01 A Cold Dark Place (28 page)

She was in love with a trained assassin, and having his baby.
Oh, God.
Her mouth went dry.

Hanrahan stood arguing
nose-to-nose with Frazer.

“
...what do you mean it was a training exercise...training for what?” fluttered across the clearing.

“
...my decision, not yours...”

Barton
was also on the phone. Maybe she was in league with the vigilante? Was she right now warning him? Was it Alex?

And then it struck her
—if Alex was the man they were looking for, a man who took the law into his own hands and dispensed justice as he saw fit, she’d just set into motion a sting operation that might end up implicating herself.
She’d
been in contact with the “vigilante.”

Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat and she needed to get away.

She wished she’d never had this stupid idea. Wished she was sitting in her office dodging verbal darts from Henderson and searching through wastepaper bins. Palpitations fluttered in her chest.

Did she turn him in?

There was no evidence—just a hunch.

She stumbled around the front of the car as if drunk. Frazer frowned at her.
“You look like shit. You need to go home.” He ran an agitated hand through his blond hair that made it stick out in disarray.

Was it him?
Was he the mole?

She met Hanrahan
’s gaze.

“
If you’re not feeling well, Special Agent Rooney, you should go home.”

Recognizing he was giving her the out she desperately needed she went with it.
“Something I ate for breakfast I think, sir. What’s going on?” she asked rather desperately.

“
This was apparently just a training exercise.” SSA Frazer’s eyes cut back to hers. He looked volcanically pissed. Christ, she couldn’t wait for him to find out this was all her idea. Her stomach roiled.

“
You can leave,” he said. “Make sure you check in when you get back to Quantico. I don’t want you falling off the map with this UNSUB still at large.”

Barton
went to get in the car with her.

“
Not you, Barton,” Hanrahan stated. “I want you to ride back with us. I’m going to need your phone.” He held out his hand and Barton looked at him like he’d gone insane.

“
What?
Why
?”

“
We need all your phones. We’re doing an update.” It was so obviously a lie that Barton planted her hand on her hip.

“
In a store parking lot?” she sneered.

“
It’ll only take a few minutes.” Hanrahan probably wanted to check the call logs and see if anyone had tampered with them compared to the cell tower data. It was a good idea.

“
What about her?” Barton jerked her head toward where Mallory was just sliding behind the steering wheel.

“
Agent Rooney’s not a full member of the team. She doesn’t need the upgrade. She’s also a federal agent who I’m sure can drive herself back to the office without a bodyguard.” Hanrahan snapped at her but his eyes held apology. If she hadn’t felt like puking she’d have high-fived him. Barton pinched her lips and then with a glare at both Hanrahan and Frazer she tossed him her phone and stood fuming with her arms crossed.

Mallory kept moving
. When the SSA held out his palm for Frazer’s phone, Mallory thought the guy was going to explode. Instead he handed his cell over. She put her vehicle in reverse to turn it around, and he stood watching her like he could see inside her brain. Mallory’s heart pounded harder and harder though she never stopped driving. She needed to get out of there. She needed to think.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

M
allory had never understood the need to fall off the grid. Until now.

The motel was some fifty miles east of Colby, West Virginia. Alex had texted
her a room number. She looked up at the uninspiring building, grabbed her purse, and climbed out of her car in the parking lot. A noise behind her made her spin, hand firmly on the butt of her weapon.

Alex.

Christ, just looking at him hurt, but his expression was cold and remote.

Was this the real Alex? Or was the real Alex the guy who made love to her until she
gasped out his name? She’d thought she’d known him but looking into those guarded eyes she knew she’d been kidding herself.

He turned his back on her and walked to a silver sedan
—the one she’d seen at the store. Started the engine and waited, both hands visible on the steering wheel. She stared at him for a full ten seconds before she walked over and stood there. Drunk on lunacy.

“
Take the SIM card and battery out of your phone,” he told her quietly.

“
So you can take me somewhere quiet to kill me and dump the body without anyone following?”

He held her gaze.
“If I wanted to kill you you’d already be dead.”

A sharp pain shot through her chest.
“Are you the vigilante I’ve been searching for?”

He just looked at her and she felt small and stupid.

“I need the words, Alex.”

There was a wild look in his
eyes, so far removed from the cold stare he’d met her with she almost took a step back. “How about these words, Mallory. I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you with that black eye, and no room for anything in your life except looking for your sister’s killer. I love
you
, Mallory Rooney, and I will tell you everything you need to know, but on my terms.” His eyes cut back to the road, looking for her back-up.

