Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Claire
Washington, D.C.
Special Agent Claire Dawson had spent five years hunting predators. She refused to become prey.
The three women staring back at her from the computer screen hadn’t had a choice.
Sarah Mitchell, thirty-one. Rebecca Torres, twenty-eight.
Amanda Greenwood, thirty-three. All brunetts.
All with careers in law enforcement or victim advocacy.
All dead within a week of receiving their stalker’s first direct message.
Claire’s own FBI photo sat in the fourth position on her screen.
She leaned back in her desk chair, the squeak of worn leather loud in the nearly empty office.
She was the only agent still at her desk in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in that particular shade of institutional white that made late nights feel even longer.
Her coffee had gone cold an hour ago. She didn’t care.
The pattern was there. She could feel it, just out of reach. Something that connected these women beyond the obvious similarities. Something the stalker saw that made them targets.
Survivors. They were all survivors.
Sarah Mitchell had escaped an abusive relationship. Rebecca Torres had fought off a carjacker. Amanda Greenwood had been sexually assaulted in college and testified against her attacker.
And Claire... Claire had survived the night Lily died.
Her hand moved unconsciously to the scar on her left forearm. Fifteen years healed, barely visible now, but she felt it every time she worked a case like this. Felt the break, the cast, the helplessness of being fourteen with a concussion while police asked her what happened to her best friend.
I tried to fight him. Lily told me to run. I should have stayed.
Her phone buzzed.
Claire glanced at the screen, expecting another update from the protection detail that had been shadowing her for the past three days. Instead, an unknown number. A text message that made ice slide down her spine.
Day 3, Claire. Your friend couldn’t outrun him. Will you?
Her hands shook as she screenshotted the message, forwarded it to the case team, and documented the timestamp. Calm and controlled. Never mind that her heart was trying to hammer its way out of her chest.
Three days since the first direct message. According to the pattern, she had four days left. Maybe five if she was lucky.
The intercom on her desk crackled. “Dawson. My office. Now.”
SAC Marcus Reeves didn’t wait for acknowledgment before the line went dead.
Claire stood, checked her weapon out of habit, and walked down the hallway. She tried not to feel like she was walking to her own execution.
Reeves looked like he’d aged five years in the past week. The Special Agent in Charge of the BAU was in his fifties, a former profiler himself, with the kind of experience that made agents feel safe under his command.
Right now, he looked exhausted. “Sit,” he said.
Claire remained standing. “Sir, I just received—”
“I know.” He turned his computer screen toward her. The exact text she’d received, along with metadata that made her stomach drop. “He accessed our internal network. Again. Third breach in forty-eight hours.”
“Then we need to find out how—”
“You’re off the case.”
The words hit like a physical blow. She stammered, snapped her mouth shut, and tried again. “Sir, I—”
“Effective immediately.” Reeves stood, came around his desk. “You’re compromised, Claire. This isn’t a discussion.”
“But I’m the best person to work this case.” She fought to keep her voice level. “I know his pattern better than anyone. I’ve studied these victims for weeks.”
“You’re not studying victims anymore. You are the victim.” His voice was gentle but firm. “And victims don’t work their own cases.”
The hell I’m a victim. “I’m an FBI agent.”
“Being stalked by a serial killer.” Reeves pulled up another file, this one of security footage. A man’s silhouette stood outside her apartment building. Timestamp: Wednesday, 6:43 PM. “He was at your building. We have multiple sightings in the past week.”
Claire stared at the screen. She’d felt watched. Dismissed it as paranoia.
“There’s more.” Reeves showed her another photo. A package, addressed to her, that had been intercepted at the FBI mailroom screening. Inside was a bracelet. Silver, delicate.
Exactly like the one Lily had worn. The one that was buried with her.
“How did he—”
“We don’t know. But he seems to know things about you, Claire. Personal things. Things from before you were an agent.” Reeves met her eyes. “This isn’t random. Our team believes he’s been planning this for a long time.”
The team? Had her unit been talking to him behind her back?
She wanted to argue. Wanted to insist she could handle it, that she’d trained for this, that running wouldn’t solve anything. But the bracelet sat in that evidence bag like an accusation.
