by Lisa Childs
Selfishly, he would love their help. Claire was a genius and Ash was a legendary agent and former marine. But there was no way that Dalton would mess up any more of the Strykers’ plans. They had been through hell to earn their much-deserved happiness.
“I doubt this has anything to do with terrorism or national security,” Dalton said—since that was Ash Stryker’s specialty with the Bureau.
“Then maybe Jared Bell is who you need,” Ash suggested.
The redhead shook her head again despite the fact that the motion had her wincing in pain. Then she turned toward Claire. “You agreed with me,” she said. “You agreed that I’m not married. So if I’m not a bride, I couldn’t be a victim of the Bride Butcher.”
She had heard them yesterday. He’d thought she was sleeping, but she had heard everything he and Blaine and Jared Bell had said in her room. Now he flinched—with regret. He didn’t want to keep anything from her, but there were some things she hadn’t had to hear...like anything about the sadistic serial killer.
If that was who had abducted her, it was probably better that she never remembered what had happened to her. She would never recover from the nightmare of confronting such a monster.
* * *
PANIC OVERWHELMED HER, stealing away her breath. But she was actually less afraid of having a serial killer after her than she was afraid of losing Agent Reyes. He couldn’t pass off her case to someone else.
“The victims of the Bride Butcher aren’t married yet,” Agent Stryker said. “He abducts the women at their last fitting for their wedding dress.”
She shook her head—not in denial of what he claimed but in denial that she could have been at a fitting for a wedding dress. “No...”
“Do you remember something?” Claire Stryker asked. “Something that makes you think you’re not really engaged?”
“I can’t remember anything...” She stared at the newly married couple. Their love was palpable—like another presence in the hospital room. “But if I was married or engaged, wouldn’t I remember...him?”
“Maybe you don’t want to remember,” Dalton suggested. He apparently suspected that was who had hurt her.
Was she such a horrible judge of character that she would have fallen in love with a monster?
The petite blonde stepped closer to the bed and reached for her hand. She twisted the ring on her finger.
“What are you thinking?” she asked. Such intelligence shone in Claire’s eyes that she wanted to hear her opinion.
“It looks like this ring has been on your finger for a while,” the other woman replied.
Her stomach pitched. And yet the person who’d put that ring on her hand hadn’t even filed a missing persons report for her? What kind of man was her fiancé? The monster Dalton Reyes apparently suspected he was?
Agent Stryker glanced at his watch and said, “If we’re going to make our flight, we should get going...”
“We should stay,” Claire told her husband. “We could help...”
“You could,” Dalton agreed. “But you’re not. You’re going to leave for your honeymoon and have a wonderful time.”
Claire hesitated.
Even her husband looked uncertain. “Let’s talk in the hall a moment...”
Her stomach sank again as the two men stepped out of the room. She was certain that Agent Stryker was going to try to talk Dalton into handing her case over to Agent Bell.
“Don’t worry,” Claire told her. “We only offered to help because we owe him—not because we don’t think he’s capable of solving the case on his own. Dalton is a very good agent.”
She nodded in agreement. “I know. I wouldn’t be alive if he wasn’t.”
“He’s not like Ash and Blaine Campbell, though,” Claire continued. “They were marines—they grew up knowing what was right and what was wrong.”
Anger surged through her, and she opened her mouth to defend him. The special agent obviously knew what was right and wrong.
But before she could speak, Claire continued, “Dalton grew up on the streets—in a gang. He had to figure out for himself what was right and wrong. I think that’s even more impressive.”
“So do I,” she said. But everything about Dalton Reyes impressed her. She couldn’t help wondering about herself. What kind of person was she? Was she an honorable person? Did she know right from wrong?
“This must be so hard for you,” Claire said, “not having your memories. Not knowing how you grew up—who your family is or your friends...”
She wondered if she had any—since nobody had filed a report about her missing. Dalton and Agent Stryker stepped back into the room, and like the love between the Strykers, there was love between the men—a strong bond of friendship.
Her heart ached with an overwhelming sense of loss. But she hadn’t just lost her friends; she had lost herself, as well.
Dalton uttered a long-suffering sigh, even while his dark eyes twinkled with merriment. “I had to give this guy some advice for the honeymoon.” He turned toward Claire. “You’re welcome.”
The new bride laughed. “Like you have any experience with honeymoons or will ever have any experience...”
Apparently, as well as growing up on the streets, Dalton had grown up determined to remain single. She hadn’t been surprised when she’d overheard him telling Blaine Campbell that he wasn’t marrying anyone. Ever. She faintly remembered him saying something in the ambulance when the paramedic had mistaken her for his bride. She’d been in and out of consciousness, so she hadn’t picked up on his words but on his tone. He had been appalled that someone had mistaken him for a groom.
At the moment she could relate as she glanced down at her hand again. She wanted to take off the ring. She couldn’t believe she was engaged. It didn’t feel right.
“If you two don’t get going, you won’t have any honeymoon experience, either,” Dalton warned them.
Claire glanced at her. “But I could help...”
