by Lisa Childs
The man—Kyle Smith—shrugged shoulders that Jared suspected were as fake as his hair—since they moved strangely beneath his suit jacket, like they were more padding than muscle and bone. “County tax records confirm this property belongs to Rebecca Drummond.”
Jared breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had been pretty sure that the press hadn’t followed him here. But with the concussion, he wasn’t quite himself yet. Maybe he hadn’t noticed someone—like Kyle Smith—tailing him.
But apparently they had just done the same research he’d done to find Rebecca Drummond. Or at least Kyle Smith had. Had he brought the others with him, like a pack of dogs, to attack?
Then Kyle attacked as he shoved the microphone in Jared’s face and had his cameraman zoom in on him. “So is Rebecca Drummond’s young son yours?”
It was probably a good thing that he’d holstered his gun, or he might have threatened the man with it. Instead, he punched in the number for the local authorities, identified himself and gave the address where he needed backup to disperse trespassers.
“No comment, Agent Bell?” Kyle said with a sneer.
He had no comment that he could make publicly without his supervisor reprimanding him. And there was no point to answering any of Kyle’s questions. The man twisted Jared’s replies to suit his own purposes.
Apparently, he wanted to expose all of Jared’s mistakes. Getting involved with a victim’s family member had definitely been a mistake. But that had been six years ago, and the boy had to be younger than that. Alex hadn’t looked much older than the toddler Jared had recently been helping protect. His head pounded, reminding him of the concussion that had rewarded his efforts. According to the doctor, he was lucky to be alive and have his memory intact.
Not that he could have forgotten Becca. He doubted he would ever be able to forget her. During the past six years, she had never left his mind. He’d seen her beautiful face in his dreams and in his waking moments. He’d thought of her often, wondering how she was doing—hoping she’d been able to move on after the loss of her sister.
“You’re not here to see your son?” Kyle prodded him with the question and that infuriatingly snide grin.
Jared fought the urge to glare at the man, too. Then, against his better judgment, he replied, “I’m investigating the disappearance of Amy Wilcox.”
“And how can Rebecca Drummond help you with that?” Smith asked. “She’s convinced her sister’s fiancé killed Lexi despite his rock-solid alibi.”
Jared wished she’d been right. But the alibi was indisputable and Becca’s judgment seriously biased where her almost-brother-in-law was concerned.
Sirens wailed in the distance as Jared’s backup approached. “Whoever is still on this property when the local authorities arrive will be arrested.”
“You’ve let a serial killer run free for six years, Special Agent Bell,” Kyle taunted him, “but you would arrest some reporters just doing their job?”
“You’re not just doing your job.” Jared had gotten that impression from the reporter before—that this was personal. Had Jared put away someone he’d known and cared about? Did the guy have some kind of vendetta against him? Why else would the reporter go after him like he did?
To suggest that Becca’s son was his...
It was preposterous. To think that he was a father, that he had been a father for six years and had never known...
His heart lurched in his chest as he considered the possibility that he had son.
No. It wasn’t a possibility.
* * *
HER NERVES FRAYED, Rebecca waited for Jared to ask. She’d heard the reporter’s speculation—the one who’d been looking through Alex’s bedroom window. That man had wondered if Alex was Jared’s son.
Why hadn’t Jared?
Fortunately Alex hadn’t heard any of the reporter’s questions or comments. She had tucked him back into his bed and drawn the blinds. And, despite the excitement, he had fallen asleep. She probably needed to thank Tommy for that. If his playdate friend hadn’t worn him out, there was no way Alex would have fallen asleep after catching a man looking in his window. Or with an FBI agent in the house.
Or maybe it was because of the FBI agent that he fell asleep—because he felt safe. Was that because Jared was FBI or because Alex instinctively felt a connection with him?
It didn’t matter that Alex hadn’t heard the reporter’s questions. He already had questions of his own. He’d already asked her who his father was.
He deserved an answer. He deserved a father. But Jared hadn’t even wanted to be a boyfriend all those years ago. She couldn’t imagine how he would have reacted if she’d told him she was pregnant. He probably would have thought she was trying to trap him because she was so fixated on him.
He was now focused on the contents of the plastic container in which Rebecca had preserved all of her sister’s pictures, journals and letters. He kept flipping through the photos, flinching when he came across the ones of a bruised and battered Lexi.
“He did that to her,” Rebecca said. But she hadn’t known that until she’d found the pictures in Lexi’s journal. Why hadn’t her sister told her that her fiancé was abusing her? Because Rebecca had been too busy? Had Lexi thought she wouldn’t care?
Lexi was only two years older than Rebecca, so they’d always been close growing up. When she’d graduated Lexi had stayed home and attended community college for a medical assistant program. Rebecca was the one who’d left home—for college and med school.
Guilt gripped Rebecca, squeezing her heart. Maybe if she had been more available to her sister, Lexi would have told her what was going on, and she could have helped her. She could have saved her...
Anger joined her guilt as she glanced at the photos, too. The man was a monster to have done that to sweet, beautiful Lexi.
