Ricochet
Jessica Andersen

ISBN: 9781408947463

Ricochet

© Jessica S. Andersen 2006

First Published in Great Britain in 2011

Harlequin (UK) Limited

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, including without limitation xerography, photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

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All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.á.r.l.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Though she’s tried out professions ranging from cleaning sea lion cages to cloning glaucoma genes, from patent law to training horses, Jessica is happiest when she’s combining all these interests with her first love: writing romances. These days she’s delighted to be writing full-time on a farm in rural Connecticut that she shares with a small menagerie and a hero named Brian. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.JessicaAndersen.com for information on upcoming books, contests and to say hi!

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Alissa Wyatt—Bear Claw City’s new crime-scene artist wants to put down roots, but instead attracts the attention of a sinister serial kidnapper.

Tucker McDermott—In trying to protect Alissa from escalating danger, the footloose detective winds up with a partner…and a whole lot more. Will the growing attraction be enough to keep him in town? More important, will they both live long enough to find out?

Johnny Ferguson—The serial rapist vowed revenge when Alissa helped capture and convict him years earlier. Now he’s out and looking for payback.

Cassie Dumont and Maya Cooper—Alissa’s two best friends and coworkers in the forensics department want to keep her safe and catch the kidnapper, but interdepartmental politics may endanger them all.

Detectives Piedmont and Mendoza—The partners don’t trust Alissa or her friends. How far will they go to prove that Bear Claw doesn’t need a new forensics department?

Bradford Croft—The unassuming man lives next door to the first kidnap victim. He was previously convicted of a sex offense, but the evidence doesn’t seem to directly link him to the kidnappings.

Michael Swopes—With a rap sheet and a suspicious purchase, Swopes seems like a strong suspect. But where is he?

William Parry—The chief of the Bear Claw police department will do anything to weld his officers into a team and find the Canyon Kidnapper.

Contents

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

COMING NEXT MONTH

Prologue

The collector unlocked the door with fingers that trembled, not from the cold but from excitement. He eased the shed open and let the cold winter sun splash across the soiled floorboards, let it touch the girl’s bare, chilled foot.

She stirred and her dusky-blond eyelashes fluttered as though she still fought the drugs that swam in her bloodstream.

His lips curved into a smile and he whispered, “Perfect.” She was perfect. Young and scared and too weak to run away, just the way he liked them. “She’s perfect.”

But you can’t keep her, a voice said nearby, or maybe inside his head. Stick to the plan.

The collector scowled. “I don’t want to. I’m going to keep her. She’s mine. I picked her out. I took her. I can keep her.”

No you can’t. Stick to the plan—or else.

It wasn’t the tone of anger—whether real or imagined—that changed the collector’s mind. It was the slice of fear that slipped into his chest, colder than the Colorado winter, reminding him of what would happen if he disobeyed.

“Okay, fine. Never mind. I’ll do it.” He opened the shed door wider and shook out the blanket he’d carried from his van. He leaned over and wrapped the girl, not to keep her warm, but to cover her from view, just in case. Then he lifted her off the dirty floor and carried her out into the light. He felt the snow crunch beneath his boots, heard the others calling to him from their sheds, and smiled.

Everything was going according to plan.

Chapter One

Alissa Wyatt pulled her VW into the back parking lot of the Bear Claw Creek Police Department—BCCPD—five minutes after the task force meeting was set to begin.

Damn. She hated being late. She yanked off her BCCPD ball cap, twisted her honey-colored hair into a businesslike bun and shoved her sketches into a nylon portfolio. Then she bolted for the back entrance, trying not to slip on a patch of ice and rock salt.

The fierce Colorado mountain winter was cold and raw, but to Alissa, it felt like coming home. Granted, home was a relative term in her experience, but that was the goal here, to make a home. To find a place for herself.

She shouldered through the heavy door and sped past the desk clerk, heading for the back conference room at a fast walk. Though Chief Parry might overlook her tardiness, the others wouldn’t. Bear Claw Creek’s finest had been slow to welcome the three women who made up the new Forensics Division. Not because of their sex, but because Alissa and her two best friends from way back in the Denver Police Academy had been brought in to replace Fitzroy O’Malley.

The now-retired Fitz was an icon. A one-man crime lab who’d been a fixture in the mountain cop shop since long before most of the veterans had been rooks. And now those rooks-turned-veterans resented the three-woman team that had been brought in to run the newly expanded Bear Claw Creek Crime Lab.

Worried about the impression she might make, Alissa broke into a jog while she shrugged out of her bulky parka.

“You’re late,” a voice said from behind her. The dark, masculine tones grated along her nerve endings, sending up sparks where sparks had no place being.

She froze midstep, set her teeth and turned. Everyone knew Detective Tucker McDermott could move as silently as a wolf when he chose to, but it was still unnerving.

Rumor had it he could hunt as well as a wolf, that he never gave up until he caught his quarry—at which point he moved on to another territory. Another hunt.

Typical, she thought with a twist of irritation that had very little to do with the man in front of her and everything to do with men in general. But fair or not, McDermott bugged her for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was his sheer presence. A hint of wildness clung to him as he stood opposite her in the hallway, making her think of mountain air and a hawk’s cry, even when he was dressed for work.

The professionally starched, cream-colored oxford didn’t mute the iron strength that shone in his six-foot frame, in the taut muscles of his shoulders and chest, and in the wide-palmed hands that held a pair of fat folders. Though he wore trendy slacks and polished leather boots, the city veneer didn’t sink beneath his skin. His dark, wavy hair was too long for convention, his skin too burnished for a desk job, even in the depths of winter. And his eyes were the gleaming brown of Bear Claw Canyon at sunset.

Alissa’s artistic soul took a snapshot, saving the image of wilderness contained within walls, even as her instincts for self-preservation sent her back a step at the look of pure masculine irritation in his eyes.

She forced a smile and cursed the churn in her stomach. “Glad to see I’m not the only one running late.”

“Actually, you are. Most of us have been here since last night.” He lifted the folders. “The chief sent me for rental records.”

Alissa hid the wince and clicked her teeth together to stem the explanation. He didn’t need to know that she’d logged over thirty hours in the past two days, talking with the victims’ families and the witnesses—such as they were—trying to assemble photographs and sketches. Trying to get a sense of the crimes. What bound them together. What set them apart.

Patterns and the lack thereof.

What was the use in explaining? She turned away from him. “We should get inside.”

She noted that he didn’t open the door for her, and cursed herself for noticing. But before she could slip inside the packed-full room, he leaned down, close enough that she could feel his warmth and smell the woodsy scent that clung to him like a second skin.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hold the door for you. I remember that you don’t like it.”

The memory of that one stupid night, the temptation of it whispered along the side of her throat like a caress.

Yeah, she remembered, too. And, damn, she wished she didn’t. That had almost been a colossal mistake. So she shot him a glare and hissed, “There’s nothing to remember.”

But as she stalked into the room and ignored the other cops’ stares, his soft, mocking chuckle followed her. Shamed her.

Inflamed her.

Then she saw the photographs of three teenage girls tacked along one wall of the conference room, and Tucker McDermott, that night, and even her problems with her coworkers faded into the background as she was reminded why she was there. Why they were all there.

Three girls were missing, and their time was running out.

If it hadn’t already.

Chief Parry stood at the front of the room, a fit, stern man in his late fifties, with salt-shot brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He didn’t comment on Alissa’s tardiness, but a roomful of eyes followed her to the single empty seat in the corner between Maya Cooper and Cassie Dumont, her friends and the core of the new Bear Claw Creek Forensics Division—BCCFD.

They sat as a unit, separated from the others.

Alissa tucked her portfolio between her feet while Chief Parry gestured toward the board, where the girls’ faces were blown up larger than life. He touched the photo on the far left, which showed a fey-looking blond wisp of a girl with blue eyes and a gap between her front teeth.

