7.

J

acob stared at the two bodies, and his stomach rolled. It had been a long time since he’d lost it at a crime scene, but this was beyond anything he’d ever seen. It stretched from wall to wall on every surface of the kitchen, even the ceiling.

“This isn’t TBK’s style,” Jade said. It was the first thing any of them had spoken since the forensics team had cleared them to enter the kitchen.

“No fuck?” Mullins shook his head. “What’s she supposed to be doing? Giving him head?”

“He’s defacing the bodies. This is more personal than the others. There’s rage here. Coroner said the penis was removed postmortem.” Jade tip-toed closer to peer at the woman posed with her face resting on one of the man’s thighs.

Whoever she was, it would be a closed casket funeral now. The eyes were gone and much of the skull appeared to be crushed. She was completely unrecognizable.

“Any ID?” Brooks asked.

“Nothing,” Jacob replied. “House is registered to a Pearl Jones, who died a couple years ago. They’re still searching the house for something that will tell us who these two are, but it’s kind of a dump.” And that was before someone had splattered the kitchen with pints of blood.

“He prefers areas with hard surfaces,” Mullins said. When the man concentrated, a slight brogue slipped into his voice. “They were attacked in the living room. I’m guessing they were getting it on, killer knocked them out then dragged them in here.”

“Clean up?” Jade suggested.

Brooks shook his head. “He doesn’t bother.”

“Flat surfaces.” Jacob gestured to the same blood void they’d found at the two previous scenes. “We think he’s filming these, right? Well, he needs a flat surface to put the camera on.”

Jade, Mullins, and Brooks stared at him, similar blank expressions on their faces.

“Fuck, that’s good, Detective.” Mullins wagged his finger at him. “The living room is trashed. The lighting is bad. He drags them in here to get a better shot on the camera, and no one lets their kitchen lights burn out because how are you going to make toast without light?”

“Toast?” Jade blinked at him.

“Throwing out ideas, love.” Mullins patted Jade on the shoulder.

“Lali hasn’t been able to track down the footage since we told her Payton’s theory,” Brooks said as though he were simply thinking out loud.

“Maybe it’s a trophy?” Jacob suggested. He really should keep his mouth shut. These were the profilers, he was just a detective.

“Perhaps.” Jade shrugged. “The eyes follow the TBK MO, but he’s evolving. He’s finding his own identity.”

“We’re treating TBK and TBKiller as two separate people now?” Jacob asked.

“Yes, I think it’s safe to say that though TBKiller is inspired by TBK, he’s found himself. The question is, what is he?”

“You know, I haven’t seen any letters around here.” Mullins paced into the living room and back. “Have you?”

“Once TBK hit the media he eased off sending letters to the victims ahead of time. There were notes and hints of who he would go after in the letters he sent to the police and newspaper, but that was it.” Jade shrugged.

“Neither of these fit the clues in the last letters, though. It doesn’t make any sense.” Jacob stroked his chin.

“You’re right. What if these two weren’t on his radar until something else happened?” Brooks scooted past Jacob to stand with his back to the blood void on the kitchen counter, facing the victims. “What if he was supposed to kill someone else? The first scene was neat, almost as if each blood splatter was intentional. The second kill—something happened there. He got violent. Or maybe it was the sound? I need to see the second kill photographs again. Something changed with that scene to lead to this.”

But what?

And how could they figure it out before it was too late?

Emma lifted her welder’s mask and glanced around. Sunday at Simon’s garage was a ghost town. Usually the guys tinkered on their own bikes or a friend’s truck, but everyone had somewhere else to be. It was just her, the latest sculpture, and a blowtorch. Normally welding was soothing. She could get out of her head and let the metal and flame speak to her, but today she couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was watching.

Since Jacob had left to go to the station that morning, she’d decided to try to get some more work done. The break-up with Derrick had interrupted her production schedule and she needed to make up some ground on custom pieces she’d promised clients.

