In a Heartbeat (19 page)

Finally he began to move toward her.

The soft sound of his arms splashing through the water mingled with the night sounds of the crickets chirping. Her heart pounded, her breathing becoming more erratic as he closed the distance. Finally he stopped in front of her, his gaze glued to hers.

“Lisa?”

“Shh.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, who I am.”

“I know everything I need to know.” She took his hand, floated backward until they could stand in the water.

His jaw tightened. “I told you, I’m a killer. No better than—”

She pressed a finger to his lips, let him taste her skin and the water. “You don’t have the heart of a killer, Brad,” she whispered. “And I want to be close to you. Right here, tonight.”

He started to shake his head, but she slid her hand against his cheek, then into his hair.

One moment his mouth hardened as if he intended to push her away, the next his eyes flickered with such longing that she glided toward him, then closed her mouth over his.

His lips were firm yet tender, and he parted them and delved his tongue inside her mouth. His hands cupped her face, angling it sideways to give him better access, and he deepened the kiss, molding and shaping her to his touch. She made a throaty little moan, and her legs buckled, but he caught her, sliding one arm around her waist while the other hand stroked her hair and then skated down her back. She wrapped her legs around him, clinging to his arms, savoring the kiss. Her body churned to life for the first time in years as he spread kisses along her jaw, then down the sensitive skin of her throat and lower. Lisa whispered his name, hoping he wouldn’t stop until he joined them together and made love to her in the moonlight.

BRAD HAD TRIED TO SAY NO, but watching Lisa undress, seeing her standing naked with the moonlight dappling her body in pure gold, had completely shattered his resistance. He’d known she was beautiful clothed, and had seen her naked once, but he shook away that tragic memory and focused on the heavenly one before him now.

Lisa offering herself to him. Lisa with her lips pressed against him, her slender legs wrapping themselves around his rough, hair-dusted ones, her breasts swaying and bobbing in the lake water, begging for his touch.

His entire body erupted into one big hard-on, the force of his need a reminder that he had to tread slowly. Lisa wasn’t some two-bit hooker or even a one-nightstand kind of girl. She was sweet. Vulnerable.

And so damn sexy that he felt lucky as hell.

Her breath rasped out as he lowered his head and tugged one nipple into his mouth. He licked the rigid peak, swirling his tongue around it until she arched her back, then he closed his lips around her and suckled her until she moaned his name. His own body throbbing, he slid a hand down to play with her curls while his mouth inched its way to her other breast, loving and suckling her the same way. She stroked the back of his calf with her foot, clinging to his arms as if she might melt into a puddle if he released her. As sexy as he found the lake water lapping around their hot bodies, brushing nerve endings and rippling against his thighs, he didn’t want to take her there, not this first time. So he gently lifted her in his arms and carried her to the shore. Then he lowered her to the ground and spread their clothes out as a makeshift blanket. Stars twinkled above them, lighting the sky, and moonlight slashed across her cheeks, giving him a glimpse of the desire on her face.

“You’re so beautiful, Lisa.” His voice cracked. “I don’t deserve to be with you.”

She shook her head and let her gaze roam over his face, then lower. Her lips parted as if in invitation as she looked at his length, then she slid her hand down to close around him. White-hot fire surged through his loins.

He groaned, then claimed her mouth again. One kiss led to another and another, each time his tongue delving deeper inside as he trapped her with his body. Her breasts teased his chest, her heat cradled his thighs. Then he was suckling her again, teasing her nipples and dipping his fingers lower to spread her legs wider and push a finger inside her tight sheath. She arched and gripped his arms, and he hesitated, then looked into her eyes. He’d expected to see fear, but the pure radiant glow of a woman on the brink of sexual pleasure shone instead. Deeper, deeper, he thrust his finger, stroking her folds and stretching her open, as the urge to taste her nearly sent him over the edge. He lowered his head, settled his lips where his hands had been, then drank in the sweet juices of her release as she climaxed below him.

Her body jerked in response, and she reached for him, but he continued to kiss her and love her until the tremors rocking through her subsided. She whimpered and pulled at his arms, and he rose above her, then gazed into her eyes. The sated, sleepy look of a well-loved woman stared back, giving him more joy than anything he’d felt in years.

And he hadn’t climaxed yet himself.

Slowly, though, he realized that he couldn’t, not tonight.

“Brad?” Her husky, sated voice skated over his raw senses, but he moved off her and cradled her by his side.

“What’s wrong?” Lisa whispered against his neck.

He threaded his fingers into her hair. “I…don’t have protection,” he murmured in a husky voice.

