There might have been. He just didn’t know.
“You’ve already admitted you wouldn’t be that hard to find if somebody really looked. And he is somebody who would look.”
“So he looked and he didn’t like what he saw.”
“Exactly.”
She sat with her head down, letting the truth of it fill all the doubting corners of her mind.
He wished he didn’t have to remove that doubt. Would give anything if Sam could go on thinking ugliness like she’d seen in the past few days really wasn’t so close to her, so intricately entwined with her normal life.
Neither of them had the luxury of denying the truth.
“You’re right,” she finally whispered.
She wrapped her fingers in his and let him help her from the car. Once outside, she didn’t release his hand, as if needing to keep him close. Only when they walked into the building and approached security did she let go and step away.
A few minutes later, inside the elevator, Alec jabbed the button, watching the doors close. When they were alone, he turned to her. Pure adrenaline and worry had been driving him since the minute he’d heard her message. Now, inside a safe zone, he finally allowed himself to let it go. He also resisted the urge to put his hands on her shoulders, not sure whether he most needed to hold her close or shake her like a kid who had run out in front of a car for scaring him the way she had with that message and by then turning her phone off.
“When am I going to be able to go home?” she asked.
“When he’s in custody.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why me? How in the name of God did I attract the notice of this psycho?”
“I don’t know what drew his eye to you.” He rubbed his temple to try to ease the pounding. “It could have been anything. Ryan Smith could even have said something about you warning him before the Professor left him to die.”
Grief visibly plunged into her, making her body quiver.
Jackass.
“Or he could just have been researching scams to lure his victims and found your book,” he quickly added. “Who knows why or how he first became aware of you. Once he did, though, I think I know why he stayed around.”
“Why? What possible interest could he have in me?”
“Didn’t you say that Flynt guy was interested in you because of the way you were trying to help the very people he liked to victimize?”
Nodding, she murmured, “Yes, he was. I think I amused him, in a sick way. Are you saying this Darwin is the same? That he enjoys seeing my sad little efforts to help people?”
“It’s possible. And he’s angry that you’re working with us to try to stop him.”
Alec had another, darker thought, though he didn’t share it with her. Sam was a beautiful, intelligent woman whose personality sparkled on the pages of her book and her Web site. For all they knew, the Professor might see her as someone like himself, educated and informed, not readily deceived. But someone who’d gone to work for the “wrong” side, wanting to save the very people he wanted to kill.
A man with an ego the size of the killer’s might relish the challenge of trying to change Sam’s mind. To educate her, perhaps, win her over to his way of thinking. His posts of Wednesday night, when he seemed to be trying to make rational arguments that contradicted her rant column, certainly leaned that way.
Now, though, he no longer wanted to educate her. Alec greatly feared he wanted to punish her.
“How could he know I’m working with the authorities?”
“Because he saw you with me last night.”
“You weren’t exactly in uniform.”
Far from it. But the license plate on the car he had been driving would have provided a big clue. Damn, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. His focus had been in the wrong direction. He’d been tunnel-visioned, seeing Sam’s involvement in this only as a personality, a Web site owner, not as a person who might interest their unsub.
“He has survived and gotten away with what he does by being very cautious and very thorough. He would have worked on it until he figured out who I was.”
“And me working with the FBI, you think that was what made him go from wanting to be my teacher to wanting to scare the crap out of me?”
“Yes. It angered him.”
“So he was trying to get me back for being untrustworthy. To let me know he’s out there, watching.”
He shifted his gaze. Darwin hadn’t called her untrustworthy; he’d called her a whore. “Right.”
She simply nodded, as if she’d been seeking only to understand rather than reacting emotionally. Smart woman. Smart to have been afraid. Smart now to have calmed down and assessed the situation logically.
Everything about her was so put-together. Maybe it hadn’t been when he’d first met her. There had been no missing Sam’s self-imposed isolation, the lack of confidence and the uncertainty about herself. But in the past few days, she’d thrown off those restraints. Sam had revealed herself to be exactly the kind of woman he most admired: reasonable, rational, with a lot of common sense and a quick wit.
That she was sexy enough to stop his heart and one simple kiss had sent every ounce of his blood straight to his groin just made her even harder to resist.
Alec managed to keep those thoughts off his face as they reached their floor and he led her to the office. Once inside, they headed straight for the team’s two IT specialists. “Lily and Brandon have been working on figuring out how the blog attack could have happened,” he said. “Knowing how he got in could help us find him.”
“How?”
“Let’s let them fill us in on that,” he said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. He didn’t want to discuss some of the possibilities Lily had mentioned on the phone. Like the idea that this bastard knew so much about Sam- about her personal life-that he had been able to guess her passwords.
“Everything okay?” Lily asked when they entered. “Are you all right, Sam?”
“For somebody being watched by a serial killer, I guess so.”
“It’ll be okay.” The blonde briefly touched Sam’s shoulder. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you-you have an entire team watching your back.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Got any Jack Daniel’s?” she said, with a humorless laugh.
“Sorry. But I made the coffee, not Brandon,” Lily said. “So I can promise you it won’t put your heart into arrhythmia and keep you awake for ninety-six hours straight.”
Brandon smirked. “Yeah, yeah, you just wish you had my energy.”
“Wishing for your energy would be like wishing to live inside a tornado.”
Beside him, Sam’s body relaxed as she listened to the pair go back and forth like siblings. The very normal-ness of their sniping seemed to bring the tension down a notch. Which was, he assumed, exactly what they had intended. Not for the first time, he realized how glad he was to have ended up here, with this particular group.
“Coffee would be great,” Sam murmured. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem.”
Though Alec wanted to get right back to Baltimore, something about Sam’s expression made him stay. She might like Lily and Brandon, but she’d fixed on him as a personal ally. Someone more than a law enforcement professional trying to help her.
Maybe because he’d kissed her breathless about twelve hours ago.
“Okay, Cole, show us what you’ve got. And make it good,” he said.
The younger man nodded. “You live in an apartment in Baltimore, right?”
She nodded.
“Security? Alarms?”
Sam’s face paled, and she cleared her throat before answering. “It’s a good neighborhood, though not an upscale one. As secure as an older apartment building can be, I guess.” She wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward off a chill. “Certainly not the kind of place where I’d expect someone to sit outside with a pair of binoculars, trying to watch me through my windows.”