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Chapter One
“Thanks for meeting me.” Kinley sat with her back to the wall, a ceramic coffee mug warming her palms. The scents of bacon grease and frying potatoes coated the air. When she finally worked up the courage to open the email last night, she was thrust back into a nightmare. In a moment of panic, she called on her friend and fellow detective’s brother, who was some kind of cybersecurity savant for the FBI. The bureau’s field office wasn’t too far from the state police barracks. Easton Adair had agreed to the early six o’clock meeting without hesitation.
“Don’t thank me.” Easton slid next to her on the bench. Neither of them would feel comfortable with their back to the room. “After what you did for my brother and his fiancée, you’re part of our misfit family whether you want to be or not.”
Her cheeks heated, and she redirected her eyes to the interior of her coffee cup. Being thanked for doing her job, doing what Gus Lambert would’ve done for her in a heartbeat, made her uncomfortable.
“Even if you hadn’t been able to do what you did that day, I’d still be here.” His dark eyes reflected the sincerity riding the low timbre of his voice.
“Why?” He didn’t know her, had no reason to do her any favors despite the fact she was as close to partners as it got with Easton’s brother. “Gus has only introduced us in passing.”
Easton angled his body slightly toward her, his face unreadable. “Maybe I feel a sort of kinship with you. Gus told me … some of what you’ve lived through. No personal details, just who and where.”
Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Gus hadn’t told her what Easton had been through, only that they’d met in foster care.
“You were taken?” She set her coffee mug down. There was a flash of pain, along with something more—something that looked like fury in his eyes.
“No. I used to pray to be, though.” He didn’t flinch as he said the words, but she could hear the unbridled truth behind each syllable. She wanted to ask him more but didn’t want to dredge up bad memories, and if she wasn’t mistaken, their server was headed straight for their table holding a freshly brewed pot of coffee.
A middle-aged man extended his arm. “Coffee?” he said, angling his chin toward Easton.
“Yes, please.” He tipped over the upside-down mug. Bitter steam plumed up as the scalding liquid splashed against ceramic. She stole a glance at Easton while he averted his attention to the waiter. Unlike her light-brown irises, his were rich and dark like glossed mahogany, framed by black-rimmed glasses. His hair was the same dark brown, and a bit mussed like he’d rolled out of bed and swept his fingers through it before leaving the house. Short, but a bit longer on top of his head. He looked like a scruffier Clark Kent—edgier. More dangerous. Just more.
When the waiter walked away with their breakfast order, Easton’s attention quickly snapped back to her. “Tell me.” His words were more demand than a question. He poured creamer and three sugar packets into his cup, stirred, and replaced the spoon on his napkin.
“I had a nightmare. It woke me, so I got up, took a shower, and scrolled through my email.” She plucked her phone from the purse sitting at her outer thigh, found what she was looking for, and offered it to him. “This was in my inbox.” If he noticed the tremor in her hands, he didn’t say anything about it. She was grateful for that, hating to be in a position of weakness.
“Janie—we’re not so different now, are we?” he read in a hushed tone. The words lost some of their menace spoken through Easton’s voice. When she’d recited them in her head, it was as though the Kingston Town Killer, as the media had dubbed him, had spoken them. His terrible, squeaky voice panting in her ear. Janie. Janie. Janie. Attached to the email was a picture of her leaving the scene of Sasha’s abduction. The one where she’d used deadly force to take down the perpetrator.
“When I was thirteen, I was abducted from a shopping center.” She took a sip of her coffee to ease some of the tightness in her throat, but the acidic beverage only made her gut twist more. “After two months, I saw a chance to escape, and I took it. I knew my time was running out.” She took a deep breath, then continued. “There were other victims. The basement I was held in showed signs of frequent use. Dried blood, a stained, dirty mattress. Clumps of hair here and there.”
Easton studied her over the rim of his mug, intently listening. He said nothing at all, showed no shock or disgust, so she continued. “He’d carelessly left a hammer on the floor after one of his torture sessions. There was this square cutout in the concrete dividing two sides of the basement. I was able to climb in and take the nails out of a boarded window on the other side. It wasn’t until a few days after I was rescued that investigators told me how many victims he’d actually had.” After telling her story to law enforcement and the FBI hundreds of times, she could reiterate her experience almost clinically.
“We studied the Kingston Town Killer at the academy in Quantico. Fifteen bodies. Some identified, and some remains that are still unknown today. One partial fingerprint. One survivor. Kinley Miller. You were brave enough to save yourself. To hang in long enough to do that.” His gaze was locked on her face. Instead of squirming beneath his intense stare, though, the weight on her shoulders dissipated a fraction. She never relied on anyone for anything, but here was Easton, offering acceptance and understanding. That made him different from anyone she’d known before. “Why did you decide to change your last name?”
