He’d walked home from school and found a bloodbath. His mother, dead. A shotgun blast to the chest. After he’d killed her, his father had put the shotgun under his own chin and pulled the trigger.
“I’m so sorry, Anthony.”
He wasn’t telling the story for pity.
“My mom loved me,” he said with painful pride. His father might have been a twisted SOB, but his mother had always cared about him. Always. “When the police searched her car, they found bags packed. One for her. One for me.” She’d planned to get them both away.
Only the police believed that his father had come home and found her packing.
“He couldn’t let her go, and in the end, he wound up being the most dangerous thing in her life.” It hadn’t started that way, though. He’d seen the wedding pictures. Seen the happy smiles. He did remember them being happy. There had been fun birthday parties, family dinners at Christmas.
But obsessions could twist over time. Become so very deadly.
“I’m sorry you found them.” Her voice was low. Hesitant. “No child should ever see that.”
There were plenty of things children should never see. “You asked me why I left you.” He realized his fingers were making light circles on her palm. He couldn’t stop. With her, that had always been his problem. Can’t stop. Need too much. “I wanted you, so damn badly, all the time.”
Her palm was soft and still beneath his fingers.
“I wanted you to myself. I wanted you away from any other man out there.” To be truthful, he still did. But his control was better now than five years ago. “You were becoming my obsession, and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—stay here and turn out like him.”
She straightened quickly, nearly clipping him in the chin with her head. She turned to stare at him. “That’s crazy! You aren’t your father!”
“I want you with the same consuming need that he felt for her. The way I feel about you—it’s not easy and light. It’s dark and dangerous.” Consuming.
“Just because you want someone badly,” she said, her voice husky, “doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
“If I’d had my way, I would have been in you every minute of the day.”
Her eyes widened.
“My emotions with you are too strong. Call bullshit if you want”—though it wasn’t—“but I wouldn’t risk you.”
“So you left me.”
He’d left, but had been helplessly drawn back. “It was supposed to just be sex between us, right? You didn’t sign on for an obsession. We were fire behind closed doors, ice in public. I was starting to rage out of control, and you were trying to keep a wall between us.”
Lauren flinched. “I was trying the case. I never meant to be…ice.”
“Shit, baby, I didn’t—”
“I know I have…trouble, okay? I can’t connect easily with other people. Even the ones who matter.” Her lashes lowered to shield her gaze. “I don’t let people in and I don’t share my feelings or my past. I don’t know how to change that.”
One thing bothered him…I don’t share my feelings or my past. Paul sure seemed to know plenty about her past.
There’s the jealousy again. Dark, insidious, creeping.
“I think I stopped letting people get close after Jenny vanished,” she whispered. “My parents fell apart. They hurt so much. I hurt. The pain was an ache in my chest. Constant ache. A part of me was just…gone.”
“Tell me what happened to her.” The time for secrets was gone. They were both baring their pasts in the dark, and he knew that after this, things would never be the same between them.
The emotions charging the air were too raw and powerful.
“She was sixteen when she vanished. Just sixteen.” She blinked quickly, trying to get rid of the tears blooming in her eyes. “She’d gotten her driver’s license the week before, and she was so proud to be driving to school.” A ghost of a smile lifted her lips. “She failed the driver’s test two times, but the third try was the charm. At least, that’s what Mom said. ‘Third time’s the charm.’”
The memory was a good one. Her eyes started to sparkle.
Then the sparkle faded as the tears came back.
“She was going to pick me up from school and take me to piano practice. At first, I thought she was just running late, that maybe she’d stopped to talk to her friends or something. I was so—so mad.” Her voice was hushed. Shamed. “I was standing in the parking lot, the buses were all gone, and all I could think was that I was going to tell Mom. I was furious, shaking. She wasn’t there.”
“You didn’t know.” Guilt was in her voice. On her face. Any child would have gotten angry in that situation.
“I didn’t even know I should be worried until Dad came to get me. His face was white. The piano teacher had called him and told him I never showed up.” She shook her head. “He was afraid something had happened to me and Jenny.”
Her gaze held his.
So much pain. Walker had brought all of the pain back.
“Only nothing had happened to me. Just Jenny.” Her sister’s name broke. “They searched everywhere for her, and found her VW at the edge of the swamp, but there was no sign of Jenny. Another car’s tracks were there, and some of the cops thought she’d met a boy. Run off with him.
“The cops told us we’d probably hear from her in a few days. They didn’t even search the swamp. Just said she was off with a boy. Told my parents they should have kept a better watch on her.”
Shit. Like her parents had needed to hear that crap.
“Only Jenny never contacted us. The years rolled past. There was no phone call. No letters. Nothing. Jenny just vanished.”
She hadn’t vanished.
She’d been killed. Buried. Hidden.
Jenny Chandler was out there somewhere, and before this nightmare was over, he’d make the Butcher tell him everything he knew about Lauren’s sister.
He walked through the swamp. Searchers were all around him. Deputies, folks from Fish and Wildlife, even detectives from the Baton Rouge Police Department.
