Evidence of Passion (15 page)

“He killed so many men and women.” Mercer exhaled heavily. “Those victims had some powerful ties in D.C. A lot of folks are wanting answers.”

And vengeance.

“Bring in Rachel,” Noelle said, her voice soft.

Thomas swore. “You really want to just give that guy what he wants?”

No. She wanted to push that guy to the edge. “Bring in Rachel
and
Dylan.” Because it was the dynamic between them all that she needed to observe. The more she watched, the better able Noelle would be to see the chinks in Kenneth’s armor. “We already know that Rachel is his weakness. If we want him to break, then we have to use her.”

Mercer hesitated then he reached for his phone once more.

* * *

D
YLAN
’
S
PHONE
RANG
,
vibrating softly on the nightstand. Rachel stirred a bit beside him, but her eyes didn’t open. Carefully, he eased his arm from beneath her head. He slipped from the bed, grabbed the phone and crept into the hallway.

A glance at the clock showed him that it was 4:00 a.m. And he knew exactly who was calling him.
“Mercer.”
His voice was a snarling whisper. “Why couldn’t this wait?”

“Is Rachel with you?”

He glanced toward the open bedroom door. He could just make out the edge of the bed. “Yes.”

Silence, then... “I’m going to need you to bring her in.”

“Your questions can wait until morning. The woman has been through hell. She nearly
died—
”

“This isn’t about getting questions for some report, Agent Foxx. Jack has said that he will only talk with Rachel, and I want you to bring her in. That’s an order.”

For an instant, Dylan was sure that he’d shatter the phone. His fingers actually ached.

“Agent Foxx?”

He had to unclench his teeth. “I don’t give a damn what he wants. That guy
isn’t
getting near Rachel.” Was Mercer crazy?

“He’ll be restrained at all times. And of course I’d expect you to be in the interrogation room with them.”

“Not
happening.
”

“Agent Foxx, I understand how you—”

“I don’t think you do understand,
Director.
” His breath huffed out. “You don’t understand what it’s like to think that the woman you...you care about—” he stumbled over those words because there were things he
wouldn’t
say to Mercer “—is lost to you. When the whole world goes dark because she’s gone, and you know that you can’t go on without her.”

Silence. Heavy. Thick. Then Mercer said, “I know exactly how that feels, and I’m sorry, very sorry, that you had to experience it.”

His quiet words caught Dylan off guard. He’d heard a few whispers about Mercer’s past. Now he knew those whispers weren’t wrong.

“But this case is bigger than you and Rachel Mancini. Other lives are involved.”

“Rachel isn’t even EOD anymore.”

“Ah, well, I haven’t officially accepted her resignation yet, have I?” Mercer cleared his throat. “I need her here. I need you both here.”

Dylan leaned forward and stared into the bedroom. Rachel was sleeping so peacefully. “At 0700,” he said, voice clipped. “But I stay at her side, every second.” He didn’t trust Jack. He’d be happy when the guy was locked away in a maximum-security prison.
The sooner, the better.

“I’ll be waiting,” Mercer said.

Dylan ended the call and headed back into the bedroom. He slipped into the bed. He pulled Rachel toward him, cradling her against his chest.

His fingers slid over her back, over the old, carving scar that marked her. Jack had sliced her with his knife three years ago. The man had almost killed her hours before.

She whispered Dylan’s name in her sleep.

He stiffened.
Rachel.

Dylan knew it was wrong, but he didn’t care about the other lives on the line. Or at least, he didn’t care as much.

The life that mattered to him? It was
her
life. And he’d fight to the death in order to keep her safe.

* * *

R
ACHEL
TOOK
A
deep breath and stared through the observation glass. Jack was on the other side of that glass. Handcuffed and with his ankles also secured in restraints. An armed guard stood behind him.

“He’s been like that all night,” Noelle said. “And the man shows no signs of any fatigue.”

“If he was a ranger,” Rachel said, turning to glance at her, “he wouldn’t, would he?”

She’d been briefed on Kenneth Cross just a few moments before. Mercer didn’t want her going into that interrogation room without as much intel as she could possibly get.

Her monster had a real name now. A real history.

