h.e.l.l, he'd have f.u.c.king felt better if she had just slammed the door. She wouldn't have had to slam it hard. Just a little bit. Just enough to indicate whatever it was she was feeling that clouded her turquoise eyes and hinted at the shadows filling her.

What the h.e.l.l had Wayne done to her over the years? How had he managed to take the feisty, too-willing-to-fight little fairy-girl that had stolen Crowe's heart and dim the glitter of life that filled her?

She was more sensual, more heated, and filled with a hunger he couldn't always identify. She was all woman, and responded to his touch like no other woman ever had. As though she waited, every moment of every day, for him to just touch her.

But there was something else in her gaze, too. A loss, a hunger he simply couldn't determine the cause of.

A secret.

Rubbing at his jaw and narrowing his gaze on the door, the answer came to him slowly. Those were secrets shadowing her eyes. Emotions, yes. A pain and loneliness that went soul-deep. But there were also secrets that added to that pain and loneliness. Secrets he obviously hadn't yet uncovered.

Just as he had yet to get her to admit to the abuse Wayne had inflicted on her. Years of bruises, broken bones, unexplained "falls," and uncounted days missed in her job as Wayne's personal a.s.sistant.

Added to that were four months she'd all but disappeared from the face of the earth after he'd left seven years ago. She'd remained in Corbin County nearly six months, quieter, less impulsive and daring than she'd been before they had become lovers.

Several women who worked in the courthouse with her had told the investigators Crowe had sent out that they had come upon her several times, certain they'd caught her crying. She would recover quickly, though, they'd reported, leaving them uncertain if it had been quiet sobs they had heard or not.

Then one day, she just hadn't come into work.

Even Wayne had been confused, then-several days later when she hadn't returned-concerned. For weeks, he'd been furious, it was reported. The young woman who had filled in for Amelia in those months had often heard Wayne arguing with her furiously on the phone, demanding she return.

She hadn't returned until days before she was scheduled to leave for college that next summer, nearly a year after Crowe had left.

Drawn, more delicate than normal, shadows hollowing her eyes, she had walked into the dorm room she and Cami Flannigan shared and explained to her friend that she'd just needed time to think. Too many things were out of her control, she'd told Cami, and her relationship with Wayne, she had explained, had become too confrontational. She'd needed to escape and had known that if Wayne found her, he'd drag her back before she had figured anything out.

The instances of bruises and "accidents" had been adding up at the time. Crowe had guessed she had disappeared in an attempt to escape Wayne, only to have him find her and do just that, drag her back.

Cami had agreed, even thought that Amelia had returned of her own volition, determined to finish college and reluctant to leave Corbin County for some reason.

Now Crowe wondered exactly what had been going on. Even his security investigators had been unable to figure out where she had been and what she had been doing at the time. And they were the best in the business. If they couldn't learn the truth, then there was no truth to learn in most cases.

Amelia had them stumped. And now she had him stumped as well.

If there was one thing Crowe couldn't abide, it was being in the dark where information was concerned.

Information was power, and it was protection wrapped into one neat, tidy little package that could never betray a man. Something had happened in the four months she was gone, something that had changed her even more completely than Crowe's desertion had.

He needed to know what that something was, he decided. This feeling he had that she was hiding something, that something stood between them, was driving him insane. And it was concerning him. If Amelia had secrets, that meant there was something more out there that he wasn't prepared for if she needed protection from it.

And that he wouldn't abide.

Protecting Amelia was all that had ever mattered.

CHAPTER 12.

The next day dawned bright and sunny, though wicked cold, without a cloud in the sky. A rare enough sight for Corbin County as they headed into the beginning of November.

Locking herself into the family room with a querulous demand that she not be bothered, Amelia even went so far as to drag out the brightly colored sketches and plans for the social events and waited.

An hour pa.s.sed by before the first security guard checked in on her. Twenty minutes later Crowe peeked in and quickly exited as a sharpened color pencil flew unerringly in his direction. She waited another hour and a half before Crowe quickly checked on her again before ducking to avoid yet another pencil as he slammed the door closed.

She had, at the very least, an hour.

Sliding the metal plate she'd found earlier from the pocket of her jeans and hurriedly pulling a hip-length insulated leather coat from inside the cushioned stool in front of the easy chair, she moved to the wide double doors and made good her escape.

She slid the thin metal plate in against the door alarm box Crowe's men had installed to alert them to the doors opening, quickly opened the door, stepped out, then closed it quietly. A grin tugged at her lips when the alarm remained silent. Pulling on chocolate-colored leather gloves, she kept close to the house until she reached the corner, then slid quickly across the twelve-foot span between the house and small garden shed.

The gate to the iron fence surrounding the property was there, the alarm box on it causing her to grimace in irritation, but it didn't stop her. It hadn't stopped her when she was younger and Wayne had installed alarms around the perimeter; it wasn't going to stop her now.

She reached the gate, mentally patting herself on the back for having dressed in jeans and low hiking boots.

The snow was still deeper here. The storm that had rolled in several nights before had dumped more than a foot and a half of snow in Sweetrock, and triple that amount in the higher mountains where Crowe's cabin was located.

