by Lisa Childs
“Is he with Cullen?”
“No, Cullen just called with the address to see what we wanted to do.”
“We want to talk to Snake.” God, he hoped it wasn’t another dead end. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t want to leave Amanda alone, but then another Murphy watched her. She wouldn’t get far without Evan’s knowledge, or without Evan himself. He wasn’t taking any chances on losing Amanda again.
“I’m going with you,” she said, her voice steely with determination.
AMANDA DIDN’T KNOW what surprised her more. That she’d convinced Evan Quade to let her come along to confront Snake, or that she’d agreed to leave her son in a stranger’s care. But then again, The Tracker was no stranger to any parent. He was the first one you would call if you lost your child. Wouldn’t he be the best choice to keep Christopher safe? Probably a better choice than she was.
And Evan trusted him. Amanda doubted many people earned his trust. From looking into the intensity of his dark eyes, she wondered if she ever would. If she’d had it once, it seemed she’d destroyed whatever chance she’d had of keeping it. Of keeping him.
What was she thinking? She wanted nothing from him but his protection.
His taste lingered yet on her lips. Rich and dark like her favorite chocolate. But there’d been nothing sweet about the way he’d grabbed her, taking…what had once been his. What still was unless he’d divorced her on grounds of desertion.
Had she deserted him? If so, why? Or had she known then, with her memory intact, that they had nothing in common? He was so dark and intense, and she… She had no idea what she’d once been, but now she was afraid of the dark.
Evan hadn’t spoken to her since he’d given his consent for her to come along. His hands gripped the steering wheel of his powerful sports car, the engine rumbling with such quiet intensity that she felt the vibrations. Or was that still the passion that had hummed through her veins when he’d so briefly held her in his arms?
Amanda had to shake off the memory of that kiss, had to banish it to the dark abyss where the rest of her memories of this man resided. But had something surfaced with his kiss? Some familiarity? She refused to dwell on it. Trying to remember never accomplished anything but a debilitating headache.
Although the calendar declared it spring, the weather didn’t know it. Winter gloom lingered, prematurely darkening the afternoon. Night still fell too soon and in a couple of short hours, total darkness would reign.
She shuddered.
“Change your mind?” he asked, missing nothing although he hadn’t taken his gaze from the road.
“No. I really believe he won’t talk to you.” She could hardly bring herself to talk to Evan, and a marriage license called this dark intimidating man her husband. “I can remind him of what he said, that he has a daughter my age, that he would protect her. There’s a better chance that I can get him to talk to the police.”
She prayed she could. Christopher’s future—and hers—depended on it for more than safety.
For sanity.
Amanda feared going to Winter Falls with this man. Although it might be the only way to ensure her physical survival, she doubted she would survive emotionally, since just a kiss had made her so weak-kneed, she’d almost fainted in his arms. Again.
“I wasn’t talking about seeing Snake,” Evan said, interrupting her thoughts. With the care of an expert, he rounded a corner at a speed she would have considered too great. The van would have rolled. But then this expensive machine was not her dilapidated old van. And she didn’t have an ounce of the confidence this man displayed.
Was he really that confident?
“You were talking about Christopher and I going with you to Winter Falls?”
She studied his chiseled profile and noted the flare of his nostrils as he inhaled deeply, like the deep-breathing maneuver taught to her by a psychiatrist.
“Did you change your mind?” he asked.
She pretended to consider his question although she already knew she had.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said.
She waited for an apology, not sure what she’d do with it. Had she regretted the kiss? It had been so long since she’d been touched. And since her attack—in all the time she could remember—she’d never been kissed at all, let alone with such passion.
Consumed. He had consumed her but she’d responded. She’d clutched him to her and returned the passion. Her body hummed with it yet. Although her mind had forgotten him, her body had not. “If you thought it’d make me remember you…”
“I failed.” His voice deepened to a husky murmur with the admission.
For a moment, she wondered if he was talking about only the kiss?
“That kiss doesn’t matter anymore.” She winced over the lie. “Once this man talks to the police, tells them about the threat, you said you’d be able to keep that animal behind bars.”
He nodded. “And Royce is working with the Feds on the other cases where Weering was a suspect. If they can find anything to link him to those crimes…”
She shivered, thinking again of how lucky she’d been to live through her attack. What was a memory in comparison to a life or the life of her then unborn child? But what those other women must have suffered… “How can they even consider letting him out?”
“Money and power.”
Resentment coursed through her. As his wife, she had probably had those things, too. But as a victim, she’d become poor and powerless. “You’d know.”
With a glance across her to the mirror, he effortlessly parallel parked at the curb of a run-down apartment complex. “Yeah, I would.”
Again the admission was uttered in a way that made her think he was saying more. Had she lost her perception with her memory? And her objectivity?
When he turned toward the car door, she clutched at the sleeve of his overcoat until he swung back. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. You’re not like him. It was cruel of me—”
“Don’t apologize. There’re things you don’t know about me.” His dark eyes churned with emotion and a muscle jumped in his clenched jaw.
“Things I’ve forgotten.”
