Honeymoon To Die For (3 page)

Water pinged her head and arms. Bianca glared at the headstone.

Quinten said, “No. Murdock wants, and I quote, ‘his expert on the Van Dyke Enterprises case’ located ASAP.”

Bianca jumped to her feet. Did that mean they’d had a break in the case? “On my way. Please tell him I’ll be there by three.”

Rain gushed down as she ran for her Ford Explorer. She turned her face up to the heavens. A regular frog strangler. “So
not
funny, Sara Lynn!”

Bianca dove into her truck and slammed the door. Soaked. Oh well, her hair and clothes had five hours to dry.

Rain pounded the roof of her sport utility, as it had every time she’d come to visit her best friend’s grave.

Sara Lynn had to be laughing right now. She used to hoot at Bianca for fussing over her hair getting wet. Assuming Bianca was worried about her looks for some boy, Sara Lynn would say, “A man who
really
loves you won’t care ‘bout no wet hair, BB. Just let it go.”   

Bianca and Sara Lynn were going to be each other’s maids of honor, but Sara Lynn wouldn’t be getting married now. And neither would Bianca. Not after what she’d been through in her one serious relationship.

Sara Lynn had been there for her through that hell.

Bianca was here for her friend now.

The deluge of water came down so fast and hard, it blurred the cemetery, dredging up a memory of days long gone.

Sara Lynn would always stop whatever she was doing when they were inside and the noise was deafening from hard downpours hammering the tin roof. Bianca would grouch about having to deal with a muddy yard. Sara Lynn would smile and look up at the ceiling with reverence, then say, “You can’t have rainbows without a little rain.”  

I miss your sweet take on things, Sara Lynn.
Bianca wiped the water off her face and cranked the engine, heading back to Atlanta.

And Sara Lynn, now would be a good time to ask your Boss about that favor.  

CHAPTER 3

Bianca retrieved a file from her briefcase and placed the case on the concrete floor next to her feet. She tried to act natural, as if meeting with a murder suspect being held for trial was part of her weekly routine. Pretend this wasn’t the first time she’d stepped inside a prison.

SAC Murdock sat on her left and Van Dyke’s attorney had the chair on her right at the end of the dull-white table. The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary staff had provided a small conference room for this meeting.

No one chatted.

This was no social visit.

Murdock had made it clear on the way here that they had to wrangle a deal out of Van Dyke. Today. Intelligence reports indicated two terrorists suspected of being involved in the Istanbul and Italian attacks had dropped off the map. They might surface in the US, but by the time that happened whatever they planned might have already been executed.

Bianca straightened her file. It was more for show than anything. She had quick recall of written details. Not quite a photographic memory, but close enough that when combined with her dedication to this case, Murdock had chosen her to join him today.

A major step forward in Bianca’s bid for a permanent position as an analyst on Murdock’s anti-terrorism team.

But that wasn’t her reason for being here. Her career moves fell down the list behind finding evidence of terrorist cells and justice for the victims of terrorist attacks. One would serve the other.

The day Sara Lynn died, Bianca had been ready to sign up to fight on the front lines as a field agent, but a person should know her strengths and weaknesses.

Ask her to lie and pretend she was something other than herself? Not her skillset. But hand her a keyboard and she’d infiltrate the enemy.

Ryder Van Dyke is not your enemy. He’s a person awaiting trial.

Her job was to gather and analyze information, not pass judgment. That’s what the court system was for, but her FBI research team anticipated a conviction based on the formidable stack of evidence they’d compiled. All of it pointed to Ryder Van Dyke as the shooter who’d killed J. K. Kearn.

Just over five months had passed since Van Dyke was arrested so that wasn’t the reason Bianca and Jason Murdock were sitting here today.

No, it was Van Dyke’s attack on a prison guard seven days ago that had changed everything. That had put Van Dyke’s chances to beat a murder rap at below zero, and given her boss what he needed to bargain with.

What was it with Van Dyke men and killing innocent people?

To be honest, Bianca had struggled to accept Ryder Van Dyke as a cold-blooded killer after digging into Van Dyke’s military records, but the shot that killed Kearn
had
been taken from eleven-hundred yards away.

