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

by Leslie A. Kelly

  Which was, perhaps, why he’d become her side project. Stopping him would never change what had happened to her own family. But she had to do it anyway.

  “Sir?” she asked as she knocked on Wyatt Blackstone’s door late Saturday afternoon. “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

  He beckoned her in, not looking up from the papers, saying, “Wyatt, please.”

  She had a hard time with that, calling him by his first name. Not just because she wasn’t used to supervisors who were so much a part of a team, but also because the man intimidated her like crazy. The supervisory special agent was everything an FBI agent should be, from the top of his handsome head to the bottom of his shined shoes. Intelligent enough to keep up with even Brandon, street-smart enough to hold his own with Dean Taggert. Wyatt was out of her league in every way. She was often left tongue-tied around him.

  “Anything new?” he asked when she took the seat on the other side of his desk.

  “I’ve found a few accounts that look promising. I’ve contacted someone at Treasury to get information about some transfers, but I won’t hear back until Monday.”

  “I am afraid our unsub probably works weekends,” he mused.

  She had no doubt he was right.

  “Good work.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She fell silent, looking at her own clenched hands in her lap, wondering how to broach the subject that had driven her to seek him out.

  “Is there something else?”

  Taking a deep breath, she hoped her voice remained steady and didn’t betray how personally involved she was. “I was wondering … I know the Reaper is our primary target here, but some of the other things going on in that site are keeping me up nights.”

  “The pedophiles.”

  “One in particular,” she admitted, not surprised that he had immediately known where she was headed. Blackstone had been very kind during her interview, when he’d asked how she was coping with what had happened to her family a short eighteen months ago. She’d been incapable of lying about the rage she still felt toward the man who’d brutalized her nephew and the anguish over her sister’s resulting suicide. So yes, of course he understood her personal demons.

  “The Cyber Division has a unit devoted to catching those monsters, Lily.”

  “They don’t know about him,” she snapped back. There was such a mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude pervading this building that she had no doubt Blackstone was keeping this case close to his chest.

  But he immediately proved her wrong. “Yes, they do.”

  Her jaw falling, she realized she’d completely misjudged him. “You mean you—”

  “Of course. You can’t possibly think I would keep Satan’s Playground a secret from the rest of the division in some kind of we-found-it-first foolishness.”

  That was exactly what she’d thought. Now who was the fool?

  “There are people working on it, I assure you. Another CAT, for one, and top agents who work crimes against children.”

  Relieved by that, she still couldn’t contain the need to do something—which had driven her here to begin with. “I want to help.”

  One fine brow arched over a dark blue eye. “We’re not keeping you busy enough?”

  Flushing, she shook her head. “I would never let my personal history distract me from my job.” Meeting his stare, she added, “I promised you that when I asked you to take me on.”

  He nodded once, conceding the point.

  “But if I were to offer some assistance in my spare time …”

  “You don’t have any spare time,” was the flat reply. “The unsub has to be stopped. If you have time to work on anything, it’s got to be on him.”

  “I meant afterward, once we’ve got him. I certainly would not deviate from the first priority, to stop the murders.”

  She meant it. Despite wanting to go after the sickos playing out their child-rape fantasies in the online Playground, she knew her job. She had no proof Lovesprettyboys had ever actually acted on his proclivities, just suspicions. The Reaper, however, had shown in full, blazing color what evil atrocities he was capable of in real life.

  “I’d like to volunteer to assist in the other investigation after ours has been successfully concluded. My experience working on the Satan’s Playground site in this case might prove beneficial in that one.”

  His frown said he didn’t like the idea, but his words were careful. “I thought the change of jobs was about you moving beyond the past. Trying to get on with your life.” His words were cautionary, his tone sympathetic.

  “Getting on with my life does not mean I can’t try to stop the kinds of criminals who affected me and my family,” she replied, resolute. “The man who killed my nephew is in prison and he’ll remain there for the rest of his life. I’m not confusing the deviants on this Internet site with him.”

  Blackstone was quiet for a moment, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his temple, as if battling a headache. She imagined he had a lot of them in this job. Finally, he murmured, “You know he’s filed an appeal?”

  Lily closed her eyes briefly, not wanting her boss to see the rage and frustration in them. The knowledge that Jesse Tyrone Boyd was trying to overturn his conviction for the rape and murder of the little boy she’d loved with her entire soul infested her brain and tormented her every minute of every day.

  “He was rightfully convicted. He won’t get off.” She bit the words out from between clenched teeth.

  “But while that’s going on, do you really want to immerse yourself in something so similar?”

  “We don’t know that it’s similar,” she insisted. “Or that this Internet guy has ever committed a real crime against a child.” That was a lie. She knew. Something deep inside of her was certain that the monster lurking in the cyber playground had done his share of lurking in real ones. But she had to play this cool, by the book, remain completely detached and professional. “I simply want to do whatever I can to help stop him.”

