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Her Dark Web Defender
Dana Nussio


Her Dark Web Defender “What aren’t you telling me?”  When State Trooper Kelly Roberts joins Special Agent Tony Lazzaro’s taskforce, she’s looking for redemption. As they stalk a child predator through cyberspace, she gets closer to solving a mystery from her past. But opening up to her co-worker means risking her heart–and perhaps even the vengeance she's determined to wreak.







How can he protect her from a predator

When she’ll risk everything for vengeance?

State Trooper Kelly Roberts joins Special Agent Tony Lazzaro’s task force, determined to bring down a cybercriminal preying on young victims. Solving this case is a chance for redemption. If Kelly catches the killer, she’ll be one step closer to solving her best friend’s abduction. She never expects to fall for Tony. But trusting him means risking everything she holds dear…


DANA NUSSIO began telling “people stories” around the same time she started talking. She has been doing both things nonstop ever since. The award-winning newspaper reporter and features editor left her career while raising three daughters, but the stories followed her home as she discovered the joy of writing fiction. Now an award-winning fiction author as well, she loves telling emotional stories filled with honorable but flawed characters. Empty nesters, Dana and her husband of more than twenty-five years live in Michigan with two overfed cats, Leo the Wondercat and Annabelle Lee the Neurotic.


Also By Dana Nussio (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)

True Blue

Shielded by the Lawman

Her Dark Web Defender

True Blue

Strength Under Fire

Falling for the Cop

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Her Dark Web Defender

Dana Nussio






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-09456-6

HER DARK WEB DEFENDER

© 2019 Dana Corbit Nussio

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Note to Readers (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


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“Good. How about Casey’s Diner?”

“Not there.” Kelly cleared her throat. “I mean, there’s no reason to go there when we’re only getting coffee.”

“Okay.” Tony dragged the word out as he studied her. “You have something else in mind?”

She waved her hand, but her elbow remained rooted near her rib cage. “There are plenty of coffee shops around.”

“You pick, then. You lead. I’ll follow your car.”

She nodded and continued to her car. What had made her so nervous? And why did she want to avoid the diner? Those were just some of the questions among many he had about Kelly Roberts. At a time when he should have been focusing on his final case and preparing to walk away from the task force, he was too curious about a young police officer who seemed to be hiding something. Too curious for his own good.


Dear Reader (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07),

I am so excited to share Kelly and Tony’s story with you. I wanted to explore a romance in the context of an FBI joint task force, where I could peel through the layers of the internet and where the hunters and the hunted are one and the same. I hope you find the ride as exciting as I did.

Her Dark Web Defender is the second story in the True Blue series for the Romantic Suspense line, but it is also connected to the books I wrote for the now-closed Harlequin Superromance line. True Blue tells the stories of the brave men and women from a Michigan State Police post.

If you love Kelly and Tony’s story and want to get to know some of the other members of the Brighton Post community, check out Shielded by the Lawman (Romantic Suspense) as well as Strength Under Fire and Falling for the Cop (Superromance).

I love staying in contact with readers, no matter how you choose to connect. Learn more about me and sign up for my newsletter through my website, dananussio.com (http://www.dananussio.com); connect with me on Facebook, Facebook.com/DanaNussio (https://Facebook.com/DanaNussio), or Twitter, Twitter.com/DanaNussio1 (https://Twitter.com/DanaNussio1); or drop me a line on real paper at PO Box 5, Novi, MI 48376-0005.

Happy reading!

Dana Nussio


To my Writer Wednesday crew: Kathy Steck, Jacqui Gretzinger, Karen Kittrell, A.J. Norris, Greg Mahr, D.A. Henneman, Kathy Wheeler, Jeanne Tepper, Cheryl Smith and Liz Heiter. (Also, to Isabelle Drake, who’s going to make it one of these days.) Your love for your stories and your dedication to the craft inspire me.

A special thanks goes to Kim Moore, a retired FBI special agent who also just happens to be a childhood friend. I appreciate your opening your world to me. And thanks again to Michigan state police officer David Willett, who continues to take too many texted questions and still hasn’t blocked me. You are both real-life American heroes at a time when we really need them. My characters would salute you, and so do I.


Contents

Cover (#u0f3df2a5-c06f-5f3a-9893-07e980c1fa86)

Back Cover Text (#ub3c2c244-40eb-5656-89f5-acc00000e6fe)

About the Author (#u0ee7b285-98e0-5c23-bdeb-19fab27c3c9b)

Booklist (#u02f1fc47-115c-5c83-9a37-18f620b43a64)

Title Page (#ub7282465-1b65-5b51-94f8-507663a415ba)

Copyright (#u8dbdf97c-c2b4-555b-bd4f-732e1b623cd6)

Note to Readers

Introduction (#u14b56255-1652-50eb-b13a-4b8249f7ba45)

Dear Reader (#u328b8458-f6f3-53ec-9710-ae831ada9b90)

Dedication (#uaffdfd96-3a38-5c61-8d5d-c1b7d6514351)

Prologue (#u782a0900-5558-5759-807e-bf843be92b3c)

Chapter 1 (#u9748b4a5-45a7-5923-8222-21158aaa0cb5)

Chapter 2 (#ue00ac5bb-b0b8-5a72-8332-f8d2cb622fa3)

Chapter 3 (#u25c6f063-83eb-59d5-bacf-3955479b12e2)

Chapter 4 (#ue66d0413-b2db-56c6-b059-a9c65e3e756f)

Chapter 5 (#ud1129841-e45c-5070-bf9b-6ceb7b1405cf)

Chapter 6 (#u384db96c-1942-5111-8a89-49beb02d19a5)

Chapter 7 (#u1559831f-3620-595e-b742-ecf99116122f)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




Prologue (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


“Emily’s tongue was bluer than mine,” Kelly Roberts blurted in the back seat of the police car, the stinky blanket scratching her bare shoulders.

Why she’d thought of the raspberry slushes they’d been slurping just before it happened, she wasn’t sure, just as she couldn’t figure out why the lady cop sitting next to her kept patting her arm like she was her mom or something. That itched, too. And made her want to jump out of the car and run.

“You sure you’re warm enough?”

“I’m fine.” But she couldn’t stop shaking, even if it was the hottest day in June so far. She would never be warm again.

She let the officer pull the awful blanket high enough on her shoulders to cover most of her freckles and pressed her cheek against the window to get a better look outside.

Past the yellow tape that had been strung between two trees, Emily’s new lime-green mountain bike lay abandoned across the sidewalk. It had crashed there when the scary man leaped from behind the bushes and yanked her off the seat. Her cup was on its side, the melted drink a blue puddle on the concrete.

Something was clogging Kelly’s throat, and her eyes burned, so she shifted her head. If only her own purple, hand-me-down bike didn’t have to be in the next spot she looked. On the grass farther down the sidewalk. The exact same place where she’d dropped it when she’d unfrozen enough to scream. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop.

“Your parents will be here in a couple of minutes. Do you think you can give a description… I mean tell us what the man who took your friend looked like?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

As if she could ever forget anything about him. The closed-lipped smile. That raspy voice and his tight jaw while Emily had kicked and scratched to escape, her black ponytail whipping from side to side. A movie villain come to life, with wild eyes and hairy arms. And the only person who could have helped her friend had been too scared to do anything but watch.

That strange lightness she’d had inside her belly a few times in the past half hour floated up again. Was that relief? What kind of friend was she to take comfort in the fact that the bad man had grabbed Emily instead of her? Was that why her eyes were dry when she should have been sobbing by now? Why the officer kept patting her arm and sneaking peeks at her face? No one could ever know the truth. That she was a bad person. That she cared only about herself.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. We’re going to find her.”

Kelly jerked her head to look back at her. She was nine. They couldn’t fool her. Police officers were supposed to tell the truth, and the lady was lying. How did she know, anyway? She hadn’t seen the meanness on the guy’s face. Or the fear in Emily’s enormous chocolate-colored eyes.

Stay quiet, or I’ll be back for you.

Kelly had skipped telling the police that part. If she had, it would have made what the man said real. She’d already disobeyed his instructions by calling for help. Telling the police about it, too, might make him keep his promise.

She turned to the window again, just as another police car, an ambulance and a truck that looked like her mom’s pulled up along the curb. They could ask all the questions they wanted to. They could search for clues and turn on their sirens and pretend that they could make everything better. But Kelly already knew the truth.

Emily was gone forever.




Chapter 1 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


Special Agent Anthony Lazzaro shoved open the door to the plain brick building and tromped to an office with the vague name, Arch Computer Consultants, Inc. He stabbed in the four numbers of the lock code that changed so frequently he sometimes forgot it and had to call one of the other team members to get inside.

Soon he wouldn’t have to remember it at all. The thought should have brightened the drab office walls, just as his formal request should have dulled the stark realities that the two rows of cubicles and the boards of photographs represented. He was finished with agonizing over his decision to transfer from the Innocent Images Task Force of the FBI Cyber Division. No more staring every day at this slimy underbelly of society. No more pretending it hadn’t changed him over the past six years and made him feel older than thirty-eight. No more lying.

Too bad he was stuck in purgatory a little longer.

“Hey, Tony. Ready for another day in the salt mine?”