No one gave him a second glance. He wasn’t the prey they were seeking. They were all too busy, all too focused on Walker.
But Walker wasn’t there. He’d made sure the guy was safely away. He couldn’t risk Walker getting captured and turning on him.
The little bastard had threatened to reveal what he knew. He’d sent a note from prison—sent a fucking note—and the warning had been obvious.
The man had wanted freedom. So he’d given it to him.
But freedom would come with a price.
He stopped by a twisting willow tree. Its long, slender branches brushed the ground.
A smile lifted his lips as he stared at that tree. Coming to this place, it always made him feel better, stronger.
The branches swayed gently. The movement so faint.
His shoulders straightened. His gaze darted to the ground. The lush grass grew easily here.
The grass grew, the willow bloomed—it wept.
His smile slowly faded.
“Hey! We need a search party on the northern banks!”
He gave a quick nod. It was an agent who’d just shouted the order. The guy already had sweat streaking across his forehead, and the man—with his disheveled hair and frustrated eyes—seemed far out of his element in the swamp.
Most people didn’t understand the swamp.
He did. Walker did. The swamp had brought them together. The swamp and their love of death.
He turned and strode away from Jenny. He’d come back to see her again soon. He always came back for her. In the meantime, he had a kill to plan.
He tempered his excitement as he joined the search party.
Cadence’s steps were slow as she headed for the holding cell. Steve Lynch had been kept away from the general population. The guard in front of her unlocked a door and led her down a narrow hallway.
“He’s been quiet since he came in,” the cop said as he darted a qu
ick glance over his shoulder at her. “Not the way they usually are, ma’am. Most come in screaming and don’t stop for hours.”
They were almost to the holding cell and she didn’t hear any sounds. No shuffle of nervous footsteps. No rustles.
Lynch should be worried about his ex-wife. He should be pacing. He should be demanding answers.
That silence was unnatural.
They rounded the corner. She saw the cell. Saw Lynch.
She froze.
The bedding was twisted around his neck, and his body hung as his feet dangled six inches above the floor. He’d locked the other end of the bedsheet around the bars in the high window. What looked like a bench was overturned on the floor near him.
“Fuck!” The cop fumbled with his keys.
There was no need to hurry. Not now. Steve Lynch was gone.
She stared at the body, pity pushing through her. You knew we weren’t going to find Helen alive.
He might have hoped, but as the hours slid past, he’d realized the truth. Or maybe he’d realized it when Walker attacked the cop and took the DA.
No, Helen hadn’t been found alive, and now they hadn’t found Lynch alive, either.
Another life gone, snuffed out in the Bayou Butcher’s wake.
Guilty. Lynch had been the one to stand up and read that verdict in court. The verdict that Lauren had pushed for, day in and day out.
She pulled out her phone and called Ross. He’d need to know. So would Lauren.
He answered on the second ring. Cadence tried to keep her voice emotionless as she said, “Lynch won’t be able to tell us anything.”
More cops were rushing in, hurrying through the narrow hallway.
“Why the hell not?” Ross demanded.
“He hung himself.” A silent death. One that had probably taken no more than five minutes.
Dammit. She spun away from the body and tried to suck in a deep breath, but a knot had formed in her throat. She’d joined the FBI to stop crimes, not to keep finding bodies.
It seemed like she kept arriving too late to make a difference.
Too late.
Twenty-four hours had passed, and there’d been no sign of the Butcher.
Lauren glanced up as Anthony paced the length of the hotel room. He’d been doing a whole lot of pacing and it was driving her crazy. “You want to be out there, hunting.” She waved to the door. “Go!”
She felt like she was weighing him down.
He gave a hard, negative shake of his head.
“Look, if you’re worried about me, send in some cops, send in one of your marshals. Give me protection.” She paused. “But you go and do what you need to do.”
He stalked toward her. After their early-morning talk yesterday, things should have been easier between them.
Things weren’t easy. They were even more tense than before. With every hour that passed, with every moment her strength came back, the tension between them seemed to thicken.
You were my obsession.
It wasn’t exactly the tender declaration of love most girls longed to hear. But then, she wasn’t most girls.
Had Anthony thought his past would scare her? It hadn’t. It made her yearn for him even more.
He’s a survivor.
So was she. Dammit, so was she.
“You almost died.” His green eyes glittered with emotion. “From now on, I’m sticking to you.”
If she didn’t still have the headache from hell, she might be able to actually enjoy his company.
“They’re having a briefing down at the station,” she said. She might be sidelined by her injury, but she was keeping tabs on things. “Let’s go hear what they’ve got to say.” Even she could handle a trip to the station.
“They’ve got jack shit.” Disgust tightened his face. “All of those hours spent searching, and they turned up nothing.”
“Walker has help.” Just what she needed—a second serial killer in her town. “His partner could have helped him slip away from the swamp. He could be hiding him right now.”
