She put her hand up, touching the tips of her fingers to his warm mouth. "I don't want to hear it."
He stepped away. "You're going to have to. Because we're not going to do anything about"-he waved a hand between them-"this until I tell you the truth."
"Your past is yours to keep, Wyatt. I didn't go snooping after that awful drunk shot off his mouth at the restaurant and I am not waiting for you to tell me all your secrets before we go to bed together."
Wyatt couldn't quite believe Lily had put that bald comment out there so readily. And while part of him was incredibly turned on by her certainty about where they were going, another part reacted with utter guilt. He sucked in a raw, shocked breath. His own past, his dark, awful, ancient history, hadn't been what he was referring to. He'd been thinking only of the role he'd played in Jesse Boyd's release from prison.
Now that she mentioned it, of course, all the other reasons he shouldn't be with her flooded into his head. The darkness that surrounded him and his family, the awful things he'd seen, and the way they had affected him merely added to the stockpile of ammunition against them as a couple. Lily was someone who deserved to be loved, who needed to find whatever happiness she could in her life, to get over the darkness and rediscover things like laughter and joy. How on earth could Wyatt be the man to help her do those things when he hadn't done them for himself and didn't really care to?
"That doesn't mean I don't expect you to tell me all that stuff eventually," she said. "I know you will."
He was already shaking his head before she finished.
"You think I can't handle it? Good Lord, Wyatt, with everything I've seen in my life, do you really think I can't deal with hearing you've had a tragedy or two in your own?"
"Not like this," he admitted, forcing the words from a throat tight with tension. "Not just what happened, but the reasons why it happened."
The betrayal. The rage. The madness. How was he supposed to explain away all the ugliness in his own family tree, and expect her to trust that none of it had been visited on his own psyche? Or, hell, stamped onto his own genes?
"Reasons or reactions, they're not much different, are they? Are you holding it against me because my twin sister slit her wrists in a bathtub? Some could say I'm tainted with the same kind of blood, that I'm as weak and selfish, predisposed to doing something like that, too, no matter how much it hurts those who are left behind."
Wyatt drew her into his arms, needing to hold her. She nearly shook with emotion, as she'd done the other night at the restaurant. She might mourn her sister, but that didn't mean she didn't carry the same impotent rage felt by every person who'd lost a loved one to suicide.
She melted against him for a moment, though he knew she wasn't trying to seduce him, or to initiate another kiss. She was merely taking what he offered, letting him support her. Then Lily nodded once and pulled away, looking up at him with clear eyes that held no tears.
Maybe she really was getting over everything.
"Tell me something," she said, proving how adept she had become at putting the past behind them. "Do you really want to have a big expository meeting before we finally give in to this and find out whether what we've been thinking about, dreaming about, fantasizing about, for months is as good as we both suspect it will be?"
Wyatt didn't answer. He couldn't answer. Because saying yes would be a lie, and saying no a catastrophe.
"Because I don't, and I'd really like to avoid wasting one more night on sleeping in the wrong bedroom of your house."
Before he could come up with some kind of response, they both heard a door slam outside. Lily turned away, visibly disappointed that their conversation had been interrupted. "They're here," she whispered, bending over to look out the front window again. "Guess you were saved by the car door."
"Lily…"
"Don't. We'll talk later, all right?" She kept her attention glued to the window, as if she didn't trust herself to look at him yet. "Though I'm really hoping this is settled and we don't have to talk about it anymore at all."
Damn, the woman could be stubborn. She didn't even look over her shoulder to see how he reacted, as if she'd reached the limit of her own brazenness. As if she knew he needed time to mull it over and eventually come around to her way of thinking.
It wasn't that he didn't think she was right. There was no doubt they wanted each other. They needed to be with each other. But that wasn't the end of the story.
"It's Dean and Kyle," she said, still focused on what was going on outside the front window.
