by Debra Webb
The drive across town took an eternity. McBride didn’t say a word. But then, neither did she. Her entire body and soul felt drained … empty. As wiped as she was, those final seconds in that damned elevator shaft started playing again … like a scratched DVD that kept bouncing back and going over the same track time after time.
She’d held on as tight and as long as she could. Dropping Worth was the last thing she had wanted to do. An ache tore through her chest.
“Just let go, Grace … Just let go.”
She bit her lips together, fought the urge to cry. All those times she had been so damned mad at Worth. And all he had wanted was to protect her. She was a damned rookie and she should have respected his concerns about her ability to take on cases … Instead she had fought him at every turn. She had wanted more. Had a goddamned point to make.
He had still been protecting her in the end. “ …or we’ll both end up dead.”
Pierce had been right. She had been running away from the past, pretending it hadn’t happened. Her determination to prove she was as good or better than any other agent had been foolhardy and an unnecessary pain in the ass for Worth.
Now he was dead.
Fury tightened her jaw. She was going to find Fincher. He would not get away with this.
The guard at the gate of her secure neighborhood waved her through. She drove the short distance to her place. Birmingham PD was already parked at the curb in front of her house. She took the turn into the alley behind the row of town houses and headed for her garage.
A poke to the button on the overhead console sent her garage door into the open position. Each town house had its own garage tucked beneath the deck that overlooked the security fence and woods. With her beefy SUV, it was a tight angle, but she had done it so many times that maneuvering between the support pillars and in through the door wasn’t so bad. She pushed the gearshift into park and shut off the engine. Another stab of the button and the door lowered once more.
She thought about getting out, but moving suddenly seemed too monumental a task.
Food would help. Maybe have something delivered. The clutter on the shelf-lined wall directly in front of her had her trying to recall the last time she had cleaned up out here. Just one of those things she never took the time to notice.
There were a lot of things she ignored. Her parents. Her personal life. It was easier to remain focused on her career. Less complicated. Less painful.
And in the blink of an eye it could all be gone. Just like that … she mentally snapped her fingers … over. As if to prove the point, the resignation on Worth’s face as he fell out of her reach flashed in front of her eyes.
She blinked it away. “I think I’ll order in Chinese.”
“I hate Chinese.”
The lack of enthusiasm in McBride’s voice matched her own.
“What about Japanese?”
“Same thing.”
Well, hell. “Pizza?”
“Don’t have the taste for it this evening.”
Okay, he was being a shit. She turned her head so she could look at him. “So what do you have a taste for?” She had to make some effort to move past this place.
“What’re we doing here, Grace?” He pointed his assessing gaze at her. “I don’t think this is about food.”
Frustration jammed into her chest Of course it was about food. “We have to keep up our strength. Be prepared …” She looked away, felt that weight of frustration and fatigue pressing harder against her sternum. “How else are we supposed to catch Fincher?”
“What do you want from me, Grace?” McBride choked out an abrupt sound disguised as a laugh. It wasn’t pleasant or amusing. “I told you the legend was dead. This is as good as it gets.”
Fury knocked the frustration out of first place. “You’re an asshole, McBride.” He was right. The legend was dead. But, by God, he was all she had.
“That should come as no surprise to you, Grace. A guy who’d fuck you in a public bathroom can’t be counted on for much.”
As if the resurfacing of that dark attitude had been a cue the light in the garage door opener timed out, leaving them in total darkness.
She reached for the door handle, opened her mouth to tell him where he could take his smart-ass disposition, and a realization dawned. Watching McBride in action these past five days had taught her something about him. He wasn’t the jerk he pretended to be. That screw-you attitude was about self-preservation. He wanted to keep his distance. Wanted everyone to believe he could never be that legend again. That way nobody could get hurt because of him.
Too late.
She was already hurting.
Agent Worth was dead and three people, including a child, had been terrorized.
She needed that fucking legend and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“You will eat, McBride. You’ll eat and then you will get some sleep because we’ve got a job to do. If you can’t muster up any semblance of the man you used to be, then fake it.”
He grabbed her by the hair, pulled her face to his and kissed her hard. She clenched her fingers in his shirt and kissed him back just as brutally.
Without breaking the contact of their lips, he tugged her closer … she scrambled across the console. Her knees settled on either side of him and her fingers threaded into his silky hair. She loved his hair … that beard-shadowed face … the broad shoulders … the lean waist … all of him … every damned inch.
His hands claimed her thighs, worked her skirt up around her hips and cupped her bottom, then squeezed. She cried out, the sound lost in his open mouth.
He hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded breathlessly. He couldn’t stop now. She wanted this, dammit. She needed it.
“This is a real shame, Grace.”
