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  In the old tradition, Micah was as good as his word, which was his bond. If he had said he’d show up somewhere, then he’d show up. Unless something really dire had happened to him, preventing him from keeping the appointment.

  And if that was the case, had this “dire something” happened because of his chosen occupation, or was it somehow tied to what Micah wanted to tell him about the murdered women?

  Since there were no answers right now, why should he make himself crazy? Hawk thought. There was already enough of that going on. His mind reverted back to his last exchange with Carly in the school yard.

  Damn but this land, which was cruel and hard on everyone, had somehow been good to her. She’d lost weight, he’d observed. Just enough weight to make her hauntingly beautiful, not enough to make her appear weathered and worn.

  There was no justice in the world, he thought. If there was, he would have found her off-putting and frazzled, with a pack of little kids squabbling at her feet.

  But that, he reminded himself, would have meant that someone had to have been with her. Touching her. Making love to her. And that would have clearly torn him apart.

  Was this any better? he silently demanded. Seeing her and finding out that he still wanted her? Maybe more than ever?

  His cell phone began ringing. It took him a couple of rings to extract it from his pocket again. Glancing at the number, he realized that he was still nursing the hope that Micah would turn up as mysteriously as he’d vanished and call back.

  But the caller wasn’t Micah, it was Boyd Patterson, one of the three special agents he’d recruited for this mission.

  “Bledsoe,” Hawk snapped as he answered his phone. In return, he heard a high-pitched noise on the other end, followed by static and then a voice that sounded as if it actually belonged to an extraterrestrial attempting to make first contact. “Patterson?” Hawk asked dubiously. Other than the caller ID on his screen, he hadn’t heard anything to correctly identify the person on the other end of his squawking phone.

  In response to his single word question, Hawk heard more static, now joined by an ear-shattering crackling noise.

  Civilization, he thought in frustration, was still only moderately flirting with places like Cold Plains. Full contact with the inventions of the past ten years was still a patience-trying league away.

  “Listen, I can’t hear you,” Hawk finally said into the phone, raising his voice in case the reception on Patterson’s end was better than what he was hearing on his. There was no point in continuing to try to make out what, if anything, was being said on the other end of this call. “If this is Patterson, I’m about fifteen minutes out and heading back to the cabin. Stop draining the damn battery and turn your cell off for now. Maybe you’ll have better luck using it later.”

  With that, Hawk ended his call and instead of putting the cell phone back into his jacket pocket, he tossed the small smartphone onto the passenger seat, leaving it within easy reach in case a miracle happened and decent reception actually put in a public appearance for more than a ten-second spate.

  The phone remained silent for the duration of his trip.

  It wound up taking him less than the promised fifteen minutes to reach the secluded cabin. He’d already been here a number of times to check out its accessibility as well as to ascertain just how much visibility was available from within the cabin. He wanted no surprises—just in case he and his team needed to make a stand here.

  To the untrained eye, the modest little cabin looked like the perfect getaway home, a place where a busy executive might take off for a few days to unwind and become one with nature.

  What it didn’t look like was a place where four FBI special agents were conducting an investigation into Samuel Grayson’s comings and goings, his land holdings as well as the “investors” he had brought along with him. All this while actively maintaining surveillance on the man and his main residence.

  The cabin’s rustic appearance suited Hawk’s purposes just fine.

  Though there was no one in the area, Hawk left nothing to chance and was not about to drop his guard or grow lax. He parked his vehicle behind the cabin, out of sight. The other three agents, he noted with approval, had already done the same. If someone did happen to drive by in the coming days, nothing out front would arouse curiosity or create the need for speculation.

  Walking into the three-room cabin through the rear door he’d had put in, Hawk was instantly enveloped in a warm, welcoming scent. One of the agents was cooking. Unless he missed his guess, the agent was making stew. The tempting aroma reminded him that he hadn’t really eaten today. Seeing Carly again had thrown him off and killed his appetite. Things like food and eating had temporarily been banished to a nether region.

  But now hunger returned, barreling through him with a vengeance. He could hear his stomach growling, making demands.

  He passed the agent who had been on the other end of the unsuccessful call. Special agent Boyd Patterson looked as if he was currently at his wit’s end, trying to coax a little cooperation from his Bureau-issued laptop.

  “Smells good,” Hawk commented, nodding toward the tiny kitchen in the rear.

  The other agent barely glanced up. “Rosenbloom bought supplies,” he explained, preoccupied. “He figured since we’re going to be stuck here, he might as well make us all something decent to eat.”

  Hawk smiled, nodding his approval. “Knew I brought him along for a reason.” Then he raised his voice and called out to the rear of the cabin, “Someday you’re going to make some woman a wonderful wife, Rosy.”

  Lawrence Rosenbloom paused momentarily to stick his head out of the alcove. The tall, thin special agent had initially trained to become a world-class top chef before he’d succumbed to the enticing, so-called promise of adventure and excitement while in the service of his country.

  He took his superior’s comment in stride, firing back, “I’d be careful what I said, Bledsoe. When I worked at a famous five-star restaurant in New York, I saw servers spit into the food they were bringing out to customers who irritated them.”