Tony snarled at Eric Westerfield, but the younger man only grinned as he hurried toward him. The local deputy, who’d joined the task force a year earlier, had so much spring in his step that his coffee swilled over the brim of his paper cup. Wasn’t the guy ever in a bad mood? But the rush of cool air hitting Tony’s face told him Eric had already cranked the air-conditioning, which, by afternoon, would barely challenge the mid-July heat. At least he was good for something.

“Got my pickax and headlamp ready, so sure.” He patted his briefcase, where he’d concealed his .40 caliber Glock 22 in its padded holster with a thumb break for the trip from his rental car to the office. Out of habit, he immediately withdrew the weapon from the bag and locked it and the separate hip holster in his bottom desk drawer.

“Special Agent Dawson told me we’re getting a new task force member today.”

“I heard.”

He’d been livid, too. It was bad enough that Will Dawson, the administrative special agent on the task force, had refused to sign off on his transfer until they’d closed the current case. It centered on the murder of two eighteen-year-old girls and possibly involved cybercrimes. Now the team would be saddled with breaking in a new member during the most high-profile investigation they’d conducted in three years. And his last case on the task force.

“It’s a trooper from the Michigan State Police Brighton Post, since both victims were from Brighton. They referred the case to us in the first place.”

“Heard that, too.”

Tony strode toward the galley kitchen, where the office coffeepot served up hot sludge in daily doses. Though he hoped Eric wouldn’t follow, he did.

“I won’t be low man on the totem pole anymore.”

“Don’t worry.” He didn’t bother looking back as he poured. “You’ll still have your spot near the bottom.”

He didn’t miss the deputy’s emphasis on the word “man,” since they both were aware the new officer was female. Men and women were different on the job. Not better or worse, just different. He wasn’t looking forward to a changing team dynamic during his last few weeks in that office.

“Are we really going to use her voice for this case?”

“Guess so.” Another argument Tony had lost. The regular chats would have sufficed, but the others wouldn’t listen to his reasoning.

With a wave to Eric, he carried his stained Detroit Lions coffee mug past four cubicles, each equipped with laptops and external monitors and hard drives. Near the far window with blinds always kept closed, he sat at his own cramped square, where he could slip on his headset, enter the parallel universe of the Internet referred to as the Dark Web and pretend to be alone. He could do this. Just one more case, and he would be free.

But would he really be? The answer was as clear as all those faces painted on his memory. Some even smiled back at him from photos pinned to the bulletin board on his cubicle wall. A few of his failures, despite all his fancy computer equipment, education and supposed know-how. It was cruel punishment that he would work his final weeks alongside a task-force rookie probably still starry-eyed with convictions that justice could prevail and good could overcome evil. Things he used to believe.

“Do you think she’ll be ready for this?” Eric called from his own desk.

Tony had just fired up his computer and launched the Dark Web browser called Tor, but at his colleague’s question, he pushed in his chair.

“Are any of us?”

The click of the door saved either of them from having to answer that question. He stood and stepped outside his cubicle to get a better look. And there she was, entering the office with Deidre Elliot, the administrative assistant. She couldn’t have stuck out more in that navy-blue uniform shirt, lighter blue pants with a dark stripe, gray tie and the badge.

She probably tied her light-brown hair back so tight to look older, but nothing could mask that youthful blush that contrasted her ivory complexion. She didn’t appear much older than the girls whose deaths they were investigating. Legally, they were women, he guessed. Old enough to know better but too young to realize that their search for adventure could get them killed.

Deidre led the other woman toward them. “Hey, guys. I’d like to you meet our newest team member.”

“You must be Officer Kelly Roberts.”

Wide dark brown eyes stared back at him. She cleared her throat, her tongue slipping out to moisten her deep pink, full lips. Was she surprised that he knew the identity of the new team member? Well, she wasn’t the only one who’d received a shock just then as her simple, nervous reaction had jabbed him below the belt. What was that? He’d never had inappropriate physical reactions to female agents or officers before. He didn’t notice women at all.

Not anymore.

“Trooper.”

He cleared his throat and forced whatever that had been from his thoughts. “Excuse me?”

“It’s Trooper Roberts.”

“Right. I knew that.” Damn. He sounded as nervous as she appeared. This wasn’t a blind date. It was a case, and he owed it to the young women who’d lost their lives to focus on it and track down the suspect. “I’m Special Agent Anthony Lazzaro.”

She reached out her hand, but he nodded at her instead, so she lowered it.

“What’s with the uniform? How are we supposed to fly under the radar here with you showing up dressed in blue?”

He was being a jerk, but that was easier than telling her she filled out that boxy uniform in all the right places. He was looking for a transfer, not forced early retirement.

“Sorry. I didn’t know. I was just told where to report.”

“We’re plain clothes here.” He indicated the slacks, dress shirts and ties he and Eric wore.

“I see that. What about a weapon? Aren’t you required to carry one? I am.”

“Weapons are required but must be concealed when entering and leaving the office and can be worn or locked up when inside it.”

She nodded and continued to scan the rented office space that looked like hundreds of others in Livingston and nearby counties. Her gaze paused on the bulletin boards covered with photographs from current cases and a poster of the “FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list. Then she turned back to him.

“This is it?”

“Yeah, not much to speak of, is it?” Eric said as he stepped closer. “I’m Deputy Eric Westerfield of the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department.”

This time the two law enforcement officers shook hands, and Tony was almost sorry he hadn’t done the same. Almost.

“The FBI field office in Detroit rents this office space for us,” Eric continued. “But no one is supposed to know this is a task force office, and no one without specific business with us is even allowed inside.”

“Business with Arch Computer Consultants?”

“One of many fake names the FBI gives for its task force offices,” Eric explained.

“Are there just going to be four of us? I thought the task force was supposed to be—”

Tony shook his head to interrupt her. “Ten in all.” He pointed to the same number of cubicles. “Two FBI special agents and representatives from area law enforcement, Homeland Security and then administrative staff like Deidre.”

He hated having to explain information she already would have known if she’d just read the file.

“Where are they?”

“Some are catching a few hours of sleep since we’re working around-the-clock on this case.”

“Oh.” Her gaze flicked to Eric and then back to Tony. “Well, good. We need to stop this guy before he strikes again.”

“Are you saying we’re tracking a serial killer? Because we have no evidence to confirm that yet. We don’t jump to conclusions here. Our work is meticulous. Precise. We follow the evidence, and we don’t make stupid mistakes.”

Her jaw tightened. “I’ll keep that in mind. Anyway, I’m not saying I know anything. But we can’t just sit on our hands and wait in case he strikes again, can we?”

Touché. Her heavily lashed eyelids lifted, and she glared up at him.

Deidre chuckled as she headed to her own desk, closest to the door. “It’s good that we’re all getting to know each other better.”

Eric gestured toward Tony with his thumb. “Don’t worry about him. He’s all grumble with no fangs. He’s always tough on the new guy, and lucky for me, you’re it.”

“Yeah, lucky me.”

“All of us bring something new to the task force,” Eric said. “The special agent here also happens to be a veritable computer genius.”

“It’s my job.”

Eric brushed away Tony’s comment with a wave. “And I might look mild, but I’m seasoned in pursuing human traffickers. So, what’s your superpower?”

Tony was careful not to look interested, but he wanted to know the answer, too. The details they’d been given about her were sparse.

“Besides being first on the scene when the victims’ bodies were discovered along the Brighton Mountain Bike Trail, I guess it’s my voice.”

Tony’s back teeth clenched before he could stop them, but at least the others weren’t looking his way.

“Oh, that’s right,” Eric said. “That was Special Agent Dawson’s idea. Something to sweeten the deal while we’re trolling for online predators. Special Agent Lazzaro wasn’t a fan of the plan.”

Her gaze shifted to Tony, and she seemed to dare him to look away first.

“Most suspects prefer the anonymity of text-only chats.”

“You do kind of sound like a kid, though,” Eric said.

“Thanks, I think. I’ve never been hired for my voice before.”

She laughed then, a sound like the smoothest whiskey pouring on ice, and the sensation that sluiced over Tony and headed south couldn’t have been more different from the jab he’d felt earlier. With a laugh like that she could have worked as a phone-sex operator. He was tempted to tell her so, but the door opening again cut them off. Good thing for that.

Special Agent Dawson entered the way he always did, coffee in one hand, a plate with a Danish in the other and a collapsible umbrella handle strap looped over his wrist.

“I see you’ve already met,” he said as he introduced himself.

“We’re old friends now,” Eric answered for all of them.

“Well, let’s get this done.” Dawson dropped his Danish off in his own cubicle and continued toward them. “The sooner we close this case, the sooner my wife and girls can sleep again. The trail’s already going cold.”

“You’re sure we’re headed in the right direction?” Tony asked.

“I’m not sure of anything. But we already know that one of the young women was computer savvy and was hanging out in chat rooms. I don’t think this was the adventure she was looking for.”

Two other team members had followed him into the office, and Dawson asked them to introduce themselves.

“Robert Golden, Homeland Security,” the graying one with the paunch told her.

The guy with a crew cut and a gym body lifted his hand in a wave. “Don Strickland, Detroit Police.”

“Trooper, tell the team a little bit about yourself,” Dawson said.

Kelly shifted her feet. “I’ve worked with the state police for three years, assigned to the Brighton Post. I’m usually alone in my own patrol car, so you’ll need to give me a few days to get used to working in an office.”

She might have said something else after that, but Tony couldn’t get past the thought that she’d been a police officer that long. She wasn’t a rookie, though nothing could prepare someone to work on this task force.

