Deadly Lies (Deadly #3)(2)
Jeremy screamed.
“Let’s send him a message.” The figure moved around him and stared down with a smile that twisted his lips and never touched his eyes. “Let’s see what the * has to say when he finds what’s left of you.”
CHAPTER One
FBI Special Agent Samantha Kennedy had seen hell. She’d looked into the devil’s eyes and heard his laughter. She’d died, but fate had brought her back.
Fate wouldn’t be letting Jeremy Briar come back.
Taking a deep breath, tasting decay and blood, Samantha stared at the body laying spread-eagle on the asphalt right in front of the big, black wrought-iron gates.
Jeremy’s eyes were open. They had to be. Some * had cut off his eyelids. His body was sliced open, each arm cut from shoulder to wrist. A red smile split his throat and his stomach—
She yanked her gaze away. Don’t think. Don’t feel.
Sam spun away from poor dead Jeremy and nearly stumbled right into her boss, Keith Hyde.
His eyes weren’t on the body. They were on her. “You up for this?” he asked as his dark gaze searched her face. His deep voice seemed to echo around her, and goose bumps rose on her arms.
Sam knew that he was waiting for her to fail. They were all waiting. All the other agents in her unit. None of them thought that she could do the job anymore.
Maybe I can’t.
Sam swallowed. She belonged to the Serial Services Division, an elite unit in the FBI that most agents would gladly sell their souls to join. A team specifically designed to track and apprehend serials. The SSD had nearly unlimited resources. And Hyde answered to no one.
His team. His domain.
And she was the freaking weak link.
“I’m up for anything.” Her voice came out soft, and she’d meant to sound hard. Christ. The guy was looking at her like she’d shatter any minute. Hadn’t she already proved to him over the last six months that she wasn’t going to fall apart? What did he want from her?
The sunlight seemed to darken the rich coffee cream of his skin. His mouth tightened, and she knew that he didn’t believe her.
What else was new?
“I’ve gotten the all-clear.” Okay, her voice came stronger now because she was pissed. A dead body waited behind her, and Hyde was wasting time grilling her.
“I know the shrinks said you could work the cases.” His arms crossed over his chest. Beside them, a uniform bent over and retched into the bushes. Great. So much for the preservation of the crime scene. Hyde’s gaze measured her as he continued, “But working them and surviving them are two different things.”
He’s waiting for me to break.
“Don’t worry about me.” Sam jerked her thumb over her shoulder even as she felt a trickle of sweat slide between her shoulder blades. “Worry about that poor man’s family.” The scent of death clogged her nostrils. Move. Oh, she wanted to get away. Wanted to run.
But she knew it wasn’t possible to run from death. Death could follow a person anywhere. He followed her even in her dreams.
“He fits the established pattern,” Sam said as she noticed that the crime scene guys were there, finally. Sam eased away, with Hyde shadowing her steps, as the techs came through to start working on the body. Hurry. Because she knew the poor man’s parents were inside. She’d seen the shift of the curtains, and she knew they were peeking out, staring at the remains of their son and blaming themselves.
“Jeremy Briar,” she murmured, “Twenty-two years old, the only son of Kathleen and Morgan Briar. Jeremy was last seen three days ago, in a dive right outside of the university, a place called The Core.” And then he’d just vanished.
“His father got the ransom call,” Hyde said, voice cool. “Twenty-four hours after Jeremy went missing.”
Samantha didn’t look back at the body. Bodies had never been her strong suit. She preferred to stay in the office and track her prey on the Net. But it wasn’t about staying safe anymore. Now, she had to prove she could handle the job. The shrink in charge of her case had understood when Sam explained that she didn’t want to hide behind a desk. So thanks to him, she was out here, shaking apart on the inside and realizing that Jeremy wasn’t that much younger than she was.
Your age doesn’t matter, not when death comes calling.
“Why didn’t the father pay?” Sam asked and shielded her eyes as she turned to look back up at the house. Freaking huge. Four houses could fit inside that one. The guy would’ve had the money to ransom his son.
“Seems Jeremy got in trouble with the law a few times, and he had a history of run-ins with bookies.” Hyde paused, then said, “Mr. Briar thought his son was trying to scam him.”
Oh, damn. The father hadn’t believed the call, and Jeremy had paid. “Do you think the vic went fast?” The question came out before she could bite it back. But she knew what it was like when a sadistic freak took his time with you and made you beg for death. “W-were most of the injuries postmortem?”
“No.” His answer was immediate.
Her eyes fell closed, just for a moment.
“I don’t want you working this case, Kennedy,” Hyde’s words snapped out.
Her eyes flew back open. “Sir, I can—”
But his dark stare glinted. “I don’t want you in the field, and I don’t really give a shit what the prick in psych said.” He closed in on her. “You’re not ready. You think I can’t see you shaking?”