Page 25 of Into the Veins

She tried to smile, but even she knew it wasn’t genuine. As much as they’d pretended they were the only ones who existed for the past couple of hours, reality wouldn’t wait and neither would the killer who’d already taken two lives. She handed back his phone, the photos of his boat, the crystal blue ocean and sunset behind it, still so clear in her mind from two nights ago. What they’d been through, what they’d survived out there—this was her realm of monsters. He was a visitor. He had his entire life mapped out in a journal he’d kept as a kid, and she’d bet every piece of art she’d created that nothing in that notebook mentioned long-term commitment. As soon as this investigation was over, he’d be gone. Maybe forever. She had to remember that. “I half expected you to ask me an inappropriate question.”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of those, but right now I need you to tell me what’s going through your head,” he said.

“I was thinking about what one of my colleagues said while I was in the hospital.” She absently felt for the bandages wrapping her wrists, all too aware of the fact there was nothing shielding her from his attention other than a flimsy roll of stained tarp. “We worked a serial case together a couple months ago, and he reminded me of something our suspect said.”

“I remember the case.” Three lines deepened between his brows as he rested his weight on one elbow to face her. “I didn’t think the killer gave up anything in your interviews after the FBI closed the investigation.”

“She didn’t at first. That’s the thing about serial killers. Everything is a game. They like the control, the mind games, the manipulations.” Memories of those interviews, of being in the same room with such evil, raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “I played a manipulation of my own, and it worked. When I asked her where she’d been for the year leading up to the first murder, she said it didn’t matter, that I would never find the others.”

“Others?” Colson’s expression smoothed, and a familiar tension tightened the tendons between his shoulders and neck. “You think the woman who attacked us might be connected to your last case. That the killer could be one of these others she talked about in your interrogation?”

“The FBI won’t classify this case as a serial until there’s a third victim, but my gut is telling me Rachel Faulkner and Cardin Townsend were targeted by someone as intelligent and angry if not more so than any serial we’ve faced before now.” Blair hauled herself to sit up and secured her knees against her chest. The tarp scraped against her over sensitized skin, but she couldn’t afford the distraction. “These murders are personal. They’re premeditated, and the fact that Dr. Moss hasn’t been able to recover much more than a few forensics from either victim tells me whoever is behind this knows what she’s doing. She’s trained for this, and I’m not sure I’m the one who can see that her victims get justice.”

She hadn’t said the words out loud before, hadn’t wanted for them to be real, but she couldn’t deny the truth after facing her greatest fear on the edge of that cliff. Complete and utter helplessness. Callused fingers slid across her shoulder as Colson lowered his mouth to her spine, and her breath hitched in her throat. She breathed him in deeper to feel him underneath her skin. When had anyone ever affected her like this? When had anyone treated her with such reverence aside from her parents? As close as she and January had grown as adoptive sisters, they fought every bit as much as the real thing. The Reeses had been there for her when she needed a roof over her head and food in her stomach, but there’d always been a distinct barrier between them when it came to discussing her life before. They’d urged her to seek counseling, to work it out on her own, but she’d never had a partner like Colson. Someone she could talk to without judgement, without pity. Someone who challenged her every belief the way he did.

“I would’ve bled out if it weren’t for you, Blair. You’re the only reason I’m sitting here right now, the only reason I’m still breathing.” He skimmed kisses across sensitive nerve bundles that made her human. His beard tickled the back of her neck, and she lowered her head forward, giving him access to the most vulnerable part of her. “You don’t think you can get those women justice, but I think you might be the only one who can. You’re the strongest, most guarded woman I’ve ever met. You put up walls so high that only the crazy would climb them to be with you, and here I am. When the cards were down out there, I knew all I had to do was count on you. Now I need you to trust me.”

Trust him. She felt every change in pressure, every brush of his mouth against her skin as the battle that’d waged inside of her the moment she’d met him escalated into a full blown war. A private investigator had destroyed her life. How could she trust him not to do the same?

His phone pinged between them, and her gaze lowered to the screen

Colson withdrew faster than she’d expected, leaving her cold and dazed as he covered the incoming message with one hand. “Why don’t you go start the tub, and I’ll join you in a few minutes? There’s something I need to take care of first.”

“Is everything okay?” Her gut knotted, and the image of him ignoring a text message as they arrived at the Tiger Mountain trailhead escaped the mental box she’d tried cramming it inside.

He tore his gaze from the screen. Leaning in, he pressed his mouth to hers, but the fire that’d melted her into nothing more than a puddle a few minutes ago had cooled in a single ping of sound. “Yeah. Just a client I’ve been putting off for a few days. Wants an update about his case. Nothing to worry about.”

“Okay.” Suspicion coiled low in her belly as he rose to his feet. Rock hard muscle flexed down his back and his bare glutes and thighs as he collected his stained clothing from the floor. The sight off all that skin should’ve awakened the parts of her she hadn’t surrendered to in years until a couple hours ago, but where there’d been desire, and heat, and pleasure, and want, hollowness spread. Blair stretched for her T-shirt from nearby and threaded her arms through the sleeves. She climbed free of the tangle of tarps, moving slower than she wanted to as she headed for the door leading into the main house. She hesitated at the door and turned back as he speared both legs into his pants, his back to her. “See you in a few minutes.”

No answer.