“But—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “No, Lisa. I promised to take care of you, and I intend to keep that promise. That means protecting you in every way.”

She sighed as if frustrated, then slid her hand down, closing it over him. “Then let me love you like this.”

Stunned by her suggestion, he started to comply. But he didn’t want Lisa making sacrifices for him. He’d already taken too much.

So he pushed her hand away and sat up. “Not tonight.”

After all, the realization that another woman might die while he was having pleasure was something he couldn’t live with.

“Go back to the cabin, Lisa.” He grabbed her clothes, shoved them into her hands, then turned away from her, yanking on his own.

She touched his shoulder. “Brad, please—”

“Go,” he barked. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

Lisa dragged on her clothes, then the sound of her footsteps trampling grass and gravel cut through the night as she did as he said.

But seconds later, Lisa screamed his name.

He took off running, his heart clamoring in his chest.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

VERNON DIDN’T CONSIDER himself a violent man, but he’d watched Lisa strip off her clothes and climb into the lake with Booker, and every cell in his body had nearly exploded with rage. Lisa was supposed to be his now.

He had survived White. Had even gotten revenge in the end.

And he had healed. Had changed his face. Had started over.

Just for her.

But she’d let Booker touch her and do things to her that no man but her husband should do. Just like his trampy mama.

Booker raced toward the house the minute Lisa yelled his name. She must have seen the new comforter, noticed that he’d touched her underwear and had spread it across the bed, and been frightened. He hadn’t meant to scare her…

But he had to keep Booker away from her.

Vernon grabbed a tree limb and slunk down low to hide behind the bushes. His breath rattled out as he waited. Booker might have his gun with him. Vernon had to time it just right.

Just as the agent approached the front porch, Vernon lurched out from behind the tree and slammed the branch into his head. A second whack sent him falling into the dirt. Blood seeped from his scalp and trickled down his neck. His body lay limp.

Vernon dragged him to the side of the porch and kicked his legs. But Booker didn’t move.

He was a goner.

Sweat pooled on Vernon’s lip and forehead, then zigzagged across his jaw as he climbed the steps to the porch. The wood floor creaked. Lisa came running toward him and nearly slammed into him.

“Whoa.” He grabbed her arms, elated to finally touch her. She was so close now he could feel her breath on his skin. The mere scent of her soothed the burning heat roaring through him.

But her eyes widened in shock, and she instantly tried to jerk away. He gripped her harder, staring at her with pleading eyes. But she was frightened. She tensed, her lip quivering.

“Who are you?” she whispered in a ragged tone.

He smiled. “Don’t you recognize me, Lisa?”

“N-no….” She shivered, her blond hair tumbling wildly around her shoulders as she tried to pull away again. A flashing image of her naked in Booker’s arms drifted back, sparking Vernon’s anger, and he gripped her tighter, refusing to release her. He wanted her naked with him. Pure. Perfect.

A whimper tore from her throat. “Y-you’re the man who came to Ellijay. My…my new neighbor.”

He grinned, smiling widely to show off the new caps on his teeth. “That’s right.”

Again she tried to back away, but he tightened his hold. Now that he had her, he never wanted to let her go.

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t hurt me.”

He shook his head, then stroked her arms with his fingers. “I won’t hurt you, Lisa. I love you.”

Her expression became pinched. “You put that comforter on my bed…went through my things.”

“Oh, Lisa, I’ve wanted you for so long. I had to feel your silky panties on my skin,” he said in a low voice. “I closed my eyes and pretended it was you touching me.”

“Why?” Lisa asked. “What do you want?”

“I told you, I love you. I’ve always loved you. Only you.” He paused, his breathing growing more erratic. “I want to make you happy, make you mine.”

“But you’re Aiden Henderson. I just met you,” she said, her voice breaking.

“No, it’s me, Vernon. Remember me from school? Vernon Hanks.” He lowered his voice, hoping to calm her. “I used a fake name because I wanted to get to know you so you wouldn’t be scared, but then you ran off with Booker.”

Lisa’s gaze flew to the lake, her chest heaving as she struggled for a breath. “Where’s Brad? What did you do to him?”

He shrugged, his white dress shirt stretching over his shoulders. “He was in the way, Lisa. Don’t you see? You belong with me, not him. You always have, but that William ruined everything.”

Lisa’s eyes flared with panic. “You…killed those women.” Her voice rose, hysterical. “And now you did something to Brad, and you want to do the same thing to me.”

Vernon staggered back a step, her accusations stunning him. “No…no, you don’t understand.”

