Lisa Childs - The Agent's Redemption

Why hadn’t Jared?

Fortunately Alex hadn’t heard any of the reporter’s questions or comments. She had tucked him back into his bed and drawn the blinds. And, despite the excitement, he had fallen asleep. She probably needed to thank Tommy for that. If his playdate friend hadn’t worn him out, there was no way Alex would have fallen asleep after catching a man looking in his window. Or with an FBI agent in the house.

Or maybe it was because of the FBI agent that he fell asleep—because he felt safe. Was that because Jared was FBI or because Alex instinctively felt a connection with him?

It didn’t matter that Alex hadn’t heard the reporter’s questions. He already had questions of his own. He’d already asked her who his father was.

He deserved an answer. He deserved a father. But Jared hadn’t even wanted to be a boyfriend all those years ago. She couldn’t imagine how he would have reacted if she’d told him she was pregnant. He probably would have thought she was trying to trap him because she was so fixated on him.

He was now focused on the contents of the plastic container in which Rebecca had preserved all of her sister’s pictures, journals and letters. He kept flipping through the photos, flinching when he came across the ones of a bruised and battered Lexi.

“He did that to her,” Rebecca said. But she hadn’t known that until she’d found the pictures in Lexi’s journal. Why hadn’t her sister told her that her fiancé was abusing her? Because Rebecca had been too busy? Had Lexi thought she wouldn’t care?

Lexi was only two years older than Rebecca, so they’d always been close growing up. When she’d graduated Lexi had stayed home and attended community college for a medical assistant program. Rebecca was the one who’d left home—for college and med school.

Guilt gripped Rebecca, squeezing her heart. Maybe if she had been more available to her sister, Lexi would have told her what was going on, and she could have helped her. She could have saved her...

Anger joined her guilt as she glanced at the photos, too. The man was a monster to have done that to sweet, beautiful Lexi.

“She took those photos as evidence against him,” Rebecca said, “in case something ever happened to her.” That was what Lexi had written on the journal pages between which those photos had been tucked. “She wanted you to know who her killer would be.”

Rebecca waited for Jared to bring up that damn ironclad alibi again. But the FBI profiler remained curiously silent and focused on those photographs.

Her pulse quickened. Was he beginning to believe her? To believe the evidence Lexi had left for him?

Of course Lexi hadn’t known who would be investigating her case. But she’d known that she would die and that there would be someone investigating her death.

Poor Lexi...

If only she’d told Rebecca what was going on.

But Rebecca had been too busy studying. She’d been too busy for much more than a short texted reply to her sister’s usual text, You still alive?

Yes, I’m still alive.

When she hadn’t heard from Lexi in a while, she had texted her the question: You still alive?

Lexi had never answered that text.

Rebecca closed her eyes as the pain overwhelmed her, and tears threatened. It didn’t feel like six years had passed since she’d lost her sister. It felt like yesterday.

“I’m sorry,” Jared said.

“Why?” He had already apologized for how he’d handled the situation with her—the line he regretted crossing into her bed.

Images flashed through her mind—of the two of them in bed, of naked skin sliding over naked skin. Of his lips on hers as he kissed her with all his intensity focused solely on her. He had made love to her so thoroughly, so passionately that it was as if she could still feel his hands on her body, his lips on her...

Desire rushed through her, heating her. She didn’t regret that he had crossed that line with her. She only regretted how it had ended. That he had ended it.

But she didn’t want any more apologies from him. Not when she owed him one. She was the one who’d been keeping a secret from him for too many years.

“I’m sorry I came here,” he explained, “and opened up all this pain for you again.”

She chuckled at how he didn’t understand her feelings any better than he had six years ago. “You think you just reopened it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t me, but Amy Wilcox’s disappearance had to have brought everything up again—all those feelings.”

“She isn’t the only victim since Lexi.”

But Rebecca didn’t need to remind him of that. She could see his frustration in the slight lines around his eyes and mouth. She could feel the tension in his body. He blamed himself, as much as the serial killer, for the loss of those other victims.

“No, she’s not,” he acknowledged, and the guilt was in the gruffness of his deep voice.

“But you never came here when those other victims first went missing,” she said.

He held up the photo he’d brought with him—the photo of Amy Wilcox with Lexi. “I didn’t find any connection between them and your sister.”

“But their killer...”

“We don’t have enough evidence to make that conclusion,” he replied—uttering one of those patented FBI press release statements.

She nearly smiled. Maybe it was because he had been recruited so young into the Bureau that he was such a company man. Or maybe it was what she had concluded six years ago—all he cared about was his job.

“The media hasn’t had any problem leaping to conclusions,” she said. And not just about the murders but about her son’s paternity.

But they weren’t wrong about that. Had they been wrong about all the murders being the work of one killer?

“I didn’t lead those reporters here,” Jared assured her.

“I know.”

While his specialty was profiling killers, he had made certain that he had all the skills of a field agent. He was an expert shot and defensive driver. That was why she’d been so excited when he had been assigned her sister’s case—because she’d heard all the media praise about him.

But the media didn’t praise him anymore—because he’d never found Lexi’s killer. Or Lexi’s body.

“The pain wasn’t just reopened ,” she said. “It never closed .”

He flinched again, like he had looking at the pictures of a brutalized Lexi. “I’m sorry you never got closure.”

Everyone talked about needing closure. Needing a body to bury. Or a killer to curse.

“I’m not sure closure would make it hurt any less,” she admitted. Lexi would still be dead.

He stepped closer to her, and his voice was low and gruff when he said, “I want to get you closure. I really want to find Lexi and her killer.”

“I told you—”

He pressed his fingers over her lips. Then his eyes—those eerie, pale brown eyes—darkened as his pupils dilated. His fingers slid across her mouth...caressingly.

Her breath caught in her lungs, and her pulse quickened with awareness and desire. How could she want him again? She wasn’t hurting over Lexi’s loss alone. She was hurting over losing Jared, too.

He jerked his hand away from her mouth. “I know who you think killed your sister. I know.”

And she waited for him to refute her belief like he always had. But he stayed silent again.

“You’re not telling me I’m wrong this time,” she said.

He emitted a weary-sounding sigh. “I’m not as cocky as I was six years ago.”

He was different. No less serious or determined or driven but perhaps a little less confident. Lexi’s case had shaken his confidence.

And maybe it had him second-guessing himself.