“Three girls in three weeks,” he said, voice somber. “Twenty-two days ago, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Walsh was supposed to meet her friends outside the MovieMogul 10. She never showed.” He moved to the middle picture, which showed a slightly chubby brunette wearing dark-rimmed glasses perched over a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her wide nose. “Four days later, seventeen-year-old Maria Blackhorse failed to meet her date at the Natural History Museum. Her parents didn’t call it in for nearly forty-eight hours.” He moved to the picture on the far right, which showed another blonde, this one model-gorgeous in her expensively posed photograph. “Then, two days ago, eighteen-year-old Holly Barrett disappeared sometime between noon and 4:00 p.m.” He turned and scanned the room. “Three girls in three weeks, people. We haven’t found their bodies, but we haven’t found them alive, either. And I’ll bet my badge that their time is running out.”

Alissa didn’t need Maya’s psychology degree or Cassie’s genius with chemicals and blood spatter to tell her that. She’d spoken to the two witnesses who thought they’d seen Elizabeth get into a light-colored van. She’d been to the victims’ houses, talked to their parents.

And, yeah, she had a feeling they were running out of time, too. The longer a kidnapper kept his victims, the better his chances of discovery. Unfortunately, the criminals knew that as well as the cops did and had brutal ways of protecting themselves.

Chief Parry continued, “I want a quick report from each division, and then Agent Trouper will give us a rundown of what’s going on at his end.” The ten-day-old task force contained specialists and detectives from the relevant BCCPD divisions, including Homicide, Missing Persons and Forensics, plus Garrett Trouper, their FBI liaison. Parry nodded toward the corner where the three women sat. “Wyatt, you can get us started with Forensics.”

Great. Just great.

Alissa set her teeth, lifted the portfolio, climbed to her feet and faced the room. She was thirty-one years old and an eight-year veteran of two different city police forces. She could do this.

But she was aware of McDermott leaning against the wall at the back of the room, alone. Aware of the other officers’ eyes on her, men and women both, all wishing Fitz was there instead of her.

They weren’t going to like what she had to report. I’ve got nothing, she wanted to say, no reliable witnesses, no good sketch, no ideas. Nothing.

Instead, she opened the folder, drew out the pitiful list of the suspect’s possible physical traits and a sad description of the van, and handed it to a surly looking uniform in the front row. “Please pass these out for me.” She addressed the group. “As you can see here, the two witnesses at the MovieMogul 10 were only partially helpful. They saw a man and a light-colored van, but couldn’t be certain of either description…”

She continued to speak, but her attention was drawn to a stir of motion at the back of the room. When she looked up, McDermott was gone.

And a frisson of wariness told her something was up.

THE DESK OFFICER’S SUMMONS had pulled Tucker out of an important meeting, but he couldn’t manage to be annoyed by the interruption. He’d been glad to escape the conference room. It was too hot. Too crowded.

Hell, who was he kidding? Any room with Alissa Wyatt in it was too hot and crowded for him. She was a hot ticket, a bundle of energy with the legs of a Vegas showgirl and the light-blue eyes of an artist. Half the men on the BCCPD were panting after her, and the other half wanted her gone.

Tucker straddled the two camps. He wanted her gone, but he didn’t want it to matter. And it wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t been for that night, when he’d met her on a crowded dance floor and heard his favorite words, I’m just in town for a few days.

He wasn’t proud of it, but vacation flings were his stock in trade. He was too much of a nomad for anything more, and at thirty-five was too damn set in his ways to change now. Hell, the one time he’d tried to settle down had been a disaster. He’d hurt a good woman, someone he’d cared about, though he obviously hadn’t cared enough. Since then, he’d stayed carefully away from nesters, from women who wanted more from him than he was able to give.

So he’d danced with the just-in-town-for-a-few-days babe who’d introduced herself as Alissa. He’d reveled in the drape of her long, honey-colored hair as they danced close, then closer still. He’d slid his hands beneath her midriff shirt, riding on the high from closing the Vanzetti case, one too many beers and the gleam of encouragement in her eyes.

They’d kissed on the dance floor, then again in the hall by the phones, moving fast even for him. But the roar of heat had swept away rationality and battered at the small kernel of self-preservation he held close to his soul. They’d stumbled to her rental car wrapped in each other, not sure where they were going but positive they needed to get there quickly, before they proved that spontaneous combustion wasn’t a myth.

Unable to wait for his place or her hotel, he’d pulled her across his lap in the passenger seat. She’d gone willingly, twining around him with arms and tongue until a flaming, pulsing need consumed him—nearly panicked him. It was too much, too soon, but the spark of caution was quickly gone. He fumbled for his wallet, for a condom, and knocked a badge off the center console.

Only it hadn’t been his badge. It had been hers. And it had landed on a real estate printout of a cute house not five miles away from his generic apartment building.

Oh, hell, he remembered thinking when the explanation followed.

She was in town for a few days, all right. But she’d be back soon, and working for the BCCPD. His bosses. He’d excused himself without an explanation and bolted, unnerved by an almost overwhelming desire to stay.

Two weeks later she and her friends had replaced Fitz as part of Chief Parry’s updating of the BCCPD, and she’d been under his skin ever since.

Because the knowledge made him mean, Tucker scowled at the male desk officer, a twenty-something named Pendelton. “This better be good.”

Pendelton gestured at the chest-high counter, which held a plain paper rectangle with “Det. Tucker McDermott” printed in square letters with black ink. “I thought you should see this. It didn’t come in the mail. It just sort of…appeared. One minute it wasn’t there, and the next…” Pendelton snapped his fingers. “There it was on the front desk.” A hint of nerves worked into his voice when he said, “I’m sorry. I went to the can for a minute. Just a minute, I swear. Maybe the dispatchers saw something.” But he didn’t sound hopeful.

Tucker’s gut tightened. “Did you touch it?”

“No. Not on your life.”

It could be a hoax, but instinct told him otherwise. “You got a pair of tweezers and a couple of evidence bags?”

Pendelton trotted off to get the items. For a brief second Tucker thought about calling one of the new evidence techs. Hell, they were just down the hall. He would have if it had been Fitz. But because Fitz had retired—very abruptly—and because Tucker knew the procedure as well as anyone, he took the tweezers himself. Teased the envelope open himself. And read the enclosed note himself.

Dumb cops. Elizabeth is in the canyon, and you’d better hurry. It’s getting cold.

Adrenaline fired through Tucker’s bloodstream. He bolted to the conference room and yanked open the door. The pretty, dark-haired psych expert of the new Forensics Department—he was pretty sure her name was Maya—stood at the front of the room with a string of words listed on the wipe board behind her, things like white male, 20-40 years, and high functioning, followed by a question mark.

Things they didn’t need an abnormal psychology specialist to tell them. They were cops, damn it. They knew the profiles, knew what they should be looking for. They just hadn’t been able to find the bastard yet. They’d needed a break.

Well, maybe they’d just gotten one.

Not caring that he was interrupting, Tucker lifted the note inside its protective evidence bag, blood racing with the thrill of the hunt. “Come on. The first victim is in the canyon.”

Or else the kidnapper wanted them to think she was.

BEAR CLAW CANYON was shallower and narrower than some of the nearby natural wonders, but it had its own dangers, its own treacheries. The crevice was only man height in spots, but the waterway at the bottom meandered and doubled back on itself, breaking off into tributaries and feeder streams without warning.

Because of it, there were thousands of tiny, cracked caverns and overhangs, a hundred places for hikers to lose themselves in the two-thousand-acre Bear Claw State Park.

A hundred places to hide a girl. A body.

Near the snowy spot where they’d parked their official four-wheel-drive vehicles, Alissa curled her hands into fists and fought the urge to run for the canyon, to scream the missing girl’s name. There were procedures to follow, and experience had taught her that protocol beat instinct every time in police work. A gut feel might lead to the perpetrator, but judges and lawyers cared about procedure. Words like intuition could get an important case thrown out, a violent criminal released.

