Force of the Falcon

by Rita Herron

  “I’m sure they think we’re involved.”

  “Tripp implied that, yes.” Rex hissed a breath. “We’re dealing with a serial killer, Brack. Unfortunately, I can’t help much, either. Hailey started having mild contractions, and the doctor ordered her on bed rest until the baby comes. I have to stay with her.”

  “Of course you do.” Brack silently cursed, though. Another death, panic in the town. All the more reason for him to get the cops on his side and push that warrant through.

  He just hoped Cohen saw it that way.

  Because as much as he wanted to blame Silverstein, Viago was their best lead yet. And as tempted as he was to break into the guy’s house and look around for himself, he couldn’t chance the guy getting off on some technicality. Neither did he want to end up in jail for interfering with an investigation and leave Sonya alone and vulnerable.

  An image of the Talon Terror attacking another woman flashed in his head, and guilt assaulted him. If he’d caught this guy sooner, that woman might not be dead.

  How would Sonya feel when she learned the killer had struck again and that he’d killed her friend?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reesie—dead? No.

  Sonya doubled over in shock, then sank onto the kitchen chair, grateful Brack had insisted they meet in private away from Katie. She couldn’t believe that her friend and coworker was dead.

  Guilt assailed her. The Talon Terror had become obsessed with her and had chosen her friend to flaunt the fact that he knew her friends and would murder them to hurt her.

  But why?

  “Brack, this is so unfair,” she whispered. “Reesie was a good woman. She’d just finished earning her paramedic license, she was engaged… She had her entire life ahead of her….” A sob caught in her throat and Brack soothed her with soft whispered words.

  “Who hates me so much that they would want to destroy me by killing my friends?” she cried.

  He rubbed slow circles on her back. “I don’t know, Sonya. But we’ll find him, I swear we will, and we’ll stop him.”

  She wanted desperately to believe him. She also wanted to stay here and hide out, but she’d never been a coward and she refused to be one now. Besides, if she stayed here with her mother and this madman tracked her down, he might hurt Katie or her mother to get to her. “Thank you for not telling me in front of Katie, Brack. I don’t want her touched any more by this violence than she already has been.”

  He nodded. “I know. She doesn’t deserve it, and neither do you.”

  “I’m alive, Brack. Poor Reesie….” Tears trickled down her cheeks. She had to go back to Tin City, had to see her friend, do something to stop this lunatic before he killed someone else.

  He leaned his chin against the top of her head, and she breathed in his scent. His courage. His masculine power and determination.

  He was everything she needed right now. Only she wanted more.

  She wanted to burrow herself in his arms, let him soothe her with his words and hands. Take away the pain of having Reesie’s death on her conscience.

  Make love to him until she forgot about death, until all she could think about was living….

  “Sonya, don’t blame yourself,” Brack said in a gruff voice. “Just stay here, take care of Katie. Be safe and let me handle this investigation.”

  She clenched his arms and looked up into his eyes. “I have to go back with you, Brack.”

  His molten eyes turned to steel. “No.”

  She inhaled a deep breath. Considered all the options. “Yes. First of all, the paramedic team will be short now without Reesie. She was covering for me since my attack.” Her voice cracked, emotions pummeling her. “And I refuse to let this killer win by running me out of my house and town. Besides, who’s to say he wouldn’t find me here?” She glanced at the closed kitchen door. “I won’t risk the chance of him hurting my mother or Katie.”

  Brack looked torn for a moment, but she saw the moment her logic registered in his eyes.

  “Then you stay with me until he’s arrested,” he said.

  Sonya nodded, the idea of spending another night in Brack’s house sending a ripple of unease through her. But staying alone was even more terrifying.

  BRACK CRADLED Sonya close, his body humming with tension as he inhaled the scent of her feminine shampoo and felt her curves pressed against him. He admired her courage. Admired the fact that she refused to let this psycho intimidate her.

  She was a strong, gutsy woman.

  His hunger for her grew with each passing moment. Knowing she might be in danger intensified it, as well. And liking her only complicated that need.

