The Prey Read online

  She nodded, understanding in her pretty eyes.

  “Rowan,” a voice said behind her.

  Rowan felt John tense, but she smiled, let go of his hand, and stood. “Peter,” she whispered, turning to face her baby brother.

  Peter wore a simple, dark sweater over his cleric’s collar, his gray eyes shining bright with concern. He held out his arms and she stepped into his warm embrace, breathing in his safe and familiar scent, her cheek on his chest. He was quite tall, taller than John, and on the thin side.

  She stepped back and inspected him. Definite worry in the faint lines of his handsome face. His dark hair had started graying on the sides, a few white strands intermingled here and there. He was only thirty; where had the gray come from?

  She touched his face. “It’s so good to see you.” And it was. More than good; seeing him was almost like healing.

  He kissed her on the forehead, then stepped back and extended his hand to John, who had stood and assumed his bodyguard stance behind her and to the side. “John Flynn?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Peter smiled wide, a touch of humor glimmering in his eyes. “Peter will suffice. Thank you for calling me.”

  John nodded, motioning for him to sit. Once they were all settled, the waitress took their orders and left.

  “What did John tell you?” Rowan asked, breaking an awkward silence. Both Peter and John seemed to be sizing each other up. It made her feel strange.

  “I suppose I should ask what he didn’t tell me.” Peter frowned. “Why did you come to Boston?”

  Rowan closed her eyes. “To see our father.”

  “What?” The quiet shock in Peter’s deep voice surprised Rowan. “But—I never thought you—” He stopped himself. “Why?”

  “Bobby is alive,” she said quietly. “Alive and killing people. He’s the killer, Peter.”

  Rowan told Peter everything, from beginning to end. About the murders, the pigtails, the lilies, Roger’s lies. Their food came and they picked at it, no one in the mood to eat.

  When she was done, Peter turned to John. “I am so sorry about your brother.”

  “Thank you.” Rowan thought John sounded a little gruff, but what did she expect? She’d just recounted how Michael had been killed.

  “Dad talked?” Peter sipped water. “I’m surprised.”

  Rowan nodded. “Me, too. You know, I keep playing over and over in my mind what he said. Bobby told him my mother was with someone. Did Bobby set this whole thing up? Did he want to cause problems between Mom and Dad? I just don’t understand.”

  “Bobby always got a perverse pleasure out of hurting people. Physically and emotionally,” Peter said. “I was too young to understand how deep his anger and hatred went, but I knew enough to stay as far away from him as possible.”

  “I think Bobby had to have been manipulating Dad for a long time. Maybe he never thought he’d kill Mama, just wanted to cause problems for the pleasure of causing problems, but something happened to Daddy and he broke.”

  She pushed her plate away. “Or maybe I’m just making excuses for him.”

  “Because he hit Mama.”

  Her eyes widened. “You knew? You never said anything.”

  Eyes swimming with grief, Peter nodded. “I knew, but didn’t understand. I was seven when she died. I heard fights more than saw. Except the bruises.” He took a deep breath. “Mama chose to stay. That makes everything harder to deal with.”

  A tear slipped down Rowan’s face and she wiped it away. “You should have talked to me. Maybe we could have helped each other.”

  “Maybe we could have, if we were older. And together. But when the O’Briens adopted me and Roger took you in, we didn’t see each other and then—time. Time is cruel, Rowan. I’ve dealt with everything the best way I could, and I’m at peace with it. What else can I do? Except try to help you. But you never let anyone in.” Peter looked at John. “At least, you didn’t for a long time.”

  Rowan stole a glance at John. His jaw was tight, posture stiff, but his eyes looked at her with compassion and something more. Something binding. Her heart paused as she realized in that moment that John had grown to be such an important part of her life so quickly, she hadn’t seen it happen.

  That wasn’t an entirely comfortable thought.

  “Why didn’t the O’Briens adopt Rowan?” John asked, turning from her to Peter.

