“I’m going to take the gag off so you can talk.” The knife sliced her again. “And you will talk. Because I’ve gotten to be very good at this. I can make you scream and beg. You’ll be desperate to tell me anything just to make the pain stop.” He paused. The blade ran lightly over her arm. “Or I can be fast, and you won’t even feel death when it comes.”
Why? Why? He was a federal agent! His job was to protect people. To lock up the bad guys. This shouldn’t be happening, not at all.
He used the knife to cut away the gag. “What did you tell them?”
“N-nothing . . .” She hadn’t even found that scrap—no more than a thread really—at that time. She’d been so hopeful when she made her discovery.
But he thought she’d found evidence to link him to the crime. I didn’t! I never suspected you!
“Wrong answer.” The knife pushed into her side.
The pain stole her breath, and tears leaked from her eyes. No, no!
“Now you’re the one good at analyzing the dead, so you know I didn’t hit an organ. That time.”
“I-I told them about the gunshot at the back of the head.”
He laughed. “That’s right. I did that one. I’m the one who bagged Ricker, not Dean. Not fucking Dean Bannon. I’m the one who brought Ricker down!”
She couldn’t see anything near her. Everything was too dark. But . . . she could hear insects. Dozens of them. They were chirping and seeming to cry out all around her.
He brought me to the swamp. He’s going to leave me here.
Because he thought the swamp was so good at taking care of the dead.
And soon . . . I’ll be dead. No wonder he left me in the body bag.
DEAN BURST INTO the task force’s meeting room at the New Orleans PD. Elroy glanced up at him, face red. “What the hell are you doing?” Elroy demanded. “I’m interviewing a suspect.”
“You’re wasting your time, that’s what you’re doing,” Jax muttered. He lifted his cuffed hands and waved at Sarah. “Good to see you, princess.”
Dean ignored him. He could only deal with one asshole at a time. As he strode forward, he was aware of Gabe moving in perfect sync with him. This time, he had a boss who actually had his back. “Where is Kevin Cormack?”
“Get them out!” Elroy shouted to the two cops who were pretty much just standing there, looking confused as all hell.
Wade cut those two off before they could advance. “Wouldn’t advise it, boys. You want to make sure you’re playing for the right team here.”
“What?” Elroy stalked toward Dean. “You’re begging to get tossed in a jail cell—”
“Do you want to be known as the man who was blindsided by a killer?” Emma’s quiet voice asked, cutting right through Elroy’s fury. “Because I don’t think you do. Beneath all that annoyingly cocky arrogance you carry, I suspect that, very far down, you might actually be a decent FBI agent.”
Elroy’s breath huffed out. “I don’t risk lives. I play by the rules, and that’s no mistake—”
“Cormack isn’t playing by your rules,” Dean told him flatly. He needed Elroy’s help, so the bastard had to actually listen to him. “We believe he’s the one who’s been behind the killings.”
Shock flashed on Elroy’s face. “No, no, that’s a lie!”
“Then call him.” Dean slapped his hands down on the conference-room table. “Call him right now. Get his GPS location, get it from his phone because I know the FBI can do that. Get the location, and let’s all go out there and see what he’s doing.” Fear and rage burned so brightly in him. “Because I think he has Victoria. I think the SOB took her out of the morgue in a body bag, I think he stole Ricker’s remains because Victoria discovered evidence on them.”
Elroy staggered back a step.
“And I think if we don’t find Victoria—find her right now—he’s going to kill her, and we may never find her body.”
But Elroy was shaking his head. “You’re wrong about him! After the blowup at Quantico, he got transferred down here, and he busted ass to prove himself again. Hell, he’s the one who contacted me and tipped me off about Ricker’s DNA being found on that coat and the hit turning up in the FBI database—”
“He tipped you off,” Gabe told the guy in his fierce, no-shit-SEAL voice, “because he wanted you in his game.”
“He blames you,” Dean said softly, “just as much as he blames me.”
Elroy stopped shaking his head.
“You wouldn’t give the order to go in,” Dean reminded the guy. As if he needed that reminder. “Back in North Carolina, it was your order that kept the other agents back.”
