For Love or Vengeance (2 page)

Chapter Two

ADIC Jesus Hernandez leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, mentally reviewing the report on a new and particularly brutal serial killer who had so far claimed the lives of four young New Yorkers.

The local newspapers had already dubbed him the “Butcher of Broadway,” since all four of his victims had been aspiring actors, singers, and dancers. Beyond that very obvious connection between the victims, his agents had not been able to find a link to the killer.

The material in the file contained detailed information on the methods of the unsub, including the possibility that he had taken parts of the victims as trophies. Despite the data, he sensed there was something very wrong with the analysis.

Something that might be the key to finding the killer.

Surging forward in his chair, Jesus planted his feet on the floor and quickly reviewed the details of the murders, wanting to be ready when he met the agents to whom he was reassigning the case.

As he had concluded, the profile of the unsub was lacking somehow, and he was more convinced than ever that what was wrong was the FBI’s conclusion about the method by which the serial killer chose his victims. The theory that he hunted them down on the Internet just didn’t hold water for a couple of the victims, and serial killers didn’t usually change their M.O. so quickly.

Making that connection was the missing key to finding the killer.

Closing the file, he again lamented that his two best agents weren’t available. If Harris and Reyes were on the case, they’d have been able to find the key to unlock the true
modus operandi
of the sociopath. Harris was due back from medical leave at any moment, and Jesus had thought more than once in the last few weeks about lifting Diana Reyes’s disciplinary suspension so she could assist with the investigation. But that would be unwise, so he had to accept the fact that Harris and Reyes couldn’t help right now.

He was also convinced the agents currently investigating the case had reached a big, fat, dead end. Tossing the file aside, he reexamined the personnel records of the agents who were waiting outside his office for their new assignments.

Helene Alexander had been with the Philadelphia bureau for nearly six years and Miguel Sanchez had even greater seniority—three years in Miami before being reassigned to the Atlanta office, where he had served for the last five years.

Scrutinizing Alexander’s file, it confirmed to Jesus that she successfully completed whatever assignment she was given. She had a perfect record, and her cases closed either in court…or at the end of her gun. It was the latter that had possibly resulted in her transfer request, and caused him some concern.

Alexander’s partner had asked to be reassigned, and she had gone through every other agent in the Philadelphia office as her partner. Her last case there had resulted in a serious injury to a bystander, but had likely saved the civilian’s life.

Jesus absorbed the notes in her personnel file just to refresh his memory for their upcoming meeting.

Determined
. Another word for “stubborn.”

Coldly professional
.
He puzzled over that notation as he had when he’d first seen it, but kept to his original decision that it no doubt meant she was either standoffish or ambitious.

Highly intelligent and perceptive
.

He smiled at the final traits. They were just what he needed on this case—someone who would see what others had missed.

Putting her file on top of his notes for the case, he picked up the remaining folder.

Miguel Sanchez
.

Much as he had done weeks before, Jesus reassessed the information in Sanchez’s file, including the fact that during his last assignment, an innocent woman had been killed. Sanchez’s psychological profile revealed that he had undergone extensive counseling to help him deal with the guilt of that event. Sanchez was much like David Harris had been before an injury had changed his life and personality.

Calm. Dependable. Thoughtful
. All-around nice guy, from what Jesus could tell from the file.

He shook his head at the vagaries of fate. Harris and Reyes were gone for now, but he had Alexander and Sanchez, whose traits seemed to mirror those of his best agents. Certain that he had made the right decision by accepting their transfers to the New York field office, he dialed his assistant and asked her to send them in. Putting these two agents together was sure to shake things up.

Helene stood shoulder-to-shoulder before the ADIC’s desk with the emotionally complex and infinitely intriguing Special Agent Sanchez until the ADIC held his hand out and invited them to sit. Out of the corner of her eye she checked out Sanchez, just as she imagined he was checking her out.

She hadn’t been wrong with her earlier impression that he was handsome. His hair was a caramel brown, cut short on the sides but longer up top and fashionably gelled into place. She put him at about thirty-four years of age, just a few years older than the mortal age she had assumed.

Sanchez sat in a ramrod straight position in the wood and cloth chair, elbows resting on its arms, his fingers loosely laced together as he waited for ADIC Hernandez to speak. He had nice hands—masculine and strong—but she pulled herself away from looking at them. Unlike in their earlier meeting in the break room, now he seemed determined to hide his emotions behind a face carved from the hardest stone. She felt a brief urge to touch him, in order to learn more about him. Her touch was capable of revealing many things, even providing glimpses of things past and present, a skill that came in handy with the recently dead. Or stonefaced men.

