“But be warned...there’s not a lot of information in that file.” His words were grim. “The guy didn’t leave a whole lot of evidence behind. He knew what he was doing. He was smart.”
The smart, organized killers were the most dangerous. “I’ve worked cold cases before,” Jill told him. The CARD team members were focused exclusively on child abduction cases. When there was not an active case for them to investigate, then they often turned their attention to older crimes, hoping that they could find a piece of evidence that had been overlooked or that new technology would lead them in a new direction on a particular case. “I know that it’s often like searching for a needle in a very giant haystack.”
His dark gaze dropped to the thin folder. “That’s a small haystack. Peek is a good man, but he was in way over his head with her case. See for yourself. There’s an empty office down the hall you can use. Once you’ve read over the file, we can talk. Compare our thoughts.”
She liked that he wasn’t trying to influence her by saying what he might already suspect. She’d found that it was always better to go into an investigation without another agent’s expectations or suspicions already in the open, those just tended to cloud the situation for her. She liked to see things with fresh eyes. “Thanks.” She turned for the door.
Her hand was reaching for the doorknob when he said, “I missed you.”
Her breath seemed to chill her lungs. “Did you?”
“Yes, I did.” His voice was flat. Stark. Not hiding anything from her. “It’s damn good to see you.”
I missed you, too. She opened the door.
“I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Now she did glance back at him. On this, they needed to be very clear. She’d survived a broken heart once, courtesy of Hayden Black. “Neither will I.” Then she left him.
It was better this way. Far, far better to just stick to the case.
* * *
HE KNEW THE REDHEAD. And he’d been right. Seeing her on the pier yesterday, in that exact same spot, at nearly the exact same time of evening...it hadn’t been coincidence.
It had been fate.
Sixteen years ago, Jillian West had come to Hope, Florida. Quiet, withdrawn, her parents dead. She’d seemed to be his perfect prey. A gift delivered right to his doorstep.
He’d been following her for days before he approached her at the pier. He always liked to watch before he made his move. He had to be smart. So he’d watched and he’d acted at just the right moment.
Jillian had fought him, but he’d gotten her away. He’d had such plans for her, but when he went back to his cabin, she’d been gone.
Long gone. And his rage had nearly blinded him.
Jillian West.
The victim who’d gotten away. She’d stayed in town. Stayed until her grandmother died. Then the gossip he’d heard said that she’d joined the FBI. She’d wanted to help find missing children.
The folks in the little town had admired her.
He’d hated her.
Because of her, he’d lost everything. He’d had to be careful and to watch his steps. Had to hold back his impulses. Had to lose himself.
But then his life had changed yesterday, when he’d seen her.
Now he knew the real reason he’d stayed in Hope all these long years.
I knew—one day—we’d finish what we started.
It was time to act. Time to catch the only prey to ever get away from him. And then...only then...would his work truly be finished. He wasn’t weak any longer. Finally, finally, he was strong. Better than ever.
The timing was perfect. For him.
He paused for just a moment outside of the sheriff’s office. She was in there and he knew she wasn’t alone. Hayden Black was close by, the way he always was when Jillian was near.
Tugging his baseball cap down, he turned away. As he headed toward the beach, he started to whistle. This was going to be different for him. Not as easy, more of a challenge. She was FBI. She’d had training.
But she wasn’t better than him. Wasn’t smarter. He’d been evading FBI agents for years. He had this down.
And Jillian...well, she was about to see what it was like to be prey again. Only this time, you won’t get away. I’ll make sure there’s no one there to save you, Jillian.
He was getting his life back, and in order to do that, FBI agent Jillian West had to die.
Chapter Three
Hayden lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles against the door frame. At the sound, Jill’s head whipped up and she blinked at him, a few dazed blinks, and he knew that she’d had herself fully immersed in the case file.
She’d made herself comfortable in the little office. She had a laptop open on the desk, positioned just to her right, and she’d started tacking some notes up on the bulletin board to her left. His eyebrows rose as he realized that she was certainly making the most of that slim file.
“Hayden?” She rose to her feet. “What’s wrong?”
Not a damn thing. Finally, his world felt right. Because she was there. But he made a show of looking at his watch. “You’ve been in here for almost five hours. I thought you might want to take a lunch break with me.”
“Five hours?” She seemed surprised and gave a little laugh. “Sorry, I, um, tend to get a bit lost in my work.”
He thought that might be an understatement.
She snapped her laptop shut. “But I would like some lunch...and a chance to pick your brain, now that I’ve had a chance to form my own impressions of the case.” She grabbed her bag. “How about we just pick up some sandwiches and eat on the beach?”
They’d done that so many times as kids. Tossed a blanket on the sand. Stared at the waves, talked and dreamed. After Jill’s abduction, her grandmother had gone through a phase where she was almost hypervigilant. She hadn’t wanted to let Jill out of her sight. She hadn’t let her granddaughter go anyplace but to school and right back home and...
