by Debra Webb
Shade kept his attention on those white doors that separated the lobby from where the gurney had taken Bobbie. Maybe he was a little more worried than he wanted anyone to know. Newt had called Jessup again. He’d hated to bother the guy in the middle of the night, but there was no help for it. Jessup confirmed that Agent LeDoux was aware of Shade’s presence in Montgomery. He’d also confirmed something Newt had suspected since the first time he met Nick Shade. The FBI had been attempting to monitor his activities since before he’d started hunting serial killers. Of course the reason was above Newt’s security clearance, but it told him volumes.
There was something big in Nick Shade’s past.
“Bobbie’s important to me,” Newt admitted. “I don’t want anything you’re here to do to get her hurt.”
Shade met his gaze. It annoyed the hell out of Newt that his gave nothing away.
When Shade finally spoke, he said, “She doesn’t need anyone to get her hurt. She’s doing that all on her own.”
Newt rubbed at his aching forehead. The damned pain in his chest had vanished, but now his head was throbbing. “Yeah, well, maybe you can help me out by keeping an eye on her.”
“I’m not a bodyguard, and I’m not her keeper, Detective.” He glanced at a couple exiting the lobby.
Newt held his temper when what he wanted to do was kick this guy’s ass for being so damned arrogant. “I know what you are, Shade, and that’s supposed to make you one of the good guys.” Newt shrugged. “Maybe I misjudged you. I guess I’m just an old softie who still believes in heroes.”
Shade leaned a little closer, or maybe it was Newt’s imagination. His equilibrium still wasn’t right.
“The one thing I’m not, Detective, is a hero.”
Newt dragged his handkerchief from his pocket and blotted the sweat from his brow once more. He leveled a gaze on the other man that he hoped conveyed just how serious he was. “I hope you’re being modest, Mr. Shade, because what Bobbie needs now is a hero.”
Shade looked beyond him and Newt turned around. The double doors were opening. Peterson entered the lobby. Newt hurried over to meet him. “How’s our girl?”
Peterson tried his best to keep things official between him and Bobbie on the job, but tonight he didn’t appear to be managing so well. The exhaustion and worry was heavy in his face and in the slump of his shoulders.
“She’s okay. They’re going to release her.” He exhaled a weary breath. “She refuses to allow me to take her home. She doesn’t want anyone in the department seeing me doing anything extra for her. It’s bad for morale, she says. Maybe she’s right.” He passed a hand over his face. “I’ve been a cop for thirty-eight damned years and I don’t know how I can keep her out of this, and I sure as hell don’t know how to keep her safe.”
Newt nodded. “It’s impossible. She believes she’s the only one who can stop him.”
Peterson shook his head. “That’s what the bastard wants her to believe.”
The ER doors opened again, and Lieutenant Owens joined them. “She’s asking for you, Newt. Room five.”
He nodded. “I’ll see that she gets home safe, Chief,” he promised.
He left Peterson and the LT in deep discussion and headed for the double doors that separated the lobby from where the docs did their magic. As the doors opened he glanced back to see if Shade was still hanging around. He was gone.
Maybe he wasn’t the hero Newt had hoped he was, but if he was the man his friend at Quantico believed, Nick Shade wouldn’t let Perry get to Bobbie.
Worry weighted down his shoulders. A miracle would be required to keep Bobbie safe. Newt needed Shade to be that miracle.
He knocked on the door marked room five and Bobbie growled, “Come on in. Everybody else has.”
Newt grinned and pushed into the room. Bobbie was already gathering her things to leave. “Hey, girlie. You about ready to ditch this joint?” She looked no worse for the wear, which made him feel loads better.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she fussed as she stretched her back. “You should be relaxing after such a monumental event.”
Her grimace told him the soreness was already setting in. “You’re like a third daughter to me. I couldn’t not come.”
When would she get it through her head that there were still people in this world who loved her? James and Jamie were gone, and James’s folks had abandoned her, but she still had him and the chief, as well as the team. Hell, she had oodles of friends who cared about her, but she had pushed them all away during her recovery. He understood why; he only wished she did. She had needed to close out everything and everyone related to who she used to be in order to cope. At some point she had to come to terms with the idea that she couldn’t keep who she really was away forever.
Sensing his frustration, she smiled—it almost made it to her eyes. “You’re the best partner I’ve ever had.” She threw her arms around him and hugged him.
He smiled and patted her on the back. “I’m the only partner you’ve ever had.”
She drew back and gave him another halfway decent smile. “Damn it, Newt, you know I love you like a father.”
For one fleeting instant she allowed a rare glimpse of the old Bobbie—the one who’d made him cry with tears of joy when she’d told him she was having a baby. The one who’d conspired with his wife and daughters to throw him a fifty-fifth birthday party he would never forget. The same one who’d organized a fund-raiser for a new playground in Washington Park after working a homicide in the neighborhood. God Almighty, he missed that sweet girl.
“Now go home and get some rest,” she ordered. “My surveillance detail will take me home.”
She went up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Newt hugged her again before she could pull away. This time he said a little prayer. Whether she believed it or not, Bobbie needed all the help she could get.