The resort the Callahans planned on Crowe Mountain would definitely get enough snow for its projected ski slopes.

Stepping up on the old woodpile against the iron fence, she managed to get her foot on the upper rail before pulling herself up, balancing for a moment before dropping to the snow-packed ground on the other side.

She landed with legs bent, one hand catching her as she tilted forward. A smothered giggle escaped as she glanced back to the house and stuck her tongue out at the balcony doors she'd slipped from.

She straightened quickly, but remained crouched enough that the five-foot evergreen hedge in the neighboring yard hid her presence. Not that the neighbors would have cared if they saw her. Old man Hershaw actually used to keep an old wooden box on the other side of the woodpile Amelia used, seven years before.

He'd caught sight of her one night when she'd slipped from the house, after wrenching her ankle on the jump from the top of the fence. The next evening a long, wide box had been set against the fence, making it far easier to get back and forth. Until then, the climb back over the fence had been h.e.l.l.

She would have thought Crowe was smart enough to consider the fact that she was beginning to feel like a d.a.m.ned prisoner. He was the one who'd taught her how to trick the little alarm boxes back then, and how to avoid the cameras Wayne had placed outside.

Stepping from the Hershaw property to the front walk, she drew in a deep, freedom-drunk breath and started down the sidewalk quickly.

The house was only four blocks from the center of town. A good little walk, she'd always called it. She could walk to work in the summer in heels if she wanted to without limping as she reached the courthouse.

She wasn't wearing heels now, and her stride was deliberately quick as she moved for the center square, a near acre of gra.s.s, grottoes, small ponds, a large corner band gazebo, and a bricked dance square.

Wayne had actually pet.i.tioned once to use half the square for what he claimed was desperately needed county offices and businesses. He'd also pet.i.tioned to hold the socials two weekends a month and only during the summer months rather than spring, summer, and fall as had been the case since their inception.

Each time the vote had come up, his proposal had been soundly voted down, despite the hours of debate and veiled threats he'd made against the city council. The truth had been that the socials had no doubt cramped the fair-weather weekends he used to practice killing innocent women.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Her fists clenched as she shoved them in the pockets of her coat and tipped the lower part of her face into the wide collar to take advantage of the remnants of body heat.

The temperatures were already dipping in the valleys, and the snow was piling up quickly. Sweetrock was located in a sheltered valley, protected by the mountains rising all around it, so snow didn't melt as quickly as it did in the larger cities. Corbin County's population might be growing by the year, but the city council tended to ensure that Sweetrock itself didn't grow as quickly. It retained its small town size and charm, while still growing enough to keep it from becoming a modern-day fiefdom that would eventually end up a ghost town.

She loved the county and the small town she'd been raised in. She might have hated the necessity of dealing with Wayne, and the frustration of being unable to prove he believed he had murdered her mother, but it hadn't been Wayne that had really concerned her. At least, she hadn't known it was Wayne.

Every waking moment, every breath she took, and every dream she had centered on trying to figure out who the Slasher was and how to catch him. She had her own secrets to protect, secrets the Slasher could have destroyed her with rather than just killing her.

Crossing over to Main Street and striding up the brick walk to the west side entrance, Amelia didn't pay much attention to the three men stepping from the bar across the paved street. They were paying attention to her, though, and they were determined to show her they were paying attention.

Crowe opened the door into the family room only ten minutes after the last pencil had been launched in his direction and only barely restrained the furious curse that would have sizzled the air.

"Malone!" He barked out the team commander's name into the ear set he wore, throwing open the door with such a vicious push that it bounced.

"Malone," the answer came less than a second later, the deep baritone of Rory's voice alert and in command.

"She's gone," Crowe snapped. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h, she's either been taken or escaped herself, but she's gone."

"Mike, run cameras," Rory commanded, obviously having sprinted for the small room housing the cameras and other security hardware they used. "Zoom in on the family room balcony doors. Team One, foyer," he barked into the link, "ASAP. Armed and ready for off-property search. Crowe, she slipped from the patio doors to behind that garden shed and the pile of wood I told you we should move," Rory continued him, his tone cool. "She made her way to the front walk along that line of hedges on the neighboring property and then the cameras lost sight of her approximately five minutes ago."

Rory was obviously on the move if the slamming of the security door was any indication as he muttered. "Mike was f.u.c.king sleeping."

Crowe checked the clip of his weapon quickly as he stepped back into the foyer to face the five hard-eyed agents of Team One. Lifting his gaze, he watched as Rory came down the stairs two at a time.

As though his presence was a signal, the other five moved quickly for the door as the black Brute Force Denali came to a quick stop at the front of the house.

The driver rushed from his seat, leaving the door open before quickly moving into the backseat. The remaining four agents rushed along the front walk, spreading out and heading toward the town square at a running pace.

Taking the driver's-side seat, Rory had the vehicle in gear before Crowe had the pa.s.senger-side door closed.

"How did she bypa.s.s the doors?" Rory's voice was calm, controlled.

The younger man had come into his own in the past year. Leadership and control had settled on his shoulders like a second skin.

