DARK CLOUDS WERE ROLLING IN WHEN GABE returned to the condo. The cops and the FBI agents had worked for hours, painstakingly removing the bricks until they’d cleared the remains.
Bones wrapped in old clothing—a dress. A woman.
He shut the condo’s door behind him. Wade had just left the place—the guy had been keeping an eye on Eve, and Gabe knew Eve was pretty pissed about that fact. But after the way she’d reacted in that tunnel, he’d needed someone to keep watch on her.
He rubbed his jaw. Mental note. The woman has a killer right hook.
“Who is she?” Eve asked. She was standing in front of the balcony doors. Her hands were wrapped around her stomach. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He’d made arrangements for more clothes to be brought to her.
“Gabe.” Her voice snapped, and he realized he’d just been staring at her. “Who is she?”
“We don’t know.” That was true, so far. Because the woman’s remains were indicating that she’d been down in that fort for about ten years, but the other missing women—women they’d thought were the Lady Killer’s victims—hadn’t been missing that long. “Victoria is working on IDing her, and when it comes to this kind of thing, Victoria is the best.”
“How long was she down there?” Eve hadn’t moved from her position near the balcony’s doors.
This he could tell her. Victoria had already been able to make an estimation, based on the victim’s decomposition rate. “About ten years.”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s a long time.” She turned away. Glanced out the glass balcony doors. “A very long time to be locked up in the dark.”
He stepped toward her. The thick carpeting swallowed the sound of his footsteps. “Sarah thinks we may be looking at the guy’s first victim.”
Eve glanced back over her shoulder.
“He kept her away from the others. She was special. The first always is.” There was usually a trigger involved with the first kill, then, after the serial got a taste for the power that came with killing . . . there was no stopping him. “But with first kills, the perp can be sloppy. Disorganized. He hadn’t perfected his technique yet—”
Eve flinched.
Shit. She wasn’t a LOST agent. She was a victim. And he was screwing this up by being too clinical. “He may have made mistakes with her,” Gabe said carefully. “Left DNA on her. Left behind some clues that we can use to track him.”
Eve nodded.
“Finding that woman was key.”
Her gaze dropped. “I was in that tunnel before . . . I remember being there.”
Careful now, he advanced on her. “That’s why you took that swing at me.”
“I heard a man’s voice, he was telling me that it was time to play.” She turned back toward him. Eve licked her lips and again she wrapped her hands around her stomach. “He called me sweetheart and said that he’d been waiting for me.”
Another step brought him close enough to touch her, but he didn’t, not yet.
“He said . . . he said that it was all for me.” A faint furrow appeared between her golden brows. “And I hear his voice—over and over—a rasp in my head that won’t stop.”
“Do you recognize that voice? Does it sound like anyone you’ve met on the island?” He nearly held his breath as he waited for her response.
She shook her head. “No. I just . . . I can’t stop hearing him now. ‘It’s all for you.’ That’s what he said. ‘It’s all for you.’ ” Eve sucked in a deep breath of air. “Those women who died—the other victims were all blondes with green eyes. Just. Like. Me.”
He knew where she was going with this. “Eve . . .”
“I thought I was just another victim. Unlucky enough to look like the others.” When her gaze lifted to meet his, there was no missing the guilt in her eyes. “But what if all of those women were unlucky enough to look like me? What if they all died because they reminded him of me?”
“Eve, that’s not likely.” He had to touch her. He kept his touch light as he grasped her shoulders. “If Victoria is right and the guy killed the first victim on the island ten years ago, then you would have just been a teenager—”
“Jessica Montgomery’s birthday is April second. If I’m her . . . I—I . . . I would have been sixteen then.”
“You fit his pattern,” he told her, because that was obvious. “But you didn’t cause him to kill anyone.”
“I’m not so sure of that.” Her voice was a stark whisper. “He was playing a game, and he said . . . he said he’d been waiting on me.”
ALEXA WAS STARING at him.
Not screaming. Not begging. Just staring. He smiled at her, loving the stillness that surrounded her.
His hand went to her wrist and he carefully removed her bracelet. It was so like Jessica’s. They both must love diamonds. Diamonds had always looked so lovely against Jessica’s skin.
“You don’t mind if I take this, do you?”
