FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series

by Leslie A. Kelly

Actually, those feelings had been one reason he’d brought her over to his team. She’d recently suffered a personal tragedy, the loss of her nephew and her sister. Almost desperate to get out of a closed-in office and into the field, if only to rebel against the impotence every crime victim felt, she’d asked for a shot, and he’d given it to her.

  So far, he hadn’t regretted it. Her personal history hadn’t interfered with her job. Though he couldn’t deny that whenever office conversation turned toward child abuse, like some of the sick goings-on at Satan’s Playground, Lily Fletcher went whiter than any of the monuments gracing the city where they worked.

  “Sorry, I dropped the phone,” she mumbled a moment later.

  Of course she had.

  Before she’d dropped it, her desk phone would have been tucked in the crook of her neck so she could leave her hands free. The slim fingers would be flying across the keyboard as she coaxed miracles from the machine, just like Brandon Cole often did.

  And that was the other reason he had hired her, despite her lack of field experience and her tendency to get too involved. The woman was as brilliant as Cole, but she played by the book. Brandon Cole did not. Frankly, Wyatt needed them both for exactly that reason. “It’s all right.”

  “Listen, Brandon asked me to call you. Hold on; I’ll put you on speaker.”

  He held, then heard, “Hey, boss! Hear you may have ID’d the first victim?”

  “It appears so. You got the message that I want you and Lily here tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, uh, about that.”

  “Yes?”

  “Not sure we should leave. Something’s happening, boss.”

  “What is it?’

  “Hold up, I might have …”

  Containing a sigh of irritation, he waited, hearing the clicking of keys in the background. As if realizing he was growing impatient, Lily explained, “He’s trying to get back into the Playground.”

  “Bastards went underground again a couple of hours ago,” Cole added.

  Damn. In the week since Brandon had brought Satan’s Playground to their attention, the group had changed servers twice. Brandon kept following them, like a child following a trail of bread crumbs, all over cyberspace. He wouldn’t find anything as sweet as a gingerbread house at the end of his journey, and the evil waiting on the other side was darker than any children’s tale could conjure up.

  Finally, he heard a triumphant whoop. “Got you!”

  “He’s back in,” Lily explained.

  “I heard.”

  Brandon jumped into the conversation. “Okay, here’s why I wanted to talk to you. It looks like the unsub is gearing up for a new auction.”

  “It’s only been a month since his last one.”

  “I know. He’s accelerating.”

  Never a good thing. “When will it take place?”

  “I’m not sure,” Brandon replied. “I haven’t been able to break into the actual auctions yet; I don’t even know whether they’re real-time or silent. But I started seeing chatter about it right before the site went dark.” More clicking. “I guess everybody gets excited when the Reaper gears up for his next kill.”

  Breaking into the auctions was on top of Brandon’s priority list. If they could get inside and find a way to trace the money trail, they’d be able to nail somebody, either the auction winner or the Reaper himself. Right now, they wanted the killer very badly. But every member of his team also wanted to bring down the twisted clients who paid to have their evil fantasies carried out.

  “How soon will you know?”

  “I’ll stay here all night if I have to.”

  Wyatt nodded, closing his eyes and rubbing at the corners of them. They hadn’t expected this additional pressure, not so soon. The first auctions had been two or three months apart, the last few narrowed to about six or seven weeks. Now, barely a month. “What are the chances of disrupting the auction? Doing something to crash it?”

  “Only if you want these sickos to know we’re watching them,” said Lily.

  “Then they’ll close up shop and dive into a hole so deep it could take months to find them again,” Brandon added.

  Damn. A cold rush of helplessness spread over him and Wyatt sank to the bed. All the other auctions had ended in someone’s horrible death, which had been put on display at Satan’s Playground within seventy-two hours. Meaning they had only days now, not weeks, in which to find the unsub and stop him.

  Or else have front-row seats to another brutal, sadistic murder.

