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No Holds Barred

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Год написания книги
2019
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As the youngest of triplets, Duncan supposed that he’d developed that knack as a survival skill. And it had been part of what had drawn him to the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. The other part of it had been what had drawn all three of them into some kind of law enforcement—the arrest of their father for embezzlement. They’d been nine when it had happened, and Duncan still carried the image in his mind of the three of them standing in front of their mother as the police handcuffed their father and led him away. Duncan also remembered what he’d felt—a fierce kind of happiness that David Fedderman couldn’t hurt their mother anymore.

“He’s still out there,” Cam continued. “And the rest of Eleanor’s dowry has to be at the castle somewhere. You don’t want to miss out on a chance to find it, do you?”

It was Duncan’s turn to laugh. As the middle triplet, Cam had always felt the need to compete, especially with Reid, the first born. “You should try that ‘miss out on a chance’ tactic with Reid. You could always get him with it when we were kids.”

“I intend to,” Cam said. “But serving on the vice president’s Secret Service detail is keeping him hopping. Besides, the strategy will work more effectively after you find either the necklace or the other earring. Help me out here.”

“Not on your life. My philosophy has always been to not take sides when it comes to the two of you and your competition.” Waiting it out until the dust settled had always worked well for him.

“It was worth a shot. But you can’t tell me that you don’t want to find part of Eleanor’s dowry. You were fascinated by those sapphires when you were a kid.”

A brother, especially one with CIA training, knew what buttons to push. The truth was Duncan had been thinking about visiting the castle. The summer he was ten and they’d had daily playdates with the MacPherson girls, he’d spent hours studying Eleanor’s wedding portrait, and he’d memorized the legendary jewels. Two thumbnail-sized sapphires hung from each earring and one of the jewels on the necklace rivaled the Hope Diamond in size.

There was a story there that hadn’t been told. Tradition held that the jewels had been Eleanor’s dowry, but there was no record of what had happened to them until the first earring had shown up less than a month ago when lightning had struck the stone arch and loosened some stones. Someone had hidden it. Who? And why? Those were the questions that drove all of his investigations.

“So—will you go?” Cam prodded.

Duncan shifted his thoughts back to the conversation and stalled. “I thought that you and Adair had run off to Scotland to see what you could dig up about the sapphires on that end.”

“That’s our plan, but the rest of Eleanor’s dowry is at the castle. And I still think there’s something in that library that holds the key.”

Once again, he had to agree with Cam’s assessment. The security had been beefed up at the castle, and the local sheriff was sending regular patrols now.

“The air is a lot fresher up there than it is in that basement you work in at Quantico,” Cam said. “It’ll be fairly quiet. No wedding is scheduled, just a photo shoot for some fancy architecture magazine. Daryl will be visiting Vi on the weekend. The two of you might be able to get in a game of golf.”

Daryl Garnett was Cam’s boss at the CIA and he’d recently become engaged to Vi. He was also a scratch golfer. Leave it to a brother to know your weaknesses. Duncan glanced at his watch. The minutes to his tee time were slipping away.

“If I tell you I’m planning on going up there this weekend, will you go back to your fiancée and our parents and leave me alone?”

“You’ve got it, bro. My job with you is done,” Cam said, and clicked off.

It wasn’t until Duncan was stepping out of the shower a few minutes later that the second call came. And it meant he’d have to cancel his tee time and perhaps even his trip to the castle. There was a chance that the Rose Petal Killer had selected a new victim.

2

DUNCAN SHOWED HIS BADGE TO THE young uniformed officer standing on the landing of the small apartment then ducked his head to step inside. The space was small—one room where a minimum of furniture had been artfully arranged to separate the eating area from the living space. The floor between the couch and fireplace was completely covered by a white sheet sprinkled liberally with bloodred rose petals very much in the style of the Rose Petal Killer.

He’d get back to that in a moment. For now he took in the other details. A tiny kitchen was tucked into an alcove and a door directly ahead led into a bedroom the size of a closet. No surprise that the place was so crowded, considering all the people in it. Two of the men he didn’t recognize. They were carefully dusting surfaces for prints. The other two he knew on sight. They stood just inside the bedroom. One was Detective Mike Nelson, who’d given him the call when he’d stepped out of the shower. Duncan had consulted on a case of Mike’s the year he’d been hired to work at Quantico and they’d been friends ever since. The other man he recognized as Abe Monticello, whose head, like his own, was nearly brushing the ceiling. He was the reason that Duncan had missed his golf game.

Abe hadn’t called him personally; instead, he’d called his sister, who happened to be Duncan’s boss.

It had been a rough month for Adrienne Monticello. The division she commanded at Quantico had worked on the Rose Petal Killer cases, and her brother had been responsible for setting Patrick Lightman loose. Since she considered Duncan to be the division’s expert on the RPK, Adrienne had asked him to go over to Georgetown and give her his personal take on the scene. Mike Nelson had called him, too, and asked if he could stop by.

It didn’t surprise him at all that Abe Monticello had wanted the FBI involved in this from the get-go. He was a smart man and very savvy about handling the press. Someone had broken into the apartment of one of his research assistants and staged a scene that matched the romantic little sets that the Rose Petal Killer had designed for his victims. Abe would want to step into his favorite role—the white knight, charging in to save the day.

Both Adrienne and Nelson had called him because they wanted the answer to one question. Was this the work of the real Rose Petal Killer or a copycat? He imagined Nelson would prefer the former. The detective, along with everyone else in law enforcement, would like to get Lightman back behind bars.

