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Page 2 of So Savage (Faith Bold #21)

“Go get ‘em, Turk!”

Turk leaped from Faith’s side like a rocket, barking exuberantly. The wild turkeys leaped into the air, stumbled, then leaped again. Slowly, they righted themselves, taking to the sky just before Turk reached them. Turk stopped and wagged his tail, watching as they flew fifty yards away before landing and shaking their ruffled feathers. Faith grinned and waved at the birds, who looked at her indignantly before pointedly ignoring the pair.

Turk coiled up, ready to chase them again, but Faith waved him off. “We’d better leave it at that,” she said. “But at least we got their blood moving. Come on. Let’s get back before Eddie finishes all of the cobbler.”

The two of them trudged through the snow toward Faith's Crown Victoria. The snow was a foot thick and sat atop a layer of ice, but the roads were plowed and salted, so there was no loss of traction. She had winter tires anyway. It never hurt to be careful. The Crown Vic was a robust vehicle, but it was definitely not in its natural element in snow and ice. There was snow in Philly, but the storms here were a different thing altogether.

Overall, she liked Sunrise Beach. It was a quiet little town—in the winter, at least—and it was nice to see Eddie again. She texted her cousin from time to time, but she hadn’t actually seen him since he visited her in the hospital after her run-in with Jethro Trammell, the infamous Donkey Killer whose short but vicious career had kickstarted a wave of violence across the nation and separated Faith’s life into two very distinct phases: Before Trammell and After Trammell.

She wasn’t here to think about that, though. She was here to not think about that. In fact, Special Agent Faith Bold was very specifically instructed not to think about work at all. She was laying low and letting other people handle the job of catching serial killers.

A job much easier said than done when there was yet another crazed murderer terrorizing the people of Philadelphia, and that murderer—like another murderer now currently awaiting a retrial—was for some reason obsessed with Faith.

She sighed and gave Turk a wry smile. “I’m not doing a very good job of being on vacation, am I?”

Turk cocked his head. From his perspective, they were having a wonderful vacation. Snow to play in, turkeys to play with, plenty of delicious food to eat… what wasn’t to love?

She chuckled and patted his rump. “Go on, boy. In the car.”

Turk jumped into the passenger seat, and Faith got into her side and started the engine. The car roared to life, and Faith began the five-mile journey back to Eddie’s cabin.

The landscape really was beautiful. The snow was thick, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t pretty. Drifts coated the branches of the trees, and the occasional deer moved through it, a picture-perfect image that could grace the cover of any album of the American winter.

The Lake of the Ozarks—jewel of the Midwest—glistened in the pale winter sun, and despite the literally freezing weather, Faith wasn’t surprised to see several boats on the water. Tourist season was over, but despite their genial hatred of that breed, the locals were more than crazy enough to make up for the absence of the out-of-towners.

The last half-mile of the drive was on dirt, which meant it was on snow. Since the Crown Vic was rear-wheel-drive and not four-wheel-drive, she had to gun the engine and use a combination of momentum and wheelspin to make it up the hill into Eddie’s driveway. She skidded the last few feet and came to a rest mere inches from plowing the nose of her car into the cab of Eddie’s old Ranger pickup.

She released a sigh of relief and walked into the house. The smell of apple turnovers blanketed her, and she closed her eyes and sighed. “I take it you finished the cobbler.”

“Yup,” Eddie called back. “So I’m making apple turnovers as a peace offering.”

“Eddie, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Coming from a real lifesaver, that means something,” Eddie replied. “Have a seat. I’m making leg of lamb, too.”

“How on Earth are you not married?” Faith asked.

“Still waiting for the right man, I guess,” Eddie replied. “In the meantime, I get to spoil my baby cousin.”

“And your baby cousin very much appreciates it,” Faith said.

Turk trotted up to Eddie and laid his head affectionately against his leg. Eddie reached down with a meaty hand and scratched the lucky pup underneath his chin.

Eddie was a tall, burly mountain of a mountain man with a thick, luxurious beard, hands the size of watermelons and enough muscle mass to win him the amateur powerlifting competition for the Lake of the Ozarks five years running. He flashed Faith a boyish smile that belied his intimidating presence. “I got a call from Pearl. She says she saw you and Turk terrorizing some turkeys off of Highway F.”

“Was that the word she used? Terrorizing?”

“That was the word. I reminded her—as I am now reminding you—that the turkeys are far more dangerous to you than you are to them. She seemed somewhat appeased, but in the interest of full disclosure, I think she’d be a lot happier if the two of you disappeared in a puff of smoke.”

Faith chuckled. "I don't blame her. We are tourists, after all, and we're here after NFT day."

No Fucking Tourists day was a celebratory occasion when locals gathered to drink and make merry in celebration of the fact that there were—as the name suggested—no more fucking tourists. The restaurant Eddie managed threw one of the more memorable parties for NFT day, attracting nearly everyone from Sunrise Beach. The town only had a population of around five hundred, but that was a lot to cram into one lake house restaurant.

“Speaking of something tangentially related,” Eddie said, “Junior’s birthday party is tonight, so when we’re done pregaming here, we should go to the restaurant and get drunk.”

“One of us should get drunk,” Faith corrected. “One of us should remain sober to drive home.”

“Sure,” Eddie replied cheerily. “Of course.”

Before Faith could retort, her phone buzzed. Michael. “One second,” she told Eddie. “I’ve gotta take this.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Boy space friend.”

"So you're just banging him, but there's no romance."

“No, he’s my partner.”

“See, that still sounds like you’re banging him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Business partner. Maybe you should go to the party by yourself and get laid so you can stop making everything about sex.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Eddie agreed.

Faith laughed and answered the phone. “Hey, Michael. What’s up?”