Her eyes kept staring at him.
“Don’t worry. I’ll give you another one to replace it.” Because he needed Jessica to understand what was happening. She had to realize who she was and why she mattered so very much.
He pulled the second bracelet from his pocket. Carefully secured it around Alexa’s wrist.
“There,” he said, satisfied, “that’s much better.” Now, he just had to make sure that Alexa was found. “You’ll be different,” he told her. His fingers brushed over her cheek.
So cold, so very cold.
He smiled at her. “I love you, Jessica.”
“IF ALEXA IS alive out there, she’s running out of time,” Sarah Jacobs said as she paced along the eastern rampart at Fort Gaines. She’d been over that fort, again and again, all day as she tried to learn more about the killer.
The chief of police stood a few feet away, watching her carefully. “Does being out here really help you, ma’am?” Trey Wallace asked her.
She stopped her pacing and glanced at him. “I’m trying to figure out why this place was so important to the killer.”
He shrugged. His sunglasses tossed her reflection back at her as he said, “It was a dumping ground, same as the golf course. Easy. Accessible.”
“It’s not always about easy.” She tilted her head as she studied the cop. He’d been withdrawn, so very careful in his conversations with her during the investigation that day. Why? Was he afraid of what he might reveal?
Usually, when folks found out that Sarah was a psychiatrist, they tended to back away, fast. Most of them were afraid she’d take one look at them and somehow magically know all their deepest, darkest secrets.
If only it worked that way.
“If that woman was his first kill, then he chose to hide her body here for a very specific reason. Sealing her up inside, using those bricks . . . that’s a time-consuming process.” She motioned to the water around her. “If he just wanted to dump a body, he could have done that. Instead, he wanted to . . . keep her.”
“Uh, keep her? Like she was some kind of damn souvenir?” Trey sounded both repulsed and curious.
“Yes,” Sarah answered him slowly, as the wind caught her hair and tossed it over her shoulders. “Something like that.” She wanted to head over to Victoria’s makeshift lab and find out what her friend had discovered. Victoria could always learn so much from the dead.
While she herself learned from the killers. And this man, the Lady Killer . . .
You know the island well. You knew when to come in and seal up your prey, knew exactly when the fort would be empty for you and you could work undisturbed.
You’re meticulous. Detailed. Those bricks were laid perfectly. And then . . . you came back. You came back to her again and again. You wrote the other victims’ names right on top of her. Why? Because you wanted her to know about the kills? You wanted her to know what you’d done?
“Uh, Dr. Jacobs?” Trey stalked toward her. “You okay?”
She blinked. Sometimes she got a little lost when she tried to connect with the killers. “I’m fine.” She tilted her head back to stare up at him. He was tall, just like Gabe, muscled.
The right age, the right access to the island . . .
Trey cleared his throat. “If you’re sure that you’re all right, then I need to get back to the station and see how the search is going for Alexa Chambers.”
Sarah nodded. “I’ll be heading back that way soon. I just want to do one more walk-around.”
He hesitated. “The excavation team is still working down there, and if you need them . . . the FBI agents are close by.”
Surprise rolled through her. “You think I’m in some sort of danger?”
He motioned toward her. “You fit, right? I mean, with the guy’s victims? He likes blondes and—”
“He likes green-eyed blondes. Tall, curved. Socialites.” Polished, seemingly perfect women . . . that he tortured and destroyed.
“So what?” Now Trey looked curious. “Since you’ve got brown eyes, you think that makes you safe?”
The wind whipped her hair again. “With killers, no one is ever safe. Even serial killers will break their patterns. They’ll attack when threatened. They’ll kill if it means protecting themselves.” Is that why the guy had killed Pauley McIntyre?
His hand dropped to rest on the handle of his gun, a gun that was holstered at his side. “I thought it was compulsion. They had to make the kills. Same vics, same M.O.’s.”
“Not always.” She glanced across at the water once more. “But it is the victims who matter. You find out why the killer picks them, and then you know more about the perp you’re after.”
“You must like hunting killers.”
“No.” Her voice was soft. “I actually hate it.” Sarah made herself look back at the police chief. “But I’m good at my job, and I will find this man.”
