Scream for Me (27 page)

He couldn’t control Cadence, but the woman controlled him. The thought of her in danger had his heart racing, fear rising in his chest.

If the plan didn’t work—if she didn’t come back—darkness seemed to wrap around his mind.
She will come back to me
.

His hands sank into her hair. He tilted her head. Kissed her with a desperation that should have alarmed them both.

Cadence had said she wasn’t scared.

Not of the killer.

Not of him.

She will be
.

Her nails bit into his shoulders. She pulled him closer as she kissed him with the same frantic need.

Even as a knock sounded at the door.

The damn door was shut for a reason.

I want her naked
.

Actually, he just wanted her.

Cadence pulled away. Her breath rushed out. Too fast. Panting. “I trust you,” she said again.

The drumming of his heartbeat wouldn’t slow.

The knock came again. Someone out there was pissing him off.

“I told you.” Kyle barely recognized his own voice. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

The door swung open just as Cadence slipped from his arms.

“Well?” Ben demanded.

We needed more time
.

Only they were working against the clock. He got that.

Cadence’s chin was up. Her shoulders squared. “Tell Dani to get the trackers ready. We’re doing this.”

He knew who he wanted, and he wasn’t going to settle for anyone else. Not this time.

He’d tried to settle before, but it had been a fucking disaster. The blonde woman hadn’t been right. Even her death had been a waste for him.

No release. No pleasure.

At least the screams had stopped.

He knew they’d searched the cabin. Found Judith. Judith had been good. She’d learned quickly. Been so eager to please.

Until the end.

She’d broken then. Kept crying for her family. Kept begging for death.

So he’d given it to her.

The cops had also found Landers. The asshole. He’d never understood how women should be treated.

He knew all about Landers. The guy had been sent to the pen, and he
shouldn’t
have been released so soon. But there’d been a slipup. Landers had gone free, and the guy had stumbled right into his cabin and found Judith.

He liked to keep his girls separated. He focused on them, one at a time, so he needed that second location. The cabin had seemed perfect for him.

Until Landers appeared.

When he’d shot the bastard, just as the guy’s hands had gone for the ropes binding Judith, the man’s blood had splattered all over her.

But Judith hadn’t screamed.

Good, even then
.

He didn’t think Cadence would scream, either. She’d said she stayed quiet before, when she’d been under the bed.

Listening to her mother die.

She’d stayed quiet.

He liked the quiet.

Needed it.

Craved it.

He just had to find the perfect way to get to Cadence. He’d need to separate her from the others. Separation. Isolation. That was how he worked.

He’d been close to her in the woods.

But she’d been on guard. Too ready to attack.

That wasn’t the way he liked his prey.

His prey should be weak. He was the strong one. The one meant to always survive.

He would have to wait for the right moment. There would be no more desperate hunts, he’d learned from his mistake. He could be careful. He could be cautious.

He could wait for her.

She
would
come to him.

“He’s not going to walk right up to you,” Dani said as she bent over Cadence’s wrist and adjusted her new watch. “You know that, right? He’s not going to offer you a ride in his car. Not going to sweep you away on a dark road.”

“I know,” she said, sighing. Like Kyle, Dani was definitely not on board with the plan. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of how this will work.”

Dani paused, then she glanced up at Cadence. The watch around Cadence’s wrist was a GPS tracker. It would send her location back to Dani every five seconds. Dani always kept her tech toys close, so Cadence hadn’t been surprised when Dani had brought out the equipment.

Having it so close saved them time.

“You think so, huh?” Anger pulsed beneath Dani’s words. “What happens if this grand plan of yours goes wrong?”

Cadence lifted a hand and stroked the earring on her right ear. Another tracking device. Hidden so easily in plain view. “I’ve got you keeping tabs on me, what could go wrong?”

“Plenty,” Dani snapped. “Maybe he takes you to a place where I can’t get your signal. If he goes underground again, if there are caverns or caves near here that he uses…” She shook her head. “I’m not sure the signals will transmit back to me. I could lose you.”

Cadence wasn’t going to let fear hold her back.
Judith was alive a week ago
. She had to offer herself. Had to be bait for the killer. “If the transmission stops, then you follow the last signal. Every five seconds, remember? You follow it and you’ll get close enough to find me.”

“Why?” Dani demanded, voice low. “Why are you doing this? For him, obviously, I get it. I see the way you keep staring at Kyle.”

I see the way you keep staring
. She’d have to watch that. “The women could be alive. I’m doing this for them.”

“Not just for them,” Dani argued immediately. “Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you that well.”

Fine, she was doing it for Kyle, too. “If it were your sister, would you want her left with him? Left for all of those years while he tortured her, again and again?”

She wasn’t even sure how Kyle was keeping it together. After he’d found out about Judith, she’d expected more of a reaction.
Alive
. For four long years.

They hadn’t told Judith’s family the news yet. Cadence knew it would devastate them.

“You have your gun?” Dani asked her, not answering Cadence’s question.

She lifted her arm, revealing the holster.

Dani’s breath huffed out. “And a backup? You have your backup, right?”

“Strapped to my ankle.” Her right ankle had a gun strapped to it. Her left, a knife.

