Target (4 page)

LIAM SET HIS backpack down by the front door of Andrea’s
apartment, got out his tablet and put it on the coffee table. Andrea had disappeared into her bedroom to unpack her suitcase.

The quiet was eerie, so he flipped on the TV and found a news channel, but lowered the volume so it was just background noise while he got to work cleaning up the mess.

Hopefully Andrea would do more than just unpack. If he thought she would do it, he would have told her to take a bath and a nap. After the crying jag she had in the conference room she’d looked like she needed about a week’s worth of sleep. He knew how that felt, but everyone had their own way of dealing with trauma. Sometimes you retreated into solitude, and sometimes you went out and partied too hard, drinking your way into oblivion because nothing else erased the image of your sister lying in the bathtub in a pool of blood.

There was an electric kettle in the kitchen, so Liam filled it and found the tea Andrea kept, which supposedly helped you sleep. He grabbed a wash cloth from the sink and wiped down the kitchen and was almost done when Andrea brushed past him in her slippers. Her hair was down and wet and she’d changed into sweatpants and an oversized
Denver University
sweatshirt.

He stood, completely still.

Andrea put the tea bag in the cup and poured water over it before she turned around. “Thanks.” She gave him a small smile. “I didn’t realize I wanted tea until I heard the kettle boiling.” Her smile faltered. “What?”

Liam didn’t say anything. How did he tell her that her presence felt so comfortable it was like they’d been sharing a kitchen for years?

When she brushed past him, he’d actually relaxed for the first time in what would be twenty years next month. Was it the sweats? It couldn’t be simply being with Andrea in her kitchen.

Liam cleared his throat. “Caisey should be here soon with the food.”

Andrea turned back to her tea and Liam felt a rush of disappointment. Did she really expect him to open up the first time they were really alone? Maybe Andrea was the kind of honest person who simply expected everyone else to be completely honest also. He didn’t mind that, but sometimes it paid to wait until later.

Liam slipped back into the living room for his tablet, not just because her tea smelled weird. He unlocked the screen and opened the file of his notes. Andrea was at her little circular dining table so he sat on the other chair. “You feel up to going over some things?”

She shrugged one shoulder.

“Tell me about the emails.”

Andrea got up and came back with her phone, which she switched back on. “You had it turned off?”

“I didn’t want work to call, or anyone else. I like quiet while I’m at home.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She glanced up at him for a second, enough time for him to ascertain it wasn’t fine. “I’ll just do the, “do not disturb” thing.” She tapped and scrolled through her email and then
slid the phone around so he could see. “This is the only one I hadn’t deleted yet.”

There was no subject and no text, just a generic email address and a photo of Andrea getting gas. “I thought the FBI was looking into my email. Isn’t that why they have my computer?”

Liam looked up, his jaw locked. “It is, but I like to get as much information as I can also. Computers can tell us a lot, but I’d rather get your impression.”

She looked much younger than early thirties, with no makeup on and both hands around her mug like she was cold. He wanted to set up a barricade on her doorstep and be the line of defense between her and all the ugly, painful things in the world.
If she would let him.

“For example, what does this email say to you?”

“I’m watching you.” She paused a moment. “A hello from someone who ordinarily wouldn’t speak to you.”

Liam wasn’t surprised often, but he liked that Andrea had the power to do that. “Did you think about reporting it to the police?”

“I told the IT guy at work, like I said, since it’s my work email. He tried to look into it, but couldn’t find out anything about who sent it. He recommended I make a report with the police.”

“So why didn’t you?”

She sipped her tea and set the mug back down. “Work sort of blew up, I got really busy and there just wasn’t time to go into a police station and fill out a bunch of paperwork for something that could turn out to be harmless.” She sighed. “I was going to go for sure if it got worse. I didn’t know he would try and abduct me.”

Liam wanted to tell her that her sister would be fine. It was on the tip of his tongue to say it, but he’d known it was false hope when he was sure Andrea had been taken. Was it so wrong to be glad she was okay? She probably wouldn’t think so, given it was her sister who
was missing, but Liam couldn’t help being relieved she was here to sit with him, even if he was working and she was distraught.

He needed to keep his distance. This was work, and he needed to treat it as such. At least until the investigation was over and Andrea was in the clear. Then, who knew what could happen? Liam wanted her in his life. If nothing else, thinking she’d been abducted by the Chloroform Killer made him realize how much time he’d wasted so far.

His cell vibrated. Liam pulled it from his pocket and saw it was Caisey. “Conners.”

“
I’m outside. Get the door, I don’t have a free hand.”

He was up and moving toward the front door. “What all did you get?”

“Just a couple of bits since you guys will be stuck indoors in the evenings for a few days at least.”