  Peter paused a long time. “It was a difficult time for both of us, I think. They’re good people, but two damaged kids would be trying on anyone. Aunt Karen, our mother’s sister, refused to take us in. Rowan and I overheard her call us the ‘Devil’s spawn.’ ”

  Rowan would never forget that. It reminded her always of where she came from. The loins of a devil.

  “Our grandparents were old,” she said quietly. “We were with them for a week, but—I didn’t make it easy.”

  “Who could blame you?” Peter snapped, rare anger in his voice. “When are you going to stop blaming yourself? What could you have done as a child to stop our father from stabbing our mother to death? What could you have done to protect Dani? You did everything you could. You saved my life.”

  She stifled a sob, and Peter’s hand shot out and squeezed hers. “You have to let the past go.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “But not until Bobby is caught. He’s on the loose, killing people to get to me. Please be careful, Peter. If he finds out you’re still alive, he’ll go after you.”

  “I’m ready, Rowan. I’m at peace. The question is, are you?”

  After Peter left, John escorted Rowan to her room. He had the adjoining suite, and made sure the door was open in case she was in trouble. He doubted Bobby knew where they were, but if he had help or access to airline records—illegally—he might be able to track them down.

  John couldn’t sleep. He lay on his back and stared at the acoustic hotel ceiling, the dim light from the street casting shadows across his room. He thought about everything Peter had said. Rowan’s guilt and frustration. He understood that. He had plenty of guilt and frustration of his own.

  He missed Michael. Wednesday was his funeral, and he didn’t want to go. He hated funerals. He’d been to too many in his nearly forty years. His mom. His dad. Colleagues. Criminals.

  Denny.

  He’d already said goodbye to Michael in the morgue—face-to-face. He closed his eyes and saw his brother’s cold, lifeless body in the steel drawer.

  But he would go. He had to. For Tess. For Michael.

  A faint movement from Rowan’s room caught his eye and he silently slid from his bed, gun in hand.

  “It’s me,” Rowan said as she stepped through the doorway. Her long white hair fell down her back and shimmered in the shadows. She wore a long T-shirt that barely touched the top of her thighs, and her long, shapely legs were bare.

  He relaxed, put his gun by his side. “Is everything okay?”

  She nodded. “I just—Can I sleep with you tonight?”

  The words were like a child’s, but her voice was husky, sexy. His body instantly responded. “Are you sure?”

  She walked over to him, laid a hand on his chest. Her lips were inches from his. “Yes, John. I’m sure.”

  Rowan hadn’t been sure of a lot in her life, especially since she quit the FBI, but right here, right now, she was confident that she needed John. More than a need. A desire deeper than anything she’d felt for a man before.

  How could something that felt so powerful, so right, happen so fast?

  “Rowan.” His voice was dark and shaded with desire. He stood still, trembling slightly beneath her hands spread across his wide, muscular chest.

  She couldn’t imagine being anywhere but here. With John.

  She kissed his chest, his heat radiating through her lips, down her throat, to the center of her soul. Her breath hitched as she realized her feelings for John went deeper than she’d thought. She wanted to scream with the injustice of it all—that she very well could die. Or
that John could.

  Dear God, no. Not John. She’d never be able to live with herself if he died protecting her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as she feathered kisses on his chest, up his shoulder.

  He was too perceptive for his own good. She didn’t say a word, just continued to kiss him. She didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to feel.

  He stepped back, tilted her chin up with his finger. “Talk to me.”

  But she couldn’t talk about it. Not her fears, not what her heart was clamoring for her to say.

  She couldn’t say it. Everyone she loved died.

  “Make love to me,” she said and touched her lips to his.

  “Row—”

  “Shh,” she murmured into his lips, gently pushing him back onto the bed.

  He hesitated only a moment before deepening the embrace. Like a switch, he went from soft caresses to hard passion. Her hands roamed the long, firm length of his body. Rowan couldn’t touch him enough. As if it were the last time, she needed to touch all of him, from his cropped hair to his broad shoulders to the jagged scar that ran from mid-thigh to his knee.