“You always followed along behind William. You tried to emulate him back in college and now you’re doing it again by copying his crimes.”

“No, that’s a lie. Back in college when I disappeared, you don’t know what happened.”

Lisa heaved a breath, glanced past him again as if searching for the agent. “If you love me, then let me go,” she whispered. “Let me see Brad.”

He shook her gently. He had to made her see that they belonged together. “You have to listen. It’s all William’s fault…he caused my accident four years ago, a car wreck that almost killed me. That’s why I disappeared from school. He ran me off the road and left me to die, or we would have been together back then.” He sighed, then rushing on. “It took me a long time to recover. I was in the hospital, in rehab therapy, even had plastic surgery because I didn’t want to see you again until I could face you like a man.” The old familiar low esteem ate at him, gnawing its way to the surface. He heard his mother’s voice telling him he was no good.

But he wasn’t that same old Vernon Hanks. He was different. Better. God had given him a second chance with Lisa. He couldn’t lose her.

“Please, Lisa, I took care of White for you, so you’d never have to worry about him again.”

“What do you mean, you took care of him?” Lisa asked in a trembling voice.

BRAD GROANED AND DRAGGED a hand over the back of his head. Something sticky and pasty coated his hair. He lifted his hand and saw the blood.

Shit.

His memory crashed back. Lisa had screamed his name. He’d gone running toward the house.

And then someone had clobbered the hell out of him. His head throbbed, and he was drenched in cold sweat. The world spun in a dizzying motion as he forced himself to his knees. Struggling to breathe, he exhaled sharply, trying to orient himself and steady his legs so he could stand.

Pulse pounding, he forced his feet to move, and crossed the distance to the porch. He grabbed the rail, hoisted himself up and automatically reached for his gun. But he’d left it by the lake. Damn it. No time to go back for it now.

Adrenaline surged through him. He tiptoed up the steps and inside, cocking one ear to listen for sounds. A man’s reedy voice. Then Lisa’s broken whisper. She was begging the man to let her go. Calling him Vernon.

It was Hanks.

Brad inched to the door and peered inside just as she swung her knee up to attack. Brad catapulted into motion, then leaped onto Hanks’s back.

The man was surprisingly strong, and his blow to the head had weakened Brad, but Brad was fighting for Lisa’s life. Spurred on by fury, he pounded his fists into the man’s face, his bruised knuckles bleeding as he knocked him to the floor.

Lisa screamed and jumped backward, horror in her eyes, but he couldn’t stop.

He’d told Lisa he was a killer but she didn’t believe him. Now she saw the truth.

Hanks groaned and went limp, but Brad pounded him again until the whites of his eyes bulged. Each time he thought of Lisa. The other victims.

“Brad, stop.” Lisa tugged at his arm.

Finally he glanced up. Tears streaked her face. His chest clenched, and he released his grip on Hanks’s neck.

But he wasn’t sure Lisa had stopped him in time, if the man would survive long enough to give a confession.

A HALF HOUR LATER, Lisa watched in abject shock as the paramedics lifted Vernon Hanks into the ambulance. Blunt force trauma to the head had caused him to slip into unconsciousness.

Brad had retreated into his sullen shell, using a clipped tone to deliver his account of the attack. Captain Rosberg had spoken with her, and she’d answered the questions as best she could, trying to recall Vernon’s rantings word for word.

“He admitted putting the new comforter on the bed and going through your clothing?” Brad asked.

Lisa nodded. “He didn’t explain the bedspread, but he said he liked touching my clothes. And he admitted renting the cabin next to mine in Ellijay so he could be close to me. But he told me there his name was Aiden Henderson.”

“Typical stalker behavior.” Captain Rosberg consulted his notepad. “You said he claimed White caused his accident?”

She glanced at Brad and wrapped her arms around herself. Earlier she’d felt so close to him. Now she felt as if he was a million miles away. Untouchable. “Yes, he said he’d been in the hospital, then rehab, that he had to have plastic surgery.”

“His sister mentioned that he’d been in an accident, too,” Brad confirmed.

Captain Rosberg shot Brad a dark look. Lisa sensed he was upset with him for beating Vernon so badly.

But he had been protecting her…hadn’t he?

The ambulance spun away, siren blaring, its lights twirling in the darkness.

“We’ll have someone stationed at his door,” Captain Rosberg said. “When he wakes up, we’ll question him.”

If he wakes up.
Would he? The question lingered in the ensuing silence.

Then Brad’s phone trilled from inside the house, and he stalked up the steps to answer it.

“Miss Langley, did Vernon Hanks admit that he’s the copycat Grave Digger?”