Dean Taggert, dark-haired, intense-looking Dean, had just gotten out of the driver's seat of a car, his partner, barrel-chested, always smiling Kyle Mulrooney, leaving the passenger side. Kyle said something and laughed. Dean shot him a glare.
"I see nothing much has changed with those two."
"No, it hasn't."
Pulling up behind them was another familiar car. Parking, Alec Lambert got out of it. Lily hadn't known Alec very well at the time she'd been taken from them, since the former profiler had joined the team only a week before. Wyatt hadn't been sure she would want him included tonight. But Lily hadn't hesitated. As she'd reminded him, Alec had been the one who'd convinced her to talk to Wyatt about the side investigation she was conducting on Lovesprettyboys.
If only she'd come to him sooner. If only he'd forbidden her from riding along on the stakeout. If only.
"There's Brandon," Lily added, watching the young man step out of Alec's car. "I wonder what he was able to find out today."
"We'll know soon enough."
Brandon had remained in his office all day, looking for information on Dr. Roger Underwood. He'd intended to start from the man's birth and work his way forward, using public records and private mentions that turned up on the Internet. Anything that would help build a picture of the man, something they could use to figure out who his accomplice had been. They had to know who had gone on a murderous spree to try to incriminate Lily. Had there been someone else at the shack where he'd imprisoned her? The homeless man who'd ridden with Underwood to the house where the sting had been set up back in January hadn't mentioned another person being involved. But there must have been someone else. Otherwise, why would someone be trying so desperately to find out whether Lily had survived, unless he believed he himself could be identified?
It was possible the plastic surgeon had hooked up with another pedophile along the way. Perhaps someone he'd met in Satan's Playground, or on some anonymous Web site where deviant minds shared their twisted fantasies. Someone he trusted, whom he could call for help after everything had gone south. Having backup would certainly explain how Underwood had been able to fake his death, crashing the van off the bridge, and yet get all the way back to the beach where he'd left Lily.
Wyatt just wished Lily remembered more, but she swore she couldn't. It wasn't too surprising, really, given her injures, the blood loss, and the drugs Underwood had shot her up with. When she did focus all her energy on filling in the blank places in her mind from that week, she usually descended into shivers, mumbling about the pain, the fear, and the cold. Here and there would be snippets of conversation with Underwood, words he'd used that she would repeat. Not much else. The only other person she ever mentioned was the ghost of her sister, her only companion on that long night when she waited for Wyatt to come for her, not even certain her call for help had actually gone through.
Of all the moments she had endured, those were the ones that most haunted him. The torture, the pain, Underwood's taunting, they hadn't broken her. But he strongly suspected that in those dark, cold, desperate hours, she'd come as close to breaking as a person ever could.
"They're at the door," Lily said, watching him curiously. He'd been so lost in thought, he hadn't even heard a knock. "Ready?"
"Yes," he replied. "Are you?"
Her throat quivered as she swallowed hard, as if working up her nerve. "As I'll ever be."
This would be an ordeal, he had n
o doubt, but it wouldn't be as bad as she expected.
"Don't worry," Wyatt said. "They're on your side, Lily. We're all on your side, watching out for you. We have your back. And not one of us is going to leave you unprotected until this is all over with."
How was he supposed to kill the fucking bitch when she was surrounded by ail those people?
Jesse hunkered down lower behind a hedge at the side of a house a few doors up from Agent Wyatt Black-stone's house. Though he wasn't one hundred percent certain Lily was in there, it sure seemed to make sense. His benefactor, and new best friend, said she'd been spotted at the place, and there'd been enough strange activity to make it likely.
Jesse didn't know what he had done right in another life to deserve his secret helper. Helper-hell, more like a guardian angel. Because not only had he gotten the warning phone call, but it had been followed up with a text message, sent right to his fancy new cell phone. Attached had been a grainy picture of a woman with short dark hair. Supposedly Fletcher had changed her look when she'd been hiding. Thank God his anonymous friend had been worried enough to hire somebody to stake out the FBI agent's former coworkers and friends. Without this picture, he might have walked right past Lily on the street and not even recognized her.
