Ricochet

“That’s where I’m headed,” she snapped, “but not with you.”

“Sorry.” He slung her pack over his shoulder and gestured towards his vehicle—a black SUV with oversize tires and mud flaps emblazoned with the letters BCCPD. “Chief’s orders. He wants his team working together on this.”

“Oh.” She tried not to slump as she understood. She, Cass and Maya hadn’t been able to make friends, so the chief was going to do it for them. Damn, she hated being manipulated, hated that she hadn’t been able to work it out on her own. Worse, she hated that part of her was excited at the idea of partnering with McDermott, even temporarily. Knowing it spelled trouble all the way around, she shook her head. “I can drive myself to the hospital and hook up with you later. There’s no reason for us both to go—she might not even be conscious yet.”

“True, but orders are orders.” He slung her pack in the vehicle and left the passenger door ajar.

“Fine.” She climbed stiffly into the SUV.

As they drove out of Bear Creek State Forest, she felt the sore spots burn and pound, felt her muscles stiffen up. She’d gone from being trapped under hundreds of pounds of rocks and dirt directly to working the scene. She’d refused to go to the hospital with Lizzie because the other victims needed her more than she’d needed medical attention.

Now, a soft bed and some aspirin was sounding real good.

When McDermott blasted the heat, she expelled a grateful sigh, let her head fall back against the seat and closed her eyes.

And opened them right up again, because the first thing she’d seen in her tired brain was a small patch of yellow flashlight beam and a wall of dirt six inches from her face. She shuddered at the memory.

“I’ve got the heat as high as it’ll go.”

She glanced at him, then away, trying to ignore how intimate the area seemed as the dusk faded to night. “I didn’t say anything.”

And she didn’t say anything else until he pulled up in front of the small house she’d leased for a year, with the option to buy if everything worked out with the BCCPD.

She stared at the lit front entryway, battling the urge to bolt inside, jump into bed and wish the whole day away. “I thought we were going to the hospital to interview Lizzie.”

That was where she wanted to go. Needed to go. Not just to do her job, but also to reassure herself that the girl was alive. To thank her, ironically, for being human company beneath the ice and snow. If it hadn’t been for the feeling of Lizzie’s ankle beneath her fingertips, Alissa thought she might have lost it completely.

“We are,” he said. “But you need to take a shower first. Or at least change clothes and wash your face. You’ll terrify the poor kid if you show up looking like that.”

His voice held a tone of censure, and something else. Something darker and more dangerous, that sent a skitter of awareness shooting through her body.

With a start, she realized he hadn’t asked for directions. He’d known where she lived.

She wondered what it meant, and then decided probably nothing. He was a cop. He knew his neighborhoods.

“Yeah. You’ve got a point.” And, God, would it feel good to soak her bones in the Jacuzzi tub that had sold her on the house. Since there wasn’t time for a bath, she’d settle for a fast shower, but it’d help.

She pushed open the door and stifled a groan as her weary legs went rubbery. Since there was no way she was asking McDermott for help, she forced some strength into her body and shuffled into the house. All the way, she was too aware of him following, not close enough to crowd, but close enough to catch her if she fell.

She felt his presence there in the little prickles of electricity on her skin, in the subtle warmth in her core, and was reminded of another time, when they’d followed each other out of the club with no other thought than to get naked, damn the consequences.

Only, he hadn’t damned the consequences. He’d bailed the moment he’d realized she was a cop and a coworker. Part of her was grateful he’d had the strength. Part of her still yearned for the sizzle. And the whole of her was ashamed that she’d nearly given in to something as pointless as lust with a man who—according to PD rumor—already had one foot out the door.

Been there, done that. Don’t need to do it again, no matter how hot he is, she told herself.

Inside the house, she waved him to the kitchen and ignored the oddness of seeing him standing there, in her space. “Food and drinks are in the fridge—take whatever appeals. Guest bath is at the end of the hall. I’ll be five minutes, no more.”

When she’d picked the house, she’d loved the convenience of having everything on one floor. Now it seemed like a disadvantage. A vulnerability. Even once she was inside the master bath, with its Jacuzzi tub and sybaritic adjoining lounge, she felt exposed.

