Cutting Edge: A Novel of Suspense

by Allison Brennan

  “I turned FBI informant when I was seventeen. Worked with the Los Angeles office, gave them everything, and they were there to catch them.”

  “But they didn’t?”

  “Cameron Lovitz is dead. The others are in prison, including my mother.”

  “And then you joined the FBI?” It seemed incredible and unexpected, but it fit Nora.

  “I didn’t know what I wanted to do after my world fell apart.” She walked over to the counter, leaned against it. “My handler lied to me. About a lot of things, but I didn’t know that until he died during the operation. I hated him, but I didn’t. I understand why, now, but at the time …” Her voice trailed off. “I met another agent out of Los Angeles, Rick Stockton. He’s now a director at the FBI lab. He was everything that Andy Keene was not. And he taught me a lot, helped me gain custody of Quin, helped me get my GED and go to college. Urged me to take psychology because of my aptitude tests.”

  “Psychology? Are you a profiler?” It made sense, the way she analyzed where the arsonists took the ducks.

  “I have the certification. The BSU offered me a position, but it meant a lot of travel.”

  “You don’t like to travel?”

  “One week here or there for vacation? Sure. For my job? No. I wanted a home. A place of my own. A place for my stuff.” She laughed at herself, but it was a sad sound, and Duke rose from his chair and crossed over to Nora. He took her hands into his, and squeezed.

  “Home is everything,” Duke said. “I didn’t realize how important it was until my parents died, and it was gone. So, yeah, I understand exactly what you’re feeling.”

  She swallowed, trying to extract her hands from his, but Duke didn’t let go.

  “I also finally figured out what makes you tick.”

  “You don’t know me—” she began.

  “On the contrary. Do you realize that every decision you make is always about someone else? From turning FBI informant to raising your sister to joining the FBI.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Would you have stayed with Lorraine as long as you did if Quin wasn’t in the picture?” he interrupted.

  “Probably not, but—”

  “And why are you here in Sacramento? Because of your sister?”

  “Family. You said it yourself, home is everything. Quin’s my only family, why are you picking on me?” That came out wrong. She sounded immature and stupid, and it wasn’t what she meant, but she didn’t like how Duke Rogan had a way of looking at her as if he knew her better than she knew herself.

  “You have a beautiful house, but you’re never here to enjoy it. You work fourteen hour days, seven days a week. I don’t think you’ve ever put yourself first, or factored in your dreams ahead of Quin or your partner or your boss or the damn FBI. It’s never, ‘What does Nora want?’ It’s always, ‘What does someone else need?’ What do you do for fun? Do you like to swim in that incredible pool out back? Do you like skiing? Camping? Going to amusement parks?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and she blinked them back, averting her gaze.

  “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just that I want you so much, Nora, but even more than that, I want you to be happy.”

  “I’ve never been to Disneyland,” she said softly. “I can’t believe I’m upset about it.”

  Nora should have anticipated Duke’s kiss, but it surprised her nonetheless when his lips touched hers.

  It was light, airy, for only a moment. Then he pressed his solid body against hers, his hands wrapped around her waist to hold her against him, and he took the kiss from warm to scorching in seconds.

  The heat radiated from his body, his mouth claimed hers, hard and intense, sending a lightning bolt through her nerves. Her hand went up to his face, touched it, and he shivered against her.

  The kiss was all she could think of, her mouth drawing in his tongue, his taste and scent wrapping around her senses so she couldn’t think. She was on fire, a good fire, a yearning and need for Duke that she’d kept simmering on the back burner for far too long. The fear was still there, but she pushed it aside as her hands reached into his hair and a moan escaped her throat.

  He pulled his mouth from hers, kissed her jawline, her ear, and whispered, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for years.” He feathered kisses on her face. “I should go.”

  She nodded her agreement. It was a lie. And he knew it.

  He kissed her, held her chin in his palm. “Next time I’m going to stay.”

  Her knees buckled as a hot wave of anticipation jolted her. He smiled, as if he knew what he’d done to her.

  “I’m going to go before I find it too hard to leave. Set your alarm, and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning at FBI headquarters.”

  Nora was speechless. She followed Duke to the front door. Her voice seemed to have disappeared. She cleared her throat.

  “Tomorrow,” she whispered.

  He turned and stared at her, a deadly serious half smile on his face. “Sweet dreams, Nora.” But his tone was anything but sweet. It was spicy and held the promise of his words, “Next time I’m going to stay.”

  Then he left.

  She locked the door behind him, set her alarm, and stood there, calming her racing heart, still feeling his lips on hers, his mouth hot and seeking, his hand on her chin.

  There was no going back. She’d tasted the forbidden fruit, and she wanted more.

  It wasn’t Duke Rogan who was forbidden; it was anyone who tried to get too close. He was dangerous to her carefully arranged life, her quiet home, her peace. She’d built everything around her with care: her friendships, her relationship with Quin, her career. Someone like Duke could throw it all off balance. Though with someone like Duke, she almost didn’t care if he turned her life upside down.

  Still, she was terrified of losing herself, losing everything she’d worked hard to achieve. But mostly she was scared that the wall that kept her from getting too close to anyone or anything would melt under the laser blue gaze of Duke Rogan.