He rubbed his jaw. “But will you find him before or after Alexa is dead?”
She didn’t have an answer for that question.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Trey said as he turned away. “I don’t want to find another body on my beach.”
“A STORM IS coming in,” Eve said. She’d gone out onto the balcony because she’d needed to breathe, and she couldn’t breathe in that condo. Or, at least, she didn’t feel like she could. It’s suffocating me. “Not a big one, not yet, but you can feel the storm in the air.”
A streak of lightning lit up the sky. “And you can see it,” she added.
Gabe was at her side. His arm brushed against her shoulder. “The storm will halt the search.”
Her hands tightened around the railing. “I don’t want her to be dead.”
He turned toward her. “You escaped. Maybe she will, too.”
She didn’t tell him that it was hard to have hope. She hadn’t exactly had a lot of that in the last few months.
“Your . . . brother called. He’s on his way down here. He wants to see you, to talk with you again.”
Eve nodded. She didn’t think of Pierce as her brother, though. He was just a stranger, but then she also didn’t think of herself as Jessica, and she wasn’t sure she ever would.
“We should crash for a few hours,” Gabe said. “When the storm passes, I want to head out again on the search. Alexa is running out of time.”
Yes, Eve was afraid that she was. “I don’t want to crash.” She faced him fully. More lightning flashed.
“What do you want?”
To not be so afraid. “I want to be with you.” Was she using him? Part of her was worried that she might be. Whenever her feelings got too strong, when the darkness around her became too great, she reached out for him.
Mostly because she didn’t want to face the emptiness inside of herself. And Gabe—the last thing he did was make her feel empty.
“Eve . . .”
“Don’t you want to be with me?”
“Fuck, yes.”
She caught his hand. Brought it to her mouth. Pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Then be with me. Please, Gabe, I—I need you.” Something was going on inside of her, and that stupid voice—that low rasping whisper—wouldn’t stop. It’s all for you.
“Gabe?”
Rain began to fall on them. Lightly at first, then in harder, heavier pelts as it drove down. She didn’t move to run inside the condo. Eve stayed right there, letting the rain wash over her.
“I can’t figure you out,” Gabe said as he lowered his head toward her. “Why do you keep pulling me close?”
“Because I trust you.”
“You don’t know my secrets.” Something was there, in the roughness of his voice, something that should have warned her to back away.
She edged closer. Her clothes were getting wet, the fabric sticking to her skin. “I know you’re a good man. You fight to stop killers. To help victims.”
“Maybe I’m not so good.”
Eve shook her head. “You’re the SEAL, the hero who helps all of us who are lost.” She tried to smile for him. “That’s who you are.”
If possible, his expression became even darker. “I’m not a hero. Far from it.”
She could see he didn’t understand. “You are to me.” She’d already lost her only friend—Pauley. Every time she thought of him, an ache filled her heart. He’d been so good, kind to his core, but now he was gone. Because of me.
The killer had tracked her. He’d taken Pauley’s life, and now Gabe was the only bright spot that she had left. Not a connection to her past, but a link to her present.
“If you knew who I really was, you wouldn’t want me near you.”
His words seemed to be such a strange warning. Especially when . . . “You’re the only man I want this close.”
Lightning streaked overhead. Thunder rumbled, and he kissed her. Kissed her with the same mad passion of the storm. Kissed her with fury and need, and she loved it.
He lifted her into his arms, carried her back inside the condo, but this time, this time, he didn’t take her back to the bedroom.
Gabe pressed her to the wall just inside that condo, right past the balcony’s doors. Held her there with his body. His mouth was hard on hers, his tongue thrusting past her lips, and as he kept her there, Eve felt the long, hot length of his cock pressing against her. Gabe wanted her, just as much as she wanted him.
He pulled his mouth from hers, his breath coming out in ragged rasps that she loved. Then his gaze slid over her. The wet clothes stuck to her like a second skin, and her nipples were tight with arousal, jutting out toward him.
He wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her up again, holding her effortlessly, and his mouth closed over her nipple, right through that wet shirt. She gasped at the contact because a bolt of pure electricity seemed to spike her blood. His tongue laved over the aching tip, then she felt the rough edge of his teeth in a sensual bite. A bite that had her sex clenching in anticipation.
