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  Stacey waited.

  “Find my daughter so I can bury her. And catch her killer.”

  Stan Freed stood on the sagging front porch of the crummy little house he hated and watched that bitch of a sheriff and the nosy FBI agent get into her squad car. His hands gripping the railing, he forced himself to remain there, nodding his thanks as they backed out of the driveway. That was the normal thing to do.

  Above all, Stan liked things to appear normal.

  It was only once they were well down the block that he let go and saw the impression the wooden railing had made on the insides of his big hands. Splinters protruded from the puffy flesh of his palms and his fingertips. He hadn’t even noticed, hadn’t felt any pain. He’d been too focused on grabbing something, needing to remain in control. Keep cool. Stay normal.

  Everything would be fine if he didn’t lose his head, kept things going the way they had been. The cops couldn’t prove a thing. Winnie knew better than to shoot off her yap, even if she did know something, which she didn’t. And the only other person who knew a damn thing was dead and rotting. So there was no reason to panic. No way could that little bitch reach out from the grave and ruin his life now, after all this time.

  Lisa. How he’d loved her. How he’d hated her. She’d been so beautiful, so perfect, an angel.

  Then she’d grown up to be so hard, so ruthless, a whore.

  He’d wanted to give her the world once, and she would have taken it. She might have pretended otherwise, but she had loved him, too. And she’d wanted him. It was her nature; she’d liked what they did in this house when her mother was at work or asleep.

  Until she got older and began whoring herself out to other men. She’d started resisting, calling him names, acting like she hadn’t been into it all along. And had laughed in his face just a few days before she’d disappeared. Good riddance.

  “Stanley?”

  He stiffened at the grating sound of his wife’s whiny voice. God, how he hated it. Hated her. Hated everything about this place, where he’d been trapped for eleven years. If only he’d found out exactly how much—or how little—insurance money she’d gotten after her first husband’s death before he’d married her, rather than listening to rumors. His life could have been so different.

  “Stanley, please . . .”

  “Quit whining, woman,” he snapped as he spun around and entered the house. He slammed the door shut behind him with enough force to shake the frame. “Just quit your goddamned whimpering and let me think.”

  She’d been standing in the front hall, still wearing that ugly rag, her face red and splotchy from the tears she’d shed over her no-good daughter. And suddenly, he couldn’t even stand to look at her.

  “I’m going to work,” he growled, heading toward his room.

  She reached for his arm. “No, please.”

  He threw off the touch, backhanding her across the cheek for good measure. And she shut up. Like usual. “Have my lunch ready in a half hour.”

  He didn’t bother turning around to see whether she’d hop to it and obey him.

  Because she knew what would happen to her if she didn’t.

  Chapter 8

  IT specialist Lily Fletcher was sickened to her very soul by the things the Reaper had done to his victims. Naturally empathic—one reason she’d been warned she’d never make it in the bureau—she’d had a hard time getting their faces out of her mind since the day Brandon had discovered that first video. She’d said prayers for them in private moments, promised them justice, and grieved for their loved ones dealing with such tragedy and pain.

  She understood tragedy and pain. She understood them much too well.

  Maybe that was why, as she dug deeper into Satan’s Playground trying to find any cyber string that might lead to their unknown subject, she found herself unable to tear her attention away from that menacing, skeletal figure who called himself Lovesprettyboys. The small, cartoonish avatar cast off such malevolence, it was as if he’d been dipped in evil and formed out of hatred and vice.

  He had invaded her thoughts and sabotaged her peace of mind, becoming the focus of all the anger and anguish that had been building in her for so long. The Reaper terrified her. Lovesprettyboys revolted her. And she wanted them both gone, out of the world, far away so they could never hurt another woman or another child. No one would ever convince her that tall, thin monster hadn’t abused children in real life, the way he did in the Playground.

  Which was, perhaps, why he’d become her side project. Stopping him would never change what had happened to her own family. But she had to do it anyway.

  “Sir?” she asked as she knocked on Wyatt Blackstone’s door late Saturday afternoon. “Can I speak with you for a minute?”

  He beckoned her in, not looking up from the papers, saying, “Wyatt, please.”

  She had a hard time with that, calling him by his first name. Not just because she wasn’t used to supervisors who were so much a part of a team, but also because the man intimidated her like crazy. The supervisory special agent was everything an FBI agent should be, from the top of his handsome head to the bottom of his shined shoes. Intelligent enough to keep up with even Brandon, street-smart enough to hold his own with Dean Taggert. Wyatt was out of her league in every way. She was often left tongue-tied around him.

  “Anything new?” he asked when she took the seat on the other side of his desk.

  “I’ve found a few accounts that look promising. I’ve contacted someone at Treasury to get information about some transfers, but I won’t hear back until Monday.”

  “I am afraid our unsub probably works weekends,” he mused.

  She had no doubt he was right.

  “Good work.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She fell silent, looking at her own clenched hands in her lap, wondering how to broach the subject that had driven her to seek him out.