“Things you never knew, Amanda. Things I never knew.”
She shivered despite the warmth in the close confines of the small car. With a trembling hand she fumbled with the catch for the door. “We…”
Needed to talk. To each other maybe more than this tattooed ex-convict. But they’d have time later. Wouldn’t they?
“We need to go inside. Let’s hope he didn’t see us drive up. Looks like the entrance is around the corner.” He leaned over and opened her car door before she could figure out the handle. His gaze intent on her face, he said, “Maybe you should stay here. Let me talk to him first.”
“I told you—”
“He could be dangerous, Amanda.”
“Then he would have hurt me in the van. He didn’t. He warned me.”
“But that could have been part of the plan.”
“Plan?” Foreboding crawled along her skin, raising goose bumps, so she shifted closer to Evan’s heat.
“Weering’s plan to make you run, to take you away from the people who could protect you.”
“You think he’s planned this?” She clutched at his sleeve again, needing the reassurance of his strong presence.
“He’s had nearly six years with little else to think about. Yeah, I think he has a plan.”
Despite the fear, the intensity of which would have normally paralyzed her, desperation inspired her to action. Any action. Anything that would keep that animal away from her. “Let’s go,” she said, climbing from the sports car and walking toward the entrance.
She kept close to the building where white paint peeled off the brick and flaked onto the cracked sidewalk. The rubber soles of her running shoes were silent on the cement, as were Evan’s leather loafers. Although music and voices drifted through the thin-paned windows and onto the street and, in
the distance, police sirens and car horns blared, she felt isolated.
But for Evan.
When they rounded the corner, he stepped in front of her, opening the door to the building and staring intently at her as she passed through it. His rich scent washed over her, the woods and leather fragrance camouflaging some of the garbage and urine odor of the foyer.
“You still want to talk to him first?” she asked, a bit fearful of this place unlike anywhere she’d ever been. She hadn’t known there were areas this deplorable in River City.
He nodded as he peered up the graffiti-covered stairwell to the next floor. “This isn’t a safe place, Amanda.”
“Then I wouldn’t be safe waiting in the car, either. And I know I can get through to him.” She wouldn’t feel safe in the car by herself, as dusk fell outside. Surprisingly, only at Evan’s side did the fear ease somewhat. But to totally ease her fear, she’d need to convince Martin “Snake” Timmer to help her.
Despite the narrowness they climbed the steps side by side, nearly in sync despite the disparity in the lengths of their legs. Amanda smiled over her ability to keep up with him until she realized he had slowed up for her, protecting her, his body tense and shielding.
He pressed close to her as they walked down the littered corridor toward Snake’s room on the fourth floor. Nobody glanced out into the hall, not like her neighbors who hovered behind sheer curtains watching out for her. This was the kind of place where nobody wanted to see anything. And from the volume of TVs and stereos inside their apartments, they didn’t want to hear anything, either.
She shuddered as Evan stopped at the last door along the corridor. “According to Murphy, this is it.” He lifted his hand to knock, but the door creaked open before he had applied any pressure.
First she saw the snake. The tattoo could have come to life and slithered across the floor for all the detail in the brilliant colors of the permanent ink. Only one color was more brilliant than the browns and blacks and the yellow of the beady eyes.
Red.
Not the red of the tongue flickering between the fangs.
The red of the blood that poured from Snake’s head wounds and gushed onto the worn vinyl floor.
She screamed, a mere squeak of horror, not enough to drown out the clang of steps on the fire escape outside Snake’s open window.
Evan didn’t stand frozen in terror as she did. He checked for a pulse beneath the mutilated face. At the noise he turned to the open window. And before she could clutch his sleeve again to hold him back, Evan slipped over the sill and into the gloom of dusk.
In pursuit of a killer.
For there was no doubt in her mind that Snake was dead despite the blood still flowing from the empty sockets where his eyes had been only a short while ago.
He would bear no witness to the threat against her. He would bear no witness ever again.
Chapter Five
“Evan!”
Despite the terror in her voice, Evan didn’t turn back. He knew Snake couldn’t hurt her, couldn’t hurt anyone.
But below Evan, a dark-clothed figure fled down the fire escape. A ski mask covered the person’s head, and in a gloved hand, a bloodied knife glinted in the fading light.
Evan’s footsteps pounded on the metal treads as he pursued the killer, closing in on him on the last landing. Without turning around, the man reached back, slashing the knife through the air. Blood smeared Evan’s overcoat.
Falling back on years of training, he kicked out and sent the knife arcing into the air. The murder weapon landed with a clatter onto the landing above. To retrieve it the killer would have to go through him.
Evan widened his stance, but the figure didn’t turn back. Instead he leaped off the landing and into the alley. With an expulsion of air and an oath, he rolled across the asphalt, regaining his feet to run again.
Evan jumped, too, effortlessly finding his feet beneath him. But during the leap he had taken his gaze from the killer. No flash of dark clothes could be distinguished from the shadows as late afternoon slipped into evening.
A truck engine ground to life, the rumble of it nearly drowning out the sounds of Amanda’s footsteps on the fire escape. He glanced up at her, opening his mouth to tell her to call 911 when she screamed again.