Then his mouth was moving to her other breast, caressing her through that wet cloth, and he was making her crazy. Need shouldn’t be so strong, so consuming. She wanted to rake her nails down his back. Wanted to tear his clothes off and feel him, flesh-to-flesh against her.
She wanted to forget everything else—every single thing—but the passion he made her feel. The pleasure that they gave to each other.
She felt like an animal in lust as she fought to shove his clothes away. He lowered her back down until her feet hit the carpet, and her fingers immediately grabbed for the button of his jeans. She managed to unsnap that button and yank down his zipper, and then his cock was in her hands. Eve wrapped her fingers around him, his thick size spilling over in her grip. He groaned at her touch, his teeth scraping together, and she could see the hot desire on his face.
I want everything from him.
Eve eased down in front of him, moving slowly, and then her knees hit the floor.
“Eve?”
She leaned toward him. Put her mouth on his cock. Licked the head, tasted the salty moisture there.
“Eve, baby, you don’t have to—”
She took him inside her mouth.
I control the pleasure. I make the choice. My lovers. My pleasure. Me. Me!
She licked him, took him in deeper, and wondered why control mattered to her so much. She loved the way he shuddered. Loved it when his hands fisted in her hair and Gabe groaned her name.
He can’t watch me anymore. He can’t stop me.
Eve licked the head of Gabe’s arousal once more, then she was pulled back. Stared up at him. “Fuck me.” She barely recognized her voice. Something was happening inside of her. Something that felt . . . wild.
Wrong.
No, nothing with Gabe can be wrong. Not with him.
“Fuck me now. Right here.”
He pulled her back to her feet. Grabbed for a condom from his wallet—the man was so prepared like that—and then he locked his hands around her waist. His strength should have scared her.
It didn’t.
Her legs curled around his hips, and he drove into her. Deep and hard.
I can fuck who I want.
Even as that thought pushed through her mind, Eve shook her head. No, no, that was wrong. She didn’t want to fuck just anyone—she wanted Gabe.
“Eve?” Her name was a guttural demand from Gabe. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. Her legs locked even tighter around him. “Nothing.” Eve kissed him. Dark shadows were whispering in and out of her mind. She hated those shadows. “Make it stop.”
“What?” He stopped.
No, no, she needed him to move. “Gabe, please!”
His body was rock hard, his cock embedded in her, but he wasn’t moving.
He caught her hands. Pushed them back against the wall. “Eve, look at me.”
Her eyes were closed. I don’t want him seeing . . . so tired of him seeing—
“Eve! Fuck, wherever the hell you are in your mind, come back to me, now.”
Her eyes flew open. “I’m with you.” With him—that was the only place she wanted to be. She hated the shadows in her mind. The weird whispers that had started in the fort and just wouldn’t seem to stop. “Make me forget everything else.” She squeezed her sex around him. Held him as tightly as she could. “Make me feel the way I did before.”
Lightning flashed outside of their balcony. She heard a loud crack, and the room plunged into darkness.
He started to pull away from her.
“Fuck me, Gabe, please . . .” She needed him more than anything else.
And . . . he withdrew.
“Gabe?”
He thrust into her. Hard enough to steal her breath. Deep enough to make her moan.
Just what she wanted.
He kept her hands against the wall, kept her in place with the power of his body. In and out. Over and over. The pleasure was so close. So maddeningly, achingly close, and she needed it. She needed him. Her sex was quivering with every stroke, wet and swollen, and he glided deep into her, claiming every inch of her in the darkness.
“You’re with me. Stay with me. Only me.” His voice was all she heard. His body all she felt. The strange whisper in her mind was gone. There was only Gabe. Just the way she wanted it to be.
Pleasure hit her. Crashing over her in a fast, shuddering wave that swept over her entire body. She gasped, trying to pull in a breath, because the climax hit harder than she remembered. Her sex was pulsing, quivering, trying to hold tight to his cock—
But he’d withdrawn. “Gabe!”
In a flash, he spun her around. Her hands slapped against the wall.
“We’re not done,” he growled.
And he was lifting her hips, arching her back toward him. She turned her head, trying to see over her shoulder, trying to see him, but he was a shadow in the darkness.
The shadow follows me . . .