She stifled the urge. She didn’t care about his past. She was more interested in his present.

“I want to welcome you both to New York. I trust you’ve introduced yourselves already.”

Sanchez shot her a quick look and nodded. “Special Agent Alexander and I met in the break room.”

“Yes. I’m looking forward to working with you and Special Agent Sanchez.”

She crossed her legs and adopted a casual pose. She needed to make and keep friends because it was essential to completing her divine mission. She had failed to do so in Philadelphia, but even a millennia-old goddess was capable of learning a new trick. ADIC Hernandez continued. “You’ll have more time later to get acquainted. Right now, I want to give you a brief rundown on the assignment you’ll work together—the serial killer the media has named the ‘Butcher of Broadway.’ ”

Work together?
She shot a glance at Sanchez. She managed to catch a glimmer of his surprise before he hid it, but she was unable to keep her own concern under control. She popped up in her chair and said, “Excuse me, sir. But why isn’t
one
of us investigating the case with the current agents?”

“Questioning my judgment already, Alexander?” the ADIC replied, ice dripping from each word.

Unexpected support came from her partner-to-be. “Special Agent Alexander has a point, sir. The current agents—”

“Are totally cold on this case, which is, by the way, the highest-profile matter in our office at the moment. The press is having a field day with our failure to find the killer,” Hernandez said, and for emphasis, tossed before them a copy of a local newspaper.

Butcher Bests Bumbling Feds
was the headline splattered in blood red type across the top of the daily, along with a color photo of a number of NYPD and FBI personnel standing by, looking like asses, while someone from the coroner’s office wheeled away a body bag on a gurney.

Helene was familiar with the case. Had even been hoping to be assigned to it. And now—

She looked over at her new partner who raised his gaze from the paper and met hers, clearly apprehensive for a moment before his professional persona snapped back into place.

“Will we be coordinating with NYPD?” he asked.

ADIC Hernandez nodded. “The lead for NYPD is Detective Peter Daly. Daly has worked a couple of cases with this office. He’s a good man. Count on him to watch your backs.”

His faith in the detective was interesting. As was his decision to have Sanchez and her basically start fresh on the case. Using a bit of her second sight, Helene reached out to her new ADIC, careful to not let him sense her intrusion into his psyche while probing for his true feelings about what was happening.

She immediately got his concern that the FBI had to do more, along with a fear that the killer might strike again before they could stop him. Intertwined with those two emotions was doubt.

Major serious doubt.

About her and Sanchez?
She decided to find out.

“You can count on Special Agent Sanchez and me to get the job done, sir.”

Hernandez narrowed his eyes at her, then examined her new partner. “I
am
counting on you, but since you’re both fresh on this case, I’ll be the agent in charge for the moment.”

Doubts confirmed
. She tried not to be insulted.

Make nice,
she reminded herself, but wondered what her new partner was thinking, and risked another peek at Sanchez. A dull color stained his cheeks. She was sitting close enough to feel the push of his aura, now red with anger and concern.

He was as conflicted as she was about the current situation.

Before either of them could voice their concerns, the ADIC continued. “Full copies of the case’s jacket are waiting for you on your desks. We’ll reconvene at five tonight to discuss your first impressions.”

He rose and offered his hand, shook hers, then did the same with Sanchez.

“Welcome to NYFO,” he added, then sat and immediately began shuffling through the papers on his desk. They had clearly been dismissed.

“Glad to be here, sir,” they replied, almost in unison, before filing out of his office and walking back out to where their desks where located close to each other, she now realized.

Both desks had the same large pile of papers sitting in the middle of a uniform black blotter.

“Welcome to NYFO,” she mimicked as she glanced at the enormous stack that she assumed was the case file.

Sanchez shook his head. “I didn’t expect it to start off quite like this. Did you?”

Helene shrugged and reconsidered him since he was now her partner. That meant she not only had to deal with tamping down that initial burst of physical attraction for him, but also with all those complicated emotions she had sensed in him. Emotions that she worried could compromise their assignment—as well as her divine mission to bring about justice. She decided to put a little distance between them until she could get a better read on him.

“Didn’t know what to expect and, frankly, don’t care who’s the top dog. All I want is to find the killer.” With another shrug, she sat down and dug into the first few pages of the voluminous file, leaving Sanchez staring at her.

