by Debra Webb
It wasn’t like she could watch the man twenty-four/seven without sleeping with him. Unbidden and damned unwelcome, hot shivery sensations raced over her skin. That he could get to her on that level in spite of her determination not to allow it made her mad enough to spit.
Between worrying about him and fighting the nightmares, she had scarcely slept at all last night. McBride or the rats or the cemetery or a combination of all three had ruined her night … made her vulnerable.
She hadn’t had one of those godforsaken dreams in over five years. The memory of it … of the whispered voices … the darkness … made her shudder.
Sedatives usually efficiently blocked the nightmares, but going that route right now was out of the question. And, unlike McBride, she refused to try drinking her demons away.
As she lifted her fist to pound a third time, the door opened. And there he stood, filling the doorway, half naked and to her surprise half shaven.
“Come on in,” he invited, that smoke-and-whiskey-roughened voice rumbling from deep within his bare chest.
The sound brushed against her senses, instantly disturbing her equilibrium. Mentally scrambling to recover, she remembered the bag and thrust it at him. “I stopped at Target and picked up some clothes for you. I hope I got the sizes right.” She considered the shaving cream on his jaw. “Toiletries too.”
He waved the razor. “Room service,” he explained. “It’s amazing what they’re willing to provide.” He took the bag with his free hand. “You coming in?”
Vivian managed a stilted nod as she crossed the threshold into his room. She would die before she would ask exactly what room service had provided in addition to shaving implements. The scent of soap permeated the air, but it was the tousled sheets that immediately captured her attention.
The door closed behind her and she jumped. Don’t start off this way. She had dreaded this moment all morning. Her reactions to his masculinity were foolish. Davis or Pratt or Aldridge wouldn’t have this problem. That thought propped up her determination, giving her the courage to face the man. Just like yesterday, he had dragged on his jeans, leaving them unfastened as if he were prepping for an Abercrombie ad campaign. Physically he looked damned good for a guy who drank too much, smoked no matter that it was no longer PC, and was closer to forty than thirty—all the more reason to utilize extreme caution in his presence.
“I’ll finish up,” he offered, then headed into the bathroom.
She relaxed and took stock of the room. A room service tray sat on the table. Curious, she picked up the silver coffee server. It was empty. So he’d had coffee. Good. She didn’t see any indication that he had eaten. She would have to remedy that. Wandering closer to the bed, she picked up the pad of paper on the bedside table. He had written several names there and eventually crossed out most. Suspects? A number forty-one had been written and circled beneath the names. She would have to ask him about that. The only connection to the number she could call immediately to mind was the time limitation Devoted Fan had used with Alyssa.
The notion that McBride had worked last night, even if he had visited the bar or had had drinks delivered to his room, was a good sign. Let’s just hope we can get through this without regretting it.
Something else she had worried about last night. But her new temporary partner seemed chipper and raring to go this morning. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as difficult as she had imagined.
Expect the best, prepare for the worst, her father always said. Seemed good advice just now.
“You did good, Grace.”
McBride strode into the room dressed in the jeans and the navy button-down shirt she had purchased. Both appeared a perfect fit. Finding a customer at the store who looked about the same size as McBride had proven a useful strategy.
He made a sound of approval, drawing her too avid interest to that taunting mouth and his smooth jaw. The man cleaned up surprisingly well. If she was completely honest with herself, she would admit that he looked a little too good in most any state. The wicked half grin he wore should have clued her in that trouble was coming, but she missed it … too caught up with inventorying the details of this slightly more gussied-up version of the fallen legend.
“Just one question.” He walked right up to her, so close she could smell the sport-scented Right Guard she had purchased for him, and lifted the writing pad from her fingers. “How did you know I wasn’t a briefs man?”
That was when she made her first real mistake of the day: she looked directly into those devilish eyes. The mischief twinkling there was far too intriguing, way too appealing. Where did those flashes of genuine charm come from? Certainly not from the raw, barbaric man she had met yesterday.
“I saw a pair of boxers on the floor at your place.” That her voice held a distinct breathless quality only added to the theory that she was not herself when alone with this man.
“Very observant of you.” He tossed the pad on the bed and walked over to the chair where he had left his shoes.
That small distance allowed her to breathe again. He tugged on the well-worn sneakers without bothering to untie them, then stood up. “We ready?”
She adjusted her purse strap and met his expectant expression, mentally bracing for any sneak attack on her composure he might have planned. “Ready.”
He walked past her, opened the door like the perfect gentleman she knew firsthand he was not.
“Worth called.” She cleared her throat, but the effort did nothing for the persistent tightness prompted by the uneasiness associated with the unexpected. “The toe tag wasn’t the only item from UAB’s research center; the rats were too.”
McBride followed her into the corridor; let the door close behind him. “Already euthanized?”
“According to the log, they had been euthanized and were scheduled for incineration.” She followed the corridor toward the bank of elevators. “The tech who noticed them missing filed a discrepancy report with his supervisor yesterday.”
“Black looks good on you, Grace.”