She sucked in a breath. Those words of love were ones she
’d wanted to hear but what did they mean now? He didn’t deny any of her accusations. Blood thumped through her veins with an aching thud. They had no future. She’d been sleeping with a killer. Sharing her body, worse, her heart, with a murderer. Her hand touched her stomach and she swallowed. Did she tell him about the baby?

A shudder of revulsion moved through her. Would he kill them both? Or would she turn him in and one day have to confess to her child that
their father was serving life in prison—or worse, on death row—and she’d been the one to put him there?

His eyes softened and almost begged her to get in the car. Her throat hurt from locking down a sob. Maybe she was the world
’s biggest fool. She couldn’t believe that the man who’d fought so hard to keep her safe would harm her now. Of course she hadn’t suspected the truth about him until today and he’d probably assumed she’d continue in blissful ignorance. Her whole life was built on ignorance and now it was crumbling. Crashing like a stack of cards in a hurricane.

“
Mallory.” His voice softened. “Get in the car, please. We’ll go somewhere and talk. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”

Something
in his expression snapped another piece of her heart. She loved him but she didn’t want to be stupid. She rested her hand on the rim of the window and he reached out and touched her finger, as if he couldn’t
not
touch her. She felt the connection to the tips of her toes.

“
It’s only a matter of time before the FBI figures out you’re involved. The FBI was monitoring all calls made by their agents when we set up that sting. He or she will give you up. You know that.”

“
Whoever works inside the BAU doesn’t know my identity any more than I know theirs. And no one called me with this information, I bugged Frazer’s phone.”

Her
heart cracked wide. “So you
are
the vigilante.”

He wouldn’t say the words but his eyes told her everything. Maybe he worried she was wearing a wire and had fifty agents waiting
in the wings to swarm in and arrest him. That’s what a true FBI agent would have done.

“
I’d never hurt you, Mallory. You have to believe that. And I will turn myself in, but not until you are safe from the asshole hunting you. After that I don’t really care anymore. I’m done.” This dead tone scraped away another layer of her heart. How could she love this man? Worse. How could she not?

She was a fool to believe him but she got in the car any way. Then dismantled her cell proving she wasn
’t just stupid, she was stark raving mad. He started driving. Several miles to another motel, the silence crackling with tension. He parked at the end of a row and walked around to open her door.

Nice manners for a stone-cold killer.

She followed him up the stairs and to the end unit. He stepped inside and closed the door. She didn’t know whether to be terrified or furious. Both emotions warred inside her and fury won.

Her jaw set.
“You used me.”

“
No.” He put the car keys on the desk beside the TV and sat in a chair, resting his face in his hands. “I didn’t use you. You seduced me and I fell like a fucking rock.”

Hot blinding tears filled her eyes
. She wanted to believe him. She couldn’t. “You knew I was looking for you. You knew I’d searched ViCAP for vigilantes.”

He didn
’t deny it.

“
Who are you working with in the BAU?”

“
I told you, I don’t know.”

“
I didn’t come here to listen to lies, Alex. I have to turn you in”—her voice cracked but she ignored it—“don’t you dare lie to me about this.” She took a step toward him and he lifted his head to look at her. Her career was fried when the powers-that-be found out about their relationship. She was having his baby for God’s sake. She needed her job to help find out what had happened to Payton, but it all faded to nothing when weighed against losing this man she’d fallen in love with.

“
It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

She narrowed her
gaze at him. “
What
doesn’t work that way?”

“
The Gateway Project. We aren’t told the identities of the other people involved in the organization. We deal with an intermediary.” His eyes were full of secrets.

He knew a hell of a lot more than he was saying. Or he was insane. Or maybe that was her.
“Gateway Project?”

“
It’s an off-the-books government organization that uses people like me to deal with violent offenders in an expedient manner.”

“
Expedient? You shoot them in the goddamn head!” Her knees wobbled and she dropped to the bed. His words sank in. “It can’t be government-sanctioned. We have prisons and the death penalty to deal with these cases—”

“
Is your sense of justice still so black and white? Is there no room for gray, even after everything your family has been through?”

She
refused to answer. Refused to engage.