“Protocol—”
“Kevin was sleeping with the victim. That woman up there—the victim that Ricker had taken last, Charlotte was his informant. He’d been with her for months.”
“I knew about their relationship.” Elroy’s chin jerked up. “Why do you think I pulled him? I wouldn’t let him partner with you on that case because of his emotional involvement—”
“I got there too late to save her,” Dean said, “and he blames me for that. Most of all, I think he blamed Ricker. That’s why he tracked the bastard down and put a bullet in the back of his head. But Kevin isn’t done. He won’t be done until he gets his revenge. On you. On me.”
“You’re wrong.” Elroy’s voice had gone hoarse.
The two police officers had frozen.
“He’s an FBI agent,” Elroy continued doggedly. “Not a killer.”
“Then track his phone,” Dean said because it was so simple. “Let’s find out if I am wrong. Let’s go find him. Dammit, Victoria is out there, and I can’t arrive too late again. She needs us.”
“Please,” Sarah whispered.
But Elroy was still hesitating. “You have no proof! Nothing—”
“Dr. Armont said he overheard Agent Cormack talking with Victoria,” Emma said. “Did the agent tell you about that meeting? Have you even spoken to him at all since five p.m. today? Because that’s when he was with Victoria . . . that’s when we think she was taken from the morgue.”
“A lot can happen to a person in a few hours,” Gabe added, voice hard. “Look, Elroy, don’t believe us yet. Fine. But get the location of the guy’s phone. We checked his hotel already—he wasn’t there. Just do this. LOST can owe you a thousand damn favors, just . . . do this.”
Elroy pulled out his phone. His fingers trembled. “He’s not guilty.”
Dean didn’t say a word as Elroy contacted the FBI’s tech team, a team that could find any phone . . . anyplace.
“I’ll prove he’s not guilty, then you’ll all still owe the FBI.” Elroy waited a bit as his call connected, then he started making demands to whoever was on the other end of the line. A few moments later, Dean saw the guy’s eyes widen and horror flicker over his face.
“Where is she?” Gabe demanded before Dean could speak.
“Th-the last cell tower that caught his phone pinging was . . . it was close to the site where we found Julia Finney.” Elroy put his phone down on the table. “Why would he be out there, at this hour? There’s no search going on . . .”
The chair squeaked as Jax leaned forward. “Face facts, man. He’s out there because he’s dumping a body. He’s dumping that woman. Now move ass—and stop him.”
Dean and Emma and their team were already flying for the door.
“DO YOU KNOW what it’s like to lose the person you love?”
Victoria shook her head. She’d never been in love, never been foolish enough to trust someone that much. Not after what had happened in her family.
“I loved Charlotte. She didn’t love me, but I would have brought her around, eventually. I didn’t get the chance. You see . . . Charlotte was walking such a fine line, selling out that mob family, telling me everything I wanted to know. But then they learned what she’d done, and they gave her to Ricker.”
“Wh-what?”
“Oh, didn’t I say that Ricker was a hired kill
er? No, sorry. Let me back up . . . you see, Dean never made that connection, either. Never realized that the sick fuck we were chasing actually got paid for his crimes. I figured that out. Me.”
He sounded so proud of himself.
Crazy bastard.
“His victims had all pissed off the mob. And when the mob wanted someone to vanish, they gave ’em to old Ricker. The guy thought it was somehow more sporting to give his prey a fighting chance, though. Sick fuck.”
You’re the sick one. Victoria pulled at her ropes. Her bound ankles kicked inside the body bag.
“I found him in those woods. I knew he wasn’t dead. Dean was in the hospital. Elroy was spouting off to the media, and I was the only one who kept looking. I found him, got him to confess . . . hell, Ricker even told me how much money he’d gotten for each kill. And he suffered during every single moment. He was so fucked up after the fall, there was no way he could fight back against me. When I was done, I shot him, but I guess you know that part, huh?”
Are you going to shoot me, too? Or will you keep using that knife on me? Victoria tried to block the pain that kept shuddering through her body.
