Page 79 of Ace of Spades
Seeing her girls on that wall brought the realization that she could commit cold-blooded murder and sleep like a baby afterward.
Nate stepped up to the wall. “Why is there a gap? It looks like there was a four- or five-year span where he wasn’t watching you.”
“You’re right. After the graduation picture, there aren’t any until I was assigned to the Miami field office. My scholarship was at the University of Maryland, so maybe that was too far away for him to keep tabs on me?”
Nate glanced at her. “That would explain it.”
“Guys,” Court said, standing in front of an open desk drawer.
That was all he said, but it was the sharp tone of his voice that got their attention. She, Nate, and Alex crowded around him, watching as he picked up one plastic angel after another—the same as the one she’d found near her car—setting them on the desk.
There were seven of them, six with names printed on them with a black marker. One in particular had her sucking in a breath. She picked it up with her gloved hand. “Raisa,” she whispered, hating that tears stung her eyes and her lips trembled.
Nate stepped up behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll get him, tiger.”
Yes, she was a tiger. Strong and fearless. She stiffened her spine. “No. I’ll get him.” She looked over her shoulder at Nate. “He’s mine.” Gently placing the angel next to the others, she read off the names. “Raisa, Brenda, Alana, Stacy, Linda, Barb”—the last one found behind the grocery store and only identified this morning—“and we have to assume the one without the name is meant for me.”
Nate’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “Never.”
There was such vengeance in his voice, and she closed her eyes at hearing it, hiding the love for him that must be shining in them. No matter what might happen between them after this was over, she would always know that she meant something to him.
“Never,” Alex and Court echoed in unison.
These men—the Gentry brothers—were her team, her family. They would die protecting her, and she would do the same for them. She was truly blessed to have them at her back.
“Brenda Jernigan was the one he killed six years ago,” Court said. “Also a prostitute. That’s where you don’t fit, Taylor. All the others were.”
Alex glanced from her to the plastic angels and then back to her. “I think he’s planning one of two things. Either he’s going for a murder-suicide, or he sees you as his true bride, the one woman deserving of him.”
“He can go to hell.” Taylor swiped her gloved hand over the angels, dropping them back into the drawer, then slammed it shut.
As if he regretted voicing what they all thought, Alex gave her an I’m-sorry shrug, then walked out of the room.
“Where’s Court?” Nate asked, looking around.
“He’s here with me.”
The words boomed out over loudspeakers, and Taylor was glad to see she wasn’t the only one who startled. She recognized that gravelly voice, having heard it at the gym when Wayne Tompkins, a.k.a. Wade Tillman, had asked her out.
“What do you want?” Nate said, his gaze going straight to a landscape on the wall.
She followed his gaze, and damn them, how had they missed the hole in the middle of a sunflower? Their killer was watching them. She walked over to the portrait. “You want me. Isn’t that right, Wayne? Or do you prefer Wade?” At the pounding of her heart, she reminded herself that she was a tiger. “How do we know you have him?”
“Your mother knew me as Wayne.”
He was trying to mess with her head, and it was working. Had her mother sensed the evil in him? Had she feared for her life before he put his hands around her neck? Or had she not seen the danger facing her when he’d followed her home, offering her flowers? Such an innocent thing, a gift of pink tulips, her mother’s favorite flowers. How could she have known she’d die that night?
She glanced at Nate and saw the fear for his brother in his eyes. “Prove that you have him. Otherwise, I have nothing to say to you.”
The computer screen on the desk came to life, drawing her to the monitor. The screen was filled with Court tied to a chair, his eyes closed, and his chin slumped on his chest.
Behind her, Nate growled.
“Is he dead?” she said, her stomach roiling with fear. Through her headset, she heard Alex tell Rand to come inside, that their man was in the house somewhere.
“Not yet, but he will be if you don’t follow my directions,” that gravelly voice she hated said.
He had to be somewhere in the house, but they’d searched all the rooms. “What do you want me to do?”
