Page 46 of The Devoted Game

“You were what,” he murmured, the sound harsh, “number twelve or thirteen?”

Number Thirteen. She shook with the words shuddering through her. “Thirteen victims in five years. I guess I was his unlucky number.”

The voices and images tried to intrude. The blood all over her ... the taste in her mouth. She shuddered and fury twisted her lips, made her want to scream, but she held it back. She had learned how to do that with the fear too. Only once in a while did she screw up and let those old emotions get the better of her. Like freezing up in front of McBride. If Worth found out ... her career would stall, and she would never get a chance at reaching her full potential. Damaged agents weren’t reliable in the Bureau’s opinion. She was glaring at a prime example.

Hell yeah, she spent a hell of a lot of time pretending the past hadn’t happened. And she wasn’t changing that strategy now.

“Did you ask for this assignment? To come back home and prove you could live only a couple of hours away from where it happened?”

Answering that question would just give him another avenue to explore. She was not going there.

“You were attending college in Nashville, right?”

He just kept right on digging ... forcing the issue.

Damn him.

“Or was it Memphis?” he prodded.

“Lipscomb,” she admitted, knowing he wouldn’t stop until she did. “I was barely into my freshman year, a month shy of my eighteenth birthday.” The memories howled inside her like an imprisoned beast. She wrapped her arms around her middle to hold herself steady. Nameless, Satan himself, had stolen her out of her warm, happy life. He had taken over her whole world.

He.He orthem? She still couldn’t put the idea out of her head that there had been two of them. The whispered voice hadfeltdifferent attimes ... as if there were two different men taunting her. But when the police had discovered her and the body, there was only one. All DNA and trace evidence had pointed to him. There was absolutely no evidence of a second unsub ... just the confusing voices in her head. But her shrink had insisted that the creation of the second persona could have been an attempt by her mind to escape the evil ... to pretend she’d had an ally or to excuse her inability to escape her captor sooner.

So, she’d changed her name and spent the next nine years pretending not to hear the voices ... pretending she wasn’t that person anymore. Pretending made it go away.

During that time, she transferred to Boston College, to escape all of it—even her overprotective parents. She had cut ties with the friends she’d had her entire life and never once looked back. She joined the Bureau and graduated at the top of her class. Now, six months back in Birmingham and she hadn’t called a single one. Took pains to ensure that if she ran into anyone she used to know, she looked away or hurried in the other direction. Her parents didn’t fully understand her decision, but they honored her wishes. Unlike this Neanderthal.

“Is that why you came back here?” he persisted.

“I asked for Baltimore.” She closed her eyes a second and concentrated on banishing the images and voices. “But I got Birmingham.” She knew who to blame for that. Her mentor and friend, Special Agent Collin Pierce. Maybe one of these days she would actually forgive him.

“Couldn’t be coincidence,” McBride guessed. “Sounds like someone wanted you to deal with the past. Does Worth know?”

That was all he was getting.

“Your turn,” she demanded. She couldn’t talk about this anymore. She had told him too much already.

“Fair is fair,” he confessed. “Hit me.”

Her cell phone trembled against the tabletop, the drone cutting through the tension.

She considered not answering it. McBride damn sure wasn’t getting off this easy. If Worth had the security detail in place at the hotel for McBride, he could leave her a voicemail.

Ring number two.

“You have to answer it,” McBride suggested.

“We had a deal, McBride. It’s your turn.”

“It may have to wait.”

That he looked so smug and that he was inarguably right only made the statement more infuriating.

A third ring.

Dammit.

She snatched up the phone and accepted the call. “Grace.” It was Worth all right. The information he barked into her ear sent a cold chill deep into her bones. “Yes, sir. We’ll be right there.”