Edge of Midnight

18



Mia sat on the couch in her apartment, attempting to lose herself in a crisp glass of sauvignon blanc. Despite the fact that she’d been up since the early-morning hours, she still felt too wired to sleep. The discovery that Joy Rourke had really existed, her tense words with Grayson—all of it continued to weigh on her. As did the repeated news reports on Karen Diambro’s disappearance. With a sigh, she glanced at the laptop on the coffee table in front of her. She’d been working on a story about a recent string of downtown muggings for the paper’s online edition.

Violence was everywhere, it seemed.

At the knock on the door, she tensed. It was after 10:00 p.m. and she knew Will was out at a Chamber of Commerce cocktail party with Justin. She went cautiously into the foyer and looked through the peephole. Eric stood on the landing. Mia disarmed the security system.

“What happened?” she asked, her eyes going to the angry scratch on his right cheekbone as he stepped inside. He had changed from the jeans and T-shirt she had seen him in earlier that day.

“It’s nothing. I hope it’s not too late?”

“No…I’m just having a glass of wine.”

He handed her a manila folder. “It’s Joy Rourke’s file from the JSO. I made copies for myself, but I wanted to bring you the original.”

Taking it, Mia bit her lip. The folder had yellowed with age. She followed him into the living room. “What does it say?”

“It’s a cold case, basically. The child was never found. It took Detective Scofield most of the day to find the file. The detective who led the investigation has been retired for years.”

A renewed sadness bloomed inside her chest. “I only found the one article about her in the archives. I guess no one cared much about a missing foster kid.”

His eyes were sympathetic. “It was twenty-five years ago. Things were different then. There were no child advocates or AMBER alerts.”

“And there was no family to fight for her or demand that someone do something,” Mia said. She opened the file and saw that Joy Rourke had no living relatives. Her mother had died of a drug overdose, and the state had been in the process of moving her from the foster care group home to an orphanage. Taking it to the table, she scanned through the contents, stopping at what appeared to be a school photo. A shiver ran through her as she stared at the thin-faced girl with a missing front tooth and mop of reddish hair.

“Oh, God, it’s really her,” she whispered. “The little girl I’ve been dreaming about.”

He’d come to stand next to her, and she felt his hand on her shoulder. After a long moment, Mia replaced the photo and closed the file, deciding to review it all more thoroughly later. She couldn’t handle the raw emotion of it now, and she wanted to concentrate on Eric.

“You look tired,” she noted, concerned. “Would you like something to drink?”

“A beer would be great.”

Mia went into the kitchen and got him one. He thanked her and took a long swallow from the bottle. His tie had been loosened, and she noticed a few drops of dried blood on the collar of his dress shirt.

“Is there any update on Karen Diambro?”

“No,” he admitted, adding somberly, “but I received the recording of Cissy Cox’s murder this morning.”

An image of her slit throat filled Mia’s head, as did the sickening sensation of slipping in her blood. She heard a tightness in his voice as he continued. “There was a second female in the audio’s background. She was gagged, but—”

“It was me.” Her stomach flip-flopped uneasily.

Eric put the bottle down and moved closer. “I’ve stepped up the police presence in your neighborhood, Mia. That’s about all I can do for now. If it were up to me, I’d have you under protection.”

She shook her head, not wanting to be made a prisoner. “He hasn’t come after me again.”

“Maybe not, but if it’s true you witnessed this bastard’s first abduction years ago, you’re special to him. And I meant what I said this morning. You have to start being more careful.”

The seriousness in his eyes nearly made her flinch. Desiring a change of subject, her fingers rose to gently touch the scrape on his face. He still hadn’t answered her question from earlier. “How did this happen?”

“We had a lead this afternoon, a possible suspect in the latest abduction. The guy even lived on a wooded property like the one you described.”

“But it wasn’t him.”

Eric shook his head. “It took a shoot-out and a foot chase to confirm that, though. He isn’t the unsub, but he is into child pornography. Underage females—some of them barely teenagers. He had camera equipment and images on CDs, plain brown envelopes for mailing.”

Mia felt ill. She recalled a recent newspaper statistic indicating there were more than a thousand registered sex offenders in Jacksonville alone. “Do you know who any of the girls are?”

“He wasn’t exactly forthcoming. We went into the home without a warrant—we had to—but the evidence was in plain sight. My gut tells me what we found will be admissible in court.”

“Good,” Mia said.

“His attorney will probably still try to get it kicked out. Regardless, he’s being charged with fleeing authorities and aggravated assault. That’s enough to get him a prison term.”

The thought that he’d been so close to danger was unsettling. She took his hand. “Come with me? I want to clean up that scratch before it gets infected.”

He allowed her to lead him into the hall bathroom. She knelt, searching under the vanity for the basket that held first-aid supplies. Mia was vaguely aware of how her tank top rose above her yoga pants, exposing her lower back as she reached into the cabinet. Standing, she placed the basket next to the sink. “Tell me that’s not a bullet graze.”

He laughed softly. “It was a tree branch. But a sinister one.”