  Hawk nodded, as if this revelation was news to him. “Any of these customers have a gun?” he asked the other agent mildly.

  Rosenbloom went back to slowly stirring his creation. “Can’t say that I ever saw any.”

  “Therein lies the difference,” Hawk told him, his voice still incredibly friendly. “I have a gun. I ever catch you even thinking about doing what you just said, I’ll use it.”

  “Point taken.” Rosenbloom grinned. “Guess that makes this a standoff.”

  “Guess so,” Hawk agreed.

  “So?” Patterson interrupted impatiently. He wasn’t one of those types who regarded camping as something even remotely recreational. He preferred skyscrapers to grass every time. “Did you find out anything?” he asked with interest.

  Yeah, I found out I’m still in love with Carly Finn even after all these years. I found out I’m not the robot I thought I was. And it sucks!

  Out loud, Hawk replied, “Yeah, I found out something. I don’t know why Samuel Grayson came in with his men and bought up huge chunks of property, but he’s managed to turn the whole damn town into the movie set straight out of The Stepford Wives.”

  Patterson blinked, trying to follow what he was being told. But Hawk had lost him with the reference. “The what?”

  “It’s a cult classic,” Rosenbloom’s disembodied voice came floating out of the kitchen alcove. “All the wives in Stepford were brainwashed into being obedient and subservient to their husbands. They moved around the town like a bunch of smiling, mindless robots.”

  Temporarily pushing back from the table and his computer, Patterson grinned. “Sounds great. Where do I sign up?”

  “Spoken like a man who hasn’t been married,” the third agent, Stephen Jeffers, a twenty-year veteran both of the Bureau and marriage, remarked. There was a note of pity in his voice.

  Taking a momentary break, Rosenbloom left the s
tove and walked out into the main room. “If that’s all you want out of a relationship, Patterson, get yourself a dog from an animal shelter. Me, I like intelligent conversation and a woman with some proven fighting spirit.”

  The grin on Patterson’s face turned wistful as he allowed his mind to drift for a second. It was a general known fact that Rosenbloom’s wife was not just intelligent and feisty, she was exceedingly sexy, as well.

  “Spirit sounds good,” Patterson agreed.

  “Right about now, anything sounds good to him, Bledsoe,” Rosenbloom explained as he turned back to the meal that was almost ready. “I think he’s getting cabin fever.”

  Patterson had been the last of the four of them to arrive here.

  “After only twelve hours?” Hawk asked incredulously. They hadn’t even gotten their feet wet yet. And while he was hoping that he could find enough evidence to quickly wrap up the case, he was too realistic to pin his hopes on that.

  “Doesn’t take long,” Patterson volunteered. “You forget, I’m a city boy. What the hell do people do around here for entertainment—besides watching paint dry and grass grow, I mean.”

  “I don’t know about ‘other people,’” Hawk told him, “but you’re going over anything we can find on Samuel Grayson. That includes his background from the minute he was born as well as the people he’s associated with since then.”

  Patterson glanced toward the front window, and Hawk could almost read the other man’s mind.

  “And under no circumstances,” he went on to warn, “are you or Rosy or Jeffers to go into Cold Plains. Strangers stand out like sore thumbs there. I don’t want Grayson getting it into his head that I didn’t come alone.” They didn’t have much going for them, so this at least gave them the element of surprise if they needed it. Every little bit helped.

  “What about supplies?” Rosenbloom wanted to know. “I can’t make this stew last for more than a couple of days, Hawk.”

  “No one’s asking for the miracle of the fishes and the loaves,” Hawk replied, walking into the alcove for a moment. He nodded at the stove. “Where’d you get those?”

  “Little town thirty miles south of here,” Rosenbloom answered. “Hadleyville, I think it was called.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar to him. “Then that’s where you’ll go to get anything else. Cold Plains is full of grinning zombies. I could use a little leverage on my side, and it looks like you three are going to be it.”

  “Zombies?” Patterson questioned with a touch of confusion.

  Hawk snorted. “They might as well be. From what I saw, they look like the only thoughts they had in their heads were the ones put there by Grayson.”

  “Is everyone on board with this guy?” Patterson wanted to know.

  “That’s what I intend to find out,” Hawk answered, then added with a grin, “After I have some of Rosy’s stew, of course.”

  “Coming right up, Fearless Leader,” Rosenbloom sang out. The next minute, he walked into the living room, using a makeshift tray he’d created out of a board of wood to carry four bowls of hot stew.

  The warm meal didn’t quite wipe away the cold, tight knot that had formed in Hawk’s stomach the moment he had seen Carly, but he had to admit that it did help. Some. At least he now felt ready to face the very definite possibility of seeing her again.

  Chapter 6

  A week went by.

  A week involving what turned out to be mostly painstakingly fruitless observations and smoldering, growing frustration. Though he would have been the first to say he’d severed all ties to Cold Plains, the truth was that Hawk did not like what he saw happening within the town he’d once called home. The more he watched, the more annoyed he became.