The rhythm of her step altered clumsily and just like that he had her unsteady again. At the elevators, she stabbed the call button. How did he do it? More importantly, why did she let it get to her?
“Thank you,” she returned with enough of a chill in her tone for him to get frostbite. Turning around wasn’t required for her to know that he was having a good, long look at her butt.
The ding announced the elevator’s arrival a couple of seconds before the doors slid apart. She stepped into the car, pressed the button for the lobby, and waited anxiously for it to start moving again. McBride assumed his usual position against the rear wall. Keeping her attention on the changing floor numbers prevented her from staring at his image reflected in the shiny metal doors.
They had almost reached their destination when he did that thing that made her want to hit something—usually him. He moved up close behind her as the elevator slowed for the lobby level. That her traitorous body reacted to his nearness made her want to join a convent.
“Do me a favor, Grace.” His hot breath heated the skin on her neck.
“What?” She didn’t look back at him. Didn’t dare move with him practically on top of her.
And still he leaned nearer … near enough to whisper in her ear. “When we have sex, wear those shoes.”
The elevator bumped to a stop and the doors slid open. She hesitated before stepping out of the car, uncertain her legs would hold her upright. During that pause she turned her face to his. Her respiration hitched. She hated that she couldn’t contain the response, but she was only human. All the more reason to get this over with. “Don’t hold your breath, McBride.”
With that out of the way, she strode across the lobby and out the front door to where her Explorer waited beneath the valet canopy.
Time to go to work and catch the other bad guy.
1000 Eighteenth Street
9:30 A.M.
“Devoted Fan thoroughly erased his cyberspace
footprints again,” Worth said to those present in the conference room. “Quantico can’t give us a profile on the unsub until we can give them something to work with. We’re still pretty much left in the ‘react’ mode.”
Worth had insisted on daily briefings that included Aldridge, Pratt, Schaffer, and Davis, though Schaffer was missing in action. The briefings were a good idea. These agents were his and Grace’s backup, he didn’t expect them to be left in the dark. The goal was to keep as tight a lid on this operation as possible, using local law enforcement when necessary. The Bureau didn’t like airing its dirty laundry in public, most especially when it involved an ex-agent whose departure from service had already caused a considerable scandal.
McBride’s interest slid across the table to Grace. The silver blouse she wore beneath that black jacket sported a scooped neck that almost gave a hint of cleavage. When she’d unbuttoned her jacket and taken a seat across the table from him, he had been pleasantly surprised. Her hair was restrained in a shiny silver clasp that held it ponytail-style at the nape of her slender neck. Maybe the lady really wasn’t the ice princess he had first labeled her.
Or maybe he’d succeeded in setting her thermostat to thaw.
“Davis, where are we on that list of names?” Worth asked.
McBride’s focus snapped back to the head of the table. This was the first he had heard about a list of names. He shouldn’t be surprised. What the hell had he expected? He wasn’t going to be treated like an equal. There wasn’t anyone in this room who wanted him here. His participation was a necessary evil.
Davis shuffled the pages in front of him. “We’ve come up with more than five thousand hits.”
Worth rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you brief everyone about this list and we’ll do a little brainstorming to see if we can come up with some criteria for narrowing it down.”
Davis glanced at McBride as if he dreaded explaining himself. “SAC had me come in at five this morning and start pulling together a list of names in the Bureau’s incoming-mail database.” Davis tugged at his collar as if he needed to make room for spitting out what came next. “Letters and e-mails either addressed to McBride or with a subject line that related to him or one of his cases.”
Grace leaned forward to look past Aldridge. “And there were over five thousand?”
Guess the lady hadn’t realized just how popular he had been.
Davis nodded. “And I only got it down to five thousand after I narrowed the search parameters to work-related e-mails. There were a lot more asking for dates and … offering marriage.” Davis tapped the stack of pages and smirked. “You had yourself a regular fan club, McBride. Just like a rock star.”
That explanation didn’t appear to sit too well with Grace. She leaned back in her chair, her face impassive, as if she could care less. “Shall we differentiate the sexes?” she suggested to Worth, not sparing McBride a glance. “Are we operating under the assumption that our unsub is male or female?”
“Considering the rats,” McBride said, waiting for her to meet his gaze. She refused. “I’d lean toward male, but that’s just me. Maybe I prefer to believe my female fans wouldn’t be quite so hard-core.”
She looked at him then, her dark eyes flashing with disdain. “I’ve met one of your female fans, McBride. I wouldn’t rule out that possibility.”
Obviously she was still ticked off about the shoe comment. He angled his head in a gesture of touché and she redirected her attention to the SAC.
“It just so happens,” Davis piped up, “that I did that. Eighty percent are female.” He looked at McBride now with something that resembled admiration.
Clearly not impressed and certainly not in awe of McBride, Worth asked him, “Any other parameters you’d recommend for narrowing down the list?”
“Go backward,” McBride suggested.
Worth looked skeptical. “Backward?”
To Davis, McBride explained, “Look for repeat offenders. Whoever Devoted Fan is, male or female, this unsub has followed my career for some time, not just one case.”