  Because need meant that he was beginning to feel for her, something he couldn’t allow himself to do.

  Caring about people meant the possibility of getting hurt. A possibility that he couldn’t risk.

  They’d just have to work through the next few days, find this killer. Then they could part ways as friends.

  At least she hadn’t argued about staying with him. He tried to suppress the frisson of excitement that skated through him at the thought. They would be alone. Sharing close quarters.

  His body hardened as her breasts brushed his chest.

  Would he be able to keep his hands off of her?

  Yes, he’d have to. He couldn’t take advantage of her. She was only letting him hold her now because she needed comfort. Not because she wanted him.

  But she felt so soft and fit perfectly in his arms. And it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman.

  Hell, that was a lie. But the last woman and the one before had meant nothing. They hadn’t stirred anything inside him other than a physical heat that had burned out within minutes after being with them and left him feeling oddly empty.

  Sonya made him want more. Made him realize that meaningless lovemaking had been the reason he’d never returned to any of his former one-night stands.

  Voices rumbled from the living room, and the kitchen door burst open. Katie stumbled in, Sonya’s mother on her heels. Her eyes crinkled with a smile and questions when she saw them together.

  Sonya instantly pulled away, and he straightened.

  “Mr. Bwack,” Katie said. “Snowball can do a trick. Wants to see?”

  He grinned. He wanted to return to Tin City and push that warrant through, but how could he deny the kid? God, he was a sucker for her big brown eyes. “Sure.”

  Seconds later, he laughed as Katie dragged a ball of string around and watched the kitten chase it. A few minutes led to an hour as Sonya’s mother insisted they stay for dinner.

  Brack struggled to relax during the meal, but anxiety gnawed at him, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the attacks. He wanted to search Jameson Viago’s place yesterday. Wanted to look at those fan letters. But that moron, Cohen, hadn’t returned his call, and he contemplated again going over his head. If Viago wasn’t the killer, then one of his fans might be.

  Then again, the timing of that occult reporter’s appearance raised suspicion. What if Tripp went from town to town creating trouble, superstition, panic among the residents about something paranormal, then wrote up the story to draw attention to his magazine column? There were all kinds of crazies in the world. He had to check him out further.

  By the time they finished eating, tension knotted his shoulders. He finished his ice cream with Katie while Sonya slipped into the kitchen to talk to her mother about leaving Katie with her. A few minutes later, she finally returned, then sat down and pulled Katie into her lap. “Honey, how would you feel about staying here with your grandmother for a few days?”

  Katie’s face lit up, then fear darkened her eyes. “Are you gonna stay, too?”

  Sonya tucked a strand of Katie’s hair behind her ear. “No, sweetie, Mommy needs to go to work. And a friend of mine, well, honey, she died today, and I need to go to her funeral.”

  “Did that monster hurts her?” Katie asked.

  Brack’s stomach clenched. Katie was
too smart sometimes. He half expected Sonya to lie, but she didn’t.

  “I’m afraid so, sweetie.”

  Katie scrunched her nose. “Buts I don’t want him to gets you, Mommy.”

  “He’s not going to, Katie. I swear to you I’ll be back to pick you up.” Sonya hugged her daughter and rocked her in her arms.

  Brack knelt in front of Katie and tipped up her chin. “I promise to take care of your mother, lamb chop. You trust me, don’t you?”

  Katie studied him for a long moment, and his heart pounded in his ears. He didn’t know why her answer was so important, but it would pain him if she said no.

  Then she nodded. “You’ll brings her back to gets me?”

  Her trust touched him deeply, and he brushed a kiss on her forehead. “Yes, I will. And when we return, that monster will be gone forever.”

  As he and Sonya walked to the car, he wondered if she trusted him as much as her daughter did. Then again, if she’d known what he was thinking earlier, if she sensed how much he wanted her, maybe she shouldn’t.

