In this story from New York Times bestselling author Rachel Lee, two investigators must learn to play nice before it’s too late

Detective Cade Bankston never had any luck with female partners. So when he’s assigned to work with feisty, raven-haired DeeJay Dawkins, he isn’t pleased at all. Posing as a married couple, the investigators must team up to catch a killer. That is, if they don’t kill each other first.

Putting their mission first proves tricky as mutual disdain evolves into mutual desire. But distraction is not an option. The killer who seemingly vanished five years prior has returned to Conard County, Wyoming, to finish what he started. And he just set his sights on two new victims.

“Well, we know where it ended. The question is where did it begin?”

“We aren’t going to figure that out now.” DeeJay turned, and as she did so, her boot caught on something, maybe a root, and she started to fall.

Instantly, strong arms caught her and the next thing she knew she was pressed against Cade’s chest. Layers of down prevented it from being in any way intimate, but when she looked up into his eyes, no amount of down could prevent the hot arc of hunger that speared through her.

A flare in his gaze seemed to answer her.

“Cade?” she said breathlessly, the question almost lost as the treetops stirred in a sudden wind. It didn’t matter. She didn’t know what she was asking anyway.

“Damn,” he said quietly. Apparently he knew the answer because he leaned in and kissed her.

***

Dear Reader,

Falling in love is one of the biggest risks we take in life. It’s the emotional equivalent of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and trusting your jump partner to catch you and carry you down. When we’re young, we leap into it with joy. When we get a little older, if we’ve had some bad experiences, we’re not as quick to take that leap. Maybe we refuse to take it again.

But at the root of love is trust—trusting someone enough to be utterly vulnerable to them, because when we truly love we become emotionally naked. All the walls are down, all the defenses lowered. With a single word or act, we might be devastated.

DeeJay and Cade both have reasons not to trust, DeeJay more than most. But when they are partnered to help catch a serial killer, those defenses must be breached. As partners they must rely on one another completely, and that reliance requires the first seeds of trust. Preoccupation with the case gets them through at the beginning, but in the end love saves them both.

Enjoy!

Rachel

Undercover

Hunter

Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Calvin Sweet knew he was taking some big chances, but risks always invigorated him. Coming back to his home in Conard County was the first of the new risks. Five years ago he’d left for bigger cities because the law seemed to be closing in on him.

Returning to the site where he had hung his trophies was a huge risk, too, although he could claim he was out for a hike in the autumn mountains before the first snows fell. There was nothing left, anyway. The law had taken it all away, and the sight filled him with both sorrow and bitterness. Anger, too. They had no right to take away his hard work, his triumphs, his mementos. His boys. He knew his mother would be proud of what he’d done, but the proof that he’d appeased her was gone.

They’d taken it all away. After five years all that was left were some remnants of cargo netting rotting in the tree limbs, the remains of a few sawed-off ropes.

But he could close his eyes and remember, and remembering filled him with joy and a sense of his own huge power, the power to purify them forever. Calvin had saved them.

Unlike his boys, he was filled with great purpose, a purpose handed down to him by his mother.

From earliest childhood he had been fascinated by spiders and their webs. He had spent hours watching as insect after insect fell victim to those silken strands, struggling mightily until they were stung and then wrapped up helplessly to await their fate. Each corpse on the web had been a trophy, marking the spider’s victory. No one ever escaped.

No one had escaped him, either.

But his boys were gone, carried away to a different fate on cold slabs and cold holes in the ground. Honored no more, at least not by him.

He stood for a while, remembering, then turned to begin the trek back to the ranch. A small ranch, left to him after his mother’s death long ago, but it was isolated enough to pursue his calling, and without his mother around it would be even more private. He considered it a bonus that construction at the new ski resort had begun. An influx of people for the jobs made his return even less remarkable.

These past years, moving from city to city before he could be found, he’d had to give up a lot of his boys, which had left him feeling incomplete and unsatisfied. Certainly there’d been no spiderwebs. Well, he could rebuild his triumphs here. Not in the woods, perhaps, since they’d found his first group, but maybe in the barn loft, out of sight? He needed to think about it.

He really wanted his web again, his carefully preserved trophies. He wanted what every spider wanted, and he’d find a way. The need was growing stronger. He needed to act again, and he needed to honor those who sustained his soul. He also needed to carry out his mission of purification. Sometimes, though, he lost track of what mattered more: his mission or his need. In those moments, he felt a little confused, but eventually he righted himself.

A cautious part of his mind warned him to wait a little longer, to make sure his plan would work. Soon that voice would give way to the compulsion that filled him, making the whole world seem luminescent, especially the chosen one.

But for now he suppressed the need. He wasn’t stupid. In fact, he was quite smart, as proved by the fact that no one had come for him yet. He knew he was committing crimes. He just didn’t care. His mission was bigger and more important than mere mortal laws.

He was himself chosen, just like a spider, to be exactly what he was.

Chosen. He liked that word. It fit both him and his boys. They were all chosen to perform the dance of death together, to reach the ultimate purity. To sacrifice the ordinary for the extraordinary.

So he quashed his growing need to act and focused his attention on another part of his life. He had a job now, on the crisis hotline. Calvin had worked at them before, which had gotten him a job almost the instant he walked in the door. Five evenings a week for four hours he answered telephones and talked with distressed people: victims of rape, of domestic abuse, and the ones who interested him the most, the desperate boys.

He was whistling now as he walked back down the mountain to his truck. A spiderweb was beginning to take shape in his mind, one for his barn loft that no one would see, ever. It was enough that he could admire it and savor the gifts there. That he could bask in the purity of his successful missions.

The impulse to hunt eased, and soon he was in control again. He liked control. He liked controlling himself and others, even as he fulfilled his purpose. Self-control was everything, as his mother had often reminded him.

Like the spider, he was not hasty to act. It would have to be the right person at the right time, and the time was not yet right. The right times were coming to him more often now as he grew in strength.

But first he had to build his web.

Chapter 1

In January beneath a leaden sky, special agents Cade Bankston and DeeJay Dawkins rocketed down an empty state highway toward the town of Conard City, Wyoming. They had been summoned to find a serial killer.

Cade had been to Conard City a few times years ago, very briefly, and had found it unremarkable but pleasant. DeeJay had never seen it. Given her background, he wondered how she would react. But then he couldn’t figure out what the hell a woman with her past was doing working as a criminal investigator for the state of Wyoming. As a former military cop for an elite MP unit, she should have had her pick of jobs.

Maybe it was that prickly nature of hers that caused her problems. Certainly they’d had a few near-fights over the past three days, and they’d only just been made partners. If there was something, imagined or real, for DeeJay to object to, then she seemed to find it.

The red car they were driving was kind of sporty for the country, but that was the idea. To look like outsiders rather than insiders. To act as cover for a couple of investigators pretending to be married travel writers.

That “married” was still the biggest bone of contention between them. Not that it had been their decision. Nope. None of this had been their decision, and if they could just wrap their heads around that part, maybe the spats would ease up.

He kept his attention on the road. Snow blanketed the open spaces around them, although it was still a thin blanket. Plenty of brush stuck up through it, and tumbleweeds tossed like agitated prisoners against the barbed wire that had snared them. If there was life out here that was mobile, it had found somewhere to hide. Even the ranch houses were invisible from the road, although occasionally a sign pointed the way or smoke from a woodstove signaled in the distance.

He glanced at his companion. Well, okay, partner. He’d never wanted another female partner again, but that was a subject he wasn’t about to explore again, now or later. He just didn’t like it and didn’t want it, had learned it contained huge pitfalls. Now here he was with a woman stapled to his side for the duration.

She’d have been pretty enough if he hadn’t already discovered she was a prickly pear cactus with enough sharp spines to leave a man in ribbons. Inky black hair, high, wide cheekbones that bespoke some Native American ancestry, a straight nose that was just right for her face and a mouth that, damn it, looked like it was begging for a kiss. Even when it was compressed in disapproval, which it often was as far as he could tell. And that inventory didn’t even get to her figure, a great figure for someone who was in the peak of physical conditioning, which she clearly was. He liked women who were fit.

He clapped his eyes back on the empty road and schooled his thoughts to a safer area. The woman in the passenger seat was off-limits, no caveats, no exceptions. And she was probably still stewing because he was driving.

That had been their first disagreement of the day. Just the opening salvo. The next battle had ensued over the choice of radio station. He liked country music while he was driving. Turned out she liked NPR. Now why would that surprise him? Thing was, when he was driving he preferred to escape into fantasies about losing the woman, the truck and the dog rather than listen to real-world discussions that usually riled him up because he mostly didn’t like the way the world was going these days.

So no radio at all. Some compromise.

Then there had been the disagreement about where to get coffee. Crap, that beat it all to hell. She wanted the expensive place; he’d have been happy with any roadside diner. So he took her to the chain coffee shop and then she’d ordered ordinary coffee. Not a fancy drink, just a gigantic cup of black and strong. Same as him. So why the argument?

He hoped they found this serial killer soon, preferably before one of them killed the other in a shoot-out at high noon.

“I need to eat,” she announced. Her first words in 250 miles.

Not we need to eat. No, just announcing her own wishes. Of course, maybe she was used to that. He’d heard she’d been an officer, kind of way up there or something. Maybe she said jump and was used to having everyone do it. Well, he wasn’t used to jumping and wasn’t about to begin.

“You see a place to stop?” he asked mildly enough. Not exactly a courteous response on his part, and even he knew it. But he figured if he gave DeeJay Dawkins an inch, she’d take a country mile.

“Next place,” she replied.