“And how do you know that?” Worth challenged. “Other than that one line where he referred to you as his ‘old friend,’ what else is there?”
“Forty-one,” Grace said, with an I-got-this-one look at McBride. “That’s the number of high-profile cases you solved during your career.”
There had been a lot more than forty-one cases, but she was right, there was exactly that number that had captured the media’s as well as the nation’s attention, spanning from year one all the way until the curtain call. Tragedy TV. There were those who couldn’t resist watching … like passing a car wreck.
“I thought it was strange,” McBride said, his gaze lingering on her then looking from her to Worth, “that the unsub would select forty-one hours as the allotment of time for rescuing Alyssa Byrne. Most of these scumbags are rather anal. They work with nice round numbers, like twenty-four or forty-eight. Forty-one was a clue. We just didn’t see it right away.” By “we” he meant Worth, but no need to piss the guy off this early in the day.
“Secondly,” McBride continued, addressing Davis with this part, “look for mail with northern Alabama, southern Tennessee, eastern Mississippi zip codes. Our unsub isn’t far away.”
“That may be a waste of time,” Grace countered, “if the unsub has moved in the past three years.”
“True,” McBride agreed, “but it’s a usable parameter that could be advantageous.”
“What about relatives or close friends?” Aldridge spoke up. “Is there anyone you can think of who would want some sort of revenge for the Bureau’s decision three years ago?”
One corner of McBride’s mouth twitched. “You mean, besides me?”
Aldridge exchanged a look with Worth.
“I’m aware that you’re going to consider me a suspect until you have someone else to blame,” McBride said, letting both men off the hook. “Just don’t let that aspect of your investigative work keep you from looking for the real suspect.”
“We know how to conduct an investigation,” Worth said. “We’ve got folks at Quantico reviewing your old cases, checking on any possible family connections to perps you’ve eliminated or put behind bars who might bear a grudge. You made a few enemies in your time, McBride.”
He couldn’t deny that charge. McBride was just glad to hear that at least some effort was being directed toward any theory at all that didn’t include him as a suspect.
“Excuse me, sir.” Agent Schaffer strode into the room.
McBride had wondered where she’d gotten off to. Today she wore shiny red cowboy boots. The lady did like her boots.
Worth looked up as Schaffer approached his end of the conference table. “Yes, Agent Schaffer?”
She glanced at McBride then said, “We have a new communication from Devoted Fan.”
Everyone in the room prepared to move into action, but McBride was the one to go to the computer to view the newest communication. He felt Grace move up behind him as he clicked the necessary keys to open the document.
Good morning, McBride,
I trust you slept well in your grand accommodations.
“He knows where you’re staying,” Grace said, her voice thin.
McBride cleared his mind of both distractions, Grace and the idea that this scumbag knew where he’d stayed last night, and read the rest of the e-mail.
Here is your next challenge:
This city was built on blood, sweat, and determination. Even now, mightiest to weakest, hard work is what makes it thrive … is what forged the path from atop Red Mountain.
A Jones is a hard worker, but there was a time when she was oblivious. She is remorseful of that mistake and its consequences. But remorse is not always enough and is inevitably too late.
Her life is in danger, McBride, you must find her before she drowns in her regret. Death can be so cold; she need not die to find her atonement. Her preservation is in plain sight. You have twenty-four hours
… don’t be late.
I remain …
Your Devoted Fan
McBride reread the last two lines. Only twenty-four hours this time. The wording and details given were much more obscure … not as definitive as before. Uncertainty snaked around his chest and squeezed. First, he should … his mind scrambled for the proper protocol.
“Who is A. Jones?” Grace called out to the others. “We need to know the answer to that question ASAP!”
“I’m on it,” Pratt tossed back.
Okay. McBride knew how to do this. No fear. No self-doubt. Focus.
He printed a copy of the e-mail and pushed away from the computer. What next? “Davis … you … you stay on narrowing down those fan mail lists. Aldridge, you and Schaffer work on what Devoted Fan has given us this time. See if you get any matches on possible locations in the city using this verbiage.”
“The first thing that comes to mind is steel,” Grace said as she retrieved the hard copy of the e-mail from the printer. “This city was built by the steel magnates.” She studied the e-mail. “He uses the word ‘forged.’”
“Iron Man,” Schaffer suggested, taking Grace’s theory and running with it.
“Atop Red Mountain,” Grace concurred. “Schaffer’s right. Vulcan Park, home to the Iron Man atop Red Mountain. And he’s definitely in plain sight.” Grace looked to McBride. “That would be a good place to start, maybe even before we identify the victim. We could get a search team over there to have a look around. Park security could assist.”
“See if Birmingham PD will authorize a small search team to get started,” McBride agreed. “Any head start is better than none.” The A before Jones worried him. Was the A an initial or an article referring to Jones? That one missing piece of punctuation would cost them precious time … but then that was likely the point.
Worth held up his hands and moved them back and forth as if erasing the suggestion Grace had made and McBride had approved. “We don’t even have a line on the victim yet. What she looks like, how old she is, nothing. We need to know who we’re looking for prior to launching a search.”
