Читать книгу Targeted - Lori L. Harris - Страница 11

Crime scene technician Andy Martinez stood in front of what Alec assumed to be the door to Katie’s bedroom. He appeared to check the settings on the video camera he held. A 35 mm hung on his shoulder.

He glanced at his watch, and Alec wanted to ask him where he needed to be, but it wasn’t any of his business. Maybe he had a hot date, or a wife to get home to. But the action reminded Alec that he’d also had other plans for tonight. He checked the time. Passengers would be embarking in twenty-five minutes, which meant he’d have to catch a flight in the morning.

“I’ll shoot the video first, and then get the stills. Then bag up.” Martinez pulled a large pad and a pencil from a side compartment of his case. “Anyone here want to do the sketch? I flunked first grade art. Never could get the arms and legs the same length on those stick figures.”

He didn’t know Martinez, but thought the kid seemed a bit nervous. As if something in the room had made him uncomfortable.

Jack motioned for Martinez to step away from the closed door. “That can wait a few minutes.”

Alec looked at his brother, at the closed door Jack stood in front of. “I take it you found something out of the ordinary?”

“Depends on which town you’re in.” With a grim expression, Jack nudged the door open.

Candlelight reached every corner of the small space. Not that anyone stepping inside would notice the candles, considering the rest of the room.

There were no pillows on the double bed, no top sheet, either. Just the fitted bottom sheet. The center of the bed was strewn with a path of red rose petals, as if flung there by a flower girl following a bride down the aisle. The remaining roses—at least two dozen—filled a vase on the dresser.

A seduction scene. If you could ignore the surgical tubing tied to the headboard. And the looped ends that could be quickly slipped around wrists and ankles, and which would only become tighter as the victim struggled. Since there was no footboard, the tubing had been attached to the legs of the Hollywood bed frame. Square knots, again, tied by a right-hander.

Three of the red rose petals had missed the bed entirely and resembled a blood trail.

Alec’s gut twisted. Everything inside him wanted to deny what he was seeing. No one could look at the room and not be shaken by it. Not think about the woman who was to have been lashed down and terrorized. Murdered. It was what nightmares were made of. For Alec it was even more personal than that. It was the nightmare he couldn’t escape. It represented not only the degradation that one human being could inflict upon another, it also represented Alec’s own failure.

He stepped carefully into the room. One narrow path in and the same path out. He’d been working crime scenes for enough years that it had become second nature.

Without even counting, he knew there would be twenty-seven candles—the cheap variety, which accounted for the heavy scent of wax. Just as he knew the brand of box cutter on the nightstand—Swain. Just as he knew the picture over the bed had been removed to make room for a different kind of artwork.

The kind that required blood.

Eleven months ago, his flight into Philadelphia International had been delayed because of a snowstorm. When he’d landed, he’d thought about calling Jill, but she would have been sleeping. She was a teacher and got up early. The roads were a mess, and it had taken him seventy minutes to go twenty-eight miles. The house had been dark. He’d come in through the garage, stopped in the kitchen long enough to drink a glass of milk—his dinner—and to add kibble to the cat’s dish.

He’d left his suitcase there, figuring he could undress in the dark and climb into bed without waking Jill. He’d thought the house cold, so had dialed up the thermostat as he passed.

He remembered that he’d hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, looked up into the familiar darkness above. He’d sensed something wasn’t right, but had quickly written it off. He was just beat.

He’d taken only the first two steps when he’d smelled it…the heavy scent of blood. His grip on the railing tightening, he’d tried to convince himself he was wrong. That the smell of death had been with him for so many days he was no longer capable of breathing air that wasn’t tainted with its stink.

And then he’d seen the bloody paw prints left by the cat.

Alec had taken the remaining steps two and three at a time, his weapon drawn.

But he was too late.

The attack had taken place midafternoon—the medical examiner had never been able to put an exact time on it because of the cool temperature in the house and the ceiling fan. Blood had soaked all the way through the mattress, forming a puddle on the wood floor beneath the bed.

“Alec.” Jack had followed him into the room, and now interrupted the too-vivid memory. “Talk to me.”

Talk to him? Alec realized he would give anything to talk to his brother. Not about police work and crime scenes, but about coming home, finding his wife murdered. To know deep down inside that he was the reason she was dead. That her death hadn’t been the work of a sexual sadist, but of someone out to destroy Alec. Someone seeking revenge for some perceived wrong.

