“Beats falling five feet onto cement. We can trade injuries if you’d like.” Her smile disintegrated, and reality settled between them. She pressed against the pressure point between his index finger and thumb, and a heightened sense of comfort pushed through him. “You were trying to stop him from getting to me. You were trying to protect me.”
“Yeah, I was, but I failed, Doc. I wasn’t fast enough, and he got to you anyway.” And he’d have to live with that truth the rest of his life. Because there was a chance with the damage done to her right shoulder blade and ribs, she might not be able to recover enough to do her job as Seattle’s chief medical examiner. If she couldn’t hold a scalpel steady, she couldn’t perform an autopsy. The city would replace her as soon as they found a candidate, and it’d be his fault. Her entire livelihood, her dream of helping loved ones find comfort and answers, gone. “I can’t imagine the terror you went through, but I need to get a statement from you when you’re ready. I’ve gone over the crime scene photos. I’ve read the reports, but there’s not a single piece of evidence the killer left behind that we could use to identify him. Can you tell me what you remember?”
The laughter drained from her eyes, and the effect drilled straight through Nicholas’s detachment and into his gut. “I remember his voice, but it was distorted with the mask. I don’t think he was someone I knew.” She pulled her hand from his. “I can assume samples from under my fingernails have already been collected, and that your forensic team has taken my clothes as evidence, but I’m not sure how much help they’ll be. He wore gloves when he kidnapped me. You won’t find his DNA evidence in the zip ties or on the hook, and the ski mask would’ve prevented him from leaving behind saliva, sweat or blood.”
Defeat washed through her expression, and she raised her uninjured hand to the outline of gauze at her neck. “He cut me with a scalpel.”
Nicholas sat a bit straighter. They’d recovered the collection of tools from a cart near where she’d been strung up, but there hadn’t been a scalpel among them. “A scalpel. The same kind you would use to perform autopsies, right?”
“Yes. He had an entire arrangement of surgical tools, most of which could be found in my own medical kit. His hand was steady when he made the incision, which suggests he has medical training.” Aubrey studied the sling keeping her right elbow bent against her chest. “I remember thinking I was going to die, and that Kara must’ve had the same thought while he was strangling her. I didn’t want to die.”
“I’m sorry, Doc.” Medical training and knowledge of forensics, at least enough for the killer to know he had to wear gloves and a mask when he abducted his victims to prevent leaving behind trace DNA. That could narrow down possible suspects. Nicholas pressed an unraveling thread from the edge of her sheet beneath his thumbnail. “He won’t touch you again. I give you my word.”
“You can’t promise that. Even if we manage to stop him from taking another victim, he made it clear I’m the one he’s chosen to become his masterpiece.” She shook her head, and a tear streaked down her face. “That kind of obsessive narcissism, his need to prove himself... I don’t think he’s going to stop until he gets what he wants. No matter how many people get in his way.”
“He won’t touch you, because I’m not letting you out of my sight.” Determination unlike anything he’d experienced before rocked through him. Aubrey had survived what dozens of victims hadn’t. “He went after one of our own, and the BAU doesn’t forgive that kind of offense. I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
“I believe you.” Aubrey tried to sit higher in the bed, flinching against the pain morphine couldn’t touch, he was sure. “Did you find your teammates? Are they okay?”
“Striker’s and West’s egos are hurt more than their heads, but yeah,” he said. “They’re okay, and I had our public relations liaison check in on your parents. They weren’t given specifics about what happened at the slaughterhouse, but they were made aware you were injured trying to solve Kara’s case. They want to see you as soon as they can, but until whoever attacked you is in custody—”
“I understand. Thank you. I’m not sure how I would’ve managed to explain everything to them.” She scrubbed her uninjured hand down her face. “Were your forensic techs able to test the samples I took from Paige Cress’s remains or find something I missed on the body?”
This was where his choices would threaten a conviction once they caught up to the killer. Paige Cress’s background check hadn’t revealed anything or anyone that might’ve contributed to her death, and Cole Presley’s every move had been accounted for by the warden of Washington State Corrections. “No. The storm... I didn’t have time to secure the remains after I realized you’d been taken. By the time CSU arrived on the scene, the ocean had risen enough to compromise any evidence the killer might’ve left behind and destroy the samples you’d collected. Dr. Caldwell is performing the autopsy as we speak, but I’m not sure how much survived the storm.”
“You chose to compromise the evidence and come after me?” Shock wound through her words and bled into her expression. “There could’ve been something on her body to give us an ID. You could lose your job for failing to secure the remains in a homicide investigation.”
“I was willing to take the risk. We’re going to nail the son of a bitch, Doc.” He maneuvered to the edge of his seat, forcing her to look at him. “Sooner or later, that ego of his is going to force him to make a mistake, and when he does, you and I will be there to take him down. You’re right. He’s not going to stop. His confidence is growing, and he’ll try again.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” The muscles along her jaw clenched. “You had the chance to stop him.”