“One more thing. I’ll do whatever it takes to get this guy. It’s personal for me. I mean, I live in Brighton.”

Dawson’s gaze narrowed. “Are you sure you’re not too close to this?”

“No, I’m fine.”

Tony wasn’t certain of many things. He definitely wasn’t sure this officer’s voice would help them locate the suspect who’d murdered these victims or even if they’d met online before the attack. But he was convinced of two things at that moment. The first was that he wanted to get this guy—and in statistical likelihood the suspect was male—as much as the trooper did.

His second certainty concerned him more, though. With that gut sense law-enforcement officers hone over time, he knew that the state trooper who’d just marched in there to mess up the task force’s equilibrium had also just lied to the team. What he didn’t know was why.




Chapter 2 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


Kelly slid her chair closer to the edge of her cubicle, so she could see the office door. She could shoot out and be back on Interstate 96 on her way to the Spencer Road exit and the Brighton Post in ten minutes flat.

At least she was wanted there.

A report lay open on her desk, but the words and the grisly crime scene photographs swam on the pages in front of her. This was a mistake. She shouldn’t be there, and it went beyond the special agent who clearly agreed with her on at least that.

She’d believed she could do this. That eighteen years was enough time. Enough distance from those bicycles. That creepy smile. She’d been wrong. Shame filled her, heavy and familiar. The uniform that she wasn’t supposed to be wearing seemed to be the only thing preventing her from splintering into thousands of pieces.

But she had to keep it together, for Emily’s sake. She took several deep breaths and focused on a pushpin on her bare bulletin board instead of the file. Finally, her rapid heartbeat slowed.

She’d hoped for an opportunity to make up for the mistakes she’d made following her friend’s abduction, and now she was balking. Yes, it would require her to work with someone who clearly didn’t want her there, but atonement wasn’t supposed to be easy.

What was Special Agent Lazzaro’s problem with her, anyway? He must have thought that those Italian good looks of his—the kind that a sculptor’s knife would have loved and a sonnet or two had already mentioned—gave him an excuse to be a jerk. Not that she’d noticed the olive skin, that strong jaw, the dimple in his chin or those blue-gray eyes, anyway, but none of those things made the way he’d spoken to her okay. What had she ever done to him?

Eric had said the agent was always hard on new team members, but she couldn’t help thinking it might be something more. That she was a woman? Well, tough crap. She’d proven herself to her fellow troopers by working harder than any of them. If he thought rudeness from one curmudgeonly FBI agent would be enough to scare her off, then he was about to find out how wrong he was.

“You about ready?”

She nearly jumped out of her seat as Tony leaned in to speak to her. The cubicle’s walls had prevented her from seeing his approach, but he’d caught her thinking about him. She didn’t have time to worry about him or anyone else when they had a double murder to investigate.

“Uh. Ready?” Could she have sounded any less like she was about to prove something to him? And why did his eyes have to smile like that, before his lips even moved?

“I just wanted to know if you’re finally up to speed on the case so we can get started. You know, on the voice recordings.”

“For the record, I was already well informed about this case. I was first on the scene, remember?” She took a breath so she wouldn’t tell him where he could shove all his assumptions. “Now what did you say about recordings?”

“You didn’t think you were going to do all of this live, did you?”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a way that was beginning to annoy her. As a matter of fact, she had believed she would always be speaking live, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of having her confirm it.

“I figured at least some of it.”

“Then you were right. Here, let’s go back to my computer to make the recordings.”

He strode to his desk without looking back at her. She grabbed the binder of case overviews that Dawson had given her and fell into step behind him. Inside his cubicle, Lazzaro had already turned his straight-back visitor chair so that it was right next to his. Too close for Kelly’s comfort, but the microphone cord wasn’t long enough to reach across the room.

Nothing about the special agent’s cubicle surprised her, from the obsessively straight collection of pencils in his top desk drawer to the line of photographs—some children, some adults—in the bottom corner of his bulletin board. All about a half inch apart. Just like the crisp creases in his slacks and dress shirt and his perfectly knotted tie that weren’t supposed to be parts of a uniform, Tony Lazzaro was all about preciseness and control. Her arrival must have thrown off his perfect balance.

She rested the binder on the corner of his desk, pulled the seat back and sat. A masculine amber scent filled her nostrils. She’d never been a fan of cologne, but this one was almost pleasant. Distracting.

But she didn’t get distracted. By anyone. If she’d never allowed male-female nonsense to disrupt work with her fellow troopers, even the hotties, she should have no trouble ignoring a surly law enforcement officer. Especially one who had a sprinkling of gray in his black-brown hair that made him look at least a decade older than her twenty-seven.

Tony obviously had no trouble tuning her out as he focused on his laptop and clicked through several screens. Then he moved the standing microphone closer to her. She didn’t miss his frown when he noticed the binder, out of place on his orderly desk.

“Now we just need to record the early stuff. The greetings,” he said. “That way you can practice the flirtation.”

Her breath rushed out in a choked sound. “Are you saying that some victims flirt with their eventual offenders?”

The thought of it made her stomach roll. Emily’s attacker had required no enticement. No encouragement at all.

“I guess some potential victims think they’re supposed to talk more like grown-ups would when they’re in online chat rooms,” he explained. “Seventy-six percent of underage victims first encounter their offenders in chats.”

Kelly blinked away images from her past to focus on details of the current case. On offenders they might have a chance to stop.

“But don’t victims in chat rooms believe they’re talking to someone their own age and not some guy in his sixties with a double chin and a second mortgage?”

“Maybe potential offenders aren’t that specific, but most tell their victims they’re older when they initiate contact.”

As he spoke, he scrolled through a website with a series of conversations rolling down the screen.

She leaned forward to get a better look. “That’s where you’ll have me hanging out? In chat rooms like that one?”

He closed the browser, whether to keep her from seeing what he was looking at or to move on, she wasn’t sure.

“Not you, really. Just an online identity to which you’ll be lending your voice. You won’t always be the one at the keyboard, either. It can be any of us. The screen name will be INVISIBLE ME.”

“Because victims are often looking for someone to pay attention to them and actually listen to them?”

“That’s right. Some of them get more than they bargain for.”

“Especially kids like Sienna and Madison.”

She expected him to say something about her referring to the recent murder victims by their first names instead of calling them “Miss Cottingham” and “Miss Blackwell,” but he nodded at his screen.

“What does all this have to do with the Dark Web?” She hated asking so many questions, but he seemed knowledgeable, and she needed to catch up quickly. “I don’t know as much about that as I should. I spend most of my work time investigating traffic accidents and issuing citations.”

He slid a glance her way and then launched another browser, one she didn’t recognize.

“Most people don’t know a lot about it. The Dark Web is just a small part of the Deep Web, that part of the Internet that includes email accounts and bank records. Only the Dark Web is different. You access it using a software that makes you anonymous by disguising your computer’s IP address. Then visitors can participate in illegal activities without being tracked. Drugs, weapons, assassins…”

“Porn?”

This time, he turned to face her. “That and human trafficking. Those two things are almost always linked.”

“Do you think our victims visited sites on the Dark Web?”

“Probably not. It requires too much computer know-how since the sites aren’t indexed. It’s more difficult to do a search there.” He closed the screen and held his hands wide. “But the suspect might hang out on the Dark Web as well as chat rooms in the Surface Web.”

“Then it makes sense to look both places.”

“Particularly now that he’s had a taste of murder. His cooling-off period between the two girls and his next victim might be decreased. If this is even his first time.”

Was he watching her because he was discussing the possibility that they were dealing with a serial killer when he’d criticized her earlier for jumping to that same conclusion? Or did he expect her to race out the door after the details he’d shared with her? He put his headset around his neck, handed her a second one and pointed to the microphone.

“Ready?”

She straightened in the chair. “We’re going to record stuff right here?”

“Why? Can’t turn on your charm with an audience present? Hate to tell you this, Trooper, but we can’t provide you with a private sound booth.”

The patronizing way he said trooper made pinpricks form on the back of her neck. He might as well have said sweetheart, and she was not okay with that.

“Hello,” she said into the microphone.

“Don’t say it like you’re about to try to sell him a houseful of vinyl windows.”

“Give me a minute. I haven’t done this before.”

“No kidding. And you thought you were going to do all of this live.”

Her glare wasn’t as effective as it would have been if he’d looked at her.

“By the time you have a voice conversation with a suspect, you won’t be strangers, at least in that world. You’ll even tell him your real name is Mackenzie. But if you don’t think you can do it, I’ll be happy to approach Special Agent Dawson and tell him his idea is a bust.”

“Not necessary,” she ground out.

It didn’t matter that Kelly was so far out of her comfort zone. This jerk had underestimated her, and he should know it. She wouldn’t allow him to make her forget why she was there, either. She’d come to track a killer, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. She gripped the microphone and pushed the button to speak.

“Hi there.” That voice didn’t even sound like her. So smooth. A sexy laugh formed with words. “I’m so glad we finally get to speak to each other. I’ve wondered what your voice would sound like.”

She released the button and, as she pulled her hand away, she peeked over to catch him watching her. He quickly turned back to his computer screen.

“How was that?”

He cleared his throat but didn’t look her way. “Fine.”

“Good. What else do you need me to say?”

“How about I just ask you some questions, and you answer them the way you would’ve at about thirteen?”

“You mean with a giggle and maybe a snort?”

