Hunted. Cynthia Eden

eyes widened. “Will you now.” Not a question, not really.

      The ambulance was gone. And Josh didn’t like having Casey out of his sight. There were some local FBI agents on the scene and he knew he could leave them in the area to help with the search. “I’m going after her.” I should have been in the ambulance with her.

      “You think the killer will go after Casey Quinn again?”

      “I don’t know what he’ll do, not yet. This is the first time one of his victims has gotten away.” At least, the only victim they knew of escaping. “For all we know, he’ll immediately go gunning for her again, and if that happens, I want more than just Deputy Patrick standing between her and danger.” The kid was still green behind the ears.

      “You want to be standing between her and the threat.”

      Josh’s chin notched up. “She stabbed her attacker. I think that shows that she’s capable of protecting herself... But her attack...it could very well have enraged the perp.” No doubt about that... My money says the guy is somewhere, choking on his rage. “That means he could fixate on her. He could come at her with all he’s got or...” His sentence trailed off.

      “Or...?” Hayden prompted.

      Josh glanced at the line of unfinished houses. “Or he will grab the next available victim who matches his profile. He’ll let his rage out on her.” Which meant they needed to be on guard—all of them.

      “For someone who said he wasn’t a profiler, you seem to know your killers pretty well.”

      He definitely wasn’t a profiler. “I work on evidence collection. I don’t poke into the heads of killers.” His buddy Tucker did that. And Tucker Frost was scheduled to arrive in town any moment. The guy had just finished up a case in Colorado and now he was working on the profile for the killer in Hope. The FBI brass hadn’t been satisfied with the work of the other profiler who’d been in town, and when Tucker finished his last case—he’d been immediately reassigned to Hope. When Tucker arrived, Josh knew the guy would want to speak with Casey right away. She would be key to the investigation.

      “I have to make sure she doesn’t say too much to the media.” Another problem. Since she was a reporter, Casey would no doubt want to run live with her story. That wasn’t going to happen.

      He turned on his heel and headed for his motorcycle.

      “Duvane!” Hayden’s voice thundered after him.

      He glanced over his shoulder. He liked Hayden—the guy was tough, smart and didn’t generally take crap from anyone. But then again, Hayden was a former SEAL, and most folks knew better than to mess with SEALs.

      “Is this personal?” Hayden asked him, voice quieter.

      Personal?

      Hayden eased toward him. “You dropped the reporter off at her hotel last night?”

      Josh nodded.

      Hayden’s head cocked to the right. “Didn’t realize you two knew each other so well.”

      They didn’t know each other well. So his reaction to her shouldn’t be as intense as it was. But... “She’s a victim. And my job is to protect victims.” Lately, it seemed as if all he’d done had been to discover the dead. Casey wasn’t dead, and he damn well wasn’t going to let anything else happen to her.

      Hayden’s stare was assessing. “Better watch yourself. Once emotions get involved, the cases become even harder.” His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Trust me—I know exactly what I’m talking about.”

      Josh knew the guy was speaking from experience because the woman Hayden loved, Jill West, had been targeted by Theodore Anderson. Theodore had first kidnapped Jill when she was just a kid, but Jill had managed to escape him. Years later, she’d returned to Hope, determined to finally solve the mystery of her past. But her return had set off a deadly chain of reactions... In the end, Jill and Hayden had both been fighting for their lives.

      They’d won, though. They’d stopped the killer. They’d unmasked Theodore Anderson. And now Jill and Hayden were finally free to work on their future together.

      But Josh wasn’t Hayden, and Casey...she wasn’t Jill. They didn’t have a past that linked them, and as far as how he felt about her... “Emotions aren’t an issue for me. She’s just a case.” Simple words. Emotions didn’t get to him. He did his job, and he moved on. Simple.

      “Keep telling yourself that,” Hayden mumbled.

      Josh climbed onto the motorcycle. He glanced over at the house and saw the yellow line of crime scene tape.

      Casey could have died in that house.

      His jaw clenched. The killer wouldn’t get close to her again. Not on his watch.

      * * *

      SHE’D BEEN POKED and prodded for hours. Hours. And Casey was not a happy woman. Her control was barely holding on, and any moment, she was afraid she might just break apart.

      She didn’t want to break in front of the too friendly nurses. Or the steely-eyed doctors. Or anyone.

      “Are we done yet?” Casey asked, fighting to keep her voice calm.

      Dr. Abernathy, a young African American woman with small, wire-framed glasses and a no-nonsense manner, looked up from Casey’s charts. “You are a very lucky woman, Ms. Quinn.”

      She had to swallow three times before she could manage to speak again. “Luckier than the other victims.”

      A faint furrow appeared between the doctor’s eyes.

      “I don’t feel sick any longer. I don’t have the headache—”

      “It’s good that you’re feeling better, but I’d like to keep you for observation a bit longer. You took a severe blow to the head—”

      “I just told you my head felt fine now.” Only a tiny lie. Her head still ached a bit, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

      “In concussion cases, the victim may suffer from seizures or convulsions. It’s possible that you could become confused and agitated—”

      “I feel plenty agitated right now,” Casey muttered as she fiddled with the paper hospital gown that she was wearing. Her clothes had been taken, confiscated as evidence by the authorities. “Thank you for all that you’ve done. Really, thank you. But I want to get out of here, okay? I don’t have nausea, no blurred vision, no memory lapses. I know our president. I know my birthday. I know—”

      The curtain on the side of her bed swung back. “You know that you’re causing trouble.”

      Her breath left in a quick rush. Josh. “I—I thought you were at the crime scene.” She pulled up her covers—or rather, the thin sheet that was her only cover, other than the paper gown. “How long have you been here?” Had he just been hanging around, eavesdropping on her talk with the doctor? Didn’t he get there was a whole patient privacy issue going on?

      He stepped closer to the bed. A line of stubble coated his hard jaw. “Been here long enough to know that you’re pushing yourself too hard.”

      “No, I’m not. I let the doctors check me out. I did everything they wanted.” Her shoulders straightened. “Now, I want to go back to my hotel—” But even as she said the words, she stopped. No, she didn’t want to go back to the hotel. She didn’t want to return to that dark room and remember what it had been like when the attacker grabbed her.

      “Your room isn’t an option.”

      Because a crime scene team was still there? “I’m sure I can get another hotel room.”

      His jaw hardened. “What you’re getting is a safe house.”

      A what?

      “Um, excuse me,” the doctor began.

      Josh