Annie and Stone sat in the warmth of his SUV in front of her temporary home. The wind whipped around outside, knocking against the vehicle’s windows. In the headlights, she watched as it picked up the top layer of snow and twirled it around in a little tornado before dancing out of sight.
They’d been discussing the body found that day at Draper’s Pond. She’d wondered why the woman’s mouth had been open under water. She wasn’t being a smart ass; she truly wanted to know if this was an anomaly.
“Walt, the ME, believes she was dead before she wound up in the water.”
Annie glanced at the dark cabin. She was enjoying the conversation and the idea of being alone right now had lost its appeal. “You want to come in? I could put on a pot of coffee.”
“Sure.” He turned off the engine and opened his door.
Annie met him on the other side of the vehicle and they made their way toward the cabin side by side. The sound of crunching snow mixed with the whoosh of the wind through the trees. They climbed the stairs to the porch and stomped their feet. Three times. In unison. Annie held back a giggle.
She wasn’t sure if she brought it to his attention that he’d find it funny, or just think she was a geek. Which she was, she just didn’t want to point it out. She removed a glove and reached in her pants pocket for the key. The moment they entered, she lit a nearby kerosene lamp.
While shedding their layers, Stone said, “I’ll get the fire started while you put the coffee on.”
Annie hung her coat on a hook. “Sounds good.” She toed off her boots and set them on the hearth to dry, then made her way to the wood stove to light the kindling.
While she prepared the pot, Stone said, “You’re running low on wood, I’ll fetch more.” He grabbed the flashlight off the mantel and closed the door behind him.
She set the pot on the stove.
When he returned, his arms filled with wood, he said, “You’re going to need more logs split. If you want, I could do that now.” He dropped the wood and began to stack it.
“Thanks, but that should be enough for tonight. Besides, it will give me something to do tomorrow.” She smiled to show her gratitude.
He stared at her a moment as if weighing the truth of her remark. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Carrying two steaming mugs, she joined him on the braided rug in front of the roaring fire. Though facing the flames, Annie couldn’t ignore the fact that the situation felt intimate. While he stared straight ahead, she risked a sideways glance. His outstretched legs crossed at the ankles. One arm extended behind, palm down on the floor, while his other hand held the mug.
The man was damn sexy.
The thought immediately filled her with guilt, as if she were somehow cheating on Matt. Both men were hot, but in different ways. Although they’d been best friends since grade school, she’d never had the pleasure of making Stone’s acquaintance.
Whenever she was in town, Matt contacted him to get together, but he was always too busy. She’d thought the man held some kind of grudge against her. She knew on some level she was just being paranoid, but those old insecurities always surfaced when she least expected. Matt told her she was being silly the one time she’d brought it up and maybe he was right, because Stone was here now.
Annie had this overwhelming urge to know everything about him. She reasoned it was because Matt had loved him like a brother, as if being near Stone brought him back by proxy. But the truth was that being in such close proximity made her entire body pulse. There seemed to be an electrical current passing between them. Without warning, she found herself imagining what kind of lover he’d be.
“How long have you worked for the FBI?”
The abrupt sound of his voice, snapped her into the present. Her eyes flew to his face and she focused on answering his question. “Seven years.”
“Huh.” He frowned. “Longer than I would have expected.”
“I was recruited right out of college.”
“What made you so special?”
Taken aback, she blurted, “I’m not.”
His brows knit.
“I mean, maybe it was because I was already a black belt in Krav Maga, or the fact that I’d won a few awards in sharpshooting.”
His eyes rounded. “Phew, so you’re a bad ass?”
His teasing put her at ease. “You don’t want to be on my shit list.”
He chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She loved the sound of his deep laugh and the way his expression changed completely.
“How did you and Matt meet?”
She searched his face. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Nope. We didn’t sit around and have heart-to-hearts. The conversation was probably more like:
Matt: I met a girl.
Me: Alert the media.
Matt: Been seeing her six months now.
Me: She can’t be too bright then.
Matt: Fuck you.
Me: You wish.”
When Annie stopped laughing, she said, “Wow, you do a good impersonation of him. Could he do one of you?”
“He’d try, but between you and me, it sucked. You were about to tell me the story of how the two of you met.”
“I was?”
“You were.”
“Right out of the FBI Academy I was snagged to do an undercover assignment. They needed a woman who hadn’t made any arrests yet and therefore wasn’t known to any criminal factions. I was told it was because I had the highest test scores in both the practical and written exams in my class.
“My SAC, the Special Agent in Charge of the unit, claimed I appeared sweet and innocent, which also gave me an added edge. I met Matt during that operation, and I played his girlfriend. Somewhere along the way the lines got blurred. After the op was finished, he told me I didn’t really have feelings for him, that it was just the circumstances.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, it pissed me off big time. I just figured it was his way of saying that he didn’t have feelings for me. Because of the favorable outcome of that assignment, I was able to choose where I went next. I chose field ops in the San Diego office. He went back undercover.”
