Page 3 of The Last To Know (Hallowed Halls Series #2)

H is heart hit the floor the minute she came into the room. He’d known today would be Hannah’s first day back—Zeke had warned him. Cooper told himself he was ready to face her, no matter how awkward it might be or what the outcome. That all crumbled around him now.

When they’d first started dating, Cooper told himself he wasn’t the type to let a woman get under his skin . . . except it was all a lie. She had gotten to him.

He’d done his best to be patient when Zeke told him Hannah had the flu, but patience wasn’t his strong suit. His last memory of Hannah was kissing her. The taste of her lips. The way her eyes had darkened. Her soft cheeks. Wind whipping her blonde hair into her eyes. It had all been branded in his memory, haunting him at the most inconvenient times. When his calls went unanswered, he’d left a couple of messages that weren’t returned either.

As much as he wanted to bring his partner, Zeke, into his misery, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d contemplated everything he’d said to her. Cooper wasn’t always the most tactful when he wanted something, and he wanted Hannah. Had he overstepped her comfort zone by kissing her?

Her gaze tangled briefly with his. He raised his brows as if to ask, “What’s going on?”

Hannah ignored the unspoken question and Cooper’s frustration .

He dragged his attention from her to Jack and the reason they were meeting here in the first place, while the familiar dream from that morning still tugged at his mind.

Cooper had left Rochester and that ugliness behind. Changed his last name. Yet the horror of that day still followed him everywhere he went. He guessed that much evil would have to.

Jack stepped up to the front of the room. “First off, welcome back, Hannah.” Jack’s chin jutted her way.

Everyone around the table clapped. Bright red color crept up Hannah’s neck.

“Glad you’re feeling better.” Sierra Parker, the newest member of the unit, gave Hannah a hug. Sierra had once been the unit’s secretary but had proven herself deserving of the position of agent two years earlier when one of their own, Dan Orlando, turned out to be the Angel killer. Dan’s betrayal had rocked the tightknit BAU. That one of their team could be capable of such gruesome violence seemed unthinkable.

Cooper had worked side-by-side with Dan for several years, never suspecting the darkness that lurked beneath Dan’s polished exterior.

“I second that.” Jane Keller, the new office manager, smiled at Hannah and gave Cooper a wink, which he ignored. Jane knew he and Hannah were dating and had plagued him with questions about when his “sweetie” would return so he would stop looking like a lost puppy.

In her mid-twenties, Jane’s long blonde hair held a pink streak framing her face. During one of the talks, she’d told Cooper she wore the pink in memory of her mother, who’d died from breast cancer.

Jane was smart, computer savvy, and outspoken. He liked that. Cooper never had to question where he stood with Jane.

“Thanks, everyone. I’m glad to be back,” Hannah murmured without looking his way again.

A private person, she didn’t like the focus on herself. A rare thing, Cooper found, when it came to women. Maybe one of the things that attracted him to her in the first place.

“The reason I asked you all to come in so early is because I had a call from the Grand Island, New York, police earlier requesting our assistance.”

Jack displayed a photo of a woman on the screen behind him. Everything appeared red around her almost as if someone had splashed red paint, drenching the walls of the kitchen. Only it wasn’t paint.

At times, Cooper thought himself immune after so many years of witnessing the awful things this unit saw daily, yet the brutality the victim slouched against the wall had suffered sent waves of disgust through his frame.

“Her name is Giselle Witherspoon. Her husband got a call from his wife that was interrupted. He said it sounded like a struggle on Giselle’s end. He and his wife were separated. He lives in New York City, his wife in Grand Island. He became worried when he tried to reach her again and couldn’t. He drove out and found her like this.”

The woman’s head lolled oddly to one side. Her throat had been cut deep, almost to the point of decapitation, speaking of extreme rage.

Cooper sat up straighter, gripping the armrest of his chair as his stomach plummeted.

No. It wasn’t possible.

“Why’d the locals call us in? Has there been more than one murder?” Sierra asked the question before Cooper could.

“No. They reached out because of this.” Jack brought up another photo of Giselle. Above her head, the killer had written a single word in blood.

Unworthy.

The word jumped from the screen and bored down deep into Cooper’s head. It kicked the door open and snatched him back into the past. He was that thirteen-year-old boy again. Unworthy. He could still see it written in his mother’s blood every time he closed his eyes. Every time he dreamed.

Don’t go there .

“Cooper.”

He barely registered someone speaking his name as he catapulted into the darkness. Running down the basement steps. His legs trembling as he stepped toward the screams of his mother . . .

“Cooper.” The assertiveness in Jack’s voice jerked him from the basement and back to the present.

White spots blurred Cooper’s vision. He blinked rapidly while his heart hammered, his breaths becoming shallow and labored.

Focus on Jack. Let it go. He’s gone.

The monster was gone. Dead and buried along with his victims. And Cooper’s mother.

“Are you okay?” Jack now stood beside him.

“Yeah, sure.” Cooper struggled to make his answer convincing.

All eyes were on him, a reminder of the way those in law enforcement had gawked at him after learning he’d been forced to shoot his own father.

A door opened, diverting attention from Cooper. He could breathe normally again.

“Jack, a minute.” Megan stuck her head inside, her gaze sliding briefly to Cooper.

She knows.

No matter how hard he’d tried to bury his past, it wasn’t going to stay dead. Soon, everyone would know the truth. He was the son of a serial killer.