Now he couldn't miss her. And just as soon as he had a chance to take her out, he wouldn't miss her.
The neighborhood was an older one, with fully mature landscaping and dim old streetlights, so he felt pretty confident that his hiding place would conceal him from any prying eyes. The yard in which he'd hidden was overgrown, out of place in the upscale neighborhood, a For Sale sign out front. A peek in a window confirmed the house was empty. It was a perfect hiding spot, totally private and hidden from view. Unlike Blackstone's house, which had been in Jesse's sight for three hours, since just after sunset.
He'd seen them arrive, two by two, those FBI agents in their dark blue suits with their matching tough-guy expressions. Bastards. Like they were so much better than him? They were criminals, too, weren't they? Covering up for a woman who'd faked her own death, helping her get away with murder, they obviously thought they were above the law.
And Lily Fletcher was a murderer-of that he had no doubt. Jesse shivered, though not because it was getting chilly as the evening wore on. No, his very blood was cold, and it had been since he'd gotten that second call from his mysterious friend today. The unnatural, altered voice had spoken quickly, barking panicked words about how, incredibly, this morning's dire warning had appeared to come true. Somebody had shot down that Will Miller guy, Jesse's own alibi, right in the street. Shot in the back like a dog, left to bleed to death in front of his own grandkid, according to the coverage on the local news. What a sick, sick world. And his anonymous friend believed Lily Fletcher was the person who had done it.
There could be only one reason-because Miller had helped him, Jesse, get out of prison. The coincidence was just too great for it to be anything else. The only person who would go into a murderous rage over Jesse's release was Fletcher.
"Psycho whore," he whispered.
The FBI agent had apparently gone off the deep end. Now, having taken Miller out, she would almost certainly move on to him. Who else was there to target? As his benefactor had said, Jesse had to get her before she got him.
He had a sudden thought. Damn. He'd been in such a panic to get over here and start figuring a way to get at her, he hadn't paused to warn the second person who'd done so much for him lately. Glancing around the quiet yard, to make triply sure nobody could possibly be watching or listening, he risked pulling the phone out of his pocket. He dialed the number Ms. Vincent had given him, but got a machine. Not wanting to leave an incriminating-type message on a voice mail, like, you're-in-danger-but-I'm-gonna-kill-the-bitch-before-she-can-get-to-either-of-us, he merely muttered, "It's Jesse Boyd. Call me back; it's important," and hung up.
Before he even had time to put the phone away, it rang. But the information on the caller ID wasn't Ms. Vincent's name-the caller was unidentified.
He knew what that meant.
Yanking it open, he whispered, "This is Jesse."
"Are you all right?" the machine-voice asked.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm outside Blackstone's house."
"And?"
Frustrated and tired of lying on the cold ground, he mumbled, "It's been pretty quiet. A bunch of FBI agents showed up a while ago and they've been inside ever since. I can't even get close enough to see if a dark-haired woman's in there, much less if she's Fletcher."
"She is," the voice said. "I am sure of it."
So was Jesse. He felt it in his bones, the creepy-crawly sensation that somebody was out to hurt him, or to screw him over. He had no doubt it was because Lily Fletcher and her gang were thirsty for his blood.
"So what are you going to do, simply stay there all night?"
"It's getting cold," he said, a hint of a whine creeping into his voice. "And I gotta figure out where I'm gonna sleep tonight." He shifted uncomfortably on the ground, arching a little. Then an answer popped into his head, like magic. "Wait a sec. This house is empty-there's a foreclosure notice on the door."
"In Blackstone's neighborhood?"
"Yeah." The idea sounded better and better. "I can get in through a back window or something, flop here for a little while so I don't have to waste money on a hotel, and watch every second for a chance to get at Fletcher."
"And once you get that chance? What are you prepared to do?"
