Chapter Six
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Katrina demanded, her sharp voice showing her worry. “I mean...the killer took you, Casey. He took you.”
Her hold tightened on the phone. Josh had brought the phone to her a few moments before, and then he’d urged her to be very, very careful with the facts she shared with her friend. He’d also told Casey that she wouldn’t be getting her own phone back anytime soon—it had been bagged as evidence at her hotel.
As soon as he’d slipped out to go and join his FBI buddy again, she’d been calling Katrina. “I’m okay. I promise. Nothing that won’t heal.”
“Where are you? The FBI has been giving me some bull story about you being in protective custody—”
“It’s not bull.” She turned and glanced at the closed door. “I’m in a safe house, for the moment.”
“What?”
That cry nearly split Casey’s eardrum. “It’s just temporary, okay? Agent Duvane got me out of the hospital and brought me here so I could rest. I think my hotel room is still crime scene central—”
“Tom moved us out of that hotel,” Katrina said quickly. “We all have rooms at a new place. Way better security, I promise. So you don’t need to stay with the FBI. You can come over here. Tom is right next door, and seriously, the guy is about to go out of his head. He wants to talk to you. You know, I don’t think he’s over that crush he had on you—”
“Tom doesn’t have a crush on me. Tom just wants a story. A big story. Having his reporter escape death is going to give him huge ratings, and he knows it.” Ratings on TV. Hits on the web. Everything a producer could desire. “But tell him he has to wait. The FBI said I couldn’t talk to the media yet.”
“You are the media.”
“And I’m the victim.” She dropped onto the edge of the bed. The mattress sagged a bit beneath her. “They’ve got me talking to some kind of profiler now.” Though profiler wouldn’t be his technical term. Profilers didn’t actually exist in the FBI. The guy—Tucker Frost—she figured he was working for the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
A man who understood killers.
With what she knew of Tucker’s past, she figured he would understand them very, very well.
“Is that her?” A man’s voice sounded in the background and she knew Tom had come into Katrina’s room. Not surprising, really, since she knew Katrina and Tom hooked up frequently. And yet another reason why the man is not interested in me at all.
“Let me talk to Casey,” Tom continued.
Casey’s heels kicked against the side of the bed as she swung her feet and waited.
“Casey,” his deep voice boomed over the line. “Tell me where you are and I will come get you right now.”
“That’s not an option, Tom. I’m at a safe house. Places like this stay safe because you don’t tell people where they are.”
“Casey...you’re the lead story on every television in the US right now. You have to give me something. Tell me about the man who took you. Tell me what he looked like. What he said. Tell me—”
Her bedroom door opened. Josh seemed to fill the doorway.
“Casey?” Tom called in her ear. “Say something! I need something—”
“I’m okay, Tom. I survived.” Her words sounded brittle even to her own ears. “Thanks for worrying.”
“Wait, I do worry, I—”
Josh closed the door behind him and paced toward her. “End the call, Casey.”
Had he been eavesdropping on her? That was such a terrible habit. She couldn’t look away from him. “Got to go, Tom. I’ll check in again soon.”
“But I need a quote—”
Her fingers swiped over the screen, ending the call.
Josh stood just over her. His gaze seemed hooded as he stared at her. She tipped back her head, looking up at him. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell Tom or Katrina anything about this place.” She glanced around the room. “I left out the fact that I was staying in the lap of luxury.” She tossed the phone onto the bed beside her. “I just assured my friends that I was still in the land of the living.”
His jaw hardened. “How’s the head?”
“It—” She started to lie and say that it was perfectly fine, but there was just something about his gaze. So deep and dark. “It aches.”
His hand lifted and his fingers feathered over her temple. “You should have stayed in the hospital.”
She immediately tensed. “No, that was the last place I wanted to be.”
He studied her a moment in silence, then turned on his heel and headed into the bathroom. A moment later, he was back, carrying a cloth that he put to her forehead, then swept over her temple. It was a cool, soft cloth, and it immediately made her feel better.
“Any blurred vision? Nausea?”
“Nothing. Just an aching head...because it collided too hard with a wall.”
