At Close Range (11 page)

After Tucker’s footsteps faded upstairs, Cassie was left facing her two best friends, who looked like they couldn’t decide whether to razz her about getting caught making out with Varitek or yell at her for not telling them that the task force had been reinstated.

Suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the past few days—danger, the stress, the lack of sleep and the heat that had soured so quickly in the face of Varitek’s anger—Cassie leaned against a wall, put her face in her hands and began to laugh like a banshee.

It was either that or cry.

But when she felt her friends’ hands on her shoulders, one on each side, she pulled it together, knowing she was better than this. Stronger than this.

She sniffed. “Okay, guys. Let’s get to work. We have a class ring to identify.” Then maybe she could catch a few hours of sleep on one of the cots they’d stashed in the back room. She was suddenly exhausted.

But the case had to come first. They had a murderer to catch before he struck again.

IN THE DEEP DARKNESS before dawn, when Bear Claw City slept, the hunter took to the streets again. He was utterly, arrogantly sure that his prey would be alone this time. He knew because he’d been the one to stand her up. It was Saturday night. Date night. He had offered to get her into the Natural History Museum—still closed for renovations—and give her a sneak peek at the new exhibit.

She’d seemed more interested in the privacy than the artifacts. Slut.

Well, she would get her date now—on his schedule, not hers.

He eased his vehicle to the curb outside her house, parked and left the engine running. The main house was empty this time. She’d told him her father had gone back east for the weekend on business and her mother had tagged along for a change of scenery.

She’d winked as she said it.

The roads and walkways were dry this time, the mounds of dirty snow nearly gone.

Still, he watched for the melting piles as he followed the stone pathway around to her door, wanting to leave no footprint, no clue.

The Bear Claw cops would have to work with the evidence he chose to leave them.

She had locked the door this time, but left it unbolted, as though inviting him in with one hand but using the other to punish him for making her wait.

He smiled in anticipation. He knew about punishment. About waiting. Soon, she would, too.

He dealt with the lock and eased the door open with no more caution than he’d used before. He was that confident in her.

Sure enough, she lay perfectly still in her narrow bed. The heat was up in the basement room, making the air steamy and too warm. She had solved the issue by kicking the covers away to reveal stocking-clad legs beneath a high-slit skirt. His keen dark vision showed him that her white shirt was rucked up past her lacy bra, revealing a smoothly toned young stomach defiled with a belly button ring.

Anger stirred in his gut at the sight of her, at the wanton sprawl of arms and legs and the faint snore that escaped from between her painted lips.

He stepped closer, hands clenched into fists. An empty glass on the bed stand suggested that she was not so much asleep as passed out. She’d drowned her sorrows when he didn’t come for her on time. Bitch. Slut. Whore.

The anger rose within him, pure and perfect and cleansing, and he reached for her, wanting to—

Stick with the plan, the voice whispered inside his head, or maybe from behind him, through the open door that was letting the heat out into the yard.

Yes, right. The plan. The hunter forced himself to take a deep breath and go through the steps in his mind. He wouldn’t be sloppy. Sloppiness had killed Croft.

Sloppiness and the cops, that is. But he was smarter than the cops. Hadn’t he already proven that? He was better than the police in this city.

You’re not better than anyone! a deep voice bellowed in his head, making him cringe even though he knew the memories couldn’t hurt him. They were just that.

Memories. The owner of the voice was gone.

And buried.

He relaxed his fingers and forced himself to breathe in and out, in and out, until his heartbeat leveled and he was back in control. This was no place for temper and passion. Not here, not now.

That would come later, once he had her where she belonged.

Proud of his control, he stepped toward the bed and eased his arms beneath her, until she was cradled against his chest by her neck and knees. The power flowed through his body when he lifted her, making the dead weight seem like nothing.