Fear quivered inside of her even as her sex still shuddered. “Gabe?”
His hands grabbed her hips, and holding her from behind, he slammed into her. “Couldn’t . . . touch you . . . like I wanted . . .” And his right hand left her hip as he thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew.
That hand snaked around her body. Slid between her legs. Found her clit.
When he touched her there, her hips slammed back against him in a frantic roll.
“Much better.” His mouth found her throat. He kissed her. Licked her. Sucked the skin.
And kept stroking her clit.
Her nails were about to scratch their way down that wall. “Gabe!” Another orgasm hit her, this one even stronger than the first, so strong she totally lost her breath because all she could do was moan and arch back against him.
“That’s it . . . that’s what I needed . . .” And Eve felt Gabe erupt into her. Her sex squeezed him as he came, and he kept stroking her clit, moving his hand so skillfully even as he groaned her name.
When it was over, she felt limp. Hollowed out. He withdrew from her, and Eve’s knees did a little jiggle. She was pretty sure that she was about to wind up on the floor, but he caught her before she fell. She thought he might have carried her to the bedroom. Or maybe she just stumbled in there. Things were kind of hazy.
Then the bed creaked beneath her. The soft mattress touched her head. She shouldn’t be in bed. Not naked. She had to get her clothes. Eve tried to push her way through the sated lethargy that had swept over her. “Have to . . . dress . . .”
“Not for me you don’t.”
He moved away. She heard the faint rustle of his feet.
Eve tried to shove back the covers. Have to dress . . . he sees . . .
“Eve? Baby, lie with me.”
He pulled her back into the bed. It was so dark there. The power must still be out. Shadows were all around them.
“Need my clothes,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“Because he sees me.”
She felt his sudden stiffness against her. “Who sees you, Eve?”
“He watches me . . .”
“Who?”
Her eyes were sagging closed. Maybe they were already closed. It was so dark—because the power was out? Or because she was sinking into dreams? She hated to sleep near him, but her body had other plans. “Sorry . . .” She tried to get the words out. “If I scream . . .”
“EVE?”
She didn’t stir.
Gabe brushed her wet hair back from her cheek. Eve was asleep in his arms.
His phone rang, and keeping one arm around her, he reached for the device. He’d tossed it on the bedside table moments before. “Spencer,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“What?” Wade’s sharp voice demanded. “Man, are you whispering?”
He was, because he didn’t want to wake Eve. By her own admission, she hardly ever slept. But she was sleeping with him, her body soft, sated, her breath passing lightly from her lips. “What do you want?”
“The outage hit half the island. The police chief says that the condo should be on a generator, though, and he’s got a man working to bring it online in—”
Lights flashed on—lights in the den, not the bedroom.
“The generator’s working,” Gabe said, still keeping his voice low. “What’s happening with the search?”
“Still suspended,” voices rose in the background, “until the storm passes.”
Eve curled closer to Gabe.
“You should try to get some rest, too,” Gabe told Wade. “We’ll hit hard as soon as—”
“The island is fourteen miles long. We’ve all covered those miles, again and again. The woman isn’t here. Either she left on her own—”
Damn doubtful because she hadn’t checked in with her family, and the authorities couldn’t get a link on her phone.
“—or the killer took her away. Since the cops found his dump site, it only stands to reason he had to find a fresh site for his bodies.”
Yes, it did. “I’m not giving up on her yet.”
Silence.
“You know I don’t give up. Not until we find the victim alive or—”
“Or we find the bodies.” Now Wade’s voice was soft.
Wade knew all of his secrets. Unlike Eve, Wade realized that Gabe was far from a hero.
“Are you getting in too deep on this one?” Wade asked him carefully.
He was already in too deep. “No.”
“You sure, man?”
“I’m trying to help Eve and Alexa.”
“Just . . . don’t go over the edge.” Now there was worry in his old friend’s voice. “At least not unless I’m at your side. After what happened with Amy, well, you don’t want a repeat of that shit.”
Ice coated Gabe’s skin at the mention of his sister’s name. The only place he felt warm—that was where Eve’s body touched his. “You backed me up then.”
“That bastard deserved the death he had coming to him.” Wade’s immediate reply.