“I have help,” Dalton said. He wrapped his arm around the young bride and steered her toward the doorway. “I know you two can’t stand spending time together, but you’re going to have to suck it up for the next fifty or sixty years.”
The newlyweds chuckled—confident in their love and their relationship.
She glanced down at her ring again. Why would she be wearing this when she obviously hadn’t felt that way about whoever had put the ring on her finger? But then, a love like the Strykers’ was rare and special.
“It was nice meeting you,” Claire called back to her.
She had met Claire. She wasn’t sure if they’d met her—because she wasn’t sure who she was, except not Jane or Mercedes. But maybe she would need to start thinking of herself as one of those names since she was unlikely to ever remember her own. She waved at them. “Enjoy your honeymoon.”
The Strykers both hugged Dalton before leaving. He stared after them a moment, as if tempted to call them back, before he turned back to her.
“Who is your help?” she asked. While it would have been selfish to keep them from their honeymoon, she would have trusted the Strykers to help her.
“Trooper Littlefield is going to stand guard in your room,” he told her, “while I go to Chicago to follow up a lead.”
“Littlefield?” she asked.
Was that the trooper whose car had been stolen? Because of that and because something about him or his uniform was vaguely, unsettlingly familiar to her, she wouldn’t feel particularly safe with him. But then, she didn’t feel particularly safe with anyone but Dalton.
“He’s a good officer,” Dalton assured her. “He’s the one who called me when he noticed the vintage Mercedes. He knew something wasn’t right about it.”
Her in the trunk—that was what hadn’t been right about it. What if he hadn’t seen the car? What if Dalton hadn’t stopped it?
She would be dead. She was certain of it. She shuddered with the realization that someone out there wanted her dead. What ki
nd of person was she that someone could hate her enough to try to kill her more than once...?
“Are you okay?” Dalton asked, his voice even deeper with concern. “Claire didn’t upset you, did she?”
She shook her head. Claire hadn’t upset her, but meeting the other woman had. “I just wish...”
“What?” he asked.
“I wish I knew what kind of person I am,” she said. “If I’m like her...” Or if she was someone who’d earned another person’s hatred? “I just wish I knew who I am...”
“You may not know your name,” Dalton said, “but you know who are you are—you’re strong and smart and brave.”
But she felt like none of those things. She was terrified—terrified of the person determined to kill her, terrified to be away from Dalton Reyes and terrified to find out who she really was.
* * *
ALL HE’D HAD to do was bide his time. Eventually the dark-haired agent had left—along with the other federal agents. They weren’t bodyguards; they were investigators.
He wasn’t worried about what they would find. He’d been careful so that nothing could be traced back to him. Not even her...
But still she had to die.
And it would be easier for him to kill her now that the agent was gone. He’d left behind the bald-headed trooper for her protection.
All he’d had to do was wait him out. With the amount of coffee the man drank, it was inevitable that he would leave her to use the restroom. He was waiting for him there—hiding inside a stall.
He waited until the trooper was preoccupied at the urinal before he stepped out. The trooper didn’t have a chance to pull his gun—to catch more than a shadowy movement in the mirrored wall—before he struck him. Hard. Harder than he’d even struck her.
As the trooper dropped to the tile floor, he dropped the bloodied pipe next to him. He was wearing gloves, so it couldn’t be traced back to him. He was careful to leave no evidence behind. Anywhere.
He reached for the buttons on the trooper’s uniform. Dressed like the trooper, he would have no trouble getting into her room and finishing the job he’d started. He looked quite official in uniform—every bit the lawman he’d always hated. He grinned at his reflection in the mirrored wall.
The woman was going to be dead soon.
Very soon...
Chapter Six
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Dalton asked. He glanced over at the passenger’s seat to check on her. He expected to find her eyes closed as she rested or passed out from exhaustion. She had been through so much—had lost so much blood.
But the doctor had assured him that it would be all right to take her out of the hospital. And she had insisted that she was strong enough to be released.
Maybe she was right. She wasn’t sleeping or passed out. She leaned forward, straining against her seat belt, as she stared through the windshield. She had studied every street and building between the rural area of lower western Michigan and the urban skyline of Chicago as if trying to recognize it or hoping something might jog her memory.
The bridge rattled beneath the tires of the SUV as Dalton drove over the Chicago Skyway into the city. “Anything familiar?”
She groaned.
“I thought this would be too much for you,” he said. “You should have stayed at the hospital with Trooper Littlefield protecting you.” The local lawman had been offended when Dalton had asked him to protect an empty room. He thought that Dalton didn’t trust him anymore.
That hadn’t been the case at all, though.
He was pretty certain that the killer was watching her and waiting for another opportunity to get to her. So Dalton had wanted him to think that she was still at the hospital—still protected.
Instead of alone with just him for protection. But Blaine was on standby. Dalton could call him in or several other agents for backup...if he needed it. But nobody had followed him. He had taken a circuitous route and had kept a vigilant watch on the SUV’s rearview mirror. So he was certain they had no tail. But her attacker was the least of his concerns at the moment.
