Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) (23 page)

“Damn it.” He pulled out his phone to call her, let it ring six times. She didn’t answer.

When that didn’t work, he pulled up the website for the dog groomer.

“Dog with Two Bones,” a disinterested voice answered.

“Is Tavey Collins available?”

“She just left.”

“Thanks.” He hung up. “Damn it.” Ryan looked at Sandeep. “We have Raquel Weaver’s number in the file as well, correct?”

“I believe so.”

Ryan found it and called her. No answer.

“Okay.” He stood, throwing on his jacket. “Midaugh, I’m headed over to Fate. Ms. Pascal decided to give the unsub the finger over the Internet last night.”

“I just heard.” Midaugh pointed at one of the monitors. A blond reporter was standing in front of Christina’s building, camera pointed at the second floor, where Ryan knew Chris conducted her yoga class.

“. . . despite the cryptic message from the Creator posted last night on the
Mysteries of Fate
blog, there has been no official word on the relationship between the Boyfriend and Ms. Pascal, but sources say she is assisting in the case.”

“Fuck me running,” Ryan cursed, tossing his jacket back on the chair. “How’d they make that connection?”

“Apparently someone’s been talking. Those three girls, maybe?”

Ryan grimaced. “Yeah. Maybe. They seem to want to protect her. Can we find out?”

“What, you’re not going over there now?”

Ryan lifted a hand to indicate the report they’d just watched. “She’s swarmed by reporters. If I go over there now, it’ll only add fuel to the fire.”

Midaugh considered that, but ultimately shrugged. “Helmer, we’re basically spinning our wheels analyzing surveillance at this point. Unless something else breaks, we’ve got a perimeter around Rome and Fate that we’ll be monitoring. Could be what she did shakes this unsub loose. I’d feel better if you were around in case he decides she has the prettiest damn strings he’s ever seen.”

Disgusted, Ryan put on his jacket. “You’re trying to play matchmaker, aren’t you, asshole?”

“Yeah, you’re real hard to convince; it took all of two seconds. That girl has you so tight, you don’t know what you ate for breakfast this morning.”

“I do.”

“What was it?”

“Coffee and Tums.”

“Breakfast of champions,” Midaugh conceded.

AN HOUR AND
a half later, Ryan had stopped wanting to strangle her and just wanted to make sure she was all right. He pulled up into the space behind Chris’s building and sat, hands on the wheel. He’d avoided the reporters by taking a back way through town. He didn’t want to go through the grooming salon, but he was pretty certain the door to the back entrance of the building was locked.

He looked up, at the black wrought-iron staircase that crisscrossed up to a landing and a balcony on the second floor, an alternative exit for the yoga studio, and then up to the third floor and an entrance to Christina’s apartment.

He assumed it was locked. It damn well better be locked, but he’d bet that she was in her apartment. Her car was in the lot, as was the motorcycle that fit the description of one belonging to her cop friend Raquel.

Locking his car, he stalked over to the staircase and began climbing. The stairs were steep and slippery from the rain the previous day, and the low cloud cover of this morning hadn’t managed to dry anything off as yet.

His footsteps clanked loudly on the heavy black wrought iron, to the point where he didn’t know how she wouldn’t hear someone coming, and indeed, when he reached the landing on the third level, a stunning woman wearing workout gear was waiting for him, her sidearm out of its holster, but at her side.

“Raquel, that’s Ryan.” He heard Chris’s voice, and Raquel relaxed some, but she kept wary eyes trained on him.

“I told you to stay back in the apartment,” Raquel said to Chris as Ryan continued up the staircase.

“She’s not very good at obeying,” Ryan commented to Raquel as he stepped next to her on the landing, one professional to another.

Raquel nodded her agreement. “Ain’t that the truth. You her FBI agent?”

“He’s not a puppy or a gynecologist, he’s an FBI agent; they don’t belong to anyone,” Chris argued, standing in the doorway.

Ryan looked at her in the soft gray light, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and tumbling in dark waves, her gold eyes making her look like some kind of exotic tabby cat. She’d crossed her arms over her chest, pushing up her full breasts, and her chin was tilted at that stubborn angle that said she knew she’d screwed up but, given the chance to do it over, she would probably still behave the same way.

At the moment Ryan understood the sentiment completely. He was about to fuck up big-time, go against his ethics, his better judgment, and his character, by putting the safety of one pain-in-the-ass woman ahead of the case.

“Nice to meet you.” Ryan kept his eyes on Christina, couldn’t quite pull them away, actually, but he held his hand out to Raquel.

She shook it, her voice amused. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Chris was watching him, her defense posture changing the longer he looked at her. She bit her bottom lip and his eyes focused on her pretty white teeth nibbling her soft rose-colored lips.

“Chris”—Raquel was amused—“I think I’ll go see if Tavey wants some help downstairs. You good?”

“I’m excellent,” she replied, her eyes meeting Ryan’s directly, no coyness or shyness. He liked that about her, he liked that she didn’t stay quiet. He was starting to learn that, while she played with the truth with the agility of a rodeo clown, she did not lie to hurt anyone. She was a fighter, a doer. He’d hated how his ex would pout and stew with resentment. He’d bet that when Chris was pissed off about something, the last thing she would do would be hide it.

Raquel left the same way Ryan had come up, down the wrought-iron staircase.

