The Prey

CHAPTER 21

Rowan didn’t see John after the funeral. She didn’t understand why she felt oddly empty. After all, John had family and friends in from all over the country to pay respects to his brother. And Tess needed comfort and strength, something that John had in abundance.

But at three in the morning when Rowan woke from another nightmare, she wished he were there to hold her.

Foolish, she thought as reached under her pillow for her Glock and sat up in bed. She’d lived with her nightmares on and off for twenty-three years without relying on a man to comfort her. Why now? Why John?

She held the cold gun in her hands and stared into the darkness outside the large picture window. It was a moonless night, but the stars were so bright they seemed touchable.

Bobby, come for me. Please. I need this to be over.

Her inner strength began to melt. The carefully constructed wall that had protected her for so long crumbled at her feet. She was a trapped animal, pacing, pacing, pacing. Waiting for someone to come and shoot her. A mouse being toyed with by a cat. As soon as the mouse lost hope and cowered, the cat killed its prey.

Was that what Bobby was doing? Toying with her until she broke? Playing with her until she screamed with rage or retreated into her mind with insanity?

Did he want to turn her into their father? A hollow shell of a man, a victim of his weak mind and guilty conscience?

What if she didn’t give him what he wanted? What if she didn’t plead for mercy or beg for death? What if she simply stood there and took whatever he intended to give her?

It wasn’t John she thought of just then. It was Michael.

And Doreen and the Harpers and the florist and pretty Melissa Jane Acker.

She wouldn’t let Bobby win. Not for herself. For them. The victims of his glee, the down payment for his plans. They deserved justice. They deserved peace in the grave.

Peace would only come when Bobby was dead and buried and rotting in hell.

Sleep wasn’t going to come, she realized, as she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side. She slipped into the running shoes that always had a place by the side of her bed and laced them in the dark.

Four in the morning. She couldn’t wake Quinn now for a run, but she’d love one as dawn crested over the Malibu mountains and lit the ocean. Five-thirty. Until then, maybe she could get some writing done. It had been weeks since she’d been able to write a word.

She quietly walked down the stairs and let herself into the den. She closed the door and booted her computer.

She wasn’t working on a fictional House of Terror. At least, she wasn’t writing the book she’d started three months ago. She’d realized after Doreen Rodriguez was killed she couldn’t write fiction anymore, at least not now. Maybe not ever. Not pretend murders and unreal evil.

But her new work was still called House of Terror. And her new work had the same crime.

Only the victims were real, the murderer real, the survivors real.

For the first time, she was writing true crime.

A huge weight lifted from her heart.

It was seven when John knocked on Rowan’s door. Quinn Peterson answered immediately, expecting him.

“Collins talk to you?” Peterson asked as he locked the door and reset the alarm, his voice rough from lack of sleep.

“Yep.” John glanced around the room, not realizing he was looking for Rowan until he didn’t see her. “Where’s Rowan?”

Peterson nodded toward the closed den door. “She’s been in there since four this morning.”

John frowned. He didn’t like Rowan’s habit of locking herself in her den. “Have you checked on her?”

The agent nodded as he led John into the kitchen. “I was sleeping on the couch and the sound of the computer woke me. She said she was writing and wanted to go running at six. But when I went in then, she hadn’t moved and told me to give her ten minutes. But then Roger called, and-” he ended with a shrug.

“You told her?”

“Oh, yeah. She’d strangle me if I kept any news from her. I told her everything we know about Bobby and the woman in Dallas.” He handed John a cup of hot, black coffee and refilled his own mug.

“And her reaction?”

“At first angry, then pleased that the woman got away. Almost emboldened. Then she went back to writing.”

“I’m going to talk to her.” I need to see her.

“Did Collins ask you about going to the safe house?”

John nodded. “I agreed.”

“Good.”

“I don’t think Rowan is going to feel the same.”

John walked down the hall and stood outside the den. Faintly, he heard fingers tapping on the keyboard in spurts of speed.

He hadn’t wanted to agree with Roger Collins’s request that he escort Rowan to a safe house while the manhunt for Bobby MacIntosh raged. He wanted-needed-to be there when they caught Bobby. The bastard who’d killed Michael. The bastard who had been tormenting Rowan until she almost broke.

He almost wanted Bobby to break into the house so he had an excuse to kill him.