“I couldn’t let the body turn up, I figured I needed to get rid of the evidence, and shit, I thought I had. Do you know what a bitch it was to clean those bones?” He laughed. “Wait, of course, you do . . . forgot who I was talking with there.”
But you slipped up and you left a hair stuck in his metacarpal.
“So what else did you tell Bannon?”
“N-nothing.”
He sighed. “I am going to make you hurt.”
Her mind raced frantically. Fine, if the truth wouldn’t keep her alive, then maybe lies would. “I told him that I thought it was you!”
He tensed.
“I told him . . . to search your office, your home. To rip apart your life because I found your DNA on the skeleton.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Her wounds throbbed. The wetness of her own blood soaked her shirt. “And I faxed my report to Elroy. He’s going to be hunting you!”
“No . . .”
“We know about your victims. About Wayne Johnson . . .” She was definite on him. But Dean had told her the name of another would-be victim too . . . he’d called her . . . “Sandy . . .”
He laughed. “You have been busy.” A dark pause. “And here I didn’t think I’d left enough of Sandy for anyone to find.”
Will there be enough of me for anyone to find? So many of the dead had crossed her table.
“Th-they know!” Victoria tried to sound strong, not terrified. “They’re coming—you need to run. You need to—”
“You need to die, Dr. Palmer.”
“No, no, no—”
He punched her in the face, and her screams stopped.
AS SOON AS Dean’s vehicle braked, Emma jumped out. The other members of LOST were already rushing into action, and she was—
“Keep the civilian back!” Elroy’s voice bellowed.
Oh, he’d better not be talking about her. Didn’t all of the LOST folks count as civilians, too?
But Elroy was running ahead with Sarah and Gabe while Dean and Wade split up to go with some cops—
You’re not leaving me behind! She tried to lunge forward, but a fresh-faced cop locked his arm around her.
“Sorry, ma’am, you’re supposed to stay here.” The cop released her, but then he—and his equally young buddy—took up a protective stance beside her.
No way. “Dean!” she yelled.
He stopped. Right. He’d better stop. They’d been talking about search strategies during the drive there, and she knew his team was heading for the northern area and that search dogs were coming in to help, but she was definitely going on this hunt with him, too.
He loves me, he wouldn’t leave me. He ran back to her, and Emma smiled in relief. “Good,” she told him, “tell these guys to let me go—”
“Keep her safe,” he told the two cops instead. Then his hand sank into Emma’s hair and he pulled her close. “I have to know you’re all right.”
“But—”
His mouth closed over hers. He kissed her hard and deep and fast, then he was running away. Leaving her behind.
What the hell, Dean? What. The. Hell.
“That’s not the way it works,” Emma whispered. Did he think he was the only one who was afraid? It sounded to her as if Kevin Cormack had planned for Dean’s death all along. Did Dean really think she was just going to stand back while he faced the danger?
But he was running fast, not looking back.
She glanced at her guards. “There’s too much ground for them to cover out here, you know that. Especially in the dark.”
The cops glanced uneasily at each other. “More folks are coming. When the K-9 units get here, there will be more boots on the ground.”
Ah, that one was ex-military. She could tell it by his lingo. “But what if Victoria Palmer doesn’t have time for that extra help to arrive?” She could appeal to the guy’s sense of honor, maybe his protective instincts. “We should go out and hunt right now. I mean, if I’m with you, then you are keeping me safe and—”
A twig snapped. The men whirled, moving swiftly as they tried to draw their guns, but they didn’t have a chance to fire. There just wasn’t enough time. Bullets blasted into them. One, two—perfect shots—and the men went down.
Emma didn’t scream. She froze. If he’d wanted her dead, right then, a third bullet would have been fired.
A shadow ran toward her. Emma tilted her head back, and said, “Hello, Agent Cormack.”
WHEN HE HEARD the gunshots, Dean froze. The blasts seemed to echo around him, then everything moved in slow motion as he tried to turn and head back to the cars. Back to Emma. Because those shots had come from that direction. Two gunshots. No screams. Just the gunfire.
