A Profiler's Case for Seduction(54)

“I am tired,” he confessed. “The whole team is tired. They cut Troy Young loose today because of a lack of evidence. Everyone on the team believes he’s guilty and are scrambling to find the kind of evidence that would make the D.A. bite on a murder charge. In the meantime we’re reinvestigating everything about the cases, starting at the beginning to see what we might have missed. We’re also checking out any friends Troy might have that could have left the note on my car.”

“Sounds daunting,” she replied.

“And discouraging,” he returned.

They walked silently for a while, but Dora knew Mark hadn’t disappeared into his own thoughts. She felt his energy, and noted that his jacket was open, providing easy access to his gun. His eyes never stopped moving, checking first one side of the sidewalk and then the other, both ahead of them and behind.

The stalker was a third person on the sidewalk with them and Dora’s muscles tensed. At any moment she expected somebody to jump out of the bushes or appear from behind a tree.

She didn’t relax until they were inside her house and Mark had slumped into the sofa. She sank down next to him, deciding she wasn’t even going to offer him coffee. It was obvious he was exhausted and needed to go to his motel room and get a good night’s sleep.

Although she’d love to sit and talk to him, to drink in his very presence, she also wanted him at the top of his game so that nobody was able to sneak up on him and hurt him because he was too physically exhausted to be careful.

“You need to go,” she said firmly. “You need to go and get some sleep. You look like you haven’t slept for weeks.”

“I slept fine last night,” he said with a sly smile. The smile slowly fell from his lips. “Until the nightmares started.”

“Nightmares?” Dora looked at him with concern.

He waved a hand as if to dismiss the subject. “It’s no big deal. I always have nightmares when I’m working a case.”

She frowned, not sure she believed him. “Mark.” She placed a hand on his forearm. “Go home to the motel and go to bed. As much as I’d like you to spend some time with me, I’d rather you get some much-needed sleep.”

He took her hand in his and squeezed it, the gesture coupled with the warmth in his eyes speaking words she didn’t want him to say aloud. “You’re right. I need some sleep. I don’t think I’d be very good company tonight anyway.” He released her hand and stood.

She got up to walk him to the door, wondering when she’d come to care enough about him to worry about his sleep habits, any nightmares he’d suffered or anything else.

She was going to get hurt. As he kissed her on the forehead and then stepped outside and back into the night, she realized that no matter how much she prepared herself, no matter how often she told herself she had it all under control, when Mark Flynn left Vengeance, her heart was going to break in half.

* * *

Amanda watched Mark leave Dora’s house from her hiding place in the bushes across the street. She remained there as she watched a second figure dash from one tree to another, shadowing Mark as he made his way down the sidewalk to where his car was parked.

Ben.

She knew it was Ben shadowing Mark at Melinda’s behest. But why? She didn’t want to believe what her head had been telling her ever since she’d found the small note card on Melinda’s desk that had Mark written on it. The only Mark Amanda knew was the FBI agent and the minute she’d seen the note she’d felt that he was in danger.

Now she had proof that Ben and Melinda were up to something. Otherwise, why would Ben be out here in the dark, watching and following the tall agent?

Amanda had put the note beneath Mark’s windshield the night before after she’d found the card on Melinda’s desk. That had been as far as she’d been willing to go in an effort to stop whatever might be happening.

The truth was, in the past twenty-four hours, since she’d found that little note card on Melinda’s desk, Amanda had been afraid, afraid of her boss and afraid of Ben.

She feared what might happen to her if Melinda or Ben knew that she had suspicions about them. She’d begun to think that Melinda’s kidnapping hadn’t been real, that somehow she and Ben had plotted the whole thing.

Thinking back, during Melinda’s captivity Amanda remembered now that Ben would disappear from campus for long periods of time. Amanda couldn’t find him at his apartment; nor was he in any of his usual haunts. Had he been with Melinda? Pretending to be a kidnapper?