Hot and Haunted (10 page)

I felt as content as a cat who’d had a saucer of cream, a sensation as far removed from my inner turmoil of earlier in the day as Calgary was from China.

He kept his eyes fastened on me though his mind had to have been as dazed as my own from the incredibly bright sparks that still, even after a long, draining bout of amazing sex, snapped between us. As the steam began again to fog the windows, I lazily reached over him to touch a fingertip to the condensation. I wrote my name on the glass, glad that I had told him the real one, knowing that it would linger there even after I was gone.

I didn’t want to go. And I still wasn’t thrilled that I didn’t want to, that I again seemed to be attached.

The warm body snuggled against my own suddenly stiffened; Brody lifted his head and cocked it like an animal.

“Did you hear that?” He strained against my arms to sit upright.

I traced a lazy finger over the golden whorls of hair that clung damply to the lean muscles of his chest. “Nope. I’m otherwise occupied.”

He chuckled and batted away my hand, playfully. “Seriously, it sounded like a car.”

“Really?” Curious, I lifted myself onto my elbows, and caught the shine of two headlights slicing through the pouring rain.

“We’d better get some clothes on,” Brody said.

I continued to lie still, knowing that the night was ending though not as I had planned it would—and it seemed that I was fine with that.

“Someone’s found us, come on!”

I stretched, a slow catlike stretch, reluctantly pulling my wet dress against the still-fevered skin of my chest. I didn’t want to get out of the car—didn’t want to face the real world again.

It might have been selfish, but the little bubble that the two of us had created inside the small car had made me happier than I’d ever been.

I watched, almost lazily, as Brody tried to slink back into his shirt. The cloth caught on the dampness of his skin, and he shrugged impatiently.

I didn’t think I liked how eager he was to get out of this car.

“I hope it’s Triple A.” Brody pushed his glasses up his nose, his face alight with relief. I narrowed my eyes in anger—I had nearly perfect vision and didn’t need to squint to see the vehicle that had pulled to the side of the road in front of us. It was a big, shiny truck, the kind that men in their late twenties bought to show that they were big and tough. It shone black in the beam of our headlights, black and big and somewhat overbearing.

“I know that truck.” The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. Brody paused, and I could see the wheels in his busy brain turning as he tilted his head toward me, uncertainty playing over his features.

Seeing that uncertainty on the face of someone who I’d learned in the past few hours was, by nature, controlled and analytical, had the corners of my lips turning up in amusement.

“There’s no need to get all excited. I’m certainly not. It’s only my boyfriend.”

L
ITTLE
R
ED’S
B
IG
B
AD

Saranna DeWylde

Chapter One

“
H
ERE’S
L
ITTLE
R
ED
straying from the path, just like the Big Bad Wolf said she would,” convicted serial rapist Jimmy Bancroft, said with a smirk as three officers led him into the interview room. His chains rattled with every shuffling movement, and U.S. Marshal Miranda Garrick waited patiently for the officers to secure his leg shackles to the heavy bolts in the floor. They removed one wrist from behind his back and secured it to the left side of the table, then his other to the right. Only then was he permitted to sit. “I’m flattered you think all this necessary.”

Already he was trying to control the power structure, attempting to keep her off-balance, first by saying he had information about her, then by trying to make her comfortable with him so she’d drop her guard. She knew the routine; it was standard predator behavior.

“Mr. Bancroft,” she began.

“Call me Jimmy, darlin’.” His mouth snapped into a grin.

Miranda was surprised by how straight, white, and sharp his teeth were. They were an incongruity flashing out from his pockmarked face. He didn’t look like the kind of man to care for his dental health. It wasn’t both arms, sleeved with tattoos, that marked him as part of the Aryan Nation, his cratered face, the slicked-back fifties greaser hair, or even the strange scar on his neck that looked like an animal bite. It was the black rings of filth under his jagged yellow fingernails, the swollen, red bulbous tip of his nose that betrayed him as a lifetime drunk, and the stench coming off his body that was more than unwashed flesh.

He reeked of death—rot.

“Mr. Bancroft,” she started again, keeping it professional and maintaining distance. “That wouldn’t be quite fair since I only answer to Marshal Garrick.”

Another grin spread across his face like an infection. “No, you’re Little Red to his Big Bad Wolf. He said you’d be comin’, and you’d have fire hair. That’s why you here, ain’t it? Huntin’ Dean Harvey Webster?” He licked his too-full lips languorously, as if savoring the taste of something, his eyes roving over her body.

Hannibal, Missouri, was famous for three things: Mark Twain, the brand-new, state-of-the-art, supermax penitentiary, and serial killer Dean Harvey Webster. The last two were about to get a lot more famous.

Hannibal Penitentiary was supposed to be impenetrable, escape-proof. But the cell where Dean Harvey Webster resided had been recently and
unlawfully
vacated twenty-four hours ago—leaving her with the singular task of hunting his ass down and forcing him back into his cage.

“Sir, I’ll thank you to keep your tongue inside your head while we’re speaking.”

