Fear for Me (22 page)

Crystal clear.

“Maybe I was lying.” Her voice was soft. Not slurred, or he’d have gotten the doc on the phone.

Lying? That whispered confession drove right through him. Anthony eased into the bed beside her. He slid his arm under her head and pulled her against him. She still fit him so perfectly. Better than anyone else ever had.

Because no one else seemed made for him. “I lie sometimes, too,” he confessed.

“Tell me your lies.”

She was awake, talking, in his arms. He’d tell her anything. “Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

He felt her start of surprise.

“Then why go?” Lauren asked.

A hard question. He’d been scared. He’d needed her too much. He’d worried she needed what he couldn’t give her.
Instead of saying all that, he figured he should go back. Start at the beginning. His nightmare. “You never asked me about my family.”

Her head pressed down onto his shoulder. “Not a lot of time for family talk during all the sex fests.”

They’d been some pretty awesome sex fests. As soon as she was better, he’d be on her again.

His cock was swollen and hard right then with need for her, but he was holding back. He’d be what she needed tonight.

“When my parents were happy, when they were getting along, you could almost see the love between them. It was so strong.” During those times, things had been good. Close to perfect. “But when they weren’t happy…” Those times when his dad’s anger had burst free… “I didn’t think anything could be closer to hell.”

He’d been wrong about that, though. When Lauren had vanished, he’d been given a fast trip to hell.

“My dad would get jealous. If my mom talked to another guy, if she was even five minutes late arriving home, he’d swear she was cheating on him.”

Lauren was silent in his arms.

“She was his obsession.” That was what it had been. He realized it now. It wasn’t love. It was an obsession.

“This story doesn’t end well, does it?” she whispered.

Stories like his never did. “I don’t know if she’d been cheating on him all along—if his worries were real—or if the jealousy actually drove her to another man.” He’d been thirteen at the time, and too grief stricken to focus on the whys. “But when my father found out she was going to leave him, he snapped.”

Lauren was silent. Her breath came in fast puffs that hit lightly over his skin.

“He wasn’t going to let her go. If he couldn’t have her, no one else would.”

He’d walked home from school and found a bloodbath. His mother, dead. A shotgun blast to the chest. After he’d killed her, his father had put the shotgun under his own chin and pulled the trigger.

“I’m so sorry, Anthony.”

He wasn’t telling the story for pity.

“My mom loved me,” he said with painful pride. His father might have been a twisted SOB, but his mother had always cared about him. Always. “When the police searched her car, they found bags packed. One for her. One for me.” She’d planned to get them both away.

Only the police believed that his father had come home and found her packing.

“He couldn’t let her go, and in the end, he wound up being the most dangerous thing in her life.” It hadn’t started that way, though. He’d seen the wedding pictures. Seen the happy smiles. He
did
remember them being happy. There had been fun birthday parties, family dinners at Christmas.

But obsessions could twist over time. Become so very deadly.

“I’m sorry you found them.” Her voice was low. Hesitant. “No child should ever see that.”

There were plenty of things children should never see. “You asked me why I left you.” He realized his fingers were making light circles on her palm. He couldn’t stop. With her, that had always been his problem.
Can’t stop. Need too much.
“I wanted you, so damn badly, all the time.”

Her palm was soft and still beneath his fingers.

“I wanted you to myself. I wanted you away from any other man out there.” To be truthful, he still did. But his control was
better now than five years ago. “You were becoming my obsession, and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—stay here and turn out like him.”

She straightened quickly, nearly clipping him in the chin with her head. She turned to stare at him. “That’s crazy! You aren’t your father!”

“I want you with the same consuming need that he felt for her. The way I feel about you—it’s not easy and light. It’s dark and dangerous.” Consuming.

“Just because you want someone badly,” she said, her voice husky, “doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

“If I’d had my way, I would have been in you every minute of the day.”

Her eyes widened.

“My emotions with you are too strong. Call bullshit if you want”—though it wasn’t—“but I wouldn’t risk you.”

“So you left me.”

He’d left, but had been helplessly drawn back. “It was supposed to just be sex between us, right? You didn’t sign on for an obsession. We were fire behind closed doors, ice in public. I was starting to rage out of control, and you were trying to keep a wall between us.”

Lauren flinched. “I was trying the case. I never meant to be…ice.”

“Shit, baby, I didn’t—”

“I know I have…trouble, okay? I can’t connect easily with other people. Even the ones who matter.” Her lashes lowered to shield her gaze. “I don’t let people in and I don’t share my feelings or my past. I don’t know how to change that.”

One thing bothered him…
I don’t share my feelings or my past.
Paul sure seemed to know plenty about her past.

There’s the jealousy again. Dark, insidious, creeping.

“I think I stopped letting people get close after Jenny vanished,” she whispered. “My parents fell apart. They hurt so much.
I
hurt. The pain was an ache in my chest. Constant ache. A part of me was just…gone.”

“Tell me what happened to her.” The time for secrets was gone. They were both baring their pasts in the dark, and he knew that after this, things would never be the same between them.

The emotions charging the air were too raw and powerful.