But Wade had lied for him. Years ago. The secrets we keep—they can fuck up our lives.
“It was my fault.” Wade’s breath rasped over the line. “I told you I’d keep an eye on Amy. You were in that VA hospital, fighting for your life. I was supposed to keep her safe.” The guilt was there. The same guilt that had eaten at Wade for years.
Guilt because he thought he’d failed in his friendship with Gabe.
Guilt because he thought he’d let Amy die.
It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.
“I thought getting her away from Derek—I thought that was the right thing. He was trouble. He was hurting her. As soon as I found out . . . shit, I made certain they were apart.”
Derek. He’d been Amy’s boyfriend. A jerk with a penchant for pushing around women. Too much money, too little fucking sense.
When Amy vanished, the detective working her case had just thought that she’d run back to Derek. Amy had been young, only twenty-one, a nursing student who’d stopped attending her classes. The detective—a fellow named Roger Hobbs—had thought that she’d turn up in a few days.
But when the days slipped by—and when Derek had proved that Amy wasn’t with him—Hobbs had stopped looking for a live missing woman. He’d been sure that, with so much time lost, Amy was dead.
Wade had fought with the dick detective. Again and again. Conducted his own investigation. Been censured by the department because he’d been stepping on toes. Going outside of his bounds. Interfering with another detective’s case.
Then Gabe had finally gotten released from that VA hospital. He’d teamed up with Wade. Said fucking screw the police department’s rules. He’d been determined to find his baby sister, determined to make the man who took her pay.
But things hadn’t ended the way he’d expected.
Wade had left the force. He’d given up everything for him, and he . . .
Gabe glanced over at Eve’s sleeping form.
Baby, I’m so fucking far from the hero. When you learn the things I’ve done, you’ll see me for the monster I am.
He’d started LOST because he wanted to atone for his sins. For the crimes that haunted him, and because . . . because he knew that he had to channel his rage.
The darkness inside of him kept growing, with each passing day and night. Sometimes, he felt like that darkness was going to swallow him whole. Sometimes, he wanted it to.
“No matter what happens,” Wade said, “you know I have your back.”
He did. Wade had traded in his badge for Gabe’s friendship. Gabe knew he could count on the other man to walk through fire for him. And he would do the same for Wade, in a heartbeat.
Good and bad, white, black, and every shade of gray in between, Wade understood him. And Gabe understood Wade.
They’d both crossed the line before. Been pushed too far before.
And, maybe, they’d cross that line again.
Gabe put down his phone. He bent, and his lips brushed over Eve’s cheek. She whispered something when he touched her, and Gabe frowned. “Eve? What is it?”
Her lips moved again.
“Eve?”
He could just barely make out . . .
“I did it,” she whispered. “It was . . . me.”
He blinked. “Eve?”
Her breath rushed out, and there were no more words from her.
WADE SLOWLY LOWERED his phone. He was worried about Gabe. He knew his friend was getting tangled up with Eve. A looker like that, sure, hell, yes, it would be easy to want her.
But he knew Gabe didn’t just want to screw the woman. He’s falling deep.
Wade turned around and saw the police chief watching him. Hell. Just how much of the conversation had the guy overheard?
“Everything okay?” Trey asked as he lifted one brow. “Is Jessica—”
“Gabe’s taking care of her. She’s safe.”
Trey’s eyes narrowed. The cop carried a lot of anger. It was easy for Wade to see that rage because he carried the same fury within him.
Trey Wallace wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. The fellow might be a small-town cop, but he had an edge, a hard intensity that Wade had seen in seasoned veterans of the force.
“Does your boss always screw his clients?” Trey asked.
Wade shoved his phone into his pocket. “No,” he said, and that was the flat truth. “He doesn’t.”
If anything, that answer seemed to make Trey angrier.
“I don’t get it . . .” And Wade was curious about this. “You two were done, right? So why do you care if Gabe hooks up with her now?”
Trey just stared back at him.
“Not my business, huh?”
“No, it’s not.” Trey gave him a grim nod. “Search resumes at dawn. The storm will have passed by then, and we’ll be out in force.” He ran a hand over his face, and, for the first time, Wade saw a flash of weariness from the cop. “Damn National Weather Service is starting to say that we could have a tropical storm forming out in the Gulf. That shit is the last thing we need.”