  Her mouth trailed down his chest to his stomach. He quivered, his hands wound tightly in her hair. She kissed his navel, licked him from his hard stomach down to his pelvis, her hands reaching for his long hardness, and taking it into her mouth. He moaned and she drew him in deeper.

  Sweat and raw masculine need wafted through her senses. Never had she felt so passionate, so desirable.

  “Row-an.” He pulled her up and off him, rolled over on top of her. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  He sank into her. His lips onto hers, his tongue dueling. Chest against chest, pelvis against pelvis. He slid comfortably into her, drawing out a long groan from deep in her body.

  They quickly found their rhythm. Fast, hard, intense. She couldn’t get close enough to him; he pulled her closer, plunging deeper, until they pushed each other into orgasms, clinging and almost frantic. As if it were the last time.

  No. It couldn’t be the last time. She couldn’t lose him now that she’d found someone who fit so well into her tainted and troubled life.

  Unless—

  She didn’t want to think about John’s feelings, but she had to. He was comforting her, caring for her, loving her—for tonight. Tonight they had. Tomorrow—maybe. But forever?

  She couldn’t even imagine forever. There had never been a forever in her life, and it was foolish to think of one with this complex and tough man with the tender soul.

  She breathed deeply and tried to roll away from him.

  “Not so fast.” John cleared his throat. If Rowan thought she was going back to her bed she had another thing coming.

  He scrambled to the center of the bed, bringing Rowan with him, covering their naked, sweat-coated bodies with the sheet. He didn’t remember ditching his sweats or pulling her nightshirt off. Maybe she had.

  He relished the closeness they’d shared, but felt her pull away shortly after, as if closing herself off from the warm afterglow. As if it were just about sex.

  It wasn’t just about sex. And it hadn’t been since the first night they made love. Was it only three days ago?

  He kissed her forehead, felt her tense up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said, much too quickly. She kissed his throat. Already he knew her M.O. She was trying to distract him to avoid talking. Avoid his questions.

  Not this time. “Tell me.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long minute. Then, with a voice as soft and quiet as a spring breeze, she whispered, “Everyone I care about dies.”

  His heart clenched. He wanted desperately to reassure her, but she wouldn’t buy it. Not after what she’d been through in her life.

  He would have to prove it to her. “Bobby will be caught.”

  She shrugged into his body, but her skin grew cold to the touch. He’d said the wrong thing. “I’m sorry, Rowan, I—”

  “No, you’re right. He will be caught. It’s just a matter of time. And death.”

  “I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that.”

  She didn’t say anything and he forced her to look at him. The tears swimming in her eyes threw him.

  He’d never let anything happen to her. He’d die first.

  That was the crux of the problem. She knew it.

  “You have to let me do my job, Rowan.”

  She nodded, then turned away. When he pulled her close, spooning her body into his, she didn’t resist. Her compliance wasn’t a reassurance. If anything, it worried him even more.

  CHAPTER

  20

  The morning of Michael’s funeral was overcast, perfect for the mood but unusual for southern California. One of those odd coincidences that made Rowan think there might be a God and that sometimes He did care.

  Then she remembered that God had been absent when Michael was murdered.

  She stayed in the back of the church during the funeral. Quinn and Colleen flanked her, and several security teams were positioned both within and outside the church and in Tess’s apartment, where the mourners would gather after.

  John sat with his sister in the front pew, his arm around her small shoulders, his head bent close to hers.

  Rowan didn’t think Bobby would try anything here. Not only were there Feds all over, Michael had been a cop and dozens of uniformed officers were in attendance to pay their respects.

  It was all Rowan could do to keep her emotions under control. She felt such an outsider.

  John gave the eulogy.

  “Michael is my brother,” he began. “And I love him.”

  Tears silently streamed down Rowan’s face.

