Cade paced around my living room like a man possessed. Walking five steps one way, then pausing to run his hand down his face, he let out a growl. Then he turned and paced the other way to do the same thing. His reaction was far more terrifying then the tight feeling in my gut while I tried to absorb what was happening.

Pace, growl, turn. Pace growl, turn. The expression on his face, told me far more than I really wanted to digest.

“I’m sure you’re wrong, Mick. This is probably just some prank,” I said as I eyed the man sitting on my couch. He held up a finger for me to wait as he dialed on his phone.

Standing up, I went to the kitchen hoping all this was just a stupid joke. An evil one, in poor taste, but I couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Why would I be targeted? The idea was ludicrous, at best. There was absolutely no reason why I would suddenly be thrust into this situation. I’d worked bars and restaurants my entire life, with very few run-ins with trouble, other than the few times I’d dealt with drunks. And drunks were drunks. Loud, mouthy, sometimes handsy. But they weren’t serial killers. Not that I would know, of course, but the thought of them doing anything like that was a little bit of a stretch.

The smell of coffee hit my nose as I entered the kitchen. I needed a massive caffeine fix if I was going to deal with this.

Two cups sat on the counter, and as I reached for one of them I felt a tingle up my back. Glancing behind me, my eyes landed on Cade who was standing at the doorway. His face was still a mix of frustrated emotions and I could tell he was struggling to keep himself under control.

“Do you want a cup?” I asked, as I turned back to the counter.

He didn’t answer as I poured my own cup and stared blankly through the window above the sink. His silence wasn’t helping my frayed nerves by any measure. It only seemed to amplify my own confusion and deep fear.

What if this was actually happening? Wasn’t a joke. What the hell did I need to know about this that they weren’t telling me?

I set the cup on the counter and faced Cade once more. He stood a few feet away watching my movements, thinking, observing. The way his lips moved in miniscule ways made me think that he was contemplating what to say. Maybe he just didn’t know what to tell me. Regardless, his stance, expression and overall vibe had all the warmth of a predatory animal, ready to rip something apart.

“Cade?”

He flinched once, then his eyes finally focused on me. “This isn’t happening.”

“What’s happening? I really don’t understand. This is a joke, right?”

He shook his head slowly from side to side. “It’s not a joke. They all start like this.”

“What starts like this? Neither one of you has explained anything here. Mick said it was a message from your killer, but neither of you have said why or how. If it’s a message to me, then what the hell does it mean? Why would I even be involved?”

Cade glanced through the door for a brief second. The sounds of Mick talking on the phone drifted in, but the conversation was lost. He moved toward me slowly with a scowl still plastered on his face.

He put a finger to his lips before he reached me and wrapped a hand around my hip. Any other time his touch might have ignited a deep desire to pull him in closer, but today it only felt comforting in its familiarity.

“You can ask as many questions as you want, but he’s probably not going to tell you much,” he said in a tone close to a whisper. “Not the important parts anyway.”

Leaning closer to him, I whispered, “So you tell me. You know what’s going on here.”

“I do, but he isn’t going to be on that phone for long. It’s going to take more than a minute to explain. What I need you to do is refuse to help.”

My eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“Refuse to help. You have a right to refuse. Don’t get involved in this. I’m going to make damn sure you get the protection you need, and it’s not going to involve the FBI. They’ve done a shit job in finding this guy and you are not going to fucking end up like those other girls.”

The intensity of his last sentence hit me like a sledgehammer. Those other girls. The dead ones that I didn’t know about. How they died was a huge question that I was afraid to ask.

“Cade,” I whispered.

His hand came up to brush the side of my face. “Just refuse, baby. Just do what I’m asking, and I’ll fix this. Stall if he asks, act like you don’t know what to say.”

He brought his phone up and grabbed my hand. “You’re going to press the two button then tell Logan to get Brock.”

“They’re the FBI, Cade.”

His jaw flexed, then his scowl became even more fierce as he pressed the phone into my hand. “They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing and I’m not going to risk you. I’ll explain later. Just make the call.”

My fingers curled around the phone, as I stared into his eyes. There was something he couldn’t tell me, but his face said a lot. Something wasn’t right. Or he was just so insanely protective, that he wasn’t seeing reason. Either way, there was truth in the expression he gave me. He was worried as hell.

I gave him a simple nod and he drew me closer to him. The top of his chin rested on my forehead as he held me tight.

There was a noise in the living room. Two people talking.

“What about my mom?” I whispered.

“I’ll take care of it. Just make the call when you step out.”

“Step—”

“Cade?” I heard Mick call from the other room. “Need both of you in here.”

Cade’s lips found mine for a brief kiss before he hauled me along with him to the living room.

There was a second man standing in the living room who had plastic gloves on. He was wiry and thin compared to the two giants that were staring at him. He was dressed in a shirt that had a local pizza insignia on the back.

