Chapter 17

Lily refused to run.

Jackie had pushed and prodded, ordered, and tried to strong-arm her into at least hiding, but in the end, she had been the one to walk over to the front door and answer it after Anspaugh had nearly pounded it down. The look of shock on the man's face when he saw and recognized her would live in Lily's memory for a long time. But probably not as long as the flash of sheer furious hunger she'd seen there before he could disguise it.

Anspaugh had always desired her. Now, though, his desire had been overshadowed by anger. Wyatt hadn't been exaggerating. Anspaugh didn't just resent her for ruining his career. He hated her. Probably because he'd once so wanted her and she'd chosen to fake her own death and let him swing in the wind.

Never mind the fact that his ineptitude was what had caused her to nearly die in the first place.

"You can't just take her," Jackie snapped, not for the first time, as Anspaugh insisted Lily accompany him to headquarters. "If you're going to arrest her, do it, and I'll have a lawyer waiting for you by the time you arrive downtown."

Hearing the anger in Jackie's voice, Lily reached over and touched her friend's arm. "It's all right. We knew this would happen, and it needs to. I've got to clear my name. I'm innocent and I want to get that established so I can move on and make sure Jesse gets put back in jail where he belongs."

Anspaugh sneered. "Yeah, right, save it for the judge."

Maintaining her dignity, Lily eyed him without flinching. "I need to go upstairs and change," she said, gesturing toward her shorts and bare feet.

"Fine, let's go," he said, grabbing her arm.

"Whoa, whoa, big boy," said Jackie. "I'll escort her up and keep an eye on her."

"Whadda you take me for? You're her damn accomplice."

"I'm an FBI agent with more than a dozen years on the job," Jackie snarled. "I was in the field while you were still trying to pass high school algebra for the third time, boy^ and don't you forget it."

Anspaugh signaled to another agent, one of the three men who had accompanied him. All were loyal Anspaugh flunkies, from what Lily remembered. "Keep Agent Stokes here. As of now, she's a suspect in aiding and abetting a criminal."

"What the hell?" Jackie jerked away as the other agent grabbed her arm. "You touch me again, you're gonna be pulling back a stump."

"Jackie, don't," Lily insisted, sensing the situation was getting ugly. This wasn't professional, wasn't courteous.

Anspaugh was out for blood. Hers. He didn't seem to be thinking clearly and she couldn't be entirely sure he wouldn't do something crazy if he sensed they weren't cooperating. "It's fine. I'll go downtown, clear this up. It'll be fine."

"Yeah, you might want to worry a little less about her and a little more about yourself," Anspaugh told Jackie. "In case you haven't realized it, you're an accessory after the fact, just like your buddy Blackstone." He smiled in utter malice. "Where is he, by the way? I really can't wait to put the cuffs on him and take him in."

"He's not here," Lily said, hanging on to her temper by its very thin edge. "And I can dress myself." She tried to brush past him to head for the stairs.

He wouldn't let her, grabbing her upper arm and squeezing tight, then pushing her forward. "Let's go."

Keep your cool, keep your cool, an inner voice reminded her. It sounded a lot like the sarge's. Not that she was thinking along those lines, doing anything physical. She couldn't deny, however, that the idea she might be put in a position of having to defend herself had crossed her mind. Anspaugh's mood was strange, his voice thick with barely suppressed anger. And again, she suspected it had more to do with the fact that she'd once rejected him than anything else.

Or maybe the fact that she'd rejected him, and then turned to Wyatt Blackstone to be her savior. And her lover.

He crowded her as they walked up the steps, breathing his hot, heavy breaths on her neck, squeezing her arm hard enough to leave bruises. At the top of the stairs, she pointed toward the guest room. "My things are in here."

He escorted her in. Lily turned, waiting for him to leave, but he merely crossed his arms and smirked, shutting the door behind him.

She didn't get truly worried until he twisted the lock.

Lily hid her concern. If he thought she was the same timid girl he'd known, the man was sorely mistaken. Lifting her chin, not about to let him shame her, she peeled off her lightweight cotton shirt, and unzipped the shorts, pushing them off her hips. She still wore a plain white bra, and modest cotton underwear, but he reacted as though she'd stripped down to nothing. His bloodshot eyes devoured her and his mouth parted as he licked his thick lips.