“Greasy spoons from here on out.” He hoped she’d object to that. After all, she was the type who went to specialty coffee shops to get ordinary coffee. Next he’d be hearing about organic food restaurants and how she lived on fresh salads.

She shocked him by saying, “Fine.”

Man, the conversation in this car was a real crowd-pleaser. The thought of having to share a house with her until they finished this investigation made him want to change jobs. Except he mostly liked his job, so he wasn’t going to let anyone, especially her, make him throw it away.

Focus on the job, he reminded himself. Not the partner. They were after a serial killer, or at least the local sheriff thought so. One who was taking adolescent boys. No bodies yet, but apparently it had happened a few years ago, too, then abruptly stopped. They didn’t find the evidence until later. Much later. Now the sheriff feared it was starting again.

Not unusual. Some serial killers were fairly smart. They often changed locales and evaded the law until they died. Or they went to prison for a while for some unrelated crime and their trail went cold. If the sheriff was right, they couldn’t hope for a stupid killer this time, because that would be a really idiotic assumption on their part.

It had happened before; now it was happening again, and half a decade was a long time for a copycat to suddenly show up. Ergo, it had to be the same creep.

Around a tight bend in the road, settled into a hollow almost out of sight, he spied a roadhouse. One of those places that somehow hung on in the middle of nowhere, serving people who lived too far from a town to want to make a lengthy trip for a drink, some socializing and a lousy sandwich or overcooked burger.

Without a word, he flipped on the turn signal and nosed them in. Only a couple of dusty pickups sat in the gravel lot, but the open sign blinked red neon at them. Rusty, ancient-looking signs announced beer, food and cigarettes. Sort of an outdated convenience store, except there’d be a bar. There was always a bar. He just hoped the place didn’t house any trouble right now. He and DeeJay, dressed in brand-new Western clothing and boots to fit their assumed roles, might as well be wearing neon signs of their own: dude alert.

He climbed out and waited. DeeJay followed a moment later. He’d already learned not to open a car door for her, even though they were supposed to look married. He hadn’t fought that one much, though, except to annoy her.

She came to the head of the car, and he watched her size up the place with experienced eyes. Then she glanced at him, and her dark gaze seemed to say, We can handle them.

Yeah, they could. If it became necessary and it probably wouldn’t. He wondered how many times in her career as an MP she’d had to walk into places like these, probably a hell of a lot more crowded with drunks. Maybe not much, if she’d been an officer. How the hell would he know? She wasn’t talking, and he was damned if he would ask.

When they reached the battered door, at least she didn’t argue about him opening it. He was on the left. He’d have let anyone on the left open it given the way it swung. He walked in behind her and took it all in, familiar from countless places in the past. Wood everywhere, darkened, stained and scratched by the years. A long bar, also scratched and stained, stools that had needed to be replaced forty years ago, the stench of stale alcohol, tobacco, sweat and other things he didn’t care to pick out. No scouring in the world would get rid of those odors now.

The jukebox was wailing some bluegrass, the bartender, maybe owner, looked like a leftover from gold-rush days. A number of old men gathered at a corner table, watching them suspiciously.

DeeJay took one look around, then strode up to the bar as if she owned the place. Cade stayed by the door. The Native ancestry stamped on her face could still cause problems in some parts. He waited to see how she’d be received.

“Coffee,” she said to the bartender, “and a menu. Please.”

The gray-bearded man hesitated only a moment, his old pale eyes darting to Cade, then he grabbed a ceramic cup from the stack on the counter and filled it from what looked like a fresh pot. He carried it to DeeJay, then slapped down a plastic-covered menu that was probably sticky. Weren’t they always?

Cade meandered over to take a seat by DeeJay. The bartender had issued the message We don’t want no problems here.

Good enough for him. He ordered his own coffee, and agreed silently with DeeJay that a burger was probably the safest thing to choose, not that the menu was big. Soon the smell of frying beef rose from the griddle and it was like someone let the tension out of the room.

Lunch without problems. Always a good way to go.

Then DeeJay astonished him almost to speechlessness. She lifted her head from her burger and said, “This is a great burger. Just the way I like them.”

The bartender froze and stared at her. He probably received a compliment once every hundred years or so.

DeeJay pushed her jacket out of the way, reached into her hip pocket and pulled out one of the phony business cards they had for this trip. “We’re travel writers,” she said. “We write about great places to stop. If you have a card, I’d like to tell folks about your burgers.”

Now the bartender’s jaw dropped. Silence fell from the far end of the room, except for Hank Williams Sr. wailing tinnily about cheatin’ hearts. You could almost hear the ice in the room crack as it thawed.

“Ain’t got no card,” the bartender said. “Take one of them menus, iffen you want.”

“I’ll do that,” DeeJay said. “Thanks.”

For her efforts they both received a complimentary piece of apple pie.

Cade let DeeJay pay, figuring this wasn’t the time or place to get into an argument about who was buying lunch, and it was all the state’s money anyway. When at last they stepped back outside, he drew in lungfuls of fresh cold air and remarked, “Great job.” He didn’t even sound grudging.

“The pie crust was heavy,” she remarked, her only response.

Stifling a sigh, he climbed back in behind the wheel and set them once again on the road to Conard City.

However long it took to catch this killer, it was going to be too long.

* * *

DeeJay didn’t care for men. It was one thing to have a fling with one, another to work with one. In a single instant she’d seen the resistance in Cade Bankston’s eyes when he’d heard they were to be partnered, and that had been all she’d needed. He was a macho meathead who couldn’t accept that women were as capable as men. Like that pinheaded CO who had turned her life into a living hell because he didn’t think a woman was qualified to command an MP unit. That freaking martinet had wanted every i dotted, and it damn well better be dotted clearly enough. But he wasn’t the only one. There’d been the CO in Afghanistan who’d warned her that if she filed a rape charge her career was over. And the series of them who had been infuriated when she insisted on investigating the rapes of other soldiers. There’d also been too many men working for her who didn’t get why they should take orders from her. And then there’d been the guy who had forced her out.

They hadn’t all been bad, but enough of them had that DeeJay had a real burn on for men. A guy got one chance with her. Bankston had torched his.

Still, she had to work with him. She wasn’t ready to nuke any bridges on this job. There was a killer to catch, although she still didn’t understand what lamebrain had come up with the idea that they had to pretend to be married. Wouldn’t it have been enough that they were working together on a travel story?

She looked down at the thin gold band on her ring finger, courtesy of an evidence locker somewhere, and wished she could fling it out the window.

She glanced occasionally at Bankston, taking in his square jaw and chiseled face from the side. His hair was a light brown, a little wavy, and he had a pair of aquamarine eyes that she would have admired in any other setting. He probably believed he set women’s hearts aflutter, and maybe he did. For a guy who must be pushing toward forty, he took good care of himself.

All she knew about him, though, was that he had a lot of experience and had been with the criminal investigation unit for most of that time. She’d heard that he’d once been a beat cop in a major metro area, but she didn’t have any idea which one. It wasn’t a whole lot to go on.

She did know, however, that he didn’t want to be working with her, and she didn’t want him any closer than the job required. When they’d received the news that they were pairing up for this, she’d seen it clear as anything in his eyes. If he’d been a mule, he’d have dug in his heels and brayed. She had to give him some credit for taking an order he didn’t like, but she wouldn’t give him any more than that.

Nor did she feel as if she needed to prove herself to him. She’d proved herself countless times in a much tougher organization, and she’d learned the hard way that conciliatory women were considered weak, and tough ones were called bitches. She preferred being a bitch. At least no one tried to take advantage of her that way.

Stifling a sigh, she wished this drive would come to an end. Looking out the window, with the mountains still purple in the distance, had begun to bore her. She wasn’t used to sitting still for so long.

She glanced again at Cade and decided that maybe she should back off him a little. She’d made her position clear repeatedly over the past few days, but they still had to work together. The question was how much she needed to back off. Except for their disagreement about who would drive, he’d done his share of backing off. And she’d let him drive only because he’d made the logical argument that he knew this country and these roads. It had been clear at that point that he wasn’t insisting because he thought the man should always drive.

Okay, give him back a point, but after that expression when they’d been told they were working together, he still had a lot of points to earn.

“I guess that you don’t know much about the sheriff we’re working with, unless someone gave you a dossier,” he said, disturbing the endless silence between them, a silence filled with the humming of the car engine and tires on the road.

“Not a thing,” she admitted reluctantly, wondering if she had been deliberately left out of some loop. Men often tried that with her.

“He’s good,” Cade said. “Not your average elected official whose chief accomplishment has been kissing babies.”

Despite herself, she almost wanted to laugh. Even as an MP she’d had to deal with that kind of local law enforcement occasionally.

“He’s former DEA,” Cade went on. “Undercover operative until a car bomb nearly killed him and wiped out his entire family. He still carries the scars.”

DeeJay swore quietly. She knew a lot of stories of car bombs all too well. Some of them had involved families.

“Yeah,” Cade answered, apparently hearing her. “Anyway, long story short. He came here to heal, got hired as a crime-scene investigator, and years ago when the old sheriff retired, he was elected. Folks still call him the new sheriff.”

“Of course.” That didn’t surprise her at all.

“His name is Gage Dalton. Runs a tight ship. His predecessor, Nate Tate, was sheriff for forty years and still sticks his finger in the pie. Let him. There’s no one and nothing he doesn’t know about this county.”

“Except who the killer is.”

“Obviously.”

DeeJay hesitated. Then, offering a slender olive branch, she said, “Sounds like a couple of good men to have on our side.”