After he swallowed some coffee, Stone said, “When did you actually start dating?”
“Four years later. I’d finally gotten accepted into the BAU-the Behavioral Analysis Unit-number four in Virginia. They deal in adult crimes. One day I had a meeting at the Hoover building in DC, that’s where I ran into him. I called him a douchebag. He agreed. We went to dinner that night and decided to give our relationship another try.
“It wasn’t easy. He’d go under for months at a time. Then he’d return to Alaska to decompress. After, we’d meet up where ever we could, spending as much time together as possible until one of us got called out on another case. After his last assignment, he was getting out of undercover work for good and we were to be married.”
“Sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Matt worked for years to get into the FBI. You claim to have had some bad ass skills beforehand, but how exactly did you get on the bureau’s radar to be recruited?”
“My criminal psychology professor mentioned me to a friend of hers who worked for the bureau. She knew my goal was to become a profiler. It didn’t hurt to have a brother who was a decorated agent and another who’s a highly sought after forensic psychologist.”
“In other words, you know people.” His expression held a modicum of mirth.
She set her coffee down and drew her knees up. She rested her right cheek on the top of her legs facing him. “That about sums it up.”
“So I take it your brothers are older than you?”
“Yup. All four.”
“Whoa, that’s a big family.”
“And we’re all in law enforcement. Except for Mom, she’s the glue that holds us together.”
Stone sat up and crossed his legs. “Do they all work for the FBI?”
“No. My grandfather is retired FBI. Dad’s a captain in the police department and my brother, Jesse, is a homicide detective, both in Southern California. Billy is a Texas Ranger out of Houston. Cody is FBI, working for the Violent Crimes Unit in Los Angeles and Wyatt is a forensic psychologist in Maryland. He’s in private practice, but he consults for many law enforcement agencies across the country, including the FBI.”
“Wait, your brother isn’t the Dr. Wyatt Thomas, the one who wrote the book Inside The Minds of Killers?”
She sighed. “Yup, that’s my brother.”
“I love that book. My copy is dog-eared and filled with yellow highlights. I’ve also read Psychopaths 101 and Serial Killers: Born or Made? Man, that chapter on Dahmer was chilling. Your brother’s a genius. You’re so lucky.”
“Seriously?” She straightened her legs and leaned back on her hands. “The second anyone realizes who my oldest brother is, they expect me to be just as brilliant. It’s made my life a holy hell. I’ve had to work twice as hard to make sure I don’t come off as an idiot.”
“You’re too rough on yourself. It looks to me like it’s paid off. While you were spending all that time trying to prove you were just as good as your brother, you outshone everyone around you. Your criminal psychology professor wouldn’t have put a word in for you if you weren’t exemplary.
“Your brothers’ reputations might have helped, but it was your accomplishments that got you into the FBI. If you didn’t excel at the academy, you never would have been selected for that special undercover operation.”
She stared at him. “Well, crap. When you put it that way, I guess I’ll have to stop holding that grudge.”
He laughed. “Are you going back?”
Stone watched her face fall before she turned away. I’m such a moron. “I’m sorry.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Can we just pretend I didn’t ask that?”
For a moment there, he’d forgotten who she was. He’d gotten too relaxed, as if they were just a couple of people talking. But she wasn’t just any woman, she was Matt’s woman. He knew she was in mourning. He of all people knew the devastation of Matt’s murder.
Stone was the one who’d found him.
When he’d first opened the cabin door, noxious fumes hit him. Hard. He rushed into the yard, choking on bile. The mixture of dog feces and gases from the decomposing body trapped in the small enclosure were overwhelming. Matt’s Shepherd/Husky mix, Kodiak, jumped up and licked his face before he could push him away. Stone covered his mouth and nose with his turtleneck, then entered the dwelling.
The carnage was horrifying.
Kodiak had been imprisoned in the cabin along with the body for an indeterminable amount of time. Without food. Naturally, his survival instincts kicked in. The flesh from Matt’s face was entirely gone. Some of his fingers were missing from one hand, the other was gone completely. In desperation, the dog had ripped through his clothes to reach the rest of his body.
Bloody paw prints covered every surface. Kodiak danced around Stone, wagging his tail. Besides his feet, his muzzle was covered in dried blood. He knew the dog was simply happy to see a familiar face, to be set free. But this was the saddest day of Stone’s life and watching the jubilant animal wearing evidence of his betrayal was making him sick.
He needed to get Kodiak out of there before he contaminated the scene further, as if that were possible. He called him outside, pulled a blanket out and placed it across the back seat of his SUV. Once the dog jumped in, he shut the door and called in reinforcements to work the scene.
