"Maine," he insisted. "You haven't left Maine?"
"Why do you ask?"
He shrugged. "I'm just wondering how you're doing. If you're starting to think beyond this place. Going back to your real life."
"What's there to go back to?" she asked. "I have no family. My apartment's gone. I won't get my job back once the bureau finds out I've been hiding all this time."
He stepped in front of her, blocking her access to the steps. "So are you saying you haven't left, and don't intend to?"
Lily didn't want to answer any questions, especially right now. Wyatt was too big, too close, too intent. Too damned curious.
"I can leave anytime," she insisted. "Maybe even later today, after we listen to the recordings. Might just necessitate that trip down to Virginia."
"What would cause you to make that trip, Lily? Not hearing a voice you recognize?" His dark blue eyes glinted in the early-morning sun. "Or hearing one you know all too well?"
She knew what he was really asking. Which did she want more? Justice? Or revenge?
If she heard the voice of the man who'd held her, would it make her long to see him brought to justice so she could begin living her life again? Or merely prompt her to take things into her own hands, pay her own debts, and give the son of a bitch exactly the same tender care he'd given her?
She thought about it. Right at this moment, she honestly didn't know the answer to that question. Vengeance, she had often heard, was a dish best served cold. But the need for it was like an incendiary wire, jolting her with heat and flame. With anger. It sometimes seemed it could drive her to madness.
Drive her to almost anything.
"What does it matter?" she finally replied, going around him onto the bottom step. "I'm not going to do anything until after we listen to the recordings."
He didn't let it go, reaching for her, dropping one strong, solid hand on her shoulder. "And afterward?"
Lily dipped out from under that hand. Seeing his immediate remorse, and knowing he probably assumed he'd frightened her, she felt a moment's regret. She hadn't shrugged off his touch because he had frightened her, but because the idea of Wyatt touching her didn't frighten her one little bit.
It excited her.
Reason enough to get away from the man. But she couldn't see how she could do that, considering he owned the house in which she slept.
There was, however, one place where she knew he wouldn't follow. "I need to cool down after these exercises," she said, completely ignoring his last question. Though she was weary and wanted nothing more than a shower, she added, "I think I'll jog for a while."
Without another word, she spun around and jogged up the beach, heading toward the lighthouse. Wyatt wouldn't follow; he hated the damn place. He'd warned her it was a falling-down ruin and had asked her to never go there. But she knew by the frank disgust in his face whenever he caught sight of it that there was more to it.
Maybe it wasn't nice to go where she knew he wouldn't. But Lily Fletcher was no longer ruled by her need to be nice.
When Brandon Cole had learned that Lily might be able to recognize the voice of her attacker, he'd scrambled to get samples of every voice Wyatt had suggested. Especially the attendees of the medical convention at the hotel from which the car had been stolen.
He hadn't gotten it at first, why they thought it could be a doctor from the hotel, rather than some random thug who'd stolen the first available car.
Then he'd remembered what had been done to Lily. The way her kidnapper had worked on her, stitching her up, however brutally, then shoving narcotics and even antibiotics into her system. All, he believed, to keep her alive for more torture.
He'd had to force that image out of his head by sheer force of will and by throwing himself two hundred percent into the job. Staying home, he'd spent all morning working on the audio clips, sending them to Wyatt around noon. Which was why he didn't hit the office until one p.m.
He'd called early this morning, telling Jackie, who was running the office today while Wyatt was out on leave, that he had forgotten about a dental appointment. She hadn't asked questions. But there had been that heavy, questioning silence she was so good at that made him wonder if she suspected him of something. Jackie sniffed out prevarication the way a dog sniffed out liver treats.
Though only in her forties, Stokes seemed to have adopted the role of mother in the group. Perhaps because she was the only one with kids. Once a forensics expert, she had transferred to the Cyber Division when her son and daughter were babies. She never talked about it, but he'd heard she had come a bit too close to a bullet for comfort, and had decided that a nine-to-five job suited her better while the kids were young. Now that they were a little older, she was back in the field, getting her hands dirty, combining her IT expertise with her field-agent background.
He got in while the others were at lunch, and nodded to the new receptionist. They seemed to get a new one every other month. The members of the team might like the privacy of their ancient suite of offices on the fourth floor, but the support staff was never quite as content.
Reaching the office he had once shared with Lily, he couldn't help thinking about how much he missed her. His new office mate was Anna Delaney. She was good, but so coolly confident he sometimes felt as though she looked at him as an overanxious kid. Lily had been like him. A bit of an outsider. A little untried.
He sat at his desk, flipped on his CPU, then went right back to work on the files. He'd sent them to Wyatt, as well as forwarding copies to himself, but Brandon wanted to keep working on them, cleaning them up as much as possible, to see if he could enhance them in any way. Lily deserved to have every advantage when it came to identifying the man who had kidnapped her.
It wouldn't be easy for her. And would probably be incredibly painful.
I could have been the one to stay with her, help her this weekend.
