Her Lone Wolf (14 page)

Clayne didn’t get more than a hundred feet before the overpowering smell of fresh blood assaulted his nose.

Shit
.

Clayne raced toward the smell of the blood, praying he was in time but knowing he wasn’t. The stench was strong, which meant there was a lot of it.

He found Joshua Vender wedged up against a tree, his throat ripped out, his head at a funny angle, his body limp and draining fast. Unlike the other victims, there were no other wounds on the body. The cat shifter hadn’t had time to play with his prey. The guy had only been dead for two or three minutes. If Clayne had gotten there a few minutes earlier…

He took off with a growl, running so fast now that the trees around him became a blur. It wasn’t hard to follow the killer’s trail this time because it moved in a straight line. Clayne was still downwind of the bastard, too. If he was lucky, he’d catch up to the psycho before the other shifter knew what was happening.

But the trail stopped cold at a paved road. The asshole had jumped in a car. Clayne tried to remember where this particular road came out. Shit. It’d take twenty minutes to go back to Danica’s car and get back here. And he sure as hell couldn’t catch up to a speeding car on foot. He roared in frustration, not caring that it echoed through the forest and probably scared the shit out of whoever heard it.

By the time he got back to the crime scene, Danica and Tony came running up out of the trees, weapons at the ready, flashlights swinging around wildly. Not that Clayne wasn’t relieved to see them, but how the hell had they managed to stumble across him in the middle of the freaking forest? He thought for sure he’d have to corral them. He let the wolf inside go, retracting his claws and allowing his fangs to disappear back into his jaw as he walked over to meet them. Darkness closed in around him as his eyes returned to normal.

“Shit, you were right,” Tony muttered, glancing at Danica as he shined the beam of his flashlight on the body. He looked at Clayne. “I didn’t think we were going to find anything out here in the dark, but she led us right to him.”

Clayne lifted a brow. Damn. He didn’t remember Danica being that adept at finding her way around in the woods before.

Danica ignored the remark and walked over to take a closer look at the body. Tony followed, his eyes scanning the darkness.

“He hasn’t been dead very long. Any chance the killer is still in the area?”

Clayne shook his head. “I followed his trail. It dead-ends at a road about a half mile from here. He had a vehicle waiting.”

Tony looked at him in disbelief. “You found the body in the dark, then trailed the killer through the woods, all without a flashlight? What are you—half Native American, half bloodhound?”

“Something like that,” Clayne murmured. “We need to get the task force up here. We might be able to block off the roads and catch this son of a bitch if we’re quick.”

Tony studied the body for a moment longer, then holstered his gun and took out his cell phone. He muttered a curse. “No signal. I’ll go back to the car. See if I can get one there.”

“You okay finding your way back in the dark?” Clayne asked.

God, he hoped so. He really wasn’t in the mood right now to play chaperone. In fact, he felt like going off and punching a few trees.

“I got it,” Tony said. “I’ll see you down there.”

Clayne watched as he disappeared into the trees. At least he was headed in the right direction.

“This wasn’t your fault, you know,” Danica said softly.

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t ask how she knew he was thinking that exact thought, either. They’d been partners long enough for her to be able to read his mind.

“Yeah, it was. I didn’t get here in time, and that got this guy killed.”

“You figured it out as fast as you could.” She rested her hand on his arm. Her touch was a reminder of everything he’d been missing since she’d left him. He wanted to pull away but couldn’t. “The killer made sure we didn’t have enough clues to give us a fighting chance. He was screwing with us all along, you know that. He was going to kill this poor guy whether we got here in time or not. You got here faster than anyone else on the task force could have.”

“Tell that to Joshua Vender’s family, and the families of this asshole’s other victims.” Clayne jerked his head in the direction of the car. “Come on. Your boss’ll be here soon.”

She fell into step beside him. Clayne swore as he inhaled the shifter’s scent. Shit, that bastard had been all over the place up here. Maybe Danica’d been right. Maybe the killer had started his hunt earlier than he’d said. Maybe he never intended to give Clayne a chance to stop him. That was the only thing that explained why his scent was scattered so far and wide.

Carhart had the roadblocks in place long before he arrived by helicopter. Then he sent the bird back up to help with the search while he set up a mobile command post and tried to establish a perimeter around the whole park. As much as Clayne prayed the FBI would find the Hunter, his gut told him it was too late. This shifter was smart. He would have had an exit strategy planned. He would be long gone by now.

