Blood drained from her face. She looked at the floor of the car. Caught in a sense of unreality as she said, “Tell me she’s okay...” And then, eyes wide, looked at Blade.

  Kept her eyes pinned on the depth of his as she heard, “She’s fine. She made a run for it and got far enough away before it went off, but if she’d sat in the driver’s seat...”

  She got the picture. If that had been her, if she’d gone out at night, or on a cloudy day, or just plain hadn’t been looking in the right place as the sun shone in...

  “He’s escalating.” Blade’s words were sharp. Filled with very clear anger. “This was more than a warning.”

  She calmed herself as best she could. Think, she ordered herself. Think! “There’s got to be something there that will lead us to him,” she said then. “Call Jasmine, get FBI’s bomb experts there...”

  “Already done.” Silver’s voice had a tone of compassion in it that time. Something she didn’t need. “They want you two in protective custody,” he added. “I think...”

  Her phone beeped another call. Jasmine’s number. With Silver still talking, she showed Blade her screen, her brows raised. He shook his head.

  “You’ll be getting a call from the protection detail—” Silver was saying.

  Ignoring the FBI agent’s call, Morgan interrupted Silver to say, “I am protective custody. Blade and I are safer on the move, and we’ll be in touch,” she finished and rung off.

  They could trace her call. They had the number. Could even show up wherever she and Blade went next, but they couldn’t make her cower and hide.

  If someone had to die bringing in Maddie’s killer, it might as well be her. She couldn’t sit back and let others die when she could be partially to blame. Or, for that matter, ever.

  But this time...it was personal.

  She was not stopping until the job was done.

  * * *

  Blade had spent seventeen years relying only on himself, fighting to build a life within a wall of suspicion, learning to live with the weight he carried, being on guard for mistrust from others and working to prove he wasn’t the man the world had judged him to be.

  In the space of one phrase, “if she’d sat in the driver’s seat,” everything had changed. His reputation didn’t mean a whit when weighed against Morgan Davis’s life.

  Nor did his future. He’d been all in on their investigation from the beginning. His reasons for being so had changed in a blip. As had the urgency of his time frame. He had a lifetime to prove his innocence.

  She might not have another day if they didn’t get the fiend who was murdering people, framing him, and who was now after her. Seemingly for not heeding warnings to quit helping him.

  As soon as she’d hung up from Silver, Morgan dialed Sierra’s Web. Blade wasn’t pulling back onto the freeway until he knew what the experts had to say.

  “I’m putting you on speaker,” he heard her say, just after her greeting to whoever had answered. “Blade’s here with me.”

  She hadn’t heard what the firm had to tell her yet, but was including him. He was their client.

  “I just got off the phone with Silver,” she started in. “I need to know what you have on Kyle Brennan.”

  “Enough to know we’re concerned about him,” the male voice responded. “Hudson here,” the voice then said. “Glen’s in the room as well.”

  Both partners in the firm. IT and forensic experts. Blade recognized the names from the research he’d done.

  “And we need to talk about the bomb, Morgan. I know this case is important to you, but it might be better served by one of our other expert investigators. Carmichael, you’re there?”

  “I am,” he answered before meeting Morgan’s gaze. He knew what he’d see there. And while his senses were all pushing him to accept the firm’s suggestion, to run with it, to save Morgan from any more danger, his mind knew differently.

  With one more glance at Morgan’s emotionless, hard-rock stare, he glanced out the front windshield. “And I disagree that someone other than Morgan would be better for the job.” The words were like death in his throat. But he continued, “Not only does she know the case better than anyone, but she’s going to work, by herself, or with all of us, and she’s safer with all of us than she would be alone.”

  He glanced at her as he finished, saw the firm set of her chin, the tightness in her jaw—denoting her anger.

  But he saw something more there, too. The softening in her eyes.

  And guessed she didn’t have any clue it was there, as she looked at her phone and said, “What do you have on Kyle Brennan?”

  “I had my team start on him as soon as we had the compiled list we sent you, Morgan,” the man continued. “He has a home in St. Joseph...”

  A beach town only ten miles from Rocky Springs. Blade’s gut grew tight.

  “Local police were there this morning. No one answered the door. Nor is he answering his last known number.”

  Morgan glanced at Blade, and he nodded. Pulled out onto the freeway, looking for the next exit so he could head back the way they’d come. They had to get to St. Joseph. Unlike local police, Morgan could talk to anyone, and ask anything. They just didn’t have to answer. He’d already learned that sometimes the questions she asked gave them information simply by the nonanswers.

  “We don’t have a warrant for financials yet,” Hudson continued. “We need something more to compel that. But we’ve been obtaining footage from many surveillance cameras since early this morning. Some going back more than a week. Our people have been going through them and were able to get his license plate number from one of them. From there, they’ve been scouring the footage for other hits on the plate...”

  His mind boggling a bit at the amount of work being done, Blade still grew impatient to hear the bottom line. He had to know what he was up against in his determination to keep Morgan safe.