But he couldn’t talk to Jack. Not because Jack wouldn’t listen, but because Alec couldn’t make himself say any of those words aloud.

“Alec?” This time Jack squeezed his brother’s shoulder.

Alec stepped out from under what was meant to be a comforting gesture. The pink cotton rug deadened the sound of his hard soles. He looked down at the bed. At the blank wall above. In his mind, he saw the bloody message the killer had left him eleven months ago.

REMEMBER.

And he did remember. Every second of every day, he remembered.

Alec looked back at his brother, at the young crime scene tech Martinez. “He’s grown tired of postcards. There’s nothing visceral in paper and ink.”

Stunned silence followed those words.

“But why now?” Jack remained unmoving.

It was as if the question threw some kind of switch inside Alec. He was no longer the grieving husband…desperate to right an unrightable wrong. He was the man who had spent years in the FBI facing the unimaginable. One of Quantico’s best. In reality, he was beginning to believe that he wasn’t all that much different from the men he’d hunted. Of late, he’d started to realize that he was more comfortable staring at photos of the dead than looking into the eyes of the living. He’d told his brother that tonight’s date was just pizza and conversation, but it hadn’t been. It had been a test. To see if he could sit across from an attractive woman and pretend that he was okay.

“Why now? Maybe he sees my leaving Philadelphia as a sign I’m moving on. He can’t let that happen.” Alec continued to examine the room, seeking subtle changes in the scene—a new twist—that might suggest that the killer was evolving.

Alec placed his hands in his pockets. For the first time in his career, they were shaking, not just with anger, but with fear, too. For the woman in the other room. He immediately closed out that line of thought, wouldn’t allow himself to go there quite yet.

“He needs to maintain control. Control is very important to him. You can see it in the precision of everything he does.” Alec checked out the top of the dresser, the room’s small bookshelf. “He tidied up in here. Dusted. Rearranged her books. Probably went through them. He’d want to know everything he could about her.” Not because he was interested in her, but because he wanted to know what had drawn Alec to her.

“How can you know that?” Martinez asked, his voice filled with skepticism.

Alec swung his gaze to the man briefly. “Because the mantel in the living room hasn’t been dusted recently. The end table showed signs that someone attempted to swipe away the worst of it with a hand, but didn’t shift the lamp aside to be thorough—probably Katie when she got home tonight. Books are piled on the end of the sofa. The ones that fell onto the floor have been left there.”

Alec closed his eyes in an attempt to stave off the headache building behind his right eye. “Living rooms are usually kept ready for company, but our bedrooms, that’s where we can be ourselves. We can toss the magazine we’ve been reading in bed onto the floor, get up in the morning and step over it and never concern ourselves with the possibility that we’re slobs.” Several magazines were neatly stacked on the corner of the nightstand.

“And Katie?” Jack asked. “A waitress in a restaurant where you have breakfast? Why choose her?”

Alec thought back. “It’s been suggested that I observe Katie more than other people. A few, including you, Jack, took it to mean that I had a romantic interest in her. Perhaps the UNSUB saw the same thing.”

“He’d have to be damn close in order to do that,” Jack said. There was a grimness in both the words and his tone.

Alec suspected his brother wasn’t just thinking about tonight’s assault. Jack was thinking about the monster who walked among them. What it meant for Deep Water.

Turning, Alec glanced at his brother first, and then Martinez. The look in the tech’s eyes was wary now.

Alec had known it would eventually get out, the people in Deep Water would learn who he was. And once they did, they would look at him differently. Just as his coworkers had treated him differently when he’d returned to duty two months after he’d buried Jill. They were comfortable looking at the dead; accustomed to facing a victim’s family. But when the victim was the spouse of one of their own? Well, that wasn’t so easy for them. It forced them to recognize that they weren’t any safer than the rest of the population. That their families were equally vulnerable. And if there was one thing no agent wanted to feel, it was pregnable.

“Any possibility it’s a copycat?” Martinez asked.

Alec shrugged. “The scene’s incomplete—no blood, no body—which leaves open the possibility of a copycat.”

“But you don’t think it is, do you?” Martinez asked.

“No. Even the best copycat killer usually makes a mistake with at least one of the props. The number of candles is the same, the brand of knife, the use of surgical tubing…”

CALMER NOW that she was alone, Katie set down the glass of water on the side table. What was it that the police chief wanted Alec to see in her bedroom? The candles?

