Number one, he had no right to make noises like some overwrought, jealous boyfriend, and number two, the fact that she might not be alone—something that truly bothered him—would make his sudden appearance difficult to explain to whomever was with her—especially if it turned out to be either Grayson or one of his many minions.
So Hawk stayed where he was and impatiently waited. And watched.
When Carly pulled her car up in front of the farmhouse and got out, she was alone.
The second he was sure of that, Hawk shot out of his own vehicle like a hastily fired bullet and cut across the front yard. Taking the porch steps two at a time, he caught up to Carly just as she reached the front door.
Startled, she swung around, her fist drawn back like a prize-fighter in training. She stopped two inches short of making contact and dropped her hand when she saw who it was.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Damn but this man was going to wind up giving her a heart attack yet.
“Checking on you,” Hawk replied, his tone deceptively simple.
She’d been too preoccupied as she approached the house and hadn’t noticed his car parked outside. Carly drew in a deep breath, then let it go, doing her best to calm her rather shaky nerves. It didn’t really work. She tried again.
Unlocking the door, she let Hawk inside. “Why?” she asked wearily. “Are you afraid that I’ll suddenly turn into a Samuel groupie?”
Alerted by her tone that something was off, Hawk moved around to get in front of her. He wanted a better look at her face as she turned on the light. Taking her chin in his hand, he examined her even more closely. Carly tried to turn her head away, but he held her captive.
“You know better than that,” he told her. His eyes slid over her face. Something was wrong. “What happened tonight?”
Carly let out a huge, soul-twisting sigh before answering.
“Nothing.” Then raising her eyes to his, she added, “At least not the way you mean, anyway.”
Hawk couldn’t decide if she was telling him the truth, or merely trying to spare him because that was the kind of person she was, ready to shoulder rather than share the burden. Even when its weight could very possibly break her.
“Grayson didn’t touch you?” Hawk demanded.
The small, disparaging laugh had no humor to it. “Oh, he touched me, all right.” The next moment, Hawk looked as if he would go charging out the door. She grabbed his arm to stop him from letting his emotions get the better of his common sense. “But again, not the way you mean.”
His temper frayed into combustible strips, Hawk shouted, “Then for heaven’s sakes, tell me what
you
mean.” The next moment, his better judgment resurfaced and he realized that he owed her an apology for acting like a Neanderthal. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to start shouting at you.”
She knew he wasn’t shouting at her, but shouting at Grayson by proxy. The frustration that his hands were temporarily tied had gotten the better of him.
“Apology accepted,” she said, leading the way to the kitchen. “Why don’t you sit down?” she suggested, nodding at the table. “I’ll make us some tea and tell you what happened.”
She was the one who looked as if she needed to be waited on, he judged. “No, you sit down, and I’ll make the tea,” Hawk offered, reversing the order. “But you
can
tell me what happened.”
“Done,” she answered with a faint smile. She all but bonelessly slid onto the kitchen chair. For one second, Carly fought the urge to put her head down on the table and just make this evening, as well as the world in general, go away for a little while. She’d been caught unaware, but she’d gotten through it, and that was all that mattered.
Hawk was waiting for her. Taking another breath, she began her narrative of the evening’s events, trying to be as succinct as possible. “Grayson decided to welcome me into the fold.”
Hawk took the battered, red tea kettle from the back of the stove and brought it over to the sink. Turning on the faucet, he started to fill the kettle with water.
“What does that mean?” he asked guardedly, doing his best to sound calm. The trouble was, where Carly was involved, he had a tendency to remain anything
but
calm.
“He made a devotee out of me,” Carly replied quietly, turning her face away from him. She stared out the kitchen window, into the darkness just beyond.
“He indoctrinated you?” Hawk asked uneasily as he put the kettle on the front burner and switched on the gas jet beneath it. Small, blue flames popped up and danced feverishly beneath the round metal surface.
“He tattooed me,” she replied through teeth that were slightly shy of being clenched.
The kettle and its contents were forgotten. Hawk came around to where she was sitting and dropped to his knees before her. He knew what she was saying, but he was hoping that, by some fluke, he was wrong.
“You mean…?”
Carly silently nodded. It was stupid to cry, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to yell, to be angry—and she was—but tears came to her eyes, anyway. Upbraiding herself for this weak display didn’t stem their flow.
She pressed her lips together, drew back the wide, billowing beige skirt from her leg and pulled the material up high so that her right thigh was completely exposed for Hawk to see.
On it was a small, fresh, black letter
D.
The skin just beneath it was an angry red. Hawk cringed when he saw it. He swore he could feel the same needle inking his flesh.
As if his brain was on a five-second delay, he suddenly heard what she’d said. “He does the tattoo himself?” Hawk asked, surprised.
Carly nodded, telling herself that once this was over and behind her, she would have the tattoo removed, no matter what it took or how painful that process turned out to be.
“Seems to really enjoy doing it, too,” she told him grimly. “Enjoys the fact that he was inflicting pain ‘artistically.’”
Hawk rocked back on his heels, suddenly struck by a thought. What she’d just told him was a brand-new piece of information they hadn’t had before. A few tiny pieces of the puzzle came together.
“That’s probably why,” he said.
Carly looked at him, confused. Was he talking to himself or to her? “What’s probably why?”
He glanced up. It made sense now. “I think I know why our Jane Doe was killed. She had a black
D
on her hip, except that hers was done with a black marker. She undoubtedly did it in order to blend in. But she didn’t know that the only one who ‘awarded’ those tattoos was Grayson himself.”