“The best. The deputies are good, too. Nate started a trend of inviting his old military pals to come this way. He was Special Forces. Anyway, they joke sometimes that they have more Special Forces types in Conard County than most military bases. Makes for an interesting and sometimes useful mix.”

He was trying to tell her to be careful of stepping on toes, she realized. Trying to warn her that she’d be meeting men with backgrounds similar to hers and who shouldn’t be casually dismissed. Or wisely dismissed. While she resented the implication that she made a habit of stepping on toes, she’d certainly been stepping on his since their first meeting. Since she couldn’t just come out and say that she only stepped on toes she meant to break, she decided to take it as a good omen that he was trying to fill her in. Much as it killed her, she said, “Thank you.”

“The sheriff knows we’re both coming. It’ll be up to him to decide who to trust with that information, but from what little I know of him, I doubt he’ll trust very many. They’re already working the case, though, and as you know we’re here by invitation.”

“Got it. Been there, done that before.”

“I guess you have.”

She hesitated, then asked, “You read my jacket?”

“That stuff’s private. What I know about you is exactly nothing.”

That wasn’t good, she thought. They were partnered and both of them had to have some basis for trusting each other’s instincts, as far as the investigation went. They didn’t have to like each other, just to develop a professional trust. Partners could succeed no other way. But she still had a burr.

“You didn’t want to partner with a woman,” she said.

“No.” He didn’t varnish it. “Nothing to do with you personally. Bad experience once.”

“I could say the same about working with men, only more than once.”

She felt him glance at her before he spoke. “Then I suggest we focus on the badge and not the packages we’re wearing. I trained at Quantico and I’ve been a cop in one shape or another for seventeen years.”

She gave a short nod. “I did Quantico, too. Twelve years as a cop, mostly in investigations. All over the world.”

“Good. Well, we’re entering a different world here. You let me know if it reminds you of any place you’ve been before. People in this town are pretty tight. Just about everyone’s going to be upset about the missing boys. Then there’s a ski resort they started to build this past summer. Some new people from that. Some who came with the semiconductor plant and didn’t leave when it died. But most folks were born here and will be buried here. That kind of place.”

“I’ve been in villages like that.” She’d run into them in the Appalachians on a couple of cases involving military personnel, and overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tight, cliquish and distrusting of outsiders. How was that going to help them?

She looked out the side window again, feeling as if the day’s gloom was settling into her bones. Some nuts were impossible to crack, and this sounded like one. How the hell were a couple of pretend travel writers going to get any real information from anyone? It would give them the freedom to move around without suspicion, but little else.

The more she thought about it, the less she liked this whole cover story. Profiling, in which they’d both been trained, could only get you so far. After that, you needed solid information.

“You know,” she said presently, “this cover story stinks. The whole town is going to be upset because kids are disappearing. Does anyone think they’re going to want to talk about that with travel writers?”

He didn’t answer for a minute. The car noises seemed to grow louder until he spoke. “That crossed my mind. But you tell me, Dawkins, how else we can insert a couple of strangers into a small community like this? No matter how we do it, we’re going to stand out and nobody’s going to want to talk. This cover story at least elevates us above a couple of dubious drifters and doesn’t give away our real mission.”

He was right. “So we back up the local law. I can deal.”

“Yeah. They’ll probably give us most of the information. We’re the ones who need to help pull it together. And who knows? We’re talking about one thing and looking for another. We might learn something useful just by keeping our eyes and ears open.”

“You mean the unsub could slip up.”

“We can hope.”

Amazing how much of law enforcement came down to someone slipping up and someone else having the wit to notice the slip. She drummed her fingers on her thigh. They had been called up because of their training in profiling. She didn’t have the highest regard for it, but it could occasionally provide some useful directions to an investigation.

She spoke as they passed the sign announcing that they were entering Conard County. “We’d better get on a first-name basis fast.”

“Yeah. Why’d you tell that barkeep that you were going to tout his burgers? He’ll be looking for an article.”

“Nah. He has a business card and a story to tell. That’ll make him happy. He’ll brag and our cover will be established.”

“True.”

She guessed that was an olive branch from him.

* * *

Calvin Sweet finished arranging his latest trophy and stood back in the barn loft to admire it. Three of them now hung from the commercial fish netting he’d acquired on his travels.

He liked that netting. It was better than the cargo net he’d used before, thinner, made of highly durable plastic. As close as he was going to get to a spiderweb unless he took the time to weave one himself.

His three trophies, wrapped in clear plastic painter’s drop cloth, hung beautifully like ornaments, visible but slightly hidden in their protective cases. Mysterious, like the life force he had taken from them. Holy now that they’d been saved.

Backing up, he settled on a bale of hay to admire his handiwork. His private collection, growing steadily, a work of art. He hoped that someday someone other than himself would be able to admire it. It had taken a lot of work and thought. Hunting for something more to his liking than rope cargo net had actually taken quite a while. There were a surprising number of different kinds of fishnets and netting, and he’d had to do research until he could walk into that place on the East Coast and order exactly what he wanted.

Even the clear plastic drop cloths were problematic, as he had to be careful not to buy too many at any one place. He’d driven many miles buying two or three at a time to make the stack that now stood in a corner of the old tack room. Always paying in cash, too.

Then there were the plastic, disposable restraints. Easy enough to come by if you ordered them online, a hundred at a time. Figuring out how to avoid leaving that trail had cost him as much time and effort as any other part. He’d been delighted when he’d learned he could buy them in smaller quantities at some sex shops, and for cash. That had meant a lot of traveling, too, and going into places that he was certain were evil.

But he liked the flexible ties better than tape, which damaged the skin and looked ugly, and better than rope, which could stretch and be wiggled out of. Imagine his surprise when he’d learned that most rope stretched on purpose so it wouldn’t snap.

But now here he was, his trail concealed, his beautiful web in operation, three offerings to admire. It had been worth it. All of it.

He had saved these three from miserable futures full of heartbreak, hard work, illness and sin. He had set them free. He had kept them pure.

And in setting them free he had purified himself, made himself stronger with their unsullied energy. Just like the spider, who could poison her prey and then eat it without suffering from the poison. Receiving only the nutrition.

His spirit had been fed. Now he honored those who had fed him, acknowledging their gifts.

It was essential to be grateful for these gifts. Gratitude filled him with a righteous light and reminded him how important his boys were, thus endowing them with the importance they deserved.

They had served him well.

He would honor them just as well.

But then the watch on his wrist beeped, reminding him it was time to get ready. He had a shift on the crisis line tonight, and no way would he miss it.

There was more than one way he could help others.

Satisfied, he rose and climbed down the ladder, locked the barn and headed to the house.

Nights brought him many good things. Tonight he might have the chance to help a mistreated woman. Life was good to him and he was great.

He needed nothing more.

Chapter 2

The town looked as buttoned-down as a military base under a black flag warning, DeeJay thought as they tooled down tree-lined streets beneath the skeletal fingers of leafless branches. Snow berms lined the streets from the plows, and lawns lay beneath an icy blanket of white. Holiday decorations, unlit now, hung from the light poles, awaiting the people who would remember to take them down.

“Do you know where this house is?” she asked.

Cade nodded. “Near the downtown. The guy next door is the landlord. We’ll get the key from him.”

If he was home. But she kept that thought to herself. “There’s no one about.” The winter night had fallen a while ago, but it was still early. “Is it always this quiet?”

“I doubt it, but like I said, I’ve only been here briefly a few times and that was long ago.”

“So people are hunkering down because of the kidnappings?”

“Maybe so. Once we talk to Gage we’ll get a better idea.”

Her eyes never stopped moving as she surveyed the streets, the town she could see, the emptiness that made it seem more like a ghost town. Lights glowed from inside the houses, but that didn’t change the sense of abandonment. She’d seen frightened towns before and this was a frightened town. Frightened for their young boys. It was enough.

She itched to get on the job, to catch the scent and start her work. The time between the last two disappearances had been just over two weeks. The current victim had disappeared four days ago. They didn’t have a whole lot of time.

She’d learned patience as an investigator, however. Impatience could lead to mistakes and oversights. These could not be allowed. She drew a deep breath and let relaxation pour through her. Time. It always took time.

“Do we have any idea of his cycle?” she asked.

“The killer? Not sure. He was escalating somewhat before he vanished, and he seems to be escalating again. It’s hard to be sure with only three missing kids, though. You read the report?”

Of course she had, but it had mostly been a description of events five years earlier. Little enough about the present except that it appeared to be happening again. Since Cade had been in these parts for at least a decade, she couldn’t help wondering if he knew more than was in the report. If so, they were going to have a meeting of minds very soon. If not...well, they were starting on equal footing. “The more frequently he acts, the more likely he’ll slip up.” On the other hand, that put some very real pressure on them to figure out something fast.

“We’ll find out.” He pulled a left turn onto an even narrower street, this one devoid of pole decorations, although a few houses still sported lights along the eaves. Barnstable Street.

“There it is.”

Unmistakable, she thought. It was the only house on the street that was completely dark. Not very big, either, which could be good or bad, depending. Her mind ticked over impressions, cataloguing them for later.

He stopped the car at the end of a plowed driveway, no heaped snow blocking it. “I’ll get the key.”

She didn’t answer, just climbed out. He paused, then switched off the ignition and set the brake. She didn’t explain her actions, felt no need to, but she was damned if she was going to start letting him cut her out of anything, however small.

She was a tall woman, but Cade was even taller. As they mounted the three salted steps side by side, the wind bit at them with frigid teeth. It was freaking cold this evening, like the breath of an advancing ice age. Even with her hood pulled up, the chill found ways to snap at her ears.

