The Agent's Redemption (Special Agents At The Altar 4) (10 page)

She sighed with pleasure. But then he kissed other places. Her breasts, her abdomen and lower...

Her breath caught as pressure wound tightly inside her. She wanted more. Needed more.

And he gave her more. She pressed her hand over her mouth, muffling a cry as pleasure overwhelmed her. Then she reached for him, wanting to please him with her mouth. He groaned again as if he were in pain. And he rolled, pinning her playfully beneath him. He teased her some more—with his lips and his fingers.

She squirmed and shifted against the mattress. “Jared, please...”

“I am going to please you,” he promised.

She arched and rubbed her hips against his. And tangled her legs with his. Then she kissed his shoulder and the bulging muscle in his arm. And his chest again.

“Becca...”

She didn’t correct him. She would rather be Becca than Rebecca.

Then he parted her legs and joined their bodies. She was ready for him, but still she had to shift, had to arch, to take him deeper. But he moved, too, pulling out before thrusting deep again.

She bit her lip to hold in a cry of pleasure. It felt so perfect. So right. She clung to him, meeting his thrusts, moving with him until the pressure that had built inside her, that unbearable pressure, burst. She pressed her lips against his shoulder to hold in a scream of ecstasy.

Then he tensed before his body shuddered, as he joined her in release. His skin damp against hers, he clutched her closely in his arms. “That was...”

As wonderful as it had always been between them. But she waited for him to call it something else. A mistake. That was what he’d thought the last time they’d become lovers, that he’d made a mistake.

But he said nothing more. He just held her tightly, so tightly that she felt safe enough to fall asleep. But she wasn’t surprised when, hours later, she awoke alone. Her sheets tangled, but empty.

Then she heard the rumble of a deep voice. He wasn’t gone. He hadn’t deserted and rejected her as he had six years ago. At least not yet...

Then she heard the high-pitched squeal of Alex’s laughter. And she knew why Jared had stayed. For their son.

She dressed quickly and joined them in the living room. Father tickled son as they sat on the carpet, the lie detector hooked to the little boy. It looked like a blood pressure cuff hooked to an Etch A Sketch with a bunch of squiggled lines on it.

“You are lying,” Jared said. “You’re definitely ticklish.”

“Did the test say I’m lying?” Alex asked between giggles.

“I don’t think he needed the test to determine that,” Rebecca said. “You’re definitely ticklish.”

“Mommy’s up,” Alex said. “It’s her turn now.”

Even if the test was just a toy, she didn’t want to be hooked up to it. But she couldn’t tell her son no. So she let him strap the cuff to her arm.

“So, Mommy,” Alex said, “do you ever swear?”

She groaned. “Yes...”

He giggled again. “Are you the tooth fairy?”

“Alex!”

“Santa Claus?”

She reached out and began to tickle him. He squirmed and protested. “No, you have to answer the questions yes or no.”

“No, no,” she said and hoped the machine wasn’t real.

Alex squinted at the screen and shrugged. “I don’t know. Daddy, you ask her a question.”

She sucked in a breath—afraid of what he might ask her. Afraid of even looking at him. But he moved closer, so that he could see the screen her son studied. And she breathed in the scent of him—some intoxicating combination of soap and coffee and musk. He must have used her shower and made coffee again. She looked up and lost herself in his amber-eyed gaze.

“What do you want to ask her, Daddy?”

He stared at her a moment, as if considering. And she saw that he had many questions. But she never guessed what he would ask her. “Will you go to a wedding with me?”

Chapter Ten

Why had he asked Becca to Dalton Reyes’s wedding? And why, in the days since he’d asked, hadn’t he rescinded the invitation? It was too dangerous. But then even staying in her own home was too dangerous—with Kyle Smith broadcasting her address to suspects. So he’d convinced her and Alex to stay with him—at his condo in Chicago—instead of in their home. Surprisingly, Becca had readily agreed. But then he doubted she would ever feel safe in her house again now that Harris Mowery knew where she lived.

