Allison Brennan - The Prey

The rejection was still raw, she realized as she told him, her voice detached. “My mother had a sister. Aunt Karen. She-she came out to see Peter and me. She wouldn’t take us. She-we were his children, after all. And he’d killed our mother. Her sister. She couldn’t forgive us.”

“You were children!”

“And then our grandparents, my father’s parents. They were older, in their late sixties or so; they’re dead now. They tried, but they couldn’t take care of us.” She took a deep breath. “I had nightmares. Peter wouldn’t, couldn’t talk. They didn’t know how to help us.”

“And Roger Collins stepped in?”

She took a deep breath, slowly let it out. “I met Roger when I agreed to testify against my brother Bobby. It wasn’t an FBI case, but Roger was a crime scene investigator and had experience working with survivors. He debriefed me.” Debriefed. How clinical, she thought. “He took pity on me and asked if I wanted to live with him and his wife. I agreed. But I wouldn’t let them adopt me.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t. I didn’t want to love them. Everyone I love dies.”

“Where’s Bobby now?” John’s voice was a low growl, his anger simmering beneath the surface, but Rowan felt it in his tense muscles.

“Dead.” She paused, then let out a jerky breath, a sob breaking at the end. “He escaped on his way to the courthouse. Killed two guards in the process. He was shot on sight a few miles away when he tried to carjack someone. Good riddance.”

“You wanted to testify,” John said as he stroked her hair.

“Yes, dammit! I wanted everyone in the world to hear what he did. He got off too easy. I wanted him to suffer.” Her hands fisted in his T-shirt and a low, guttural sob escaped her chest.

She stayed like that for a long time, until she could control her breathing, until the tremors in her body subsided. The hard strength of John’s body beneath hers, his muscular arms holding her tight, keeping her close, gave her a peace she’d never felt before. Even if only for this moment, she truly felt safe.

She felt lighter, as if sharing her burden with John had cleansed her soul. She allowed his comfort, allowed him to share her pain. She felt almost free, and it was a heady experience.

John rocked her for quite some time, mulling over everything she’d told him. He’d suspected she’d gone through something traumatic as a child, and when he learned her father had killed her mother he couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Yet it was much, much worse. It sickened him. He wanted to twist the bastard’s neck himself. Both her father and her dead brother.

All that death, all that misery, heaped on a ten-year-old. It was amazing she hadn’t broken down before.

“Is that why you quit the force? The Franklin murders hit too close to home?”

She stiffened in his arms, and he inwardly swore. It wasn’t fair, but he had to know everything. Somehow, her past and what was happening now were connected. Maybe the Franklin murders fit in somehow.

“I almost lost my mind when I saw little Rebecca Sue Franklin dead, because she looked just like Dani. Satisfied?” She tried to sound tough and embittered, but failed. She sounded defeated.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Rowan. But you have to face the truth. Something in your past is connected to these murders. Someone knows what happened to you. You can’t tell me, after receiving the hair and the lilies, that you don’t believe it.”

She said nothing for a long time, and John wondered if she was going to speak at all. “I-I really thought after the hair that it was all connected to the Franklin murders. That case was why I quit the force. It was the impetus to get me to focus on writing books, because I couldn’t do the job anymore. I thought for sure…” Her voice trailed off.

“And?”

“Roger interviewed Franklin’s brother, the one who’d never believed Karl Franklin killed his family and himself. He reviewed the case files; I looked at them for the first time. He has a dozen agents going through not only that case, but all my cases. And nothing. Nothing.”

She paused a long time, and John didn’t interrupt her contemplation. A few moments later she said, “I asked Roger if there was someone else who knew about me, someone from the past. A relative I didn’t know about, a cop who wasn’t right in the head, anyone. He promised he’d look into it, but so far-” she shrugged. “They’re all dead, John! Gone.”

“What about your brother?”

“I told you, he’s dead.”

“Your other brother. Peter.”

She jumped up, staggered backward. Her entire body trembled. “Peter? Are you serious? How dare you!”

“I’m trying to figure this out,” he said, standing slowly, palms up. He hoped she understood he didn’t mean to hurt her. She continued to back away from him.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard! He’s a priest, dammit! He’s the kindest, gentlest man I know. He would never, never take anyone’s life. He would never hurt me.”

John spoke slowly and steadily, wanting Rowan to carefully consider all the possibilities but not sure she was ready to. “Rowan, listen to me. Someone knows about your past, intimate details about your family and your sister Dani. Hell, it took me nearly a week to get what I got and it barely scratched the surface. Someone knows what hurts you. Your brother Peter is a possibility.”

She shook her head. “No. No ! You don’t know him.” She put her hands to her face and violently sobbed.

John went to her. She tried to push him off, but she stumbled in her anguish and he gathered her up. “I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry.” He kissed her forehead as he forced her to sit with him on the edge of the bed.

“It’s not Peter,” she mumbled after several minutes, finally relaxing into his chest, her body still shaking. “Roger put an FBI team on him after the second murder. As protection. If he was traveling all over killing people, they’d have known.”

It seemed like a logical explanation, John thought as he stroked Rowan’s hair. The one person alive who knew about Rowan’s past, knew what would torment her. He’d thought that as soon as he got her to talk, the answer would reveal itself. Peter was one of the few people who knew what happened that night, who knew about her sister’s hair and that Rowan’s name was Lily. He’d almost forgive her for protecting her little brother, not wanting to believe it was him.

But if Peter had been under surveillance, there was no way he could have flown back and forth to Los Angeles, Portland, Washington, Boston. Yet what if Rowan was wrong? What if Peter had an accomplice? Hired someone to help him? Any number of possibilities lodged themselves in John’s mind.

It definitely warranted a call to Roger Collins.

“Are you positive your father is still locked up?” he asked finally.

“Yes. He hasn’t spoken since he killed Mama. Roger called the hospital right after the first murder. Just to be sure.”

It had been a slim chance; now they had nothing. Not nothing-there was still Peter. He glanced at his watch. After three in D.C. He’d call Collins first thing in the morning.

He held Rowan in his arms, feeling her relax inch by inch. She felt good here with him, like she belonged. He rubbed his hands slowly up and down her back. Working the tension out of her muscles. What she’d gone through-he closed his eyes. He’d recall her pain later when he was alone and examine it more closely. Try to understand her complete and total trust in Roger Collins.

Collins was holding everything close to the vest. Why did he feel it was so important to keep Rowan’s past a secret? To protect her? From her emotions-or from someone else?