A Brutal Tenderness (2 page)

I let the binoculars drop against my thigh as the memories
of that horrific day slide away. I see Jewell cross the sodden
grass of the cemetery, her skirt flying behind her as she jogs
gracefully on dancer’s legs, and for just a moment, I remember
the hours of surveillance video of her I’ve forced myself to
watch.

Luke clears his throat, and I give him another look. “Let’s
go,” I say in a short voice. My eyes go back to the casket, the
mourners gone now, escaping the reminder of their mortality.

My eyes swing back to the limo. It’s no longer there. Jewell
has fled.
I will find her wherever she goes. Jewell will be missing for
her family but will be hiding in plain sight for us feds.
We turn to leave, and Luke holds me back as I see Thaddeus
approach and greet the press, my dead cousin’s broken and
violated body just paces away in an uncaring grave.
I’ve never believed it’s possible to feel hate that acutely. I can
taste his death on my tongue.
My arm bites with a band of pins and needles from Luke’s
fingers clamping onto my biceps, pulling me in the other
direction.
I’m the wrong agent for this job. I know this. My personal
stake is high: Faith is more to me than just another statistic,
another case file.
But I’m also the perfect choice, a study of the classic
oxymoron. It’s my relative who has been murdered. That should
get me a pass. But that very fact makes me the classic dog with
a bone. The Bureau needs me, and justice will be served on my
terms.
I will stop at nothing until Faith is vindicated.

It’s my scene and has been mine from the beginning, though
the higher-ups have fought tooth and nail against it. I’m too
close and all that shit, they said. But in the end, they can’t deny
that it’s my baby. I’ve let us suck at the proverbial teat, fed
it, swaddled its shitty ass, and now the go’s in place to make
contact with the object of our protection.

