Chapter Eight
When Teagan crossed her arms and gave him a mutinous stare, Bryson sighed and let the office door close. She’d made no move toward the doorway. She wasn’t backing down without a fight. But neither was he. “Teagan, we should—”
“You caught me off guard. That’s all. I didn’t expect to see...those pictures, okay? You should have warned me.”
“If I’d warned you, I might not have received an honest reaction.
You would have covered up your true emotions, or at least tried, with false bravado.
Now I know the truth. This is all still too raw for you to be involved in the investigation.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Victims don’t typically work on their own cases, for good reason. ”
“I’m not a victim,” she snapped. “I’m a survivor.”
“Fair enough. That doesn’t change anything that I said.”
She waved toward the stacks of boxes. “Why can’t we start with these?
I already know the man who attacked me is the real Kentucky Ripper, not Leviathan Finney, the guy in prison.
There’s no reason to review every nitty-gritty detail about what happened to me.
We’re past that. We know who did it, that first guy you profiled back in Kentucky, the one the police let get away, Avarice Lowe. ”
“Did you tell the detectives on your case that you believed Lowe was the one who’d abducted you?”
“Yes. I did.”
“And? Let me guess. They did a cursory look at him and either couldn’t locate him at all or said he had an alibi. And they went no further than that.”
“They couldn’t find him. But they didn’t try very hard.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know. Probably because they’re lazy and wanted to work on easier cases.”
He wheeled over in front of her. “Can you think of another reason? Come on. Set aside emotion and use that valedictorian mind of yours.”
She gave him another mutinous look. “They don’t believe Lowe is the Ripper and had no evidence to tie him to my case. But that’s because they refused to listen.”
“Detectives, good ones at least, follow the evidence. The only reason you feel that the Ripper is the one who abducted you is because the man who hurt you carved that X on your abdomen. Everything else about your case is different, including the fact that you survived.”
“Then let’s go through your case files and find more similarities. That’s why you brought them here.”
He shook his head. “I brought them here to review after I review your case, and then, only if we decide the two cases are connected, or highly likely connected. What happens if we do it your way, spend all our time on the Ripper case, and discover that you’re wrong?
We’ve wasted weeks, or longer by that time going through all of the Ripper’s cases.
We’d be starting over at ground zero without having made any progress figuring out who attacked you.
If you truly want my help in finding out who hurt you, I’m all in.
But I have to do it my way. I follow the evidence.
And that means, starting at the beginning, with what happened to you. ”
She stared at the stacks of boxes for a long moment. When she finally met his gaze, naked pain radiated back at him. “I spent over a year and a half on this to find the man who hurt me. I don’t want to start over. I can’t.”
Disappointment shot through him, but he forced a smile. “Then don’t. Keep doing what you’re doing. Follow the leads where you believe they’ll take you.”
“Without you.”
He nodded. “Without me.”
“Bryson’s way or the highway, is that it?”
He hated the hurt in her voice. He especially hated that he was at least partly the cause.
But it would be far worse if he gave in, if he went against everything he’d learned as a Justice Seeker in how to run investigations as well as his profiling experience with the FBI.
She’d managed to awaken a hunger in him for justice again, a desire to right the wrongs of his past and prove he was better than the mistakes he’d made.
Starting out by making another mistake wasn’t how he’d atone for his sins.
Steeling himself against the censure and sense of betrayal in her beautiful brown eyes, he responded to her accusation.
“Bryson’s way was to enjoy his hermit-like existence and never talk to another human being again.
I was perfectly happy here all by myself until you showed up.
So don’t act like I’m suddenly pushing you to do something that I want you to do.
You came here for my help. I was willing to help you the only way I know how, by using my training and experience and following the right steps from beginning to end to build a profile.
I would have gathered as much evidence along the way as I could.
Then, I would have worked with the police to get them moving on it.
None of that is sexy or flashy. It’s a heck of a lot of work.
But that’s the way it’s done. Period. And you said you can’t do that, which means we’re done.
Follow your own path and I’ll follow mine.
There’s a creek full of fish in my backyard.
Maybe I’ll get a pole and cast a line. There are worse ways to spend my time.
Go home. I mean it. I wish you the best, I truly do.
But when I come back inside, I want you gone. ”
He wheeled out of the room and a few minutes later he was on the dock, nursing a can of beer as if the twenty-four hours since Mason’s visit had never happened.
But as he listened to the creek splashing over the rocks and watched the cars far below that seemed like toys from this distance, he realized that everything had changed.
There was no going back. Mason had started a quiet rumble inside him.
Teagan had built that rumble into an earthquake that had rocked him from his complacency.
She’d reminded him of the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of solving a puzzle, and the reason he’d gone into his line of work to begin with—to help people.
But just as he hadn’t helped Hayley when he’d gotten shot, he hadn’t helped Teagan.
He swore and crumpled the now-empty can in his hand.
He’d been far too rough on her. Every word he’d said had been true, his truth at least. But she obviously wasn’t ready for that kind of honesty.
She wasn’t one of his peers, a hardened or jaded agent who he could talk to without guarding his words.
She was a victim, a survivor. She deserved nothing but respect and kindness as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened to her.
If going after the Ripper was her way of coping, then who was he to stand in her way?
He should have encouraged her. Instead, he’d lectured her on the “right” way to conduct an investigation.
The distant sound of her car starting up in his driveway had his shoulders slumping in disappointment.
Not with her. With himself. She’d probably head back to her hotel room, or wherever she was staying, and continue her research like a hamster on a wheel never getting where they truly wanted to go.
She needed guidance from someone willing to pursue the angle she wanted to pursue, not the angle that Bryson had insisted was the right place to start. So how could he help her?
It all boiled down to contacts.
He’d joked earlier that he still had a few contacts in law enforcement.
In reality, he had far more than a few. After all, he’d only gone on hiatus as a Justice Seeker six months ago.
Before that, with his combined years as a Seeker and an FBI special agent, he’d worked with hundreds, maybe thousands of peers in his field.
Many of them had become close friends that he still had to this day.
Maybe, just maybe, he could give Teagan what she wanted—someone to talk to who’d worked on the Ripper cases.
He pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to Special Agent Pierce Buchanan.
There was the usual small talk, asking about Pierce, his wife, Madison, and their toddler, Nicole.
That was followed by some groveling and apologizing for Bryson having refused the couple’s many requests to let them visit him after the shooting.
But they worked out an agreement. In exchange for Pierce contacting Teagan and offering her an insider’s view of the Ripper murders, Bryson would fly to Pierce’s home in Savannah for a long weekend later this summer.
Bryson wasn’t sure if he was the winner or loser in that negotiation.
Three of Pierce’s four brothers and his father were in law enforcement.
They’d likely show up and grill him about every detail of the shooting and its aftermath.
After ending that call, he made one more.
To the airport.