If Jacob knew she was out here, he’d be pissed beyond belief. He only suspected the copycat might be interested in her. He didn’t know she was firmly in the cross hairs.

Maybe she should tell him?

She took a swig of water before lowering her welder’s mask and starting the torch up again.

If she told him, her ass would land in protective custody. She’d suffocate with that many cops crawling up her ass.

The skin between her shoulder blades crawled. He was there. Somewhere. Watching her.

She glanced in the reflective surface of a tinted car window, but nothing was behind her. Nothing was out of place.

Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. She was too distracted to get much more work finished, and besides, the sun was reaching its zenith. From there it would be too hot to work with the torch.

She shoved the mask up once more and hurried to get her glove off to press the flickering answer button.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ms. Ration?”

“Yeah?” Who the fuck called her Ms. Ration?

“My name is Ryan Brooks. I’m with the FBI. We’d like to see your collection of TBK documents and ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“This about the copycat?” Shit. Did Jacob know this was happening? Hadn’t he mentioned an Agent Brooks at some point last night?

“I’d rather not say. Do you think you could come in?”

“Yeah, it’ll be a little bit, though. I’ve been out working, and I need to clean up a bit.”

“That’s fine. Could you be here around, say five o’ clock?”

“I can do that.” She didn’t want to, but she would. The truth was, as much as she wanted to understand this copycat and the senseless violence of it all, she wasn’t going to be the one who took him down. That was a job for the cops. But fuck if she didn’t want to give the asshole a black eye.

It took her most of an hour to clean up and put her latest sculpture back in the shed Simon had said she could use until she found a new studio space. By then, her nerves were clamoring so hard between being watched and her impending date with the feds that she couldn’t even pretend to be hungry. She headed out to the station early to at least get it over with.

The quicker she wrapped the meeting up, the sooner she could be hungry. Hell, maybe Jacob would like to go have dinner with her and take a break. He was getting in too deep with this case and she knew how much it could stir up the darkness inside.

She focused on Jacob during her drive to the downtown station in Oklahoma City. His smile. The blueness of his eyes. The scars that told the story of a man so intent on getting his guy, sometimes he used his own body as a tool.

He was also a target. Or maybe it was because he was a cop that made the copycat reach out to him. TBK had liked an audience and he’d flirted with the authorities for years before they caught him.

She parked her truck and took the file box with all the precious history inside the station. An attendant signed her in, put her through a metal detector, and showed her back into the bowels of the building. There was no way she’d figure out how to get out of here on her own.

“Ms. Ration?” A clean-cut blond man approached her. He couldn’t be a local, not in a long-sleeved shirt and a flashy pink tie.

“Emma, please. Ms. Ration sounds like my mother.”

“Emma, then.” He had a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “This way, please? I’m sorry we aren’t having this chat in the conference room, they’re all taken.”

He led her into one of those interrogation type rooms she saw on TV. She hesitated near the doorway, her gut churning. She’d sat in one of these once before, while she’d recounted the story of what had happened the night Daddy chased her away. Lovely memories all around.

She took a deep breath. They wanted to see the collection.

Where was Jacob?

She glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t catch sight of him. Were they a secret? It hadn’t occurred to her that maybe Jacob hadn’t mentioned their involvement. It stung a bit to think he might be keeping her in the closet, but it wasn’t like she was cop-wife material anyway.

“What did you want to see?” Emma pasted on her brightest smile and went to the table.

“Have a seat?” Ryan gestured to the seat facing the door.

She set the box on the table to her right, the one-way glass on her left and tried to keep her focus on the man across from her.

“I wanted to ask you if you knew any of these individuals.” He pulled four eight-by-tens out of a folder and laid them in front of her.

Emma gasped and her stomach clenched. If she’d have eaten, she’d have lost it all in that moment.