The memory of just such a case soured the back of her throat.

Before the task force headed into the canyon, Chief Parry divided them into pairs. With the way Alissa’s luck had been running, she wasn’t surprised when the chief paired her with McDermott.

The detective didn’t argue. He merely scowled and jerked his head toward their search area, a multibranched point where the waterway widened and slowed. “Come on.” He dropped down into the canyon, which was nine or ten feet deep, where their search was to begin. When Alissa paused at the edge, he frowned. “You want me to catch you?”

She shook her head. “No.” Hell, no. “Just give me a minute. I want to get a feel for the scene.”

Though skeletal analysis and reconstruction was her specialty, her official title in the BCCFD was Crime Scene Analyst. Captain Parry was counting on her to see, and record, the details others missed.

Sometimes the smallest detail could make or break a collar. A conviction.

She stood on an open expanse of rocky ground, half a mile from the main entrance to Bear Claw State Park. They had driven in, but parked well back from the lip of the canyon, which was maybe forty feet across at this point.

She saw no other tire tracks in the week-old snow. No footprints beyond those of the searchers. “He would have needed an ATV to get in here, a snowmobile or a four-wheeler,” she said to herself. “Unless he carried her in.”

If the girl was even in the canyon. The note could just as easily be an ugly prank.

Alissa let her eyes drop lower, to the crumbling canyon edge and the bare, frozen dirt nearby, where the wind had swept the area clean and drifted snow beside the ice-strewn waterway. It was a pretty scene, a coldly brutal one that reminded her of the frigid power of a mountain winter. But it told her very little about the crime or the perpetrator.

Satisfied, she sat at the edge of the canyon and ignored McDermott’s offered hand to drop lightly to the frozen ground below.

“Fitz took pictures,” he said, voice dark with challenge. “Photographs are reliable evidence. Sketches aren’t. Memories aren’t.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She pulled her gloves out of her pockets and shoved her hands into them, though it didn’t lessen the chill. She was tired of the BCCPD’s attitude, annoyed by the closed-mindedness of the other cops. Fitz did it this way. “I’m not Fitz, but I’m damn good at my job. Don’t lecture me.”

“I’m not,” he fired back, eyes dark with temper, and maybe something else. “It’s just…” He blew out a breath. “Hell, I don’t know what it is.”

Except he did. They both did. The memory of that night at the dance club shimmered between them like a living reminder of passion. Of heat.

She slanted him a look and decided to tackle it head-on. “This doesn’t need to be a thing, you know. We danced. No big deal.”

Except that was a lie. It had almost been a very big deal for her.

She’d gone to the club that night with Maya and Cassie. The girls had been split up by their assignments after the academy, and though they’d kept in touch with calls and visits in the six years since, it hadn’t been the same. They’d often talked about working together, so when they heard rumors of Fitz O’Malley’s unexpected retirement, they’d put in a proposal and three transfer requests. A month later it was official. They were the new BCCFD.

They had met in Bear Claw that weekend to look at apartments, and had gone out for a celebratory drink after. One drink had turned into three over a couple of hours, along with food. Not enough to get Alissa blitzed, but enough that when the music started, she was right in the mix, bumping and grinding along with the dancers while Cassie and Maya cheered from their table.

Alissa had noticed the man’s eyes first, dark and intense as he’d stood at the edge of the crowd. He wore casual jeans and an open-necked shirt, covering a tight, honed body that spoke of strength and the outdoors. She saw him shake off an invitation from a shaggy-haired blonde and another from a slick brunette, but his eyes never left hers. When she crooked a finger, he’d met her halfway.

As they had danced, she reminded herself she didn’t do bar pickups. Hell, she hadn’t done much of anything in the past year, since her supposedly serious boyfriend had taken a job out of state. He’d buggered off with barely a goodbye, making him no better than her father, who’d at least pretended he was going to keep in touch.

“It’s not about what did—or didn’t—happen that night,” McDermott said, interrupting old, sour memories that deserved interrupting. “My only concern is finding these girls and catching the bastard who’s taken them. I have nothing against you except that I work alone. I don’t want a partner, so stay behind me and let me do my job.”

He strode off without waiting for an answer, leaving her to fume, as old and new irritations battered her heart.

“Let him do his job,” she muttered, still standing where they’d dropped down into the canyon. “Great. Another cowboy. Maybe he’ll get the guy, but the guy won’t stay gotten, will he? He’ll walk, just like Ferguson did.”

At her last posting, a serial rapist had been preying on college girls, and the Tecumseh Springs PD had formed a task force similar to the one she was in now. They’d gotten the guy—a punk named Johnny Ferguson, who lived with his mother and hated the world—but there had been a glitch in the chain of evidence, a cowboy moment when the lead cop had gone on instinct rather than procedure and blown the case to hell.

Since then, she had valued precision over gut feel, evidence over emotion. It was an odd contradiction—an artist who didn’t venture outside the box—but it worked for her. And that was yet another reason she should stay far away from Tucker McDermott, who had the reputation of being all about instinct, sometimes at the expense of procedure.

Knowing it, she steeled herself to follow him down the canyon, toward the sound of other searchers’voices calling for the missing girl.

Lizzy…Li-zzzy. The cries overlapped in mournful echoes, making the canyon seem alive. Making it seem as though something—or someone—was out there. Waiting. Watching.

Alissa held back a shiver, knowing that it wasn’t even certain the girl was nearby. The note could be nothing more than a hoax.

Or a trap.

The feeling of watching eyes intensified, and Alissa scrambled to catch up. As though sensing the same scrutiny, McDermott glanced back over his shoulder. “Hurry up, partner.”

She ignored his tone and quickened her step—

And she saw it.

She couldn’t have said why the crevice caught her attention, but something about it seemed off. Some might call it instinct, but she preferred to think of it as a highly developed sense of color and shape. Something was wrong with this picture.

She stopped dead and stared at a shadowy, snow-shrouded cleft in the canyon wall. Her mind took a snapshot of the scene. Then she did one better. She pulled out her slick camera and took a few shots, carefully overlapping them so she could reassemble the panorama later on her computer.

“You see something?” McDermott asked, but his voice seemed distant as she walked toward the cleft, her every instinct on alert.

It was a tunnel of sorts, an ice-and-snow overhang undercut by the trickle of a sluggish tributary that had long since frozen over. Totally focused on the scene, on her job, she snapped several pictures, then drew a small flashlight from her pocket. She crouched down and shone the light into the forbidding darkness.

At the furthest reaches of the yellow illumination, she saw a bare, motionless foot and the ragged hem of wrinkled blue jeans.

Excitement slapped through her, mixed with apprehension that the foot wasn’t moving. “I see her!”

Alissa heard Tucker shout something, but she couldn’t wait for him. Her heart thundered in her chest. If Lizzie was alive, every second could be vital. That was the protocol—administer necessary aid first, then protect the crime scene.

Nearly shaking with anticipation, Alissa pulled off her gloves and shucked off her bulky parka so she could fit into the narrow tunnel without disturbing evidence. She jammed the small flashlight in her mouth to leave her hands free and dove in headfirst.

Tucker shouted, “Wyatt, wait!”

“I’m fine,” she called back, her flashlight-muffled words bouncing back from the ice and snow. “I’ve almost got her!”

Blood pumping, she crawled forward, careful to avoid a line of scuffs and boot prints preserved in the blown snow near the edge of the tunnel. Almost there! The girl’s bare ankle looked more gray than flesh toned, except where raw places stood out in bloody slashes. She was curled on her side facing away from the tunnel entrance. She wasn’t moving.

Alissa said a quick prayer, reached out and touched the motionless ankle. She felt the faintest hint of warmth. The flutter of a pulse.

“She’s alive!” she shouted. “Get the MedVac helicopter down! I’m going to pull her out. When you see my feet, give a yank!” She reached forward and felt for the girl’s other foot. There was something tied to it, maybe a length of the rope she’d been bound with.

Alissa yanked on the twine.

