The Agent's Redemption

“How did you get hurt?” she asked again, and now the concern was in her beautiful eyes as she studied his face, maybe trying to medically determine if he’d checked himself out too soon.

He shrugged off her concern and his own stupidity. “I didn’t stick to just profiling.”

“Do you ever?” she asked, and a twinkle flashed briefly in her blue eyes as if she was teasing him. Maybe she’d forgiven him for how he’d treated her.

“As a profiler, I do have to spend a lot of time out in the field,” he said, “analyzing the crime scenes, the evidence, interviewing suspects, hopefully following leads to more suspects...”

“I know what you do,” she reminded him.

Six years ago he’d kept her apprised of his investigation—probably too apprised. He’d told her when he’d interviewed her sister’s fiancé. But she hadn’t agreed with his findings. Even if the guy hadn’t had an alibi, Jared truly hadn’t felt like the man had killed his fiancée. Harris Mowery’s shock and anger over Lexi’s disappearance had seemed very genuine. But maybe Jared had been so cocky and overconfident back then that he hadn’t read Harris as well as he’d thought he had.

“So what were you doing this time?” she asked. “That wasn’t just profiling?”

“Protection duty.”

She laughed. “You were playing bodyguard?”

He should have been offended. After all he wasn’t the too-small-for-his-age child that he had once been. He was tall and muscular now, but he was no bodyguard. He’d learned all the skills of being a field agent, but protecting someone wasn’t something he had done often enough to get good at it. Usually he came on the scene when it was too late for protection—when the victim had already gone missing or been found dead.

He rubbed his head where he’d taken the blow from the butt of a gun. He was lucky he hadn’t been shot instead, but the killer hadn’t wanted to forewarn his victim and have her get away again.

“I’m not a very good bodyguard,” he admitted.

Her eyes widened with alarm. “Did whoever you were protecting get hurt?”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “No, but that was thanks to better agents.”

She tilted her head, and a lock of blond hair fell across her cheek. He wanted to brush it back; he wanted to touch her again. He was close enough. He only had to lift his hand again, like he had touched her lips. His skin tingled yet from that too-brief contact.

Then she mused aloud, “You are different than you used to be.”

A self-deprecating grin tugged at his mouth. “Less cocky than I used to be?”

She smiled, too. “Yes.”

He didn’t have to tell her why; she knew—because he’d failed to find Lexi’s killer. He had failed all the subsequent victims of Lexi’s killer, too. And most of all, he’d failed Becca.

He hadn’t given her the closure she needed. She didn’t seem to think it would help, but he’d seen it help others—when he’d found their loved ones’ killers. He’d had a lot of success in his profiling career with the Bureau. He’d actually had mostly success and just this one failure when it mattered most.

Because Becca mattered most.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He couldn’t apologize enough to her—for so many reasons.

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” she murmured as she stepped back from him and lowered her gaze, as if she couldn’t look at him.

He stepped closer, not wanting any distance between them. And he touched her, just his fingers on her chin, tipping her face up so that she met his gaze again. So that she would see his sincerity when he told her, “But I am...sorry. I’m sorry for how I treated you. And I’m sorry for not catching your sister’s killer yet. And I’m sorry for letting Kyle Smith get to me so that I accused you of keeping my son from me.”

She pulled away from his touch and lowered her gaze again. Maybe she wasn’t willing to forgive his unfounded suspicion.

He groaned. “Right now I’m the most sorry about asking you if Alex is mine. I know you better than that. You would never do something—”

She lifted her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips, stilling them. “Jared...”

It was still there. The attraction. It had overwhelmed him six years ago, so that he’d acted on that attraction instead of his better judgment. If anything the attraction was even stronger now.

He lifted his hands to cup her shoulders, to pull her into his arms. But then his damn phone rang. He silently cursed the timing. But he couldn’t not take the call. A young woman was missing.

He stepped back from Becca, so that her hand fell from his face. And he pulled out his cell phone. He recognized the number as belonging to another agent—an agent who had recently become a good friend. So it could have been a personal call. He could have ignored it and reached for Becca again.

