It was well after three in the morning when Evan arrived at his townhouse in West Lyndon. Bone weary, he left his car parked out front, and bleary-eyed, let himself in through the front door. He ignored the pile of mail on the hall table-when had he put that there?-and pretended not to see the blinking red light on his telephone. Messages could wait. He was simply too tired to deal with anyone or anything.
Too tired, too, to make it up the steps, so he let himself drift backward onto the living-room sofa, fully clothed. He’d just closed his eyes when he heard the soft footfall on the stairs. Dismissing it as little more than wishful thinking on his part, he continued to sail toward sleep.
“Evan?” a voice called from the doorway.
More wishful thinking, surely.
“Evan.” The voice, gentle, filled with concern, drew closer.
Soft hands caressed his arm. He sighed and smiled in his state of almost-sleep.
“Evan, don’t sleep down here. Come up to bed.” The voice was in his ear now.
He reached out and touched skin.
“Annie.”
He felt her weight as she sat on the edge of the sofa and leaned over him, her lips pressed against the side of his face.
“When did you get here?”
“About nine.” She snuggled next to him, and he felt himself relax for the first time in days.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I heard on the scanner that another body had been found. I didn’t want to disturb you. I figured you’d be home when you were finished with what you had to do.”
“How long can you stay?”
“I’ll be in town through Tuesday. Have you forgotten that my sister is getting married on Friday?”
“Oh, shit. I did forget.” He stared up at the ceiling. How could he have forgotten that?
“It’s okay. I’m here to remind you. Thursday night, rehearsal dinner. Friday night, wedding. Saturday, sleep until noon. Saturday night, just me and you. Sunday through Tuesday, I’ll be staying with my niece, until Mara and Aidan get back. Not much of a honeymoon for them, but at least they’ll have a few days to themselves.”
“Rewind back to Saturday. Saturday sounded real good.” It had been weeks since they’d had a night together alone. There’d been something every weekend for the past month. Four weeks ago, it had been Mara’s wedding shower. The past three, either Annie or Evan had been working.
Maybe on Saturday night they could have dinner at their favorite restaurant, he was thinking, then catch a movie. Or maybe they’d just stay at home, just the two of them. That sounded even better.
She lay against him, her head on his chest. His fingers trailed lightly through her soft blond hair.
“How old was she?” she asked softly.
“Thirteen. Almost fourteen.”
“Same as the others?”
“Yes.”
She fell silent, and he knew that she was working it through. As a psychologist and one of the FBI’s most skilled profilers, Annie-Dr. Anne Marie McCall-couldn’t help but sort through the pieces.
“Shoes?”
“Missing,” he told her through a fog of fatigue. “Just like the others.”
“Odd trophy,” she murmured.
“I wanted to ask you what you thought about that.”
“Tomorrow.” She sat up. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow. Right now, you think you can make it up the stairs?”
“Doubtful.”
“Okay.”
She stood, and cool air replaced her warmth. His hand searched for her in the dark, but she had already moved out of reach.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Moments later she returned. He felt the soft flow of a blanket drift over him, the comfort of a pillow under his head.
Bliss.
“Move over.” She slid under the blanket and wrapped her arms around him, her body molded to his in the dark.
“Annie…”
“Shh. Tomorrow. There’s nothing that can’t wait until the morning.”
He wanted to say something, but his tired brain had stopped communicating with his mouth. Effortlessly, he sailed off into the darkness, where he dreamed of endless closets filled with small bloody shoes that frantic mothers tried to match into pairs.
2
Evan! How’s it going?”
A hand slapped him on the back, and Evan turned to find Will Fletcher, a friend of Annie’s from the Bureau, leaning against the bar.
“Some wedding, huh?” Will gestured around the tent with one hand, the other hand wrapped around a glass of champagne.
“Yeah. Beautiful. Glad the weather held for Mara and Aidan. The reports this week weren’t too promising.” Evan declined the flute offered by a tuxedoed young man and opted for a pilsner of beer.
“That’s one beautiful bride.” Will nodded at Mara, who, with her tall, handsome groom, was making her way around the room.
“No argument from me,” Evan agreed.
“Great idea, don’t you think, to have Annie and Julianne give the bride away?”
“Well, since Mara’s parents aren’t alive, having her sister and her daughter there for her was a really nice touch.”
“The kid-Julianne-looks like she’s survived her ordeal pretty well.”
For a moment, Evan had forgotten that Will had been there when Julianne had been returned after spending seven years living under an assumed name with her father, Jules Douglas. Unable to forgive Mara for having divorced him, Jules had done the one thing he knew would hurt Mara the most. He took their five-year-old daughter, and disappeared.
After years of tracking, the FBI was finally led to the Valley of the Angels, a Wyoming ranch that was part of the network of one self-proclaimed evangelist who called himself Reverend Prescott, whose mission in life was to “rescue” young drug-addicted runaways from the streets, only to clean them up and sell them to the highest bidder on the Internet. Jules’s mathematical wizardry had come in handy when it came to cooking the reverend’s books. Jules was currently in prison awaiting trial for kidnapping and a host of other charges related to his work at the Valley of the Angels. Julianne had been present when her father was arrested, just a few days after she’d been reunited with her mother. All in all, it had been one hell of a year for everyone involved.
“From all accounts, Julianne seems to be doing just fine. She seems to be accepting Aidan as a stepfather-Mara would have postponed the wedding if she hadn’t been able to handle it-and Annie has been keeping tabs on her. She thinks Julianne’s doing great.” Evan’s searching eyes found Annie, halfway across the tent. He willed her to look at him, and eventually, she did. She smiled and winked, and continued her conversation with one of the guests.