Seduced by the Sniper
Elizabeth Heiter
She smiled at him. It was a pathetic excuse for a smile, she could tell, but he looked so worried about her. “I know. It’s not my fault.”
“Do you know?” Scott leaned closer. “Because it sure seems like you’ve been carrying this around with you for a year.”
She had. The guilt was always there. And now that Connors was out of jail, asking for her help, there was no way to hide from it anymore. If she could start working through the consequences of that day, maybe it was time to stop hiding from what had happened with Scott, too.
Maybe it was time to stop denying that she had genuine feelings for this man. Figuring out what exactly those feelings were was the hard part. But the thought of him with someone else filled her with jealousy. And the way he was staring at her now, with so much concern and caring, made need rise up inside her. A need to feel his arms around her again, to feel his lips on hers.
To be with him just one more time.
Acknowledgments (#ulink_1ee408fe-027b-5216-89c5-a258e1b511f5)
Thank you, as always, to all my friends and family, for your support and love. A special thanks to Chris Heiter, Robbie Terman, Ann Forsaith, Nora Smith, Charles Shipps and Sasha Orr, for your feedback. And to Mark Nalbach, for making my book trailers and keeping my website rolling.
Thank you to my agent, Kevan Lyon, and my editor, Paula Eykelhof. I feel grateful every day that I get to work with you.
Finally, to my readers. Thank you for allowing me to continue telling the stories that fill my head—I appreciate you for coming along on the journey!
Seduced by the Sniper
Elizabeth Heiter
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists and a little romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range. Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English literature. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. Visit Elizabeth at www.elizabethheiter.com (http://www.elizabethheiter.com).
For Kristen Kobet. Since the day we became dorm-mates back in college, you’ve been my third sister.
Contents
Cover (#u87ae1fa6-c64c-5a42-aaa2-b9bc723897b9)
Introduction (#u24dbeb7c-6401-5320-a2d6-ff26ef4ecb49)
Acknowledgments (#ulink_036c28c0-472a-5d9b-ab09-0650e108a22c)
Title Page (#u84d8717e-2ba5-5bf2-b97a-9d1f304dc0b3)
About the Author (#uadb6f9ab-15cd-58cc-bd2b-e811fbc41282)
Dedication (#u7b310966-51e8-5ce1-9a76-221f6c967cfe)
Chapter One (#ulink_c6cc341e-d5cc-54f6-b3ec-aee338d546bf)
Chapter Two (#ulink_319f62ce-fe00-5438-8285-4b6d48022a10)
Chapter Three (#ulink_11d8570f-5b0d-59c6-800b-3568a2f1f1e3)
Chapter Four (#ulink_19bfbd20-b25e-5280-8eda-8673376c9056)
Chapter Five (#ulink_3ad3edc3-2ca2-53b5-b4e4-1f3760053410)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_c12ef324-4ada-5cd8-9c3d-404ec1047468)
June, one year ago
Scott Delacorte was a lucky man.
Meeting women had always come easily for him. He’d long ago perfected the subtle charm that drew women in, and the easygoing, never serious attitude that kept them from staying too long. His only rules were no married women and no fellow FBI agents.
Last night, he’d broken the second rule.
Scott rolled over in bed, his eyes closed, still blissed out from a night with newly minted negotiator Chelsie Russell. Tall, blonde and blue-eyed, she looked more like a cover model than an FBI agent, but the thing that had sucked Scott in was her smile. Too big for her face and way too infectious, it came with an impressive ability to read people and a willingness to go toe-to-toe with any agent at Shields Tavern. Including him. And he’d been more than eager to take her up on the challenge.
He’d met her before, in passing. She’d joined the FBI a year after him, with his sister Maggie and their close friend Ella, and over the years, he’d seen her with them. But he’d never really talked to her until last night.
She’d shown up at Shields as he was walking to the door. He’d just said goodbye to his fellow agents from the Hostage Rescue Team when she’d walked in, already grinning. And he’d turned right back around, pushed by a few other guys who’d noticed her, too, and introduced himself. He bought her a drink when she told him she was celebrating officially becoming an FBI negotiator.
He’d done his best to monopolize her at the bar, but he’d been sure she’d turn him down when he invited her back to his place. Instead, she set down her drink, threaded her fingers through his and suggested he lead the way.
In bed, eyes still closed, Scott breathed in the scent of her strawberry shampoo and reached for her. He’d finally fallen asleep sometime after 4:00 a.m., and his internal clock told him it couldn’t be much past seven now. But he was already craving the feel of her long hair draped around his face, her nails skimming over his back as she kissed him. His fingers stretched across the bed, searching, but all he felt was empty sheets, still warm on her side.
Opening his eyes, Scott glanced around his bedroom. Empty.
He sat up, stifling a yawn, and peered toward the bathroom. The door was open. She wasn’t in there. Last night, he’d strewn both of their clothes all over the room. Now hers were missing.
Cursing, he jumped out of bed. He still felt her warmth on his sheets, so she couldn’t have been up long. Not bothering to get dressed, he hurried through his small bungalow to the entryway.
He lived in rural Virginia, so he didn’t have to worry about curious neighbors as he opened the door and peered outside.
Her car was gone.
Scott stared at the empty drive for a minute before slowly closing the door. She’d actually sneaked out on him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard her get up. Normally, the smallest noise woke him. But she’d completely worn him out last night. Then slipped away without a word.
He’d had his share of flings, even a few one-night stands, but he’d never sneaked out on anyone. And although he would’ve bet good money that Chelsie Russell had never had a single fling before last night, he was shocked that she’d slunk off.
It probably served him right. All the years of never wanting a serious relationship, and the one woman who’d completely captivated him didn’t want anything real with him.
Still, the knowledge stung. It didn’t matter how stupid it might be to expect something real to develop out of a one-night stand. The fact was, he’d already been planning their first real date, and the one after that, before he’d invited her home.
But he hadn’t made it into the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team by giving up at the first sign of failure. Chelsie’s first day as a negotiator at the Washington Field Office started today. The WFO was less than twenty-five miles from Quantico, where HRT was based, and his sister Maggie worked there. It’d be simple to find a way to run into Chelsie. Whatever her reasons for skipping out on him—probably pure and simple embarrassment over jumping in so fast—he planned to use every ounce of charm he had to get her back into his bed, and his life.
He flicked on the coffeepot as he turned back to his bedroom and was pulling on his pants when his cell phone beeped, loud and insistent.
Scott grabbed it off his nightstand. Triple-eight code. An emergency callout.
His pulse spiked as he yanked on the rest of his clothes, then reached for the gear he’d dumped on his nightstand last night when Chelsie had dragged him toward his bed. He strapped on his holster and picked up his BlackBerry. His tactical bag with his sniper rifle was in the back of his SUV, so he double-timed it out the door as he checked the text on his phone for details.
Active shooter. Location: a community center close to his house. The reported targets: military officers in town for a recruitment booth scheduled to open in half an hour.
HRT was going straight to the site and would set up an immediate command post on the outskirts. The community center was close, so Scott knew he’d beat the rest of his team there. Procedure dictated that he move in as close as he could and set up an observation post. Figure out how many shooters there were, and where they were located. His boss would be close behind him with instructions beyond that.
Scott hopped into his Bureau-issued SUV and sped out of his dirt drive, kicking up dust behind him. As he drove, he called the Special Agent in charge of his team, nicknamed Froggy because he’d come from the Navy SEALs before joining the Bureau.
“What’s the situation?” he asked Froggy.
“Details are still sketchy. Call came in to 911 eight minutes ago. Reports are there’s a long-distance shooter involved, so the locals want us to take it. CNU is sending one of their best.”
CNU was the Crisis Negotiation Unit at Quantico. Typically in charge of training negotiators from the FBI’s field offices around the country, they also deployed with HRT for major incidents. Right now, a negotiator at CNU was probably closer than one from the Washington Field Office.
The negotiator would focus on trying to talk the shooter down peacefully. HRT’s job was to provide a tactical solution if that wasn’t possible.
“You’ll be first on site,” Froggy said. “We’ll be right behind you. According to the eyewitness, there’s only one shooter.”
He didn’t have to tell Scott that what that really meant was they had no idea how many shooters there were. Witness reports were notoriously unreliable.
Barreling down the rural highway toward the site of the shooting, his siren blaring, Scott asked, “How many civilians?”
