They were there to try.

“Guessing you’re Dante,” the sheriff muttered. The sun had tanned his skin a dark brown. Lines cracked the planes of his face and gray dotted the black hair near his temples. “And you…” His gray eyes drifted to Monica. “You must be Davenport.”

Her head inclined toward him. “Sheriff.” Monica’s cool-as-you-please voice. A brief pause, then, “We’re going to need to see the other body.”

But the sheriff, Luke remembered his name was Hank Davis, shook his head. “Not gonna happen. Sally Jenkins was buried yesterday.”

Luke clenched his back teeth. Exhuming bodies was a bitch. Especially in these small-ass southern towns. Folks didn’t like it when their dead were jerked back out of the earth.

Not that he blamed them.

Monica’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped away from the slab. “She’s been buried? You knew the FBI was coming; you’re the one who called us! The body shouldn’t have been released—”

“Wasn’t a body to release.” His jaw flexed. “Just pieces of little Sally…”

Emotion there, lurking in the eyes and in the voice.

The guy had known the victim.

“You didn’t send a lot of information about Sally’s death to our office,” Luke said, trying to choose his words carefully now that he knew the connection was there for the sheriff. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m confused as hell. Why would you figure a woman who’d been stabbed to death…” Pleasure cuts. “And a woman who was killed in a car accident were linked?”

The sheriff and the ME shared a hard glance. Then Davis looked back over his shoulder, as if checking to make sure neither of the deputies had snuck back in to eavesdrop. “Didn’t send the info, but I told Hyde.” Davis’s jaw flexed. “Told him, and he understood. He sent you because he understood.”

Cotton shuffled over to a filing cabinet. The drawer groaned when he pulled it open. “I think you two should see these.”

Luke grabbed the file from him and tried to keep his face blank as he flipped through the pictures.

Shit.

Wreckage. Twisted metal.

Pieces. Not of the car. Of… her. The wreck had torn her apart.

Monica eased beside him. Luke heard the hard breath she sucked in when she glimpsed Sally.

He studied the photos, examining and—“What the hell?”

Monica’s fingers lifted and clamped around his shoulder.

“Guess you see why I was worried about Sally’s death.” A hard, biting blast from the sheriff. “Not every day you see an accident victim who was tied to the steering wheel.”

No, not every day.

Christ. One hand and wrist were still attached to the wheel, hanging by the thick, knotted ropes.

“We found marks on the bumper—someone pushed Sally, hard and fast. That somebody drove her right into that ravine.”

And Sally had been helpless.

But…

But the crimes were too different. With Sally, maybe someone had wanted to off her and claim insurance money that would have come from her “accident.” Maybe the killer had thought the car would blow up on impact, and the bindings on her wrists would have been destroyed. Maybe.

The stabbing, well, stabbings were personal. Intimate.

“Does Sally have a husband, a lover—someone we can talk to?” Monica asked.

Silence.

They looked up at the Sheriff. He licked his lips. “Sally’s husband Jake was killed in a car accident last year. A year to the day of Sally’s death.” He swallowed. “She was in the car with him, barely survived.”

This time, she hadn’t.

Someone had made absolutely certain of that.

“What makes you think these two crimes are related?” Luke asked. Bizarre, yeah, but to say the same perp was out there—

“In the last ten years, we’ve only had two murders here in Jasper.” A heavy pause. “They both happened within the last two weeks.” The sheriff held his stare. “You think we got two murdering SOBs all of a sudden in the area? Or just one f**ked up a**hole?” His right hand moved to rest on the slab, right near Patty. “I’m betting my money on one a**hole.”

CHAPTER Three

Walking through a dead woman’s house, poking through her possessions and rifling through what was left of her life was not really Monica’s favorite thing to do. It was a part of her job, though, a necessary one. Just one that she hated.

Every profiler knew, the first step was assimilation. She’d seen the body, seen the photos, read the autopsy reports, now she needed to work on victim profiles.

Luke flipped on the light as he stepped into Patty’s bedroom. Monica hesitated, just for a moment, then followed him inside the small room.

“Just what do you think we’re gonna find here?” he asked.

Hell if she knew. The locals had already been over the place. The sheriff had good instincts and good training, so she doubted the guy missed much.

But she always went to the victims’ houses on her cases. The houses and then the crime scenes. That was her pattern.

She rubbed the back of her right shoulder. “We need to do a thorough scan of the house, just in case the deputies overlooked something.” What that something was, well, she didn’t know. Yet.

Her gaze darted to the nightstand. A framed picture. A smiling, beautiful Patty, hugging a man, a good-looking guy with glasses.

“Guess that’s the boyfriend,” Luke murmured.

“Kaziah Lone.” He was on her list. Rule number one in these cases: Always talk to the lovers.

Especially on knife kills. An intimate crime, an intimate kill.

Luke yanked open Patty’s dresser drawers, searching through the clothes. “What’s your take on the case?”

Don’t know. “Hyde sent us here, that means he thinks we’ve got a serial.” Or a potential serial. Because sometimes, weeding through the cases and finding the real serials—that was another job he liked to give his team.

More photos lined the walls. Pictures just of Patty, always smiling. Posing with her dark hair framing her perfect face.

Hyde’s report said the woman had done some modeling for an agency in New Orleans. She sure had the look for it.

He shoved the top dresser drawer closed. “But what’s your take?”

His gaze held hers. God, Samantha had been right about his eyes. She’d never seen eyes like his before.

Never been able to forget those eyes.

Or him.

The one man who’d come too close. The one man who’d made her burn, made her desperate.

And he could do it again. One look, and the need had quickened in her. It would be so easy to go back, to let the lust ignite between them. So easy…

When they’d been on that plane and he’d been so close, his scent had surrounded her. She’d remembered the strength of his touch and she’d wanted him. She’d talked tough, but, dammit, she wanted him.