Wade had already heard those reports.
“If that storm turns this way, we could lose Alexa.”
Because there would be no searching then.
“I don’t want to lose another woman,” Trey said grimly.
Voices called out then. Trey turned around. Two men had just entered the station.
One guy was young, maybe about twenty-one, and his nervous gaze drifted over the place. The other guy was older, maybe early thirties, with sandy brown hair.
“Johnny? Clay? What the hell are you two doing out here?” Trey strode toward them.
Wade followed, much slower.
“Johnny told me about the asshole move he made down at the West End.” It was the older one who spoke. He glared at the younger guy—Johnny. “I wanted to drag his ass down here so you’d know he didn’t mean that shit.”
Wade’s brows rose. The guy had dragged the kid down in a storm?
“Thanks, Clay,” Trey told him. “I knew he was just drunk, though. Gia took him home after he tangled with—” Trey glanced over his shoulder. His gaze met Wade’s. “—with an out-of-town consultant that we have working the Lady Killer’s crimes.”
Wait, an out-of-town consultant? Had that kid tangled with Gabe? With Dean? He would have to get the story soon.
“I was out on the boat with a big fishing tour,” the one called Clay said. “I didn’t realize . . . is it true?” His voice had roughened. “Is Jessica alive? Is she back?”
Trey’s hand curled around Clay’s shoulders. “Let’s go into my office and talk.”
Trey steered him away. The kid, Johnny, stood there, looking damn out of place.
Wade took his time walking toward the guy. “You in some kind of accident?” he asked the kid. It looked like the man’s lip had been busted, and a dark bruise was under his eye.
Johnny’s jaw locked. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
Right. The kid had some serious attitude rolling off him.
Trey had closed the door to his office. “Your brother?”
“My uncle.”
Wade nodded. He’d spent years questioning suspects at the Atlanta PD, so he knew how to play the game, all nice and easy like, to find the intel that he needed. “And your uncle . . . he was close with Jessica Montgomery?”
Johnny’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“I work with the . . . out-of-town consultant.”
Johnny grunted. “The guy who was with Jessica at the bar?”
Sounded right.
“Tell that dude . . . he won’t catch me off-guard again.”
Johnny wasn’t exactly sounding repentant. “I’ll pass along the message.” But the guy hadn’t answered his question. “Did you know Jessica?” Because it sure sounded like he’d recognized her.
“Not as well as my uncle.” His lips twisted. “And damn sure not as well as Trey.”
Trey’s office door opened. Clay appeared, looking shaken. “We’ll be here at first light,” Wade heard him tell Trey. “You can count on us for the search.”
Clay strode toward Wade. He took the man’s measure. Tall, strong, determined.
Scared?
It almost looked like there was fear in his eyes as he said, “Johnny, we have to go. We need to secure the boats at the marina before this storm gets worse.”
Then they were gone. Hurrying out.
Trey took his time heading back to Wade’s side.
Wade waited until the door closed behind their new rescue volunteers, then he asked, “Who the hell were they?”
“Johnny . . . he made the mistake of mouthing off about the victims near your boss.”
Right. So that busted lip had been given by Gabe. I knew he was walking the edge.
“And his uncle Clay runs the marina. He can give us access to any boats that we need for the search.” A pause. “And . . . he knew Jessica.”
Knew her? There had been some definite inflection there.
“I told him not to say anything to her, not until she’s ready.”
“Just how well did the guy know Jessica?”
Trey’s jaw had locked. “They hadn’t been involved in years.”
Another lover on the island. Didn’t this puzzle just keep twisting?
“Sometimes, you can’t let the past go,” Wade pointed out.
“Yeah, you can,” Trey snapped. “Especially when the past didn’t matter.” The cop stormed away.
But what if that past did matter? To Jessica? Or to the guy named Clay?
SHE COULD HEAR seagulls. Eve couldn’t see them, but she could hear them, crying out so close by. And waves . . . crashing.
“Sweetheart, do you like the game?”
That voice—that rasping voice—made goose bumps rise on her arms.
“What are you going to do with that knife?”
She glanced down, and a knife was in her hand. The blade was bloody.
