Fade To Black

13

Lily had made a promise to her boss that she would remain focused on the Reaper case until the murderer was caught. And she meant to keep that promise.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t begin to pave the way toward catching the online sexual predator who haunted her dreams almost as much as the Reaper did. While she’d spent nearly every hour racking her brain, trying to figure out why there was no money trail from the several online auctions the unsub had held, she’d also made a few phone calls.

Including one to the special agent who’d investigated her nephew’s murder.

Knowing her history, the head of the other CAT had tried to refuse her help. She’d remained calm, pointed out all the advantages. And finally, considering she was already hip-deep in the Playground and knew everything about the place, he’d relented.

She hoped they caught Lovesprettyboys soon. But if they didn’t, if he was still out there once the Reaper had been stopped, she would be part of the team going after him.

It wasn’t justice for little Zach. Or for her sister. But it was something.

“Oh, my God,” she heard Brandon mutter from the desk beside hers on Thursday morning.

She immediately swung around in her chair, wondering what had instilled that note of shock in his voice. His usually exuberant mood had disappeared earlier this week, after what had probably been their fifth eighteen-hour workday in a row. Now they were both stretched to the breaking point, frazzled and desperate to help Blackstone and the others.

“What is it?”

“I don’t believe this.”

She slid her chair over next to his, looking at his monitor, not sure she wanted to see. Fortunately, there was no hideous video of a murder on display. Just a cyber sign in Satan’s Playground. But it completely stopped her heart.

“Another one?” she whispered, utterly horrified. “Already?”

He nodded, speechless.

“My God. It hasn’t even been a week.”

“He’s out of control. Accelerating wildly.”

The Reaper was ready to kill again. His ostentatious sign outside the “town hall” where he held his auctions said he was hosting another one. In mere hours.

Lily’s stomach tightened, and she pressed her fisted hand against it, trying to will away the emotion, the revulsion. The panic.

Taking a deep breath, she got her mind back into the game. She examined the screen again, focusing on the cyber billboard. Reading it closely, she leaned in to read the small print at the bottom.

“What does that mean? That line about it being special. About getting real?” Because if the monster hadn’t been real enough already, she didn’t even want to think about the further horrors he might conjure up.

Brandon frowned, obviously puzzled by it, too. “We’d better call Wyatt.”

Lily reached for the phone on Brandon’s desk, quickly dialing their boss, who was right down the hall.

He was in their office less than sixty seconds later, pale and tense, visibly exhausted. And equally as stunned. “Something’s wrong. He’s getting sloppy and far too ambitious. He’s been careful until now; he must know we’re onto him.”

“Impossible,” Brandon said. “Lily and I have covered our tracks; they don’t know we’re watching.”

“Brandon’s right,” she said, meaning it. “We’ve been bouncing off servers all over the country, revolving IPs every single time either of us goes in. We’re piggyback ing on long-existing members, leaving no footprints that we were there. No way do they know we’re as deep inside as we are.”

That would be very deep. Brandon had been watching every move the cyber Reaper made, going back into the site’s history to trace every interaction he had with other members: who he was “friends” with, who he’d purchased things from, who his victims had been, and where he lived in that incredibly detailed imaginary world.

Lily, meanwhile, was following the spiderweb-thin thread from each auction, which she hoped would lead her to the money and its final recipient.

“He knows,” Wyatt explained, “because he knows we’re looking for the first victim’s body.”

“Someone in that town…” Lily murmured.

“Yes.”

The scrolling red line running across the bottom of the sign had been repeating itself over the past few minutes, the word special flashing out its message like a dark, evil heartbeat. Now, though, it changed.

All three of them leaned closer, reading the text. New experience! Never before witnessed! All restraints are off!

“Like the guy ever restrained himself before?” Brandon muttered.

You wanted more? You’re going to get it. For the right price, you get the how and the who. But be ready to pay; this one won’t come cheap. Qualified bidders only.

No credit.

“He’s playing. Having a great time for himself,” Brandon said. “Writing his own ads, like he’s selling some damned piece of real estate. No credit, for God’s sake.”

No credit. Lily let the words replay in her head, trying to untwist those spiderwebs that led in so many different directions, and find a clear path to the unsub.

Wyatt, who’d been standing behind them, watching and deep in thought, suddenly spun around and thrust his hand against the door, sending it flying closed with a loud crack. His hard, lean form shook, and anger consumed his handsome face. “Damn him. Damn him.”