Cade knocked, a courteous knock rather than a police banging, and soon the front door opened to reveal a beautiful and very pregnant young woman. “You must be the Dentons?” she said.

Cade nodded. “I’m Cade, and this is my...wife, DeeJay.” DeeJay hoped she was the only one who noted that hesitation. To her it sounded too obvious to miss.

“Come in,” the woman said, smiling. “I’m Kelly Jackson. You’ll freeze out there waiting for me to get the key.”

So they stepped into a tiny foyer where the wood floor was covered in a bright braid rug and a few photos hung on the walls. “How about some coffee?” Kelly asked. “You must have had a long drive. Hank should be back soon. He’s helping with the search parties.”

DeeJay could smell roasting pork from the kitchen and guessed dinner was cooking for Hank. Then it struck her. This woman was talking about search parties to a couple of travel writers. What’s more, they weren’t supposed to be clued in.

As they were ushered into the front room and waved to seats on the sofa, she asked, “Search parties?”

“We’ve had a boy go missing,” Kelly answered, her smile fading. “Just twelve years old. Let me get that coffee.”

Kelly returned quickly carrying a tray that held three mugs and a coffeepot. “You’ll like the house,” she said. “I know you might not be here very long, but it’s where I first lived when I moved here.” Her face seemed to shadow, but then it brightened. “A real estate agent rented it to me when Hank was away for a few weeks. I thought Hank was going to have a cow when he found out. The place was in terrible shape. I don’t think you ever saw a man move so fast to repair things. He hadn’t intended to rent it out so soon.”

DeeJay thanked her for the coffee. “How long did you live there?”

Kelly laughed again, seeming to relax. She sat in an armchair across from them. “Long enough to finish out my divorce and marry Hank. Just long enough to fix it up a bit. The furnishings aren’t top-of-the-line, but they’ll serve you.”

“What’s Hank do?” Cade asked.

“He’ll tell you he’s just a cowboy.”

DeeJay hooked on the way she said it. “But?”

“Hank will never be just anything.”

DeeJay was sure Kelly believed that, but she also sensed there was more of a backstory. No way to ask. “So he’s out searching for this boy?”

“A lot of people are.” Kelly’s face darkened again. “I might as well tell you, since you’re going to run into it anyway. You picked a bad time to write a travel piece about us. Even with the new ski resort opening next fall.”

“Why?” DeeJay asked gently.

Kelly shook her blond head. “This is the third boy to disappear since late fall. And some are talking about how this happened before I moved here. People are scared. Whether they talk to you about it or not, you’re going to sense their fear.”

Five minutes later they were parked in the short driveway of the dark little house. Kelly assured them that Hank had turned up the heat that morning so they should be warm. Everything was ready for them, including the phone.

Cade drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Want to unload the suitcases first or find a place to eat?”

“Greasy spoon?” she asked, quoting him from earlier.

“One of the best.”

“Then let’s eat first. As cold as it is tonight, I don’t want to settle into warmth and then have to go out again. When do we meet the sheriff?”

“Soon. With the search going on, I can’t say any better than that.” He pulled away from the house, rounded a block and headed in toward the center of town. The houses grew bigger and some even boasted decent-sized yards.

If you blinked, DeeJay thought, you could miss the entire center of town with its flashing red stoplight. It had the kind of charm most old small towns boasted, along with the inevitable seediness. It could have been almost anywhere in the country or anywhere in the past century.

Whatever tourism might come to Conard County from the ski resort, the town hadn’t yet given in. No cheesy T-shirt shops, no cowboy-hat shaped neon announcing Western clothing. No upscale boutiques. No touristy stuff at all. The town hadn’t yet wakened to its new status. Maybe it never would.

They parked at a place called the City Diner. “It’s empty,” she remarked before they climbed out of the car. “That’s not a good sign.”

“This place has a great rep,” Cade answered. “And remember, people are either out searching for a boy or they’re locked inside where it’s safe.”

Three boys missing and the town feared they had a killer in their midst. Not understanding the mentality of most serial killers, they wouldn’t get that anyone other than a young boy would probably be safe. And that was wise, because there had been a few who had had no particular victim type, and hadn’t cared whom they had chosen for their ritual.

“Ramirez,” Cade said, almost as if he were reading her mind. “That guy ran the gamut in his victims.”

“But as far as we know, this one doesn’t.”

“So far.”

“Maybe more like Gacy.”

“Maybe.”

Inside, the diner looked ancient, with seats patched with tape and tables that were scratched past all shine but clearly clean. The menus weren’t even sticky, but the woman who waited on them was something else. If she’d ever had a charming bone in her body, it had abandoned ship a long time ago. Crockery clattered, cups slammed, hot coffee filled them and splashed a bit, and all without any communication beyond indeterminate grunts. Mavis apparently wasn’t much for talking.

Then came the platters overflowing with steak sandwiches and enough fries for an army. The dinner salads in their tiny bowls almost disappeared beside them.

It was then they discovered that Mavis could talk.

“You them travel writers?”

“Yes,” Cade and DeeJay answered together.

“Humph. Bad time to be coming to these parts. Don’t know if I like that whole ski thing, neither. We were getting along just fine.”

“You’ll get more business,” Cade pointed out.

“Already got all the business we want, and some that we don’t.” With that, Mavis stomped away.

Cade and DeeJay exchanged looks, the first real understanding that had passed between them. It arced almost electrically, and both quickly glanced down at their plates.

“So everybody knows who we are,” DeeJay remarked, picking up a half a steak sandwich that by itself would have fed three men.

“At least we won’t seem suspicious.”

“Maybe not.” But she had her doubts. Strangers in a frightened town always caused suspicion. They really had their work cut out for them.

* * *

The house created its own set of problems for them. It was tiny, with one small bedroom. DeeJay insisted she sleep on the couch because she was shorter, and this time Cade didn’t offer an argument.

They’d brought home hefty containers full of leftovers, but they’d also made a stop at the grocery for coffee. No day would be complete without it. At least they agreed on that much. Cade picked up a few other odds and ends for snacking while DeeJay selected some energy bars. Even frozen, they’d be edible, and right now they were utterly in the dark about how they were going to handle a case they knew very little about.

Back at the house, they brewed a pot in a decent drip coffeemaker, then sat down to pass the time. Being here in support of local law meant they had to await directions. And all of this undercover stuff was designed to lull the perp. If he caught wind that two state investigators had been brought in, he might disappear again. The pressure to catch him was heavy, almost creeping along DeeJay’s nerve endings. She suspected Cade was feeling much the same.

“There are crimes and then there are crimes,” she remarked.

“I read you loud and clear,” he answered.

“These sick twists make my skin crawl. I’ve dealt with all kinds of crimes. Just like you. I can understand most of them. People get mad. They want money. Lots of reasons that fit human understanding. Hell, most of us have probably felt an urge or two in our lives but haven’t acted on it.”

“True.”

“But these guys...they like it. They’re playing out some bizarre fantasy and compulsion. They never stop until they’re dead or in jail. All that stuff they poured into us at Quantico? It still doesn’t make sense to me.”

“I don’t think it ever can.”

“If it ever does, I may cash in my chips.”

He surprised her with a quiet laugh.

She looked at him, something she’d been trying to avoid by pretending a fascination for the pattern in the curtains or the back of her hands. “I didn’t mean that to be funny.”

“I know you didn’t. I laughed because my reaction is the same. It’s bad enough we have to try to understand enough to predict him. That’s as much understanding as I ever want to have.”

“More than enough. And we start as usual with the same bare-bones outline. Probably male, most likely white, late twenties to early thirties, drives a car that doesn’t stand out...” She trailed off. “A lot of blanks to fill in.”

“It could be a woman.”

“Quit reminding me we can’t eliminate anyone.”

At that he laughed freely, and as much as she didn’t like most men, she joined in. It felt good, released tension, and she hoped he was beginning to feel less resentful of having a woman for a partner.

In fairness, he couldn’t feel any more resentful of her than she felt of him. She sighed as the laughter died. Somewhere in the depths of the house the heat kicked on. First came a wave of chilly air, followed by warmer air that smelled a little musty.

The doorbell rang. She let him answer it. She heard Cade and another man exchange a few words, then Cade ushered in the sheriff along with a blast of cold air. The first thing that struck her was that one side of his face had been burned and showed old, shiny scar tissue. The next was that he limped, and occasionally pain flickered across his face. The car bomb.

“Gage Dalton,” he said, pulling off his glove and offering his hand. She rose and shook it. Cade took his jacket while DeeJay introduced herself. And even though it was a female thing to do, which she usually avoided, she asked if he wanted coffee.

“Always,” he answered promptly.

“I’ll get it,” Cade said.

DeeJay waved Gage Dalton to a chair and didn’t miss the way he winced as he sat.

“Long day,” Gage said.

She didn’t want to dally on niceties. “When did the boy disappear?”

“Four days ago, after school. His dad was in town to buy supplies at the feed store and told the boy he’d pick him up after school. When he got there, the boy was gone and the dad assumed they must have crossed wires and he’d taken the bus home after all. But the bus arrived, and no kid.”

DeeJay nodded, seeing it all so clearly. “No one saw him on the bus?”

“Nope. So it had to have happened while he was waiting for his dad.”

“How old is he?”

“Twelve.”

Cade returned with the coffee. Given the size of the house, he couldn’t have missed any of the conversation. “So these kids are fitting a profile? Not an age group?”

“That’s how it’s looking. I can show you all the photos, from this time and last time. He’s picking the small skinny boys, all of them with dark hair so far. He’s definitely choosing by physical appearance.”

