Torn (Second Sight) (3 page)

Isabelle frowned a little, not understanding what was going on. She’d been about to turn and see who Sharon was glaring at when she felt Mac close to her.

“Dr. Caras didn’t follow the script,” he whispered in her ear. Isabelle nearly gasped. His warm breath moved softly against her and, as if he’d touched her, Isabelle felt her heart begin to hammer. “He won’t be answering the phone any more,” Mac breathed.

“The first thing we want to accomplish,” Sharon said, her voice returning to normal, “is getting a triangulation on his cell phone. Like last time, he’s not using a land line.”

Isabelle felt Mac back away and she let go a long breath.

“Are you all right?” Sharon asked.

Isabelle felt her face flush.

“Just a little warm,” Isabelle said, her voice a bit high.

“It’s okay to be nervous,” Sharon said, smiling. “But you’ll do fine. At least it’s not your first time. Right?”

“Right,” Isabelle said, nodding. “Right.”

Isabelle didn’t know where Mac had gone but she didn’t trust herself to turn around and look.

“Our second goal,” Sharon said, “is to ascertain whether Angela is all right. Though we don’t have an audio analysis back from DC yet, I think we all recognized the Priest’s voice and it’s almost certainly not a crank call. We’re working on the assumption that he has her.”

An image of Esme, lying on the floor, completely dehydrated and bleeding, flashed in front of Isabelle. Her knee ached as she remembered the reading she’d done of the poor girl in order to get a description of the Priest out to law enforcement agencies as quickly as possible.

“Right,” Isabelle said, finally concentrating.

“Here’s the phone,” Sharon said, picking up the small, sleek handset on the table and setting it back down. “And,” she looked in back of Isabelle. “Here’s a chair.”

Isabelle looked behind her to see Mac bringing what looked like a dining chair from an adjacent room. She could also see that Ben was sitting with an older couple, grouped around a small brass table. Those had to be Angela’s parents. They were listening intently to Ben and, though they both looked upset, it wasn’t the kind of emotional outbursts she’d seen when Esme had vanished.

Mac set the chair down and held it for her. As she sat, he scooted it in a little and then quickly moved to the opposite side of the table where an agent she didn’t recognize was sitting. The young man was wearing headphones and, as Mac donned his, Ben and Angela’s parents appeared and Ben got them set with headphones as well.
 

Isabelle felt a bead of sweat trickle down the small of her back. By the time the phone rang, she’d even begun to hyperventilate.
 

Sharon held out two fingers, then one, and then pointed to the ringing handset.

• • • • •

Mac could see that Isabelle was upset. He’d seen it the moment she’d arrived. But now, as she reached to the phone, her hand shook. Everything in him wanted to comfort her, tell her it was going to be all right, just take her in his arms and hold her tight.

He’d almost done just that when he’d whispered in her ear. She’d been so close that he’d smelled the fresh, floral scent of her skin. He’d had to consciously force himself to back away from her.

She wore a dress he’d never seen, a deep red that perfectly complimented her olive skin and lustrous, long, dark hair. Her petite frame curved in all the right places within its confines, her shapely legs showcased from mid-thigh down. And as she’d strode toward him, he’d watched the gentle sway of her hips and then stared at the hint of cleavage in the scooping neckline.
 

Isabelle picked up the handset and turned it on.

“Hello?” she said, her voice clear in his headset.

“
Isabelle
,” came the Priest’s voice, smooth and confident. “I have a message for you.”

A shrill, piercing, and agonized wail filled their ears. Despite the phone call with Esme,
no one
had seen this coming.

Dammit!

“Oh my god,” he heard Isabelle gasp as everyone around the table jumped at once.
 

The shriek was air-shattering and seemed as though it might go on forever when suddenly it stopped.

Mac glanced at Isabelle who gripped the edge of the table and had her eyes closed. Sharon touched her on the shoulder, making her start, but she immediately saw Sharon pointing at the script.

“May I please speak to Angela?” Isabelle said, her voice trembling.

They all waited, frozen in place, dreading another one of those screams. But the only thing that greeted them was silence and something that sounded like the rustle of wind on a microphone.

