To Catch a Killer

“Thanks. That hit the spot,” she said, her gaze roaming his face as she looked for clues into his motivation. For as much as she wanted to enjoy this unexpected gesture of kindness, she didn’t trust it for a minute.

He shrugged. “Can’t think on an empty stomach, right? I remember you used to get light-headed when you didn’t eat. Wouldn’t want you to keel over at an inopportune moment.” His gaze met hers in a speculative manner as he cocked his head. “Looks to me that you don’t eat enough these days. You’ve gotten skinny.”

“And you’ve bulked up,” she countered, although she refrained from adding that his bulk came from muscle not fat and that it made his six-foot-plus frame all the more impressive.

His mouth twitched as he laced his fingers across his solid abdominal region, which she imagined sported a full six-pack underneath that dark thermal Henley. “True. I like to eat so I have to work out.”

No ring. Her gaze bounced from his bare fingers, and she hoped he didn’t notice, but such luck was too much to ask for.

“Just ask.”

She started to give him her best blank stare, as if she didn’t know what he was saying, but dropped the ruse when curiosity won out over prudence. “Married?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Kara chuckled, yet an odd pain punched her in the side, suspiciously close to her heart. “What happened?”

The blue in his eyes darkened but the casual lift of his shoulders told a different story. “Just didn’t work out. Sort of like you and Neal, I guess. Except, my ex-wife is still alive and living quite comfortably on the alimony I pay her.”

“Neal and I never actually made it to the altar,” she reminded him quietly.

“Yes, I remember. I was supposed to be his best man.”

She refused to wince at his statement and instead quietly tucked away the fact that he hadn’t mentioned child support. And she was inordinately happy. Dangerous thinking, she silently reprimanded herself even as she pulled away and started to clean up the food containers. “Well, everything happens for a reason, right?”

“That’s what some people say.” He handed her his trash. “How about you?”

She dropped the trash into the canister, making a mental note to put the can outside of the room for the cleaning staff to empty first thing tomorrow. She didn’t allow them to clean due to the sensitive nature of her stay. The busy work made for an easy excuse to stall but Matthew knew her well, even if years stood between them.

“What have you been doing with your life all these years? I don’t see a ring on your finger, either.”

She pushed a lock of hair behind her ears. “I’m married to the job.”

“I can see that. Top of your field, the go-to person in high-profile cases … you’ve done well for yourself. But there’s more to life than the job, right?”

Kara bit the inside of her cheek, her daughter’s beloved little face jumping to mind, and she had to stop the smile that would’ve followed. Briana was the light in her universe, the one bright spot in an otherwise depressing world. But Matthew was the last person she wanted to know about Briana—even if she was his daughter.

Somehow she didn’t think he’d understand. Matthew had never been the type to forgive and forget. He’d still not forgiven her for leaving Lantern Cove and breaking Neal’s heart in the process.

No, she thought sadly, Matthew would never know that the one night they both betrayed Neal had resulted in a wonderful little girl. And that was for the best—for everyone.

Breaking her reflective silence, she met Matthew’s stare with a short smile. “The job is enough for me.”

His own smile turned wintry. “Well, we both know you sacrificed a lot to get where you’re at.”

“Yes, I have.” More than you know. “And on that note … I’m going to have to say good night. Thanks for the food.”

Matthew went to the door. “Don’t mention it,” he murmured. And then he was gone.

Kara brushed her teeth and finally climbed into bed, her eyelids feeling weighted with cement, which was a welcome feeling. Working herself to exhaustion was the only way she ever got any sleep, especially when she was under the gun to catch the bad guy.

She couldn’t have been asleep long before something jerked her awake with the certainty that she wasn’t alone.

Pitch-black filled the room. Without adjusting her position, she peered into the darkness, managing to keep her breathing slow and steady as if she were still asleep, but she could discern nothing. Confused, she slowly sat up in the bed, and flicked on the bedside lamp.