Abe Monticello wanted the answer to be “copycat” because he’d spent a lot of time in front of TV cameras during the past few weeks speaking in defense of the legal system and the way it worked to prevent the violation of every citizen’s rights. The speech might not play so well if Patrick Lightman started murdering slender young brunettes again. Or threatening to.

Well, you couldn’t please everyone, and Duncan already had a feeling about which man would be happier about his opinion. His insights into the criminal mind were usually right. His mother had told him when he’d joined the FBI that his interest in behavioral science had begun with his trying to figure out what had motivated his father to become an embezzler.

David Fedderman had been born to wealth and privilege, but he’d abused both. In his position at Fedderman Investments, a firm that his grandfather had founded, he’d run a successful Ponzi scheme for years until it had collapsed and Fedderman had been arrested on several counts of fraud.

Of course, his father’s arrest and eventual incarceration hadn’t been the end of the story. His mother had had to battle Fedderman’s parents for custody, and as soon as she’d won, she’d legally changed all their names back to Sutherland and accepted a position teaching at a liberal arts college in Chicago. As to figuring his father out, that hadn’t been much of a challenge. David Fedderman had been one of those men for whom running a con and living life on a constant adrenaline rush was worth more than family or wealth. It had been worth risking everything. He was still serving time in a federal prison, and Duncan would have bet good money his father was still running scams.

Analyzing what he was seeing in front of him was a lot more challenging. The way the white sheet was spread was fairly accurate, the edges folded in to make what looked like a perfect square. The Rose Petal Killer had been meticulous about that. In the tiny room, the sheet filled most of the available space between the couch and a TV stand against one wall. Duncan dropped to one knee and caught the edge of the sheet between his thumb and his forefinger and rubbed. Then he studied the rose petals. They all looked fairly fresh.

Nelson spotted him first and walked to the back of the sofa. “Thanks for coming, Sutherland. Take your time.”

He didn’t need any more time to answer the question he figured was foremost in Mike’s mind, but he’d learned a long time ago that the information he provided would be taken more seriously if he strategically delayed the delivery. “Any sign of a break-in?” he asked.

“No. She was out for a run when it happened. Claims she locked the door and took the key,” Nelson said. “The only person who has a spare key is the woman who runs the dress shop downstairs. We’ll question her as soon as she opens up.”

The lack of evidence of a break-in was consistent with the RPK’s pattern. The widely accepted theory was that his victims let him in. But that hadn’t happened in this case.

“We didn’t find any evidence that the lock was picked,” Nelson continued. “But a pro wouldn’t have had a problem with it.”

And a duplicate key made from a wax impression was also a possibility, Duncan mused. A robbery ring recently arrested in nearby Baltimore had accessed house keys by distracting parking valets at high-end restaurants. The customers would return home after an evening of fine dining to find their houses stripped. A stalker with the patience and skills of Patrick Lightman might have used a similar method to gain access to his victims’ homes.

It was when he was replacing the edge of the sheet that Duncan spotted the thin envelope that lay just beneath. He pinched the corner of it to draw it out.

“I want to know if Ms. MacPherson is in danger,” Monticello said.

As Duncan glanced up and met the older man’s eyes, his mind was racing. “Ms. MacPherson?” Piper wasn’t a common name and he recalled that Piper MacPherson had gotten her law degree from Georgetown Law School.

“Yes,” Abe said. “She works for me. I want to know just how much danger she’s in.”

Abe hadn’t mentioned her first name yet, but Duncan was beginning to get a feeling. Then Piper strode into the room and confirmed it in spades.

He hadn’t seen her in seven years, not since they’d stood beneath the stone arch at the castle and listened to their parents exchange vows. But every detail of her appearance slammed into his mind and pummeled his senses. The slender frame, the long, long legs that extended from narrow ankles to running shorts, the compact curves, slim waist and the dark brown hair that hung in a ponytail. He’d never been so aware of a woman as he’d been the day of the wedding. Or now.

“Whoever did this isn’t the Rose Petal Killer,” she said as she walked with economical grace toward Nelson and Monticello.

The voice with its low pitch and huskiness rippled along his nerve endings. It was the kind of voice that tempted a man to come closer. A whole lot closer. He imagined the mythical sirens who’d lured sailors to their deaths might have had voices exactly like hers. Which was why he’d kept his distance on their parents’ wedding day. He’d been about to graduate from college and had his sights set on the FBI. And their parents’ marriage had made the MacPherson girls family.

“Of course it’s not,” Abe Monticello said.

“The FBI is here to determine that for us,” Nelson said.

Duncan stayed right where he was. For a moment he still needed the distance, but he knew the second she became aware of him. He could see the tension ripple through her, and even as she turned, he braced himself. Seven years was still a long time.

But as he looked into those amazing amber-colored eyes, once again he felt the impact like a blow. Desire sprang up, primitive and strong enough to nearly have him rising from his crouch. Then he felt his mind empty as suddenly as if someone had pulled a plug. All he could see was her. All he wanted was her.

For seven years, he’d tried to convince himself that what he’d felt that day was a fluke. A onetime event. And he’d succeeded in compartmentalizing it.

But he knew now exactly what he’d known then. Piper MacPherson was it for him. The only one. For seven years he’d compartmentalized that, too. He’d tried to convince himself that she was family, and that meant hands-off. But as he continued to sink into the depths of those golden eyes, Duncan had a feeling that the lids on all those compartments had been blown clean off.

“You,” she said.
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