“Don’t know. The community center wasn’t open yet, but the call came in from a secretary who works there. She and another worker managed to get out of the building and to their cars. She says she thinks the only ones left at the center are the army officers.”
“I don’t suppose they’re armed?”
“I don’t think so.”
The answer was partly good—it meant he wouldn’t have to worry about being shot by a friendly. And it was partly bad—the targets couldn’t protect themselves. Scott punched down harder on the gas and shut off his siren. “I’m less than a minute out.”
“Watch yourself,” Froggy said. “I’ll be there in five.”
Scott had been called to a lot of shootings since he’d joined HRT. Sometimes the shooters were experienced, sometimes they relied on dumb luck and firepower. But the fact that a long-distance shooter was involved meant they were responding with extra caution, especially since he couldn’t be sure there was only one of them.
He drove his SUV to a line of trees outside the community center, slamming to a stop underneath them. Beside him was the back parking lot; he knew there was another lot at the front of the building. As he shimmied into his bulletproof vest and strapped on the extra gear he’d need, the crack of a rifle split the air.
Swearing, Scott stayed low as he went around to the back of his vehicle for his gear, scanning the area as he moved. The shot had come from the front of the center, but that didn’t mean a second shooter wasn’t out here.
He quickly counted ten cars in the back parking lot, the early June sunlight glinting off the windshields. If one belonged to the shooter, that left at least nine innocents.
The back lot was empty of people, which meant everyone was either in the front lot, where the shooting was happening, or inside the building. He hoped it was the latter, but if that were the case, Scott knew he probably wouldn’t be hearing gunshots right now.
Sweat gathered at his temples, but his heart rate stayed steady. This was the job. It never got routine, but HRT practiced with live fire and he’d taken a lot of calls in the past six months. He’d discovered his tendency was to stay calm until it was all over. Then his adrenaline rush would fade and the reality of what had happened would sink in.
Right now, he needed to assess. His gut instinct was that the single shooter theory was right, but he wasn’t going to take that as a given until he’d confirmed it with his own eyes.
Scott yanked his Remington rifle, complete with a custom scope, out of his tactical bag. Keeping low, he raced for the corner of the building where he could peek around to the front and evaluate. Being first on scene, he was Sierra One: sniper position one, closest to the action.
It was exactly where he liked to be, although usually he found the high ground and set up with a lot more care, with the time to scout out exactly the right angles for all his teammates. Right now, with an active shooter, every second could cost lives.
Crouching down, Scott grabbed his tactical mirror and stretched it past the edge of the building, scanning.
He held in a curse as he realized the recruitment booth had been set up in the front parking lot. He spotted four men down beside the table, clearly dead, and three others sprawled near the door, likely hit as they’d made a run for the entrance. Two more were lying behind the community-center sign in pools of blood. If the shooter had hit them there, it meant he had high ground, that he’d found a perch with an angle sharp enough to see the men over the top of the sign.
He couldn’t be positive until he checked pulses, but he was pretty sure he was too late to help any of them. Scott reined in his anger and helplessness and thought strategically, the way HRT had taught him.
It was likely the tenth car in the lot belonged to the shooter. But where was he? Scott rotated the mirror again, searching, when it was ripped out of his fingers, the sound of a rifle booming.
Scott shook out his hand, which burned from the force of the mirror being shot out of it, and sunk low. He no longer had a visual and no way was he sticking his head around that corner. In the distance, over the ringing in his ears from the rifle shots, he heard the clang of metal.
The bleachers. On the other side of the community center there had once been a high school. It had been torn down years ago and was now mostly overgrown, but kids played baseball in the field occasionally. The bleachers were still there, the perfect spot for a skilled shooter to lie down and wait.
Scott raced back the way he’d come, taking out his FBI BlackBerry. But as he rounded the back of the building, he discovered he didn’t need it. The rest of his team had arrived.
Another sniper and six operators, including Froggy. The operators were fast, strapping on gear from their tactical bags, choosing only the most crucial of the sixty-five pounds of equipment they usually carried.
“What’s the situation?” Scott’s partner, Andre Diaz, was already scanning the area with his scope, his normally laid-back expression tense.
“We’ve got nine down in the front parking lot. Shooter was on the bleachers at the park, about two hundred yards from the front parking lot, but I’m pretty sure he took off. Be careful. This guy shot the tactical mirror right out of my hand.”
Grim faces swung toward him.
“You get a vehicle?” Andre asked.
When Scott shook his head, Andre ran for the other side of the building for a different vantage point. Scott started to follow when a sedan swung into the lot, sirens screaming.
Glaring at the newcomer—the CNU negotiator had finally arrived—Scott sliced a hand in front of his neck and the siren went silent.
Martin Jennings, who’d been a negotiator for the Bureau for nearly two decades, hopped out of his car. “Where’s Russell?”
Scott froze in the process of chasing after Andre, but it didn’t matter, because his partner was already coming back their way.
“What have you got?” Froggy asked.
“Black Taurus. I got a plate,” Andre said. “We’ll need to call the locals and have roadblocks set up. He’s gone.”
“Russell?” Scott asked, his attention fully, anxiously on Martin.
“Chelsie Russell,” Martin said. “Brand-new negotiator. I called her to have her meet me here and she was already nearby. She should have beaten me.”
Scott glanced at the non-Bureau cars in the lot. Ten cars. And the shooter had been parked over by the bleachers, not here. Was the tenth car Chelsie’s? He scanned them, and realized the one way at the back was a small, nondescript white compact. Just like the one Chelsie had driven last night.
Sucking in a hard breath, Scott spun for the front lot again. Behind him, he heard Martin calling for ambulances and Froggy calling the locals to get roadblocks set up. He sensed without glancing back that Andre was following him, that his partner knew something was up.
But all he could think of was Chelsie. He’d seen nine bodies. Was there a tenth?
* * *
CHELSIE RUSSELL HUNCHED outside the front door of the community center, shielded on either side by the brick walls of the building that jutted forward, forming a protective U around her. The bullhorn she’d been shouting into less than ten minutes ago hung limply at her side. Above her, the sky was a brilliant, mocking blue.
She was too terrified to move.
A minute ago, the shooter had taken another shot, although at what she had no idea. All his targets were dead. All except her.
He’d been shooting from somewhere off to her right. Was he maneuvering around now, trying to get a bead on her?
She stared at the army officers who’d ducked down behind the community-center sign, thinking they were safe. He’d picked them off, then shot the three who’d run toward her, ignoring her gestures for them to stay where they were. Nausea rolled through her and she forced herself to look away from the men, their arms splayed wide as if they were still entreating her to help.
They’d been alive a minute ago. Alive and afraid, like her. When she’d crept out the door, she’d seen a sudden burst of hope in their eyes. They’d started to run even though she’d frantically gestured for them to stay put. So she’d put that bullhorn to her lips and done exactly what the FBI had trained her to do.
Connect with the perpetrator. Identify what he wanted. Then convince him through communication tactics that he could achieve it another way.
But he’d ignored every attempt she’d made to talk him down. Resisted every single tactic she’d been taught by the Crisis Negotiation Unit.
She’d gotten here in time. She should have been able to save five of them. But she hadn’t made a bit of difference.
Why hadn’t she stayed in Scott Delacorte’s bed? Instead of dressing silently and tiptoeing through his house out to her car, she could have rolled over and run her hands over his spectacular body until he’d woken up. Until he’d pressed his lips to hers and made her forget everything but the feel of him on top of her.
Instead, she’d slipped out the door, embarrassed and uncertain after waking up next to a man she barely knew. Before she’d turned off his street, she’d gotten the call from Martin, sending her here. She’d felt a surge of nerves mingled with anticipation and a stupid, baseless confidence that she could change the outcome the shooter had planned today.
Right now, more help was on the way, possibly even Scott himself, but she was the only one left to save. Would they arrive before the shooter found her?
Chelsie eased back toward the door of the community center, erasing her view of the dead soldiers, of the blood painting the concrete red. Ears ringing from the gunshots, she clutched her Glock so tightly her hand ached. She didn’t have the range of a rifle, and whoever had been shooting had been deadly accurate.
She opened the door, staying low, and slipped back inside the community center, her heart beating a too-rapid tempo. A haze fell over her thoughts and she couldn’t shake it. Six years in the FBI and she’d never seen anything like this.
