Sophie Oak - Lost in Bliss

“Brad, I would like to get this over with. Please continue.” Joe sat back, seemingly satisfied he’d gotten everyone back on track.

Brad pinned Laura with his stare. “I only have a couple more questions for Ms. Rosen.”

Cam was ready to get her the fuck out of here. “Make them quick.”

Brad sneered his way. “You’ll be the first to go when we start thinning out the room, Briggs.” He pulled a set of photos from the folder.

Cam felt his stomach roll. He knew those photos. They were the same photos Rafe had been showing when Cam had found him in DC

to tell him about Laura. They haunted him. Black and white. Stark. A woman in bondage, her unseeing eyes looking up at the camera. It didn’t matter that Cam couldn’t see the red of the blood. He could smell it. Acrid and coppery. He hadn’t been at the scene of this woman’s death, but he’d seen enough of this killer’s work firsthand to know what it had been like. Clinical and pristine, the Marquis de Sade didn’t leave evidence in his wake, merely death and heartbreak. Even prostitutes had people who missed them, loved them, mourned them forever. Cam had come so close to being one of those left behind.

Brad’s voice cut through Cam’s introspection. “This is the woman we believe now to be a victim of the Marquis de Sade. You can’t see it in the black and white version, but she’s wearing the same lipstick he put on you. The same lipstick he puts on all his victims. This occurred after you left DC and refused to help further with the investigation. The Marquis de Sade is working again. Do you feel a certain culpability in her death?”

Rafe stood and, before anyone could do a damn thing, had his fist on his partner’s face. He pummeled the son of a bitch, and chaos reigned. The room exploded in shouting.

Joe yelled at the two men to stand down. Edward moved out of the line of fire. Brad tried to fight back, but Rafe was meaner and way angrier. The door to the room opened, and Nate Wright entered with his deputy, pulling the men off of one another. The room seemed overheated. It was too loud, too full of testosterone. Cam was just about to jump into the fray when he looked down and saw Laura.

She sat as still as a doll staring at those photos. Her eyes were locked, her mouth slightly open. Guilt was easy to read on her face.

As everyone continued to shout, Cam dropped to one knee. “No, baby, this isn’t your fault.”

She didn’t look at him, but a single tear dropped from her eyes and splashed on the table.

Nate finally managed to pull Rafe off the man who would almost assuredly be his ex-partner as soon as the Bureau could fill out the paperwork. Logan, the deputy, got Brad to his feet.

“I’ll call Doc. This one is pretty messed up.” Logan didn’t seem to be bothered by the blood. The big, might-be-on-steroids deputy looked down at Brad. “You talk to her like that again, and I’ll be the one fucking you up, you understand that?”

“Logan.” Nate said the word between clenched teeth, and Logan walked out of the room.

Joe scrubbed a hand through his hair as he stared at Rafe. “Damn it, Kincaid. You leave me no choice. You are off this case. You’ll catch the first flight back to DC, and I’ll deal with you when this is over.”

Rafe didn’t even blink. He pulled his gun and badge out and laid them on the table. “I quit. You’ll have a formal resignation tomorrow.”

Joe stared widemouthed. “You’ve got ten years in, son. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Rafe swallowed once, but nodded. “One of us will be legally married to Laura as soon as possible. We’ll have full legal rights. You won’t be able to shut us out. If you try, I swear to god I’ll bring the press in, and someone out there will write a hell of a story about how the Bureau is harassing victims because they can’t get the job done.

You will leave my wife alone.”

Joe turned to Laura. “You understand what he’s trying to do? He’s going to bully you. He’s going to shut you off somewhere and hope this all goes away. It hasn’t gone away, and it won’t.” Laura turned those tear-filled eyes upward. “You want to use me as bait.”

“That is not going to happen.” Cam stood and did what he’d wanted to do from the moment he’d found out the feds were in town.

He picked her up, hooking his arms under her knees and pulling her to his chest. She didn’t fight, but she didn’t exactly cuddle against him, either. “You can fuck yourself, Joe.”

“You going to run away again, Rosen?” Brad asked. His face was still bleeding.

Edward shook his head. “How many more women will die because you’re too scared to face him?” Rafe started toward Edward. Cam was almost to the door when he heard Laura’s reply.

“I’ll do it.”

Rafe felt his stomach flip as he walked out of the interrogation room.

