What Are You Afraid Of? (The Agency #2)(86)

“She had his child and stayed on as his housekeeper?” she asked.

He sent her an annoyed glance. “What else could she do? She had to support herself and her child.”

She paused. She didn’t want to anger him. He was obviously demented. And while she didn’t know if he was personally involved with the killings, or why he would be fixated on her, she didn’t doubt he would happily bash in her head, just like those poor women in Kansas.

Still, she had to keep him busy with his performance.

So long as he was enacting his grand tragedy, he wasn’t doing whatever awful thing he had planned for her.

“Did your mother tell you this story?” she finally asked.

He waved a dismissive hand. “Of course not. She was still infatuated with her lover. She would do anything to protect him.”

“Then my father told you?” she breathed in disbelief.

His hands clenched. “Our father,” he insisted. “And no, he wouldn’t never tell me the truth. He pretended I was invisible.”

She stared at him in confusion. His pain seemed so genuine, but she didn’t understand why he was so certain that he was a Jacobs.

Of course, her brain wasn’t functioning at full steam. Perhaps she was missing something obvious.

“So why do you believe my—” The words stuck on her lips. She swallowed and forced herself to continue. “Stuart was your father?”

“It was simple. I always knew there must be a reason my mother refused to talk about my father.” A tic pulsed in his jaw, his emotions swaying from self-pity to smug arrogance in the blink of an eye. “It could have been because he was a total loser. After all, she let Andrew hang around. A woman who would invite that lazy prick into her home obviously has no taste in men.”

“Andrew was always very kind to me,” she said before she could halt the words.

“Like he had a choice?” Ronnie sneered. “You were the princess. I was just the bastard.”

She licked her lips. Had Andrew been violent to Ronnie? She couldn’t remember seeing any visible bruises or broken bones when they were young, but who knew what went on behind locked doors? It might help to explain why Ronnie had grown up to be a psychopath.

“I still don’t understand,” she told him.

He came to a halt, his chin tilted to an aggressive angle. “It’s simple. I refused to believe that I was the product of some lowlife who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.” He offered a dramatic pause. “I was special.”

“And you decided if you were special you had to be a Jacobs?”

He glared at her, easily sensing her disbelief. Did he assume that she would simply agree with his wild fantasy?

“I suspected it,” he said in defiant tones. “And I wasn’t alone. There were others who could see my resemblance to Stuart.”

“Who?”

He slashed his hand through the air with a sudden burst of irritation.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t need anyone to tell me what I already know.” A hard smile twisted his lips. “Not after I discovered the letters.”

“What letters?”

The glitter of anticipation returned to his eyes as he pointed a finger at her.

“Wait here,” he commanded before he was heading out of the bay.

Like she had a choice? The drugs Ronnie had injected into her continued to flow through her bloodstream, making her body lethargic.

There was the sound of a nearby door being pulled open. Maybe an office? She couldn’t be lucky enough for Ronnie to actually leave her alone in the warehouse.

With a muttered curse, Carmen leaned her head against the wall. Her brain was spinning and there was a sickness sloshing through her stomach, but she tried to put her scrambled thoughts in order.

She was certain Ronnie Hyde was insane. Just the fact that he’d drugged her and carried her to this warehouse was proof of that.

But what was his connection to the killers? Was he an active participant or just a flunky who was being used by others? He hardly seemed a mastermind criminal.

And what was her connection? Was his obsession with her because he had some crazed notion that they were related? Or did it have something to do with her book?

Ronnie and whoever else was involved had been copying the killers she’d profiled. And what did he intend to do with her now?

The questions swirled round and round, picking up speed until Ronnie suddenly returned. Walking forward with a triumphant smile, he gripped a stack of envelopes in one hand. He continued forward, standing directly next to her as he tossed the envelopes onto her lap.

She warily opened the top envelope and pulled out a yellowed sheet of paper that was stained and wrinkled. As if it’d been handled a hundred times over the years.

“Where did you get these?” she asked.

He hesitated, almost as if he didn’t want to answer. “They were hidden in my mother’s room,” he finally muttered.

There was a strange edge to his voice. As if he was lying.

But why?

With a shake of her head, she concentrated on unfolding the paper. She glanced at the words at the top.





My glorious Ellen.





Ellen. Her stomach clenched. Ronnie’s mother. Quickly her gaze lowered to the bottom of the letter.