After finding Luke, Ellie should have been eager to find the rest of the victims. Sold to the highest bidder by the corrupt lawyer, each and every one of them deserved to be found just as much as Luke did. But not even the folders full of missing children on her desk had worked as an effective motivator.
The most she could muster was a half-hearted scan of her voice messages and email to confirm that none of the detectives from other jurisdictions with possible matches to her missing kids had gotten back to her yet. But…nope. Nothing. And she wasn’t expecting anything for days.
That left Ellie with a lot of spare time on her hands. Too much. Days she should spend chasing down other leads. Instead, she wasted hour after hour torturing herself with the last few minutes of Val’s life.
Gunshots exploded, and the man who’d kidnapped Ellie crashed to the floor. Val screamed as she tumbled down the steps.
Ellie grabbed the dying man’s gun and squeezed the trigger at the madman firing from the top of the stairs. She got off several shots before he fled, then raced to Val’s crumpled body, falling to her knees by the woman’s head. “You’re going to be fine, you hear me? Just hold on.”
But even as Ellie uttered the words, she knew she was lying.
Blood. So much blood. A bright red river pouring from her friend’s chest, staining the perverse pink getup their nemesis had forced her to wear.
That brave, strong woman had died on that cold floor, wearing ruffled pink underwear and a matching cropped baby tee with little white socks. A toddler’s outfit. A cruel reminder of the man who’d held Ellie prisoner years ago.
Val died with her blood still warm and slick on Ellie’s hands.
Murdered at the hands of a vicious monster. The very same man who’d kidnapped Ellie when she was only fifteen years old and had never forgotten her since. One man responsible for so many deaths and so much pain. Some mornings, Ellie was surprised to wake up and find her heart hadn’t exploded from the burden of containing it all.
Dr. Lawrence Kingsley, otherwise known as Abel del Rey. Psychiatrist, genius, and sociopath. Ellie wouldn’t rest easy again until he was locked away for good or dead.
If there was any true justice left in the world, it would be the latter option, and by her hand.
“What did those Skittles ever do to you?”
Ellie jumped, and Val’s face disappeared, leaving her glaring at the contents of the vending machine and the fuzzy reflection of a tall man in a cowboy hat. Funny, she didn’t even remember stopping there. She definitely hadn’t noticed Clay walk up behind her.
She grimaced. Some detective she was. So lost in her own thoughts that anyone could have snuck up on her. She needed to get her head on straight…and fast.
Shivering, Ellie rubbed her forearms as she turned to face Special Agent Clay Lockwood. With his usual casual aplomb, he leaned his shoulders against the wall, his favorite cowboy hat perched atop his dark hair. Most days, she allowed herself at least a few moments to appreciate the agent’s lean, muscular grace.
Today, it was all she could do not to whirl back to the vending machine, beat on the glass with her fists, and scream.
“What are you doing here?”
She winced at the sharp edge of her voice, but Clay didn’t miss a beat. “I’m picking up Luke Harrison’s file so that I can use it to help find Caraleigh.”
His tone was so matter-of-fact, he could have been discussing the weather, but Ellie wasn’t fooled. When it came to the younger sister who’d disappeared on a family trip to the fair when she was only eleven and he was thirteen, the agent was a maelstrom of guilt and fear.
“You should probably leave her case to someone who’s less emotionally invested.”
Clay’s eyebrows pinched together as he studied her face, and she thought he was going to say something about pots calling kettles black. Instead, he asked a simple question. “What’s wrong?”
On the heels of her snappiness, his soft, gentle tone was almost more than Ellie could take. Her throat tightened, and that annoying burn kicked in behind her eyes. Another second of his concerned gaze would topple her over the edge, so Ellie stared at her shoes and blinked. “None of your business.”
The hand that circled her upper arm and guided her into the closest empty room was gentle. Clay kicked the door shut behind them. “Go ahead, cry and get it all out.”
The pressure in her throat intensified. “I don’t need to cry. I’m…fine.” The tremor in her voice contradicted her words, but Ellie didn’t care.
She balled her fists, clenched her jaw, and fought off the pain. Crying was worthless. Not even an ocean of tears would bring Val back or rescue poor nine-year-old Harmony…Bethany…from Kingsley’s clutches.
After the psychiatrist killed Val, he’d shot his former protégé, Katarina Volkov, and vanished with her daughter. The pair had been living under the aliases of Katrina and Bethany Cook, courtesy of WITSEC and the federal marshals, but he’d found them anyway.
“I know you better than that.”
Emotion exploded in Ellie’s chest. Dark and furious and wild. She didn’t want Clay to know her better than that. She didn’t want anyone to. Letting people in always ended in pain. Relationships crashed and burned, and the people she was sworn to protect were murdered by sadistic serial killers. Each time, the outcome flayed another piece from Ellie’s heart.
Why couldn’t he understand that and leave her be?
“You might think you know me better, but you don’t. Just because we slept together once and we work together doesn’t mean you have a direct line to who I am or how I think.”
She scoffed, the need to lash out coming stronger and stronger with each word.
Ellie waited for Clay to say something, and when he only looked at her with those tender brown eyes, she poked him in the chest. “I knew