  Blackstone studied her intently for a long moment. She managed to keep herself calm and collected through sheer force of will.

  “All right,” he finally murmured.

  Lily suppressed a sigh of relief, thanking him as she got up to leave. And as she walked out of his office, she mentally told herself that he was correct.

  Not personal. Not personal. Not personal.

  Maybe if she kept thinking that, she might actually start to believe it.

  DICK’S TAVERN had been built in the sixties, and from day one it had attracted a certain kind of crowd. Back then, it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid hippie freaks. In the eighties it had been a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid yuppie scum.

  Now it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid anything resembling law and order. Or politeness, decency, courtesy, or class.

  Stacey hated the place almost as much as her father did. But there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it, aside from responding to the inevitable brawls that sometimes spilled out into the road. The proprietor, Dick Wood—wasn’t that a porn star name if there had ever been one, and didn’t he just act like he’d earned it?—kept his nose clean in the two areas that could destroy him: He didn’t allow dope deals anywhere on the premises and he had never been caught serving minors.

  If he had been, she’d have had him up on charges so fast the man wouldn’t have had time to lock the door before she’d slapped a CLOSED sign on it.

  “Classy place,” Dean said as they pulled into the parking lot, already crowded with mud-encrusted off-roaders, rusty pickups, and crotch rockets that had seen much better days. “I don’t suppose they have a lunch menu that would explain the crowds at three o’clock in the afternoon?”

  “Only if by lunch you mean peanuts, whose shells are about an inch thick on the floor in some places. This is why I figured we’d be safe coming out here this afternoon rather than waiting until tonight, when they got really busy. The regulars are already parked on their usual stool
s; I guarantee it.”

  Dick’s was always busy on weekends, from the time the doors opened at ten a.m. until they closed, often with a last drive-by warning patrol by Stacey or one of her deputies at two. At any hour in between, beer was being poured or vomited back out on the sticky floor. Darts were being flung. Fights were breaking out. Sex was being had in the dirty, dingy back hallway or up against the side of the building.

  “How often do you have to come out here?”

  Swinging the patrol car into the lone vacant spot out back, she left the engine running to combat the heat. Stacey pushed her dark sunglasses onto the top of her head and glanced at her passenger. “Once or twice a week. More on weekends and holidays, when we set up sobriety checkpoints.”

  “Like shooting fish in a barrel, huh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is Stan Freed a regular?” His simple question didn’t disguise the genuine dislike he obviously held for the man.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “That guy’s total scum; you know that, right?”

  Hell, yes, she knew it. “Yeah, he is.” She quickly told him what Winnie had said about their visit to the hospital the night Lisa had disappeared.

  “Easy to check her. Not so easy to find out if he sat in the waiting room all night, or left.”

  Something else she’d already considered.

  He looked at the tavern again and sighed audibly. “Too bad the place is such a pit. I have a feeling I’m going to wish for a beer after today.”

  “You definitely don’t want to drink here.” Something sent a few more crazy words across her lips before she could think better of them. “Stop by my place tonight. I have a six-pack in the fridge. I suspect we could both use a cold one.”

  So much for letting the guy make the first move. That resolution had lasted all of, what, eight hours?

  A small smile tugged at his mouth and an amused gleam appeared in his dark eyes. The hard-ass FBI agent had been replaced by the sexy hottie she’d met once or twice since Special Agent Dean Taggert had come to town. The one who made her forget the uniform and remember the woman wearing it. “You asking me on a date, Sheriff?”

  She snorted, sensing that teasing didn’t come easily to this man, especially while he was on the job. Maybe he needed a break from the tension as much as she did.

  “Could be.”

  “Your timing is interesting.”

  “Yours sucks.”

  One brow shot up.

  “I mean, you’ve been here a couple of days already and you still haven’t worked your way up to making the first move.”

  He laughed out loud, a low, masculine sound. “We’re just going to skip the part where we gradually get to know each other and feel our way around to determining if we’re interested in more, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Blunt.”

  “I never learned to be any other way.” In for a penny, as they said. “Besides, like I said yesterday, we both know we’re interested. I was going to be all female and let you take it from there.” Her good humor fading a bit, she admitted, “But to tell you the truth, this case has me a little rattled. I’m finding it hard to stay completely aloof. To be honest, I could use some company after hours.”

  She didn’t up the ante, didn’t say she could use some company in the long, empty nights when the bad dreams and her own need for physical connection kept her from any real rest. She wasn’t trying to fool herself. Stacey had no doubt she wanted to go to bed with the man sitting beside her. Yet there was only so much even the most blunt of women could say to a guy she had known for only a few days.

  “I’ve been wondering if you were going to make this personal.” He reached over and touched the tips of his fingers to a strand of her hair, which had loosened from its bun and fallen to her cheek. Rubbing it between his thumb and index finger, he murmured, “I know better, but still, part of me wanted you to.”

  “You know better?”

