Allison Brennan - The Prey

Roger hung up and looked out the window. He had one more call to make. He dialed the number.

“Shreveport Penitentiary.”

“I need to speak to the warden about an inmate.”

When Roger parked his rental sedan in front of Bellevue Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he’d just gotten off the phone with the Texas Prison Authority. He glanced in the rearview mirror and wasn’t surprised to see dark circles under his eyes. The gray hair Gracie always called “distinguished” today made him look older than his fifty-nine years.

Heads were going to roll for transferring that spawn of Satan without informing him. But after four and a half hours of calls, transfers, and threats, Roger had found out where he was and spoken to the warden of Beaumont, a high-security federal prison in Texas. Warden James Cullen had answers to all his questions and was overnighting a copy of all pertinent records.

Roger was getting out of the car at Bellevue when his cell rang. He almost didn’t answer it; it was well after six and he didn’t want Milt to wait much longer. But he glanced at the number anyway and immediately recognized it as Rowan’s.

His gut clenched, knowing if the truth ever came out she’d never forgive him. The fact that everything he did was to protect her wouldn’t help his case.

“Collins,” he answered.

“Did Quinn talk to you today?”

“Yes.” That was the reason he was in Boston, but he couldn’t tell her that.

“You have protection for Peter, right? If he knows about Dani, he might know about-”

“Peter’s safe, Rowan.”

“I’ll hire a guard if I have to. If money’s a problem, I have plenty.”

“It’s already done.”

“Thanks.” She paused, and Roger felt the urge to tell her everything.

He didn’t. “Anything else?”

“No, nothing.”

She sounded defeated. He wished he could be there for her, be the father she needed but had never had. Even when she’d lived with him and Gracie, he’d worked twelve, fourteen-hour days. Especially in the beginning, when she’d needed him the most.

“We’re going to catch this asshole.”

“I know.” She didn’t sound like she believed it. “Goodbye.”

“Wait-” But she’d already hung up.

He snapped the phone closed and hit the roof of his car with his fist. Damn, damn, damn !

“Anything I can do to help?”

Roger swung around. Milt Christopher had gotten the drop on him. He really was too tired to be effective. He shook his head. “Just show me MacIntosh.”

They walked in silence through the grounds. The wide, lush lawns were supposed to calm the insanity that lurked within the walls.

Milt used his security pass to open a door at the far end of the courtyard. Both he and Roger had to sign in with the guard, and then they proceeded down a wide, white hallway, through two more secure doors, until they reached the entrance to Robert MacIntosh’s room.

“Are you sure you don’t trust me on this?”

“I trust you, Milt, but I have to see him myself.”

Milt nodded, then unlocked the door with a key.

Robert MacIntosh sat in a chair facing a wide, barred window that looked out at the courtyard they had just walked through. It was nearly dark, but by the vacant look in his blue eyes, Roger didn’t think MacIntosh knew or cared. He pulled a chair in front of MacIntosh and stared at him, wanting to see something, anything other than the vacuous expression he remembered.

Roger didn’t believe most people were insane when they committed heinous crimes; by all public accounts Robert MacIntosh had been normal twenty-three years ago. What had caused him to break? What had severed the thin thread of sanity? Had he been insane when he killed his wife, or had her brutal murder emptied his mind to join his hollow soul?

It wasn’t fair. He’d wanted to prosecute this bastard more than any other murderer he’d faced in his thirty-five years with the FBI. And MacIntosh had not spoken one word since he was found, sitting next to the shredded body of his dead wife, her blood coating him and the kitchen where she died.

“You bastard,” he whispered.

Milt, the doctor, cleared his throat.

Roger searched Robert MacIntosh’s unseeing eyes, finding nothing human, nothing alive in their depths. Living on the public dole at the cost of more than a hundred thousand a year, this hollow shell of a man should have been shot on sight when the first police officer arrived at the Boston death house.

He stood. “Has anyone been to see him recently?”

Milt blinked. “Actually, yes.”

“I need to see the security logs.”

An hour later, Roger left with copies of visitor logs from May 10 and September 23 of last year, and the promise that Milt would order up the security tapes from those days and send them to FBI headquarters immediately.

In twenty-three years, no one had visited Robert MacIntosh until last year, when Bob Smith came in twice.

Who the hell was Bob Smith?

Rowan woke early with another pounding headache. She reached under her pillow and pulled out her Glock, pausing as she stared at it. She almost didn’t remember switching her gun’s storage spot from her nightstand to her pillow.

She didn’t bother to change-she’d slept in sweats and a T-shirt. She simply pulled her arms out of the sleeves and slipped on a sports bra, then pushed her arms through again. It was a trick her few lovers admired, which should have told her they were too easily impressed.

She went into the bathroom and brushed her hair, pulling it into a hasty ponytail for her morning run. She tried to avoid the hollow-eyed woman in the mirror, but couldn’t.

She’d never paid attention to her looks. Her ex-boyfriend Eric Hamilton had told her she was beautiful, like a sculpted goddess. She brushed off his compliment as a line, not interested in a man who paid more attention to her looks than her brain. Frankly, she wasn’t interested in relationships. Before Eric, she’d been involved with a few men, none of them in the Bureau, none of them serious. Sex and coffee, nothing more.

How could she get close to anyone when everyone she loved died? How could she share her past when she couldn’t even think about it, except in nightmares?

Her relationship with Eric had been as close to a real one as she’d ever had, and look how pathetic that had turned out. He demanded everything from her, but still couldn’t see her for what she was. Damaged. With Eric she played a part, the role of the cool, dedicated, smart FBI agent who wasn’t afraid to confront bad guys in a dark alley. With Eric she was hot in bed, but cold in conversation. She knew it but couldn’t change it. Didn’t know if she wanted to even make the effort.

He’d asked her to move in with him. She had refused. She couldn’t give up her independence, her privacy, her home . The life she had painstakingly built couldn’t be merged with that of someone who didn’t understand death and dying.

Eric was a good agent. He was smart, cocky, competent. But Rowan never felt that he tried to understand her . He mainly wanted her because she seemed unattainable; when she wasn’t what he thought, or anyone he could mold, he sought comfort elsewhere.

And his betrayal was a relief.

In hindsight, she should have listened to Olivia. When she lived in Washington, before the Franklin murders, she and Eric had often gone out with Liv and her now ex-husband. Neither Liv nor Greg had liked Eric much. That should have told her something.

Rowan shook her head, trying to rid her mind of the past. After brushing her teeth and drinking a cup of tepid water, she went downstairs to fetch Michael from the guest room.