As he picked through the flowers for a moment, Mick’s gaze slid up to me. His eyes were blank. Absolutely no emotion was expressed. Cold. Calculating. It was the most frightening look I’d ever seen. As if, he wasn’t seeing me as a person anymore, just someone that was now the subject of an investigation.

The look, said a lot about his nature. He’d been friendly when he needed to be, but his switch had flipped into something else now. Maybe it was that he took his job seriously, as seriously as his expression implied, but his gaze was giving me chills.

I slid my eyes to Cade, who was standing beside me. In comparison, all I saw was raw, heated frustration and anger. The expression of a man on the edge. Emotions brimming over in fury, and what I knew was concern for me.

His distrust of Mick’s abilities, seemed out of place. Maybe it was just the inability of the institution itself, and not Mick. But the way he was glaring at Mick, made it look like he was placing the blame of several months of frustration with no results, squarely on Mick’s broad shoulders. It didn’t seem fair in a way.

I was truly frightened by the possibility that this wasn’t a mistake. But why would I not trust Mick and his abilities to get things done properly? At least the FBI knew that I was a target. Knowing from the start, would be better than being a random victim in a bar, right? None of it made sense.

The wiry man finally finished what he was doing and placed a plastic cover over the bouquet. When he was done, he nodded at Mick, and carried it through the front door. If I didn’t know what was in the bag, I would have thought that he was carrying a gym bag of some sort.

“Who was that?” I asked. My eyes followed the man, as he walked by the living room window, and got into a black van.

Mick gave me a tight smile. “He works in a local branch.”

“Of the FBI?”

“Correct,” he said, as he took a notepad out of his briefcase. “He’s going to process that. I need to know some information from you, for the record.”

“Sure,” I replied. Cade tensed beside me but didn’t say anything.

“I need the description of the car that delivered your flowers. Name, if you know the company. Some other details.”

I shrugged and gave him the information he needed. Simple enough. Which was why I wondered about Cade’s reaction. Surely, giving Mick some details wasn’t going to hurt. Had he meant that I wasn’t supposed to cooperate at all or something else?

“I have some questions,” I said and moved further into the room.

Cade’s hand rested on my back. A light touch, but supportive nonetheless.

Mick looked up from his notes and nodded. “You’re wondering what’s going to happen next?”

I frowned. “Well part of it, yes. And what all this means.”

“Well, it’s pretty standard. We’ll have some more people here soon that will secure the area. Your flowers will go to the lab. You’ll be moved to a different location for a while.”

“Woah. I can’t do that. My mom lives here too. Are you talking about just me? There’s no way I’m leaving her here. Besides the fact that she probably won’t even go.”

Mick regarded me for a moment, then glanced down at his notes again. “If you feel like that would be an issue, there’s a way you could still stay here.”

“No,” Cade barked.

Mick’s head turned toward Cade. “It’s not your call. It’s hers.”

“The fuck it isn’t.”

Mick held up his hand, as my eyes darted between the two of them. They were in some sort of nonverbal argument that excluded me, but I could feel the tension in both of them.

“The last time I checked, you weren’t married or related. Not that it would make a difference either way. She has to make the decision.”

“You motherfucker.”

Mick narrowed his eyes and looked like he was about to say something equally as nasty.

“Wait,” I said, as I tugged at Cade’s elbow. “If you two want to fight, do it out back, not in here. What’s the damn choice?”

Keeping his glare on Cade, like he didn’t trust the man not to hit him if he glanced at me, Mick said, “You could work as a decoy. We change nothing here. You and your mom can technically stay, although I would suggest for the short term sending your mom on a vacation or to stay with a family member.”

“Basically, work to lure the fucker in,” Cade ground out between clenched teeth. “Why don’t you ask Mick about the last time he tried this shit.”

My hand went to my stomach as I stared at Mick. Urging him with my eyes, to answer before I had to ask.

He said nothing. Simply gave Cade a murderous glare.

Cade broke eye contact and glanced at me. “He lost the last girl who tried to help. Not something he wants to talk about.”

I watched the steady gaze of Mick, as he continued to stare at Cade. “I didn’t lose her. She went off on her own and went against what we told her to do.”

Cade turned toward Mick and all but sneered his reply. “Then who’s fault was it?! Hers? For doing her job? While the keen and watchful eyes of the almighty FBI let her walk out of a bar to help the delivery guy with his weekly load of alcohol. The same load that was delivered the week before, with the same driver and the same number of boxes. And yet, you said nothing. Not a thing to her about walking out of the bar to do it.”

Mick stood up and seemed to balk at the accusation. “We told her not to leave the bar! If that wasn’t enough of an order, then I don’t know what was. We couldn’t break cover and drag her back inside. The driver was cleared prior to delivery. Don’t assume you know what happened or the conversations that we had with her after she did it the first time. We took every precaution and she decided that it wasn’t a risk.”

“Tell it to her parents, Mick,” Cade muttered.

Mick stepped forward and Cade’s muscles in his arm tensed, ready to launch at the man.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Both of you!”