Dismissed again
, Miguel thought, slightly pissed at Alexander’s knife-sharp withdrawal. He turned away and walked to his desk, contemplating his new partner as she perused the file. There was a hardness stamped on her features that he hadn’t seen before. She was clearly unhappy being paired with him.

Fuck it. He felt the same way. His initial reaction to her had been too strong and inexplicable. He would have to curb it if they were going to be able to function effectively as a team.

When she eased off her suit jacket and got comfortable, it occurred to him once more that she had the kind of body that any man would want. With her height, she had amazingly long legs that led to curvy hips and a perfect bottom. And because nature knew the beauty of balance, her upper body had the same fine lines and curves.

Totally irresistible to any man.

Well, any man besides him, since he was now her partner and her last words had definitely drawn a line in the sand about getting too friendly. Probably a good thing. His counselor had told him he needed to stay focused on his job and dive into an interesting case to help him get back to normal.

As Miguel eased into his chair and pulled the file toward him, a photo of one of the victims slipped from the pile and caught his eye.

“Interesting” was
not
the word he’d use to describe it.

Gruesome.

Macabre.

Definitely posed, although he couldn’t quite understand why the killer had chosen to stage the body in such an odd position. Slipping the photo back into the stack, Miguel shot one last look at Alexander.

She was focused on the papers before her, her head of wildly curling dark hair hiding his view of her face as she studied the documents. For a moment he considered how that hair might look spread across the pillow on his bed. Then he snapped himself out of it.

He had transferred to New York to get his life back on track, and the last thing he needed was a woman like Helene Alexander to derail it.

Chapter Three

Miguel tossed and turned in bed, sweat bathing his body. Over and over, his dreams replayed the tragedy that had driven him from Atlanta and the pleasant life he had built there.

The mall shooter was middle-aged, strongly built, and packing enough firepower to take down dozens of people. Besides the AK-47 that he kept sporadically firing at the assorted law enforcement officers closing in on him, the shooter had a Tec-9, a Glock, and a couple rounds of ammo in holsters strapped to his body. At his feet lay a bag filled with more ammo and a few other handguns.

The man intended to go out shooting. That much was obvious from the swath of death and destruction he had created throughout the upscale shopping mall.

Heart pounding and hands wet with sweat, Miguel suddenly realized he had managed to get closer than any of the other LEOs who were pinned down in various locations in the mall. He peered around the corner of the column providing him limited protection, trying to get a clean line of fire as the shooter squeezed off a few more rounds at a policeman down the long corridor lined with shops. The gunfire had managed to keep SWAT and the FBI people away as they attempted to get near enough to take out the shooter.

At the
pop-pop-pop
of the gunfire, a strangled scream erupted from a few feet away.

Miguel darted a look in the direction of the sound. Two young women were huddled behind a long low planter barely fifteen feet from the shooter. If he opened fire on them with the assault weapon, the rounds would turn the insubstantial planter to Swiss cheese, and surely kill the two women.

The shooter also pivoted toward the sound. He smiled with glee and sickening determination as he aimed at the women.

Miguel had no choice. He stepped from behind the column, trained his Sigma SW9F on the gunman, and shouted, “FBI. Drop your weapon!”

The gunman’s smile grew even broader as he swung the assault rifle around at Miguel and shot at him.

Miguel returned fire, the gun recoiling sharply in his hand, the stock slick from the sweat of his fear. He grabbed the gun tighter and pulled the trigger again and again. Bright red blossoms erupted on the gunman’s shirt. Heartbeats later, an intense blow pummeled Miguel’s ribs.

Pain ripped through his side, stealing his breath, driving him to his knees. But as he fell, so did the gunman, face down onto the gleaming tile floor. The AK was still grasped in his hand, now blessedly quiet.

Gunsmoke and silence filled the air, followed by the shouts of Miguel’s fellow officers and the static from their radios. He sagged forward, stopping his own fall by bracing himself with his gun hand. With his other hand he grabbed the painful spot on his side, and met the hard, hot bite of metal lodged in his Kevlar vest.

A sharp, shrill scream pulled his attention back to the women by the planter. The bystanders he had been trying to save.

The woman shrieking at the top of her lungs cradled the other young female in her arms. Blood covered the screaming woman’s hands and streamed down the face of the unresponsive woman she held. As she finally stopped howling and looked at Miguel, accusation filled her hard gaze.

Her look labeled him a killer
.

Miguel bolted upright in bed, every muscle trembling and his heart pounding. The early morning air touched his damp bare skin, chilling him.