“You snort?”

“Not anymore. Well, not much.”

He gave her a few more phrases to record.

“Hey, gotta go. My mom’s coming upstairs,” Kelly said, recording the last. In her own headset, the words sounded exactly like teenage Kelly would have spoken them.

“Okay, we’re done.” Tony cleared his throat again. “Good job on those.”

“You don’t need anything else?”

He shook his head.

She stood and pushed the chair to the open spot in the corner of the cubicle and grabbed her binder. She opened the book to the page she’d been reading before he’d interrupted her: an open case involving a missing teenage boy.

“Just staring at those photos isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“You don’t think familiarizing myself with these other cases can help? I have fresh eyes. Maybe I’ll see something that others have missed.” She gestured toward his laptop. “Anyway, how are you so sure that whatever you do on that computer will help more?”

She braced herself for his hot retort. He hadn’t disappointed her all morning. When he didn’t answer, she lifted her gaze to find him staring, not at her but at that straight line of photos on his bulletin board.

“Looks like you have some pictures of your own. Are those some of the people you’ve helped? Do you look at them when you need a pick-me-up?”

“No.”

At the low tone of his voice, she regretted asking. Something told her that Special Agent Lazzaro was the type of guy who recorded his defeats. Not his victories.

“You don’t have to answer,” she rushed to say.

But he appeared lost in the photos and the stories that must have clung to them. When he finally turned back to her, his eyes were suspiciously shiny. He quickly lowered his gaze to his desk.

“Those are the ones we didn’t help. They’re there to remind me just what is at stake.”




Chapter 3 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


Cory Fox gripped the video game controller with both hands as he navigated the danger-filled path on his computer screen to save Princess Amelia from the evil dragon. Usually, he would have scaled those walls and leaped the obstacles with ease in his new favorite game, Rescuing the Royals. Not so much this morning. He’d already fallen through the earth twice, and he hadn’t even made it close enough to the dragon to try out his superpower lightning flashes.

He was never going to get out of Level 26.

Cory rested the controller on the desktop as he dragged his feet off the desk. He was just too distracted to play. He had to do something to fill the time, though. His four-hour shift at the grocery store wasn’t until after lunch, and he was already too hyped up to sit still.

On his desktop, he clicked open a folder he’d placed there a week before, and a list of links appeared on the screen. He clicked on the first.

Bodies of 2 local teens discovered

His stomach roiled as it did each time he read the articles. If only he could stop looking at them. Or thinking about it. Or remembering.

He set his elbows on the desk and lowered his head into the cradle of his hands. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see it. Blood made him queasy, and there’d been so much of it. He hadn’t even been able to drag them far from the bike path where they’d met, so their bodies were discovered the next morning. He’d only brought that pocketknife in case she needed convincing to get in the van with him.

“Why did you have to lie?”

He automatically looked over his shoulder though, as usual, he was alone in his basement apartment. It had been an accident. It was all FUNNY GAL’s fault. Make that “Sienna.” She was supposed to have been fourteen. Not eighteen. And she sure as heck wasn’t supposed to bring a friend with her. Was their meeting a joke to her? She was supposed to be his betrothed, his princess, and she’d been a dragon instead.

He closed the file and then the folder, his finger poised to the delete the whole thing. But he couldn’t. Instead, he launched a browser and typed the beginning of a website address for one of his favorite chat rooms. The full name showed up in the results box below. Obviously, he’d visited there a lot.

Of course, he needed to avoid chat rooms right now. He should be lying low and staying off the Internet. At least for a while. One of those articles had even mentioned that the girl had been in contact with “men” online. Men? Not just him? His hands curled into fists, his nails digging into his palms.

No, he wouldn’t visit the chats while the police were sniffing around. Anyway, time always slipped away from him when he played online, and he’d promised Mom he would keep his job this time. That was the deal he’d made so she would agree to keep paying his rent. He’d given someone else his word that he would stay out of trouble, and he’d already broken that promise.

He moved his mouse in a circular pattern on the mouse pad and then let the arrow hover over the link. His decision came with a click.

And he was there again, that wonderful place where multiple conversations moved at a rapid clip. Introductions were made, connections formed, and screen names vanished with the lure of private chats.

Cory wiped his sweaty upper lip with the back of his hand as he scrolled through comments. There were so many lonely girls, just waiting to be his special friends. Still, he needed to be patient to find the perfect one.

He’d be more careful this time. Courting was a delicate process, after all. But with such sweetness ahead, how could he not continue the search for a princess with whom to share his castle home?

He clicked on the dialogue box. Then he typed the line that could be the beginning of something wonderful: Hi!






A knock on the outside of his cubicle brought Tony’s head around with a jerk that made his neck ache. His vision was already blurry from hours of fruitless searches through some of the more popular Dark Web sites. He’d buried himself in his work to get that earlier conversation with Kelly out of his thoughts, and he’d almost succeeded. Until now.

The woman he’d been trying not to think about stepped into the doorway, her hands shoved into her uniform pockets.

“May I help you?”

He was proud of himself that he’d sounded almost civil, especially when he’d hoped not to have to face her again for the rest of the day.

“Sorry to interrupt you, but—”

“But you’re finished reading about all the other cases that aren’t the one we’re investigating?” So much for being nice.

She frowned. “I have finished that, but Special Agent Dawson wants me to observe you putting out regular text communication in the chat rooms.”

“Why? Haven’t you ever done a chat before?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

His next brusque comment died on his lips. Why couldn’t he stop baiting her? She was doing her job, just as he was trying to do.

“Fine.”

He gestured toward his guest chair though the last thing he needed was to be close to her again. He’d been trying to get the scent of her shampoo—light, flowery and carefree—out of his head all afternoon.

“How about instead of observing, we give you a chance to practice? I’ll make my comments verbally, and you can type your responses on my keyboard.”

“Sounds okay.”

He stood and slid by her to grab the seat she’d used earlier. She took his place in front of a blank word-processing document.

“Would your friends say you’re pretty?” he asked.

She blinked several times. He had to hold back a smile. Of course, they would. Not to say so would have made them liars.

Finally, she started typing.

I don’t know. I guess so. They probably would say I have a cute face.

“Are you trying to say you’re a bigger person? Would anyone say that about you?” he asked.

I’m bigger than some of my friends, I guess.

He had to remind himself that she was creating a fictional character since the woman sitting next to him looked perfect to him. Too perfect.

“You’re probably just curvier. They’re jealous,” he managed to say.

How can you say that? You haven’t even seen me.

“We could fix that. You could send me a picture. I’m already sure you’re real pretty.”

But I hate my braces.

At the second reminder that their conversation had been only role playing, he sat taller in his seat. He’d given her easy questions, and he couldn’t explain why. Was it because of that compassion in her eyes after he’d explained the photos on his board? Did he believe she was too tender-hearted for this work and felt compelled to shield her? What business did he have trying to protect anyone from this world when he hadn’t been able to shelter himself?

Instead of continuing the mock conversation, he reached for the keyboard and slowly pulled it to him.

“Why are you doing that?”

“You’ll do fine. You’re a natural. At least for the easy stuff.”

“I really was a thirteen-year-old girl once. An awkward, misunderstood and, yes, larger teenager. I was in the public speaking club. Not the cheerleading squad.”

She’d surprised him. People rarely did that anymore. Kelly Roberts wasn’t who he’d expected her to be, from her biography or from her knockout good looks. He knew better than to prejudge people, anyway. That was how the wolves fit in among the unsuspecting sheep in their investigations.

“Some things happened, and I ate for comfort and gained some weight,” she added when he didn’t respond right away.

“Looks like you figured things out.” Immediately, he wanted to take that back. It sounded as if he’d been watching her, and he had. Now they both knew it.

She cleared her throat and pointed to the screen again. “If the conversations online are like that, they sound so benign.”

Relieved that she’d redirected the conversation back to their work, where it belonged, Tony went with it.

“They start that way, but they can escalate quickly. A chat where a guy tells his victim that he understands why she’s mad at her parents over her curfew quickly turns to demands for intimate photos.”

“That’s awful.”

“That doesn’t begin to cover how bad it gets. How are you going to be able to handle—”

“I meant for you.”

He came to his feet as if something had pushed him out of the chair, and he moved to the doorway of his own cubicle. Just like earlier, her compassion for him unsettled him. Why was she being so kind when he’d been rude to her? Worse than that, he was beginning to like her. He wasn’t there to make friends. He had to finish the case so he could be transferred. He needed to remember that.

“I mean you have to read and listen to this stuff every day,” she continued, as if she realized she’d struck a nerve. “How do you bear it? Do you turn it off when you get home?”

“It’s my job.”

He would’ve said it was as simple as that, but nothing about his decision to leave the task force had been simple. Could he really desert the vulnerable people he helped, and if he could, what kind of agent was he? What kind of human being?

“And mine,” she said with a nod. “Do you really think our victims were communicating online with their killer?”

“Possibly. But they were connecting with a few different people, so someone might know something.”

She stood up from his desk. “I’m ready to do my part to help find Sienna and Madison’s killer or killers. I’ve already said this case is personal for me.”

“You need to stop telling people that, or you won’t get to stay on the case.” He still didn’t buy the reason she’d said it was important to her, but he didn’t tell her that. “If you can’t separate yourself from it, you won’t be of any help to us.”

“I can. Separate myself, that is.”

“We’ll see.”