“Evan!”
The truck, a four-wheel-drive pickup complete with lift kit to increase its height, jumped the curb and headed toward him. The retractable ladder to the escape dangled nine feet above the ground, but Evan leaped for it, his fingers closing around a steel rung just as the truck swerved to miss the building. His foot brushed against the front fender as he clamored up to safety.
The danger passed as the truck sped off, engine roaring down the street as the killer escaped. “Damn it!”
“Are you okay?” Amanda’s voice shook and tears streaked down her face. “I called the police. I called.”
Evan joined her on the landing. The metal vibrated beneath him as he shook with the rush of adrenaline. He reached for Amanda to assure himself of her safety.
She reached out, too, for his coat, blood smearing her fingers when she ran them over it. Horror reverberated in her voice. “You’re bleeding!”
“It’s not my blood. I’m not hurt,” he assured her, pulling her into an embrace.
“But you rushed out after him… He could have…done to you what he did to…” She trembled in his arms, undoubtedly in shock from what she’d seen.
“I’m fine. Nothing happened to me. Are you all right?” God, he wished he had not let her come along with him, wished she hadn’t had to see what had been done to Snake.
She shook her head, biting at her lip even as she pulled away. “No, I’m scared. That was him, Evan. He’s out.”
“No. Not until tomorrow…”
But then who had committed this murder?
Money and power. Money and power could buy anything—even a killer for a killer.
Or one less day?
He fumbled inside his coat pocket, pulling out his cell phone and a business card. Since it was past five, he dialed the D.A.’s cell number. “This is Quade.”
The older man’s sigh carried gustily through the phone. “I’ve been trying to reach you. I can’t find Amanda. I was hoping she was with you.”
“You’re hoping that she’s safe.” Evan felt the way she trembled uncontrollably beside him. “He’s out, isn’t he?”
“Yes, damn it!”
“How?”
“I don’t know. He probably paid for a new wing for the prison.”
“And he needs to be put back in it. He got somebody already.”
“Who? Amanda’s okay, isn’t she?”
“She is.” For now. He couldn’t say it, couldn’t doubt her safety. “But Martin ‘Snake’ Timmer isn’t. He’s been murdered, and I know the prime suspect.”
“You saw him?”
The coward hadn’t shown his face, and a dark stocking cap had covered his signature pale hair. “Come on, we all know who did this.”
“We need proof, damn it. All I can do now is have him brought in for questioning.”
“Then do it!” He slammed the phone shut and thrust it back into his pocket, nearly tearing the fabric with the force of his action. But it wasn’t enough. He needed to do more. A few deep breaths brought him some calm but not enough.
Next to him, Amanda stilled and lifted her chin. “He is out?”
Evan wanted to lie, wanted to do anything that would stop the rise of hysteria into her expressive eyes. But she needed to know. “Yes.”
Her teeth sank into her lip, and she nodded. “I knew it. I knew…” She glanced up the fire escape to the open window and shuddered. “I knew it was him.”
On some level so had Evan.
The wail of sirens as the police cars pulled to the curb nearly drowned out her comment. “Money and power…”
She obviously knew how Weering had gotten out another day early.
He had no problem hearing her
next words as she nearly screamed. “Christopher. I have to make sure Christopher’s okay.”
“He’s fine. Royce has him.”
She jerked at his arm, her fingers tangling in the fabric of his coat. “No, you don’t understand. He killed this man to get to me, to hurt me…. The eyes…what he did to his eyes…that was a message to me!”
A message Evan had heard loud and clear. “Yes, it was.”
An eye for an eye…
“He’s going to go after Christopher next! I know it!” Hysteria pitched her voice high and she shook with fear. “We have to leave. We have to go to him! We have to protect our son, Evan!”
Our son. His heart clenched with some of her fear. But Christopher was safe and would remain so—he would see to it. Nothing could happen to that little boy…for Amanda’s sake and his.
Evan suppressed a shudder and pulled Amanda’s trembling body into his arms as the police approached them on the sidewalk. Over her hitching sobs, he told them what they had witnessed. But he couldn’t bring Amanda back into that building, into the gruesome scene of carnage. “The murder weapon is on the fire escape. I doubt you’ll find any prints. He was wearing gloves.” Evan finished as she sobbed into his chest.
“Please…we have to leave…” she begged.
With a killer on the loose, they had no choice.
FOR ONCE AMANDA WAS grateful for money and power…when it belonged to Evan Quade. Whatever he told the police enabled them to leave the crime scene after answering only a couple of questions.
William Weering III had killed that man, her one hope to keep the animal behind bars. She knew that. The police knew that. But just as it was six years ago, in order to lock him away for the right amount of time—forever—they needed evidence.
He was too smart to leave any. And too evil to give up and move on until he had completely destroyed her with his own hands. The fastest way to achieve that goal—hurt her son.
Once the light flashed green on the lock of the hotel suite, her hands closed over Evan’s and pushed open the door. “Christopher! Christopher! Mommy’s back!”
