Darkness Calls

by Caridad Piñeiro

  How can this be happening? she thought as her entire body flared to life. She had to hold on to his shoulders to keep from puddling at his feet. When he opened his mouth and swiped his tongue across the love bite, she moaned and forced herself away from him. “Ryder, this is insane.”

  He drew in a ragged breath, nodded and in a pained whisper said, “I should go.”

  “You should.” But somehow her hands weren’t listening, nor were his. He pulled her close and they once again swayed to the music. Still, Diana managed to scan the crowd. “Do you see anyone? Anything?”

  Ryder glanced around, his eyes able to explore even the darkest sections of the club. It was crowded, and as always, along the edges, people were satisfying their physical needs. He sniffed and could smell their lust, which only made his own situation worse.

  “There’s nothing,” he said, and moved away from her slightly.

  Diana examined those around them, then swung her gaze back to the bar. Her gaze collided with that of one young man, but no sooner had the connection been made than he turned away to talk to the bartender. She observed him carefully, tracking him even as her dance with Ryder forced her to swivel her head to keep the young man in sight. The bartender knew him, judging from the way the two were speaking. And if he was a regular, maybe Ryder recognized him, as well.

  “Check out the bar. The sandy-haired twentysomething talking to the bartender.” She took the lead, forcing Ryder to turn so that he was facing that section of the club. Unfortunately, by the time they turned the young man was gone.

  “What did you see?” he asked, wondering what had caught her attention.

  Diana shrugged. “Something felt a little off. I don’t know why.”

  Ryder didn’t keep her as she pulled away from him and headed toward the bar.

  The Lair had emptied out. Ryder was up in his office. David and the remainder of the agents and police were finishing their assigned tasks and would shortly be headed to the next part of the investigation: waiting.

  Diana despised the waiting. And she hated having no control over what the killer was doing at that very moment. Even worse, she resented having no control over what she was feeling for the man who waited for her in his office.

  She shut off her earpiece and slipped it into her pocket. Heading down the hall, she paused to check on David as he collected the tapes from the night. “Ready in five?” she asked.

  David looked up from his paperwork and shot her a dubious look. “Sure, but will you be?”

  Diana expelled a harsh breath and dragged a hand through her hair. “If I’m not down in five, come be the cavalry.”

  Her partner nodded. “I’ll give you ten.”

  She walked briskly down the hall and up the stairs to Ryder’s office. The door was open, but the room was dark. She called out his name as she walked in and hit the wall switch. Nothing happened. She stepped farther into the room.

  “Like the dark, do you?” she challenged as she stepped to a nearby table lamp and snapped it on.

  Dim light illuminated the room, barely reaching Ryder behind his desk.

  Ryder picked up the tumbler before him and took a sip. “I live in the dark, Diana, even when it’s light out. You should recognize that. After all—”

  “I’m not like that. Like you,” she defended, both excited and afraid of the energy pouring off him.

  “Aren’t you?” he challenged, and shot up out of the chair. As he approached, she moved away.

  He stopped and raised one dark eyebrow. “Afraid?”

  Damn him, she thought, unable to refuse the inherent dare in his comment. She stepped toward him but stopped well out of his reach. “What do you want from me?”

  He shrugged and relaxed his stance. “Maybe your question should be, ‘What do I want from him?’” He moved a step closer, as if waiting for her to bolt. She held her ground as he said, “Maybe we both want the same thing.”

  “We don’t—”

  “Don’t you?” He closed the distance between them and cradled her cheek.

  “Ryder, don’t—”

  “Don’t touch you? Don’t want you?” he said, his voice low and full of need.

  At this range, with his body inches from hers, she could smell him. He wore a light citrusy scent, and as he exhaled, there was the sharp bite of liquor on his breath. Power hummed around him. The energy she had sensed earlier wrapped around her, sucking her in.

  Diana eased forward until barely an inch separated their bodies. Her nipples tightened, and deep between her legs, something clenched and throbbed. She drew a shaky breath and met his gaze, realizing he was as affected as she was.

  The pupils of his eyes were wide, nearly black. The hand that stroked her cheek trembled, and then he shifted that hand to the back of her neck. He applied gentle pressure to close the slight distance between them.

  “Diana?”

  She jumped away from Ryder, startled, and turned to meet David’s concerned gaze.

  Her partner advanced on them, and she stepped into his path, for she had no doubt about what David intended.

  “Ah, the errant knight come to save the fair damsel,” Ryder taunted.

  Diana turned and shot him a withering glance as David pushed against the hand she had on his chest. She tried to reassure her partner. “Stop, David. I’m okay.” Although she was anything but.

  David moved back a step. “We need to go.” He glared over her shoulder at Ryder.

  Diana nodded, patted David’s chest in a friendly gesture and faced Ryder. “We’ll call if we need you. Can you—”

  “I can make it in the afternoon. I have a meeting—”

  “On a Sunday morning?” David challenged, unwilling to cut the other man any measure of slack.

  “With a young lady I can’t disappoint,” Ryder finished as if David hadn’t interrupted.