Lisa shook her head, Vernon’s wild-eyed look flashing back to her.

“Did he mention the other girls at all? Give you any indication that he was involved or that he’d kidnapped and buried them?”

Lisa massaged her temple, her lungs tight. Everything had happened so quickly. And she had been so afraid. But Vernon…he’d actually looked upset when she’d accused him of the murders.

“Miss Langley?”

“No,” Lisa said quietly. “He denied being the killer. And he claimed that he wouldn’t hurt me, that he loved me.”

Rosberg frowned, but the screen door slapped open, and Brad stalked outside, his look feral. “That was Nettleton.”

Lisa clenched the porch railing for support, fearing his next words.

“He knows where Darcy Mae Richards is?” Captain Rosberg asked.

Brad nodded, and the horror continued.

IT WAS ANOTHER all-nighter. A night of tracking through the woods, of facing the possibility of failure, a night of finding another woman who had been buried alive in the infernal heat.

Brad grimaced as the M.E. examined Darcy Mae Richards’s body. The crime scene techs that had been at the other sites had arrived just as Brad had. This time Dunbar was leading the crew.

Darcy Mae hadn’t been dead that long. Hadn’t fought with the box like the others. Must have realized it was no use.

Either that or perhaps she’d suffered heatstroke, and her heart had expired before the air had.

He hung his head, sweat soaking his shirt and back, the realization that he’d missed Nettleton’s first call intensifying his guilt. Apparently Nettleton had left a message on his cell phone while Brad had been swimming in the lake. Then he’d been so busy making love to Lisa that he’d forgotten to check it immediately.

Would it have made a difference for Darcy Mae if he’d received the call thirty minutes earlier?

God, what if it had? What if he could have rescued this woman in time…?

Nettleton approached, his smarmy face almost pious. The tail had confirmed that Nettleton had been at home the night before, but Brad still wondered if he could have slipped out.

Brad had ordered Lisa to stay in the car, and had left Officer Surges waiting beside her as a guard dog. Through the bushes, he saw Wayne Nettleton charging toward the vehicle and Lisa. Brad sprinted after him. The last thing Lisa needed was to have her picture in the
Atlanta Daily
or on the news. But Nettleton didn’t give a rat’s ass about her safety.

Before Brad could reach him, the man’s camera flashed. Lisa ducked behind her hands, and Brad tore into Nettleton.

“Take your hands off of me,” the reporter shouted.

Brad spun him around by the collar. “You’d better not print that picture, Nettleton. You could be putting Lisa’s life in danger.”

“The public has a right to know what’s going on,” Nettleton argued. “They want to see what happened to Langley’s princess daughter, how she made it these last four years, what she thinks about this second Grave Digger.”

“The public will have to wait,” Brad barked. “You’re not going to put her life in jeopardy just to make a story.”

“Don’t you think her life already is in jeopardy?” Nettleton asked snidely. “Isn’t that the reason you have her staying with you? Or is it because you want her for yourself?”

Brad slammed his fist into the man’s mouth.

Nettleton cursed and coughed blood. Officer Surges stepped forward as if to temper things. “Agent Booker, maybe you’d better take a walk.”

Brad glared at him. “You think I should listen to a cop who pukes at every crime scene?”

Surges’s face turned crimson, and he backed away.

Lisa tried to open the door, but Brad waved for her to remain inside. This fight was between him and Nettleton.

“You’re a hothead, Booker,” Nettleton said. “You’re out of control. I heard you nearly beat that man Hanks to death.”

“He attacked Lisa Langley,” Brad said. “End of story.” And he didn’t regret one second of the beating.

Nettleton arched a brow. “Do you really think he’s the copycat Grave Digger?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. Now get out of here.”

“Lisa knew this man Hanks before, didn’t she? Just like she knew William White.”

Brad jerked Nettleton away from the car. “I told you to leave.”

But Nettleton refused to be deterred. “Did Hanks confess?”

“I’m not going to discuss this investigation with you.”

“You’re forgetting that I’m the one calling you with information on the bodies. That I’m the one the killer is talking to.”

“Which makes you a prime suspect,” Brad snapped.

Nettleton chuckled. “I’ve already given Captain Rosberg my alibi.”

“Alibis can be faked,” Brad said. “And if I find out yours was, I’ll personally haul you in.”

“Then you don’t think Vernon Hanks is the Grave Digger?”

“Leave now, and stay away from Lisa Langley.” Brad gave him a shove, then waited until Nettleton climbed into his SUV and drove away before he returned to the crime scene.