They were pictures from crime scenes. Close-ups of the victim’s eyeless faces, their features destroyed to the point they didn’t even look human. She gripped the edge of the table and sucked in deep breaths of air. She’d never seen pictures of the bodies that weren’t heavily blurred. They were the one thing that had been kept from the public, and she could appreciate that now. It would take a lifetime to burn those images from her mind.

“Emma? Emma, do you know who this person is?” Ryan tapped the picture on her left.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I mean, that has to be Harold Espinoza, but I don’t recognize him. Not like that. Oh, God.” She slapped her hand over her mouth.

“How do you know that? Do you know him?”

“Christ.” She flipped the pictures over. “Once, okay. He came to a race. He wanted to do a motocross thing for Pride Week. He liked my pink jersey. Fuck.” She rubbed the heel of her hand over her eye, willing the image out of her mind.

“What about her?” He flipped the second picture back over.

That one was worse. Not only were the eyes gone, but there were tear tracks in the blood and a gag in her mouth. Just looking at her made it hard to breathe.

“No. Fuck. What’s this about?” She shoved the picture across the desk as the desire to deck the smug bastard grew.

“Her name is Laura Winthrop.”

“What?” she shrieked. She couldn’t be more socked if he’d smacked her in the face with a steel pipe.

“Laura Winthrop is the ex-wife of your boss, Simon, correct?”

“Y-yes. She’s dead?” Emma hadn’t known the woman well. When she met Simon their relationship had been fizzling, but she’d liked Laura well enough. She was a ballsy, hardworking woman who wouldn’t take Simon’s crap. They hadn’t been able to make the love last.

“Yes.” He laid another picture out in front of her. In this one, her face was in sharp focus as she pumped gas into Amanda’s car. “Why were you at the scene?”

She opened and closed her mouth. How did she answer that and not implicate Jacob?

“Harold’s neighbors also said you stopped by. Can you tell me why?”

Well shit. This was really bad.

She dug her nails into her palms. The truth was a flimsy foundation in this case. No matter what she said or did, it was going to look bad.

“I wanted to understand, okay?” She flipped the picture of her over as well, stacked the images together and shoved them at the agent. “I didn’t do this, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I’ve lived with this nightmare my whole life, and some sick fuck wants to get his rocks off recreating the murders? I don’t get it. I don’t understand. I thought going there, seeing the crime scenes, might make me understand, but I don’t. I can’t get what makes someone kill another human being.” She was yelling now.

“Do you know who these two are?” He pulled the last two images out of the stack and pushed them back toward her.

Had there been more deaths? Had someone else died? It hadn’t hit the news yet.

“Christ. No. Shit.” She shoved them away and stared at the wall.

“This is Amanda. I believe you’re staying at her house and were driving her car yesterday. And this is Derrick. Am I to understand you broke up with him a few weeks ago?”

“What?” She gaped at the horrid pictures of her best friend and ex. “No, that’s not true. You’re lying.” Her chest hurt. The muscles constricted so tight she couldn’t breathe.

They were dead.

Amanda was gone. It was too much to take in. It couldn’t be true. There was no way Amanda could be gone.

“Emma, where were you the last few nights?”

His words began to register and she stared at him. Was he serious? Did he think she would do something like this?

Fuck.

Jacob turned to the chief and agents lined up, watching Emma getting grilled. He’d been left out of the loop on this plan. Did they know he was involved with her? Were they keeping this suspicion from anyone local?

“Sir?”

“Not now, Payton.” The chief waved him away.

“Sir—”

“Not now. She might be our killer.” His mouth was set into a hard line. And why not? He’d been the arresting officer when Emma was taken into custody for her DUI.

“I didn’t do it.” Emma’s voice was thin and high over the intercom. Everyone was watching, hardly breathing.

He wasn’t going to leave her in there to fend for herself when he knew good and fucking well he’d been with her at the time of at least two of the murders. Three, since the last one was a double.

Jacob stalked around to the door and yanked it open.

