The Agent's Redemption

Behind him, the door rattled and then flew open and a little blond-haired boy ran into the house. He stopped short when he saw Jared and stared up at him—his blue eyes wide with surprise. He asked, “Who are you?”

* * *

YOUR FATHER. THE WORDS stuck in Rebecca’s throat along with the scream of protest she had wanted to utter when the door had opened. Of course Tommy’s mother would drop Alex off early today. The horn of the minivan tooted as Beverly backed out of the driveway.

“My name is Jared Bell,” the FBI agent answered his son. “What’s yours?”

“Alex...” Suddenly shy, the little boy ducked behind her legs and peered around her at Jared.

“Nice to meet you, Alex,” Jared replied. Then he raised his gaze from the little boy and met hers.

She expected accusation or at least suspicion. But pain and regret flickered through his amber-colored eyes instead. “I understand,” he said.

And her stomach clenched. Could he understand why she hadn’t told him? She wasn’t entirely sure that she understood herself. Of course his rejection had hurt her, and he’d told her that it would be better if they had no further contact. But he hadn’t known that she was pregnant. She hadn’t yet known she was pregnant when they’d broken up. But to break up, they would have actually had to be together. And all she had been to him was a slip in his professionalism. A mistake.

And she hadn’t wanted her child to be a mistake to him, as well. So she’d chosen not to tell Jared. But occasionally guilt overwhelmed her—like whenever Alex had asked her about his father. And now, when father and son finally came face-to-face.

Jared continued, “I understand why you didn’t want to talk about this case—with your son coming home.”

Her sister had never been just a case to Rebecca. “Alex knows about his aunt Lexi,” she said.

“I got my name from her,” the little boy interjected as he peeked around her legs again.

Jared smiled at the boy. “It’s a very good name, too.”

And Rebecca’s heart lurched at the deep grooves in his cheeks and at the warmth in his eyes. He was so handsome. But that wasn’t the only reason for her reaction. She hadn’t thought the no-nonsense FBI profiler would pay any attention to a child. He had never expressed any interest in them before. But he was being so sweet...

So Jared.

That was why she had fallen for him before—because he had been so sympathetic for her loss and so concerned for her well-being. She had thought he was falling for her, too. But he’d only been doing his job.

That was all he was doing now. She hadn’t seen him in nearly six years. He had moved on to the next case—the next murder and the next killer. But he was back now—because there was another case.

Another missing woman...

Another family going through what she and her parents had gone through—what they were still going through. “I want to help you,” she said.

He arched a brow as if surprised. “I thought you wanted to get rid of me.”

She had—when she’d been worried that he would realize Alex was his son. But he didn’t appear to have made the connection. Alex was small for his age, though. Perhaps Jared hadn’t realized how old the little boy was.

She really didn’t want to leave them alone while she retrieved the container of Lexi’s pictures and journals. “Alex needs a bath before bedtime,” she said. “He just got back from a playdate. Do you mind waiting?”

His body tensed with urgency. He probably hated waiting. Amy Wilcox had already been missing for days.

But Rebecca doubted that there was anything in Lexi’s personal effects that could lead him to the young woman. If the same man who’d taken Lexi had taken Amy, then Rebecca already knew who he was.

But Jared refused to believe her. He believed an alibi instead. But the alibi could have been faked. Or a killer could have been hired.

“I’ll wait,” he said. And he was already pulling out his cell phone.

Of course he had calls to make. When she’d known him before, he had constantly been on his phone—following up leads, checking in with other agents. The man lived and breathed his job. When he had worked her sister’s case, she had mistakenly believed his intensity had been personal.

But it was just who he was...

Intense.

Driven.

Determined.

But despite all those characteristics, he had been unable to find Lexi’s body. Or Lexi’s killer.

She left Jared to his calls and tugged Alex toward the bathroom. Usually after a playdate with Tommy, he was exhausted. When she hosted a playdate with the hyperactive Tommy, she was always exhausted afterward, too.

But now Alex was too curious to be tired. “Who is Jared Bell?” he asked as he pulled off his clothes and stepped into the bathtub.