“Two transmitters are in place on you now.” Danielle’s breath exhaled slowly. “A third is on the way. It’s shipping from Quantico and should be here in a few hours.” Her right eyelid twitched. “This had better work, or I’m gonna kick your ass when I see you again.”

Cadence nodded. “Fair enough.”

Dani backed away from her. “You know I can take you out. I did it plenty of times in training.”

When she wanted, Dani could be vicious.

She moved to stand near the small window, one that looked over the line of trees in the distance. “So,” Dani’s musing voice began. “When did you start sleeping with him?”

Yes, she’d figured her friend would pick up on that.

Dani glanced over her shoulder. “The guy’s looked at you like he wanted to eat you for months. He
still
looks that way, but something’s different.”

It was. “In Paradox.”

“You know you won’t be able to keep working with him. Not when Ben finds out.”

She thought the guy already knew. “Why not? You and Ben seem to get along just fine.”

Silence. Dani’s lips were parted, her stare startled.

Cadence almost smiled. “Did you think I didn’t know about you two?” Her friend wasn’t that good at keeping secrets.

“We don’t usually work in the field,” Dani said, but her words were halting. “You and Kyle, with this case—”

“I don’t know what’s happening with us. I don’t know if there’s a future or if there’s only now.” She couldn’t think past the moment. “We’ll figure it out after we stop this asshole.”

“The Night Hunter.”

So the media kept calling him. Since he only hunted at night, the news folks thought they were being clever.

The moniker would just feed the killer’s ego. Make him think he was larger than life.

He already thinks that
.

Cadence adjusted her watch. “If we’re set, I want to check in with Kyle. See if he’s heard anything else from the police captain over in Paradox.” She headed toward the door.

“Ben doesn’t.”

Her words had Cadence pausing.

“Ben doesn’t look at me the way Kyle watches you. When he stares at you, it’s like nothing else matters.”

At those words, Cadence’s heart beat a bit faster. Her hands wanted to tremble, so she made sure that Dani couldn’t see them. Sometimes, she did catch a look in Kyle’s eyes that was…intense. No, consuming. She’d never had another man look at her with that kind of need.

But Dani was wrong. Something else did matter. Someone else.

Cadence opened the door and hurried into the bustle of the station. The watch on her wrist was no bigger than any other watch, but it felt too heavy to her.

Only the FBI agents knew about her plan. They didn’t trust the locals not to leak information. Accidentally or even on purpose, they couldn’t be trusted with the plan Cadence was putting into motion.

Not yet.

Her gaze searched the station’s open area, but Kyle wasn’t there. She turned, heading down the hallway that would lead to the back offices. Kyle and Ben had disappeared that way before.

“Are you looking for me?”

Kyle sat at a desk inside the last office. His gun was on the desk. His jacket behind him.

She entered the small room. Closed the door.

His gaze rose to pin her. “Are you set?”

“Yes.” Mostly.

“I told you this was fucking crazy, right?”

Her jaw locked. He’d mentioned that a few times. He wasn’t changing her mind. Why risk innocent civilians if the killer already wanted her?

He rose from the chair. It rolled back with a squeak of its wheels. “I get it, okay? I know what you’re trying to do.” He came toward her with slow, deliberate steps. “Part of me is grateful because it
is
a way to draw him out.”

With every step he took, her heart pounded faster.

“But I don’t like it.” Grim. Hard. “I don’t fucking like having you in his sights at all.”

Hadn’t she been in his sights ever since she’d gotten off the plane in Paradox? “Our job always puts us in the path of
killers. I told you before, if I wanted safety, I wouldn’t have joined the FBI.”

He was just a foot away from her now. Plenty close enough to touch. She wanted to touch him. She knew the plan that was coming. She was supposed to head back to Paradox. Go back out to those caverns. Make sure she was seen moving around in the open, on her own.

Kyle would follow her, slowly. He’d stay in her vicinity, just as Dani would. Ben was remaining in Maverick a little longer, running down a few more leads.

It was time for the next stage to begin.

Only she wasn’t ready to walk away from Kyle.

Her hand slid down. Found the small lock on the door. The click seemed incredibly loud in the narrow room.

His gaze held hers.

“Kiss me before I go,” she whispered.

His hands flattened on either side of her head, pushing against the door frame. His mouth lowered, paused just above hers. “When this is all over, we won’t go back to the way things were.”

She’d told Dani she didn’t know their future.

“I had you, and I can’t let that end. I
won’t
,” he said, the words dark and rumbling.

She wasn’t ready to let go of him either.

His lips brushed over hers. The faintest of touches. Not what she needed.

“I had you all wrong.” He growled the words against her lips. “I thought I knew what you wanted.”

She kept her secrets close.

“It’s not gentleness. Not just a lover in the dark.”

His mouth pressed harder to hers.

Lifted.

“What you really want is to lose that control you keep so closely. To let go. To
burn
.”

She was burning right then. Her breasts ached, the nipples tight peaks. Her hips were pushing toward him, toward the thick bulge of arousal pressing against her.

“You make me burn, Cadence. You make me crave.”

His mouth wasn’t on hers. His lips were on the curve of her neck. His tongue rasped over the skin. She felt the faint edge of his teeth. Then he was licking, sucking that sensitive flesh.