She stripped naked and jumped into the shower fast, hissing at the sting of water on bruises and scrapes, then nearly moaning as the warmth eased some of the pain. But she didn’t dally. She had five minutes to shower and dress and get the hell on the road to the hospital.

She had a witness to interview. A murderer to sketch.

Two missing girls to find.

Chapter Three

At the Hawthorne Memorial Hospital, Alissa and McDermott were ID’d twice, once at the main desk and once again as they approached the private room where Lizzie lay. Though the kidnapper had left her as bait, there was no telling whether or not he’d try to get her back. Frankly there was no telling much of anything yet.

The whole case was clear as mud, Alissa thought, as she followed McDermott down the hall. The kidnapper appeared to have a plan, but what was it? Would the other girls reappear one at a time? Or were they already dead? Was he using the girls to get to the police—as the canyon attack suggested—or vice versa?

At the door to Lizzie’s hospital room, Alissa held up a hand. “I’m going in alone.”

“No way.” McDermott scowled, and the overhead lights darkened his deep-brown eyes to nearly black. “Remember what Parry said? We’re working together on this.”

“But he didn’t say we needed to be joined at the hip, did he?” She lifted her chin and ignored the fine buzz that ran across her skin at his nearness. “I’m going in alone. I’m betting she’ll be more relaxed with a woman than a man, and the more she relaxes, the more I’ll be able to get out of her.”

Not waiting for him to argue, she opened the door, stepped through and shut it in his face. Then she breathed through her mouth in an exaggerated sigh of stress. Frustration.

She wished she knew Chief Parry better, wished she knew whether it was safe to complain to him. Because there was no doubt in her mind that she and McDermott working together was a bad idea. They were just going to annoy each other.

Distract each other.

“You okay?”

The question startled her, because it came in a very familiar voice. “Maya!”

“Who else did you expect?” The dark-haired beauty unfolded herself from a chair beside the bed, which held the blond pixie that Alissa knew from her picture.

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Walsh, taken from the MovieMogul parking lot by a man in a light-colored van. And now, miraculously, home safe.

Or so Alissa hoped.

Almost afraid to ask, she glanced at Maya. “Is she…?”

“She seems generally okay—bumps, bruises, exposure and hypothermia, but nothing else.” The BCCFD’s forensic psychologist—and counselor—touched the sleeping girl’s wrist. “She’s been in and out. Her parents and younger brother have been here for the past few hours. I just sent them off for a snack and a walk.”

Maya’s long-lashed eyes were dark with sympathy. Alissa knew the family couldn’t be in better hands. Maya had a way with victims and suspects, just as Alissa had a way with scenes, and Cassie with evidence.

The three made a strong unit, stronger even than the retired Fitz, who had left before they arrived, not bothering to help ease their transition onto the force. Alissa gritted her teeth. Well, to hell with him. To hell with men in general. She was here to do a job, not make new friends.

“Can you intercept the parents?” she asked Maya. “I’d like some time alone with her.”

“Sure. I’ll speak with them about easing her back into her normal life and dealing with the aftermath. They’ve asked about counseling, so I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to help her move on.” The warning in Maya’s eyes was velvet gentleness over a core of steel. Don’t mess up her head.

But how could Alissa promise that? She needed the young woman—little more than a child, really, she was so small and fragile looking—to remember things she would probably rather forget. In the long run, it would help her…but the short run was going to hurt.

“I’ll do my best,” Alissa answered, though they both knew it wasn’t really an answer at all.

Maya, being Maya, smiled and touched her arm in passing. “I know you will, ’Lissa.” She turned back with her hand on the door. “You want me to send one of the boys to sit outside the door and make sure you have your privacy?”

“Already taken care of,” Alissa said. “McDermott’s outside.” Then she held a finger to her lips and mouthed, and he’s probably listening.

Lord knows she would be, under the same circumstances.

Maya raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment beyond a cautious, “Okay. I’ll be back to check on you in twenty.”

“Good enough.” Alissa watched as Maya pushed through the door. Sure enough, McDermott was right outside, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping.

