Page 36 of Built of Illusions

He kissed her hair. “Any time you want to back away, you do it. No questions. No problems.”

She squeezed him back and he felt her take in a deep breath. “Thanks. Okay. Let’s go before I seduce you back into that big bed of yours.”

Nico’s body reacted predictably and he tightened his grip on her. “Well, I could always call in for the day.”

She kept her arms around him but leaned back to look him in the eye. “Thanks. For everything. Including this morning and for trying to protect me from the evil bastard even while not trying to talk me out of something we both know I have to do.”

She rose up on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “Now, let’s go figure out how to catch him so we can spend some quality time in that bed.”

Nico cupped her face and kissed her gently. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

She rolled her eyes with a small smile.

He kissed her again with a little more heat. “I mean that. You’re amazing. Now, let’s go see what we can do about catching this asshole.”

Josie squeezed Nico’s hand and braced herself before he opened the door to the conference room. Their interlude was over. She’d needed it desperately to allow her brain to assimilate all the information and emotions of the past few days.

While the fear was huge, she also had a healthy dose of lust going on, keeping the fear on the edges. But as soon as that door opened, she was slammed with sadness. All those women. All those lives cut short.

She knew her eyes filled with tears, but that was on the periphery as she contemplated the faces before her. With another squeeze, she dropped Nico’s hand and moved to the board. She did her best to ignore the photos of the death scenes and focused on the women’s faces.

She felt a sense of camaraderie with these women who all shared similar physical characteristics, as if they were sisters or cousins.

Josie studied each woman in life, committed their names to memory. Her sketches had been mostly accurate, but she could see a difference in the shape of an eyebrow or the line of a jaw here and there. But her quick view a few days ago had seared these women into her brain and the errors she’d made were minor.

Now, she knew their names. And there was a new face. A new name. Zoey Gutierrez.

Terror shuddered through her. Would her own picture end up on this board?

Nico’s hands landed on her shoulders at the same time he whispered in her ear. “We’re going to get him. He’s not getting to you.”

Roman walked into the room but Josie didn’t move away from Nico’s touch.

Roman approached with a frown. “You sure you want to be looking at these, Josie?”

She wiped her face of the tears that had fallen. “I need to help. Maybe I can spot some similarities between their lives and mine. Figure out why these are the women he’s picked.”

Roman smiled gently. “Trying to put us out of a job?”

That made her laugh and she heard Nico chuckle too. “Maybe.”

Nico massaged her shoulders lightly and then dropped his hands. “Have a look at the photos of their belongings and see if you can spot anything else that you’ve found.”

With a task in mind, Josie looked at the nearest photo. Now that she knew she was looking for touristy items, it was easy to find them in the photos.

When she spotted something familiar, she drew in a sharp breath.

Nico was beside her in an instant. “What is it?”

She pointed at the photo showing Amaranta Clark’s kitchen. On the fridge was a bumper sticker she’d seen before. Tucson, Arizona with a cactus on the side.

“That was in my mailbox one day. There was other junk mail, so I tossed it into the recycling bin and never thought of it again.”

Roman moved to stand on her other side, both of them making sure she didn’t feel alone. Except she did. “That was at my old apartment. Maybe two weeks ago.”

Her stomach tightened. A killer had been watching her for weeks. He’d known about her apartment and now he knew the location of her castle. He could have attacked and killed her at any time. He could already have her face on this board. Why was he waiting? What did he have planned?

Her blood ran cold when she spotted a Lubbock Texas fridge magnet and a cactus Christmas tree ornament from Phoenix.

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