Seized

She stared at him a minute longer, but a year and a half as a profiler—or behavioral analyst as they were officially called—told her she didn’t have anything to gain here. Her six years before that as a regular special agent told her she needed to find a real case.

“Nice talking to you, Cartwright,” she said, the sarcastic response so different from the way she would’ve handled an interview like that three months ago.

Cartwright just sat there, jaw and arm muscles flexing in unison, and Evelyn stood and motioned for the guard.

The keys jangled in the lock again for so long Evelyn was glad Cartwright had only winged her with his elbow. Eventually the door opened and the guard beckoned her forward.

She moved to his far side, practically sliding along the wall as he led her down the hallway, past a row of cells. They were in the supermax portion of the prison, filled with lifers, which made them especially dangerous. But the inmates were a lot less likely to lodge spit—or other bodily fluids—at a guard they had to deal with every day than a visiting federal agent.

Luckily for her, the guard was six feet tall and as broad as a small car, making her five-foot-two, one-hundred-and-ten-pound frame virtually invisible. Still, the catcalls and obscene comments trailed behind her, leaving an imaginary layer of filth under her loosely tailored suit.

“You get anything good from Cartwright?” the guard asked, sounding completely uninterested in the answer as they reached the front of the prison.

He was slow getting her weapon out of the locked box where she’d had to leave it when she entered, and Evelyn shifted her weight impatiently. Less than two hours in this building and already she felt desperate to breathe fresh air.

How must Cartwright, who’d been locked up for three years of a life sentence, feel? Was that why he’d claimed he had a copycat? To waste the government’s time and amuse himself? With someone like him, it was entirely possible.

Evelyn hooked her holster back onto her belt and tugged her jacket down over it. “Thanks. Nothing useful from Cartwright.”

She checked her watch. A few hours to grab a late dinner, pack up and catch her flight. She’d follow up with the warden when she was back in Virginia.

As soon as she stepped outside, Evelyn drew in a lungful of fresh, clean air, shivering in her wool suit. It was twenty degrees colder in Montana than in Virginia, and a light dusting of snow covered her rental car. The sun had begun to sink while she was inside, and the parking lot looked eerie in the semidarkness.

As she hurried toward her car, her fingers seemed to drain of warmth as fast as her breath puffed clouds of white into the November air. She strode away from the fenced area around the prison, anxious for the heater in her rental—and saw someone standing beside her car.

She could tell from twenty feet away that person was in law enforcement, probably FBI. It was the way she stood, angled to see any approaching threat, the way she held her hand near her hip, where her weapon would be holstered.

Evelyn glanced down at her watch again as she reached her car. The Montana State Prison wasn’t exactly a short jaunt from the closest FBI office. Which meant this agent wanted something. Evelyn’s stomach grumbled as she sensed her chance for dinner slipping away.

“Evelyn Baine?” the woman asked. She stuck out a hand and shook with the precision of a military officer and the force of someone used to working in a predominantly male profession. “I’m Jen Martinez. Salt Lake City office.”

She flashed a set of FBI credentials and Evelyn squinted at them. “Good to meet you.”

Jen frowned as she dropped Evelyn’s hand. “What happened to your eye?”

Evelyn gingerly touched the tender spot high on her cheek where Cartwright had winged her. It was swelling underneath her eye. “An accident. What can I do for you?” She tried not to shiver outwardly as she crossed her arms over her chest to preserve whatever warmth she could.

Jen must have lived in the area long enough to be used to the cold, because she looked comfortable, even with her blazer unbuttoned. She was a few inches taller than Evelyn, with white-streaked blond hair pulled into a bun nearly as severe as the way Evelyn wore her own dark hair. She probably had fifteen years on Evelyn, and everything about her, from the laser-sharp gaze to the polyester-blend suit, screamed longtime law enforcement.

“When I heard BAU was sending a profiler to talk to Lee Cartwright, I had to come and get your input.”

“You have some insight into Cartwright’s copycat?”

Jen waved her hand dismissively. “No. But I do have another situation where I’d like a profiler’s take.”

Evelyn looked pointedly at her watch. “My flight takes off in a few hours.” Actually, it was four, but that wasn’t a lot of time to fully review a case and give case agents a profile of their perpetrator.

Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t supposed to review a case at all until it was vetted at the BAU office and brought to her officially. Then again, maybe Jen had a case that would allow Evelyn to use her profiling abilities for a change. “Did you bring the file with you?”

“Not exactly,” Jen hedged. “I was hoping we could take a ride.”

Evelyn moved from one foot to the other, trying to generate more warmth. “Where?”

“Ever heard of the Butler Compound?”

“No.”

Jen’s lips tightened. “Figures. I’ve tried to get BAU to look more closely at it a couple of times, but I keep getting denied.”

Probably for good reason—but Evelyn didn’t say that. The BAU office received hundreds of requests every single week, from federal, state and local law enforcement offices all over the country, plus the occasional international request. There was simply no way to take them all on. And many of them genuinely didn’t require a profiler.

“If...” Evelyn started.

“You’re here.” Jen cut her off, hands on her hips. “Just take a look, would you? There’s something there. I know it, and I need help.”

The desire to follow procedure, to do things by the book, rose up hard. Once upon a time, she’d been a stringent rule-follower. But the desire to contribute again as a real profiler—to get out of limbo—was stronger.

“Tell me what you want,” Evelyn said. “And where’s your partner?” As a profiler, Evelyn didn’t have one, but that was rare. Like most law enforcement, the FBI liked to pair up their agents.

Relief rushed over Jen’s face. “I’m between partners. Mine just transferred to another office. But I heard you were here, and I couldn’t miss this chance.” She suddenly seemed to notice Evelyn shivering. “Want to get out of the cold?”

“Yes.”

Jen laughed and nodded at the battered SUV next to Evelyn’s rental. She beeped open the doors and climbed inside, turning on the engine. “Hop in.”

As Evelyn got into the passenger seat of what was obviously Jen’s Bureau-issued vehicle, she flipped the heat up to high, then said, “Give me the basics.”

“I can do better than that.” Jen buckled up, gunning it out of the parking lot.

A bad feeling came over Evelyn—the strong, sudden certainty that she was heading into something she shouldn’t. It mingled with annoyance that Jen had tried to trick her, instead of just asking Evelyn to go somewhere.

“Where precisely are we going?” she demanded, buckling up even as she debated asking Jen to turn around.

“Butler Compound,” Jen replied.

“How far is it?”

“About an hour,” she answered, but from the way she said it, Evelyn could tell it was actually longer. “And then I’ll drive you right back.”

Evelyn frowned down at her watch. If she missed her plane, she’d be even higher on Dan’s shit list. Which hardly seemed possible.

And if she was going to leave BAU, she wanted it to be her choice, not because Dan Moore had kicked her out.

Jen must have seen her annoyance. “I want you to see the place for yourself,” she blurted. “Maybe then BAU will finally believe it’s not just some harmless cult.”

“What do you think it is?”

Jen glanced at her, intensity in her eyes, then back at the road. “A threat.”