Kelly scooted behind him and started back to her own desk. He stood at the doorway, watching her. Near the nameplate that had been added to the bracket outside her cubicle wall, she stopped.

“And Agent Lazzaro, thanks for all your help.”

“Don’t thank me. If I was thinking about your well-being, I would tell you to get out of here right now.”




Chapter 4 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


Kelly couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted as she tromped inside her apartment and dumped her heavy purse on the floor by the door. It was still daylight outside. She barely recognized the place, with light streaming in between the blind slats and dust motes waltzing toward her coffee table. Usually working afternoons did that to a person. Even on her days off, she was too busy catching up on errands to notice.

Now she was too…something else. Tired. Keyed up. Annoyed. Anything but intrigued by some jaded FBI agent.

After locking the door, she crossed into her bedroom, already unbuttoning her shirt. Her uniform had nearly smothered her all afternoon in that stifling office, but she hadn’t even loosened her tie. Special Agent Lazzaro would have perceived that as weakness. She’d refused to give him the chance after all the potshots he’d lobbed at her.

Now she couldn’t shed the layers fast enough. If only yanking on her old cross-country shorts and pulling on a sports bra and tank top could help her put the day’s events out of her mind. Even after she’d worked with him all day, Tony still didn’t want her to be there.

Of all his rude comments, the last one kept replaying in her thoughts. If I was thinking about your well-being… Had he been trying to tell her what the assignment had done to him? After the way he’d treated her today, she shouldn’t care, but she couldn’t help it. He seemed miserable there, which made no sense.

Her cell phone rang, and for once, she considered letting it go to voice mail. Her couch was calling her, as well. But guilt won as it always did, and she hurried to the door and dug around in her purse until her fingers connected with it. She refused to acknowledge that blip of disappointment at seeing Nick Sanchez’s name on the screen.

Had she hoped Tony—make that Special Agent Lazzaro—would call to say he was sorry? Even if he had her number, which he wouldn’t, he didn’t seem like the type of guy who ever apologized. Anyway, if the Brighton Post’s current calendar model was calling her, there had to be an emergency. She tapped the button to accept the call.

“Is everything all right, Nick?”

“Sure. It’s fine.”

“Then why are you calling?”

“You try to do something nice for a person and—”

“Nice? How?” Had they missed her so much at the post that they were resorting to phone pranks?

“I only wanted to see how your first day with the task force went.”

“Oh. Okay, I guess.”

“And how was it to drive a desk instead of a patrol car?”

He chuckled this time. Someone else laughed in the background.

“Dion Carson, is that you? Are you two together, even on your day off?”

The laughter became a chorus.

“Can we help it if we’re the two coolest people around?” Dion asked.

“Yeah, can we?” Nick piped.

“I hate to interrupt your mutual-admiration society, but is there a point to this call? Other than to torture me?”

Nick harrumphed. “We were going to tell you that we’re standing right outside your building, with pizzas, but since you’re being so unwelcoming—”

“Did you say pizzas?”

She pushed the buzzer to allow them inside and threw open her apartment door. Footsteps pounded on the stairs, and then they both appeared in her open doorway. Nick had a pizza in each hand, and Dion carried two-liter pop bottles under both arms.

Dion shook his head and tsk-tsked. “Now is that a way for a woman to let someone inside her place? You don’t know who could be out there.”

“But I already knew—”

Both men laughed again, and she gave them a dirty look. These were her friends, the closest people to her in the world. She would take a bullet for any of them, but sometimes—like now—she wanted to pistol-whip them instead.

“You missed us. Admit it,” Nick said with his perfect, toothy grin.

Kelly shook her head. Though she couldn’t have found two more attractive males to show up in her living room—one tawny skinned with dimples, the other with sepia skin and sultry eyes—neither Nick nor Dion had ever been swooning material for her. But the barely-still-thirtysomething Italian-American she’d met earlier, the one with crinkles around his eyes and a five o’clock shadow before noon? She couldn’t allow herself to think about that guy.

“Earth to Kelly.” Nick lifted and lowered the boxes a few times. “Where do you want me to put these?”

“Anywhere is fine.”

She followed his gaze around the room. There were only three places where guests could put a pizza that didn’t involve getting crumbs in her bed: her dinette with two chairs, the coffee table or the living room floor. Nick went for the coffee table, pausing to note the scratches before setting the warm boxes directly on the wood.

Kelly could admit that the place wasn’t fancy. More like minimalism on steroids. It was like the task force office she’d spent the day in. Necessities and nothing more. Would Tony have something to say about that, too?

She pushed the thought aside and hurried to the kitchen for plates, napkins and cups.

Soon the three of them sat shoulder to shoulder on the cramped sofa, munching pizza and sipping pop in the awkward silence.

Dion set his plate on top of the box. “So really, how was your first day?”

“I told you it was okay.” Sitting between them, she could feel their skeptical glances coming from both sides. “All right, it stank. It was like starting all over as a brand-new trooper.”

“I bet it did stink.” Nick took another bite and then talked around it. “It’s hard working with cops from different agencies, when everyone’s as cocky as you are.”

“Are the cowboys from the FBI treating you like a rookie?” Dion asked.

Having just grabbed another piece of pizza, she took an angry bite. “Just one. Special Agent Lazzaro. You’d think he’d never met a female police officer before. Mansplained like I was an idiot. He thinks he knows danger when he’s probably not been more than ten feet away from a computer screen his whole career.”

“That so?”

Dion had opened the pizza box again, but he stopped without lifting a slice. She glanced from one police officer to the other.

“What?”

Nick leaned forward so he and Dion could exchange a look. “I think she doth protest too much.”

“This…Lazzaro,” Dion said, “is he a sexy Valentino type?”

Kelly came to her feet. “He’s just another jerk male officer. You two would probably be fast friends with him. Is everything a big joke for you guys?”

“Do you know us?” Nick asked.

Both men burst out laughing.

“Really, we did come by to offer some support.” Dion finally picked up the slice of pizza he’d been going for before.

“Well, thanks.”

Nick, who’d already devoured three slices, set his plate aside. “You headed over to Casey’s Diner later?”

She shook her head. “I’m beat. Are you going? Don’t you realize how pitiful that looks that you still meet up with the rest of the troopers on your days off?”

“What’s your point?” Nick said, grinning.

Dion tapped his watch. “You probably can’t stay out late, anyway, now that you’re on the day shift.”

Kelly didn’t bother telling him she wouldn’t necessarily be working days for this assignment. She’d been told she would be clocking a lot of overtime hours until they found some leads.

If she told them, they would be razzing her about being with Lazzaro day in and day out. She was worrying enough about that situation. How was she supposed to be of any help in tracking Sienna’s and Madison’s killer when all she could think about was the special agent who wanted her out of his world?






Tony had just enough time to throw his keys on his counter, pull a beer from the refrigerator and pop the tab before his doorbell rang. One glance at the clock on the microwave and he grimaced. He’d forgotten. He wasn’t in the mood to entertain.

But, unlike some people, he honored his commitments. Taking two quick gulps of his beer and then turning the can upside down in the sink to drain, he jogged to the front door.

“Did you forget?” Angelena Hayes hurried inside, a toddler perched on one hip and a preschooler holding her free hand.

“Of course not.”

Her smile told him how much she believed his lie. He wasn’t the only one in their family with good instincts. His baby sister knew him well.

“Well, good. We need a babysitter. Date night has dwindled to once a month already. If it drops to every two months, Miles and I are going to be a divorce statistic like Mom and Dad.”

“Don’t even joke about that.” At least she really was kidding. Angelena and Miles were the real deal, unlike their parents, whose marriage hadn’t so much dissolved in acrimony as withered away from neglect. For him and Laurel, it had been more like a murder/suicide.

“Are we going to play, Uncle Tony?”

Squeezed between the two adults, four-year-old Tabitha tapped his leg several times.

He bent at the waist to speak to the child at her level. “We sure are. What do you want to play first?”

Tabitha wrinkled her button nose. “You smell yucky.”

“You’ve been drinking?”

Angelena’s stage whisper was loud enough for the neighbors in his spread-out subdivision of 1970s ranch homes to hear.

“Two swallows. That’s it.”

“Had better be it.”

He nabbed the little girl and tucked her under his arm, her giggles filling the room and that headful of riotous chocolate curls falling around her face. His sister already knew he would do anything to protect these little people.

“I want to play school!”

“Then school, it is.”

Tony and Angelena exchanged smiles because Tabitha chose the same activity every time he babysat. Everyone knew electronics were off-limits at Uncle Tony’s house.

“Too,” the two-year-old man of few words, Carter, called out, extending his pudgy arms to be lifted.

Tony obliged and shifted the boy onto his opposite hip.

Angelena grinned at her brother. “You’re the best babysitter ever.”

“The price is definitely right.”

“Just name your price. You know we’ll pay it.”

“Now if I’d known that before…”

He didn’t bother finishing that since he always refused to take her money. He also loved the two ruffians like they were his own. As close to it as he would ever get.

“Rough day?”

“The same.”

“Oh. Your brow looks more furrowed than usual.”

Was it so obvious that he was out of sorts? But then Angelena and Miles were the only ones he’d told about his transfer request. “Your description makes me sound super hot.”

“Ew. Just ew.”

“Anyway, aren’t you going to get out of here? Don’t you two have reservations or something?”

