they were never directed at anyone tied to the investigation.”

  “The victims were strangers to them,” Lincoln concurred.

  There wasn’t a shred of evidence in the three sets of victims prior to this cycle that indicated Dr. Fear had a previous connection to their victims, either directly or through acquaintances. Victimology was one of the giant blinking question marks surrounding Dr. Fear. How had they identified their victims? Why had they chosen them? How had they learned what the victims feared the most? Dr. Fear had used that to subject each victim to the very thing the victim feared until they either succumbed to it, or succumbed to Dr. Fear, begging for their death. A claustrophobic suffocated, a musophobic set upon by rats, a nyctophobic trapped in a dark basement, the list went on, and always couples, one forced to watch the other succumb to their fears, before succumbing to their own.

  “And then this—” Beverley produced two evidence bags, one with a slip of paper, the other an overnight courier envelope “—arrived here this morning, addressed to Senator Kirk.”