Matt had been dead a few days, but the coroner couldn’t give an exact time of death because the cabin had been without heat. It was as if his body had been kept in a refrigerator. That slowed decomp and made it difficult to get a proper temperature reading. His liver was gone, so the doctor had to use a rectal thermometer. The dog’s feces needed to be confiscated to retrieve the phalanges, metacarpals and carpal bones that had gone through his system.
After Stone recovered from the shock, he knew it wasn’t the dog’s fault. Annie, on the other hand, never forgave him. She’d been in California when it happened. The moment she walked into the Locklear’s home, Kodiak ran to greet her. She was so upset, she threatened to shoot him. From that day forward, they made sure the dog was sequestered whenever she came to visit.
Matt’s cause of death, GSW. One shot to the head and one in the heart. Execution style. When the feds got wind of his murder, they swooped in and collected everything; his body, as well as any evidence recovered. Stone still called the lead agent searching for answers. The case was officially still open.
The agent on the case knew of the relationship between Stone and Matt, so he shared confidential information with him. They didn’t have the evidence to charge anyone for the murder, but they suspected that the Lobianco crime family was responsible.
Matt’s last assignment. He’d been in deep undercover for a year, during which time he’d befriended Michael Lobianco, the son of Vincenzo Lobianco, the head of the Chicago Mafia. It was said that they were so tight, he was considered part of the family. They were even pushing him to marry their daughter, Bella.
Matt had gathered enough evidence to get several highly placed members of the Lobianco crime family arrested, including Vincenzo, which was quite a coup. Somehow, a reporter at The Chicago Tribune had uncovered the truth. He’d written a lengthy article which included the downfall of the organization due to an undercover operative from the FBI.
The reporter’s body was found in an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront. He’d been mercilessly tortured to the point that the only way to identify him was by DNA. His teeth and fingers were missing, his face unrecognizable. In the end, he gave up Matt’s identity. The Chicago PD said the guy held out much longer than anyone could imagine.
“Actually, I haven’t decided yet when I’ll return.”
Shocked that she’d answered the question, he gazed at her a moment. Her eyes were red. Not wanting to embarrass her, he focused on keeping the conversation going. “Well, you’ve accomplished a lot at such a young age; you deserve to take some time off. Actually, how old are you? I swear you could pass for sixteen.”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Wow.” He shook his head.
“I know. I’ve always looked younger than I am. Being so short doesn’t help. I take after my mother that way. My brothers are the ones who got all the height in the family. I was bullied horribly growing up. I begged my brothers to teach me how to fight. That’s how I got into Krav Maga. I loved the power and confidence it gave me. I’m afraid I can be a bit competitive. By the end of the four-month training class at Quantico, I couldn’t find one guy who’d go up against me. Willingly.”
Stone watched as her face lit up. “I bet. The male of the species are known to have fragile egos.”
Her brows arched. “Does that include you?”
“Hell, yeah. I cry at Hallmark commercials. But if you tell anyone, I may have to kill you.”
She punched him in the arm. “You do not.”
“How would you know?”
She frowned. “You got me there.”
She turned her attention to the fire.
Stone took the opportunity to thoroughly check her out. He marveled at the way the light from the flames danced along the surface of her wavy, long, brunette hair. It made her bright blue eyes sparkle. She really was stunning. More beautiful in person than the photos Matt had shared with him. The way he’d talked, she was the human incarnation of Sedna, the goddess of the sea.
Stone had wanted to scream bullshit. All women were flawed. His friend had to be blinded by love. Stone had successfully avoided meeting Annie. He knew Matt would want his opinion and lying wasn’t an option. Matt could read him like a book. So far, Stone couldn’t find a single imperfection. She didn’t appear to be self-absorbed or a crazy bitch. That just meant he’d have to delve deeper.
All at once he realized he had a strong urge to kiss her. He feigned checking his watch. “You know it’s late.” He stood so fast, he got a head rush. “I’ve got to go.”
Annie climbed to her feet. “Of course.” She followed him to the door. “Thanks for driving me home.”
Stone slipped on his coat. “No problem.” He stepped into his boots and squatted to tie the laces. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call.” He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. He had to leave. Now. He jumped to his feet, leaving the boots untied and rushed through the door. He had to get as far away as possible before his mouth got him into any more trouble.
“I don’t have your number.”
He was halfway down the stairs. Her voice made him stop.
“Oh, sorry.” He fished one of his cards out of his wallet and scribbled his cell number on the back. Reluctantly he walked back up and handed it over without meeting her gaze. He focused solely on the lower half of her face.
“Thanks.” She smiled.
Dammit. Even her teeth were perfect.
“Sure.” He turned on his heels and galloped down the steps, sending a wave over his shoulder. He took off without a backward glance. His grandfather would call her a trickster like the raven.