Blair secured the door behind her and headed for the master bath. In the five days they’d been partnered on this investigation, she’d never seen a break in his enthusiasm. Trust him? No. She twisted on the hot water to fill the oversize claw foot tub. Steam filled the bathroom, and she swiped fog from the mirror to expose her reflection underneath. She collected her cell phone from where she’d left it on the counter to charge before escaping into the garage to paint and scrolled through her contacts. She hit the phone number and raised the phone to her ear, listening for signs Colson had followed her. Her gut said something had changed. Something he didn’t want her to know about, and she intended to find out exactly what he was hiding before another private investigator betrayed her and the department she cared about.

Blair closed the door as quietly as she could as soon as the line picked up. She didn’t wait for their normal greeting. “Hey, it’s me. I need a favor.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

He’d lied to her.

Colson tossed his phone on the work bench covered in varying shades of paint and pressed both palms into the edge. A section of paint crumbled under his hand. Son of a bitch. He should’ve known the bastard he’d made a deal with had enough power to freeze his accounts. His fingers ached under the pressure. He forced himself to back off too hard, and the table jerked forward.

One of Blair’s bowls slid off.

Porcelain shattered on the other side of the table. Broken pieces skittered across the concrete and pricked at one side of his foot. He studied the pattern of brightly colored streaks across the gleaming, cured surface of what used to be the inside of one of her sculptures, and his stomach dropped.

“Shit.” He collected the closest shards and maneuvered around Blair’s barstool. Dozens of pieces had exploded from the epicenter of destruction, and he sat back onto the barstool, taking in the damage. Not only had he lied to her about the contact he’d had with a victim’s father, but he’d broken her latest project. Hell, he was an asshole. All this time he’d searched for an adventure capable of countering the neglect and loneliness he’d suffered growing up, and when he’d finally found something—someone—up to the task, he’d thrown her back into the dark.

His side screamed in agony as he bent down and began cleaning up the mess, but he wouldn’t stop until he’d gathered every piece in punishment. He caught sight of a broom and dustpan in the corner and swept up the last pieces of the bowl. Each sweep of the bristles against the floor echoed loud in his ears as though enunciating the simple act of hiding his mistake wouldn’t ever be enough. She’d know. Exhaustion clung to his arms and legs as he dumped the remnants of her art into the trashcan near the door.

His gut churned in hunger, but worse, shame. He’d meant what he’d said before. Because of her experience with her last serial case, he had no doubt Blair was the strongest, most qualified officer for this investigation. That was why he’d chosen her, but his plan to use her—seduce her if he had to—for information had gone straight to hell the moment she’d tried to protect him from the killer. He didn’t have any doubt she’d let him into the investigation for the same reason. Blair hadn’t gotten to her position by turning her back on valuable resources and confidential informants. In fact, part of her training as a rookie had taught her how to find and recruit CIs, to use them to her advantage while giving as little as possible in return, but Blair had inadvertently become something he’d never imagined possible: a genuine connection. Colson scrubbed a hand down his face. Now the son of a bitch controlling his future had tightened the screws. “Damn it.”

He had to tell her. He had to make this right, his future—in Seattle, with this investigation—be damned. He’d asked Blair to trust him, and she deserved a partner she could rely on to have her back. He shoved into the main house and made his way through the layout. The front room, dining room, and kitchen were empty, and a slight hint of humidity pulled him past the demarcation line she’d threatened to shoot him over if he crossed. He’d told her to get the tub started without him to give him a chance to respond to his blackmailer in private, but more than that, there was an intimacy associated with sticking around after sex he’d never confronted before. He’d had plenty of flings over the years. Pretty flings who’d provided the distraction he’d craved when the impulsiveness wore thin and whose names had slipped from his mind. Blair was different. There wasn’t a single part of him that could forget her. Her focus, her independence, and determination to protect everyone but herself. She was everything he hadn’t expected when he’d taken on this case and everything he hadn’t realized he’d needed all these years. She deserved better than him.

Colson crossed into her bedroom, taking in the soft neutrals with dark accents around the room. A handwoven rug stretched out from beneath the queen size bed stacked high with decorative cream pillows and a soft gray blanket at the end. A large clock demanded attention from over the high-backed headboard, but it was the small, framed photo on the farthest nightstand that drew him into her private space. A pair of deep red slippers rested under the plush bench at the end of the bed, and he instantly imagined waking up beside her every morning before she shuffled to the kitchen in those slippers for her first cup of coffee for the day. She’d bring him a cup, and they’d read the paper together, talk about her current case, or screw each other’s brains out until she had to race from the house to make it to the station on time. Maybe all three.

Hardwood groaned under his weight as he rounded the end of the bed. He reached for the photo and instantly honed in on red-headed beauty on the right side with her shoulder scrunched up around her ears and a smile brighter than the sun squeezing the corners of her eyes. Five years old, maybe six. Years before that smile would break under the pressure of having her family ripped from her. A smudge stretched over the man and woman behind her as though she’d traced the shape of their faces a hundred times. Both had wrapped one arm around the girl’s waist and held onto her as though someone would try to take her from them at any moment, and his heart squeezed. His parents hadn’t given a damn about where he was, who he was with, or if he’d eaten for most of his life. Hell, he didn’t even have any family photos of them. Their happiness had been a priority from the start, but this…this was what a real family looked like, and yet some asshole private investigator and a gunman had taken that from Blair for a couple of hundred dollars.

Colson set the frame back onto the nightstand and turned to the door on the other side of the room. Presumably the bathroom, considering the closet door had been left open and exposed rows of dark clothing and sheriff’s uniforms. He crossed the room and knocked softly. “Blair?”

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