He patted his pocket. “What about my pen?”
“It’s the perfect weapon for jabbing into your artery. You’d bleed out before the locks on the door could even be disengaged.” She turned her gaze to the window. “The window in this room has no bars, which is an error of judgment, either on your part or the staff’s for not insisting on a more secure location to meet. You must not believe I’m a threat.” She raised a brow and continued. “I was cross country running champ in high school. They won’t be able to catch me if I wanted to escape.”
“Assuming you could get over the iron fence,” he added.
“Are you a hundred percent sure that I can’t?” she asked.
She turned her gaze to the empty holster. He’d checked that particular gun in when he’d arrived. The one strapped at his ankle was another story. She glanced under the table and grinned. “And that gun at your ankle. You should think twice about wearing one to meet with an attempted murderer. Not that I’d need it. I’d go for the pen.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Quieter and less fuss, although a bit messier.”
“That would be kind of hard to do in handcuffs.”
Her smile slowly disappeared as she tossed the handcuffs onto the table between them. “If you’d read my file, you would have known I can escape these restraints.”
“Magician and murderer,” he said.
“I’ve got nothing but time on my hands. As you can imagine, they don’t give me many toys, and I’ve read all the books in the library.” She let out a healthy sigh and clasped her hands together, resting them on the table. “So why don’t you cut the crap, Special Agent Roth, and tell me what you want?”
Roth flipped the file closed. “I want to know how it’s possible you can track a killer when the police can’t.”
“It’s classified, but I’m guessing you already know that answer.”
“You’re skilled.” He held her gaze.
“My level of expertise varies.”
“Judging by your IQ, I’d say you’re more than just a tracker. Some might even call you a stalker, possibly a hunter.”
She shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “You wouldn’t be wrong to think that. Actually, that might make you smarter than the rest.”
“Can you do it again?”
Lucy lifted her brow and tilted her head. “Now why would I do that? So you can keep me in here longer?”
Roth slipped the five pictures of the dead college-aged girls out of his pocket and spread them out in front of Lucy. “Someone is killing more women.”
Lucy sighed. “I’m already doing time for a crime because the government failed to take care of their mess. Did you know in addition to Carl’s postal job, he worked part time as security for the division where I’d started as a participant and then employed? It’s why he wore a mask. He knew I could identify him. Granted, it was a false sense of security.”
“And you think that makes it a government mess?”
“He used his badge as a license to terrorize and kill. Why do you think those women let him into the houses to begin with?”
“We’re not all like him,” Roth said, eyeing her with interest.
“Even so, why would I want to get involved with your case?”
She let her gaze linger on the pictures.
“These women were someone else’s sisters and daughters. You saved your sister, Gigi. I thought you might see the common link.”
Her lips twisted. “You did read my file, only it wasn’t this one. It was sealed. I’m impressed. Get the charges against me dropped, and we’ll talk,” Lucy said, rising and heading for the locked door.
“You know they’ll never go for that.”
“They will if they think I’m your last resort.” Lucy paused by the door and turned back around as she slid the stolen security card key out of her sleeve. “Tell me, Special Agent Roth. Those kills were on the beach, right?”
His brows dipped, and he turned the picture back around to face him. “How do you know that? There is no sand in these pictures, not even a location.”
“For one thing, they’re all sunburned, but that wasn’t the giveaway.”
“What was?”
“You’ll figure it out.” She slid the card key through the lock, pulled the door open, and walked out just as easily as she’d walked in, only this time without an escort.
Chapter 4
Noah Roth strode through the halls of the FBI building toward Intact Operations. He’d fought hard for this assignment, impressing the paper-pushers who made the decisions. This was his shot. The one chance he’d get to finally have everything he wanted.
This field office was unlike the others. This special task force employed only essential personnel. This was a trial group that had something to prove, a hodgepodge of players from various agencies and other questionable places had assembled to take on cases that the other agencies couldn’t solve. Their mission wasn’t just about the killer they were hunting. This division had potential to be so much more. They were only missing one link, and Noah had found it, but getting the others to agree would be a hard sell.
As he shoved open the meeting room door, all conversation ceased, and eyes turned to him. The commander of their unit, Diesel Hunt, sat at the head of the table. His overbearing presence kept them focused, and he called the shots. His vote was the only one that counted. “How did it go?”
That was a loaded question. “Lucy Bray was everything I hoped for and more. She’s the one we need.” He slid the pen out of his pocket and tossed it to Grant Mathews, Lucy’s last handler. “She ignored the gun and mentioned the pen just like you said she would.”
“I’m not surprised. I trained her.” Grant grunted.
Diesel Hunt crossed his arms over his chest. His knowledge and skill made him the perfect candidate to assume the role of boss. His intimate knowledge and connection to the covert military operation that Lucy had been working for gave him much needed insight.
“We can’t trust her not to go off the rails again,” Hunt said.
“Her experience is exactly why we need her.” Noah tossed the file onto the table. “She’s not only smart and has the ability needed for the hunt, but she’s resourceful, cunning, and determined. She’s the one we need.”
