Max pointed toward a rolling cart shoved in a corner. “Put it over there and tell me about the bad feeling.”
Teagan moved forward and put down the table that was still covered by a dusty canvas. Then, turning back to Max, he gave vent to his smoldering frustrations. “I think Rafe has lost his goddamn mind.”
Max gave a slow nod. He did most things slow. Methodical.
And he never, ever made mistakes.
“Yeah, I had the same fear when he called me to convince the daughter of a serial killer that she would be safe in his home.”
Teagan’s brows snapped together. He’d known Rafe was worried about Annie White, but he hadn’t expected him to actually move her into his grandfather’s house. “Damn,” he muttered.
“Do you think she might be dangerous?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the point,” Teagan admitted. His intuition told him that she was exactly what she seemed. A traumatized victim who was being pulled back into a shitty situation. But he wasn’t worried about her being a psycho killer. It was the fact that she was obviously a magnet for trouble that worried him. She was going to get his friend pulled into her hot mess. “Rafe has always had a compulsive need to rush to the rescue, but he usually thinks with his head, not with his cock.”
“True.” Max sent his friend a rare smile. “He leaves that charming habit to others.”
Teagan flipped his companion off with practiced ease, ignoring the reference to his wide and varied enjoyment of the female sex. “Now he meets this Annie White and he’s neck deep in serial killers and missing women.”
Max’s smile disappeared. “Do you think there’s a connection between the most recent disappearances and the Newton Slayer?”
Teagan nodded. He didn’t have Rafe’s flashes of premonition, but he’d grown up with an explosive father who regularly decided Teagan needed to be knocked around. Not to mention his years roaming streets that had been filled with gangbangers, drugs, and prostitutes.
He could smell danger.
“I don’t have any proof, but yeah, I think there’s a connection,” he said.
Max folded his arms over his massive chest. The logical scientist preferred cold, hard facts to vague instincts and street smarts.
“So what do we know?”
“Not much,” Teagan admitted, scrubbing his hand over his face. He needed a shower and some food, but he had an afternoon of work to finish before either was happening. “I suspect that Don White was living under an assumed name. Once we discover his identity it might give us some answers.”
“I’ll pull the prints today,” Max promised, glancing toward the table Teagan had brought from Newton. “What else?”
Teagan shrugged. “The sick bastard had his throat slit only hours after being locked up.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“Minimal. My guess is that no one wanted to look too closely.”
Max arched a brow. “Because he was a serial killer?”
“Because the sheriff’s pregnant wife was one of the victims.”
“Awkward.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Teagan muttered. There wasn’t a man who wouldn’t snap when confronted with the SOB who’d murdered his wife and unborn child. It’d been inevitable that something bad was going to happen.
Max leaned against his desk. “The murders stopped after White’s death?”
“They did in Newton.” Teagan shrugged. “I ran a check to see if there were any similar killings in other parts of the country.”
“Anything?”
“Not that I could find, but I’m no expert,” Teagan admitted. He had the skill and equipment necessary to find any information he wanted, but it took a specialized training to pick out the patterns of a serial killer.
“And now, after fifteen years, there are two new women missing.” Max scowled. “A copycat?”
“It’s impossible to know without bodies,” Teagan said with a blunt honesty that made both of them grimace.
“Christ.” Max sucked in a deep breath. “How does Annie White tie into all this?”
“I intend to find out,” Teagan assured him. Even after years in the military and being held as a POW, it was difficult to accept the horror humans could inflict on one another.
“You’re returning to Newton?”
“Hell yeah, I’m returning. You think I’m allowing my friend to search for a serial killer on his own?” It’d never occurred to him that he wouldn’t go back as soon as he dealt with a few loose ends. “I have some computer searches Rafe asked me to run, then I’m going to pack a few clothes and drive to Newton tonight.”
“It’ll be faster to fly,” a deep voice said from the doorway. “We’ll meet at the airport at ten.”
Teagan turned to discover Hauk leaning against the doorjamb.
“There’s no need for you—”
“Not up for debate,” Hauk interrupted, his voice hard with warning. “Lucas is finishing up his work in DC and will meet us there.”
Teagan studied his friend’s lean face. “Why?”
“This is what we do.” Hauk straightened, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his pale gray pants. “It’ll be a good test run for the business.”
A reasonable excuse, but Teagan knew there was more. “And?”
“And Rafe is my brother,” Hauk said, his jaw tightening with emotion. “Nothing’s going to happen to him on my watch.”
That weird, still-unfamiliar warmth spread through Teagan. Until that hellhole in Afghanistan he’d had one person in his life.
His mother.
There’d been cousins who’d never escaped the streets and rotated in and out of prison, lovers who did their own sort of rotating, and partners in crime. But no one who meant jack shit to him.
Now...
Now he understood what it meant to have a family.
“Good enough,” he said. “I’ll finish up here, then go home to pack.” He focused his attention on Max as Hauk turned to disappear into his own office across the hall. “What about you?”
