Midnight Fear (10 page)

A
dreary grayness pervaded the Saturday Caitlyn had set aside for household chores. She had taken several boxes of old clothing to a Middleburg church accepting donations, then gone grocery shopping to replenish her refrigerator and pantry. By late afternoon, she’d finished some light housecleaning and was just settling onto the couch with a cup of tea and a book when the doorbell rang.

Peering through the front door’s beveled-glass pane, she felt a surge of surprise. Caitlyn disarmed the security system and smoothed her hair as she opened the door to Reid. He had on jeans and a dark Henley shirt under his leather jacket.

“I thought I should check on you.” His gray eyes reflected concern.

She tilted her head at him. “You could’ve just called.”

“I did, actually. You didn’t answer and I got a little worried.”

“Oh.” Caitlyn ran her hands over her upper arms.
She wore a thick, cable-knit sweater and a pair of black riding pants. “I was out running errands earlier. My cell phone was in the charger in the kitchen.”

“You really shouldn’t leave the house without your cell, especially considering things lately.”

“You’re right,” she acknowledged, sheepish. She opened the door wider to give him entrance.

“I called the stables, too.” He followed her inside. “The voice mail said it closed at three. When I couldn’t reach you I decided to drive on out.”

Caitlyn didn’t like feeling that she had caused him any trouble—she had certainly done enough of that lately. “I really am sorry. I’m sure you must have better things to do on a Saturday. But as long as you’re here, I’m having some tea. Would you like some?”

Reid nodded. “That would be great. Thanks.”

She left him in the living room, still a little puzzled about his visit. Certainly, if he was concerned for her welfare, he could have just contacted the Middleburg Police Department and had them send a squad car out for a safety check. Something else was bothering him, Caitlyn decided. It was evident in the tightness around his eyes and the hard set of his jaw.

When she returned to the living room with a china teapot and a second cup, she found him studying a grouping of silver-framed photos on the bookshelf. They were pictures of Caitlyn with her parents, in happier times. The ones including Joshua she had long since banished to a box in the attic, unable to face his image staring back at her on a daily basis.

“Where was this taken?” Reid asked. The snapshot was of Caitlyn with her father, both of them holding rifles as they stood side by side in a grassy field, a bright cerulean sky above them.

“Just a few miles down the road, actually. A family friend had a summer home out here, and my father used to take Joshua and me skeet shooting. I never cared for hunting game, but I loved the excitement of hitting those clay disks.”

Caitlyn studied his profile as he replaced the photo. “Reid, is everything all right?”

He nodded, although his expression appeared shuttered. “Do you have anything in the gun safe upstairs besides shotguns?”

“There are a couple of handguns, too. Why?”

“I was on the way to the shooting range when I tried to reach you—my service gun’s in the car.” Reid slid his hands inside his pockets. “I’m going back to full duty soon. I need to requalify, and my exam’s Thursday. You mentioned there was a shooting range set up on the property?”

Caitlyn looked past him out the window. The afternoon held a thick haze suggesting rain, but so far there hadn’t been as much as a drizzle.

“It’s in the woods. We can go by horseback,” she told him. “It’s pretty basic compared to what you’re probably used to, but there’re some targets that were left by the previous owner.”

“You should get a jacket. And a gun.”

As their horses traveled alongside each other, Caitlyn pointed out areas of interest along the wooded trail. She showed him the soaring, broad-limbed oak that was well over a century old, and the waterwheel that was once part of a working gristmill. It now sat half-buried in a rushing stream, its spokes worn smooth by water and the passage of time. Around them, the air held a damp chill that made their breath fog as they talked. Reid looked comfortable on the muscular dun Caitlyn had chosen for him, his strong fingers grasping the reins with ease and his body acclimating to the horse’s easy canter. Her own horse, a dappled gray filly named Camilla, was more spirited than the other animal but Caitlyn guided her with a firm hand, keeping her under control.

They reached the clearing where the targets were located. A row of thin, metal plates were strung from wire in front of raised mounds of dirt.

“It’s not fancy,” Caitlyn said as she dismounted. “I’m sure the FBI offers better facilities.”

“I prefer the fresh air.” Reid squinted at the targets, which were about forty yards out. He’d already climbed down from his horse. “Do you come out here often?”

Caitlyn decided to tell him the truth. “Not until recently. But after what happened to Aggie and the break-in at my house I thought it might be time to brush up.”