But he didn’t want to endanger Rowan. Keeping her safe had become more important than anything else. Keeping her alive until Bobby was caught or killed, then keeping her by his side. How, he wasn’t sure. These feelings were new to him, confusing. Disconcerting.

He couldn’t just walk away with a kiss and goodbye.

She had become important to him in a short period of time. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. He trusted no one else to protect her, no one else to ensure her safety. So he agreed to escort her to the safe house and stay with her until MacIntosh was caught. It was one of the hardest decisions in his life, but he felt it was right. Keep her safe.

After the fiasco in Dallas, MacIntosh would be enraged. More likely to make mistakes. So it was only a matter of time.

The prostitute was under twenty-four-hour protection as well, Collins told John, in case MacIntosh went after her to finish the job. Apparently, she’d taken extensive self-defense training and had been warned by a friend that the man she knew as Rex Barker might be dangerous.

That knowledge probably saved her life.

John stared at the door, dreading talking to Rowan about the safe house, but the clock was ticking. It had to be done. He knocked once on the door and opened it.

Rowan sat at her computer, hands poised above the keyboard as she glanced over her shoulder. She caught his eye, and John saw a side of Rowan he’d never seen. A spark in her eyes, a light in her face-something was different. Maybe it was the slight smile on her lips-was she happy to see him?

He’d missed her. The realization hit him with an almost physical force and he would have taken a step back if he hadn’t stopped himself.

Yesterday, he’d seen her in the back of the church and wanted her at his side. For comfort. Had she been with him, the entire day would have been a little easier. But she’d left at the end of the service, and he had too many obligations to follow her.

It left a hole in his heart. Something he desperately wanted to fix now. Seeing her this morning almost made up for being apart the night before.

She’d said something, but he’d missed it.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked, feeling like a lovestruck teenager.

“Is the girl okay? Sadie Pierce?” Rowan swiveled the chair to look at him. She wore gray sweats and a faded blue T-shirt, her hair pulled back, and she had on no makeup, but Rowan couldn’t have looked more appealing to him.

What was wrong with him? He didn’t form romantic attachments, especially with women he worked with. Or protected. That wasn’t his M.O., and he didn’t want to start now.

“She’s under protection,” he said. “Spent the night in the hospital and was released, minor injuries. She’s resilient.”

Rowan closed her eyes and smiled. “Good. I can’t tell you how happy I am that she got away.” She paused, looked pointedly at him. “Roger told you about the medical bag. The book. The book Bobby stole from my shelf.”

John nodded. “There’s no word on Bobby.”

“I’d hoped. Roger pulled out all the stops.” Her voice held a tremor.

He shook his head. “The cops are out full-force in Dallas; L.A. transportation hubs are looking for him. It’ll be hard for him to get back here undetected.”

“But not impossible,” she murmured.

“No, not impossible. He’s proven to be pretty smart, so unless he does something stupid, he’ll be here. For you, Rowan. We have to protect you.”

“You are. There are two unmarked sedans on the highway, and Quinn is holed up in my living room. We’re ready for him.”

“We need to do more.”

“What?”

“I spoke with Collins this morning.”

Her body stiffened. She was still raw over Roger lying to her. John didn’t blame her. He’d had a hard time being civil to Collins over the phone.

“And?”

“He wants you in a safe house.”

“No.” She crossed her arms as if her answer were final.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Like hell I don’t!” She tossed her arms into the air and crossed over to the phone, picking it up and pointing it at him. “I will not run away and cower. Bobby’s going to come for me now. Good. We’re prepared. We’ll catch him, and that will be the end of that.”

She started punching numbers into the handset. John reached over and tried to pull the phone away, but she karate-chopped his arm.

“Dammit, Rowan,” he said, rubbing his wrist. “You know it’s for the best. They’re going to put a lookalike in the house, set a trap.”

“I want to be here. I need to be here!”

“You can’t. You’re too close to this.”

“I’m a trained agent, dammit.” She said into the receiver, “Roger, I’m not going to a safe house.” She listened, her face registering her anger. “You can’t do that!” A moment later, she yelled, “Damn you!” and slammed down the receiver.

She whirled on John, hit him in the chest. “You’re in on this!”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

“Like hell it is! I want to be here when they take him down. I can’t believe you’d rather run away.”

John steeled his jaw, his anger building. He grabbed her wrists and held them tight, pulling her close. His lips were inches from hers.

