Hot in Handcuffs

  Colby Mathis.

  A shiver raced down her spine as his face flashed through her mind. Blue eyes…eyes that saw straight through her. They’d always haunted her.

  “Give them a reason.” Kellogg’s voice, hard and flat, cut through the fog of memories, jerking Mica back to the present. “We have three women dead in three weeks, and you know as well as I do, if we don’t find him, we’ll be looking at another dead body in a week.”

  If only Mica could pretend the captain wasn’t right…

  “I DON’T HAVE a team I can spare to send down there.”

  Mica, torn between relief and frustration, listened as Taylor Jones, the special agent in charge of a task force that technically didn’t exist, told her all she needed to hear to report back to her captain. They couldn’t send anybody.

  That meant they had to rely on good old-fashioned police work. And that meant Mica didn’t have to relive the freakiest time of her life…right? The hardest. The happiest. The most heartbreaking.

  “I’ve only got three teams, and all of them are out right now. But…”

  As she heard paper shuffling, the bottom of Mica’s stomach dropped out. “But, Jones?”

  “Impatient, as ever, aren’t you, Ms. Greer? Actually, it’s Detective Greer, isn’t it?”

  “Lieutenant,” she corrected. “I’m afraid I’ve got three murders to solve and one to prevent, Jones. I don’t have time to be patient. Since you can’t help me—”

  “I can’t send a team. I didn’t say I couldn’t help.” On the other end of the line, Taylor Jones studied a picture. The file had been sitting on his desk for the past week, although he didn’t know why he’d had Gina pull it for him. It wasn’t as though Colby Mathis was likely to come back to the unit. The man didn’t trust himself anymore. Still, Taylor had known he needed to pull that file. That was the extent of any gift he might have, he knew. Just that minor glimmer of knowing.

  It wasn’t much. But he used what he had.

  Absently, he wondered if Mathis had any clue that his former lady had moved to Texas all those years ago. She was only an hour away from him.

  An hour. Not much time at all.

  Had he been having dreams?

  If he had…

  “A former agent of mine is living not too far from you, Lieutenant. One of my bloodhounds. He may not be able to help you keep the woman from being grabbed, but if he’s brought in, you may be able to stop the killer from completing his mission.”

  “One of your bloodhounds.” Shit. Mica knew. She just knew. Her gut twisted, but she couldn’t say it was dread that filled her. Her pulse started to race, but she couldn’t say it was fear.

  “Who is this bloodhound?”

  “Just head to the beach in Galveston. You’ll find him. Or he’ll find you.”

  Then, before she could try to demand any more information, Taylor Jones hung up on her.

  Swearing, she lowered the phone and glared at it. “This isn’t happening.”

  But even as she tried to convince herself otherwise, she knew better. And her heart continued to race…with anticipation.

  IT HAD BEEN one bad, seriously bad week.

  Three days has passed since that first episode, and each day, Colby had been hit with another one.

  Yeah. A bad week. Screwed up six different ways to Sunday, and Colby knew it wasn’t going to get any better. Then the dreams started. Nothing psychic—just shit where he screwed up. Again. And again. And again. But they weren’t going away. He could have dealt with that. Either dealt with it or drowned the damn dreams out with alcohol; he was fine either way.

  Those heavy, pressing attacks were another story. Sneaking in to wrap greedy fingers around his heart and soul, sucking the life out of him, whispering to him of death and pain.

  You’re not done, his conscience tried to tell him as he pushed through the door of the bookstore. You’re not finished and you know it.

  The hell I’m not. He wasn’t risking it again—wasn’t risking that he’d cost somebody their life. He was done, very, very much done. All he had to do was wait until the dreams went away, and they would.

  Somebody else could answer this call. The only damn calls he took anymore were the ones in the store. He’d be taking plenty of those today, but that was it. He had to work, and he needed to think about that, about the store and all the shit he still needed to learn there. Not about vague dreams and anxiety attacks—

  “Colby.”

  He met his dad’s gaze. Those blue eyes, so like his own, held a look that made the bottom of Colby’s stomach fall out. “Yeah?”

  “You had a call.”

  “Did I?”

  In response, his dad nodded to a slip of paper lying on the counter. There was a sand dollar on it, acting as a paperweight. Blood roared in Colby’s ears as he read the message. You’ll be getting a visitor today, I think. Sorry, Mathis. She needs help. Instinct says it’s you that can help her.

  There was no name, but it wasn’t necessary. He already knew who it was from, and the longer he stared at it, the louder the roaring in his ears became. Finally, he slanted a look at his father. “Jones.”

  “Yes.” His father lowered his gaze to the glasses he held, polishing them absently on his shirt. “I suppose you wish I hadn’t taken the message.”

  “Nah. You’re too polite for that.” He made himself smile.

  “This visitor, I suppose she’s going to come here.”

  Now Colby looked at his dad. “I guess she will. But I’m not going to be here. I can’t help anybody, Dad. It’s no good.”

