Chapter 3
Three
Twenty-eight minutes later, after finally getting Susanne and her wife out the door, Carter strolled into the kitchen, eager to face the one-man firing squad that awaited him.
He liked a challenge, liked it even better when it was six feet plus of gorgeous goodness.
He found Lincoln behind the island, his back to the room, shifting his weight side to side.
“Ants in your pants, Professor?”
Lincoln scowled over his shoulder. “More like ants between my toes.”
“For real?”
“Of course not for real.”
He turned back around, and Carter took that as invitation, circling the island. But once he got a clear view of Lincoln, he still wasn’t quite sure what the professor was doing.
Leaning back against the island, Lincoln lifted one bare foot, then the other, in front of the open stove. “Chucks aren’t exactly snow-proof,” he explained.
Ah. But there was an easier way to get heat and blood flow back into frozen feet. “There’s a fireplace in the living room. Comfy chairs, roaring fire, blankets. Everything you need to defrost.”
“Did you see me get anywhere near that fireplace tonight?”
Carter replayed the many swift introductions he’d made and realized each time he’d started in the direction of the fire, Lincoln had nudged them the opposite direction. Those were the only times Lincoln had leaned into him. “You avoided it.”
Lincoln nodded. “I’m pyrophobic.”
Afraid of fire, and yet . . . “You’re standing in front of an open stove.”
“Electric.”
That didn’t mean it couldn’t still catch fire, but Carter let the professor have that one.
The mind often made rationalizations for one’s own well-being, even if it did stretch the bounds of logic doing so.
He’d chased enough criminals to know how truly twisted, how very far from reality, those rationalizations could be.
And he’d chased his own past, made his own far-fetched rationalizations, long enough too.
He shook off the dark thoughts and rested back against the opposite counter. “How did you get through explosives training at Academy?”
“Very carefully.” One corner of Lincoln’s mouth tipped up. “Second worst week of my life.”
“What was the worst?”
The hint of a smile vanished. “The week my preemie daughter spent in the NICU, struggling to live.”
“She’s okay now, right?” Carter could swear he remembered Lincoln mentioning his kid a time or two in class.
Lincoln’s smile returned, both sides now. “Nowadays it’s more likely she’ll send me to ICU.” At Carter’s raised brow, he added, “Teenager.”
Carter laughed, as much at the thought of a teenager’s typical antics as what Teen Monroe must be putting her very ordered father through. “Oh God, you poor thing.”
“Accurate.” Lincoln bent to pick his socks up off the floor, and Carter admired his firm, round ass in well-worn jeans.
He’d never seen Lincoln this dressed down before.
Not that the professor wasn’t handsome in slacks, a button-down, and argyle, but jeans, a tee, and said argyle was a look Carter could get behind.
Literally.
That gray tee and pink-and-purple argyle rucked up around his torso, those jeans stretched around lean, muscular thighs, that perfect ass in the air, pale skin flushed for the kisses Carter would like to—
A sharp clap broke through the fantasy unspooling in Carter’s head.
Lincoln was on his way back from the mudroom off the kitchen, exasperation painting his face, as if he could see inside Carter’s head.
“Explain this,” he said, using his ring finger to gesture between them.
“Beverley said I was going undercover as the new librarian at Apex U and that my partner on this case would be teaching a survival course to Apex PD. He said nothing about living together or pretending to be married.”
“Because I asked him not to,” Carter replied.
Lincoln opened his mouth, no doubt to protest, but Carter spoke again first. “It wasn’t only Agent—Senator—Kirk who asked for you on this case.
I asked for you too. You are the Bureau’s resident expert on Dr. Fear.
But it doesn’t take an expert to know who Dr. Fear targets. ”
“Couples.”
Carter nodded and waited for the implication to register.
It took a few seconds but then Lincoln paled and braced a hand on the end of the island. “You want us to be bait?” he squawked.
Carter dipped his chin to hide his grin. When he was sure his face was in order again, he lifted it and said, “If they’re active again, or even if this is a copycat, who better to lead the killer to than to two trained agents instead of to more innocents?”
“But why would Dr. Fear strike at us here, in Apex? They’ve never attacked anyone outside of DC Metro.”
“That we know of,” Carter said. “And they’ve never had to deal with a copycat before either.”
Lincoln crossed his arms. “So you believe it’s a copycat?” Voice level again, he seemed to be regathering his composure as they continued to talk case specifics.