His rumpled bedroom voice reached through the darkness, caressed her in spite of her need to be furious that he’d suddenly stopped doing what she needed him to do. How the hell did he make that surly arrogance so damned sexy?
“You see,” he continued, turning her on all the more by merely speaking, “I used my only condom the last time. No condom, no sex. That’s my one rule. I never break it.”
She practiced safe sex. He practiced safe sex. She didn’t see the problem.
She reached for his fly, wrenched it open. “Then I’d suggest you don’t look.”
Her fingers closed around him and he groaned. Hard, hot, smooth, she slid her fingers down then back up that rigid length. His fingers tangled in her panties, pulled them aside, and she eased downward, taking him … all of him in one deliberate push.
For ten, hot frantic seconds they both held perfectly still. The filled-up sensation was incredible.
His hands bracketed her waist and he shifted his hips just enough to send himself deeper. She gasped, reached up to brace herself against the roof and started to rock back and forth, each movement plunging her closer and closer to release. With him this deep she wasn’t going to last long.
The waves started. She cried out … didn’t try to stifle the sounds. Her movements grew more frantic … his pelvis lifted, tilted, grinding against hers and driving him even deeper.
And then she went over the edge … couldn’t wait another second. His hips lifted off the seat, down, up, down, up, until he came too.
She collapsed against his chest. Didn’t want to move.
“Grace,” he murmured against her hair.
“Hmmm?”
“At some point we’re going to have to change our strategy and try this with our clothes off.”
She smiled against his chin, liked very much the feel of his whiskers tickling her lips. “The only thing I want to change is positions.”
He powered the seat into a deeper recline, rolled her onto her back, and took her again … hard and fast
There were no guarantees in life. She had allowed tragedy to rob her of her youth … of her ability to trust … to feel.
No more pretending.
/> She was going to start living again and feeling every moment of it.
But first, one way or another, she was going to get Fincher.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
6:40 P.M.
His eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness. The vague impressions of their profiles were visible. The sounds of their animallike mating arousing.
It was the first time he had been aroused in seven long years.
Since she had murdered his true other half.
Number Thirteen. He was so close.
Her cries grew frantic now … she was coming.
He touched his crotch … wondered at how simply watching her again could make him hard this way. His gratification in the past had come from watching his other half, not the women he chose. The watching had been enough. He was never allowed to touch. Never allowed to do anything except take what remained. That, too, had been enough.
But it was different now. Now there was no one but him. Still, he had to be very careful … very careful. Getting caught would be bad. His other half had told him what happened to those, like them, who were caught. Bad, bad things. He would be tortured in prison … perhaps to death.
He would never be caught alive.
Death would be far more accommodating.
So, he was always careful. This was a risk. But he had to take it. He could not allow her to continue living. It wasn’t right … not after what she had done.
Finding her home had been so easy.
Her parents had both been at work today. They would never know he had been inside their attractive home. He never, ever left evidence. He faithfully shaved his head, his arms, his legs … any place where there was hair he removed it. And his skin was meticulously exfoliated and moisturized. His fingerprints had been obscured by a laser technique years before. Nothing was left to chance. His entire existence had been as a shadow … a complement to his real self.
The grunting of the man’s climax drew his attention back to the SUV.
Perhaps he would recall these sounds and images later for his own pleasure. When he was safe and alone in his own private dwelling where there was no fear of being caught.
Maybe he would take Number Thirteen home with him and use her the way his other half had. His car was parked on a street just beyond the woods. Why not take her? He was prepared, had taken all the necessary precautions. He was smarter than anyone knew.
That was how he had survived alone, without anyone to give him instructions.
Perhaps it was time he took charge and enjoyed some of the things he desired.
Number Thirteen and the man stumbled out of the vehicle and moved toward the door leading into the house, their bodies still entwined … their mouths devouring each other.
He hovered deeper into his corner in case the lights were turned on again. He wanted her to know he was here … just not yet. He would wait until there was an opportunity with her alone. And then he would finish what his other half had started.
No one had ever been as good as they had been when both halves had worked as one. No one had known who they were … nothing.
Nameless.
Brilliant and beautiful.
Perhaps that fear-inspiring name would rise again.
This time there would be only one. Him.
The door into the house closed, leaving him in the darkness once more. He would wait to see if the man left. There was no need to hurry. He had plenty of time.
He eased from his cramped corner and stretched. He opened the car door and sniffed, savoring the smell of sex. His cock twitched. Yes, perhaps he would take her home with him and keep her for a while before forcing her to face her destiny.
If he disposed of her properly no one would ever find her.
Just before he killed her he would eat those lips right off her face. She would scream … her blood would be hot with adrenaline.
He felt alive for the first time in years.
Perhaps his life could begin anew once he had settled his score with Number Thirteen.