“Why?” he asked the reporter.

“Isn’t that what I should be asking you?” Kyle replied as he settled onto a chair across the conference table from Jared. “Why did you ask me to come to the Bureau office? You finally realized you will need my help solving your case, Special Agent Bell?”

Jared patted the folder that lay on the table between them. “It seems you wanted to be an FBI agent yourself.”

Kyle’s snide grin slid away, and he stared at the folder as if wanting to grab for it. “You had me investigated?”

Jared plastered on his own smug grin and replied, “It only seemed fair since you’ve been investigating me.”

“Ouch,” Kyle said and pressed a hand to his chest as if Jared had stabbed him. “So instead of focusing on finding the serial killer who’s eluded you for six years, you’ve wasted time going after the reporter who revealed your dirty little secret.”

Alex was not a dirty little secret. He was an amazing kid. A wonderful gift. Jared curled the hand on the folder into a fist that he wanted to swing hard into the reporter’s face.

Smith’s superior grin had returned. “Sounds like I have my next exposé...”

“And instead of covering the real story—about the murders—you’re creating a story about me,” Jared said. “Is that because you’re jealous that I have the job you really wanted?”

Kyle snorted. “I’m sure I make more money than you do, Agent Bell. And I’m definitely better known.”

“Seems like your career really didn’t take off until you covered Lexi Drummond’s disappearance.”

“Murder,” Kyle corrected him with the same certainty as when Harris Mowery had said it.

Sure, there had been too much blood found for her to have survived her wounds. But that information hadn’t been released to the media—until Kyle had reported it. At the time Jared had thought that the reporter must have bought the information off someone in the crime lab or maybe even within the Bureau.

Now he considered that there was another way that Kyle Smith could have known Lexi was dead—because he’d murdered her. As a profiler, Jared knew that killers liked to make themselves part of the investigation—by helping search for the victims or providing false witness. No one had made himself more a part of the investigation than Kyle Smith.

Like men who failed to make the fire department became arsonists, maybe men that failed to make the Bureau became serial killers. Trying to prove themselves better than the men they hadn’t been able to become...

“You’re awfully certain Lexi Drummond is dead.”

Kyle snorted. “So are you—even though you failed to find a body. No wonder Rebecca Drummond never told you she had your son.” The man laughed. “And it wasn’t like you would ever figure it out for yourself...”

Jared could have pointed out all the killers he’d caught over his career. So many, many killers who were behind bars or dead because of him. But Kyle Smith wanted him to be defensive, so then he’d know that his barbs had struck their target. Jared wouldn’t give the petty man that satisfaction.

“You’re a great investigator,” he falsely flattered the man. Anybody could order a copy of a birth certificate nowadays—thanks to the internet. “So why haven’t you found Lexi’s body?”

Kyle tensed. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been working this case as long as I have,” Jared pointed out. “But you don’t seem to care about the victims...” Only one other person didn’t care—the killer. The Butcher was a sociopath with no capacity for empathy for the victim or the families he devastated when he took away their loved ones. And he was beginning to think Kyle Smith was a sociopath, too. Was he the killer? He certainly fit most of the profile Jared had formed.

“You don’t even seem to care about the killer,” Jared remarked. “But then I guess that you really don’t want him caught.”

Kyle’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed convulsively. “Why would you say that?”

Jared shrugged. “A couple of reasons...” One was that he was the killer. “
He
made your career. Without him—”

“I would still have a career,” Kyle said as he jumped up from the table.

Jared tilted his head, then shook it. “I’m not so sure about that...”

When he caught the killer, Kyle Smith might be behind bars. He grinned at the thought of slamming the cell door shut on the slimy reporter.

“I’m leaving,” Kyle announced but he hesitated, as if not sure he was really free to go.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Jared said. “I have many more questions for you. I want to know if you knew any of the victims and if you had an alibi for each of the abductions.”

