How (Stalker Series Book 3) Read online

  “Now, we celebrate.”

  “Hell yes, we do.” She hurried to the fridge and pulled a pre-prepped meal from the cold, shoved it in her pack along with an apple and a cashew bar, and headed for the door.

  “We’ll have to do it in Gen’s hospital room,” Larkin whispered.

  Libby paused with her hand on the knob of the back door. “Of course. I’m totally fine with that. I feel guilty for leaving during her ICU stay.” She plucked her car keys from the counter. “I’m just glad she’s in a real room now.”

  “Real hospital room,” Larkin corrected. “She’s ready for her real bedroom.”

  “I bet she is.” Libby unlocked the door, opened it, and released a truly bloodcurdling scream.

  “Libby? Libby, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Libby!”

  “Shit!” Libby shivered and gagged a little. “Yes, I’m fine.” She backed into her house several steps, staring at the bloody carcass at the center of her threshold.

  “What the hell happened? A snake?”

  “No, Larkin. Why are you so obsessed with snakes? I’ve lived here for two years and have never seen a snake. Wait, I know why. I learned it in Psych 101. Freud taught me.” She laughed, thankful to have something besides the dead rat to think about.

  “Laugh it up. But you were the one bursting my eardrum two seconds ago.”

  “Sorry! I’m trying to leave for work, and my neighbor’s cat left a dead rat on my porch … again.”

  It was Larkin’s turn to gag.

  “Yeah, vomit.” She didn’t mention that she shot someone’s knuckles off two days ago without flinching. Larkin would want to know why, and then she’d tell the girls, and then they’d worry more than they already did about her chosen profession.

  “Wait. I thought the cat was yours. Didn’t you rescue it from the Brooklyn shelter last year?”

  “Yes, I did.” Libby sighed. “I’ve gotta go. Text me later with the time.”

  “I will. Good luck with the rat.”

  “Thanks.” Libby ended the call, shoved the phone in her pack, and set it and the keys on her small breakfast table in the kitchen. She placed one foot in the doorframe and eased her cheek around it as though she was clearing a building full of hostiles.

  The killer, aptly named Killer, lounged on Libby’s padded outdoor chair, licking one of his white paws and rubbing it over his black face. Sure, he looked cute and peaceful, but she knew better. She pulled the end of her right pant leg up and eyed the pattern of scars his teeth had left just above her ankle.

  “Asshole.” She glared at the cat from the relative safety of her home. He wouldn’t come in here, not since the day he attacked her and escaped. His orange ears bobbed like little devil’s horns. Yep, she knew better.

  Libby stepped over the rat and out onto the screened-in porch. It was her favorite place. The cat stood and rounded his back. His lips curled and white teeth flashed.

  “Damn, am I that repulsive?” She threw her hands wide. “All I wanted was for you to love me. But no.” Her thumb hiked toward her neighbor’s house only six or seven yards from the edge of hers. “You love him. I hate to tell you. He’s hot, but he’s weird as hell.”

  She says as she argues with a cat about the state of their relationship.

  “Forget it. Thanks for the present.” She pointed at the furry rodent. “Now, if you would, take a hike. I have to get to work.” Libby pulled open the screen door and waited. And waited. The woman at the shelter had warned he’d had a rough life. She’d been willing to give him all the time he needed to acclimate. He’d tried her on for two days before bolting.

  Killer plopped his bottom on the cushion.

  “Drawing clear battle lines, huh?”

  Libby hypothesized that her presence inside the porch kept the cat from leaving. She walked down the three short steps and rounded to the far side of the concrete block. It wasn’t easy or comfortable, but she shoved the screen and pushed the door wide from the ground. If it swung the other way, he wouldn’t be able to get inside.

  Killer stretched out his front feet and slowly relaxed himself in the chair.

  “Jerk.”