Diesel’s expression didn’t soften at his unpredictable choice. Lucy was the last person they should be pulling into the team. Everything about her crime proved she deserved to be sitting behind bars. “Explore other options. The institute has other watchers you can work with.”
Four faces stared back at Noah. They almost had everything they needed to be successful in all of their endeavors. Sam Zachman, the hacker, could track any ghost Diesel Hunt gave him and find an electronic trail with little info. Carson Tines the squad’s weapons expert with the ability to not only build anything they’d ever need but to cloak it from prying eyes. Ford Rain a world-class thief with the ability to infiltrate any structure. And Grant Mathews, who would never admit it, had been the one who put Lucy’s name as a bug in Noah’s ear. He was the muscle behind their team.
Noah knew his place in the motley crew. He’d been brought in under similar circumstances. He’d started as a liaison helping the FBI catch and track uncatchable thieves, knowing exactly how they worked because Noah’s youth was just as dirty before he found his way. They were all a bunch of misfit vigilantes who now carried badges, although they played by a different set of rules.
Their rules that got shit done. They all had their demons and reasons for joining the team. None more so than the boss, Hunt, who was still living his nightmare.
“I’ve worked with all of the Mind Watchers. Lucy isn’t a watcher. She’s a stalker.” Grant Mathews shoved the picture of Lucy’s sister to the center of the table. “None are as gifted as Lucy. She connects with the emotional energy of the killer’s tendencies from a single visit of the crime scenes or even the bodies. We called it the mind web, and she’s the only one that can connect without the use of instr
uments. That makes her mobile. The others are just visionaries and stationary, predicting bits and pieces of the killer’s actions. Lucy lives them vicariously through the connection.” Grant’s jaw ticked as he continued. “Lucy is the only one that can see and feel in real time.”
“He knows her best.” Noah pointed at Grant, Lucy’s last handler in the program before she turned rogue.
“That doesn’t make up for taking action into her own hands.”
“She saved her twin sister, my wife. If she’d told me what she saw, I’d be the one behind bars, because he’d be six feet under instead of in a coma, like Gigi,” Grant announced.
“She’s unpredictable, and that’s the last thing this team needs.”
“She knew the women were killed at the beach just by the head pictures taken on the autopsy table.”
Agent Hunt tilted back in his chair. His gaze was skeptical. “There were no indications in those pictures, and it hasn’t made the news. How does she know?”
Noah shrugged and took a seat. “She wouldn’t say. The point is that she knows things.”
Even Grant seemed stunned that Lucy had known. “Has she had any visitors?”
“None on the books. I checked before talking to her doctor.”
“Any new patients?” Hunt asked.
“I didn’t ask.” Noah’s brows dipped. He hadn’t considered that there might be an inside connection.
“I’m sure she’d do anything to get out of the ward,” Diesel suggested.
“Quite the opposite, she was willing to stay and serve her time,” Noah explained. “Her only demand was that if she helped catch the killer that she be released or nothing at all. There was no room to negotiate.”
“There’s always a way to get her to agree,” Grant said, meeting Noah’s gaze.
He was her family and her partner; he knew her best.
“Bring her in and let me talk to her while under observation,” Grant said. “Offer her a little bit of freedom on a short leash and for God’s sake, tell her the truth if she hasn’t already figured it out. She’s highly intelligent, so treat her like it.” Grant scrubbed his face. “I agree with Noah. We need her.”
Lucy
Chapter 5
I’d counted the turns in my head even though they had placed me in the back of a prison vehicle with no windows.
Tha-thunk, tha-thunk. The Mason Bridge train tracks. I smiled. My home was only a twenty-minute hike to the east. Growing up in this town had its perks, even without the use of my eyes. This wasn’t the first time I’d been blindfolded. The scent of sandalwood drifted in the confined space. A smell I knew well. The man didn’t have to say a word. Grant Mathews was providing my escort.
The van slowed to a stop, and I stretched my back, pulling at my chains attached to the floor. “I guess they thought you could predict my every move and that I wouldn’t kill you, Grant. Is that why they chose you?”
“They didn’t chose me, Lucy.” His voice washed over me like a familiar breeze. “I volunteered.”
He slid the blindfold off my eyes. His smile was just as I remembered with a few more lines around his mouth from the last time he’d visited me with updates about Gigi. “How did you know it was me?”
The back doors opened, and the smell of the river drifted in. “You still wear the aftershave I gave you for Christmas three years ago, and you still do that unconscious sigh thing on car rides. Care to tell me what we’re doing at the old mill?”
FBI Agent Noah Roth stood just outside the door. “I’m guessing she figured it out.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” Grant said, releasing my cuffs. “The blindfold was useless. She even knows where we are.”
I rubbed my wrists from the shackles. “The only thing I haven’t figured out is what I’m doing here.”
Grant rested his head against mine. “Don’t run. I don’t want to chase you.”
“You wouldn’t need to. Scrappy there has a Taser in one holster and a Beretta in the other. Seems like he took notes when I told him I was cross country champ.”
“They know more than that about you, Lucy.”
I patted his chest. “Thanks to you, I’m sure.”