She carefully tested her right cheek again, tracing the bone with only her fingertips. Yep. Still hurts. As did her neck and back and rib cage. And then there was her left knee. She flexed the joint to test it. Not as bad as it looked. Of course, come morning that might change.

Maybe Alec was right about the trip to the hospital. And after the hospital? What then? Where would she go?

She’d get a hotel room. There was no way she was staying in this house tonight or any other night. Maybe once the bruises faded, she’d fly out and see her parents, spend some time with them.

She was going to get her life back for real this time. Just as she had after her sister’s death. It had taken some time and had been tough, but she’d done it. She was strong. That’s what her father claimed. Karen may have been the bold one, but Katie was the one with the real strength in the family.

She glanced around the room. So why was she cowering here? Standing, Katie limped to the foyer entrance. She rubbed her arms compulsively, but it wasn’t because she was cold. It was just the adrenaline still kicking around her system.

The front door was closed, but a breeze poured in through the broken glass of the upper portion. The young cop assigned to guard it stood with his back to her and didn’t look in her direction.

She got as far as the kitchen before stopping. Glancing inside, she saw that the back door had been closed, but the chair she’d used to break the glass in the upper portion still hung there, two legs inside, two outside. She allowed her gaze to take in the rest of the room slowly. Streaks of red ran down the front of the painted cabinets. Wine, but for a brief moment it almost looked like blood.

For as long as she could, Katie fought the urge to glance over her shoulder, then, when the small hairs at the back of her neck had climbed to attention once more, she gave in to the need. Of course, she was the only one in the room. Drawing a cleansing breath, she decided that she had every right to be nervous. That it was a perfectly normal response to what she’d been through.

The sound and strobe of a camera flash prodded her back into the hallway and toward her bedroom. What was it that they were doing in there? How many photos could you take of candles? And then it occurred to her that maybe her attacker had come in through her bedroom window.

The scent of candle wax lingered still, a second one accompanied it. Something sweet. She frowned. Perfume? Flowers?

Another flare of light. She could see Martinez now, just inside the door, the camera aimed toward her bed. He wasn’t talking, but she could hear the low murmurs of Alec and his brother. Martinez looked up when she was still five feet from the opening.

He lowered the camera. “Ma’am? You shouldn’t—”

“What is it?”

She hadn’t been able to see Alec from the hallway, but he managed to head her off before she could get to the door. He caught her by the shoulders and forced her backward, away from the door. His grip on her was firm but gentle. When their gazes met, she saw compassion in his eyes. She’d seen the same compassion two months ago in the eyes of the police officer who’d given her the news that the assault charges against Carlos were being dropped.

She tried to look past Alec’s shoulder. Martinez was still taking pictures. What had happened in her bedroom?

She forced her gaze to meet his again. He looked troubled, the lines in his handsome face more pronounced. “It would be best if you waited in the living room.”

“Best? This is my home.” She tried to push past him again, but he blocked her. This time when their gazes met, the look in his eyes was cool, remote. Professional. Just like the cop two months ago when he’d explained how restraining orders rarely worked, that a self-defense course and a thirty-eight would be more effective when it came to protecting herself. She’d taken the course, but had refused to buy a gun.

“You shouldn’t go in there, Katie. You have to trust me on that.”

“Why? What’s in there? What could be any worse than what has already happened to me tonight?” Even as she said it, she knew she wasn’t being rational. If they were trying to keep her out, there was a reason. And that reason was that they didn’t think she was strong enough to handle it.

She lifted her chin. “I’m not some weak female. If I was, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be huddled out there on that couch where you left me.” Raising her hands, breaking his hold on her, she backed away from him, and he let her go. “I’ve had a bad time of it. I admit that. But I’m strong enough to face whatever is in that room.”

Though he continued to block her way, he suddenly looked very tired. Worried.

“Whatever is in there, Alec, can’t be any worse than what’s going through my mind right now.”

His jaw hardened and the look in his eyes became one of unwilling acceptance. He wasn’t happy about her insistence, but he would comply. “Are you sure, Katie? Really sure?”

“Yes.” But she wasn’t.

As Alec started to step past his brother, Jack stopped him. “She’s been through an awful lot already.”

“I know. But daylight won’t make it any easier. It doesn’t end for her here tonight. It’s just the beginning.”

Those confusing words echoed in her mind as she forced herself to take the final step.

The white candles were the first thing she saw—not the one or two she’d expected, but too many to count—and then the rose petals, splotches of blood spattered across snow. Katie backed away a half step. She didn’t own white sheets. Had never owned a set. Which meant… Suddenly, she registered the plastic tubing tied to the headboard.