A bright white light flashed. An earsplitting crack reverberated through her skull.

And the tunnel collapsed on top of her.

Chapter Two

Ice, snow and dirt landed atop Alissa, pressing her down, squeezing the breath out of her. She screamed and tried to scramble back, but her arms and legs were pinned. Panic clawed at her throat, and her heart hammered in her ears. The weight increased, as though the whole canyon had come down on top of her.

She thrashed, squirmed and cried out with what was left of her breath. “Help! Help me!”

The tiny flashlight fell from her mouth, illuminating a small air pocket that had formed around her head. She saw dirt and ice six inches from her on all sides. Saw it shift a little closer as the cave-in settled.

“Help!” she whispered when she ran out of breath to scream. Cold, salty tears streamed down her face and ran into her mouth, and all she could hear was the pounding of her heart.

Calm down, she told herself. She had to calm down. Think! She tried to count her breaths, but she couldn’t breathe, so instead she counted her heartbeat, which was too loud, too fast.

McDermott had been right behind her. He would get her out.

But what if he can’t? asked a scared little voice in her soul. What if he’s too late?

The panic crested again, and she moaned, wishing she could be anywhere else. Out with the girls for a round of Friday-night drinks. Visiting her mother, even. They weren’t really close anymore, hadn’t been since Alissa’s father had left and her mother’s middle name had become Bitter. In that moment Alissa wished she could see her mother now and say she was sorry for having been a snotty teenager and a distant adult. Sorry for having blamed her mother because her father had never come back for that promised visit. And in a crazy way, she was sorry she’d never searched for him, if only to tell him that he was a rotten jerk.

Her tears dried to cool wet tracks on her cheeks. The air inside the small pocket warmed and grew stale. She thought she heard a shout and dull thuds, but they were too far away. And she was all alone.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said aloud, her voice strengthening as the debris allowed her an inch of breathing room. “They’re going to get you out of here.”

She felt a hint of movement beneath her outstretched hand. Not shifting soil this time, but living flesh. Then she remembered. She was holding the girl’s ankle!

“Elizabeth? Lizzie, is that you?” she called, not knowing whether her voice would carry far enough, but devastatingly grateful that the girl was alive. “If you can hear me, wiggle your foot a little.”

The foot moved.

“Okay. Hold on for me, okay? They’re going to get us out of here.” Alissa bit her lower lip and forced her voice to be even. “I want you to stay calm and relaxed, okay? I’m a police officer, and my friends are digging us out right now.”

She’d meant Cassie and Maya, who had been on the search team farther up the canyon and who must be frantic with worry. But her brain fixed on a picture of McDermott. She pictured him digging down toward her, eyes as dark as they’d been when the two of them danced.

Incredibly, the image brought a measure of calm.

Alissa drew a shallow breath to keep talking, more for her own sake than the girl’s, but her words were cut off by a roaring shift of dirt. A far-away shout of panic.

The air pocket collapsed. Icy cold weight bore down on her.

And she couldn’t breathe at all.

FASTER. HE HAD TO DIG faster, spurred by the knowledge that it had been a damn trap all along. The anger of it burned through Tucker’s gut as exertion flamed in his muscles. He got his fingers around a chunk of rock and frozen soil and heaved it aside.

He cursed as he worked, cursed Alissa for not waiting for backup, cursed himself for not being close enough to stop her. Cursed the bastard who’d left a note with his name on it, then ambushed an officer.

A female officer.

Her sex shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Or maybe it wasn’t just that she was a woman. Maybe it was this particular woman. Ever since that night at the bar, she’d been at the edges of his mind, tempting him to forget his own rules.

“It’s settling!” shouted a tall blond woman he recognized as one of Alissa’s friends. Cassie something. The other searchers had all converged on the spot, drawn by the small, deadly explosion and Tucker’s bellow of shock and rage.

“We’ve got to get them out of there.” Chief Parry scraped at the snow and dirt with gloved hands. “There can’t be much air!”

Alissa’s image flooded Tucker’s mind, all honey-colored hair and warm blue eyes. Her remembered taste lingered on his tongue, though he’d told himself to forget it.

With a nearly feral roar, he lifted an ice-crusted boulder and heaved it aside.

“There!” Cassie yelled. “There she is!” She darted toward a scrap of cloth and a laced boot. “Get down here and help me!”

The others surged forward, but Tucker elbowed them aside. “I’ve got her!” He dropped into the hole and touched the limp body of the woman he was supposed to have been backing up. Who was supposed to have been backing him up.

This was why he didn’t work with a partner. He was no good at teamwork.

He whispered a prayer, or maybe a threat, as he checked her over and found nothing obviously wrong. She was stirring when he lifted her up and out of the hole. His muscles strained, though she couldn’t weigh much more than 110, 120 pounds. He looked down and realized her hand was caught on something. He saw a flash of denim and shouted, “There’s the girl!”

His shout brought a flurry of activity, of renewed digging, but Tucker focused on the woman in his arms. She moaned as he hauled her up and out of the ragged hole and carried her to the side of the canyon, where he could lay her flat as the BCCPD helicopter landed nearby.

She didn’t stay down long. Within moments she was batting at his hands and struggling to sit up. But her attention wasn’t focused on the rescued girl, whose motionless body was being strapped to a backboard for loading into the chopper.

No, Alissa was staring at the place where the kidnapper’s bomb had blown away part of the tributary canyon wall.

“Look!” She pointed to the scarred rock and dirt.

He saw it then, and let out a soft curse at the object that had tumbled from the disturbed earth.

It was a human skull.

ALISSA WAS COLD and sore and scared, but she’d think about it later, when she was alone and nobody could see her lose it.

She’d been buried alive. She deserved some hysterics, but she’d learned to put off the tears long enough to deal with the immediate problem. When she was younger and her mother had been struggling to keep them together, the problem had usually been money—an irate landlord or a cold Denver apartment in January.

Now the immediate problem was a crime scene. Actually, it was two crime scenes, one on top of the other.

Who did the skeleton belong to? How had the person died? How had it come to be buried there? And what were the chances that the rigged explosion would accidentally open another, far older grave?

Very slim, which suggested they had been meant to find the grave. But why?

McDermott touched her arm. “They’ve got Lizzie loaded on the chopper. They’re waiting for you.”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically, though her lungs ached at the words. She moved away from his touch, uncomfortable with how her chilled body yearned to lean into his warmth. She glanced at him and saw that his eyes were as dark as she had remembered, only with irritation, not passion. “Thanks for pulling me out.”

She would never admit that thinking of him had kept her sane in those last few minutes. She’d used him as a mental crutch, that was all. A focus.

Instead of accepting her thanks, he snapped, “I wouldn’t have needed to if you’d waited for me. What were you thinking? Never leave your partner like that.”

Irritation sparked. “If you’ll remember, you left me behind, not the other way around!”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, though they both knew it did. “Just get your butt on the chopper.”

She gritted her teeth. “I’m not going to the hospital when there’s a crime scene to work.”

“Let one of the others do it. Isn’t that why the chief hired three of you? So there’d be redundancy in the Forensics Department?”

“No,” Cassie said, neatly stepping between them. “He hired us because our skills complement each other, and because the BCCPD needed an upgrade.” She turned her back on him and locked eyes with Alissa. “You should go with the girl. She’ll need to talk to someone.”

It was ironic that Cassie was playing the mediator. The tall, blond evidence specialist was usually the abrasive one, the sharp-tongued edgy one, who made enemies more easily than friends and never hesitated to express her opinion. If she was toning it down, it meant she’d been worried. Very worried.

Alissa clasped her friend’s hand and smiled. “It’ll be okay, but thanks.” She glanced over and saw a petite, dark-haired figure climb into the helicopter. “Lizzie doesn’t need me right now. Maya will help, and her parents will be waiting at the hospital. I’ll go in later and see if I can get a sketch. For now I’ll stay here and work the scene.” She shot a look at Tucker, who stood nearby, glowering. “You got a problem with that?”