  Her watch read 7:38 a.m. She didn’t have time for this. Her gaze slid to the right toward her neighbor’s house. There were no lights on. There hadn’t been any on when she’d arrived home in the early morning. He usually kept odd hours. It was nothing for her to see him awake in the middle of the night or early morning. Then again, she could go days at a time without seeing him at all. In the past six months, they’d both worked crazy hours. She didn’t want to bother him, so she marched back up her stairs. As she looked at the cat and his sharp claws, her nerves faltered. Her steps eased to a tiptoe toward Killer.

  “Can you go outside, buddy? If I leave you here, you’ll be stuck until who knows when.” There was so much work to be done.

  The cat ignored her. She eased closer, cast her gaze to the ceiling as though she didn’t care a thing about him, and reached for the arm of the chair. Killer hissed and swatted at her hand. She jerked away at the last instant, saving her own knuckles. She hooked the toe of her shoe around the leg of the chair and pulled it toward the door. The little devil lunged and spat.

  “Fine.” Libby stomped into her house, slung on her bag, grabbed her keys, slammed the door, and locked it. All the while, she dodged the rat carcass. “Stay! See if I care.” She yanked open the screen door and let it crash closed behind her. “You’re going to starve, you know.” Her parting joust stabbed her in the back because she immediately thought of the cat eating on the rat. Her stomach gave way.

  She stomped in the opposite direction from her car to the left, hooking a right through the yard to her neighbor’s back door. He didn’t have a screened porch only squatted concrete steps, which meant his backyard was bigger.

  Libby knocked. “Hello?” She knocked again, louder. “Hello?”

  7:43 a.m.

  Cupping both hands to her face, Libby pressed them to the glass. Her gaze searched the interior. Their homes, it seemed, were mirror images of one another. She stared into a kitchen as tidy as her own. Tidier even. There wasn’t a stack of mail on his breakfast table. Ah, but there was a wok and base on his stovetop. They were even. Her study shifted from the kitchen into a small living room. An open book sat on the coffee table. She hadn’t known he could read. He certainly couldn’t speak. Not a word in the more than a year that he’d lived next to her.

  A small couch sat on the wall nearest her house. Above it hung a huge world map. It looked old and expensive, housed in a sturdy frame. On either side perched what seemed to be authentic traditional African masks. Not the kind you’d pick up in a Pier One or World Market. The closest one looked to be an expressive dark face carved out of an animal hide of some sort. The far one was wood. It seemed etched from the body of a tree.

  On the far wall, closest to the road, hung a collection of ancient and highly lethal weapons. A tomahawk. A mace. A spear. The most jarring of the arsenal was a nearly foot long and four inch wide tapering silver dagger on an H-shaped gold handle. A gold goddess adorned the hilt of the blade. She could imagine the crossbar being the place where the warrior held the small dagger just above the knuckles and jabbing it—

  A deep cough jerked her from the window. She spun on unstable heels, and her long, high ponytail smacked her cheek.

  Her neighbor stood in the grass and was nearly eye level with her in heels and on the steps. His wide frame filled a leather jacket. He wore ass-stomping boots, threadbare jeans, and a disinterested scowl. He was a hell of a lot stealthier than when he’d first moved in. His limp had gotten so much better, and she hadn’t noticed it in several months. So much better that the huge man had snuck up on her without a sound.

  Libby’s body heated twenty degrees. Her nipples plumped, and her lower lips bloomed in outrageous invitation. Thank heavens she wore her dull black suit, and she had a ton of practice at acting like she didn’t want to rip his clothes from his body, clim
b him, and fuck him where he stood.

  “Your cat is on my porch again.”

  His dark gaze slid from her to her porch. She noticed the way the muscles in his neck contracted and bulged. The clean lines of his face pulled her in. He had a hint of dimples, but his jaw, lips, and cheekbones were too pronounced to allow any more features. His gaze slid back.

  She swallowed the saliva pooling in her mouth and staved off the urge to lick her lips. “He brought me a rat.”

  He bowed his head, flopping the dark curls of his unruly hair forward. After a beat, he straightened.