Scumbag.

"You know, of course, that this is all going to go away. Proving my innocence is going to be incredibly simple once the entire Cyber Division gets involved. They'll take the computer equipment I used, confirm I was nowhere near where the unsub's messages originated from, and finally get to work looking for a real suspect." She reached for her jeans and stepped into them, knowing he was trying to peek down the top of her bra.

"Oh, yeah? Then why haven't you just come in? Why'd you have to fake your death, make everybody think something happened to you?"

Anger sparked. She dropped the jeans again, turning to show him the vicious scar on her upper thigh. "Want to hear how many surgeries it took to repair the muscles in my leg? How long it took me to walk again?" Then she yanked her hair back to display her ear. "How about this? Want to talk about how lucky I am that I didn't lose my hearing? How about the week I spent being tortured by the psychopath you said you had under control in that house?"

His face paled. For the first time since he'd arrived, he began to look uncertain.

Lily cursed herself for trying to explain a thing to the Neanderthal. She quickly pulled the jeans on, then grabbed a sweater from the top of the dresser and donned that as well. Shoving her feet into a pair of tennis shoes, she said, "I'm ready. Let's go do this. I'm sure they're going to be really interested to hear that you called an all clear on the site and told me and Kowalski to leave the van without ever even checking to see if the man you'd caught had an accomplice outside."

The man's face reddened again and he lurched toward her. "It wasn't my fault."

"I didn't say it was," she replied, "but you sure didn't help the situation."

"Goddamn it, Lil, I never wanted anything to happen to you!" He grabbed both her arms this time, squeezing, shaking a little. "Why wasn't it me? Why didn't you come to me for help afterward?"

He looked and sounded a little out of control. Lily realized Tom Anspaugh wasn't just angry; he was perhaps even a bit unbalanced, at the mercy of the emotions that had churned within him since that night.

She stepped carefully. "Take your hands off me, Anspaugh."

Funny. The thing that completely removed the last of the agent's self-control was her calling him by his last name. Spittle flew from his lips and his grip became punishing as he snarled, "It's Tom, you fucking high-toned bitch."

"Let me go, Agent, or I'll scream."

"Go ahead. You think my men are gonna help you?"

"Jackie-"

"Is in custody." He stuck one hand in her short hair, twisting it around his thick fingers, twisting and pulling. "You break my heart, you ruin my life, you oughta at least have the courtesy to call me by my first name. Just once. Or is it not good enough to come out of your perfect little mouth?"

While he'd been growing angrier, she'd pulled her anger in. Let it simmer. Let it build. Used it, just like Sarge had taught her.

Anspaugh pushed her toward the bed until her legs were backed against it. Her knees threatened to bend, putting her on her ass with him above her. It would be no more than a few steps beyond that for him to rip her jeans off, spread her legs, and rape her.

"I bet you say 'Wyatt' easily enough, don't you? You been saying it in his ear when he's screwing you? Managing to whisper it even when your mouth's full of his cock?"

He made his move. Pushed harder, trying to force her to sit. Lily had been prepared for it and when he reached down, trying to grab her crotch, she encircled his wrist in one hand and smashed his elbow in the wrong direction with the other.

He grunted.

Lily was no longer thinking, no longer coherent; she merely reacted. Having the upper hand, she punched him in the solar plexus, then kneed him hard in the groin. When he staggered back, she spun to the right and kicked up and high with her left leg, and the agent went flying. As he hit the wall and began to slide down it, Lily was conscious of two things: the voices of people calling up from downstairs, and the look of murderous rage in Tom Anspaugh's eyes.

If he got up again before someone came through that door, he would hurt her, badly, then make up any excuse he cared to. If he didn't, and one of his goons burst in and saw him on the floor, they'd take her out, anyway.

"One option," she muttered.

She didn't give it a second thought. Grabbing the purse she had thankfully left on the dresser, which contained a fake ID and plenty of cash, she darted to the window, jumped out, crashed to the lawn one story below, and ran for her life.

"Ms. Vincent? I gotta talk to you!"