They both knew he did, and he probably had a point. She was tired and sore, and damned if her camera wasn’t down there somewhere, amidst the busted-up ice and rock.

He scowled and turned away. “No problem. I’m not your keeper. Do what you need to do and leave me out of it.”

And he was gone, taking the faint, lingering warmth with him.

Alissa watched him climb to the top of the canyon and work his way toward the back of the blown-out tunnel, where the bomb experts were already congregating. Then she held out a hand to Cassie. “Let me borrow your camera, okay? Mine’s trash.”

Cass cocked her head. “Want to talk about it?” She wasn’t asking about what had happened in the tunnel.

Alissa shook her head. “Nothing to talk about. Let’s do our jobs.”

TUCKER WATCHED the two women work the scene together. There was no doubting they were a team. Cassie handled the evidence collection, having dragooned several task force members into digging, witnessing the collections, starting the chain of evidence and transporting the items back to a waiting vehicle.

Items. It sounded so much neater than bones, but that was what they were uncovering. A skeleton had been buried in a shallow grave at the side of the ice tunnel.

The searchers brought in heaters to melt the frost layer and used hand trowels, then brushes, to uncover the bones. The soil was bagged for sifting, and the bags were carefully labeled with exact coordinates.

Alissa helped when needed, but otherwise stood aside and recorded the process with photographs and detailed notes. She listed where each bone was found, how deep it was buried and how far away from the others. When the exhumation was complete, she could use her notes along with her new computer programs to recreate the scene in its entirety.

Which, Tucker admitted, would be a step up from Fitz’s glossy photographs, and the hand-drawn schematics he used to tack on a flip board for the jury’s view.

It wasn’t that he had anything against progress, Tucker thought, as he watched Alissa record the position of a femur. And it wasn’t as if he missed Fitz all that much. Hell, if the old coot wanted to retire, who was he to complain? It was…

Admit it, he muttered inwardly. It’s Alissa.

She rattled him. Unsettled him. Fascinated him, though he had no business being fascinated with a local when he’d put in for—and been granted—his next transfer. The only thing keeping him in town right now was the task force. Once the girls were found and the kidnapper was in custody, he’d be in the wind.

Growing up, he’d hated the moves from one military base to the next, hated the look on his mother’s face when his father’s next set of orders came through. These days it was the opposite. His parents were happily settled in Arizona, while he was the one skipping around.

But he liked it that way. Liked his freedom. His independence.

As though she sensed his thoughts or his gaze, Alissa lowered the camera and looked across the distance separating them. He felt their eyes lock, felt a click of connection in his chest. He wanted to go to her, to tell her how he’d nearly gone out of his mind digging down to her.

Instead he turned away and focused on the second crime scene, where two members of the bomb squad were excavating what was left of the tunnel. Chief Parry stood nearby with his hands jammed in the pockets of his uniform parka. He frowned as Tucker joined him.

“Bastard rigged a trip wire to Lizzie’s ankle and shoved her into the tunnel. We got a few fragments of the device. Trouper’s taking them.”

Tucker nodded. “Reasonable.” The BCCPD had a good relationship with the feds, particularly the FBI. After the second kidnapping, when it became clear that this was more than a disgruntled teen hitting the road for Vegas or points west, they had called for help and gotten Trouper, a lean, graying agent who’d done his damnedest to help without stepping on toes.

Parry glanced over toward the rapidly emptying grave site. “They find anything with the bones?”

Tucker shrugged. “More bones, maybe a few scraps of cloth. They’re having trouble with the ice.”

The chief grunted, which was his fallback answer to most everything. “The skeleton will go to the ME for a preliminary workup, and then we’ll let Wyatt have the skull. Maybe we can get a recognizable face from it.”

Tucker stuck his hands in his pockets. “Fitz said there was no way to reconstruct a face from a skull.”

“Fitz also wasn’t a big fan of blood-spatter trajectories and DNA. If it wasn’t a fingerprint, he didn’t want to know about it,” Parry said with uncharacteristic asperity. “And I wish you guys would get off the Fitz kick already. You know as well as I do that he was a pain in the ass and long past retirement. Yeah, he cleared a hell of a lot of cases, but he was a damned dinosaur. You should be kissing these girls’ butts for bringing in new techniques, not bitching because they do things differently. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t have hired them!”

The chief kept his voice low so they wouldn’t be overheard, but there was no question that he was serious.

And knowing that the chief had a valid point, Tucker felt a low burn of shame. “But, Chief—”

“No buts. I want you with me on this.” Parry leveled a finger at Tucker. “If you lead, the others will follow. I want you to give those women a break, particularly Wyatt.”

Tucker shifted uneasily. “I don’t have anything against Wyatt.”

The captain grunted. “Baloney. You glare any time you’re within fifty feet of her, and you do a damn good job of not letting that happen too often. Since you’re usually a pretty level guy, I figure there’s one of two reasons for that. Either you’re hot for her or you hate her guts. Which is it?”

The chief’s question hung on the air between them as the cold day dimmed toward a colder dusk. Tucker hid the wince—or tried to—and said, “Neither. I’m just not sure she’s the right cop for the job. She’s awfully young—” and tiny, delicate, breakable “—to be in charge of evidence collection.”

“She’s older than you were when you took the oath, McDermott. She has eight years on the job in Tecumseh, and more training than Fitz ever bothered to get.” Parry shot him a look. “So what’s your real problem with her?”

Knowing he wasn’t going to win, Tucker set his teeth. “No problem, Chief.”

“Good,” Parry said in a voice that told Tucker he didn’t believe a word of it. “Then you won’t mind working with her on this case. You’ll be good together—you see the big picture while she focuses on the details.”

Damn, Tucker thought. He should’ve seen this coming a mile away. He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Well, I do, and that’s what’s important, isn’t it?” Though Parry’s voice remained quiet, his slate-blue eyes held a hint of steel in their depths. “I need her at the hospital to interview the girl. Go with her.” Now a hint of frustration, of worry worked its way into the chief’s expression. “I’m not doing this to ride your ass, McDermott. I need the team working together, and right now it’s not. If we’re not working together, we might not find this guy in time.” Edgy concern snapped in his tone. “We might not find the other two girls in time.”

Tucker felt it, too. The sense that an invisible timetable had been moved up by the kidnapper’s mocking note. Was it simply a taunt, or did it mean something else?

Hell, he didn’t know. And damned if the chief wasn’t right—as usual. The task force needed to work together, not against itself. So Tucker nodded grudgingly. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

“Of course you will,” Parry said. “It’s an order.”

ALISSA WAS STOWING her gear in Cassie’s truck—and trying to hide the winces—when a strong arm grabbed her pack and Tucker’s voice said, “You’re riding with me.”

She hated that, even after an afternoon as physically and emotionally bruising as this one, her pulse still kicked into overdrive at his nearness. Because of it, and because of the pounding aches in her back and neck, she turned and scowled at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” He didn’t look happy about it, either. “Chief Parry wants us together on this one. He wants us to go to the hospital and talk to Lizzie.”

“That’s where I’m headed,” she snapped, “but not with you.”

“Sorry.” He slung her pack over his shoulder and gestured towards his vehicle—a black SUV with oversize tires and mud flaps emblazoned with the letters BCCPD. “Chief’s orders. He wants his team working together on this.”

“Oh.” She tried not to slump as she understood. She, Cass and Maya hadn’t been able to make friends, so the chief was going to do it for them. Damn, she hated being manipulated, hated that she hadn’t been able to work it out on her own. Worse, she hated that part of her was excited at the idea of partnering with McDermott, even temporarily. Knowing it spelled trouble all the way around, she shook her head. “I can drive myself to the hospital and hook up with you later. There’s no reason for us both to go—she might not even be conscious yet.”

“True, but orders are orders.” He slung her pack in the vehicle and left the passenger door ajar.