As the light dawned, Carly finished his statement for him. “So when he saw it, Grayson knew she had to be an imposter.”
“Right, which naturally made him suspicious. Because of what he felt was at stake, he didn’t stop to ask her any questions, he just had her executed.” That still didn’t tell him what the woman was doing there in the first place, but at least they had one of the answers.
“Executed?” Carly echoed uncertainly, clearly confused.
Hawk nodded. “That was a detail we kept back from the media.” That way, if a copycat killer suddenly emerged, they would be aware of it. He had no doubts a great many sick people existed who would do anything for their fifteen minutes of fame—or infamy in this case. “Each of the women was shot in the back of the head. A single bullet, execution style.”
It didn’t necessarily have to be an execution, she thought. “Or shot when they weren’t looking, so they didn’t know what was coming—or get the chance to plead for their lives,” she suggested.
He hadn’t thought of that. Hawk looked at Carly with a flicker of admiration. “That’s a possibility, too,” he agreed, then grinned. “Not bad.”
“Thank you.” He saw a small smile struggling to emerge.
The tea kettle began to whistle, calling attention to itself and the water that was now boiling madly. Hawk rose to his feet again and crossed back to the stove. He opened a couple of cupboards before he finally located two large mugs.
“He asked me, you know,” she told him, watching Hawk as he poured steaming hot water into the mugs. “Grayson asked if I was serious about becoming one of his ‘chosen followers.’ If I’d said no or that I had to think about it, he would have slammed the proverbial door in my face, just like that—” she snapped her fingers “—and then I probably wouldn’t even be able to get in contact with Mia or talk to her.”
Carly sounded almost a little defensive. After what she’d just been through, did she think he was going to give her a hard time? He wasn’t completely heartless.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Carly,” he told her.
She would beg to differ, Carly thought. “The expression on your face when you came up behind me just now said that I do. You looked damn angry that I was late getting home.”
He shrugged, his shoulder vaguely moving up and down. “I was worried about you.”
Carly relaxed a little.
I was worried about you.
That had a nice ring to it.
Carly knew that it didn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things, because life had taken them in different directions—
since you sent him away,
her mind taunted—and even though their paths had crossed one another temporarily, life would soon be back on its rightful track, and he would have his life and she hers.
But his voiced concern still sounded nice, and just for the slightest moment, Carly indulged herself by letting her mind go to the land of what-if?
What if she hadn’t sent him away? What if he’d stayed by choice? Or she had been able to leave without her conscience bleeding, anchoring her here?
What if…?
Snapping out of it, Carly said, “It’s been a long while since anyone was worried about me.”
He knew how independent she’d always been and, thank God, apparently still was, despite her pretense to the contrary for Grayson’s benefit. Truth of it was, he wasn’t all that certain what he would have ultimately done if she really had turned out to be one of Grayson’s followers.
Probably tried to kidnap her the way she was trying to find a way of kidnapping Mia as a last resort, he thought.
Out loud he said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to crowd you or infer that you weren’t perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.” The words were automatic rather than straight from the heart—the way his flash of anger had been. “No offense intended.”
He was backing away. Why? Did he think she wanted him to? Or was it that he didn’t want her thinking that there was something still between them when there clearly wasn’t?
“None taken,” she murmured.
Coming to, he picked up both steaming mugs and crossed back to the table. He placed one in front of her, then placed the second one on the table where he was sitting. He slipped back onto his chair.
Carly looked down at Hawk’s masterpiece and then grinned. The man had forgotten one key ingredient.
“You know,” she began gently, “it might help to put the tea bags in.”
His attention had been completely focused on her, and he’d been grappling with surges of anger and the very strong desire to strangle the man he had under surveillance. Case or no case, when he thought of the man possibly forcing himself on Carly, all bets were off. In that tiny space of time, he was a man first and an FBI special agent second.
Not something his superiors would be thrilled about hearing.
He glanced down at the two mugs. Each was filled to the brim with water. Tea bags, however, were nowhere in sight. He’d forgotten to put them in. He would obviously never make it as a waiter, he thought ruefully.
“Sorry,” Hawk muttered under his breath as he started to get up again.
Carly stopped him by putting her hand on top of his. When he eyed her quizzically, she nodded at his chair and indicated that he should sit down again.
“You sit, I’ll get the tea bags,” she told him. “I know where they are,” she added. “You’ll only wind up having to go searching through the pantry,” she told him with a soft laugh.
They were right where she’d left them. But when Carly turned away from the pantry, the tin with tea bags in her hand, she found that Hawk wasn’t where she had left
him.
He was right behind her, so close that when she’d turned around, her body had brushed against his. She felt the electric tingle immediately. It blotted out the revulsion she’d been battling with.
“Are you that impatient for tea?” she asked, trying to suppress a grin.
Her eyes were dancing, he noted. And all he wanted to do right at this moment was make her his again.
“The hell with the tea,” he answered. His emotions were still all in a jumble, and he was at a loss how to sort everything all out. “I thought that Grayson—I was afraid that you—”
None of this was coming out right. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling this confused, as if he was being pulled in two directions at the same time, one labeled duty, the other labeled conscience. And him stuck in the middle.
“Damn it, Carly,” he all but exploded, thinking of what
might
have happened to her had Grayson an inkling that she was playing him, “I don’t like you taking these kinds of chances.”