Your father. The words popped into her head again but stuck in her throat. She couldn’t tell either of them the truth. Not now.

But guilt settled heavily on her heart. She should tell the truth. She probably would have—had she not been devastated by Jared’s rejection. But he hadn’t just rejected her; he’d rejected what she’d felt for him.

He’d told her that she didn’t really have any feelings for him. She was only fixated on him because he was investigating her sister’s disappearance—that he had become a surrogate of Lexi to her.

For such a brilliant man, he’d been incredibly dense and insensitive.

“Mr. Bell is...” She had no idea what to tell her son. Jared had never really been a friend. And she couldn’t tell Alex that he was an FBI agent. Her little boy would never go to sleep because he would have a million questions for Jared.

Alex was such a bright and inquisitive boy. His teachers had already moved him up a grade because they couldn’t challenge him. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked like her, but he had his father’s brilliance.

She’d had to work hard for her grades. That was why she’d been so consumed with studying that she’d lost touch with her sister. Then she’d lost her entirely.

“He has a gun, Mommy,” the little boy said.

How had he noticed the weapon holstered beneath Jared’s jacket?

“Was that why you hid behind my legs?” she asked. “Are you scared of him?”

Alex shook his head and sent droplets of water flying across the sand-colored tile walls and floor and her T-shirt. “No. He has a badge, too.”

Jared had always worn his badge clipped to his belt, but his jacket covered it. Of course her observant little boy would have somehow noticed it. He missed nothing. But a father...

“Mr. Bell is an FBI agent,” she reluctantly admitted.

As she’d expected, Alex sprang out of the bath, dripping water everywhere. “Can I talk to him? Can I?”

Before he could head to the door, she caught him up in a towel and dried him off and stalled.

“Do you think he’ll let me touch his gun?” Alex asked. “Do you think he ever shot somebody with it?”

She was pretty certain that he had, but not the person she’d wanted him to shoot—the person she was certain had killed her sister.

“It’s your bedtime,” she reminded her son.

“Oh, Mom, I can go to bed anytime,” Alex protested. “He’s an FBI agent!”

“And he’s here to talk to me about Aunt Lexi,” she said. “But you’ll be able to talk to him another time.” After she gathered her courage and told them both the truth.

It was time. It was actually past time that Jared and Alex learned they were father and son.

“If I see him again,” Alex muttered.

“You will,” she promised. But would he? Even after she told Jared the truth, would he want anything to do with his son? Would he want to be a father?

Or was he still all about his career?

The little boy dragged his feet getting ready for bed. He took forever to get into his pajamas and brush his teeth. And when she finally settled him into his bed, he sprang right back up.

“Mommy, there’s a man looking in the window!”

A creative child, he always came up with inventive excuses for not going to bed. So she was only humoring him when she turned toward the window. But then she saw the man, too, staring into her son’s bedroom.

And she screamed.

Chapter Three

Her earlier soft cry had struck Jared like a blow. This one—loud and full of fear—pierced his soul. He ran down the hall she’d gone through and nearly collided with her as she rushed out of a room, the child clutched in her arms.

“Someone’s creeping around outside,” she said, “looking in the windows.”

He drew his weapon from beneath his jacket and headed toward the door. “Lock it behind me,” he directed her. “And don’t unlock it for anyone but me.”

He stepped outside and lights flashed and voices shouted. “Special Agent Bell! Special Agent Bell!”

He flinched at the lights and the noise and the fact that he hated reporters. He wanted to step back inside and slam the door shut on all of them. But he’d had Becca lock it behind him. If he knocked and had her open it, they would see her and take pictures and bombard her with intrusive, insensitive questions like they had when Lexi had disappeared.

Six years ago Becca had hated the reporters as much as he had. Actually more. He hadn’t begun to hate them until they’d turned on him—highlighting his one failure instead of all his success in apprehending serial killers.

“You’re all trespassing,” he informed them. “If you don’t get off this property, I will have the local authorities arrest you.”