“She took those photos as evidence against him,” Rebecca said, “in case something ever happened to her.” That was what Lexi had written on the journal pages between which those photos had been tucked. “She wanted you to know who her killer would be.”
Rebecca waited for Jared to bring up that damn ironclad alibi again. But the FBI profiler remained curiously silent and focused on those photographs.
Her pulse quickened. Was he beginning to believe her? To believe the evidence Lexi had left for him?
Of course Lexi hadn’t known who would be investigating her case. But she’d known that she would die and that there would be someone investigating her death.
Poor Lexi...
If only she’d told Rebecca what was going on.
But Rebecca had been too busy studying. She’d been too busy for much more than a short texted reply to her sister’s usual text, You still alive?
Yes, I’m still alive.
When she hadn’t heard from Lexi in a while, she had texted her the question: You still alive?
Lexi had never answered that text.
Rebecca closed her eyes as the pain overwhelmed her, and tears threatened. It didn’t feel like six years had passed since she’d lost her sister. It felt like yesterday.
“I’m sorry,” Jared said.
“Why?” He had already apologized for how he’d handled the situation with her—the line he regretted crossing into her bed.
Images flashed through her mind—of the two of them in bed, of naked skin sliding over naked skin. Of his lips on hers as he kissed her with all his intensity focused solely on her. He had made love to her so thoroughly, so passionately that it was as if she could still feel his hands on her body, his lips on her...
Desire rushed through her, heating her. She didn’t regret that he had crossed that line with her. She only regretted how it had ended. That he had ended it.
But she didn’t want any more apologies from him. Not when she owed him one. She was the one who’d been keeping a secret from him for too many years.
“I’m sorry I came here,” he explained, “and opened up all this pain for you again.”
She chuckled at how he didn’t understand her feelings any better than he had six years ago. “You think you just reopened it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t me, but Amy Wilcox’s disappearance had to have brought everything up again—all those feelings.”
“She isn’t the only victim since Lexi.”
But Rebecca didn’t need to remind him of that. She could see his frustration in the slight lines around his eyes and mouth. She could feel the tension in his body. He blamed himself, as much as the serial killer, for the loss of those other victims.
“No, she’s not,” he acknowledged, and the guilt was in the gruffness of his deep voice.
“But you never came here when those other victims first went missing,” she said.
He held up the photo he’d brought with him—the photo of Amy Wilcox with Lexi. “I didn’t find any connection between them and your sister.”
“But their killer...”
“We don’t have enough evidence to make that conclusion,” he replied—uttering one of those patented FBI press release statements.
She nearly smiled. Maybe it was because he had been recruited so young into the Bureau that he was such a company man. Or maybe it was what she had concluded six years ago—all he cared about was his job.
“The media hasn’t had any problem leaping to conclusions,” she said. And not just about the murders but about her son’s paternity.
But they weren’t wrong about that. Had they been wrong about all the murders being the work of one killer?
“I didn’t lead those reporters here,” Jared assured her.
“I know.”
While his specialty was profiling killers, he had made certain that he had all the skills of a field agent. He was an expert shot and defensive driver. That was why she’d been so excited when he had been assigned her sister’s case—because she’d heard all the media praise about him.
But the media didn’t praise him anymore—because he’d never found Lexi’s killer. Or Lexi’s body.
“The pain wasn’t just reopened,” she said. “It never closed.”
He flinched again, like he had looking at the pictures of a brutalized Lexi. “I’m sorry you never got closure.”
Everyone talked about needing closure. Needing a body to bury. Or a killer to curse.
“I’m not sure closure would make it hurt any less,” she admitted. Lexi would still be dead.
He stepped closer to her, and his voice was low and gruff when he said, “I want to get you closure. I really want to find Lexi and her killer.”
“I told you—”
He pressed his fingers over her lips. Then his eyes—those eerie, pale brown eyes—darkened as his pupils dilated. His fingers slid across her mouth...caressingly.
Her breath caught in her lungs, and her pulse quickened with awareness and desire. How could she want him again? She wasn’t hurting over Lexi’s loss alone. She was hurting over losing Jared, too.
He jerked his hand away from her mouth. “I know who you think killed your sister. I know.”
And she waited for him to refute her belief like he always had. But he stayed silent again.
“You’re not telling me I’m wrong this time,” she said.
He emitted a weary-sounding sigh. “I’m not as cocky as I was six years ago.”
He was different. No less serious or determined or driven but perhaps a little less confident. Lexi’s case had shaken his confidence.
And maybe it had him second-guessing himself.
Because now he uttered the question she’d been waiting for him to ask since she’d overheard his confrontation with the reporters.
“Is he my son, Becca?” he asked. “Is Alex mine?”
Chapter Four
Jared’s heart pounded fast and furiously as he waited for her answer. Or maybe because he’d touched her. He shouldn’t have touched her. Because now he wanted to touch her again.
But if her son was his and she had never told him...
