Federal Agent Under Fire. Julie Anne Lindsey
and impress him in under a minute. A task no one had ever accomplished, and Blake had met a lot of people.
“Miss Lane,” he began in his most calming tone. “Thank you for your willingness to help. You’ve undergone an incredible trauma today, but I’d like to ask you a few more questions. Let me know if you need to stop at any point during the interview. We can take a break or pick up tomorrow. Whatever you’d like. I assume you’ve already told the sheriff everything you can recall.”
“I have.” She nodded. “If I understand correctly, you believe the man who attacked me is responsible for taking several women.”
“It’s a distinct possibility, yes. That’s what I’m here to find out.”
“Well, I have no intention of going home until I’ve told you everything I told your brother and accompanied you back to the park. I’d like to show you where it happened.” She shot a pointed look at Blake’s black dress shoes. “I hope you brought a change of clothes.”
Blake dragged his gaze to the space behind him where West was retreating toward his office.
Blake unbuttoned his suit jacket and took a seat at the large oval table in the room’s center, attempting to regain control of the situation. He cleared his throat and turned his face to the spitfire before him. She certainly looked like Nash’s type. Obviously beautiful. Small features. Narrow frame. The clingy blue jogging pants and matching tank top left little to the imagination in terms of her shape. Blake’s hands could easily cover the span of her waist. A very Southern-debutante appeal, but looks were deceiving. He fought a smile as he imagined the shock Nash must’ve had when this little woman kicked his ass.
“Agent?” Her voice drew him back like a slap in the face.
“Sorry.” Blake shifted on his seat and gauged his words carefully. He also did his best to clear a few unprofessional thoughts from his mind. “The man I’m after is six feet tall, and he’s probably got seventy-five pounds on you.” Give or take the few that five years might have delivered.
Marissa crossed her arms. “And?”
Blake’s cheek twitched again. Twice in ten minutes. She was funny. Did she know she was funny? “How’d you do it?”
“I fought.” Marissa lifted a tuft of fallen hair off her cheek and hooked it over one ear, revealing a thick crimson line along her jawbone and faint purple bruising under the corresponding eye. “He grabbed me. Hit me. Choked me. I used my size against him. Would you like a demonstration?”
Somewhere in the next room, West coughed.
Blake gave the shared wall a dirty look before turning his attention back to Marissa Lane. “That won’t be necessary.” He opened a notebook and clicked his pen to life. “Has anyone evaluated your injuries?”
Marissa nodded. “Cole,” she said.
“Good.”
Cole was the youngest Garrett brother, a former army medic and a certified EMT. He was also a medical school dropout, but he hated when the family brought that up.
“West insisted I choose between Cole or a trip to the ER,” Marissa added. “I figured, at least I know Cole.”
Blake nodded, hoping the fact she had no bandages meant the injuries appeared worse than they actually were.
“Why don’t you have a seat and start by telling me what you remember?”
She turned to pace the room. “I remember being grabbed from behind, hit across the face and nearly dragged into the forest. The assailant was your brother’s height, West’s, not Cole’s.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I went to high school with them. Never dreamed they’d become the town sheriff and deputy, but I guess I should have. Whatever happened to Ryder?”
“He’s a US Marshal.”
She cocked an eyebrow, as if to say more on the topic, but shook her head and stayed on task. “The lunatic was singing that old song. ‘Going to the Chapel’.”
Blake tapped his pen against the notepad. He’d have to ask how well she knew his brothers later. He’d left for college before they’d started high school. A curious sense of frustration knotted inside him.
Marissa dropped her arms to her sides. “Did you always want to work for the FBI?”
“No.” The Garretts were a family of law enforcement and everyone in Cade County knew it, but Blake never wanted to be sheriff. Though there was a certain pressure for Blake to conform, he’d wanted to do something bigger than hand out traffic tickets and break up marital disputes. He’d gone as far as to finish his law degree, dreaming of a judgeship, before the allure of a shiny badge had caught up with him. Something about those coveted initials, FBI, had changed his life plan without warning.
Marissa leaned her slender backside against the table and crossed her ankles. Soft, distracting scents of coconut and pineapple lifted off her. “Whoever he was, I caught him off guard. I left him on his back by the lake and ran until I saw a car. I flagged the guy down and asked him to drop me off here. My car’s still at the base camp parking lot. I had to run in the opposite direction, and I was afraid to double back. I can pick it up when we go see the crime scene.”
* * *
THE SWOON-WORTHY AGENT stretched onto his feet and loomed over Marissa. His sharp blue eyes cut a line across her bruised face, lingering at her equally sore collarbone before returning to her eyes. “Fine. We can talk more on the way.”
He patted a rhythm on the wall, and his brothers appeared. “Give me five minutes to change, then follow us up to the lake.”
The men exchanged looks and broke off in three separate directions.
Several minutes later, Blake returned in a pair of low-slung jeans, military boots and a slate-gray T-shirt. He’d screwed a plain navy ball cap over his thick dark hair and covered his serious blue eyes with tinted aviators. An impressive FBI badge completed the look. “Time to saddle up.”
Marissa followed a line of Garrett men to their cars. She smoothed her hair and straightened her shirt, uncertain if the bubbling of nerves in her core was caused by a return to the crime scene or something else entirely. Plenty of women’s daydreams had begun like this in Shadow Point. Alone with multiple uniformed Garretts. Fortunately, Marissa had spent four years of high school learning about the inevitable heartbreak a lady could expect from any one of those unbelievably attractive packages. What she couldn’t figure out was why Blake Garrett had thrown her off balance? The others didn’t faze her, but they also didn’t command a room with their presence the way Blake did. If she remembered correctly, he was just four years older than West. Five years older than her. He’d left town long before she’d thought about guys beyond their inability to beat her at anything at all.
The men stopped beside a big black pickup. The truck hadn’t been in the lot when Marissa arrived. Blake pointed a fob in the truck’s direction and the locks popped up. “Miss Lane?” He extended his hand. “Boost?”
Why not? She grabbed the open door frame in one hand and placed her opposite palm on Blake’s. His warm, calloused skin sent a jolt of electricity through her. Blake closed strong fingers over hers and waited as she bounced into the cab.
The door snapped shut behind her, and the Garretts circled up, speaking too low for her to understand. The men seemed to take turns examining her through the closed window. Blake adjusted his ball cap a few times before breaking free from the group and swinging into the driver’s seat.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“No.” He slid his eyes in her direction briefly, checked the rearview, and gunned the engine to life. “Someone attacked you today. That’s a big problem, and I plan to fix it.”
Blake