She’d never seen him lose control. Never heard him raise his voice. Never witnessed a personal reaction from the man at all; he was always calm, reasonable, and in control. Now he looked ready to hurt someone.

“When?” he snapped.

Obviously just as shocked by their boss’s out-of-character display, Brandon kept his voice low. “He posted it at around eight a.m. our time, and said within hours.”

Lily had a thought. “We could…”

“What?”

Swallowing, still unused to this side of him, she said, “We could try to interfere with the auction, somehow disable the site temporarily to prevent it from happening.”

“Without them knowing why?”

She exchanged a quick look with Brandon, who said nothing. “We could try exploiting their security patches; they might be outdated. Or DNS poisoning.”

“Oh, that’s subtle,” Brandon said.

“We can try,” she insisted, then turned back to Wyatt, knowing he was the one who would have to be convinced. “There are ways to take it offline and make it look like just a random technical difficulty.”

“Which, even if it worked,” Brandon pointed out, “would merely postpone things.”

“Giving us a little more time to find him,” Lily argued.

Brandon nodded, conceding the point, then made another one. “He’s never let anyone choose the victim before. If the Reaper means the winner can be specific about who he wants killed, maybe we could catch him by staking out the intended victim.”

Wyatt’s jaw clenched, and his dark blue eyes glistened with frustration. “We’d never find out who it is in time. We haven’t been able to trace a single dollar to this guy going back a year and a half. You really think we’re going to be able to intercept communications between the Reaper and the winner to get the name of the victim in a matter of hours?”

Lily glanced down, murmuring, “I’m sorry.”

“Save it. We don’t have time.”

She took no offense. The man couldn’t possibly be any more stressed. She found it amazing that he was still able to function, given everything this case had done to the team. They’d put in long days; he’d put in longer ones. They’d dug deep to find creative strategies for catching this guy; he’d dug deeper. Plus Wyatt had the added strain of being jerked around on the puppet strings held by supervisors who probably wouldn’t even care that more victims would die, as long as Wyatt was humiliated.

Oh, yeah, everybody knew. And the more she worked with the man and his team, the more she resented it. Wyatt was the kind of agent everybody wanted to be, and the kind everybody wanted to work for. Including Lily.

“So what are we going to do?” she asked, her heart racing as she remembered the team being in this position less than one week before.

Then, the consequences had proved horrific for a teenage girl.

Would they have to sit back and let this vicious psychopath take some other unsuspecting victim and extinguish her life?

Wyatt hesitated, considering. Then he yanked open the door, snapped, “Take it down. Take the whole goddamned site down,” and stalked out.

Dean was on his way back to Hope Valley before noon on Thursday. Knowing the Reaper intended to host another auction so quickly had put the entire team on high alert. They were counting on Brandon and Lily to find a way to get the site offline for at least a day so they could try to find the man and stop him.

Their failure didn’t bear thinking about. Especially because signs pointed to the unsub spinning out of control. “It’s too soon,” he muttered, alone in his car. Serial killers were never so deadly as when they began to melt down and decided they had nothing to lose by giving in to their darkest urges as many times as possible.

Something had spooked the unsub. Which just convinced Dean even more that the Reaper lived in Hope Valley and knew the FBI had been all over the town last weekend.

He dreaded telling Stacey. She had no idea the stakes had increased so dramatically, and he wanted to relay the news in person. Considering she had probably been making herself bleary-eyed watching the surveillance footage from the mall every waking hour since he’d left her yesterday morning, he didn’t expect to find her in the mood to receive more bad news.

She can take it. She’s a pro.

Yes, she was. A pro who was too good to be wasting herself in a job that would never fulfill her. He understood her original choices; he just thought it was time for her to reevaluate them. Not that he could say that to her. The lines on their sort-of relationship were carefully drawn. If he tried to go there, he had the feeling she’d shut him down completely.

Maybe later, when this was all over. God, please let it be over.

They had hours now, not days. So, not wanting to waste time tracking her down, he called her when he hit town. To his surprise, she told him she was at home.

One thing was sure: Their reunion at her door would not be as sensual as their good-bye had been yesterday morning. After spending Tuesday night in her bed, making love to her the way he’d wanted to Saturday, it had taken pure will to walk away again. With the exception of the two hours he’d spent with Jared last night, he’d wanted to be nowhere but back here.