“But Marshal, you can’t come in a prison smelling so good, looking so hot, and not expect a man to have a reaction.” He leered at her.

“Actually, I can do what I want because I’m the U.S. Marshal, and you’re the inmate. See how that works?”

He laughed. “Fair enough. But you should be nicer to me, Red. Or I won’t give you want you want.”

“I don’t have time for games, Mr. Bancroft.” She scooted her chair back and signaled to the officer that the interview had concluded. It was a calculated risk on her part, but it was the only way to retain her control of the dynamic. Otherwise, she knew from experience he’d drag this out as long as he could, and all the time she spent playing his games would be time that Dean Harvey Webster had to play his with whoever crossed his path.

He laughed again, the sound slimy somehow, like slugs on her skin. “Hot-tempered piece, ain’t ya? Why don’t you ask the real question? If I know how he got out.” That grin spread even wider, and Miranda got the distinct impression if he pushed just a little harder, his skin would split apart and show her the real monster underneath. She struggled with her body’s fight-or-flight reaction to that
otherness
in him—forced herself not to react to the chill that skittered like a hundred spiders up her spine or that voice in the back of her head screaming at her to flee.

Because that’s what Miranda did—she hunted monsters. Not the kind that hid in closets and shadows—those were stories for children—but those who wore the face of a neighbor, or the handyman or the babysitter. Her first hunt had been to finally track down the drifter who’d killed her foster parents. Miranda knew she was good at hunting them because there was a part of her that was like them, something disconnected. After losing her parents to a drunk driver and the murder of her foster parents, she was afraid to trust, afraid to connect because she’d seen so much darkness wearing human skin. Miranda held herself aloof and kept the secret parts of her well insulated from the rest of the world. Hunting them gave her power, control over something that was seemingly based on chance.

Though she hadn’t ever had one make her feel like this sad sack of shit in front of her did. She’d worked cases where her prey had solicited women off the Internet and kept their bodies in barrels in his backyard, where they’d kept men drugged and used them like a stud farm, even where her prey were modern-day slavers.

There was something wrong about him. More than just whatever was broken or blank in him that would cause him to rape and mutilate twenty-three women. There was something else she couldn’t put her finger on that made her happy to know he slept in a cage.

“Alright, Mr. Bancroft. Do you know how Mr. Webster escaped from Hannibal?”

“I do, darlin’. I do.” He nodded, that fucking grin still on his face. “But I think I need something for myself first.”

She’d been waiting for that and had all manner of perks and privileges available. “I can’t knock any time off your sentence.” Miranda wanted that on the table before they even opened negotiations.

“No, I want something else.” The grin faded, and he looked almost shy, and she knew she wasn’t going to like whatever it was he was going to ask for.

“Well, what is it that you want?” she prompted.

“A lock of your pretty hair. I can smell it from over here. You use Desert Essence shampoo and conditioner. Italian Red Grape.” He sniffed the air. “My favorite. And no other styling products, so that dark current of scent beneath the grape is all you, Red.”

The officers stationed in the room stepped forward to subdue Bancroft and pull him out of the interview, but Miranda held up her hand to show them everything was fine, and she had the situation under control. The idea of giving him something so intimate disgusted her, because it was a trophy, the same as those he took from his victims. She couldn’t think about that—every second Dean Harvey Webster was on the loose was another second to splash her hands with the blood of his victims. She’d scanned through the crime-scene photos, and Webster was unlike any monster she’d hunted before—his M.O. was particularly gruesome. He mauled his victims like an animal—and like an animal—consumed pieces of his kill. It was no quick or easy death. So if he wanted to do things to himself while holding a lock of her hair, well, that was worth it.

“Make it a good one, thick. Cut as close to the scalp as you can, and I’ll tell you how he knew you’d be the one coming for him.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” Sharps weren’t allowed in the interview room. They’d even given her a rubber pencil to scribble her notes with.

“I’ll know if it’s not really your hair. And that would be a lie, Red. Don’t lie to me,” he singsonged.

“Of course not. A deal is a deal, and like I said, I don’t have time for games.”

She exited the interview room and called an officer to bring her a rubber band and scissors. Miranda made quick work of the lock, cutting from the underside of her hair before putting her hair back up in its no-nonsense bun.

Back in the interview room, she dropped the lock of her hair on the table in front of him. “Now, tell me. How did he get out?”

“Put it in my hand.”

Miranda pushed it toward his hand, not wanting to make contact with his flesh if she could help it. He bent his face close to the lock of her hair and inhaled deeply.

“Through the officers’ station,” he mumbled.

“Not good enough, Mr. Bancroft. There are cameras all over the cell house. He wasn’t seen.”

“And where’s the guts of all that wiring, Little Red? He jammed his cell door so the electronic lock wouldn’t engage. Then during roll call, after he’d been accounted for, and the officers’ station was empty . . .”

There was a hatch in the officers’ station beneath the long desk bar where the locking system and CCTV wiring was located. But there was no way out of the facility through there.