He slid the cloth over her temple again in a gentle caress. “I—I didn’t expect gentleness from you.”
“What did you expect?”
“Danger. Arrogance. Maybe some adrenaline-junkie personality traits.”
“Just because I was a SEAL, it doesn’t mean I was addicted to the high of battle.”
No, it didn’t. “Why were you a SEAL?”
He still towered over her, but, after a moment of silence, Josh moved to sit on the bed beside her, and suddenly, it was harder to breathe. Maybe because every breath brought her his rich, masculine scent.
“My father was a navy man, spent his whole life serving. When I was a kid, I bounced around, living all over the world as we headed to new bases. My mom and I—she always said it was an adventure. I liked that adventure.”
Wanderlust...that was why he’d been a SEAL? No, she didn’t buy it. “There’s more to your story.”
His lips twisted in a faint smile. “Going to feature me on your show? Trying to figure me out?”
“Not everything is about the show.” She pushed away the cloth and her fingers tangled with his. Whenever they touched, she felt that contact straight to her soul. Crazy. Ridiculous. Just a product of her overwrought emotions.
Except...even before her attack, when he’d taken her on that motorcycle ride, his touch had burned straight to her soul.
“You want to know about me?” His faint smile stayed in place. “Well, I want to know about you, Casey Quinn. How about we trade secrets? I’ll tell you my past, and you tell me yours.”
Her hand lowered. Their fingers stayed intertwined. She couldn’t look away from the sight of them. “You’re going to dig into my past, anyway. You think I don’t know that? Your buddy Tucker is probably already calling the FBI. He’s telling them to pull up every single file they can find on Cassandra, AKA Casey, Quinn.” She leaned toward him, putting her lips right next to his ear. “But here’s the first secret, Josh. He won’t find anything on Casey.” Her lips brushed his ear. A deliberate move on her part. She was feeling too much—and her normal control wasn’t in place. She was playing a dangerous game with him because playing made her feel alive. And she wanted to be alive.
She’d come too close to death.
“Why not? Why won’t we find you?”
Was it her imagination or had his voice gone deeper? Darker?
“Because Casey Quinn didn’t exist until seven years ago.” When she’d turned eighteen, Casey had been born. Once more, her lips brushed against his ear. “I’m not real.” Her secret, the truth she held so close, but she knew he’d find out. And it almost felt good to have her cards on the table. To not pretend, for once.
“If you’re not Casey—” his voice was a little more than a growl now “—then who are you?”
Her heart ached as she trailed her finger down the column of his neck. “I’m the girl who should have died. Everyone else died, but I didn’t.”
His head turned toward her. His gaze blazed. “Casey—”
“Your turn.” She had to force those words out. “No more from me. Tell me a truth, and don’t say you’re a former SEAL because you liked traveling to new places. I won’t buy that. Do better.”
“Fine.” The word was nearly a snarl. “I’m good at hunting. A damn deadly weapon.”
She shook her head. “Lie.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that you’re very good at hunting, and I’m sure you’re a perfectly timed killing machine when the need arises, but that’s still not the reason you were a SEAL.” Her heart pounded hard in her chest. “Have I told you...I’m good at seeing lies? You can see lies in the way a person’s eyes change.” Her hand lifted and her fingers feathered near the corner of his eye. “When you look away from me or when you focus just beyond my gaze...dead giveaway.” Her hand dropped to his chest. “When your breath comes faster, when your heart pounds...I can see the lie. I’ve interviewed hundreds of witnesses in my time. I had to know who was telling me the truth, and who was just trying to lie to me.”
“I’m a federal agent. I know how to control my responses. You don’t see anything when I lie—”
“Got you,” she whispered.
A furrow appeared between his heavy brows.
“You just confessed. You are lying. And here I was, telling you the truth.” Disappointment rushed through her. “If this is going to work, I need you to be honest with me.”
He edged ever closer to her. “And you’ll be honest with me?”
She had been, so far.
“I wanted to make a difference. Be all I could be...just like my old man. When I got out there in the field, I found out that I did like the job. I liked the rush. But I was away on a mission when my mother and my father both died in a robbery. Some jerk held them up at gunpoint, stole one hundred dollars from my father. One hundred dollars. Like that’s worth someone’s life. He shot my father, and he shot my mother, and when I came home, all I had waiting for me were two coffins.”