“I’m going to hang here and do my thing.” Max nodded toward the table. “First the fingerprints and then the note Rafe’s overnighting to me.”
“Note?” Teagan frowned in confusion. “What kind of note?”
Max shrugged. “All I know is that it was shoved beneath Annie’s motel door this morning. Rafe hopes I can get an I.D. off it.”
Teagan muttered a low curse. If the note had been from the killer, that would explain why Rafe had moved the woman into his house.
Dammit, he needed to get back to Newton. ASAP.
But first, he had another matter to settle.
He hadn’t missed Max’s covert movement to block his computer when Hauk had been in the doorway.
“Is that all?” he demanded.
Max knew exactly what Teagan was asking.
“Nope. I’m still trying to track down the bastard who’s playing with Hauk,” he said.
Teagan’s jaw tightened.
His friend might pretend it was nothing, but they all knew that a stalker always had an agenda. And that the shit was going to escalate if they didn’t find out who it was. “Anything new?”
“It could be nothing,” Max said, always cautious.
“Tell me.”
“I traced the paper the notes were written on to a manufacturer in Turkey.”
Teagan hissed, his gut twisting with an icy dread. “Is it sold in America?” he demanded.
“In a few specialty shops.”
“Any in Texas?”
“Nope.”
The two men locked gazes, both catapulted back to the war and the enemies they’d each made.
Could one of them have followed Hauk to Houston?
“Shit,” he muttered.
Max slowly nodded. “That about sums it up.”
Annie polished off the last of her iced tea as Rafe glanced down at the phone he’d left lying on the table.
&n
bsp; After leaving Newton, he’d driven them to LaClede. But with one glance at her still-pale face, he’d zoomed past the restaurants that lined Main Street and instead pulled into the local supermarket. With a promise he wouldn’t be long he’d disappeared inside the store, returning twenty minutes later with two large paper bags.
Dumping them in the back of the truck, he crawled behind the wheel and drove them out of town, not halting until they were in an isolated section of a state park.
Seated on a bluff that overlooked a large, sparkling lake, Annie was leaning back on her elbows, her legs stretched across the thin blanket that Rafe had bought at the store, along with fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, and tea.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, and at that moment she didn’t care.
It was the perfect spot for a picnic. The autumn sun was warm on her face. The tall trees blocked the chilled breeze. The view was breathtaking. And it didn’t hurt that she was sharing the blanket with a dark, intensely sexy man who was seated close to her side, his fingers absently toying with the end of her braid.
The world seemed very far away. Why not allow the afternoon to drift past?
Watching a crimson leaf drift from the nearby tree to land at the edge of the blanket, Annie’s sense of peace was abruptly shattered as she heard an unmistakable beep.
Rafe cursed, as if he wasn’t any happier than she was at the interruption.
“It’s a message from Teagan,” he muttered as he pulled out his phone and glanced at his screen.
She tensed, her sense of peace slowly eking away. “Did he get an address?”
Rafe nodded, the sunlight beginning to dip behind the trees to leave his bronzed face in shadows.
“Brody’s living in a town in northern Missouri,” he said. “It’s about two hours south of here.”
“So close?” she demanded in confusion. That didn’t sound like a man who was trying to disappear.
Not in this small community.
“Yep. But he’s living under an assumed name . . . Richard Davis.”
“Good,” she forced herself to say. “We should go.”
As much as she wanted to stay and pretend they were just two people enjoying an intimate picnic, she knew they couldn’t hide away forever.
Not when there were women missing.
Brody Johnson might be another dead end, but they wouldn’t know until they talked to him.
Before she could move, Rafe lightly brushed her cheek. “Are you sure you’re up for this?” he asked. “You look pale.”
“We need to find answers,” she reminded him. “The sooner, the better.”
“Or we could shut off my phone and find a far more pleasant way to spend the evening.” He leaned forward, his lips skimming her brow, then down the length of her nose. “I have several alternatives.”
Her breath caught at the sizzling pleasure that raced through her.
His lips were warm, the brush of his breath even warmer.
“I suppose your alternatives include a bed?”
“Not necessarily.” He nuzzled the corner of her mouth, causing her stomach to clench with anticipation. “I’ve been tormented by visions of seeing you spread naked across the kitchen table since breakfast.”
The vivid image of being stretched over the wooden surface with Rafe between her legs seared through her brain with a shocking ease.
As if it’d been lurking there, just waiting for the opportunity to escape.
Her heart missed a strategic beat. “It’s not a very big table,” she muttered.
Yeah, it was ridiculous. But she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.
He chuckled, his fingers drifting down the side of her neck.
“I can be creative.”
Sharp-edged desires combined with a familiar need to pull away from such raw intimacy.
“I’m sure you’re creative a lot,” she muttered.
Lifting his head, Rafe studied her with a faint frown. “Why are you so determined to convince yourself that I’m some sort of player?”