Carter gave him more of what he needed. “Given the letter to Kirk, and that Dr. Fear never had a connection to their victims, yes, I think there is a copycat at work, at least with respect to Ruby and Chase.”
“But not with respect to the first couple in this cycle, Zia and Quinn?”
“Zia and Quinn match Dr. Fear’s MO. Diagnoses found where they were taken from. DC Metro-based couple killed in the DC Metro area after being held captive seventy-two hours. Relatives confirm the deaths were connected to known fears. No evidence at either scene. That set reads like Dr. Fear.”
“Aside from the connection to Kirk, so do Ruby and Chase.”
“Except that connection is a huge fucking deviation. Do you think it was at random? The killer just happened to abduct the daughter of the former FBI agent who tracked them?”
“I don’t. And you’re right, it doesn’t make sense for Dr. Fear.”
One thing was for sure, Lincoln was going to make him work for everything on this case. Same as he had in class, even when Carter had delighted in throwing him off course at every opportunity. The professor was just so damn attractive when ruffled.
“So,” Carter said, “if we posit that Zia and Quinn were Dr. Fear’s victims, and we attribute Ruby and Chase to the copycat, then the copycat interrupted Dr. Fear’s cycle.
That is not going to sit well with a highly organized, methodical serial killer who is likely protective of their work.
Even if the copycat means to flatter, Dr. Fear is likely to be angered that someone hijacked their routine, which might lead them to change things up.
To escalate or make a mark somewhere else. ”
“Here,” Lincoln said, drawing the conclusion Carter had led him to. “What makes you think they’re in Apex?”
“Ah.” Carter moved past Lincoln toward the table. “This is the part where you tell me I’m not an expert.”
If looks could kill, Carter would be laid out on the table.
Which was not a bad mental picture in another context. He pressed pause on the fantasy before it went too far in favor of keeping Lincoln’s attention.
“You’re right,” Carter conceded. “I’m not the expert, which is why you’re also here.”
Lincoln sat at the head of the table, to Carter’s right. “Why were you here in Apex?”
“Personal reasons.” Answering Lincoln’s cocked brow, he explained, “I’m looking for someone and that search led me here.
” Chasing his past, following up on one of those far-fetched rationalizations.
“As I was looking through the county hospital records, I noticed two names—Zia Powell and Anthony Becker.”
Lincoln lurched forward. “A present and past victim. Any names from the other two sets of victims in between?”
“Hadn’t gotten that far in my search yet.”
“Fuck, Zia and Anthony were both in the hospital here.”
“Only an exit up on the freeway.” Carter reached behind him, into the bottom part of the china cabinet where he’d stashed the work folders he’d barely unpacked before being descended upon by nosy neighbors.
He opened the top folder and unfolded the two sheets of tabloid-size paper inside.
Charts of the sort Professor Monroe had taught him how to make.
He pointed at the single box on each chronological line graph.
“Zia was in the county hospital three months before she was killed, Anthony a year before. So this is the activity window for each.”
Lincoln drew the graphs closer. “Dr. Fear got more efficient.”
“Appears so.”
“Were Zia and Anthony just passing through? Their licenses listed home addresses in the DC area.”
“Maybe passing through, or they could have had some connection to Apex U. I’m waiting on the full hospital records. Didn’t have time to dig much further yet. In any event, I found this connection, called Beverley, and that’s when he told me about the letter that had just arrived for Kirk.”
“A letter sent from the same county as the hospital where two victims passed through.” Lincoln looked up from the graphs, a begrudging smile on his lips. “Not bad, Agent Warren.”
“I had a good teacher.”
Pink streaked across Lincoln’s cheeks, and Carter was glad for the table that hid his body’s reaction.
Compliments also brought about that attractive blush, maybe even a deeper one than ruffling Lincoln’s feathers.
Noted. Carter went for another, seeing as his interested dick was so helpfully hidden.
“But I won’t spot everything you can. If you can do that much, I can take care of the rest.”
Lincoln shifted back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other toward Carter—did he even realize what he was doing?—and glanced around the room meaningfully. “Our cover.”
“I wasn’t lying before,” Carter said. “I was planning to talk to you about it first, except I got here, picked up the keys from the realtor because I figured you’d be late due to the weather, started to unpack, and not ten minutes later, Susanne and the welcoming committee arrived.”
“And you decided to throw a spontaneous housewarming party?”