“Yes, dammit! I wanted everyone in the world to hear what he did. He got off too easy. I wanted him to suffer.” Her hands fisted in his T-shirt and a low, guttural sob escaped her chest.
She stayed like that for a long time, until she could control her breathing, until the tremors in her body subsided. The hard strength of John’s body beneath hers, his muscular arms holding her tight, keeping her close, gave her a peace she’d never felt before. Even if only for this moment, she truly felt safe.
She felt lighter, as if sharing her burden with John had cleansed her soul. She allowed his comfort, allowed him to share her pain. She felt almost free, and it was a heady experience.
John rocked her for quite some time, mulling over everything she’d told him. He’d suspected she’d gone through something traumatic as a child, and when he learned her father had killed her mother he couldn’t imagine anything worse.
Yet it was much, much worse. It sickened him. He wanted to twist the bastard’s neck himself. Both her father and her dead brother.
All that death, all that misery, heaped on a ten-year-old. It was amazing she hadn’t broken down before.
“Is that why you quit the force? The Franklin murders hit too close to home?”
She stiffened in his arms, and he inwardly swore. It wasn’t fair, but he had to know everything. Somehow, her past and what was happening now were connected. Maybe the Franklin murders fit in somehow.
“I almost lost my mind when I saw little Rebecca Sue Franklin dead, because she looked just like Dani. Satisfied?” She tried to sound tough and embittered, but failed. She sounded defeated.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Rowan. But you have to face the truth. Something in your past is connected to these murders. Someone knows what happened to you. You can’t tell me, after receiving the hair and the lilies, that you don’t believe it.”
She said nothing for a long time, and John wondered if she was going to speak at all. “I-I really thought after the hair that it was all connected to the Franklin murders. That case was why I quit the force. It was the impetus to get me to focus on writing books, because I couldn’t do the job anymore. I thought for sure…” Her voice trailed off.
“And?”
“Roger interviewed Franklin’s brother, the one who’d never believed Karl Franklin killed his family and himself. He reviewed the case files; I looked at them for the first time. He has a dozen agents going through not only that case, but all my cases. And nothing. Nothing.”
She paused a long time, and John didn’t interrupt her contemplation. A few moments later she said, “I asked Roger if there was someone else who knew about me, someone from the past. A relative I didn’t know about, a cop who wasn’t right in the head, anyone. He promised he’d look into it, but so far-” she shrugged. “They’re all dead, John! Gone.”
“What about your brother?”
“I told you, he’s dead.”
“Your other brother. Peter.”
She jumped up, staggered backward. Her entire body trembled. “Peter? Are you serious? How dare you!”
“I’m trying to figure this out,” he said, standing slowly, palms up. He hoped she understood he didn’t mean to hurt her. She continued to back away from him.
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! He’s a priest, dammit! He’s the kindest, gentlest man I know. He would never, never take anyone’s life. He would never hurt me.”
John spoke slowly and steadily, wanting Rowan to carefully consider all the possibilities but not sure she was ready to. “Rowan, listen to me. Someone knows about your past, intimate details about your family and your sister Dani. Hell, it took me nearly a week to get what I got and it barely scratched the surface. Someone knows what hurts you. Your brother Peter is a possibility.”
She shook her head. “No.
John went to her. She tried to push him off, but she stumbled in her anguish and he gathered her up. “I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry.” He kissed her forehead as he forced her to sit with him on the edge of the bed.
“It’s not Peter,” she mumbled after several minutes, finally relaxing into his chest, her body still shaking. “Roger put an FBI team on him after the second murder. As protection. If he was traveling all over killing people, they’d have known.”
It seemed like a logical explanation, John thought as he stroked Rowan’s hair. The one person alive who knew about Rowan’s past, knew what would torment her. He’d thought that as soon as he got her to talk, the answer would reveal itself. Peter was one of the few people who knew what happened that night, who knew about her sister’s hair and that Rowan’s name was Lily. He’d almost forgive her for protecting her little brother, not wanting to believe it was him.
But if Peter had been under surveillance, there was no way he could have flown back and forth to Los Angeles, Portland, Washington, Boston. Yet what if Rowan was wrong? What if Peter had an accomplice? Hired someone to help him? Any number of possibilities lodged themselves in John’s mind.
It definitely warranted a call to Roger Collins.
“Are you positive your father is still locked up?” he asked finally.
“Yes. He hasn’t spoken since he killed Mama. Roger called the hospital right after the first murder. Just to be sure.”
It had been a slim chance; now they had nothing. Not nothing-there was still Peter. He glanced at his watch. After three in D.C. He’d call Collins first thing in the morning.
He held Rowan in his arms, feeling her relax inch by inch. She felt good here with him, like she belonged. He rubbed his hands slowly up and down her back. Working the tension out of her muscles. What she’d gone through-he closed his eyes. He’d recall her pain later when he was alone and examine it more closely. Try to understand her complete and total trust in Roger Collins.
Collins was holding everything close to the vest. Why did he feel it was so important to keep Rowan’s past a secret? To protect her? From her emotions-or from someone else?
Did the assistant director know more than he was letting on? John’s instincts hummed. Rowan had been searching for answers and went to Collins for confirmation. He’d assured her that whatever concerns she had about her past were unfounded. She believed him because she trusted him.
John had a feeling her trust in her father-figure was about to be shattered.
He worked a hand up to her neck and she moaned a small pleasure as he kneaded her tight muscles. Feeling the dampness of her tears on his hand, he looked down at her face.
She was so beautiful. Her eyes were closed, but she leaned closer into him to allow his hand more access to her neck. Even with her pale skin splotchy from tears and emotion, her high cheekbones, elegant nose, and full red lips all beckoned to him.
He resisted the urge to kiss her and closed his eyes. He was getting dangerously close to falling for her. Just what he’d warned Michael about.
Had he fallen already?
He felt her kiss his neck, a feather of a kiss, but it reverberated below his belt. “John?” she whispered in his ear.
“What?” His voice sounded gruff and he cleared his throat, his hand pausing on her slender neck.
“Don’t leave.”
He tightened his grip on her and swallowed. She kissed his earlobe. He should leave. She was upset, needy, emotionally drained. He felt like he was taking advantage of her.
She trailed kisses from his ear to his shoulder. Her hand wrapped around his neck, her long, elegant fingers combing his hair, her touch sending heat down his spine.
There was no way in hell he was leaving. He put aside his feelings of hypocrisy and realized for the first time what Michael had felt for Jessica.
He should never have been so quick to judge his brother. He vowed to tell him that tomorrow.
He rubbed Rowan’s back, removed her Glock pressing against his gut. She stiffened at being disarmed, but took her gun from his hand and slid it under her pillow. He took off his own firearm and put it on the nightstand, not taking his eyes from hers.
“Rowan, are you sure-?”
