Page 6

Whatever his reasons, she couldn’t deny that it’d worked on some level.

She might still wake up screaming some nights, unable to move her limbs or head because of imaginary restraints, but the memory would morph to a mental image of Raiker, a decade earlier, strapped to what had probably been a very similar table in the rabbit warren LeCroix had built beneath the bayou home in the depths of the Louisiana swamps.

When Reese recalled the bone-deep agony of liquid lye splashing into her eye, her mind also sprang to Adam’s ordeal.

Empathy provided a distraction from her own remembered suffering.

She studied him. Beside the scar that bisected his throat, one ran vertically down his cheek.

More furrowed the backs of his hands. She doubted LeCroix had stopped there.

The cane and his limp suggested more damage.

It all only embossed his lethal aura. She’d never seen Adam less elegantly dressed than he was now, clad in an immaculate Armani suit.

None but the unwary would underestimate the sheen of danger he carried.

Reese may have lost the “gift” she’d once had, but her journalistic instincts were intact.

“I appreciate the warning,” she managed flatly.

“You used to be a better liar,” he observed, a note of humor in his voice.

“I used to be a lot of things.” She’d once been the daughter of loving parents, regularly tormented by her mentally ill older brother until her mom and dad agreed with Ben’s doctor that he needed a different environment.

The rest of her childhood had been uneventful until the accident that had killed her parents and landed her in Julia’s care.

She’d eventually found peace here, although it’d been up to Reese to make her own place in her aunt’s hectic schedule.

She’d fended for herself when Julia went on assignment and covered up her aunt’s weeks-long absences with teachers and counselors.

Her gaze returned to Raiker, who didn’t appear ready to leave. There was something more he hadn’t told her.

“How do you know Thorne is still in the state?”

He gave a negligible shrug. “Security cameras. Ring doorbells. Traffic cameras. Reported sightings.”

Reese snorted at the last. She knew how unreliable tip lines could be.

“Do they have a last known location for him? Because I would have expected him to get as far away as possible from this area.” She realized it’d be implausible for Thorne to ignore the demons in his mind that fed his compulsion.

But she also didn’t think he’d feel safe without putting thousands of miles between him and the law enforcement who’d be in pursuit.

“I have this.” He reached for the briefcase he’d set at his feet, settled it across his lap, and opened it, withdrawing a single eight-by-ten photo, holding it up for her. “It was taken yesterday. He’s been in your vicinity.”

The image looked familiar. Reese bounced off the couch and crossed the room to examine it more closely.

It was the background that first caught her eye, taken on the sidewalk in front of the Start Me Up coffee shop she visited occasionally, directly across from this apartment building.

Her gaze slowly traveled to the rangy man shown in the dingy hoodie.

The hood and sunglasses shadowed his clean-shaven face, but she recognized his build.

Her mind numbly filled in the facial features his former beard would have masked. Thorne.

Ice bumped through her veins. If the blinds had been raised and he’d had binoculars, he’d be staring directly into this apartment.

She wiped suddenly damp palms down the front of her jeans. “He was so close.” And she’d been completely unaware. Unsuspecting. Panic did a fast sprint through her system.

“He either had assistance or we underestimated how competent he could be when it comes to carrying out one of his missions.”

Adam replaced the picture in the briefcase and set it on the floor.

“A year and a half ago, you and your colleague were obstacles to him reaching his goal. Hindrances to be removed, much as you’d swat a fly before it could ruin your masterpiece.

But now he recognizes you present a different sort of threat.

You know too much about him. He has a long psychiatric history.

He’s certainly used to having doctors probe his mind.

But I’d hazard a guess you’re the first to understand his true inner identity.

And that had to terrify him. Remember what you told me?

‘Their guilt shines the way. All I do is follow the path it illuminates.’”

“If you’re considering using me as bait to draw him out, you should also remember I told you I don’t have that…ability anymore. It’s gone. Hopefully, for good.”

“Maybe it is. Perhaps not.”

Reese studied him. He was a man of science and facts who didn’t entertain fools gladly.

Once again, she wondered why he hadn’t just dismissed what she’d admitted to him in the hospital.

Most wouldn’t believe it. Under different circumstances, if an interviewee had told her that about themselves, she’d have given a mental eye roll.

She could hide. Reese wasn’t proud of the sudden unbidden thought.

She’d taken a leave of absence when Julia died and hadn’t returned to work yet.

After the funeral, she’d fled to her aunt’s cabin with its scenic view and endless solitude that only summoned the memories she was still desperately fighting to forget.

Her time away had been torment. She wouldn’t willingly go back.

“I’m not running.” The words were as much for herself as for the man sitting across the room.

“That is, of course, up to you. My purpose here is to make you aware of the danger. And to provide you a measure to mitigate it.”

A knot formed in her stomach. “What’s that?”

He took a cell from his pocket, thumbed in a number, and spoke briefly before getting up from the chair with the help of his cane and going to the door to pull it open. Another man entered. “Hello, Reese.”

His voice had the floor tilting beneath her feet.

A roar sounded in Reese’s ears. Her mind vaulted back to the moment when she’d been engulfed in agony, barely aware of the sound of boots pounding down the narrow stairway.

The dark-garbed alien figures filled the small space.

One of them had come to her side, looming above her.

The fireball of pain engulfing her had tentacles branching to every nerve ending, skipping along synapses to create a chorus of excruciating suffering.

The stranger had methodically rinsed her eye out, murmuring to her in low tones that managed to sound both competent and soothing.

She recognized the voice, but not his face.

It was too handsome by far. A shock of black hair. Gray eyes that seemed to see too much.

Reese had always hoped never to meet him again. He or any other witness to her torment.

But he was here, in her home, his very presence flinging her back to a time she was still trying desperately to outrun. He was a living testament to the most vulnerable moments in her life.

“I believe you’ve met Hayes Moreland, although you probably didn’t get around to exchanging names.”

Reese could barely hear Adam’s words. Dread spread inside her chest. “Why’d you bring him?”

“He’s your protective detail. He’ll stay close, until Thorne is caught.”

Protective detail . The words blazed through her mind like a jet stream. Only then did Reese notice the luggage Moreland carried.

“Just point me to the spare bedroom and I’ll put my things away.”