He should have been the one to stay in Maine with her. He ought to be up there with Lily right now, holding her hand, helping her through this. Taking care of her. After all, they'd been so close once, while she and Wyatt had always had nothing more than an employer-employee relationship.
Brandon had thought it over, wondered, stressed about it, but for the life of him, he just didn't know why Lily didn't want him to come see her anymore. All he had ever wanted to do was protect her, keep her safe. Never again let ugliness or violence intrude on her life if he could possibly help it. And she didn't even want him in the same state.
If she hadn't insisted that Wyatt come only once a month as well, he might have wondered if she had some kind of feelings for the other man. That had sounded crazy when he'd first thought about it-Lily was years younger than their boss and she'd always been nervous and jittery around Wyatt. But he'd noticed a few occasions when she'd looked at Wyatt, or Wyatt had looked at her, that had left him curious.
Still, Brandon knew there was no way Blackstone would take advantage of someone as wounded and fragile as Lily.
"Hey, you made it in, huh?"
He looked up from his computer screen. Seeing Special Agent Jackie Stokes, he offered her a smile, wondering if she could read the tension that had made him sit close to the monitor, his ear almost pressed against the state-of-the-art speaker. "Yeah, sorry about this morning."
"It's okay. We managed one morning without you." Her friendly smile slowly faded and he knew one instant before she opened her mouth again that something had happened. "I want to know what's going on."
He somehow managed to remain completely still. "I don't know what you mean."
Stepping into the office, she pushed the door closed behind her. Her sensible, low-heeled pumps clicked ominously above the whir and hiss of all the computer equipment as she crossed the room. Dropping onto Anna's empty seat, Jackie leaned over, dropping her elbows onto her knees. It was all Brandon could do not to minimize the screen now that she had a direct line of sight. But there was nothing to see-just a paused audio screen. Nothing out of
the ordinary. He was simply being paranoid.
Damn, this was hard. Keeping Lily's secret from the world had been difficult enough, but keeping it from those who had loved her? People like Jackie? He honestly didn't know if she was ever going to forgive any of them.
"I know you, Brand," she said with a frank stare, "I know when you're up to something and you have been up to something for quite a while." She glanced at the closed door. "I also know some things are going on in this office that the rest of us aren't aware of"
Brandon put on his best poker face. "Like?"
"Like, some cop called this morning, got put through to me when he heard Wyatt was out. He was asking about something he called the tiger lily murder?"
Oh, shit.
"I had to tell him I didn't know anything about it. It appears Wyatt went out there to walk a crime scene the other day." Jackie sat up in the chair, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "And something tells me you already knew that. It seems as though every time I turn around, the two of you are having quiet conversations, one-on-one meetings. Care to share what's going on?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't help ya," he said, shrugging. It wasn't a lie-he hadn't said he didn't know anything, just that he couldn't help.
She obviously saw right through the hedge in his words. "You can'/, huh?"
Brandon shook his head once, not relenting.
Jackie waited a long moment, then nodded. "Okay.
Guess I'll just talk to SSA Blackstone when he arrives back in the office Tuesday morning."
"You do that," Brandon said, turning his chair around to face his monitor once more. "I really need to get back to work."
He didn't, of course, get right back to work. Not until he heard the office door close quietly behind her as Jackie left.
Maybe it was just as well that Jackie's suspicions were up, that she'd be confronting Wyatt. Perhaps she wouldn't then be so blindsided by the truth. Because if this lead panned out, and Lily was able to recognize a voice on one of those audio files, they might very well have a viable suspect.
Which meant Lily Fletcher might be returning from the dead in the very near future.
Chapter 6
Brandon was as good as his word. By one, Wyatt had received the audio files. The IT specialist had taken the workshop recordings from the conference, narrowing most of them down to a one-minute clip of the speaker in an effort to save time. The two multispeaker panels were full-length, but hopefully they wouldn't have to listen to the entire things.
He'd also sent the audio interview with the car owner and her sister-in-law, which Lily wanted to hear for herself, just in case.
The two of them sat at the kitchen table, the doors and windows closed to cut down on any audible interference from outside, and listened, starting with the interview. It was cursory, since the doctor had never been a real suspect, but the voices came through clearly. Clearly enough for Lily to proclaim she hadn't heard them before.
Dr. Kean came across as crisp and professional. Competence laced her tone, though she sounded genuinely dismayed by the idea that her vehicle had been used in a crime. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more," said the voice on the digital recording as the interview came to a close. "Will you please let me know as soon as you've finished with the car?"
"We'll do that," a male voice replied. "We so appreciate you, and you, Dr. Underwood, talking to us."
"Anspaugh," Lily muttered. The disdain in that single word told him all he needed to know about Lily's feelings for the other agent. The one who was supposed to protect her.
"I'm sure you're anxious to get your vehicle back. We're terribly sorry to inconvenience you."
"Has he ever not sounded like such a sleazy suck-up?" Lily said. "If I didn't already know from the pictures on their Web site that Dr. Kean is very attractive, and her sister-in-law utterly gorgeous, I'd have been able to figure it out just by the sound of Anspaugh's drool hitting the microphone."