“Fine.” She climbed stiffly into the SUV.

As they drove out of Bear Creek State Forest, she felt the sore spots burn and pound, felt her muscles stiffen up. She’d gone from being trapped under hundreds of pounds of rocks and dirt directly to working the scene. She’d refused to go to the hospital with Lizzie because the other victims needed her more than she’d needed medical attention.

Now, a soft bed and some aspirin was sounding real good.

When McDermott blasted the heat, she expelled a grateful sigh, let her head fall back against the seat and closed her eyes.

And opened them right up again, because the first thing she’d seen in her tired brain was a small patch of yellow flashlight beam and a wall of dirt six inches from her face. She shuddered at the memory.

“I’ve got the heat as high as it’ll go.”

She glanced at him, then away, trying to ignore how intimate the area seemed as the dusk faded to night. “I didn’t say anything.”

And she didn’t say anything else until he pulled up in front of the small house she’d leased for a year, with the option to buy if everything worked out with the BCCPD.

She stared at the lit front entryway, battling the urge to bolt inside, jump into bed and wish the whole day away. “I thought we were going to the hospital to interview Lizzie.”

That was where she wanted to go. Needed to go. Not just to do her job, but also to reassure herself that the girl was alive. To thank her, ironically, for being human company beneath the ice and snow. If it hadn’t been for the feeling of Lizzie’s ankle beneath her fingertips, Alissa thought she might have lost it completely.

“We are,” he said. “But you need to take a shower first. Or at least change clothes and wash your face. You’ll terrify the poor kid if you show up looking like that.”

His voice held a tone of censure, and something else. Something darker and more dangerous, that sent a skitter of awareness shooting through her body.

With a start, she realized he hadn’t asked for directions. He’d known where she lived.

She wondered what it meant, and then decided probably nothing. He was a cop. He knew his neighborhoods.

“Yeah. You’ve got a point.” And, God, would it feel good to soak her bones in the Jacuzzi tub that had sold her on the house. Since there wasn’t time for a bath, she’d settle for a fast shower, but it’d help.

She pushed open the door and stifled a groan as her weary legs went rubbery. Since there was no way she was asking McDermott for help, she forced some strength into her body and shuffled into the house. All the way, she was too aware of him following, not close enough to crowd, but close enough to catch her if she fell.

She felt his presence there in the little prickles of electricity on her skin, in the subtle warmth in her core, and was reminded of another time, when they’d followed each other out of the club with no other thought than to get naked, damn the consequences.

Only, he hadn’t damned the consequences. He’d bailed the moment he’d realized she was a cop and a coworker. Part of her was grateful he’d had the strength. Part of her still yearned for the sizzle. And the whole of her was ashamed that she’d nearly given in to something as pointless as lust with a man who—according to PD rumor—already had one foot out the door.

Been there, done that. Don’t need to do it again, no matter how hot he is, she told herself.

Inside the house, she waved him to the kitchen and ignored the oddness of seeing him standing there, in her space. “Food and drinks are in the fridge—take whatever appeals. Guest bath is at the end of the hall. I’ll be five minutes, no more.”

When she’d picked the house, she’d loved the convenience of having everything on one floor. Now it seemed like a disadvantage. A vulnerability. Even once she was inside the master bath, with its Jacuzzi tub and sybaritic adjoining lounge, she felt exposed.

She stripped naked and jumped into the shower fast, hissing at the sting of water on bruises and scrapes, then nearly moaning as the warmth eased some of the pain. But she didn’t dally. She had five minutes to shower and dress and get the hell on the road to the hospital.

She had a witness to interview. A murderer to sketch.

Two missing girls to find.

Chapter Three

At the Hawthorne Memorial Hospital, Alissa and McDermott were ID’d twice, once at the main desk and once again as they approached the private room where Lizzie lay. Though the kidnapper had left her as bait, there was no telling whether or not he’d try to get her back. Frankly there was no telling much of anything yet.

The whole case was clear as mud, Alissa thought, as she followed McDermott down the hall. The kidnapper appeared to have a plan, but what was it? Would the other girls reappear one at a time? Or were they already dead? Was he using the girls to get to the police—as the canyon attack suggested—or vice versa?

At the door to Lizzie’s hospital room, Alissa held up a hand. “I’m going in alone.”

“No way.” McDermott scowled, and the overhead lights darkened his deep-brown eyes to nearly black. “Remember what Parry said? We’re working together on this.”

“But he didn’t say we needed to be joined at the hip, did he?” She lifted her chin and ignored the fine buzz that ran across her skin at his nearness. “I’m going in alone. I’m betting she’ll be more relaxed with a woman than a man, and the more she relaxes, the more I’ll be able to get out of her.”

Not waiting for him to argue, she opened the door, stepped through and shut it in his face. Then she breathed through her mouth in an exaggerated sigh of stress. Frustration.

She wished she knew Chief Parry better, wished she knew whether it was safe to complain to him. Because there was no doubt in her mind that she and McDermott working together was a bad idea. They were just going to annoy each other.

Distract each other.

“You okay?”

The question startled her, because it came in a very familiar voice. “Maya!”

“Who else did you expect?” The dark-haired beauty unfolded herself from a chair beside the bed, which held the blond pixie that Alissa knew from her picture.

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Walsh, taken from the MovieMogul parking lot by a man in a light-colored van. And now, miraculously, home safe.

Or so Alissa hoped.

Almost afraid to ask, she glanced at Maya. “Is she…?”

“She seems generally okay—bumps, bruises, exposure and hypothermia, but nothing else.” The BCCFD’s forensic psychologist—and counselor—touched the sleeping girl’s wrist. “She’s been in and out. Her parents and younger brother have been here for the past few hours. I just sent them off for a snack and a walk.”

Maya’s long-lashed eyes were dark with sympathy. Alissa knew the family couldn’t be in better hands. Maya had a way with victims and suspects, just as Alissa had a way with scenes, and Cassie with evidence.

The three made a strong unit, stronger even than the retired Fitz, who had left before they arrived, not bothering to help ease their transition onto the force. Alissa gritted her teeth. Well, to hell with him. To hell with men in general. She was here to do a job, not make new friends.

“Can you intercept the parents?” she asked Maya. “I’d like some time alone with her.”

“Sure. I’ll speak with them about easing her back into her normal life and dealing with the aftermath. They’ve asked about counseling, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to help her move on.” The warning in Maya’s eyes was velvet gentleness over a core of steel. Don’t mess up her head.

But how could Alissa promise that? She needed the young woman—little more than a child, really, she was so small and fragile looking—to remember things she would probably rather forget. In the long run, it would help her…but the short run was going to hurt.

“I’ll do my best,” Alissa answered, though they both knew it wasn’t really an answer at all.

Maya, being Maya, smiled and touched her arm in passing. “I know you will, ’Lissa.” She turned back with her hand on the door. “You want me to send one of the boys to sit outside the door and make sure you have your privacy?”

“Already taken care of,” Alissa said. “McDermott’s outside.” Then she held a finger to her lips and mouthed, and he’s probably listening.

Lord knows she would be, under the same circumstances.

Maya raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment beyond a cautious, “Okay. I’ll be back to check on you in twenty.”

“Good enough.” Alissa watched as Maya pushed through the door. Sure enough, McDermott was right outside, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping.

She glared and he flicked an unrepentant half-smile. Then the door swung shut between them, separating them some, but not enough. Irritated and faintly anxious, she forced her mind back on to the job. On to the girl, the victim who had seen the face of her kidnapper.

Or so Alissa hoped.

She pulled out her pad and turned back to the bed, intending to sit with Lizzie until she woke up. But the girl’s eyes were open and wary. “I already told them I don’t remember anything,” Lizzie said, voice faintly petulant, as though Alissa was interrupting her.

“Okay.” Alissa sat and settled her sketch pad in her lap. When she lifted the hard charcoal pencil she used for initial blocking work, she saw the girl’s eyes follow. “We’ll just chat a little until your parents come back. No pressure.”