He opened the door and she handed him two grocery sacks, clicked her Bluetooth and took it off her ear. “You always go all British when you’re trying to explain your way out of something you did.”

Caisey’s eyes widened, but she tried to look innocent. “Who me?”

Liam followed her to the kitchen, laughing.

“Hey, Andrea. How are you doing?” Caisey set the bags on the counter and started unpacking.

Andrea got up to help. “I’m holding on.”

“Liam is good for that.”

Andrea blinked, but recovered fast and said, “Did Liam just say you were British a minute ago?”

“Only a quarter. My Grams was a nurse during World War Two and she met my Grandfather in France. He was an American soldier. She’s lived with us since I was tiny and we still live in the same house now. My dad was an FBI agent too, so she pretty much raised me. I went to kindergarten calling a sweater a jumper and chips, crisps.” Caisey grinned. “Some of it still pops out every now and again.”

“That’s cool.” The first smile he’d ever seen from Andrea, and she gave it to his partner.

Liam didn’t want to be mad, but that was what happened. Plus it took him six months to learn all that about Caisey and Andrea had just found it out in thirty seconds. What was it with women that they just shared like that?

Caisey went back to pulling stuff out of the bags. White paper sacks, cardboard cartons, little tubs and finally two pints of ice cream and a bottle of Liam’s favorite soda he never bought because it had way too much sugar and caffeine in it.

His stomach rumbled.

Caisey shot him a grin. “Fried chicken, potato wedges, coleslaw. I got you a bag of salad too.”

Then he realized she hadn’t taken her coat off yet. “You’re not staying?”

“There’s a football game at the high school. So I’m going to go watch Jake do his trumpet thing in the marching band. I’ll be back later.
A lot later.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Plus they do this hotdog with grilled onions that’s really good.”

Andrea turned away to get out plates, so Liam followed Caisey back to the front door. When they got out of earshot, he said, “I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to use your godson as an excuse and leave me here.”

“You don’t need me being a third wheel.” She grinned. “I’m giving you alone time, and the chance that maybe one of us could be something other than desperate and single. You should be thanking me.”

“It’s not appropriate. And I was never desperate.”

“You won’t be, if you get in there.”

She wasn’t even going to respond to the question of it being appropriate? “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“There’s a sappy movie in the bag too, maybe she’ll let you comfort her.”

“You need to stop talking.”

“I’m going to do one better, I’m going to go.” She opened the front door, a satisfied smile on her face like the time she’d spent all morning calling in to a radio station and finally won rodeo tickets. “I’ll be back at bedtime with my PJ’s to relieve you.”

“Okay.”

“Be nice, yeah?” Caisey glanced down the hall behind him. “I know you don’t want to mislead her, but you can’t just be silent. If she’s looking at you, but she’s not saying anything, that means you need to talk. Got it?”

“I can’t believe you’re giving me advice.” Liam pushed the door, but she held it open. “Go already. You’ll miss the game.”

“There isn’t a game, it’s not until tomorrow. I’m going back to the office to look over the files and see if I can figure out where he might dump Kiera’s body. I just didn’t want to bring all that here.”

Liam nodded. “Okay, good. Andrea d
oesn’t need to see the photos.”

Caisey waved him away. “Now go, before your dinner gets cold.”

“Sure, mom.”

“What can I say? Jenna’s parenting rubs off on me. Besides, you should try it.

Sometimes it even works.”

Liam laughed. Caisey’s best friend and her son didn’t just live with her and her Grams, they kept her grounded. “Goodbye, Caisey.”

“Remember, be nice.”

He shut the door. Caisey had some crazy ideas, thinking she needed to remind him to be nice of all things. He was a perfectly nice person; he just didn’t know why women couldn’t tell you what they needed. They just figured you’d understand intuitively why they were shutting you out.

It was why he’d given up on second dates a while back. Meeting people was easy enough, but Liam didn’t have time for a heavy relationship that he’d have to give a ton of time and attention to. Not in the middle of a serial killer investigation.

The microwave beeped, and Andrea pulled out a steaming plate. She handed it to him.

Liam smiled. “Smells good.”

“You want to eat on the couch? There was a movie in the bag.”

“Sure. What movie is it?”

“Dirty Dancing.”

Liam got a look at her, wide eyed with her lips twitching. “We don’t have to watch it.”

Andrea smiled. “I’m game if you are.”

CAISEY GRASPED AROUND in the direction of the coffee table and found her phone. She swiped to take the call and put it to her ear, all without opening her eyes.
“Yeah.” Her voice was like Barry White, so she cleared her throat. “Lyons.”

“It’s Burkot. We got a body, found an hour ago. Preliminaries indicate its Kiera James.”

Caisey rubbed the grit from her eyes and tried to focus on Andrea’s living room. “Text me the address.”