A hand clamped over his mouth. He grabbed at it, struggled to pull it away. A needle stabbed into his neck. He tried to fight but his muscles went limp.
The darkness closed in around him.
He had made a mistake coming here … now he was caught.
The funny thing was, he was sure it wasn’t the police.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
10:00 P.M.
McBride reached for a slice of pizza and tore off a bite with his teeth.
He was still starving after three pieces.
The pizza box sat in the middle of the kitchen floor. Next to it was a half-empty two-liter bottle of cola. They had both been drinking straight from the bottle. For once it wasn’t alcohol taking the edge off for him.
It was her.
He leaned against the fridge and devoured the rest of the slice. Sprawled on the floor next to him, Grace reached into the box for another piece, and rested her head in his lap. His lips slid into a grin as his gaze roved over her nearly naked body. She’d dragged on a T-shirt and panties to meet the delivery guy at the door.
McBride wished she were naked now. He liked looking at her. Every part of her was perfect. Great tits, great ass, amazing curves. And that mouth … holy hell. Since she’d straddled him in the garage, he’d stayed hard.
They hadn’t come into the kitchen to have sex. They had come for glasses and napkins and whatever else they might need and had ended up going at it on the floor.
That was after doing it in her shower … on her bed and on her sofa.
“We should get some sleep, you know,” she said after polishing off that last piece.
“First we need to talk about what happened today.”
She got up, took another swallow from the bottle of cola, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”
He figured as much. “Pierce was right. We did all we could to save Worth.”
Grace pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Are you trying to convince me or you?”
He didn’t want her carrying this around for years like he had the Braden boy’s death. She deserved better.
“I just know how that kind of story ends and it’s not a happily ever after. Admit you did all you could and move forward. The only thing you can do for Worth now is to find the man responsible for his death. Martin Fincher put him in that position. He is the reason Worth is dead.”
“But he did this for you,” she countered, evidently deciding to play devil’s advocate. “And if you’d had one of the guys with you instead of me, the two of you might have been able to save Worth. I was a liability.”
McBride had sensed she was holding herself responsible that way. And maybe she had a point. But the one thing he knew with complete certainty was that you couldn’t redo the past. It was done. Worth was dead. It happened.
Somehow needing to protect Grace enabled McBride to face the tragedy differently than he expected. Considerably differently than he had confronted those in the past.
“How are you dealing with Goodman’s outing your secret?” That was another thing he worried about. For a guy who didn’t give a shit about much, he’d done a hell of a lot of worrying the last couple of days.
He doubted she’d had time to think much about Goodman and her story. This case had kept them moving from one challenge to another without a lot of breathing room. Talking about the story now might distract her from blaming herself for Worth’s death.
“Are you sure Worth didn’t send me to get you so you could play my shrink?” she asked, instead of answering his question.
McBride pushed forward onto all fours and moved over to where she sat. He kissed her nose, kissed her temple. “There’s only one kind of doctor I want to play with you and it has nothing to do with your head.”
“You know.” She avoided his mouth when he would have kissed her on the lips. “This happens every time. We talk about me
and never get around to talking about you.”
He stretched out on the floor on his side, parked his elbow and propped his head in his hand. “You know what happened. What’s to talk about?”
“Do you have any siblings? Parents? Children? Former wives?”
The lady didn’t ask much. “No siblings. Father lives in Detroit. Mother in Boston. The divorce happened a long time ago. And according to my former shrink, it’s the reason I can’t commit to anything but work. My parents and I don’t do holidays but we do talk on the phone once in a great while. Every couple of years or so, anyway. I don’t have any kids that I know of. And no former wives.”
“What happened with Kevin Braden?”
The question—the one without a definitive answer. He’d worked hard for three years to drink all the theories out of his head. He thought it had worked. Until he’d come back here and faced the realization that it would always be with him.
“Worth was right about the evaluation report on me,” he admitted. Might as well; she’d bared her soul to him. “I wanted to save them all. I worked day and night, seven days a week. My success record was unparalleled. But it was never enough. I needed to solve them all. Putting in that many hours and focusing on that many cases, at some point I was bound to make a mistake.”
He thought about that, turned the idea over in his mind. Obsession had driven him … the same way it did Fincher. Not a pretty story. “I knew I was skating close to the edge, but I couldn’t stop. Which child did I ignore and which one did I go after?” McBride remembered those moments all too well. “It was a nightmare, a vicious cycle I couldn’t escape.”
“That had to be tough on you. I can see how you would’ve wanted to save them all.”
“But that night I was right. Quinn’s assessments were wrong. I was ready to move in on the location where the boy was being held. A covert retrieval was the only way to go, but Quinn insisted on going the negotiation route. He said I was wrong. That I was burned out, hadn’t had enough sleep.”