  She tried to contain the surge of jealousy that ripped through her. After all, just because the two of them were…What? Involved? she asked herself, and shook her head. Looking up at Ryder, she said, “We’ll let you know.”

  Turning, she glanced at David. He gave her a reluctant nod and followed her out. It wasn’t until they were in their car, away from Ryder and the other agents and police, that he finally spoke. “You need to stop what’s going on with Ryder.”

  He sat with his hands tight around the steering wheel. He was as angry as she had ever seen him, and not just about Ryder. She looked down at her feet and gripped her thighs to still the shakiness of her hands. Her body was still affected by her encounter, as if Ryder were a drug energizing her system. A drug that was slowly ebbing away, leaving her shaking from its withdrawal. Making her want to go back for more to ease her need.

  Expelling a harsh breath, she finally answered him. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “He’s nothing but trouble.” He examined her in the dark, then started the engine and pulled out.

  Diana shrugged and glanced out the window as they moved along the streets of downtown Manhattan. Pedestrians strolled here and there along the main avenues and every now and then a yellow cab blew past. There were only a few other cars and trucks. Maybe even that of the killer, she thought, and recalled their earlier discussion in the diner. “Maybe he did change his pattern. Maybe he hesitated because he knew we were watching.”

  David shook his head and looked at her as they came to a stop at a red light. “Okay, this is the hopeful you talking. The real you—”

  “Thinks he grabbed her already. Right under our noses,” she answered, meeting his gaze.

  “And if he gets away with it again—”

  “He’ll do something bolder.” She tapped one fist against her thigh in frustration. “He’ll grab someone else before the week is up, and right now, another woman is dead because of us.”

  “We’re doing what we can.”

  His words were little consolation. “Maybe we need to do more.”

  He took his eyes off the road for a moment and asked, “Like
what?”

  She shrugged, “Like—”

  Their cell phones went off simultaneously in a noisy blast of sound.

  Diana didn’t need to answer to know the reason why.

  Chapter 14

  Armed with photos of the latest victim courtesy of the medical examiner, Diana, David and various other agents viewed the tapes from the last two nights at the club and began additional investigations based on amendments Diana made to her original profile of the killer.

  The victim this time had been older and had been sexually assaulted. That provided Diana with a different perspective. The age of the woman and the sexual attack might have meant the woman represented an authority figure instead of a lover who had spurned the killer. Maybe an authority figure who had suffered a similar fate? And he’d tried to throw them off by removing the bat stamp from the woman’s hand.

  While other agents conducted investigations into decades-old crimes of passion in the Northeast, Diana and David reviewed the tapes, which yielded shots of the woman leaving the club with a sandy-haired man, obviously the killer. And he had clearly known they were watching. He had kept close to the woman and turned his face away from the camera. Add the fact that it had been dark on the street, and it was nearly impossible to get anything worthwhile from the video. Despite that, the man seemed familiar to Diana, and she suspected he was the man who had drawn her attention at the bar.

  Only, the man had been there alone, which meant he took the woman on Friday as she had indicated in her earlier profile. Then he’d come back to the club last night for what? To gloat that he had pulled one over on them? Or possibly to find another victim already?

  “He’s broken the pattern in a lot of different ways. And I think I saw this man at the club last night. While I was dancing with Ryder.”

  David nodded and glanced at the notes he had taken. “Do you think Ryder saw him?”

  “No, but maybe he’s a regular.”

  Pulling her cell phone off her belt, she called Ryder and asked him to come down and look at the surveillance tapes.

  Then David and she completed their review of the remaining tapes. The first tape had the only clear images, though those were of little help. And the other investigations based on Diana’s new profile had yielded no leads.

  By the time Ryder arrived, Diana was frustrated, on edge and waiting impatiently by the elevator. When he strode out, she tried to quell the sudden pleasure that his presence brought.

  “You’ve been here all night?” Ryder asked. She still wore the leather pants and top from the night before. The only concession to professionalism she had made had been to toss a blazer over the revealing outfit, probably so that she wouldn’t get chilled while in the air-conditioned environs of the office.

  Diana nodded. “Part of the territory, you know.” She didn’t wait for him to answer but took off down the hallway, leaving him to follow. As he did so, he noticed the slight bulge at the small of her back and realized the blazer helped to hide her gun, as well.

  She led him to a room where her partner and Detective Daly, whom Ryder had met during his initial interrogation, already sat before a television monitor. They rose and greeted him as he entered, but there was little warmth or eagerness to give him additional information on the killer. At least not right away.

  He sat at the table and Diana eased into the only available seat, next to him. Her tension was palpable. He tried to ignore it by concentrating on the materials being passed to him—a series of photos of the most recent victim taken at the morgue.

  “Look familiar?” Peter Daly asked, his hands folded and resting on the table.

  Ryder flipped from one photo to another, but there was nothing even remotely familiar about the face of the woman in the shots. “No, sorry.” He passed the pictures back across the table.

  David scooped them up, shoved them into a folder and placed it to the side. “Ready to view the only tape that seems worthwhile?” he asked.

