Page 80 of The Devoted Game
McBride considered her revelation a moment. “Are you afraid that the owner of that other voice is still out there? Do you look over your shoulder when you cross a dark parking lot?”
The answer was yes. She did. As hard as she tried to pretend she didn’t, she did. “Yeah, I do.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I’m still a little afraid when I let myself dwell on it. Maybe that’s why anonymity felt safer.”
He assessed her with those blue eyes that saw right into her soul. “Then you’re human, Vivian Grace. If you felt anything else, you wouldn’t be.”
He was right. For the first time in a really long time, she sensed that someone understood.
“Thanks, McBride. You’re not nearly as shallow as I originally thought.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He straightened away from the railing. “Have another whiskey, Grace.” He sniffed his shirt. “I need a shower.”
She watched him disappear into the room, the smile on her lips widening instead of slipping. Though she had known him four days, she had scarcely cracked the surface of the complex man beneath the indifferent veneer. What she had found underneath, she liked ... a lot.
Maybe she would have another of those whiskeys. She could sleep like the dead for a couple of hours and then get back to the office. One thing was clear: She could not live her life hiding from the past any longer. It was time to face it head-on. If any of her colleagues gave her any grief, she would set them straight.
She had just twisted off the top of another miniature bottle when her phone vibrated. On the table next to the bed, McBride’s phone trembled against the wooden surface.
She looked at her phone’s display before taking the call. Agent Davis.
She answered, “Grace.”
Davis’s first three words had ice forming in her veins.Come in now.
Vivian glanced at the clock on the bedside table, her pulse reacting to the tension in Davis’s voice. “It’s only one thirty.” She and McBride weren’t scheduled to go back in until four. “What’s going on?”
Davis told her that he had tried to call Worth at home and had gotten his wife. Worth hadn’t made it home, and there was no answer on his cell. But the strangest part was that his car was parked in his driveway.
Devoted Fan’s most recent email scrolled past her mind’s eye, pausing on one particular part:
... this one is a lesson I am sure you will appreciate as much as I...
How could Devoted Fan have known that Worth and McBride didn’t particularly like each other? The bastard couldn’t be watching them that closely.
“I’ll call Pierce,” she told Davis. “McBride and I will meet him and head that way.”
Vivian ended the call. Her heart thumped as the realization sank in that Worth was the latest victim. Jesus. If this scumbag could get to Worth ... no one was safe.
1000 Eighteenth Street, 2:00 a.m.
Ryan drove since Grace preferred not to after having had that single shot of whiskey. Pierce followed. If he knew any more than they did, he had said nothing.
As if the media had sensed trouble in the wind, the crowd outside the field office had multiplied to what it had been prior to Trenton’s rescue.
The rush inside and up the stairs left no opportunity for chitchat. Suited Ryan fine. He had nothing to say to Pierce. Neither did Grace it seemed.
“Let’s have an update,” Pierce ordered as soon as they entered the conference room that had served as a command center for the past few days.
“Talley and Aldridge are working with Birmingham PD on the scene at Worth’s home,” Pratt related. “Apparently he drove straight home after leaving the office. His wife and son were in bed asleep and didn’t realize he had even arrived or that he hadn’t come inside until Davis called. According to the security service, Worth didn’t enter the home. We can confirm this since the alarm was activated at 10:15 p.m. when his wife went to bed. That status remained so until Mrs. Worth got up to check on his whereabouts at 12:50 a.m.”
Ryan propped a hip on the edge of the conference table and studied the timeline board where new notations were in the works as Pratt spoke. Davis was scribbling away with a dry-erase marker.
An agent Ryan hadn’t met—male, young, skinny—hurried into the room. “Agent Pierce,” the new guy said, evidently knowing where the most power lay, “there’s a new communication from Devoted Fan.”
Ryan shoved off the table and headed for the computer. Grace waited next to his chair. Pierce, Pratt, and Davis moved up behind him as he clicked the necessary tabs.
McBride,
As I am sure you know by now, Randall Worth is a part of your latest challenge. He has a lesson tolearn, atonement to find, as did the others. Once more, survival depends upon you.