Page 53 of The Grave Between Us
“Sorry,” Cole grunted. He chugged his coffee, cool enough with the cream to down as fast as he could. His head throbbed. “No, I didn’t sleep much.” How could he? “I think I closed my eyes at my desk for a few minutes.”
Noah stared out the passenger window as Cole backed out of their driveway.
Two stop signs and a right turn later, as Cole was winding out of their neighborhood, he exploded. “Where is he?” he shouted, braking hard enough to engage their seat belts. “Ian is a predator. He spends his life hunting men. So whereishe? Where did he go after Virginia? Where did he hide? He spent the sixteen years before that highly mobile, moving from place to place, seeking out different hunting grounds. There’s a cluster of missing men in upstate New York from six years ago. Was that him? A cluster in North Dakota from five years ago. Michigan's Upper Peninsula two years ago.”
“Cole—”
“You know where there’s not a cluster of missing men? Iowa. But the one place I can definitely place him, after escaping on Mountain Pass Road in Virginia, is on Iowa 141 two weeks ago!” He slammed his palm on the steering wheel.
“The Bureau didn’t catch him before,” Noah said. “He slipped up, and a highway patrol officer happened to be there to see it, in the right place at the right time. What makes you think you can track him now, when the entire FBI couldn’t find him then?”
Because Iknowhim.Cole’s fingernails dug into his palms. His stomach lurched.I got inside his head, and I saw him.
You only saw what he let you see.
“You’re not the lead agent on this, right? The BAU, they’re running the investigation. Your old boss is in charge.”
“Michael King. Yeah.” A horn honked behind him, someone finally appearing on their quiet residential road and getting annoyed with the SUV stopped in the middle of the street. He waved behind him and started forward. “He asked me to take a look at the old case file and see if I could remember anything. See any patterns now that I didn’t then.”
“You did what he asked. You looked at the case file. Now let them do their jobs. Let them run the case.”
“I have to find him. I have to stop him—”
“You’re running yourself ragged. You’re on the edge—”
“He’s targeted you, Noah!” Cole snapped. “He’s hunting you! He stalked you! Shot you off the road and put your own gun to your head! Hetouchedyou—”
His voice shattered, and he slammed his lips closed as he merged onto the highway. The blinker clicked, the motor roaring when he floored the gas. “I have to put him down.”
How the hell could he let someone else take over the chase when it was Noah’s life in the crosshairs? When Ian had put his eyes and his hands all over the man Cole loved? Who else would hunt Ian the right way, never stopping, never letting up? Who else knew what was at stake?
If he lived to be one hundred and never saw another paper crane in the same state as Noah, it would be too soon.
“I’m okay, Cole.” Noah’s voice was an odd blend of steel and concern, like he was a hostage negotiator trying to talk someone off a ledge. “Ian took us by surprise with that attack, yes. But I’m okay, and Jacob is okay, and now that we know he’s out there, we can take precautions. We can be on alert. Be careful.”
“The men Ian took were careful, too. None of them were high-risk individuals. They never thought they’d be kidnapped and murdered. Never thought something like that could happen to them.”
“I’m a trained FBI agent—”
“So were McHugh and Hillary.”
Noah sighed. “What do you want me to say? I can’t figure out what you want—”
“I want you to be safe! I want you to be alive.” Noah’s jaw had snapped shut after Cole’s shout. “You don’t know what Ian is capable of,” Cole said, his voice dropping until he was almost whispering. “You didn’t hear the things that he did to those men. You didn’t open one of his graves, see what—”
His molars scraped together so hard his jawbone screamed.
Cole pulled into Noah’s preferred spot in the middle of the FBI office’s parking lot, at the front of the building. He turned off the ignition and reached for Noah’s hand. “The thought of him doing those things to you—”
“Don’t think about it,” Noah said. “Don’t even go there. Don’t let those thoughts in. You’re letting him in when you do. You’re letting him mess with your mind.”
Cole brought Noah’s hand to his lips. He inhaled, running his lips and nose over Noah’s wrist, under the cuff of his button-down.
Noah turned his hand over, cupping Cole’s jaw. He turned Cole’s face to him and stared into his eyes. “I can help you, if you want?”
Cole dropped a kiss to Noah’s palm. He shook his head. “Ian is an infection. Pure evil. I don’t want you anywhere near him or his darkness. I’ve seen what it does to people.”I know what it did to me. Ian emptied me and put his darkness and his voice in the hole he’d scraped out of me.“I’m going to keep you safe from him in every way, Noah. I swear.”
“I don’t want to be safe if it means I’m alone.”