“That’s an avoidance tactic if I ever heard one.”

He opened the door for her, but she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.

“Well, what’s going on?”

“It’s just that this new state police officer joined the task force. Bad timing. And she—”

“She?”

His sister had finally started out the door, but she paused and looked back at him.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop. We’re not going there.”

“You never go there, and you should. With somebody. It’s been four years.”

Tabitha picked that moment to moan and wiggle until he lowered her to the ground. She planted her hands on her hips.

“Are we going to play?”

“Yeah,” Carter chimed.

Tony could’ve hugged them both and planned to as soon as their mother finally left.

“Thanks for your concern, little sister, but I have everything I need right here.” He took both kids’ hands to make his point. “And, apparently, I need to play now.”

He started down the hall with his niece and nephew.

“See you guys later,” Angelena called before she left.

Tony blew out a loud breath. Why had he mentioned Kelly in the first place? He knew better than to speak of women around his sister, even one as inconsequential as Kelly Roberts. He turned left into his guest bedroom.

Tabitha rushed ahead and opened the sliding closet door. Inside, a small desk was pushed against the wall, a tiny chair stacked on top of it. A cardboard box filled with school supplies had been squeezed in next to it. The other closet door hid an easel with a chalkboard.

“Let’s get this party started.”

Soon his living room had been transformed from its regular man-friendly state to a proper classroom. The buttery recliner in dark leather, matching sofa and the industrial-style wood end tables had been shoved out of the way to make room for the desk, chalkboard and the sheet spread out to cover the floor. Tony had learned the hard way about marker stains on the carpeting.

“Look. This one is a U.”

Tabitha sat at the desk and held up her paper. Carter lay on his belly on the floor, coloring a huge art pad and himself. Mostly himself.

“Uncle Tony, can you write your letters? In order?”

“In order? That’s tough. Maybe I could do it if I worked really hard.”

“I can help you.”

“Help. Too.”

Carter popped up from the floor and approached with his purple marker. His “help” was to decorate his uncle’s hands.

If Kelly could only see him now. Tony blinked, his fingers automatically closing. Why had she come up again? He was off the clock now, and he didn’t need to think about work or her. Maybe she’d peeked her annoyingly attractive face into his evening hours because he wanted her to see that he wasn’t always a jerk.

Why did she get to him? She wasn’t the first newbie police officer to join the task force since he’d been there. Eric was just one example. She wasn’t even the first female.

So, what was different about Trooper Roberts? Was he trying to scare her off because he sensed vulnerability in her, and his instinct was to shield her from things he’d seen? She was a trained police officer. She’d been carrying a weapon all day, for God’s sake. She didn’t need his protection. She would consider him patriarchal if not downright misogynistic for considering it.

Still, believing this was about his hero complex was easier than acknowledging another reason he might not want Kelly on the task force. It had more to do with sensual lips that could make a man think of all sorts of naughtiness, brown eyes that seemed to take in everything at once and a body that even a police uniform couldn’t disguise. Or maybe it was his temptation to pull those pins from her hair, just to watch it tumble down her back.

That wasn’t going to happen.

He didn’t do office romance. He didn’t do romance. Once bitten, twice done, you might say. He’d already told Angelena he wasn’t going there. With his career in a state of flux right now, it needed to be a hell no. His focus had to be of closing this case so that he could finally be transferred. That meant one thing. If he was even tempted to veer toward that on-ramp, he was hitting the brakes and putting that car in Park.




Chapter 5 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


With his curtains drawn and office door locked, he dropped into the leather executive chair behind his mahogany desk. Usually that gleaming piece of furniture and the built-in shelves with all his favorite books would have soothed his frustrations, even after a long week at his day job. He might even have smiled at the degrees on the wall and the framed photos on his desk—one a family portrait and the other of him in uniform.

But not today. No, nothing could tamp down his irritation as he attached the cable for his external hard drive to his second laptop, kept just for business purposes. It was all he could do not to slam his hands on the keyboard while using the keys and touchpad to reach the even more secretive back door of his already well-hidden website.

He couldn’t alert his dear wife to his problems, either. She’d done a fine job of avoiding asking questions for years and had graciously accepted the baubles he’d showered her with as rewards. No sense in crippling a smoothly working system.

With a few more expert keystrokes, he landed on a page showing recent transactions from his Soleil Enterprises customers, all paid for using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin for anonymity. He loosened his tie, smiling at the second-quarter sales figures. Those had already tripled since the same time period a year before.

It was a beautiful business model, providing a wide variety of goods and services for his clients’ proclivities and peccadilloes, all at prices they were willing to stretch to afford. He didn’t even know why it was called the “Dark Web,” when it spelled a brighter future for the secret bank accounts of people like him.

Except that his sunny days might have been clouded recently with a bucket of blood.

He fisted one hand and squeezed it so hard with the other that all his fingers ached. If only it could have been the guy’s neck. Of course, he wasn’t certain that it was one of his customers who had crossed the line and murdered those girls. It could have been anyone. But the crushed tiara, part of the secret crime scene information that a loose-lipped peace officer had shared with him, had made him wonder.

Tiaras. Princesses. The sinking feeling in his gut told him it was a possibility. He shouldn’t have taken a chance on that guy. But greed could trap anyone in its grasp, just as an online supermarket for dark desires kept his clients coming back. Maybe he’d been caught this time.

“If it’s you, you’re done,” he whispered to the monitor.

Leaving his own site, he navigated to a few others that the local FBI task force regularly monitored. Again, it was information he shouldn’t have had but did.

He couldn’t casually observe the task force’s activities any longer. Everyone was searching for answers. He had to find them first.

He closed the Dark Web browser, launched another on the Surface Web and selected a chat room website that was among his customers’ favorites.

Though he rarely joined in on the conversations, he started a dialogue box for his screen name.

MR. SUNSHINE: Today’s been hell. Who agrees with me?

A knock at his office door interrupted him just as responses poured in.

“I’m headed up to bed,” his wife said from outside. “Will you be working long?”

“You go ahead. I have a little more to do.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Sweet dreams.”

He wouldn’t be able to sleep now if he tried, so he continued to lurk, waiting to see who was playing that night.

He’d worked too hard to build his empire, too hard to protect it. No one would be allowed to expose it or him. Not a customer who’d taken his fun too far. Not a task force that could uncover a connection during its investigation.

Would he kill to preserve this good thing he had? In a minute.






Tony braced himself as he pushed open the office door, but all seemed quiet inside. Although a few of the early risers were milling about, most knew better than to seek his input before his second cup of coffee.

Instead of going to fill his cup, he crossed to his cubicle. It wasn’t his fault he had to pass hers to get there. He was more relieved than he cared to admit that she wasn’t at her desk. Though he planned to make nice with her today, it was too early to start.

But as Tony rounded the corner to his desk, the source of his agitation and lack of sleep sat waiting for him in his chair. Out of uniform, she looked different. Brown slacks, feminine cream blouse buttoned almost to the collar and sensible, low-heeled shoes. She could have traded places with any female FBI agent he knew. So how did she manage to make even that outfit look sexy?

“I didn’t think you’d ever get here.” She crossed her arms and settled back into the chair.

“What are you talking about?” He checked his watch. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. “Mind giving me my seat?”

He rested his briefcase next to his desk. Though she met his gaze steadily, she gave her nervousness away by tucking a loose tendril behind her ear. If only that hadn’t drawn his attention back to her hair, tied up the same way she’d worn it the day before. It was looser though, softer, as if she’d been less determined with a can of hairspray this time.

“I thought we could have a chat first.”

His jaw tightened, but he’d promised himself he wouldn’t let her get to him today, so he dropped in the guest chair at his own desk. All of this without coffee.

“So, what’s up?”

“What’s up is whatever’s going on between us has to stop.”

Tony blinked. He couldn’t help it. He was usually better at hiding his reactions than that, but he’d done a lousy job of it ever since she’d arrived. “Excuse me?”

“Special Agent Dawson told me to figure out what the problem is that you have with me, so we can find a way to work together.”

“He said that?” he asked instead of answering a question.

He shot a glance toward Dawson’s cubicle, nearer to the office door, but he really couldn’t see it through the maze of temporary walls. Leave it to him to piss off the one person who could delay his transfer even longer.

“Well, not in so many words.”

She was staring at her folded hands now, using one thumb to snap away from the other the way she would flick a lighter. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he thought.

“Then with what words specifically?”

She stared back at him in what felt like a standoff and then lowered her gaze again.

“He said we need to work together.”

“And when did he say that?” Come to think of it, had he passed Dawson’s umbrella near the front door on his way in? He always had it with him, just in case.

“Yesterday.”

“You mean before we had our practice session?”

This time, she didn’t answer his question.

“Anyway, I know you don’t want me here. I didn’t ask to be assigned to this task force, either. But now that I have been, I am determined to help track down this suspect and help make connections to any other cases, if they exist. I’ll do my job. You do yours.”

“Okay.”

“You act like you know me, but you know nothing about me. And if you want to get rid of me, the fastest way to do that would be to close this case.”

What didn’t he know about her? The question struck him, though he had no business wondering or even the right to ask. But she’d brought it up. He had to give her credit for her moxie. Kelly was stronger than she looked, and she hadn’t appeared all that frail in the first place.

As Kelly tightened her arms across her chest, Tony tried not to notice how this gave her an extra lift that she didn’t need and one that wasn’t in his best interest to see.