The lawyer, who'd apparently lost Jesse's number after she'd gotten him out of jail the other day, sounded really mad to be interrupted from whatever Saturday morning stuff she was doing, probably in her perfect house with her perfect family. "What is it?"

"I need to get in touch with the person who hired you!" Still unable to believe what he'd just witnessed from the front window, he added, "Right this minute."

"Why? What's happening?"

He didn't know that he could trust her. But she was his lawyer, right? Lawyer-client privilege and all that shit?

There was no time to hesitate. "It's Lily Fletcher. She's alive and she just got away from the FBI. I saw the whole thing-she jumped out a window and took off down the street."

"Damn it," the woman snapped, sounding angry. Which was when the truth sank in.

Nobody else had hired Claire Vincent. She'd hired herself. "It's you?"

"Where did she go?"

"She ran a few blocks, then jumped into a cab."

"Tell me you followed."

Incredibly pleased with himself, Jesse said, "Damn straight I did. I'm in a cab not far behind her. Bitch better not go far, though. I don't want to waste my money paying no big fare."

"I'll pay all your expenses," the lawyer said, sounding hard, bitter, and desperate.

Whatever Fletcher had done to Jesse, she seemed to have done more of it to Ms. Vincent.

He suddenly understood. "Jeez, she's after you, too, right? For defending me, getting me off?"

The lawyer hesitated a second, then finally said, "Yes, Jesse. I'm afraid both our lives are in danger. You must stick close to her."

He leaned down in the backseat, craning to peer through the front windshield at the vehicle a couple of car lengths ahead of them. His driver was some foreign dude who hadn't asked why he was being asked to follow another cab, not once he'd seen the wad of bills Jesse had flashed at him.

"We're on the GW Parkway. Looks like she might be headed for Reagan Airport."

"You follow her, tell me exactly where she goes, and I'll see to it that you are paid back for any expenses. If you have to hop on a plane, call me right back and I'll pay for the ticket."

"Well, I dunno…"

"I do know. This has to be done." She hesitated, then said, "Look, I'm in the city myself. If it looks like she's definitely going to Reagan, you call me and I'll come out there. You need to see which flight she gets on."

"What are we gonna do, follow her?"

"If we have to. We can't be on the same flight, so just watch where she's going, and if we have to, we'll go over to Dulles or BWI to get the first one after that."

"This is getting a little crazy…"

"Crazier than waiting around for her to come after us both and kill us? Listen, Jesse, it's kill or be killed now. We're in this together."

"I ain't goin' back to prison."

"I promise you, if you help me take care of her, so we're both safe, you will never have to worry about money for the rest of your days."

He didn't know much about lawyers, about how much money they made. But he suspected it was a lot. Enough to get him far away from this stinking state, anyway. Far from his mother's angry, disgusted eyes. Far enough to start a whole new life.

"Okay, Ms. Vincent, you got a deal."

She was headed for the beach house. Wyatt had no doubt of that. Lily was being hunted, tracked, and in her mind, there was only one safe place in the entire world-the place of Wyatt's darkest nightmares, the place where he'd taken her to recover from her darkest nightmare.

The fact that the Jeep was missing from the long-term parking lot at the Portland airport confirmed it.

"Damn it," he said as he drove his rental car toward the Maine coast. "It's not safe."

Crandall knew Wyatt had been traveling to Maine recently. It wouldn't take long for the deputy director's goon squad to find out Wyatt owned property there. They'd be on her doorstep before Lily managed to gain one moment of peace.

There was but one consolation in this whole mess. Wyatt truly believed he'd identified their unsub, the person who had been trying to finish what Roger Underwood had started.

His stepsister, Claire Vincent.

Wyatt had a lot of questions for the woman, and he'd ask them sooner or later, whether as an official FBI agent or not. He would not rest, would not stop, until he'd found out if she was guilty, and ensured she never got near Lily again.

Thank God the woman had no way of knowing about the beach house. She should be going about her business today, having no idea Wyatt had figured out she might very well be the one who had killed those four men.

It was crazy, far-fetched even, that a woman, a respected attorney, could have done such things. But Wyatt knew from experience that female serial killers existed, and could be just as deadly as male ones.