Not that he was about to tell her that. Stacey had made it pretty clear Saturday night that they were having a fling. He didn’t think she’d be happy if he told her that last night, before falling asleep, he’d mentally replayed every minute of the night before. That sounded like a little more than she was bargaining for. Hell, it was more than he was bargaining for.

“Hi,” she said when she opened the door to him. She wore her uniform, though her blouse was unbuttoned to her collarbone. Her hair was piled loosely on her head, her face pale, as if she’d been dealing with a headache.

He meant to keep it cool and professional during work hours, but something within him demanded the right to touch her, to taste her. Stepping inside, he didn’t even say hello before reaching for her. He tugged her close, wrapping his arms around her.

Their mouths met in a slow, warm kiss that demanded nothing yet promised the world. The kind only two people who’d shared incredible intimacies, and knew how good things could be, were able to fully savor. She tasted so sweet, and felt so right in his arms, that he couldn’t even remember why he’d bargained for anything but the real deal with this amazing woman.

Though their lips finally parted, they stayed close, her forehead against his. In silence, they exchanged warm exhalations, and through their clothes he felt the pounding of her heart begin to slow. His, too.

They put off the world for one more moment, reconnecting before having to dive back into the nightmare. Dean allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of her skin and the curves and valleys of her body pressed so tightly against his before regretfully letting her go. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I left yesterday,” he admitted.

She hesitated for a split second, then came clean, too. “So have I.”

So much for just sex and nothing more. Because there was something else here, whether either one of them was ready to admit it out loud or not.

“How’d your evening with Jared go last night?”

He cracked his first real smile of the day. “Great. I took your suggestion and took him to one of those pizza places with the big dancing puppet dudes and the indoor play place. The kid loved it.”

She rolled her eyes. “How have you lived thirty-four years of your life without ever hearing of Chuck E. Cheese?”

“Hard to believe, huh? Anyway, thanks. I was Dad of the Year last night.”

“I’m glad,” she said softly, her smile slowly fading.

His did, too. They’d finished with the personal stuff, the warmth. Now it was back to the cold darkness of the case both of them desperately wanted to solve.

“Working at home today?”

“I tried doing it at the office this morning, but couldn’t get a moment’s peace. Our esteemed mayor has finally heard about what’s going on and has demanded to be part of the investigation into Lisa’s murder.”

Gawking, he could only stare at her.

“I know, it’s ridiculous, and I told him so. He’s an arrogant blowhard, and I guarantee you what he’s most interested in is getting credit and attention once this thing is solved.”

“Politicians.”

“Yeah. Anyway, he informed me that the only reason he wasn’t actively out there searching with ‘his’ deputies was because he and the first lady are going out of town for a day or two. Must be time for her latest face-lift.”

That told him everything he needed to know about Hope Valley’s mayor and his wife. “Hopefully by the time they get back, this will all be over with.”

“Hear, hear.” She quickly got serious again. “So tell me what’s going on. I didn’t expect you back here in the middle of the day. I could hear it in your voice that something else has happened.”

Something had happened, all right. He filled her in quickly and concisely.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Already?”

“Yes. Have you gotten anywhere with the tapes?”

She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, sending it spilling from its loose bun to fall against her cheeks. Beautiful. “My eyes feel like they’re about to fall out and my head is pounding. Considering all the different vantage points of the cameras, it took me all day and long into the night to get through one twelve-hour period at the mall.”

They had a week’s worth of video to go through. This would never work. “We don’t have enough time to go through them all.”

“You have a plan B?”

He had several, starting with conducting more interviews. But they could take one more shot at the surveillance video first. “I might. Show me.”

“In here.” She led him to the kitchen, where she’d set up her laptop. The picture on the screen had been paused in the middle of a shopping day, with harried, bag-laden shoppers and teenage mall rats armed with Daddy’s credit cards filling the screen.

“Let’s tackle this more effectively. I have the victim’s work schedule. Assuming he had an idea of when she would be there and wanted to keep an eye on her, why don’t we focus in on those times first. She worked only four shifts in the week before her death, ranging from four to six hours.”

She scooted a chair around so they could both easily see the screen, then gestured for him to sit. “There are a dozen views of the mall in these files. We could narrow it further and focus on the ones closest to her store. If he went to the trouble of driving up there, he’d want to actually see her, wouldn’t he?”

“One would think.”