Six years in the FBI and she’d never failed like this. She’d joined on a fluke, an attempt to find a place she finally fit. And she thought she had. She’d started in the Los Angeles Field Office, thrown into counterterror as a rookie, and discovered she had a knack for understanding people, agents and criminals alike. That knack had helped her to shed the Barbie-doll nickname she’d been given her first day, and to fit in with the mostly male agents. And it had ultimately led her to negotiation.
Becoming a negotiator had made her feel as though everything in her life had finally snapped into place, as though she’d found where she belonged, the place she could make a real difference.
Resolution through dialogue—it was CNU’s motto. In the intense, unforgiving two-week training, she’d excelled. In real life, apparently, she didn’t.
Martin Jennings had told her to wait for him before she engaged the shooter. He had more than twenty years’ experience talking down dangerous subjects; she had training exercises in a classroom. She’d inched as close to the scene as she dared without putting herself in the line of fire, fully intending to wait. But two people had been shot as she stepped out the door, and she’d known she couldn’t sit on the sidelines a second longer.
She’d done her best, and she knew it. But her best hadn’t been close to good enough.
Worry about it later, Chelsie told herself, her eyes darting left and right. She stuck close to the wall as she walked through the empty, silent community center. Then the sound of a siren reached her ears. She let out a relieved breath, but it caught less than a minute later as a shadow passed by the glass door on the side of the building. A tall shadow, carrying a rifle.
Flattening herself against the wall, Chelsie set the bullhorn carefully on the floor so she could grip her Glock with both hands. She inched closer, stepping soundlessly in her practical flats. Her senses seemed to shrink, until all she saw was the glass door to the side of the building, until all she heard was her own even, deep breathing. If there was no talking him down, she wasn’t letting the shooter get away, wasn’t giving him the chance to go after anyone else. Not today or ever again.
Slowly, slowly, she turned the handle and opened the door, inch by inch. She sensed before she saw that he’d heard her, so she ripped the door open the rest of the way. Her Glock came up fast and steady, taking aim at center mass. “FBI! Don’t move!”
She instantly processed the Kevlar vest, the extra weapon strapped to the leg, the Remington rifle in his hands, then recognized more before he finished spinning toward her. The dark blond hair. The tall, lanky body. The long, slim fingers gripping the stock of the rifle.
“Scott,” she blurted. The fun-loving, quick-to-smile agent she’d been unable to resist last night seemed like someone else entirely in his tactical gear, his expression fierce and determined.
“Chelsie.” Relief bloomed in his chocolate-brown eyes, so strong it made her own eyes water.
Another HRT sniper materialized from around the corner, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Scott. Heat rushed up her face, but it wasn’t from the embarrassment of being caught in the same clothes he’d peeled off her last night, or from seeing him so soon after sneaking out in the darkness. Seeing Scott couldn’t distract her from the weariness and splintering anger she suddenly felt.
Nine people had died today. And it didn’t matter what the FBI thought of her actions. Her career as a negotiator had ended before it had even begun.
Chapter Two (#ulink_6c8b87a1-4f7b-5afd-9490-33e4ab04215d)
June, present day
“You missed a spot,” Chelsie told Maggie Delacorte as they walked out of the Washington Field Office.
Scott’s younger sister looked nothing like him. A few inches shorter than Chelsie, with dark brown hair cut into a stylish, practical bob, and light blue eyes, Maggie shared only one thing with her brother: the intensity in their gaze. Or two, counting their willingness to put their lives on the line in FBI tactical positions.
Maggie shrugged, swiping a hand over her face that completely missed the smear of camouflage paint left along her hairline. “Doesn’t matter. I have a date with my TV and a bowl of popcorn tonight.”
That was Chelsie’s evening plan, too. She smiled at her friend, who’d been with the Washington Field Office’s SWAT team for the past four years. SWAT was an ancillary position, meaning Maggie did that in her spare time. She spent her days as a regular Special Agent working civil rights cases like hate crimes and human trafficking. She was in the thick of it all the time, while Chelsie had come back to the WFO a year ago and not only dropped hostage negotiation but switched to the safest job she could find. White-collar crime, where lives were rarely on the line. Where she wouldn’t have to stand by and watch while nine people were shot and killed.
Chelsie shuddered and Maggie eyed her questioningly.
As the days had turned into months, she’d slowly stopped having nightmares about her only case as a negotiator. The FBI had found her not to have any fault in the incident. They’d cleared her within a week and expected her to continue as a negotiator. But Chelsie had wanted out. It was her job to change the outcome of cases like that. If she couldn’t do it, she had no business being a negotiator.
Maggie knew about that day—it had been big news at the time. But Chelsie had never discussed it with her, especially not what had happened the night before with Maggie’s older brother. The only one-night stand she’d had in her entire life.
And she certainly wasn’t going to put any of that on Maggie now. Tomorrow was the anniversary of the shooting, but they’d caught the perp the same day. She’d testified against him, and his trial had finally concluded last month.
Clayton Connors was a former soldier, honorably discharged after suffering minor injuries in an IED that had killed the rest of his unit. It had seemed likely that his insanity plea would land him in a mental institution instead of prison, but after a week of deliberating, the jury had found him guilty. Chelsie had watched as he’d been led out of the courthouse in shackles, heading toward a maximum-security prison. He’d never be getting out.
The same couldn’t be said for the man who probably still gave Maggie nightmares. Maggie had never shared her past with Chelsie, but she’d heard a few office whispers over the years. The Fishhook Rapist, who’d claimed one victim every September 1 before releasing her with a brand on the back of her neck, had started with Maggie a decade ago. It was when Maggie had been a senior in college, and Chelsie was certain it had led her friend to the FBI.
Maggie was a lot braver than she was. Instead of hiding behind the safest cases she could, she’d jumped into one of the roughest, and probably most dangerous, jobs in the Bureau.
Chelsie opened her mouth, wanting to ask Maggie how she did it, then promptly closed it. They’d bonded in the Academy as two of the few women in the class, but Maggie had come in with Ella Cortez, and theirs was a friendship Chelsie could never hope to match. She and Maggie shared stories in the office and got a beer together after work once in a while, but that was the extent of it.
She’d never told Maggie—or anyone else—the profound sense of failure she’d felt after the shooting. It had eroded her confidence to the point where her parents and three younger brothers had been certain she would quit the Bureau entirely. But somehow she’d stuck it out. Maybe one day, she’d feel like she belonged here again.
Instead of saying any of that to Maggie, Chelsie put on her usual smile and waved as Maggie hopped into her car. Then she strode to the back of the parking structure where she’d left her trusty old compact. Her steps slowed as she approached.
Beside her little car was a hulking black SUV. And even from a distance, though she hadn’t seen him in more than six months, she recognized the man standing beside it.
His hair was a little bit longer, not so close to a buzz cut as it had been a year ago. It was a little bit blonder, too, as if he’d been spending a lot of time in the sun. His deep brown eyes were covered with a pair of sunglasses, but she could still picture their exact shade. His expression was neutral, his jawline hard, but like always, he seemed to crackle with barely contained energy, seemed to exude charm just standing there. He looked as though he’d put on muscle, though she knew firsthand that his lanky form made him appear thinner than he actually was. When she’d taken off his clothes, she’d discovered muscles that had felt like steel under her greedy fingers.
She forced herself to keep moving, to stare at him with what she hoped was an expression as bland as his. She was five foot ten in flats and he still had half a foot on her. “Scott. What are you doing here?”
There was no question he’d been waiting for her. Anticipation fluttered to life in her stomach. He’d pursued her in those first few months after the shooting. He’d shown up at Shields or stopped by the WFO to see Maggie and then found a way to seek Chelsie out, too. He’d given her that sexy smile, and asked her to dinner, or out for drinks. Eventually, she’d said no enough times that he’d stopped chasing her.
She’d been shocked that he’d wanted even a second night. Chelsie had heard about some of his exploits through Maggie over the years, so she knew Scott had a reputation as a one-date kind of guy.
One-night stands had never been her style. But that night, she simply hadn’t been able to resist him. She’d been on such an incredible high when she walked into Shields. She’d finally become an FBI negotiator and she’d wanted to celebrate. None of her usual friends at the office had been available, so she’d gone by herself. She’d expected to grab a beer and toast her accomplishment, then go home.