She murmured softly and curled into him, her breath smelling of alcohol, her muscles lax and compliant.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her temple as he carried her from the room and shut the door behind, to keep in the heat. “Everything will be perfect now, don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

AFTER SETH LEFT Cassie and her friends down in the crime lab, he appropriated an upstairs conference room and spent the wee hours of the morning riding his team to process the scene at Cassie’s house as quickly as possible. When his techs stopped answering the phone, he focused on searching the databanks for comparable murders. Similar patterns. Anything.

Through it all, he wished like hell he’d never come back to Bear Claw.

“You want to talk about it?” Tucker asked from the doorway just as dawn stained the sky outside.

Seth grimaced. “Nothing to talk about, really. We’ll have Cassie’s place processed in another hour or so—they’re not finding much of anything—and we’ll be back to spinning our wheels over the boy’s murder.”

Tucker dropped into a nearby chair. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

Seth stared at his laptop screen for a moment, as though focusing on it would force the databank to cough up a pattern, a matching murder. Then he sighed and slapped the laptop computer shut. “I know. I just—” He cursed and scrubbed a hand across his face. Felt the rasp of stubble and made a mental note to shave before the task force meeting. “Why? You doing the stand-in big brother thing on Alissa’s orders?”

Not that Seth would blame him. That had been a hell of a scene they’d walked in on.

Even now, several hours and some serious reflection later, the memory of those hot, steamy kisses was enough to make him hard and wanting and all twisted up inside.

But Tucker snorted. “Cassie’s got plenty of brothers. She wouldn’t thank me for trying to be another one.” The lean, rangy homicide detective leaned back in his chair. “I’m asking as a friend, and because Alissa was nearly killed before. If we didn’t get the bastard, or if there’s another one out there, she could be in danger again. I need to know that you’re not…distracted.”

Seth scowled. “Don’t talk to me about professional detachment. When Alissa was abducted, you threatened to tear me limb from limb if I didn’t help find her.”

An almost feral glitter darkened the detective’s eyes. “Exactly. He came after my woman. Now he’s coming after one of her friends. One of my friends. And I want to know that your head is in the case.” He held up a hand to forestall Seth’s angry retort. “I’m not saying it’s fair. Hell, I’m tempted to ship Alissa back to the island until this is over, just in case the bastard decides to go after her again. But I won’t.

Do you know why?”

“Because she’d kick your ass for suggesting it?”

One corner of Tucker’s mouth twitched. “That, too. But also because she’s a cop.

The chief might look the other way over some fraternization within the ranks, but he expects us to do our jobs. He expects us to act like cops.”

Seth knew that. He knew it down to his very core. But knowing it and liking it were two different things. Cassie wasn’t just a cop, she was a cop with something to prove, which was a damned dangerous combination.

Seth shoved back from the table and locked eyes with the homicide detective. “I can’t promise to be impartial—hell, I don’t know what I am at the moment—but I swear I’ll do everything in my power to help the Bear Claw P.D. get this guy. Deal?”

Tucker regarded him for a long moment, then nodded. “Deal.” Then he grinned, though the expression was tense at the edges. “And speaking of professional detachment and the lack thereof…I asked Alissa to marry me last night.”

“HE ASKED YOU to what?” Cassie nearly screamed. The noise bounced off the basement walls and reverberated among the pieces of equipment. “Ohmigod. Tell me what he said. What you said. Everything!”

Cassie and Maya crowded close while Alissa held out her left hand, newly christened with a big, fat diamond in a platinum setting.

“I was…” Alissa touched her throat with her hand, causing the ring to flash and sparkle under the fluorescent lights. “Shocked doesn’t even begin to describe it.

When the three of us moved here, the first thing I learned was that McDermott was on his way out of the force, that he never stayed still for more than a couple of years, that he was the footloose kind. And now this…” She trailed off and a soft smile touched her lips. “I knew it was right between us. I was even ready to move with him if he wanted to keep wandering. But he says he’s home. He wants us to stay here for good, maybe even buy a bigger place.” The grin widened into a full-blown smile. “We could live in a tent for all I care. I’m that happy.”