  CHAPTER 5

  THEY STARTED THE SEARCH EARLY. With a lot of land to cover, and only seven people—Stacey, Taggert, three of her deputies, and two other FBI agents who’d arrived last night—to do it, the job was shaping up to be a major one. Better, in Stacey’s opinion, to get started just after dawn and take advantage of whatever brief amount of coolness the day might provide. Despite their being shaded from the vicious sun by a thick canopy of pine, oak, and cedar, the woods hugging Warren Lee’s fence had a closed-in, cavelike feeling that held the heat in and made even the simple act of breathing difficult.

  Besides, it wasn’t like she’d slept for more than twenty minutes at a stretch all night, anyway. She’d lain awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to fathom what Dean Taggert had told her: that there might very well be a serial killer living right here in Hope Valley. It was so far beyond her comprehension, he might as well have told her aliens had landed.

  That wasn’t the only thing that had inhibited her rest. The mourning she’d done for poor, sad Lisa hadn’t helped. And when she had fallen into minutes of fitful slumber, she’d found herself dreaming of Dean Taggert. Odd dreams she couldn’t quite remember, but which had left her feeling tense and uncomfortable.

  “You’re sure your guys know what they’re doing?”

  She made an effort not to stiffen at Special Agent Taggert’s bluntness as they paused, shoulder-to-shoulder, having cleared another section of their search area. He might have been Dean at the diner, but today he was again all hard-edged FBI agent. Which was fine with her. She’d spent enough time wondering why on earth she found a man who brought murder and horror into her safe, secure world so damned attractive.

  She almost wished Taggert had been the one who’d left this morning, rather than his boss. Blackstone had stopped by only briefly before heading back to Washington, apparently because of a new lead in the case. Maybe that was just as well; she had a hard time picturing the supervisory special agent mucking around in the woods in his crisp black suit and highly shined shoes.

  “They’re not going to go tromping on any potential evidence, are they?”

  “They’re fine,” she snapped. “Completely trustworthy.”

  Stacey had thought long and hard before deciding which of her deputies could be counted on to do this job right—not only the search, but keeping the reason for it quiet, at least for the time being. She’d have to tell Winnie Freed, and soon, but she’d be damned if she’d go to the woman without at least trying to find her daughter’s remains first. News of a death was bad enough for anyone to deal with. Not having a body to bury meant Winnie would doubt—would question.

  Would torture herself with false hope.

  So Stacey had to put off telling the woman at least long enough for one good search for Lisa.

  “We need to pick up the pace,” Taggert said. “This is taking too long.”

  “Are you sure your guys know what they’re doing?” she asked, not sure why she wanted to goad the man.

  He frowned, his mouth pulling tight. Not a great sense of humor on this one.

  “Pretty sure. Want to hear their qualifications?”

  “I’m sorry. But we’re not even sure what we’re looking for, Agent Taggert,” she said, her tone remaining cool. She was pretty impressed with how well her deputies had reacted today and didn’t appreciate the implied criticism. She only wished her chief deputy hadn’t put himself out of commission by falling off his damn roof.

  “
We’re looking for anything,” he said. “Absolutely anything we can use.”

  “Even if any blood could possibly survive in the elements, we know Lisa was standing on a tarp that would have caught most of it. I don’t imagine we’re going to stumble over an enormous red circle on the ground with a neon sign saying, ‘It happened here.’ And I doubt this killer was stupid enough to leave his knife lying around for us to find.”

  He thrust a hand through his thick, dark hair, frustration oozing out of his every pore. “I know. But a complete visual pass is imperative. Then we’ll move on to dogs, see if we can get something of Lisa’s and try to get them to pick up a scent.”

  “That’s a long shot.”

  “Tell me about it.” His jaw flexed as he cast a slow look around the clearing in which they’d parked, and which he’d designated as base of operations. She sensed he was seeing the entire forest, not just the trees. “This whole thing is an incredible long shot, and God knows we don’t have time to spare on a wild-goose chase.”