  The only way he had a hope in hell of doing that was to help her catch the murderer who wanted her out of the picture.

  Because there was no way she was ever going to agree to quit looking for Madison’s killer...

  His mind tuned all focus to Hudson Warner’s voice as the expert said, “We have him on camera at a gas station at the edge of town, heading toward Rocky Springs, the day of Shane Wilmington’s killing. And passing through an intersection yesterday morning, in the direction of Lavenport. In itself, this means nothing, but if we could similarly place him in those towns near the times of the murders...”

  “We were just in Lavenport,” Morgan told the expert. “No one saw anyone or anything suspicious, which makes me think that Hampton knew his killer and let him in his office. It’s either the doctor letting someone in—there’s a back entrance for personnel to come and go through—or someone having to go through reception to get to the private offices. Hampton was the only one back there during the time of his murder.”

  “We’ve got calls going out right now for any surveillance footage we can get in the town,” Hudson said, making Blade extremely thankful for having hired the firm. It would have taken him weeks, probably with no results, to get that information on his own.

  “In the meantime, we’ve got him on camera, not today, but several times over the past week driving by a corner convenience store half a mile from his home...”

  “I’m on it,” Morgan told the man. “Send me the address...”

  The two talked more. Details about Kyle’s father’s death. Impending charges that were likely going to hit the man within the next week or two.

  Which would be why the killings had taken place so soon, one after the other. Kyle was on a mission to complete business before his time was up.

  Blade knew how it felt to be driven to finish a job he couldn’t leave undone. But Kyle’s mission? Killing others?

  That was something he prayed he never had cause to understand.

  And was more determined than ever to help Morgan find the guy, to stop him, before anyone else got hurt.

  * * *

  They made it to St. Joseph with no sign of anyone following them. The black car and the tan one seemed to have disappeared to the point that Morgan had to consider that she hadn’t been followed at all. That she’d been mistaken.

  She didn’t believe it, though.

  “Why would he suddenly stop having us followed?” she asked Blade as they made their way to the convenience store by Kyle Brennan’s house.

  Barely taking his gaze off the road, Blade threw her a glance, and shook his head. “There are so many pieces in all of this that have never made sense to me,” he said. “Until today. Kyle killing Maddie...”

  His words dropped off and she glanced around them, thinking at first that he’d noticed a car behind them after all, recognized one in front of them, saw Kyle...

  But her quick, professional scan gave her nothing. And she figured that he’d stopped talking for more personal reasons.

  “We’re here to find out the truth, Blade,” she said, softly. Her gaze on him. The stiff shoulders, that muscle in his neck, the tenseness of his jaw. “I’ve never been out to prove you guilty. All I’ve ever wanted, what I need, is the truth.”

  He pulled to a stop at a red light and his glance her way lasted uncomfortably longer than the previous one. “But those two points, proving me guilty and finding the truth, they’re one and the same to you.”

  His words tugged at a piece of her heart she’d thought dead and gone. Forcing her to look deep before she answered him. And when she had her answer, she met his gaze. “No,” she told him. “I believed that the truth would point me to you, but I wasn’t looking for it to. Or in any way wanting it to.”

  The admission cost a lot. Inside her. Where she’d stopped living.

  It scared her.

  Left her uneasy. Unsure what it meant. What it changed.

  If it changed anything.

  The light had changed. Completely silent, Blade was focusing on the road again. She did the same. There was nothing else to do. He was a client.

  Someone had just tried to blow her up.

  And they weren’t just on individual quests to solve a seventeen-year-old crime. They were on the hunt for a current killer. Or two.

  The convenience store was deserted when she and Blade walked in. A woman behind the counter, brown skinned, fortyish looking, named Bonita according to her badge, studied the photo that Morgan handed to her, leaving Morgan to wonder, as the perusal went on far longer than a glance or two, if the woman knew something. And was trying to figure out what to do or how much to say if anything.

  “Who did you say you were?” Bonita finally asked, looking from her to Blade and back.

  Morgan pulled out her creds, held them clearly for the clerk to see.

  She was ready to pull her gun as well when the woman said, “I know him, yeah. He comes in here fairly regularly for his morning coffee. He’s the guy who’s under investigation for the boating accident that killed his dad. It’s been all over local news...”

  Morgan nodded.

  “Someone from the family hire you to check into it all?” the clerk asked, sliding a hand into her short-sleeved, pocketed work jacket. Blade’s step closer, putting his thigh against Morgan’s, was no mistake. She was glad for his support.

  “No, I’m actually...” She stopped, nodded toward Blade. “We...” she corrected, hating that she was happier not working alone after the bomb episode that morning, “we knew him, years ago. At camp. We’re looking up people who were there that summer, talking about stuff that happened and wanted to see Kyle.”

  True. And yet...unless the woman knew more than she was saying, Morgan was mostly nonthreatening. She’d shown her credentials.

