Games We Play (14 page)

Nicholas knew facing a room of reporters vying for answers and a piece of you for their cover story couldn’t have been easy and yet Sasha went through it like a champ. In front of the cameras she kept a steady smile and answered all their questions as best as she could from Maggie’s point of view.  Now back inside Wayne and Noah’s tiny office she let the masks fall away and paced the small space.

“It went good, right?” she asked.

Nick nodded. “It was perfect.” They were alone as Noah and Wayne spoke with the sheriff and
G
age returned back to the house to install some new security devices. The unsub wouldn’t be thrilled to have his plans shaken and they needed to be ready for his next move. It still made Nick stick to his stomach to think of how close that evil SOB had been to her last night at the diner.

“I pretty much dared him to come after me. If that doesn’t get a reaction I don’t know what will.”

“It’s not everyday you want a serial killer to come after you.” Nick came to realize he was bitter as the words left his mouth. The rules of the job suddenly changed when you were terrified for the person playing the bait. He never loved the idea of putting Sasha’s life on the line but right now he wanted to grab her and run away. The only thing stopping him was the innocent lives depending on them and their plan.

Sasha stopped pacing and faced him where he sat. “Have you ever done anything like this? Undercover bait work?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand how scary this might be.”

“That’s not why I was asking. I was only curious and since we’re stuck here until the press clears out I was making small talk.”

“You’re rambling.” Nick stood from his chair and joined her in the front of the room. “It doesn’t make you less of an agent to be scared. I haven’t done anything like this but I have been scared.” That wasn’t something he’d admit easily if ever and she knew it.

“Right. I want to know where the real Nicholas McBain has gone.”

“I don’t know, you’ve done something to him on this trip.”

“And when we get back home you’ll find him.” Her voice carried a beat of doom not even she noticed. 

“Is that what you’re scared of?”

Sasha made sure to turn her face away from his as she spoke. “I’m not scared of anything, Nick.”

“Yes you are. You’re scared the unsub is going to get too close and we won’t be prepared and you’re scared of getting your heart broken by giving me a chance.” Nick’s heart raced at the intensity of his words and the drive he carried to stop running away from it. He knew this situation wasn’t ideal and it came upon them with rapid speed but that didn’t change what he felt in his heart. He wanted her, plain and simple.

“You’re not being realistic. We work together and we should respect that by keeping boundaries.”

Nick cupped her right cheek and brought her green eyes back to his stare. “Uh-huh? What else?”

“What else?” Sasha repeated the question softly, unsure of his meaning.

“How many other ways are you going to spin this to keep avoiding me? You gave into this last night.” He guided her hand to his chest and let it rest across his rapidly beating heart. “I think we’ve both been fooling ourselves for awhile here and I’m just the first one to snap out of it.” He bent and inhaled the curve of her neck, the deep intoxicating scent of her perfume filled his senses and left his eyes closed. He followed the moment and the outline of her jaw to her mouth. Sasha didn’t tense nor try to push him away.

A sharp knock on the office door broke the spell. The knock and disapproving look came from Sasha’s sister Carolyn. “Can we talk?”

“Um…” Sasha noticed her hand wrapped around the front of his shirt. “…sure. Nick, can you give us a minute?”

Nick didn’t want to walk away and have her forget the last few minutes they spent together, he didn’t want to argue his point again and have her try to fight it. “Yeah.” He kissed her across the mouth. “I’m not willing to go back to how things were before.” He left her with that to think about and accept. The ball was in her court and she had to make up her mind one way or another.

Sasha felt like a fish out of water as she watched Nick’s back leave the room and turn down the hallway. She knew it had been wishful thinking to believe he’d leave well enough alone until they got home. Of course he’d add to her already full plate by proving to still be a pain in the ass. “What’s going on?” she looked at her sister and that helped ease the rolling desire still left in her system.

“I think I should be asking you that. I thought you and him just worked together?”

“We do, we did, I don’t know. I really don’t know anything anymore.” Gage’s words of advice echoed in her head. She was going to have to tell Nick the truth if she ever wanted to figure their new situation out. “I’m guessing you saw the press conference.”

“Yes I did and you’re fucking insa
ne. You baited him seven ways f
r
o
m Sunday and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s waiting outside to hurt you right now. How could you do that?”

“I need him to come after me if we’re ever going to stop him. I work with some pretty amazing people and we all know what we’re doing. I don’t want to keep waiting for him to kill others and then target me. Two women are already dead and I don’t want there to be another. This is what I do for a living, Caro.”

“This is what you do all the time? Antagonize insane people?”

“Pretty much, yes. I took down a man named Ronald Kellermen before this case, he had been targeting kids to torture and kill. I made sure he can never do that again and I want to make sure the 7Xs killer can’t either. ”

“You take down very bad people.” Carolyn was trying to accept the facts, nodding her head as she repeated the words. “Does this have anything to do with what happened to mom and dad?”

A surge of panic pierced Sasha’s heart, she rushed to the door and made sure they were still alone. “I haven’t talked to any of my co-workers about that yet. They only know it was a car accident and I’d like to keep it that way. I should go find out what’s happening with the case. Are we good here?”

“I guess we have to be. Just please be careful.”

“You can count on it.” Sasha left the office first and joined the others in the Sheriff’s office. “What have I missed?” everyone’s expression was serious.

Sheriff Deacon Howard answered, “Another girl has gone missing. Her mama just reported her missing. It’s been a little over twenty four hours since she has been seen.”

