Page 61 of Stalked

She shrugged. “I hope so. Everyone has lives they need to get on with. They can’t spend all their time just on this one case.”

He pulled her to his chest and felt her arms wrap around his waist.

“You let me worry about that. Working cases, hunting down people who hurt others? That’s what we do here. We find the patterns nobody else sees. And we’re damn good at our job.”

“Okay.” She nodded her head against his chest.

“We’ll catch him.” He brought his lips down to her forehead. “I will do whatever it takes to make sure you and our baby are safe. I promise you that.”

It was a promise he had every intention of keeping.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Rosalyn awoke to sounds of voices in the small living room area of the Omega Sector apartment. Evidently the apartment was used by experts who came to help with cases or by agents who needed a night’s rest and didn’t want to go to their homes.

Or for people who were being hunted by psychopaths.

The apartment was within the compound but outside the main section of offices. Members of the SWAT team, angry over the death of an Omega agent, were taking turns guarding the door. Ashton Fitzgerald had been there when she and Steve had arrived.

Rosalyn had fallen to sleep knowing the Watcher couldn’t find her here. Or at least couldn’t get to her.

But she had dreamed that he sat right outside the gate. In a lawn chair. Drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. His face was hidden from her in some sort of unnatural darkness, but she could clearly see a giant knife sitting on a small table by his side.

Just waiting for her to exit Omega so he could kill her.

Worse than that, the bodies of everyone she’d come to know and care about at Omega Sector—Jon, Brandon, Andrea, Derek, Joe—lay around him. Murdered.

Steve’s body sat propped up closer to the Watcher, blood staining his T-shirt. Steve’s green eyes were open, lifeless, staring out blankly.

Rosalyn took a step outside the gate. The Watcher folded his paper and stood.

“I was beginning to think you’d never come out of there,” he said, his voice sounding like it was coming through one of those modulator things. “But I had fun with your friends since you were so busy protecting yourself.”

She watched in horror as he kicked Steve’s body over and rushed toward her.

“I’m so excited to meet the baby!”

She’d awakened sobbing right before he reached her.

Steve had held her in the bed as she fought him at first—caught in the terror of her dream—then as she sobbed.

“You’re all going to die because of me. Because I’m hiding and the Watcher wants to keep his sick game moving forward.”

“Nobody else is going to die. We are all on high alert and everyone can handle themselves.”

He’d stroked her hair and held her close to his chest, murmuring soft words of comfort and encouragement. But she still couldn’t fall back asleep until the light of dawn crept up through the small window.

She heard the deep timbre of Steve’s voice right away and soon recognized the other voices to be Derek and Molly Waterman. Maybe Molly had found something when analyzing the crime scene at Steve’s house yesterday. Rosalyn got dressed and went out into the small living room. She didn’t have any makeup to put on even if she could have been bothered to do so.

Steve immediately crossed to her and kissed her on her forehead.

“You okay?” He led her over to the small kitchen island so she could have something to eat and some coffee. “I’ll make you eggs and toast.”

“Thank you. Rough dreams, but yeah, I’m okay now.” She turned to Molly and Derek. “Good morning. Anything new?”

Molly surprised her by coming over to give her a hug. It had been a long time since she’d had friends, really anyone besides Steve, who cared about her. She returned Molly’s hug, trying not to be as awkward as she felt.

“We didn’t find anything useful at Steve’s house. Like you said about the other notes, there was no usable DNA available.”

---