The trembling started deep inside. She hugged herself, her fingers digging into her arms. Images slammed through her. She was afraid to close her eyes, afraid if she did, she’d hear his voice again, calling her Katydid. Telling her that she was going to die.

Her knees weakened beneath her. She was shaking her head slowly, as if in denial. She should have listened! Why hadn’t she listened? As she turned to run, Alec caught her. Intent on escape, she shoved at his chest with her forearms, but he held on.

“Get out of my way!”

Instead of doing as she asked, he tightened his hold.

“I can’t,” he said softly, his voice raw with regret.

Not I won’t, but I can’t.

Suddenly she was holding on to him as she had in the kitchen, her fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, and then releasing their hold. Over and over and over again. As they had earlier, after several seconds, his arms tightened around her, and she found herself locked against his hard body, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

But all she could think about was the room behind her. How if Alec hadn’t asked her out tonight, or had been running late, she might be already dead.

“Come on.” He helped her out to the living room, sat her back down on the couch. The last time he’d sat her here, she’d thought her problems couldn’t get any worse. She’d been wrong.

When he passed it to her, she numbly took the freshly filled water glass, but just held it in her hands, rotating it as if she were suddenly blind and searching desperately for a Braille message on its surface. Some answer as to why this was happening to her.

How had she managed to get herself mixed up with a man like Carlos Bricker? She was cautious where people were concerned—especially since Karen’s death—and her instincts were usually pretty good. So how had Carlos managed to fool her so completely?

And more importantly, why hadn’t he come himself? If he hated her that much, why send someone? She thought she knew why, though. If she turned up dead, Carlos was bound to be a prime suspect. But then again, his new girlfriend might be willing to give him an alibi for the attempted assault of his ex-girlfriend. Carlos could be very charming and persuasive; he could easily convince the new girlfriend that the ex was just out to get him. But when it came to a murder charge, she might not be so willing to provide an alibi. Because new girlfriends eventually became ex-girlfriends. And what went around came around.

She didn’t look up when Alec sat in the chair facing her. She’d told him she was tough. That she could take whatever was in that room. Well, she wasn’t quite that strong.

Katie rubbed her forehead as if the action could erase what she’d seen. It wouldn’t. She suspected she’d be seeing that room in her nightmares for many years to come. Maybe for the rest of her life.

“How much money does it take to buy…to buy someone to do this?” She rotated the glass faster now. It was a stupid question really, but she still found herself wondering what it had cost the creep. Recently, he’d had money problems, so maybe he had even sold some of her paintings to pay for the hit on her.

“Your ex-boyfriend has nothing to do with what happened here tonight.”

It took a second for his words to sink in. When they did, she raised her gaze to his for the second time in seconds. “What are you saying?”

“This nickname. Katydid. Is there anything in your bedroom that has that written on it? The back of a photo? Inscribed on something in your jewelry box? In a book?”

She looked down at her hands, at the dried blood beneath her nails and at the sterling ring on her right hand. She fingered the band. Her sister had given it to her only weeks before her death. The inside was inscribed: To Katydid, My better half. It was the only piece of jewelry she owned with an inscription, and she never removed it.

“Maybe the back of a photo.” She tightened her grip on her hands. “But I don’t understand… Who else would want to harm me?” And then she saw it in Alec’s eyes. “You know who it is? Who did that to my room?” How was that possible?

“Yes.” He was composed. Too composed. Guarded.

“But how can you know who it is?”

Exhaling sharply, he looked away. When he looked back, his expression was even grimmer. “Eleven months ago, while I was still with the Bureau, I came home after two weeks on the road and found my wife murdered. Our bedroom looked exactly like yours does tonight.”

What was he saying? That the man who had killed his wife wanted to kill her? But why? That made no sense. She was shaking with the effort not to cry. Her fingers curled into her arms as she continued to fight for control.

“Why? Why would he come here to kill me?” Of course, she could guess.

Still seated in the chair facing her, Alec held his face in his hands for several seconds, and then, letting out a harsh breath, looked at her again.

Jack walked in at that moment and placed her jewelry box on the coffee table. The box wasn’t the department store variety, but a hand-painted wooden one done by an artist friend. A small chameleon peeked out from beneath the huge red hibiscus bloom covering the top. Now the outside of the box was covered in what looked like copier toner.

Alec slipped on latex gloves before lifting the lid with the end of a pen.