  He grew more convinced that, at the very least, Samuel Grayson was out to line his own pockets at the expense of the weak-minded sheep who had so easily fallen under his spell. It was as if they had no backbone, no will of their own.

  He continued to try Micah’s number at least once a day, with the same frustrating results. Micah wasn’t picking up and he was nowhere to be found.

  Hawk’s bad feeling continued to escalate.

  He and the three special agents who comprised his team went on gathering information both on Grayson and on anyone in the man’s employ. They relied on both covert, firsthand observations as well as doing intense research as they went over old records and current databases.

  Every night, before he finally returned to his hotel room in town, a hotel room he was certain Grayson had bugged, Hawk would find himself driving over to the farm where Carly still lived.

  The farm that had come between them because she had remained to operate it for her father and sister, and he had left to find his true destiny.

  All the other nights, he had just driven past it, glancing to see if the lights were on.

  They always were.

  But tonight, tonight was different. Instead of continuing on his way, he’d stopped. Not slowed down as he’d initially intended, but stopped dead. He turned off his engine.

  Hawk leaned back in the driver’s seat, willing the knots out of his shoulders. He told himself that he was here because he had questions for her. Questions about what was going on in town. Questions that pertained to the five murdered women.

  After all, if she hadn’t left town, hadn’t moved on in all this time, who better to talk to about Cold Plains and the changes that had taken place than Carly? She was an observant woman, she should have insight into these things. The fact that he’d had feelings for her shouldn’t matter.

  Shouldn’t.

  But it did.

  Because he still had feelings for her. He hadn’t realized just how much or how strong until the second he’d seen her a week ago.

  Hell, the whole damn world had just stopped dead on its axis, freezing in place. The only sound he’d heard for a split second was the sound of his own heart banging against his rib cage, fit to kill.

  So much for telling himself that he was over her. That he would ever be over her, for that matter.

  Hawk squared his shoulders. Well, he wouldn’t get any questions answered like this, sitting inside his car, watching darkness creep in and surround her house.

  He allowed anger to get the better of him. It got his blood pumping, and that, in turn, forced him to get out of the car.

  She’d been home for over half an hour now. That was how long he’d sat out there, watching the house. Debating his next move.

  He’d followed her from the school, where she’d remained far longer than her students had. Though he told himself not to be, he had been consumed with curiosity about what she was doing and what had kept her there until almost seven, practically four hours after parents and school buses had shown up to transport students back to their homes. Was she grading papers? Talking to other teachers?

  Spending time with Grayson?

  A flash of something hot, unwieldy and unreasonable shot through him. Hawk refused to identify or put a label on it. Jealousy was for other people, not him. Certainly not now.

  For a second, he focused on Grayson. He knew that Samuel Grayson and Micah, his missing informant, were twins, and at first glance, the two men did look alike. But while Micah was a natural for his chosen line of work, a methodical, keenly observant man of few words who could terminate a man’s existence with a minimum of moves, Samuel was outgoing, gregarious and not only played up but relied on his looks.

  No matter how you dressed him up, Samuel Grayson still reminded him of a snake oil salesman. And from what he’d heard, Grayson actually was selling something. Grayson had his people collecting, bottling and preparing half liter bottles of “healing” tonic water.

  The water in question came from the creek behind the community center. Legend had it that the water had immense healing powers and that, some said, it actually had some of the elements of a fountain of youth in it, as well.

  Bottles of this “healing water” were placed on sale—“offered” at
twenty-five dollars a pop—in the community center. The water that flowed in the creek was no longer available to the citizens of Cold Plains except through Grayson. He had seen to that, buying the land on both sides of the creek and turning it into private property.

  Not only were bottles placed on sale independently, but they were also on sale at the weekly seminars that he gave. Regular attendance was mandatory if those in his flock wanted to remain in good standing with both Grayson and the rest of the “community.” Purchase of the bottled water was mandatory, as well. And with each purchase, Grayson’s coffers became a little fuller.

  The man had a hell of a racket going for him, Hawk couldn’t help thinking. He could understand how a lot of the people who lived here had gotten ensnared. They’d been trapped by dreams of well-being and contentment that Grayson seemed to be able to market so effortlessly. The people of Cold Plains had had so very little to cling to, and Grayson dealt in hope. Albeit unrealistic hope, but when a person was truly desperate, any hope was better than none at all.

  That was their excuse, he thought, dismissing the other citizens he’d seen herded into Grayson’s “meeting center.” But what was hers?

  Carly had never been a woman to wallow in self-pity or one who allowed herself to be sidelined or defeated by dwelling on worst-case scenarios. When they were growing up, she had always been the one to buoy him up, to make him feel as if he could put up with it all, because there was a better life waiting for him—for them—on the horizon.

  Granted she’d dashed it all by telling him that the one thing he had clung to—that she loved him—was a lie. But even that wouldn’t explain why she had been transformed from an independent, intelligent young woman to an obedient, mindless robot.

  He couldn’t have been that wrong about her, Hawk told himself.

  Finally climbing out of the car, Hawk resisted the temptation to slam the door in his wake. Instead, he merely closed it, then strode over to her front door—just the way he had done so very many times in the past.