Brooks turned, scowling at him. “What’s—”

“She couldn’t have done it,” he said, his gaze locking with Emma’s tortured eyes.

“And that would be why, officer?” Brooks asked.

He could hear Stevenson swearing around the corner. Jacob could kiss this case goodbye.

“She was with me Friday and Saturday night.” He grit his teeth. “I’m asking to be taken off the case. My involvement with Emma compromises my objectivity. Especially if you’re considering her as a suspect, and I am her alibi.”

“Jacob...” Emma stared at him, her beautiful smile nowhere to be seen.

“I’m at a loss for what to think here, Detective.” Brooks spread his hands. “Would you enlighten me?”

“Yes, sir.”

He grabbed a chair from the corner and dragged it to the table, keeping his gaze away from the window. Sure, he couldn’t see the people on the other side, but he knew they were there. He could feel the weight of their stares. To them, he’d made an error of judgment, but he didn’t regret it. There was nothing about his time with her to regret.

He cleared his throat and settled at the corner, near enough to Emma. “Thursday night—”

“This last Thursday? The night Harold was killed?” Brooks asked. His pen hovered over the pad of paper, his gaze locked on Jacob’s face.

“Yes, this last Thursday night I had arranged to meet up with Emma to discuss the original TBK case. Like I told you, she has a number of documents that were never handed over to the police. I wanted to see them so I could get a feel for what had been sent to me and how to gauge the severity of what we might be dealing with. Emma and I had dinner around seven. We were at the restaurant until almost nine. The coroner puts Harold’s death between nine and nine thirty. There is no way Emma could have crossed the city that fast and committed the crime before the time of death, even allowing for a margin of error.”

“What if she drove really fast?”

“Agent, please.” Jacob shook his head. “Emma is a strong woman, but the person we’re looking for has to have more muscle than she does. In order to create the kind of damage to the bodies she’d have to use heavier weapons, not to mention stand on top of something to get the right swing for impact we saw with the blood splatter. At best guess our suspect is around five eleven to six three. Emma, what are you?”

“Five seven,” she replied.

“See? She’s not tall enough.”

“And the last two night’s murders?” Brook’s gaze flicked between the two of them.

Jacob licked his lips. “She was with me. Both nights. We’re...involved.”

“Fuck.” Brooks scrubbed his face.

“I realize that my relationship with Emma has compromised me, and I willingly take myself off the case.” It hurt saying those words, but they needed to be said. The FBI was leaps and bounds ahead of his ability to catch this killer, but his gut said Emma would be involved at some point, if she weren’t already. He didn’t have anything to go on at this point except a feeling.

Someone knocked on the door.

Jade leaned in, her face even paler than normal. “You’re going to want to see this.”

They left the interrogation room, nearly scrambling for the door. One of the other agents had a flat screen turned on, but they weren’t looking at the news coverage. They were getting the direct camera feed from what looked to be the mobile bomb unit’s robot. The arms moved in slow, smooth motions, peeling the brown paper back from a box.

“What happened?” Emma asked.

Jade gestured to the screen. “Someone dropped this box in the courtyard in front of the courthouse. They’ve cleared the area, evacuated the buildings, and sent in both the robot and a bomb tech.”

“When did this happen?” Brooks asked.

“A little bit before she got here.” Jade nodded toward Emma.

“Did they take x-rays? What did they show?” Brooks asked.

“Yeah, the tech had an x-ray machine. Pipes. Some wires. That’s it.” Mullins shrugged.

A killer and now a bomb threat. Just what they needed.

It was a bold, ballsy move.

“What are the chances this is connected?” Brooks asked.

“It would be another alteration in the MO,” Jade said.

“TBK left a victim at the courthouse,” Emma said, and the room stilled. She blinked at the sudden attention, but didn’t cower or try to hide. Instead she stood a little straighter. She knew her shit, and he was proud of the way she pulled herself together.