“Hello?” Isabelle said.

• • • • •

Prentiss smiled at the disposable phone as he turned off his own phone and tucked it into his jacket pocket. His recording of Angela’s scream had been crisp and clean, almost as luscious as the real thing. Leaving the burner phone on, he carefully laid it in the shallow depression he’d scraped in the sand with the heel of his shoe. As he stood up, he paused to watch the ferris wheel, up on the Santa Monica pier, only a couple hundred yards away.
 

Are those people insane? Riding in those big, swinging buckets?

He had to shake off a shudder at the thought.

Quickly, he turned and headed back to the parking lot. No doubt they’d be here soon. Suddenly, he felt the goatee slip and quickly pressed it back into place.

“Crap,” he muttered.

He hadn’t used enough spirit gum.
 

As he passed the two-story lifeguard headquarters, he allowed himself a long look. This was where
Baywatch
had been shot. The sand he was trudging through right now had once been a film set. He grinned despite the irritating goatee. Los Angeles was a
magical
place.

• • • • •

“Hello?” Isabelle tried for the third time.

Though Angela’s mother was quietly crying, neither she nor the others had removed their headsets. For some reason that Isabelle didn’t understand, the phone call seemed to be going on and yet they’d heard only muted, unknown sounds after the initial rustling.

Mac and Ben were leaning over the young agent between them, staring at his computer screen. Isabelle waited for Sharon to signal her again but suddenly the agent in the middle nodded vigorously and all three of them ripped off their headsets.

“We’ve got a triangulation,” Mac said.

Though Mac already knew this was pointless, they had to go through the motions. The Hostage Rescue Team went first, piling out of their SUVs, hitting the ground running to an area on the beach behind the lifeguard headquarters. Assault rifles ready and dressed in military style uniforms with helmets, it looked like the marines had arrived to secure the beach.

No serial killer was going to torture their victim on a public beach in broad daylight. Even so, as they homed in on the location, their feet pounding through the sand, Mac’s adrenalin surged. Other agents and uniformed police spread out to the left and right, keeping anyone in the vicinity well back.
 

“Fifty feet,” the head of the HRT yelled.

And as Mac counted off the paces in his mind, the head of the HRT signaled for a stop. In moments Mac had joined him as he and the rest of the agents gazed down at a cell phone lying open and face up in a shallow hole.

“Son of a bitch,” someone muttered.

Mac thumbed the switch on his radio.

“Forensics,” he said. “You’re up.”

The scream had to have been a recording. And who knew if it was even Angela? The Priest could well have a collection of screams that he’d recorded. As the HRT stood down and was replaced by agents in clean room suits, Mac forced himself to calm down and process what he was seeing.

He already knew there’d be no fingerprints on the phone. The Priest didn’t make those kinds of mistakes–not in four murders and one attempted murder.
 

“Question everyone in the area,” he said to the growing group of agents around him. “Both out here and inside the lifeguard headquarters. Anyone who might possibly have seen a priest.”

As the group disbanded, Mac stood with hands on hips and looked down at the phone as it was bagged and then up at the pier.

Such a public place. The Priest is getting cocky.
He squinted at the turning ferris wheel.
Overconfidence would bring mistakes. That was inevitable.
But whether it was in time to save Angela was another thing. Her time was dwindling.

“I want that phone traced ASAP,” Mac said to one of the technicians. “Point of sale, payment method, interview the cashier. And collect everything here out to a few yards.”

This had been wasted time and Mac had to confront the possibility that that may have been the point. It was time to get to County USC.

• • • • •

Though Isabelle had waited at the house during the wild goose chase that had led to the beach, Mac had insisted to Ben that she accompany him to the hospital. His rationale had simply been to replicate the search for Esme, the two of them working together, since the Priest obviously wanted her there. Of course Ben had required little convincing since her presence at the house obviously irritated him.
 