Instead of tarting off or repeating her denial, Lizzie surprised Alissa.

The girl began to cry.

Huge tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, and she rolled to her side and hugged her knees to her chest beneath the thin hospital blanket. “I th-thought he was going to kill me. He said he was going to, that I wouldn’t have any warning. That one night he’d just do it, maybe while I was sleeping.” She swallowed a racking sob. “I t-tried not to sleep much after that, but it was so cold. So dark. Once, I woke up and he was standing over me. He had a knife.” She burrowed her face into the pillow and howled, straining her body into the mattress as though she wished it would swallow her up. “Then he put me in that cave. He drugged me. I was out of it, but I knew what he’d done. I knew there was a bomb. I thought I was going to die when you came. I thought we were both dead.”

Her thin frame shuddered with the force of her tears.

Alissa’s throat closed, and she reached out to touch the girl’s scraped-raw ankle, the only part of Lizzie she could reach from her seat.

God, she hated this. She wanted to gather the young woman in her arms and tell her not to think about it. Instead she forced her voice calm and asked about the place where Lizzie had been held. About the man, who’d always stayed in the shadows. About what he’d said, what he’d done. What he’d looked like.

Lizzie cried as she talked. The words came pouring out of her as though she’d wanted to talk about it, needed to talk about it, even though she’d said she remembered nothing.

But she remembered, all right. She remembered plenty, though maybe not enough. As she talked, Alissa sketched furiously, trusting her microcorder to catch all of the girl’s descriptions for later analysis. The images engraved themselves on her heart, wounding her with fear for the others, for herself.

After ten minutes Lizzie’s words slowed. After fifteen, they stopped altogether and the girl slipped back to sleep, her body shutting down when her soul couldn’t handle any more.

Instead of being frustrated, Alissa was grateful. She wasn’t sure she could have handled more, herself. So she sighed, swiped her sleeve across both cheeks where sympathetic tears had dried and pushed to her feet. The outer door moved slightly as she crossed the room, but by the time she opened it, McDermott was leaning against the far wall, looking like he’d been there all along.

She jerked her head towards the exit. “Come on. Let’s talk to the task force.”

Instead of moving right away, he stared at her, dark eyes intense, until she raised a hand to her cheek, expecting to find that she’d missed a tear. Then he uncoiled and crossed to her. He stopped a breath away, and the warmth of his body eased the tension inside her chest even as it tightened another, lower down.

He started to say something and stopped. Started again and stopped. Then he blew out a breath and said simply, “If we’re going to be working together, I suppose you should call me Tucker.”

Surprise rattled through the numbness left by her painful sketch session, and she nodded. “Thanks. I’m Alissa.”

Sneaky pleasure warmed her. It wasn’t quite acceptance, wasn’t quite a pat on the back for how she’d handled Lizzie.

But it was a start.

STILL FEELING GUT PUNCHED by what he’d overheard of Alissa’s interview with the rescued girl, Tucker ushered her down the hall toward the exit. He was careful not to touch her, because if he did, he might pull her into his arms and tell her that it was okay, that she’d done the right thing by questioning the witness, by keeping her talking.

He’d seen the self-doubt in her eyes, seen what the interview had taken out of her.

They passed a small, intimate waiting area that was painted in soothing blues and golds. The psych specialist, Maya, sat there with Lizzie’s mother, father and brother, all of whom looked exhausted and haggard but happier than he’d seen them in the weeks since the kidnapping.

Tucker nodded as the family stood and filtered back toward the hospital room on Maya’s heels, all save for Lizzie’s father, a shaved-bald patriarch who stank of the cigarettes he’d chain-smoked while they waited for news.

Reginald Walsh stopped near Alissa and said in a low voice, “I don’t care what it takes. I want you to get the bastard. Find him.”

A few of the officers had reported having problems with Walsh, who operated used-car lots around the city and seemed to think money should be enough to buy his daughter home. The morning after her kidnapping, he’d thrown a chair through the front window of his house when one of the officers had suggested Lizzie might have run away.

Knowing this, Tucker stepped between Walsh and Alissa. “We’re working on it. You take care of your daughter and your family. We’ll take care of finding and punishing her kidnapper.”

He kept his voice low but stared the guy in his bloodshot eyes. The last thing they needed right now was a vigilante out for justice.

Walsh glared. “I don’t give a damn about punishing the bastard right now. Not yet. That’ll come later. Right now, I just care about finding those girls for their families.” His voice went strangled. “For God’s sake, they’re just kids.”

He pushed past Tucker, who felt a punch of shame at having misjudged the man. On the heels of shame came fatigue. He’d been up nearly thirty hours without a break, and the last few had been a hell of a ride.

“Hey, Tucker. You okay?” Alissa asked, concern darkening her blue eyes. A wisp of hair slipped from its twist and brushed across her forehead, making her look soft and vulnerable.

Her use of his first name echoed back to that night, when they’d been Alissa and Tucker, and they’d danced close enough that they might have been inside each other’s skins. Ever since they’d been reintroduced through the BCCPD, he’d been McDermott and she’d been Wyatt.

It shouldn’t have made a difference. But because it did, and because he was tired and feeling a little mean, he turned away and headed for the exit. “I’m fine. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He didn’t need to look to know that she had his back. He could feel her presence like a slow-burning fire in his nerve endings, one that reminded him of his transfer request. He’d be gone as soon as this case was wrapped up, and she’d be staying in her roomy, family-friendly house. The house alone should be enough to make him back off.

So how come every time he meant to back off, he seemed to take a step closer?

IT WAS COMPLETELY DARK when Alissa and Tucker made it back to the PD, but most of the task-force members were there, looking tired, haggard, and run-down by too many questions and not enough answers.

Maya hadn’t returned from the hospital yet, but Cassie had saved their seats, as usual. Alissa felt a small pang, as though she was abandoning Tucker when he took his customary position against the back wall. He’d been broody and curt during the ride from the hospital, but his mood seemed to have gained a layer of desperation that made her nervous.

It was as though he was reaching the end of his endurance in some way, though she didn’t think it was physical. It was more like he was pushing himself to a mental brink.

On a professional level, she didn’t think it was good for the case. On a personal level, she wished she could help but knew she didn’t have the right to press. He’d made that perfectly clear when he’d bailed out of her car that night at the club. Tucker was a no-relationships kind of guy.

Heck, at least he’d been honest about it.

She tried to convince herself she was grateful as she took her seat. One look at Cassie turned her thoughts in an entirely new direction. “What’s wrong?”

Her first unsettling thought was that there’d been a breach in the chain of evidence. But the anger in Cass’s sky-blue eyes seemed more personal than that, the scowl on her face more directed when she said, “Trouper is threatening to bring in a new guy, an evidence tech from the FBI, to help me.” She stressed the word as if it was poison. “I don’t need help. I’m already doing everything that can be done.”

Alissa tried to shift her brain into this new gear, tried to sympathize with Cass, who could be territorial when it came to her lab. “Well…does this guy have access to equipment you don’t? Can he get you into the federal databanks more quickly?” She took a breath, thought about the blond pixie in the hospital bed and exhaled. “I don’t think we can let this be about a power struggle. It’s about finding the other girls and catching the kidnapper.”

Cassie winced and looked faintly ashamed. “You’re right. I know you’re right, it’s just…this whole thing has me unsettled. I talked to the new guy, Seth Varitek, on the phone, and I already don’t like him. He’s pushy. He…crowds me. And besides, I hate that it feels like us versus them on this case. If I’m protecting my back from the good guys, then who’s going to be looking for the bad guy?”

“It’s not that bad,” Alissa said, thinking Cassie was overreacting and wondering whether there was more to the story. But before she could ask, Maya slipped in through the back door and Chief Parry stepped to the front of the room, ready to start the meeting.