Clayne let Danica and Tony fill Carhart in on the details of what had happened. He could hear what was being said from where he stood, but since he wasn’t in the mood to play nice, he decided to stay out of it. He swore that if Carhart gave Danica one second of grief, he was going to walk over and knock the fed out cold.

But Carhart kept his mouth shut as Danica explained how they’d come up with the sudden inspiration to check out the National Forest but had gotten there too late. Carhart threw a suspicious glance in Clayne’s direction as he listened. It was obvious the fed was angry as hell, but there wasn’t really anything he could say since their hunch had been right. That was good. Because between thinking about the dead track and field coach and all the people in his life who would miss him, and the smug, arrogant bastard of a shifter who was probably laughing at all of them right then, Clayne was getting more pissed off by the minute.

Danica’s groan echoed in the break room as she poured coffee into her Tweety Bird mug. Being so close to Clayne was damn near killing her. Every time he looked at her with those hurt-filled eyes, she wanted to throw herself in his arms and beg for his forgiveness. And when he smiled at her like he had yesterday after she’d made that silly joke about him getting hangry, she’d almost cried.

Leaving him the first time had hurt so much she’d thought she would die. And when he was the one who left this time, she knew it was going to be even worse.

Clayne was leaning against the wall outside her office when she came back from the break room. He looked beat. Not surprising. It was one thirty in the morning. They’d driven straight back here from the park, hoping the whole time to hear that the Hunter had been apprehended. It hadn’t happened.

She was about to ask if he wanted to get something to eat when Wayne Hobson ran down the hall. The profiler didn’t look as if he’d slept any better than her and Clayne. “Agent Buchanan, the Hunter’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

Clayne muttered something under his breath and pushed away from the wall, leaving her and Wayne to catch up as he stalked down the hall in that predatory way only he could pull off.

Everyone in the command center eyed him warily, as if they weren’t sure what kind of mood he was in. Or maybe they were just wondering who the hell this Homeland agent was and why the serial killer had fixated on him.

Wayne pressed the speaker button on the phone.

“I’m here,” Clayne said.

He might have sounded calm, but Danica knew he was close to boiling over. Tony must have been getting a bead on Clayne by now, too, because he threw her a worried look. If he only knew how bad it could get when Clayne got seriously pissed, he’d really be concerned.

“Took you long enough,” the killer taunted. “But that really doesn’t surprise me. You’re not nearly as quick as I thought you’d be.”

Clayne growled. Danica stepped closer to him. She didn’t know why—it wasn’t as if he was going to go all shifter right in front of everyone. But still…she figured she should be close, just in case.

The Hunter ignored the rumble. “I even took my time catching that runner. I let him get away half a dozen times, but you no-showed on me. What kind of game is that?”

Clayne went from furious to code red in the blink of an eye. She saw his fingernails go ragged as he leaned over the teleconference phone. Oh crap, maybe he would shift in front of everyone. Could she fix something like that? Could John?

“You want to know what kind of game this is?” Clayne snarled. “This is the kind of game that ends with me ripping your throat out. I know it, and you know it. Before, it wouldn’t have been personal. Just work, you know? But now, I’m going to enjoy listening to you scream when I end you.”

As if he wanted to give the shifter a preview, Clayne slammed his fist down on the phone, breaking it and splintering the table underneath. Everyone around it almost fell over each other as they scrambled to get away from the flying wood chips and plastic fragments.

Danica cringed. That was one way of hanging up.

Even Carhart wasn’t stupid enough to say anything as Clayne stormed out of the room.

She started to follow, but Tony caught her arm. “I know you two have a past and that things didn’t end well—I get that,” he said softly. “But we both know he’s the only one who can catch this guy. I don’t have a clue what the hell is going on between them, but he and the Hunter are playing a game we’re not meant to be part of. You get that, right?”

She nodded. She got it, all right.

“Good. Then go out and get him drunk, get him laid—whatever. But get his head right. Because we need him.”

* * *

Danica caught up with Clayne in the parking lot. She thought about trying to talk him down right there, but changed her mind. Instead, she grabbed his big bicep and steered him toward her car. She practically had to shove him in the passenger seat, but once she put him inside, she ran around and got behind the wheel, then squealed out of the lot before he could bolt on her.