While some of the reporters knew him well enough to know that his threat wasn’t empty and they began to walk away, another stepped forward—probably the one Becca had seen through her son’s bedroom window since the man stepped around the side of the house.

“Your being here confirms that this place belongs to Lexi Drummond’s sister,” the reporter brazenly said.

“My presence confirms nothing,” Jared replied. He holstered his gun, but then pulled out his cell phone. His threat wasn’t idle; he intended to have them all arrested—especially this man.

This reporter was tall and thin with a thick head of mostly artificial-looking blond hair and a big, snide grin. He wasn’t just doing his job; he enjoyed annoying the hell out of people, especially Jared.

The man—Kyle Smith—shrugged shoulders that Jared suspected were as fake as his hair—since they moved strangely beneath his suit jacket, like they were more padding than muscle and bone. “County tax records confirm this property belongs to Rebecca Drummond.”

Jared breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had been pretty sure that the press hadn’t followed him here. But with the concussion, he wasn’t quite himself yet. Maybe he hadn’t noticed someone—like Kyle Smith—tailing him.

But apparently they had just done the same research he’d done to find Rebecca Drummond. Or at least Kyle Smith had. Had he brought the others with him, like a pack of dogs, to attack?

Then Kyle attacked as he shoved the microphone in Jared’s face and had his cameraman zoom in on him. “So is Rebecca Drummond’s young son yours?”

It was probably a good thing that he’d holstered his gun, or he might have threatened the man with it. Instead, he punched in the number for the local authorities, identified himself and gave the address where he needed backup to disperse trespassers.

“No comment, Agent Bell?” Kyle said with a sneer.

He had no comment that he could make publicly without his supervisor reprimanding him. And there was no point to answering any of Kyle’s questions. The man twisted Jared’s replies to suit his own purposes.

Apparently, he wanted to expose all of Jared’s mistakes. Getting involved with a victim’s family member had definitely been a mistake. But that had been six years ago, and the boy had to be younger than that. Alex hadn’t looked much older than the toddler Jared had recently been helping protect. His head pounded, reminding him of the concussion that had rewarded his efforts. According to the doctor, he was lucky to be alive and have his memory intact.

Not that he could have forgotten Becca. He doubted he would ever be able to forget her. During the past six years, she had never left his mind. He’d seen her beautiful face in his dreams and in his waking moments. He’d thought of her often, wondering how she was doing—hoping she’d been able to move on after the loss of her sister.

“You’re not here to see your son?” Kyle prodded him with the question and that infuriatingly snide grin.

Jared fought the urge to glare at the man, too. Then, against his better judgment, he replied, “I’m investigating the disappearance of Amy Wilcox.”

“And how can Rebecca Drummond help you with that?” Smith asked. “She’s convinced her sister’s fiancé killed Lexi despite his rock-solid alibi.”

Jared wished she’d been right. But the alibi was indisputable and Becca’s judgment seriously biased where her almost-brother-in-law was concerned.

Sirens wailed in the distance as Jared’s backup approached. “Whoever is still on this property when the local authorities arrive will be arrested.”

“You’ve let a serial killer run free for six years, Special Agent Bell,” Kyle taunted him, “but you would arrest some reporters just doing their job?”

“You’re not just doing your job.” Jared had gotten that impression from the reporter before—that this was personal. Had Jared put away someone he’d known and cared about? Did the guy have some kind of vendetta against him? Why else would the reporter go after him like he did?

To suggest that Becca’s son was his...

It was preposterous. To think that he was a father, that he had been a father for six years and had never known...

His heart lurched in his chest as he considered the possibility that he had son.

No. It wasn’t a possibility.

* * *

HER NERVES FRAYED, Rebecca waited for Jared to ask. She’d heard the reporter’s speculation—the one who’d been looking through Alex’s bedroom window. That man had wondered if Alex was Jared’s son.

Why hadn’t Jared?