Her voice came out a touch too shaky. “What’s the…plan?”
“We’re sending you to a secure location in Montana. Private security contractor with former Special Forces experience. You’ll be protected while we work the case.”
“Montana?” The word came out sharp, harsh. “You’re sending me across the country to hide in a safe house while everyone else hunts him?”
“He’s here, in D.C. You need to be somewhere he can’t reach.”
“A safe house here makes sense. Montana is exile.”
“Montana is remote, defensible, and off any radar he might have access to.” Reeves’s voice hardened slightly.
“This predator has breached FBI security three times.” The media had dubbed him the Countdown Killer.
While no one on her team was allowed to refer to him that way, she knew they all did in their minds, even Reeves.
“He knows where you live, where you work. Your running route, your coffee shop, your dry cleaner.”
Claire’s jaw clenched. “So we’re giving him what he wants—me off the case.”
“We’re keeping you alive long enough to catch him.”
“I should be here.” Her voice cracked despite her best efforts. “Working this.”
“You’re too close.” Reeves softened slightly. “I know why you do this work, Claire. I know about Lily Harper.”
Claire’s stomach dropped. “That’s in my sealed psych eval.”
“I’m your SAC, and it’s hardly top secret information. It was all over the news back then.” He paused. “I’ve seen it before. You became an agent to catch men like the one who killed your best friend. You’ve done good work. Important work. But right now, your job is to stay alive.”
“While other agents work my case.”
“Yes.” No apology in it. Just fact. “We have a full team on this. Good agents. They’ll find him.”
Claire looked away, fighting the burn behind her eyes. Five years of hunting predators. Every arrest for Lily. Every case closed because she wouldn’t let another family go through what hers had.
And now she was the victim.
“The contractor is Shadow Point Security,” Reeves continued. “They specialize in high-risk protection.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I won’t trust your life with anyone but the best.” Reeves shuffled several folders on the desk. “Their team leader is a former SEAL Commander, and I’m assured you’ll be in good hands.”
Great, a former SEAL. She’d worked with Special Forces before. They were more than competent but tended to treat civilians—even FBI agents—like fragile cargo. “When do I leave?”
“Tonight. A car’s waiting downstairs.” He must have seen the protest forming. “That’s an order, Agent Dawson.”
She stood there, hands clenched at her sides, every instinct screaming to fight this. But orders were orders.
“Can I at least work the case remotely?”
Reeves paused. “I'll keep you in the loop. You can review the case materials and provide input on the profile. But only from the Shadow Point compound, secure channels only.” His voice hardened. “If you compromise your location or security in any way, I will pull you completely. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Shadow Point’s contact information has been sent in an encrypted email. They’ll brief you on arrival.”
Claire turned to leave.
“Claire.” Reeves’s voice stopped her at the door. “We’ll catch him.”
She looked back. “Without me, it seems.”
“Just promise you’ll stay alive long enough for us to do it. Don’t make me attend your funeral. That’s an order.”
The words hung in the air. Claire nodded once and walked out.
She always kept a go-bag in her office. Along with that, she grabbed her laptop, case files, and the photograph she kept in her desk drawer of her and Lily as young girls, laughing at something long forgotten.
Before everything changed.
The black SUV was waiting where Reeves said it would be. Professional driver, silent and efficient. Claire climbed into the back seat and stared out the window as D.C. rolled past in the darkness.
She should stay, hunt this bastard, not run off to Montana.
But the memory came anyway. Always did when she thought about Lily.
The hospital. Her broken arm, a concussion, and her parents crying in the hallway. The detective asking what happened.
“He took Lily. I tried to stop him. She told me to run. I should have stayed. I should have—”
“You did what you could, sweetheart. You survived.”
But Lily hadn’t.
Claire pulled out her phone, opened the case file she’d copied to her secure drive. Three victims. Three dead women who looked like her, who’d survived violence before, who’d fought back.
He was choosing survivors. Testing if they could survive again.
Proving they couldn’t.
Not me, Claire thought. I won’t be number four.
The private airstrip was small, the plane smaller. Claire slept maybe an hour on the flight, dreams full of Lily and bracelets and men’s silhouettes in doorways.