01 A Cold Dark Place Read online

  The stranger held out a tanned strong-looking hand as they were introduced. His skin was warm, fingers firm as they squeezed hers.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Rooney.” The self-deprecating smile was a killer. So was the short, ruffled light-brown hair and days’ worth of scruff on his jaw.

  Despite the tailored suit, he hadn’t been intimidated enough by the high powered members of that committee to shave. The contrast snagged her attention. He was different from the law enforcement personnel and political players she usually met. There was something underplayed and restrained about him that didn’t mesh with the keen intelligence she saw in his eyes, nor the taut looking muscles that filled out that suit. It intrigued her. She hadn’t been intrigued on a personal level in a long time.

  “You work in security?” she asked.

  “Keeping Trade Secrets secret—or trying to. It isn’t exactly running the gauntlet every day like you guys.”

  Lucas sat atop his messy desk. “Says the man with the Distinguished Service Cross.”

  Something vulnerable sparked in those slate eyes. “I got caught in a firefight and managed not to get killed. I got lucky.” Those eyes of his weren’t revealing anything now—all emotion banked. “I better let you get back to work. It’s a long drive back to DC.”

  Their boss walked in and Mallory stiffened. Danbridge’s gaze skimmed Alex with a cursory glance that notched up to feminine appreciation on the second go ’round.

  “Special Agent Randall, I need a word.” Then she walked into her office, heels tapping.

  Lucas swore under his breath. “Alex, I owe you big time, buddy. I’ll be in touch. Will you show him out for me, Mal?”

  “Sure,” she said. The longer she could avoid her boss the better. The two men shook hands and said goodbye.

  “I can find my own way,” Alex said softly.

  “No problem. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

  His gaze flicked to her boots and up, the brush of it almost as intimate as a physical touch. An unfamiliar sliver of sensation unfurled inside her, nearly unrecognizable because it had been so long. Attraction.

  Telling herself she wasn’t deliberately prolonging their time together, she took the stairs as she led the way out. He was taller than she’d first realized. In her low-heeled boots she stood just under five foot nine and he was four or five inches taller. She frowned. Seeing him at a distance standing beside Lucas, she’d have described him as medium height and just okay looking. Up close, when you got the full force of those intelligent gray eyes and that perfectly proportioned masculine face, he was a hottie. Made you appreciate the inaccuracy of eye-witness accounts. No wedding ring either.

  It was her job to pay attention to detail.

  Even though she maintained a space between them she was hyperaware of him beside her. Outside the front entrance of the five-story, white concrete building he turned to her and asked, “Can I take you out to dinner sometime?”

  “I don’t date.” The answer came out automatically before her brain engaged. Crap.

  There was a long pause while those beautiful eyes of his wandered over her face, resting on her bruise from yesterday. He didn’t argue or try to change her mind.

  “It was nice to meet you, Special Agent Rooney.” And then he walked away.

  She squeezed her hands into fists. Damn, why had she said no?

  Because she didn’t date.

  She watched Alex Parker climb into his car—a low-slung sporty job—and raise a hand before he drove away. His car disappeared and a familiar sense of loss rushed over her. She clenched her jaw, turned around and went back to work.

  ***

  Alex drove away trying not to think about why Mallory Rooney didn’t date. The sight of her in the rearview mirror made his chest tighten. It seemed a shame for someone so young and beautiful to isolate herself like that. Not that he’d have done more than take her to dinner—you keep believing that, buddy—but the flare of attraction had been instant and unexpected.

  What made it truly ironic was he didn’t date either. And he didn’t like surprises.

  The snow hadn’t stuck; it scraped across the asphalt like cotton swabs and gathered with dirt in the gutter. The grimy edge of his reality bore down on him. He didn’t like lying, didn’t like killing. Didn’t like death. But he had no choice. When his debt was paid he’d move on and rebuild a life to be proud of. It the meantime, he owed five-hundred and forty-two days on his contract and had no right to be thinking about pretty women with sad amber eyes. His phone rang and he took the call, grateful for the distraction. Work kept him busy. Too busy for regrets.

