No Darker Place. Debra Webb

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      Bobbie scowled at him. “I thought you quit smoking for good this time.” They had been partners since she’d made detective. He’d quit three times during those seven years.

      “I did—I swear,” he promised. “I need a stick of gum or a mint.”

      Bobbie shifted her purse around and dug for the Tic Tacs she carried. “The chief put me on administrative leave.”

      Her partner accepted the box of mints and shook out a couple. “Yeah, he called me.” He popped the mints into his mouth.

      The urge to kick something came and went, thankfully without her acting on the impulse. To occupy her hands, she stuffed the box of mints back into her bag, and then clutched the leather straps. “It’s my case, Newt. Miller had no right running off at the mouth—”

      “Bobbie,” he said gently, “we both know this isn’t about your pissing contest with Miller. This is about Perry.”

      She turned away from him, watched the couples and families strolling along the sidewalk. Her surveillance detail idled in a no-parking zone on the opposite side of the street. She wanted to scream. “There’s no proof the Storyteller is involved. For all we know, this could be a copycat looking to grab the headlines.”

      “Who do you think you’re talking to, Bobbie Sue?”

      Frustration knotted tighter. She should have known better than to take that approach with Newt. Foolishly she’d hoped to keep him and the whole damned department out of her private war. “Go back to your party. I should go home.”

      “Hold on a minute.”

      Reluctantly, she turned to him once more. He wore his stern face—the one her father used to wear when she’d gotten into trouble at school. Nothing too serious, just the occasional playground or lunchroom scrape. Even as a kid she was never able to tolerate a bully. Didn’t matter how big he or she was, Bobbie refused to accept the role of bystander. She had to get involved, had to stand up for the tormented and the intimidated. More often than not as a teenager, her blackened eyes had nothing to do with makeup trends.

      But you couldn’t be a hero when it counted most. The fist crushing into her chest prevented a decent breath.

      “Peterson and I were there,” Newt reminded her, “in that cabin in the woods where that bastard held you.”

      She stared at the cobblestone sidewalk, unable to look at the hurt in his eyes—the same hurt that coiled like barbed wire inside her, ripping wider the wounds that would never completely heal.

      “We took turns sitting next to your bed every day and night for weeks in that hospital,” Newt went on, despite the knowledge that she did not want to hear the words. “First waiting for you to wake up, and then for you to be well enough to come home.”

      Bobbie squeezed her eyes shut. He was also the one who gave her the news that devastated her as nothing else in this world could have.

      Jamie’s gone, Bobbie. He died three days after you were abducted. I’m so sorry. We kept it out of the news to protect you.

      Her baby was dead, and that, too, was her fault. She forced the haunting memories away.

      “I’m the one who moved in with you after you tried—”

      “You made your point.” His words were like salt grinding into those old, festered wounds. Bobbie cleared her throat of the emotion wedged there. Keeping the truth from Newt was the hardest. He deserved better from her. “Maybe the Storyteller has resurfaced.”

      “I’d say that’s a given. Peterson is worried sick.” Newt sighed and tugged his tie away from his throat. “And, frankly, so am I.”

      “You think I’m not.” She shook her head. Her partner and the chief wanted to treat her as if she were incapable of handling the pressure, much less any potential threat. If the bastard had Gwen, Bobbie had to do all in her power to find him before it was too late. “No matter how terrifying the idea is, I can’t sit on the sidelines. I need to work this case—it’s my case.”

      “What you need, girlie,” he countered, “is to be extra careful.”

      She gestured to the cruiser across the street. “I’m reasonably confident careful isn’t going to be a problem.”

      “Just promise me you’ll take every precaution until we figure this out.”

      “We?”

      “Owens assigned the case to Bauer and me. Tomorrow, as soon as my daughter and her new husband are carted off to the airport in that two-hundred-dollar-an-hour limo, we’re meeting at the office. He’ll bring me up to speed.”

      Ridiculous! She should be on this case, damn it. Newt was her partner, not Bauer’s. “How’s your wife going to take you ditching her as she watches your youngest offspring drive off into the sunset? Don’t you think maybe she’ll need your shoulder tomorrow evening?”

      “Trust me, if this wedding goes off without a glitch, she’ll take a couple of Xanax and go to bed for the rest of the weekend.”

      Bobbie rolled her eyes and heaved a big breath. “This sucks—you know that, right?” She had walked out of that hospital the last time for one reason and one reason only—to get the Storyteller. Peterson was not going to take that away from her. Of all people, her partner should understand.

      Newt stared at her for a long moment, visibly torn about what he wanted to say next.

      Bobbie scowled at him. “What?”

      “There’s someone you may want to talk to. He’s here. I’ve seen him. I didn’t want to mention it and get you upset.”

      “Who?” LeDoux, the FBI agent in charge of the Storyteller investigation, couldn’t be here already. Even if he was, Bobbie had no desire to ever lay eyes on the man again. He had purposely put her in harm’s way last year. No, that was wrong. He’d asked for her; the decision to work on the Storyteller case had been hers.

      “While you were in the hospital the...second time,” Newt explained, “a man visited you. His name is Nick Shade, or at least that’s what he goes by. You won’t remember him. He was there the last day you were in the coma.”

      She ignored the whispers that tried to intrude. “Who’s Nick Shade?”

      Newt shrugged. “I’m not sure anyone really knows. He didn’t say a lot about himself. I talked to an old buddy of mine, Dwight Jessup, up at Quantico. Jessup says the feds are familiar with him. They just don’t acknowledge him—which is code for they’re not giving the guy credit for what he does.”

      “What does he do?” Newt’s story had taken a turn toward totally confusing, and her patience was wearing thin. She felt like a caged tiger. She needed to do something besides this incessant going back and forth, accomplishing nothing at all.

      “Some call him a hunter,” Newt went on. “Others call him a ghost. Anyway, Jessup said Shade was unofficially connected to dozens of arrests. As long as he doesn’t get in their way and he’s useful, they let him do what he does without interference.”

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