FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (37 page)

Before dawn. Before the Reaper’s latest auction? God, after the adrenaline rush, the certainty that they were finally reaching the end of this nightmare, had they been completely wrong?

“He was in surgery for hours, but they think he’s going to make it. Over.”

Good for Randy. Not good for their case. They were back at square one.

Stacey had obviously reached the same conclusion. Because as she slowly returned the radio handset to the dash, her hand shook. “I was so sure. …”

“Me too. But it’s not true. Covey’s not the Reaper.”

Really,
he was doing the kid a favor.

Watching the unconscious boy as he lay on a cot the Reaper had set up in one of his secret rooms, he started to think that what he was going to do to him was for the best. His life was pure shit, his mother a bitch.

A blond bitch. A screeching, abusive, white-trash blond bitch.

He had heard what she’d said to the boy, Nicky, in the parking lot of the campground. He’d seen her hit him. Yeah, the kid was better off dead than growing up with that woman.

It had been easy to watch for his chance, sitting in his truck up on the ridge above the parking lot close to the family’s campsite. Mothers like that never paid attention to their kids. When the boy had set off through the woods for the public restroom, he had simply looped around to the other side of it, made sure nobody else was in there, then waited for Nicky to skip back out.

He hadn’t meant to hit him so hard—hard enough to draw blood. But he had needed to knock him unconscious. The kid hadn’t been too badly hurt and had come around eventually. Not for long. Forcing Nicky to swallow a Coke with some crushed-up sleeping pills had taken care of that.

Now it was just a matter of waiting for the first half of the money to show up. Then he could finish this. He had plucked the boy out of that hard life and, in the morning, would be delivering him from it for good.

This was merciful compared to what Nicky would experience if he remained with his dirty, filthy mother. So it was all good. What he was going to do was right for everyone.

“And don’t you worry,” he told the unconscious boy. “I’m not some fag child molester.” He wouldn’t do the deviant stuff; that was just sick.

Fortunately, the buyer couldn’t expect him to actually rape the kid, risking his own exposure on the video. He snorted, wondering if somebody had invented dick identification.

Didn’t matter. He wasn’t pulling his out. This Lovesprettyboys scum would have to settle for whatever tools he had lying around that he could use on the kid.

But all of that was for the morning. After he had his cash.

“Maybe it won’t come to that,” he mumbled as he cleaned his rifle, one eye on the cot, watching for any sign of movement. Maybe he could just kill the boy and dump the body, without any of the extra stuff.

There was still the chance he could get Warren Lee. If he didn’t have to pay the blackmail money, he would have no need for all that cash. He could waste the boy, offering a rebate or something to the buyer for not doing all the dirty shit, and everything could go back to normal.

After all, it wasn’t like he really needed the bucks for himself. Money in this world meant nothing. It was useless. It wouldn’t add rooms to his beautiful dark mansion, which hovered over the playground like a scavenging bird of prey. It wouldn’t pay for more sharp and bloody toys with which to play. Wouldn’t help in any way at all in his real, dull existence.

How he wanted to disappear inside the cyber world he loved. To step into the picture like some kind of fantasy movie. He would give just about anything to immerse himself in that life and never come out.

Just about anything.

Exhausted, defeated, and confused,
Stacey realized she’d had enough for one day. It was nearly two in the morning; she had slept for no more than a few hours a night for the past week. And her brain didn’t want to function anymore.

After they had heard about Randy, she and Dean sat in her squad care for a while, at the end of her dad’s driveway. They both called off the reinforcements, then fell silent, not driving forward, not backing up. Before cutting the engines, she opened her window and he did the same. A night breeze washed through the vehicle, floating across her skin, carrying a hint of coolness, a promise of relief from the never-ending summer heat.

The silence deepened. They were utterly still, both looking out the window into the night.

She knew in his mind he was picturing the same things she was. A little boy and a monster. Wishing for the dawn of a new day, when, please God, they could get the financial information they needed to track that monster and save that boy.