They led me out of the van, and I took a minute, lifting my face to the warmth of the sun. It was the little pleasures I missed most being in captivity. I stretched and let my gaze wander my surroundings, taking in everything in sight. The scent of nature and freedom in the air. Water lapping against the smooth stone barrier. The current was in full force. Freedom, if I cared to take it.
Two armed guards wearing military fatigues stood outside the door of the mill with rifles in hand. The windows didn’t have any bars. The forest would give me cover if I didn’t choose the river’s current to whisk me away.
I let them guide me into the mill. If the outside was rustic and made of wood, the inside was a complete surprise; refurbished and modernized. On the outside, it looked like a standard mill, minus the men with guns; on the inside, it was so much more.
That manly smell competed with the solid oak beams, which had few splinters, running across the ceiling and attached to strategically sturdy posts from the floor to the ceiling. The sun shining through the bar-less windows lacked dust motes floating in the air.
The mill’s interior was like the gooey center of a brownie without the sharp exterior edges that cut the soft pallet in a mouth. The motley crew of men inside were like pieces from different puzzles. They didn’t look like they fit. The room smelled of gunpowder and masculinity. Both of which were combustible under the right triggers.
A man with spiky, dark purple hair sat in the center of the room we entered. On the walls were various large computer screens displaying surveillance of different places. The computer nerd glanced up at me. His bright smile was welcoming, if not a bit curious. His shirt told me enough. Byte me. He was a computer geek.
Another man was farther across the room, surrounded by a table of weapons and other deadly gear. He seemed lost in his own little world, yet looks could be deceiving. He might not have even glanced my way, but he knew I was in the room. His jaw tensed for a split second, giving him away.
The other man in the room wasn’t a fed. His designer suit alone probably cost more than a run-of-the-mill agent’s yearly salary. He kept his hands in his pockets as his gaze bored into mine.
Alone, each man could have been anyone. Together, well…that piqued my interest. I grinned as I was guided down a hall toward more rooms, only stopping at a typical interrogation room. Grant led me inside, and I stumbled into Noah before he had a chance to close the door. I smiled up at him apologetically. “Sorry. I’m such a klutz.”
He patted the security badge attached to his suit and raised a brow. “Just checking.” He met Grant’s gaze and eased the door closed.
“What is this place?” I asked, walking to the mirror. I held my finger against it and noticed no gap. Interrogation-room style. I’d been in my share of similar rooms when I turned myself in.
“What do you think it is?” Grant asked, pulling out a chair facing the mirror for me to sit.
“No blood on the floor, no torture? It leaves the obvious with the chair, table, and the mirror,” I answered, taking a seat. “The only question left is who the wizard is behind the curtain pulling the strings.”
“Let me cut to the chase,” Grant said.
“Gigi and I always adored that about you.” I smiled, meeting his gaze for the first time since walking in.
“They aren’t going to release you, but if things go right, they’ll give you a short leash.”
My eyes narrowed at the connotation. “I’m not an animal.”
“You left Carl in a coma. To them, that makes you dangerous.”
“Only to men with no souls. Does your puppeteer have one?” I sweetly smiled.
“Carl’s starting to stir awake,” Grant said.
“I know. I felt it,” I answered. “Or have you forgotten that when I make a connection, only dea
th can sever it? One of the many side effects from the experiment that your commander and scientist left out of the contract I had to sign.”
“Does he still talk to you in your mind?”
“When my guard is down.” I sat forward in my chair. The mental patient garb I was wearing felt itchy against my skin. “Now tell me why I’m here, or take me back. I’m missing my afternoon med cocktail, and I have to stop Margo from stealing everyone’s dessert.”
Grant opened the file, and I forgot to breathe. A thin gold necklace with a cross attached sat on top. A necklace identical to the ones our parents had given us on our sixteenth birthday before they died. Recognition smacked me in the face, as did my anger.
“Is that one mine or Gigi’s?” I shoved to my feet, sending the chair flying back against the wall. Planting my hands on the table, I narrowed my gaze. “You better not have brought me here to tell me she’s dead.”
“You can rest assured I’m getting your sister the best treatment and doctors she needs.”
I swallowed hard and stared at the necklace.
“I remember the day she got hers.” Grant said as sadness filled his eyes.
My glare remained unmoved. Grant hadn’t even hinted about this to me during his last visit. “You were high school sweethearts.”
“She loved it even more than the engagement ring the day I proposed. Neither one of us could keep her safe, Lucy. Her abduction wasn’t your fault. You have to believe that.”
Emotions I’d compartmentalized rushed through me like a tsunami as I struggled not to go for his jugular and rip out his throat. “Make no mistake; we both failed her.”
“No, Lucy.” He shook his head. “We didn’t fail her. You knew her best. She’d give the shirt off her back to a stranger. Carl used that against her, against us. If I’d have found him that day, he’d be six feet under instead of in the hospital, and I’d be the one sitting in jail. I need you to remember the anger, that feeling of fear of losing her, and tap into it to help us find another one.” Grant lifted the gold chain. “Each dead girl had one of these around their necks and were inked with a tattoo that matches your and Gigi’s birthmarks.”
Stalked Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 1) Page 2