“From what I’ve figured out, you can select which camera views to watch and split the screen. Might be quicker if we include three views: the store, the closest mall entrance, and the nearest parking lot. I’ll have a better shot at recognizing someone, obviously, but you can focus on the exteriors and let me know if a lone man is in the frame.”

“You’re good at this,” he said. Too good to be wasting her time in a little town where the biggest crime she ever dealt with was an occasional red-light runner.

And the occasional serial killer.

Spying the half-empty pot of coffee, he rose and poured himself a cup, then topped off her nearly empty one. He had a feeling they were going to need it.

And over the next two hours, as they watched every second of the tapes, he was proved right.

The longer they watched, the more Dean’s irritation built. He tapped his feet on the floor, his fingers on the table. Doing nothing but staring at a computer monitor while a psychopath was preparing to strike again filled him with impotent frustration. Stacey obviously sensed it; she’d grown very quiet, very intent, scooting closer to the screen so she wouldn’t miss it if a mosquito had flown by one of the security cameras.

“Why don’t we take a quick break?” he finally said. He wasn’t used to this kind of inactivity. Sure, he’d conducted stakeouts that had proved boring and fruitless. But this… hell, it felt as if he were napping while a dragon was scooping up his own son.

“No problem. I’m starving.’

“Me, too.”

“Cold leftover pizza okay?”

They’d ordered it Tuesday night. And had barely touched it, not wanting to consume anything but each other. Damn, it seemed like a lifetime ago.

“That’s fine,” he said. He opened his mouth again, about to say how much better he had liked it in bed the other night, when there was a knock on her front door.

Stacey tensed, her eyes shifting in that direction. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

It was the middle of a sunny afternoon in small-town America. Obviously the stress of this case was putting her on edge if the thought of an unexpected visitor had the woman tensing up as though she expected a home invasion. He wished like hell she’d never had to feel that way about the safe haven she’d been clinging to-burying herself in-for the past two years.

“Maybe some kid selling cookies.”

She didn’t relax. Instead, with quiet, measured steps, she approached the door, her head cocked to the side to peer out through the narrow window beside it.

That was when he realized something was really wrong, and remembered the dog. God, no wonder she was edgy. What an idiot he’d been not to think of it immediately. They hadn’t discussed the incident since the other day in the car. With the insanity of the case, he’d let it leave his mind.

“Stacey, wait!” he insisted. “Let me get it.”

She’d already reached for the knob. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not for me, anyway. It’s for you.”

She opened the door. On the other side of it stood both Mulrooney and Stokes.

He didn’t question how they’d tracked him to Stacey’s home, or how they’d gotten the address. Because they both wore twin dark frowns. Nearly tangible tension caused Mulrooney’s suit jacket to strain against his stiffened shoulders, and Stokes’s jaw appeared carved of granite.

“What is it?”

Mulrooney answered, “They couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do…” The truth dawned. “Oh, hell.”

Beside him, Stacey brought a shaking hand to her mouth as she figured it out, too.

Mulrooney explained anyway. “Lily and Brandon tried, but they couldn’t bring down the site.”

“No.”

“It’s worse.”

He didn’t ask how it could be worse. He already knew. “The auction?”

“Over.”

Over. Mere hours after it had been announced. Not even one week since the last one. The unsub was either insane, desperate, or suicidal. “Meaning we have about twenty-four hours to find this guy and stop him from killing another woman,” he said.

Jackie Stokes shook her head. For the first time in the several weeks he’d known her, she appeared less than entirely professional. Her mouth quivered the tiniest bit.

This was bad. Very bad.

“It’s not just murder, and it’s not a woman,” she said. Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to finish.

So Mulrooney did.

“It’s rape, torture, and murder. And this time, his target is a child.”

Mulrooney and Stokes wanted to immediately go and question Warren Lee. The report they’d requested on registered American-made trucks in the area had given them a long list. Too long. But Warren’s name was on it.

Then again, so was her own father’s. Her brother’s. And Randy’s.

Dean was more interested in going back to Dick’s and using the new information they had about Mitch’s fight with Lisa, and the fact that nobody there had even thought to mention it, to try to get more people talking.

Stacey had other ideas. “You remember me saying my father was the sheriff of this town for twenty years? I want to go see him.” She cast a quick glance at Dean. “His arthritis is bad, but his eyesight is very good. And he knows every person who’s lived or died in this town since the day he took office.”

She didn’t really want to drag her father into this, but they needed the help. No way could she and Dean sit here and watch the surveillance videos for the rest of the day. Not if that monster really was going after a child.