For him, it had to be a hundred times worse. He was a father; he had a child to fear for, a child whose loss would surely crush his soul.

For the first time, she wondered what the boy looked like. Was he dark haired and dark eyed like Dean? Did he share the stubborn jaw, the hidden sense of humor? She wondered whether Dean had ever had to pick him up when he had fallen off a bike. If he had cleaned Jared’s cuts and wiped his tears and tucked him into bed.

Of course he had
. She’d been on one side of his sweet good night conversation with his son. The love had been clear. There was nothing the amazing man beside her would not do to keep his child, or anyone he cared about, safe from harm.

Stacey could only wonder how, in his profession, he hadn’t yet realized that was an impossible goal.

She sniffed.

“You okay?”

In the darkness, his hand reached out for hers. She clasped it, twining her soft fingers between his rougher ones.

She liked his hands. They were masculine and strong, yet, she knew from experience, capable of giving such pleasure. Such eroticism.

And, right now, such tenderness. That hand in the dark was like a lifeline she could cling to, a path through the tangled web of horror and memory and emotion that had buried itself inside her. As if as long as he was holding her hand, she could come out to the other side whole and unscathed.

“I feel like I’ve known you for a long time,” she admitted softly.

“Me, too.”

He leaned closer, and it was the most natural thing in the world for her to meet him halfway and rest her head on his shoulder. The feel of a soft kiss brushed on her temple soothed and warmed her. Offered safety and sanity.

Maybe because of that simple caress and the silence disturbed only by the cry of cicadas outside the open window, she was able to speak. Something made her want to try to make him see that her choice to come back here, to stay here, where he was so convinced she didn’t belong, wasn’t out of fear. But out of grief.

“I was on patrol when the first call came in,” she whispered.

He said nothing, but his hand squeezed the tiniest bit.

“The radio traffic was insane. Reports that a student was shot in the dorm, then that the shooter was long gone, then that the school was under attack. Nobody knew what was happening.”

He kissed her hair again. And the grip on her hand grew tighter as she kept speaking.

The words came fast now. They had been building for a long time. People knew the basic story, but she’d never shared what it had felt like being there, bearing witness. Once she started to speak, she felt almost unable to stop.

By the time she was finished, her face was wet with tears. No, she wasn’t sobbing as she had Saturday night. This was low, deep-down, quiet grief straight from her soul.

At some point in the telling, he’d reached over and physically pulled her off her seat into his lap. Her arms were curled around his shoulders, his around her waist. Her mouth close to his throat, the whispers kept coming.

Until, at last, they were done. She was done.

He had murmured sweet, soothing sounds, holding her close, kissing her face, and wiping away her tears. He never interrupted, never asked unimportant questions. He didn’t offer trite words of comfort about how life went on or how bad he felt for the families.

Instead, between one brush of his lips on her cheek and the next, he whispered four others that were completely unexpected.

“You’re not alone anymore.”

They drifted into her consciousness, settling down deep inside. The certainty that he meant it filled her with possibility and with wonder. And brought her peace.

She drifted to sleep, her head nestled in the crook of his neck. Only for a few minutes, judging by time on the clock when she awoke. Still, it was late—after three. They had to be back on the job in a few hours.

Sitting up, she said, “I guess we should both go get some sleep.”

He nodded.

“Do you want to go back to the inn?”

He shook his head.

She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath, waiting for his answer. It rushed out in a gush. “Is that going to be a problem? With Stokes and Mulrooney, I mean?”

“You know, right now, I don’t give a damn.”

She smiled. He smiled back. Their lips came together in a sweet, tender kiss that soon turned into a deeper, more intimate one. She shifted her head, parting her lips, licking at him with lazy hunger. Dean moved one hand to her back, tracing a slow path up and down her spine. The other moved down to her lap to stroke her with butterfly caresses that had her pulse pounding in anticipation.

“Let’s go,” she said when the kiss ended.

“Will I be breaking laws if I drive your car?” he asked. “You look so tired.”