She couldn’t do this alone.
Twelve
Gardendale Drive
Sunday, August 28, 2:50 a.m.
Bobbie opened her eyes when the car stopped moving. As exhausted as she was, she was grateful to be away from the hospital. She’d already spent enough time in medical facilities for several lifetimes. This go around, she was basically unharmed. Tomorrow—wait, it was tomorrow—she would be sore as hell, but she would survive.
The driver who’d swiped her off her feet wasn’t the Storyteller. Just a twenty-two-year-old jerk who’d had too much to drink and whose passenger and supposed friend possessed enough cocaine to continue the party once they got home. Now they were both in seriously deep shit, especially the driver. Bobbie couldn’t remember ever being that stupid. All she’d ever wanted to do was be a cop like her father. She’d spent her entire childhood hanging on his every word and mimicking him. By the time she was eight, her mother had given up on making her wear frilly dresses and dainty shoes. Bobbie had been the quintessential tomboy.
That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.
Her husband’s voice swirled through her soul, making her heart ache.
She pushed the memory aside and turned her thoughts to the reporters who had shown up on Taylor Road and then at the ER. There would be no more keeping a lid on this. By the morning edition, she would be the top story on every news feed. LeDoux and his crew showing up only ratcheted up the media frenzy. She had escaped the horde at the ER because Newt had insisted on being the sacrificial lamb. He had provided a sound bite while she was hustled out a maintenance exit by her surveillance detail. Once outside, she’d found Shade waiting for her. The uniforms hadn’t been happy about her going with him, but she’d outranked them both.
Her door opened. She snapped to attention. Shade stood in the vee made by the open car door. She hadn’t noticed he’d gotten out of the car. Not a good sign considering she had refused pain medicat
ion.
She glowered up at the man, when her frustration had nothing to do with him. Or, at least, it shouldn’t. “I don’t need your help.”
“Yeah. You said that already.” He didn’t move, just waited stubbornly.
Bobbie bit her lips together and climbed out of the car. Pain sheared upward from her right leg and through her hip. She swallowed the groan that burgeoned in her throat. Based on the X-rays taken at the hospital, the hardware was still right where it was supposed to be. No fractures. Nothing but soft-tissue injury. She would be bruised and sore for a few days.
She would get over it. What mattered was that Joey Rice was back with his mother.
But not Aaron Taggart. He was still out there. And it’s your fault. The Storyteller is doing this to hurt you.
Ignoring the voice as well as the stomach churning pain, she made her way to the front door. She jabbed the key into the lock and gave it a twist. Before she could push the door open and step inside, Shade was ushering her aside. He crossed the threshold, and she followed, annoyed that he seemed to believe she needed him to take care of her. The man went through her usual routine of checking the rooms and windows. Digging deep for patience, she folded her arms and waited in the foyer.
When he returned, he walked right past her and locked the door. “A hot bath will help considerably.”
What the hell did he think he was doing? “Thanks.” She gestured to the door. “I appreciate your help out there. Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Bobbie would analyze what the release of one child and not the other meant later, after she’d had some sleep. Her brain couldn’t wrap around another thought until she shut down for a while.
“I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”
She wanted to argue, but she was too damned tired to put up much of a fuss. “Did my partner put you up to this?”
She wouldn’t put it past Newt to prod this guy into playing bodyguard. It certainly wasn’t the chief. Once he’d seen with his own eyes that she was unharmed, he’d been too busy raking her over the coals about the report the surveillance detail had given him. Why on earth are you running at night alone? Why in God’s name would you be associating with Javier Quintero? Who the hell is this Nick Shade that Newt told me about? She’d like to hear how Newt explained that one.
“He has a tendency to overreact,” she added when Shade didn’t bother to answer.
“Your partner didn’t put me up to anything.” Shade jerked his head toward the hall. “Take a hot bath and hit the sack. I’ll be on the couch.”
He was serious. “No way.” She moved toward the door. “You’re leaving. Now.”
Rather than debate the issue, he gave her his back and headed for the sofa. As she watched, he stretched out and laid his forearm over his eyes.
She opened her mouth to rail at him, but she heaved a breath and snapped it shut. What was the point? Obviously he was as stubborn as she was. Too exhausted and sore to physically remove him from her sofa, she gave up and trudged to her room. After she gathered a pair of lounge pants, a tank and underwear, she locked herself in the bathroom and filled the tub with steaming water.
Placing her weapons on the counter, she stripped off her running clothes. She stared at her damaged body for a long moment before climbing into the tub. With a weary groan, she sank into the welcoming heat and closed her eyes.
Where the hell was the Storyteller? It was a good sign that Joey was uninjured, wasn’t it? Did this mean he wouldn’t harm a child? There were no incidents with children in his criminal history. Even LeDoux agreed that Perry had not taken the children for pleasure but to get to Bobbie. Leaving Joey on the interstate had been a reminder that her decision to send her child to the neighbors for help had gotten him hit by a car and killed. The memory gored into her soul like a dull spear plowing through her chest. If she hadn’t pushed Jamie out the door that night, Perry would have killed him just to torture her. She knew this, and still the agony and guilt were unbearable.