“That’s fair.”

Tony was relieved that his words came out as something more than squeaks. He wasn’t a seventh grader. He was a grown-ass man, and he needed to start acting like it.

“Okay, then.”

He could have let it go at that. She’d made it easy for him to avoid answering any questions, but he couldn’t accept the gift. Besides, he wanted to close this case as much as she did. Like she kept saying, it was personal to him, too.

“About yesterday, I was just having a bad day. Can we start over?” He stood and extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Special Agent Anthony Lazzaro. Tony, for short.”

She stared at his hand instead of lifting hers. He couldn’t blame her. He’d made a point of not greeting her properly the day before. Still, she reached out and gripped his hand.

“Trooper Kelly Roberts. Good to meet you, sir.”

Her handshake was firm, professional and a mistake, he guessed from his tingling palm as he pulled away. He couldn’t worry about that now. He’d told himself he would focus on the case, and he planned to keep that promise.

“Well, if I’m going to get started on my job, I will need my seat back.”






Cory’s cell phone buzzed again as it had been all morning. He’d silenced the ringer and turned it face down on his desk so he couldn’t see the display, but it had continued to buzz about every thirty minutes. Mom never gave up when she wanted something. He was like her in that way.

At first, he’d been too focused on the messages scrolling up his laptop monitor to pay much attention to his phone, but the sound was distracting him now. The chat rooms weren’t much fun today, anyway. Just screen names he’d seen before, seeming to talk to themselves or each other. No titillating flirtations. No potential Cinderella or Snow White or even a beautiful Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.

He couldn’t ignore his mother forever. She might turn off the Internet. He couldn’t risk that. When the phone buzzed again, he answered.

“What is it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I saw that you called a few times.”

“If you saw, then why didn’t you pick it up? It’s not like you have anything better to do. Like go to work.”

Cory straightened in his chair just as he would have if she were in the same room instead of in Boca Raton. At least she hadn’t video-dialed in this time. He hadn’t showered in a day or two. Or three.

He switched to his best cajoling tone. It had always worked before. “Come on, Mom. I told you that job wasn’t a good fit for me. Grocery-cart collector? I hated it. I’ll find something better. Soon.”

“You’re right you’d better. And I don’t care if you like it. Why do you think ‘work’ is a four-letter word? In fact, I’ve been considering tapering off my financial support. Clearly, it isn’t helping you to get on your feet.”

His chest tightened. This wasn’t going the way he’d planned.

“Please, I promise I’ll find something. And I’ll keep it this time.”

“You said that last time. And the time before that.”

His hands fisted, but he forced his fingers to loosen and flattened his palms on the desk. He couldn’t afford to lose his cool. Not now. This was too important.

“If you could support me for once.”

“I’ve supported you, all right, in more ways—”

“Or believe me,” he interrupted.

At that, she stopped. But his pulse pounded as it always did when he even thought of the forbidden topic.

For a long time, a dropped-call kind of silence filled the line. He might have gone too far in dredging up the past, but she’d pushed him, too. It was her fault.

“You know I believe you.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They both knew she hadn’t always believed him. When it counted.

“One month.”

“What?” He at least had to sound like he didn’t understand what she was saying, though optimism broke through the shroud draping his thoughts. He’d won for now. But at what cost? The darkness was peeking out again. He would have to bury it before it consumed him.

“You have thirty days to get a job you plan to keep and begin taking over some of your bills.”

“Sounds okay, I guess.”

“That’s my last offer.”

His mother, who’d spent the morning trying to get in touch with him, seemed anxious to get off the phone. He was in a hurry himself. Before, he hadn’t taken his search seriously. Now he had a deadline.

One month to plan, to woo her, to win her hand. It was terrifying yet exhilarating. The timing wasn’t optimal, he decided, as he chose from among his favorite chat rooms. He would have to search more diligently just when he needed to keep a low profile because of the incident. But he would be careful. So careful.

He would find her, too. She would be perfect. And young. And his. Then he and his princess could disappear together forever.




Chapter 6 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


Kelly’s eyes burned and her head throbbed from the hours she’d spent staring at the screen, but it couldn’t be helped. She’d needed space from Tony after their conversation that morning. Though he’d never told her what he had against her, it wouldn’t matter once they found a way to put it behind them.

If only she could get past her odd reactions to him, as well. How was she supposed to keep her edge as a fellow law enforcement officer when she could only think about his long lashes and the way his biceps strained against the sleeves of his dress shirt? He might have been older than she was, but he probably could have taken on most of the guys she’d met. And maybe he could take her on in a much more satisfying way.

“Hey, are you available?”

Kelly startled, a humiliating squeak escaping from her throat before she turned back to find Tony standing at the doorway of her cubicle. Why did he always have to show up when she was having off-limits thoughts? Also available? Was he a mind reader?

“The conversations get intense, don’t they?”

She didn’t bother looking at the screen for anything new on the feed.

“I wouldn’t know. The chat rooms you gave me have been dead. I even wrote a few notes to draw out lurkers, but nada. Just a lame hello from somebody called STARGAZER. He said, ‘Greetings,’ and then nothing else. I half-expected him to follow it up with ‘Greetings, Earth people.’”

“I told you those boards would be easy. We haven’t seen much action on them lately. But things are starting to heat up on a few other chats, so I wanted you to take a look.”

She pointed to her laptop screen with its slow-rolling posts. “Are you sure I shouldn’t stick with these? You never know. Something might come up. About a spaceship maybe.”

He shook his head. “This one’s hot,so I could use your help. I might need a voice for this one.”

He stared at the floor when he said it. How he’d managed to not to choke on those words, she couldn’t imagine. He was trying.

“Since you put it that way.”

She exited the chat room, grabbed her notebook and pen and followed him to his desk.

“You’re sure I’m ready for this?” She could have kicked herself the moment those words were out of her mouth. How was she supposed to convince him that she belonged there when even she was questioning?

“Only one way to find out.”

He’d already arranged a chair next to his, so she sat, and he handed her a headset. He pointed to a printout on the corner of the desk closest to her.

“The conversation so far.”

At first it seemed so strange reading the private chat between INVISIBLE ME and some guy with the unfortunate name BIG DADDY. She had to remind herself that the screen name wasn’t her. She was only lending her voice to an online persona, one of a few identities the task force was using. She tried not to be shocked when the conversation quickly turned sexual, just as Tony had predicted.

Hold up. I gotta pee.

Kelly couldn’t help but smile as she read the last line. “You make a great teenage girl. That last line is golden.”

“You never saw his answer, did you?”

“It wasn’t on the printout.”

He pointed to the final line from the private chat on his laptop screen.

Don’t make me wait too long. Never do that.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, but she somehow managed to sit still. Memories of those bicycles, two little girls and spilled blue slushes pushed forward in her mind, but she ruthlessly shoved them back. She couldn’t go there. Besides, she wanted to ask Tony how he could keep returning to these same lewd conversations when the number of creeps online remained static. Now wasn’t the time to think about either of those things.

“It looks like he left the chat room.”

Tony nodded at the screen as he closed the chat screen. Soon he had navigated back to one of the larger threads.

“But if I’m right about him, he’ll find her again.”

Kelly appreciated the way he referred to INVISIBLE ME as “her.” It reminded her that even if the suspect was pursuing someone whom he believed to be an underage girl, it wasn’t Kelly. She needed to remember that those hands reaching out for this imaginary girl weren’t the same ones that had grabbed Emily, either.

“He’s back.”

At least Tony was too busy studying his screen to notice her shifting in her seat.

“He’ll pretend to be disinterested for a minute, and then he’ll suggest the private chat again.”

He typed a hello message back into the public discussion. Responses from three different screen names appeared below it. One even immediately asked her age.

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait for it.” He continued to watch the screen. “Wait…for…it.”

Then, as if by magic, a comment from BIG DADDY appeared.

BIG DADDY: So, you decided to come back?

INVISIBLE ME: Told you I’d be right back.

Kelly could only stare as Tony continued to type. He could’ve been writing an email to his mother, as easily as the words poured from his fingertips. Would she ever be that comfortable with all of this? Did she even want to be?

By the next exchange, the suspect had suggested a private chat again. It didn’t take long for him to mention how nice it would be if they could have a voice chat. He promised it was all he would ask for, just the chance to hear her voice.

Tony stalled through a few more comments, talking about how INVISIBLE ME didn’t like her voice because it sounded like a little girl, but finally he turned to Kelly.

“Ready?” he whispered as he moved the microphone closer.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

He tapped the microphone and mouthed, “You’ve got this.”

She squeezed the button. “BIG DADDY, are you there?”

Nothing. She slid a glance to Tony. He made a circular gesture with his index finger, indicating for her to try again.

She cleared her throat and pushed the button a second time. “Are you there, BIG DADDY? I was hoping to get to talk to you.”

A crackling sound from another microphone filled her ears. “Lovely. Your voice is sweet. I knew it would be sweet.”

Kelly’s breath caught, a scream expanding like a helium-filled balloon yet trapped inside her chest. That voice. Those words. It was him. Sweet. So sweet. The words replayed in a torturous loop, reminding her of the other time she should’ve screamed. She’d failed then, too.

“Say something,” Tony whispered.

The sounds around her were too loud. The printer in the next cubicle. The buzz of the fluorescent lights. Tony’s voice. Her gaze shot to the microphone button, but her clammy hands had already released it.