“Gideon Cross—TBK killed him at his home, but when no one found him in a week, he got the body and dumped it in front of the courthouse with a note nailed to the man’s throat.” She gestured at the screen. “From the newspaper clippings, I’d say it’s about where that box is now.”

“Someone identified his car. That was the lead police needed to figure him out,” Jade chimed in. The two women studied each other. Sizing the other up, maybe?

“This could be TBKiller’s version of Gideon Cross?” Jacob asked.

Emma shook her head. “It’s too soon. There’s at least four more killings between this one and Gideon’s.”

Jade held up her hand, like a kid in class. “His MO is changing. We don’t know exactly what he will do. It’s obvious from the lack of preparation last night that he’s off his plan.”

“Uh, he’ll kill people. That’s what the sick fuck does.” Emma stared at the redhead, and Jade stared back.

“Look.” Mullins elbowed Jade as the package was opened.

Jacob settled his hand at the small of Emma’s back. A small touch, but it put him more at ease. Hell, after the scene this morning he could shut himself up far away from everyone. People were horrible creatures sometimes.

The black and white camera feed showed two unconnected pipes and a coil of wire shoved into the bottom of the box. No charge. No detonator. Not even any explosive material of any kind. This wasn’t a bomb at all.

“Is that paper rolled up in the middle?” Jacob asked. He pointed at the white cylinder on the screen.

“I want to know what it says,” Brooks said. He stalked through the office. Some of the agents followed him, others scattered.

I killed them, was printed in large, block letters against an image of two people in chairs. The overlaying images were too distorted to make out more. Fuck, he wanted to stay on this case, to understand and really know what was going on.

Emma turned toward him. “What now?”

He shrugged. “I’m off the case.”

“No, you can’t be. If we stop seeing each other—”

“Don’t even say that.” He snapped more than he meant it, but he couldn’t help a surge of possessiveness. She wasn’t about to get rid of him that easy. “Besides, that’s not how this works.”

“Okay, it was an idea. I mean, if we weren’t...whatever we are, you could still be on the case, right?”

“No, it doesn’t work like that. My personal involvement with you skews my objectivity on this whole case.”

“I’m sorry.” She grimaced.

“What for?”

“If I’d told you no, you’d still be on the case.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” He didn’t consider himself off the case. There was more than one way to tackle a problem. Besides, he wasn’t sure he’d do anything differently given the opportunity. Emma was a special kind of woman. The type that didn’t come along too often in a person’s life. His mother had taught him that much growing up. He wasn’t likely to let her walk out of his life.

“But—this is the case your dad worked on.” She gestured to the conference rooms where they could see the boards with the victim’s information and a timeline set up. “It’s important to you.”

“And we’ll still catch him. I won’t be an arresting officer. Do me a favor will you?”

“Hm?”

“Go get your stuff together in the interrogation room. I’m going to stick close to you until they catch him, okay?”

“Why?” She frowned. “Do you still think he might come after me?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“Fine.” She frowned, not that he expected her to like his decision.

Jacob followed in the wake of the agents and found Brooks with Stevenson. They had a radio between them. Jacob approached slowly and strained to hear what they were listening to, but it appeared to be over.

“Thanks for that. Bring the letter up here as soon as you clear it,” Stevenson said in reply to whatever they’d been told.

“Another letter?” Jacob asked Brooks.

“Yeah, they’re gathering all the security camera feeds now. Someone must have gotten a shot of this guy.” Brooks handed the radio off to Mullins. “We’re going to get him. Hey Mullins, call Lali and get her on this footage, now.”

“What color is it?” Jacob asked before Brooks could walk away.

“They didn’t say. Why? Got another theory, Detective?” It was a little unnerving to have the agent listen to what Jacob said so intently. Miller usually had one ear on the phone or hands on his keyboard when Jacob spitballed theories at him.

Jacob licked his lips and pressed on. “The letters I received were red. The second victim’s were orange and the third yellow.”