She glared and he flicked an unrepentant half-smile. Then the door swung shut between them, separating them some, but not enough. Irritated and faintly anxious, she forced her mind back on to the job. On to the girl, the victim who had seen the face of her kidnapper.

Or so Alissa hoped.

She pulled out her pad and turned back to the bed, intending to sit with Lizzie until she woke up. But the girl’s eyes were open and wary. “I already told them I don’t remember anything,” Lizzie said, voice faintly petulant, as though Alissa was interrupting her.

“Okay.” Alissa sat and settled her sketch pad in her lap. When she lifted the hard charcoal pencil she used for initial blocking work, she saw the girl’s eyes follow. “We’ll just chat a little until your parents come back. No pressure.”

Instead of tarting off or repeating her denial, Lizzie surprised Alissa.

The girl began to cry.

Huge tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, and she rolled to her side and hugged her knees to her chest beneath the thin hospital blanket. “I th-thought he was going to kill me. He said he was going to, that I wouldn’t have any warning. That one night he’d just do it, maybe while I was sleeping.” She swallowed a racking sob. “I t-tried not to sleep much after that, but it was so cold. So dark. Once, I woke up and he was standing over me. He had a knife.” She burrowed her face into the pillow and howled, straining her body into the mattress as though she wished it would swallow her up. “Then he put me in that cave. He drugged me. I was out of it, but I knew what he’d done. I knew there was a bomb. I thought I was going to die when you came. I thought we were both dead.”

Her thin frame shuddered with the force of her tears.

Alissa’s throat closed, and she reached out to touch the girl’s scraped-raw ankle, the only part of Lizzie she could reach from her seat.

God, she hated this. She wanted to gather the young woman in her arms and tell her not to think about it. Instead she forced her voice calm and asked about the place where Lizzie had been held. About the man, who’d always stayed in the shadows. About what he’d said, what he’d done. What he’d looked like.

Lizzie cried as she talked. The words came pouring out of her as though she’d wanted to talk about it, needed to talk about it, even though she’d said she remembered nothing.

But she remembered, all right. She remembered plenty, though maybe not enough. As she talked, Alissa sketched furiously, trusting her microcorder to catch all of the girl’s descriptions for later analysis. The images engraved themselves on her heart, wounding her with fear for the others, for herself.

After ten minutes Lizzie’s words slowed. After fifteen, they stopped altogether and the girl slipped back to sleep, her body shutting down when her soul couldn’t handle any more.

Instead of being frustrated, Alissa was grateful. She wasn’t sure she could have handled more, herself. So she sighed, swiped her sleeve across both cheeks where sympathetic tears had dried and pushed to her feet. The outer door moved slightly as she crossed the room, but by the time she opened it, McDermott was leaning against the far wall, looking like he’d been there all along.

She jerked her head towards the exit. “Come on. Let’s talk to the task force.”

Instead of moving right away, he stared at her, dark eyes intense, until she raised a hand to her cheek, expecting to find that she’d missed a tear. Then he uncoiled and crossed to her. He stopped a breath away, and the warmth of his body eased the tension inside her chest even as it tightened another, lower down.

He started to say something and stopped. Started again and stopped. Then he blew out a breath and said simply, “If we’re going to be working together, I suppose you should call me Tucker.”

Surprise rattled through the numbness left by her painful sketch session, and she nodded. “Thanks. I’m Alissa.”

Sneaky pleasure warmed her. It wasn’t quite acceptance, wasn’t quite a pat on the back for how she’d handled Lizzie.

But it was a start.

STILL FEELING GUT PUNCHED by what he’d overheard of Alissa’s interview with the rescued girl, Tucker ushered her down the hall toward the exit. He was careful not to touch her, because if he did, he might pull her into his arms and tell her that it was okay, that she’d done the right thing by questioning the witness, by keeping her talking.

He’d seen the self-doubt in her eyes, seen what the interview had taken out of her.

They passed a small, intimate waiting area that was painted in soothing blues and golds. The psych specialist, Maya, sat there with Lizzie’s mother, father and brother, all of whom looked exhausted and haggard but happier than he’d seen them in the weeks since the kidnapping.