Then Scott had sat down next to her and bought her that beer. Out of all the women in there, Scott had turned the full force of his charm on her. The sexy, lopsided grin; the intensity of his gaze focused solely on her; the feel of his fingers brushing over hers—it had hit her with a longing she’d never felt. They’d stayed until closing time, long past when all the other agents had left.
When he’d invited her home, she’d planned to say no. But somehow, she’d stared into his deep brown eyes and found herself nodding, her heart beating faster as she’d told him to lead the way. She’d followed him out of that bar before she could change her mind.
Until this moment she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him.
She tried to forced back the emotion, tried to ignore the little voice in her head telling her it could have worked, if only she’d given him a chance. Scott might have chased after her, but he’d just wanted a repeat of that incredible night, a simple fling. It would have ended quickly, but inevitably someone would have found out. That wouldn’t have made a dent in his career, but it sure would have hurt hers.
She didn’t date other agents. As a woman, that was a quick way to make everyone around her question how she’d succeeded in the Bureau. She didn’t need that.
Especially since it had happened once before. She hadn’t gone out on a single date with her supervisor back in LA, but he’d shown interest, and that fast, the rumors had started. It had taken a transfer to Washington, DC to stop them. That romance would have been forbidden. One with Scott wasn’t—they didn’t work on the same squad. But she didn’t want to risk it—her career or her heart. Not for someone who wasn’t searching for anything remotely serious.
She’d known serious wasn’t Scott’s style the second she’d met him, years ago, when she’d been out at a pub with Maggie and Ella and a few other agents. He’d swung by their table, said hello, his gaze lingering longer on the female agents, then he’d been off. He hadn’t paid her any special attention then, but she’d definitely noticed him. She’d realized right away that it was probably better he hadn’t homed in on her, because she didn’t do casual. And it had been immediately obvious that casual was the only way he worked.
It didn’t matter how her pulse picked up at the thought of him, even a year after their one incredible, spontaneous night together. It didn’t matter how completely in tune his sense of humor had been with hers, how strangely comfortable she’d felt with him, how right his body had felt pressed against hers. It didn’t matter how much she’d wished things had turned out differently. Because the truth was, he reminded her too much of a day she wanted desperately to forget, reminded her too much of her failure.
She tried to keep her face impassive, wishing she had her own shades to cover eyes that were probably showing too much as she stared up at him. Had he decided to try again? Was she crazy to keep resisting him?
His biceps flexed as he reached up and removed his sunglasses, and that fast, Chelsie’s shoulders dropped. There was no heat in his eyes, just cool professionalism. If there was a hint of something more intimate lurking in those chocolate-colored depths, he hid it well.
“Chelsie.” Scott’s deep voice was flat and even, nothing like the way he’d growled her name as he’d lowered himself on top of her. His mouth had caressed hers exactly right, with a familiarity he shouldn’t have known. His hands had slid over her body with a similar confidence, making her writhe beneath him desperately.
She swallowed hard, trying to banish the memory, and saw recognition flicker in his eyes, and couldn’t hold his stare.
If Scott Delacorte had known exactly how to touch her, it wasn’t because they were somehow magically in tune. It was because he had a lot of practice. Chances were he’d long since moved on. If she couldn’t seem to do the same, she at least needed to do a better job of pretending.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to hide her reaction and looked back into his eyes.
His blank expression had cracked, letting a hint of what she’d seen in his eyes a year ago peek through. But his voice was hard and urgent as he demanded, “I need you to get in the SUV and come with me.”
“What? Why—”
“Connors escaped from jail this morning. We’re putting you in protective custody.”
* * *
AS SCOTT SPED out of the WFO’s parking structure, he sensed Andre’s gaze on him from the passenger seat. They’d been partners since Scott joined HRT. When you’ve put your life in someone else’s hands enough times, spent enough missions scouting out targets for days on end, you got to know the person. Andre definitely knew something was up.
Scott had never told him about Chelsie. He wasn’t the type to kiss and tell in general, but he wasn’t completely secretive, either. Still he’d never spoken to anyone about what he’d shared with Chelsie. Somehow, it felt too intimate, and he wanted to lock the memory away, keep it only for himself.
From the backseat, Chelsie finally spoke up. “How’d he get out?”
“Faked a medical emergency,” Scott said. “The ambulance was in a car crash. Connors overpowered his guard and then tackled the driver. He was gone before the police arrived.”
Andre turned in his seat, stretched his hand toward Chelsie. “Special Agent Andre Diaz. Scott and I are partners at HRT.”
“Chelsie Russell. So, Andre, why the protective custody?”
Tension vibrated in her voice. As an agent, she was well aware they wouldn’t put her into protective custody simply because a criminal from one of her cases had escaped.
“There was a break-in at your apartment this afternoon, about an hour after Connors got out,” Andre said in his typical straightforward way.
“What? Why didn’t anyone call me?”
“There’s probably a message on your phone,” Scott said. “You were in a meeting.”
Scott sensed Chelsie lean forward in the backseat, and he couldn’t help but notice the familiar scent of her strawberry shampoo. He wanted to reach his hand back and clasp it around hers, but he swallowed the urge and tightened his grip on the steering wheel instead. She might still have been attracted to him on some level—he’d seen that in her wide blue eyes the second she’d stepped close to him in the WFO parking lot—but Chelsie had made her feelings about him clear.
“Did he take anything? And how did he find me?” Chelsie asked.
“Well, the place wasn’t ransacked,” Scott answered. “We don’t know how he tracked you down.” Her information was unlisted, but apparently Connors’s skills extended beyond his rifle.
“Are you sure it was Connors?”
“No. But prison officials went through Connors’s cell after he got out and it seems like the guy was fixated on you.” Scott gritted his teeth, remembering the briefing the team had gotten from Froggy an hour ago. The Bureau wanted Chelsie Russell in protective custody, and since Connors had gotten his marksman training from the military, they wanted a pair of snipers watching her.
HRT did protective details all the time. Protecting another agent was an unusual assignment, but Scott had volunteered. Every time he thought about Connors, he remembered how the man had shot the tactical mirror out of his hand from two hundred yards away. There were top-notch snipers in HRT, but this was Chelsie’s life they were talking about. Regardless of her feelings for him, he had to be the one protecting her. And Andre, good friend that he was, had immediately raised his hand, too, when Scott volunteered.
“He fixated on me, how?” Chelsie asked, her voice tight.
“Your name was written repeatedly in a notebook that was found in his cell,” Andre said. “He had limited internet privileges and when they checked, they discovered that he’d been looking for information on you.”
At Connors’s murder trial, the prosecuting attorney had argued the only reason the two community-center workers and Chelsie had lived was because Connors hadn’t been able to line up shots on them. He’d been drawn to the site because of the military connection, but for some reason, after his capture, he’d become obsessed with Chelsie.
The FBI wasn’t sure why he’d fixated on her—she’d barely arrived on scene before Connors had taken off. Maybe it was because, unlike the community-center workers, who’d been inside the building when he’d started shooting and who he might never have known were there, Chelsie had talked to him. Whatever she’d said must have made an impression. Or maybe it was just because she was the only one he’d known was there whom he hadn’t been able to hit.
Apparently now he’d decided to come back and finish what he’d started. The two community-center workers had been put under protective custody, too, but the locals were handling that. And they’d only found references to Chelsie in Connors’s cell.
“He won’t get anywhere near you,” Scott promised, and he knew there was no way anyone in the car could miss the too-personal conviction in his voice.
Andre’s eyes flicked to him, then away, as the car went briefly, uncomfortably silent.
The silence stretched until finally Chelsie asked, “Where are we going?” Her voice was neutral, but she was trying too hard to sound as though she hadn’t noticed his intensity.
The scent of strawberries faded as she leaned back in her seat, away from him.
“We’re taking you to a safe house,” Andre answered. “There’s a bag for you in back. We had one of the cops who responded to the break-in pack it for you.”
“A female cop,” Scott added, ridiculously bothered by the idea of a male cop pawing through her underwear drawer. An equally ridiculous thought followed—the hope that the cop had packed the underwear set Chelsie had been wearing when they were together. Pale pink and completely, unexpectedly feminine, especially underneath the straight-cut dress pants and loose button-down she’d worn to Shields.
“Okay,” Chelsie said, obviously having no idea about the direction of his thoughts.
