Virginia Vaughan - Killer Insight

Title Page Killer Insight Virginia Vaughan www.millsandboon.co.uk

Copyright ISBN: 978-0-008-90646-7 KILLER INSIGHT © 2020 Virginia Vaughan Published in Great Britain 2020 by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental. By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher. ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries. www.millsandboon.co.uk

Note to Readers

Introduction “There’s nothing you could tell me that would change the way I feel about you…” Lucy wanted to believe that. Bryce was a good and loyal man. How she wanted to lean into him! She fought her own instincts. She had to. Bruce took the room key from her. “Let me check the room before you go inside.” He pulled his gun from his holster and pushed open the door, flicking on the light. He opened the bathroom door and, when he did, a blast of gunfire sent Lucy flying backwards. She hit the wall and had the breath knocked from her. Bryce was holding his shoulder and blood was pooling between his fingers. Lucy grabbed up Bryce’s gun from the floor and kicked open the bathroom door, but all she saw was a rifle hanging from a wire attached to the ceiling. There was no shooter, only an elaborate booby trap. “I’m calling for an ambulance.” “I’m not leaving you,” he barked. “Someone set a booby trap in your room. That was meant for you, Lucy.” Whoever had set this trap had intended to kill her. Bryce had taken the bullet that was meant for her.

Dear Reader Dear Reader, Thanks so much for joining me in the final chapter of my Covert Operatives series. I’m sad to say goodbye to these characters, but I’m looking forward to a new series with new fun and exciting journeys. I hope you enjoyed reading Bryce and Lucy’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I loved the idea of taking an FBI profiler—someone trained to see and understand human behavior—and have her confidence thrown a curveball by something happening in her own life that she couldn’t see. Her guilt over her fiancé’s hidden addiction proved that her faith had been in her FBI training and her profiling skills. Ultimately, like we all do, she had to learn that only God can see and know all things. I love hearing from my readers! You can contact me online through my website www.virginiavaughanonline.com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ginvaughanbooks . Blessings! Virginia

Bible Verse He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. —Micah 7:19

Dedication This book is dedicated to my friends and family, without whom this writing gig wouldn’t be possible.

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TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

FBI agent Lucy Sanderson stopped running, rested her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath. She’d pushed herself on this run, harder than she had in weeks, and her body was pushing back. She glanced around. She’d run farther than she’d planned, and not being familiar with this town, she was uncertain where she was.

She shouldn’t have come so far, or she should have turned back when the streetlights stopped being consistently spaced, but she’d been anxious to get her run in. She needed to get back in shape after letting her regimen lapse for months after her fiancé Danny’s death last year, and her legs ached after the flight down from Washington, DC, then the hour-long drive to the small Texas town of Whitten.

Lucy glanced at her watch. It was after 7:00 p.m., and she really should get back to the bed-and-breakfast where she was staying. Her meeting with Bryce Tippitt, an old marine friend of Danny’s who’d reached out to her for help, was in less than an hour. His brother was accused of killing four women in this sleepy Texas town, but Bryce insisted his brother was innocent and being railroaded by the local police department. She’d agreed to come, anxious to put her FBI-trained profiling skills back to work after the paralyzing self-doubt that had set in after Danny’s death and she’d learned the truth about her fiancé and the lies he’d been telling her.

She shoved her earbuds back in and music filled her ears, drowning out the sounds of nature as she started her run back toward town. It was time to stop sitting on the sidelines and pick up her stalled career where Danny’s death had left it. Her supervisor had encouraged her to come to Whitten, anxious to get her back into profiling, insisting she was good at what she did. Not good enough, however, to see what had been right in front of her face.

Headlights rolled over her, and she glanced over a shoulder to see a car approaching. Lucy moved to the side of the road for it to pass, even though the roadway was clear and there was no oncoming traffic. Instead of speeding around her, the car slowed, then pulled to the side. She stopped and turned toward it, straining to see past the blinding headlights.

Suddenly a man leaped from the car. He was on top of her before she realized what was happening. He pinned her to the ground, and all of Lucy’s instincts kicked in. She fought back, screaming and flailing and calling on every defensive move she’d learned at the academy. She managed to dig her nails into his skin, but, in the end, she was no match for his weight and strength. He pinned her with one arm and pulled a syringe from his pocket.

If he managed to inject her with it, she was done for. She wiggled her arm free and knocked the syringe from his grip. Instead of retrieving it, he punched her several times. Her eyes watered from the pain as the world spun in and out of focus.

She was still dazed as he bound her hands with a zip tie then ripped her phone from the holder on her arm and jerked out her earbuds, throwing the items into the trees. He lifted her, tossing her across his shoulder like a sack of flour. He was quick and efficient, and her limbs felt like rocks as all the fight seemed to drain from her. She couldn’t even cry out for help. Not that there was anyone around to help her. She was in an isolated area. Rookie mistake .