“INVISIBLE, sweetie, are you still there?”

She could only stare at Tony and the microphone by turns, panic building, twisting, maiming. It was him again, and she was frozen, rooted in place by her own cowardice. Just like before.

Tony grabbed the microphone and crinkled the printout over the top of it. Then he yanked the cord from the USB port. Immediately, his fingers shifted to the laptop’s keys.

INVISIBLE ME: Sorry. My bad. I must have messed up the microphone. I’ll have to have my dad look at it.

BIG DADDY: Oh. Okay. You might want to clear your searches and your cookies first.

INVISIBLE ME: Right. :) Wouldn’t want him to know anything. None of his damn business.

Tony wound down the conversation, promising to talk again later when her computer was working better. The suspect threw in a parting comment that he hoped they’d get to meet, which Tony volleyed with the promise of “soon.”

With that, he exited all the chat rooms open on the desktop. He turned to face her, crossing his arms just as she had earlier in the same chair.

“What the hell was that?”

Kelly stared at her clammy hands as she gripped them together. Her racing pulse refused to slow.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to whisper.

“I don’t want sorry. I want an explanation.”

“I can’t. Not now. I need a minute.”

Without giving him a chance to ask more questions, she hurried out the office door and down the hall to the public restrooms when she could easily have visited the facilities inside the office. She didn’t care if someone else saw her ruddy cheeks in the mirror or caught her splashing water on her face. As long as he didn’t see it.

She had to get away from the chat rooms, from Tony and from the truth. It sounded crazy, sure, but she was convinced she’d just spoken to the man who’d ripped away her childhood and caused her best friend a lifetime of pain.






“You’re going to have to talk to me eventually.”

Tony followed a few steps back as Kelly hurried down the walk to the nearly empty parking lot. She’d barely given Dawson enough time to reach his car and drive off before she made her own escape, leaving Tony behind with the rest of the stragglers. He already would have asked his questions earlier if she hadn’t avoided him all afternoon.

“That’s how we’re going to play it?” He picked up his pace.

This time, she whirled to face him. “Oh, sorry. What were you saying?”

“That you’ll have to talk to me,” he repeated, though he was positive she’d heard him.

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

“I meant about what happened this afternoon.”

“You mean about the novice freezing up, just like you predicted I would? Or about the FBI agent swooping in on his white horse?”

“Who’s giving away white horses? I didn’t get one.”

His attempt at humor fell flat, but it gave him the chance to watch her. After the call, she’d been terrified. At least her flushed skin and wide eyes had led him to believe that. Now she lifted her chin and pursed her mouth, as if she dared him to question her. But he wasn’t going to let her off that easily, even if technically he already had.

“What happened? Really?”

“Does it matter? You probably told Special Agent Dawson your story the moment I stepped out of the office.”

“Stepped out? You practically ran—”

“I didn’t run. I walked. Anyway, when you did your duty to report that I froze and proved I shouldn’t be here, did you also tell Dawson that you’ve been trying to scare me off since yesterday?”

“No.” Though he would have done the team a favor by exposing a possible weak link.

“You didn’t share what a welcome committee you’ve been?”

“I didn’t talk to him at all.”

“I don’t understand.”

That made two of them. “I was waiting to speak to you first.”

“Now that you have, what are you going to do?”

“I plan to stand here until you answer my question.”

She puffed up her cheeks and blew out a breath. “I guess you got in my head. You set my nerves on edge after all those horror stories you told me.”

“I was just trying to prepare you.”

“Why? Did someone prepare you for this assignment?”

“Not really.” It was the most honest thing he’d said all day.

“Then I should feel privileged?”

Tony shrugged. He could no more explain why he’d pushed her so hard than he could tell her why he hadn’t gone to Dawson over what had happened earlier.

“It’s okay, you know. Some people just aren’t cut out for this assignment.”

“You should know.”

At first, he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Wait. What?”

“You should know that some people aren’t cut out for this task force, since you don’t want to be here, either.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t know where you got that idea.” He kept his expression neutral, but he swallowed involuntarily. Who’d told her? Would Special Agent Dawson have shared that information with her? No one else at the office knew.

Kelly shrugged and continued down the walk. Could he blame her for not telling him how she knew so much about him? She was right. He’d set her up to fail, and he might have done it on purpose.

“Wait.”

She stopped and turned back, her posture stiff.

“What now?”

“Let me make it up to you. For messing with your head.”

“You mean ‘start over’? We tried that. Guess it didn’t take.”

He lifted a shoulder and lowered it. “Come on. Let me. Please.”

“How?”

“We could go for coffee. I’ll buy.”

He could see the “no” in her eyes before she moved a muscle or spoke a word.

“That’s not necessary.”

“I think it is.”

“I’m a police officer. Do you think this is the first time I’ve put up with crap from a male law-enforcement officer?”

“Probably not.”

“I’m used to having to do twice as much to be taken seriously. My colleagues respect me because I’ve earned it.”

“Now I really feel like an ass.”

The side of her mouth lifted this time. “You’ll get no argument from me.”

“Please let me buy coffee. As a peace offering.”

She blew out a breath. “Fine.”

He decided not to analyze why he was so relieved that she’d relented.

“Good. How about Casey’s Diner?”

“Not there.” She cleared her throat. “I mean there’s no reason to go there when we’re only getting coffee.”

“Okay.” He dragged the word out as he studied her. “You have another place in mind?”

She waved her hand, but her elbow remained rooted near her rib cage. “There are plenty of coffee shops around.”

“You pick, then. You lead. I’ll follow your car.” Technically, he wasn’t supposed to drive his FBI rental except on duty and to and from work, but this was on his way home. Sort of.

She nodded and continued to her car. What had made her so nervous? And why did she want to avoid the diner? Those were just two small questions among many he had about Kelly Roberts. At a time when he should have been focusing on his final case and preparing to walk away from the task force, he was too curious about a young police officer who seemed to be hiding something. Too curious for his own good.




Chapter 7 (#u4a3cbde5-9ba6-5124-9be3-48b39c844a07)


Kelly parked in the near-empty lot adjacent to Mill Pond Park just as the headlights from Tony’s task-force-issued sedan darted in after her mini SUV. She’d left her own assigned rental back at the office and would have to figure out a way to get it home later. As he stopped next to her, she slid her drink from the cup holder and climbed out. He caught up to her near the playground area, but she didn’t stop until they reached a plastic-covered steel picnic table outside the play area’s picket-fence enclosure.

“This place is great.” He set down his drink and slid on the bench across from her. “I haven’t been here in a while.”

She wouldn’t have come this time if she could think of a better idea to avoid taking Tony to Casey’s. After the ribbing the guys had given her the other night, she couldn’t show up at the Brighton Post’s after-work hangout with a certain FBI agent. Even if there was nothing going on between them.

The park wasn’t a much better choice. It was too hot outside and too quiet now, so near closing time. Well, absent of human voices, anyway. The bullfrogs and cicadas were still performing their nightly chorus. The cloud-covered sky caused the streetlights to cast too many shadows as well, making it appear as if they were sitting closer than they were. Too close.

“I still can’t believe there wasn’t a single coffee shop open after nine.”

She’d driven to three, with him tailing her, before he’d passed her car and led her to a twenty-four-hour convenience store. He’d gone straight for the self-serve slush machines once they were inside.

“Slushes were a better idea, anyway.” He took a long pull on his straw, with frozen azure liquid flowing up the narrow tube. “It’s too hot for coffee.”

She sipped her own cherry drink and managed to swallow. At least hers wasn’t blue.

“I still can’t believe you don’t like raspberry. I thought every kid did.”

Not every kid. “I’m not a kid,” she said instead.

“I know that.”

“Anyway, I don’t like the way it stains your tongue.”

“My tongue?”

“You know what I mean.”

He grinned, and she tried to ignore the weightlessness in her belly.

“Anyway, red slush stains, too.”

He pointed at her mouth, which in daylight would have looked like Santa’s suit by now.

“Good point. I’m not really a fan of any flavor.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“How could I when you looked like an excited kid filling up your cup?” Or when he might have asked her why.

“Oh. I forgot.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and held out a five-dollar bill. “I said I would buy yours.”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“Yes, it was. Is. I always keep my commitments.”

His words were a little intense for a promise to buy a drink, but she let him press the bill into her hand.

“Thanks.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

His mouth opened again, as if he might do more than that, like ask her what really had happened that afternoon. She spoke up before he had the chance.

“Why do you want to leave the task force?”

“I never said I did.”

Instead of answering, she waited. It was none of her business, just as her reason for losing it that day wasn’t his. Still, she couldn’t help wondering why someone who appeared to care about his work could walk away from the victims.

“Fine. I requested a transfer. The double murder will be my last case with the task force.”

“Can I ask why?”

“Sometimes people need a change.”

“Do you know where you’ll be transferred?”

He shook his head and looked toward the water, though the fence in front of him probably blocked his view of it.

“Did Dawson mention I was being transferred?”

“No, he didn’t say anything.”

“Then how’d you know?”

“You just seemed like somebody who needed a change.”

It wasn’t the whole truth but as close as she could get. She could no more tell him the rest than she could share her own experience with a predator and her suspicion that BIG DADDY and Emily’s abductor might be the same person. How could she admit that she sensed a desperation in him? Or that the feeling was so strong it squeezed inside her own chest?

“Because I’ve been grumpy lately?”




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