You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,112

come across him with the items he’d lifted for a particularly grisly case in San Francisco, where a serial killer had actually run a stake through each of his victims’ hearts, as if he thought they were vampires. The killer had been insane, of course, but Astrid, upon finding her husband’s tokens from the victims, had seemed genuinely alarmed before collecting herself.

“You’re crossing a dangerous line here, darling,” she’d said in a tone of amusement tinged with worry as she’d entered his den, a glass of wine in one hand. “You’ve got your little ‘treasures,’ just like the killer with his souvenirs, yes?” She’d eyed him curiously as she’d slung a leg over the corner of his desk, then picked up an earring from one of the killer’s victims. Rubbing it between her manicured fingers, she added, “This isn’t just unusual, you know. It’s freaky. And vastly illegal.”

He hadn’t said anything, just watched her from his chair.

“You could lose your job.” She eyed him over the rim of her glass, her short, sun-streaked hair catching in the light from his desk lamp.

Not if I don’t get caught. Not if you don’t rat me out.

“Or they could . . . send you away, to a psych unit. When you add this to that trance thing you do—how did you describe it? getting into the victim’s or the killer’s head?—I’m telling you, you’re one step away from the loony bin.” He’d felt his jaw grow so tight it had ached, but he hadn’t said a word. “Oh, well, it’s your funeral, I suppose. Just, please, don’t take me with you.”

Wouldn’t dream of it, “darling.”

“Face it, Brett, you’re disturbed. Deeply disturbed.” She’d dropped the earring back onto his desk and made a sour face. “Some secrets are better kept locked away.” Tapping a fingernail on the desk’s surface near the bow from a patent-leather shoe of another victim, her green eyes glinting, she’d said, “This isn’t a game, you know. It’s your life. My life. Our life.”

And she’d been right, he thought now.

He’d wondered over the intervening years if, indeed, it was a game with him, getting away with something.

Or was it a deeper psychological anomaly?

Whatever the reason, tonight he was undeterred. He swiped a paper towel across his face and hands, then tossed it and the wrapper into the trash.

In the dining area, he took a seat at one of the bar stools and started the ritual.

First, he picked up Megan Travers’s necklace, fingering the delicate links and looping it between his fingers, touching the small, glinting cross dangling from the chain. Closing his eyes, he waited for an image to come. To feel her. To sense her emotions.

He thought the images would come slowly, but he’d been wrong.

In a sudden burst, a kaleidoscope of pictures of Megan flashed behind his eyes: Seated at her desk in the clinic, fingering the cross nervously. Talking on the phone, rapidly, heart pounding. Worrying about . . . an unborn baby? Hopeful? Or not?

Was she pregnant?

Rivers felt a bit of her joy, her anticipation. And something else. Worry? Or disappointment?

Concentrating, he forced his thoughts to the night she disappeared, to her confrontation with James Cahill.

Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing.

And there she was—Megan panicked and furious, running through her apartment.

I’ll kill him. I will. I’ll kill his cheating ass!

She kicked off her shoes, banged a toe on the corner of her bed, swore, and then stopped short. I’ll make him suffer. All of them. I’ll just leave and not tell him where I’m going. Make him miss me. Make them all miss me! What about Rebecca? And Mom?

“Like they ever cared.” She said the words aloud, her toe throbbing. Mom has her own life. Dad doesn’t give a shit, and Rebecca . . . well, she’ll get by. Besides, she’s never forgiven me for stealing James away. She’ll be glad if she thinks I’m dead . . . that’s it. They’ll all think I’m dead. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when they realize I’m gone. But I can’t give myself away—they have to expect to see me.

She ran to the living room to scrounge in a drawer for a pen and notepad, then jotted out a quick note on the coffee table, stripped off the page, and tossed it into a bag. Still angry, she changed out of her scrubs, taking off her necklace and dropping it onto the edge of her dresser, where she’d left a drawer open. And