"He shed a tear or two at your funeral, before realizing he was going to catch hell for what happened to you."
"Only because he never succeeded in getting in my pants before he got me killed."
Wyatt couldn't contain a small half smile. The old Lily had never been so blunt. And she'd been a whole lot nicer. Frankly, he liked this one better.
Not that there was anything wrong with nice, but he'd worried about whether she was tough enough to meet the demands of the job. He had also found her hard to read; he'd never quite been able to see what the young agent was thinking.
What she was feeling? Well, that hadn't been difficult.
Lily had always worn her emotions on her sleeve. Which hadn't been the best asset in a field that required dispassion and analytic thinking.
Funny, the woman the world considered dead would probably be better at her job now than she had been before.
"I don't want the car back. Ever. I simply want to get rid of it," said the voice on the recording.
Lily sighed, reached out, and closed the audio file with a click. "Moving on."
Yet, she didn't immediately start the first of the workshop snippets. He suspected he knew why. Part of her was anxious to hear every voice, screen every possibility. Even knowing this whole enterprise was a long shot and she probably wouldn't recognize a single person.
But another part of her had to be very afraid she would. Hearing words spoken by the man who'd held her, hurt her, would be shocking. Possibly even terrifying. His voice rising like a ghost from the computer speakers could push her over the edge into that panicked state she'd been in all those months ago when she'd been rescued.
Wyatt honestly didn't know how she would react. Which was why he slid his chair a little closer, ready to offer a steadying hand on her shoulder.
Positioned so close to her, he suddenly realized he should have thought twice. The soft, delicate fragrance of honeysuckle rose off her skin. Her favorite lotion. He'd seen it in her apartment, which he'd gone to clean out after her "death," and made sure she was stocked in it. So she smelled like the same sweet, soft young woman he'd known.
She's not that woman.
No. She wasn't. Though his immediate sensory reaction to the scent was a familiar jolt of tenderness and protectiveness, it didn't counteract his other senses. The scrape of her bare leg against his jeans ratcheted up the tension, as did the sound of each of her slow in-and-out breaths. Her hand, resting beside his on the table, was so damned slim, fragile, yet the arms revealed by the sleeveless tank top were toned and sculpted with muscle.
She was strong and soft, sweet and tough. The biggest distraction of his entire adult life.
And you think she could be a killer?
No. He didn't. From far away, in the middle of a crime scene, the evidence had seemed damning. But being back here in her company for one single day had reminded him of all the reasons why Lily could not be the vicious, cold-blooded murderer he sought.
Could he see her picking up a gun and shooting the man who'd attacked her if he came at her again, intending to do her harm? Oh, absolutely. As easily as he could see himself doing the same thing in her position.
But murdering random strangers so violently, with all the foresight, planning, and brutality those cases had involved? He just didn't believe it and felt almost foolish for coming up here with the intention of spying on her.
Something else was going on, the ties to Lily either completely coincidental-
Or not.
It was the not that worried him. The not that would keep him up nights until he discovered who the lily killer was, and how he was connected to Lily Fletcher.
There was, of course, one very obvious possibility. Lovesprettyboys, having been thwarted in his efforts to find out what happened to Lily after she'd escaped his clutches, might be trying to get law enforcement to do the job for him. He had to be going out of his mind, believing himself to be one of only two people who knew Lily hadn't been in that van when it crashed off the Route 17 bridge into the York River. Yet
having absolutely no idea what had happened to her, he had to be wondering if she might reemerge and point her accusing finger in his direction.
Setting her up to look like a serial killer was one way to get the authorities interested in making absolutely certain of Lily's fate, since they'd never found a body. If the vicious crimes raised doubt about her "death," the ensuing investigation could lead everyone-the police, and the unsub-to the truth about Lily Fletcher. What had happened to her. And where she was today.
The unsub wouldn't want her to be arrested and tell what she knew. He just needed her to be found, possibly drawn back to Washington for an investigation. So he could get one clear shot at her.
Jesus.
So far it seemed that Wyatt was alone in associating Lily with the murdered men in those hotel rooms. God help them all if someone like Anspaugh, who had such an ax to grind against both Lily and Wyatt, stumbled across it.
Wyatt had to move faster. He needed to find Lovesprettyboys, because doing so might very well solve both cases. And only once the man was caught would Lily Fletcher be both physically safe and out from under the cloud of suspicion.
"Okay, let's proceed. I'm ready to hear the clips from the various workshops," Lily said, as oblivious to their closeness as he was affected by it. "I don't need to listen to the content, obviously, so this should go much more quickly."
The quicker they finished, the better, in Wyatt's opinion. He honestly didn't believe this idea was going to lead to something useful. There were just too many variables. Not only might Lily's memory of her attacker's voice be unclear, but it was a long shot that the unsub had in fact attended the convention at the hotel. The odds were even slimmer that he was a speaker whose session had been recorded.
But Lily wanted to try. So they'd try. The sooner they finished, and the sooner he could back away and reconstruct that professional, polite barrier between them, the better.
Black at Heart Page 8