“It’s a god damned color wheel.” Brooks slapped Jacob on the shoulder like he did his agents. “Good eye.”

Brooks called to two of his people and headed back toward the conference rooms, no doubt to work the new angles.

Stevenson turned toward him, the shuttered expression not boding well.

“Sir, I can—”

“I don’t have time for excuses.” Stevenson held up his hand. “You’re off the case, but you already knew that.”

“Officially, yeah. I understand. I want permission to take a few days off so I can watch Emma. I really think she’s going to be a target.”

“Then put her in—”

“She won’t go. Plus, if I’m there, and we make sure a patrol comes by every half hour, maybe we’ll catch him. I can put this time to good use, going over what she knows of the first victims. We can profile them. I think this is an idea with merit.”

Stevenson’s lips were tightly compressed. “Is being with her in your best interest, son?”

Jacob shrugged. “You have a problem with her?”

Stevenson glanced away and sighed. “Your dad and I kept an eye on the Ration boy. He was never right after what happened to his parents.”

“She’s different.”

“I hope she is. For your sake. Let me know if you find a connection, but you’re doing this on your own time. I’m putting you on leave immediately. Have you heard from Freeman?”

“No, why?” Jacob wasn’t all that close with his new partner, but he would have expected the man to be back soon.

“While Miller is on administrative leave, I’m handling Homicide personally. Freeman should have been back this morning, but he hasn’t reported for duty.”

“Want me to swing by his place? Check on him? I thought he was going to be out longer.”

“He was, but plans changed. Now I can’t get hold of him, and we need everyone we can get here. I’ll have patrol check on him. Maybe plans changed again.” He slapped Jacob on the shoulder. “Keep me updated.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now, to protect a woman who wouldn’t want to be protected.

Jade shook her head and repeated herself for at least the tenth time. “She’s not our suspect.”

“You don’t know that.” Mullins paced the room, back and forth.

Why was it he always second-guessed her? Mullins was a damn good agent, but he could be an obnoxious prick sometimes. She gritted her teeth and waited for one of the other men to chime in and validate her theory, since that was the only way Mullins would ever believe her.

Brooks had warned her before joining the BAU that it was the ultimate men’s club. Besides support staff like their tech, Lali, there were only two female field agents. Half the other agents took her as a joke, what with her history, despite her resumé and exemplary marks at the academy.

“What if they’re doing this all together? Payton and Ration?” Mullins wheeled around. The man was really grasping at straws if he was even thinking about suggesting Detective Payton as a suspect. “They’re each other’s alibi.”

“Connor,” Brooks barked at Mullins. “Knock it off.”

Jade opened her mouth to point out the obvious, but thought better of it. Connor Mullins’ track record with questionable women was long and legendary. It was no wonder the man was a jaded jerk. He was a good agent, but even he had his flaws.

“It makes for good fiction, man, but Payton and the girl, this ain’t them.” Dmitri Abraham rose and stretched, tossing a wink her way when no one was looking.

Jade frowned, but he only smiled wider at her. She’d asked him to stop doing that. Flirting, even if it was for fun, was highly unprofessional, and it was hard enough for the boys in the club to take her seriously. She didn’t need rumors that she was dating one of her unit members to complicate things further.

“Perez, take us through the profile, please,” Brooks asked.

She nodded and cleared her throat. “We’re looking for a young, white male, approximately six feet in height with an athletic build. He’s artistic, but not as educated as TBK. After evaluating his grammar usage and lack of punctuation, he probably did not graduate high school. He’s picking victims that are similar to those of the original murders, but so far there isn’t a solid enough connection between the four.”

“Except for Emma,” Mullins interjected.

“She spoke with the first victim once. That’s a pretty flimsy connection,” she replied.

“It still counts.”

She sighed.

“Fine, one possible connection is Emma. There’s motive for Emma to be the killer on the last murder, but not on the first two. Besides, she doesn’t fit the victimology. TBK never killed any single, white females. He targeted either family units or people on the fringes of society, and even then those were crimes of opportunity.”