Chris dropped her arms to her sides, but didn’t say anything. She stared; he stared; and then, as if they’d choreographed it, she took a step back into the open door of the apartment and he took one forward, stalking her.

She started smiling as she backed away, and Ryan couldn’t help thinking that she was the prettiest damn girl he’d ever met, even as he vowed to drive home the seriousness of her situation.

“Whatcha thinking, FBI?”

“I’m thinkin’ you should keep backing up, Ms. Pascal.” He stepped inside the apartment, closing and locking the door behind him.

She did, backing farther into the living room. “How far back?”

“Back to the couch.”

She laughed, turning around so that she could navigate around the chair. He followed, waiting until she sat and turned to look at him before he said anything.

He stood in front of her, wishing he didn’t like her so much. “You know about my last case in Texas?” he asked her, and watched the heat in her eyes fade. He regretted it; he wanted her, too, especially when he thought about the first time he’d seen her, stretching that long-limbed body nervously, her mouth running, and all her feelings laid bare in her eyes. He’d known moments after he’d begun talking to her that she wasn’t working with a killer.

She nodded warily.

“You want to know what it was like to see the bodies of those girls and know that maybe I could have prevented it?”

Chris shook her head no, her face pale.

“I was reckless. I was convinced this woman was evil, but I couldn’t prove it. I broke into her house.” He paused. “And didn’t find anything, but I was tossed off the case.”

“But—” she began, but he held up a hand to forestall any comments.

“I didn’t stop. I found the proof, proof we could use, but by then another girl had died.”

He could see that she understood his grief, probably better than anyone he’d ever met. “That’s why I search for the missing,” she whispered. “I lost Summer. It was my fault we were in the woods, but I was upset. I wanted an adventure. I can’t stop looking for her, trying to find them all before it’s too late, before they’re gone forever.”

“So imagine how I’ll feel if it was you,” he countered.

“If what was me?” she whispered.

He didn’t want to describe what he’d imagined when he’d read what she’d written. Her words had been beautiful; he’d seen the woods and the two girls running through them in his head, but then his mind had flashed on the crime scene photos, on the women who had been left sliced and broken, all because some lunatic thought he was collecting strings.

He crouched down on his haunches, breathing in the smell of her: grapefruit, coffee, and warm female sweat.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he confessed, taking her hands.

CHRIS FELT WORSE
than if he’d yelled. She’d known he didn’t want anything to happen to her; he was the type to want to protect anyone from harm—an old-fashioned kind of protector, the kind of man heartbroken by the death of six little girls, but this felt more personal, like he was starting to feel something more than just the need to look out for someone involved with the case. “I’m sorry.” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, knowing that he wouldn’t make the first move, not with the case between them.

He resisted at first, but then he kissed her fiercely, tugging her close into his arms, and the fierce kiss gentled into something soft and wet and open. He traced her lower lip lightly with his tongue, soothing her, only pulling away when she was gasping, her fingers clinging to him.

His glasses had fogged up.

“I’ll take them off.” She reached up and removed them, folding them gently. Taking them from her, he leaned over, stretching with one long arm to set them gently on the table. He moved so that he was sitting next to her on the couch, moving slightly over her, so he could look down into her face.

He touched her nose, lips, chin, looking into her eyes the entire time. It was strange to have her so quiet and still. He wondered if she would let him pull up the tight tank she was wearing and kiss and lick her nipples. He wanted to. He wanted to sink himself inside her and forget about killers and dead bodies, and fucking strings.

“So, just how flexible are you?” he asked, trying to distract himself from thoughts of pulling down her soft, form-fitting yoga pants. It would be so easy—just a little tug and he’d have access to her. He wouldn’t even have to get them over her knees. He’d be able to stroke her, tease her, slide one finger into her hot, wet heat.

She chuckled, as he’d intended, but her fingers were busy touching his shoulder, arm, chest, her eyes trailing from his lips to his jaw.

“You have beautiful cheekbones.”

It was Ryan’s turn to laugh.
What the fuck?
“Yeah, no one’s ever mentioned that to me before.”

They looked at each other, bodies pressed together, breathing heavily, skin flushed. He pressed his hand over her heart and slid his fingers up, touching the little hollow of her throat.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered, mostly to himself, but all he could think about was sliding his hand to cover her round, full breasts, tugging down her tank top until her nipples popped free, and sucking on them, making her hips bounce against his. It felt so great to be touching her, to be wanted this much.

His cock was digging into her hip; he knew she felt it. She reached up and gripped his hair. “Ryan, if you don’t get on with it—” She growled low in her throat and curled her left leg up and over his hip, urging him farther on top of her.

He let himself fall, settling himself on top of her with a deep sigh. She was firm and round, all lithe muscles and female curves.

“God, that feels so good.” She arched up against him. “You have no idea.”

He had a pretty good idea. She was rubbing and arching against his cock like it had been years since she’d had one between her legs. Maybe it had been; she seemed pretty isolated here with her personal mission.

He should stop this, slow down, but damn it, she arched her back, her breasts now right in front of his face, and he couldn’t help it, they were there, so he nuzzled them, rubbing his face from side to side, sliding his cheeks against the soft mounds of flesh. With one finger, just one finger, he couldn’t do much damage with just one finger, he tugged down the top of her tank, pulling toward the right, until one sweet little pinkish brown nipple peeked out.