Games We Play (22 page)

Their fearless leader Pete asked, “Are you ready?”

Sasha nodded and used her ol’ faithful forced smile. “I feel good about tonight. We’re going to get him.” She refused to accept any other outcome.

Noah asked, “Are you strapped?” he was the weapons expert on the team and traveled with a variety of toys for the team to choose from.

“One at the back and another at the ankle.” Sasha tried to hide the darkness from her eyes, the thoughts of using the guns of Jim until there was nothing left of his evil heart. She reached for Nick’s hand and gave her team mates something to talk about. “Come on lover boy.”

Around a laugh Wayne reminded them, “We’ll be hiding out in the parking lot keeping an extra eye out.”

Nicholas walked with his arm ar
ound her waist to the parking
for their rental car. “I had to call my mom again to cancel another dinner invite. She has really good interrogation techniques that would put Pete to shame and I told her all about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and when we get back home she demanded that I bring you to the house.” Nick was in his early thirties eager to please his parents, his mother especially.

Sasha liked that about him, knowing how he loved his family made him human in her eyes and far from that shallow man she thought he once was. “Meeting the whole family?” she asked after they were seated in the car. “Are we there yet or is your family used to you bringing every girl you date home?” that was her probably not so clever way of trying to learn more about his romantic past. It was only fa
i
r seeing how he already knew her pitiful experience when it came to men.

Nick gave her a dazzling smile that said he saw right through her meaning for the question and wasn’t bothered by it. “Having a social life doesn’t come easy for any of us at the
b
ureau with the long hours and out of town trips. The last time I went on a date was about two months ago with a paralegal my brother introduced me to. She was nice enough but when we started to talk about my job she freaked out. She knows how law works but not the gruesome aspects of how a crime happens and how to solve it.”

“What’s your longest running relationship?” there was still a few minutes before they reached the diner.

“Two years. She understood what that I was an agent and how it could be demanding but when I joined Pete at the start up of the VCU there were weeks we didn’t see one another.”

“She left?”

“I came home from working a string of murders in Kentucky to find the apartment bare and a letter taped to the fridge.”

“Ouch.”

“It stung but it didn’t come as much as a surprise. That last year together we were apart a lot of it living separate lives. I haven’t found someone willing to take me on and be serious since.” That was five years ago that he was talking about.

“So your parents have probably been hounding you to find a girl to settle down with and bring home.” The obvious fact left her hands clammy with sweat. While everything was going better than she could’ve ever dreamt with Nicholas she wasn’t sure they were in that spot of meeting his family and the pressure that went along with it.

“I’m not going to drag you by the hair to the house and tie you to a chair next to my dad’s recliner. If you don’t want to go until you’re ready it’s fine, it doesn’t change anything.”

“Are you being this sweet because we’re sleeping together or because you feel sorry for me?”  Sasha cringed and hoped it wasn’t the latter.

“If you think back on the previous year you’ll realize unless it has something to do actively with work I’m always sweet to you.”

That shut her right up.

The diner was just as packed as it was the last time they visited. The cars were piling up in the parking lot and that’d aid the rest of the team in staying hidden.

Nick made sure to stay very close to her side as they moved through the diner up to the bar. They wanted to be seen and everyone always checked out the bar before each individual table and booth.

Wes was working that evening and gave her a closed lipped smile that lacked heavily in his usual charm. “I didn’t expect to see you in here again.” He said, setting the glass of fresh poured beer in front of another customer.

“I’m going to be in town as long as there’s still a job to do.”

Wes nodded and tried a better smile with more teeth but nothing hid the fact he was mourning. “What can I get you?”

Sasha pointed to the heavy set gentleman a few seats over. “I’ll have what he’s having.” Nick agreed on having the same beer on tap and nothing more. It was hard t
o think about food or even be
hungry when you were in the middle of such a high octane case where any second the game could change.

Sasha turned in her stool and observed the crowd. Her chest was tight and ached to see a glimpse of Jim in the crowd. Wouldn’t that be nice? To catch the bastard then and now and save them a whole lot of trouble?

Carolyn used to always tell her life wasn’t easy anytime she’d hound her with why their parents were dead and why she couldn’t be around more. This wouldn’t be easy either, deep down Sasha knew that.

Nick gripped her arm and turned her back around to the bar. “You don’t want to scare him away.”

“I think that’d be a little hard. All the profiles speak of his confidence in not being caught. He’ll never see me as a threat and that’s going to be his biggest mistake. He never should’ve touched her.” Sasha grabbed the beer and drank heavily from the glass in order to ignore the surge of tears that came at the memory of her sister’s body lifeless on that metal table. Carolyn had loved him with all her heart even when she shouldn’t have, even in the end.

“Hey, look at me.” Nick turned her stool so they were face to face. “Let’s talk about something else.” They both knew she couldn’t break down in the middle of this place.

“Like what?”

“Like….” There wasn’t much they hadn’t come to discuss on the course of this trip. Neither of them could say ever again they didn’t know each other. “We never got to talk about the sex.”

That was unexpected and so was the big laughter coming from her mouth. She buried her face in her faces to conceal her blush. “What’s there to talk about?” she asked the question through a small opening of her fingers.

“Did you enjoy it?”

Her embarrassment worsened. “Oh god, shut up.”

“It’s an innocent question. It’s not like I went into detail exactly which parts I’m asking about.” He was doing an amazing job at shifting conversations and her mood just when she thought i
t
was impossible.