Fortunately Alex hadn’t heard any of the reporter’s questions or comments. She had tucked him back into his bed and drawn the blinds. And, despite the excitement, he had fallen asleep. She probably needed to thank Tommy for that. If his playdate friend hadn’t worn him out, there was no way Alex would have fallen asleep after catching a man looking in his window. Or with an FBI agent in the house.

Or maybe it was because of the FBI agent that he fell asleep—because he felt safe. Was that because Jared was FBI or because Alex instinctively felt a connection with him?

It didn’t matter that Alex hadn’t heard the reporter’s questions. He already had questions of his own. He’d already asked her who his father was.

He deserved an answer. He deserved a father. But Jared hadn’t even wanted to be a boyfriend all those years ago. She couldn’t imagine how he would have reacted if she’d told him she was pregnant. He probably would have thought she was trying to trap him because she was so fixated on him.

He was now focused on the contents of the plastic container in which Rebecca had preserved all of her sister’s pictures, journals and letters. He kept flipping through the photos, flinching when he came across the ones of a bruised and battered Lexi.

“He did that to her,” Rebecca said. But she hadn’t known that until she’d found the pictures in Lexi’s journal. Why hadn’t her sister told her that her fiancé was abusing her? Because Rebecca had been too busy? Had Lexi thought she wouldn’t care?

Lexi was only two years older than Rebecca, so they’d always been close growing up. When she’d graduated Lexi had stayed home and attended community college for a medical assistant program. Rebecca was the one who’d left home—for college and med school.

Guilt gripped Rebecca, squeezing her heart. Maybe if she had been more available to her sister, Lexi would have told her what was going on, and she could have helped her. She could have saved her...

Anger joined her guilt as she glanced at the photos, too. The man was a monster to have done that to sweet, beautiful Lexi.

“She took those photos as evidence against him,” Rebecca said, “in case something ever happened to her.” That was what Lexi had written on the journal pages between which those photos had been tucked. “She wanted you to know who her killer would be.”

Rebecca waited for Jared to bring up that damn ironclad alibi again. But the FBI profiler remained curiously silent and focused on those photographs.

Her pulse quickened. Was he beginning to believe her? To believe the evidence Lexi had left for him?

Of course Lexi hadn’t known who would be investigating her case. But she’d known that she would die and that there would be someone investigating her death.

Poor Lexi...

If only she’d told Rebecca what was going on.

But Rebecca had been too busy studying. She’d been too busy for much more than a short texted reply to her sister’s usual text, You still alive?

Yes, I’m still alive.

When she hadn’t heard from Lexi in a while, she had texted her the question: You still alive?

Lexi had never answered that text.

Rebecca closed her eyes as the pain overwhelmed her, and tears threatened. It didn’t feel like six years had passed since she’d lost her sister. It felt like yesterday.

“I’m sorry,” Jared said.

“Why?” He had already apologized for how he’d handled the situation with her—the line he regretted crossing into her bed.

Images flashed through her mind—of the two of them in bed, of naked skin sliding over naked skin. Of his lips on hers as he kissed her with all his intensity focused solely on her. He had made love to her so thoroughly, so passionately that it was as if she could still feel his hands on her body, his lips on her...

Desire rushed through her, heating her. She didn’t regret that he had crossed that line with her. She only regretted how it had ended. That he had ended it.

But she didn’t want any more apologies from him. Not when she owed him one. She was the one who’d been keeping a secret from him for too many years.

“I’m sorry I came here,” he explained, “and opened up all this pain for you again.”

She chuckled at how he didn’t understand her feelings any better than he had six years ago. “You think you just reopened it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t me, but Amy Wilcox’s disappearance had to have brought everything up again—all those feelings.”

“She isn’t the only victim since Lexi.”

But Rebecca didn’t need to remind him of that. She could see his frustration in the slight lines around his eyes and mouth. She could feel the tension in his body. He blamed himself, as much as the serial killer, for the loss of those other victims.

“No, she’s not,” he acknowledged, and the guilt was in the gruffness of his deep voice.

“But you never came here when those other victims first went missing,” she said.

He held up the photo he’d brought with him—the photo of Amy Wilcox with Lexi. “I didn’t find any connection between them and your sister.”

