Ryker wondered why she’d taken such a heartbreaking job. Instinct whispered the agent had some serious shit in her background.
He wanted to smooth the bloody hair back from the dead girl, to get it off her face, but he knew better than to touch something in a crime scene. “She loved playing the piano,” he murmured, forgetting to alter his voice. He’d even watched a couple of recitals from her grade school years, where she’d worn pigtails and a pretty white dress. The pain of her loved ones at losing her like this must be indescribable. “She was adorable.”
“I know,” Jackson said softly. “Did you know she volunteered at the local animal pound twice a week?”
Ryker nodded, his chest compressing. Emotion swirled through him, and he couldn’t quite grasp the anger past the grief.
“Seemed like a nice girl.” Jackson swayed and then quickly recovered.
Ryker stood in case he needed to catch her, noting her too-pale face and darkening brown eyes. “Why are you working with me?”
She threw up her hands. “This is the seventh case in six months, all family members or close friends of law enforcement personnel, and I’m at the end of my rope.” She sighed and looked years older than her probable thirty-five. “You guys have been involved since the first case, your records hold up, and I want you to share any information you get.”
He nodded, making a mental note to have Denver shore up their identities and histories a little better, because this woman wouldn’t give up until she’d figured them all out. “No problem.” The small body on the ground would haunt him forever. “Has her father been notified?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t even imagine that type of pain. The girl’s father was a bounty hunter who’d raised her by himself. Maisey had been kidnapped from a college in Spokane, held for a week, and then dumped in Utah. The killer tortured the kidnapped victims, which in turn tortured anybody who loved them. It was beyond cruel. He needed to be taken down and brutally. “So far the guy has taken women from Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, Idaho, and Utah.”
Jackson nodded. “Yes. If you find any sort of lead, I expect you to give me a call. I have your numbers to find you.”
He tugged out a new business card. “We’ve relocated to Wyoming.”
She took the card, her eyebrows rising. “Because of this case?”
“No. It’s a nice place, and we need a home base,” he lied, wishing he could offer some sort of comfort to the agent. But there was no comfort while the killer still walked. “Keep in touch.” Turning on his heel, he left the tent and headed for his car through the rain, which was rapidly turning into freezing snow.
“Ryker?” she called, peering out of the tent. “I don’t mind you doing research, but stay out of the line of fire.”
He turned back. “We’re not looking for the line of fire.”
“We both know your choosing Wyoming as a new office base isn’t a coincidence.” The wind blew rain to cover her pretty face, and she shoved hair out of her eyes. “I want to know what your plan is now.”
To get the hell away from the FBI. “I’m heading to the airport and back to work…after drinking a bottle or two of Jack Daniels.” Without waiting for an answer, he left the dead girl and his latest failure behind him.
Chapter
3
Night, Grams.” Zara hung up the phone after a nice call from her grandmother, who was on a seniors trip to various casinos in the Pacific Northwest. So far Grams had won nearly twenty dollars.
The woman was a wild one. Zara grinned. Her grandmother had raised her from the age of ten, and they still talked every day. When Grams was at home in town, they got together for coffee or dinner several times a week. When Zara had told her about buying the uncomfortable G-string to wear for Ryker, she’d laughed her head off.
Zara hummed softly to herself as she finished her once a week routine and slipped into bed. She’d painted her fingernails a pretty pink, her toenails a darker pink, and her face green with an avocado mask. After an early childhood of moving constantly with her flighty mother before Grams had taken her in, she needed a home base, and she’d created a lovely one where she could ground herself in rituals. She loved her beauty regimen almost as much as she needed a good routine.
Did Ryker have any routines?
She stopped humming. No more thinking about Ryker, darn it. The badass kept popping into her head even after nearly a week of no contact. He hadn’t shown up, hadn’t called, and obviously hadn’t thought about her.
Her phone rang, and her breath caught. She fumbled for the light and grabbed her phone, reading the caller ID to see it was her friend Julie, not Ryker. Her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head at her silliness. It wasn’t her place to worry about him or whatever case he had left so quickly to work on. Zara kept the disappointment out of her voice as she answered. “Hi, Jules. Everything okay?”