But dread clenched his stomach into knots. And he knew...

Even before he clicked the talk button, he knew what special agent Dalton Reyes would tell him. A body had been found. He was no longer working a disappearance; he was working a murder.

* * *

“AGENT BELL HERE,” he answered his cell.

But he wasn’t there. Even though he stood only a couple of steps from Rebecca, he was already gone—already off to handle whatever had come up with this call.

Fear gripped Rebecca. She glanced down at the photo of Lexi and Amy Wilcox, smiling, with their arms around each other. She wished she’d known how they knew each other—what had connected them in the past. Because she had a horrible feeling they had another connection—that they were both dead—murdered by the same man.

But why would Harris have murdered Amy? Rebecca needed to go through her sister’s things again and try to figure out how Lexi had known Amy and if Harris would have known her, too.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Jared told whoever was on the phone. Then he clicked off the cell and slid it back into his pocket.

“Did they find her body?” she asked. Tears stung her eyes with sympathy for what the young woman’s family would go through—for the loss and pain.

He lifted his shoulders, but it wasn’t a shrug. “There’s been no confirmation yet. I have to leave, though.”

He was the one who would make the confirmation—the one who knew the case better than everyone else no matter how short a time he had been working it. He would have immersed himself in it. He had even risked seeing her again, although he’d had no idea how she might react, in order to investigate the connection between Amy Wilcox and Lexi.

Despite saying he had to leave, he stood in front of her yet—as if there was something he wanted to say or do before he left her. He lifted his hand to her face and skimmed his fingers across her cheek, brushing back a stray lock of hair.

Her breath caught in her throat, choking her—choking back the words she needed to say. The truth.

He leaned down a little—as if he intended to cover her mouth with his. To kiss her...

She wanted his kiss. Her pulse quickened in anticipation of his lips sliding over hers. And she closed her eyes.

But his mouth never touched hers. She opened her eyes to find that he’d moved. His head was no longer bowed toward hers. And he’d taken a step back.

He took another step. “I—I need to leave.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

Unfortunately, he probably had a body to identify. And then he would be caught up in the investigation. He might come back—to follow up on the connection with Lexi. Or he might be too busy to come back, so he would send another agent instead.

He took another step back, nearing the door. Then he turned and reached for the knob.

Maybe it was because his back was turned. Maybe it was because she wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again, but she blurted out, “Alex is your son.”

His hand tightened into a fist around the doorknob. She thought he was going to open the door and just walk out. But then he turned around and strode back to her, and his gaze pierced her heart with its intensity.

Her chest ached as her heart hammered with fear and guilt. She expected an outburst. Angry words. Accusations. At least questions.

He had to have so many questions.

Answers jumbled together in her mind.

You said we shouldn’t see each other again.

I didn’t know if you would think I got pregnant to trap you.

I didn’t know if you even wanted to be a father.

His mouth opened, but no words came out. Maybe his questions were as jumbled in his mind as her answers were in hers. Then he shook his head. In denial of her claim? Didn’t he believe Alex was his son?

Maybe he thought she was trying to trap him even now. She had obviously wanted his kiss moments ago—moments before he’d walked away.

But a muscle twitched in his cheek. And those usually pale brown eyes had darkened with emotion. Then he turned away from her and walked back to the door. He didn’t hesitate this time. He turned the knob and stepped out.

She tensed, bracing herself for the door to slam behind him. It closed with a soft click, but that click echoed throughout the living room with a finality that left her shaking.

Would he come back to ask any questions? Or did he not care that he had a son? Didn’t he want to see Alex? To form a relationship—a bond—with his boy?

Nervous that her legs might give out, she dropped onto the sofa. What the hell had she just done?

He was on his way to identify a body—the body of a woman whose family was probably still holding out hope for her safe return. And then once Jared confirmed the identity, he would have to notify that family of their loss.

She couldn’t have picked a worse moment to tell him the truth. He was in the middle of an investigation. And she knew how investigations consumed him.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. Not only had she not been fair to Jared but she hadn’t been fair to Alex, either.

She should have told them both years ago. She shouldn’t have denied them the relationship they deserved to have. Why had she been so selfish?