Jill had turned reserved and quiet.
He’d gone to her grandmother and talked to her. He promised her that Jill would always be safe with him. And the lady...the lady had actually trusted him. She’d let Jill go on walks with him. Go to the beach with him.
Start to live again, with him.
They grabbed sandwiches from the deli next door, and then he snagged a blanket from the back of his SUV. Keeping a beach blanket handy was standard operating procedure for anyone who lived in Hope. The sunsets were not to be missed.
As they walked along the sand, Jill gave him a quick smile, a smile that actually reached her green eyes and made them gleam. “Just like old times, isn’t it?”
Seagulls called overhead and the waves thundered as they hit the beach.
He stared at her a moment, and thought about the old times, the best times of his life. “Yes.”
Her smile slipped. “Um, here, let me spread out the blanket.” Jill eased it onto the sand, and then she sat down and he stared at her.
Jill was there, actually back with him. He was not going to mess this up. Hayden eased onto the blanket beside her and handed her one of the sandwiches. For a time, they ate in silence. He was far too conscious of her, beside him. The wind teased a lock of her hair and sent it dancing over her left cheek. He wanted to brush that hair back and tuck it behind her ear...but Jill had made it clear she didn’t want him touching her.
Damn unfortunate, since touching her was the main thing he wanted.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Jill suddenly said. Her head turned and their eyes met. “Do you know how rare it is to have two girls taken within such a short period like that?”
Yeah, he did. He wasn’t an expert on child abduction like she was, but because of her, he’d definitely done his share of research.
“The f
act that the guy stayed here and took Christy after I escaped...it suggests that he was acting out a compulsion. That he had to kidnap and—”
“Murder?” Hayden cut in.
She nodded. “Yes.” Her gaze fell to the sand.
“There were never any other cases in Hope that fit his MO.” That had been the very first thing Hayden checked once he came back to town. “No abductions at all. After that one weekend, Hope went back to its normal 3.5 drunk and disorderly arrests a year.” He blew out a hard breath. “No more murders. No more missing children.”
“Just one hellish weekend.” She put her empty sandwich wrapper back in the bag and took a sip of bottled water. “It doesn’t fit. In all the cases I’ve studied, a one-and-done situation like this...it’s too rare. If the perp were following a compulsion, he would have needed to act again. Sure, there would be a cooling-off period but—”
“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” He balled up his own wrapper and tossed it in the bag. “A ‘cooling-off’ period?” Hayden repeated. “That sounds like we’re dealing with some kind of...of serial killer or something.”
“There are serial abductors,” Jill murmured. “It’s unfortunate, but it does occur. Most types of abductions are family abductions, but nonfamily abductions...well, there are different rules in place for those.”
Rules? Okay, now this was just making him angrier.
“If this were a serial abductor we were looking at, there would have been more victims,” Jill said. Her delicate jaw hardened. “The perp wouldn’t have just vanished, just—just totally disappeared off the grid.”
“Let’s back up,” Hayden directed. The waves rolled onto the shore. “Tell me what you believe happened to Christy, based on the report.”
“That tiny five-page report? The one that contained zero DNA evidence or crime scene analysis?”
A definite edge had entered her voice. “Yeah, that one.” He’d felt the same frustration that she was showing when he’d reviewed the material.
“I think the killer had done those same actions before. He knew how to clean up after himself. He knew how to make sure there wasn’t so much as a sliver of evidence left behind. This definitely wasn’t amateur hour.”
“That’s why you think we’re looking at a serial.”
“Her neck was broken. A personal, intimate death. That type of kill suggests that the perp wanted to have power over his victim. He liked the control.” She nodded. “That’s probably why he picked two young teen girls as his victims here in Hope—he thought we were weaker than he was, that he could control us both.”
“You’re profiling him.”
She rolled back her shoulders and finally caught that lock of hair that had been teasing her cheek. “I’ve taken some profile classes at Quantico, yes, but that’s not exactly my strong suit. You want someone who can get into a killer’s head?” Her lips lifted once again in a faint smile. “That would be my friend Samantha. When it comes to killers, she’s an absolute genius.”
Hayden found himself leaning closer to Jill. “You’re the one who saw him, face-to-face.” He’d just seen the back of the jerk’s head, his baseball cap, his dark shirt, his jeans as the guy ran toward the front of that old SUV. An SUV that had later been found, stripped down and abandoned, two towns over.
Her smile flickered. “I saw him, and I’m the one who should have been able to identify him. I know that.”
“Jill, that’s not what I—”
Sadness was heavy in her voice as she said, “I know Christy’s parents blamed me.”
His hand fisted on the sand.
“Did you know...they came to my grandmother’s house once?”
“What? You never said—”
“Her father had been drinking. Her mother was trying to keep him under control. He was yelling and saying that I could have stopped the killer. That I knew who he was. That it was my fault Christy was gone.” Her lips turned down. “Kept saying I shouldn’t be living when he was burying his daughter. That it wasn’t right. That it was my fault.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” He jumped to his feet.