“Enough. Mullins, Abraham, I want you to go back to Harold’s house and talk to his neighbors. See if you can get a better description of the mailman. He’s our best target right now.”

“Yes, sir.” Mullins pivoted and walked out of the room, followed by a more relaxed Abraham.

Jade sighed and let her shoulders fall.

“Don’t let him get under your skin,” Brooks said, though he hadn’t glanced at her once.

“Maybe I should be moved to a different unit.” She didn’t want to, but having Mullins constantly second guessing her was exhausting. It wasn’t enough for her to know the cases forward and backward, she had to anticipate questions or she simply wasn’t pulling her weight.

“I wouldn’t recommend it. You fit here.”

“Do I?” She turned toward the pictures of the victims, but it wasn’t TBK’s she saw.

“It’s not hereditary. You can’t catch it.” Brooks spoke quietly, as if he sensed she wasn’t quite there with him.

“I tell myself that every day, but it doesn’t change the fact that sometimes I wonder if it is.” She shrugged and turned away before she saw too much of her past on those walls. “I’m going to get some air, clear my head.”

She didn’t flee from the homicide department, but she kept her eyes on the ground and didn’t acknowledge anyone else as she headed outside. The sweltering Oklahoma heat wrapped around her lungs, soaking up every bit of moisture in her skin. If she wasn't careful, she’d burn in a few minutes, but she didn’t plan on staying out here long.

Detective Payton had marched into that interrogation room like a badge-wielding knight. Not quite the armor of dreams, but he hadn’t flinched away from going to Emma’s rescue.

Jade sat down on the stairs in a bit of shade cast by a tree and allowed herself to wallow for a moment. No one could love a person with her past. She wasn’t even sure if she was capable of expressing love. It wasn’t as if anyone had ever demonstrated the emotion to her personally. But she knew it when she saw it. Like Jacob and Emma. The signs were all there. As a profiler she picked up on the clues. The way Payton had moved to put himself between Emma and Brooks. How he’d given her his left hand, keeping his dominant right free to ward off a threat. And Emma had bent to Jacob’s direction when Jade didn’t think the woman was used to taking orders at all.

Did they know?

Probably not. Emma was an independent woman who would turn a blind eye on her feelings until she was smacked in the face with reality. Jacob, on the other hand, she was willing to bet was closer to accepting it. He’d given up the case of a lifetime to become her fierce protector. The only person who’d ever tried to protect her was a child services representative, and Brooks to a lesser degree.

Jade allowed her attention to turn inward and prodded the cold, dark corners of her mind. Brooks always said that killers chose their path, but was he right? What if her fate was written in her genetics? What if she was born to be like her parents?

Emma pulled up at Amanda’s duplex and stared hard at the little two-toned green house with its red door. She’d been friends with Amanda for years. Once, ages ago, Amanda dated a guy on Emma’s race team. They’d broken up, but Emma and Amanda had clicked. Since it was hard enough to find other women she liked, Emma had gone after that friendship. It had been easy to have fun with Amanda. How had it come to this?

The idea that both Amanda and Derrick were dead made her numb on the inside. She hadn’t been able to process it or think through what that meant. How long had they been together?

A patrol officer knocked on her driver’s side window, startling her.

Emma shook her head and opened the door.

“Yes, officer?” She grabbed her purse and paused, perched on the driver’s seat.

“Chief said you were on your way, ma’am. I’m to escort you inside.”

“And what then?” She arched her brow at the man. If they thought they were going to keep her out of the house, then they had another thing coming to them.

“Your safety, ma’am.”

“Fine, whatever, come on.” She rolled her eyes and slid out of the truck, dragging the box after her.

Emma unlocked the house and pushed the door inward. She paused on the stoop, almost expecting to see Amanda pop out from her room, a smile on her face and the scrub set of the day still on. But she’d never be there for Emma again.