But from the way Andre’s lips were quivering, he had an idea. When Scott glanced at his friend, Andre’s eyebrows lifted toward the dome of his shaved head.
Ignoring him, Scott turned onto a random side street, weaving his way leisurely through the neighborhood and keeping an eye on the rearview mirror.
“No one,” Andre said as they came out the other side and Scott made a series of sudden, erratic turns.
They didn’t have a tail. Good. There was no reason to think they’d been followed, but Scott wasn’t taking any chances. Finally, he got back on the freeway and started driving south.
Ironically, the safe house was only fifteen miles from his home, ten miles from the scene of the shooting. It was in the middle of nowhere, an abandoned farmhouse on a flat, empty piece of land that would telegraph anyone’s approach for miles. No good place for a sharpshooter to set up a hide, which was the reason they’d chosen it.
He and Andre had driven over there right after the briefing and set the place up, leaving Andre’s car behind. Then they’d gone back for Chelsie. Good thing they’d been fast because although a message had been left for Chelsie not to leave the office, apparently it hadn’t been delivered.
Hopefully, they’d catch Connors quickly and lock him behind bars again, and Chelsie would be safe. She could go back to her white-collar cases at the WFO and he could go back to pretending he didn’t miss her.
But as she leaned forward again, and he took a deep breath of strawberry—his new favorite scent—Scott revised that thought. Hopefully Connors would stay on the run long enough for Scott to change Chelsie’s mind about giving him another chance.
* * *
THE SAFE HOUSE looked a lot like Scott’s cozy little bungalow.
As soon as Chelsie stepped through the door, she halted, making Scott walk into her. He gripped her arm quickly, before she stumbled, and the feel of his strong fingers wrapped around her elbow sent goose bumps running up her arm. The heat of his body against her back made her want to lean into him and hook her arms around his neck. Instead she jerked forward out of his grasp, and put some distance between them.
Not glancing back, she stepped farther into the house, and tried to cool down. It had been a year! And they’d only spent one night together. An incredible night, but still... How could he still affect her like this?
It was ridiculous. He wasn’t her type at all. She didn’t go for the too-handsome, too-charming playboy types. She dated accountants and engineers, decent looking but not so attractive that every woman in the room stared. They were safe and serious. She picked the ones who didn’t feel threatened by her job because they believed her when she said she sat behind a desk. Guys who wanted more than a little fun and a little fling.
“I’m going to catch a nap.” Andre’s voice broke into her thoughts and she turned to face him. “Scott and I were called in for a case about—” he checked his watch “—eighteen hours ago.”
“Sure, okay,” she said, and silently cursed at how nervous she sounded. Hopefully Andre would think it was just the situation, and not the thought of being alone with Scott.
Scott’s partner nodded at her, his dark brown eyes unreadable as he moved past her toward one of the bedrooms, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and a tactical bag hanging from his other hand. He was undeniably attractive, probably in his early thirties and about her height, with smooth, dark skin, and biceps that strained his T-shirt.
As Andre disappeared into the room at the end of the hall, closing the door with a soft thud, Chelsie glanced back to find Scott watching her. He, too, had a duffel bag over one shoulder, and a tactical bag over the other. And, she realized, a small blue duffel bag tucked beside the tactical bag. Her belongings.
She held out a hand for it. “Sorry. I can take that.”
Scott gave her the bag, his fingers brushing hers...on purpose? The same sensitivity rushed up her skin, the feeling of him lingering after he’d stepped back.
“Why don’t you go ahead and settle in?” He tossed the car keys on the table and put his bags down. “I’m going to make a quick phone call and then I want to review the case file.”
Chelsie nodded mutely as her stomach churned. After her testimony at Connors’s trial had concluded, she’d hoped she’d never have to see anything from that horrible day again. Even thinking about the case made the memories rush back, the metallic scent of blood floating on the wind, the heat of the sun beating down on her shoulders, the bang of the rifle as another man fell and nothing she said made any difference.
She turned away from Scott, hoping he wouldn’t see the emotions on her face, and walked down the hallway to another bedroom. Once inside, she shut the door and leaned against it, glancing around as her heart rate slowed. The shades were drawn on the room’s sole window, and she’d keep them that way. The room was simple: a single bed, a nightstand and a dresser, all mismatched. A dusty treadmill sat in the corner with an ancient radio propped on top of it.
She set her duffel on the bed, not bothering to see what the cop had packed for her, and sank down beside it. The springs on the bed sagged too far under her weight as she stared at the blank walls.
The bones of the house really were a lot like Scott’s little bungalow. But Scott’s house had been full of charm and personality. For a guy with a reputation with the women, she’d expected a true bachelor’s pad: leather couches, a big-screen TV and a black bedspread on a king-size bed. Instead, she’d discovered his taste in decorating ran to blues and greens. He had artwork on his walls, family pictures on his tables and his bedroom could only be described as cozy.
She’d been in his house just once. And most of those hours had been spent in his bed. So why could she picture it better than some of her friends’ houses that she’d been to dozens of times?
“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” Scott’s voice suddenly carried into her room, loud enough for her to overhear.
He must have gone into the third bedroom, had to be on the phone. With a girlfriend? Was Scott Delacorte actually dating someone seriously enough that she might miss him if he was away for a few days? Heck, for all she knew, he was living with someone.
Chelsie pushed the thought out of her mind. It was none of her business.
Still, she couldn’t help straining to listen as he added, “Keep an eye on her, okay?” He sounded stressed, as though whoever needed looking after was someone he didn’t want to leave alone. As though he wanted to be the one watching over her.
Did he resent being sent to a safe house to watch over Chelsie instead?
Stop it, Chelsie told herself. Scott had given her plenty of opportunities to be with him. She’d been the one to say no. She had no right to be jealous of whoever had his attention now.
But as she heard Scott say goodbye to whoever he’d called, she knew it didn’t matter what she told herself to feel. The truth was, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Scott in the past year. But he wasn’t a real option, just a momentary distraction, and she needed to deal with it. She stood, squared her shoulders, and went to the door, yanking it open.
Scott was standing on the other side, his hand raised as though he’d been about to knock. He slowly lowered his arm as she stared up at him.
And then, before she could move, he’d taken a step forward, until he was standing so close to her that she could see his eyes darken and his pupils expand. And then his head lowered toward hers.
He moved slowly, giving her time to step away, but she couldn’t seem to break his spell. And then she was the one moving toward him, pushing herself up on her tiptoes and threading her fingers in his hair.
His mouth came down hard on hers, his lips urgent and so familiar. She sighed in the back of her throat as she pulled him closer. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her again and again, until she felt as if she had been transported backward a year.
As if the massacre had never happened. As if she’d gone home with him from Shields—the only truly spontaneous, irresponsible thing she’d ever done—and just stayed. As if this was the beginning of something, instead of long past the end.
The thought brought her abruptly back to reality. She untangled her hands from Scott’s hair and pushed against his chest as he was walking her backward, toward that single bed. She pushed a little harder and his lips left hers.
His gaze was intense, but as he stared at her, all trace of emotion disappeared. He stepped back abruptly, making her stumble, and his lips hooked up at the corner derisively. “Still playing games with me, Chelsie?” His voice seemed to caress her name, but the expression on his face was one of disgust. At her? At himself? She wasn’t sure.
But when he turned and walked out of her room, she didn’t call him back.
Chapter Three (#ulink_ca8677fc-ef10-5dc7-9968-cd588b72a764)
“You want to take a look at this?” Scott asked as Chelsie finally emerged from the bedroom.
He was set up at the old pine table in the kitchen, his laptop in front of him, and the file from the police station in DC open. He didn’t move his gaze from the screen as her footsteps slowly came toward him.
She stopped behind him, leaning over his shoulder, and a strand of soft blond hair brushed his arm before she tucked it away. “What is it?”
Her tone was wary, as if he’d been at fault for what had happened in her room fifteen minutes ago. But there was no way he’d have been able to not kiss her, the way she’d been staring up at him, longing in her big blue eyes.
He didn’t know what her game was. A year ago, she’d been anxious to come home with him. And, okay, she’d made it clear afterward that she wanted nothing more from him. But as soon as he’d seen her in the WFO parking lot, she’d broadcasted her desire like it was a neon sign.
He was only human. And she was the only woman he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind after he’d had her in his bed.