He didn’t roar her name. Didn’t yell for her. Because he was too busy running. Praying. Please let her be all right. Please don’t take her. Don’t take Emma.
Wade was with him, breath coming in pants. And then Dean saw the bodies. His flashlight beam hit the two uniformed cops and the blood on the ground. Wade sank to his knees beside them. Checked for pulses.
“They’re dead. Fast and clean shots, straight to their hearts.”
Kevin had always been a good shot.
His light flew around, to the left, to the right, and—
“Emma.” He whispered her name. His light had just hit her. She stood about twenty feet away, at the edge of the thickening swamp. Kevin had one hand around her neck, and the other hand held a gun to her temple.
Dean took a step toward her.
“No, I wouldn’t do that.” Kevin’s voice rang out, carrying easily in the night.
He knew we were coming. The bastard heard our cars approach long before we arrived. Dean had known that was a risk, but they hadn’t been given many options. In an area this isolated, there’d been no way to enter silently.
“If you take a step closer, I’ll kill her.”
Dean could hear the frantic thud of footsteps behind him. The sound of the shots would have been heard easily by Elroy, Gabe, and Sarah. They’d be coming, and he knew Elroy and his men would have their weapons drawn.
I can’t let anyone hurt Emma.
“Victoria told you about me . . .” Kevin’s voice was furious. “And you came hunting.”
Victoria hadn’t told him a damn thing, but Dean didn’t deny Kevin’s words. He kept his light on Emma. Beautiful Emma.
“You think I’m going in easily?” Kevin demanded, and he laughed. “You need to think again.”
“Two men are already dead on the ground,” Dean said. “There’s nothing easy about this.”
“Agent Cormack!” Elroy’s voice barked. “What the hell are you doing? Put that weapon down and let the woman go.”
Kevin laughed. “You really think you’ve got any authority over me? You’re a joke, a fucking joke, and before I’m done, you’
re going to be choking on your own blood.”
But Elroy stomped forward. “There’s nowhere for you to run. You can’t get out of here.”
“Take one more step,” Kevin warned him, “and I’ll put a bullet in her brain. Try explaining that on tomorrow morning’s news.”
“You listen—”
Dean grabbed Elroy and shoved him back. “Not her life! You’re not risking her!” He’d left her behind, left her furious and shaking, because he thought he’d been protecting her. Wrong. Again. So wrong. He whirled back around to face Kevin. “You want some payback because of Charlotte? Then come and get me.” He tossed his gun to the ground but kept his flashlight on Emma. He had to keep seeing her.
Wade swore.
“I’m the one you wanted the revenge on, right?” Dean called. “Because I arrived too late?”
“You got credit for nothing!” Kevin snarled. “For letting her die—and they wanted to pin a medal on you! That bastard wouldn’t let me anywhere near the case. I could have saved her!”
“Yes, you could have,” Dean said, keeping his voice quiet with every ounce of strength that he had. “Her death was on me. It was all on me.” And he wanted Kevin’s rage on him, too.
“No, Dean,” Sarah whispered.
“It wasn’t Elroy. It wasn’t the Bureau rules. It was me. I got there too late. I didn’t save her.”
“The mob put a hit on her,” Kevin’s voice broke. “That’s what he did, man. He got paid for all those kills . . . only he enjoyed them, too. He laughed when he told me about them—laughed even as he bled and his bones were smashed to hell and back. I stopped that laughter, though.”
“When you put a bullet in his skull,” Dean said. Emma, baby, hold on. We’ll get out of this.
“Yeah, that’s when it stopped.”
His hold was still tight on Emma. Dean could hear the soft rustles of sound in the air. He knew Gabe—with his SEAL training—would be going around to try to take the guy from behind. The cops would also be fanning out. They wouldn’t let Kevin Cormack escape.
Dean wasn’t worried about escape. He just wanted Emma to be all right. He swallowed back his fear, and asked, “Is Victoria alive?”
This time, Kevin was the one to laugh. “Not for long. Maybe you’ll find her and maybe you won’t.”