  Ryder nodded and slouched in the chair to get comfortable. Diana shut off the lights in the room, and when she returned to sit beside him, he could smell her, feel the heat of her body. It was torture and distracting as hell. He forced himself to stare at the television monitor and pay attention, but it was a difficult task. The lub-dub of her heart called to him. She finally shifted away from him and he smiled in the dark, pleased that she wasn’t unaffected by his presence. With that tiny tidbit of hope, he leaned forward and watched.

  They were nearly at the end of the tape when he noticed the couple exiting the bar. The man with the victim was hidden behind her body and by the shadows she cast as she walked, but there was something familiar about him. “Rewind this part and slow it down,” he instructed and shifted his chair closer to the monitor.

  The couple walked out and came down the steps of The Lair. The man’s arm rose, and from the edge of the shot, the fingertips of another hand were visible as they came up to acknowledge the greeting. “Pause it.” Ryder pointed to the screen. “It’s probably one of the bouncers sitting by the door. He knows the man.”

  “Can you get us the names and addresses of whoever was working the door that night?” Diana asked.

  “Sure. Start it again.” He watched purposefully, hoping for a glimpse of the face belonging to the killer, and for one millisecond he thought he saw something. He called for them to stop and ease back a frame or two and sure enough, there was one small section where there was a view of the man’s profile, although still in shadow.

  They all leaned forward at that point and examined the screen. “Do you think you know him?” Daly asked.

  Ryder took a deep breath and shrugged. “There’s something about him. Is there any way to get this lightened or clarified?” He turned as he asked Diana, not realizing as he did so that she was close. Very close. Their bodies nearly brushed against each other’s and they were now face-to-face. With his night sight, her face was clear and engaging.

  She didn’t shift away. She just took a shaky breath and said, “We can get it enhanced, but it will take some time.”

  “How long do you think we have until he strikes again?”

  Her gaze never leaving his, Diana swallowed hard and replied, “This isn’t a ‘we,’ Ryder.”

  He let out a harsh laugh and eased back, stung by her comment. “The message is loud and clear.”

  “Glad you finally got it,” David said.

  Ryder shot him a hard look and rose. “I guess I’m done here, then.”

  He left and no one made a move to stop him.

  “Congrats on royally pissing him off,” Peter Daly said as he flipped on the lights.

  “Ryder is a complication we don’t need,” Diana explained. She walked over to the television monitor. “This,” she said, pointing to the frame where part of the killer’s face was still visible, “is all we need to worry about.”

  “Trying to convince me or yourself? And how come we didn’t see this or the action of the bodyguard? We looked at this over and over and didn’t catch either thing.”

  Diana stared hard at the frozen video shot. She hadn’t seen it, just as days earlier she hadn’t been able to make her way in the dark of the club while Ryder walked around as if every light was on. She had ascribed it to habit and knowledge of his environment, but maybe Ryder just had excellent eyesight. Shrugging, she looked at David. “We need to get this enhanced. Can you see how long it will take? We should get photos of the victim and suspect together to show around.”

  David stopped the VCR, hit the eject button and grabbed the tape. “I’m on my way. I’ll call you as soon as I have an ETA.”

  With that, he left Peter and Diana to stare at each other uneasily. “It may take some time,” Diana said.

  Peter jangled the change in his pockets. “Time is something we don’t have a lot of.” Diana’s new profile pointed to the killer moving his timetable and taking another victim within a few days.

  “We’ll need to make the killer think that his ruse
worked and we’re checking out other clubs.” Diana placed her arms across her chest and paced a little. “We’ll get to the bouncers at The Lair as soon as we get the photos. The Lair’s closed on Monday so we have a little time. But on Tuesday, we’ll have to make people think the investigation has moved to another club while I hit the dance floor again.”

  “What about Latimer?” Peter asked, blocking her way as she went to walk past him.

  Diana looked up and met his gaze. “I can deal with Ryder.”

  “Can you?”

  “If we’re lucky, we’ll have the photos later tonight. I’ll call and get him to take a look. Maybe he can give us a name.”

  Daly gave her a dubious glance, and Diana knew it was because she was avoiding the real issue.

  “What do you plan on doing now?”

  Peter glanced at his watch, then faced her again. “Hitting the bricks to check with the uniforms. I’ll give you an update in an hour?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Diana watched Peter’s departure, then plopped into the chair Ryder had occupied. It had to be her imagination that she could feel the warmth of his body on the hard plastic of the seat. And smell him—a light and clean scent. Totally at odds with his dark persona.

  She sighed and the aroma teased her nostrils again. It drove her to leave the room and get to the assorted tasks she had to complete before the enhancements of the photos were ready.

  Ryder was pounding away at the punching bag again, trying to work out the anger from his earlier run-in with Diana. He might have to see her later and he wanted it to go peacefully between them. Somehow he had to contain the emotions raging through him. He was, after all, an animal adopting the veneer of human civility. An animal all too eager to take her on, and in more ways than she could possibly imagine.

  He drove away those thoughts and was just finishing up his workout when Danvers came into the room. She stopped in surprise. “I thought you would be long gone. I’m headed to a lecture over at Hunter tonight and then to the hospital.”