He’d tried hard, though, in the past six months. He’d gone from one fling to the next as though he was going for a record. And he was tired of it. One deep breath of Chelsie’s shampoo and he was right back where he’d been a year ago.
What had he been thinking, volunteering for this gig?
Scott moved to the side, so she could see his screen. A picture from inside her apartment living room filled his monitor.
She gasped and leaned closer. “What is this?”
“The cops who were called to the break-in took them. I asked them to email me the pictures so you could see if anything obvious was missing.” He twisted in his seat so he could look up at her, careful to keep his emotions off his face.
Bent down to scrutinize his computer screen, she was only a few inches away, her knee pressed against his leg. When she turned to him, her face was close to his and her pupils were huge.
He couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t as immune to him as she wanted him to think.
Chelsie frowned, returning her eyes to the screen. “Not that I can see.”
Scott reached forward and clicked to the next image, this one a picture of her bedroom. The walls were a pale pink, her bedspread a thick, puffy white down, and there was actually a vanity with perfumes and jewelry in the corner. It was unbelievably girly, not at all what he’d expected Chelsie’s bedroom to look like.
Did she actually wear perfume and jewelry? Certainly not at the office, unless he counted the small gold locket she’d been wearing a year ago and had on now, paired with a crisp black blouse and wide-cut gray pants. Was there some lucky guy she actually changed out of her figure-hiding work clothes for, some lucky guy that made her dab on perfume and slip into a slinky dress?
He tried to ignore the thought and asked, “How about here?”
She shuffled her feet and her cheeks went red beneath the curtain of wheat-blond hair. Apparently she didn’t like him peering into her private life, into the apartment where she’d never invited him. “I don’t think so.”
He opened a few more pictures—her kitchen, her bathroom, even inside her closets—but each time, she shook her head.
He shrugged. “Worth a try. The cops didn’t think he messed with anything. The neighbors might have scared him off.”
“Or since I wasn’t home, there was nothing else that interested him,” Chelsie countered.
Scott nodded slowly. “It’s possible.”
Though as a trained marksman, the reality was, Connors could have set up on the roof of the apartment building across the street and waited for her to come home, then picked her off as soon as she got out of her car. Had he chosen to break in instead because he was on the run and couldn’t risk waiting? Or was it because he wanted to do more than just kill her?
Either way, Scott was grateful Connors had made that mistake, because it had forced the Bureau to act, to get Chelsie to safety.
“What are you thinking?” Chelsie asked.
He shook his head, not wanting to scare her. It didn’t matter what Connors was after; he wasn’t going to find it now.
“Scott...” Chelsie fiddled with her locket, avoiding his gaze. “About before...”
“Yeah?”
She scowled, finally looking into his eyes.
She’d probably wanted him to jump in, to say he understood, that it was a mistake, that it wouldn’t happen again. But he wasn’t going to make it so easy. Her feelings about him might be running cold right him now, but he had a feeling she’d swing hot again sooner or later. And when that happened, there was no way he’d be turning her down.
Chelsie flushed, as if she could read his mind, and stammered, “I—I think we need to forget about our history, okay? I’m sure Connors will be caught soon. And then you can get back to whatever you want to be doing right now.”
She didn’t know he’d volunteered to be on her protective custody detail? Instead of telling her, he turned back to his laptop. “Let’s go over the case file from last year.”
“What?” Chelsie jerked backward. “Why?”
He frowned up at her. “Because it might give us something useful.”
“What could it possibly give us?”
Scott narrowed his eyes, taking in the tight line of her lips, the furrow in her forehead, the clenching of her jaw. She didn’t want to see the pictures, he realized suddenly.
He understood it. He didn’t particularly like viewing crime-scene photos himself. But it went with the job. And Chelsie might have switched to white-collar crime, but he knew she’d started in counterterror. She’d probably seen photos of much worse.
Was it because she’d been there? He’d heard part of her testimony at Connors’s trial. He knew she’d tried to talk him down. But she’d arrived on the scene about sixty seconds before he killed everyone except her. Not exactly enough time to establish a connection and start up a dialogue. Not enough time to change his mind, or stall him until HRT could take him down.
As a trained negotiator, she should have known that. There were some personalities who were hell-bent on killing, and no dialogue, no matter how well thought out, could stop it. And this type of killer—a spree shooter—was usually one of them.
Most of them actually planned on dying themselves before the day was done, either by self-inflicted gunshot or “suicide by cop.” Connors might have had that plan in mind, too, but when he’d gotten the chance to run, he’d taken it. And when he’d been caught at a roadblock later that day, rather than lift the rifle lying across his lap, he’d been too cowardly to take his own life. Instead, he’d lifted his hands and stepped slowly out of his car.
“It wasn’t your fault, Chelsie,” Scott said softly.
“Of course not,” she replied, but he could tell she didn’t believe it.
“Is that why you stopped being a negotiator?” He’d known it was the Connors case, but he’d thought it was the reality of having to stand that close to the line of fire and watch people get killed. He’d thought it was the stress of it, the horror of seeing all that bloodshed up close and personal. Until now, he’d never suspected she’d blamed herself for any of it.
“Nothing from that day is going to reveal where Connors is now,” she said, sidestepping his question.
Scott stood and Chelsie moved away from him, looking wary.
“Come on, Chelsie. You can’t blame yourself for Connors’s actions.”
“I don’t,” she snapped, putting a hand up when he moved toward her. “I don’t want to talk about this with you, Scott. And I don’t think reviewing old crime-scene pictures is going to make any difference. There must be a state-wide APB out on Connors. They’ll catch him and we can both go home.”
She turned and hurried to her room before he could reply.
Scott sat back in his seat, staring blankly at his laptop. That was a lot of baggage to carry around—the deaths of nine military officers who’d left behind wives, children and, in one case, grandchildren.
In HRT, Scott had seen too many people die. It came with the job that sometimes by the time they could act, lives had already been lost. But it comforted him to know how many more were saved.
A sudden fury hit him. Connors had taken more than Scott had realized on that beautiful June day. Not only had he robbed nine men of their lives, he’d also stolen away a promising career.
Scott might not have seen Chelsie in action, but he’d heard enough about her from Maggie and some of the other agents at the WFO long before he’d taken her home. Even before she’d trained as a negotiator, she’d had a reputation as someone who could see to the heart of what a perp wanted and talk him into choosing a peaceful way to get it.
It was not a talent a lot of people had. He sure didn’t. He could take out a moving target at half a mile, but talking down a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his chest? That was a job he’d gladly leave to someone else.
Cursing under his breath, Scott pulled up the case file from last year. Chelsie might not want anything to do with it, but there was something about this whole situation that felt off to Scott. Something about Connors’s actions that didn’t add up. And the answer had to be in the original case, or in the trial testimony.
Wherever it was, he planned to find it. And hopefully, it would lead them to Connors.
Once they put Connors back behind bars where he belonged, Scott could turn to the next problem. And suddenly that wasn’t how to get Chelsie back in his bed, but how to convince her not to throw away her career as a negotiator.
And if she happened to fall for him again in the process, he wasn’t going to put up a fight.
* * *
FEAR PUMPED THROUGH Chelsie’s veins as she crouched outside the community center, pressed as tightly to the brick wall as possible. The roar of the rifle was all she could hear. Dead men lay in the parking lot, their blood slowly streaming toward her.
Her bullhorn was discarded across her lap, useless, as somewhere out there, Connors tried to center her skull neatly in his crosshairs. Chelsie crouched lower. Everyone was dead. She was a failure, a failure, a failure...
Bang!
The sound split through the air as Chelsie jolted upright, breathing too hard. Everything was dark, except for the light streaming toward her from the left, and it took her a minute to get her bearings, for her eyes to adjust.
She was in the bedroom in the safe house. She’d been sleeping, having the dream again—the one she thought she’d quit having six months ago. She wasn’t back at the community center with Connors trying to kill her. It was over. She was safe. As long as Connors didn’t find her again.
Scott stood in the open doorway, backlit from the hall. He held a laptop in his hands and his hair was sticking up on top. He seemed exhausted, but there was a sharpness to his expression that made her drag the covers up to her chin.
Which was ridiculous, since the cop who’d been called to the break-in at her apartment had packed her a conservative T-shirt and pajama shorts to sleep in. Scott had already seen her naked, already had his hands and mouth on just about every inch of her skin.
