Page 37 of The Survivor
“He knows she’s alive,” Blake muttered. “He wants us to know that he knows it.”
“I think there’s more to it than that…”
He saw the wheels turning in his partner’s head and waited for Rick to continue.
“I think he was hoping to draw her out into the open. Maybe he doesn’t know the house was sold, or maybe he was stupid enough to think we’d bring her along to check out the scene.” Rick rubbed his forehead. “I’m just getting a feeling this is more than sending us a message. I think he hoped to achieve something.”
“God, I hope not.” He paused. “Just in case, we should tell the officers to canvas the neighborhood and check for any suspicious persons loitering around.”
“And look out for a tail when you’re driving home,” Rick added. “He knows our faces. Maybe he’s hoping one of us will lead him to Sam.”
The idea that the Rose Killer had done this in the hopes of learning Sam’s whereabouts was more frightening than the time Blake had gotten lost in the woods during a family vacation when he was seven years old. He’d felt helpless then, powerless, unable to protect himself from the strange noises and forbidding shadows surrounding him in that forest. Fortunately, his fatherhad found him before night had settled in, and over the years Blake had learned to protect himself from the dangerous killers he hunted for a living.
And now he had to protect Sam from another one of those dangerous killers.
His entire body tensed, his jaw so tight his teeth started to hurt. Anger filled his veins at the sight of the red petals strewn across the snow. If that bastard planned on getting his sadistic hands on Sam again, he had another thing coming.
* * *
“Blake looked angry,” Sam said, her gaze straying to the doorway for the hundredth time that hour.
She kept expecting Blake to walk through the front door, stroll into the living room and tell her it was a false alarm. Nope, the Rose Killer hadn’t tossed roses all over her old yard, just the local gardener hoping to bring some color to the neighborhood.
You are definitely losing it.
She tried not to sigh. God, maybe she was losing it.Of coursethe roses had been delivered by the madman who’d attacked her. Who else would be that sick and twisted?
Next to her, Special Agent Melanie Barnes, a tiny waif of a woman with a blond pixie cut, offered a reassuring smile. She wrapped her fingers around the cup of coffee sitting on the kitchen table in front of her. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s not always this intense, you know. He’s under a lot of pressure, that’s all.”
“Rick said the same thing to me a few days ago,” Sam admitted. “But to be honest, I can’t see Blake not being this intense. I think intensity is part of his genetic makeup.”
A faint smile crossed Mel’s face. “You’re probably right. But trust me, I’ve seen Blake let loose a time or two. He was engagedto a profiler out in Quantico, who used to drag him out of the house whenever he got too moody.”
“She died, didn’t she—the woman he was involved with?”
Mel looked surprised. “He told you?”
“Not a lot. I only know she died.”
“Did he tell you how?”
Sam swallowed. “No.”
“Three shots to the back.” Mel’s voice was curt, but the pain in it was unmistakable. “By a serial killer Blake had been tracking.”
Sam wrinkled her forehead. “I thought you said she was a profiler. Do profilers usually go into the field?”
The blond agent shook her head.
“Then why did—”
She was interrupted by the sound of the front door creaking open.
Mel was on her feet just as Blake strode into the kitchen. “Rick’s waiting for you outside,” Blake told his colleague.
Mel shot him a questioning glance but he gave a slight shake of the head. “Rick will fill you in.”
With a nod of her own, Mel turned to Sam. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
