Killer's Prey

by Rachel Lee

  “This doesn’t rely on strength. Even if you were completely healed, you’d have trouble beating a man on the strength front. No, there are other ways. Ways where being small can even be an advantage.”

  “An advantage? Really? How?”

  “Surprise, Nora. Surprise. Of course, that makes a basic assumption.”

  “Which is?”

  “That he’ll get close to you.”

  She lowered her head a moment, then met his gaze again. “Nobody can protect me if he comes at me from a distance with a rifle. You know that. I don’t think that’s his style anyway. He gets off on this, Jake. He gets off big on a woman’s pain and terror. Well, if there’s one thing I can do, it’s to never again show him my terror.”

  Brave words, she thought, even as she spoke them. But a resolve was building in her. She was getting awfully tired of being frightened. She didn’t want to be frightened anymore.

  He studied her, then nodded. “Okay, we’ll start tomorrow.”

  “You’re sure I can do it?”

  “Nora, I think you can do a hell of a lot more than you’ve ever believed. Look at you—one of the few who packed up and left town to go to college, and without any help at all from your family. Then you went to a totally different place and built a life for yourself. You’re stronger than you think, and you’re determined enough for any two people. You got knocked down. Horribly knocked down. But I’d be damned surprised if you didn’t get up again and turn out even stronger.”

  She nearly basked in his words. No one had ever said anything as complimentary as that to her. What’s more, they deepened her resolve. Jake had known her when she was nobody at all, a mere shadow trying to remain unnoticed. If he could see her that way... Well, maybe there was some truth in it.

  She started looking at what had happened that night again, but this time, instead of reluctantly glimpsing it out of the corner of her mental eye, she stared straight at it. For a few moments, she had the courage to face her memories directly, those things she hadn’t forgotten because of the trauma. A shudder ripped through her, but she refused to deflect.

  “I’ve got to face this. I’ve got to face him. Here or in a courtroom, it doesn’t matter. And I need to dissect him.”

  “Dissect him?”

  She emerged from memory and met his questioning gaze. “Dissect him psychologically,” she explained. “I need some kind of understanding. I need a reason.”

  “I’m not sure you’ll ever get that. His lawyer is going to make him clam up. You know that.”

  “I don’t care about what he says or doesn’t say. I need to think about what he did and how he acted. As much as I can remember anyway.”

  “What will that tell you?”

  “Just what kind of sickness is driving him. Whatever he might say, it wouldn’t matter. Like most of his type, he’s probably really good at rationalizing, and he probably believes whatever he’s telling himself. He won’t make sense that way. I need to come at him another way. Actions do speak louder than words.”

  “I suppose.” But a frown had settled over his face. “Are you sure you want to do that? To dredge it all up and ponder it?”

  She shook her head slightly and sighed. “The thing about the mind is, you either deal with things or they haunt you. Some traumatic amnesia is good. Seriously. I would never tell a patient who forgot something awful that there was any need to remember. The mind has its methods. Sometimes just forgetting is the best thing in the world. But there are times when the mind finds ways to keep throwing it up, causing problems, making it clear that you have to deal with what happened. Because if you don’t, you’ll never heal and you’ll develop other problems.”

  “Your nightmare?”

  “It’s a huge warning flag. This one is not going away. I never told anyone, but I’ve forgotten large parts of my childhood. They’re gone, beyond reach. I don’t need them. The bits I have are still big enough to make a complete picture. At this point if I were to forget ninety-nine percent of it, it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ve dealt with the overall situation in the most important ways.”

  “You’ve forgotten your childhood?” He sounded a little surprised. “I mean, I know we don’t remember everything, but you’re talking about something else, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe forgetting isn’t the right word. It’s like I’ve walled most of it off behind bulletproof glass. I know it’s there, but it can’t touch me, and I have to work hard to reach it. Lots of it just seems to be gone. But this is different.”

  “Bound to be,” he agreed slowly. “Are you sure thinking about this all by yourself would be wise? I mean... Do you need a therapist?”

  “I went through therapy as part of my training. I was also seeing one before I left Minneapolis. I have the tool kit, which is the important thing. Most therapy is done by the patient, you know. The therapist helps you develop a tool kit, pulls you up short when you start to go off the rails, but mostly it’s a solo project.”

  “You would know.” He still sounded reluctant, though. “I’m here if you need a sounding board.”

  “Thank you. I mean that.”

  “Just explain one thing to me, if you can.”

  “Sure.”

  “Why is it so important to understand this guy? To have a reason?”

  “So I don’t see every man I ever meet through the lens of that attack.”

  He stiffened a bit, leaning back a little. “My God, I never thought about that.”

  “I was seeing you through the lens of the my arrest. Which isn’t fair, is it, because cops came to my aid when I was first found by the road. Overall, except for that one aberration, the police were great. So I’ve been getting past that. But maybe you also remember how reluctant I was to be touched, even casually. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, but my reaction was deeper than reason. So I need to work this through. I need to figure out, at least to some extent, what makes this guy different so I can move on.”