They walked the horses a good distance away from
the shooting area, ground tying them. The filly snorted and tossed her head. Caitlyn stroked her muzzle and spoke softly, putting the animal at ease.

“You gave me the tame one, didn’t you?”

She grinned. “You’re a better rider than I thought you’d be.”

He pulled his handgun from the saddlebag of his horse. “
This
is more my comfort zone.”

They took turns shooting at the plates, their guns’ echoes reverberating like thunder along the hillside. Around them, the fall leaves were a cacophony of bright colors, burnt orange, sienna and golden brown. The air smelled of moist earth. Holding her own lightweight revolver in the proper safety position, Caitlyn watched Reid’s stance as he aimed and fired at his target, his bullets piercing the plates with sharp pops. Her stomach knotted as her mind traveled back in time to two years earlier, placing him in a cold, dilapidated factory building at the edge of the Potomac.

“Have you ever shot anyone besides Joshua?” she asked quietly.

Reid didn’t look at her, instead chambering another round. “I shot and killed a suspect who charged Agent Tierney with a knife. That was four years ago.”

He aimed again, hitting his target in its center. Caitlyn moved to a lighter topic. “Well, the time away from the job doesn’t appear to have hurt your accuracy.”

“Your turn,” Reid stated. He holstered his Glock in the clip he’d attached to his jeans. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Caitlyn moved forward, concentrating on not jerking the trigger. She hit the first one, but missed on the second attempt.

“Line your hips with your target,” Reid instructed from behind her. His body brushed against her backside, his hands touching her waist to correct her alignment.

Caitlyn fired again, missing.

“You were shooting better before.”

Lowering her gun, she turned to him. He remained close, and she found herself looking up into the masculine planes of his face. His gray eyes were intense, their color like liquid steel ringed with inky black. His thick eyelashes were of the same midnight-dark tint.

“That’s because you’re making me nervous,” she complained, her voice sounding a little shaky and hoarse. Caitlyn’s eyes flicked to his mouth that had quirked up in a faint smile of amusement. There was no denying he was dead-on sexy. Compulsively, she licked her lips, her own mouth gone suddenly dry. Despite the coldness of the afternoon, the air felt heated around them.

As he stared at her, Reid’s expression became serious, causing sensation to spiral inside her. He reached for her gun, slowly taking it and activating its safety. Then his free hand rose to touch her face, his thumb brushing across her full bottom lip. A fire raced through her. In the distance, she heard the soft whicker of one of the horses.

“Caitlyn,” Reid whispered roughly.

His lashes lowered as he bent his head and kissed her,
his lips at once soft and firm on hers. Caitlyn grasped the open edges of his leather jacket, pulling him against her as their mouths melded together. She felt dazed, his kiss stirring a ravenous physical hunger.

Their contact broke only when the sky opened, unleashing fat, heavy raindrops that were like pellets of ice on her flushed skin.

“The mill house,” she told him in a breathless rush. “Leave the horses under the trees. They’ll be okay there.”

Quickly gathering their belongings, Reid took Caitlyn’s hand and they made a run toward the frame of the old mill house located near the streambed. The building itself was gutted out, but what remained of its roof provided some shelter from the downpour. Winded, laughing, they reached its shadowed haven.

“Are you cold?” he asked. His short, dark hair was spiky and soaked. He laid her gun and its carry bag on the ground.

She felt herself shiver. “I’m freezing.”

Reid chuffed her upper arms with his hands. “Maybe outdoor target practice wasn’t such a great idea.”

His arms encircled her waist, pulling her into his heavy leather jacket, his body heat warming her. He felt hard and strong. Safe. For a short while, she rested her cheek against his chest, listening to the thudding of his heart. Then she looked up at him. Desire shone in his eyes. She pressed herself more fully to him, wanting to finish what they had started earlier.

He seemed to understand. Reid’s mouth pressed
against hers again, this time more demanding. Caitlyn felt his hands tangling in her wet hair as he tilted her head back, deepening their kiss, his tongue parrying with hers. Instinctively, she rubbed against him, thrilling at the male hardness she felt through his jeans. He could have her right here, she thought wildly. Damn the cold and the rain. Her body felt hot and strangled by the confines of her clothing. Caitlyn half groaned into his mouth as Reid’s fingers caressed her throat, her pulse pounding beneath his touch.