“Oh, Jessica . . . did you really think I didn’t know?”
Why did she have a knife?
“I’ve been watching you, all this time. I know your secrets.”
She dropped the knife. It fell, tumbling end over end down a staircase. An old, rickety staircase.
“You aren’t the good girl that they think. I know . . .”
She hated that rasping voice. Eve shook her head. “Stay away from me.”
“Or what? You’ll use that knife on me . . . ? You’ll use it again?”
There was blood on her hands.
“Do you like the idea of killing?”
Eve shook her head.
“Don’t lie.” Anger was thick in his voice. “I’ve seen what you do. I’ve seen it all . . . you like the game. You like the blood. Do you even like the screams?”
“I—”
Rough hands grabbed her. Shook her. She screamed.
“EVE! DAMMIT, BABY, wake up!”
Eve’s eyelids flew open. The lights were on, glowing so brightly, and Gabe was over her, staring down at her with worried blue eyes.
“You were crying.”
She lifted her hand and touched the wetness on her cheek.
“Do you remember your nightmare?”
She did. The nightmare. The man. More. Eve rose from the bed. A rush of cool air hit her body, and she glanced down, startled. “I always wear my clothes to bed.” She stumbled around a bit, found her sweatpants. Her shirt. Dressed as quickly as she could.
Gabe didn’t move from his position in the bed. “Why do you always wear them, Eve?”
Eve. The name felt wrong. Alien.
“Because I have to be ready. Because . . .” It was there, nagging at her. But something else was pushing even stronger, something that had to get out.
She turned from Gabe. Made her way out of the room. Lightning still flashed beyond the balcony and she could hear the roll of thunder in the distance.
The canvas was just where she’d left it. The paint brushes. The supplies.
She reached for the tools almost as if by rote. Her fingers were trembling again, but she ignored the tremble. An image was in her mind, and she wasn’t letting that image go.
Her breath heaved out as she painted. Gabe came to stand behind her, clad in a pair of jeans that clung low on his hips. He crossed his arms over his chest, and he just . . . watched her.
Paint soon covered her fingertips. It spattered her T-shirt. And that canvas didn’t stay blank. Color filled it. The turbulent blue-green of waves. A patch of white sand. Seagulls.
The stark, dark form of a lighthouse, one that stood—almost impossibly—in the middle of an ocean. No light shone from that place, just shadows that stretched from the inside, out. A darkness without end.
“What is that place, Eve?” Gabe asked as he came closer.
Her fingers clenched around the brush.
“There’s a lighthouse just beyond the island,” he continued when she was silent. “Is that what you’re painting? Do you remember being there?”
“Maybe. I—I don’t know.” The lighthouse was just in her mind, a hulking place that was burning in her head. She’d painted the damn thing, so that meant she must have been there.
Eve dropped her paintbrush and turned toward Gabe. “I need to go there, now.”
He shook his head. “The storm hasn’t passed. It’s the middle of the night—Trey isn’t going to send a search party out there right now—”
“Not a search party.” She was sweating. Her gut twisting. “Me. You. I want us to go out there.”
His gaze was still worried. He watched her as if he thought she was having some sort of breakdown. Maybe she was.
“You wanted me to remember. I’m remembering.” She threw her hand up toward the balcony’s glass doors, pointing to the dark water outside. “I need to get to that lighthouse. Come on, Gabe, you’re a former SEAL! That means you’re supposed to be able to do anything in the water, right?” There was no way he didn’t know how to drive a boat. She’d bet her life on it.
His jaw locked. “Let’s wait until it’s light out.”
“Please.” A terrible intensity ate at her. The image of the lighthouse wouldn’t stop burning in her mind. “I—I think something bad happened there.”
He reached out to her. His slightly callused fingertips slid over her arm, pulling it back down to her side. “What did you do?”
“What?”
“When you were asleep, you said . . . ‘I did it. It was me.’ ” His fingers curled around her wrist, chaining her to him. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know.” Said softly.
“Eve?”
She pulled from his grip. “I’m going out to that lighthouse. Either you’re coming with me or I’ll find a way to go on my own.”
Because something had happened there. Something terrible and dark. Something that made her cry in her sleep.
And Eve was going to find out just what the hell that something had been.