“Opposites?” Raider snapped. “You’re exactly alike. You’re both stubborn, crazy as shit, total rebels. There’s nothing opposite about you.” He downed half of his beer, his hand steady on the glass, tension sparking the air around him. “You both require a calming influence, whether you realize it or not.”
Whoa. That was a lot of emotion from Raider Tanaka. Hunter kicked back in his chair, studying his brother. Was there something about this Brigid? “I’d really like to meet this woman.”
“Me too,” Faye said, reaching down to pet the dog between his ears. He snuffled in pure contentment. “Tell us more about her, Wolfe.”
Wolfe looked at Raider, seemed to think it over, and then shook his head. “Not my place.” He scratched his elbow. “And I don’t need a calming influence. I’m calm. Always calm.” He even said the words calmly. “I’ve found ways to exist in this world. Lattes help, so long as they have sprinkles. The sprinkles make all the difference.”
Lattes and sprinkles? Hunter really wanted into this guy’s head. It was impossible to determine whether Wolfe was serious or just messing with all of them. Or somehow both.
Angus gave Raider a look that promised a later discussion before drawing out a folded map and pen from his back pocket. “It looks like your perps were traveling along Interstate 40 and have now moved to parallel Interstate 90, taking back roads.” He drew a line along the roads. “Louise, at least, is hitting convenience stores and small restaurants out of the way but still along the route.”
Faye nodded. “I’ve conducted a comparison of the places Louise has robbed so far. All small, not part of any chain. Mom-and-pop-type places.”
“Could be just because many of those don’t have up-to-date security,” Hunter said, his attention caught as Kat jumped out of Wolfe’s pocket and hit the ground. He straightened to save the kitten from the dog, but nobody else moved.
Wolfe looked down. “Kat likes Roscoe. They’re buddies.”
Hunter angled his head to see better, and sure enough, Kat jumped on top of Roscoe’s back, dug in his claws, and settled down for a nap. Roscoe didn’t even twitch or open his eyes. Freaking weird. All of them.
Faye studied the map. “I’m thinking Louise is just being smart, but in that background information from Dana, it does say that Louise grew up in a small town where her father was a mechanic. Let’s get some info on her mother. I doubt it has anything to do with locally owned stores, but let’sdouble check.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Force said, standing up. “Wolfe?We have to go.”
Wolfe snagged the kitten with one hand and slid him into his pocket before standing. He looked at Raider. “You need me, you call me.”
Raider nodded. “Ditto.”
It was nice to see Raider had found a place. The place might be a disaster, but Hunter would solve that later. Then Wolfe looked at him. “You think Dana would go out with me? I’ve never dateda journalist.”
Hunter shrugged. “I don’t know. You could always askher, I guess.”
Wolfe smiled big before focusing on Faye. “You’re Raider’s, so you’re ours now, too. Call, and we’ll come running.” He looked over at the dilapidated helicopter. “Probably. I mean, we might die in that thing first.” With that, he bounded over the fence and strode away, not looking back.
Angus Force nudged his dog with one boot. “I’d better get to the helicopter before Wolfe decides he wants to pilot it. Roscoe. Move, now.”
The dog groaned, stood, and licked Faye’s hand before turning and leaping over the fence as gracefully as had Wolfe.
Force rolled his eyes, clapped Raider on the back, nodded at the rest of them, calmly opened the gate nobody else had bothered to use, and headed forthe helicopter.
Raider sighed. “It’s amazing any of us are still alive.”
Wasn’t that the truth? Hunter looked at the map. “On that note, let’s get on the road.”
* * * *
Faye stretched out in Raider’s rented SUV as Hunter drove and Raider worked his phone, coordinating with federal agencies from the passenger seat. They were somewhere in South Dakota. She flipped on the overhead light as nighttime fell again. Frustration tormented her. There were too many small convenience stores and restaurants along I-90 to even guess which one Louise would hit next. Why was she killing people when shedidn’t have to?
Faye spread out the pictures of the victims so far. Men and women—all different ages. There wasn’t a pattern. Louise was just killing to kill.
Thatwas a pattern.
“This isn’t what I studied in school,” Faye mused, reading over another hospital report.
“We’ll have a profile from my unit’s shrink in a couple of hours,” Raider said, looking over his shoulder. “But I don’t think there’s much we haven’t figured out already. Louise had a bad childhood, a bad marriage, and she’s trying to recapture a happy time byusing Jackson.”
Yeah, that about summed it up. “She’s robbing for money and killing for pleasure,” Faye said, shaking her head. “It’s rare for a woman to be a serial killer, but she’s getting off on the power.” Which meant that she’d felt helpless a lot in her young life. None of that, however, was an excuse for killing, or committing statutory rape. “You all know this doesn’t end well, right?”
Hunter nodded, his hands steady on the steering wheel. “We’ll try to bring her in alive. If she lets us.”