  “Is there something else?”

  Taking a deep breath, she hoped her voice remained steady and didn’t betray how personally involved she was. “I was wondering . . . I know the Reaper is our primary target here, but some of the other things going on in that site are keeping me up nights.”

  “The pedophiles.”

  “One in particular,” she admitted, not surprised that he had immediately known where she was headed. Blackstone had been very kind during her interview, when he’d asked how she was coping with what had happened to her family a short eighteen months ago. She’d been incapable of lying about the rage she still felt toward the man who’d brutalized her nephew and the anguish over her sister’s resulting suicide. So yes, of course he understood her personal demons.

  “The Cyber Division has a unit devoted to catching those monsters, Lily.”

  “They don’t know about him,” she snapped back. There was such a mine-is-bigger-than-yours attitude pervading this building that she had no doubt Blackstone was keeping this case close to his chest.

  But he immediately proved her wrong. “Yes, they do.” Her jaw falling, she realized she’d completely misjudged him. “You mean you—”

  “Of course. You can’t possibly think I would keep Satan’s Playground a secret from the rest of the division in some kind of we-found-it-first foolishness.”

  That was exactly what she’d thought. Now who was the fool?

  “There are people working on it, I assure you. Another CAT, for one, and top agents who work crimes against children.”

  Relieved by that, she still couldn’t contain the need to do something—which had driven her here to begin with. “I want to help.”

  One fine brow arched over a dark blue eye. “We’re not keeping you busy enough?”

  Flushing, she shook her head. “I would never let my personal history distract me from my job.” Meeting his stare, she added, “I promised you that when I asked you to take me on.”

  He nodded once, conceding the point.

  “But if I were to offer some assistance in my spare time . . .”

&n
bsp; “You don’t have any spare time,” was the flat reply. “The unsub has to be stopped. If you have time to work on anything, it’s got to be on him.”

  “I meant afterward, once we’ve got him. I certainly would not deviate from the first priority, to stop the murders.”

  She meant it. Despite wanting to go after the sickos playing out their child-rape fantasies in the online Playground, she knew her job. She had no proof Lovesprettyboys had ever actually acted on his proclivities, just suspicions. The Reaper, however, had shown in full, blazing color what evil atrocities he was capable of in real life.

  “I’d like to volunteer to assist in the other investigation after ours has been successfully concluded. My experience working on the Satan’s Playground site in this case might prove beneficial in that one.”

  His frown said he didn’t like the idea, but his words were careful. “I thought the change of jobs was about you moving beyond the past. Trying to get on with your life.” His words were cautionary, his tone sympathetic.

  “Getting on with my life does not mean I can’t try to stop the kinds of criminals who affected me and my family,” she replied, resolute. “The man who killed my nephew is in prison and he’ll remain there for the rest of his life. I’m not confusing the deviants on this Internet site with him.”

  Blackstone was quiet for a moment, rubbing the tips of his fingers on his temple, as if battling a headache. She imagined he had a lot of them in this job. Finally, he murmured, “You know he’s filed an appeal?”

  Lily closed her eyes briefly, not wanting her boss to see the rage and frustration in them. The knowledge that Jesse Tyrone Boyd was trying to overturn his conviction for the rape and murder of the little boy she’d loved with her entire soul infested her brain and tormented her every minute of every day.

  “He was rightfully convicted. He won’t get off.” She bit the words out from between clenched teeth.

  “But while that’s going on, do you really want to immerse yourself in something so similar?”

  “We don’t know that it’s similar,” she insisted. “Or that this Internet guy has ever committed a real crime against a child.” That was a lie. She knew. Something deep inside of her was certain that the monster lurking in the cyber playground had done his share of lurking in real ones. But she had to play this cool, by the book, remain completely detached and professional. “I simply want to do whatever I can to help stop him.”

  Blackstone studied her intently for a long moment. She managed to keep herself calm and collected through sheer force of will.

  “All right,” he finally murmured.

  Lily suppressed a sigh of relief, thanking him as she got up to leave. And as she walked out of his office, she mentally told herself that he was correct.

  Not personal. Not personal. Not personal.

  Maybe if she kept thinking that, she might actually start to believe it.

  Dick’s Tavern had been built in the sixties, and from day one it had attracted a certain kind of crowd. Back then, it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid hippie freaks. In the eighties it had been a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid yuppie scum.

  Now it was a haven for roughnecks wanting to avoid anything resembling law and order. Or politeness, decency, courtesy, or class.

  Stacey hated the place almost as much as her father did. But there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it, aside from responding to the inevitable brawls that sometimes spilled out into the road. The proprietor, Dick Wood—wasn’t that a porn star name if there had ever been one, and didn’t he just act like he’d earned it?—kept his nose clean in the two areas that could destroy him: He didn’t allow dope deals anywhere on the premises and he had never been caught serving minors.