  ***

  Mallory headed back into the building and went straight to the briefing room. Two serious-looking guys in suits sat at the head of the table next to the Special Agent in Charge of the Charlotte division. He eyed her over his glasses and she gave him a weak smile. Damn that reporter.

  “Who’re they?” she whispered to Lucas as she sat next to him.

  “Supervisory Special Agents Hanrahan and Frazer from BAU.”

  These guys were legendary in the Bureau. Hanrahan was silver-haired with tanned craggy features. He’d interviewed serial offenders from every state in the Union and wrote the book on profiling the sick bastards. Mallory always wondered how much you could expose yourself to these people without some of your morality wearing off. Frazer was much younger, gleaming blond hair, arctic blue eyes, and Ryan Gosling handsome—if you liked that sort of thing. He was a rock star in law enforcement circles. In Afghanistan he’d tracked down a serial killer who used the war to hide his crimes. After that he nailed a black widow who’d been on husband number four—who just happened to be billionaire Robin Greenburg who owned media companies across the globe. Needless to say, Frazer never got bad press. Polished and perfect, just looking at him made her teeth ache.

  The image of Alex Parker flashed through her mind and she wished she hadn’t brushed him off. There was a rugged quality to his looks that appealed to her. But she hadn’t had time to date since she’d joined the academy and didn’t have time now. She drummed her fingers on the wooden conference table, irritated and frustrated with her lack of life outside work.

  SSA Danbridge strode in on her black heeled boots with a toss of her long blond hair. She shot Mallory a narrow-eyed glare that made her want to squirm in her seat. Mallory held still. Danbridge looked more tense than usual, though she’d taken the time to change into a fresh power suit. Mallory’s gaze shot to the two men as she finally got it. Duh. Danbridge had applied for an opening at Quantico and was hoping to impress these guys enough to make it happen. Mallory’s throat went dry because she had nothing to say that was going to make her boss shine.

  Danbridge started the meeting and outlined what had happened last night.

  “How did you narrow it down to Meacher?” SSA Hanrahan asked. He had a lovely voice. Level but warm.

  “We got the tip-off about Meacher yesterday afternoon at six-fifteen.”

  “You personally?” Hanrahan asked.

  Danbridge pointed to her.

  Mallory swallowed. “Erhm. It came into the office, and I picked up.” Gosh, really Mallory? You managed to answer a phone all by yourself?

  “You are?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Special Agent Rooney, sir.”

  “I saw you on the news.”

  There was a huff of smothered laughter behind her. She held still when she wanted to turn around and glare. Hanrahan was watching her closely, knowledge alive in the depths of his blue eyes. Damn. She hated being the center of attention or an object of curiosity. That clear gaze told her he knew everything about her from her pedigree to her shoe size. She wanted to disappear into the floor. Unfortunately her powers of invisibility failed her.

  “On a normal day you’d probably have left the information to deal with the next day. Why didn’t you?”

  Because I have no life. “I started digging a little into Meacher’s background and r
ealized he was a perfect fit to the profile your unit provided, sir. So I took the information to SSA Danbridge”—her boss’s eyes glowed with approval, because, yes, they both worked late almost every night and weekends and now everyone knew it—“and then we received a call from state police concerned that The Snatcher had claimed another victim.”

  Danbridge interrupted her. Thank God. “I took the information to the Special Agent in Charge and we moved immediately to act on the information we’d received.”

  Relief that a vicious killer was off the street was evident on every face.

  “Where are you on identifying the anonymous tipster?” Danbridge asked her.

  Crap. “Call was made using an untraceable cell and the voice was electronically enhanced. It’s a dead end.”

  SSA Hanrahan met Mallory’s gaze. If she’d given them anything useful she might have smiled, but she’d contributed nothing.