Her hand wrapped around his. “I’m sorry.”
“Tucker is the one who came to me then. Telling me my skills could be put to use. Telling me there was a way to help right here at home. My family was gone, and I didn’t want to ship out again. So I listened. I became part of the FBI and found my way to USERT.” His lips twisted. “The water has always been part of me, so using my skills there again, yeah, I liked that.”
He’d shared more secrets than she’d expected. “I’m sorry about your parents.” She knew just how deep of a blow losing them must have been. “I...lost mine, too. When I was seventeen.” Just a month away from my eighteenth birthday.
“What happened?”
It was better to tell him now, so he could hear her side, and not just read the cold facts on a computer screen later. “Sometimes, people can’t let you go.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I had a boyfriend back then. Smart, super smart guy. And intense. But he...he started planning out my life for me. Our life. Only it wasn’t a life I wanted. I had my own plans. A different college that I wanted to attend. A whole different life that waited for me.” She pulled in a slow breath that seemed to chill her lungs. “Benjamin didn’t understand that. He thought someone else was pressuring me. That my parents were trying to pull us apart.”
“Casey...”
“So one night, he broke into my house and he killed them.”
She saw the shock flash on his face.
“I heard the gunshots and that was what woke me up. I ran downstairs and found them, and he was still standing over them. He smiled at me and lifted his hand up, telling me that it was time for us to go.”
His eyes had widened. “What did you do?”
“My mother was still alive. I could see her breathing. I ran to her and I screamed for him to get away. I put my hands on her chest, trying to stop that blood from pumping out of her.” She lifted her hand away from him. Sometimes, she could swear that she still saw blood on her. “He grabbed me, yanked me up. Told me we were leaving.”
The room was so quiet.
“I wasn’t going to leave them. I told him that...and he put the gun to my head.”
His hands flew up and curled around her shoulders. “Casey.”
That hadn’t been her name, not back then. Back then, she’d been Cassidy.
Cassidy, I did this for you! All for you! We can have everything now! We can be together now!
“He said if I didn’t leave with him, he was going to kill me.”
Josh’s fingers bit into her skin.
“I knew he meant those words, too. We’d been dating for six months, and I’d never seen him for what he really was, not until that terrible night. He was going to kill me. My mom couldn’t even pull in a full breath. Her blood was everywhere. My dad was gone, and if I didn’t walk out of that house with Benjamin, I was going to die, too.” Her voice was brittle, as if she were on the verge of breaking. She wasn’t, though. She hadn’t broken back then...
I won’t break now.
“The neighbors must have heard the gunshots. The police came swarming up just as we stepped outside. Benjamin fired at them and I ran...”
She could never forget that night.
“I felt the bullet hit me in the back. I slammed down into the ground. I tried to look back and I saw that Benjamin was getting ready to shoot at me again. He was aiming for me. He wasn’t letting me go.”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“But the cops fired—they kept firing until they took him down. Benjamin died on my front porch.”
Josh’s face seemed carved from granite. A hard, stone mask, but his eyes blazed with emotion.
“I stayed in the hospital afterward. I was lucky—the bullet had missed my spine. Lucky... I was alive and everyone else was gone. I stayed in the hospital, and I hated that place. I hated what had become of my life.” Just as she’d hated Benjamin. It was easy to hate the dead.
“No wonder you wanted out of the hospital.”
Her lips twisted. “And that’s the same reason I don’t have any current lovers to give your FBI buddy. I don’t trust easy. Relationships aren’t really my thing.”
“Victims are.” His fingers stroked down her arms. “That’s why you’re a reporter, isn’t it? You’re doing the profiles on the victims in your stories.”
“I try to make sure they get the justice they need.” Because there had been no justice for her—her family had just been gone. “I changed my name because I wanted to put the past behind me. I’d always wanted to be a reporter, and I wasn’t going to let him take that from me. But I didn’t want everyone seeing me as the victim. I didn’t want it to be about me. I didn’t...” Her breath expelled on a sigh. “I didn’t want to be the story.”
