Sophie Oak - Lost in Bliss

They’re moving here.”

Holly gave a little squeal. “Yes! That’s awesome.” She sobered a little. “Now I can watch another of my friends be happy and settle down.”

Laura zipped up her jeans. “Sweetie, that man is crazy about you.” Holly sat on the bed, utterly dejected. “No. That man is just plain crazy. I don’t know how to deal with him. I swear it’s easier to deal with the mobster. At least he talks to me—well, he writes to me because his handlers won’t let him call. Caleb is a mystery. He won’t talk about his past. All he seems willing to do is boss me around. I’ve already been married to one man who turned out to be a bully. I don’t need another.”

Laura turned to her friend. “I don’t think Caleb is anything like Scott. And you know it. I’ve seen the way you look at him.” Holly’s hands twisted in her lap. “Someone fixed my roof. You know I had that leak? Someone from Del Norte showed up yesterday morning with a work order and fixed the bad section. He’s coming out next week to replace the whole thing. Do you know how much that costs? He had a paid receipt, but he wouldn’t tell me who paid it. Just that they paid cash. Do you think that was Stef?” Stef Talbot was known for his acts of anonymous generosity, but she doubted it in this case. Jen would have blabbed. It was the best thing about Stef getting a wife. She loved to gossip. “No. It was Caleb, and that is the most un-Scott-like thing he could do.” Holly’s ex was very powerful, but he wouldn’t help anyone. He was all smiles on the television when he was campaigning, but off TV

he was an asshole of the first order. Sort of like…

Laura sank to the bed. Jana was dead. Tears filled her eyes. How could Jana be dead? Nate had said she’d been left behind with a note addressed to Laura. Guilt pressed down on her.

“How close were you?” Holly always seemed to know what she was thinking.

“She was a horrible bitch. We hadn’t been close in years, but I didn’t want her to die. God, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” Laura put her hands on Holly’s shoulders. “You stay with Caleb today. You don’t walk away or let him out of your sight. You should be okay as long as you’re in the clinic, but don’t you dare go outside without him.”

Holly’s green eyes went wide, but she nodded. “I won’t. I think I should stay with you.”

Laura forced herself to move. If she stopped, she would dissolve into tears, and she couldn’t do that. Rafe and Cam had a job to do.

They needed to get those files. Once they had what they needed and she’d pacified the feds that she wasn’t going anywhere, she would really like to get a look at those files. She’d seen the Marquis de Sade.

She’d looked at his work and known who he was deep inside. Now she needed to see the man he presented to the world outside. She needed to find the man the monster hid behind. Maybe if she looked for the mask he wore every day, she could put the two together.

Maybe the motel was a better place to hole up than her cabin. Less windows, less places to hide. Internet.

“You can’t stay with me. You’re in danger if you’re with me, and I think Caleb would say no.” There was no way she was letting Holly stay close to her. She’d panicked when Nate had said her friend was dead. Nell was underground with Henry, so her mind had seen Holly’s body, cold and still. She hugged Holly. “Stay with Caleb.

Promise me.”

“All right.”

There was a knock at the door. “Laura, we need to get dressed and go. I put together some toast and eggs. You can eat it fast. I made you coffee, too.” Cam sounded hesitant. If she didn’t watch it, they would go with her when she needed them working.

“Sounds great.” She squeezed Holly’s hand and went to force breakfast down her throat.

* * *

He waited, his breath pulsing in and out of his body. It was a rhythm, and he could hear the thud of his own heart. Had she gotten the news?

He’d left her a gift. Her greatest enemy, torn to shreds. Not shreds, exactly, but he had neatly eviscerated the bitch. She’d cried and begged for her pitiful life. She’d thought that her career would save her. Dumb animal. It had been anticlimactic to push the knife through her belly and watch as she writhed on the blade. He had watched, sitting back and letting her believe she was alone. He would never again underestimate one of his lady loves. She had cried and begged and found some deity that she’d never believed in before. It had been predictable and utterly pathetic.

She’d been an unsatisfactory substitute for what he really wanted.

His rabbit.

Now that he’d seen her again, he knew she was the one for him.

His cock hardened. The thought of her was the only thing that got him hard anymore. There had been that one woman, but she was gone and she’d been a whore. His rabbit was a whore, too. She couldn’t help it.

She was female.

She had to be put down, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy her before he did it.

It would be a true gift. An honor to bestow.

It was the least he could do before he killed her.

Cam stared at the computer screen, willing the damn thing to move faster. It seemed like forever since they’d both kissed Laura and let her leave with the sheriff. It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, but she wouldn’t back down. She’d been adamant about getting this “interview” over with. Laura wasn’t one to procrastinate. She was a “rip the Band-Aid off” kind of girl.

The computer beeped quietly, the sound taunting to Cam’s ears.

“Hurry it up,” Rafe complained.

Rafe had his arms crossed over his chest as he stood behind Cam.

Everything about his attitude spoke of his irritation. He’d already talked to Laura twice on the radio Nate Wright had given them.

Cam wanted to punch something. Rafe had been on his ass since the second Laura had driven away. Laura hadn’t wanted Rafe to leave him behind, so Rafe was waiting on Cam to get the files he needed.

“I’m going as fast as I can. When was the last time you used dial-up?

Seriously, if we’re staying in this town, we have to do something about the Internet access.”