“I’m not running away, Rowan,” he said, keeping his voice low and calm. “I’m protecting you. Collins put you in protective custody for your own good.”

“Don’t tell me what’s for my own good,” she said, her voice vibrating, her eyes dark with pain and anger.

“Look at your behavior right now, Rowan. You’ve just proven you’re too close to the case. Don’t do this.”

“After everything that’s happened, I deserve to be here!” Her body shook, her eyes pleading with him.

John didn’t disagree with her. How could he? He understood vengeance. Justice. Doing something yourself because he was your enemy.

But Bobby MacIntosh had proven to be shrewd. He’d planned four of his murders perfectly. The escape of the last victim was partly his bad luck and partly his choice of Sadie Pierce.

John didn’t doubt that MacIntosh had a plan to get Rowan alone and kill her. After hurting her.

He couldn’t let that happen. John was confident in his abilities, but more important, he trusted his instincts. MacIntosh would blow up the damned house if he could. Anything to get Rowan. And John wasn’t going to lose her.

“Well, you don’t have a choice,” he told her quietly. “You have one hour to pack your things and then I’m taking you away.”

She stared at him with a savage look of betrayal. Why couldn’t she understand this was for the best? It wasn’t perfect, but it would keep her alive until they caught her brother.

Without another word, she brushed past him and left the room, slamming the door.

What had he expected? That she’d willingly go with him up the coast? Consider it a vacation? That they could take long walks on the beach and make love in front of the fire? They weren’t going to some damned lover’s nest, it was a safe house. And he wasn’t her lover, just an available partner in bed when they both needed someone.

It was best not to think of his time with Rowan as anything else.

He turned to leave, but the glow of the computer screen caught his eye. He crossed over and read what she’d last written.

My idyllic childhood was anything but. I thought, in my young girl’s mind, that the love of my mother could keep the monsters at bay. Monsters weren’t real, after all.

But we lived with monsters. Not only my brother, whom I had always feared, but a monster masked with the face of a loving father. He never raised his hand to us, his children. But my mother didn’t escape his wrath. And now I can’t help but ask why. Why did she allow herself to be repeatedly hurt? Did it take her death to end her pain?

And why did no one else see my father’s abuse?

It had been a lovely spring day, the white cherry blossoms exploding with life…

She was writing an autobiography, John thought, incredulous. He was sure she hadn’t considered this before. Because she didn’t discuss the past. Now, it seemed, she’d been set free.

He started to have doubts about the safe house. Maybe Collins was wrong and she could handle a confrontation with her brother. Then again, her reaction five minutes ago told him she was too close, too emotionally involved to think straight.

Torn, he looked at the closed door. No, he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk her life.

If he lost Rowan, he didn’t think he would recover. He just hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake.

Rowan remained silent on the lengthy drive up the coast, which took longer than it normally would have because John took several precautions to ensure they weren’t followed. The safe house was near Cambria, a small town north of Santa Barbara.

Rowan thought it ironic that only a few weeks ago she’d thought about spending some time on California’s north coast because it combined the ocean, the woods, and the privacy she craved. The central coast was much the same, and Cambria was an idyllic, quiet vacation community where they would be safe.

Yet she disliked everything about it.

She expected this overprotectiveness from Roger. After all, he’d lied to her from the beginning-in order to protect her. While she despised the lies and the betrayal, at least she understood his motivation. She’d been a different person at ten, barely more than a baby, really. What knight in shining armor wouldn’t want to protect a young damsel in distress? And back then, she’d thought of Roger as her rescuer, her white knight.

But she hadn’t expected this from John. Of all people, she thought John would understand. He wanted justice for Michael as much as-or even more than-she did. And for all Bobby’s other victims.

The sacrifice John had made hit her hard. He’d left to protect her. He’d given up his chance to avenge his brother’s murder because he wanted to keep her safe. She glanced over at him with renewed appreciation. And something deeper. A feeling that had been invading her mind and body since the first night they made love.

John was irrevocably a part of her soul. She couldn’t lose him. She’d finally begun to accept and deal with what had happened so many years ago. Losing John was unthinkable.

When it came right down to it, Rowan hated running. It reminded her of the Franklin murders and the lowest point in her life since Dani had been killed.

She didn’t have the urge to run anymore. Her demon had a face: Bobby. She wanted to fight him herself. She wanted to see the look on his face when he realized she wasn’t the young, weak, frightened little girl he’d confronted twenty-three years ago. Despite her youth she had beaten him then, and surely she could beat him now.

