If only she'd come to him sooner. If only he'd forbidden her from riding along on the stakeout. If only.
"There's Brandon," Lily added, watching the young man step out of Alec's car. "I wonder what he was able to find out today."
"We'll know soon enough."
Brandon had remained in his office all day, looking for information on Dr. Roger Underwood. He'd intended to start from the man's birth and work his way forward, using public records and private mentions that turned up on the Internet. Anything that would help build a picture of the man, something they could use to figure out who his accomplice had been. They had to know who had gone on a murderous spree to try to incriminate Lily. Had there been someone else at the shack where he'd imprisoned her? The homeless man who'd ridden with Underwood to the house where the sting had been set up back in January hadn't mentioned another person being involved. But there must have been someone else. Otherwise, why would someone be trying so desperately to find out whether Lily had survived, unless he believed he himself could be identified?
It was possible the plastic surgeon had hooked up with another pedophile along the way. Perhaps someone he'd met in Satan's Playground, or on some anonymous Web site where deviant minds shared their twisted fantasies. Someone he trusted, whom he could call for help after everything had gone south. Having backup would certainly explain how Underwood had been able to fake his death, crashing the van off the bridge, and yet get all the way back to the beach where he'd left Lily.
Wyatt just wished Lily remembered more, but she swore she couldn't. It wasn't too surprising, really, given her injures, the blood loss, and the drugs Underwood had shot her up with. When she did focus all her energy on filling in the blank places in her mind from that week, she usually descended into shivers, mumbling about the pain, the fear, and the cold. Here and there would be snippets of conversation with Underwood, words he'd used that she would repeat. Not much else. The only other person she ever mentioned was the ghost of her sister, her only companion on that long night when she waited for Wyatt to come for her, not even certain her call for help had actually gone through.
Of all the moments she had endured, those were the ones that most haunted him. The torture, the pain, Underwood's taunting, they hadn't broken her. But he strongly suspected that in those dark, cold, desperate hours, she'd come as close to breaking as a person ever could.
"They're at the door," Lily said, watching him curiously. He'd been so lost in thought, he hadn't even heard a knock. "Ready?"
"Yes," he replied. "Are you?"
Her throat quivered as she swallowed hard, as if working up her nerve. "As I'll ever be."
This would be an ordeal, he had no doubt, but it wouldn't be as bad as she expected.
"Don't worry," Wyatt said. "They're on your side, Lily. We're all on your side, watching out for you. We have your back. And not one of us is going to leave you unprotected until this is all over with."
How was he supposed to kill the fucking bitch when she was surrounded by ail those people?
Jesse hunkered down lower behind a hedge at the side of a house a few doors up from Agent Wyatt Black-stone's house. Though he wasn't one hundred percent certain Lily was in there, it sure seemed to make sense. His benefactor, and new best friend, said she'd been spotted at the place, and there'd been enough strange activity to make it likely.
Jesse didn't know what he had done right in another life to deserve his secret helper. Helper-hell, more like a guardian angel. Because not only had he gotten the warning phone call, but it had been followed up with a text message, sent right to his fancy new cell phone. Attached had been a grainy picture of a woman with short dark hair. Supposedly Fletcher had changed her look when she'd been hiding. Thank God his anonymous friend had been worried enough to hire somebody to stake out the FBI agent's former coworkers and friends. Without this picture, he might have walked right past Lily on the street and not even recognized her.
Now he couldn't miss her. And just as soon as he had a chance to take her out, he wouldn't miss her.
The neighborhood was an older one, with fully mature landscaping and dim old streetlights, so he felt pretty confident that his hiding place would conceal him from any prying eyes. The yard in which he'd hidden was overgrown, out of place in the upscale neighborhood, a For Sale sign out front. A peek in a window confirmed the house was empty. It was a perfect hiding spot, totally private and hidden from view. Unlike Blackstone's house, which had been in Jesse's sight for three hours, since just after sunset.
He'd seen them arrive, two by two, those FBI agents in their dark blue suits with their matching tough-guy expressions. Bastards. Like they were so much better than him? They were criminals, too, weren't they? Covering up for a woman who'd faked her own death, helping her get away with murder, they obviously thought they were above the law.
And Lily Fletcher was a murderer-of that he had no doubt. Jesse shivered, though not because it was getting chilly as the evening wore on. No, his very blood was cold, and it had been since he'd gotten that second call from his mysterious friend today. The unnatural, altered voice had spoken quickly, barking panicked words about how, incredibly, this morning's dire warning had appeared to come true. Somebody had shot down that Will Miller guy, Jesse's own alibi, right in the street. Shot in the back like a dog, left to bleed to death in front of his own grandkid, according to the coverage on the local news. What a sick, sick world. And his anonymous friend believed Lily Fletcher was the person who had done it.
There could be only one reason-because Miller had helped him, Jesse, get out of prison. The coincidence was just too great for it to be anything else. The only person who would go into a murderous rage over Jesse's release was Fletcher.
"Psycho whore," he whispered.
The FBI agent had apparently gone off the deep end. Now, having taken Miller out, she would almost certainly move on to him. Who else was there to target? As his benefactor had said, Jesse had to get her before she got him.
He had a sudden thought. Damn. He'd been in such a panic to get over here and start figuring a way to get at her, he hadn't paused to warn the second person who'd done so much for him lately. Glancing around the quiet yard, to make triply sure nobody could possibly be watching or listening, he risked pulling the phone out of his pocket. He dialed the number Ms. Vincent had given him, but got a machine. Not wanting to leave an incriminating-type message on a voice mail, like, you're-in-danger-but-I'm-gonna-kill-the-bitch-before-she-can-get-to-either-of-us, he merely muttered, "It's Jesse Boyd. Call me back; it's important," and hung up.
Before he even had time to put the phone away, it rang. But the information on the caller ID wasn't Ms. Vincent's name-the caller was unidentified.
He knew what that meant.
Yanking it open, he whispered, "This is Jesse."
"Are you all right?" the machine-voice asked.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm outside Blackstone's house."
"And?"
Frustrated and tired of lying on the cold ground, he mumbled, "It's been pretty quiet. A bunch of FBI agents showed up a while ago and they've been inside ever since. I can't even get close enough to see if a dark-haired woman's in there, much less if she's Fletcher."
"She is," the voice said. "I am sure of it."