Page 14 of The Girl He Wanted

"Hi, we're looking for Jack Reynolds," Christopher said, flashing his FBI badge, his tone friendly but professional. "Is he home?"

The woman's smile faltered, slightly. "I'm sorry. Jack's not here right now. Can I ask why you’re calling by here?"

Paige noticed the woman's nervousness and wondered what that note of discomfort was about. Was it just because the FBI were at the door, or was there something more?

"Who are you?" Christopher asked.

"Sophia. His girlfriend."

"Is everything all right?" Paige asked her. Even as she asked it, her eyes searched the woman for anything that might help her to understand what was going on. She caught sight of some bruises on her forearms, swiftly covered up by the woman as she saw Paige looking at them. Paige thought that she had her answer then.

"Everything's fine. What do you want Jack for?" She said that just a little too quickly to be believable.

"We need to talk to him in connection with a case," Paige said. She didn't want to give away more details than that. "Can you tell us where he is, please?"

"Where he always is," the woman said, with a note of bitterness. "He's gone climbing."

***

Paige wondered more about Jack Reynolds as she and Christopher drove towards the climbing gym, trying to fit a new piece of information into the mental picture she had of him.

"You saw the bruises on Sophia's arms back there?" Paige asked Christopher.

"Yeah, I did," Christopher replied, his eyes still focused on the road. "You're thinking they might be Reynolds's work? He was already arrested once for violence towards one of his girlfriends."

"Suggesting a man with no problem being violent towards women." The more Paige thought about Reynolds, the more she believed that he might be the killer.

"But we can't jump to conclusions,” Christopher said. “We need more evidence."

Paige nodded, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. They were getting closer to Jack Reynolds, and she was starting to feel a sense of foreboding about what might happen when they caught up to him.

Maybe a part of the sense of something being wrong had something to do with the sense of awkwardness in the car, though. Christopher was still barely talking to her. Paige knew he'd told her that he needed to focus on the case to be able to handle things, but could he? Was this silence really a good thing when it came to the case. Normally, they spent their time talking about cases, about just about anything, but now … it was almost like Paige was working the case alone, with Christopher there but not fully there.

Paige couldn't help feeling a note of guilt for her part in all of this. If she hadn't gone to see Adam Riker, looking for answers, then Christopher's wife might still be alive. But then again, if she hadn't, they might never have gotten the information that was allowing Sauer to pursue the case while Paige and Christopher were here. It was a double-edged sword, and Paige was still trying to come to terms with it. She knew that dwelling on what ifs wouldn't get them anywhere. They had a job to do, and they needed to do it well.

"Do you think that Adam Riker really knows who the Exsanguination Killer is?" Christopher asked as they drove. Paige realized that his thoughts must have been going to a lot of the same places as hers.

"I ... think so," Paige said. She knew that she had to be careful what she said right then. Christopher's emotions on this would still be raw. "He let slip what he knew accidentally. And the fact that the Exsanguination Killer targeted Jennifer so soon after my visit suggests that Adam pointed her out as a target. Yes, I think he knows exactly who she is. I think he enjoys knowing that I want to know, and that I can’t pay his price."

Paige couldn’t kill someone, not even to find out who had killed her father. She wouldn’t prove Adam right about who she was. She wouldn’t be the murderer that he’d wanted her to be from the start of all of this.

"A part of me can't stand that," Christopher said, the anger in his voice obvious. "A part of me wants to go back to DC even now and just beat the answers out of him. I don't care that I'm an FBI agent. I don't care that it's wrong."

Paige put a restraining hand on his arm. "You know you can't. And you know that it wouldn't work. Adam would only give us information that he wanted us to have. He'd weave it all into one grand trap, making us run around where he wanted us to run, laughing while we did it."

Paige could feel the connection of her hand against Christopher's arm, and she hoped that it was somehow comforting. They were both struggling with their own demons, and they needed to hold onto something to keep them grounded.

Yet it was more than that. There was instant attraction the moment her skin brushed his. The same attraction that Paige had confessed to Christopher before. The same attraction that had made it increasingly difficult to work together, to the point where Paige had requested a transfer before this case. If it hadn't been for the death of Christopher's wife, Paige might have been working in another department by now, a long way away from him. The touch was a reminder of just how close they were instead.

"We're here, not in DC," Paige said. "There's a killer here we need to catch. Ellie Kane and Bea Milling deserve justice, and that means us givingthisour attention, not Adam Riker."

"You're right," he said, taking a deep breath. "We need to keep our heads clear and focused. We're getting close to something here; I can feel it. There has to be something in the climbing connection."

Paige nodded in agreement, trying to bring her focus back to the murders they'd been sent to investigate. "Do you think it's possible that Jack Reynolds is the killer in this case?"

"It's too early to say for sure," Christopher said. "But there’s enough to make him a good suspect. He definitely has a history of violence, he knows the water tower, and he knows Ellie Kane from the climbing club. We need to talk to him and see what he has to say."

The climbing gym came into view, and Paige could see a group of people clustered around the entrance. Most of them were dressed in brightly colored climbing gear, and she could see the ropes and harnesses that they were wearing. Paige wondered if any of the rope there would be a match for the fibers that she'd found at the water tower? Probably too much of it for it to tell them who the killer was, but at least it gave her the sense that they were in the right place.

---