She trembled, but made no effort to pull away from the warm fingers that traced the neckline of her sweater.
It felt too damned good, even if it was causing tiny flutters of panic.
“You’re gorgeous, sexy, intelligent, and nearly housebroken. I can’t imagine women aren’t constantly throwing themselves at you.”
His lips twitched. “Gorgeous and sexy?”
She rolled her eyes. Like he didn’t know he was irresistible. “You notice I didn’t say anything about humble.”
His gaze lowered to where her pulse thundered at the base of her throat.
“I had a very rigid upbringing, and even though my mother died when I was young, my father taught me that there were rules for treating women right,” he assured her, his fingers dipping beneath her sweater to explore the upper curve of her breasts.
“Oh Lord,” she gasped as her nipples tightened with pleasure.
His head once again lowered, his lips returning to the corner of her mouth.
An almost-kiss that was insanely erotic.
“And like I told you, since I’ve been home I haven’t had the time to pursue a relationship.” He nipped her bottom lip, his fingers tracing the line of her bra. “No, that’s not true. I didn’t have the interest. Until now.”
Annie sucked in a deep breath. God almighty. She felt like she was drowning in sensations.
The crisp, clean scent of his skin. The searing heat of his fingers. The tantalizing promise of his lips.
Her hands lifted to press against his chest. “Rafe—”
“What about you?” He interrupted her protest, his lips moving to find a tender spot beneath her ear.
She gripped his shirt, her back arching as excitement curled in the pit of her stomach.
His touch was magic.
“Me?” she rasped, struggling to follow the conversation.
“Do you have . . .” He used his tongue to outline the shell of her ear. She shuddered with pleasure. A slow, perfect seduction of her senses. “What’s the politically correct term? A significant other in your life?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
It was a question she’d heard a thousand times from her foster parents.
“My therapists would say that I have trust issues,” she managed to share, her voice husky with desire.
“And what do you think?”
“That I have trust issues,” she wryly admitted.
He skimmed his lips down the length of her nose. “I swear I won’t hurt you, Annie,” he murmured. “That’s the last thing I would ever do.”
She believed him.
Rafe wasn’t the sort of man who would deliberately toy with a woman’s emotions.
But that didn’t make him any less dangerous.
“Not intentionally,” she said.
He grazed a light, sinfully sweet kiss over her lips before lifting his head to study her with a brooding gaze. “What are you afraid of?”
A stray beam of sunlight peeked through the trees, blazing across his bronzed face and threading through the glossy strands of his dark hair.
Her heart twisted. Good God.
He was so beautiful.
Not pretty. Not handsome. Or sophisticated.
But raw, sculpted male perfection.
The sort that dazzled a poor female into making decisions she would later regret.
“Being a cause,” she abruptly confessed.
He scowled. “What?”
“You’re a hero always in search of someone who needs to be rescued.”
There was a startled silence, then without warning, he tilted back his head to laugh with rich enjoyment. “Oh Annie, my desire for you has nothing to do with causes,” he husked, his eyes blazing with a hunger that made her body clench with need. “And everything to do with a man so fascinated with a woman he can barely think straight.”
“We should—” She lost the ability to speak as h
e captured her lips in a kiss that threatened to steal her sanity.
This was no tentative, teasing kiss.
This was a blatant, sensual demand for surrender.
His lips were hard, his tongue easing into her mouth as his arms wrapped around her and pressed her tight against his chest.
Annie gasped, stunned by the shocking pleasure as her fingers tangled in his hair. He tasted of tea and passionate male.
Hot, decadent temptation.
She felt as if she were melting beneath the forceful demand of his touch before he eased the pressure enough to speak against her lips.
“You were saying?” he prompted.
She blinked. Saying? Was she saying something?
Oh yeah.
“We should go,” she forced herself to mutter.
He gave a low, wicked chuckle. “I couldn’t agree more. As much as I enjoy the great outdoors, there are some things that demand privacy.”
For a crazed second, Annie wavered.
She wanted to give in to his seduction.
Not only because her body was aching to be consumed by the desire he’d stirred to life, but because the promise of a few hours of drowning out reality with the pleasure this man could offer was nearly irresistible.
Then the habits of a lifetime returned and she was pressing her hands against his chest. “I mean we should see if we can find Brody Johnson,” she said.
He kissed a path down the length of her neck before searching out that tender spot just beneath her ear.
“Brody will be there tomorrow,” he assured her. “And the next day.”
She swallowed a moan, giving him another push. “Rafe.”
“Okay.” He immediately lifted his head, a rueful smile on his lips as he gave her braid a teasing tug. “But you’re going to pay for making me wait.”
A strange relief poured through her. Not at his easy acceptance of her withdrawal. Rafe was clearly a man who didn’t have to coerce or badger a woman into having sex with him.
They both knew he could drive to the nearest town and have a dozen women ready and willing to please him.
No, it was the insinuation that her continued hesitation hadn’t destroyed his desire for her.