“I guess that tells us something,” Cade muttered as he passed DeeJay her coffee and sat at the other end of the couch.

For a minute, no one said anything. Gage stretched out a leg and rubbed it absently, a gesture that had become unconscious through long experience. DeeJay recognized the signs. The sheriff was looking off into space, shaking his head slowly.

“It really chapped me that we didn’t catch up with him last time. He was gone by the time we found his trophies out in the mountain. Sickening. And not a damn thing to link anyone to it.”

“He likes taking risks,” DeeJay said. “He must know that everyone has figured out he’s back, and that everyone is being watchful. He must get a real thrill from riding close to the edge of discovery.”

“Meaning?” Gage asked.

“He’d not hiding. He’s out in plain sight.”

Cade nodded. “She’s probably right. At this point I’m inclined to say he’s making contact with these kids beforehand. In some capacity that makes him seem trustworthy.”

Gage nodded. “We figure he’s got to be a local. Only problem with that is that locals leave all the time because they can’t find work here. A lot of them came back with the jobs at the ski resort. Not much narrowing we can do that way.” He sighed. “But if he seems trustworthy to the kids...” He trailed off. These kinds of questions always trailed off in an investigation like this. Trying to overlook nothing meant often coming up against the lack of answers.

DeeJay spoke. “Tell us exactly what happened the other day. Were other kids or adults around? Did anybody see the boy before he disappeared?”

“Nobody remembers seeing a thing,” Gage answered. “The buses had come and gone, the walkers had headed home, the teachers were back inside or gone for the day. One of them questioned him when he was standing out front, but he answered he was waiting for his dad. He refused her offer to wait inside. That’s it. Dad was a little late and by the time he arrived, no kid.”

Cade and DeeJay exchanged looks. DeeJay spoke. “Our perp had to be somewhere he could see when the kid was alone. Completely alone. How big a time frame was that?”

“Maybe ten minutes,” Gage answered. “The teacher remembers the approximate time she spoke to him. The dad came along about ten minutes later.”

“Planned,” said Cade flatly. “Not a target of opportunity.”

“That’s the way I’m figuring it,” Gage said. “Hardly anybody knew that boy was going to be waiting there instead of taking the bus. He had brought a note to school that morning asking that he be excused from taking the bus home. A couple of school officials knew, the teacher that talked to him knew, maybe some of his friends. We checked the whereabouts of the administrators and teachers for the entire time between dismissal and his disappearance and came up blank.”

“Vehicles on the street or parking lot?”

“Lots. Teachers. Administration. Plenty of cover for one vehicle. Nobody would notice it unless it didn’t fit at all.”

DeeJay leaned forward, holding her mug in both hands. “How often do kids wait for a ride like that?”

“At this time of year? Almost never. It’s too dang cold and we were having some thick snow that day.”

“More cover,” she remarked. “Okay, our perp must have found out that kid would be out there. Question is, how? And why was the dad late?”

Gage sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “When he came out of the feed store, he had a flat tire.”

Cade looked at DeeJay. “Organized,” he said.

“Highly organized,” she agreed. “Leaves nothing to chance, but likes riding the edge. We need to go over those files again.” She looked at the sheriff. “Is everything in the file you sent to the state?”

“Pretty much. I didn’t include victim photos, but everything else is there.”

Cade spoke. “We need anything else surrounding the other disappearances that you or someone else can remember. I know this goes back a long way, but it helps us focus on what we need to think about.”

“You got it.”

DeeJay gave him a smile that was nearly a grimace. “We’d like to be able to point you in a direction that’s more specific than late twenties, early thirties...”

Gage surprised her by laughing, a raspy sound. “We’ve all heard the basics. Useless. So believe me, I’m going to be racking my brains and everyone else’s for every sliver I can come up with. In the meantime, I can establish your bona fides. Stop by the office in the morning, and it’ll be all over town that you two are on the side of the angels. There’s only one thing folks are talking about right now, and they might drop another splinter into this morass that’ll help you. As long as they know you’re okay.”

“In this town,” DeeJay remarked after the sheriff left, “I suspect it takes more than a few days to win local trust.”

“Most likely. But let’s get out those files and burn some midnight oil. Maybe we’ll get a clue. Mostly I’d like to see if we can get a sense of his time cycle. Is he speeding up? Maybe, maybe not. But at least we’ll have some idea how long we have before the next kid goes missing.”

“We’ve got to stop it before then.”

Cade nodded, his aquamarine eyes regarding her with something close to genuine warmth. “I’m praying for it.”

* * *

At midnight, Calvin Sweet signed out from the crisis response center. One woman was leaving at the same time, and he offered to see her safely to her car.

“Thanks, Calvin,” Dory Patterson said, and patted his cheek. He was a handsome, pleasant young man, and she was just old enough to get away with the gesture. “You’re very thoughtful.”

“Well, people are afraid,” he said. “Terrible thing about that boy disappearing.”

“Yes, it is,” she answered as they stepped outside onto the crunchy snow. “At least you don’t have to worry.”

Calvin simply smiled, savoring his secret.

“But then, neither do I,” she remarked.

He shook his head. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working crisis hotlines, it’s that women are at risk. Better to be escorted to your car. It’s the least I can do. I’m parked, what, fifteen feet away?”

Dory laughed, a surprisingly girlish sound from a woman who must have been pushing fifty. “I appreciate it. I’m sure you’ve seen more of the big bad world than I have.”

“Big cities,” he admitted. “More opportunities for trouble.”

“Well, you do a great job on the phones. I’ve heard you. But it must seem awfully slow here after working in bigger places.”

He stood and waited while she unlocked her car. “You know, Dory, I’m happiest when we aren’t needed at all. Makes you wonder about the human race when the calls are coming in constantly.”

“I bet it would.” She slid into the driver’s seat and looked up at him. “I’m glad you didn’t come back for a construction job. We needed you here.” Then she paused. “I realize it was a long time ago, but I am sorry about your mother’s passing. She was a good woman.”

“Yes, she was,” Calvin agreed.

He stepped back and watched Dory drive away, amazed at how little of the truth ever got out. No one in this crummy place had any idea how he had been treated by that woman, how many times he’d had an “accident” that was no accident. He didn’t miss his mother at all.

Climbing into his truck, he wondered if he might not be getting a little revenge on all the people who had been so blind. No, he decided he wasn’t. His purpose was higher than that.

But he was aware of the urge starting to grow in him again, stalking him like a living thing. And this time he felt himself wanting a woman. No. He shook himself. Too soon.

Damn, he was thinking about taking a woman again. He hated it every time that urge arose. It might provide additional concealment, or it could prove his undoing. Nor did he understand exactly how it fit his mission, which unnerved him a bit.

The sky had cleared and a carpet of stars, brilliant as diamonds, filled it as he drove away from the town’s lights. Maybe the Egyptians had been right. Maybe each one of his boys had become a star up there now. He turned the idea around and decided he liked it. They were pure now, gleaming lights showing the way. Yes.

When he got home, he almost hiked out to his barn to enjoy his trophies for a few minutes, but the wind cut hard and stole his breath. It could wait for morning. They wouldn’t get lonely anymore. He had saved them from that.

Once inside, though, he felt a shift in his perspective. Light and color seemed brighter.

It was too soon.

The warning came from someplace deep inside him. In the city it had been different. He’d been able to hunt more often. In cities people disappeared all the time. He was well aware that out here they didn’t. And while he didn’t mind taking some risks, he was in no hurry to leave this place. He hadn’t yet filled his web. He didn’t want to leave the job half-done.

Sitting in an old rocker, he began to rock, trying to still the urges inside him. He knew he couldn’t afford to lose control of them. His mission would never be completed if he did something stupid. The mind must control the need, always. It was a sign of his strength that he could.

He was getting stronger, he reminded himself. With each boy, he gained power and purity, but he was a long way from done.

He forced his mind to other things and lit on something he’d heard at the call center that night. There were two travel writers in town, a married couple. Bad timing for the town, he thought with sour pleasure. Search parties going out every day, everyone looking over their shoulders...

He leaned back and smiled, the urge easing. He’d caused that. A sign of his growing power. He was approaching utter control of himself.

His thoughts trailed back to those travel writers he’d heard about. Who the hell would miss one of them? Nobody around here. He wondered if the woman looked anything like his mother.

Yeah, if it came to that...

But it wouldn’t. Not yet. He was still in control of himself and, when he thought about it, most of the people around. He saw them as puppets on strings, little marionettes. He could make them afraid, very afraid. He could make them spend their days searching the countryside for a missing boy instead of pursuing their regular lives.

Power. It was a great thing. Taking a woman would enhance it even though it wouldn’t fulfill his mission. He’d done it twice before and found a wholly different kind of satisfaction.

Something to think about.

Rocking slowly, he smiled into the darkened room. Damn, he was good.

Chapter 3

Cade woke early in the morning, despite having sat up until just after two combing over every bit in the file with DeeJay. It was a sadly thin file, one they needed to pad out. But you could never be sure when some little item might open a door in your thinking.

He sat in the kitchen while coffee brewed, facts and details running around in his head like skittering mice. Not much in the way of pattern yet, not enough for predicting much.

Sighing, he rubbed his eyes. DeeJay, he reluctantly admitted, was turning out to be an okay partner. While she was absorbed in the job, she pulled in those bristles and became tolerable. Clearly a good detective, and he thanked God that she could put personalities aside for the sake of work. He didn’t care what kind of hell she gave him otherwise, as long as they got this case solved before someone else’s kid disappeared.