“You’re tall and I’m…not,” she remarked, looking up at him. Taking the hint, Eric sighed and sat on the edge of the vanity so she could reach him more easily.

Filling the basin with warm, soapy water, she wet a washcloth and wrung it out. Mia stepped between his legs, her heartbeat increasing a little as her body brushed his. Carefully, she pressed the cloth against the cut, letting its warmth sink into the wound. Eric closed his eyes as she worked, his brown lashes thick against his high cheekbones. Mia studied the elegant planes of his face unobserved. He was classically handsome—straight nose, full, masculine mouth and strong jaw. His skin was flawless. She could imagine a younger version of him gracing a poster for some Ivy League college.

“There,” she whispered a bit shakily, applying a small amount of antibacterial ointment to the cut with the tip of her pinkie. “All done.”

Eric’s eyes opened, his gaze heated as it traced over her features. They were so close she could feel his breath playing over her skin. Mia’s throat went dry as they stared at one another. Then his right hand closed around her slender wrist, slowly drawing her even nearer to him, so that their bodies touched. She saw him swallow, uncertain. More than anything, Mia wanted his mouth on hers, she realized. Their breathing seemed timed together as she made the first move, tilting her head and softly pressing her lips to his. He returned her kiss, gentle at first and then with an increasing fervor, deepening it and taking control. Settling more fully against him, every troubling thought in her head was swept aside, replaced by a lustful tightening in her core.

Eric released her wrist, his right hand cradling the nape of her neck. Mia’s arms looped around his neck, her fingers threading through his hair. She felt his hands move to her waist, skimming under her tank top so that his fingers lay on her fevered skin. As they continued kissing, he stroked the small of her back and up her sides. He lightly cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her gentle curves. Heat radiated from him, and she felt his male hardness, insistent. Mia ground herself against it, lost in the sensual thrill.

“Mia,” he murmured as he reluctantly pulled his lips from hers. She tasted his jaw, the hollow of his throat, her fingers working at a button on his shirt. “Mia.”

Gently, he took hold of her arms. Disappointment wound through her and she felt a flush rise over her skin. He appeared just as shaken, his breathing erratic. He briefly laid his forehead against hers.

“I should go.”

“You don’t have to,” she offered quietly.

Eric gazed at her, appearing torn. He caressed her face and she closed her eyes, not wanting him to see the raw need she suspected shone there.

After he was gone and the security system reinstated, Mia stood in the solitude of her living room, unable to stop thinking about what had happened. He’d left her unsatisfied, wanting more. The place seemed far emptier without him.

Being alone was something she’d never minded. In fact, after a youth spent in and out of foster care, sharing a bedroom with one or more other girls, having no place that was just hers—sometimes not even a bed—she relished her privacy and space. Tonight, however, Mia ached from the isolation. She wondered whether it was Eric’s sense of propriety that had stopped him from taking things further, or if he was still grieving for his late wife after all the time that had passed.

Have you slept with him yet?

Grayson’s prying question had delved more deeply into her desires than she’d cared to admit.

She was single by choice—she’d dated, had casual affairs, but in the end she had never really trusted another person with her heart. Her mother had made it difficult for her to put her total faith in someone.

Eric could break through her armor, she realized.

Leaving her wineglass on the table next to his unfinished beer, she picked up the case file on Joy Rourke. It wasn’t ideal bedtime reading, but she had to know more. Guilt tugged at her. Whatever had happened to Joy was in many ways her fault. She flipped through the folder’s contents, a dull pain inside her chest.

The little girl whispered to her, her gap-toothed grin a ghost in Mia’s head.

“What are you thinking about?”

Cameron sighed. He lay next to his wife in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “How did you know I wasn’t asleep?”

Lanie had turned onto her side to look at him, her head propped on her elbow and her face in shadow. “Um, no snoring?”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said softly. Sitting up on the edge of the bed facing away from her, he ran a hand over his face. “I don’t snore.”

“You keep telling yourself that.” Lanie sat up as well, although the growing mound of her belly meant it took her a little more time. Behind him, she burrowed her face against his bare back, kissing his shoulder blade. “Something’s on your mind, Cam. You’ve been quiet all night. Is it the case?”

The bedroom’s grainy darkness was like a velvet blanket, disrupted only by the moonlight spilling in through the sliding glass doors. Tomorrow morning would come early. Maybe he would try a glass of warm milk. If that didn’t work, a shot or two of Jack Daniel’s.

“Yeah, it’s the case,” he said finally, not wanting to reveal much more. He liked to keep his personal life a separate thing from the Bureau. Lanie, the baby on the way after a long time trying, their cozy house on the waterway—these were the things that kept him grounded and sane. He smiled faintly as she rose onto her knees and shifted behind him. She kissed the side of his neck, then massaged his tense shoulders. Cameron couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose her. Merely entertaining the thought made it difficult to breathe.

“I know you don’t like telling me about the investigation,” she murmured. “You don’t want to infect me with the ugly stuff and I appreciate that. But I have a television. I know what’s going on and that it’s bad.”