  Could he not speak, or did he not want to speak to her? She gave him several moments in which to say something, anything, but nothing came. Maybe the same accident that had given him the limp had taken his voice. Maybe he was a monk, forbidden to speak. Maybe he thought her not worth the effort of speaking.

  Libby offered him one of her biggest smiles. “Okay.” She sidestepped and then descended the stairs. His nearly black eyes tracked her movement. This close on the same level, he seemed a giant. He wasn’t all that tall or all that wide. Maybe he reached six feet four, two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle. His persona, silent and mysterious, was imposing as hell.

  “Have a great day.” She waved.

  One foot in front of the other, Libby made it past him, her porch, and the demon cat to the corner of her house. She told herself not to look back, but like every other time, she stole every opportunity she could to look at him. He hadn’t moved from the bottom of his steps, and he still watched her.

  She offered him a sarcastic bow and rounded the corner to her car. Cheeks flushed and breaths racing, she depressed the key fob and slid into her two-year-old Honda Civic Hybrid. She should feel creeped out by her weird neighbor, but damn if she wasn’t ready to come on her leather seat.

  3

  The Big Bust

  Libby stuffed herself onto the elevator full of other people in dark-colored suits. This was where the fifteen minutes she’d lost dealing with the feral cat and his equally wild handler would have come in handy. Fifteen minutes sooner and she’d have been sharing the space with a handful of people. Instead, she reconciled herself to the cramped corner with the edge of someone’s briefcase jabbing her ass cheek. At least she hoped it was a briefcase.

  Finally, the double doors neared her floor.

  “This is me.” Libby wormed her way to the front, and the moment they opened, she poured out the double doors.

  Two seconds out of the tin can and Libby noticed the significant murmur among the cubicles in the middle of the floor. Usually the early morning was quieter than a funeral parlor. The murmur reached a low roar by the time she made it past two rows of cubicles. A slow clap started when she hit the center of the large room. It rumbled louder and louder until she stopped and turned in a tight circle, desperately searching for the cause of the upheaval.

  People stood behind their desks. Others slipped from their offices along the wall. Still more crept in from the locker rooms and break room. They began to whoop and holler. Some clapped. All of them directed their mania on her.

  She ran a hand down the buttons on her blouse as terror gripped her. Had one of them come undone? Had more? It’d happened more times than she cared to remember but never quite so publicly. Each secured button bumped against the edges of her fingers.

  Then Libby remembered that she’d caught Darrell Hegarty, the man with revolution in his heart and the means and followers with which to carry it out on a relatively small but terribly bloody scale. The news would have been dispensed in their daily department email on Monday. Hadn’t people forgotten by now? It was midweek, for goodness' sake. Surely other important things had happened since then.

  A grin stretched her mouth so wide she covered it with her hand. She stared wide-eyed at people she passed every day, people she spoke to only in polite greeting, and people she looked up to. These people were celebrating her success. She’d been on the other side many times before, and now it was her turn. As much as she hated the spectacle, it filled her every hole and salved every scar self-doubt had made through the years. After she’d invested so much time and effort in her work, she’d finally made a difference. She’d finally be looked at not for the size of her bra cup or the length of her legs, but for the effort she gave and the skills she possessed.

  Patricia, a young agent who now worked in her old cubicle, rushed up so quickly Libby thought she might try to hug her. The woman stopped with a hop at arms’ length and extended her hand. “I am so happy for you.”

  “Thank you.” Libby shook her offered hand.

  “What a big win.”

  “It was a hard fight to get the assignment and even harder to track Hegarty.”

  “But you were given the opportunity.” Patricia pointed at her, which consequently meant she stabbed a finger toward Libby’s boobs.

  “Yes, and it took four years before they considered giving me any assignment of substance.” This chick had been in the FBI for less than six months and in the Civil Rights department less than that. “You’ll get your chance. Just keep your head down and plow through what they give you.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Patricia smiled and nodded so hard Libby worried the clip holding her hair back would fall. The woman waved and turned toward her cubicle.

