After a brutal attack by a rogue agent, Rachel had only just been cleared to return to work. She’d left one nightmare, and now she was walking straight into another one.
If he had his way, he’d protect Rachel from anything and everything out there—and from one twisted man in particular.
Still frowning at Dylan, Rachel slipped past him. He noticed that she was careful not to touch anything in the suite. After her time prosecuting, Rachel knew better than to contaminate a crime scene.
She knelt next to the body. Her gaze swept over Patterson. Dylan easily read the sorrow on her face. Then her attention locked on Patterson’s wound.
On the blood near him. On what was in that blood.
“That’s a playing card,” Rachel said. Her words shook. Her golden skin had just turned pale. Her head tilted so that she could look up at him, and her eyes were wild with emotion. “Tell me, tell me that it’s not him!”
Because the EOD was well acquainted with one particular assassin who always left a playing card behind. Jack.
Rachel, in particular, was intimately acquainted with the man.
Dylan had gloves on his hands and, carefully, using tweezers, he bent and turned over the playing card so that both he and Rachel could see the face.
The Jack of Hearts stared back up at him.
Rachel surged to her feet. “No.” Her denial was immediate.
He’d expected that denial.
Dylan turned to the tech who waited silently just a few feet away. He passed the card to the tech. It was bagged and tagged immediately. That evidence would be going back to the EOD for analysis.
As for Rachel...
She hurried from the room.
Dylan didn’t follow her, not yet. He stared down at the body then he let his gaze sweep the suite once more. There had been no evidence of a break-in. But that was the way Jack worked. In and out. Fast kills.
And a calling card left behind. The guy always left his card because he liked to claim his kills.
Dylan stayed a few more minutes, needing to be thorough. Crime-scene analysis sure wasn’t his area of expertise, but killing— Well, he’d learned plenty about that during his time as a Navy SEAL and as an EOD agent.
He knew he was looking at the work of a professional killer. The man had used a silencer because no one at the hotel had reported hearing a shot. The maid had received a horrifying surprise when she bustled inside to clean the place that morning.
After giving orders to the tech, Dylan exited the room. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see Rachel pacing in the hotel’s hallway.
When she’d rushed out, he knew that she wouldn’t have gone far. That wasn’t Rachel’s way.
But they didn’t speak until they were in the privacy of the elevator. The doors slid closed and Rachel—
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Pain thickened her voice.
He hated for Rachel to be in pain. His fist struck out, and he hit the button that would stop the elevator. Immediately, they jerked to a halt.
“If you thought he might be back in D.C....why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded again.
Dylan turned toward her. Rachel’s eyes were so wide—she’ll bring me to my knees. He locked his jaw and knew he had to stay in control. “I didn’t know he was hunting here again. Patterson’s death—this is the first time any kill in D.C. has been linked to Jack in three years.”
Three long years.
But now that Dylan did know Jack was back...his first instinct was to get Rachel the hell out of that city. He wanted her transferred to someplace safe and sunny while he hunted the maniac known as Jack.
Because Jack will go after her.
“It’s not him, is it?” Rachel asked as she rubbed her arms. “It has to be a copycat, right? I mean, three years ago, his exploits were all over the news. Everyone knows about him now.”
Jack. The man wasn’t a serial killer, at least not in the strict sense of the word. He was an assassin. One who killed for cash.
He was a man with far too much skill when it came to death.
“Tell me that he’s a copycat,” Rachel said.
He wished he could. Dylan took a step closer to her. He wanted to pull Rachel into his arms and hold her, but that wasn’t protocol. He was the team leader. They worked together, side by side. They fought together.
Their relationship was supposed to be professional.
To him, it was so much more.
“Dylan?”
“I can’t tell you that. At this point, I don’t know who we’re dealing with.”
“Jack vanished three years ago. After—” Her lips clamped shut, and Rachel didn’t say any more. But she didn’t have to. He knew her past as well as he knew his own.
Jack had been hired to kill Rachel. Quincy Langam had hired the assassin to kill Rachel and two others who’d been associated with Quincy’s case. Two of those people on Langam’s kill list had wound up with gunshot wounds to the heart.
Only Rachel had survived.
And Jack disappeared.
“We have intel... Mercer has intel that indicates Jack may have been killing in Europe during the past few years.” And leaving his trademark calling card behind. “EOD agents were sent over there—”
“I should have been told!” Now spikes of red color stained her cheeks as anger glinted in her eyes.
Dylan didn’t touch that one. He’d been the one to tell Mercer that Rachel shouldn’t know. “They weren’t sure. No one saw the killer to confirm his identity.”
“I’m the only one who survived Jack’s attack. I should’ve been there. I could’ve done something!”
Or Jack could have just come for her.
Again, Dylan found himself sliding even closer to her. “He eluded the EOD agents in Europe, and now...now it looks like he’s come home to do his hunting again.”
If they truly were dealing with Jack, the local cops wouldn’t handle the case. An international killer—sure, maybe the FBI or the CIA would want a piece of this action, but the EOD would be in charge of the investigation.
Because the targets Jack had taken out—the men and women he always hunted—were tied to military cases. Linked to the U.S. Navy, Air Force, the Marines. There was always a military link for Jack.
And besides, the EOD had a personal interest in the case.
They had Rachel.
“Can you handle this?” Dylan asked her. He had to ask the question as the team leader.
“Of course.” Her chin notched up. “I survived him before, didn’t I?”
The image of her—bloody, afraid—still haunted him in the darkness of the night.
“If he’s back, he’ll come for me.” Rachel spoke these words with certainty.
“Then he’ll have to get through me,” Dylan fired back, unable to hold those words inside any longer.
Her eyes widened.
He put his hands on her. He had to touch her. His