Kenneth Cross. Thirty-five. He’d grown up on a ranch in Montana. His mother had died when he was seven, and his father had passed away in an accident on Kenneth’s eighteenth birthday.

Kenneth had joined the army after that, risen quickly through the ranks.

He’d been a ranger when he died, under the command of William Harris. He’d supposedly been killed in a bombing while serving in the Middle East.

Only he sure didn’t look like a ghost to Rachel.

“He’ll try and control you when you enter that room,” Noelle warned her. Noelle’s eyes were worried. “You should be prepared for him to say anything. He obviously has some sort of plan in mind, or he wouldn’t have insisted on you coming in there.”

It wouldn’t be the first time a prisoner had tried to manipulate the EOD. Just months before, they’d faced a dangerous terrorist, Anton Devast. Devast had thought that he could manipulate the EOD.

He’d been wrong. He’d died.

Noelle’s gaze darted to Dylan. “You have to stay in control.”

“Dylan won’t have a problem with control,” Rachel said, her voice coming out sharp.

Noelle bit her lower lip. “I’m not so sure about that.”

Rachel took a moment to study Dylan. His face was completely expressionless and his eyes showed no emotion. “I’m sure of him,” Rachel said.

She was. If she hadn’t been, then Rachel never would’ve walked back into the EOD.

Tension drew her shoulders tight. Rachel exhaled slowly and said, “So what’s the plan? I just go in there? Question him?” She knew how to handle a normal prisoner interrogation, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation.

“I think he’ll do the talking.” Noelle’s focus appeared to be on Jack. “At first, anyway. You need to break through the facade he has. Get to the real man underneath.”

“You mean the killer inside.”

Noelle nodded. “I’d...I’d ask about his father.”

Rachel’s brows climbed even as her stomach knotted. She had a feeling about where this might be headed.

“An accidental death on the guy’s birthday.” Noelle rocked back on her heels. “That could be quite a present to a psychopath.”

“Is that what you think he is?” Dylan asked, a bite to his words. “You’re going to give him a label so that what he’s done makes more sense?”

Noelle’s eyelids flickered. “Kenneth Cross is very unusual. I haven’t come across another killer like him before.”

“Well, then I guess this will be a learning experience for us all,” Rachel said.
Time to do this.
She wasn’t going to cower in the room any longer. And—and
Kenneth
was staring straight through the glass, a faint smile tipping up the corners of his lips. As if he knew that she was there.

The door opened behind Noelle. Mercer stepped inside. “Are we ready?”

As ready as Rachel could get. She headed out first, brushing by Mercer. Two other guards were outside Kenneth’s interrogation room. She would’ve thought that was overkill, but she knew how the guy worked.

One of the guards opened the door for her. Rachel took a steadying breath, tried to wipe the emotion from her face, then entered that small room.

He stood, or at least Kenneth stood as much as the restraints would allow him to do so. “Ah, Rachel...I knew you’d come to me.”

Dylan shut the door behind them. “We’re
both
here.”

Kenneth’s face tightened. “You, I could have done without.” His eyes stayed on Rachel’s face. “Do you feel better today? I’m sorry for what I had to do, but you deserved it, you know. You shouldn’t have pushed us into the water.”

There were two chairs across from Kenneth. Rachel didn’t sit, not yet.

Neither did Dylan. Dylan did walk to the side, though, and he propped his back up against the wall as he stared at Kenneth.

“What you had to do?” Rachel let her brows climb. “You mean drugging me, kidnapping me—”

“Oh, no.” Kenneth shook his head. “I mean when I had to wrap the rope around your feet to keep you under the water.”

Her skin iced.

“We hit the water together, don’t you remember?” Kenneth asked her, a faint frown pulling his brows low. “I was angry at you, sweetheart, so angry, so when I felt the rope, I had to use it. I pulled on it, and when it didn’t give, I knew it had to be twisted beneath some old pilings or even an anchor.”

“And you tied it around me.” She could almost see the image—memory?—now.

He shrugged. “I was going to come back for you, but Agent Foxx over there delayed me.”

Her gaze jumped to Dylan. His face still held no expression, but his eyes blazed.

“She nearly died,” Dylan snapped.