“Because your life was worth more than losing the chance to stop him, and if I was put in the situation again, I’d make the same call.” Didn’t she understand that? The minutes between when she’d vanished and when he’d found her on the docks behind the slaughterhouse had been the worst of his life. Worse than discovering the X Marks the Spot Killer had lived next door to his family his entire life. Worse than seeing Kara Flood strangled and mutilated in front of her apartment building. If he’d lost her...there wouldn’t have been any good left in the world. “You’re more important to this investigation than you realize. I couldn’t let him have you.”
“I’m a pathologist. I’m not even allowed to investigate the victims in this case. I was expendable, and you...” She darted her tongue across her lacerated bottom lip, and his attention homed in on the small change. “You were brave to face him. You saved me. I’m not sure I could do much more than say thank you.”
“You might not be allowed to perform the autopsies for the victims in this case, but that doesn’t mean you’re expendable.” Nicholas soothed circles into the back of her hand. A deep-rooted shift crushed the air from his lungs as the truth surfaced. He’d gone out of his way to detach himself from the killers and victims in his past cases, but the idea of losing the woman in front of him had triggered a change of emotion he couldn’t explain. He’d made a call. He’d let the killer slip through his fingers and the evidence be compromised, but in a career where he’d seen nothing but blood, violence and death, Aubrey had reminded him there was still good in the world. How could he have let that be destroyed? “Not to me.”
* * *
NICHOLAS HELPED HER INSIDE, motioning her through the safe-house door.
The days had never slipped through her fingers as quickly as the past forty-eight hours. Pain pulsed along her right side as Aubrey stepped over the threshold. Fractured scapula, two damaged sternal ribs and most likely the end of her career.
Taking in the cramped, bright decor and neutral colors, she hugged her injured arm tighter to her chest with help from the sling, and the pain flared again. Nicholas’s strong grip under her elbow anchored her from losing complete control, but the cracks had already started to show. Exhaustion and
constant agony broke the strongest of the human race. She wouldn’t be any different.
“I’ll help you upstairs then make us something to eat.” Nicholas scanned the small kitchen and living space down the hallway, his voice more soothing than any painkiller she’d been administered since the attack. “I’m sure you’re probably tired of hospital food, so I had the BAU intern stock the pantry and fridge while we were waiting for you to be discharged.”
She nodded, not really sure what she was supposed to say, how she was supposed to react. A vicious killer had tried to kill him and two of his agents then abducted her, hung her upside down by her ankles and nicked her artery to watch her bleed out. If it hadn’t been for Nicholas, if he hadn’t confronted the man determined to turn her into a masterpiece, she wouldn’t have walked out of that slaughterhouse alive. “Thank you.”
“You’re safe here, Doc,” he said. “Dr. Caldwell has Paige’s and Kara’s remains, and my team is going through the evidence from the scene as we speak. We’re going to catch the bastard who did this to you.”
“I know.” Because the alternative meant living in fear for the rest of her life. The killer had studied her, chosen her. She might’ve gotten away from him once, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to finish what he’d started.
They took the stairs together, Nicholas’s hand never leaving her arm, and rounded into the first bedroom on the left. She caught sight of her overnight bag on the end of the bed. Everything looked exactly the same as when she’d left it to help Nicholas and his team recover Paige Cress’s body, but her entire world had been ripped away from her. Pressure built behind her sternum as his hand slipped from her arm, and an instant cold flooded through her as though she’d needed his physical contact to hold herself together.
“I’m going to make us something to eat.” Green-blue eyes—the same color as the water he’d nearly drowned in—settled on her, and her self-confidence waned. “You’ll be okay here?”
The scrubs the hospital staff had given her after the forensic unit had taken her clothing for evidence chafed against her oversensitized skin. She wanted nothing more than to change into her old college T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants—to find a small amount of comfort in the nightmare closing in around her—but the limitations in her shoulder wouldn’t let her do it alone. Heat flared into her neck and face. Her knees threatened to give out as exhaustion pulled at her ligaments and muscle attachments. “I want to change into my own sweats, but I can’t... I can’t do it by myself.”
Realization widened Nicholas’s gaze. He threaded one hand through his messy blond hair, so different than the controlled style he’d greeted her with outside her sister’s apartment three days ago. “Right. Okay. Well, Agent Striker is heading up the crime scene search at the slaughterhouse, but I can pull her off that assignment to come stay with you, if that makes you more comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable with you.” She regretted the words the moment they slipped from her mouth, but she wouldn’t take them back. It was the truth. Aubrey wasn’t sure when it’d happened. But somewhere between the relief she’d felt at knowing he would be the agent to take the lead on her sister’s murder investigation and realizing he was the one holding her on those docks after her escape, a life-altering connection had formed. “It won’t take much. I mostly need help changing out of this scrub top and getting my arm through my shirt. I can change into my sweatpants myself.”
“I can do that.” Nicholas reached for her luggage and laid it flat before unzipping the main compartment. He pulled her dark gray, oversize T-shirt from the top and set it on the end of the bed then did the same with her sweatpants. Facing her, he closed the distance between them, and her pulse rocketed into her throat. “Now what?”
