“Your sister’s sex life?”
“Something else. An idea I think you’re going to want to hear.”
He shot the detective next to him a quick glance. “Talk to you later, Mylinski.”
Looking somewhere between relieved and concerned, the balding detective popped a piece of candy into his mouth and sauntered away.
“I hope you’re not going to waste my time,” Cassidy said.
“I want you to use me to lure Dryden into a trap.”
Cassidy’s mouth drew into a hard line. “Does Burnell know about this?”
“He doesn’t like the idea.”
“I bet not.”
“So how about it?”
A smile crept over Cassidy’s mouth, stretched into a full-fledged grin. “This could be just the break we need.”
“That’s what I want to hear.” Risa stifled a shiver. It was done. For better or for worse, Trent couldn’t stop her now.
As if the thought of him conjured him from the mist, Trent appeared in the doorway. One of the well-dressed men with the look of federal law enforcement stood beside him. The two of them were a matched set except for the other man’s shorter height, more pointed features, and jet black hair, so dark it brought out the touch of gray that had crept into Trent’s.
An uneasy feeling slithered up Risa’s spine.
Trent’s gaze shot from Risa to Cassidy and back again. His brows pinched in a frown. “Rees, this is Subera. He’s from the Bureau. Milwaukee office.”
The Bureau. The FBI. Her unease spread into all out foreboding. “And what brings you to the center of the state, Special Agent Subera?”
“I’m here to get your sister back, Professor Madsen.” The man gave her a smile undoubtedly designed to be reassuring.
The grin didn’t reassure her at all. And the fact that he was familiar enough with the case to know her name and title without the benefit of introduction worried her even more. She nodded in Cassidy’s direction. “The sheriff’s department is doing a fine job. Why would the Bureau send someone in addition to Trent?”
“The sheriff’s department is doing a fine job.” Subera nodded his kudos to Cassidy. “But we received reports that Dryden and your sister were seen on the Iowa banks of the Mississippi, just across the river from Prairie du Chien. And once he transported her across state lines, it became an FBI case.”
“Someone saw—” She caught her breath. “Dryden couldn’t have taken Nikki to Iowa. He was at my house this morning, leaving me a message. He couldn’t have gone to Iowa and come back again that fast. It’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible,” Trent said in a low voice. “It’s not even a two-hour drive from your house to the Iowa border.”
She turned blazing eyes on Trent. Were Dryden and Nikki really spotted across the border? Or had Trent trumped up a publicity-seeker’s sighting as an excuse to bring his FBI colleagues into the case? To take control of the manhunt from the sheriff’s department? To take control from Cassidy?
Beside her, Cassidy shifted his weight from foot to foot like a dancing prizefighter. “The professor here was just telling me how she would be willing to help us set a trap for Dryden.”
Subera raised his eyebrows. “You’re suggesting using a civilian as bait?”
“I’m suggesting nothing. She offered.” Cassidy’s voice rang with defensiveness and thinly disguised hostility. Apparently he appreciated the FBI taking over his manhunt about as much as Risa did.
Subera shook his head. “We won’t consider that option until we’ve exhausted all other avenues.”
Risa’s head throbbed in time with her pulse. She turned her glare on Trent, clenching her hands at her sides to keep them from shaking with the frustration building inside her. “I want to talk to you, Trent. Now.”
“Fine.” Judging from the look on his face, he knew what was coming. And judging from the speed with which he excused himself, he knew exactly how close she was to losing control right here in front of Subera and Cassidy.
Trent led her out the front door to the tiny gravel parking lot, nearly emptied of cars now that she’d heard the task force moved to a larger location Starting for his rental car, Trent unlocked the doors with a press of his keyless remote. “Get in the car. We’ll talk on the way.”
Risa came to a dead halt. The last thing she was going to do was crawl back in that car and let him whisk her to someplace safe, far away from any chance she might have of helping track Dryden and Nikki. “Damn you.”
He stopped and turned to look at her, like a human punching bag waiting for the latest torrent of abuse.
“You—” She glanced around at a straggler walking to his car and struggled to control the volume of her voice. “You made up this Iowa sighting, didn’t you?”
“There was a sighting. I just took advantage of it.”
Took advantage? A nice way of saying he took a sighting no one would ever believe was real and blew it out of proportion. “And when Subera took over the case, you talked him into excluding me. You told him the risk was too great.”
“Of course I did. The risk is too great.”
“But I’m the one taking that risk. It should be up to me.”
His mouth flattened into a hard line. “Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help Nikki.”
She shook her head and started back in the direction of the police station. “How about forgetting to tell me her car was found? Is that going to help? Not mentioning a man was murdered and that my sister is now considered an accomplice?”
“Come on, Rees. I’ll explain. Get in the car.” He reached for her. His fingers brushed her arm, but didn’t close around her bicep. Instead he yanked his hand back as if it had been splattered with hot grease and let it fall limp at his side.
She stopped in her tracks, staring at his hand. “Now you’re withdrawing from a simple touch?”
Anger blossomed within her like a mushroom cloud. Anger over his withdrawal two years ago. Anger over his withdrawal this morning. Anger over old pain and new, mixing and swirling inside her. Searing like fire. “Are you afraid merely grasping my arm will contaminate me with the evil of your job?”
“Open your eyes, Rees. Look what’s happened to Nikki. Look what’s happened to you so far. If I hadn’t brought Dryden into your life, you and Nikki would be busy living your lives, not in fear of losing them. I’ve already contaminated you.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. He wouldn’t listen. He would never accept that her selection of Dryden to be part of her study didn’t have anything to do with him.
And realistically, she didn’t accept it, either.
Dryden’s case had changed Trent. He’d gone to Wisconsin and returned to her a different man. A tortured man. A man who couldn’t marry her.
And he’d never told her why.
After he’d canceled their wedding, she’d thought it an ironic coincidence when the University of Wisconsin had offered her a professorship. But when she’d started her criminal psychology project and compiled her list of prisoners to study, it was no coincidence that she’d included Dryden’s name. She’d wanted to know what had changed Trent. She’d wanted to find some answers. She’d wanted to look the devil in the eye.
And she had.
But it wasn’t answers she’d found. Just anger and hatred and evil.
“All right, Trent. Have it your way. All of this is your fault. And you should stay as far away from me as you possibly can.”
The words were bitter on her tongue. She spun around and resumed her march to the police station, her legs heavy as lead. If she was lucky, Police Chief Schneider would still be inside and eager for their chat about Nikki. Trent might lock her out of his heart and out of his life, but he couldn’t keep her from assisting in the search for Dryden.