Making a shot that accurate and at night took an elite marksman, which Van Dyke was, but still, that was only circumstantial evidence.

It had taken the results of the ballistics report and months of playing devil’s advocate for Bianca to finally accept that her team had a valid point in suspecting Van Dyke.  

The distinctive sound of chains dragging the tile floor drew Bianca’s head up sharply from where she sat writing notes.  

The prisoner shuffled into the room. The small space smelled clinically clean in spite of the suffocating air. She’d been trapped once and had never liked being closed in. Even now her skin felt too tight with the urge to get out of here.

Not the time to allow old fears to crawl around in your head.

Bianca placed her pen on the plastic table surface and observed the man she knew inside and out on paper.

Ryder Van Dyke.

Twenty-seven, but he no longer looked like the vibrant ladies man in Bianca’s file photos. Where was the sexy playboy with an easy smile in the Facebook photos from when Van Dyke had spent a year at University of Georgia before joining the Army?

He’d been one year ahead of Bianca entering UGA.

Shaggy, sandy-brown hair now fanned his collar, and a beard one shade darker hid much of his face. His cheeks were hollow, but he did look physically fit beneath his orange jumpsuit, although a few pounds lighter than the weight in his file. Nothing weak-looking about those wide shoulders or the biceps that he probably kept in shape in the prison gym. Thick forearms exposed below his short sleeves flexed when he curled his fingers tight, drawing her eyes to the metal wrist cuffs linked by a chain.

The guard walking behind Van Dyke held onto yet another chain that swung from where it connected to the length belted around the prisoner’s waist.

Holding her mask of indifference in place, Bianca lifted the corner of her file to compare this prisoner with the man she’d researched.

Beautiful gray eyes in the file photos fit the image of a man with a reputation for charming the pants off of women with little more than a look. In Van Dyke’s military shots, that gaze carried the weight of maturity and a keen awareness honed by a long stretch in Special Forces.

A man of honor who had protected his country.

She closed the file and studied the live version again. The shadowed eyes now staring straight ahead were empty, as if they belonged to a stranger who didn’t know the Ryder Van Dyke in Bianca’s file.

Where was the smug criminal she’d come prepared to face?

This haunted shell standing before her made her heart catch. He’d had a promising career in the Army and had been rumored as first in line to inherit the Van Dyke weapons business at one time in spite of being adopted.

What kind of man turned his back on a fortune?

Look at him now.

Did he spend his days thinking about what his life might have been like if he hadn’t strayed to the dark side?

Why do you care?

She didn’t. Her sympathy was reserved for the families and friends of the victims. Not the ones who caused the pain.

Prisoner and guard stopped at the same time.

Bianca waited for Van Dyke to acknowledge that he had guests.

Van Dyke’s gaze ripped across the room, first to his attorney, then to Murdock and finally that silver gaze landed on her.

She held Van Dyke’s chilling glare. Her daddy had warned her about the danger of staring down the wrong person.

But being a woman in a field populated heavily with men had taught her never to back down.

Van Dyke must not be impressed, because his gaze shifted to another more menacing level and still bored invisible holes through her.

In that moment, Bianca realized that the protection offered by guards, even the chains and cuffs, was nothing more than an illusion of safety.

She was thankful for Murdock’s presence.

But she wasn’t fooling anybody. She wasn’t wired for this kind of encounter. She wouldn’t even be here right now if not for impressing Murdock with her computer skills, her strong memory and her commitment to this case.

An objective observer might call Bianca’s dedication obsessive.

She’d been called worse.

Everything about Van Dyke sharpened to the attitude of a raptor on the hunt as he visually swept the rest of the room with brutal efficiency. She had no doubt that he sized up every person in proximity to him, every detail in his immediate space, the ever-present security cameras, and how many mundane items he could use as deadly weapons. Those were the kinds of things you learned while digging around on a man with his background.

Before her stood the lethal operator who had never backed away from a mission, according to his military record, no matter how impossible the odds, and returned every time with the same report. Mission accomplished.