Regret and guilt had tears stinging her eyes. But giving in to the tears would be selfish, too, and would accomplish nothing.

She would make it up to Alex. Somehow.

But she wasn’t sure that Jared would ever give her the chance. She wasn’t sure that he would ever forgive her.

The phone rang, shattering the silence of her living room. She grabbed up the cordless from the table next to the couch, so that the ringing wouldn’t awaken Alex. She wouldn’t even be able to look at her son now—not without guilt overwhelming her.

The number was blocked on the caller ID, so she hoped it wasn’t a reporter. Maybe she should have just hit the off button. But she found herself saying, “Hello?”

And hoping it was Jared. Maybe he’d found his words. His questions. She would even welcome his accusations now.

She just wanted him to give her a chance to explain.

But there was only silence.

Maybe he hadn’t found his words yet.

“Hello?” she said again.

A reporter would have talked, would have fired a million questions at her. It had to be him. He was probably just too mad to speak to her.

“Jared?”

“No, Becca,” a male voice finally spoke. It was low and raspy, and she wasn’t certain that she’d ever heard it before. But how did he know the nickname that only Lexi and Jared had ever called her?

“Who is this?” she asked.

The silence fell again, but there was no dial tone. He hadn’t hung up. He was still there.

“Who is this?” she asked again, and goose bumps raised her skin as unease sent a chill running through her. She shouldn’t entertain some crank caller. She began to lift the phone away from her ear to hang up.

Then he spoke again in that raspy, nearly unintelligible whisper. “You need to be careful...”

“Careful?” She didn’t live a life of adventure. She lived a quiet life—focused on her son and her job.

“You need to be careful,” the person spoke again—this time with more urgency.

“Why?” she asked.

“You’re being watched.”

She peered out the window. The sun was beginning to set, setting the window aglow with a yellow glare. She couldn’t see anything but the yellow shimmer in the trees and across the grass. If someone was out there, she couldn’t see them. Were the reporters staked out there somewhere? Waiting to ambush her when she left for work in the morning?

“I know,” she murmured. Those damn reporters.

They’d been relentless during the investigation into Lexi’s case. They had followed her everywhere. And even after the case had gone cold, they’d checked in with her from time to time—wanting to interview her. Wanting to dredge up the tragedy and her pain...

“You don’t know,” the person said. “You don’t know...”

She shivered at the ominous tone. “What don’t I know?”

“That you’re in danger.”

The line clicked with the same finality with which the door had closed behind Jared. Then the dial tone peeled out.

Her hand trembling, she turned off the cordless and put it back down on the table beside the couch.

Why would she be in danger?

The serial killer only went after brides-to-be. She was not engaged. She wasn’t even seeing anyone.

She was safe. Wasn’t she?

Chapter Five

The silver car. The blood-soaked lace spilling out of the open trunk. Jared flashed back six years ago to finding Lexi’s car. Unfortunately, Becca had been with him when they’d come across the abandoned silver Chevrolet.

There had been no body but so much blood...

Now there was a body...

No matter how many victims he had seen over the years, horror and dread still clutched at his heart. How could a human do this to another human? How could they act so viciously and subject another person to so much pain and cruelty?

He shuddered. And he wasn’t the only one.

Special Agent Dalton Reyes’s usually tanned complexion had gone ashen, and he shook slightly as he stepped back from the trunk. “That could have been Elizabeth...”

Dalton had recently found a woman in the trunk of a stolen car he’d run off the road. Fortunately, that woman hadn’t been dead—just so injured that she had lost her memory.

“It wasn’t,” Jared said. “She’s alive.” And she had recovered her memory, as well.

Dalton expelled a ragged breath of relief. “She’s alive, and she’s amazing. I can’t believe she agreed to marry me.”

Jared glanced back over his shoulder and groaned. He’d taken a Bureau helicopter from the closest police post to Becca’s house; that was how he’d made such good time—arriving while the sun was still up. How the hell had the media already gotten wind of their finding a crime scene?