Jewell MacLeod.
Jewell’s cleverer than anyone has given her credit for. Aside
from changing her identity twice—causing us briefly to lose
the bead on her—she’s altered her hair color and eye color and
kept a low profile. Smart. However, it always comes down to
time. People are creatures of habit, and those who are talented
are compelled to do that which they’ve been blessed with. As
is the case with Jewell, now Jess Mackey. Jewell has inserted
herself into a new environment, blending in like every other
twenty-year-old University of Washington sophomore.
She gave herself away with what to anyone else would
seem an inconsequential act: a ballet audition. But that’s what
cinched it. Now we know she’s our bird—the bait we need to
capture a psychopath.
Jewell may have proved a useless witness, unable to give us
anything we could use to pin Faith’s death on Thaddeus given
her cowardly decision to hide away in a closet while Faith lay
dying, but at least she’ll make a decent pawn. DNA evidence
had already proved inconclusive, and a convenient knot on
Thaddeus’s head, combined with a weak story about a loss of
consciousness—and mountains of Daddy’s money—saved him
from immediate scrutiny.
But I know better.
Jewell heard from the closet what was happening to Faith
and did nothing. And ultimately she hadn’t seen who was
responsible.
A few weeks before, Faith had confided to me what Jewell
had told her—that Thad has all the markers of a psychopath:
time in psych wards, torture of animals, a deep loathing of his
parents, and a decidedly unstable family life. Senator MacLeod,
domineering and displaying episodes of antisocial behavior, is
clearly not running on all cylinders himself. He’s also brilliant
at hiding his true nature.
And now Thad is missing. All our careful data collection
and obsessive observation of the family as they cocooned
themselves from scrutiny and distance from Faith’s murder is
hanging in precarious balance. Thad needs to come to justice.
For the victims. For Faith.
Our research and his combined history suggest he’s hunting
again. It doesn’t matter to me that the crime scenes here reveal
no physical evidence that Thad is the murderer. My gut never
lies. I know it’s him.
The bodies piling up in the region where Jewell MacLeod
now lives is a giveaway: Her brother is coming to visit. And
I plan to be here when he does. Son of a hopeful presidential
candidate or not, he’s going down for Faith’s murder. As for and
that stepsister of his . . . her stay of liberty is coming to an end.
Jewell won’t be able to escape from her part in all of this that
easily.
All this runs through my head in a familiar beat of
torture I put myself through almost daily as I’ve seen Jewell
now transformed into Jess. Her shy act and modest, gentle
demeanor seem to be fooling all who meet her. I can’t believe
they don’t see the entitled debutante she was, and still is, with
her professional ballet lessons, private school education, and
deeply ingrained snobbery lurking just below the surface. I
know enough from proximity to Faith to have learned about
the comings and goings of that family. Faith’s gregarious nature
had been unintentionally forthcoming. She painted a picture
of the MacLeod family in unflattering detail. FBI intel fills in
whatever holes remain.
But all that distant surveillance is coming to an end now.
I watch her as she heads into the auditorium of the
University of Washington. Obviously succumbing to the need
to stroke her own ego, she lets a guy cop a feel while he pins a
number on her thin T-shirt once she is inside. Her braids, now
gold, are secured on her head like a woven crown, the band of
her yoga pants a riot of color at her hips.
I lean back against the wall, allowing myself for the first
time to be seen by her if she chances a glance in my direction.
My eyes bore holes into her back.
Turn around
, I command
inside my head.
She doesn’t. Her wide blue eyes, which disguise a shade of
brilliant green, scan the auditorium. Her full lips are slightly
parted  .  .  . in what? Surprise? No. The little brat is up to
something. Why else would she decide to do this audition after
disguising herself so carefully?
Fucking stupid.
I cross my arms, and a two point five nods my way, his
campus security badge winking under the huge hanging
fluorescent lights that wash everything an icy blue. They buzz
slightly above my head, and I sweep my hand in an agitated
scrub over my buzzed hair. It’s been itching like fucking crazy
since I got it shaved. But I have to admit that in my new role,
I’m allowed to look like me again, and it’s a relief not to cover
my tats anymore with that pancake crap. I feel like I’m starting
to find my way back to myself. My former persona is no longer
necessary, as first contact is right around the corner. I’m no
longer blending in but playing the ghost of myself.
I work out seven days a week now. It’s as necessary as
breathing—an outlet for my aggression, which keeps me from
going rogue and chasing after Thad on my own. Not that I’ve
given up preparing for one day coming face-to-face with the
bastard. I’ve taken my hand-to-hand combat to a new level,
my sparring partners in the FBI down to the insane, stupid, or
both.
My muscles are tense as I suffer through watching two
lackluster dancers before Jewell takes the stage.
They’re shit
, I
think with an internal sneer.
She’ll be shit too. Why Faith loved her is beyond me. Just
sheer loyalty, I figure.
I crack my knuckles, shift my weight, scuff a worn black
combat boot against the highly polished gym floor.
When the music fills the auditorium, I know it’s for Jewell.
I can see the change come over her face as she hears the first
notes of
Moonlight Sonata.
It transforms her, and for the first
time since I’ve been watching her, Jess Mackey’s careful cover
slips, and Jewell bursts her skin.
I stand up straighter, the crowd in the packed auditorium
becoming still, silent, and watchful. I could hear a pin drop,
with just the minor notes of the classic Beethoven piece filling
the space as it echoes and comes back to her. It feeds her
energy and mastery over the music, over her body. I watch like
everyone else, mesmerized, my heart speeding, her talent a raw
and wild thing, captured by the music.
Her hair winks like linked gold as her leg snaps parallel to
her face. Jewell drives it against herself as she spins across the
stage, her moves at once as fierce as they are graceful. For that
moment, she robs me of my seething anger, my need to avenge
Faith. All I see is Jewell as she comes nearer, like a mirage I
can’t shake. The urge to close my eyes takes hold and I force
them to stay open, to watch Jewell dance.
Her arms flutter by her sides as she floats across the stage.
The judges’ are eyes glued to a dancer whose steps are whisper
soft as the final notes of the music swell into a crescendo and
then halt abruptly.
There’s a beat of silence, and then the notes swell once again
as Jewell holds her leg beside her face, her toe pointed at the
ceiling.
She spins once more, landing in spiral of whirling color. Her
hands fall to cup slightly at her sides as her face stays turned
and away, the long column of her neck like a swan’s.
For a moment after the music has died, there is no sound,
like a vacuum has stolen the breath from everyone, the very
air. Then like a bubble that pops, people stand, clapping and
cheering.
Jewell scans the crowd. Unnervingly, she looks straight at
me and I feel a jolt. I remember why I’m here and return her
dead-on stare, holding her gaze captive for a moment.
Her face is an open book, and I’m pleased to see she takes
a half step backward, as if slapped by the intensity of my stare.
The reaction I’d hoped for. She won’t forget me now.
Just then her, fellow sophomore Carlie Stanton crashes into
her with a congratulatory squeal, blocking me from her line of
sight.
Jewell never sees me leave.
We’ll meet again now that the introductions are out of the
way.

