Collecting Evidence. Rita Herron
and a press conference to announce they’d finally arrested the ruthless Ute killer, Dylan walked into the Vegas bar. All he wanted was to purge his rage, and drown out the images of the girls he hadn’t been able to save.
Just like he hadn’t saved his fifteen-year-old sister, Teresa, when she’d been gunned down in a gangrelated drive-by.
Suddenly, the most exotic creature he’d ever seen approached him. Long black hair that hung down to her waist swayed seductively as she walked, her dark chocolate eyes raking over him appreciatively.
She was Ute, fit the profile of the victims he’d fought so hard to obtain justice for. Could have become number eleven on Turnbull’s kill card. Yet here she was, alive and smiling at him.
“Agent Acevedo,” she said in a purrlike voice with the faint accent of her heritage. “I saw you on the news. Thank you for arresting that killer.”
He shrugged. “I only wish we’d caught him sooner.”
Wise, sympathetic eyes met his, along with a sultriness that made his body go rock hard and achy.
He was mesmerized by her beauty, wanted her naked and in his bed, soothing the heat and rage in his soul.
When she finished her shift, they talked for hours. Her name was Aspen Meadows. She was working as a cocktail waitress while earning a teaching degree.
Finally he escorted her to her apartment. Before he closed the door, she was in his arms and he was tearing off her clothes. He took her on the floor, against the wall, on the bed and in the shower.
A week of lovemaking couldn’t assuage the pain or guilt in his chest. He didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve to be loved or soothed when he’d failed so many.
But he stole the hours and days anyway, desperate for a slice of heaven to ease the hell he lived with daily.
He knew it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last, though. A phone call the following Friday night reminded him too well.
Another murder. An undercover assignment.
He had to go.
He kissed her goodbye and left while she was sleeping. He wouldn’t see her again. He couldn’t.
His work put anyone he cared about in danger.
And he had enough dead girls haunting him to last him forever.
A year later
Aspen Meadows had been missing for nine weeks now. Nine weeks of wondering if she was dead or alive.
Nine weeks of wondering if he could have done something to save her.
Dylan stared at Aspen’s cousin, Emma Richardson, fearing the worst. He’d left Aspen last year to keep her safe, yet now she might be dead.
Possibly murdered by the same hit man who’d killed his fellow agent, Julie Granger. The FBI’s theory—Aspen had witnessed Boyd Perkins and Sherman Watts disposing of Julie’s body.
The case that had brought them to the Southern Ute reservation.
Emma pressed a hand to her head as if to clear her vision. “Aspen is alive.”
His chest tightened as hope speared him. He didn’t often trust a psychic, but Emma’s visions had proven right before, and his brother, Miguel, who’d obviously fallen for the woman, believed her wholeheartedly.
And he trusted his twin brother more than anyone in the world.
Still, he had to swallow to make his voice work. He’d prayed for this news ever since he’d heard Aspen’s car had been found crashed into a tree near the San Juan River.
But something about the tortured look on Emma’s face disturbed him. “Are you sure she’s alive?”
Emma nodded, although she swayed, her face pale, her eyes gaunt. Miguel rushed to help her to the sofa. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes with a shudder.
“What did you see?” Sweat beaded on the nape of Dylan’s neck. He was terrified that Aspen had died and that he’d lost her forever.
Just as he’d lost almost every woman he’d ever cared about. His little sister, Teresa. Then his friend Julie.
Miguel rubbed Emma’s arms, his voice low and worried, “Emma?”
“I…don’t know. The vision…I just know she’s alive, but she’s scared.” She opened her eyes and looked up at Dylan, cold terror streaking her expression. “And she’s in danger.”
Dylan paced across the room, his heart pounding as Aspen’s son, Jack, cried out. The sound shattered the air as if he’d heard Emma and understood that his mother might be in trouble. Emma started to rise to go to the baby, but Dylan waved her off. She looked as if she might faint if she tried to stand.
He strode over to the bassinet and picked up the squirming baby. Jack flailed his tiny fists, his face red, his nose scrunched as he continued to bellow.
“Shh, little man,” Dylan said, jiggling him on his shoulder as he paced the room. The poor little fellow must miss his mother terribly. In the first few weeks of his life, he’d been in a car accident with Aspen, abandoned and left with Emma.
He patted the baby’s back, cradling him closer. The scent of baby powder and formula suffused him.
If Aspen was alive, why hadn’t she come back for her son?
The Aspen he’d known loved children more than anything. During their short affair—the best sex of his whole damn life—she’d told him her plans to return to the Ute reservation and teach.
Baby Jack kicked and screamed louder, a shrill sound that added to the tension thickening the room, his dark skin beet-red, contrasting to his thick black hair. He had Aspen’s high-sculpted cheekbones, her hair, her heritage. It made Dylan long to see her again, to reconnect and hold her. To see if they could pick up where they’d left off and possibly have more than just a week of mind-boggling sex.
But she had a son now.
Everything had changed.
He rocked Jack back and forth, lowering his voice again to calm him. “Shh, it’s all right. We’ll find your mommy. I promise, little man.”
Jack quieted to a soft whimper and Dylan turned him to his back, cradled him in his arms and gazed into his eyes. Eyes so blue that for a moment he felt as if he was looking in the mirror.
Suddenly a wave of emotion washed over him, sending his mind into a tailspin. He studied Jack’s features more closely while he mentally calculated the baby’s age, and the time lapse since he’d last seen Aspen. A little over a year ago, they’d met and fallen into bed. A week later he’d left and hadn’t heard from her again.
Aspen had been missing now for nine weeks.
Jack was fifteen weeks old.
Dear God, could Jack possibly be his son?
The baby suddenly cooed up at him, his chubby cheeks puffing up as he gripped one of Dylan’s fingers in his tiny fist.
Dylan’s chest swelled. “Is it true, Jack? Are you my little mijo?”
And if he was, why in the hell hadn’t Aspen told him?
THE NIGHTMARES TAUNTED HER.
Every night they came like dark shadowy demons with claws reaching for her and trying to drown her in the madness.
If only she could remember her name, what had happened to her, how she had wound up near death and here in this women’s shelter in Mexican Hat.
But