And for Alissa, with her unsettled childhood and deep desire to put down roots, to say something like that…

It was real.

Cassie hugged her friend, overjoyed. But deep inside, she felt a twist of something nasty, something she wasn’t proud of and didn’t like. It wasn’t jealously, precisely, it was more like a wistful question.

Why not me?

It was only recently, after Cassie first started hanging out with the neighbor’s baby, that she’d realized she wanted a family. Which—at least in her opinion—

required a husband and a house. Future plans and 401Ks. All things she hadn’t thought about in a long, long time, ever since Lee had dangled those promises with one hand, and tried to snatch away her career with the other.

Several years of hindsight and a brief stint in therapy allowed her to acknowledge that she’d given him that power, bit by bit. She’d been blinded to his true nature by the passion that had flared between them. She had stupidly equated good sex with a good relationship.

How wrong she’d been.

Which brought her thoughts full circle to Varitek. She’d kissed him in her own lab.

Hell, she’d done more than kiss him. She’d groped him, encouraged him, tangled herself around him until they’d been moments away from—

Well, something stupid, that was for sure. What had she been thinking?

Clearly, she hadn’t been thinking at all.

She drew back from her three-way embrace, and gave Alissa’s ringed hand a final squeeze. “I’m so happy for you two. I mean it. You’re perfect together.”

Alissa snorted. “No, we’re not. We disagree with each other, push each other, challenge each other and…” She sighed. “Yeah, we’re perfect together.” Then, before Cassie could process that definition of perfect, Alissa poked her in the arm.

“So what’s going on with you and Varitek?”

“There’s,” nothing going on, Cassie started to say, but didn’t bother because all the evidence pointed to the contrary. “It’s complicated, and it was a mistake. One I’m not planning on repeating. Let’s just leave it at that and get back to the case.”

Anyone else might have respected her wishes and moved on, but the three friends knew each other too well. Maya tilted her head to one side and asked quietly, “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay,” Cassie snapped on a quick wash of resentment. “My truck was impounded, my house is a crime scene, my arm hurts where I got a needleful of the black market sedative-of-the-week, my head aches where I banged it, and I cabbed here in a damn bathrobe.” Aware that her voice had risen on the last word, she took a breath and fought for calm because none of it was Maya’s fault. “The thing you saw with Varitek, it was just stress. Temporary insanity. There might be some attraction between us, but that’s all it is.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Maya asked in her counselor’s voice.

Cassie sighed, confused. “He could shut us down. You’ve heard the rumors—that it’d be cheaper for the chief to call in outside help when he needs it rather than keeping us on staff.”

“Rumors are just that,” Alissa said quickly. “We’re an asset to this department and the chief knows it.”

“If you say so.” Cassie didn’t believe it for a minute. “But if that’s true then how come the FBI has been all over our two major cases so far?”

Because you’re the weak link, Lee’s voice whispered in her head. If you could hold up your end of the job, Varitek wouldn’t even be here.

“Because they’re major cases,” Maya said. “Most local shops bring in FBI oversight for multiple kidnappings or murder.”

“Oversight.” Cassie’s lips twisted. “Yeah, that’s me. An oversight.” Then she straightened. “But not anymore. I think it’s time we go to war.” She looked from Alissa to Maya and saw that the determination in their eyes mirrored her own.

“Let’s prove that the chief didn’t make a mistake hiring us. Let’s get this guy before he has a chance to kill again.”

“Too late.” Varitek’s voice broke in from the doorway.

Cassie didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, didn’t know how much he’d heard.

She glanced over and didn’t see any memory of their kiss in his eyes. He could have been carved from granite. He looked that cold when he gestured to the stairs.

“Come on. There’s been another murder. A woman this time.” He took a breath and something passed across his face, an expression so fleeting she had hardly registered it before it was gone. But she caught an echo of it in his voice when he said, “Brace yourself. This one’s bad.”