Thad enjoys the hunt almost as much as he delights in the
kill. In this case, he certainly relishes choosing handy clones
of his stepsister; it helps him bide his time until he can satiate
his reckoning against her. After all, practice makes perfect. A
chilling smile sweeps across his
GQ
features, then vanishes like
a cloud covering the sun. The manifestation of real emotion is
as fleeting as the authenticity of its appearance.

Thad GI crawls, his elbows propelling him forward on the
needle-covered ground. Branches claw at his camouflage jacket
as he adjusts his night-vision binoculars, peering out from the
greenbelt whose forest neatly hides him They are light, foldable,
and so accurate they can spot a tick on a deer at a hundred
yards. But Thad is not in need of quite that level of observation
this night. Instead, he watches his subject giggle and twitter as
she executes the slut walk of shame.

Amanda Miller. Exquisite. He’s seen her in daylight: ginger
hair a sweep of silk between shoulder blades that flank the
ponytail she usually favors. It’s her eyes that finally convince
Thad she is enough like Jewell to dispose of.

It is Jewell who is responsible for his frosty upbringing. It
is she who makes his existence less than it is destined to be.
When she ends, Thad will begin.

He tightens the magnification on the lens and bears down
on his conquest. He watches her walk to the girls’ dorm and
listens to the
rat-tat-tat
of her fuck-me pumps echoing on the
cement.

Thad has the same image he’s always had. He sees the
many girls who’ve died so his timing can be perfect now,
as it needs to be. Closing his eyes, he imagines standing in
an octagon-shaped room with nothing but mirrors, Jewell
standing in the middle. When he opens them, there’s an
infinity of Jewells.

“You look like a razor blade went crazy on your skull, Steel,”
Luke tells me, taking a bite of his apple. The sound cracks
across the lunchroom of our temp FBI headquarters in nearby
Normandy Park, Seattle only a scant fifteen minutes away.

I roll my eyes, dumping my legs out in front of me. I’ve
been beating the shit out of my body lately, running, lifting,
and riding the hog in a blur like a mechanical routine that’s
supposed to relieve stress. Instead, it just seems to reinforce my
loneliness, my alienation from everyone, everything—except
my anger. Not that I bother with introspective bullshit.

“Yeah,” I reply, stifling a yawn.
“So you made initial contact?” Luke asks.
I nod. Hell, yeah, I did, remembering Jewell’s face. It haunts

me by day and hunts me by night. That innocent shock at my
hostility in the moment in the auditorium is etched in my
memory.