“The case was everywhere. For a long time, I couldn’t turn on the television or look at a paper that didn’t have my face plastered on it. I took my mother’s maiden name when I got older so I could blend in. Be harder to find. Not just from the media and true crime fanatics, but from him.” A long breath involuntarily shuddered from her lungs.
“A name can be a blessing or a curse.” His jaw clenched, then relaxed. “It was a smart detail to change. If he were looking, it would take him some time to discover you.”
She nodded. “I always wondered if he’d moved on and kept killing in another location, or if he was biding his time to finish me first.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he took a long drink of coffee and then placed the mug down with a click. “You told the agents working your case that he called you Janie throughout your time in captivity, but it’s a classified detail. Are there any other civilians who know that information? Who might slip it into an email to scare you, to punish you in some way? Maybe an angry ex, a friend you had a falling out with?”
The tips of her hair brushed her neck as she shook her head. “Not—not even my parents.” She stammered. “I didn’t want them to sit in on the interviews. Even at thirteen, I got that it wasn’t my fault that I was raped and tortured. They would’ve loved me regardless of what he’d done, but a little part of me always wondered if it would be less. If I was less. I don’t know.”
“No one wants to be seen as the broken, tainted thing. Everyone thinks they know the best ways to piece you back together. The right glue to seal up the cracks without understanding that nothing fits back into place once it’s been shattered.”
The deep roll of his voice soothed her. To this day, a high-pitched male voice sent shivers coursing down her spine.
She was torn between relief at being understood and tightness in her chest—pain that he’d endured something extraordinarily terrible, as well. They paused again as the waiter dropped off their French toast and pancakes. They both ignored the food and picked up on their conversation.
“What do you think the sender means?” His voice dropped an octave, and he leaned in closer. The scent of him surprised her—sweet, homey—maybe amber or a hint of patchouli. Calming. “We’re not so different now?”
“I had just killed the man who abducted Sasha. The media had taken some photographs that captured other officers and me leaving the woods. A few articles came out in the local paper. I can’t recall a closeup of myself, but I suppose someone could’ve cropped a picture.” Imagining other scenarios had goosebumps coursing down her arms.
“I’ll compare all of the photographs taken at the scene. We need to find out who had access to those files, or if someone else we don’t know about was there that day.” He moved his plate closer, then hers. “Eat. You’ll feel steadier after.”
She wasn’t sure what to make of him telling her what to do. The typical reaction certainly wasn’t the warmth currently ballooning in her chest. She cut into her pancakes. It had been years since someone had cared enough to boss her around, mainly because she didn’t let anyone outside of her fellow officers get close.
“So,” he said after a few moments. “You’ve taken a life. He’s taken several lives. In a twisted way, it brings you down to his level. If the killer sent this to you, maybe he’s been waiting for something of significance, some sign, that he should contact you. You’re not an innocent anymore in his eyes, even though you had to make a difficult decision to save innocent lives while his actions are predatory, about gaining power over his victims.”
“You think it’s him?” The girl inside her trembled right down to her soul, while the detective perked up with a twinge of excitement. What if he could be caught? It would mean so much to so many. Broken families to have justice for their loved ones. For her, it would mean a chance to look into the sick bastard’s eyes and ask him why. Once he was locked away, she wouldn’t let her guard down, but it would be one less shadow lurking at her back.
“I think we need to proceed with caution and assume the email was a threat. Once we can uncover the IP address that sent the correspondence, we might have the first solid lead in over a decade.” He flipped his hand over on the table, offering it to her. After a moment of hesitation, she slipped her palm into his much larger one. The gesture wasn’t meant to be anything remotely sexual, but suddenly, her fingers were the source of a million tiny nerve receptors, all firing off at once, transmitting tingles up her arms. His posture suddenly went rigid, and his lips parted. Had he felt it too? That flare of chemistry, like an accelerant-fueled blaze?
He released her hand, reaching for his coffee cup right away. “Thank you for trusting me with this.” His voice sounded thicker than it had before. “I’ll notify my supervisor and start seeing if I can get a handle on the sender’s digital footprint. Based on the killer’s profile, he’d be pushing mid-sixties or early seventies right now. Maybe we’ll luck out and he won’t be as tech-savvy as someone born with a tablet in their hands.”
“Maybe he’s finally slipped up.” The question on her mind was if they would find him before he could find her.