  A THICK SEXUAL AWARENESS vibrated through the car as Sonya and Brack drove back to Tin City. Sonya studied the passing scenery, wishing she could enjoy the majestic landscape, the snowcapped mountaintops and jutting ridges, but the flutter of nerves taking flight inside her destroyed the peaceful picture.

  The yawning distance between her and her mother had finally been crossed. Katie was safe. And Evelyn had accepted Katie with open and loving arms.

  But now she was alone with Brack Falcon.

  A man she was very much attracted to. A man she admired but one who stirred her deepest fears at the same time. He tempted her to forget that she’d vowed to live the rest of her life alone. That she’d failed at her first marriage, had been a disappointment to the man who’d promised to love her, and that her daughter was crippled because of her.

  She couldn’t chance having more children only to see them suffer.

  And she couldn’t surrender her heart without fearing it might be broken again. She’d survived once. Could she survive a second failure or rejection?

  In the distance, a hawk soared above the treetops, its shadow silhouetted against the ensuing darkness, and her heart thrashed. Brack and the animals bonded.

  Yet those very same animals elicited fear in her now that she’d been attacked.

  An image of her friend flashed in front of her. Poor Reesie.

  “I’m going to investigate that reporter,” Brack said, breaking the silence. “And I called Cohen about a warrant for that cartoonist’s house and his fan mail, but he hasn’t responded yet.” His cell phone rang, and he unfolded it, connecting the call. “Falcon here.”

  She gnawed on her lower lip while he spoke in hushed tones. She should phone the paramedic unit, see if they needed her tonight. Check on her house.

  What if the psycho stalking her had left her another present? Another dead animal? More blood?

  Brack disconnected the call and turned to her. “That was Dr. Priestly, the vet I work with. He found some oddities in the blood work for two of the birds I rescued. Traces of poison.”

  “Poison?”

  He nodded. “I suspected as much. The raptors are so incredibly agile and fast, and they have keen senses. It’s impossible for a person to sneak up on them on the ground, not unless they’re already weak or injured.”

  “You think he’s somehow poisoning them so they’ll be more vulnerable?”

  “It makes sense. He probably poisons their food sources, setting traps with a small rabbit. I talked to Rex earlier, and he said that Godfrey, the specialist from the EPA, found some environmental disturbances. He’s running tests now.”

  Sonya shivered and burrowed deeper into her jacket. “This guy is really crazy, isn’t he, Brack?”

  Brack slid a hand over hers, and she felt instantly warmer, calmer. “Yeah, he is. But we’re getting closer to figuring out his identity. I can feel it.”

  Sonya stared at their entwined hands, her body tingling from his touch. She’d forgotten how much she missed a simple connection with a man. Forgotten how comforting it was to lean on someone else. “I have to see Reesie, Brack. And I need to call about work.”

  “You aren’t going to work, Sonya. Not until this guy is behind bars.”

  She clenched her jaw. “The paramedic unit is short now, Brack. We barely had enough rescue workers to cover the shifts as it was, and I won’t be working alone. We always travel in pairs.”

  His dark gaze cut to her, then back to the road as he maneuvered into the parking lot of the hospital. “I don’t like it, Sonya. It’s too dangerous.”

  Sonya sighed and climbed from the car, bracing herself to see her friend’s dead body. She didn’t like it, either, but she couldn’t let her friend’s death count for nothing.

  A few minutes later, she stood in the cold room, her heart in her throat as the ghostly voices that she always heard in the morgue whispered through the eaves of the old building. Sounds rattled below. Almost like footsteps…

  Someone had told her that the hospital, especially this wing, had been built above the old mining tunnels, the ones where the victims of the typhoid epidemic had been buried. At night, sometimes she’d imagined shadowy silhouettes, spirits rising and slipping through the concrete walls, their echoes of pain and cries for help forever trapped in the pit of death.

  The medical examiner, Will Snyder, strode in, wiping sweat from his brow in spite of the frigid temperature.

  The palms of Sonya’s own hands grew clammy as he moved the sheet to reveal her friend’s pale face, her eyes glazed in death, her face frozen in shock at the horror of her assailant’s brutality.