Sasha didn’t ask the question she already had the answer too. A girl missing wasn’t an everyday occurrence in Maple Oaks and there wasn’t much doubt it was connected to the 7Xs investigation. “She’s going to be number three if we don’t find her in time. Is there any leads at all?”

Noah was grim to answer, “We’re looking. We know her name is Candice Shelburne—”

Sasha turned quickly to Deacon and hoped she was wrong. “Candice that works at the diner? Carter Wesley’s cousin?”

“That’s the one.” The sheriff drawled softly. “Did you know them?”

“I went to high school with Wes and I met Candice yesterday morning during her shift. If it’s been twenty four hours since she’s been seen I was probably one of the last people to see her. She told me about her two kids.” Bile rose in her throat as she thought of those two young children without a mother. The vivid memory of her own lost of parents struck her deep in her mind’s eye. One day there your mom was happy and smiling and the next an off
ic
er came to tell you you’d never see her again. She couldn’t let the same happen to Candice’s children.

“It looks like she was grabbed from work.” Wayne reached for a piece of paper and pen. “Tell me about everyone you remembered seeing.”

Sasha closed her eyes and thought back to the different customers she had seen inside the diner and gave their descriptions up. “I didn’t know any of them by name.”

Nick spoke up next. “From what the profile says the unsub is a man and somewhere around his late twenties when he started killing so that’d put him in his late forties early fifties now. There’s three men that match that description and right now it couldn’t hurt to try and track them down.”

The sheriff reached for his phone and punched in a few numbers. “I have our sketch artist coming down. Let’s give our mystery guys a face and just hopefully I can recognize two and the other one is our guy.”

Nick sighed, running his hand over his short dark hair. “It won’t be that easy. There is a good chance this unsub is someone known around town. He’s hit Maple Oaks before and it’s somewhere he’s comfortable with. There’s a reason he picked this town the first time and is using it again to end his cycle.”

Deacon silently cursed, mouthing a string of unpleasant words before meeting Nick’s face. “It isn’t just because he left unfinished business here with Maggie alive?”

“It could be had he not start killing before she returned. He’s planned this for a long time and adding her to his list is only a bonus not a motivation.” Nicholas didn’t mince words. Not when lives were at stake and the more acknowledge of the unsub could make the difference of life or death.

Wayne reached for the door. “I’ll go call Pete.”

Peering out the door Sasha noticed Wes was waiting with Candice’s mom to finish filing the missing person’s report. “Hey.” She walked up to him and gripped his arm. “I heard about Candice, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” He stepped away from his aunt and asked softly, “I saw you on the news today, do you think that freak has her?”

“I really hope not and if he does the sheriff and FBI
are
doing everything they can to bring her home safely.” 

“This is so crazy. I had no idea about your story, I’m sorry. I thought you looked so familiar but I never thought it had something to do with all those murders. I could’ve sworn we shared a class in high school but that isn’t possible, is it?” Wes smiled weakly as he tried to put his focus on something else rather than Candice’s disappearance.

“No, it’s not. I did high school very far from Texas.”

“I figured that out after seeing the news. I gave it some thought and remembered the name of the girl I was confusing you with.”

“Yeah? Who is it?” it was insanely stupid in the middle of what they were both dealing with but she wanted to know and right now it didn’t hurt to shift focus and gave his fear a break.

“Her name was Sasha, nice right? She was a shy mess but I liked her well enough.”

Sasha found that hard to believe even though he had never done anything wrong to her and a lot of kids in their class couldn’t say the same. “I was at Stacy’s party the other day and she mentioned that girl and said no one liked her.”

“That’s because everyone to Stacy that didn’t fit her mold was unworthy of attention. From like the age of thirteen to now I’ve liked every girl I’ve encountered.”

“That was a bad joke.” Sasha said around a laugh.

“But it’s the truth and damn it I hate that you’re married. I like you Maggie May.”

“You don’t know me.”

“True, I guess I like what I see.” Wes let his eyes dr
i
nk her in before taking a step back. “Thanks for the distraction.”

Chapter 19

It was a long shot but Sasha sat with the sketch artist and detailed what she could of the men she had seen at the diner. After
ward
she and Nicholas went back home. With a sigh she walked through the living room and up to her bedroom. Gage was staying with Wayne and Noah at the police station helping with the leg work. The public was terrified and they weren’t hesitating to go to the sheriff and FBI for answers.

In the bedroom she changed out of her dress and into some of her own simple clothes, a t-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans. Dressed and feeling like she was finally back in her own skin she took a moment to breathe.

There had to be something they were missing, the
why
that linked all the victims together, and what made him pick Candice out of thousands of women in town. But could they really find the answer in the next day or two? 7Xs didn’t keep them long. There just wasn’t enough time.

She went downstairs to find Nick in the kitchen cooking something. “Steak sandwiches,” he explained. “are you interested?”

“Yes.” Sasha was starving and while she wouldn’t sing his praises in the way he wanted in the kitchen she could silent
ly
agree he was a hell of a cook.  “I was thinking about Candice.”

“We’re doing everything we can.”

“I think I know that on some level but a bigger part of me can’t help but wonder if it really is enough. It’s been over twenty years and they have nothing, not one shred of evidence or DNA belonging to the unsub. He already has her and he is going to kill her.” It was a horrible pill to swallow but it was nothing compared to what her family was going to have to face. “It’s not fair.”

Nick stepped away from the stove after turning it off and stood across from her at the nook. “It never is but we don’t do this job because it’s fair.”