When his gaze circled back to her, it slammed her with a load of condemnation.

She tensed and had the ridiculous urge to defend herself.

To a suspected criminal? Never.

“Have a seat,” Murdock said to Van Dyke, then leaned back, arms crossed.

“No.”

At forty-two, Murdock was turning into her mentor as much as boss, a rock she could depend on to push as hard as she did for justice.

He shot a pointed look at Ryder’s attorney.

Mr. Finnick stood at the end of the table and greeted the prisoner, appearing undeterred by Van Dyke’s arctic gaze as he explained, “I would have preferred a private meeting first with you, Mr. Van Dyke, but the FBI arranged this rather quickly and indicated they would share nothing until they spoke with you.”

Van Dyke didn’t even blink.

Bianca kept her poker face in place, curious to see how Murdock played this. He’d said little more once he’d briefed Bianca on the DA’s intention to try Van Dyke for killing the guard.

“Would you like to sit down?” Finnick asked Van Dyke, repeating the question in a far more social tone, but the prisoner merely shook his head once.

As the attorney eased back into his seat, Murdock stood. Bianca’s boss was not one to allow a criminal the advantage of looking down at him. “In that case, let’s get to the point. I’m Jason Murdock, Special Agent in Charge for the FBI. This is Special Agent Bianca Brady and I assume you know your attorney. You’re facing new murder charges, Van Dyke. You—”

“I didn’t kill him.”  Van Dyke’s words sounded hoarse, which made sense if he hadn’t spoken much in the past seven days of solitary confinement since the guard’s death.

Or had he screamed a lot?

Not something she wanted to think about.

Based on Bianca’s notes, Van Dyke had spent his
first
thirty days after his conviction in the SHU. She couldn’t imagine being locked in solitary confinement twenty-four-seven or wanting to go back a second time.

But Van Dyke had attacked a guard knowing he’d end up there as a minimum.

He didn’t move a muscle when his eyes dropped to meet hers again as if he’d heard her thoughts. Fine hairs danced along her neck. She swallowed before she could stop herself from that show of nerves.

Van Dyke didn’t smirk, but the tiny pull of his lips to one side televised the fact that he noticed.

Murdock gave a mirthless chuckle. “You didn’t kill him, Van Dyke? Which
one
?”

Van Dyke kept glaring at Bianca. Was he recalling how she’d testified at his preliminary hearing? He uttered one word in reply to Murdock as if daring anyone to challenge him. “Neither.”  

“The facts say otherwise.”  Murdock shoved a look in Bianca’s direction that she took to mean this was where she came in.

Bianca gave it a moment, because she’d figured out that a pause often worked well in the courtroom, then launched her counterpoint to Van Dyke’s claim of having killed no one.

“Mr. Van Dyke, there may not have been any witnesses for the medal-winning shot that killed J.K. Kearn, but there
were
eye-witnesses when Corrections Officer Ernest Boyd was stabbed. If that isn’t sufficient, your fingerprints were on the weapon that killed Boyd and we have a video that clearly shows you as the first one to jump the guard. That makes one murder conviction fairly simple.”

Something dark flickered in the prisoner’s gaze that sent invisible spiders racing up Bianca’s arms, which were thankfully covered by a suit jacket. She clasped her hands in front of her to prevent any unintentional tremble.

Allowing a man to see her as vulnerable once had been enough. Never again.

Before moving ahead, Murdock gave Bianca a nod that said “well done.”  

The door to the meeting room opened, and a beautiful woman came striding in. There was something familiar about her. She was close to Bianca’s height, which put her around five-five. Black hair had been twisted up in a professional ‘do that framed her exotic Latin face and exposed dangly silver earrings. She wore khaki pants and a plum-colored designer blouse that belonged on some willowy female, not a woman who moved her trim body with the confidence of someone with multiple belts in martial arts.

She paused long enough to whisper something to Van Dyke.

Whatever she said relaxed the tight muscles in the prisoner’s face. The woman nodded at the guard, who unhooked the chain from the prisoner and left the room.

“Who the hell are you?” Murdock demanded of the woman.

“Sabrina Slye. Slye Temp.”