“Are you all right?” he asked. Her skin had grown pale again, making her red hair look even brighter and more vibrant. She had exchanged her hospital gown for clothes that Dalton had bought and sneaked into her room. She wore tan pants and a pale yellow blouse. There were other clothes in a small bag in the backseat, too. It had bothered her that she hadn’t been able to buy them herself. But along with her identity, her money and credit cards had been lost, too.
With obvious reluctance, she admitted, “My head is starting to hurt again.”
“Should I take you to a hospital?” he asked with alarm, even as he mentally clocked the distance to the closest one.
“No, the headache is my fault,” she said. “I think I’m trying too hard to remember—to find something familiar.”
His tension eased somewhat. Maybe she wasn’t medically in danger. But how about emotionally?
“Have you found anything familiar?” he asked.
“It’s Chicago,” she said. “Doesn’t everyone know what Chicago looks like—just like they know what New York looks like? It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve ever lived there or even been there. Maybe they just saw it on TV so many times or in movies or described in books that it feels familiar.”
“So it does feel familiar to you,” he deduced.
She uttered a small groan of frustration. “I just don’t know...”
“Close your eyes for a few minutes,” he suggested. “Relax.” He didn’t want her hurting herself.
She must have been exhausted, because she took his advice, but her rest didn’t last long. When he pulled into the downtown parking garage, she opened her eyes. “We’re here?”
“This is the apartment building where the owner of the Mercedes lives,” he said.
“Do you think he could have been the one—” her throat moved as she swallowed convulsively, probably choking on nerves or fear “—that put me in the trunk?”
Dalton reached for her, sliding his arm around her shoulders to offer her comfort. She trembled against him and he tightened his embrace. “Of course not,” he said. “I wouldn’t have brought you along if I thought he could be the one who had hurt you.”
She had thought that all this time and had been willing to confront her attacker? He’d known she was strong, but her fearlessness overwhelmed him.
“Then why did you bring me along?” she asked, peering up at him in the dim light of the parking garage. He’d already turned off the SUV.
“Maybe he will recognize you,” he said. “Someone stole his car to abduct you. It could have been a theft of convenience—like his car and you were in the same vicinity.”
She looked beyond him to peer around the parking garage. “You think I could have been grabbed here?”
Instead of cowering, she opened the passenger’s door and stepped out to confront her fear or her elusive memories. Dalton jumped out the driver’s door and hurried around to her side of the car. They hadn’t been followed. But if the killer had figured out that they might come back here...
He didn’t want her far from his side in the dimly lit parking garage. He didn’t want to lose her.
* * *
CHILLED FROM THE DAMPNESS of the parking garage, she shivered. But maybe it wasn’t just the dampness that had chilled her blood.
Maybe there were memories there—in the shadows of the steel-and-concrete structure. And maybe she had buried those memories so deeply that she couldn’t access them anymore. They were just out of her reach...like Agent Reyes.
He had put his arm around her earlier for comfort and support. But now he stood on the other side of the elevator. Maybe he was frustrated that she couldn’t remember—that she couldn’t help him solve her case. Before they had stepped onto the elevator, he had called someone—maybe an FBI crime scene tech. He had asked them to come and inspect the garage for blood.
Her blood...
> “You have my DNA,” she realized. From the trunk of that stolen car. “Can’t you find out who I am that way?” Jared Bell had mentioned as much the day before.
“We have your DNA,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t match any on file. Neither do your fingerprints.”
She stared down at her hands. She didn’t remember being fingerprinted. But then, there was so much she didn’t remember. Like that damn ring on her finger...
Claire Stryker was confident it had been there for a while. Why, then, wasn’t she married already?
How long had this engagement been?
And where was her fiancé? Why hadn’t he reported her missing? Because he couldn’t—because he had been with her when she’d been attacked but had been more critically wounded than she had been?
“Was there any other DNA in that trunk I was in?” she asked.
His mouth curved into a faint grin. “From the way your mind works and the questions you ask, I would almost believe you’re in law enforcement, too.”
Hope burgeoned. She would rather be on the right side of the law than on the side with people who hurt other people.
“But if you were in law enforcement, your fingerprints would have been on file,” he continued and dashed that brief hope.
A bell dinged as the elevator stopped and the doors began to slide open. Panic rushed over her. He had assured her that he wouldn’t have brought her along if this could have been the person who’d hurt her. But this person was the link to that car—the car that probably would have been her casket had Agent Reyes not rescued her in time.
He touched her again, his hand squeezing hers as it had so many times before. But this time chills raced over her as her skin tingled in reaction to his touch. His skin was rougher than hers and warm. The man was like that—a little rough around the edges, probably from growing up in a gang as Claire had told her he had, but he was warmhearted.
He cared.
About his cases.
He felt sorry for her. While he felt only pity, she was beginning to feel something more—something completely unfamiliar to her.
“It’ll be okay,” he assured her. “We’ll just see if he recognizes you, if he’s seen you around this building before.”