“What are you doing in here?” she croaked, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. She’d gone to bed hours ago, after eating a silent, awkward dinner with Scott. She’d thought he was asleep, too. Andre had woken up to finish off the rest of the cold pizza and take the next watch.
“I knocked,” Scott replied. “You okay?”
“Fine.” As he stepped into her room and flicked on the light, Chelsie squinted up at him. “Did they find Connors?”
“Not yet.”
She slumped against the headboard, dropping her covers. “Then what do you want?”
His gaze slid over her, and she squirmed as he moved closer, his steps slow and sure. His jeans and T-shirt fit his lanky body just right, made him seem laid-back and approachable while doing nothing to hide the bunching muscles underneath. It reminded her of how he’d looked in Shields a year ago.
It reminded her of exactly why she’d thrown thirty-four years of caution away and gone home with a near-stranger.
In a lot of ways, he was still a stranger. They’d talked in Shields, had discovered they could make each other laugh, that they had similar outlooks on their jobs. But once they’d left the bar, they hadn’t exactly passed the hours chatting. She could describe the birthmark on his upper thigh in minute detail, but she couldn’t say if he had any siblings besides Maggie, what he’d done before he’d joined the Bureau or how he spent his free time.
As he sat on the edge of her bed, sinking down on the springs, his weight shifting her closer to him, an ache filled her chest. She wished she did know those things. Maybe it wasn’t too late. She opened her mouth, wanting to ask him...something, but he spoke first.
“I want you to check out the crime-scene images.”
Chelsie sat up straighter, moving away from him as he held his laptop toward her. “What? Why? No.”
She sounded frantic, but she didn’t care. The nightmares were already starting up again. She didn’t need to study the crime-scene photos and make it worse, regardless of how much of a coward that made her seem.
She scowled, hating that Scott would see her that way now, too. He’d picked a job where he ran into the danger everyone else ran away from. He’d already seen her run away, from her job as a negotiator, and from him.
Steeling herself, she grabbed the laptop before she could change her mind. But there were no crime-scene photos on his screen, only a drawing with the details—distances, locations of the victims and the shooter— written in. Surprised, she glanced over the top of the screen at Scott.
He moved slightly, leaning against the headboard, and stretched his long legs across her bed.
There wasn’t enough room for both of them, and she found her legs pressed against his through the thin sheet, with nowhere to go. If she turned her head, raised it a little, his face would be right there. His lips would be right there.
Instead, she stared resolutely at the screen. “What am I looking at?” Her voice sounded too high-pitched, but if Scott noticed, he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he pointed to the spot on the drawing marked Suspect. “Connors was here.” He moved his finger to the spot right outside the community-center front door. Next to an X, it read FBI Special Agent Russell. “You were here?”
There was a tension in his voice she didn’t understand. “Yeah.” She glanced at him, and this close, she could see the individual whiskers on his chin, the tense lines between his eyes that she wanted to smooth.
“Not here?” He moved his finger from the left side of the U outside the community-center front door to the right side.
“No. Why?”
“Chelsie.” The worry in his voice deepened, and there was concern in the depths of his deep brown eyes. “Connors not firing at you wasn’t because he couldn’t.”
Chelsie’s pulse picked up. “What are you talking about?”
“Look where he is.” He pointed to the X marked Suspect again.
“So?”
“So, I ran the numbers. If they’re right, he did have a shot at you. He chose to let you live. He chose to let only you live.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_13057057-839d-5890-a6d1-ebf69097fa57)
Chelsie stared up at Scott, uncomprehending. “What do you mean, he let me live?”
“He had a shot, Chelsie,” Scott said quietly. “We found his shell casings. He was high enough on those bleachers. He could have hit you.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t he?” Chelsie demanded, not wanting to believe it. “If he could have gotten me in his crosshairs, he would have killed me. He snapped. He was taking out anyone he could hit that day.”
“Apparently not,” Scott said.
She stared at him, noticing the deep circles underneath his eyes. Andre had said they’d been up for eighteen hours before they’d brought her to the safe house. And yet, instead of getting some sleep, Scott had reviewed the case file.
Chelsie felt something suspiciously like affection, and tried to ignore it. “Maybe you did the geometry wrong.”
Scott shook his head, but instead of being insulted, he just appeared exhausted. “It’s the same kind of calculations I do in my head every time I fire my rifle, Chelsie. I mess those up and I shoot a hostage instead of the perp. I could do them in my sleep. Trust me. I’m not wrong.”
“Then why didn’t they figure this out before?” she demanded.
“If you look at the building from ground level, you’d assume he didn’t have an angle on you. Even if you look at it from the bleachers, if you’d been on the other side of that enclosed area, he wouldn’t have been able to hit you. It was an oversight. And it made sense that he didn’t hit you because he couldn’t. But that’s not what happened.”
“Then what was he really after?” she whispered, moving away from him on her bed. But the mattress offered no support and she just slid back toward him until her body was pressed against his again.
It didn’t make any sense. Clayton Connors had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after watching the rest of his unit die when an IED exploded under their vehicle. He’d gotten out of the military and gotten help—mostly in the form of very strong painkillers. Then, one day, he’d snapped and gone after military recruiters.
But the prosecution at his trial had made an airtight argument that Connors would have killed anyone he could have hit that day, that he’d actually planned on moving to a new location and killing again, until he’d been pulled over. It had been simple self-preservation that had kept him from raising a gun on the officers. A sudden fear of dying himself had landed him in jail instead of the morgue.
Chelsie threw her covers off and walked to the far side of the room. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling strangely exposed in her T-shirt and shorts as she stared down at Scott, who was way too tempting stretched out in her bed. “The guy was crazy. Does it really matter why he didn’t shoot me?”
Even as she asked the question, she knew she was avoiding dealing with it. Connors letting her live on purpose didn’t fit with anything they knew about what had happened that day. And it didn’t track with the idea of him coming after her for a second chance, not if he’d never taken that first chance.
So what did he want with her? A shiver ran through her and she tensed, hoping Scott wouldn’t notice.
He put the laptop on her bed and walked over to her, stopping so close that she could’ve leaned forward and rested her head on his chest. “You’re the one who gets into people’s minds,” he argued. “You tell me if it matters.”
“That would be Ella. She’s the profiler.”
Scott gave her a look of disbelief. “Oh, come on. You were a good negotiator because you understand what people want. How did you do that without getting into their minds?”
“In case you forgot, I failed as a negotiator.”
“That’s not true,” Scott said. “Connors was a nutbag. You couldn’t have talked him down if you had thirty days, let alone the thirty seconds you probably got.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You just came in here to say that Connors wasn’t a nutbag. That he’d made the conscious choice not to shoot me, instead of being driven by some blind rage.”
Scott paused. It was a fraction of a second, but it was long enough.
“I don’t want to talk about my old job,” she said. “You’re the one who’s so sure he could have shot me. You must have far more experience with that kind of scene than I do. What’s your assessment?”
Scott frowned back at her. “Remind me not to wake you without a full night’s sleep again. You’re seriously cranky without your coffee.”
Chelsie’s shoulders slumped, her anger deflating. He’d stayed up reviewing the case when she’d refused to study it, and he’d taken on her protective custody when he probably could have passed it off to someone else. It wasn’t his fault talking about that day got her hackles up.
When she’d officially become an FBI negotiator, she thought she’d finally found her calling. Now, any reminder of her short-lived role in the specialty made every ounce of insecurity rise up. Including Scott. She’d probably never think about him without remembering the massacre, without remembering how she’d failed to prevent it.
She’d spent the past year trying to leave that memory in her past, and Scott with it.
Realizing that Scott was staring at her as though trying to read what was going through her head, she evened out her expression. “Sorry. Let’s talk about this in the morning then, after I get that coffee.”
He gaped at her. “The Chelsie I remember would want to jump right in.”
There was only one thing he would remember her jumping right into, and that was his bed. She scowled to hide her embarrassment, and snapped, “Don’t fool yourself, Scott. You never knew me.”
His eyes locked on hers, studying her too long, until she felt the need to fidget. “Maybe not,” he finally said, “but I don’t think I’m the one fooling myself right now.” Before she could respond, he turned and walked out of the room.
When the door shut quietly behind him, Chelsie sank back onto the bed, feeling angry and sad and vaguely ashamed of herself. What was that supposed to mean? She was somehow fooling herself?