“
You know how long most victims’ families wait for death penalty sentences to be carried out? After the lawyers get through the postponements, the trial, appeals system,
habeas corpus
? It can take as long as twenty-five
years
. These aren’t even cases where guilt is in question. The justice system is supposed to balance the scales but instead it tortures the victims’ families for decades.”

“
There’s no morality in murder.”

“
You think
I
don’t know that?” He closed his eyes, but not before she spotted the pain there. “Every individual is responsible for their actions—including me. I don’t like killing but it’s what my country asked me to do, and I do it.” He drew in a big breath, voice calm again. “Do you know what it costs to pursue capitol cases? Seventy percent more than non-capitol cases. Since 1978, enforcing the death penalty has cost $4 billion in California alone.”

“
You can’t put a cost on human life.” Mallory shoved her hand into her short hair.

“
Sure you can. There’s a cost to health services and law enforcement, isn’t there? How many more cops could have been hired to patrol and make California safer with
four
billion dollars
?” The curve of his mouth gutted her. “Is it really easier to believe the man who’s fallen in love with you is a cold-blooded assassin rather than just another form of law enforcement?”

“
Alex...what you’re doing isn’t law enforcement. It’s murder.”

“
I serve my country. The same way I served it in uniform. And I don’t carry out orders unless I am personally one-hundred percent sure the target is guilty. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just telling you how it is.”

Mallory realized he was either running an elaborate scam, nuts, or this thing was much bigger than she and Hanrahan had ever imagined.
“Who’s in charge of The Gateway Project?”

They exchanged a silent look. He wasn
’t going to tell her.
Damn
. Cold sank through her clothes and her skin felt dipped in ice.

“
Now you have a decision to make,” he told her.

Instinctively she touched her abdomen. His eyes followed the movement but she doubted he
understood its significance. “I can’t pretend I don’t know, Alex.”

Lines appeared between his brows
. “Shit, I know that. But before you tell your FBI bosses I want to help you find the man who abducted your sister, the man who is after you. Then you can bring me in. That should save your career.”

Her eyes shot to his.
How did he know the heart of her so well? He was offering the opportunity to go after the man who’d destroyed her family, destroyed her parents’ marriage and her sister’s life with no comeback on herself. The idea of making the killer hurt, making him suffer and maybe pulling the trigger was seductive.

What did that make her?

A hypocrite.

But w
here was her sister’s body? She had no doubt Alex could help her get that information. It was so tempting. He was offering her everything she thought she’d wanted. Now she only wanted him and their baby and the sort of ordinary life most people took for granted.

She tried to catch a breath and failed. She felt like she
’d been kicked in the chest by a horse. She wanted that serial killer dead, but there was no way she’d let Alex kill him for her. Vengeance sounded petty. Retribution sounded so much better.

Sadness swirled through her mind. After all these years she was finally getting closer to the truth about what had happened to her twin, but now she was going to lose the man she loved. But she couldn
’t think about Alex. Thinking about Alex hurt. He’d lied to her. Betrayed her.

“
Did you know about Payton before we had sex?”

He watched her. His eyes were the same
silver smoke she always found so irresistible. The handsome face and broad shoulders were not the way a merciless killer was supposed to look. Finally he nodded and pain sliced through her.

“What else?”

“I was one of the men you confronted in your house in Charlotte.” He held up his hand as she went to hit him. “I was staking out the place and saw the other guy jimmy the lock. I followed to stop him from hurting you. I think it was the same guy who’s been after you all along.”

“So you rescued me by scaring me half to death?” She breathed in deep through her nose. “What else?”

He stood abruptly. “I bugged your father’s apartment and your laptop and cell.”

Her eyes widened and it hurt to breathe. Fury rose up inside her like a dragon snaking through her lungs.
The violation of her life and her privacy was nauseating.

“I watched you working every night, looking for th
is bastard. Never resting, never having a life.”

“That was my choice, Alex.
My choice. You had no right to spy on me.” She’d never felt this angry before. Her skin felt tight, head heavy with a dull pain throbbing against her skull.

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “I know. I did it anyway.”

There was a blinding flash of realization. “You were the one who sent me the box of information on those other cases?”

His smile twisted. “For all the good it did.”

The fury burst, leaving desolation in its wake. “Did you pursue a relationship with me because I was looking into vigilantes?”

His lips tightened.
Lips that had tasted every inch of her skin. “I told myself I did, but that was a lie.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Listen, you need to decide. We don’t have much time before this guy runs. Doctors were planning to try to rouse Kari Regent from her coma today.”