Luke Dante had always made her feel alive. In those precious hours with him, she’d felt wild and reckless.

No ice maiden. There’d been too much pleasure for that. Too much passion.

Temptation. He was still as dangerous as before. Monica licked her lips. The crimes. The kills. Focus. Now wasn’t the time for any weakness.

Even if he was the one man who could make her weak. She exhaled on a long, hard breath. “The kill methods are off. They don’t make sense to me.” She turned away from him, worried those eyes would see too much.

Even when they’d been together, she’d always made him turn off the lights. So he wouldn’t see…

Patty had a small desk in the corner of her bedroom. Monica pulled open the long, top drawer. Pens, paper clips, a worn romance novel.

She pushed the drawer closed—

But it stuck.

She froze.

“Monica? You got something?”

Dropping to her knees, she carefully pulled the drawer back and eased it out of the grooves that held it in place.

An envelope. It waited, smashed at the back of the desk, like it had gotten pushed up in the drawer and then caught.

Maybe when the police were searching?

Her gloved fingers reached for the envelope.

No return address. Just Patty’s name, scribbled across the front.

Monica rose, turned—

And found Luke standing right in front of her.

Too close.

She didn’t make the mistake of looking into his eyes. Not this time.

Monica straightened her shoulders and opened the envelope. The top had already been ripped apart, the ends tattered and loose.

A slip of paper hid inside. Carefully, she eased it out and read the same distinctive scrawl.

Pretty lady, what scares you?

An image of Patty’s face flashed before her eyes. There had been so many brutal cuts and slashes on her face. Not her body, where the knife would have done more damage. But on her face.

What scares you?

Monica’s gaze jerked to the photo above the bed. A big 11×14 of Patty laughing on a bridge.

“What scares you?” Luke read, the words a whisper.

A shiver skated down her body.

She had a good idea what would have frightened the beautiful Patty.

And, from the looks of things, the killer had known too.

Luke had just dropped onto the edge of his sagging motel room bed when the connecting door—the door he’d stared at a good three minutes after entering his room—flew open.

Unlocking it had been a very good idea.

His blood pumped, hard and fast. Screw exhaustion, he was more than ready to—

“We’ve got a problem.”

For just an instant, her gaze dropped to his chest. He’d stripped down to his boxers, so the lady wasn’t getting a full-on show. Not yet anyway.

Her mouth snapped closed then she spun around. “I didn’t… think…” Her hands lifted, fell to her sides. “I should have knocked. Sorry.”

But she didn’t sound sorry. Not really.

And he damn sure wasn’t sorry Monica had stormed into his motel room. If only she hadn’t come about business.

“Get dressed.” Her voice was flat. “We have to talk.”

Shit.

Monica stepped forward, obviously heading back to her room. No.

“Stay.” He bit out the command. Dammit. She glanced back at him—

Luke forced a careless grin. “Not like you haven’t seen me before.” The woman had touched every part of his body. With hands and mouth.

And he sure as hell didn’t mind having her eyes on him.

But she shook her head. “We’re working a case, I don’t need to—”

His jaw clenched. Ice. He snatched up his jeans. Tugged them on in less than three seconds. “Didn’t ask you to touch, now did I?”

Finally, her eyes met his and flashed blue fire, for just a second.

So hot, not cold. Not cold at all.

He stalked toward her. Monica turned fully to face him. Her breath came faster, her chest rising and falling too quickly.

Because she was pissed at him? Or because she felt the same hunger that he did?

The hunger that he could never f**king slake. No matter how many nights passed, no matter how many women he took.

Not enough.

Because no other woman was Monica.

“Luke…”

Ah, Christ, but the way she said his name. Husky, soft. Like she’d whisper it in bed, when her legs were wrapped around him, and he was driving deep and she was arching toward him, those nails of hers digging into his back.

His fingers lifted and curved around her chin. Taste. Take.

“You got scared,” he charged, the words he’d wanted to throw at her for too long firing out. “I got too close, didn’t I? And you had to f**king run.”

Monica didn’t flinch. Her eyes didn’t waver. She just stared back at him. Cold. Like ice.

But he knew how she burned.

Christ, he needed to taste her.

The arousal had his muscles stiffening, his c*ck jerking. From the minute he’d walked into that meeting and seen her, he’d been fighting the lust.

The memories were too strong.

She was a temptation he didn’t want to resist.

She had the prettiest pink ni**les.

Luke swallowed. “We touch and you get wet for me, don’t you?” He couldn’t get much harder for her.

Monica’s fingers rose, hovered over his shoulders.

To push him away or to pull him closer?

“Damn you, Dante,” she muttered as her hands locked over him—then hauled him closer. Monica rose up on her toes and crushed her mouth to his.

Hell, yes.

The fire ripped through his blood at the touch of her mouth—just like before. Just. Like. Before.

Lips parted. Their tongues met. Took. A moan rose in her throat, the sound sexy and raw and wild.

His hands dropped to the curve of her ass. He’d always loved her ass. His fingers clenched as he pressed her h*ps flush against his arousal.

And, oh, yeah, no denying he was aroused. His c*ck was so swollen that he didn’t know how long he’d last once he got her out of that torment-me skirt and—

Her nails dug into his shoulders. A sweet bite, one he’d missed.

The bed. Get to the bed.

He couldn’t take his mouth from hers. Her taste had haunted him over the years. Sweet honey, rich wine. Fucking insane combination that was only… Monica.

His fingers began to hike up her skirt.

So he wouldn’t last long the first time. The second, he’d make it up to her. The second, he’d have her screaming and twisting as she came against him. Around him.

The back of his hand brushed against her panties. Soft, silky panties. She’d always been so wet, so hot.