“But their killer...”

“We don’t have enough evidence to make that conclusion,” he replied—uttering one of those patented FBI press release statements.

She nearly smiled. Maybe it was because he had been recruited so young into the Bureau that he was such a company man. Or maybe it was what she had concluded six years ago—all he cared about was his job.

“The media hasn’t had any problem leaping to conclusions,” she said. And not just about the murders but about her son’s paternity.

But they weren’t wrong about that. Had they been wrong about all the murders being the work of one killer?

“I didn’t lead those reporters here,” Jared assured her.

“I know.”

While his specialty was profiling killers, he had made certain that he had all the skills of a field agent. He was an expert shot and defensive driver. That was why she’d been so excited when he had been assigned her sister’s case—because she’d heard all the media praise about him.

But the media didn’t praise him anymore—because he’d never found Lexi’s killer. Or Lexi’s body.

“The pain wasn’t just reopened,” she said. “It never closed.”

He flinched again, like he had looking at the pictures of a brutalized Lexi. “I’m sorry you never got closure.”

Everyone talked about needing closure. Needing a body to bury. Or a killer to curse.

“I’m not sure closure would make it hurt any less,” she admitted. Lexi would still be dead.

He stepped closer to her, and his voice was low and gruff when he said, “I want to get you closure. I really want to find Lexi and her killer.”

“I told you—”

He pressed his fingers over her lips. Then his eyes—those eerie, pale brown eyes—darkened as his pupils dilated. His fingers slid across her mouth...caressingly.

Her breath caught in her lungs, and her pulse quickened with awareness and desire. How could she want him again? She wasn’t hurting over Lexi’s loss alone. She was hurting over losing Jared, too.

He jerked his hand away from her mouth. “I know who you think killed your sister. I know.”

And she waited for him to refute her belief like he always had. But he stayed silent again.

“You’re not telling me I’m wrong this time,” she said.

He emitted a weary-sounding sigh. “I’m not as cocky as I was six years ago.”

He was different. No less serious or determined or driven but perhaps a little less confident. Lexi’s case had shaken his confidence.

And maybe it had him second-guessing himself.

Because now he uttered the question she’d been waiting for him to ask since she’d overheard his confrontation with the reporters.

“Is he my son, Becca?” he asked. “Is Alex mine?”

Chapter Four

Jared’s heart pounded fast and furiously as he waited for her answer. Or maybe because he’d touched her. He shouldn’t have touched her. Because now he wanted to touch her again.

But if her son was his and she had never told him...

Could he ever forgive her? She had stolen almost six years of her son’s life from him—years he couldn’t get back. But her son couldn’t be almost six years old. He was too small.

Like Jared had been for his age...

No. He shook his head in silent denial of his own thoughts and suspicions.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no business asking you that. I must’ve let Kyle Smith get inside my head.” And of course the reporter had just been trying to get a reaction out of him—some scandalous footage to run over and over on his broadcast.

She blinked as her blue eyes widened with confusion. “Kyle Smith?”

“The reporter.” Jared chuckled. “That egomaniac would hate that you don’t know his name.”

She glanced toward the black screen of her TV. “I try not to pay much attention to the news.”

But since she’d known about Amy Wilcox’s disappearance, he doubted that she was any more successful at ignoring the media than he was.

“I’ve been working on that myself.” In his job, he had to know how to handle the media or he could tip off a suspect or undermine his own investigation. He lifted a hand toward his throbbing head. “Maybe I only let him get to me because of the concussion.”

He wished he could blame the head injury. But he suspected that maybe it was wishful thinking instead...that Becca’s son was his. He wanted a connection to her—something more than Lexi’s unsolved murder to bind them together.

“How did you get the concussion?” she asked, her voice soft with concern.

After the way he’d treated her, how could she care about him at all? But that was just her nature, the reason she’d wanted to become a doctor, because she cared about people. All people. It was nothing personal. She’d had six years to realize that, although he hadn’t been sensitive about her feelings, he’d been right. She hadn’t really been in love with him.