"Whatever it takes," he said. "But it's gonna have to be close-up-I don't have no way to get a gun or anything." He hadn't actually reached the point of thinking about how he would do away with Lily, focused entirely on making sure it was her. Now, though, he could think of a few methods. There was an old, broken clothesline in the backyard, cords dangling free. That would be nice and quiet. Or some broken glass from a bottle stolen out of one of the recycling bins. He knew just where to slit a throat to cause the quickest bleed-out. Hell, even a knife from Blackstone's own kitchen drawer.
He'd find the weapon. He just needed to wait for the opportunity to get close to her.
"Blackstone will never leave her alone."
"He has to go to work doesn't he?" Jesse replied.
It wasn't easy, but even the machine-sounding voice managed to sound impatient. "Not until Monday. Are you going to sit there all weekend, waiting for her to track you down and kill you?"
Oh. Right.
"I think there is a way you can get him to leave the house without telling Fletcher about it. You can draw him away, but you're going to need to wait and do it late at night, when there are no others in the house to guard her while he's gone."
He liked this idea. Get the big guy, and all his FBI buddies, out of the picture so it was just him and the skinny bitch? It would be as easy as it had been to subdue her nephew.
"Okay, then. Tell me exactly what I gotta do."
Chapter 15
Jackie was the last to depart that night, staying until after ten, as if loath to leave Lily now that she'd found out she was alive. The others had gone about a half hour earlier, though none had appeared to want to, for the same reason.
Considering the situation was dire and they were surrounded by murder and betrayal, the evening had taken a strange turn. Dean, Alec, Kyle, Brandon, and Jackie had been so happy to have Lily back, the war-strategy session had become a big after-hours happy hour, sans booze, since they were working. But the mood had been almost celebratory. For a few moments, at least, they all managed to forget that Lily had to remain in hiding and that someone still wanted her dead and merely enjoy the fact that she was alive.
Though his team had become incredibly close at the office, blending together to form a great working relationship, this was the first time they had all socialized outside of work, much less at Wyatt's own house. To his surprise, Wyatt had found himself enjoying it. As for Lily, she hadn't looked so happy in months.
But even her pleasure at having been fo
rgiven for her deception, and welcomed with open arms by her colleagues, hadn't been able to prevent pure exhaustion from washing over her eventually. Her huge yawns and sleep-heavy eyes had prompted all the others, and eventually Jackie, to say their good-nights. Just like everyone else, Jackie swore to return over the weekend to keep working on the case, knowing the sooner Lily was cleared, the sooner she could return to her own life. And her own home.
That should be a good thing. The right thing. Why, then, he wondered, did he feel a strange sort of emptiness at the very thought of it?
Funny, she'd been in his Virginia house for only twenty-four hours, and he already knew it would feel empty when she left. Well, emptier. Because it had always felt a little empty, since the day he'd inherited it from his grandparents. It was only since he'd walked into the kitchen and seen Lily at the stove, making a mess out of the simple task of scrambling an egg, or drinking a cup of coffee and twirling an unlit cigarette on the back porch, that he realized how much more he liked the place when he wasn't alone in it.
He couldn't say the same of the beach house. That place he would never like.
"Wyatt!"
He tensed, cocking his head, as he heard Lily call from upstairs. She'd gone up a few minutes ago to get ready for bed.
She called again. "Wyatt?"
Jesus. Was someone in the house?
Launching up from the couch, he ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time. The guest room door was closed, and he threw himself against it, bursting inside. He half expected to see her defending herself against a dark intruder. "The other half wondered if she had fallen asleep and landed in the middle of one of her dark, terrifying nightmares.
The actual situation proved to be much more simple, and a whole lot more complicated. Because instead of looking terrified, or threatened, Lily merely looked shocked at his intrusion. She stood in the middle of the floor, nearly naked, staring at him through the neck opening of the white T-shirt she'd just been about to pull on. Other than that, she wore nothing but a tiny pair of pink underwear, and an expression of surprise. "What are you doing?" she asked, tugging the shirt-one of his-down over her smooth, creamy stomach and curvy hips.
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