  “I am in no shape to get involved with anybody.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir here, Special Agent Taggert. I’m not looking for any kind of long-term involvement.” Especially involvement with somebody like him, who would leave here soon and continue making his way through the bloody world he inhabited. The one that had briefly invaded her little corner of the universe, and which she wanted gone just as soon as they nailed the bastard they were after.

  “I’m so far out of practice with this game, I don’t remember the rules.”

  “Rules aren’t laws. They’re sometimes made to be broken,” she said, a tiny shiver coursing through her. It had nothing to do with the chilled air pouring from the vents in the dashboard and everything to do with the way his fingertips oh-so-gently brushed her cheek before he slowly pulled them away. “Besides, I don’t feel like playing games.”

  “Me either.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m bad at this, Stacey. I never even noticed my wife falling out of love with me.”

  “Jeez, I didn’t ask you to marry me; I asked you to come over for a beer,” she said with a forced chuckle. This needed to stay light and easy, for both their sakes. He was one year off a divorce. She was a couple of years out of the worst period of her life. He was saturated in death and violence. She’d moved back here specifically to escape that darkness. No way did they have anything that could resemble long term.

  Simple. No strings. That was all either of them could afford.

  She knew all that. But she still opened her dumb mouth. “Have you fallen out of love with her?”

  He thought about it, staring out the windshield. “Yeah. I guess I had long before we split up. I just didn’t realize it until she forced the issue. The divorce didn’t bother me much. The custody, though, that’s pure hell.”

  “I’m sure.”

  As if wanting to scare her off, to make one more effort to put up barriers for her protection, he admitted, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone else.”

  Been with—as in, had sex with. The tension in the close confines of the car shot up a notch. Or a hundred notches. She felt the warmth of his strong body, heard the slow breaths that seemed as deliberately cautious as her own. Smelled the clean scent of soap and an earthier one of pure masculinity that encompassed him from head to toe.

  And every female particle inside her reacted. “You’re not alone,” she finally said, the words shaking as she tried to keep them light. “I’m not exactly a man magnet myself.”

  Man repellent would be more like it. The last guy she’d been with had been an attorney down in Roanoke, who’d been able to separate his job from his emotions. He couldn’t understand why she couldn’t get over what had happened. Of course, he hadn’t been an early responder to one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history.

  “I find that hard to believe. You have a whole townful of people who like and respect you.” That sexy, amused glint returned to his eye. “You have at least one admirer, judging by what happened at the diner my first night in town.”

  Thinking of the scene with Rob Monroe in the diner, and in the doughnut shop the other morning, she visibly shuddered in distaste. “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Is he the only available guy around?”

  “No. But knowing everyone here is a double-edged sword. Since nearly every man in this county is either scared of me or hates my guts, the social opportunities aren’t exactly limitless. Believe me, I don’t have much of a personal life.” Shrugging, tired of dancing around it, she could only meet his direct stare and be entirely honest. “I’m attracted to you, Dean, for any number of reasons. I think we’re both in the right place right now to do something about it.”

  He didn’t argue; they were past that. “Attracted physically.”

  And mentally. And possibly even emotionally. But that was miles ahead of where she would consider walking, even in her own head. “Yes.”

  He hesitated, then merely murmured, “W
ell, okay, then.”

  “Okay, then?” Whatever that meant. A beer? Dinner? More?

  “Okay,” he explained, “I’d love to come over for a beer.”

  And maybe more. She’d just have to wait and see what.

  Smiling in self-satisfaction, as she acknowledged that waiting for a guy to take the lead had never gotten her anywhere, Stacey cut the engine. “Guess we’d better get on with it. The crowd’s not getting any more sober in there.”

  Stepping out of the car, she spotted one very familiar, dented four-by-four, and couldn’t contain a frown. Damn it, Tim. Her brother had sworn he wasn’t getting in over his head with his drinking or with Randy and his rough-edged new friends. Who, she suspected, appealed to him, since many of them carried scars of their own, physical and emotional.

  She also suspected the shrink Tim refused to go back to would say he was trying to escape from his former world into a new one where he didn’t have to give a damn about anyone. Even himself. One where he could escape the memories of whatever had been done to him—and whatever he’d done—in the Middle East, before a roadside bomb had shattered not only his face, but his spirit as well.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Pushing her sunglasses back over her eyes and donning her broad-brimmed hat, she took a deep breath, determined to remain the sheriff no matter what happened inside. If her hardhead of a brother started anything, he’d be talking to her back at the station.

  With Dean at her side, she strode around the side of the building, her gaze scanning the parking lot. As she walked, she also checked for expired tags, unsafe vehicles, and, mindful of the case, any late-model American-made pickups. That there were a good dozen of them right here in this one parking lot said a lot about how that lead was going to pan out.

  Just inside the doorway, Stacey paused, but didn’t remove her sunglasses. She knew from experience that the dark lenses, and the inability to gauge her expression, was intimidating to people she was questioning.