But she was. Again.
His touch was so careful on her skin. “I had you all wrong.”
She swallowed. “You mean...when you called me a vulture?”
“Did I apologize for that yet?” Josh winced. “Because I am sorry. And I think we need to start over. Way over.”
But Casey shook her head. “I don’t want to do that. You’re the guy who came rushing to my rescue. I’m not forgetting that.”
“Bull. You saved yourself.”
“I won’t be destroyed again.” When you had nothing left, you learned to fight. She’d learned and she would never forget.
His hand slid under her chin. “I don’t think anything can destroy you.”
He had no clue. When she’d been in that hospital, everyone else gone, she’d felt utterly destroyed. The machines had beeped around her, the nurses had slipped in and out of her room, and she’d felt like a ghost. Everything had been surreal. And the days had just passed—the world had kept going—while she was alone in her bed.
His face was so close to hers. Their lips were close. She’d just bared her soul to him. But it was better that way, right? Better for her to tell him instead of him reading those dark details without her in some neat little file at the FBI. “It’s your turn.” Her voice had grown husky. “You have to tell me something...”
“I want you.”
Her eyes widened. That was not what she’d expected.
“I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I know I should be keeping my hands off you.”
His hands weren’t off. They were on.
“You need comfort right now. You need sympathy. You need care.”
Maybe what I need...is you.
She’d had too much sympathy. Didn’t he get that? She’d changed her name, changed everything so that she could be stronger. So people would stop looking at her with pity in their eyes.
“I’m not an easy guy, Casey.”
No, she didn’t think he was.
“I like danger. I take risks. Emotions haven’t been a big part of my life. Usually, when I see something I want, I go after it.”
And he wanted her.
But he wasn’t moving. A few more inches, and his mouth would be on hers. He was staring at her with his intense gaze. She licked her lips. His stare heated even more. “Why...why aren’t you kissing me?” Casey asked.
His pupils seemed to double in size as the darkness spread in his stare. His nostrils flared. “Because I’m trying to be different...with you. You deserve different.”
He let her go. He stood up. Headed for the door.
That was it? He was...leaving?
“I don’t want pity from you.” She rose to her feet. Her hands fisted at her sides. “I told you my story because I knew you’d figure out the truth. But now you’re acting like I’m different. You’re acting like—”
“You matter.” His back was to her. His words came out sounding rough. “So I’m trying not to mess this up. I didn’t expect you.” He looked back at her. “But I’m trying to do this right. You confessed your darkest pain to me, and I’m not going to pounce on you. I’m going to give you space. I’m going to give you whatever you need—”
Because he was a protector, straight to his core. Did he even get that? She’d asked why he’d been a SEAL, why he’d joined the FBI...and the truth was right there.
To protect.
She closed the distance between them and put her hand on his shoulder. “Neither one of us has exactly had an easy life.” But no one was guaranteed easy. “Sometimes right doesn’t matter. Sometimes there isn’t a wrong.” In that moment, there was only one thing she wanted. “Kiss me.”
A muscle flexed along the hard line of his jaw. “Casey...”
“If I’m really what you want, then kiss—”
He pulled her into his arms. His mouth took hers. She’d expected some passion. Some excitement. What she didn’t expect was the absolute explosion of feeling that she experienced when his mouth took hers.
The kiss rocked Casey straight to her core. Every cell in her body seemed to ignite. Her hands grabbed on to his arms, her nails sank into his shirt and she pulled him closer. He’d crushed her to his body, and his hard strength pressed against her. He kissed her with a hunger that she couldn’t deny, with a need that called to her. Her lips parted even more for him, and his tongue thrust into her mouth. She moaned and her body rubbed against his. Her skin felt so sensitive, primed, and the way the man kissed...
His mouth pulled from hers. She immediately bit back a protest.
“I...shouldn’t have done that.”
No, he should have done a whole lot more.
“My job is to keep you safe.” He stepped back and let her go.
She stared at him. Her heart was racing. Her breath came in quick pants.
His heated stare swept over her. “But I’m not apologizing.”
