Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (41 page)

“You don’t need to. I already have.” The woman’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. “So the answer is yes. There was a time eighteen years ago, before Stephen and I became engaged. We’d had a terrible fight. We’ve never fought like that since. Not ever. I was devastated, certain that we were over. Lance was a shoulder to cry on. And . . .” She looked away, her lips trembling. “Things went too far. Stephen and I got back together two days later. I never told him what had happened. I couldn’t have borne it if I were the cause his friendship with Lance ending. And maybe I was trying to spare myself, as well.”

Something seemed to ease in Raiker. Straightening in his chair, he murmured, “Ancient history.”

“Yes, that time.” She drew in a shuddering breath, then met his gaze squarely. “But it happened again three years ago.”

“This is none of your damn business.”

Lance Spencer’s Greek god good looks were as polished as ever. His diplomacy was not. The glare he shot them encompassed both Macy and Adam. “What’s between Thea and me doesn’t have anything to do with Ellie’s disappearance. Or with either of you.”

“She says there’s nothing between you.” Adam had instructed Macy to take the lead with Spencer. But the fierceness of his glare when it settled on her told her that he wasn’t going to be any more forthcoming with a woman.

He recovered quickly. “There isn’t. Stephen’s one of my best friends. I felt lower than a snake about betraying him.”

“Hard to imagine, then, you doing so again just three years ago.”

He eased back, her words clearly taking him by surprise. “Why would you say something like that?”

It occurred to Macy that he should have been the lawyer, as adept as he was at dodging direct answers. “Why do you think?”

He was silent for several moments. Then he muttered a curse under his breath. “You spoke to Thea?”

It was interesting that her husband didn’t call his wife by the diminutive of her name, but this man did. Macy tucked the observation away to be considered later.

“I thought your outfit was brought in to help.” This was directed at Raiker, with a look that would have scored metal. “How the hell do you consider it helpful to pile one more thing on a grieving mother?” As if driven to move, he lunged from his chair. Paced. “Neither of us is proud of what happened between us. Either time. But it has absolutely nothing to do with this case.”

“But does it have something to do with you picking up roots and accompanying Mulder to Colorado?”

“Jesus.” His look toward her then was almost appreciative. “Your appearance is deceptive. You don’t pull any punches. Like I say, Stephen and I have been close for two decades. I did my stint with Wall Street firms out of grad school, made my rep and my first million, both on my own. I didn’t need to take the job when he first offered it. I wanted to.”

“But wanting to work with him in DC is a far cry from moving to the Rockies to continue that work.”

He shrugged, slipped his hands in the pocket of his tailored trousers. “Maybe I figured I owed him, did you ever think of that?” There was a flash of something in his expression that might have been remorse. “He gave me options. I could have stayed put and done a lot of my work electronically, flying out here monthly as needed. But I let him down in the worst way possible. With Mark and Stephen heading out here, I had nothing tying me to DC. What was stopping me?”

“Maybe the question is, what drew you out here?”

At Macy’s response, he seemed to choose his words carefully. “I’m not sure you can understand. But this guy has suffered more than anyone else I know. Unimaginably. I’m glad I could be here for him.” He gave a wry smile. “And it doesn’t hurt that I’m getting rich in the process. What happened between Althea and me . . . that eats us up. But it isn’t going to stop me from being here for Stephen. As long as he needs me.” He lifted an Armani-clad shoulder. “Make of that what you will.”

Raiker took over then, leading the man through more questions, all of which Spencer fielded with the ease he’d displayed the first time Macy had spoken to him. She watched him speculatively until he exited the room.

“Impressions.”

She smiled a little at the familiar wording. In the training classes they were required to take when not on assignment, he’d often present his consultants with a set of circumstances or film clip, ending with the same demand.

“Hard to tell who he’s trying to fool.” Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since the limp salad the waitress had packaged for her at the diner. “I don’t doubt that he feels a real connection to Stephen Mulder. Fueled partly by their long friendship. Strengthened by guilt.”

Her gaze went to the closed door. “But that’s secondary to his primary reason for sticking with the business. Uprooting himself to move to Colorado. He’s in love with Althea Mulder.”

Raiker made a disparaging sound in response. Positioning his cane closer, he heaved himself up from the delicate wingback chair he’d been sitting in.

“Primal emotions are often at the root of all motivations.” She took pleasure turning some of his other oft-spoken words around on him. He hadn’t mentioned their conversation of this morning. She knew he wouldn’t, unless he came to the decision that she had become expendable with her decision of yesterday. In any case, it wasn’t a topic she was going to broach.

Raiker would do as he saw fit, for his own reasons. Macy’s palms grew damp just thinking about it. She decided, as she rose to move toward the door, that she was in no particular hurry to discover if she was going to be unemployed after this job. She had more than enough things to worry about.

Castillo’s taunts about Ian were always there, scurrying about her mind like vicious little ants. Even considering them felt like a betrayal of the man who’d raised her since her mother’s death when she was five. She knew what Ian was to her. What he’d always been. Just as she realized what Enrique Castillo was capable of.

But there had also been some truth to the information he’d revealed about John LeCroix’s son.

Resolutely, she shoved it from her mind as she followed Raiker out the door. Of course he’d couch the most outrageous accusation within a layer or two of fact. It was the habit of most liars.

But realizing that had her wondering if there was an element of truth in the man’s claims about Ian. And Macy hated that, certain it was exactly the response Castillo had been seeking. Like the poison Kell had called it, the lies sought to destroy anything good that had survived him.

She didn’t want it to taint the only family she had left.