“Are you alone?”

Faith’s smile faded. “I can be. Is this serious?”

“Yes.”

Her smile vanished entirely. She got to her feet and stepped onto the deck. Eddie raised a questioning eyebrow, and she shook her head.

When she was outside, she asked, “What’s going on, Michael?”

“Before I tell you, you need to promise to let me finish before you get angry with me.”

“Michael, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what’s—”

“I talked to West.”

That stunned Faith into silence. If there was anyone in Faith’s life who’d had a more profound and more negative impact than Jethro Trammell, it was Dr. Franklin West. The so-called psychologist had seen Faith for months after the Trammell incident. During that time, he’d also been copying Trammell’s M.O. and improving on it successfully enough that he was able to kill over thirty victims and remain active more than four times as long as Trammell.

At long last, his obsession with Faith had proven to be his undoing. He’d attacked Faith in her apartment, and Faith had arrested him with the help of two officers from the Philadelphia Police Department. He was now awaiting trial after his first trial had ended in a hung jury. Hung because some jurors believed that Faith had exceeded her authority as an FBI agent and compromised the investigation. That was a big part of why she was off the grid in the first place. The other part was that the killer after her now—the Messenger Killer—was also obsessed with her.

She found her voice. “Why?”

“I was following up on the hypothesis that the Messenger is actually motivated by admiration for West instead of blind obsession with you. I think that she’s trying to impress him, and that’s why she’s murdering people and trying to attack you psychologically. The difference is that while West made Jethro’s MO more sophisticated and the psychological torture more subtle, the Messenger is more blunt and messier.”

“Okay… you talked to West, and what?”

“And it seems that someone’s been sending him love letters.”

“Love letters? Like Hybristophilia?”

“Like what?”

“Like she’s attracted to him because he’s a criminal. It’s a fairly common phenomenon. Ted Bundy supposedly received hundreds of letters from admirers after conviction.”

“Well, I don’t think West’s pulling the same kind of attention, but the attention he’s getting is pretty damned interesting.”

“What is it?”

There’s a woman who signs her letters as L. She writes West frequently, several letters a week. A lot of them are the typical smut bullshit you write someone when you want them, but hidden in a few of them are comments about you and how you deserve to die for humiliating him like that.”

Faith frowned. “Were there any descriptions of victims or crime scenes?”

“No, nothing like that, but one note said that she was planning to do something to get your attention and draw you out into the open where she could make you pay for humiliating him.”

“And you got this from West?”

“I got him to admit he was receiving notes and got the notes from the warden.”

She nodded. “And he didn’t say anything? Nothing that suggests that he might be behind this?”

“No. Honestly, he seemed defeated.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Oh yeah. He wore the smarmy facade, but he was all over the place. It was like he was desperate to show me how much smarter he was than me.”

“Yeah, that sounds like West, all right.”

“You’d know better than me. Still, I’m pretty confident West isn’t behind this. I shook down my warden friend again, but he swears up and down that he’s only received letters for West, not delivered letters for him. I’m inclined to believe him.”

"Fair enough. So, have you figured out where these letters are coming from?"

“No. That’s what I’m going to work on next.”

“And the brass is okay with you working on this?”

The pause that followed gave Faith her answer. She sighed. “Michael, thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it. But I don’t want you getting in trouble. Turn the info over to Desrouleaux and let them handle it.”

“They’re going to take forever on this,” Michael protested. “I can get answers now.”

“No. Absolutely not. I need you to advocate for me. If you burn your bridges with Gardner and Smythe, I’ll have no one on my side.”

“I’ll be fine, Faith,” he insisted. “But I can’t let this prick keep getting away with it.”

“Michael—” her phone buzzed, interrupting her. It was Tabitha Gardner.

She raised an eyebrow. ASAC Tabitha Gardner—the interim head of the Philadelphia Field Office after the murder of SAC Grant Monroe by the very same prick to whom Michael referred—did not like Faith. In her last case—an unassigned and unauthorized assistance of a killing spree in Indianapolis—Gardner had stopped just short of saying that she was trying to get Faith fired.

Maybe she had finally succeeded.

Faith answered. “Hello?

In a clipped voice, Tabitha said, “Special Agent Bold, you and your K9 are assigned to a case in Duluth, Minnesota. I’ll send you the files.”

She hung up before Faith could respond, leaving her to digest what had just happened. A case? She was back on duty?

She unmuted Michael. “Hey, Michael. I got a case.”

“A case? Really?”

“Really, really. Just talked to the ASAC.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“It’s good news,” she agreed. “And very surprising. And I suspect that she was pressured to do this by Smythe. She hung up before I could say anything, and all she said was that she was sending me the files.”

“Well, good news loves company. See? There’s nothing to worry about. We’re both making progress. Give us enough time, and we’ll have the whole country cleaned up.”

“Michael, stay away from this. You will lose your career. Look, I’m grateful for your help, but…”

“You’re my partner,” he interrupted. “And I’m going to help you. You’ve risked losing your career many times, and if our positions were reversed, this wouldn’t even be a conversation. You’d tell me you were going to do this, and you wouldn’t listen to any protests from me.”

“Yes, but Michael—”

“Goodbye, Faith. I’ll call you when I have something new to report.” In a softer voice, he added, “Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m a lot more sly than you give me credit for.”

He also hung up without waiting for Faith’s response. She looked at Turk, who wagged his tail and looked up at her with big brown eyes. “Looks like we’ll have to take a rain check on that party, Turk.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Got your job back?”

“Seems that way,” Faith said.

“Well, congratulations!”

That might be a bit premature.

She didn’t share that thought. She only smiled and thanked her cousin, then left to pack her bags.