Don’t think about that.

She couldn’t go there, not even in her imagination. And knowing how Dean felt about his son, she knew he couldn’t, either. Not while being so horrifyingly familiar with the kinds of atrocities the Reaper was capable of.

Right after Stokes and Mulrooney had arrived, Dean had excused himself for a minute. She’d lay money he’d called his ex-wife, telling her to keep a close eye on their son today. That was exactly what she would have done, anyway.

Dean saw where she was going. “You think your father would do it?”

“Do what?” Stokes asked.

“Look at the surveillance videos,” she explained. “He can watch them. If anybody from Hope Valley shows up, he will spot him.”

“Did you ever ask him about the animal abuse?” Dean asked.

Now it was Mulrooney’s turn to appear confused. “What?”

Stacey debated on how much to say, how much to reveal without risking exposure of her affair with Dean. She also didn’t want to reveal too much to Dean, at least not in front of the others. She hadn’t yet told him about the phone calls that had followed up the bloody present on her porch. The one late Sunday, after Tim had left, had been followed by two more on subsequent nights.

She’d almost told Dean on Tuesday in the car, but something had held her back. Maybe because she didn’t want to dilute his thinking on the Reaper case. She knew, deep down, that they weren’t connected. The caller hadn’t been trying to scare her off, or let her know that he was watching. No, this had felt different. Like he just wanted to throw some spite her way, as if she had done him some personal wrong.

As she had told Dean, there were a lot of men around here who disliked her intensely. Considering that the first call had come Sunday night, one day after their visit to Dick’s Tavern, it had probably been one of those men who hadn’t liked being questioned. Maybe Lester, the weasely little toady.

“Stacey and I were talking about some of the characteristics of known serial killers,” Dean told Mulrooney.

“Which we wouldn’t have to guess at if that damn profile had come through,” Mulrooney said.

Dean crossed his arms. “Still nothing on that?”

“Nope. Get a load of this. Alec Lambert, the agent working on it for Wyatt? Turns out he’s some kind of wild card. Got his ass shot in an undercover operation two days ago. The BAU just got around to letting us know.”

What else could go wrong?

“They’ve given the case to somebody else, but the new guy is starting from square one. He won’t have anything until at least Monday.”

Monday would be too late. And they all knew it.

Stacey cleared her throat, knowing they couldn’t waste precious minutes worrying about a profile that wouldn’t do them any good, anyway. “I want to ask my dad if he remembers any cases of animal abuse from his years in office. Or even if he got calls about lots of missing pets in one particular neighborhood, that type of thing.”

Stokes seemed to have finally regained her equilibrium. “Good idea,” she said.

For the first few minutes since the agents had arrived, the other woman had said almost nothing, appearing completely lost in thought. Stacey didn’t wonder what she was thinking about. Jackie wore a wedding ring on her left hand. And had proudly talked about her kids the other night.

How do they stand it? How do parents do it?

Stacey had wondered before. She’d probably wonder for the rest of her life.

“So you and I will take the surveillance files to your father and ask him about the animal abuse,” Dean said.

“We’ll have to bring the laptop and set everything up for him. He has a computer, though it’s pretty old. I had wireless Internet hooked up for him, but I don’t think he even knows how to sign on to it, and the network’s not secured.”

Stokes had apparently gotten her head back into the here and very desperate now. “Okay, while you and Dean go talk to the former sheriff, Kyle and I will head out to try to interview a few others, people who were a little friendlier with the victim than we thought?”

The woman exchanged a quick, private look with Dean, which Stacey interpreted immediately. “Deputy Flanagan’s arm is really broken.”

Dean coughed into his fist, and she nearly smiled. Did he really think she didn’t understand the way he thought? Of course he’d continue to suspect Mitch until the other man was definitively ruled out. She would expect nothing less.

And would do nothing else herself.

“You’re certain?” he asked.

“The local doctor’s a nice old-timer. Realizing we probably suspected him, Mitch went to see him. Doc called me right before you arrived this morning, said he had copies of the X-rays if I wanted to see them. The left arm was broken in two places. He also said he always initials his patients’ casts, and the one Mitch is wearing right now is the same one he put on the night the arm was broken. That was a few days before your last victim disappeared. I assume if the Reaper had been favoring one arm, or trying to hide it, you would have noticed something on the tape?”

Nobody answered. The three agents simply stared at one another, their moods growing even darker. Which told Stacey all she ever wanted to know about the details of that last videotaped murder.