“Good work today, people.” Parry looked to the back of the room, where Alissa could feel Tucker’s presence like a disturbance in the air. Then the chief’s eyes moved to her and on to the others. “Elizabeth Walsh is safe and sound, and has already been through a round of interviews. However—” he sobered, his eyes going hard “—both the victim and Officer Wyatt were nearly killed today by an explosive device we presume was set by the kidnapper. We were led to the site by a note addressed to Detective McDermott.”

Though the twenty or so cops on the task force already knew the details, a rumbling murmur ran through the room. A slick-haired veteran named Piedmont, who always found reasons to avoid greeting Alissa in the hallway, glanced over at her with less than the usual dose of venom in his glare. “He’s playing with us.”

“Yeah. He’s playing with us.” Chief Parry let the silence linger a beat too long before he said, “So let’s end the game. Let’s find him.” He gestured to Alissa. “Wyatt will start us off with her report.”

She felt twenty-plus pairs of eyes on her, felt the bruises on her cheek and chin throb, and forced herself to stand tall. Always before, she’d given her report to a sea of glowers or studied disinterest. This time the room felt slightly different. A hair less hostile. Maybe even a little bit ashamed.

A bubble of irony lodged in her throat. Either Chief Parry had succeeded with his plan to partner her with McDermott, or else the best way to catch a break with her new coworkers was to nearly get herself killed on the job.

Whatever. Resolved to follow her own advice to Cassie and focus on the case rather than office politics, Alissa squared her shoulders and made her report. “Pendelton is copying a sketch for me. Elizabeth said—” she fumbled slightly as the memory of the girl’s sobs tore through her “—Lizzie was able to give me a partial description of the suspect and the place where she was held. He kept her in a small, single room made of wood. She thought it was one of those prefab sheds, the kind you can get at a garden store.”

She could almost feel a collective indrawn breath at the new information. Chief Parry pointed to a pair of homicide detectives. “Piedmont. You and Mendoza follow up on that. Get me lists of the local distributors and their customers, especially multiple orders. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

It would be a huge list. But it would be a start.

Alissa glanced at her notes and continued, “Lizzie was given unwrapped energy bars and two-liter bottles of diet soda every few days.” Which could mean that that her captor wasn’t on the premises 24/7. “She heard wind and birds, creaking trees. No motor noises or other human beings, though she says that he drugged her at least once. Most important, she could hear the other girls. As of yesterday morning, they were both alive.”

A ripple of energy ran through the room at the news. New purpose. Strengthened determination. They had to find those girls.

“As for Lizzie’s captor,” Alissa spread her hands, “I did my best, but she was understandably distraught.” And putting the girl through the description had made her feel faintly slimy, as though some of the evil had rubbed off on them both. There was motion at the back of the room as the door opened and the desk clerk passed a stack of pages to McDermott. Alissa gestured, “As you’ll see from the sketches Tuck—Detective McDermott—is passing around, our suspect is a white male, under six feet tall, with a round head, either bald or wearing a skull cap. Lizzie said he didn’t talk much, and when he did, exclusively to threaten her, he pitched his voice in a low growl.”

She saw the other officers frowning over her sketch and felt a slide of professional embarrassment. “I’m sorry it’s not more detailed. I’ll talk with her again tomorrow, and I’ll reinterview her friends, the ones who might have seen the guy outside the MovieMogul 10.”

But instead of the eye rolls and sneers she half expected, she got nods and eye contact. Tracy Mendoza, Piedmont’s partner and another of the less-than-welcoming cops, said, “It’s more than we had earlier. Thanks.”

It wasn’t until the rumble of agreement rolled over the room that Alissa realized how uncomfortable she’d been since starting work at the BCCPD.

And how much the faintest hint of acceptance meant to her.

She retook her seat on numb legs as Chief Parry called on Cassie to discuss the skeleton and the explosive device, both excavated from the ice tunnel.

The room cooled back to studied indifference or outright hostility as Cassie swaggered up to the front, chipped shoulder firmly in place. “Lizzie’s clothing is next on my list for examination, but a preliminary scan suggests we won’t get much. Between the wet and the dirt from the tunnel, it’s going to be tough to tell the trace evidence from the rest. The explosive-device fragments have been forwarded to an FBI expert.” She didn’t acknowledge Trouper and she certainly didn’t look happy about the interdepartmental cooperation as she continued, “and the skeleton has gone to the ME for examination. A preliminary scan indicates that we exhumed a complete skeleton, with a couple of the smaller bones missing. No cause of death was immediately apparent.” She shrugged. “We’ll know more in a day or so.”

Chief Parry frowned. “How quickly can you get the skull to Wyatt for facial reconstruction?”

“She’ll have it first thing tomorrow.”

“Good. See that she does.” Parry waved Cassie back to her seat and called another officer to report.

The rest of the meeting amounted to a whole lot of negatives. The suspects questioned to date all had solid alibis, including Lizzie’s neighbor, Bradford Croft, whose name had dinged on the sex offender registry, making him an immediate suspect. A few other names were kicked around, including a longtime local named Michael Swopes, who had a string of low-level juvenile priors, and had done custom cabinet work for the families of the first and third kidnap victims.

It was near 10:00 p.m. when Parry closed the meeting. “Okay, people. Night shift, you know what you’re doing. Day shift, go home and get some rest.” His eyes slid to Alissa. “You all look like you could use it.”

No kidding, she thought. The aches of the day sang through her body and left her nearly limp. But she forced herself to her feet and headed for the door. Cassie and Maya stayed behind to talk to Captain Parry, but Alissa couldn’t bear to wait for them. She wanted food, aspirin and her bed, not necessarily in that order.

She was so tired that she wasn’t even surprised to see Tucker waiting for her out in the hallway. “You want a ride home?” he asked.

A ride home, a shoulder to lean on. Hell, even just a hug. Yeah, she could use all that. And because she wanted it so badly, she shook her head. “I’m fine.” When he fell into step beside her, she slanted him a look. “I said I’m fine, Tucker. Shift’s over. You don’t have to play nice with me anymore on Chief’s orders.”

They exited out to the shadowed parking lot, where the number of personal cars sitting beneath the sodium lights attested to the big case. The cop shop wouldn’t sleep until the girls were home—safe, God willing—and the kidnapper was in custody.

Tucker growled low in his throat. “Don’t be a pain. You’re all done in and I don’t think you should be driving.” He waved to his SUV. “Get in. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

She turned to face him, noting how the bare lighting threw his hard-cut features into stark relief and darkened his eyes to jet. When he stepped closer—too close—she felt a tug of nerves. “Look. I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter, okay?”

They stared at each other for a beat before he dipped his head. At first, she had the insane notion that he was going to kiss her. At the thought heat blazed through her body, a raging, unwise, uncaring inferno that recalled the flash and flame they’d created together once before.

Then she realized he was only nodding. “I got it.” His voice rasped on the words, as though he was restraining a curse, or something else.

He stepped back, and she felt as if they’d just ended an embrace, though they hadn’t touched. Her lips were tender and swollen as though they had kissed. Her body revved and begged as though they had done even more than that.

He lifted an eyebrow. “You going or not? If you fall asleep on your feet in the middle of the parking lot, I’ll be obliged to drive you home.”

“I’m going.” She spun blindly and nearly tripped over her own feet as she hurried to her VW, painfully aware of her own thoughts, and painfully certain he’d read them in her face. Why else had his eyes been dark, his expression cloaked with a fierceness that bordered on passion?

She fumbled for her keys and unlocked her car, only then noticing a single sheet of paper trapped beneath the wiper blade. Thinking it was a menu, or a flier for the grunge club down the street, she grabbed for it.

The block-lettered words took a moment to register.

You’re getting warmer.

She heard a click and saw a curl of plastic-coated wire beneath her wiper blade. She turned to run and scream a warning, but her feet moved in slow motion and her voice failed her.

She heard another click. A dull whump! of detonation.

Something hit her from behind, driving her to the ground and pressing her flat.

And the night erupted in searing, choking flames.

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