LITMIR.BIZ

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protective. She’d expected him to worry less once she’d joined SWAT, but it was only recently that his new girlfriend had taught him to loosen up at all. That would change back now.

      “Have the case agents taken the letter?” Scott asked. As a sniper with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, Scott was used to being able to take action. Not knowing who the threat was drove him crazy.

      “Were those his exact words? That he was coming back to DC, coming back for you?” Ella asked. She was calmer, but Maggie still heard her worry.

      “They just picked it up,” she told Scott, then looked at Ella. “His exact words were, ‘I’m coming home for our anniversary.’” She choked the words out. Even saying them made bile rise up in her throat.

      Scott swore, and Ella paled, but she still nodded thoughtfully. “Home,” Ella mused.

      Her brother took a loud, calming breath, but rage still filled his eyes. “What do you think it means?”

      Just like her, Scott had gravitated toward a specialty that would let him physically, personally, take down threats. On the outside, they didn’t resemble each other at all, though they were only a year apart in age. Scott was a head taller than her at six feet, with blond hair and chocolate-brown eyes. She looked more like their younger sister, Nikki, with her dark brown hair and light blue eyes.

      But inside, they were so similar, both of them attacking every challenge head-on.

      Ella was different. She’d been the glue that had held them together, kept them from butting heads over the years. And while Scott and Maggie had gone into physical specialties with the FBI, Ella had wanted to understand. So she’d become a profiler with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. If there was anyone who had a chance of deciphering the Fishhook Rapist’s motivations—and hopefully his next move—it would be her.

      “What does it mean?” Ella repeated. “Well, it could be the obvious.”

      “That he was born here,” Scott replied, nodding. “Okay. What else?”

      “Well, we know he doesn’t live here now.”

      Part of the reason the Fishhook Rapist had managed to evade capture for so long was because he moved around a lot. He claimed one victim a year, and never in the same place. His last victim had been in Florida, and the second letter Maggie had gotten had been postmarked from there.

      The first one had come from Georgia, and the most recent one had originated in North Carolina.

      “Then, what?” Scott demanded.

      Ella frowned, her deep brown eyes pensive. “This guy is a narcissist. He brags about what he does. It’s why he lets his victims go. He wants the attention, and he gets off on knowing the women he abducts can’t identify him. His attacks have become the main source of pride in his life. So the location of his first attack—”

      “You think he might see DC as home because it’s where he assaulted me,” Maggie broke in.

      She’d gone to school here—and she’d even finished out her senior year after her attack, putting all her focus into her new goal of making it to the FBI—but then she’d moved back to her parents’ house in Indiana for a while, wanting to put physical distance between her and the memories. When she’d made it through the FBI Academy, and they’d assigned her to the DC office, she’d almost backed out.

      But she’d stuck with it, then worked her way onto the SWAT team. DC had truly become her home now. It made her sick that he thought of it as his, too.

      Ella looked uncomfortable, but she didn’t fidget or honey-coat anything. “Yes. It’s the start of where he got his name.”

      The media had dubbed him the Fishhook Rapist after they’d gotten wind of what he did to his victims, branding them on the backs of their necks with the image of a hook. Maggie’s hand tensed with the need to touch the puckered skin on her neck that would never be smooth, but she clutched her hands together.

      Ella looked apologetic as she finished, “To him, this is home.”

      Nausea welled up, and Maggie sank onto her couch. Scott sat next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. A few seconds later, Ella was on her other side, hooking their arms together.

      “He can write as many letters as he wants, but he’s not getting anywhere near you,” Scott vowed, in the dark, determined tone he probably used on the job. It sounded convincing.

      So did Ella when she added, “We’re going to get him, Maggie. He’s making a mistake trying to come back here.”

      She wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe that the case agents, and her brother and Ella and all of her FBI and SWAT training were enough to keep her safe.

      But that fear she’d pushed down for ten years rose up, strong and painful, like the feel of fiery metal on the back of her neck.

      Maggie squeezed her eyes closed, grasping her brother and Ella by the arms. “I’m not supposed to be anywhere near the case.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Ella said. She was a stickler for doing everything by the book—except when it came to a possible lead on this particular case.

      “We’re not waiting for that SOB to come after you,” Scott agreed. “And we’re not leaving this to the case agents, no matter how good they are.”

      Maggie nodded, tears welling up in her eyes at their loyalty. “It’s time to go on the offensive.”

      * * *

      WHERE WAS SHE?

      Grant Larkin tried not to stare through the near-empty pub at the entrance to O’Reilley’s, but he couldn’t stop himself, the same way he couldn’t stop himself from taking a peek at his watch. The team had been at the pub for a solid two hours, letting the adrenaline from the arrest fade.

      Now daylight was rapidly approaching. Even though it was Saturday, and they got a break, a couple of them were heading out the door, along with the last of the cops who’d been in the pub when they’d arrived.

      Maggie wasn’t coming.

      “What happened to Delacorte?” Clive Dekker asked, looking at Grant as if he would know.

      Grant shrugged, but he’d been resisting the urge to call her for the past hour and find out. He’d been shocked when she’d agreed to join them, after six months of skipping out on anything social. Even more shocked by the way she’d looked at him while agreeing. As if she was as interested in him as he was in her.

      He’d been drawn to her from the moment they’d met, nine months ago. For most of that time, he’d tried to keep his attraction hidden. They were teammates, a definite Bureau no-no. Lately, though, he hadn’t been able to suppress it, and he knew she’d noticed. But she’d never looked at him quite the way she had tonight, as if maybe she wanted more from him. If only...

      “Well, I’m calling it, before my wife sends out a search party,” Clive said, then squinted, leaning closer to him in the noisy pub. “Is that your phone ringing?”

      Grant grinned at him. “I think you’re still hearing the aftereffects of that flash bang, old man,” he joked. The team leader was thirty-nine, only four years older than Grant. But Clive was the oldest guy on the Washington Field Office SWAT team.

      “Ha ha,” Clive replied. “It’s your hearing that’s going.” He slapped Grant on the shoulder as he maneuvered out of the booth. “That was definitely your phone.”

      Grant frowned and took out his FBI-issued BlackBerry. Clive was right. One missed call. Hoping it was Maggie saying she was on her way, he held in a yawn and dialed his voice mail.

      The message was from the supervisor of his Violent Crimes Major Offenders, VCMO, squad. SWAT was his calling, but VCMO was his regular position at the FBI, the job that filled most of his days.

      “We’ve got a situation,” the supervisory special

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