  As quickly as the uproar began, it waned. Most people returned to their work. A few took the opportunity to split off in conversations. Two younger male recruits hurried forward, offering their hands. She shook them, knowing with Ross Quinn as their senior management, they’d get a shot at the good assignments—human trafficking, hate crimes, international human rights violation—long before Patricia ever would. They grinned expectantly. She didn’t know what they wanted, but she had a guess. And they could go fuck themselves.

  Libby stepped backward to retreat to her office.

  The sharp point of her stiletto found a raised and uneven surface. A grunt filled her ears, and she whipped around to see Ross Quinn’s stern face. His ruddy complexion was redder than normal. He doubled over and gripped the top of the cubicle next to them. He had been so damn close. Hell, he still was.

  She looked over her shoulder. The two agents had taken off. No worrying about stepping on their toes. She moved back, offering herself room, more so than Quinn.

  “Sir, I apologize for stepping on your toe. I had no idea you were right behind me.” She tried not to emphasize the word right, but she was only human.

  He straightened and wheezed a breath. Of all the senior staff on their floor, Ross Quinn was the most fit. Having started his career in the Explosive Ordinance Disposal division, he maintained an almost military precision fitness regimen. It paired perfectly with the cool way he handled his subordinates.

  Quinn snapped together the breast of his suit. The redness filtered from his creased forehead but hung in his slim cheeks.

  “I was coming to congratulate you on a job well done on the hoarder assignment.”

  Hegarty was much more than a collector of guns, and Quinn knew that. The special wording was his covert way of belittling her achievement.

  “Thank you, sir.” Libby nodded.

  Her boss turned on his heels and hobbled away, using the cubicle tops to steady himself. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. The hotter than hell man who lived next to her hadn’t limped as much when he’d first moved in. She knew just by the crazy character of the man that his injury had been a bit more serious than a hurt toe. In fact, she’d guessed his trauma had been life threatening.

  She followed Quinn slowly, moving out of the theatre of the floor. He peeled right, and she continued straight to the bustling little hallway that housed her office plus a few others, the break room, and the locker rooms at the end of the corridor.

  A crowd spilled out the break room door and congealed in the hallway, stopping her progress. The only time that happened was when someone brought in goodies for a birthday or a retirement, but that sort of thing never interested h
er. The crowded sharing of food actually made her stomach shiver. All the germs.

  “No!” The anger-brimming tone grabbed her attention by the collar. “Give me that!”

  Libby knew the voice that bled out from the room. Though she’d never heard it in quite a demanding state.

  Alec?

  In the two years they’d been across the hall from one another, she hadn’t known the mild-mannered guy capable of raising his voice.

  Libby shoved through the crowd. Her pack did the job of spreading the masses.

  “It’s her,” someone whisper-screamed from over her shoulder.

  A guy she recognized from one hallway over looked at her, and his eyes bugged out of his face. He backpedaled, skirted the doorframe, and practically ran away. Why was the biggest brownnoser on the staff running from her?

  When his large, should-be-decaying nose moved from in front of the door, Libby saw it hanging from eye level by a one-inch piece of clear tape.

  If only the picture wasn’t so clear.

  But it was.

  As pictures went, it was a pretty damn good one. The way she’d been captured walking from the goat path in the shipping container with one foot in front of the other accentuated the curve of her hips. Long rifles in each hand and the ones in the crook of her arm elongated her waist. The black shirt tucked into her jeans drew attention to her full breasts. The FBI hat shielded her gaze, giving her the appearance of bedroom eyes. Her long ponytail cascaded over her left shoulder just so.

  As pictures went, it would have been a nice one to press into a photo album and look back at twenty years down the road.

  As pictures went, it would have been awesome to have proof that she’d taken down an anarchist for the FBI to protect the innocent people of this amazing country.

  As pictures went, it was not the one you wanted printed off and hung on the break room door. You especially didn’t want the words scribbled on each page in black permanent marker displayed for your co-workers to see.