News station vans rolled into the middle of the Indiana wheat field, kicking up dust that shimmered in the setting sun. Jared gestured at the local police officers. “Keep them back. I don’t want any pictures of this scene leaking out.”

Before he’d had time to notify the family. He turned back to the trunk. The victim’s face was swollen and bruised but identifiable. It was Amy Wilcox. She stared up at him through open, glazed brown eyes; he only imagined the accusation in her gaze. The blame for not catching this killer before he’d killed again—before he’d killed her.

I’m sorry, Amy...

He’d kept apologizing to Becca, too. But now he knew why she’d been so reluctant to accept his apologies— because she owed him a bigger one.

Alex was his son.

His head began to pound, and he flinched. But he pushed the thoughts back. He couldn’t afford to be distracted now. He’d deal later with the shock and anger that was rolling through him like those vans through the wheat field.

Now he had to get to Amy Wilcox’s family—before the media did. But he wouldn’t do that until he’d made certain that the coroner removed her body from the scene without the media getting any photos of her.

Where the hell was the coroner?

Was he or she lost? The media had no trouble finding the field.

“Did you hear me?” Dalton asked.

If the other agent had been talking, Jared hadn’t heard him. Despite his best intentions, he was distracted—too damn distracted.

Becca had always distracted him but never more so than now—when he’d learned they had made a child together. He had a son...

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. He’d been doing a lot of apologizing tonight. “What did you say?”

“Elizabeth agreed to marry me!” He slapped Jared’s back. “I’m getting married—thanks to you!”

“Me?” He was shocked—not shocked like he’d been when Becca had told him he was Alex’s dad. But he was surprised that Dalton would give him any gratitude for getting hit over the head.

Dalton grinned. His color was back now. And if a guy could glow, Dalton was glowing. “Elizabeth and I feel like you’re part of the reason we’re getting married. If you’d been the jerk I thought you were going to be and took the case from me, I wouldn’t have fallen for Elizabeth. That’s why I want you to be my best man.”

“So you want me to be your best man because I’m not a jerk?” Jared shook his head. “I’m not so sure you’re right about that. If I’d really thought that the Butcher was after Elizabeth, I would have taken the case.” But he’d never really believed that the serial killer had grabbed Elizabeth—because she’d lived.

“You would have been right to take the case, then,” Dalton agreed with a quick, regretful glance in the trunk. “So will you do it? Will you be my best man?”

“How can you think about that now?” Jared wondered.

Dalton glanced in the trunk again and shuddered. “I know my timing stinks, but I don’t want to wait to marry Elizabeth.”

“Do you see this?” Jared asked.

“Of course I see it.”

“It’s a message,” Jared said. “He’s mad that someone tried to blame the attempts on Elizabeth’s life on him. He’s making it clear what is his work and that women don’t survive when he abducts them.”

“He’s a sick SOB,” Dalton agreed. “But you know that.”

“I know that he might try to get Elizabeth now—to prove that she wouldn’t have survived if he’d actually grabbed her. You shouldn’t get married now.”

Dalton sighed. “You’ve never been in love, have you?”

Jared sucked in a sharp breath as if his friend had slugged him.

And Dalton apologized. “I’m sorry. I almost forgot about that first victim’s sister...”

Jared had never been able to forget her. And now he never would. But he didn’t want to talk about Becca. “I know you love Elizabeth, so you should want to keep her safe.”

Dalton said, “I will keep her safe. And so will you. You’re going to stop him.”

“I’ve been trying for six years,” he reminded his friend. “I haven’t been successful yet.” He hadn’t even been able to establish a profile of the killer until the second victim. Since Lexi’s body hadn’t been found, he hadn’t known exactly how this killer killed until then.

“You will be,” Dalton said with absolute confidence.

The arrival of the coroner’s van saved Jared from a reply. Six years ago he’d been confident he would stop this killer—like he’d stopped so many others before and after him. Now he wasn’t so sure. But still, when he notified Amy’s parents and fiancé, he found himself making them the same promise that he’d made Becca.

He would get this guy. For them. For Amy. For all those other victims. For Lexi. And, even though she had denied him six years of his son’s life, for Becca. Maybe most of all for Becca.