  Realizing he hadn’t been criticizing, merely expressing his own anxiety, she unbent a little. Glancing at the sweat on his brow, the dampness of his unbuttoned dress shirt molding against his broad shoulders and thick arms, she murmured, “How are you holding up in this heat?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I sense you spend more time in an air-conditioned office than in the woods.”

  “You might be surprised. I’ve never been a desk-jockey type.”

  “Have you been a Boy Scout? Because any ten-year-old with half a brain would have known better than to dress like that today.”

  He jerked his head up, as if unused to women throwing snarky comments in his direction. A guy as tough and good-looking as this one probably got lots of compliments and come-ons instead.

  A tiny smile that looked more menacing than friendly, like it didn’t get much use, appeared on his lips. His eyes narrowed, his dark gaze homing in on her, every ounce of his attention focused in her direction rather than on the search. The full onslaught of that heated concentration suddenly made her heart skip a beat in her chest. “I wasn’t exactly the Boy Scout type. But something tells me you already knew that.”

  That frankly assessing look would have sent any self-respecting good girl running in the opposite direction. Stacey shivered despite herself. Because he was about as far from a Boy Scout as she was from a suburban housewife.

  “Nobody’s ever called me Mr. Nice Guy,” he warned. And again, she had the suspicion he was talking about more than just this moment, this case. As if confirming that he might have spent some of last night thinking about her, too.

  She wasn’t scared off. Because nice guys? They were a dime a dozen in Hope Valley. And she was a good girl who’d been good so long she couldn’t even remember why she kept getting her birth control pill prescriptions refilled.

  She’d started having a suspicion, though, ever since he’d walked into her office yesterday afternoon.

  “Maybe nice is overrated,” she murmured.

  Finally, as if realizing he was watching her a little too closely, building the already thick tension between them, he shook his head, hard. “You’re right about the clothes. But I didn’t exactly pack shorts and flip-flops.”

  She chuckled, unable to picture it, and glad he’d coasted back into safe territory. Away from that confusing awareness that seemed to wash over both of them at the most unusual times. Because if he wasn’t as aware of her as a woman as she was of him as a man, then she had no business calling herself female. Every intuition she owned told her it was true. And the words he’d said when he’d joined her at the diner the previous evening—If we’re going to do this—had repeated in her ears a whole bunch of times since.

  He hadn’t been talking about working together, having dinner or a drink together. Something had made him say those words in that way, and something in her had responded, even if she’d managed to keep her cool and pretend she’d misunderstood.

  She hadn’t misunderstood. She got the message loud and clear. She just didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

  Dean gestured toward her own pants and shirt. “You’re not exactly up for a day at the beach yourself.”

  “At least mine are lightweight and light colored.”

  Unlike Taggert’s dark trousers and long-sleeved shirt. She’d bet money he’d had a long mental argument with himself over whether or not to remove the suit jacket. If they’d been in public, where others could have seen the .40 Glock strapped in the holster at his hip, she doubted he would have, no matter what he’d had packed in his overnight bag for his trip to Hope Valley.

  “Just make sure you drink plenty of water,” she cautioned.

  “I can handle myself,” he retorted as he unbuttoned his sleeves and shoved them up his thick forearms. Every inch of tanned skin he revealed glistened, though they’d been out for only an hour. The muscles flexing in those arms confirmed his strength, the blunt power of him.

  “I noticed,” she muttered before she thought better of it. Oh, boy, had she noticed.

  Fortunately, he either didn’t hear the frank interest in her voice, or didn’t correctly interpret it. “You look pretty capable of handling yourself, too.”

  “I guess,” she admitted.

  “You’ve been on the job somewhere else,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Virginia State Police down in Roanoke for eight years.”

  He studied her. Thought about it. “How long ago?”

  “I quit in May of eleven.”

  She watched him make the connections. Saw the truth click in his brain.