“Where are we going?” he demanded.

“To a bar.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer him. Tony had suggested getting him drunk or getting him laid. It went without saying that alcohol seemed the safer of those two options. She drove to a bar a few miles down the road. It didn’t look too seedy, so she figured it’d do.

Clayne got out and scowled at her over the top of the car. “What the hell are we doing here when we have a killer to catch?”

She motioned toward the bar. “Just go.”

The place was almost empty except for a young guy wiping down the bar. The chairs were already up on tables. The guy behind the bar glanced up as they walked in.

“Sorry, we’re closed.”

Danica flashed her badge as she led the way to a table in the back corner. “You’re open.”

The guy squinted at the badge, then shrugged. He probably figured if two FBI agents wanted to obliterate their livers after closing time, it was their business.

“Whatever,” he said. “What’ll it be?”

“Two glasses of whiskey.” She glanced at him as she took one of the chairs off the table. “And bring the bottle.”

Clayne lifted a brow but didn’t say anything as he took down the other chair and sat. He looked even more pissed off now than when he’d taken his fist to the phone back at the field office.

The bartender thumped two glasses on the table and poured a healthy shot for each of them, left the bottle, then went back to wiping down the bar as if they didn’t exist.

Danica turned her attention back to Clayne. He was glowering at the glass of whiskey like he was trying to intimidate it.

“Drink,” she told him.

He ignored her. “How the hell is this going to help catch that son of a bitch?”

“By getting your head screwed back on straight.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Bullshit.” She pushed his glass closer. “You forget—I know you. We didn’t get there in time and Joshua Vender paid for it. Now, you’re eating yourself up inside. As harsh as this sounds, you’re going to have to get over it. We need you fully in the game. If you’re still thinking about the last victim, the next guy doesn’t have a chance.”

Clayne looked sideways at her. “You know me, huh? So you’re the lucky one who got stuck playing shrink? Or did you volunteer hoping you’ll get a promotion if you close this case?”

Danica didn’t know whether to get up and leave or smack him. She didn’t do either. So she went for option three—she picked up her glass of whiskey and downed half of it. Then grimaced. God, she hated the taste of whiskey. It burned like fire on the way down, numbing everything as it went. Numb was good. She could do numb.

She lifted the glass to her lips, ready to finish the rest, but Clayne got there first. He pulled it out of her hand and slammed it down, sloshing its contents on the table.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded. “You never drink whiskey.”

“I just started.”

She reached for the glass again, but he moved it out of the way. “What’s going on here, Danica? Really.”

She considered reaching for his glass but changed her mind. Instead she sat back in her chair and folded her arms with a shrug. “You need to talk, and I’m here to listen.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “Now you’re playing the concerned ex-partner?”

“I’m more than your ex-partner, and you know it. And I am concerned.”

“Right. I’m sure that sounded really sincere before you said it.” He shook his head. “Your act would work a hell of a lot better if you hadn’t pissed all over me in your rush to get out of the DCO two years ago.”

Clayne pushed back his chair and headed for the door. Danica watched him walk away, knowing if she didn’t stop him, he was going to go do something stupid or reckless, or both.

“Dammit, Clayne! It’s not like I had a choice.”

He stopped and Danica had a second of terror as she realized she’d said the one thing she shouldn’t have. The agony of the entire situation hit her all at once and she choked back a sob as Clayne turned and strode back to the table.

“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded, his voice dangerously low.

On the other side of the room, the bartender was eyeing them like he was wondering if he should call the cops. Danica couldn’t blame him. Clayne looked like he was on the verge of tearing the place apart.

Crap, she’d really put her foot in it. “I just meant that there really wasn’t any easy way to break it off. With you, I mean.”

God, that sounded lame even to her.

“That’s bullshit, Danica, and you know it. You leaving never made any sense at all, so what did you mean just now when you said you didn’t have a choice? You make it sound like someone held a gun to your head, and I want to know who. And don’t bother lying to me again—you’ve turned into a shitty liar since we’ve been apart.”

Danica swallowed hard. She couldn’t tell him. If she did, all the sacrificing she’d done for the past two years would have been for nothing. But the longer Clayne stood there looking at her with those puppy dog eyes, the harder it was to remember that.