  While her sister Quin had made a point to date many men as often as possible—all smart, professional, attractive, eligible bachelors—Nora’s sister’s relationships were fleeting. Quin never put her heart on the line, therefore she couldn’t be hurt. But neither was she happy—though she’d never admit that.

  Nora was the opposite. She’d been involved with very few men since Andy Keene. She had always put everything on the line—and each time, the relationship had ended badly. Nora liked her present life. She longed to come home at the end of a busy day. She loved sitting on her deck and reading until the last sunlight disappeared.

  If she wanted to have cereal for dinner or cold pizza for breakfast, she could, without commentary or criticism.

  She was content.

  But contentment was lonely.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  Nora walked into FBI headquarters before eight in the morning while talking to Agent Nathan Dunn of the Lake Tahoe satellite office on her cell.

  “It was dark when we finally made it last night,” he told her. “We had a warrant to deliver, and it ended up being a testy situation. Payne’s place was locked up tight and we had no indication that anyone was in immediate danger.”

  “The man is dead,” Nora said bluntly. “We confirmed that he left his Auburn residence at oh seven hundred on Saturday, and his intended destination was his house in Lake Tahoe. The medical examiner confirmed that he wasn’t killed at the research lab, so yeah, I think we have probable cause to enter his house. Do it and call me right back.” She hung up, not giving him a chance to argue. Technically, she wasn’t his supervisor. He and his partner worked independently, running the Lake Tahoe office. But she’d worked with them many times over the years, and she was the acting SSA of the domestic terrorism squad while Nolan Cassidy was at Quantico. She had no problem using the little authority she had if it got the information faster.

  The tight rule
s and regulations that Nora worked under day in and day out were beginning to annoy her. For once she wished she had the freedom to act when she knew damn well something was up. If Payne hadn’t been killed at his vacation house, they needed to know that ASAP. If he had been, they needed their evidence response team on-site immediately. And while Dunn was a competent agent, too many times he and others had their heads knocked around by the U.S. attorney’s office for overstepping procedural boundaries. And with the recent electoral changes, nearly every U.S. attorney had been replaced. No one quite knew what to expect from the new people, and thus were doubly sensitive.

  But a man was dead and an anarchist group apparently had a psycho in charge, which made almost everything Nora had learned since becoming an agent fifteen years ago irrelevant. She had to go way back for lessons in this kind of aberrant psychology, to the two years she had lived under the same roof with Cameron Lovitz. His powerful personality had convinced her mother that breaking into a nuclear power plant was a good idea.

  Who had that kind of charisma? Leif Cole for one. However, after reading his published works and talking to him half a dozen times over the twenty months since the first arson at Langlier, Nora had thought the academic a highly unlikely suspect. Just because he was the most vocal opponent of genetic research didn’t make him an arsonist, or a killer.

  But maybe she was wrong. She needed to talk to him again. Pressure him to help.

  If a traditional anarchist cell had killed someone, it would have been an accident, and most likely they would then disband. There was still one cold case from five years ago where that had happened. After a homeless man died in an arson fire at a new apartment development, a string of seventeen related arsons stopped cold.

  But Jonah Payne’s death was premeditated murder. A psychopath, even one with a political agenda, operated under a different set of guidelines. Would the public outrage slow him down or encourage him?

  She sent a message to her team to meet in the main conference room at 0830 for a debriefing and assignments, then stopped by SSA Megan Elliott’s small office. Megan handled violent crimes.

  Kincaid, Nora reminded herself. She rarely worked with Megan, and it would take time getting used to the fact that she’d gotten married over the summer. Nora had never thought about how she might manage her workaholic life within a marriage. It was all so much easier when no one else depended on you and you could make your own schedule.

  Megan was at her desk, and motioned for Nora to come in while she wrapped up her call. “What’s going on?” Megan asked.

  “I’m dealing with a psychopath in the Butcher-Payne arson, and that’s your area of expertise.”

  “Lucky me,” Megan said.

  “I’ve called my team together for a debriefing in twenty minutes. Would you mind sitting in and sharing your thoughts and wisdom?”

  “Count me in. Any word on Nolan?”

  Nora shook her head. “Nothing new. He loves it at Quantico.”

  “You ready to take over for him?”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Nora said. She’d thought about it, and while being in charge of her squad didn’t intimidate her, she wasn’t entirely confident that she was the best person for the job. As Pete always told her, she got too emotionally involved with her cases.

  “Nolan wouldn’t have put you in charge of your squad if he didn’t have one hundred percent confidence in you,” Megan said.

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.” She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Back in her cubicle, Nora checked her messages and wrote a quick update for her ASAC, Dean Hooper. He’d just been transferred from Washington the week Nolan went to Quantico, and Nora was still a little nervous around him. Hooper had been an assistant director at headquarters, specializing in white-collar crimes, and took the lower position when he’d married a local immigration agent.

  Quin walked into her cubicle, startling Nora. “Hey, sis.”

  Nora frowned. “You said you couldn’t make it.”