“He used both arms,” Dean said, his voice low.

Beheaded. God, that poor young girl.

“Thanks,” he added. “It looks like you managed to get another suspect crossed off our list.”

“So we go to this crazy commando guy’s place,” Mulrooney said.

Stacey groaned. “Oh, no, please don’t go to Warren’s. Let me handle him.”

“We can’t waste any time, Sheriff Rhodes.” Mulrooney didn’t sound unkind or unappreciative. “I know you’ve been very helpful, but-”

“This isn’t about me not wanting you bigger kids to play in my sandbox,” she insisted. “I just know this guy. He’s not the Reaper. You’d be wasting your time.”

Dean stepped in. “But we both saw the look on his face that day when he came out on his ATV. He knows something.”

Yes. He might know something. Still, the last thing any of them could deal with now was an armed standoff with an unstable man who almost certainly was not the killer they sought.

“I agree; he might have information. But there’s only one way we’re going to get it, and that’s if I can get him to come into the office. If a pair of FBI agents step onto his property, Warren will start screaming Waco. He’ll threaten to kill anybody who gets too close, and you two will have to end up shooting him to protect yourselves.”

“Jeez, and they say big cities have the crazies?” Mulrooney said with a rueful shake of his head. “What do they put in the water around this place? Crack? I mean, you’ve got serial killers, animal abusers, psycho commandos, abusive stepfathers. Sounds like everyone in Hope Valley is tripping.”

It did sound that way, which broke Stacey’s heart. Because it just wasn’t true. Hope Valley was a good place. A safe place. It was a far cry from the rest of the world. “You’re seeing the worst of the worst. There are many more good people here than bad. But we’re not exactly out there looking for them, are we?”

“It’s not like anybody in law enforcement spends their days tracking down the good guys,” said Dean.

“Too bad.” Mulrooney snorted. “If you ask me, going after Mr. Rogers beats chasing Jack-the-freakin’-Ripper any day.” He and Stokes exchanged a look. “Okay, back to the bar we go.”

Stacey thought for a long moment before she opened her mouth, considering what she and Dean had talked about the other night. About the possibilities, the profile. The chance that someone she knew very well might be a monster.

It didn’t seem possible. But she couldn’t deny it had to be checked out. And since she had to go to her father’s, and the other agents needed to fill the time until she could meet back up with them to call Warren in, they were the obvious ones to do the checking. “I have something else you might want to look into,” she murmured, not meeting Dean’s eye. She bent down and scrawled a name and an address on a piece of paper, handing it to Special Agent Stokes.

“You think this guy could be involved?”

Did she? Did she really? It seemed impossible.

Then again, someone murdering innocent victims and charging people for the privilege of watching it done had seemed completely impossible to her a week ago, too.

“I don’t know that I’d call him a suspect,” she admitted. “But he was at the bar the night Lisa disappeared. And his background and lifestyle make it at least possible. He’s worth a look, anyway.”

Dean glanced over Stokes’s shoulder at the piece of paper and read the name. He didn’t respond with any more than a brief nod. But the gleam in his eyes said he agreed.

Her brother’s best pal, Randy Covey, was worth checking out.

Wyatt had known it was a long shot. Brandon and Lily were brilliant at what they did, but knocking off an international Web site when they weren’t even certain where it was hosted was a tall order.

But somehow, deep down, he’d expected them to pull it off.

Knowing he’d catch heat, knowing he’d be criticized for risking the whole operation, knowing he’d be blamed if this son of a bitch Reaper went underground and hid in anonymity for the rest of his days, knowing all that, he’d wanted them to succeed.

They hadn’t.

They hadn’t.

He didn’t know who’d been more upset: Brandon because the failure was an insult to his abilities. Or Lily, because she was Lily.

Her reaction would haunt him in days to come. He didn’t know if he would ever forgive himself for hiring her in the first place, knowing her vulnerabilities.

Lily had already become almost obsessed with that perverted character who called himself Lovesprettyboys. For the same deviant to win the auction and make his sick choice had almost pulled the legs completely out from under the young agent.

“A boy,” he whispered, still not believing it. “He paid to watch someone rape and murder a little boy.”

There could have been no worse words for Lily Fletcher to read on that screen. None that would stab straight through her heart as viciously as if she were pierced with one of the scythes the Reaper used so joyfully in Satan’s Playground.