She tilted back her head and stared up at him. “Because I thought he was right. It was my fault. If I could have remembered more about the guy, if I could have described him better—”
“Jill,” he cut in, growling her name, and then he reached for her—breaking that no-touching rule—and hauled her up beside him. “Nothing that happened was your fault. You were a victim. Just that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The wind blew against them.
“I remembered he was wearing big sunglasses, and a baseball hat. He had a square jaw, and I think I saw a little bit of blond hair on the side of his head, peeking from beneath the hat.” He heard the faint click of her swallow. “He was tall, over six feet, I believe. And I remember thinking that he was far too strong.”
Hayden hated that man. Hated him.
“Peek tried to get me to do a sketch,” Jill said, “but that sketch could have been anyone. When the artist was done, I didn’t even recognize the picture I was staring at.” She gave a little laugh, one that sounded bitter and wrong coming from Jill. “Hell, right now, he could be you. You fit the description that I just gave. Blond, tall, strong, square jaw...is it any wonder that no one was able to find the guy?”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault.” He needed her to believe that.
“It wasn’t until I started my criminal justice courses that I realized...eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.”
He didn’t let her go. Her voice had softened. He should back away. But he didn’t.
“Just with my work at the FBI, I’ve talked to so many witnesses...” She gave a sad shake of her head. “Witnesses who saw the exact same perp, but who described him in completely different ways. It’s just...unreliable. I was unreliable. I could have described the man totally wrong. Even adult witnesses describe perps the wrong way...so, of course, a thirteen-year-old kid who’d been traumatized would make mistakes.” She swallowed. “I made mistakes. To tell you the honest truth, I can’t even swear to what I saw today. Maybe he wasn’t blond. Maybe I was just thinking of you. You had such a big role in that day for me. Maybe you were all that I could see.”
She’d been all that he could see. The first person who’d looked at him as if he weren’t trash, as if he were someone who mattered. And then he’d seen her get taken.
I can’t lose her.
Those had been his thoughts that day. He remembered them perfectly.
I won’t lose her.
“It’s the human memory,” she whispered. “People think it’s like a video recorder or something but it’s not. The way people think...my friend Samantha said it’s more like putting puzzle pieces together. We have the bits and pieces there, but sometimes our mind makes jumps to fill in the rest for us. To close those gaps.”
The wind caught a lock of her hair once more and blew it over her cheek. His hand rose and brushed back that hair, and then his fingers lingered on the silk of her skin. “It wasn’t your fault. Nothing was.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and seemed to become aware of just how close they were.
Aware that he was touching her.
I need to back away.
He started to ease away. His hand slid down her cheek and—
Jill caught his hand in hers. “It’s because it hurts.”
Hayden’s eyes narrowed. “What hurts?” He never wanted Jill to feel pain. He would do anything necessary to see to it that she never suffered a single day of her life. Not—
“When you touch me, it hurts.”
Her words pierced the heart she’d always owned.
“It makes me feel too much. You make me feel too much. You always did.”
Was that good? Or bad?
“You make me want...” Jill said, giving a shake of her head. “You make me want things that I can’t have.”
Maybe they should be clear. She could have him anytime she wanted. Anytime, any way, any day. He was aroused for her right then. It was pretty much impossible for him to get close to Jill and not want her.
“That’s dangerous,” she continued, her voice husky. “You’re dangerous to me.”
No, he wasn’t. She was the safest person in the world when he was near.
Her body brushed against his. It had been so long since he’d held her. Dreams weren’t enough for him any longer. Memories could only get a man so far. She was close. He needed her.
A taste, just a taste to get him through...
“I never stopped wanting you,” Hayden confessed. It was time to make sure there were no secrets between them.
Her lashes lowered. Such thick, dark lashes. The sunlight made her red hair gleam. “I tried to stop wanting you,” she said.
He deserved that. Damn it. He sucked in a deep breath and made himself step back. “We shouldn’t stay out too long. You always burned too easily.” He should have brought her a hat. Or grabbed a beach umbrella. Her skin was so much paler than his own and—
Jill touched him. Her fingers curled around his wrist and Hayden stilled.
“I tried,” she said, “but then I came face-to-face with you, and I realized the need is still there.”
“Jill...”
“I’m not here to make the same mistakes. I’m here to get my life together. I’m here to end the past and to try and move on.”
Was she saying he was the past?
“If I’d known you were here...” She licked her lips and didn’t say another word.
“You wouldn’t have come,” Hayden finished. Damn, he hadn’t realized just how much Jill hated him. He didn’t want that. He couldn’t deal with that. Not from her.
“No... I...” Her lashes lifted. “I would have been better prepared for you. I would have been able to hold myself back.”
He didn’t want her holding back.