  “I only have a few minutes, but I went to the lab first thing this morning to grab the test results on the accelerant.” She slid over a thin folder. “There’s your copy. Exact same brand of vodka. And that’s something the press never knew.”

  Nora read the printout. She said, “And you were right, no trace of accelerant in the office.”

  “Nothing we didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t have to come down.”

  Quin shrugged. “You asked me to. I don’t mind. But I have to get downtown by ten for a staff meeting, then Ulysses and I are meeting at Butcher-Payne to catalog everything, then turn it over to your ERT by tomorrow morning.”

  As they walked together to the conference room, Nora’s phone vibrated. She glanced at the number. Dunn.

  “English,” she answered. “Did you get in?”

  Dunn’s voice was strained. “You were right. We have what appears to be a major crime scene.”

  “Where in the house?”

  “In the bedroom. The bed is saturated with blood. There’s also other biological matter—the place stinks to high heaven.”

  “Don’t touch anything. I’m sending the ERT there. Secure the scene and start the canvass. Any neighbors who saw him arrive, when, if anyone spoke to him, saw him with anyone, whatever you can find out. Then send me a report.”

  “This place is in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t get much more private than this.”

  “I’ll have research shoot you off his recent credit card transactions and phone records. See if you can follow up on any of them. I’m going into a briefing, but call me if you find anything.”

  She hung up.

  “Payne was killed in Tahoe,” she told Quin as she shot off an email to the ERT leader and ASAC Hooper about the crime scene and asking for a group to go to Tahoe to process the scene.

  They entered the conference room. Within minutes, her entire team had gathered, as well as Megan Kincaid. Nora wondered where Duke was, but she didn’t have time to call him.

  “I’m going fast because we have a lot to do. First, to bring everyone up to speed, Nathan Dunn called from our Tahoe office. There is substantial evidence of violence in Dr. Payne’s vacation home. We’ve secured the house and are sending the ERT. We’ll need to confirm that Dr. Payne was killed there, but all evidence points in that direction.”

  She sipped water and continued. “Everyone should have gotten my notes from the coroner’s office and the crime scene. Dr. Coffey hasn’t made his report official, but we’re going off the preliminary until we hear something different. The victim was dead at least six hours before the fire started. He was killed off-site and transported in an enclosed pickup truck bed. Dr. Coffey is working on matching up the marks on his back with a make and model. It may give us our first real lead.”

  From the minute Dr. Duncan said Jonah Payne was a creature of habit and went to his vacation house the last weekend of every month, Nora had known that he’d been killed there. Organized murderers plan their kills down to the last detail. They follow their prey, plan the best method of attack, and pounce.

  Before she could share the additional information, ASAC Hooper opened the door and said, “Nora, when you have a minute I need to see you in my office. Go ahead and finish up here.”

  He left, but Nora was distracted. She glanced at Megan, who just shook her head, not knowing what was going on.

  Finish up here. Right.

  She looked at the team. “I asked Megan to be part of this because she understands psychopaths. And whoever killed Jonah Payne is not a typical anarchist.”

  Megan said, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d like to go through like crimes, see if there are any unsolved cases similar to Dr. Payne’s, but not connected to genetic research or arson. I’m looking at the manner of death. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to the M.E. myself.”

  “Please do,” Nora said. “Pete, can
you follow up with both Sheriff Sanger and Sheriff Donaldson on the canvasses at Butcher-Payne and Lake of the Pines yesterday? See if they’ve found anything new, have them walk you through it. They might need a fresh pair of eyes.”

  “Will do. What about Cole?”

  Nora was trying to avoid going there until she had a chance to reassess her previous analysis. “We need to talk to him again.”

  Pete cleared his throat. “Without meaning to offend, Nora, but are you the best person to do it?”

  Nora knew where he was going with this. Pete had always felt that she was too close to the investigation, that Nora tried too hard to think like the arsonists. He worried she was overly sympathetic, but nothing could be further from the truth.

  “Yes,” she simply said, “I am.”

  Nora turned to Ted. “Duke Rogan with Rogan-Caruso sent over the background reports on Butcher-Payne staff. Go through it with a fine-toothed comb. Anything odd, you know what to look for—flag it and follow up.” To Rachel she said, “Learn everything you can about Jonah Payne and Jim Butcher. We can’t rule out that Butcher—who has the most to lose because he isn’t a scientist—may be peripherally involved. Maybe someone wants to punish him by killing his meal ticket.”

  “That doesn’t sound like anarchists,” Pete said.

  “No, and anarchists don’t generally kill. But someone died yesterday.”

  “Unless it isn’t connected.”

  “A bit too coincidental to me,” Nora said. “There’s a reason why Dr. Payne’s body was brought back to the research lab. Maybe it was just to watch us run around trying to figure out the unexplainable, but that would have been thought out by the killer. I doubt it’s so immature a reason, but there’s got to be a reason. When we find it, we may just discover the killer.”

  She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes had passed.

  “Go,” Pete said. “Let me know what’s happening when you’re done.”

  She thanked her team, said good-bye to Quin, and went directly to Dean Hooper’s office.

  Duke Rogan shook Dean Hooper’s hand when he entered his office. “Good to see you again, Hooper.”