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“Liar!” the male voice snarled. “You know exactly who I am! You’ve been hunting me for too long. Now, it’s my turn to hunt you.” He laughed, but the sound was almost a giggle. “How does it feel being the prey instead of the predator?”
A cold finger of fear slid down her spine. The man sounded delusional. Standing up, she looked around, wanting a weapon of some sort. However, she’d given up her pistol after leaving the FBI. Because she traveled so much, Raven hadn’t bothered to purchase a new weapon. It was very difficult to get a pistol through airport security without a badge.
Besides, most of her clients were looking for love. Not revenge.
“Can you give me some sort of clue as to who you are?” she asked, rushing into the kitchen to find a knife. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it was something.
“If you’re too busy hunting people that you can’t even remember who is on your list, then no, I’m not giving you a clue!” he yelled, rage making him stutter.
Raven mentally sifted through the murderers and rapists that she’d helped hunt with the FBI over the years. But none of the suspects sounded like this guy.
“Okay, so…what do you want from me?” she asked, running back to the bedroom and pulling on her jeans from yesterday. She put the guy on speaker phone as she finished dressing.
“I want you to die, Raven Markley. And I want your death to be slow and painful.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” she replied, trying to ignore the shiver of fear. Her previous training kicked in and she stuffed her weight into her shoes. Unfortunately, she was wearing flats and not sneakers, but they were better than nothing.
“Perhaps this will be more enticing,” he snapped, regaining control of his temper. “Meet me at the post office on Waldrop Street in fifteen minutes, or your boy toy dies!”
Raven’s throat closed and she looked around, desperate to see Tim. “You have…?”
The door to the apartment opened and in walked Tim, looking sweaty and relaxed. He’d obviously just finished a long run, and he smiled when he saw her.
But at her expression of panic, he froze, staring at her. He opened his mouth to speak, but she put a finger over her lips, signaling for him to remain silent.
“Of course I have your man,” the caller replied, sounding confident now.
Definitely delusional, Raven thought, making a sign for a pen by scribbling in the air.
Tim moved over to a desk and tossed her a pen, then pulled a piece of paper from the printer.
“Can you tell me the address again?” she asked. “I’m not familiar with all of the post offices in the area.”
“Look it up!” the man yelled. “And you now have thirteen minutes. Get here or your lover dies!”
The call ended just as Raven started to write out a message.
She grabbed the phone and looked at the number, writing it down as she dialed Brock’s number.
“What’s going on?” Tim demanded, standing with his hands on his hips.
She lifted a finger, asking him to wait a moment. Brock answered on the first ring, but she heard the sleep in his voice.
“Brock, no time to explain much. But your guy just called me. He thinks I know who he is and he threatened to kill Tim if I didn’t show up at a post office on Waldrop Street in,” she paused, looking at the time on her phone, “twelve minutes.”
“Where’s Tim?” Brock answered, all sleep gone from his voice now.
“He’s right here with me. He’s not in danger. But do you know who this guy is? I thought that you were going to use one of your agents as a decoy. That obviously didn’t work.”
“Nope,” he grumbled. “Hemmind had already left your parking lot by the time the agent had driven over there. The man’s name is Mike Hemmind. He’s a computer science engineer that used to work for a government consulting firm out of Arlington, Virginia until about a year ago. We’ve been able to link ten killings to him so far, but there might be more and we don’t have any physical evidence on him yet. One of them was just last night.”
“Great. What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” Brock replied. “Stay hidden. We’ll handle this.”
“Not a good idea,” Raven argued, already grabbing her purse and checking for her keys. That’s when she remembered that Brock had picked her up from the airport last night. Another agent had driven her car back to her apartment. So, she didn’t have a car!
Turning, she looked up at Tim. But he appeared just as stubborn about her staying put as Brock sounded.
