The Stronghold. Lisa Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ on your head.”

      “I hate-hate-hate you, Alex Torres!” she screamed.

      “So you’ve said before,” his voice thickened. “Three . . . I warned you, Pia.”

      “And I told you,” she scrambled to her feet, unlocked and jerked open the door. “To stop calling me—”

      Caught off-guard in the middle of ramming the door, Alex’s momentum carried him over the threshold. He barreled into her. She shrieked.

      The both of them reeled backward in the grip of gravity.

      Wrapping his arms around her, Alex pivoted, and turned. He—they—landed. His back took the brunt of their fall.

      The breath knocked from her lungs, her head collided with his. Alex’s lips brushed across her cheek. Her nerve endings jolted from more than the force of the impact.

      She pushed at his shoulder. “Get off me, Alex.”

      Manny poked his head inside. “You two okay?”

      “He’s got a hard head,” she grunted. “He’ll be fine.”

      Alex massaged his forehead. “I’m not the only one.”

      “You can let go of me now, Alex,” she huffed.

      His gaze flitted from her eyes to her mouth and back again. “I could . . .” He tightened his one-armed hold around her waist. “Letting go works both ways, Pia.”

      Both arms locked around his neck, she reddened.

      She planted a hand on his stomach to leverage herself and shoved. He let out a whoosh of air, groaning. Rolling off him, she stumbled to her feet.

      Using the tub for support, Alex hoisted himself upright. His eyes flicked to the bloody towel, and then his gaze fastened onto the mirror. He went rigid.

      Manny frowned. “Mia. Did you write that, Auntie?”

      Her attention fixed on Alex’s reflection. “No,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”

      Alex’s face underwent a kaleidoscope of transformation. From thin-lipped shock to lip-curled rage.

      Manny’s eyes enlarged. “Somebody broke in?” His head rotated as if an intruder lurked in the corners of the bathroom. “Who, Auntie? What does ‘Mia’ mean?”

      “It means . . .” Her eyes dropped to the floor. She couldn’t bear to see Alex’s expression. “That the Wicked One has found me. Again.”

      ***

      This couldn’t be happening.

      She sounded so resigned. Beyond fear. As if somehow she’d known all along, the beast from whom she’d barely escaped would find her again. As if deep inside she’d always known she’d never truly outrun him.

      Alex scrubbed his hand over his face as he made the call for the team to do a forensic sweep of the break-in at Pilar’s. Perhaps the serial killer had for once left traces of his identity. Justice was long overdue in this case. He’d been hunting this particular monster for three years.

      He checked the rest of the house. “Let me know if you think anything appears missing.”

      With careful instructions to disturb as little as possible, he herded Manny to his bedroom while Pilar got dressed. She emerged, head down, eyes on the tips of her regulation shoes and headed for the kitchen. “Okay, if I make coffee?”

      It gutted Alex to see how she wouldn’t—couldn’t—meet his gaze. As if her admission of what happened so long ago shamed her so completely.

      “The team would appreciate it, I’m sure. But Pilar, this invasion wasn’t your fault. Nothing that happened was your fault.”

      He stuffed his hands inside his trouser pockets. What he wanted was to take her into his arms and soothe every hurt she’d ever suffered.

      But he knew better. Comfort wasn’t something she’d accept from him. Least of all from him. She hated him and rightly so. What happened to her—the reason she fell into this devil’s hands—had been his fault entirely.

      The long sleeves of her uniform shirt hid the telltale scars on her arms. From his brief glance in the bathroom, old scars except for the recent cut.

      She removed the coffee grounds from the refrigerator and scooped several tablespoons into the coffeemaker. “Excuse me . . .” She edged past him in the tiny galley kitchen to fill the carafe with water.

      He backed against the countertop. His hand went to the silver chain he always wore underneath his shirt. His fingers rubbed the black volcanic rock against his flesh.

      “You already knew it was the same perpetrator, didn’t you, Alex.”

      Not a question, a statement.

      She shut off the water. “How did you know?”

      Alex folded his arms. “By the marks he leaves.”

      She sagged against the sink. “You knew about—?” Her shoulders slumped. “I thought—I hoped—no one else knew what he did to me.”

      “We believe you were his first victim, Pilar.”

      “I’m nobody’s victim.”

      She poured the water into the coffeemaker. “You think he was still perfecting his MO and that’s why I managed to escape.” She started the coffeemaker.

      “Manny told me about the nightmares. Probably your mind’s attempt to deal with the trauma.”

      Pilar’s mouth hardened. “I believe psychiatrists call it ‘delayed onset post-traumatic stress.’ ” Her lip curled. “Not that I’ve spent much time with them. Talking about what happened is the last thing I want to do.”

      “I thank God every day you escaped.”

      “God?” She whirled, the familiar defiance in her eyes. “What’s God ever done for me?”

      The chip-on-her-shoulder Pilar Alex knew and loved. The broken Pilar undid him.

      She jutted her hip. “That’s why you came home, isn’t it? You think if I remember everything you’ll catch this monster.”

      “He’s left a trail of bodies from New Mexico to Arizona. And the ones he didn’t kill outright . . .” Alex swallowed. “Once he gets them over the border, they simply disappear.”

      She glared at him. “You banked on the fact he’d come looking for me.”

      Alex blew out a breath. “Fact is, Pilar, we suspect he’s never stopped looking for you. The others—his sick attempts to replicate you. Finding you, I fear, has been his obsession.”

      Her mouth twisted. “The one who got away?”

      “The only one who ever got away СКАЧАТЬ