“I’m not too tired,” she pointed out. Somehow, despite all the tension, emotion, and pressure, a low, sultry chuckle spilled from her mouth. “But yes, you drive. My legs are shaking all of a sudden.”

He gently slid her off his lap and got out of the car to walk around to the driver’s side. Stacy curled up, turning a little to watch him. When he started the car, the dashboard lights sent pools of soft golden illumination onto him, highlighting the masculine angles of his face and the shapely mouth she’d just been kissing.

“Drive fast, okay?” she said. Because though she needed sleep, she needed him more.

“I don’t want to get a ticket.” He didn’t look over, but she’d bet there was a twinkle in his eye.

True to his word, he drove quickly, not breaking any land records, but not exactly obeying the speed limit, either. She understood the urgency. The confession she’d made, the gentleness and then the sweet hint of passion they’d shared, had them both on edge, needing more, wanting more. Connection. They both hungered for it.

When they reached her house and walked hand in hand to the porch, however, she quickly realized she wouldn’t be getting that connection. Not yet, anyway.

Like the replaying of a bad dream, she realized that, once again, someone had brought ugliness and hatred right to her front door. Shards of broken glass glittered in the ruined window frame beside the front door, and the door was open a few inches.

Her house had been broken into.

God, would this nightmare of a day never end?

“Stace?” he asked, obviously realizing at the same moment that the slim front window had been smashed. Easy enough for someone to reach around and undo the lock. So much for safe, small-town living.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

“Shh.” He went immediately on alert, pulling his .40-caliber, pushing the unlocked door inward. It made a long, low squeak that seemed to demolish the silence, but probably couldn’t be heard any farther than a few feet away. Putting a hand out to stop her from going in, Dean stepped in front of her. “Let me look.”

She knew what he was looking for. Steeling herself for the possibility that the same sick, twisted bastard had left her another bloody surprise, inside her house this time, she allowed him to enter first. But she stayed close behind him.

There was no sign of anything wrong. Nothing else appeared broken except the window. As far as she could see in the dim lighting, the living room looked normal, everything in place.

But she suddenly wondered something. Why was there dim lighting?

Light shone down the hall from her bedroom. Not too bright, probably not from the overhead but maybe her bedside lamp. “I didn’t leave it on,” she whispered.

He nodded, putting a finger across his lips in a gesture for silence.

They crept down the short hallway, tense and alert, like matching shadows. They both had their weapons in hand, pointing at the floor. Honestly, Stacey wasn’t sure what she expected to find. Someone lying in wait? Another dead animal? Her belongings scattered or destroyed? Anything was possible.

Anything except what she saw when they entered the bedroom.

A tall, lean man stood beside her bed. He had one hand up to his mouth, making low grunting noises into the small bit of pale pink fabric he held there. Judging by the jumble of items spilling out of the open top drawer of her dresser, she immediately suspected he held her panties.

Swallowing her disgust, she looked down. And almost gagged.

His pants were shoved to his knees and he stood directly above her bed, leaning against it. His other hand was wrapped around a fully erect penis, and he was pumping wildly, obviously intending to spew all over her bedspread.

“You motherfucker,” Dean said, sounding not just disgusted but absolutely livid.

The man froze in shock and dropped the panties. Dean leaped, taking the guy down with two sharp blows to the face.

Stacey, meanwhile, couldn’t even move. Or say a word. She was too racked with disgust and humiliation at having been violated, even when she hadn’t even been at home.

With those emotions came pure shock. Because she’d caught a glimpse of the intruder’s face before Dean had beaten him to the floor.

It was the mayor’s son. Rob Monroe.

“H
e’s a sick degenerate.
Is it possible he’s also the Reaper?”

Dean didn’t really expect Stacey to answer; he’d been speaking more to himself. The two of them stood in her office back at the station, having hauled in the pervert who’d broken into her house. The guy had protested, screamed about his daddy, claimed it was all a mistake, then started crying.