He’d tried to talk to her. She’d told him she didn’t need to.

He’d tried to send her home. She’d refused to go.

Instead, she’d been in her office with Brandon, each working frantically on their assigned tasks. Brandon tried to monitor any private communication between the killer and his customer. And Lily was trying to find the money exchanged between them.

She’d had no luck before. That didn’t mean she would give up. In fact, he now knew she wouldn’t give up until both of the real monsters from that virtual world were behind bars.

“Wyatt? Wyatt!” Brandon called from out in the hallway.

He jumped up from behind his desk and hurried out of the office, seeing the younger man rushing toward him. “You’ve found something?”

Brandon shook his head, turning on his heel and hurrying back down the hallway. “No, it’s Lily.”

Oh, God. What had she done? What had he done to her? Had her fragile psyche finally cracked under the strain of her family’s horror combined with this current one?

He skidded into the office Brandon and Lily shared. His heart pounding and his pulse roaring through his veins, he half expected to see her slumped at her desk.

She wasn’t. Instead, she sat upright, her fingers clicking wildly, her nose almost touching the monitor.

“What happened?”

“Shh!”

He remained silent, and so did Brandon, for a long minute or two. Then Lily froze. Her mouth dropped and she jerked so hard her glasses fell off her face. Putting her hands on the edge of her desk, she launched herself backward with a shocked cry, as if she couldn’t bear to see whatever it was she’d discovered.

“What?” Brandon knelt beside her. “Tiger Lily, what is it?”

She shook her head, looking up toward the ceiling, as if that held the answers. “I understand now. I see. I followed the spiderweb. Couldn’t stop thinking of the way he’d worded it. ‘Real.’ ‘No Credit.’ ”

“I don’t understand, Lily.” Wyatt walked over and put a hand on her slender shoulder, hoping the agent hadn’t had some kind of mental breakdown. She’d been honest about the psychiatric therapy she’d undergone after her nephew’s murder and her sister’s suicide. Had today’s horrifying discovery pushed her back over the edge?

“I couldn’t track the money,” she whispered.“Couldn’t find it; the trail went nowhere, thin and fragile as a spiderweb.”

She was starting to make sense. And his pulse gradually began to slow. “But now? What happened, Lily? Have you tracked it now?”

“No.”

Brandon looked up at him, shaking his head. “Maybe we should call someone.”

Brandon didn’t know. Nobody knew, except Wyatt, that there was no one to call. Lily was completely alone in the world. Her sister and nephew had been her last two surviving family members. Now they were both gone and she had absolutely no one.

“Lily,” he murmured, “tell me.”

She finally tore her gaze off the ceiling and met his stare directly. “I can find him, Wyatt.” The assurance returned. Steel oozed back into her posture, and the weak, haunted woman began to disappear right before his eyes.

“Good,” he said, his tone soothing, though he was confused by her mood.

“I can track the auction payment as soon as it’s made. Because this time, it will be made.”

Brandon slowly rose, obviously realizing his office mate wasn’t in the middle of a nervous breakdown. “What are you talking about? He’s always gotten paid, except for that very first murder, Lisa Zimmerman’s. Why is this one different?”

“Yes. Paid.” She pulled her eyes from Wyatt’s and looked back at the computer. The screen displayed a sequence of numbers, as well as some odd, coinlike symbols. “Paid in Faida.”

Wyatt didn’t follow.

“It’s an old medieval term,” she said, her voice growing hard. “It means blood money.” She nearly spat the words.

“What are you saying?” Brandon asked, even as Wyatt felt the truth begin to slide into his brain like an ugly, awful black mist. It filled every pore, every cell, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to believe it.

“It’s a game,” she said with a laugh devoid of anything resembling humor. “All a game, with Faida as the currency, as real as the money on a Monopoly board.”

Brandon still appeared confused. Any reasonable person would be. Because the horror, the awfulness of it, was almost beyond comprehension.

“The murders,” Wyatt said quietly. “He never got cash for any of them.”

“Not a penny.” Obviously seeing the still-confused look on Brandon’s face, she shook her head and laid it out with bald, horrific bluntness. “Don’t you get it? None of the other auctions were payable in dollars or euro or yen or anything tangible. They were strictly Faida.” She shook her head in utter disgust.

Brandon lowered himself into his chair, at last getting it. But Lily made it eminently clear anyway.

“He slaughtered those women for credits in this hellhole of a game. He did it for play money.”