  Danbridge’s lips tightened. “Keep on it. Don’t let those IT geeks drop the ball on this.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mallory wanted to be involved in the Meacher investigation, not investigating an anonymous phone tip but she bit down on her frustration.

  Danbridge moved on with the briefing. “We found photographic evidence of what appears to be Meacher torturing fifteen different women. Comparing those photographs to images of missing or murdered women using a preliminary facial analysis program the BAU brought in, we are almost positive at least ten of those victims’ remains have been recovered.” Which left five victims unaccounted for—presumably dead.

  “We have teams of people collecting DNA from the farmhouse and tomorrow we’re sending cadaver dogs to search out any possible bodies buried on the property. We’ll enter the DNA samples into CODIS. The work will continue until we identify every woman featured in those photographs and videos.” Her boss’s knuckles whitened. “Meacher was forty-four years old and we believe he’s been killing since his late teens, early twenties. Again—this is based on photographic evidence and the details need to be verified. We know he moved at least four times over the last two decades and we need to search each of those properties for potential evidence.”

  How to increase the property value of your home—not.

  Danbridge was finishing off. “Although there’s no criminal prosecution for Meacher we need to make sure the scene is processed carefully so that we can find his killer and gain closure for all the victims’ families.” The woman’s eyes blazed. “We are treating Meacher’s death as a homicide. Special Agent Randall will be case officer on that investigation.”

  Mallory’s gaze shot to Lucas. He sent her a wink. Chances were the tipster and killer were related in some way, so hopefully that meant she’d get to help him out once she’d finished pissing off every IT technician she knew.

  The meeting broke up and Mallory snuck out behind Lucas and went back to work. It was November and the anniversary of her sister’s abduction loomed large, as did her mother’s annual request to pose for photographs.

  Not this year.

  Payton was dead. She’d finally accepted it. Maybe it was the twin thing, but for years after her abduction she’d sensed her sister was out there somewhere. Now there was nothing but a cold and empty void. Try explaining that phenomenon to her mother. I don’t think so.

  When she got back to her desk she had a message from Mike Tanner saying he’d managed to narrow the call down to the eastern seaboard of the United States—which was a real bonus given that millions of people lived there. She investigated different units that electronically disguised voices but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what unit had been used, and according to Mike, neither could NASA.

  Mallory leaned back in her chair. The shooter had hit the exact same bull’s eye twice on a moving target. That was a hell of a shot. He’d also cleaned up after himself—no shell casings. It was almost like this guy was a professional hit man.

  That was crazy, right?

  She frowned and opened ViCAP. Entered “suspected killer” and “nine-millimeter” and got several thousand hits. She palmed her face. Okay. She typed in “suspected killer found dead.” Still a lot of hits. She delved deeper into some of the files—it included suicide, accidental death. Damn. She rubbed her eyes. “Suspicious death” “suspected killer found dead.”

  Still a lot of hits but manageable. She went over to the coffee machine and filled another mug. The office was buzzing, despite the fact most of the agents in this office had skipped bed last night. She smothered a yawn and trudged back to her computer and pulled out her notebook, going through each record, looking for similarities with Meacher.

  Hmmm. Last April, a serial sexual offender had been found in his Tampa apartment with a matching pair of slugs rattling around in his brain. Cops had no idea who killed him, but they’d received an anonymous tip-off after he was dead suggesting he was a rapist they were hunting.

  Bingo.

  She trolled through thirty more cases where suspected criminals had OD’d on crystal meth or been killed by rival gangs. Not what she was after. Then she found another case similar to Meacher. Suspected pedophile. Nine millimeter between the eyes. Anonymous tip.

  Mallory straightened.

  Holy shit.

  A yawn grabbed hold and contorted her face and she knew it was time to go home before she passed out from exhaustion. Okay, there was no solid evidence, and every case was just different enough not to create alarm bells ringing in the system, but...

  “Agent Rooney.” It was SSA Danbridge standing with her coat over her arm.