  He nodded, still not looking entirely happy. “Okay. Just let me know if I can help in any way. I mean that. I’m willing to listen.”

  She felt so grateful to him right then that she tightened her hold on his hand. Something in his eyes seemed to leap—an answering flame?—but she dismissed it quickly. There was nothing desirable about her, there never really had been. And even if he did find her attractive, there were so many hurdles to leap, from her fractured emotional state to the scars that tattooed her body.

  But that didn’t prevent the warm drizzle of desire that slowly filled her, pooling at last between her legs. If it hadn’t been so strong, she might have been startled by a feeling so rare to her, even before the attack.

  Long ago, something had been broken in her. By her father’s words, by the treatment of other kids, by the things Jake had said. She had never come to believe that she was sexually attractive, even to the men who occasionally asked her out.

  But what she was feeling now took hold of her, reminding her that however she felt about herself, she still had a woman’s needs. Burying them hadn’t worked. They could come at random times like this, although not the way she seemed to feel them for Jake. Always, always, she pushed them back down, telling herself that wasn’t for her.

  But as the air seemed to drain from the room, as her gaze locked with Jake’s, common sense and life’s lessons vanished with it. She wanted him. It would never happen, but she wanted him anyway. Maybe she always would.

  There had been times when she had wondered what had driven her all those years ago to ask him to take her to the prom. As if she were linked to him by some invisible cord and couldn’t keep her perspective around him. Even then she had been in his thrall.

  That hadn’t faded one bit, it seemed. All the anger she had tried to harbor against him was gone, a vague memory of an ugly scene that, when she was honest to herself, she admitted she had caused. There had been plenty of therapy about that. Why she had reached for a man who was unattainable because he was already promised to
another?

  To confirm her own feelings. To prove to herself that she really was the ugly duckling no one would want. He’d played a role in her breaking her last ties with this town, and it was unfair for her to blame him for giving her a response she should have expected. A response that in some deep part of herself she had needed. The final punctuation mark to the lifelong battering she had taken.

  Offering herself that way had been the means to cut away the only thing that made her want to stay here.

  Now she was back, and she still wanted the same things. Things she didn’t feel at all entitled to. Things that were making her body ache, her heart hammer, her mouth grow dry.

  And something in his expression told her he could see what she was feeling. She hadn’t moved a muscle. What was giving her away?

  She wanted to tense, expecting rejection, but her body felt full of the molasses of hunger. The ache between her legs hung her suspended in a web of anticipation, hope and fear.

  She couldn’t possibly. She wasn’t ready. He couldn’t be interested. This could turn out badly. A million warnings, familiar from years past, shrieked in some tiny corner of her mind, but she couldn’t hear them over the pounding blood in her ears. She felt transfixed.

  Still holding on to her hand, Jake rose slowly. She followed his every movement with her eyes, drinking in his fantastic chest and arms, his handsome face. He came around the table, stood right beside her and tugged gently on her hand.

  She didn’t know if her legs would hold her, but she struggled to rise anyway. The thought of being closer to him seemed to take over, granting her strength even as she tried to find enough air to breathe.

  Then, almost as if by magic, those powerful arms surrounded her, drawing her close until she rested against his chest and felt his skin, so warm and smooth beneath her cheek. With one arm around her waist, he held her. With his other hand he stroked her hair.

  “Easy,” he murmured. “Just be easy.”

  Easy? Impulses she hardly knew were pushing at her, demanding that she do things she could barely imagine. But he held her so gently, another part of her just gave in. He would decide, and she was grateful to be held.

  She had no right to more.

  After a minute or two, she even dared to raise her arms and wind them around his narrow waist. Her palms found the bare skin of his back, and it felt so good, so indescribably good to her. How had she missed discovering how wonderful a man’s warm skin could feel?

  “That feels nice,” he murmured as her palms settled on his back.

  The words gave her the most incredible sense of power. She could make him feel some of what he made her feel?

  Emboldened, she began to run her palms over his back, stroking him as he was stroking her hair. She felt his muscles quiver beneath her touch, and a quiet sound escaped him, almost like a purr.

  She leaned into him even more, loving it, loving it even if it never went a step further. She would at least be able to forever remember having held Jake, and been held by him, with an intimacy that had long been denied to her.

  That seemed worth even the price of disappointment, and disappointment was something she knew all too well.

  “I want to tell you something,” he said softly.

  “Hmm?”

  “All those years ago, when I was so cruel? It took me a long time to figure out why.”

  She started to stiffen, not wanting the intrusion of that memory, but he simply tightened his hold a bit. “Hang on. This isn’t bad. I’m not being an ass again the way I was back then.”

  Still, she was on edge now, as if waiting for a blow. Her hands became motionless against his back, even though he continued stroking her hair, then letting his hand slide down toward her shoulder before bringing it back up again.

  “You know I was all but engaged when you asked me to take you to the prom. I was saving for a ring. I felt... Well, a duty to behave. But it wasn’t just that, Nora. I didn’t get mean to be mean to you. I was furious at myself.”

  She waited a moment, then finally found a piece of voice to ask, “Why?”