  If he had been, she’d have had him up on charges so fast the man wouldn’t have had time to lock the door before she’d slapped a CLOSED sign on it.

  “Classy place,” Dean said as they pulled into the parking lot, already crowded with mud-encrusted off roaders, rusty pickups, and crotch rockets that had seen much better days. “I don’t suppose they have a lunch menu? That might explain the crowds at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Only if by lunch you mean peanuts, whose shells are about an inch thick on the floor in some places. This is why I figured we’d be safe coming out here this afternoon rather than waiting until tonight, when they got really busy. The regulars are already parked on their usual stools; I guarantee it.”

  Dick’s was always busy on weekends, from the time the doors opened at ten a.m. until they closed, often with a last drive-by warning patrol by Stacey or one of her deputies at two. At any hour in between, beer was being poured or vomited back out on the sticky floor. Darts were being flung. Fights were breaking out. Sex was being had in the dirty, dingy back hallway or up against the side of the building.

  “How often do you have to come out here?”

  Swinging the patrol car into the lone vacant spot out back, she left the engine running to combat the heat. Stacey pushed her dark sunglasses onto the top of her head and glanced at her passenger. “Once or twice a week. More on weekends and holidays, when we set up sobriety checkpoints.”

  “Like shooting fish in a barrel, huh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is Stan Freed a regular?” His simple question didn’t disguise the genuine dislike he obviously held for the man.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “That guy’s total scum; you know that, right?”

  Hell, yes, she knew it. “Yeah, he is.” She quickly told him what Winnie had said about their visit to the hospital the night Lisa had disappeared.

  “Easy to check her. Not so easy to find out if he sat in the waiting room all night, or left.”

  Something else she’d already considered.

  He looked at the tavern again and sighed audibly. “Too bad the place is such a pit. I have a feeling I’m going to wish for a beer after today.”

  “You definitely don’t want to drink here.” Something sent a few more crazy words across her lips before she could think better of them. “Stop by my place tonight. I have a six-pack in the fridge. I suspect we could both use a cold one.”

  So much for letting the guy make the first move. That resolution had lasted all of, what, eight hours?

  A small smile tugged at his mouth and an amused gleam appeared in his dark eyes. The hard-ass FBI agent had been replaced by the sexy hottie she’d met once or twice since Special Agent Dean Taggert had come to town. The one who made her forget the uniform and remember the woman wearing it. “You asking me on a date, Sheriff?”

  She snorted, sensing that teasing didn’t come easily to this man, especially while he was on the job. Maybe he needed a break from the tension as much as she did.

  “Could be.”

  “Your timing is interesting.”

  “Yours sucks.”

  One brow shot up.

  “I mean, you’ve been here a couple of days already and you still haven’t worked your way up to making the first move.”

  He laughed out loud, a low, masculine sound. “We’re just going to skip the part where we gradually get to know each other and feel our way around to determining if we’re interested in more, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Blunt.”

  “I never learned to be any other way.” In for a penny, as they said. “Besides, like I said yesterday, we both know we’re interested. I was going to be all female and let you take it from there.” Her good humor fading a bit, she admitted, “But to tell you the truth, this case has me a little rattled. I’m finding it hard to stay completely aloof. And, honestly, I could use some company after hours.”

  She didn’t up the ante, didn’t say she could use some company in the long, empty nights when the bad dreams and her own need for physical connection kept her from any real rest. She wasn’t trying to fool herself. Stacey had no doubt she wanted to go to bed with the man sitting beside her. But there was only so
much even the bluntest of women could say to a guy she had known for only a few days.

  “I’ve been wondering if you were going to make this personal.” He reached over and touched the tips of his fingers to a strand of her hair, which had loosened from its bun and fallen to her cheek. Rubbing it between his thumb and index finger, he murmured, “I know better, but still, part of me wanted you to.”

  “You know better?”

  “I am in no shape to get involved with anybody.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir here, Special Agent Taggert. I’m not looking for any kind of long-term involvement.” Especially involvement with somebody like him, who would leave here soon and continue making his way through the bloody world he inhabited. The one that had briefly invaded her little corner of the universe, and which she wanted gone just as soon as they nailed the bastard they were after.

  “I’m so far out of practice with this game, I don’t remember the rules.”

  “Rules aren’t laws. They’re sometimes made to be broken,” she said, a tiny shiver coursing through her. It had nothing to do with the chilled air pouring from the vents in the dashboard and everything to do with the way his fingertips oh-so-gently brushed her cheek before he slowly pulled them away. “Besides, I don’t feel like playing games.”

  “Me, either.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m bad at this, Stacey. I never even noticed my wife falling out of love with me.”

  “Jeez, I didn’t ask you to marry me; I asked you to come over for a beer,” she said with a forced chuckle. This needed to stay light and easy, for both their sakes. He was one year off a divorce. She was two years out of the worst period of her life. He was saturated in death and violence. She’d moved back here specifically to escape that darkness. No way did they have anything that could resemble long term.