He would stop this killer if it was the last thing he ever did.

* * *

REBECCA HADN’T MEANT to turn the television back on after Jared left. She really didn’t want to see the news—not when she was sure that Jared had rushed out because a body had been found. Amy Wilcox’s body.

The camera zoomed in on the open trunk of a silver car—and the blood-stained wedding gown spilling out of it. The scene in that fallow cornfield, so much like the one she and Jared had come upon, knocked her back six years. There had been so much blood...

But on the television screen, it wasn’t just a dress that had been found, like it had been with Lexi. Moments later another camera followed a gurney on which lay a black plastic bag—a body zipped inside it—to the coroner’s van.

The young woman had known Lexi—had been her friend. And now both women were dead. Gone. Forever.

Was Jared forever gone? Or would he be back? He’d only been gone a few hours.

But he had been so shocked when he left. So betrayed.

He’d apologized for thinking that Alex could have been his, for thinking that she could have kept a secret like that. He had given her too much credit, and now she was the one who owed him the apology. So many apologies for all the years she’d kept him from their son.

She couldn’t call him, though—even if she hadn’t thrown away his phone number all those years ago. He was in the middle of what was now another murder investigation. He had a family to notify.

A killer to find...

Would he find him now? Would he look where she had been pointing him? Where Lexi had pointed her?

Had Harris known Amy Wilcox, too?

She turned off the television, shutting off the blond-haired man she realized now was Kyle Smith. Over the years he had hounded her more relentlessly than the others—wanting that follow-up interview, wanting to open up all her pain again. But he hadn’t been interested in just Lexi. He’d wanted Rebecca to talk about FBI profiler Special Agent Bell, too. Like Jared, he hadn’t wanted to talk about the real killer, either. Harris Mowery hadn’t been newsworthy to him.

Maybe she could find what the FBI profiler and investigative reporter had failed to find—evidence leading to the real killer. She reached for the plastic tub of Lexi’s photos and letters and journals and dragged it across the floor to the couch where she sat.

Rebecca had been so busy taking notes during class and studying that she’d had no time for journaling. But Lexi had written every night—sometimes just a short paragraph or sometimes pages. Remembering the date on the photo Jared had showed her, Rebecca reached for that year—the year that Lexi had disappeared. The journal cover was neon green with yellow and orange stripes. It was bright and happy like Lexi had always seemed. But inside those pages was another story—a dark story. This was the journal in which Rebecca had found those photos—of the battered and bruised Lexi.

Jared had been right: it was too great a coincidence that the women had been photographed together the month that Lexi had disappeared—especially when that woman later disappeared like Lexi had.

She had looked through this journal earlier when Jared had been there—after he had looked at it and determined that there was no mention of Amy Wilcox. The photos had distracted and angered her then. Now she focused on what Lexi had written. While there was no mention of Amy, Lexi had written several references to meeting someone she had nicknamed Root Beer. Amy’s initials were the name brand of a popular root beer.

Could it be?

It was something Lexi would have done—something cute and funny. But they hadn’t met that way. Lexi had met Root Beer at a support group for battered women.

Harris had been battering Lexi. Who had been battering Amy? From the news reports, Rebecca knew Amy’s age; she was younger than Lexi. She must have only been in high school when she’d gone to those meetings.

So whoever had abused her was probably no longer in her life. From Lexi’s comments, it was clear that Root Beer had impressed her with strength and wisdom beyond her years. Amy had actually been supportive to Lexi.

Could Harris have known?

Her pulse quickened as she skimmed over a passage. Then she read it again, aloud.

“Ran into Root Beer when I was out with Harris at the mall. She told him that she’d heard a lot of wonderful things about Harry. She said it, though, in such a way that he knew she had heard nothing wonderful about him. And he hates being called Harry. He got so mad at her sassiness that I thought he was going to hit her. But he controlled his temper until we got home and hit me instead. Root Beer saw the bruises at the next meeting and cried. It’s not her fault, though. It’s not even Harris’s fault anymore. It’s my fault for staying. But I’m even more afraid of what he’ll do if I leave...”