“Actually...” Kenneth eased back into his seat. “I think she did die for a minute there. I mean, that’s why you had to do the whole mouth-to-mouth scene, wasn’t it?” His head tilted as he regarded Rachel with curiosity. “What was that like? Did you see the big, white light that people talk about?”

She pulled out the chair across from him, sat down and stared back at him. “Your name is Kenneth Cross.”

Anger flashed on his face. “I’m
Jack.
”

“You grew up in Montana. You lived on a ranch.”

He laughed. “Got a hit on my DNA, huh? Or was it my prints?”

“You were an army ranger, under the command of William Harris.”

He leaned toward her. “Don’t tell anyone.” His voice had dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “But I think he may be dead.”

She gazed into his eyes. “We know who you are now.”

Voice still low, he said, “You know nothing.”

She thought about the files that she’d read. “I know that the real Aidan O’Sullivan is dead. I’m guessing that his body will be found eventually, and he’ll have a playing card on his chest.”

His grin flashed. “He might.” Then his laughter came. “But wasn’t it a grand cover?” The Irish drifted back into his voice then. “I was in Ireland for over a year. Met Aidan there. He wanted me to kill his grandfather, but I don’t just take
any
kind of work.”

No. “You like to be challenged.”

He nodded. “An old man wasn’t going to challenge me. He would’ve been too easy.”

“That’s why you focus on ex-military, isn’t it?” Rachel asked him. “That way, you have more of—”

“A fight?” He shrugged. “I think it evens the playing field.”

“But...Brent Chastang wasn’t ex-military.”

His jaw tightened. “He was a jerk who needed to stay away from you.”

The guard stood, still as a statue, behind Kenneth.

Dylan moved toward the guard then. He whispered to him. The guard hesitated, but then made his way out of the room.

“Just us three?” Kenneth asked. He pursed his lips. “And of course, the ones watching in that little room next door.”

Rachel decided to gamble. “There’s a profiler in there. She told me that you were a psychopath.”

Rage ignited—plain to see—in his eyes. “The profiler would be wrong.”

“I don’t know...all the people you’ve killed. Your total disregard for human life—”

“I have regard for life.
Your
life.”

Now Dylan stood behind Kenneth.

“It’s the others that I don’t give a damn about,” Kenneth continued. He acted as if what he’d just said was perfectly reasonable. Probably because, to him, it was.

“Did you give a damn about your father?” Was Noelle right? Had he—

His grin flashed.

He had.

“He was a fool who spent too much time caring about the dirt beneath his feet. Like the land mattered. He wanted to hold me back, to keep me out there, when I was meant for more.”

“So you killed him,” Rachel said, voice hollow.
Eighteen.
He’d killed his father then.

“And I realized that I was very, very good at killing.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But I guess that’s something that Agent Foxx and I have in common, isn’t it? Shannon saw it. And you see it, too.” His focus shifted back to Rachel. “Don’t you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re anything alike.”

“You shouldn’t be so certain.”

Control.
The word whispered through her mind. Kenneth was trying to control everything that was said in that room.

She had to stop him.

Rachel surged to her feet. “This is a waste of time. You don’t have any intel to give me.” She spun on her heel and marched for the door. “And I don’t have any more time to waste on you.”

“Don’t you leave me!”

She reached for the door.

“If you leave me, they’ll die.”

Rachel stilled. “Who will die?” This wasn’t supposed to be about new victims. She was supposed to be getting the names of all the people who’d hired Kenneth over the years.

Rachel turned to stare at him as she tried to decide if the guy was just playing her.

The smile was gone from his face. He stared at her, cheeks red, mouth tight.

“Who will die, Kenneth?” Rachel pressed.

“My name’s Jack!” He shot up.

Dylan’s hands came down on his shoulders and he pushed the man right back down.

Rachel didn’t advance toward Dylan and the killer. She just stood there, waiting. If he wanted to talk, he would.

And he did.

“Aidan O’Sullivan loved explosions. Loved to light up the night. He learned how to wire the bombs when he was a kid, at his da’s knee. But the grandfather... Oh, he was the law-abiding type. That was why he left Ireland. Left them all, and came here.”