Nothing. Her room was exactly as it was when she went to sleep. Rubbing the grit from her eyes, she sighed and chalked it up to extreme fatigue. Snapping off the light, she fell back against her pillow and closed her eyes, determined to catch more zzzz’s before her alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. Just then, a soft voice whispered in her ear and nearly stopped her heart.

“She’s here.”

Chapter 4 (#ulink_da1726a3-567d-5c0f-83fe-6294256b299c)

Kara’s head ached and her skin itched.

“What’s wrong?” Dillon asked from above the rim of his coffee cup. “You look like shit.”

She ignored him for the moment and took a bracing swallow of her own coffee—black without sugar—before attempting an answer. The hot brew burnt the crap out of her tastebuds but oddly the flash of pain was more welcome than the uneasy thoughts making soup of her brain. “Just because you say that with an accent doesn’t make it any less insulting.”

Dillon made a face. “Someone’s gone into mommy-mode. Next are you going to tell me that if I’ve got nothing nice to say I should—”

“Shut the hell up?” she provided with a false smile.

“Something like that. I seem to remember that saying being a little less acerbic and more polite but that certainly gets the point across. So, what’s with the nerves? You’re drumming your thumbs,” he pointed out, which immediately made her slide her hands under the table away from view. “Something’s got you strung pretty tight. What is it?”

She could try and pass it off as extreme fatigue—hell, she’d been trying to do that since 4:00 a.m.—but it was no use. Someone had whispered in her ear. She’s here. And yet, her room had been empty. How the hell was she supposed to say that without looking as if she’d just spilled her crackers? “I didn’t sleep well,” she said, leaving it at that.

“Not me. I slept like a baby. This motel sure doesn’t look like much from the outside—in fact, it looks like the kind of place where the crazed proprietor slits your throat in your sleep—but in all, the beds are quite adequate.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” she said wryly, choking down another hot swallow as she started to feel the caffeine working its way into her body, clearing away the cobwebs of sleep until she felt somewhat back to herself. It was a dream, she rationalized with a great deal of relief. A very lucid, very vivid dream. Not uncommon for people who are extremely fatigued. Now she felt just a little ridiculous for wasting so much of her precious sleep time shaking in her bed over something that was clearly not real.

Just in time. The rest of the CARD Team came into the small breakfast joint and Kara was grateful for the need to focus on the job.

D’Marcus Jones, the high-tech computer specialist who looked as far from a geek as one could get, slid into the seat beside her while Tana Miller and Zane Harris took the seats flanking Dillon. Everyone except Tana signaled for coffee. Tana preferred green tea and always brought her own. All she required was a mug of steaming hot water.

“Does it always rain like this here?” D’Marcus asked, eyeing the dismal weather with something of a scowl. “I feel like I’m gonna mold or something. Even the sheets felt damp.”

“I think it’s invigorating,” Tana said, her cheeks still pink from the early-morning run she’d taken on the black-sand beach a short walk from their motel. “I could live here.”

Kara withheld comment. The beaches here were savagely beautiful with sharp, craggy cliffs that accepted the ocean’s constant battering with stoic dignity, eroding with time until deep fissures ran with seawater as the spray erupted with a violent explosion against the rocks. Many a tourist, inexperienced with the nature of Northern California’s coastal beaches, sank to a watery grave when they turned their back to the ocean.

And it wasn’t warm. Not even in the summer. The water remained a chilly temperature and dive suits were necessary if prolonged exposure was planned. But Kara never went into the ocean. Not after her dad took a fishing boat into a squall after a bender and never came back. It’d been her senior year. Neal’s family had taken her in so she could graduate.

“Didn’t you grow up here?” D’Marcus asked, pouring two creams into his white ceramic mug.

“Yes.” How many times had she wished she’d been born somewhere other than the Emerald Triangle, the place where marijuana grows as freely as the foxglove? More times than she could count. She’d never truly fit in with the locals—but she was one. “Let’s get this meeting started,” she said briskly, ending the invitation for story hour or trips down Memory Lane. “The weather is likely to get worse before it gets better and if you don’t want to spend the entire day wet and puking your guts out, we’d better get a move on.”