Cade tried shrugging my hand off. I held fast and started yanking on his arm to keep him back.

Mick gave me a quick, non-emotional glance. “If you help us, Suzanne, we have a real chance of catching this guy. You’re far more experienced in this business and have good instincts from what Cade has told me.”

Cade moved between Mick and me, blocking my view. “You don’t talk to her, you don’t look at her. She’s given you a statement, and that’s it. That’s all she’s required to do.”

“You don’t have anything to say about it. Frankly, you need to get your head out of your ass, before you go into that bar in Dallas.”

“I quit, asshole,” Cade growled. “I’m done with this shit.”

“You signed an agreement.”

“I’m done.”

The situation was getting out of hand and escalating to the point where I felt like Cade might be on thin ice. I wasn’t sure what he’d signed, but quitting might land him in hot water.

“I need to go to the bathroom. If either of you throws a punch in here, I’ll take a baseball bat to one or both of you. Then I’ll call the cops!” Stomping off, I turned before I left the room and gave both of them a steely glare. “I fucking mean it!”

Shutting the door quickly when I got into the bathroom, I took the phone Cade had given me and turned it on. I didn’t know if it was the right move. Didn’t know what the fallout would be, but it had to be better than watching two idiot men face off in my living room. One of which might land himself in jail if he hit the other. Then where would I be?

After pressing the button, I waited while the phone rang. Keeping one ear to the door, I hoped that Cade could keep a lid on his apparent temper long enough for me to reach Logan.

“Dr. Matthews,” Logan answered.

“Logan, it’s me, Suzanne.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“What’s happening? Why are you calling from this line?”

I sighed. “Get Brock. We’re in Bakersville, and if I’m not mistaken Cade is about to kill Mick or go to jail, possibly both. I was told to ask for Brock.”

“Okay. But why now?”

“I got a note, and Mick is asking me to help catch his killer. Cade is about to lose it and he said he wanted to quit. Mick said he signed something. I don’t know. I was told to call you before this shit went down.”

“I’m on it. Give us a few hours.”

“Us?”

“Yeah. We’re all coming. I don’t think this is going to go well. Brock isn’t going to keep it from Holden or Aiden. And he tells Andi everything which means that Kate, Liv and Julia are going to lose it.”

I let out a deep breath. “Please tell me you aren’t bringing them. This sounds dangerous.”

“Hell no. I’ll get Aiden to deal with Brock, so he doesn’t let the cat out of the bag before we have a plan.”

I heard a crash in the living room and the sounds of shouting. The words were muffled behind the closed door.

Rolling my eyes, I groaned. “Just get here soon. I’m about to take a baseball bat to both of them. I’m not joking.”

“I’ll handle it. Just hang in there and remember that Cade is a good guy before you kill him. He’ll keep you safe.”

“If I kill him, no one would know, would they? You might want to step on it, Doc.”

I hung up and took several deep breaths before I turned the knob and stepped into the hallway. I detoured to my room, grabbed my baseball bat from a corner behind the bed and marched back toward the living room ready to knock some sense into one of them.

Nice guys or not, no one broke my mom’s shit or started fighting in her house. Ever. I wouldn’t allow it.

It wasn’t the first time I’d had to swing a baseball bat, working some really seedy bars had given me plenty of practice. The type of bars nice, suburbanite chicks and weekend warriors didn’t go to and never even knew existed.

When I reached the living room, everything was quiet. More noticeably, no one was there. A chair was out of place and the remains of a broken flower pot sat in a dustpan on the coffee table.

Then I heard them. In the garage, speaking in muted tones. Pleasant even. As I walked closer, I caught the middle of their conversation.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cade said. “I’ll make sure to get the one from the hardware store.”

Then I heard my mom. “I’m sorry I gave you such a scare that you backed into it. I think you shaved ten years off my life. Two grown men in the middle of my living room arguing over Suzanne. Now you said she’s not in trouble, right?”

Mick spoke up. “No, ma’am, she’s not in trouble. We were just arguing about whether she needed to stay at the bar or not. The shifts are really late.”

“Oh,” my mom replied almost airily. “Well, she can handle herself you know. She’s a fighter, always has been.”

I walked through the room and stood at the door to the garage for a moment, taking in the sight of two brawny men unloading more than a dozen grocery bags from my mom’s car. Apparently, she was over her food fast. A good sign that things were going to get better with her.

As I stared at Mick and Cade, it was clear that their fight hadn’t come to a clean end yet. Both wore the same scowl when they looked at each other, with threats of unnamed violence in their eyes.

My mom saw me at the door and smiled. “Well there she is. Hey, look who I found. Your friends, Mark, and Mick. Are they staying for dinner?”

I smiled at her and turned my gaze to the two men in question. Both of them gave me a quick glance as I rested the baseball bat on my shoulder. Cade smirked. Mick looked annoyed.

“Sure, Mom, up to them. They just have to use their manners at the dinner table.”