  Mallory jerked. The office was dark except for her desk.

  “You’re making the rest of us look bad. Go home.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Eyes drooping, she typed in one last search term “vigilante” while she pulled on her coat and scarf. The file was huge so she forwarded the results to her email. “Night, boss.”

  She headed out the front door of the building and into the star-spangled night and found herself recalling the exact shade of Alex Parker’s eyes as he’d asked her to go to dinner. Her lips tightened. She’d messed that one up.

  Tears made the stars blur. “Sorry, Pay. I’m so damn sorry.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Four AM was a lonely time, the darkness had an empty feel to it. Trees cracked and creaked as the temperature dropped. The icy breeze scraped over exposed skin like pumice, raising a dull flush. A light dusting of snow made everything brighter, colder. Lonelier.

  He pulled his ski-mask lower over his face, got out of his SUV, and checked that no one was around. He drew on gloves, blowing into the palms of his hands to heat cold flesh. Getting rid of a body was harder than most people would credit. He was physically fit and even he had trouble pulling a full-grown woman out of the back of his car and moving her dead weight any distance.

  The body bag made it awkward to get a grip but with a little effort he managed to get it over his shoulder. He closed the trunk quietly, picked up his flashlight and headed into the bush.

  There was a spot he remembered from a hike last summer, about three hundred yards off one of the official paths. She was unlikely to be found before spring, and it was close enough to the creek that critters were bound to come across the body sooner rather than later and help destroy any lingering evidence. And as careful as he’d been he wasn’t naive enough to believe there was nothing left to link her to him.

  He’d have buried her, but the ground was like concrete. This would have to do.

  He ducked off the path, crunching through the detritus that littered the forest floor. He found the spot he’d earmarked and turned, scanning with his flashlight, looking for the best way to conceal the body. There was an eroded bank undercutting a huge sugar maple. He strode over, dumping the heavy bag on the ground, relieved to be rid of his burden, rolling his shoulders to ease the ache.

  It took a moment to grasp the zipper with his gloved fingers, then he rolled her out like a broken toy. Except for the bruises, she was pale against the s
now. He caught her wrists and pulled her up against the wall of the earthen bank. Her hair dragged through the dirt, leaves tangling in the black strands.

  She’d been a mistake.

  Her hair was the right shade, but her eyes were mud rather than whiskey. Jaw line too square. Hands too big. Mouth too vulgar and bitchy. By the end she’d repulsed him. He straightened her legs, moving her hands to cover her pubic hair. He’d burned her clothes; wiped her body down with Lysol.

  There was a dull throb in his chest. A heaviness that affected his breathing. He’d thought she might be the right one, but she wasn’t. He touched the initials carved above her heart, regret and loneliness slamming into him. His fists curled.

  She shouldn’t have died. He shouldn’t have lost her. It wasn’t fair.

  His breath shuddered out of his chest and he wanted to smash his fist against something. He eyed the girl’s swollen features and looked away. She’d been a mistake, but he couldn’t stop searching until he’d found a replacement. He stood, kicked leaves over the body, covering it from prying eyes, removing it from his sight. In a few hours the snow would shroud her, and when spring came the creek bubbling lazily at his back would flood this spot and sweep her away like garbage. He picked up the body bag, quickly scanned the area for anything he might have left behind, and started back to his car. Fifteen minutes in and out.

  Cold air burned his lungs and he shivered beneath his sheepskin jacket. He got in the SUV and started her up, blasting the heater. Taking someone so close to home posed a risk in some ways, but in others it was smart and might throw people off the scent. And he didn’t need to keep killing...just until he found the right one. He hadn’t realized it would be so hard.

  You know where to find the right one...

  He gripped one hand over his skull, knees automatically curling into his stomach as he fought to control the SUV.

  He couldn’t do that.

  It made sense.

  No, no!

  But Mallory Rooney’s features superimposed themselves over those of the last victim. How many other women had to die because of some stubborn misplaced loyalty to the family?