He’d just quit his job. He didn’t have a job. He didn’t have a badge or a gun or a future.

Cam turned, and Rafe saw the only things he had left in this world. Laura and Cameron. His family. Well, he wasn’t about to let the only thing he had left slip through his fingers. “You will not do this.”

“Rafe, not here.” Cam turned again. “Let’s get her home, and we can hash this out without an audience.” God, where was he going wrong that Cam had to be the sensible one? His fist still ached from the battering he’d given Brad, but he would do it again. They had led her like a lamb to slaughter. He could see it now. They had beaten her down, gotten her emotional, and then pulled the final card out that sent her over the edge. They’d played her like a fiddle, and Rafe was ready to kill them all.

What if one of them knew exactly what he was doing? What if one of them had been watching her with predatory eyes?

“Kincaid.”

Rafe turned at the sheriff’s sharp bark. Wolf Meyer stood beside him. Rafe had a sudden bad feeling that the sheriff had let the SEAL

watch things play out. Despite what Edward had said, Rafe didn’t believe for an instant that Meyer had anything to do with this. “What is it? If you’re planning on telling me to get the hell out of your town, then you can think again.”

To Rafe’s surprise, the sheriff smiled. “No, I was going to congratulate you on growing a pair. You should have done that a long time ago.”

“I knew he had a set when he took down that asshole. He was snooping around Laura’s cabin, and this guy here gets the jump on him before I could. That’s saying something,” Wolf admitted.

The sheriff tilted his hat back and regarded Rafe with an assessing stare. “There’s a town meeting concerning Laura. You need to be there. Town hall, seven o’clock.”

Wolf’s eyes rolled back. “Yeah, I have to go set up the computers.

Just because mom and Mel are hiding out doesn’t mean they aren’t civic-minded. They intend to attend the meeting via the Internet, and since the Farelly brothers messed up our cell tower, I have to do this all without using wireless. God, I long for a day when they can’t get hold of me from that bunker. Maybe I can somehow prove to Mel that aliens can get to him through his dial-up connection.” Rafe promised the men he would be there. If he could get the whole town looking out for Laura, it might make things easier. They could look for someone who shouldn’t be there—only Rafe was starting to believe that maybe the killer was already in Bliss.

He wanted to get Cam on the Edward angle right away. Rafe’s brain raced as he moved toward the parking lot. Laura and Edward had some sort of beef Rafe hadn’t known anything about. Brad was acting like an ass. He’d been around the Bureau for a long time before he joined the BAU. And Joe. God, was he actually wondering if his mentor was a serial killer?

He wouldn’t let it stop him. He would investigate every single one of them until he figured it out. This was what he should have done five years before.

Rafe slammed out of the double doors, practically running to keep up. He stopped in his tracks at what he saw. Standing right there in front of his SUV—crap, it was really the Bureau’s SUV—stood Jana Evans, microphone at the ready. Cam had put Laura on her feet, and they both faced the tiny ball of spite.

“Would you like to tell our viewers about your experience with the Marquis de Sade?” Jana asked in a brisk, professional voice. She wore what had to be a thousand dollar suit and killer stilettos, but there was a gauntness to her frame that utterly turned Rafe off. “We would all love to know just how you managed to escape a killer who never makes a mistake.”

Cam got in front of Laura, his big body a barrier between her and the world. “You get the hell out of here. Move that van out of the way.”

“Not until I get my story, I won’t.” Jana shoved her microphone toward Laura’s face. “This is the one that puts me over the edge. I’ll get on at one of the cable giants after this.”

“Are you live?” Laura asked.

“No. The time difference wouldn’t work, but if you want to do a live shot, I can be back here for the eleven o’clock news at nine o’clock. We would have to broadcast then.” Jana practically vibrated with energy. “I would need to meet you a little earlier to get you ready.”

Rafe was just about to forbid it when Laura nodded at Jana.

“Come out to the town hall. We can do it there.” She walked around the news van toward the SUV Rafe had driven out here. Rafe stopped in front of the reporter. “She’s not doing this.” Jana gave him a tight-lipped smiled that came nowhere close to her eyes. Her icy blonde hair was in a tight, professional bun. It was so different from Laura’s natural honey color. “Laura always does what she wants to, Rafe. You should know that. She won’t listen to you now. See you tonight. Don’t think you’re getting on camera. I already have an FBI source.”