Tucker nodded as the family stood and filtered back toward the hospital room on Maya’s heels, all save for Lizzie’s father, a shaved-bald patriarch who stank of the cigarettes he’d chain-smoked while they waited for news.

Reginald Walsh stopped near Alissa and said in a low voice, “I don’t care what it takes. I want you to get the bastard. Find him.”

A few of the officers had reported having problems with Walsh, who operated used-car lots around the city and seemed to think money should be enough to buy his daughter home. The morning after her kidnapping, he’d thrown a chair through the front window of his house when one of the officers had suggested Lizzie might have run away.

Knowing this, Tucker stepped between Walsh and Alissa. “We’re working on it. You take care of your daughter and your family. We’ll take care of finding and punishing her kidnapper.”

He kept his voice low but stared the guy in his bloodshot eyes. The last thing they needed right now was a vigilante out for justice.

Walsh glared. “I don’t give a damn about punishing the bastard right now. Not yet. That’ll come later. Right now, I just care about finding those girls for their families.” His voice went strangled. “For God’s sake, they’re just kids.”

He pushed past Tucker, who felt a punch of shame at having misjudged the man. On the heels of shame came fatigue. He’d been up nearly thirty hours without a break, and the last few had been a hell of a ride.

“Hey, Tucker. You okay?” Alissa asked, concern darkening her blue eyes. A wisp of hair slipped from its twist and brushed across her forehead, making her look soft and vulnerable.

Her use of his first name echoed back to that night, when they’d been Alissa and Tucker, and they’d danced close enough that they might have been inside each other’s skins. Ever since they’d been reintroduced through the BCCPD, he’d been McDermott and she’d been Wyatt.

It shouldn’t have made a difference. But because it did, and because he was tired and feeling a little mean, he turned away and headed for the exit. “I’m fine. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He didn’t need to look to know that she had his back. He could feel her presence like a slow-burning fire in his nerve endings, one that reminded him of his transfer request. He’d be gone as soon as this case was wrapped up, and she’d be staying in her roomy, family-friendly house. The house alone should be enough to make him back off.

So how come every time he meant to back off, he seemed to take a step closer?

IT WAS COMPLETELY DARK when Alissa and Tucker made it back to the PD, but most of the task-force members were there, looking tired, haggard, and run-down by too many questions and not enough answers.

Maya hadn’t returned from the hospital yet, but Cassie had saved their seats, as usual. Alissa felt a small pang, as though she was abandoning Tucker when he took his customary position against the back wall. He’d been broody and curt during the ride from the hospital, but his mood seemed to have gained a layer of desperation that made her nervous.

It was as though he was reaching the end of his endurance in some way, though she didn’t think it was physical. It was more like he was pushing himself to a mental brink.

On a professional level, she didn’t think it was good for the case. On a personal level, she wished she could help but knew she didn’t have the right to press. He’d made that perfectly clear when he’d bailed out of her car that night at the club. Tucker was a no-relationships kind of guy.

Heck, at least he’d been honest about it.

She tried to convince herself she was grateful as she took her seat. One look at Cassie turned her thoughts in an entirely new direction. “What’s wrong?”

Her first unsettling thought was that there’d been a breach in the chain of evidence. But the anger in Cass’s sky-blue eyes seemed more personal than that, the scowl on her face more directed when she said, “Trouper is threatening to bring in a new guy, an evidence tech from the FBI, to help me.” She stressed the word as if it was poison. “I don’t need help. I’m already doing everything that can be done.”

Alissa tried to shift her brain into this new gear, tried to sympathize with Cass, who could be territorial when it came to her lab. “Well…does this guy have access to equipment you don’t? Can he get you into the federal databanks more quickly?” She took a breath, thought about the blond pixie in the hospital bed and exhaled. “I don’t think we can let this be about a power struggle. It’s about finding the other girls and catching the kidnapper.”

Cassie winced and looked faintly ashamed. “You’re right. I know you’re right, it’s just…this whole thing has me unsettled. I talked to the new guy, Seth Varitek, on the phone, and I already don’t like him. He’s pushy. He…crowds me. And besides, I hate that it feels like us versus them on this case. If I’m protecting my back from the good guys, then who’s going to be looking for the bad guy?”

