Page 29 of Once a Killer

“Doesn’t feel right to go back to bed when you’ll be up the rest of the night,” he said. “Maybe I’ll sit here with you. Get my computer and finish what I was working on earlier.”

“You don’t have to do that. This,” she waved her hand toward the window, “is part of my job. Go back to bed. I’m going to watch a while longer to see what he does.”

Jameson stood up and padded out of the room in his bare feet. She allowed herself a moment of regret that he hadn’t stayed, then turned back to the binoculars and watched the guy in the SUV for a while. No lights on in the car, which meant he wasn’t reading. Was he listening to the radio?

He had to be doing something to keep himself awake.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Jameson, coming back into the living room, his laptop tucked under his arm. He sat on the couch and opened it, pursed his lips as he read something, then began typing.

She turned back to the binoculars, her lips curling a little, a wisp of pleasure washing over her.

An hour and a half later, she finally stood up and slid the binoculars away from the window. Jameson looked up from his computer. “Calling it a night?”

“Yeah, I’m going to try and get a couple more hours of sleep.” She pointed at him. “Which you should do, too. You didn’t have to wait up with me.” She exhaled as she held his gaze. “No sense in you being exhausted tomorrow.”

He closed his computer and looked up at her. “Thought I’d keep you company. I enjoyed sitting in the quiet and the dark with you.”

Fireworks burst into color in her chest, and she pressed her fist to her sternum. “Well, hell,” she said. “Thank you. No one’s ever kept me company when I was on watch.”

She’d never wanted anyone to do that. But Jameson? She hadn’t minded his company. Instead of annoying her, she’d found his presence… comfortable.

She bounced the binocs off her thigh. “Go back to bed,” she ordered. “We both need sleep. He may not come after us tomorrow, but we need to be ready if he does.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, saluting her. “See you in the morning.”

She watched as he stepped into his room and closed the door, leaving only a crack between it and the door jamb.

In her own room, she replaced the binoculars in their case, then slid into bed. But it took longer than it should have to fall asleep. All she saw was Jameson, sitting on the couch with his computer in the wee hours of the morning. Keeping her company.

* * *

Bree glanced in the rear-view mirror every few minutes as they drove to the lab the next morning, but didn’t see any sign of the black SUV with the tinted windshield. About half-way to the lab, Jameson said, “So you were right.”

“About what?” She glanced at him quickly, then looked back at the road.

“You said he probably wouldn’t come after us in the morning, if he spent all night watching my building. Made sense, but I wasn’t ready to believe we’d get off scot-free.”

“We didn’t,” she said. “We still have the evening commute. That was always a more likely time for an attack. We’ve been working all day. We’re tired. Not as alert and our reflexes aren’t as quick. Smart to wait until we’re on the way home,” she admitted.

“Hadn’t thought about it that way,” he said. “But you’re right.”

“Doesn’t mean we’re not going to pay attention in the morning,” she said, watching carefully for a black SUV while making a left turn.

“What are you going to do today?” he asked her.

“I’m going to research Brogan and McKay. I’ll dig deep. Check their backgrounds. Their families. Where they went to college and grad school. See who they’re friends with on Facebook and who they follow on Instagram. Find every scrap of information that’s out there.”

“Yeah? Then what will you do with all that data?” he asked.

“Analyze it. Analyzethem. I want to know who’s the most likely one to be targeting you.”

“You think you can tell by doing a deep background check and interviewing them?” He raised one eyebrow, clearly skeptical.

She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’ll get a much better sense of who they are. What their values are. What makes them tick. Then I’ll interview Rivers and Lewandowski, either today or tomorrow.”

“What about the other groups I mentioned?” he asked. “The cleaners. The people from different labs.”

“I’ll get to them eventually.”

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