  He turned around and left.

  THE BEACH.

  Mica would find him at the beach.

  Even though she wanted to pretend it was anybody else, Colby Mathis was the one she’d find at the beach. She knew it in her gut. In her bones. In her heart. As she climbed out of her car, she wished she’d remembered to get that haircut she’d been putting off. Wished she’d thought to put on makeup. Wished she’d put on something other than the serviceable jacket and trousers she wore. Wished she’d look halfway…well, nice when she saw him again.

  And even as she wished all of those things, she wanted to kick herself. She was here about murder. How she looked shouldn’t matter at all.

  “Okay,” she muttered to herself as she studied the beach. “Where to now?”

  The beach was a pretty damn vague destination. He could be anywhere. Yet she found herself heading up the coast—not aimlessly, either. Almost like she was being pulled that way. The longer she walked, the more excited she got, too. The faster her heart raced, the hotter she felt. And it had nothing to do with the June sunshine beating down overhead.

  Her breath hitched in her throat as she neared a bend and she knew.

  He was there.

  And then she rounded it and she saw a figure standing on the edge of the beach.

  “Oh, hell.”

  chapter three

  The dread he’d been feeling all day had finally eased up a little.

  Colby wanted to think he’d managed to avoid whatever in the hell was out there trying to call him. But while the dread was gone…other things weren’t. His heart continued to race like he was out running in a fucking marathon. His mind was crowded with whispers. You can’t outrun it, you can’t outrun it, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t—

  He would have done damn near anything to stifle those damned voices. Anything.

  And then, abruptly, everything went silent.

  Like the calm before the storm.

  Even before he turned his head and saw her, he knew. Some part of him did, at least. He didn’t even know if he could claim it was any sort of psychic knowledge. Certain things, people didn’t need true psychic skill to know—just instinct—and this was probably every bit as much instinct as anything else. The instinct that trouble was coming his way.

  Trouble…five feet nine inches of trouble and most of it was leg. Black hair was pulled back in a braid so tight he wou
ldn’t have known it was curly. Except he had spent many, many hours with his hands fisted in those curls. She hated them…He’d always loved them. Her eyes, a deep, strange shade of blue violet, so much darker than his own, were hidden by sunglasses, and he could only imagine the derision he’d see there. And it would be there. He knew it just by the sight of the slight sneer on her pretty face.

  Mica Greer had never much cared for psychics. Strange, considering she was one. Or maybe not so strange, he supposed. Denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt and all that.

  Mica’s gift, like his own, had been unstable. Unlike him, she hadn’t learned to stabilize it through practice alone. She’d needed a partner, and she’d turned out to make a damn good anchor. For a while, the two of them had worked together in training. Her gift had grown, bloomed…as had some crazy thing between them.

  Then she’d decided she didn’t want all the “crazy shit” in her life.

  She pulled out. Not just out of the unit, but out of the FBI altogether.

  And from him—

  Don’t go there, he thought. Blowing out a breath, he shifted his attention back to the ocean, trying to reach for some inner peace. It wasn’t going to come, though, and he knew it. If she was here, on top of the insane coming at him, then it was for a reason.

  I can always pretend she’s here because, after all this time, she realizes she’s still in love with me. He laughed deprecatingly. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Fifteen years…fifteen fucking years. How had those years slipped away from him like that?

  She came to a stop next to him, standing almost shoulder to shoulder with him. He waited for her to say something, but it didn’t happen. Of course, he’d also waited for her to come back to him…that hadn’t happened, either. After a while, he’d stopped waiting. But he’d never stopped wishing. Never stopping wanting, either.

  The waves crashed against the sand just a few inches from his feet, and he stooped down, raked his fingers through the wet, watched as it filled back up in eddies and swirls before another wave came. Mica remained silent at his back.

  He could feel her turmoil, if he let himself. Even without lowering his shields. All he had to do was concentrate…and there.

  There it was. She didn’t want to be here, she worried about whether or not his gift had gotten stronger, whether or not he could pick anything up from her and damn it—why did he…?

  He smiled a little as her thoughts tumbled to a stop, almost like she’d sensed him. “You never did learn to stop projecting so loudly,” he said softly.

  “You never did learn to mind your own business,” she snapped.

  He shrugged. “I can’t help that I hear people shouting at me from the next room. You don’t like it…” He slanted a look at her through his lashes. “Don’t shout. You can tone your thoughts down. You learned how.”

  Yeah, she’d learned how. But back then, he hadn’t been quite as good at picking up random thoughts, or even direct thoughts. Not that Colby was going to point that out to her.

  Mica curled her lip at him. He hated that he still found that so fucking appealing, hated that he wanted to reach up and tumble her down into the sand next to him and strip her naked. So what if doing the dirty in the sand got grit in sensitive places? The ocean was right there if they wanted to clean up after. And his house wasn’t too far away.