He hadn’t had the dream in at least a month. He suspected the demands of his first day were responsible for its recurrence.

As he turned to climb out of bed since sleep would be impossible, a twinge lanced through his side, serving as a further reminder of what had happened that day.

He slowly drew in a breath, which quieted the stitch caused by the vestiges of the bullet’s impact against his vest. He’d been lucky the shooter had not been using Teflon rounds, or that the rifle hadn’t been a higher-caliber weapon. Rubbing his hand along his ribs, he slowly eased from his bed, and headed to the shower.

He might as well get ready and go in early to the office. The extra hours would let him go over the information in the file again. Give him time to drive away the remnants of the dream—along with the lingering guilt that would never be completely gone. Although the review board had found him blameless in the incident, it had been his bullet that ricocheted and hit the young woman.

He would always hold himself responsible for her death. Always ask himself how he could have avoided the senseless loss of life.
Always
question if he’d ever be able to pull the trigger again.

He wondered what the determined Special Agent Alexander would think about his guilt. About his doubts.

She was as unhappy as he was about their situation. Would she be even more reluctant if she thought she had a partner who couldn’t take the shot when needed? Whose seconds of hesitation might cost someone their life? Maybe her life?

As eager as he was to dive in and solve the serial killer case, he warned himself about the risks and the demands of learning to deal with his new partner.

His very sexy new partner
. He battled back his body’s reaction. SA Alexander was a stunning woman, and there was no doubt in his mind that she had found him attractive, too. The spark of chemistry had been there from the moment they first laid eyes on each other.

In his mind he recalled the look of her, so feminine, even in her basic and boring suit. The clothes had done nothing to hide her enticing curves and—

Down
,
boy, he thought, sucking in a ragged breath to control his unwanted erection.

Time for a shower. A really cold one at that.

In her goddess state, Helene had gone through millennia with nothing but a cat nap. But as a mortal, she had the same physical demands as any other human—to eat and sleep and have sex.

To her surprise, she had been unable to sleep well last night. Her initial evaluation of the serial killer file and discussion of the case with Sanchez and their ADIC had left her wired, eager to hit the streets and begin the investigation.

Then there had been her deliciously erotic dream…featuring none other than SA Sanchez.

It had taken quite some time to drive away the images of what his big, lean body might look like beneath his conservative suit. Or how his body would feel pressed against her, skin to skin, as he made love to her. The thought of having him slip inside her made her heartbeat race and had her growing damp in anticipation. She had been so wanting, she’d had to take care of that need by herself last evening. By then, most of the night had passed.

With sleep eluding her, she had gone to the office early to review the materials in the case file, hoping that a second pass through them might provide a fresh clue.

As she sat at her desk, mentally digesting the evidence and notes she had read for the umpteenth time, she stared out the windows of the building. Floor to ceiling, they offered amazing views of New York City. Excitement filled her at the thought of all she could accomplish in such an immense, hopping metropolis.

But for now, as darkness lay over the city and the horizon showed only the barest hint of the coming dawn, she would have to wait until her partner arrived.

Her very sexy, but unfortunately too mortal partner.

“You’re here early,” she heard from behind her, and turned to see Sanchez toss a brown paper bag on top of his desk. A smudge of grease had darkened one corner of the bag and made it slightly translucent.

“So are you,” she replied. He looked tired, although he was as fashionably dressed as he’d been the day before. Shirt pressed. Suit stylish. Hair spiked into place, and not a hint of morning beard on his handsome face.

“Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d come in and review the case.” He picked up his brightly colored coffee mug.

“Likewise,” she said, and strangely, she hoped his lack of sleep had something to do with her.

As he walked away toward the break room, she shocked herself by popping up out of her chair and following him. He shot her a questioning look as he pushed the buttons on the machine to get his coffee. She just played it cool and smiled.

When he moved away to add milk and sugar, she stepped beside him to program her own cup. He was barely a foot away, and there was no denying what she was sensing using her second sight.

His heartbeat slowly gained speed and his aura went to an intense purple, proof of his passion and conflict. She shot him a look from the corner of her eye and caught him watching her, his pupils wide and dark with desire.

He hid his reaction as he stood there, blowing on the hot fragrant liquid before taking a sip. She finished prepping her coffee and at his questioning glance, she said lightly, “Got a problem, Sanchez?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Nope. You just strike me as more of a latté type, Alexander.”