"I'm not sure, but I have a pretty good idea." Crowe grimaced. "I just never expected her to try to escape. I taught her how to bypa.s.s the door alarms from the inside when she was sneaking out of the house seven years ago to meet me. I suspect that if I check the alarm box on the doors, I'll find a thin metal plate between them, tricking the system into believing the door was closed as she opened it."

"Mike should have caught her slipping from the house to the garden shed," Rory stated, his tone calm-but Crowe could hear the furious undertones. "I want him off my team, Crowe. Immediately."

Crowe gave a short, firm nod. "Contact Ivan once we find Amelia and have it taken care of."

Pausing at the first intersection leading into the square, Crowe and Rory both cursed viciously. The vehicle was thrown into park and they were running up the street at a brief glimpse of honey-streaked brown hair and pale skin amid three large male bodies.

The worst was about to happen.

The moment she actually paid attention to the three brothers exiting the pub, Amelia knew she wouldn't be able to evade the coming confrontation.

Dwight, David, and Dillon Carter had been a pain in the a.s.s since the day she'd caught Dwight cheating off one of her tests in high school and reported it to the teacher.

She hadn't studied her a.s.s off for a month to ace that end-of-semester exam so Dwight's lazy a.s.s could steal the answers from her and pa.s.s a cla.s.s he didn't deserve to.

"Well, if it ain't little Miss Sorenson." Dwight's sneer was the first indication of trouble.

The second was the three male bodies suddenly surrounding her and blocking the view from the tavern they had exited.

"Dwight, don't make me tattle on you again," she warned him wearily. "You know Crowe Callahan will make mincemeat of you and both your brothers."

"Crowe ain't dumb enough to f.u.c.k you, b.i.t.c.h." Dillon slurred the words, obviously having had too many drinks at the pub to remember that she had never, not even once, been caught lying.

Sober, all three of them would have been smart enough to know that accosting her would get them in a world of hurt if she was telling the truth. They would have backed off at that point.

Drunk, though, they didn't possess so much as a single brain cell among them capable of thought.

It didn't make them necessarily dangerous, but it did make them unpredictable. And that was nerve-racking for Amelia, even though she'd never heard of any of them actually hurting anyone. Certainly in the eight years since that test she'd ratted Dwight out on, they had never hurt her.

Of course, that was before any of them had known who and what Wayne was.

"He could be." David, normally the smartest of the three, proved this wasn't a good day for him. "I would."

They all laughed uproariously.

"David." Amelia addressed him rather than the other two, hoping that itty-bitty spark of good humor he usually had would come into effect if she treated him as though he were sober. "You don't want to make Crowe hurt you, do you?"

Staring back at her, David struggled to focus bleary, alcohol-dazed eyes.

"Why would Crowe hurt me?" he asked, rubbing at his jaw in confusion as he looked at his brothers. "Did we do something to Crowe?"

"She says Crowe's f.u.c.kin' her. She thinks he's gonna get mad if we bother her," Dillon answered, weaving a bit as he looked at his brother with a smile wide enough to show the missing tooth Crowe had knocked out of his head ten years before.

"Naw, Crowe won't f.u.c.k her." David shook his head with all seriousness. "He don't like it when his f.u.c.ks get killed by her daddy. He wouldn't f.u.c.k her 'cause her daddy might kill her."

"Yeah, he wouldn't f.u.c.k you." Dwight's dirty finger poked at her shoulder, nearly knocking off her feet and no doubt leaving a bruise.

"That hurt, Dwight," she said sharply, wondering how three men who were so d.a.m.ned laid-back and serious when they were sober could get so ignorant when they were drunk.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Dwight jumped back, his expression at first contrite before it creased in sudden thought and turned belligerent. "Who cares it hurt? That dumb-a.s.s daddy of yours killed our aunt. I think you owe us."

Great, just what she needed, for a brain cell to actually spark and attempt to work as it drowned in booze.

"Yeah, you owe us," Dillon informed her, stumbling just a bit as they began moving in on her. "He killed our aunt. Raped her and cut her heart out. I think we gotta rape you now, and cut out your heart."

The heart in question began racing in fear as she stared at them, backing up as they moved in closer. They were too drunk to be predictable. The fact that they wouldn't mean to hurt would be zero comfort if they actually managed to do so.

"Yeah, get us some of that." David grinned with drunkenness. "And then get her heart. We'll split her heart, too."

"David, I would never hurt you." She focused on the brother considered to be the easiest of the three to get along with. "And I didn't hurt your aunt. Why would you hurt me?"

"'Cause your daddy hurt us," David answered her somberly, so intently Amelia found herself suddenly, horribly afraid they could indeed carry out their threats. "He killed our aunt, Amelia, and you know we loved her."

Their aunt had indeed loved them. She had helped raise them, spoiled them, and mothered them when their own parents had taken very little time for them.

The three brothers moved for her as one then, reaching for her, trapping her as she attempted to turn and run. They surrounded her, the scent of alcohol, old sweat, and anger overwhelming her senses. The people she had once fought to protect now longer cared if she was protected.