Mine to Keep (Mine 2)

He heard her sharply indrawn breath.

“A-a knife to the heart?” Skye asked. “Just like—”

“Like Sharpe and Parker? Yes.” And there was more. “Slicing the throat is a personal way to kill. We saw attacks like that during our time together. When you wanted to send a message, when you wanted to be sure that your prey—and their family—didn’t talk, the killers slit their victims’ throats.”

In the glass, he saw her reflection. Skye walked—very tentatively—toward him. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that my dog tags should’ve still been in a grave outside of Siberia. But I found one in Parker’s apartment, and you found the other on his dead body. When it comes to messages, I think that’s pretty clear.” He faced her. “Maybe I didn’t leave a dead man out there after all. Maybe Tucker survived, and now he’s come back to make sure that I suffer for what I did to him.”

“You think…you believe he’s going to kill you?”

His hand lifted, and he stroked her cheek. Such smooth, silken skin. “I told you that I understood how he felt.”

She nodded.

“Killing me would be too easy. Death won’t be quick for me. He’ll want me to suffer.” He and Tucker had been too alike, in many ways. “At the end, he made me a promise.”

“What sort of promise?”

“He said, ‘You’ll know…you’ll lose…all.’” And Trace knew exactly what Tucker meant. Tucker had wanted Trace to feel the same agony that he experienced.

“H-how will he do that?”

Trace stared back at her, and he forced himself to tell her the terrifying truth, “By hurting you.”

Chapter Ten

Alex Griffin shone his flashlight to the left. Then to the right. He was in another alley. One that reeked of piss and garbage.

He had a small team of uniforms with him. Grumbling rookies who weren’t happy to be on the backstreets of Chicago searching through dumpsters.

Like he gave a damn if they were happy or not.

Trace Weston hadn’t needed to carry on about the arterial spray from Parker Jacobs. Alex had seen the splash of blood before at crime scenes. He knew how death worked. His job gave him an up-close and personal look at death each day.

Even before Weston had spoken, Alex knew that Parker’s killer would’ve been hit by the spray of blood.

And I also knew that the killer would need to ditch his clothes.

Because when you walked around, covered in blood, peopled tended to notice.

“He wouldn’t have gone back to the main street, not right after the kill,” Alex said.

The uniform closest to him, Sean Coleman, gave a quick nod. “So he ran away through the alleys.”

“I don’t think it was a panicked run.” Alex stopped next to another big, green dumpster. “I think he planned to kill Parker all along, and I think he had back-up clothes waiting.” The better to blend in with everyone else.

Sean raised his brows and glanced at the dumpster. “Hell, another one.”

“Up and in,” Alex told him, shining the light.

Sean hefted himself into the dumpster. “It’s like finding a microscopic needle in a—” Sean broke off.

Alex grabbed the side of the dumpster. “What is it?”

Sean rose. His gloved hands held a shirt, and when Alex’s light hit that shirt—blood. “I’ve got you,” Alex whispered. That shirt was his key. The techs could scan it for DNA, for evidence…this was it.

He was going to stop the killer. No more victims would fall on Alex’s watch.

***

The shower water thundered down on Skye. After Trace’s confession, she hadn’t exactly been sure what to say.

She’d survived the attack of one maniac before. Now she was supposed to just wait, knowing that some other crazy jerk wanted to come after her?

Sometimes, life could just be a hard kick in the face.

You think you’re happy. You think you have a chance…

And then the chance is ripped right from your hands.

She leaned forward, putting her face under the spray. All of the blood was gone now. It should be. She’d scrubbed herself until her skin felt raw.

Tendrils of steam floated in the air around her. The glass that surrounded the walk-in shower had completely fogged over.