“She’s a smart woman,” Mac pointed out, something Jethro was already well aware of. “She’ll suspect. I’ll make my decision regarding how far it goes as I see her reaction.”
Her reaction as the seduction progressed phase by phase, Jethro knew. It was an interesting conundrum, he admitted. Seducing a wife. Jethro had never done that, not within or outside a ménage.
The women he had shared with their husbands had known up front what was coming. They had looked forward to it, anticipated it. They were aware of what was going to happen every step of the way during the ritualistic dance of the knowing seduction.
“Maybe this vacation won’t be as useless as I anticipated,” Jethro sighed. “If we have the time, we can run some scenarios on that old case of yours.”
“The stalker?”
“He disappeared for a while. Showed back up about six months ago. We’ve had two attacks so far. The last one was an attempted rape. He couldn’t get dinky-doo to come to attention, though, so he just scared the hell out of his victim with threats to kill her husband, her kids, and her dog.”
After three years of silence, it was confusing why the man named by the Bureau the Playboy Stalker had reappeared in the area.
“How many victims in the past six months?” Mac asked.
“Two,” Jethro breathed out roughly. “One in Virginia, one in West Virginia, and a potential in D.C. The Bureau has a task force on him, but I don’t like what they’re coming up with. Doesn’t feel right. I believe he’s going to kill soon, Mac. The task force thinks he’s still playing.”
“He beat the crap out of the last one I investigated,” Mac said thoughtfully. “When did he go back to just threatening them?”
“He disappeared right after you left town, right off the radar. Showed back up six months ago and started fresh. He’s not following a pattern and that scares the shit out of me, I’ll tell you right now.”
“Bring what you can with you,” Mac said thoughtfully. “We’ll find the time to go over it and see what we can find out. Are there any suspects?”
“Nada. We have a profile, but even that feels more like a shot in the dark than a real analysis.”
He could almost feel Mac thinking through the phone.
“We’ll discuss it when you arrive,” he finally repeated. “I’ll expect you tomorrow evening.”
“I’ll be there.” Jethro smiled in anticipation. He wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
As the call broke off, Jethro ran his fingers through his disheveled hair and glanced at the closed bedroom door. Behind the panel his sometimes lover lay sleeping peacefully while he had sat out in the living room in the dark, staring at the door, wondering what the hell he was doing.
Janet Billings wasn’t a romantic interest, no more than he was for her. It was an itch to be scratched, and he was damned tired of just scratching an itch. Sex used to be fun. It used to be enough to still the memories ripping through his mind. Not anymore, and he had finally started facing it.
He was tired of cold, emotionless sex. He wanted more, and he wondered if visiting an old friend would provide that. He and Mac had always had the unfortunate pleasure of going after the same women. It was one of the reasons they had gravitated toward each other at Quantico and then Sinclair’s Club.
It was one of the reasons they had worked so well together in the Bureau.
He tilted his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, pulling up Keiley Hardin McCoy’s face. She looked like a pixie with her stubborn chin, angular face, and pert little nose. Golden hazel eyes, high arched brows, and a short cap of dark hair that framed her high forehead and cheekbones.
She was damned beautiful. Innocent as sunrise, as Mac used to say, and sexy as hell. He had jacked off to fantasies about sharing her with Mac for years.
Shaking his head, he straightened before rising from the chair and moved through the apartment to the bedroom. Janet was still asleep, and she slept deeply. Sliding back into his bed wasn’t a problem, and if he was aware of the fact that he made certain he didn’t touch her as he settled down to sleep, then he didn’t give it much thought.
Things had been odd for him for a while now. He was tired of the Bureau, tired of chasing damned perverts, and tired of being aimless. Maybe after this vacation he would follow Mac’s example and just turn in his resignation. His cousin had a nice little investigation company that he had been begging Jethro to join. He was thinking about it. Some nights, he was thinking too damned hard about it.
He could pick his own jobs. Pick the deranged individuals he wanted to deal with, and maybe take a decent vacation rather than a forced suspension. Usually without pay. And he could kick some ass without getting written up over it later. He’d stopped a ra**st, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like he had pulled a piddling teenager off a giggling girlfriend and beaten the shit out of him. Not that the director saw it that way. Hell, now, Director Scarborough was madder than hell that he had to deal with the fallout instead.
And maybe it was him. He knew he had been riding a fine line lately. The cruelty and horror men could inflict upon women were starting to really piss him off. He loved women. Cherished them. Thought there was nothing finer than the female mind and softly scented feminine flesh. They were a wonder. Treasures. They should be worshipped by a male hand for the pleasure they gave, never beaten, raped, or terrorized by diseased minds.
Yeah. Maybe it was time to resign. Before he did the world a favor and killed a few of them.
But first, he would go to North Carolina. Hopefully some of the restlessness would ease there, some of the darkness would find a shimmer of light in Keiley’s presence. At least, that was his hope.
He stared at the darkened ceiling, the image of her flitting through his mind with a smile hot enough to heat the sun a few degrees hotter, and warm enough to ease the ice in his soul whenever he was around her.
She scared the shit out him.