  “Because that was the instant that I realized I wanted you, too. I wanted to take you to that prom, I wanted to take you up on your offer to sleep with me. It made me all messed up inside, because it didn’t seem right. I wanted to say yes, but that would have meant betraying Beth. I couldn’t do that.”

  She didn’t know how to take this. Everything inside her seemed to be jumbling as if she were in a cement mixer.

  “But it wasn’t just that. It was that it hurt.”

  She stilled, everything inside her going quiet. “Hurt?”

  “Hurt to hear you think you needed to offer to sleep with me to get me to take you to the prom. Hurt to realize that I wanted to do it. I should have had the sense right then to realize that I cared more about you than Beth.”

  “You’re just saying that.” Her mind whirled, unable to believe.

  “I’m not just saying it. I’ve had to live with that memory as much as you have, and I’m not proud of it. I spent a lot of time wondering how I could have been such a bastard, what drove me to say terrible things. My only excuse was that I was young and didn’t know how to deal with all the mixed-up feelings that caused. I struck out at you when I should have struck out at myself. I’m sorry and I’m ashamed, but it’s the truth.”

  “Let it go,” she said weakly, feeling as if her world were turning upside down again. “Just let it go.”

  “I can’t until I’ve finished. I’ve thought about it over the years, but I’ve been thinking especially hard about it since you came home. I wanted you and I retaliated against you because of it.”

  “Nobody wanted me,” she said, a burst of pain adding strength to her voice. “Nobody!”

  “That’s not true! Maybe nobody else did. I’m not speaking for the whole world here. It was sure as hell obvious that your father wanted you to believe that. The other kids told you that often enough. But except for that one time, did I tell you that, Nora? Ever?”

  She couldn’t even manage a shake of her head.

  “I just need you to know that. If I’d been a little older and wiser, I never would have gotten engaged to Beth. I’d have taken you to that damn prom. Hell, I’d even have bought you the prettiest dress you could find so you could feel like the belle of the ball, because, dammit, regardless of all those ugly clothes and glasses, I could see the beauty behind them. I wanted you. And to my everlasting sorrow, I didn’t have the sense to realize it. So here we are, twelve years later, all water over the dam, nothing I can do about it to fix it, except be honest. I screwed up big time and hurt you in the process.”

  “Jake...”

  “I know. It’s too late. We’re practically strangers now, and none of what happened then changes that. But the fact is I still want you.”

  A shiver of delighted, unadulterated longing passed through her, and she tightened her hold on him, even as long years of wounding made her say, “You didn’t have to say that. It’s okay. I put it in the past.”

  “I haven’t,” he said firmly. “I finally faced up to it. I want you to know. I realize it doesn’t change a damn thing, I get that things have changed... Hell, at this point you probably couldn’t even consider such a thing after what you’ve been through. You’re scared, too, justifiably so, and I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you. But now you know. Now I know. It’s done and over.”

  But it was far from over, she realized as she leaned into him, enjoying his warmth, enjoying the intimacy, enjoying the sizzling sensations that zinged through her body.

  Far from over. She just didn’t know where it could go.

  Chapter 8

  Langdon’s impatience was growing. He’d found a cheap motel room that didn’t ask for ID, only for cash, and had learned from a newspaper that his wife might be recovering from her coma. Even though she would need months of therapy, it remained: she had defied him.

  That defiance maddened him. He was moving
ever closer to Nora, and he’d figured that as soon as he took care of her, he’d be on his way, disappearing to some distant country where no one would ever find him. The escape route was planned, the money squirreled in an untraceable bank account.... Oh, he was ready to take off.

  But now he sat between two women who had defied him by surviving. Some cowardly part of his mind suggested he should just skedaddle now, but he couldn’t do that. Not with unfinished business.

  At least as far as Nora went. Going after his wife again would mean returning to Minneapolis, too dangerous despite his fury. But finding Nora in the virtual middle of nowhere would give him plenty of opportunity to escape.

  He could tie up one loose end. Teach one woman that defiance was the ultimate sin. With reluctance, he had to accept that maybe one of the women would escape him, at least for years to come.

  But Nora wouldn’t. He could at least take savage satisfaction in teaching her a lesson before he wiped the defiance out of her forever by killing her.

  His hands clenched as he considered the sheer pleasure of the terror he meant to inflict, the pain he would show her. Damn, he could hardly wait.

  Turning on the bed, he reached for his map and reviewed his route with an eye to getting there faster and settling one issue quickly.

  Of course, he had to be careful. Chances were since she’d gone to her hometown—a piece of knowledge for which he thanked his wife, who had told him in the midst of his threats before he gave her hell—they might be expecting him on that end.

  At some point they’d think he’d fled the country. He was counting on it.

  Soon, though. The pressure inside him was building. He’d learned something about himself—that he couldn’t wait too long. The only reason he didn’t take out his frustration on some woman along the road was that he didn’t want to leave a trail.

  But it was starting to drive him nuts. He had to act soon, before the pressure drove him to complete stupidity.

  He scanned the map again, calculating. If he were careful, he could probably take care of Nora in the near future. The thought left him nearly salivating.