Authors: Kris Norris
Chapter Seventeen
March 26
th
– Reno—6:00 pm
“We’ve been over this for the last three days,” said Gage, tossing a file down across Special Agent Douglas O’Brian’s desk. “What makes you think we’ll find anything different this time?”
Doug looked over the rim of his mug at Gage, his dark eyes blurred by the steam rising off the coffee. “You know Brooklyn better than anyone else here. That’s all the information we’ve been able to dig up on her.
All her phone records, credit card statements, medical information.
There has to be something in there we’re overlooking. A clue to where she’s hiding.”
Gage sighed, dropping into the hard leather seat beside the desk. It was already dark, the shadows marking another lost day in Brooklyn’s life. He hadn’t thought it’d take him this long to figure out where she’d gone, but everything he’d tried had turned up empty. “I’ve gone over the damn stuff a hundred times. We’ve checked out her friends, and all the associations she’s made through publishing. Hell, we even found her roommate from college living in
“Can we trust her to be honest with us?” asked Doug. “No offence, but it’s obvious her loyalties are to Brooklyn.”
“Emma’s idea of loyalty changed when I described…in detail…what the bastard did to her in the bookstore.” Gage grunted and ran his fingers through his hair, ignoring the urge to pull some of it out. “She assured me she’d contact us if Brooklyn so much as emailed her.”
Doug nodded, taking another slow sip of his coffee. “Well, she’s bound to give herself away sooner or later. She can’t go much longer on the cash she had in her purse.”
Gage looked away. The thought of Brooklyn living on the street, doing God knows what just to make some cash, boiled his blood. And she would. Her damn stubborn streak would kick in and she’d do whatever was necessary to stay gone.
He looked down at his hands, cursing at the sight of them shaking. Damn, he needed to hold her. Wrap his arms around her, feel the warmth of her skin against his. He’d kiss every inch of her this time. Touch every hollow and curve on her body before he’d believe she was okay. Then he’d spend half the night tasting her.
Licking her skin, as he travelled down her body to the hot centre of her core.
He could almost taste the sweet musk of her juices, so potent his head would be spinning before she came in his mouth. But he wouldn’t stop at just one orgasm. He’d tease her for hours until she’d come so many times she wouldn’t have the strength to raise her head. Then he’d slide into her. Hold her close as he moved slow and easy within her. No rushing this time. No hard, fast hammering until he’d shown her he still remembered how to make love.
“But time is one thing we don’t have,” continued Doug. “From what you’ve described about this Drake character, he’s bound to be searching for her as hard as we are.”
Gage sighed, trying to keep up with the conversation, but all he could do was think about all the things he wanted to do to Brooklyn. When those fantasies ebbed, he’d get flashes of all the terrors she’d face if Drake got to her first. That’s assuming the trucker who’d given her a ride didn’t try to rape or kill her.
“Shit,” he breathed, standing back up in one, strong, sudden motion. He marched over to the window and stared out at the city. To most, the snow-capped mountains landscaped behind the shimmering skyline would be considered stunning, but it only made him feel cold. “We can only hope he’s having as much trouble as we are.”
Gage heard Doug sigh and swivel in his chair, the sharp squeak of metal grating in his head. There was a brief pause before he felt the man’s hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you look at it one more time while I go and see how the search on our mystery man is
going.
I had the team change the search parameters. Something about the guy’s method seems familiar to me, but I can’t seem to place it.” Doug moved towards the door. “I’ll check back in a bit.”
The man bridged the doorway just as Sam stepped through. Sam hadn’t talked much since their arrival, spending any free time alone with Sue.
“Any news?” asked Sam, ambling over to Doug’s desk. Sam picked up the file and flipped through it, keeping his back to him.
Gage stuffed his hands in his pockets. He knew Sam was itching to tear a strip off him, and the obvious tension between them was irritating. “Why don’t you just say it?”
Sam glanced at him over his shoulder, still flipping the pages. “Say what?”
“That I’m a cold-hearted bastard who doesn’t know when to shut up.”
Sam turned towards him, his fists clenched around the folder. “Why bother when you already know?”
Gage scowled and turned away. He hated the look on Sam’s face, as if it was him he’d hurt instead of Brooklyn. “Forget it.” He moved to go when Sam grabbed him by the arm.
“Just tell me one thing,
buddy
. If you wanted to hurt her so badly, why did you wait until we were in the middle of fucking nowhere to do it? Why didn’t you just make her feel like shit back home and save us all the hassle?”
“Do you honestly think I planned this? Do you know how many times I’ve died inside wondering what hell I’ve put her through all because I couldn’t think past my dick?” Gage pulled his arm away and stormed across the room, kicking the chair back a few feet. “I’d give my soul to take it back. To relive that one moment when I couldn’t see anything, but what I’d conjured up in my mind. I’ve spent so many months convincing myself there’s no way she could possibly love me, I can’t conceive it any other way.” He thought about punching his fist through the wall, but sank down in the chair instead. “I just didn’t want her to hate me. Even if she never loved me again, at least, she wouldn’t hate me.”
Sam’s feet scuffed across the floor and stopped behind him. “I don’t think she could hate you if she tried. All you need to do is let go of the guilt, and stop fighting what you feel. I’m sure Brook will take care of the rest.”
“That’s if she’ll even listen to me. And to do that we have to find her, which is proving to be a son of a bitch.”
“Here,” said Sam, placing the folder in his lap. “Let’s go over it one more time. Doug’s right. There’s got to be something in there that can lead us to Brooklyn.”
9:00 pm
“Yeah.
Thanks.” Gage hung up the phone and sat back in the chair, trying to rub away the headache he’d had for the last two days. Every lead had gone nowhere, and if he had to read through Brooklyn’s life history one more time, he’d slam his head against the wall.
