“I wanted to kiss you.” His voice was a low rumble. One she seemed to feel against her skin.
Her eyes squeezed closed even tighter.
“Why do you fight what we both want?”
She was afraid that if she gave in, he’d see the secrets she kept. Kyle was observant, smart—and dangerous.
So she tried to be reasonable. “We’re partners. The FBI doesn’t exactly approve of fraternizing.”
“Fuck the FBI.”
Her hands fisted in the covers. I’d rather f**k you. No, that was not the way she should be thinking. Not at all.
“This is about you and me,” Kyle told her. “You and me. And I’m not waiting forever.”
She’d never asked him to wait for her.
Cadence opened her eyes and saw the spill of light she’d forgotten to turn off. Her hand snaked out and reached for the switch on the lamp.
They were plunged into darkness once more.
The darkness made it easier for her to breathe, to ask, “Who was in your dream?”
The floor groaned as he shifted position.
“Kyle? Who was it? Who were you killing?”
One of the perps from their cases? One of the serials they hunted?
“When you tell me your secrets,” he said, his voice still that deep, dark rumble, “then I’ll tell you mine.”
“Lily…”
Her name drifted from the darkness.
“Lily…”
She couldn’t feel her hands, not anymore. At first, her fingers had burned, then she’d felt pinpricks shoot through them.
Now…nothing.
Her feet were the same way. She couldn’t even wiggle her toes. She’d tried, over and over again. But she couldn’t do it.
She could only lie there, her body heaving helplessly, with the gag in her mouth and the blindfold over her eyes.
“Did you miss me?”
Something stroked her cheek. Him. He was touching her. Watching her.
She flinched, trying to jerk away.
“Oh, Lily, you don’t need to be afraid of me.”
She was. That voice, drifting to her in the dark, she knew it was the voice of a monster. I want to see my baby. Her little girl. She wanted to see her so badly. To kiss her.
A sob choked in her throat. Please let me see my baby.
She tried to tell him, but her parched and swollen tongue wasn’t working either. And the gag stopped any sounds but groans and grunts from slipping free.
I need my baby. She was always there to fix breakfast for Carrie, always. She made pancakes with little smiley faces, just the way her daughter liked them. Then they walked to school together.
The world was a dangerous place, so she always walked her daughter to school.
The world was dangerous.
A soft touch feathered over her left cheek. After a desperate moment, Lily realized what he was doing. Wiping away my tears.
“Are you thirsty, my Lily?”
She managed a nod.
“I’m going to take off your gag, so you can drink some water. I’m going to take care of you, Lily.”
No, he was going to kill her. She wouldn’t believe his lies.
The gag was sliding away and a glass was being pushed to her lips. The water spilled over her mouth, onto her swollen tongue, and at first, she started to choke because she couldn’t swallow.
“Easy, let me help you.” That dark voice. Then he was massaging her throat, helping her to swallow.
The water went down.
“I can be good to you, Lily. Very good.”
She drank greedily, desperate for the water. Maybe he wasn’t going to kill her. If he was giving her something to drink, it meant he wanted to keep her alive and strong. Didn’t it? Maybe she’d be set free. Maybe she’d see Carrie again.
They’d have pancakes. They’d walk to school.
His fingers tightened around her throat, cutting off her air. The water poured from her mouth.
“I can also be cruel, my Lily. So cruel.”
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fight him.
Carrie…
His hold eased. “You will determine how I act. Good girls get rewarded, Lily, but bad girls…”
She sucked in deep gulps of air, her whole body trembling.
His mouth brushed over her ear as he said, “Bad girls get punished. Don’t make me punish you, don’t make me…”
CHAPTER FOUR
“We’re losing time,” Kyle said as he stood in front of the assembled officers. The FBI was in charge of the case now, and every officer in the room knew it. Kyle and Cadence had started a task force, and the others were following their lead.
Unfortunately, so far, that lead had taken them nowhere.
“In a missing-persons case,” Cadence said from beside him, “every moment counts. Over twenty-four hours have passed since Lily’s disappearance—”
“What does that say about the odds of her coming back alive?” Officer Jason Marsh asked as he leaned toward Cadence. Marsh was sitting in the front row, his body tense.
Kyle narrowed his eyes on the guy as he replied, “If you don’t find a missing person within the first forty-eight hours, then the chances of finding the person alive decrease dramatically.”
Heather swallowed. “How dramatic are we talking?”
Cadence hesitated, then said, “Less than fifty percent.”
And what she didn’t say…but what Kyle knew…after seventy-two hours—well, most of the agents stopped looking for a live victim at that point.
Instead, they looked for a corpse.
“Lily Adams has a daughter who is waiting on her mother to come home.” Kyle stepped back and advanced toward the area map that he’d attached to the wall behind him. A small red flag marked Lily’s abduction site on that map. Yellow indicated the areas that they had already searched. “We need to bring her home.”
“But if the dogs aren’t turning up a scent, doesn’t that mean Lily might not even be in Paradox any longer?” Heather Crenshaw asked, her voice soft and a bit uncertain. “He could have taken her anywhere.”
Yes, he damn well could have. “Nearby counties are being searched but we have to do our jobs.” His gaze swept the assembled group. James watched him with a steady gaze. “We have to make sure that we’ve covered every possible location in the area.”
“You’re the natives,” Cadence said. “I told you this before…you know the area. Look at that map. Where haven’t we been? Where could the abductor take Lily? An isolated spot that we’re missing. A place where—”