There was a small wad of tip money on top. Probably seventy or eighty dollars at most. He carefully lifted it by the edges and placed it in a plastic bag.

He looked at her. “I need you to go through and tell me if anything is missing.”

Still reeling from what he’d told her, she took the ballpoint he passed. Her fingers were shaking, but with some effort, she managed to steady them.

She had very few pieces of expensive jewelry. An aquamarine ring her parents had given her for her sixteenth, the expensive watch she’d purchased when one of her paintings had finally brought more than a thousand dollars, the gold bracelet her dad had surprised both Katie and her mom with on Valentine’s Day two years before.

She lined them up next to the box. The only other worthwhile piece was the locket. It was usually tangled up in the bird nest at the bottom of the box. She rooted around. When was the last time she’d seen it? She’d worn the gold bracelet last week and the necklace had been here then. She could feel the pressure building in her chest, the sense of her confusion spreading. It had to be here.

In desperation, she used the pen to lift out the wad of cheap necklaces and bracelets. The jewelry landed noisily on the table next to the box.

“Katie?”

“It has to be here!”

“What has to be?”

Calm down. “A locket. It belonged to my grandmother.”

“Any chance you mislaid it?”

“No.” She shook her head. She could feel her palms begin to go clammy. “I only wear it when I get dressed up, and I haven’t since I came here.” She’d planned to wear it tonight. On their date.

Why the locket and not the more valuable bracelet? How could her attacker have known which item meant the most to her?

She lifted her gaze to meet Alec’s. “Was there something… Did he take a piece of your wife’s jewelry?”

Alec nodded.

Chief Blade had been standing near the fireplace, but now broke in. “Maybe you should let me take things from here, Alec,” he said quietly. He sat on the opposite end of the couch. “I think at this point the best thing we can do is find you someplace safe. Is there someone you can stay with? Family? Friends?”

She hadn’t wanted her parents to see her bruised up. Hadn’t wanted to worry them. But given the situation, did she have a choice? She could stay with friends, but that would mean returning to Miami. And even if Carlos hadn’t hired someone to kill her, she wasn’t ready to chance running into him quite yet.

“My parents are out west. They’re in a motor home. Arizona, Utah—I don’t know where exactly because they’ve been moving around a lot. I suppose I could go out and…”

Alec interrupted. “He’ll just follow.”

Jack shot a look at his brother. “But if he doesn’t know where she is—”

Alec cut him off. “How long do you think it will take him to find out? You’ll just be putting additional people at risk.”

Katie looked at both men. “I won’t do anything that puts my parents or anyone in danger.”

“Okay.” Chief Blade glanced at Alec. “What do you suggest, then?”

“Twenty-four hour protection in a safe house.”

“For how long?”

Irritation flashed in Alec’s face, and his jaw hardened. “For as long as it takes.”

“Hell, Alec, we’re a small force. We don’t have the budget to cover that type of protection. The best move is to get her out of town.”

Alec rubbed the back of his neck. “There is no place safe.” Alec took a deep breath in an obvious effort to hold on to his temper. “This isn’t about Katie. It’s about control. Of me. If he lets her get away, he’ll have lost control. He can’t allow that to happen.”

She’d been numbly listening, but now stood on shaky legs. “I still…I still don’t understand. Why me?” She realized just how weak and whiny the question sounded, but she was beyond caring.

“Because,” Alec said, “he believes I have a romantic interest in you.”

“That’s ridiculous. We haven’t even gone out on a date.”

“Very true. But that wasn’t what it looked like two weeks ago when I had forgotten my wallet and you covered my breakfast check.”

“And you came back an hour later with money and daisies,” she added. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her.

Chief Blade looked at Martinez, who had just shown up at the foyer door. “I’m through in the bedroom. Now might be a good time to get the fingernail clippings and scrapings for DNA testing. And then we’ll let you go change out of what you’re wearing.”

Martinez made quick work of obtaining the samples while the other men watched. Standing, he again picked up his case. “I’ll go get started on the kitchen.”

Martinez started to turn away, and then stopped. “If you’re looking for a safe house, I just moved into a new place. Last owner was a security freak. This guy wouldn’t have any reason to look for her out there.”

The police chief seemed to consider the suggestion. “Okay. Perkins, Jamison and Thompson are backups. I want all four of you staying out there. At least for tonight.”