The laptop he’d left behind had slid toward her as the mattress sank under her weight. She glanced at the screen, still lit up with the drawing of the community center’s front parking lot.
If Scott was right—and as an HRT sniper, chances were, he was—then why hadn’t she died with everyone else at that community center a year ago? And if Connors had let her live back then, why was he after her now?
* * *
“I’M SORRY.”
Scott blinked at the light streaming in from the hallway, even though he’d been awake from the second Chelsie had started tiptoeing down the hall. She stood in the doorway of his bedroom, holding his laptop. She’d changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt—this time, unfortunately, with a bra underneath. She did seem contrite. She also looked uncomfortable. Because she didn’t like to apologize or because he slept in nothing but boxer shorts, he wasn’t sure.
After he’d left her room, he’d asked Andre to take over the watch, deciding to get some much-needed sleep. He’d figured by the morning, she’d have come to grips with what he’d shared. And hopefully she’d be less defensive.
Scott rubbed his eyes and yawned, making her apologize again. But not before she glanced at his bare chest and then quickly back up.
“It’s okay.”
He expected her to turn and go back the way she’d come, but instead she stepped farther into his room. She settled on the very edge of his bed, setting his laptop between them, like some kind of barrier.
“It’s been a year. Why would he be after me? It’s not like it was my testimony that put him away.”
Scott pushed himself to a sitting position. Apparently they were talking about this now, after all. “You were the only eyewitness to the shootings, but—”
“But I never saw him! It wasn’t like I could identify Connors as the shooter.”
“What I was going to say,” Scott cut in, “was that I agree. You didn’t do the most damage at his trial. With or without you, he was going down.”
After Connors had been pulled over in a Taurus with a license plate matching the one HRT had called in from the scene of the shooting, the rifle on his lap had been tied to the shell casings at the scene. The physical evidence alone would have taken him down.
Add to it an incompetent public defender, Connors refusing to say a word in his own defense plus the families of the victims speaking at the sentencing, and Connors was going to jail. With or without the testimony of the one woman he’d let walk away from that massacre.
Chelsie crossed her arms over her chest, holding on to herself as if that could protect her from Connors, from what had happened that day.
And it made him wonder what had happened to her. To the strong, determined negotiator he’d brought home from Shields Tavern. He couldn’t believe she’d let Clayton Connors take so much away from her.
But confronting her about it was guaranteed to get her guard up, so instead he said, “I think if we can figure out what he’s after, it’ll help us track him down.”
“What does killing me now accomplish?”
“I don’t know, Chelsie.” Scott put his hand on her arm, and she flinched away. Trying not to let it bother him, he said, “But you’re safe here.”
She shook her head. “I’m not worried.”
When she met his eyes again, he saw the truth of her statement on her face. She trusted him and Andre to keep her safe. It was better than nothing, but he wanted more. He wanted a heck of a lot more.
“Why do you think he never said a word in his own defense at his trial?” Chelsie asked, just when Scott was trying to figure out how to broach what had happened between them.
He forced himself to put his mind back on track. It didn’t matter that the woman he’d been fantasizing about for the past year was finally back in his bed—though not in the way he wanted. He had a job to do here. And he couldn’t let himself get distracted.
“What defense could he have possibly have given? I think he was banking on people feeling sorry for him because of the PTSD, and figured the insanity plea would work,” Scott replied.
“I don’t know,” Chelsie argued. “Wouldn’t he at least want to explain where he was coming from? He could’ve drummed up some sympathy. He was a war hero, after all. And he watched his entire unit die. The defense attorney talked about his PTSD, but Connors never spoke at all.”
“I was only in the courtroom for part of the trial,” he reminded Chelsie. He’d had to testify about his role in the day’s events. He hadn’t heard the attorney talk about the post-traumatic stress disorder, although obviously Connors had it. Still, Scott had known there was more going on. “Every time I saw Connors, he was pretty glassy-eyed. Whatever he was on must’ve been strong. Maybe his lawyer didn’t want to risk putting him on the stand and have him make things worse.”
“Still—”
“We need to focus on what his motivation is now,” Scott cut in, holding back a yawn. He didn’t care why Connors hadn’t taken the stand a year ago; all he cared about was why the guy was after Chelsie now.
“Maybe he wants someone new to blame. A year ago, he blamed the military for his unhappiness. Now, he’s decided it’s my turn.”
In Scott’s opinion, it didn’t fit, but then, he wasn’t a negotiator. Or a profiler. “I’ll give Ella a call tomorrow. See if she has any ideas.”
“That’s a good idea. Why don’t we try now?”
“Chelsie.” Scott glanced at the clock next to his bed. “It’s after midnight.”
“Ella’s kind of a night owl, isn’t she? She was at the Academy anyway.”
“I’ll call her tomorrow,” Scott replied.
Chelsie didn’t seem happy, but she nodded and stood. “Okay.”
When she turned to go, Scott stopped her with, “Since we’re talking motivation here, let me ask you something.” He knew he shouldn’t, but he had to know. “Why did you give Connors the power to drive you out of negotiation?”
She spun back around, and although he knew it had been a mistake to ask, he liked the fire suddenly sparking in her eyes. He’d rather have her fighting mad than spiritless.
Before she could argue, he added, “It’s part of the gig. You can’t win them all. It’s not like you to give up so quickly.”
“You don’t know me,” she said, taking a step closer, the muscles in her lean arms outlined, her jaw tight.
“You’ll stand up to me,” Scott said. “So why not for a job you obviously loved?” Trying another tactic, he asked, “I mean, what made you pick negotiation in the first place?”
He thought she was going to say it was none of his business—or tell him where he could shove it—but instead she asked, “What made you pick the FBI? Huh?” She stepped closer, fury on her face, and he knew he’d crossed a line even before she added, “You want to talk about your motivation? You want to talk about what happened to Maggie?”
Scott got out of bed so fast that Chelsie backed up. It had been ten years since his sister’s assault, the event that had driven him into the Bureau. And Chelsie wasn’t the first person, or even the first FBI agent, to ask about it. But her throwing that at him pissed him off more than pretty much any other response she could have given.
Maybe that was the point, he thought as he got in her face and watched her eyes widen. No matter how she might want to deny it, she knew how to get inside people’s minds. She was getting in his right now, trying to use his emotional weak spot to drive him away.
“Fine,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You want to push me away, Chelsie? Congratulations.”
He pointed at the door. “Get out.”
Chapter Five (#ulink_8692161d-2e10-5189-9c3c-15db3d4f1827)
What was wrong with her?
Chelsie walked slowly into the living room. She couldn’t believe she’d thrown Maggie’s assault in Scott’s face. Even if Maggie hadn’t been her friend, it was a horrible thing to do. Especially since Maggie’s rapist was still out there somewhere, still claiming a new victim every year.
She’d seen Scott’s expression as he’d asked her to dredge up all the memories from the day of the massacre. That determined expression that told her he’d push until he got what he wanted. The same intent look she’d seen that day back in the bar, when she’d taken his hand and let him take her to heaven.
And the idea of turning her psychoanalytic lens on herself, which she’d managed to avoid for a whole year, made her panic. So she’d done what came naturally. She’d figured out the one thing guaranteed to make him back away.
Scott was right about her. She did understand what people wanted. The flip side of that was, she was also good at figuring out what they didn’t want, which for negotiations, was sometimes just as important.
So why had she failed that day? Accepting that she hadn’t had time to make a difference was an easy excuse. Certainly there was some truth to it, but she, more than anyone, should have been able to connect with Connors. It might’ve been different if she’d known what he’d endured while serving, the loss of his unit. For a military long-timer like Connors, his unit would be his family.
And she understood that kind of loss. Her stepmom was the only mother she remembered, but that was because her dad had married her when Chelsie was three. Her birth mom had been military, just like her dad. And she’d been killed on Chelsie’s first birthday.
No matter that Chelsie didn’t remember her. No matter that she had a close bond with her stepmom and half brothers. She still felt an empty space in her life, wishing she’d had the chance to know her mom.
If she’d seen Connors’s military connection from the start, and used her own experience to forge a bond between them, he might have hesitated. Maybe even long enough for those men to run to her side, to safety.
Except that it hadn’t really been safe, had it?
“Hi, Chelsie.”
The sound of Andre’s voice was a welcome distraction from thoughts that were headed in a direction she didn’t like them to go.
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