“She was sixteen when she vanished. Just sixteen.” She blinked quickly, trying to get rid of the tears blooming in her eyes. “She’d gotten her driver’s license the week before, and she was so proud to be driving to school.” A ghost of a smile lifted her lips. “She failed the driver’s test two times, but the third try was the charm. At least, that’s what Mom said. ‘Third time’s the charm.’”

The memory was a good one. Her eyes started to sparkle.

Then the sparkle faded as the tears came back.

“She was going to pick me up from school and take me to piano practice. At first, I thought she was just running late, that maybe she’d stopped to talk to her friends or something. I was so—so mad.” Her voice was hushed. Shamed. “I was standing in the parking lot, the buses were all gone, and all I could think was that I was going to tell Mom. I was furious, shaking. She wasn’t
there
.”

“You didn’t know.” Guilt was in her voice. On her face. Any child would have gotten angry in that situation.

“I didn’t even know I should be worried until Dad came to get me. His face was white. The piano teacher had called him and told him I never showed up.” She shook her head. “He was afraid something had happened to me and Jenny.”

Her gaze held his.

So much pain. Walker had brought all of the pain back.

“Only nothing had happened to me. Just Jenny.” Her sister’s name broke. “They searched everywhere for her, and found her VW at the edge of the swamp, but there was no sign of Jenny. Another car’s tracks were there, and some of the cops thought she’d met a boy. Run off with him.

“The cops told us we’d probably hear from her in a few days. They didn’t even
search
the swamp. Just said she was off with a boy. Told my parents they should have kept a better watch on her.”

Shit. Like her parents had needed to hear that crap.

“Only Jenny never contacted us. The years rolled past. There was no phone call. No letters. Nothing. Jenny just vanished.”

She hadn’t vanished.

She’d been killed. Buried. Hidden.

Jenny Chandler was out there somewhere, and before this nightmare was over, he’d make the Butcher tell him everything he knew about Lauren’s sister.

He walked through the swamp. Searchers were all around him. Deputies, folks from Fish and Wildlife, even detectives from the Baton Rouge Police Department.

No one gave him a second glance. He wasn’t the prey they were seeking. They were all too busy, all too focused on Walker.

But Walker wasn’t there. He’d made sure the guy was safely away. He couldn’t risk Walker getting captured and turning on him.

The little bastard had threatened to reveal what he knew. He’d sent a note from prison—sent a fucking note—and the warning had been obvious.

The man had wanted freedom. So he’d given it to him.

But freedom would come with a price.

He stopped by a twisting willow tree. Its long, slender branches brushed the ground.

A smile lifted his lips as he stared at that tree. Coming to this place, it always made him feel better, stronger.

The branches swayed gently. The movement so faint.

His shoulders straightened. His gaze darted to the ground. The lush grass grew easily here.

The grass grew, the willow bloomed—it wept.

His smile slowly faded.

“Hey! We need a search party on the northern banks!”

He gave a quick nod. It was an agent who’d just shouted the order. The guy already had sweat streaking across his forehead, and the man—with his disheveled hair and frustrated eyes—seemed far out of his element in the swamp.

Most people didn’t understand the swamp.

He did. Walker did. The swamp had brought them together. The swamp and their love of death.

He turned and strode away from Jenny. He’d come back to see her again soon. He always came back for her. In the meantime, he had a kill to plan.

He tempered his excitement as he joined the search party.

Cadence’s steps were slow as she headed for the holding cell. Steve Lynch had been kept away from the general population. The guard in front of her unlocked a door and led her down a narrow hallway.

“He’s been quiet since he came in,” the cop said as he darted a quick glance over his shoulder at her. “Not the way they
usually are, ma’am. Most come in screaming and don’t stop for hours.”

They were almost to the holding cell and she didn’t hear any sounds. No shuffle of nervous footsteps. No rustles.

Lynch should be worried about his ex-wife. He should be pacing. He should be demanding answers.

That silence was unnatural.

They rounded the corner. She saw the cell. Saw Lynch.

She froze.

The bedding was twisted around his neck, and his body hung as his feet dangled six inches above the floor. He’d locked the other end of the bedsheet around the bars in the high window. What looked like a bench was overturned on the floor near him.

“Fuck!” The cop fumbled with his keys.

There was no need to hurry. Not now. Steve Lynch was gone.

She stared at the body, pity pushing through her.
You knew we weren’t going to find Helen alive.

He might have hoped, but as the hours slid past, he’d realized the truth. Or maybe he’d realized it when Walker attacked the cop and took the DA.

No, Helen hadn’t been found alive, and now they hadn’t found Lynch alive, either.

Another life gone, snuffed out in the Bayou Butcher’s wake.

Guilty.
Lynch had been the one to stand up and read that verdict in court. The verdict that Lauren had pushed for, day in and day out.

She pulled out her phone and called Ross. He’d need to know. So would Lauren.

He answered on the second ring. Cadence tried to keep her voice emotionless as she said, “Lynch won’t be able to tell us anything.”

More cops were rushing in, hurrying through the narrow hallway.

“Why the hell not?” Ross demanded.

“He hung himself.” A silent death. One that had probably taken no more than five minutes.

Dammit. She spun away from the body and tried to suck in a deep breath, but a knot had formed in her throat. She’d joined the FBI to stop crimes, not to keep finding bodies.