“You’ll have to remove the sling without jarring my arm.” She peeled back the Velcro supporting her thumb and unclipped the mechanism that would give her access to the inside of the sling. Her breath shallowed as hints of his aftershave filled her lungs. Salty and comforting. He must’ve gotten a shower during his hospital stay. She braced as he slid his hand under her injured arm and helped her lift it out of the sling. Her heart beat hard behind her ears as Nicholas brushed against her hip. The clips around her opposite shoulder and midsection released with his help, but the pain never returned. “I need help taking my shirt off.”
“I usually have to convince a woman to say that to me.” His laugh tunneled past the tension and warmed parts of her she hadn’t realized had gone numb since the last time she’d let a man get this close. Nicholas maneuvered her uninjured arm through the sleeve of the scrub top and pooled the fabric on the side of her neck before circling around to her other side.
“I doubt you’ve had to convince a woman of much of anything.” Cool air slid across her stomach as he slipped the shirt over her head and wound it gently down her arm. Exposed in nothing more than her sports bra and scrub pants, Aubrey shivered against the inferno coiling in her gut, and another layer of emotional control stripped free.
He collected her T-shirt from the bed, one hand still supporting her arm, and reversed the process until the hem brushed against the tops of her thighs. So careful. “I tell people I’m an accountant.”
“What?” A laugh escaped past her lips. “Why?”
“As much as people claim they love true crime and want to hear all the gory details of my job, facing the real thing is entirely different, and definitely not that romantic. But nobody asks an accountant questions about their job.” Nicholas flashed a crooked smile as he secured her sling back into place. “All set, Doc.”
“Thank you.” She let her sling take the weight of her arm and turned to sit down on the end of the bed. Her energy drained as she filtered through the adrenaline-driven haze of the past few days. “I tell my dates I’m a pediatrician. Although it’s been a while since I’ve had to use it.”
He hauled her luggage off the bed and set it on the floor near his feet as he took a seat beside her. The mattress dipped under his weight, his arm brushing against her left side, and the lingering numbness of the painkillers her doctors had prescribed vanished. All she felt was him. “You mean autopsies don’t make great pillow talk?”
“Not exactly.” A humorless laugh bubbled to the surface. Aubrey picked at one of the threads unraveling from the hem of her old university shirt. Silence solidified between them, and the hollowness she’d pushed off since leaving the hospital charged forward. Twisting her gaze up, she studied the lacerations across Nicholas’s face from his fight with the killer, and her gut clenched. The hospital staff had done a great job of stitching the wounds, but he’d be left with permanent scarring for the rest of his life. She’d spent her career and her personal life trying to help as many people as she could—Kara, her parents, the families who’d lost their loved ones—but right then, she needed someone to help her. Tears burned in her eyes as her control fractured. “I can see him when I close my eyes.”
Nicholas slid one hand into hers, rough calluses catching on her skin. “I know.”
“I can hear his voice. I can hear his excitement after he cut me and feel the fear suffocating me faster than I was bleeding out.” Embarrassment and shame exploded from behind her sternum, and she sniffed, turning her attention back to her lap. “I know your job is to find the killer. Trauma isn’t part of your job description, but I need to know. Do those feelings ever go away?”
“No. They don’t.” He pressed soothing circles into the back of her hand, and the invisible thread of connection between them strengthened. “But it gets easier, Doc. I promise. One day, months or years from now, you’ll wake up and it won’t be the first thing you think of in the morning.”
The muscles in her throat strained. “Was that how it was for you?”
“After a while.” Nicholas nodded, his gaze confident and warm. “It didn’t happen as fast as I wanted it to, but yeah, it got easier.”
A sob clawed up her throat as the last grip on her control shattered, and the tears slipped down her face. “Can you...can you hold me for a few minutes?”
“Yeah.” He slid his arm around her lower back and tugged her into his side. The room tilted on its axis as he pulled her down onto the bed, encircling her in his arms. He smoothed her hair back away from her face, his exhales warming her scalp. “I’m right here, Doc. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again.”
The sob broke free, racking through her as he held her. She pressed her hand over his heart, counting off the steady beat in an effort to gain some kind of control. In vain. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Aubrey angled her head up to look him in the eyes and pressed her mouth to his.
* * *
TEMPERATURES DROPPED WELL below comfort level as Special Agent Dashiell West descended the stairs into Harborview Medical Center’s northernmost morgue. Thick double doors protested on old hinges as he pushed into the surgical suite. A wall of cold lockers, each labeled with names of the deceased held prisoner inside, reflected blinding fluorescent light from above two exam tables in the center. Tables currently holding the covered remains of Kara Flood and Paige Cress. The pungent kick of decomposition hit Dash square in the chest and knocked precious oxygen from his lungs. He coughed into the crook of his elbow, aggravating the wound at the back of his head. “Dr. Caldwell.”
A man, taller than Dash, raised his gaze from examining the victim Nicholas had recovered from the waterfront pier. The clear face shield protecting the medical examiner from contaminating the remains revealed a long, straight nose, thick eyebrows and smaller-than-average eyes. The pathologist’s elongated, oval face emphasized the man’s graying temples and five-o’clock shadow around his jaw. Dr. Caldwell was more muscular than Dash had expected for a man who dealt with the dead, standing well above six feet as he straightened.
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