Kyle dropped heavily back onto the chair. “You’re treating me like a suspect?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Is this because I told the world you took advantage of a victim’s grieving sister?” the reporter fired the questions at him. “Is this your form of revenge?”

Jared gave him a pitying grin. “You really wouldn’t have made it as an agent.”

“You—”

Jared held up a hand to stop the insults. “If you’ve taken any criminal psychology courses, you would know that the perp often makes himself part of the investigation.”

“I’ve just been doing my job,” Kyle protested.

“Giving Rebecca Drummond’s address to Harris Mowery? That was part of your job?”

The man’s face flushed an even darker shade than his artificial tan. “I didn’t do that.”

Jared didn’t believe him.

“He probably found it the same way I did—checking property tax records.”

Maybe he could have—maybe he’d already been watching her, like the caller had warned Rebecca.

“So that’s what this is about,” Kyle mused. “Because you think I gave out her address to the man she swears killed her sister.”

“Why would you do something like that?” Jared asked. “Why would you report about
her
life—about
my
life?”

Kyle offered that snide grin again. “It’s not personal, Agent Bell.”

But it felt very personal. Was there some reason that Kyle didn’t like him or Becca? Or was his animosity only because Jared had the job Kyle had wanted? The man was petty. But was he that petty?

Or was he a killer?

Jared slid a legal pad and a pen across the table. “Start recounting your whereabouts during the time of every abduction,” he ordered. “And tell me if you have any personal connection to any of the victims.”

Then he patted the folder he’d already compiled. “And then we’ll see if your answers match mine.”

Kyle picked up the pen with a shaking hand. Either he was nervous because he had something to hide, or he was angry over becoming a suspect. Resentment hardened his eyes. The man was going to hate Jared more than he already did.

So he would probably retaliate again. What form would that retaliation take? More public humiliation for him and Becca? Or something even more personal?

* * *

B
ECCA
HAD
TAKEN
Alex out of school and had taken a leave from work. Hell, what she’d really taken was a leave of her senses.

Moving in with Jared in Chicago? That was more frightening than Harris Mowery knowing where she lived—because she was afraid she was falling for Jared again. Or maybe she’d never stopped...

But at least he would keep their son safe. Jared had even enrolled Alex in a new school—the one where he’d gone, for gifted children. Alex loved it; he was actually challenged. Becca wasn’t sure, even if Harris was finally arrested, that she would go back to Wisconsin.

Maybe she needed to look for a job in the city—like she’d always wanted. But first, she had to find a dress for the wedding to which Jared had invited her.

“This is my wife’s favorite store,” Agent Blaine Campbell said as he held open the door to a little dress boutique squeezed in between a bank and bakery.

“You really didn’t need to come with me,” Rebecca said. “I could have found it on my own.” And she felt a little awkward shopping with the burly blond lawman. She’d never even gone shopping with Jared.

“Jared doesn’t want you going anywhere alone,” Blaine told her. Needlessly.

She was already aware that Jared didn’t want her having a minute alone—in case someone might threaten her again.

“He’s wasting Bureau resources protecting me,” she said. When those resources would be better used trying to find Amy Wilcox’s killer.

“You’ve been threatened,” Blaine said. “And he’s not really using Bureau resources. I’m not on the clock right now.”

“Then why...?”

“I’m a friend of Jared’s.”

“Like Dalton Reyes?” That was whose wedding Jared had invited her to.

Blaine chuckled. “Not that close. I’m new to the Bureau, but I got to know Jared when he was helping protect the bride-to-be for Dalton.”

“That’s who he got hurt protecting?”

Blaine nodded. “Probably why Dalton asked Jared to be his best man.”

“Jared is best man at this wedding?”

Blaine chuckled again. “Yes, he is.”

That put more pressure on her finding a nice dress. Her wardrobe consisted of only casual clothes, business casual and play clothes. Nothing suitable for a wedding at all. That was why she’d had to go shopping. But now she would be attending this wedding on the arm of the best man.