“It’s not that bad,” Alissa said, thinking Cassie was overreacting and wondering whether there was more to the story. But before she could ask, Maya slipped in through the back door and Chief Parry stepped to the front of the room, ready to start the meeting.

“Good work today, people.” Parry looked to the back of the room, where Alissa could feel Tucker’s presence like a disturbance in the air. Then the chief’s eyes moved to her and on to the others. “Elizabeth Walsh is safe and sound, and has already been through a round of interviews. However—” he sobered, his eyes going hard “—both the victim and Officer Wyatt were nearly killed today by an explosive device we presume was set by the kidnapper. We were led to the site by a note addressed to Detective McDermott.”

Though the twenty or so cops on the task force already knew the details, a rumbling murmur ran through the room. A slick-haired veteran named Piedmont, who always found reasons to avoid greeting Alissa in the hallway, glanced over at her with less than the usual dose of venom in his glare. “He’s playing with us.”

“Yeah. He’s playing with us.” Chief Parry let the silence linger a beat too long before he said, “So let’s end the game. Let’s find him.” He gestured to Alissa. “Wyatt will start us off with her report.”

She felt twenty-plus pairs of eyes on her, felt the bruises on her cheek and chin throb, and forced herself to stand tall. Always before, she’d given her report to a sea of glowers or studied disinterest. This time the room felt slightly different. A hair less hostile. Maybe even a little bit ashamed.

A bubble of irony lodged in her throat. Either Chief Parry had succeeded with his plan to partner her with McDermott, or else the best way to catch a break with her new coworkers was to nearly get herself killed on the job.

Whatever. Resolved to follow her own advice to Cassie and focus on the case rather than office politics, Alissa squared her shoulders and made her report. “Pendelton is copying a sketch for me. Elizabeth said—” she fumbled slightly as the memory of the girl’s sobs tore through her “—Lizzie was able to give me a partial description of the suspect and the place where she was held. He kept her in a small, single room made of wood. She thought it was one of those prefab sheds, the kind you can get at a garden store.”

She could almost feel a collective indrawn breath at the new information. Chief Parry pointed to a pair of homicide detectives. “Piedmont. You and Mendoza follow up on that. Get me lists of the local distributors and their customers, especially multiple orders. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

It would be a huge list. But it would be a start.

Alissa glanced at her notes and continued, “Lizzie was given unwrapped energy bars and two-liter bottles of diet soda every few days.” Which could mean that that her captor wasn’t on the premises 24/7. “She heard wind and birds, creaking trees. No motor noises or other human beings, though she says that he drugged her at least once. Most important, she could hear the other girls. As of yesterday morning, they were both alive.”

A ripple of energy ran through the room at the news. New purpose. Strengthened determination. They had to find those girls.

“As for Lizzie’s captor,” Alissa spread her hands, “I did my best, but she was understandably distraught.” And putting the girl through the description had made her feel faintly slimy, as though some of the evil had rubbed off on them both. There was motion at the back of the room as the door opened and the desk clerk passed a stack of pages to McDermott. Alissa gestured, “As you’ll see from the sketches Tuck—Detective McDermott—is passing around, our suspect is a white male, under six feet tall, with a round head, either bald or wearing a skull cap. Lizzie said he didn’t talk much, and when he did, exclusively to threaten her, he pitched his voice in a low growl.”

She saw the other officers frowning over her sketch and felt a slide of professional embarrassment. “I’m sorry it’s not more detailed. I’ll talk with her again tomorrow, and I’ll reinterview her friends, the ones who might have seen the guy outside the MovieMogul 10.”

But instead of the eye rolls and sneers she half expected, she got nods and eye contact. Tracy Mendoza, Piedmont’s partner and another of the less-than-welcoming cops, said, “It’s more than we had earlier. Thanks.”

It wasn’t until the rumble of agreement rolled over the room that Alissa realized how uncomfortable she’d been since starting work at the BCCPD.

And how much the faintest hint of acceptance meant to her.

She retook her seat on numb legs as Chief Parry called on Cassie to discuss the skeleton and the explosive device, both excavated from the ice tunnel.