Cameron hung his head. He was a federal agent; he’d seen things. But this newest menace went beyond anything he had ever experienced. Even now, Cissy Cox’s stifled cries and the slow agony of her death tore at his insides. At the VCU, he suspected such horror was routine. He had no idea how Eric dealt with it, day in and day out. How he listened to those women’s screams without being hurtled back to the brutal murder of his own wife. The killer’s intent in sending the audios was clearly to keep torturing Eric, as well.

“We went out to talk to a possible suspect today,” he said finally. “The guy took a shot at us and fled.”

“God.” Lanie’s hands stilled and she moved to the edge of the bed to sit beside him. She brushed her honey-blond hair from her eyes. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, but it’s a miracle. Eric took off after the guy. None of us could keep up with him—he was a sprinter in college, you know.” Cameron shook his head. “No backup and nothing between them. Clearly against protocol. They had their guns drawn on each other and Eric kept moving in, refusing to take cover or back down.”

“You know how much he wants Rebecca’s killer. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly—”

“That’s the thing,” Cameron said, looking at her. “Eric knew practically from the moment we got there we had the wrong guy. But it didn’t keep him from taking the risk.”

He rubbed his tired eyes. “I brought him in on this. Maybe it’s too much.”

“He got caught up in the heat of the moment and made a bad call. Eric’s been through a lot but he’s solid.”

Cameron hoped that was true.

Wearing only pajama bottoms, he stood and went to the window, looking out at the languid waterway behind their home. Somewhere out there, Karen Diambro was being held prisoner. Based on Eric’s theory, Anna Lynn Gomez was a corpse by now, a deteriorating shell waiting to be found, identified and claimed by her loved ones.

“Come back to bed.” He realized Lanie stood beside him. She ran a hand up his arm. “I get lonely without you.”

Turning to her, he placed a lingering kiss against her lips, his fingers intertwining with hers.

“I can’t sleep,” he whispered.

“Maybe I can help you with that.”

Cameron allowed her to lead him back to their rumpled sheets, vowing never to take for granted what he had been given, not for a minute. He thought of Eric and the different paths they’d taken, how each of them had been dealt a very different hand.

He had taken Mia’s suggestion to heart.

Eric stood on the beach, his shoes and socks left behind at the wooden steps leading onto the sand. It was late, and the darkened, roaring sea spread out in front of him, whitecaps visible as waves crashed along the shore. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, walked by hand-in-hand. They glanced curiously at his dress clothes, the gun on his hip, before hurrying past.

He’d come out here to think, to deal with his spiraling thoughts. He should be focusing on the investigation—the lead weight of responsibility on his shoulders—but his mind remained on Mia.

She had kissed him. It had been all Eric could do not to take things further. He felt desire for her so sharp it created a near physical hurt inside him. But those feelings came layered with a heavy guilt. He had a job to do and she was a complication he could ill afford. He thought of Rebecca—what she’d gone through because of him. Mia was a salve for his wounds he very possibly didn’t deserve.

The cell phone in his pocket rang, pulling him from his internal sparring. Eric looked at the number on the phone’s screen. He considered not answering but then accepted the call.

“Hello, Dad,” he said quietly.

“The investigation’s getting coverage on the national news,” Richard Macfarlane remarked in his typical direct manner, no salutation given. “What’s happening down there?”

Eric released a breath, his chest tight. He wondered how much he knew. “He took another woman last night.”

“That’s two since you were brought on to the case. You need to catch this bastard, Eric. Now.”

“Yeah,” he rasped, gazing off toward the lights coming from a line of multistory hotels not too far off in the distance. “I know.”

“Your mother saw Clarissa Garner yesterday at the club,” he said. “Awkward situation. Clarissa still won’t speak to her, of course. She has to use a cane to get around now, poor woman. Charles was with her…”

Eric closed his eyes as he listened to his father talk about his former in-laws. They’d had Rebecca late in life; they had lost their only child. Both Clarissa and her husband, Charles, had refused to acknowledge Eric at their daughter’s funeral, which he had interpreted as a direct accusation. He hadn’t protected Rebecca, hadn’t loved her enough to keep her safe. She was dead because of the enemy he had created.

“What’s your game plan, son?”

“Quite honestly, Dad, I don’t know. I’m taking one day at a time. We’re looking into every lead.”

A long moment of silence stretched between them. It was clearly not the response his father had wanted. Richard Macfarlane was known as a tough nut to crack within the upper echelons of the DOJ. It was what made him a force to be reckoned with in his job. “I’ve taken some criticism for putting you on the case. But I know what this means to you. To Rebecca and her family, too. You have to put this dog down.”

Eric heard the unspoken directive. Don’t disappoint me. Make me proud.

They talked awhile longer, with Eric asking after his mother and sister, Hope, who was younger by seven years and working on her doctorate in Art History at Georgetown. The remainder of their conversation was perfunctory, an almost obligatory, even formal exchange between father and son. Richard loved him, Eric believed that, but he was uncomfortable with emotion and he set the bar high for his eldest.

“Be careful, Eric.”

Good hunting. Godspeed. The airwaves went dead. He returned the phone to his pocket and stared out at the tumultuous body of water awhile longer, his heart heavier than before.