“Ma’am, would you like me to check the house first?” the officer asked.

“No, thanks.” She shut the door in his face.

The stillness of the duplex settled around her.

Amanda had asked her before she left to visit family if she wanted the move-in to be official. Emma hadn’t been ready to make a decision, and they’d put it off until next week. She’d shifted so much of her life into Derrick’s crappy trailer, but at least there she had the big backyard lot to work in. Here, she’d have to get a studio space, and that was a whole other set of costs. It was too much to think about, and she’d put it off.

Her mind circled around the fact that Amanda was gone, but refused to accept it. It couldn’t be true. There was no way Amanda could really be gone. This wasn’t happening.

Emma put her purse down next to the door and toed her shoes off, like Amanda would have wanted. Emma sighed, shoving her hands through her hair, and wandered into the living room.

Something was wrong.

She glanced around, sure that something had been moved, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She went to put her cell phone on the coffee table, and that’s when she saw it.

The coffee table was completely cleared of knickknacks. The candles were gone, the bowl of pointless gold balls cleared away. A single sheet of red paper lay on the glass surface.

I did it for you.

She read the single sentence over and over again.

For her?

She’d never have done that to Amanda or Derrick. The idea that their death was in some way a gift to her was ridiculous and offensive. Anger boiled in her stomach, so bitter and vile it burned the back of her throat. She grabbed the paper and ripped it to shreds, a deep, tortured growl rising up out of her as the bits of paper fluttered around her.

“Where are you?” she yelled.

Emma stalked into Amanda’s bedroom, but no one was there. She went into the bathroom they shared, and still no sign of a trespasser. Emma’s room, it was impossible to tell. She hadn’t exactly been keeping things as tidy and neat as Amanda. Emma’s clothes were in a pile on the floor until she got hangers. Most of her things were in boxes or a few suitcases.

“Emma?” Jacob knocked on the front door as it creaked open. “Emma, you okay?”

“Yeah.” She scrubbed at her face.

The letter.

Fuck.

She scurried back into the living room, her heart throbbing in her throat.

Jacob knelt over the shredded mess of the letter, a piece of twisted paper in his hand.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, voice hard.

“It was just there,” she blurted.

“Okay.” He held up his hand and pulled his cell phone out with the other. He snapped a few pictures, no doubt sending those off to his FBI friends, who would now be completely up her ass. Just what she needed. They’d probably say she did it herself.

Jacob got to his feet and closed the distance between them. He cupped her shoulders and peered into her eyes. What did he see in her?

“I should have called you, I know.” She pushed his hands away, needing space. All these people were starting to suffocate her.

“Yes, but that wasn’t what I was going to say.” His expression was unreadable. Solid stone.

“Then what? What do you want to say to me?”

He licked his lips, brow drawn down, and his blue eyes darker than normal.

“I was going to say it’s okay to be angry. Your friend is dead, she might have been cheating with Derrick while you were with your ex, and you got accused of being their murderer all in about half an hour. Now this.” He thumbed at the letter she’d foolishly left lying around.

“I am angry.” She pointed at the letter. “I’m angry at him.”

It was hard to breathe. She gasped and her eyes prickled. Oh fuck, was she crying, too? This TBKiller had killed too close to home, and he thought he was doing it for her? Emma could take care of her own problems. So what if Amanda wanted to fuck Derrick? She could have handled that, or at least ignored it. Her one true friend was now dead.

Her legs gave way and she sat down heavy on the tile floor.

“Go on, cry it out,” Jacob muttered.

He folded his body around hers, pulling her against his chest and rocked her from side to side. She leaned back, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

“I want him dead,” she said between sobs.

“Me, too. Me, too.” He kissed the side of her head.

Did he really? Did he really get it?

In all the world, he was the only person who might understand the torment her soul went through, and even then she didn’t know if he really understood. Maybe no one ever would.