Sergeant Dixon had dropped both her and Mac at the main lobby of the medical center and gone to park the SUV. It was the first time they’d been alone since he’d arrived and Isabelle found, to her consternation, that Mac had nothing to say to her. He’d asked for directions at the information desk, they’d ridden the crowded elevator to the fourth floor, and now he simply walked at her side without so much as a sideways glance.

“So is our relationship a secret from us too?” she finally said. “Don’t we even get to talk? Or are you going to wait until the end of the day and just call me?”

Quickly, Mac took two long strides to a door labelled ‘Employees Only.’ With a turn of the knob and a quick check inside, Isabelle found herself being tugged into a tiny room full of towels, sheets, and folded dressing gowns stacked neatly on white shelves.
 

As the door slammed closed, Mac whirled toward her.

“Is that what you want?” he said hotly. “For me to just call you like I was in Virginia?”

Despite his angry tone, she couldn’t stop the frustration of the day from bubbling up inside her.

“What would be the difference?” she yelled. “You act like I’m not even here!”

“Do you think that’s how I
want it?
” he yelled. “I can’t just turn it on and off like you!”

“Like
…me?
” she sputtered.

“Look at you!” he yelled, stepping closer. “Dressed like
that
, I can barely
think
straight!”

“
Like
…” she yelled, as it dawned on her what he’d said. “
What?
” she finished, confused.

“So, should I
call you?
” he said, stepping in and grasping her around the waist. “Is
that
what you want?” His eyes bored into hers as the hard steel of his arms crushed her to him. “Is that what you want, Isabelle?” he whispered hoarsely. “Tell me.”

“
No!
” she gasped, blinking. “No, that’s not–”

Mac’s mouth engulfed hers, stifling more words. With a hungry urgency that his cool exterior had denied, he kissed her hard and began to walk her backwards. His lips pushed into hers with a savage twist, his tongue immediately stroking her lips and pressing into her mouth. There was barely time to respond as Mac pushed her backward, his tongue sweeping inside her, his lungs taking the air from hers. Finally her hands found his neck and she hung on as the endless and devastating kiss threatened to overwhelm her. Breath poured from his nostrils and the hard muscle of his chest pressed into her breasts as her back hit the wall. Her fingers wound into his hair as her mouth struggled to keep up with his. Heart pounding in her ears, her lungs burned without enough oxygen. But her tongue tangled with his and her lips sought him out in a groping desperation that was beyond her control.

Then Mac’s hand was on her thigh, slipping upward beneath her dress. Her body quickly tensed and she held her breath as his warm fingers raked higher, landing on the thin fabric of her panties. Her shocked gasp ended the fevered kiss as Mac cupped her mound.

• • • • •

Mac ran his fingers into the cleft between Isabelle’s legs. As she widened her stance, his stiffening arousal pushed at the confines of his briefs. Despite the fact that he knew someone might come through the door at any moment, he couldn’t stop. For days on end he had thought of seeing her, kissing her, touching her. And as he gently squeezed her entrance, Isabelle’s body shuddered and she moaned, as ready as he was.

He put his forehead to hers, their heaving breaths mingling, as he stroked her through the flimsy cloth and she moaned again.

The taste of her, the feel of her, and even the exquisite sound of her, low and breathy–it was like a drug. His mouth fell on hers again. Soft and pink, her lips throbbed beneath his, their sensual cling drawing him in, even as an alarm began to sound in the back of his mind.
 

There’s no lock on the door. Stop.

But instead of stopping, his palm pressed into the downy softness of her mound, his fingers probed the warm juncture of her thighs, and he squeezed. Her moan vibrated against his mouth and the sweet rush of air from her nostrils flooded over his chin. As her lips parted, his tongue immediately plunged into her, searching and thrusting, even as his arousal swelled and strained in his pants.

I could take her. Here and now.

The days without her suddenly felt like months.
Yes
, he could take her now, and then later, all night and all day. With a long and lingering rub, Mac massaged her entrance again and found that she was moving with him, following his hand, staying in contact. Her mouth opened to him completely, his tongue lashing hers, seeking a satisfaction that he knew wouldn’t be found there. Only the warm and wet center of her would satisfy his hunger. Only being inside her would slake the driving need that urged his hips to move.