He understood what she meant about the sickening and sickened minds that became serial killers. He’d heard all the psychological theories about how they’d been abused kids, how many had suffered brain damage at some point. But any way he added it up, the world was full of people who’d been abused and brain damaged and they didn’t commit crimes like this.

The idea that someone out there was enjoying all of this nearly made him want to resign from the human race.

The coffee finished brewing and he rose to get a cup. Kelly Jackson had been right: the place was decently furnished. Ready to use. He wondered if Jackson would rent it to tourists once the resort opened. People who couldn’t afford the fancy hotel prices up on the mountain but might want to take a little house for a week as a base of operations.

He’d bought some sweet rolls when they stopped at the grocery for odds and ends, and as his stomach growled he brought out the package. Coffee and a cinnamon bun. It didn’t get much better.

But then DeeJay showed up, rumpled in yesterday’s clothes. Apparently the coffee had beat out an urge for a shower and clean togs.

“May I?” she asked.

“Help yourself. Coffee’s community property. Rolls, too.”

A faint smile curved one corner of her mouth. So it was possible. She didn’t look pinched and disapproving, but maybe that was because she had just wakened. Give her time to ramp up, he thought, mildly amused.

She didn’t say anything until she’d packed away a full mug of coffee and half a roll. Then she pushed her mussed hair back from her face and put her chin in her hands. Unlike most women, she didn’t say the usual I must look a fright. Apparently, she didn’t care.

“We didn’t get a whole lot out of that file last night,” she remarked.

“Unfortunately. Nothing of real predictive value, unless I missed something.”

“Well, he seemed to accelerate just a little before it all stopped the first time, but these latest disappearances... He’s spacing it. Unusual.” Then she sighed again. “Three isn’t a large enough sample set. There’s some evidence of acceleration, but it’s hard to be sure. If he’s got that much self-control, we might have some time.”

Most of these killers began to lose control of their impulses and act with increasing rapidity. So far this guy hadn’t, not in any meaningful way.

“So in theory,” she said, “we’ve got three weeks, a month, before his next move and next to nothing to go on. But we can’t afford to count on that.”

“I know. He could snatch and grab again this week if a victim appeals to him.” And that was the devil of it. You could count on most serial killers to stick with a victim type, to stick to their ritual, whatever it was, but there was no sliding scale to accurately predict when they’d act again. Never.

DeeJay spoke again after a brief silence. “Imagine him hanging his trophies in that cargo netting in the woods. Like advertising. He had to have known they’d eventually be found.”

“Maybe.” He reached for another roll, then went to get the coffeepot and refilled both their mugs. “I need to know more about how many people go up into those mountains. Hikers and the like. Sooner or later someone would find it, obviously, but after a few years, how much would be left?”

“The netting would rot,” she agreed. “It wasn’t nylon or plastic. If the bodies hadn’t been wrapped in plastic, they wouldn’t have found much as it was. Do you suppose he’d try that again in the winter?”

Cade thought about it. “He did it once before. Or maybe he kept some of his victims in cold storage until the weather got better.”

“He could be doing that now.” She shook her head. “He likes risks, but he’s not stupid. My guess is he won’t be hanging them in the woods this time.”

Cade eyed her sharply. “Why?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I bet he wasn’t happy to lose his trophies.”

“He must have known he was giving them up when he went away.”

“Maybe, maybe not. He might have thought they’d never be found. Regardless, he knows they’re gone now, and it wouldn’t make him happy. He needs something more secure, and the way he hung the first ones seems to indicate a need to admire his trophies. To relive the experience.”

Cade nodded. It was a common enough impulse among serial killers. That’s why they kept trophies, to relive the emotional high they’d gotten. “How many serial killers have you studied who didn’t accelerate?”

“None. I don’t know whether the compulsion gets stronger or they start to feel invincible. I do know of some cases where they wanted to be caught and stopped. We don’t know which kind we’re dealing with here.”

“I’m wondering because he came back. Gage is scouring the files for anyone who might have been picked up by the law five years ago and got released last spring or so. Nothing so far. But unless he was in prison, he chose to leave. That means he chose to come back here. That could be key.”

“It could be.” She ate another mouthful of roll and washed it down with coffee. “Thanks for these. A power bar doesn’t sound good right now.”

“My pleasure. We could get breakfast at the diner a little later when we go to see the sheriff. I guess search parties are going out again today, but he’s not planning to be out there until this afternoon.”

“They won’t find anything.” Her tone was almost sad. “So if he chose to come back, why? Unfinished business? Wanting to see if his trophies were still there? Thumbing his nose at the people around here? Because I’m not buying stupid.”

“What kind of unfinished business?” he wondered.

Her dark eyes met his, looking almost hollow. “Who knows? But I’d wager it’s personal. He’s got something to settle, and he needs to settle it here. A demon’s riding him.”

“I’d call him a demon.”

“No argument from me.” She glanced at the digital clock on the stove front. “I guess I need to clean up to get ready for the day.” She pushed back from the table, and a minute later he heard the wheels of her suitcase trundling down the hall to the bathroom.

* * *

Her eyes felt full of grit, but nights on short sleep were nothing new to DeeJay. A shower and some more coffee and she’d be fit. Plus some protein. Those rolls had been great, but she needed eggs and bacon to power up her brain.

She reached a decision in the shower, however. Cade Bankston wasn’t all that bad. Maybe he hadn’t wanted her as a partner for some reason, but nothing about him seemed misogynistic, at least when it came to work. They’d been cooperating like equals since last night, and she’d had enough of the other kind of relationship to appreciate it.

So okay, they could work together, which was a huge load off her shoulders.

The house seemed to have an ample hot water heater. She’d been living in a place where she’d invariably wound up rinsing the soap off in frigid water, no joke in winter Wyoming. She allowed herself an extra minute to luxuriate but, remembering that Cade might well want a shower, too, she sighed and stepped out, reaching for a folded towel from a stack on a shelf over the toilet.

Not bad for a cheap rental and a whole lot better than some of the motels her former job had put her in. Even the couch had been a satisfactory bed.

Little spots of color had been added to each room, as if the former occupant—Kelly?—had tried to inject some cheer. She figured her husband, Hank, had taken care of all that in the end.

When she finished dressing in jeans and a flannel shirt, and her combed, wet hair was tucked behind her ears, she closed her suitcase and stepped out. Men’s voices reached her from the kitchen. It didn’t sound like the sheriff.

Curious, she ditched her bag at the end of the couch and followed the sound. A strange man was there, and he rose to his feet instantly.

“DeeJay, this is our landlord Hank Jackson, Kelly’s husband.”

DeeJay shook the offered hand and smiled. “You have a nice wife.”

“I think so.” He smiled, a warm, unguarded expression. “But I’m the lucky one. So I was asking Cade here if you two need anything. Kelly left most stuff she used here, but you never know.”

DeeJay pulled out the remaining chair and sat. Only then did Hank sit. The way he stuck out one of his legs indicated he had some kind of old or new injury. Did all the men around here have broken bodies?

“I was just thinking,” DeeJay said, “that this place has a great hot water heater. I was tempted to indulge.”

Hank’s smile widened. “I like my hot showers. I figured other folks would, too. It’s a big tank.”

“Then I’ll enjoy the next one longer.”

Cade spoke. “Hank was just saying that they’re running another search party today. He’s got to leave shortly.”

“That’s so sad about the boy,” DeeJay said. What else could she say?

“This creep better hope I don’t get to him first.” Hank’s face hardened. “Preying on the weak...I have no tolerance for it. None.”

DeeJay could sympathize, but given that they were officers of the law... She glanced at Cade, wondering whether to let it pass. Before she could speak, however, he did it.

“You know, you’ve got a pregnant wife,” Cade said.

“I know.” Hank’s face relaxed. “I won’t turn into a vigilante. But sometimes you wish...”

“Yeah,” DeeJay agreed. “Sometimes you do.” And they were supposed to be travel writers, so she steered the conversation. “Are you planning to rent this place to people who come here to ski?”

“I might. Still need to do some work if I go that way. I rented it most of the summer to a couple who came out here to work on the resort. They’re supposed to be back in the spring.” He paused. “You going to write about this kidnapping in your article?”

DeeJay shook her head. “I’m sure it will all be solved. No, we’re here to get to know the town a bit and pump up how this could be a great resort.”

“Good,” said Hank, pushing back from the table. “This place has suffered enough since the semiconductor plant closed. We need more jobs and a better economy.” Then he flashed a smile. “We’re friendly folk here. Usually.”

DeeJay smiled. “I’ll try to keep that in mind. That Mavis at the diner is something else.”

“Wait till you meet her mother, Maude. Mavis is still batting in the farm team.”

* * *

They left the house a short while later with tablet computers in cases that also allowed them to carry small paper notebooks, pens and business cards. Handy little designs, suggesting they were serious writers. Also serious cops, but image was everything.

“The diner,” said Cade. “I’ll call Gage from there and find out when he can see us.”

DeeJay climbed into her side of the car. She closed the door and waited until he had the engine running. “I hate being unarmed,” she remarked.

He glanced at her. “Are you going to tell me you couldn’t turn almost anything into a weapon?”

“Can you?”

“I’ve had to get inventive a few times.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. “But it still feels odd to be on the job without my service piece.”

“Yeah.” He pulled away from the curb and started down a street that was finally beginning to show some pavement. “Must be warming up. So if you don’t mind me asking...?”

“Depends,” she answered shortly.

Here came the bristles again. He decided to ignore them. “Why Wyoming? I hear you were with some big MP unit in investigations. Most of the kinds of cases we get out here will probably bore you to tears.”

“I’m not bored right now,” she pointed out. “And I’m not an adrenaline junky. What about you? Are you bored? Why didn’t you stay in Denver? At least I heard it was Denver.”

