She started checking her desk, grabbing any notes she needed and trying to look anywhere but at Bowen as she heard him pace toward the door.
But he didn’t leave her office. At her door, he stilled. She knew because she’d snuck a quick glance at him. He filled her doorway, his broad back tense, and his hands on the door frame. He didn’t look back at her as he said, “I hate that he hurt you.”
Join the club. I hate that he got away. I hate that he’s killed someone else. Maybe a whole lot of people. I hate it so much that it makes me sick.
“You aren’t the only one who has been looking for him,” Bowen rasped. “You think I haven’t been searching for the bastard, too?”
Surprise rocked through her. “Samantha assigned you to his case?” Sometimes they did look into the colder cases but—
“No.” He’d finally glanced over his shoulder. “This has nothing to do with Samantha or the rest of the team. It’s about you. He hurt you. And I want him to pay. So I’ve been looking for the bastard. I’ve been hunting him.” His lips curved in a humorless smile. “You just found him first.”
Unease slithered through her. Macey stopped searching through her desk. “Bowen?”
“He won’t hurt you again. I’ll make sure of that. Like I was trying to tell you before, you should trust me. I’ll always watch your back.”
Then he was gone. And she was left staring at the door.
* * *
BOWEN MURPHY HAD one weakness in this world, and that weakness was named Macey Night. The beautiful, brilliant and very, very untouchable Macey Night.
He watched her now as she headed down the flight of stairs that led to the medical examiner’s office in Hiddlewood. Their flight to North Carolina had been brief—and quiet. Macey wasn’t the kind of person who filled the air with idle chitchat. Macey was intense, Macey was focused...and Macey had been driving him insane for years.
Ever since he’d first walked into the FBI’s DC office and seen her.
He’d heard her story before he met her. The woman who’d escaped from the infamous Doctor, the MD who’d walked away from her medical career so that she could catch violent criminals. Macey came in a small package, she barely skimmed over five feet three inches, but the woman was pure power. She was dead-on with her gun, and when it came to crime scenes, she always seemed to find details that others overlooked.
And as for the bodies...
No one gets the dead like she does.
They’d reached the end of the stairs. Macey looked back up at him, brushing her hair over her shoulders. Her red hair was straight and fell in a blunt cut that framed her delicate face perfectly. Her gaze drifted to him, and that gaze was as unnerving as always. And not because she had two different-colored eyes—something he found oddly sexy—because it was her. Because he often felt as if Macey could see straight into him.
A bad thing. Because inside? He was dark and twisted.
“Dr. Lopez is supposed to have the victim ready for us. I just need to get a look at the vic’s wounds, and then we can go forward from there.”
By going forward, he hoped that meant a fast trip to the crime scene. He wanted to get hunting. Because even if the perp wasn’t Daniel Haddox, that meant they still had a killer out there. One that needed to be stopped before anyone else was hurt.
Macey adjusted her sleeves, a move he’d seen her do dozens of times, and Bowen’s hand flew out, wrapping around her wrist. “You don’t need to hide.”
He felt her pulse jump beneath his fingers.
“Your scars don’t matter, Mace,” he continued, staring into her eyes. “Forget about them.”
“I can’t.” He saw a crack in her mask. A glimpse at the pain she always carried on her own. “They remind me that I let him get away. That I didn’t stop him.”
Fuck that. “You were a victim who escaped a sadistic bastard.” And his fingers slid under her right sleeve. He felt the faint line of raised skin there. “The only thing these scars should do is tell you how strong you are.”
Her lips parted. She stared up at him and he was leaning in toward her. Too close. He should back away. He should let her go. But her sweet scent—Macey always smelled like lavender—had wrapped around him. He didn’t want to back away. He wanted to get closer.
The door opened down the hallway. “Dr. Night?” a feminine voice called.
Macey pulled her wrist from his grip. “Yes, I’m Special Agent Night.” She nodded toward Bowen. “And this is my partner, Special Agent Bowen Murphy.”
The woman hurried forward as she offered her hand first to Macey, then to Bowen. “Sofia Lopez.” She wore a white lab coat and her dark hair was pulled into a bun at the base of her neck. Dr. Lopez was young, probably close to thirty, and her dark gaze was steady. “I’m so glad that you both came down here. As soon as I saw the body...those marks on the arms—” her gaze slid right back to Macey “—I immediately thought of you.”
Bowen tensed.
But Dr. Lopez shook her head. “That sounded wrong. Let me try again.” She offered Macey a weak smile of apology. “I remembered your story. A few years ago, it was splashed all over the news. I always follow the big crime stories. I’m something of a crime buff. But with my job, guess that makes sense, huh?”
Very few stories had been as big as Daniel Haddox’s gory tale. The public had an unquenchable appetite for darkness. At least, that was how it seemed to Bowen. And the handsome doctor who’d been slicing up his patients? Hell, three movies had been made about him.
Dr. Lopez cleared her throat. “The wounds you received on your arms were very specific, and when it was revealed that Dr. Haddox marked all of his victims that way—”
“Why don’t you show us this victim?” Bowen cut in. Macey looked uncomfortable and she was back to tugging at her sleeve.
“This victim, right!” Dr. Lopez said. She spun on her heel. “I have her waiting on my table.”
Bowen followed the ME and Macey into the exam room. As soon as he stepped inside, the smell hit him like a punch. He hated the odor that he always found waiting within the labs of coroners or medical examiners. Bleach, bodies, hell.
But he approached the exam area determinedly, his gaze sweeping over the woman on the table. The woman had pale blond hair, delicate features and appeared to be in her early twenties. “Do we have an ID for the vic yet?”
“Yes.” The ME pulled up a chart. “The crime team actually recovered her driver’s license at the scene. She’s Gale Collins, twenty-two, a college student at the University of North Carolina.”
“Where was she found?” Bowen asked.
The ME’s lips pulled down. “She was...she was dumped in town. Literally. Her body was just tossed behind one of the motels. She wasn’t killed there,” Dr. Lopez added quickly. “Not enough blood at the scene. Someone just wanted to get rid of her body.”
Macey’s brows furrowed. “That wasn’t part of Daniel’s MO. He didn’t give up his prey.”
No, the sick prick had sealed them in the walls of his hospital. But since the guy didn’t have a hospital any longer, maybe he’d had no choice.
“Based on the body decomp and lividity, I think our vic was killed within the last forty-eight hours.” The ME blew out a quick breath. “I’ll be able to narrow down that time frame with more testing.”
“Were there any signs