LITMIR.BIZ

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to cover his drink, then told his remaining teammates, “Gotta go. I’ll catch you guys on Monday.”

      “Hot date?” one of them asked.

      “I wish,” Grant said. And boy, did he. If only Maggie had shown tonight. “But that was my SSA. Duty calls.”

      It was a short drive back to the office, which was oddly busy for 5:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Not that this was a nine-to-five sort of job, but from the amount of agents gathered in one of the interagency conference rooms, something big had broken. Or they wanted it to.

      It wasn’t his VCMO squad in the conference room, so Grant strode past with only a curious glance inside. His own SSA was waiting in the drab gray bullpen, a scowl on his face as he marked up a stack of paperwork.

      “Thanks for coming in,” James said, not glancing up as he wrote frantic notes on whatever case file he was reviewing.

      Judging from the way his rapidly receding gray hair was sticking out, and the heavier-than-usual shadows under his eyes, the SSA had never left yesterday. But that was pretty standard for James.

      “What’s happening?” Grant asked, wishing he’d stopped for a coffee instead of settling for the bitter junk they brewed in the office. He’d been up nearly twenty-four hours straight now, and he was heading for a crash that even caffeine could only hold off for so long.

      “Hang on.” James finished whatever he was writing, then pushed it aside and looked up at Grant, a deep frown on his face.

      Discomfort wormed through Grant. In his gut, he knew that whatever was happening, he really wasn’t going to like it. “What is it?”

      James sighed and rubbed a hand over his craggy face. With three divorces under his belt, he was now just married to the job. He was a tough supervisor, and he rarely looked stressed. But right now he looked very, very stressed. “Take a seat. Let’s chat.”

      Grant tugged a chair over and sat down. “Spit it out.”

      James smiled, probably because Grant was one of the few agents in his VCMO squad who would push him. But the smile faded fast. “You know the situation with the Fishhook Rapist case, right?”

      Grant cursed. Everyone who worked violent crime knew the background on that case. A sadistic rapist who grabbed one woman a year off the street, drugged, raped and branded her, then let her go, too disoriented to provide a description of her attacker. There was never any useful forensic evidence.

      The guy was way too smart. He surfaced only on September 1, when a new victim would show up at a police station or hospital somewhere in the country, branded with his signature. Then he disappeared again, until the following year, when he’d hit some other state and leave a new victim.

      And he’d started with Maggie Delacorte.

      That part wasn’t general knowledge—they didn’t advertise the names of the victims, and they tried to keep the press from getting too much information. They inevitably did, but somehow, the FBI had managed to keep Maggie’s last name out of the media for a decade, along with the fact that she’d moved on to become a standout SWAT agent.

      Inside the Bureau, however, a few rumors had gotten out over the years, and when he’d moved to WFO and landed on her SWAT team, he’d heard the whispers.

      She worked harder than just about anyone he knew, and he was positive she didn’t want one terrible incident in her past to color the way her colleagues looked at her, so he’d never said anything. To him, it didn’t change a thing. Not about what he thought of her work, and definitely not about how he felt about her as a woman.

      “Grant!” his boss snapped, and he realized he hadn’t been paying attention.

      “Sorry.” He ran a hand over his shaved head, dreading whatever he was about to hear. They had a month to go before the guy was supposed to surface, so any news about him now could in theory be a lead to catch him. But judging by his boss’s face, Grant didn’t think that was it.

      “I said, is this going to be a problem for you?”

      “What?”

      James let out a heavy sigh. “You know about the letters, right?”

      “Letters?” Grant frowned and shook his head.

      “The perp’s been sending them to Maggie over the last six months.”

      Anger boiled inside. No wonder Maggie hadn’t been herself lately.

      Did anyone on the team know? He felt his frown deepening, certain she wouldn’t have told any of them, no matter how close the team was.

      “The case agents checked with the other victims,” James continued. “None of the others have received anything. But Maggie got a new one last night.” He looked at his watch. “This morning, actually.”

      Grant looked toward the bustling conference room. So that was why the other VCMO squad had gathered. Maggie must have found the letter when she’d gone home. Which explained why she’d never shown at the bar.

      Now he really wished he’d called her, even though chances were, she wouldn’t have asked for his help.

      “This letter was different from the others. The others were psychological-sick, but meant to hurt from a distance. This one was a threat. And given your background...” James stared expectantly at him, not needing to finish his sentence.

      Grant had worked in the New York field office for eight years before moving to WFO, and while he’d been there, he’d closed a serial murder case with unusual elements. Specific dates of attacks over a number of years, letters to one particular victim. In that case, it was a woman who had escaped.

      “You think my experience on the Manhattan Strangler case—”

      “Could help close this one,” James finished. “Yes. Kammy Ming has requested you be moved to her squad for the duration of the case. Full-time. We’re going to catch him before the next anniversary. There’s no other option.”

      “He said he was coming back for Maggie, didn’t he?” Grant asked, shades of the homicide case he’d closed coming back to him. The warm blood spurting on him as he’d driven the perp’s knife into him. Carrying the victim out to the ambulance, then being shoved in with her to have his own wounds stitched up.

      Grant had caught the guy four years after he’d started killing, but it had almost been too late for the woman he’d come back for. The thought of Maggie being loaded into an ambulance made him queasy.

      “Look, Kammy wants your help,” James said. “But if you being on SWAT with Maggie is going to be a conflict...”

      Suddenly glad he was sitting down, Grant shook his head and hoped for once, James’s intuition would fail him.

      “Are you sure?” James persisted. “Because once she hears you’re on the case, if she asks you about it, you still have to keep it all confidential. Can you do that?”

      Could he? He wasn’t sure. Worse yet, Grant was pretty sure Maggie had no idea he knew about her past. How would she react to him being on the case now?

      Did he even want to be on this case? He didn’t have to ask Maggie to know she wouldn’t want him involved.

      It was one thing to walk into dangerous situations with her—he trained with her and knew she could handle herself. But to go through all the details of what had happened to her a decade ago, back when she’d been a scared college kid? Being her friend now, feeling the way he did about her, did he have any right to dig into the worst day of her life, without her permission?

      “Well?” James demanded, staring expectantly.

      Then again, how could he sit by and not do anything when he had a chance to stop the man who’d hurt her?

      Rage and determination filled him in equal measure, drowning out the nausea. “Yes, I want in on the investigation.”

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