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You're next.
Mac's brow furrowed. When he shifted, he could see through the kitchen window, where Mr. Turner sat at the table, alone now, face hidden by his hands, shoulders shaking in that harsh way that men who rarely cried did, as if each tear had jagged edges. "The killer wanted to threaten whoever found the body? That's new."
"No, Mac." Darla's hands closed over his, made him turn the bag over to read the back of the page, the name of the person to whom the message had been addressed.
Detective Mac Nighthorse.
"She's made you, Mac. She knows you're looking for her, and she's made it personal." Darla Rowe was one hundred percent business now, and Mac knew that look on her face.
"Damn right she has, and she's going to be sorry for it."
"You want to know what our shrink says about her leaving you a note?"
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."
"Says she's gunning for you specifically now. She doesn't care about being caught. In fact she's probably hoping it's going to happen soon, because with this many kills under her belt so quickly, she's got the pain of a rabid dog driving her. So she doesn't care if she takes you down right under our noses. In short, Psych says she's at her most dangerous now. You've drawn her out, and she's pissed as well as challenged. We need to put a man in on the inside with the security team. I know you said you didn't want that, that you have privacy issues, but now I'm more concerned about keeping you alive."
He faced her. "I told you, that wouldn't work."
"She knows who you are now, Mac. You could bring the whole squad in there, and it wouldn't matter."
"Yes, it would. Because she still has sense, and it might make her back off me and take another couple of victims to distract us for awhile. It's a double-edged sword. If she knows me this well, she knows I'm the genuine article, even if I am a cop. It's male subs that get her off, rouse the bloodlust. I'm a double treasure to her." He waved the bag. "With this, she's looking for a one-on-one gunfight.
"And we're supposed to give her that gunfight?"
"We're supposed to make her think we're giving her that."
Mac hesitated, then made the decision he hadn't wanted to make. He had to accept Violet's offer, and overcome his desire to protect her. He didn't like her being involved, but she was a cop, had taken the oath just as he had, to protect and serve. It would be an insult to her not to allow her to help. Even more important, it would be a disservice to the three dead men. Whatever resources offered to him, he had to use them. For them.
Even so, it was an effort to hand over the card, not snatch it back when Darla reached for it. "She's my back up."
You're a male chauvinist pig, Mackenzie.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Buzz off, sugar," he muttered.
Darla gave him an odd look, took the card, looked it over. Did a double take. "You going outside the squad now, Mac?"
She's already on the inside with me," he said, keeping his gaze level with hers. "She'll watch my back and she wanted you to have that as an alternate contact. I hope..." he cleared his throat. "You've respected my privacy, gone above and beyond, but this is my case, my job. She's volunteering for the duty. I'd hate to see it come back and bite her in the ass."
"She got the experience to cover you in something like this?"
"Four years with state, a couple years before that as a Marine MP. I think she'll do well enough. What she lacks in direct experience, she's got in grit."
"All right, then." She pointed to the bag, "But this makes me real itchy, Mac. Let's close this one. At the rate she's piling up a body count, we're going to have to move fast to keep the S&M angle out of the news. And the families have enough to deal with as it is."
"No argument there."
"Detective?"
Mac turned, cursed inwardly as he saw the young woman standing in the doorway. The sister, pale but determined-looking.
"I'm Mara Turner, Edward's sister." She hesitated, then the words tumbled out of her, as if she were forcing them from herself rapidly so she'd get them all out at once before she could rethink the decision. "I needed to tell you...I knew about... Edward's preferences. When I was staying at his place once, I found a magazine. We talked and I was open to hearing about it." She colored at Mac's lifted brow. "No, I'm not into it or anything, not at all, but he was my brother, and I mean, it's the twenty-first century, you know? He was a good person with a good heart, and I trusted his judgment. He seemed glad to have someone... he trusted, to talk with it about, an open mind that linked him between that world and the one we knew him in. I just...I wanted to tell you that about three weeks ago he told me he'd been seeing someone really special. I think he was even a little in love with her. I told him he should introduce her to Dad, that this was just one aspect of his life. He didn't, I mea
n...I take boyfriends home to meet Dad, and we sure as hell don't talk about our sex life." She managed a ghost of a smile that trembled around the edges.
"He said no." Her attention drifted over to the house, to the bedroom window behind which her brother lay murdered. "He said she'd asked him herself, recently, if he was going to introduce her to Dad. Edward told me that he had said no, that he didn't want to mix that part of his life... he couldn't take the risk of integrating the two. He was worried he'd hurt her, which is why I guess he called and talked to me about it, because it was bothering him. He cared. He didn't like hurting people. Then a couple days later when we talked he said she was fine with it, that they were going out this weekend."
"Did he describe her? Give a name?"