“Stern and Wing are on their way to relieve you. They’ll cover Ms. James until you and Liam are done at the scene.”

Which meant they would also be the ones drafted to tell Andrea her sister was dead for sure. Was it wrong to want the body to be some nameless, faceless person? Anonymity didn’t make it better that someone was dead, but it would hurt Andrea less. Caisey hung up and sat up. Life was like a runaway freight train sometimes. It didn’t matter how fast you ran down the track, trying to get ahead of it. Eventually it hit you.

“Is something wrong?”

Caisey shifted and looked over the back of the couch. “Liam and I have something to do this morning. Two other agents are coming to take you to work.”

Andrea cinched her robe tighter around her. “Is it Kiera?”

“As soon as I know for sure, I’ll tell you.”

“I’ll make the coffee. You’ll want a cup to take with you, its cold out.”

Caisey watched her head for the kitchen. It was either deep denial or unrelenting strength that allowed Andrea to focus on what Caisey needed when Kiera might be dead. Between Andrea and Caisey’s Grams it felt like everyone had overcome something in their lives. How had they managed to hold on to hope? And their sanity. Even Jenna, who lived with Caisey along with her son—Caisey’s godson—held down a great job at a spa and raised her son alone. Support system or no, Jenna was still a single mom and yet she’d never once complained.

How did they all do it?

Caisey hit the bathroom to change into fresh clothes and just got done brushing her teeth when the doorbell rang.

Andrea moved to answer it, so Caisey tugged on her arm. “Let me get it.” She stopped two feet back from the door, hand on her weapon. “Who is it?”

“Who do you think it is?”

She rolled her eyes and opened the door to Liam, who handed her a half-gallon of chocolate milk on his way in. “Andrea only has half and half.”

Caisey shuddered and shut the door. Coffee wasn’t coffee without chocolate in it.

**

Andrea held her coffee to her lips, her cheeks warm. Liam stared at her a lot, like he was doing right now, in the kitchen. As though she didn’t all the way make sense to him. And why was that? Not that she was complaining, he wasn’t hard to look at.

“Have you ever taken a yoga class?”

He did read women’s fiction. She’d found that out last night. Now she wanted to know if she was right about his on-again-off-again thing with a yoga instructor. It had happened way too many times for her to assume he wasn’t already involved with someone way more interesting—and flexible—than her.

His lips twitched.
“Uh, no. Why?”

“Nothing.”
Andrea shook her head. “Never mind.”

His eyes were shadowed in the harsh light of her kitchen. “You sleep okay?”

Andrea hadn’t particularly, but she said, “Sure.”

Liam frowned, but Andrea didn’t want to know if he didn’t believe her because she looked awful or she had a crease down her cheek or something else equally embarrassing. Being caught up in this with these two FBI agents, she’d realized at two a.m. that they carried the weight of what they did.

They actually felt Andrea’s grief. Not the same way she did, but they felt it all the same.

R
ealizing that had led to a division of her fear over what was happening to Kiera, and the relief that she didn’t have to go through this alone.

In the end, she’d lain in bed with the notes app on her phone open. Trying to quantify precisely how their presence lessened her anguish should have been a whole lot easier.
Solvable. It hadn’t worked. It never did, even though she’d tried many times to calculate as an equation what was only human. That was always the point where Andrea dug out her Bible—when life got so confusing she couldn’t reason her way out of it.

She’d slept better after reading for a while.

Liam’s suit was neat, his hair damp and his cologne made her want to lean closer and get a big whiff. But...that would be weird, so Andrea said, “How about you? Did you sleep okay?”

Their evening had been fun, sitting close on the couch and sharing ice cream grins in the awkward moments of the movie. She’d almost managed to forget that a serial killer might come after her again. And if Kiera was really gone, Andrea didn’t know if she could survive if Liam disappeared from her life too. That was why she couldn’t let him in beyond protecting her.

So when he just nodded, she headed for her bedroom to get dressed. When she came back out in a skirt suit, heels, straightened hair and light makeup, there were two FBI agents in the kitchen. Both older, one had gray hair and a belly and the other was a lean, Asian female.

Liam motioned to the gray-haired guy first. “This is Agent Stern and Agent Wing.

They’ll escort you to work.”

“Sounds good.”
Andrea grabbed her briefcase from the hall closet. How was she going to explain the presence of two FBI agents to her co-workers? At least she had the car ride to work to figure that out. She slipped her coat on.

“You’re not going to eat breakfast?”

Andrea straightened. “I usually grab a bagel on the way.”

Liam shook his head. “No extra stops. Go straight to work and if you need lunch then order it in. Better yet, Caisey and I should be done by then. We’ll bring lunch with us.”

