Secret Admirer

“No, they’re too busy trying to save the woman. I’m a good shot. Very good. So they won’t save her. But at least they’re trying. Good for them.”

All of the color bled from Alice’s face.

The robotic voice demanded, “Where is my Alice?”

Zander stared straight at her. “You’ll never touch Alice.”

“Then I guess Tiffany Shaw will be dying. I’ll use my knife on her. She’s very much a disappointment. Started begging and crying the instant I took off the hood I’d shoved over her head. I didn’t want her. I never wanted her. It’s always been Alice.”

Always been Alice. Fucking hell.

“Where. Is. Alice?”

Zander knew that he had to keep the guy talking. His team could trace the call. They could find him. “You’re just some wannabe,” Zander taunted. “The real Secret Admirer doesn’t shoot his victims. But then, the real guy is dead, isn’t he? So what are you? Just some copycat? Some dumb prick who can’t even get the MO right?”

“If I don’t talk to Alice, I’ll send Tiffany to you in pieces.”

“I’m here!” Alice cried out.

Fuck. Zander’s back teeth ground together.

Silence.

The robotic voice said, “I’m very angry with you, Alice.”

Her eyes were huge. “Really? Because I don’t care. Let Tiffany go. Don’t hurt—”

“I waited for you, my perfect Alice. But when I came to you, you weren’t there.”

Zander’s phone vibrated. He glanced down at the text. Not from Randall, but from another team member. Triangulating signal.

Hell, yes.

“Where were you, Alice?” the distorted voice demanded.

Zander’s phone vibrated again. Within five hundred feet of your location.

The bastard was still in the woods. Waiting and watching. Agents were crawling through the trees. They’d find him. He’d better not get away.

“Where were you?” Even distorted, the rage was clear. “And who the fuck were you with?”

“Me, asshole,” Zander snarled back to him. “She was with me.”

The call went dead. Alice dropped her phone onto the bed.

Fury blasted through Zander. “He’s still in the woods. The team traced his call. He’s within five hundred feet of this cabin.” And that was why he’d told the guy that she was with him. If the guy had been watching Alice—and watching had been such a part of the original Secret Admirer’s pattern—then he’d know where Zander’s cabin was. He’d come there.

Come inside, bastard. Come closer.

Zander bounded down the stairs. Alice rushed after him. “Why did you do that?”

He grabbed his gun. Turned toward her. “Because I don’t want him fixated on you. I don’t want him shooting other agents. I don’t want him hurting that woman from the hospital.” His jaw locked. “If the bastard wants to hurt someone, he needs to focus on me. Because I will sure as fuck hurt him back.”

***

The killer didn’t call again. Four hours passed, and there was nothing. The woods were searched. The agents had even brought in the K9 unit. At first, the dogs had a scent, but they lost it near the river.

The bastard had disappeared into thin air.

Cara had been pronounced dead at the scene. The bullet had torn straight through her heart. The agents had figured out the angle of entry, the trajectory, located the exact spot the guy must have been standing in when he took the shot—

But they hadn’t found him.

The sonofabitch was still out there. And that meant Alice wasn’t safe.

Zander sat on the couch, his eyes on the remnants of the fire. Faint embers glowed in the dark.

The stairs creaked behind him.

He rolled back his shoulders. “You should be sleeping.”

“She died in my place.”

He turned his head. Alice had her arms wrapped around her stomach. Her head tipped forward, and her long hair trailed over her shoulders.

“I keep thinking about that. About her. He was in the woods because he wanted me. When he didn’t get me…”

It’s always been Alice.

Zander rose. He stalked toward the kitchen and pulled out his whiskey. He poured a glass and headed back for the den. Alice had moved closer to the fireplace. She gazed down at the embers. “I think you could use a drink,” he muttered.

She glanced up at him. “I think they all died in my place.”

“This isn’t on you. It’s on him. Okay? He’s the freak who took those women—”

“Did he really take Tiffany? Did Randall find out? Did he talk to her family?”

“Tiffany lives alone. Deputies went to her apartment, but she wasn’t there. There was no sign of a forced entry at her place, and her neighbors said she hadn’t been home.”

Alice hadn’t taken the whiskey.

Zander sighed. “Cameras and footage are being checked from the hospital. It’s possible that he took her from there.” He’d been at the hospital, and the guy might have even seen Alice when she’d been there.

She grabbed the whiskey. Took a gulp. Shuddered. “That tastes horrible.”

Zander grunted. “It’s an acquired taste.”

“To be clear, I will never acquire it.”

His lips twisted into a half-smile.

She didn’t smile back. “I’m going to make the trade.” She pushed the glass of whiskey back at him.

And the faint curve of his lips vanished. “What?”

“I’m making the trade. When he calls again, if he calls again, I’m telling him that I’ll do it. I’ll go wherever he wants, I’ll do what he wants, but I’m not going to let Tiffany die in my place.”

“I don’t happen to like this plan.” Under-fucking-statement.

“Too bad. It’s not about what you want or what you like.”

Had she forgotten the whole protective custody part? That he was the agent and she was the civilian? She wasn’t supposed to give him orders. Not exactly the way the system worked.

“That agent wasn’t supposed to die tonight.” Her lashes swept toward her cheeks. “Another death, another mark on my soul. Do you have any idea what it is like? The guilt that eats at me? She was in my cabin. Wearing my clothes. Pretending to be me.”

But Cara had died because she wasn’t Alice. Because the perp knew Alice so well that he could tell by the agent’s walk that she wasn’t the woman he wanted.

Alice brushed past him and headed for the stairs.

He put down the glass before he crushed it. Rage and fear twisted inside of him. “I’ve been watching you, Alice.”

Her shoulders stiffened.

“At first, watching you was my job. I was supposed to learn your routine. To learn who you were. What you liked.”

She turned to face him.

“I learned what you liked, and I gave you what you wanted. That was the way I got close to you. I was there, even when you didn’t know it.” He inclined his head. “But I wasn’t the only one. He was watching you, too. The perp we’re after. The one who has a fucking obsession with you.” An obsession so deep that the guy killed other women who weren’t the real Alice May. Because he doesn’t want a substitute. He wants you. “I think he’s been watching you for a very long time. He knows you, Alice.”

Zander could hear the catch in her breathing.

“And I think that means you know him, too.” Because the way the guy acted with Alice—it was so focused. So fixated. “He would need to be close to you. He’s someone that you’ve talked with before. That’s why he disguised his voice. He didn’t want you to recognize it.”

She shook her head. “I—you’re wrong. I’ve barely spoken to anyone while I’ve been up here. You—you’re the only one I’ve gotten close to—”

“He’s not someone new, Alice. Not someone you met up here. He’s someone from your life in Savannah. Back when you were with Hugh. He’s someone who has been in your life for a very long time.??

? Zander closed in on her. Alice’s head tipped back as she stared up at him, and he had to clench his hands into fists so that he wouldn’t reach out and touch her.

If he touched her, he’d want to take her.

No, fuck it, he already wanted to take her. He had his own obsession when it came to Alice May. Only he wasn’t a twisted sonofabitch who got off on murder.

“You know who he is,” Zander stated flatly. “He’s been in your life all along. He’s hooked on you, and he’s not going to give you up. No matter what he has to do,” or who he has to kill, “he won’t let you go.”

***

Alice had been perfect. His beautiful Alice.

She’d mourned Hugh. Even with the stories circulating in the news, even with the evidence, she’d cried at his funeral.

She hadn’t gone to the news and spread stories about how twisted Hugh had been. Hadn’t taken the book offers that he knew she’d been given.

He knew so much about Alice.

Because he watched her so much.