Rafe stopped and sighed, a long, heavy sound. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I just don’t like this. It feels wrong.” Everything about it felt wrong. It was wrong that someone had been killed in this sleepy little town. It was wrong that Laura was having her life disrupted again.

Cam waved off the apology. It wasn’t needed. He knew why Rafe was edgy. “Did you pull Laura’s profile?” Rafe went to the bed where his briefcase sat and pulled out a fat file folder. “Yes. I’ve gone over it a thousand times. We know he’s an organized killer. He almost never does anything without careful planning. He’s disciplined and well educated.”

“He would have to be to have gotten into the FBI.” Rafe was silent for a moment. “We have all kinds of measures in place to keep something like this from happening. We have to go through testing.”

“All of which a highly-intelligent, highly-motivated person with a deep understanding of psychology could fake his way through.” Those tests weren’t infallible. Nor were the psychiatrists who administered them. “The screening process isn’t perfect. Nothing is.” Rafe leafed through the documents. “This is interesting. She talks about how she thinks the killer will use the media. She labels him as intensely controlling and very interested in what she calls his ‘legacy.’

Sound familiar?”

“Given what we know now, yeah.” It was obvious that the Marquis de Sade had used Jana Evans, probably even telling her what to write, and when she had lost her usefulness, he’d killed her. “Do we know where her cameraman was at the time?” Rafe had talked to Nate, too. “He was in the van. Apparently there weren’t any rooms left, and Jana wasn’t kind enough to let him stay with her. He was on the computer, video chatting with a couple of buddies. They had a satellite connection. Maybe we should break into the news van. Anyway, they have him down at the station giving a statement, but he didn’t hear anything.” Another dead end. But maybe the cameraman knew something about Jana’s source.

The screen changed, and he was in. “Thank god.” Rafe got behind him, blocking out the light from the window.

“What can you tell?”

Impatient bastard. “Nothing yet. I just managed to get in the system. Let me copy the files onto a thumb drive, and we can head to the station. I don’t care what Nate says. I can go through what I found quietly while we watch Laura. I’m done hacking into the server, so the sheriff doesn’t have to worry about me getting him in serious trouble and bringing the feds down on the town. I don’t think we need more feds.”

It was funny how easily he’d slipped into the role of Bliss citizen.

“And you?” Rafe asked. “How much trouble could you get into?” Cam shrugged. “All they’re going to know is the ID on this computer. I’ll dump it after I’m done. I’ll take it apart and toss out the parts. You think I haven’t done this before?” He had. Many times. His fingers flew across the keys now that he’d been granted access. He’d been a snot-nosed, small-town hacker before the feds had swooped in to show him the error of his ways.

He’d given it up for a long time, but in the last few years he’d taken it up again. Now he was damn happy he was up to speed. A nudge here, a nudge there, and he was in. The files started to download. The FBI kept copious files on their employees.

“I have the police report on Edward’s mother’s death.” He scanned the simple report. “It looks like Toyota versus eighteen-wheeler. The mom’s blood alcohol level was over the limit. Other than that, it’s kind of boring. He went to Yale. Top of his class. He’s been a dedicated agent for years. Here’s the complaint Laura filed.

Asshole. He made comments about women in the workplace and how a woman like Laura is really just looking for a husband. I bet that went over like gangbusters with Laura. She left before the complaint could be resolved.” Cam read down the professor’s file until he came to the newest tidbit of information. “He just moved. And listed his emergency contact as a man named Cecil Newberg.” Rafe’s lips curled slightly. “That explains a lot, actually. Good for Edward. And we can eliminate him. He was out of town the night Laura was attacked. I had forgotten, but he left for a convention that night. At least two hundred law enforcement personnel attended a seminar he gave in Atlanta.”

Cam breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to believe that one of his coworkers was capable of this. If he could eliminate the members of his former team, he could move on. He closed the file on Edward and moved on to Brad. “Brad wasn’t at BAU when Laura was attacked.”

Rafe stared over Cam’s shoulder, crowding him just a little. There was only one desk in the motel room, and it was barely large enough to fit the laptop. “Don’t discount him. When he first became my partner, he walked in the door with a file on the Marquis de Sade. He said he was fascinated with the case. He requested the assignment.” Cam pulled up everything he could on Brad Conrad. Star football player. High school valedictorian. On paper, Brad Conrad was the all-American hero. He’d given up his athletic dreams to pursue justice after his high school girlfriend was killed. He’d single-mindedly pursued a career with the FBI. And he’d fought to get on the BAU.

“He found the body,” Cam commented as he read through the information on the girlfriend’s death. The police report listed the case as open, but Cam knew what it really was—cold.

“Yes,” Rafe replied grimly. “He went to her place. Her parents weren’t home. He found her with her throat slit. He talks about it when he gets drunk. I think it’s why none of his marriages worked out. He can’t put another woman above her.”

“Doesn’t fit the MO.” The Marquis would never simply slit a throat. He liked to play with his victims. He spent hours and hours playing with them before he finally put them out of their misery.

“Could be the first one,” Rafe pointed out. “Serial killers perfect their techniques over long periods of time. MOs evolve. This one could be the inciting incident. A crime of passion that led him to more calculated murders.”

Cam looked up at his partner. “You’ve worked close to this guy for the last couple of years.”

Rafe’s eyes tightened, the lines around them becoming more pronounced. “I wouldn’t say close. I worked with him. I had beers with him on Fridays. It wasn’t a close friendship.”