But the opportunity to catch Bobby had been taken away by the erroneous whim of a man who had lied to her and the complicity of a man she had trusted.

It felt wrong, even though she knew it was really their only option. She hadn’t done or said anything to make John or Roger believe she was strong enough to handle a confrontation with Bobby. Was she? If Bobby found her, would she be able to fight him and win? Or would she cower in a closet like her younger self, waiting for him, letting him kill those she loved?

She hoped-no, she believed-that if Bobby found her, she would rise to the challenge. She wouldn’t let him get to her. Couldn’t let him defeat her.

But running kept John safe as well. While she had no doubt he was capable of leading an operation while driven by emotion, here in the safe house, he, too, would be protected. The thought gave her a modicum of peace.

“I’m sorry,” she said to John when he stopped in front of a locked gate down a private drive.

He turned in the seat to look at her, the engine idling. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She shook her head. “Yes, I do. I acted like an immature kid back in Malibu and I sulked all the way here.”

“You do have sulking down to an art. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a woman who could be quiet for three hours.” He was actually joking. It made her heart a little lighter.

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I appreciate you coming here with me. Roger would have assigned an agent. You didn’t have to do this. You could have stayed back in L.A. Avenged Michael.”

John didn’t say anything for a long moment, then took her hand and squeezed so tight it almost hurt. “You mean a lot to me, Rowan. I’m not going to trust your safety to anyone else. Michael is dead.” He swallowed, raw pain clouding his eyes. “You are alive. I need you to stay that way.”

His voice was full of quiet emotion. He put a hand behind her neck and pulled her face to his, kissing her hard on the lips. Then he stepped from the car to unlock the gate.

She closed her eyes and hoped Bobby was caught fast. Not only because he was a vicious murderer who deserved to be locked up in prison-or worse-for the rest of his life, but because her life was in limbo-professionally and personally-until he was apprehended.

Five minutes later the road dead-ended in front of a cabin. The safe house. It didn’t have a view of the ocean, but through the trees, Rowan could hear the distant roar of water breaking against rocks. It didn’t sound far away at all. This was exactly the location she had dreamed about.

The cabin itself was open and spacious, with two private bedrooms downstairs and a loft upstairs. Everything else-the living room, dining room, and kitchen-was in the open, one large room with tall windows looking west into the woods and toward the unseen ocean.

It was similar to her cabin in Colorado, just bigger. She felt like she’d come home.

John finished his security check, then brought in their bags. She had packed light: one overnight bag and her laptop. John had two bags as well-one for clothes, one for weapons. She had her Glock and knife on her.

John unloaded his firearms. “I’m going to put this little.45 in the kitchen here on the other side of the breadbox,” he said as he crossed into the small kitchen area. “And,” he continued as he crossed over to the larger of the two couches, “the nine-millimeter under this cushion.” The butt barely jutted out, and you couldn’t see it unless you knew it was there.

Rowan nodded. John had his favorite ten-millimeter holstered in the small of his back, and he took the collapsible rifle and another gun into his bedroom, along with extra ammunition.

She watched him walk down the short hall and turn into the bedroom on the right. They were in a fortress, but someone else was taking her place. Someone else was making her kill.

That didn’t make her feel any better.

Adam dreamed the same dream again that night.

He’d been having the dream ever since seeing the picture of the man who told him to buy lilies for Rowan. At the flower stand by the ocean he’d thought something was familiar about the stranger, but he didn’t know what or why.

It always started with the flowers. Adam wanted to buy roses. The man wanted him to buy lilies.

In the dream Adam said no, Rowan didn’t like lilies. She broke lilies and got mad. He didn’t want to buy them for her.

“She likes lilies, she just doesn’t know it,” the man said, his voice sounding odd, through a fog.

Adam shook his head back and forth. Then, as happens in dreams, he was no longer at the flower stand but sitting on Rowan’s deck watching the sunset. Rowan was happy and smiling. She was holding a thick green stalk with a white calla lily on the top.

He frowned at her. “You hate lilies.”

“No, I just didn’t know how pretty they were.”

He listened to the waves break and run up the shore. It was soothing.

And then he would wake up and have to go to the bathroom.

He had the dream every night, and sometimes more than once. But he always woke up and felt like he was forgetting something, something very, very important.

“Stupid,” he said to himself. “You’re just a stupid kid.”