  It was a strong enough impulse that he could even see himself doing just that, and somehow, he doubted she’d resist him if he gave it a try. Her breathing kicked up as she stared at him. No. She wouldn’t resist. Not at all.

  With a heated curse, he tore his eyes away.

  “Whatever you want, Mica, I can’t help you. Go away.”

  “You don’t know what I want.”

  He thought of the blood-splattered images, of terror and death. The fear, the darkness that hung over him like a cloud. “I know enough,” he said softly.

  A shadow fell across him and he braced himself as she crouched down beside him. She was still a few inches away, but closer…damn it, too close.

  “You’re not with the unit anymore.”

  “No.” He continued to play with the sand. Better to do that than reach for her, he decided. And he was so damn tempted to reach.

  “Since when?”

  “Almost two years ago.” Okay, playing with the sand wasn’t going to cut it if she was going to sit there and chitchat. He swished his hand through the next wave to get the grit off and rose.

  “You aren’t here to chat about old times, what I’ve been up to in the past fifteen years.” Ever since you walked out on us. He kept that last bit trapped behind his teeth. It didn’t matter anymore—they didn’t matter because they didn’t exist. “I’ve already told you that I can’t help you with whatever the trouble is.”

  “You don’t know that,” she bit off.

  “Yeah. I do. Because I won’t.” He went to push past her—he had to get away from her. Had to get away from here.

  But Mica wasn’t going to let it go that easily. She caught his arm and that touch almost froze him. Her bare hand on his arm—the shock rippled through him. Memories raged. Their memories. Not just his. Blood roared in his ears and a fog of need and want, and a love she’d walked away from, rose inside him…For the briefest moment, it drowned out everything.

  It faded too soon, and now, it wasn’t memories that blinded him.

  It was a bloodless massacre.

  She’d lowered her shields and now she wasn’t making any attempt to silence her thoughts or memories.

  These were recent memories.

  Staring through her eyes, he could see it all in vivid Technicolor—everything, from the toes of her boots to the way her bangs kept falling in her eyes…and the way her eyes tracked over the still body lying tied on the ground.

  There was very little blood—disturbing, because the victim was covered head to toe in cuts.

  Cleaned her up as he went—

  This isn’t done—

  I need to find it. No, not find, I know where it is—just like I knew this would happen…fuck!

  As her thoughts became louder and louder, Colby pulled back, breaking the physical connection and putting distance between them. It cut the line between them, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about what he’d seen.

  He’d seen worse deaths. There were always worse. But just because he’d seen worse didn’t make it any easier to view that through Mica’s memory. Hissing out a breath, he spun away. “What in the hell do you want?”

  “I need your help.”

  “You’re picking up on something—figure it out on your own.”

  He heard the soft, broken sound of her sigh—the utter defeat in it. It wasn’t what he’d expected. He expected her to deny it. To fight it. Something. “I can’t. I’m…I’m not good enough, Colby. I left before I could let myself get good enough. I can’t control it and it’s easier to just…”

  “Hide?”

  She stared back at him levelly. “Yes.”

  “And that’s my problem…how?” He slanted a narrow look at her.

  “It’s not your problem. I wasn’t equipped to deal with what was happening to me, especially once they paired me with you.”

  He curled his lip. Better to let her see his anger than to show the pain. “So it’s all my fault.”

  “No.” She took a step toward him. “It’s mine. But our problems aside…” She looked at the file she held. He hadn’t noticed it before then, so fixated on her, so fixated on everything raging inside him. But now it was like a lure, a bespelled one. He couldn’t take his eyes away from it.

  Shit. Shit. Shit—I can’t do this…

  She opened the file and handed him a picture. The moment he touched it, he was assaulted with images of bright flashes of illuminating the darkness, the low, sensual throb of music—eyes gliding all over the woman as she danced.

  “She was a dancer,” he said gruffly. “She stripped.”

  He didn’t notice the way Mica’s lashes fl
ickered, the tightening around her eyes. The scene deepened for him. Excitement—she felt excitement. It was a lot of money, an easy hour. She could pay off some bills and go shopping…

  Just barely, he resisted the urge to crumple the picture in his fist. Through his lashes, he stared at Mica.

  She stared back, her gaze level. “I walked out on you. Screw walking away from the agency. If I didn’t want to work with Jones, then I didn’t have to, that was my call. But I walked away from you because I couldn’t handle how much things changed when we used our gifts together. I just wasn’t strong enough. I felt like a coward because of it, and I couldn’t be around you and not feel weak, stupid. So I left.” Now she lowered her gaze down to the picture he still held. “You want to hate me for that? Go ahead. Be angry? Feel free. You don’t owe me anything. But there’s at least one more woman who’ll die. I know it. I feel it, and I don’t know if that’s because of my…ability, or if it’s just instinct. But I’m right. As far as the investigation is going? We’re drawing blanks. Another woman will die without help—and she hasn’t done a damn thing wrong.”