  “I haven’t seen him in the past couple of days,” Bonita said then, her gaze clear, as she handed back the grainy photo. “I don’t think he was in for coffee yesterday, and I know he wasn’t in this morning.”

  Morgan looked around for surveillance cameras. Saw none. Suggested to the woman that she speak to the owner of the store about getting some in. For their own safety from theft, if nothing else, and was heading out the door behind Blade when the clerk called out.

  “You might ask Jessica,” she said. “His ex-wife. They split after their boy died, so I don’t know if she can help, but they grew up together, so she might know who’d know.”

  Bonita’s knowledge of Kyle Brennan went back a lot further than the few months since his father’s death. Making a mental note, Morgan got Jessica’s information, thanked Bonita and headed out the door. Feeling heat on her back as she did so.

  As though every step she took was being watched.

  Out of curiosity? It probably wasn’t every day that the convenience store clerk had a visit from a nationally certified private investigative expert. Most particularly not one interested in a summer camp experience from her youth.

  And Bonita could know a whole lot more about Kyle than she was letting on. Like the mission he was on—with little time to complete it. She’d clearly had sympathy in her tone when she’d talked about the man.

  Because of his losses.

  But surely the clerk didn’t condone emotional pain as an excuse to run around the state murdering people. The fact that Morgan even considered the possibility gave her a clue as to how jaded her heart and mind had become over the years.

  At some point, she’d begun to believe that anyone was capable of anything.

  Which was the complete antithesis of what her exuberant twin would have wanted.

  The realization sickened her.

  Chapter 14

  Jessica was an accountant for a small real estate firm housed in a three-story professional building in downtown St. Joseph. Blade pulled into a diagonal spot out front as Morgan finished a call with Sierra’s Web over the car’s audio system.

  Kelly Chase had called to give them an update on Remy Barton’s thoughts pertaining to the case. The child psychiatrist had gone over the case files and Kelly was keeping him apprised of new information as it came in. She’d reported that Remy felt certain, as they all did, that whoever had killed Shane had had something to do with Madison Davis’s murder seventeen years before. He’d agreed that a recent stressor would have probably instigated the new string of murders. And had pulled Kyle and Tammy Phillips as the two most likely suspects from those at camp that year. He also strongly believed that the same person was responsible for all three murders.

  His reasoning for thinking so had been sound enough that Kelly agreed with him.

  Remy also felt that Morgan needed to leave town immediately, get herself as far from the case as possible, until law enforcement found the killer. The escalated threats against her were bothering him greatly.

  As they were everyone—with the exception, apparently, of Morgan.

  “He’s a friend,” Morgan reminded Blade as the call disconnected. “Of course he’s worried. Same as Jasmine.”

  And her coworkers at Sierra’s Web, too, though Blade didn’t bother mentioning Kelly’s reminder that if Morgan wanted to be removed from the case, they had other proven investigative experts who could step in.

  He almost called the firm back and fired her, when she reached for her door handle, and turned, shaking her head, as he grabbed his. “This is an ex-wife, Blade. A woman who lost a son. The father of whom is likely going to be charged with some kind of negligent, DUI homicide in the death of his own father. She’s not going to be receptive to opening up with an unknown man in her midst. And if she happens to know about what happened at camp seventeen years ago, which she might since she and Kyle grew up together, she’ll probably freeze up completely with you there.”

  The sense the woman made pissed him off. Put him on edge. Because she was right. And because he did not, in any way, want her walking into that building alone.

  He might not be a cop, but he was a licensed gun carrier and knew how to shoot.

  “I’m a big girl, Blade. I’m really good at what I do, and know how to watch my back.” Morgan’s odd tone hit him in a very personal way. Was she attempting to...comfort...him?

  Because she was a professional, and right, he nodded. “I’ll stay right here,” he told her, his tone firm. “And wait...”

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm before she got out of the car. “Put me on speed dial,” he told her. “And keep the screen on so you just have to press once.”

  The glance she gave him, like she wanted to smile, or was about to reach over and give him a quick, reassuring kiss, shook him far more than it should have done, as she slid from the car.

  But before leaving him, she paused long enough to set up a speed dial icon for him on her phone’s front screen. Held it up for him to see. And then bent down. “If I’m anywhere near as good at my job as I’m told I am, I’m probably going to be a bit,” she told him. “Maybe you could use the time to visit a few of the bars near Kyle’s house? Show his picture around? Ask if anyone has seen him?”

  With a knot in his gut, Blade nodded.

  While she’d escaped the explosive planted in her car that morning, they were clearly sitting on a time bomb that was ready to go off. They couldn’t afford for Blade to sit around and play babysitter.

  But he watched her safely into the building, saw her show her credentials to the security guard, saw the uniformed man check her gun and hand it back to her, before he drove off.

  * * *

  As soon as Jessica Brennan heard Morgan’s name, her face changed from questioning to almost warm and she gently ushered Morgan down the hall to a small conference room.

  Morgan turned as Jessica shut the door behind them. “I’m sorry just to show up like this, but...”