“I thought we had a deal. I delivered on my end.” She eyed him, taking in his every micro-expression and subtle nuance of gesture.

“You have to look with more than your eyes. Or this pretty lock of hair is going to be all that’s left of you.” He laughed, the sound cold and harsh.

“Is that a threat?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.

“No, little girl. It’s a promise.”

Miranda had heard that phrasing before a million times, and usually, it made her roll her eyes. It was tired, overused, and every criminal she’d hunted thought he was stronger, faster, and smarter than she was. But in this moment, she found herself believing him.

Her instincts were never wrong. She couldn’t fight her reaction to him any longer, she had to get away from him.

“Then I’ll go and do just that. But be warned, if you’ve lied to me, you don’t get to keep that lock of hair.”

She turned to leave, but he spoke again. “Red? Don’t you want to hear the rest?” he offered in a silky tone, his mouth curving in a smile that was more a baring of all those sharp teeth. When she didn’t respond, he spoke again. “Come here,” he invited. “Come close, and I’ll whisper to you how Dean knew you were coming.”

“No thanks.” It didn’t matter to her how he knew that she was coming, not enough to get any closer to Jimmy Bancroft.

The officers gathered around him to get him ready for transport back to his cell, and they performed the actions they’d taken to secure him in reverse, first freeing the wrist manacled to the right side of the table, an officer guiding his hand behind his back to be recuffed.

“No? Then I’ll have to come to you.” An inhuman sound issued from Bancroft, almost like a howl as he exploded from the circle of officers. He’d freed himself from the leg irons somehow and ripped the other cuff from the bolt on the steel table. His face had twisted into a strange caricature of his already ugly features—almost like it was a mask sliding from his bones. His white, prison issue T-shirt was suddenly soaked with sweat, and his muscles bulged and strained, rippling with the same eerie quality as his face. Miranda didn’t have time to process, or consider. There was only action and reaction.

The officers scrambled to subdue him, but he overpowered them with a sickening ease, smashing one in the face and shattering his nasal bone, maxilla and lacrimal bones—blood splattering across the wall as his face collapsed in on itself and he crumpled. The other two launched themselves at him again, and Miranda joined the fray. He snapped at her like a rabid dog, and she curled her fingers around one bracelet of her handcuffs and used it like a set of brass knuckles to strike him in the face—to immobilize his weapon. She had no idea what kind of diseases he had, and a bite could be the same death sentence as a shank in the gut.

Another body crashed into hers, hard and strong—another pair of hands to subdue Jimmy Bancroft. A disturbance team poured through the doors, an elite group of officers specially trained to deal with these situations. Miranda dashed to the officer whose face had been shattered to render aid, but it was too late. The force of the blow must have driven the shards of bone up into his brain. He was dead.

“He’s dead, just like you will be, Little Red. The Wolf wants you to find him.” Jimmy cackled madly, blood pouring from his mouth where she’d knocked out some of his teeth. “Why Marshal, what soft white skin you have. What big—” One of the team shoved a plastic guard in his mouth and tied a mesh bag over his head.

“Shut your cocksucker, Bancroft,” the man snapped.

Bancroft couldn’t speak, but Miranda could still hear the sound of his mad laughter from within the bag.

Before she could process what had happened, the man who’d crashed into her jerked her out through the door and into a conference room on the other side of the interview room.

She assessed him quickly, and judging from his black trench coat, his nice but generic black suit, and his redwing shoes shined to a high gloss, she assumed he was a Fed. His black hair was slicked back in a
GQ
style, with a wide forehead, chiseled granite cheekbones, and a hard jaw. He looked every inch a Dolce & Gabbana model slumming with the FBI. He was sexy as hell and probably used his looks to get what he wanted. Miranda didn’t fault him for that; they had to use whatever tools were in their arsenal. Even after what had happened, there was not one hair out of place. He looked as cool and smooth as if he were lounging poolside at a resort rather than inside a supermax prison that’d just lost its prime resident.

“You okay, Garrick?”

So he knew her name. “Yeah, you?” She straightened the collar on her blouse.

“You sure?” He grabbed her hand and inspected her knuckles. They were swollen and bruised, already purple from where the back of the cuff slammed against them when she’d crushed the steel into Bancroft’s face. At his close inspection, his breath ghosted along the abused flesh, making her shiver.

Miranda jerked her hand back. “I won’t be writing any reports anytime soon, but I think that’s a consequence I can live with.” Catching scum was her thing—report writing, not so much.

“Was Bancroft right about your shampoo and conditioner?”

“What does that matter?” She cocked her head to the side.

“I like it.” His mouth curved in a devastating smile.

Miranda refused to allow herself to be affected by his whiskey-smooth voice. She didn’t even know his name and definitely didn’t know his angle. Although she’d admit, with the adrenaline spiking through her blood, she wouldn’t mind finding out. A quick encounter to blow off a little steam wouldn’t be amiss. “Guess I need to rinse my hair longer if the scent is still so strong.”