  “Michael was born a cop. He was a damn good one. When he left the force to open shop with me, the L.A.P.D. lost a good man. Honorable and steadfast. Michael believed in justice and the firm line between right and wrong.

  “But the Michael you might not have known was a man I called Mickey, my brother and best friend. He loved to fish and could sit still for hours waiting for a bite. When I’d fidget and break a line in my haste, Mickey would shake his head and say, ‘Patience.’ He’d laugh because he always caught the biggest fish.”

  Rowan stayed for John, but didn’t hear any more of his stories about Michael. She hated funerals, hated saying goodbye to good people. John’s bravery shone through. Standing and speaking about his dead brother must have split his heart.

  She had Quinn and Colleen take her back to Malibu as soon as the funeral ended. She caught John’s eye as she was leaving and he frowned. She turned away, tears in her eyes. That couldn’t be a good sign.

  She didn’t do relationships well. What was going on between her and John? She had no idea, but deep down sensed it wouldn’t last. How could it? John’s brother was dead because of her. His sister was in danger because of her. While John made his own decisions regarding the situations he placed himself in, his life was in jeopardy because of her.

  Bobby was going to come for her. She had to make sure he hurt no one else.

  Bobby MacIntosh looked downright debonair Wednesday night, if he said so himself.

  The mirror reflected a tall, sandy-haired cowboy complete with faded jeans, crisp new button-down shirt, and a bolo tie with a turquoise clasp set in silver. Yes, mighty handsome. Reckon on having some fun tonight, he thought with a smile.

  He was meeting Sadie in thirty minutes and escorting her to a lovely dinner, then a little roll in the hay in businessman Rex Barker’s hotel room. Sadie wasn’t just a prostitute. She was a high-class call girl. The kind of girl wealthy businessmen took out for dinner and drinks, to business conventions and the theater and art exhibits.

  And, when you’re smart, you get a referral from a regular customer. Of course, sometimes you have to make it up as you go along. Being an ex-con helped in this case, though Bobby didn’t use his real name. He’d called other ex-cons and eventually learned of an escort service that fit his needs
. As an added bonus, he used the name of a prominent federal judge as a referral.

  Smart, very smart.

  He finished preparing his briefcase—a scalpel, medical scissors, garbage bags, scarves, and nipple clasps. My my my, when he’d read how Rowan’s villain killed his victims he was shocked that she could come up with something so twisted.

  He was giddy with anticipation.

  He closed his briefcase and left the hotel room.

  Tonight, he’d be on a flight back to Los Angeles. By Friday, Rowan—Lily—would be all his.

  He couldn’t wait to strangle the bitch.

  Susannah Darlene Pierce, Sadie to her clients, learned early on to use her looks to get what she wanted. When her stepfather stole her virginity at age fourteen, she could have buried her head in the sand and bemoaned the fates.

  Instead, she took matters into her own hands. Starting with her beloved stepfather.

  No one knew who set Stuart Price up on embezzlement charges. No one except Sadie, of course. She figured five years in prison and a quarter million in restitution to his clients would buy her the time to get out of the Bible Belt and make it in Hollywood.

  She never did make it to Hollywood.

  In Dallas, she met Bridget Carter, a beautiful brunette with designer clothes Sadie coveted, a million-dollar house in a ritzy part of town, and the poise of a starlet. Bridget explained Life to Sadie, and Sadie got it.

  Control. Power. Security.

  Being an escort afforded her control over men she’d always desired but never knew how to get. What did a seventeen-year-old high school dropout from Arkansas know about the power of womanhood? Because that was what being an escort—or call girl, or hooker, or prostitute—meant. Power.

  Bridget taught her everything from dressing properly to manners to safety to culture—an escort should know about current events, but always agree with her man. An escort should know all about popular music, art, and theater in order to blend into society. And Sadie ate it up. That’s why she was double-majoring in art history and business. Art history for fun, business for—well, business.