“I want you,” she whispered against his lips. “I want you to…”

Caitlyn froze at the shift of shadows. The onslaught had darkened the afternoon, deepening the gray haze. She gasped. The man with the pale, receding hairline—the man who had been following her—stood in the corner of the ramshackle structure. He was wet and dressed in nothing but a thin, sodden windbreaker and dark pants. Reid turned, his hand on the holstered gun at his waist. But the man was already a step ahead, the barrel of the gun he held pointed directly at them.

“D-don’t move, Agent Novak.”

R
eid took a subtle step forward, trying to place himself in front of Caitlyn.

“I—I said don’t move!” The man appeared jittery. He remained in the shadows of the structure. Although Reid could barely make out his features, recognition tugged at him.

“Let’s just relax,” he suggested, slowly lifting his palms to show he wasn’t going for his gun. “No one has to get hurt.”

“Someone already got hurt.” The man’s voice was low and nearly inaudible, swallowed up in the pounding rain.

“You’ve been following me,” Caitlyn said shakily. “What do you want?”

“I want…” His words faltered. “I want my wife back.”

The gun’s barrel trembled. His angular face and sharp chin flashed in Reid’s memory. He’d lost a lot
of weight, the drenched clothes enveloping his gaunt frame, but recognition hit him with a jolt. David Hunter.

The brutal image of Julianne Hunter, sprawled on the floor of the decaying factory, appeared in Reid’s mind. He’d first met her husband at the D.C. morgue, where he had offered his condolences and waited as a positive ID on the body was made. Throughout Joshua Cahill’s trial, Hunter had sat red-eyed and silent in back of the courtroom, waiting for justice to be served. But the man now gripping the gun was a mere shell of who he’d once been. He looked disheveled, his thinning hair slicked down against his skull by the rain. His fevered gaze focused on Caitlyn.

“Your family destroyed my life! Julianne, she was everything to me, to my two girls…”

Caitlyn blinked. “I don’t understand—”

“You don’t know me? My wife? Your brother
murdered
her!”

Reid spoke. “She had nothing to do with your wife’s death, Mr. Hunter.”

“And why are you here with her?
Kissing
her?” Hunter waved the gun wildly. Spittle flew from his lips. “She should be your enemy, Agent Novak!”

“Your anger’s misplaced,” Reid said quietly. “Caitlyn’s estranged from her brother. She helped in the investigation—”

“You look like her, you know.” Hunter continued staring at Caitlyn. “She was blonde, pretty, like you… Why didn’t he kill you?”

“I—I don’t know,” Caitlyn whispered.

“You knew what he was all along!”

She shook her head. “No! Please—”

“Your family protected him. You let him go on killing! Do you know what he did to those women? What he planned to do to Julianne if the FBI hadn’t found them? Instead, he cut her throat!”

Reid blocked him from coming any closer. He could feel Caitlyn sodden and shivering behind him. If he had to, he would make a move for Hunter’s weapon.

“Stop this now,” he warned. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

“I just want to understand why—”

“She can’t help you.”

“Get out of my way!”

Caitlyn screamed as Reid rushed the other man, knocking him backward and falling with him onto the ground. Hunter’s arm struck the wet dirt, the gun discharging with a roar. He howled and kicked, fighting Reid for control.

Another male voice ordered, “That’s enough!”

In his peripheral vision, Reid became aware of a fourth figure, holding a shotgun.

“I said that’s enough!” A split second later, pieces of the mill house roof rained down on them as Manny Ruiz discharged the rifle into the air. Clad in a rain slicker and baseball cap, he cocked the weapon again and aimed its long barrel at Hunter.

“Give Agent Novak the gun! Now!”

There must have been some shred of sanity left in
Hunter’s mind, because he stopped struggling enough for Reid to pin his arm to the ground and pry the firearm from his hand. Gaining control of the weapon, Reid pushed himself backward, panting and sitting on the wet, moss-covered ground.

“You okay, Caitlyn?”

“Y-yes,” she answered Ruiz. Her eyes met Reid’s, her face pale.

“Agent Novak?” Ruiz asked.

Reid ran a hand over his features and nodded, wondering what the hell was going on.

“So let’s recap. You were out here on some kind of booty call—”

“I came out here to check on Caitlyn,” Reid corrected Mitch. “She didn’t answer her phone.”

“Uh-huh. And you figured, hey, as long as I’m out here, why don’t we go into the woods together and shoot guns?” They were back at the stables, the scent of rain mingling with the smell of hay and horses in the stables. It was nearing dark and still coming down outside. Water rushed from the high-pitched roofline, creating puddles in the packed earth underneath the gutter spouts.