Good. She hadn’t asked for an apology.
“And it’s probably going to happen again.”
Probably? “Count on it,” she said.
His lips kicked into a half smile. “But it will not happen until your twenty-four-hour concussion watch is over.”
“Josh—”
He held up a hand, stopping her when she stepped toward him. “I don’t think you understand how much I want you.” His smile vanished. “And how fragile my control is where you’re concerned.”
She could still taste him.
“Stay in here and relax a while,” he said. “I need to...talk a few things over with Tucker.”
Translation—he needed to go and tell Tucker about her past. Some of that wonderful warmth she’d felt faded.
“Benjamin is dead,” she said quietly. “He was an only child. His mother passed away last year, and his father—he died a few years ago. There is no one in his family who would be seeking any kind of crazed vengeance against me.” Her shoulders straightened. “And there is no one that I’ve let get close since then.”
“I guess that depends on your definition of close.”
She wasn’t sure she followed.
“For some guys, it’s all about the fantasy. You don’t realize you’re starring in that fantasy until it’s too late.” He reached for the doorknob. “I’ll be right outside if you need me, okay? I have to talk with Tucker and check in with the rest of the team.” His gaze slid to the phone on the bed. “No more phone calls, okay? Not today.”
Then he was gone. Maybe she should have felt like a prisoner, locked away but...she felt safe—for the moment, anyway.
*
HE’D MISREAD CASEY. Totally judged her wrong. He’d let his past interactions with reporters get to him, and Josh hadn’t seen her for the woman she was.
His blinders were off. He saw her now. He always would.
He marched back into the den.
Tucker was tapping away at his laptop, but when he saw Josh, he put down the computer and raised his brows. “How’d that chat go?”
“Her past isn’t pretty.” Talk about an understatement. “But it might be a lead we can use.” He headed toward Tucker. There were a few details about the recent murders that hadn’t made it to the press. A deliberate move.
“She’s linked, just like the other victims,” he said, making sure to keep his voice low. “She was the victim of a violent crime, too.”
Tucker’s jaw hardened. “He definitely has a victim type, doesn’t he?”
Yes, he did... The perp liked a survivor. The first victim, Kylie Shane, had been attacked when she was sixteen years old. She’d been stabbed twice, but had managed to get away from her attacker. During the exam of her body, the ME had found those old scars.
The second victim, Bridget Donaldson, had been the victim of a hit and run when she’d been just fifteen. She’d been walking home from school and the driver hadn’t even slowed when he hit her. Bridget had spent four weeks in the hospital. But she’d survived.
Just as Kylie had survived.
And Tonya Myers? An arsonist had set her home on fire, while Tonya and her sister had been inside. The sister had died, but Tonya escaped. She’d suffered second-degree burns on her legs, but she’d survived.
As Casey had survived.
“Casey’s high school boyfriend killed her family and tried to kill her.” Rage boiled inside him, a hot blackness that wanted to consume Josh. “She even changed her name after the attack, tried to become someone new.”
Tucker’s gaze was considering. “But our perp found out her secrets.”
Tell me all of your secrets.
Tucker tapped his hand on the side of the couch. “It’s not just about the victims being attractive women in their twenties, not about them being outsiders. These women were survivors.”
“Were,” Josh pointed out darkly. Because that was the point to note. “They survived until he got hold of them.” And then the killer had made sure that they didn’t escape death. He’d made so sure...he’d given Kylie, Bridget and Tonya a watery grave.
No escape.
“Your Casey survived,” Tucker noted.
She isn’t mine. But he wished that she were.
Tucker’s face became grim. “He isn’t going to let her walk away. If he’s choosing these women specifically because of their past, he isn’t going to find an easy replacement for Casey. And her escaping him...he’ll take it as a personal attack. She survived what he did to her. He can’t let that happen.”
“He’ll come after her again.” Even as he said it, Josh hated those words.
“Yes.” Tucker wasn’t the sugarcoating type. With his life, Josh knew he couldn’t be. Neither of them could be. “We have to be ready.”
They would be. Because Josh was not going to let Casey be hurt. He’d stand between her and any threat that came.