“Yes.” Claire’s voice was quiet. “He targets survivors. Women who fought abusers and stalkers and lived.”
“Agent Dawson survived an attack fifteen years ago,” Vivi said gently, giving him a pointed look.
The words hung in the air.
Garrett’s hand tightened on his arm.Don’t react. Don’t let her see you know.
But Vivi continued to stare, saying nothing else. Giving him an opening. The psychologist in her hadn’t been happy about him wanting to keep it a secret. She’d told him that disassociating from his younger self wasn’t healthy.
To him, it seemed like the healthiest decision he’d ever made.
Claire focused on her screen, sharing the profile she’d been building on the main one. “He’s not just killing to satisfy some primal urge. He’s proving a point.”
“Which is?” Garrett asked, even though he already knew.
“These women survived once. He’s showing them—showing everyone—that they’re not as strong as they think they are.” Her voice was clinical, detached. “It’s about correcting what he sees as failures. Women who should have died but didn’t.”
He held in the anger rushing through his veins. “He’s punishing them for surviving?”
Claire looked at him. Really looked. Something shifted in her expression. Recognition, but not the kind he feared. Understanding. “Yes. Exactly.”
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Two people who understood what it meant to hunt monsters. Who knew the weight of survivor’s guilt.
Then Garrett looked away.
“Or,” Vivi said. “The three women are proof that he can control things. He could be trying to prove to Claire specifically that he has the cunning and smarts to deliver justice. That he can outsmart her and the FBI. It’s personal to him, and he wants Claire to be scared. To fear him.”
Garrett dropped his hands to his sides. Fisted them. “Agent Dawson, we need to discuss security protocols.”
She didn’t argue, sitting back and nodding. But the next twenty minutes were a negotiation, anyway. She pushed back on every restriction. Garrett held firm on most of them.
“You don’t leave the compound without me,” he said.
“I’m not a prisoner.”
“You’re a target. There’s a difference.”
“I’m in Montana. He’s in D.C.”
“You can’t let your guard down.”
He laid out the rest of the rules. No outside communication except through secure channels. Check-ins every two hours if they weren’t in the same room. A guard would be posted outside her quarters at all times.
He pulled out a tracking unit the size of a nail head. “I need to attach this to your shoe. In fact, I need your entire wardrobe.”
She looked scandalized. “For what?”
“First, to make sure you don’t have any trackers on you, and secondly, to attach ours in case the worst-case scenario happens and you go missing.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
He stared at her, stone cold.
Her hands flew up, and she rolled her eyes. “These protocols are excessive and restrictive.”
“Three women are dead. Excessive and restrictive are appropriate.”
“The stalker doesn’t know I’m here.”