She had turned it right back on him. She was as quick as she was evasive. Part of him was amused, and part of him argued that they had to find some trust to stand on if they were going to get through this. Trust in one’s partner was essential.

Time to take the bull by the horns. “Look, we’ve got to work together. That means we have to be able to trust each other. You don’t have to like me. I don’t have to like you, but damn it, DeeJay, we’ve got to find some ground to meet on apart from the case. You have to believe I have your back and vice versa.”

“Do you?”

Her answer made Cade angry. So that’s how it was going to be. Wouldn’t help anything, but they’d have to work around it. Then, just as they parked in front of the diner, she spoke again.

“My last commanding officer screwed me out of my career.”

He froze. “Why?”

“Because I insisted on pushing a sensitive rape investigation. My performance report reflected my inability to follow orders. By the time he got done, I was lucky to resign honorably.” Then she climbed out of the car and marched into the diner.

A half minute passed before Cade followed. Well, that explained a whole hell of a lot. And he heard more behind it. He would have bet the farm that the CO had simply been the final straw.

The place was crowded when he stepped inside, mostly younger men who were talking about the day’s search party. DeeJay had somehow claimed a booth by the window, and he slid in across from her. The place was jumping, filled with voices, clattering crockery. He heard worry in the voices, but he heard anger, too. These men were ready to take the law into their own hands.

He looked across the table at DeeJay and saw her knuckles were almost white as she gripped the menu. She felt it, too, and was wondering what they could possibly do to help tone it down. Nothing. Not a thing. He could see her reach the same conclusion. He pulled out his cell phone and called the sheriff. He got the dispatcher, a crusty old crone with a froggy voice. “Tell Gage the writers are at the diner, but it might be wise for him to show up here pretty quick.”

DeeJay surprised him. “Good call,” she said.

The place was a cauldron, and it was getting ready to bubble over. Mavis swung by, dumping two cups and filling them with coffee before hurrying on. Breakfast was apt to take a while.

Then it happened. A male voice, right at the end of their booth, loud and challenging. “You those writers? You going to make yourselves famous on our problems?”

DeeJay barely looked up. He gave her credit for that. “We don’t write that kind of stuff.”

“No?” The guy leaned in. “Then what kind of crap do you write?”

In one smooth movement, DeeJay slid out of the booth and faced the guy. She was almost as tall as he was, and in that instant Cade glimpsed the MP, someone who could walk into a rowdy bar and take control.

“No,” DeeJay said firmly, loud enough to be heard in much of the suddenly quieting diner. “We want to make your town look good. As long as you don’t give me a reason to feel otherwise. Now we’re both real sorry about the missing boy. But we’re travel writers.”

Cade enjoyed the show. It wasn’t her words—it was her tone of voice and the way she stood. If that was command presence, she had it in spades.

The guy who had challenged her seemed to change his mind. “Sorry for disturbing your coffee, ma’am. We’re all just real upset.”

“I can understand that. You’re good neighbors.” Then she slid back into the booth.

Cade wondered if he’d get his head bitten off if he complimented her. He was still trying to decide when she said something surprising.

“Thanks for letting me handle that,” she said.

“You did great. Never doubted it.”

She shook her head a little. “Much as I hate to admit it, sometimes a woman has an advantage. Men don’t usually want to hit me first. But you’re a big guy. If you’d stood up, he would have felt challenged.”

“You’re right.” He didn’t tell her he’d have handled it without standing up at all. He was absolutely sure if he did, she’d take it wrong. Maybe he was learning a little about how to handle the prickly pear. Regardless, she’d done well and he was impressed.

Just then a piercing whistle cut through the room. Cade swiveled his head and saw that Dalton stood just inside the door, in full uniform, his jacket open so that the pistol on his hip was both visible and easy to reach.

“Searchers,” he said, his raspy voice allowing no disagreement, “outside now. We need to get this day started. And while we’re at it, I don’t want to see any weapons.”

“But...” someone said.

Gage shook his head. “Listen, Bob, we’re all mad and upset, but I don’t want to be carrying one of you to the morgue today. Or worse, some innocent ranch hand or hiker. We catch this guy fair and square or we’re just murderers. Now get out there.”

The men trailed out after him, leaving only a few very elderly types behind. Suddenly, Mavis asked what they wanted for breakfast. They both ordered large meals, then watched through the window as Gage handed out some further orders. Soon trucks were pulling away.

“He’s good,” DeeJay remarked.

“He’s respected.”

“I hope they listen about the guns.”

“They’ll be reminded at the staging areas, I’m sure.”

Gage joined them just as they were being served large platters of bacon, eggs and toast. He pulled a chair from one of the tables, and Mavis promptly gave him a mug of coffee.

“You want a full breakfast or rolls?” she asked.

“Just rolls, Mavis. Thanks. My stomach’s so knotted these days I’m in danger of losing my love handles.” Mavis laughed, a deep, harsh sound, and wandered back to the kitchen.

“Thanks for calling me,” Gage said to Cade. “I’m starting to feel like I’m sitting on a powder keg.”

“You are,” DeeJay answered. “They’re looking for a way to burn off adrenaline.”

“Well, the cold and hiking today ought to help with that. I hope.”

Mavis delivered Gage’s rolls, refilled coffee cups all around the diner, then vanished into the back. Quiet conversation resumed among the old men in their little corner.

“So,” Gage said quietly, “I didn’t bring over the vic photos. Obviously. I’ll have Sarah Ironheart, one of my deputies, bring them over to the house later. I think you met her once, Gage.”

“A long time ago, I believe.”

“Well, you were never here very long. I doubt anyone remembers you.”

“I sure as hell hope not.”

“I was looking over them again this morning, along with the autopsy reports. Sarah will bring them, as well. But something struck me.”

He looked at DeeJay a long moment, then at Cade. “These vics not only resemble each other—I guess that’s not unusual for this kind of thing.”

“Not at all,” Cade agreed. “A lot of them seem to have a particular type they’re after.”

“In this case, dark-haired boys about five feet tall and lean. Small. But something struck me.” Again his gaze trailed to DeeJay.

“What?” she asked.

“If you were ten inches shorter and a boy, you’d fit the victim profile.” He pushed back from the table, carrying a roll with him and draining his mug as soon as he stood. “I’ve got to go ride herd at the staging areas. Talk to you later.” He paused and looked again at DeeJay. “You be really careful, hear?”

* * *

Five minutes passed before either of them spoke again. They continued eating as if everything were perfectly normal. But Cade knew it wasn’t, and since DeeJay had the same kind of training in these cases, he was sure she knew, as well.

But apparently she wasn’t going to let it ruin her appetite, and it wasn’t enough to make him lose his. They couldn’t discuss it here anyway. Mavis was moving around again, clearing up dishes, and as much as the place had quieted down she could probably tune in on any conversation she wanted to.

Cade called out to Mavis. “Is it possible to get up anywhere near the ski resort right now?”

She turned, frowned, then shook her head. “Might be a day or two. Work was called off during the storm and that’s a lot of road to clear. The construction office is in the phone book. Look for Masters General Contracting.”

“Thanks, Mavis.”

“God,” mumbled DeeJay as Mavis disappeared with another load of dishes, “a world where people still use the phone book.”

Cade had to laugh. “I know. How about I just plug it into my phone or tablet.”

He saw the smile flicker over her face. The woman was thawing a bit. Thank God.

“I wonder how long we’ll have to wait for this deputy.”

“Not long,” Cade judged. “Gage wants something out of us as soon as possible. He’s going to grease the skids as much as he can.”

She nodded and at last pushed her plate to one side. “I’m going to need to work out twice a day for a month if I keep eating here. But it’s good.”

“And filling,” he agreed. “We can hit the grocery later and find some healthier stuff. When we’re out making like travel writers.”

“Pretending to be travel writers still seems ridiculous. We have to ask the kinds of questions that have nothing to do with the case.”

“On the other hand, everyone seems more than willing to talk about it with us. Natural interest will give us the chance to ask questions.”

“I hope so.”

Mavis returned, and they paid their bill, then once again headed back toward the house. As they drove, Cade mentioned Gage’s warning. “Do you think that was over-the-top? I mean, you’re a heck of a lot taller than the victims, plus you’re female.”

“I’m not going to worry about it,” she said. “I’m not a victim. I can take care of myself. Can’t blame the guy for being hypercautious right now.”

“I guess not,” Cade answered, winding them along streets that in places looked like they ought to be on a Christmas card. She might brush it aside, but Cade couldn’t quite. The history of serial killers was filled with people who broke out of their supposed patterns at times. For example, the guy who killed only teenage girls until he killed his mother. But those things usually involved a long relationship fraught with emotional problems.

So, while it wasn’t likely the killer would even notice DeeJay, he resolved to keep a sharp eye out. “Just don’t get cocky,” he said.

He should have known she would bridle. “I don’t get cocky, Cade. I know what I’m capable of.”

Maybe she did. He still knew next to nothing about her. But then, he wasn’t exactly sharing himself, either.

It bothered him, too, that they were stuck in this partnership, because despite all her thorns and prickliness, she attracted him sexually, almost mercilessly. He kept finding himself wondering if she reciprocated. Then he’d yank his thoughts back into line and remind himself: job first. Besides, if they ever broke those barriers, he was certain it would be a flaming mess.

“You know,” she said as they neared their house, “this kind of work is ever so much easier when we can just step in and help the team. We’re at a fits and starts position because we can’t cozy up to the local law too much. That’s slowing everything down.”