Could he ever forgive her? She had stolen almost six years of her son’s life from him—years he couldn’t get back. But her son couldn’t be almost six years old. He was too small.
Like Jared had been for his age...
No. He shook his head in silent denial of his own thoughts and suspicions.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no business asking you that. I must’ve let Kyle Smith get inside my head.” And of course the reporter had just been trying to get a reaction out of him—some scandalous footage to run over and over on his broadcast.
She blinked as her blue eyes widened with confusion. “Kyle Smith?”
“The reporter.” Jared chuckled. “That egomaniac would hate that you don’t know his name.”
She glanced toward the black screen of her TV. “I try not to pay much attention to the news.”
But since she’d known about Amy Wilcox’s disappearance, he doubted that she was any more successful at ignoring the media than he was.
“I’ve been working on that myself.” In his job, he had to know how to handle the media or he could tip off a suspect or undermine his own investigation. He lifted a hand toward his throbbing head. “Maybe I only let him get to me because of the concussion.”
He wished he could blame the head injury. But he suspected that maybe it was wishful thinking instead...that Becca’s son was his. He wanted a connection to her—something more than Lexi’s unsolved murder to bind them together.
“How did you get the concussion?” she asked, her voice soft with concern.
After the way he’d treated her, how could she care about him at all? But that was just her nature, the reason she’d wanted to become a doctor, because she cared about people. All people. It was nothing personal. She’d had six years to realize that, although he hadn’t been sensitive about her feelings, he’d been right. She hadn’t really been in love with him.
“How did you get hurt?” she asked again, and now the concern was in her beautiful eyes as she studied his face, maybe trying to medically determine if he’d checked himself out too soon.
He shrugged off her concern and his own stupidity. “I didn’t stick to just profiling.”
“Do you ever?” she asked, and a twinkle flashed briefly in her blue eyes as if she was teasing him. Maybe she’d forgiven him for how he’d treated her.
“As a profiler, I do have to spend a lot of time out in the field,” he said, “analyzing the crime scenes, the evidence, interviewing suspects, hopefully following leads to more suspects...”
“I know what you do,” she reminded him.
Six years ago he’d kept her apprised of his investigation—probably too apprised. He’d told her when he’d interviewed her sister’s fiancé. But she hadn’t agreed with his findings. Even if the guy hadn’t had an alibi, Jared truly hadn’t felt like the man had killed his fiancée. Harris Mowery’s shock and anger over Lexi’s disappearance had seemed very genuine. But maybe Jared had been so cocky and overconfident back then that he hadn’t read Harris as well as he’d thought he had.
“So what were you doing this time?” she asked. “That wasn’t just profiling?”
“Protection duty.”
She laughed. “You were playing bodyguard?”
He should have been offended. After all he wasn’t the too-small-for-his-age child that he had once been. He was tall and muscular now, but he was no bodyguard. He’d learned all the skills of being a field agent, but protecting someone wasn’t something he had done often enough to get good at it. Usually he came on the scene when it was too late for protection—when the victim had already gone missing or been found dead.
He rubbed his head where he’d taken the blow from the butt of a gun. He was lucky he hadn’t been shot instead, but the killer hadn’t wanted to forewarn his victim and have her get away again.
“I’m not a very good bodyguard,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened with alarm. “Did whoever you were protecting get hurt?�
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He breathed a sigh of relief. “No, but that was thanks to better agents.”
She tilted her head, and a lock of blond hair fell across her cheek. He wanted to brush it back; he wanted to touch her again. He was close enough. He only had to lift his hand again, like he had touched her lips. His skin tingled yet from that too-brief contact.
Then she mused aloud, “You are different than you used to be.”
A self-deprecating grin tugged at his mouth. “Less cocky than I used to be?”
She smiled, too. “Yes.”
He didn’t have to tell her why; she knew—because he’d failed to find Lexi’s killer. He had failed all the subsequent victims of Lexi’s killer, too. And most of all, he’d failed Becca.
He hadn’t given her the closure she needed. She didn’t seem to think it would help, but he’d seen it help others—when he’d found their loved ones’ killers. He’d had a lot of success in his profiling career with the Bureau. He’d actually had mostly success and just this one failure when it mattered most.
Because Becca mattered most.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He couldn’t apologize enough to her—for so many reasons.
“I wish you’d stop saying that,” she murmured as she stepped back from him and lowered her gaze, as if she couldn’t look at him.
He stepped closer, not wanting any distance between them. And he touched her, just his fingers on her chin, tipping her face up so that she met his gaze again. So that she would see his sincerity when he told her, “But I am...sorry. I’m sorry for how I treated you. And I’m sorry for not catching your sister’s killer yet. And I’m sorry for letting Kyle Smith get to me so that I accused you of keeping my son from me.”
She pulled away from his touch and lowered her gaze again. Maybe she wasn’t willing to forgive his unfounded suspicion.
He groaned. “Right now I’m the most sorry about asking you if Alex is mine. I know you better than that. You would never do something—”
She lifted her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips, stilling them. “Jared...”
