The Prey

the receiver.

She whirled on John, hit him in the chest. “You’re in on this!”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

“Like hell it is! I want to be here when they take him down. I can’t believe you’d rather run away.”

John steeled his jaw, his anger building. He grabbed her wrists and held them tight, pulling her close. His lips were inches from hers.

“I’m not running away, Rowan,” he said, keeping his voice low and calm. “I’m protecting you. Collins put you in protective custody for your own good.”

“Don’t tell me what’s for my own good,” she said, her voice vibrating, her eyes dark with pain and anger.

“Look at your behavior right now, Rowan. You’ve just proven you’re too close to the case. Don’t do this.”

“After everything that’s happened, I deserve to be here!” Her body shook, her eyes pleading with him.

John didn’t disagree with her. How could he? He understood vengeance. Justice. Doing something yourself because he was your enemy.

But Bobby MacIntosh had proven to be shrewd. He’d planned four of his murders perfectly. The escape of the last victim was partly his bad luck and partly his choice of Sadie Pierce.

John didn’t doubt that MacIntosh had a plan to get Rowan alone and kill her. After hurting her.

He couldn’t let that happen. John was confident in his abilities, but more important, he trusted his instincts. MacIntosh would blow up the damned house if he could. Anything to get Rowan. And John wasn’t going to lose her.

“Well, you don’t have a choice,” he told her quietly. “You have one hour to pack your things and then I’m taking you away.”

She stared at him with a savage look of betrayal. Why couldn’t she understand this was for the best? It wasn’t perfect, but it would keep her alive until they caught her brother.

Without another word, she brushed past him and left the room, slamming the door.

What had he expected? That she’d willingly go with him up the coast? Consider it a vacation? That they could take long walks on the beach and make love in front of the fire? They weren’t going to some damned lover’s nest, it was a safe house. And he wasn’t her lover, just an available partner in bed when they both needed someone.

It was best not to think of his time with Rowan as anything else.

He turned to leave, but the glow of the computer screen caught his eye. He crossed over and read what she’d last written.

My idyllic childhood was anything but. I thought, in my young girl’s mind, that the love of my mother could keep the monsters at bay. Monsters weren’t real, after all.

But we lived with monsters. Not only my brother, whom I had always feared, but a monster masked with the face of a loving father. He never raised his hand to us, his children. But my mother didn’t escape his wrath. And now I can’t help but ask why. Why did she allow herself to be repeatedly hurt? Did it take her death to end her pain?

And why did no one else see my father’s abuse?

It had been a lovely spring day, the white cherry blossoms exploding with life…

She was writing an autobiography, John thought, incredulous. He was sure she hadn’t considered this before. Because she didn’t discuss the past. Now, it seemed, she’d been set free.

He started to have doubts about the safe house. Maybe Collins was wrong and she could handle a confrontation with her brother. Then again, her reaction five minutes ago told him she was too close, too emotionally involved to think straight.

Torn, he looked at the closed door. No, he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk her life.

If he lost Rowan, he didn’t think he would recover. He just hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake.

Rowan remained silent on the lengthy drive up the coast, which took longer than it normally would have because John took several precautions to ensure they weren’t followed. The safe house was near Cambria, a small town north of Santa Barbara.

Rowan thought it ironic that only a few weeks ago she’d thought about spending some time on California’s north coast because it combined the ocean, the woods, and the privacy she craved. The central coast was much the same, and Cambria was an idyllic, quiet vacation community where they would be safe.

Yet she disliked everything about it.

She expected this overprotectiveness from Roger. After all, he’d lied to her from the beginning-in order to protect her. While she despised the lies and the betrayal, at least she understood his motivation. She’d been a different person at ten, barely more than a baby, really. What knight in shining armor wouldn’t want to protect a young damsel in distress? And back then, she’d thought of Roger as her rescuer, her white knight.

But she hadn’t expected this from John. Of all people, she thought John would understand. He wanted justice for Michael as much as-or even more than-she did. And for all Bobby’s other victims.

The sacrifice John had made hit her hard. He’d left to protect her. He’d given up his chance to avenge his brother’s murder because he wanted to keep her safe. She glanced over at him with renewed appreciation. And something deeper. A feeling that had been invading her mind and body since the first night they made love.

John was irrevocably a part of her soul. She couldn’t lose him. She’d finally begun to accept and deal with what had happened so many years ago. Losing John was unthinkable.

When it came right down to it, Rowan hated running. It reminded her of the Franklin murders and the lowest point in her life since Dani had been killed.

She didn’t have the urge to run anymore. Her demon had a face: Bobby. She wanted to fight him herself. She wanted to see the look on his face when he realized she wasn’t the young, weak, frightened little girl he’d confronted twenty-three years ago. Despite her youth she had beaten him then, and surely she could beat him now.

But the opportunity to catch Bobby had been taken away by the erroneous whim of a man who had lied to her and the complicity of a man she had trusted.

It felt wrong, even though she knew it was really their only option. She hadn’t done or said anything to make John or Roger believe she was strong enough to handle a confrontation with Bobby. Was she? If Bobby found her, would she be able to fight him and win? Or would she cower in a closet like her younger self, waiting for him, letting him kill those she loved?

She hoped-no, she believed-that if Bobby found her, she would rise to the challenge. She wouldn’t let him get to her. Couldn’t let him defeat her.

But running kept John safe as well. While she had no doubt he was capable of leading an operation while driven by emotion, here in the safe house, he, too, would be protected. The thought gave her a modicum of peace.

“I’m sorry,” she said to John when he stopped in front of a locked gate down a private drive.

He turned in the seat to look at her, the engine idling. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She shook her head. “Yes, I do. I acted like an immature kid back in Malibu and I sulked all the way here.”

“You do have sulking down to an art. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a woman who could be quiet for three hours.” He was actually joking. It made her heart a little lighter.

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I appreciate you coming here with me. Roger would have assigned an agent. You didn’t have to do this. You could have stayed back in L.A. Avenged Michael.”

John didn’t say anything for a long moment, then took her hand and squeezed so tight it almost hurt. “You mean a lot to me, Rowan. I’m not going to trust your safety to anyone else. Michael is dead.” He swallowed, raw pain clouding his eyes. “You are alive. I need you to stay that way.”

His voice was full of quiet emotion. He put a hand behind her neck and pulled her face to his, kissing her hard on the lips. Then he stepped from the car to unlock the gate.

She closed her eyes and hoped Bobby was caught fast. Not only because he was a vicious murderer who deserved to be locked up in prison-or worse-for the rest of his life, but because her life was in limbo-professionally