  “You responded to the attack at …”

  “Yeah.” She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t even want to remember what had happened that April day on that once-beautiful campus. The nightmares had finally ended. She’d do anything to make sure they didn’t return, and she put up a big mental stop sign to keep the memories tucked away in the darkest recesses of her mind.

  “That’s rough.”

  She nodded, then quickly changed the subject. “And you were a street cop if I’ve ever seen one. Something tells me ViCAP wasn’t your first stop in law enforcement.”

  “Baltimore Vice.”

  “Knew it.”

  “What gave me away?”

  “Your boss screams fed. You don’t.”

  “Was that a compliment?”

  She stiffened, wondering how to answer. Because it had been. While she had noted his supervisor’s handsome looks, Dean’s outright ruggedness, the rough street edge, appealed to her more. A lot more.

  Common sense said to keep that to herself. To maintain a professional wall, help this man get his job done, and push him out of Hope Valley as soon as possible. But Stacey suddenly wondered if common sense was just a little bit overrated.

  The cop in her said it absolutely was not.

  The woman who hadn’t been touched intimately by a man in more than two years had other ideas.

  Stacey honestly wasn’t sure which of them was right. Their current situation demanded that she maintain a professional footing. Even so, she found herself unable to outright lie. “Yes, Special Agent Taggert. Unfortunately, I think it was.”

  Suddenly averting his eyes, he swiped the back of his forearm across his sweaty forehead. As if he’d bitten off a little more than he could chew, given their current location. She didn’t know him well yet, but she suspected Dean wasn’t used to this. He didn’t know what the vibes between them were, what they meant, and where they were going. Hell, neither did she. But she wasn’t about to pretend they didn’t exist—there was that honesty thing again.

  Having had enough of dancing around it, she cut to the chase. Stacey had learned as a kid that directness usually worked best with men. After all, she’d been raised in a house full of them, with no woman around. Maybe if she’d had a mother, she’d have learned the art of subtlety.

  From her father, however, she’d learned bluntness
.

  “Are you seeing anyone?”

  His jaw unhinged.

  “Look, we both know there’s something here. What you said when you showed up at the diner last night proves it. Let’s just get it out in the open so it doesn’t get in the way of our work.”

  Silence. He simply studied her, as if shocked that she’d been so candid. But finally, he admitted, “My divorce was finalized ten months ago.”

  Oh. He’d been married. She had, of course, checked out his left hand to make sure she wasn’t letting herself get interested in someone unavailable. She just hadn’t figured him for the marrying type, which was probably pretty unfair, since most people saw her that way, too.

  She’d get married someday. Probably. Maybe. If she found someone who understood her position on the whole kids issue. And if someone who could stand up to her—physically, mentally, emotionally—ever happened to wander into Hope Valley.

  Her gaze lingered on him a moment too long. … Not going there. “Divorced, huh? Bet that was fun.”

  His gruff laugh acknowledged her sarcasm. “She remarried weeks later.”

  “Ouch.” Knowing it was none of her business, she asked anyway. “I take it she … knew the guy before you two split?”

  “Knew him? Oh, absolutely. In every way.”

  Bitch. Stacey had never laid eyes on the woman, but her intrinsic honor and basic values revolted at one who’d cheat. Who’d cheat on him. “That’s rough.”

  He shrugged. “But maybe not so surprising. We got married right out of college. For some reason she thought being married to a cop would be exciting and impressive.”

  Snorting, Stacey replied, “Guess she doesn’t read statistics very much.” Divorce rates in law enforcement were staggering.

  “She figured it out. Then she urged me to go for the FBI. I guess saying she was married to a special agent sounded more romantic at the water cooler than, ‘My hubby busts dope dealers on Charles Street.’”

  “ViCAP. Uh-huh. I’ve heard that’s a regular hotbed of romance.”

  His shoulders started to shake as, unbelievably, he began to laugh. They were sweating and shooing away mosquitoes, looking for a crime scene in the middle of nowhere, talking about something two near-strangers almost never openly addressed, and able to laugh about it.