Her lips trembled as more memories flooded her. She’d taught her little boy to run next door for help if anything ever happened to Mommy and Daddy. That night—Christmas Eve not even a year ago—she’d realized Perry was in the house. She’d pushed Jamie out the front door and screamed for him to run for help. Perry had grabbed her by the hair as she’d kicked the door shut. Then he’d dragged her to the kitchen, where he’d already killed her husband.
She had done the right thing. All she could have done under those impossible, heinous circumstances...and still her baby was dead.
No matter that she’d been reminded repeatedly that she couldn’t have known the neighbor’s guests would be backing out of the driveway at that exact moment, she couldn’t not blame herself. Tears escaped her best efforts to hold them back. Any way she analyzed and rationalized it, her actions had taken the lives of her husband and their son. She had agreed to work on the Storyteller case. Early in the investigation the concept had occurred to her that her looks—the same dark hair, pale skin, tall and thin body type of his other victims—might draw his attention. But the Storyteller never struck twice in the same town. If he took a victim or dropped a victim in a location, he was done there. He wouldn’t be coming back to Montgomery and the opportunity to work on a case that had stumped the FBI for more than a decade was just too important an opportunity to pass up.
Bobbie had jumped at the chance.
Seemingly out of the blue the Storyteller suddenly changed his MO.
I couldn’t resist you.
He’d said those words to her during the three weeks of torture she had endured. She’d lost count of the number of times he’d raped her. He’d carved her body to the point that between the scars from his work and those left by the surgeries she looked like some sort of female Frankenstein monster. At the time she hadn’t known her little boy was dead, too. Believing he was waiting for her—that he needed her—was all that had kept her alive during those endless days.
Now she understood what no one—not even the FBI—had known at the time. The Storyteller’s mother had died. Her death not only caused him to escalate—taking three victims in one year for the first time that the feds knew of—but also caused him to lose control. He’d gone into a frenzy in an attempt to assuage the loss he felt. That frenzy had prompted another first in the sick son of a bitch’s murderous career: he’d made mistakes. She and her family had been part of those mistakes.
Bobbie would stop him.
And then what? Her life was over. If by some twist of fate she survived the coming battle, what was she supposed to do then? Was the fact that her broken heart kept beating her punishment for not being a better wife and mother? Maybe this miserable existence was her penance for putting her career before her family.
Do what you have to do, Bobbie. James always smiled whenever he said those words to her. It’s pretty cool being married to a superhero.
Only she wasn’t a superhero. She was a cop who’d taken a huge gamble and lost.
“I’m so sorry.” Bobbie hugged herself and scooted down, drawing her head under the water to drown out the voices.
Thirteen
Nick sat in the darkness and analyzed the events of the past twenty-four hours. The hunt was his only true escape. Sleep brought the dreams and every waking hour reminded him where he’d come from. His only choice was to stay focused on what he had to do.
Immersing himself in the search for the most evil serial killers had always been easy. He’d studied them for years. He knew the way they thought, the reasons they killed and their need to leave signatures. When he started a hunt he absorbed all he could find about the serial killer he sought. One of the primary ways to understand who a serial killer was aside from the obvious was to study his victims. Since he tracked the ones no one else could find, the victims were typically deceased, which made maintaining th
e necessary mental distance a simple matter.
Bobbie Gentry was playing havoc with his ability to stay focused. He closed his eyes and tried again to immerse himself in the images and sounds, to cocoon himself in all that this day had brought. As hard as he tried, he could not block the scent of the shampoo she used or the whispers of her breath as she readied for bed. The door to her room was closed and still he sensed her every move. The hum of the hair dryer prompted images of her fingers working through long, damp strands. He’d studied her medical file. He knew every scar on her slim body. He imagined her cool fingers smoothing silky lotion over her skin and soothing balm over her lips.
Nick sat up. He should be back at his motel with its shabby carpet and lumpy bed where nothing belonged to him except the photos and reports related to what he’d come to Montgomery to do. What he always did. The sleeping arrangements, the city, the hunt, his survival...those were the variables that changed year after year. The rest stayed the same. He stayed the same.
Whoever or whatever he was. The woman down the hall had asked those questions. Who the hell are you? Better yet, what are you? He was no one. He was nothing. There were no photos in his wallet. No framed snapshots among his meager belongings. He possessed no mementos of his childhood or last year or yesterday, for that matter. Even his name was not the same as the one he’d been given at birth.
All that he was, was meaningless. He did what he did and time moved on, repeating itself day in and day out with nothing changing except the faces of victims and the MO of the killers he hunted.
He had no right to be in this place. He stood and paced the room. He had no right to feel a kinship with her...the one victim who had survived to lead him to the killer he needed to catch. A very long time ago he had been in that awful place...the place where she was now. One of the most heinous and prolific serial killers to date had taken all that mattered to him. If only he could make her see that killing Perry would not bring her the peace she sought. She had to make her own way out of this nightmare that had taken over her life.