“Any luck?” asked Sam.
Gage shook his head, pushing the chair back from the desk. He thought about rising for a moment, but then decided he was too tired to try. “I’ve tracked down seven of the truckers from the diner. All of them deny giving Brooklyn a lift, though one of them remembered seeing her at the counter.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “There’s one left. A guy bound for Denver. I talked to his wife, but she said he’d gone right out on another run. She didn’t say much else.”
“Maybe she’s hiding something?” suggested Sam.
Gage shrugged, letting his breath exhale in a long, slow huff.
“Hard to tell over the phone.
It’s possible. She sounded pretty nervous, but then lots of people freak out when the F.B.I. calls them out of the blue.”
“Just the same, might be worth a look. Maybe we should hop a flight—”
Sam stopped in mid sentence when Doug burst into the room, a file clutched in his hand. His face was pale, his lips thin lines. He closed the door behind him, giving each of them a hardened look before walking over to the window. Gage watched the man’s jaw twitch and knew nothing good was going to come from the conversation.
“What?” asked Gage, not sure whether he should stand up and stay sitting.
Doug glanced at Sam, a grim expression on his face, before shaking the file in his hand. “My guys identified our mystery man.”
“What!” Gage jumped up and covered the room in three strides. “Who is he?”
Doug sighed, allowing Gage to rip the folder from his hand. “Drake Davenport is really Scott Mann.
Or should I say, ex-Special Agent Scott Mann.
The guy’s a former Fed.”
Gage stared at the picture of the man stapled in the upper left-hand corner. It was a few years old, outlining a guy with brown hair and dark eyes. Only his head and shoulders were visible, but Gage knew it was the same guy. There was something about the man’s eyes and the set of his jaw that left no doubt.
“That’s not all,” continued Doug.
“Seems our guy spent ten years in the Navy before he joined the Bureau.
Guy was a SEAL. Based on his military record, he was one of the best. Crack shot, great strategist, and one hell of a fighter. He’s got more commendations than I’ve got socks. Says he quit after getting shot in the shoulder. Apparently it affected his accuracy, and he decided to go civilian.” Doug paused, shaking his head. “His Federal record is just as impressive.”
Sam joined Gage by the window, looking at the papers over his shoulder. “So what the hell happened?
Sounds like the guy’s a hero.”
Doug sighed as he raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s only a theory, but as soon as we got a match, I had our profilers search Scott’s previous assignments. Seems he was working on a serial killer case just before he resigned. The guy they were chasing was a walking nightmare. Bloody bodies across three
states,
and nothing but some stray black fibres left at the scene. They gave Scott the case because he had a knack for getting inside his prey’s head. Something he probably picked up while in the SEALS.
“Anyway, he spent the next three months hunting the guy, always a step behind. Four more women died before he finally caught a break. He’d managed to anticipate the killer’s next move, and they launched a pretty impressive strike. According to the records, they cornered the guy and wounded him during some heavy gunfire. The guy managed to slip away, but died during the chase.”
“Sounds like a happy ending to me,” said Sam.
“That’s what Scott’s team thought until they discovered the bastard had already killed another victim before they’d caught up with him. The woman turned out to be Scott’s wife.”
“Damn,” huffed Sam.
“Yeah.
Apparently the creep had been following her for over a week. You can imagine how Scott reacted. He blamed himself for not catching the guy sooner. Seems the killer was your typical psycho. He’d been abused as a child. Thought he was saving the women he killed from their own sins. Scott’s superiors sent him to the staff psychiatrist. I just talked to her on the phone. She wouldn’t break confidence without a warrant, but she did say Scott had become obsessed with the killer after his wife died. Apparently he spent hours going through all the evidence again.”
“He was trying to see if he’d missed something,” said Sam. “Couldn’t let it go.”
“My profilers think he became so entrenched in the guy’s life, he eventually became the stalker, or at least a version of him.”
“That might explain why he uses a
taser
instead of a gun,” added Sam. “And why the bombs he set off were mostly smoke. Somewhere inside, he’s still Scott Mann, and can’t bring himself to kill without provocation.”
“So why Brooklyn?” asked Gage. “If he’s so hell bent on not killing, why did he stick a fucking knife in her back?”
Doug exhaled a long, slow breath. “We’re not completely sure on that. Like I said, this is a theory. But I can tell you Scott’s wife was an author. She’d just published her third book. Romantic suspense novels similar to what Brooklyn writes, only hers were much more…tame.” Doug flashed Gage a sly smile. “Brooklyn sure can heat up the pages.”
Gage cocked half his mouth into a grin. He got that reaction a lot when colleagues found out who his wife was. “So he picked Brook because she writes erotic thriller novels?”
“That, and because the main character for her last three books was Sarah Porter.
Sarah was Scott’s wife’s name. From what I’ve read, Drake Davenport is a dangerous hero, who isn’t afraid to resort to his darker tendencies in the name of love. He has a number of traits in common with the killer they were chasing. Drake just uses those traits for good now.
Apparently all because of Sarah.
I think the first episode at the bookstore was his way of killing the women with some sort of justification. If one of them lived, she became worthy of his protection. We’ve unearthed three more unexplained deaths, all writers, all with characters named Sarah.”
“So when Brooklyn survived…”
“Scott became her leading man, Drake, in an effort to bring Sarah back to life.
To have a second chance at saving her.”
Gage cursed, crumpling the edge of the file as he turned and took three heavy steps away. Everything Doug had told him confirmed his belief that Drake—Scott—wouldn’t stop hunting Brook, no matter how far she ran. He glanced over at Sam, reading the man’s expression. Apparently Sam had arrived at the same conclusion, and merely nodded back at him.