So she focused on the racks of dresses, trying to find the perfect dress—the dress that would make Jared proud to call her his date.

But she was more than a date. She was the mother of his child. And the woman who’d been sharing his bed since he’d shared hers the night that Harris Mowery had showed up at her door.

What were they doing? What the hell was she doing—risking her heart on a man who’d already broken it once?

“I’m actually surprised Jared agreed to be his best man,” Blaine continued, “since he thinks the wedding is such a bad idea.”

“He does?” she asked. “Doesn’t he like the bride?”

“He likes Elizabeth,” Blaine said. “We all do. She’s an incredibly strong woman. But Jared’s worried that the Butcher is going to go after her.”

Rebecca shuddered. “Isn’t her fiancé worried, too?”

“Dalton is too impatient to wait to make Elizabeth his bride,” he said. “And he’s found a very safe place for them to get married. With all the bodyguards and FBI agents in attendance, it’ll be safe. Jared must have changed his mind about it, too.”

“Because he agreed to be best man?”

“Because he invited you.”

Jared wanted to keep her safe. She knew that, but why? Just because it was his job? Because she was the mother of his son? Or because he had feelings for her, too?

She pulled a blue dress from the rack and a peach-colored one. But the peach would wash out her complexion, so she moved to put it back.

“Wait,” Blaine said. “That would look good on Maggie.”

Rebecca smiled over the man’s obvious love for his wife. Then her smile slid away as a pang of jealousy struck her heart. She wished Jared felt that way about her.

“You should take a picture of it and send it to her,” Rebecca suggested. “And I’ll try this one on.” She glanced at her watch. Alex’s school wouldn’t be done for a while. She’d rather be working than shopping. She would definitely need to check with the local hospitals for any openings for a physician’s assistant. But in the meantime, she grabbed a couple more dresses from the rack to try on; shopping would kill some time today.

Blaine followed her to the dressing room. But one of the retail clerks hurried over to stop him. “Sir, you can’t go into the dressing rooms!”

The woman was in her fifties with frosted hair and a frosted glare. She studied Blaine’s hand and then glanced at Rebecca’s bare one. Rebecca’s face heated with embarrassment over what the disapproving clerk obviously thought. Blaine wore a wedding ring, and she didn’t.

He flashed his badge. “I need to check out the dressing room and make sure no one’s back there.”

“There is no one back there,” the woman haughtily told him.

“I need to check it out myself,” he insisted and added beneath his breath, “or Jared will kill me.

“I’ll look and leave,” he promised her.

She sniffed with disdain but allowed him to look. “It’s safe,” he told Rebecca.

“Of course it is,” the woman said. She took the dresses from Rebecca and led her back to one of the rooms. “Do you need any help?”

“No,” Rebecca replied. What she really needed was to be alone. If Jared wasn’t with her, someone else was—watching and protecting her. She needed a moment to breathe without anyone worrying about her safety.

So she took her time trying on the dresses. The ones she’d grabbed at the last minute weren’t flattering. The A-frame waistline of the first made her look like she was expecting again. She tensed for a moment. But then shook her head. She couldn’t be. And if she was, she wouldn’t be showing yet.

She unzipped that one and shimmied into another. It was a pale cream. Too close to white to wear to a wedding. She was reaching for the zipper when she heard something.

Hadn’t Blaine assured her that the dressing rooms were empty? Had he let someone else into them? Maybe the judgmental clerk had insisted on checking on her.

She drew in a breath, bracing herself for no longer being alone. She’d only wanted a few minutes to herself. But then the lights blinked off, plunging the dressing room into total darkness. With no windows in the back of the store, the blackness was all-enveloping.

Was this how Lexi had been grabbed from the bridal boutique? Had someone shut off the lights and attacked her in the dark?

She parted her lips to utter a scream for Blaine, but a hand clamped over her mouth. And a familiar low and raspy voice whispered in her ear, “Look how easily I got to you.”