Anthony thought the same thing, she saw it in his eyes. She pressed on. “Staying here isn’t doing any good. I’m stronger now.” Maybe he wouldn’t recognize it for the lie it was. “Let’s get to the station. Whoever Walker’s working with…if they killed J-Jenny”—she stumbled over her sister’s name—“if they’ve been working together for all of this time, then the partner should be someone who was in Walker’s life five years ago.”
Maybe the partner was even someone she’d interviewed as she prepared for the trial. She could have come face-to-face with her sister’s killer and not known it.
“We’ve got all the old interviews on file at my office. Names, addresses. We can contact those people. The cops might even walk right into the house where Walker is hiding.” Hope—it was all she had to hold on to at that point.
After a moment, Anthony gave a grim nod. “But you stay with me.”
“I will.” She was already dressed in pants and a top—he hadn’t helped her this time. She hadn’t needed his help, thankfully, because she sure hadn’t been up to handling his hot touch.
Lauren rose and headed toward the door.
“We will talk about it,” Anthony said.
His words stopped her. Not understanding, she glanced back at him, “We did plenty of talking.” Her soul was bare. What more did he want?
All your secrets. That was the answer in his hard stare.
She’d never given all to anyone. Wasn’t even sure if she could.
He reached into the nightstand, pulled out his gun, and holstered the weapon. Then, with his eyes holding hers, he closed the distance between them. “You talked plenty about the past, but you didn’t tell me a damn thing about what Walker did to you in that cabin.”
She hadn’t been able to think about it. She’d barely been holding herself together as it was. “I told Cadence.” The FBI agent had come to the hotel to interview her again. The other marshals had pulled Anthony away while they talked. She’d actually been glad he left. Baring her soul again in front of him would have been too painful. She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice. “Why bother with that nightmare twice?”
“Talking to me isn’t the same thing as giving witness testimony.” Anger burned in his words. “Dammit, I can help you.”
“When you catch Walker, you’ll help me plenty.”
She turned toward the door.
His fingers curled around her shoulder. “I see what you’re doing.”
Her heart was beating faster.
“What happened? Did I get too close? You’re trying to put the wall back up now?”
Yes. That wall was what helped her get through each and every day. She needed it to survive.
He turned her to face him. “I won’t go back to being on the outside.” He bent toward her. His lips were just in inch from hers. “I wanted you for too long. Too much. I came too fucking close to losing you.” His gaze searched hers. “Everything’s changed. Don’t you see that?”
He was all she could see.
Then his mouth was on hers. Not hard. Not demanding or taking.
Seducing.
She’d never been able to resist his seduction.
Her lips were parted, but he didn’t thrust his tongue past her lips. Not at first. He pressed his lips to hers, stealing her breath, giving her his. Her mouth opened more beneath the light touch.
Helpless. That was the way he made her feel.
His tongue lightly licked her lower lip, then it was pushing into her mouth. Her fingers locked around his shoulders, and Lauren found herself rising onto her toes.
Her body pressed along the length of his. His arousal thrust toward her, but still, he kept the kiss easy. Gentle.
His tongue was against hers, his arms surrounded her. He was all that she could feel, all that she could taste.
She wanted more. Harder. But his mouth was already pulling away even though a moan of protest slipped from her lips
.
“I could never forget the way you taste,” he said.
Her lashes lifted. His eyes…she pulled in a quick breath…he looked hungry.
Not for food.
“Sin and sweetness, all twisted together. You fucking bring me to my knees.”
He wasn’t on his knees. She was the one who felt like her knees were wobbling.
“I will have you again.” A promise.
One she wanted fulfilled.
“The doctor wants to check you once more. If you get the all clear from Davis…if it’s safe for you…”
Her fingers pushed against his shoulders, forcing him back. “It will be.” It needed to be. Because she wanted, as desperately as he did.
The look in his eyes—the stark promise of pleasure and passion—it was exactly what she needed to wipe away the memory of fear and death.
It will be.
Pierce Hamilton wasn’t paying any attention to the case being presented before him. The witness was testifying, going on and on about an alibi that was probably crap, and all he could think was—
Lauren Chandler got away from the Bayou Butcher.
He’d woken to the headline today, screaming from the cover of the newspaper, and then the reporters from the local news had been too eager to blast the same story at him.
The DA was a very hot topic, and apparently extremely good at surviving. It hardly seemed fair she had survived when Karen hadn’t.
“Your Honor?” The defense attorney cleared his throat. “I—uh—I objected.”
Hell.
He didn’t even know what the objection had been about. He slammed down his gavel. “Court is recessed until nine a.m. tomorrow.”
The defense attorney’s jaw dropped. “But Your Honor—”
Pierce shoved away from his chair and hurried for the door.
The police had said they’d protect Lauren. They hadn’t. She’d nearly died.
What will happen to me?
His robe billowed around him. He wasn’t going to sit there and wait for the Butcher to come after him. Karen was already gone. He wouldn’t roll over and die, too.
If the Butcher thought he would, then the sick prick needed to think again.