Because she needed a side of fries with the news her sister was dead? Liam must have read something on her face, because he took her elbow and steered her into the living room. Andrea set her briefcase down and folded her arms.

“As much as possible, you need to make it as hard as you can for this guy to catch you alone. If he’s going to come after you we’ll have the chance to stop him then, but not if he gets to you before we even know. So you don’t go anywhere without Stern and Wing, you don’t change
from your most basic itinerary. No trips or stop-offs.” Liam pushed out a breath.

Was he as worried about the Chloroform Killer coming back as she was? He seemed almost scared at the idea she might be the next victim.

“Did you get all that, or do you need me to go over it again?”

Andrea sighed. He’d been waiting for her to respond. “I’m not an idiot. I understand what protection means, and I’m not going to jeopardize your investigation.” Her thoughts lit on something else he’d said and she lifted her chin. “I won’t ruin your chance to catch this guy.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not what this is about.”

“It is some, isn’t it? I’m not naïve, I know the chance to maybe catch him is worth you sticking around here.”

“I would still be here, even if you weren’t in danger.”

“Why?”

Liam’s mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything.

“Never mind.”
Andrea grabbed her briefcase, but Liam stalled her with a hand on hers, over the handle.

“There are rules.”

“Okay.”

“But when this is wrapped up, I’m not going to disappear. I was...hoping we could be friends, at least. Then after you’re in the clear, maybe we could go out for dinner?”

Andrea liked the idea of a reprieve—at least until the killer was caught, or she wasn’t in danger anymore. But she didn’t want to lead him on. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Andrea tugged her hand from his fingers and took a step back. “It just isn’t.”

She wouldn’t mind the friends-thing, but if Liam really liked her then he would always be wondering why they couldn’t be more than that. And if life had taught Andrea anything, it was that she had to keep everything straight and un-emotional, because there was nothing worse than drowning in your own emotion.

Her worry over Kiera was strong enough it was taking every ounce of determination to hold on and keep everything together. If she took on Liam’s emotion too, she would crumple under the weight of it.

**

“Maybe it was just that your timing was off?”

Liam’s lip curled at his partner’s words, but he kept walking. Eyes on the ground he searched for anything the killer might have dropped, stepped on…sneezed on. He hadn’t even looked at the body yet, that was a job for the Medical Examiner.

“I don’t want to talk about this.” His voice was gruff, but it was more because he couldn’t seem to get over his reaction to seeing a girl, dead. Any girl; it didn’t matter. They all looked the same in his head, only he’d see them lying in the bathtub instead of on the ground in a copse of pine trees behind an upscale neighborhood.

“Just give her some time, that’s all I’m saying.” Caisey’s voice tracked with him, but in a wider circle. “Andrea’s going through a lot, and she’s doing great. But if you come on all strong—”

“That isn’t what happened.”

“Maybe she thought it was. You don’t know, maybe your dinner and movie last night was the highlight of her dating life for the last five years.”

Liam nearly rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t a date. And just because you haven’t gone on one in five years either, doesn’t mean Andrea has a scant love life.”

“Yeah, but we’re not all Mr. Sociable like you.”

He snorted. “I haven’t been on a date in six months.”

“Six months, ooh. I’m surprised you haven’t shriveled up from a lack of perky conversation with co-eds trying to convince you they’re twenty six so you’ll give them a shot at your lusciousness.”

Liam stopped and looked up at her. The woman was nuts. “Did you hit your head?”

“Are you thinking about your sister?”

“No, I’m—” She was trying to distract him. Right. “Next time pick a different topic other than my lusciousness.”

The ME’s aid barked a laugh. Liam shot the guy a look and he shut up pretty quick, and then he turned back to his pain-in-the-rear partner. “Let’s just get on with this so we can figure out how to soften the blow for Andrea, okay?”

Caisey looked over his shoulder to where Kiera James was sprawled out on dirt and pine needles behind him. The Chloroform Killer had not been kind, Liam had seen enough to know that much. This kill lacked any semblance of his usual control. Her eyes darkened. “I’d suggest telling her and her parents at the same time, but I think that’ll make it worse.”

Liam agreed. “We should wrap this up and get over to her office. I don’t like leaving her for this long, even if she is with Stern and Wing.”

Caisey nodded slowly. “Yeah, plus if you’re gone too long she might forget about your lusciousness.”

Liam reeled back with this cell phone in his hand and pretended to throw it at her. When she flinched like he might actually do it, he smiled. “You know nothing can happen while she’s under our protection. It’s not appropriate.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

Liam frowned. “Not everything has to be fun. Some things are just…stuff. Life, you know?”

Caisey’s lip curled. “Sounds boring.”

“Good point,” Liam said. “I’ve seen you bored and it isn’t pretty.”