He had seen Judith's eyes, had seen the hint of recklessness in them, and was certain it had come from her years of marriage to a psychopath such as Roger Underwood. Claire had been wholly within his sphere of influence for decades; she had been his teenage lover, had worshipped the ground he'd walked on. What wouldn't she do?

He knew no details. He didn't need them. That sixth sense told him she was someone he needed to talk to. And he'd do it just as soon as he got Lily to safety, even if that safety was in custody in the Hoover Building.

"Come on, Lily, call me!"

He glanced at his personal cell phone, not the one he used for work, which lay open on the passenger seat. He already knew she didn't have her cell phone with her; it was still at his place in Washington. He'd dialed the beach house several times since landing, getting no answer, but didn't read anything into that. The evening was a windy one, with dark clouds gathering to the east. Phone service on the beach was notoriously unreliable.

It was also possible she wasn't even there yet at all. He had no idea which flight she'd been on out of D.C. Maybe she hadn't beaten him by much. He'd heard about her escape from Brandon more than an hour after it had occurred, but it hadn't taken too long to get to the Richmond airport, and then to get on a flight to Maine. She might not be more than minutes ahead of him.

But it was also possible she had already arrived at the house and walked into an FBI ambush. He had been out of touch with Washington for several hours and had absolutely no way of knowing.

He still couldn't wrap his mind around what had happened this morning. Brandon hadn't known a lot, just the brief details he was able to get from Jackie before they took her away for questioning. Then Brandon and the others had been taken in, too. Anspaugh's doing, no doubt.

"Anspaugh, you son of a bitch," he growled, filled with such rage, he knew he'd do something violent the next time he saw the man. Because he had no doubt Anspaugh had done something to make Lily panic like she had. From what Brandon had told him, she had been cooperating even when Anspaugh had insisted he accompany her while she changed.

When the phone rang, he started, felt his heart race. Grabbing it, he saw a familiar name. Not the call he was waiting for, but a person he trusted. "Hello?"

"It's Christian."

Christian Mendez, one of the new members of the team. One of the only two members not currently being questioned by a raging Deputy Director Crandall, or so Wyatt suspected.

"What is it?"

Christian was a pro, an excellent agent who'd worked with the DEA in south Florida trying to put a crimp in the drug trade. He was a man of few words, and he never wasted them.

"They just let me go. Anna, too. The others are all still being questioned, and every one of you is on suspension."

"As expected."

Christian didn't ask questions, didn't want to know why he and Anna had been excluded. He didn't even call Wyatt a stupid son of a bitch for being so reckless and leading his team with him into total destruction. He simply said, "What can I do to help?"

"There's nothing. Fm on my way to find Lily, and I'm going to bring her in."

"You know where she is?"

"I think so."

Christian didn't ask, as if knowing Wyatt would never tell him. Wyatt trusted the man, but that didn't mean he would let his guard down completely. Not when it came to Lily's safety.

"All right. Call me before you bring her. I'll make sure there are plenty of witnesses this time, though I don't think there's going to be any trouble."

"Why?"

"I know the truth. We all know. Once it got so serious, one of Anspaugh's own men admitted that he'd gone upstairs to see what was taking so long, and heard Anspaugh attack her."

Wyatt’s hand gripped the steering wheel so hard, the leather pattern imprinted itself on his skin. "He's a dead man."

"I didn't hear you say that," Christian said coolly.” The point is, everybody's on this thing-it goes well above Crandall. Nothing is going to happen to Lily-she'll be treated with kid gloves-as long as she turns herself in. And once we clear her of these murder charges, this should all go away."

Maybe for Lily, the only innocent party in all this. Not for Wyatt or his team, however. He wasn't foolish enough to imagine they'd all escape unscathed.

That, however, was the decision they'd made. He only wished the rest of them wouldn't have to face the consequences. He didn't care about himself-as long as Lily was all right, he would pay any price the bureau asked him to. As much as he liked his job, and knew he did it well, it wasn't as though he actually needed to work.

But the others deserved so much better than to be punished for hard work and loyalty.