Mitch continued his full-court press. “I mean, she
is
Braden Cahill’s daughter. That NRA guns and glory stuff probably turns her on.”

Reid ground his teeth. Mitch was obviously enjoying himself, but he was wet and cold and he’d had enough of his partner’s smart-ass comments. Furthermore,
he didn’t like being questioned as though he were a civilian.

“I have to requalify on firearms. I had my service gun in the truck,” he recounted with forced patience. “Caitlyn told me about the practice range on the other side of her property. If she’s going to insist on living out here alone, she needs to be able to protect herself. So yeah, I suggested it. I wanted to see how well she could shoot.”

Reid glanced toward Caitlyn, who stood with Ruiz at the far end of the stable’s open-air instruction area, giving a statement to Sheriff Malcolm and Agent Morehouse. Her blond hair was wet and matted to her head, and she’d wrapped a wool blanket around herself to ward off the chill.

Following Reid’s gaze, Mitch leaned against one of the horse stalls. “Well, she’s not
entirely
alone. What I want to know is why Manny Ruiz is back here.”

Reid had asked Caitlyn the same question while they’d waited for law enforcement to arrive. He didn’t approve of her having an ex-con around—especially one out of Springdale Penitentiary. But he had to admit Ruiz had shown up at an opportune time, possibly saving both their lives.

“Caitlyn gave him his job back,” he said with a shrug. “He made an appeal to her, and she decided to give him another chance. Apparently, he knows a lot about running a working farm and stables.”

“Or maybe she just has a soft spot for convicts.” Mitch nodded toward the patrol car parked outside the
stables, its lights flashing blue against the darkening sky. David Hunter sat in its backseat, handcuffed, his head bowed. “Who knows? Maybe when that guy gets done serving time for assaulting a federal officer, she’ll hire him, too.”

“He needs a mental evaluation.”

“What he needs is a good, old-fashioned interrogation. I’m planning to reach down his throat and grab him by the balls, inside out,” Mitch replied. “We might’ve found our copycat.”

Reid pressed his lips together. Clearly, Julianne Hunter’s murder had caused some psychotic break in her husband. Caitlyn herself had identified him as the man who’d been following her around the District. But whether he was guilty of anything else, Reid wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t like him for it.”

“Look. The guy’s been stalking her. Not to mention, he just threatened you
and
Ms. Cahill with a loaded gun. You want him to actually mutilate and strangle her before you’ll buy in? He obviously came out here to harm her.”

“The bloody footprints at the first crime scene,” Reid recounted. “They were what, a size thirteen? Hunter might wear an eleven at most.”

“So? Maybe those footprints aren’t even the unsub’s. Maybe some asshole contaminated the crime scene—like one of the Hispanic laborers.”

“None of them had blood on their shoes.”

“That doesn’t mean one of them—like one with
out the proper documentation—didn’t leave the scene before the cops got there. Hunter’s been following Ms. Cahill, waiting for an opportunity, and he nearly killed you both. That makes him worth talking to about the murders.” Mitch pushed off from the stall door. “Morehouse and I are taking custody of him. We’re taking him back to D.C. tonight. You want in on this or not?”

Reid squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I want in.”

“Good boy. Now before you bid a fond farewell to your ladylove, there’s something else you need to know.”

Reid looked at him, waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop.

“Joshua Cahill is willing to give up another body. But he wants something in exchange.”

Reid felt his lungs tighten. Although there were six confirmed victims of the Capital Killer, there had always been speculation about others. Five other women had gone missing during roughly the same time—blondes with good pedigrees who had mysteriously vanished from locations around the District.

Already fearing the answer, he asked, “What does he want?”

“A visit with his sister. Alone.”

As much as Reid wanted the other bodies, he couldn’t condone Caitlyn’s involvement. “That’s not going to happen.”

Mitch sighed heavily. “You know what? As much as I need you back as my partner, I’m starting to think it won’t work out.”

“Damn it, Mitch—”

“You’ve
changed
. The Reid Novak I knew wouldn’t put anything in front of closing a case. Especially not some spoiled socialite—”

“That’s enough.”

“Then tell me you’ll deliver her to the Springdale Pen on Monday.”

“What’s going on?” Both men turned to find Caitlyn standing a few feet away, a questioning look on her face. How much had she heard? The horse blanket slipped a little from her slender shoulders, revealing her soaked sweater underneath. Her eyes locked with Reid’s.

He released a breath.

“We need to talk.”