  “Did she suffer much?” Sonya asked.

  Snyder gave her an odd look but didn’t reply. She noted the viciousness of the attack wounds and understood his hesitant response—Reesie had died a terrible death.

  The Talon Terror had ripped at her flesh, through muscle, tissue, all the way down to the bone. And this time he had gone straight for her heart, as if he’d intended to rip it out completely.

  She fought nausea, battling it down, willing herself to be strong and not lose her composure in front of the medical examiner.

  “I haven’t completed the autopsy yet,” he said in a low voice. “I was just getting ready to start it.”

  “Can I have a few minutes alone with her?” Sonya asked.

  He gave her a concerned look over his glasses, then nodded. “I’ll be in my office if you need me. I believe that Falcon man wants to talk to me.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  Snyder slipped out the door, and she sucked in a breath for courage. Brack had wanted to come with her, but she’d insisted on facing her friend alone. She couldn’t risk growing too dependent on him, although doing so was so tempting….

  She pulled on rubber gloves, knowing that preserving any trace evidence left on her friend was imperative, then lifted the sheet and cradled Reesie’s hand in hers. Her skin felt cold, stiff, and bloody talon marks marred the tops of her hands. Defense wounds. Just like her own.

  Only she had been lucky. She’d escaped alive.

  She shivered, a cold horror seeping through her at the viciousness of the killer’s attack.

  Suddenly a whisper of icy air touched her neck, as if a ghost’s fingers had brushed her skin. She spun round, half expecting to see a spirit floating toward her, but someone clamped a rag over her mouth and grabbed her around the neck. She flailed her arms, trying to jab her assailant with her elbow, then tried to scream, but she inhaled a gassy odor instead and gagged.

  She grasped for something, anything, a scalpel from the metal table nearby, but missed. The steel table rolled and slammed into the wall with a grating crash, and the metal tools hit the floor with a resounding clatter.

  Her attacker tightened his hold on her neck, and she tried to kick backward, to connect with bone, but felt her energy draining, felt the world spiraling into a gray abyss of nothingness.


  Her legs sagged, and somewhere in the distance feet pounded. Someone shouted. The world went black, twirling sickeningly as she fought to focus. But she lost the battle and collapsed onto the cold floor as darkness engulfed her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brack heard the loud crash of metal from inside the morgue and took off running. He pushed past Snyder and barreled through the door, his heart pumping ninety miles an hour.

  Then he saw Sonya lying on the floor and his heartbeat crashed to a stop.

  Panic nearly seized him, but he pushed it aside, knelt and checked for a pulse. “Sonya, come on, baby, breathe, dammit.”

  A second passed. Two. Five. His own erratic breathing rattled in the air.

  Finally he felt her pulse in her throat. Low and reedy, but indicating that she was alive.

  The door swung open behind him. Footsteps pounded. “Good God almighty. What’s going on?” Snyder bellowed.

  “Someone attacked her. Get help! Then call security and tell them to block all the exits and to look for anyone suspicious.”

  Snyder grabbed the wall phone and called for a doctor. Brack traced a finger over Sonya’s pale cheek, willing her to open her eyes, but they remained closed. Her breathing was unsteady.

  He wanted to pick her up and move her, hold her and rub the life back into her, but decided it was best for the doctors to check her first. Although he saw no signs of neck or spinal injuries, he didn’t want to risk hurting her worse in case she’d sustained a head injury.

  Dr. Waverman raced in, followed by a nurse. A shocked look darkened Waverman’s face when he spotted Sonya on the floor.

  Or was he acting? Had he attacked her, then slipped out the door and returned to play her hero?

  The nurse knelt to check her vitals.

  “What happened?” Waverman asked.

  “Someone attacked her. Doctor Snyder and I were talking in the other room. Sonya wanted a moment alone to say goodbye to her friend.” Brack gestured toward the body on the table.

  Waverman frowned and ran his fingers over her head, checking for injuries. “Let’s get her to the ER. Grab a gurney, Snyder.”