Hopeful, given what Christian had told him, he took a chance and said, "Look, let them know I'm going to bring her in, all right? They don't need to come at her guns blazing, even if they do figure out where she is. I'll have her back in Washington by tomorrow."

"I'll do what I can," Christian said, not making any promises he couldn't keep. Damn, Wyatt liked the man. It was too bad he'd just ruined his own career before they really had a chance to do much work together.

"Actually," Wyatt said, knowing that if there had ever been a time to call in the favors he had accumulated over the years, or reach out to one or two friends of his late father's, it was now, "I'm going to give you a phone number. Dial it, tell the person who answers you're calling on my behalf, and ask him to see what he can do to help the others. I don't want Dean, Jackie, Kyle, Alec, or Brandon getting crucified over this."

He rattled off the number, waiting while Christian repeated it back.

"Do I want to know who's going to be answering?"

"No," Wyatt replied. "That would probably make you too nervous."

"Huh," Christian said, reminding him that the man seemed to have no nerves at all.

"All right, not nervous. Let's just say it's for discretionary reasons."

"Got it."

Disconnecting, he resumed the drive, riding the gas pedal hard, despite the gathering storm clouds and the cold drops of rain that began to stab the windshield. The drive took half as long as usual. Soon enough he reached the private driveway, half-hidden from the road, and swung onto it. His heart was in his throat as he drove around one curve, then another, peering through the rainy darkness, trying to see if the Jeep was parked at the base of the steps.

"Thank God," he mumbled when he saw it there. Alone.

Pulling up beside it, he hopped out, felt the dwindling warmth of the engine, and knew she hadn't beaten him here by too long.

"She's fine," he reminded himself as he headed for the steps, his head down against the spitting rain. By habit, he glanced toward the motion sensor, certain it had alerted her to his presence. She was probably watching him right now on the surveillance cameras. Reactivating them would have been the very first thing she did when she arrived.

The red warning light was not gleaming in the near darkness. Neither was the green one that said he was free to proceed up the steep stairs.

The system had not been activated.

Tense, Wyatt glanced at the security camera on the garage. No sensor light there, either.

"Lily," he whispered.

The car engine hadn't been that warm. She hadn't arrived here such a short time ago that she hadn't had time to set the system. And no way would she have walked into that house and not seen to her own protection immediately.

Gripped by worry now, Wyatt began to jog, then to run up the steps, taking them two or three at a time, slipping a little on the wet wood surface. Reaching the top of the cliff, he darted to the porch, but hesitated before entering the house. He tested the knob. Unlocked.

This is not good. Wyatt reached down and removed his.40 Glock from its holster, then pushed the door open. It slid noiselessly, allowing him to creep into the darkened house. A few feet in front of him, he saw Lily's purse, lying on the floor, its contents strewn around. Along with everything else, it told a terrifying story.

He almost strode forward, but Wyatt suddenly remembered those crime scenes, all those lures that had to have drawn the victims inside those hotel rooms.

Instinct made him spin just as the person who'd been behind the front door lunged forward. He saw a blade, heard it whistle as it rent the air. An ax. Sharp metal bit into his shoulder, but he got off one shot, seeing a face as his attacker was thrown back.

Claire Vincent.

Blood dripped down his arm, pain eating him alive as his muscles and tendons gaped open. Thinking only of making sure the psychopath didn't get past him to the woman he loved, he ignored it, stepping closer to the lawyer who lay on the floor.

Claire wasn't dead; she was still wriggling, conscious. The bullet had hit her in the middle, above her right hip, and she bled profusely. Wyatt lifted the weapon again, not to finish her off, of course, despite how satisfying it might have been. He merely needed to cover her until he found out how badly she was hurt. "Don't move," he said, "or I'll send you where you belong, into a grave right beside your fucking brother's."

The woman stared up at him, insanity and rage warring in her eyes. Then she looked just past him, as if seeing the ghost of her twisted lover, and managed a weak smile laden with evil.

She whispered, "You first."

Her tone gave him a second's warning and he tried to get out of the way. But his responses were slowed by blood loss, his reactions a split second off due to the pain. He moved too late.

By the time he realized she hadn't been alone, pain, bright and intense, exploded in his head and he was lost.