She opened her mouth to lie again, but stopped herself. She’d been lying for so long that she simply couldn’t do it anymore. The load was too heavy to bear. Even if she could, Clayne wouldn’t let it go, especially now that he knew she was hiding something. He was damn stubborn like that—like a dog after a bone, they’d always joked. Except now it wasn’t so funny.

Clayne sat down and leaned forward, piercing her with those beautiful liquid brown eyes. “Neither one of us is walking out of this place until you tell me the truth.”

She shook her head, fighting back tears. She wanted to tell him, she truly did, but the words wouldn’t come.

Clayne reached out and took her hands in his big, strong ones. The warmth of his skin was like an old comfy shirt, reminding her of everything she’d given up.

“Honey, please talk to me.”

The softly spoken entreaty was her undoing. “I left to keep you from going to prison for the rest of your life.”

There, she’d said it.

She grabbed her half-full shot glass and downed the rest of the vile stuff. It burned like hell but not nearly as much as it had the first time. She reached for Clayne’s glass. If he wasn’t going to drink it, she sure as hell would.

But Clayne moved faster than she did, snatching the glass away without spilling a drop, then taking her hand again. “That’s enough whiskey. Now, explain what you meant. How did dumping my ass and leaving the DCO keep me out of prison?”

Danica couldn’t look at him. She gazed down at his hands holding hers, drawing strength from them. “I made a deal with Dick. He agreed he wouldn’t send you to prison if I left the DCO…and you. It was a one-time deal with a five-minute expiration date on it. I had to break up with you, and I had to do it fast. That was why I said all those horrible things to you—I knew you’d never let me go otherwise.”

Just thinking about it made her feel sick.

Clayne was silent for so long she thought he didn’t believe her. She lifted her head, half afraid of what she would see. But he only sat there with a frown on his face. He was taking this far more calmly than she would have expected.

“Why would Dick want to send me to prison?” he asked. “More importantly, how could he have done it? It’s not like he could expose any of the less-than-strictly-legal missions I’d done for the DCO or he would have gone to prison right along with me.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with any mission you did. He has evidence on you…about those men you killed in Buffalo years ago.”

“Buffalo? He was supposed to make that evidence disappear.” Clayne’s frown deepened. “Tell me everything.”

She took a deep breath. In for a penny…

“It happened right after we came back from that mission in the Ukraine,” she said. “You remember the one—when we took out that toxic nerve agent lab all by ourselves, incinerating the terrorists and their research at the same time?”

Clayne nodded, his sensuous mouth curving into a smile. They’d been beyond amazing on that job. Everyone at the DCO had been impressed. Everyone except Dick.

“The next morning, Dick called me into his office, and showed me a video…”

* * *

Washington, DC, September 2011

“Was there any part of that video you missed, Beckett?” Dick asked as he pressed the stop button on the video player.

His smug tone made Danica want to shoot him where he sat. “No, I don’t need to see it again.”

She’d seen more than enough. She knew about what had happened in Buffalo, but it was still hard seeing the man she loved with blood dripping from his hands. The angle of the camera had been wrong to catch him actually tearing the three men to pieces, but it had caught their bodies hitting the ground and Clayne walking away from them.

Clayne had told her about the way he’d screwed up and let himself get sucked into what he thought was a simple border-crossing job. He thought he’d be moving stolen merchandise. Electronics, cigarettes, maybe even maple syrup—yeah, there was even a black market business in maple syrup. But then Clayne had learned his partners in crime were moving something he really wasn’t cool with: little girls. They had a buyer in Toronto who’d been ready to ship them overseas that same night.

The three thugs hadn’t counted on Clayne’s keen sense of smell—or his morals. Clayne had let the girls go, then confronted the men. The argument had gotten ugly, and Clayne had ended up killing them.

“Those men were pigs,” Danica told Dick. “They were involved in human trafficking. Little girls.”

“So Buchanan told you about it?” He shook his head as he took the VHS tape out of the machine. “I knew you and he were too damn close. But at least it saves me from explaining all the meaningless details. You see, the funny thing about those three men? Nobody has a clue they were involved in human trafficking. All anyone knows is that they were ripped to shreds by a vicious killer. No one is exactly sure how he did it, but they know he did it. This video is proof.”