“It was fine, now stop talking.”

Nick moved in closer, lowered her hands and kissed her cheek. “Fine? No guy wants to have sex be called fine.” His mouth moved lower on her neck, tracing the exposed skin with his tongue.

Sasha’s heart jumped to keep up with her erratic breathing. “I’m not going to melt into a puddle and stroke your ego.”

“I’m more interested in you stroking something else.” That sentence sure conjured up a slew of naughty memories but she refused to play into his game and let him win. Dating didn’t erase their competitive streak and she wasn’t going to let him win anymore than she had in the past.

“Pervert.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sasha grabbed her beer and busied herself with emptying the contents to avoid Nick’s dark gaze. The beer has lost some of its cold temperature and the lukewarm liquid swam in her stomach with a bitter sensation. Eh, it did the job easing her nerves.

She faced Nick. “Did I miss the class at Quantico that taught an agent how to use sex to change the complete course of someone’s brain pattern?” with just a few words he had changed her whole mood. The anger and sadness lingered close but she was still able to smile at him.

“Only a few of us were hand chosen to go.”

“You’re lucky you’re so cute.”

“And why’s that?”

“I’ll tell you when I get back. It doesn’t take long for beer to reach the bladder. Don’t think about it McBain, I can handle going to pee alone. Order me another beer and I’ll be back before you can miss me.” She leaned in and kissed him quick across the mouth before walking away. It was nice to have real affection between them that wasn’t an act for anyone else. She kissed him now because she felt like it, no more rhyme or reason than that.

As she moved through the sea of people on the dance floor and lined up at the bar that clammy feeling returned to her hands as did the racing heart beat.  That was odd, she thought, Nick was nowhere around to rise her temperature.

To reach the bathroom there was a narrow hallway first. The last time she was at the diner she used the bathroom and didn’t remember the hallway being this long. Every step felt heavy to take.

Her head spun and that’s when she realized something was wrong. She stopped and leaned against the wall before she fell face first into the hard linoleum flooring.

“Sasha?” Wes stepped out of what looked like a storage closet and found her there al
one. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to go to the bathroom but I suddenly don’t feel so good.” She was sure she was going to throw up any second now.

“It’s past this hall. Let me help you.”

Sasha tried to pull back from his pull on her arm. “No, no I don’t want to take you away from work.”

“It’s no problem.” He smiled and it felt wrong, everything felt wrong.

Chapter 29

Nicholas checked his watch for the third time in five minutes and tried to reason that five minutes wasn’t a long time be in the bathroom. The diner was pretty full and there could be a line for the bathrooms. Yeah, that could be it but something rubbed him the wrong way and in the middle of a murder investigation it was good to be paranoid.

He went through the crowd and down the hallway to the ladies room. There was a small line but nothing drastic. He flashed his credentials and went looking for his girl. He called out her name and got nothing. He questioned the women by the sinks and none of them had seen a woman matching Sasha’s description.

Nicholas ran and dialed at the same time, praying that his teammates saw something outside and stopped Jim.

Gage and Noah were stepping out of the van when Nick reached them. “We have the parking lot covered from all sides.” Gage explained. “A few cars have come and gone but no one matching Jim’s description.”

Nick tried to remain level headed and act as a senior agent and not a love struck scared man but damn it he was terrified. “She’s gone and if he hasn’t made a move to take her away he’s waiting for his chance. We need to clear this place.”

“Wayne and I can handle that.” Noah motioned for his friend to follow.

Nick stood back with Pete. “You’re
right;
I’m in love with her.”

Pete clumped the younger man’s shoulder. “We’re going to get her back. We’re closing in to the endgame and we always win the final hand. When we’re back home safe I’ll gloat and rub in your face how I was right.”

“You’re crazy, old man.”

“Like a loon, but I’ll be right again when this is all over.”

Sasha was in and out of consciousness and every time she opened her eyes she realized something new. First she was no longer at the diner and Wes did something to her that had her tied up in some sort of basement with mildew. The second time she opened her eyes she knew she had been drugged with something and whatever that something was, was poured into her beer. Wes was the bad guy after all. The third time, right now, she came to see Wes and Jim weren’t as estranged
like
Wes made the team believe.

Sasha couldn’t believe what a cluster fuck this whole ordeal was. “You sucked in the senior year play but you’re a hell of an actor now.” She had been utterly fooled by his easy going smile and pleas of innocence. She would blame it on her old crush but she hadn’t been the only one fooled by the guy, he was good at conning them all.

She said the words to Wes but her eyes were only on Jim as the men stood side by side.

Ther
e was a sense of everything coming
full circle with all these years passing
and his true self being revealed
. There were no more lies; he was the 7Xs killer, the man she clawed into. His neck was exposed now and so were the three ugly scratches going down the column of his throat.

Jim spoke, “You don’t look surprised.
” His voice was eerily creepy while
he borderline whispered and stared at her with no humanity left in his yes. The mask fell away and
exposed
the monster’s true face.

“No.” Sasha agreed with a smile. “Didn’t Wes tell you? We figured out the unsub was related to his gene pool and he even gave us the name of the cousin he suspected, that’s you by the way. I knew that letter you left as a load of bullshit. So was this all some big plan or are you trying to fool each other?” there was still too many gaps in the puzzle for her liking, still so much she didn’t know.