The Stronghold. Lisa Carter

she’d barely escaped would find her again. As if deep inside she’d always known she’d never truly outrun him.

      Alex scrubbed his hand over his face as he made the call for the team to do a forensic sweep of the break-in at Pilar’s. Perhaps the serial killer had for once left traces of his identity. Justice was long overdue in this case. He’d been hunting this particular monster for three years.

      He checked the rest of the house. “Let me know if you think anything appears missing.”

      With careful instructions to disturb as little as possible, he herded Manny to his bedroom while Pilar got dressed. She emerged, head down, eyes on the tips of her regulation shoes and headed for the kitchen. “Okay, if I make coffee?”

      It gutted Alex to see how she wouldn’t—couldn’t—meet his gaze. As if her admission of what happened so long ago shamed her so completely.

      “The team would appreciate it, I’m sure. But Pilar, this invasion wasn’t your fault. Nothing that happened was your fault.”

      He stuffed his hands inside his trouser pockets. What he wanted was to take her into his arms and soothe every hurt she’d ever suffered.

      But he knew better. Comfort wasn’t something she’d accept from him. Least of all from him. She hated him and rightly so. What happened to her—the reason she fell into this devil’s hands—had been his fault entirely.

      The long sleeves of her uniform shirt hid the telltale scars on her arms. From his brief glance in the bathroom, old scars except for the recent cut.

      She removed the coffee grounds from the refrigerator and scooped several tablespoons into the coffeemaker. “Excuse me . . .” She edged past him in the tiny galley kitchen to fill the carafe with water.

      He backed against the countertop. His hand went to the silver chain he always wore underneath his shirt. His fingers rubbed the black volcanic rock against his flesh.

      “You already knew it was the same perpetrator, didn’t you, Alex.”

      Not a question, a statement.

      She shut off the water. “How did you know?”

      Alex folded his arms. “By the marks he leaves.”

      She sagged against the sink. “You knew about—?” Her shoulders slumped. “I thought—I hoped—no one else knew what he did to me.”

      “We believe you were his first victim, Pilar.”

      “I’m nobody’s victim.”

      She poured the water into the coffeemaker. “You think he was still perfecting his MO and that’s why I managed to escape.” She started the coffeemaker.

      “Manny told me about the nightmares. Probably your mind’s attempt to deal with the trauma.”

      Pilar’s mouth hardened. “I believe psychiatrists call it ‘delayed onset post-traumatic stress.’ ” Her lip curled. “Not that I’ve spent much time with them. Talking about what happened is the last thing I want to do.”

      “I thank God every day you escaped.”

      “God?” She whirled, the familiar defiance in her eyes. “What’s God ever done for me?”

      The chip-on-her-shoulder Pilar Alex knew and loved. The broken Pilar undid him.

      She jutted her hip. “That’s why you came home, isn’t it? You think if I remember everything you’ll catch this monster.”

      “He’s left a trail of bodies from New Mexico to Arizona. And the ones he didn’t kill outright . . .” Alex swallowed. “Once he gets them over the border, they simply disappear.”

      She glared at him. “You banked on the fact he’d come looking for me.”

      Alex blew out a breath. “Fact is, Pilar, we suspect he’s never stopped looking for you. The others—his sick attempts to replicate you. Finding you, I fear, has been his obsession.”

      Her mouth twisted. “The one who got away?”

      “The only one who ever got away until this wild girl stumbled north across the border last month.”

      “So you bided your time.” She balled her fist. “Allowing his web to tighten around Manny and me. Using me as bait.”

      Alex shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I’d never—”

      “Well, news flash.” She got in his face. “I don’t remember anything more than what I told the detective in the ER all those years ago.”

      Alex jabbed his finger in the air. “You shut down. You don’t want to remember anything more.”

      “I went catatonic, you mean.” She threw him a hard look. “Surely you got enough semen from the evidence kit for a match.”

      Alex flushed. “He’s somehow managed to fly under the radar. With nothing in the system to match it to, we haven’t been able to link the-the . . .” He’d never been able to actually verbalize what had been done to Pilar. “. . . the DNA to anyone.”

      The aroma of strong coffee wafted through the kitchen. She opened a cabinet and removed several mugs. “I can’t believe even you would want me to relive those four days of hell.”

      Her words flayed him. “Even me?” Alex crushed the stone against his heart.

      At the movement of his hand, her brow knotted.

      “Healing may only come in the remembering and in the catharsis of telling, Pilar.”

      She banged the cabinet door shut. “Thanks, but no thanks, Dr. Torres. I’m doing okay.”

      “Are you?” He gestured at her arm. “Doesn’t look like you’re doing okay, Pia. Not from where I stand.”

      She hugged her arm to her chest. “Then maybe you should stand away from me.”

      “They’re here,” Manny bellowed at the sound of tires on the gravel.

      “Shouldn’t be too hard, Alex, to stay away.” She headed toward the living room. “An art form you’ve perfected in the dozen years since I last saw you.”

      Not by choice. If only she knew what forcing himself to stay away had cost him. . . . He followed her out of the kitchen.

      “What’re you doing with the file?” She snatched the folder from Manny’s hand. “This is official police business.”

      Manny gulped. “Is that what the Wicked One did to you, Auntie? Like the dead girls in the photos? I’m not a little kid anymore. I need to know these things. I will protect you.”

      The boy pounded his chest. “On my life. My word of honor.”

      “Oh, honey.” Pilar placed her palm on his cheek. “I don’t want you anywhere near this monster.”

      She bit her lip. “Maybe you should stay with Fiona in North Carolina until Byron returns from his deployment.”

      “No, Auntie, please.” Manny wilted into the little boy Alex supposed he’d been not so long ago. “We take care of each other.”

      Her mouth trembled. “I should’ve realized he’d come back for me. I should’ve never kept you—”

      “Don’t send me away, Auntie.” Manny’s arms engulfed Pilar. “I don’t want to live with Fiona and Dad after they get married.” He buried his head into her shoulder. “I want to stay with you.”

      “You know about their upcoming wedding?” She lifted his face with her hands. “You never said anything. You’d have two parents to love you. Normalcy. Security.”

      “But I wouldn’t have you.”

      Outside, car doors slammed.

      She sighed, but a smile