He smirks. “Y’know, I think you’re getting the dumb jock
shit down.”
I nod, smoothly changing the subject, and Luke scowls.
Adams’s undercover persona sometimes slips when he’s not
playing student at the U Dub.
“Did you make first contact?” I ask with a knowing smile.
“Yeah, fucking Brad . . . the ass clown.” He sighs.
As if on cue, Agent Decatur Clearwater breezes in. He’s
playing the role of Brad, the guitar-playing, motorcycling
leather fan club member and fellow student in Jewell’s biology
class.
“I heard that,” he says as he gives Luke the middle-finger
salute and rustles around in the community fridge, whipping
out a Chinese take-out box. He sniffs it and says, “I guess it
won’t kill me.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Luke says dryly as he folds his arms across
his chest.
“Nice today, Dec,” Luke adds. “You’re putting it on, not too
thick, not too thin. Nice job on the cover.”
“Yeah, I’ve got to make it seem authentic.”
“You two done swapping spit and taking long showers?” I
ask after their self-congratulatory fest winds down.
“Who pissed in your Wheaties?” Dec leans back in his chair
as he shovels noodles into his mouth with near-expert use of
his chopsticks.
He’s traveled extensively across the globe and speaks fluent
Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese. This current assignment
is a real departure for him. Gangland is usually his turf; at
least, his one assignment before this had required a completely
different persona.
I sigh, scrubbing a hand over my head for the second time,
frustration gaining a head of steam.
“He made contact with the lovely Jewell today, Dec,” Luke
relays significantly.
The chair legs drop down with a loud
thunk
on the
linoleum, and Dec gives a low whistle. “That’s why your boxers
are in a twist?”
I open my mouth, then close it against the scathing rebuttal
on the tip of my tongue. “I didn’t actually make verbal contact.”
Adams stares at me. “You? Stalling? I don’t think so. What’s
going on, Steel?”
I shrug. Leaning forward, I let my hands dangle between
thighs barely contained inside the denim, my workouts pushing
the limits of my clothes fitting. “I don’t know, she was at this
dance audition thing.”
“Shit, that’ll get our bird noticed,” Dec says around a
mouthful of soggy noodles. Actually it did.
I nod. It’s what we want: to flush that turd of a brother out
of the toilet he’s been floating in.
“Well,” Luke says, standing, “I’ve established myself as
Brock the asshole jock.” He spins and takes a shallow bow.
“I think the asshole part has already been established,” I say
with a small smile, and Luke gives his second middle finger of
the day. I know it won’t be his last. Seems to be a helluva lot of
that going around.
“And I have established my superiority over your mouthbreathing status.” Dec smirks.
“I hate playing the idiot,” Luke mutters.
“Is it really a stretch?” Dec asks, and Luke takes a swing at
him, noodles scattering like limp worms over the floor.
“Hey!” Dec says. “I’m the one doing biology for the fifth
time. I hate the goddamned college assignments. If I have
to”—he ducks out of Adams’s hold—“do one more Fucking.
Punnett. Square . . . I swear I’ll go batshit!”
As Dec and Luke scrabble on the floor, I walk over to them
and grab a handful of shirt just as Marshal O’Rourke walks in
the door.
Comic relief.
Not so much
, I think, seeing our superior’s face as he takes in
our bullshit shenanigans.
“Cut the bullshit.” I bite the inside of my mouth to stifle the
guffaw. I know it won’t go over well. His next words suck the
oxygen out of the room, along with my captured laugh: “There’s
another missing girl.”
That gets our attention and our asses off the floor.
“Who?” I ask.
“Another college girl. Amanda.”
I feel my gut knot. Unbidden, Jewell’s face floats to the top
of my brain, and I beat at it until her image breaks apart like
spun glass.
Dec’s face falls, his eyes bulging in their sockets and
interrupts, “Miller?”
O’Rourke nods.
“What?” Luke asks.
“Our boy’s active again,” I intuit immediately.
That girl was
in Jewell’s class
, my mind whispers. Like I need the reminder.
I have a running tally of the enormous student body of
the University of Washington and a more intimate catalog of
everyone in every class that Jewell attends and has attended,
every acquaintance old and new. Amanda Miller is on my radar.
Was on my radar.
O’Rourke’s chest heaves, twin spots of bright color flaring
on his face. “So while you guys are in her playing grab ass, our
suspect is plucking fruit from the campus like his own personal
orchard.”
His inflamed face turns to me. “Steel.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Amp up this shit. Make contact; flush this fuck out of the
sewer system. Get him out in the open where he belongs.” His
eyes search mine, seeing something he doesn’t like, and adds,
“Are we clear? Because I’m itching to hand this whole fucking
mess over to some other agent who’s not compromised by his
connection to one of the vics. I let you take the lead on this
because you promised me you were the guy for the job. Don’t
fumble this.”
My stomach knots some more, squeezing the speed lunch
I’d consumed back up the old food pipe. I can’t lose this
assignment when I’m this fucking close.
“Clear?” he repeats, though I know he’s not really asking.
“Crystal, sir.”
“Good.” He looks from Dec to Luke. “And you two, act like
fuckups at the university where it’s authentic. Off the clock, act
like Bureau.” His gaze shifts back to me. “Don’t go too deep
on this, Steel. Make contact with Jess Mackey and put that
fucking stepbrother on notice.” He runs a hand through his
hair. “God help us if we’re wrong on this.”
We won’t be wrong, can’t be wrong. If our profiler is right,
Thad will move in to take a chance at Jewell, and we’ll be
there to nail the shit bag when he does. A serial killer sees any
intimacy as a threat to his plan. His dominance. I’m betting
Thad is the dominant type.
O’Rourke turns to go, then spins around, his eyes drilling
Adams and Clearwater. “And, boys?”
We wait.
“Don’t get too cozy undercover. Don’t become what you’re
playacting. Pretending isn’t real.”