“Nearest Starbucks doesn’t open until six so I’ve got to make do,” she said, and turned, leaving him to chase after her as she headed back to her desk on incredibly thin three-inch heels.

With the awareness of his attraction strong, and her own desire awakening, she hoped he would go back to go to his own desk, but instead he perched on the edge of hers and took a sip of his coffee, then said, “Tell me about yourself.”

It was distracting to have him so close. First, because he was a big man. A
handsome
big man. And her human female form was responding to the nearness of all that masculinity and imposing stature. Second, because his aura was still remarkably strong, and filled with desire as well as the conflict she had sensed yesterday. Now, an overriding push of determination colored his aura. The warring emotions in this man continued to intrigue her.

“So?” he prompted at her delay.

“Not much to tell. Grew up in central Pennsylvania. Went to college at Penn State followed by law school at Villanova. Philly field office for six years before transferring here.”

She had repeated the history so many times it almost felt real. If anyone bothered to check it out, all the necessary records would be there, courtesy of her immortal powers.

He blew on his coffee again and considered her over the rim of the mug, his emerald gaze intense. “Not much personal info.”

“I don’t believe in TMI, but apparently you do, so let’s see what I can figure out about you.” She leaned back in her chair so she could get a really good look at him. Narrowing her gaze, she appreciated him physically, examining all the details visible to her mortal eyes. She had to quell her own desire as his intense masculinity awakened the need in her female body. A purely human physical need. The goddess in her had no interest in him. No desire to explore such a complex and yet simple man.

Motioning to his multicolored coffee mug, emblazoned with a cartoon character, she said, “ ‘World’s Best Uncle’ tells me you’ve got at least one sibling with kids, and that you must spend some quality time with them if they shelled out the bucks for the mug. Probably young children, because older ones would not think such a mug was cool.”

He looked at the whimsical drawing on his mug, smirked, and nodded.

She continued. No wedding ring. No tan line on your ring finger, so you were either divorced a long time ago or never married. I’m going with never married because you don’t strike me as the kind to give up.”

Before he could say anything else, curiosity made her reach out with her second sight and she was instantly sorry she had.

His loneliness touched something deep inside her, as did the guilt he carried in his heart. She sensed his huge and nearly overwhelming pain, but she couldn’t sympathize. She also couldn’t let him continue to suffer, because those emotions would affect any case on which they worked.

“You’ve devoted your life to the Bureau, but you screwed up,” she said. “At least you think you did. Get over it, Sanchez. The guilt trip isn’t going to help anyone.”

He surged to his feet, color draining from his face at her words, his fingertips white from the pressure he exerted on the mug. “What can you know what I’m feeling?”

“I know,” she said calmly, aware that she was treading on dangerous and unknown ground. She could not become involved in his futile emotions. It was bad enough she was battling a physical attraction to him. Human emotions were never reliable. She could not let his feelings of guilt interfere with her mission. She took a deep breath. “My last investigation involved either losing the victim or catching the perp. Only one choice in my mind. Only one choice you should have made as well. If you have any doubt about that, you’re no good to the Bureau or to me as a partner.”

“Cold, Alexander. Downright frigid,” Miguel said, stunned at her insensitivity. He stalked to his desk, the heat of anger filling his gut as he sat down. He cradled his coffee mug—a gift from his ten-year-old niece, just she’d guessed—in his hands while her words replayed in his head.

As infuriated as he was, he couldn’t deny the truth in them. She wasn’t the first person to tell him so. Her words echoed those of his old ADIC, and of the counselor he had seen after the shooting. They were also the reverberation of his own conscience as he considered leaving the Bureau immediately after the incident, aware that his efficacy as an agent might have been compromised. He acknowledged that faced with a similar situation, he might not be able to make the necessary choice.

Unlike Special Agent Alexander, who seemed supremely confident that she could make the decision that might cost a life.

Of course, she
had
made that decision. She’d just said that when forced to choose between losing the victim and getting the perpetrator on her last assignment, she’d gone for the perp. Her cold-bloodedness scared him almost as much as his own growing indecision. He couldn’t stomach such a strict end-justifies-the-means attitude, especially when it possibly involved someone’s death.

Easing out a breath, he returned his attention to the serial killer file. One thing was certain, if he and his new partner couldn’t make any progress, there’d be even more killings. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

Moving aside his coffee mug and the brown paper bag containing a toasted buttered bagel he no longer craved, he picked up the stack of notes he had made based on his review and the discussion they’d had with ADIC Hernandez last night.