“I know.” He couldn’t argue with that. “But like I said, I think Gage is greasing skids as much as he can. Probably putting it around that we check out okay so folks won’t be worried about us, but it remains...”

“I know,” she agreed. “We don’t want to scare the guy off.”

He pulled the car to a stop in front of the house and cocked an eye at her. “Are you of the rush-in-and-bash-heads school?”

“Only when necessary.”

Which probably said a whole lot about her, he decided. She could operate in multiple modes. Now that was useful.

She looked at him. “You?”

“Only when necessary.”

She gave a brisk nod and climbed out. Damn, he thought, this woman didn’t give an inch. A spine of steel and a ramrod with it. Of course, just that little bit she’d said about her CO ruining her career was enough, and he somehow figured that was just the tip of the iceberg. Something had made this woman tough, and even a bit difficult to deal with.

He hoped he’d find out eventually what her story was. He also hoped that wouldn’t involve sharing his own.

* * *

They’d barely had time to start another pot of coffee—Cade was in favor of bottomless coffee, and DeeJay seemed to share his liking—when someone knocked at the door.

This time, aware of her apparent sensitivities to dominating men, he let DeeJay get it.

She came back inside with a woman in civvies. Long inky hair dashed by a few streaks of silver and pulled back in a ponytail. Sarah Ironheart, the deputy Gage had promised. Native American was stamped even more clearly on her face than DeeJay’s. A striking woman.

“Brought the photos and autopsy reports,” she said, tossing a thick envelope on the table. “All the gruesome glory.” She took a seat at the table as easily as if she’d been there before and nodded affirmatively in answer to Cade’s question about coffee. “It fuels the world, and any excuse I can get not to drink Velma’s, I’ll take.”

“Who is Velma?” DeeJay asked.

“One of our dispatchers. Her coffee is enough to put a hole in your stomach but she’s so much of a fixture no one dares tell her. It’s rumored she’s going to die right at the dispatch desk.”

“Sounds like a character,” Cade remarked.

“She’s been around as long as the mountains.” Sarah sipped coffee, then regarded the two of them over the rim. “What else are you hoping for, after you review the autopsies?”

“Any information at all. The file is kind of sketchy, what we’ve seen so far.”

Sarah nodded. “The whole thing is sketchy. We had five boys disappear over nearly two years the last time. Now there’s lots of ways to go missing around here, and we couldn’t find a clue. We had search parties out, like now, and never found a thing. Kids run away from home, even here. You know that. They also wander off into the mountains and sometimes we don’t find them. Could have been a lot of things until we started to realize they were all the same physical type. Different in age, but physically similar.” She sighed. “That doesn’t hit you at first.”

“It wouldn’t,” DeeJay agreed. “Not at first.”

“Just after it really sank in what we were dealing with, and that it was happening faster, it all stopped. Then nobody was sure it wasn’t all runaways and accidents until a surveyor for the new resort stumbled on the trophy stash the spring before last.”

“Then you knew,” DeeJay said quietly.

“Then we knew,” Sarah agreed. “What we never expected was that it would start up again after all this time. We figured he’d moved on, or gone to jail on some other offense elsewhere. He wraps his victims in plastic to protect them, so we know we found our missing boys. Now this. People want blood. Be careful.”

Cade spoke. “Gage has been good about trying to establish us.”

“He’s working on it,” Sarah agreed. “But folks are still angry and there’s no telling how they might lash out. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that.” She rose and went to get more coffee, a woman who would be familiar anywhere.

When she returned to the table, she leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. “I assume you guys have some training in profiling?”

“For what it’s worth,” DeeJay answered.

Cade watched a smile walk slowly across Sarah Ironheart’s face. “Yeah, for what it’s worth. Not much to go on at first.”

“Not really,” Cade answered. “Not until we’ve got some evidence. The thing about the training is that it makes you alert to things that others might overlook. It’s not like we can walk in and hand you a sketch and description of our perp.”

“Anybody did that, and I’d question his know-how,” she answered. “Okay then. Only two of us in the department apart from Gage know who you really are. The other is Micah Parish. You’ll know him when you see him. Huge guy with Cherokee written all over his face. Former Special Ops. He may be getting up there, but he’s still damn good. Beyond that, nobody knows.”

She paused. “Gage may also tell the former sheriff, Nate Tate. Nobody sneezes in this county without him hearing about it. But right now, I don’t know if Gage will bring him in. He’s an invaluable source about the people around here, though.”

“Then I hope Gage tells him,” DeeJay said.

“Another good source if you have any need to delve into local history is Gage’s wife, Emmaline Dalton. Miss Emma, everyone calls her. Anyway, she’s the librarian and she’s got roots here back to the earliest days, plus she’s made gathering local history and lore her avocation. I’m not sure how she could be of use, but you never know.”

She drained her coffee and stood. “Oh, and if you need horses, my husband raises and trains them. Gideon. I’m sure he could spare a couple of good mounts if you want to go wandering off the roads.”

She left directly, telling them that she’d probably be the one to bring them any additional information they uncovered. “Less suspicious than the sheriff. Gideon has a business in trail rides I could claim to be trying to promote.” Indeed, she left them with Gideon’s business card. “He always knows how to find me.”

Then she was gone, and the house filled with silence. Neither Cade nor DeeJay moved for a minute, as they both absorbed everything they’d just been told.

“Masters General Contracting,” Cade said presently, and pulled out his notebook. “I hope there’s Wi-Fi around here somewhere.”

“You could always call directory information.”

He cocked a brow at her. “What, go back to the old days?” Then he shook his head. “Might as well. Maybe I can find out how to get us a decent internet connection while I’m tiptoeing through the Yellow Pages.”

A laugh actually escaped DeeJay. “You do that. Meanwhile I’m going to take a look at this file.”

He reached for the wall phone just as she bent the prongs on the envelope and opened it. One way or another, it wasn’t going to be a pleasant day.

* * *

Wyoming was a big state, not heavily populated. The state police often relied on satellite radio because there were so many places, especially in the mountains, with cellular dead zones. It was virtually impossible at times to maintain an internet connection. Things were changing, but the change was far from complete.

By two that afternoon, they were hooked into the local police’s Wi-Fi and able to map out the town and surrounding county. They both saved the maps to files on their computers.

The envelope contents were another matter altogether. Report after report of horror, accompanied by eight photos of boys who were at once strikingly similar and strikingly different. All had dark hair, all weighed less than a hundred pounds, all were short in stature—a definite type. The heartache arose not only for the terror they must have endured, but from the youth staring back at them from those photos. Lives had been stolen and many other lives had been torn apart.

“Slow asphyxiation,” Cade read from the last report. He made a sound of angry disgust and swept everything from the table back into the envelope.

DeeJay simply stared back at him. There were no words for this. None. Her stomach churned, and all the toughness she had donned over the years provided no protection against what she had just read.

She got up from the table, trying to pace off the anger and horror she felt. “It’s not like anything else,” she said, not sure what she meant, not expecting an answer.

“No, it’s not,” Cade agreed. “Damn, I need some fresh air. Do you want to walk to the market? It’s only thirteen degrees out there.”

“I need the walk but I also need my nose. And I don’t want to stiffen up from the cold.” Delayed reaction time could be dangerous, even when you thought you were safe.

“Agreed. We’ll drive. Damn, there’s no hole in hell hot enough or deep enough for this guy.”

She didn’t answer. It seemed pointless. After looking at all those young faces, this had become personal. It was no longer an intellectual detective exercise. “Dangerous,” she remarked a few minutes later as they climbed into their car. “Getting involved.”

“I know. I’ll work it off.”

“I feel the same way.”

He looked at her as he turned over the ignition. At least the car didn’t decide it was too cold to run. He needed to remember to plug the damn block heater in tonight. “You, too.”

“Of course, me, too,” she said hotly. “I’m not made of ice.”

“Didn’t think you were.”

“Then what the hell did you mean?”

“Just trying to make conversation. You’re like a brick wall, Dawkins. Pleasant to strangers when it suits you, but you act like I’m a cow patty you’d like to brush off.”

“You weren’t exactly glad to have me for a partner,” she retorted.

He didn’t deny it, and she sat with her arms tightly folded as he drove them to the store. When they found a place to park between two snowdrifts, Cade set the brake but left the car running. The defroster began to lose the battle against their breath.

“Look,” he said finally, “my reaction had nothing to do with you. It had to do with something from my past. Probably the same as your reaction to me. So how about we call a truce at least until we catch this animal.”

“That gives animals a bad name.”

“True.”

He waited, and she knew she was going to have to answer. She didn’t have to explain, she realized. No heart-to-heart about what life had been like as a female cop. He probably didn’t want to share whatever his problem was, either. So if they could just take all the junk off the table, at least until they finished this job, they’d get by. “Some things matter more than others,” she finally said. This job mattered more than her feelings, certainly. “Truce.”

“Good enough,” he said. “Now let’s go squabble about what we want to make for dinner. The diner’s steak sandwiches and fries are great, but too many of them and I’ll be rolling down the street like a beach ball.”

She laughed because she had to. A similar thought had occurred to her. “Are you aware that bicyclists who ride in races can be slowed down by as little three kilograms of added weight?”

“Interesting. Well, the two of us could be slowed down by the fat. I think I feel my arteries hardening.”

The tension had seeped away, and they both climbed out of the car, walking through the cutting wind toward the grocery entrance.

“What kind of cook are you?” she asked.

“Passable. I’d starve otherwise. You?”

“Not so good. Too many chow hall meals. Lately I’ve been trying my hand at it. How brave are you?”

He laughed. “I’ll cook. As long as you don’t expect high cuisine.”

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