IT WAS WELL AFTER one in the morning when Alec and Jack sat down in Jack’s office. Deep Water’s police department, which was composed of nineteen commissioned officers and six non-com support staff, had recently moved into a renovated building, dating back to the turn of the century.

When most towns in Central Florida’s Cougar County were plowing down the buildings that reflected their mediocre start, Deep Water had embraced its heritage of cattle barons and citrus kings. Buildings that had been ready to fall down were shored up, restored. Layers of asphalt were removed from downtown streets to reveal the worn but beautiful bricks beneath.

The Big Freeze of 1895 had run off most of the citrus industry, but even today, cattle grazed on much of the land outside the city limits. The feed store, which still occupied a prime chunk of ground at the center of town, maintained a hitching rail, and it wasn’t unusual to see a cow pony tied there early in the morning.

A modern town with grace and integrity. And now a monster.

Alec slumped back in the chair, and, resting his head against the wall, closed his eyes. Without aspirin, the headache had gotten worse. A good night’s sleep usually took care of it, but he doubted he’d be getting one of those anytime soon.

He’d already supplied his fingerprints for comparison to those found in the house, as had Katie.

Jack propped his elbows on the desk. “I’ll send an officer around to get elimination fingerprints from the landlord. The evidence will go to the lab in the morning. Including the shoe cast.”

A fairly clear footprint had been found just outside the kitchen door. But even if it belonged to Katie’s attacker, it would have little value until they had a suspect in custody.

Deep Water didn’t have a laboratory of its own, so the evidence would be sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s lab in Daytona Beach for analysis. Alec didn’t expect them to come back with anything useful. This wasn’t the kind of killer who made mistakes.

“I should have seen this coming,” he said quietly. “I should have recognized the probability Jill’s killer would follow me to Deep Water. Nothing but damned arrogance on my part.”

“You always were arrogant. Even in high school and college. It’s what made you good.” Jack studied him. “As far as the rest, we all make mistakes.”

Alec scrubbed his face. “Not the kind that cost women their lives.”

Jack popped open a can of iced tea. After several long swallows, he set it aside. “But she’s okay. We just need to figure out how to keep her that way.” Jack stirred the dish of hard candies on the credenza behind him. He’d quit smoking several months ago, and now satisfied his oral fixation with cherry drops.

Jack tossed the wrapper toward the trash can. “With that in mind, maybe it’s time we start being honest with each other.”

“I wasn’t aware that we weren’t.”

“You’re right. It’s not really a matter of honesty, is it? It’s more a matter of letting it all hang out. Saying not only the easy things, but also the hard ones. We’ve never done that. We Blades aren’t really made that way, are we?”

“No,” Alec agreed. “Maybe you should tell me what it is you want me to be honest about.”

Jack leaned forward. “Is there another reason you might want to keep Katie in town?”

“Keeping her alive would seem like a good enough reason for most people.”

Jack nodded. “Yes, it would. But so does nailing the man who murdered Jill.”

“What are you talking about?” But he knew.

“It’s been eleven months, Alec. And we both know the stats. The longer a homicide goes unsolved, the less likely charges will be brought.” Rising, he paced to the window. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. You’re not so much tormented by Jill’s death as you are by the possibility that you may never catch this guy. You’ve helped put hundreds of his kind behind bars, but you can’t get this one. It eats you up inside. So much so that you might be willing to grab on to anything to turn the odds in your favor.”

Jack faced him. “And then suddenly you have it. Bait.”

Alec’s right hand curled into a fist over the arm chair. “You’re right. All of what you’ve said is true. Even the fact that I’m desperate enough to use any advantage. But do you really think I would place an innocent woman at risk?”

When his brother remained silent, Alec had his answer. “Well, you’re wrong. I have one woman’s death on my conscience. I couldn’t handle a second. And maybe you need to ask yourself how well you’re going to sleep if you cut her loose and he does go after her. If she winds up dead. Who would be the cold SOB then?”

Alec got to his feet. “Katie Carroll is in extreme danger. Get another opinion. Call Seth Killian. He’ll tell you the same thing. You fail to give her protection, and you might as well stake her to the ground like a sacrificial lamb.”

Jack looked up at his brother. “Call Seth? Your friend at the FBI? I guess I should trust his opinion. After all you two are tighter than brothers.”

Alec knew he should never have brought up Seth’s name. “Call whoever you want, just don’t put her on the next bus out of here without consulting someone else first.”

Jack studied him. “You’re that sure?”

“Yes.” Alec nodded. “I’m that sure.”