Belatedly, she realized Raiker was speaking again.

“Love and sex just muddy the issue. Any issue. They lend an unpredictability to events and reactions that can be difficult to filter out when making conclusions about a case. People always see more clearly without either hazing their instincts.”

For a moment she was taken aback, a splinter of guilt stabbing through her. Raiker was almost uncanny in his perceptions, so it wasn’t necessarily paranoia that had her wondering uneasily if he knew about her and Kell.

In the next instant, she recovered. Although her boss defined the term
close-lipped
, he had no compunctions about rendering an opinion on the actions of his employees, as she’d learned just this morning. If he had a notion of how she and Kell had spent the night, or more exactly, the morning, he’d have called them on it.

Which would have been redundant, in any case. Macy had already done an excellent job of berating herself all day.

She just wasn’t any closer to determining what she was going to do about it.

Chapter 15

Vincent Dodge finished redoing her bonds so the kid’s hands would be free. He’d been overly diligent about securing her before he’d had to leave the cabin again for that paper. She was fixed tightly. In the end, he’d finally pulled out his knife to cut through them, pausing to relish the panic in the kid’s eyes.

Her fear was mildly satisfying. But not as much as he’d hoped.

Maybe he’d wasted his time by taking this job. Perhaps adding a kid to his resume wasn’t going to provide the spark he’d hoped for. This numbness had been spreading for a long time. What were the chances one job would change that?

“Here.” He slapped the newspaper against her chest. “When I get ready to record, you’re going to hold it up in front of you. Then when I point at you, you’re going to turn it to read one of the stories on the front page out loud.”

Her arms and torso were still tied to the chair, but she gestured toward her face with one of her free hands.

“Forgot. I must have been too busy enjoying the silence.”

He went to her and ripped off the tape he’d had covering her mouth and then back to the bag he kept beneath his cot for the instructions for the phone. He wasn’t a technophobe, but he made it a point to learn only as much as a given job required. Goddamned computers and cell phones were ruining the world. He could appreciate their usefulness and still be convinced of that.

He took the time to read over the directions carefully, to use the diagrams to figure out how to run the video camera feature on the satellite phone. Then he replaced them in the bag, eager to have this whole thing over with.

And start on the real highlight of this job.

But when he picked up the phone, the kid started talking. “I don’t read very well.”

“Don’t fuck with me. Follow the instructions or we’ll skip straight to the next step.” He paused long enough for her to get his meaning. “I’m sure you’re as eager as I am to get to that part.”

It’d be more satisfying, he thought, if she’d cry. Big fat tears accompanied with pleading or screams of anguish. Or maybe it’d just be annoying. He’d eaten that up when he’d first started this line of work for the Giovanni family. But in truth, it had gotten old. Which is why he’d switched from knives to guns in the first place. Over quickly and tidily with little interaction with the target.

Maybe that had been when he’d started losing the joy from his job, too.

“You think I’m lying, but I’m not. I was kidnapped before and held for two years. I didn’t go to school all that time. My tutor says I lost instruction during my formative years.”

He stopped messing with the settings of the camera long enough to look at her. “I don’t give a shit about your sad story or your mother-fucking tutor. Jesus.” He walked rapidly over to her and took the paper from her, scanned it. “Here.” He stabbed at a story and held the damn thing in front of her face so she couldn’t help seeing it. “It’s about schools and No Child Left Behind.” He gave her a thin smile. “That’s called irony, kid. You reading about the state of public education in the country today. Because you’re going to be left very far behind.” He put some distance between them and zoomed in on her. “Now hold up the paper.”

She obeyed. About time she did something she was told. She wouldn’t have lasted long around his old man. He’d have worn the Bible out beating some obedience into her.

He hit record. Got in close to get the date like he’d been told. And when he gave her the signal, the girl turned the paper over and frowned down at it. He was about ready to turn off the camera and go give her a slap upside the head to remind her who was calling the shots, when she started reading.

Slowly. Painfully.

He grimaced, continued filming. School hadn’t been his thing. No interest, for one thing, and thanks to his old man, he’d missed his share. But he could still remember the embarrassment of having to stand up to read in front of his class, although he’d never been as bad as this kid, stumbling over words and switching letters around. You’d think with her family’s money, they could have gotten her a tutor who could teach her something.

Really, he’d be doing her a favor by killing her.

In less than a minute, he was finished. He stopped and texted the familiar number. Sent the video.

Then put the cell phone back in his pocket and considered the kid.

Severing the carotid arteries and the jugular vein in one practiced slice would be a quick, almost instantaneous death. He knew enough to realize there’d be no returning thrill in that. She’d put him through too much to let her off that easily.

“You know what flaying is?” He watched her face avariciously. Her fear would feed his satisfaction, which in turn would fuel the returning joy. He needed that response from her. Demanded it.

She shook her head.

“It’s a particularly brutal form of corporal punishment. Should be reserved for the politicians of this country, if you ask me.” He reached in his shirt and withdrew his knife. Not the one he’d packed in his luggage, but the one he’d stolen from that store. It was a beauty, a far better sample than he’d expected to find in the mountains.

He admired it for a moment, held it up to the light so she could appreciate the glint of the blade. “This particular Browning is made for skinning big game. You’re not as large as an elk, so I figure it will do fine. Ever peeled an apple?”

She was still, fighting to keep any expression from her face, he could tell. That wouldn’t last long. He wouldn’t allow it. “My granny used to do it real fast.” He mimed holding an apple in one hand. “Round and round she’d go, until she had the whole thing off, in one single peel. That’s what I’m going to do to you.”