It startles a huff of laughter out of me. “She’s stuck at work till later. Besides, I always get half an hour to be maudlin. It’s a rule.”
Because Dad killed himself on my birthday, and for all Mum refuses to mourn him, she never faults me for occasionally wanting to. She keeps a lot tucked away but has never asked me to live my own life that way.
“Did I ever tell you my mother chaperoned what should have been Faith’s senior prom?” he asks. It’s an offering of sorts, something private and painful, because he very rarely talks about his sister.
“Must have been hard.”
“She was a wreck for weeks. But after that, she was a little better. It helped her accept that even if we got Faith back, we were never going to get those years and those events.”
“So what I’m hearing is that I should have a blow-out party for my eighteenth and drink myself insensible to recover from it?”
“Don’t you dare.” He gives a soft grunt, and then I hear Mercedes’s voice very close to the phone.
“Happy birthday, Priya!” she chirps.
“Thanks, Mercedes.”
“Where are you?” she asks. “It’s echoing.”
“Shiloh Chapel,” I answer. “It’s in Rosemont, which is a pain, but it’s got these amazing windows.”
“If your mother’s at work, are you there alone?” Eddison demands sharply.
“No, Archer drove me down.”
“Can you put him on?” His voice is suddenly far too pleasant, which cannot spell out good things for Archer.
“He’s outside. He said it looked too cold.”
“Ramirez—”
“On it,” she says. “I’ll call you later, Priya.”
“Okay.”
“What the hell is he thinking?” Eddison snaps.
“That I asked nicely for my birthday?”
“A church, Priya. Of all places.”
“I thought it would be safe as long as I wasn’t alone.”
“If he’s outside, you are alone, and that isn’t acceptable. Ramirez is calling him.”
“Who are you talking to, Priya?”
And that is definitely not Archer.
I look up at the doorway. Even knowing what I’m going to find, my heart thumps in my chest. Sudden fear sits heavy, solid in my gut. “Joshua? What are you doing here?”
“Priya!” Eddison sounds pissed, or panicked. Both. “Who’s there?”
“Joshua,” I say numbly. “From the café. The one who poured a drink on Landon that one time.”
“He shouldn’t have been bothering you,” Joshua says, his voice as warm and friendly as ever. He’s in yet another fisherman sweater, sage green and lovely with his eyes, the sad eyes I almost remembered from Boston. At his feet . . .
Please don’t let this be the biggest mistake of my life.
At his feet rests an enormous wicker basket, almost overflowing with white roses.
“You killed Landon?”
“He shouldn’t have been bothering you,” he repeats gently.
“Where’s Agent Archer? What did you do to him?”
He laughs, and terror skitters up my spine. “I didn’t have to do anything. I passed him in town, after he left you here.”
In town? I knew he’d drive away from the chapel, that the idea of using me as bait would be too tempting, but I thought he’d come back along a side road, or through the woods. Why in the hell would he go all the way to town?
A very large part of my plan relied on Archer being close enough to rescue me.
I am so fucked.
“Why do you have roses?” I ask, my voice shaking from more than cold. Through the phone, I can hear Eddison’s muffled swearing, like he’s holding his hand over the mic. The only thing I can hear clearly is his yell for Vic.
“Oh, Priya.” Joshua kneels, still several feet away, and smiles. “They’re gifts, of course. My father taught me that you always bring a girl flowers. It’s only polite. You’re different from the others; you deserve more.”
Carefully, slowly, so he doesn’t panic and lunge at me, I push to my feet, phone clutched in my hand. “What are you doing here, Joshua?”
“I’m here to protect you.” He sounds so sincere. How fucked in the head does he have to be to believe that? “You’re such a good girl, Priya. I knew it back in Boston. And Chavi was such a wonderful sister to you. You were so loved, and so good.”
“Then why did you kill her?” Tears burn in my eyes, form a knot in my throat. “Why did you take her away from me?”
“You don’t know what this world does to good girls.” He stands, and my fingers spasm around the phone. A phone isn’t a weapon, though. He reaches out one hand, fingers tracing the air inches away from my bindi, the stud in my nose. “Chavi was a good girl, too, but she wouldn’t have stayed that way. She was going away to college; the world would have corrupted her, and she would have done the same to you. I had to protect you both.
“And I did. You stayed good. I was worried after Chavi died, that you might act out, but you didn’t. Aimée was exactly what you needed.”
“I needed a friend,” I retort, “and you killed her!”
“She was so sad after you moved away. I didn’t want her to be sad.”
His fingers brush my cheek, and I flinch. “Don’t touch me!”
“I promise it won’t hurt,” he says soothingly. “You won’t even feel it. And then . . .”
I step away, scuttling backward, and smack into the wall. Oh God, this really is a tiny room, so much smaller than I realized before the serial killer stepped in. The serial killer who is much taller and stronger than I am.
Oh, fuck.
Still smiling, Joshua pries the phone from my clutching fingers. A hunting knife gleams in his other hand. “And then, Priya, you will always be good. I’ll always be able to protect you.” He ends the call and tosses the phone against the far wall.
“Please don’t do this,” I whisper.
His smile just grows. “I have to; it’s for your own good. Now you have to hold still, or it’ll hurt.” He adjusts his grip on the knife, still held down by his side.
Taking as deep a breath as I can manage, I lunge into him, one hand at his wrist and the other in his hair, driving my knee into his crotch. As he tries to pull away, I kick and punch and scratch, trying to keep that knife away from my throat.
And I scream, even louder than I did for Chavi.
I scream, praying Archer’s close.
I scream, and I may never stop screaming.
Eddison’s heart stops when the line goes dead. Despite his training, despite the adrenaline screaming through him, all he can do is stare at the phone.
“Archer’s almost back to the chapel,” Ramirez reports, her work cell clamped between ear and shoulder. Her thumb flies over the screen of her personal cell. “He went to town for backup; goddamn asshole was using her as bait.” She ignores the squawk of protest on the other end of the line. “I’ve got Sterling; Finney’s calling the sheriff’s office. Rosemont doesn’t have a police force, so they’re sending a couple of cars from the county seat. Archer has a pair of army vets from Rosemont. Stop talking and drive, you asshole!” she adds into the phone.
Vic also has both phones out, using one to arrange a flight to Colorado, the other to text Yvonne. They’d been going over the florist results when Priya called; Marlene scolded Vic for working at the breakfast table. “Yes, I’m still here. I need three tickets to Denver, and we need to be there as soon as possible.”
Shaking himself out, Eddison grabs for his phone, pulling the Bureau-issued cell from the clip on his belt. He always thought it moronic to have six phones for three agents, but now he’s grateful for it. He calls Priya back; it goes straight to voice mail. With the other phone, he texts Finney directly.
Ramirez pulls the phone from her ear and glares at it. “They got to the chapel and heard Priya screaming, and the asshole hung up!”
“Would you rather he hold the phone or the gun?” Eddison mutters.
“He should’ve kept the call open with the phone in his pocket so we could hear. Asshole.”
Eddison isn’t sure if she means him or Archer with that last one. He isn’t about to ask.
“We need to get to the airport,” Vic tells them. “Are your go bags at the office?”
“We’ve got backups in our cars,” says Ramirez.
“Then let’s go.”