Night Stalker. Shirlee McCoy

she was a bag of garbage he’d brought to the dump.

      “If you leave—” Charlotte began, planning to tell him that he could escape before the police arrived, that he could disappear and never be found.

      But he moved quickly, his body silhouetted by headlights, his face hidden as he lifted his arm, pointed at her.

      The world exploded, and she was flying, landing in soft grass and scratchy pine needles, her breath gone, the world spinning. Sky. Trees. Ground. Lake. The man. Moving toward her, a dark blur spinning like everything else.

      She should be scared. She knew that, but her thoughts were sluggish, her limbs leaden. She couldn’t run if she wanted to. Couldn’t get up.

      She heard sirens, feet on pavement, an engine roaring to life. Felt blood oozing from her chest, blood slushing in her ears.

      Someone knelt beside her. Not the man. A woman. Hair in her face, hands pressing against the wound in Charlotte’s chest.

      “Don’t die,” the woman murmured.

      She said something else, but the words were drowned out by the starless sky, the cool spring morning, the screaming sirens and the velvety darkness that swallowed them all.

      * * *

      Charlotte had changed.

      That shouldn’t have surprised Special Agent Adam Whitfield. He hadn’t seen his ex-wife in five years. A lot had happened since then. He’d completed his master’s in criminal profiling and had joined the FBI. He’d rented an apartment in the suburbs of Boston, created an entirely new life for himself.

      He was nothing like the twenty-four-year-old kid who’d driven away from Whisper Lake. He shouldn’t have expected that Charlotte would be the same person he’d left behind. He hadn’t expected it.

      But he’d still been shocked when he’d seen her. Not because she was connected to machines, tubes running from her chest and her arms. He’d been prepared for that. He hadn’t been prepared to see how thin she’d become, how frail. Her cheekbones were chiseled, her jawline defined. Even her hands were thinner, her fingers longer and leaner.

      In the seventy-two hours since he’d arrived, he’d gotten used to the tubes, to the hushed whisper of her breathing and the soft hiss of oxygen. He hadn’t gotten used to the newer, frailer version of his ex-wife.

      The woman he’d been friends with, fallen in love with, married.

      The one he’d had a son with.

      Lost a son with.

      Abandoned.

      He frowned.

      Abandoned was a harsh word, but an accurate one. He’d walked out on Charlotte because he hadn’t been able to bear walking past Daniel’s empty bedroom every morning. He’d wanted a fresh start in a new place, and he’d thought that Charlotte would want the same. When she’d refused to move away with him, he’d left the cottage, the town and the lake with his head high and his heart shattered.

      He hadn’t looked back, hadn’t returned for even a visit. Hadn’t called to see how she was, hadn’t checked in on her to see if she needed anything. They’d split their marital assets, washed their hands of one another and moved on.

      Or that was what they were supposed to have done.

      Moving on from the person who held your heart wasn’t easy.

      Now he was there, noticing the deep hollows beneath Charlotte’s cheekbones and the dark circles beneath her eyes. She’d cut her hair short and lost too much weight, but if he let himself, he knew he could still see the girl she’d been when she’d walked into his seventh-grade classroom all those years ago.

      He brushed a strand of straight black hair from her cheek.

      “Are you in there, Charlotte?” he asked.

      She didn’t respond. Not with a twitch or a flutter of her eyelids. If they’d still been married, he’d have touched her cheek, lifted her limp hand and squeezed it gently. He’d have leaned close and whispered that he was there and that everything was going to be okay.

      Instead, he let his hand drop away, settled back into his chair. He was tired, his muscles stiff from too many hours sitting. When he wasn’t working, he liked to keep active—running, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking. Being still and quiet wasn’t his thing and never had been.

      “You should go for a walk,” his boss, Wren Santino, said, breaking the silence.

      “You’ve made that suggestion a dozen times in the past couple of hours,” he responded, meeting her dark eyes.

      “And?”

      “I haven’t done it yet.”

      “If you had, I wouldn’t have to keep suggesting it,” she replied reasonably.

      “I want to be here when she wakes up.”

      “Because you’re hoping to question her?” It was a legitimate question. Adam had planned to travel to Whisper Lake after he’d received a call from the Maine State Police saying that they might have another victim of the Night Stalker. One that had survived.

      At the time, he’d had no idea that Charlotte was involved. All he’d known was that a young nurse had been abducted from the Whisper Lake Medical Center, that she’d escaped thanks to a Good Samaritan who’d been shot while intervening. That she fit the profile of the victims of a serial killer Adam and the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit had been pursuing for years. The Maine State Police thought it was possible—even probable—that her abductor was the Night Stalker.

      Adam had been ready to travel to Whisper Lake to speak with the local police, interview the nurse and decide for himself whether the case fit the Night Stalker’s MO. He’d shoved aside thoughts of Daniel and Charlotte. He’d reminded himself that he had a job to do. He’d already had his vehicle packed for the trip when Wren had called him into her office and shown him the case file she’d received from the state PD. That was when he’d seen Charlotte’s name. That was when he’d understood just how personal the Night Stalker case had become.

      It was also when Wren had informed him that he wouldn’t be part of the FBI team traveling to Maine. She planned to keep him in the loop but felt that it would be better for him and for Charlotte if he kept his distance.

      He’d argued.

      She’d insisted, so he’d taken personal leave and headed to Whisper Lake against her wishes.

      Because he couldn’t not be there.

      It didn’t matter that he and Charlotte were divorced. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t seen each other for five years. He wouldn’t let her lie in a hospital bed without family to advocate for her. He’d known that with her grandparents gone, she’d have no one.

      Now she had him.

      “I take it you’re not going to answer?” Wren said, taking a sip from a carryout cup of coffee.

      “She may have seen his face,” he responded, sidestepping the question.

      “I suppose this would be a good time to remind you that you’re on leave.”

      “You’ve reminded me every hour on the hour since we arrived.”

      “That’s an exaggeration,” she said with a half smile.

      “Not much of one.”

      “You know this guy’s MO better than anyone. You should be lead on this case,” she responded. No judgment. Just a statement of the facts as she saw them.

      “Charlotte has no family. She needs someone in her corner.”

      “She has our team. We’re not going to let anything happen to her. And not just because she’s a possible witness.”

      “She needs someone she’s familiar with. Someone