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A Voice in the Dark
Jenna Ryan
A Voice in the Dark
Jenna Ryan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u1597f2e0-75aa-53a2-8208-3150b06fa833)
Title Page (#ub9e9157e-41a4-59a2-8453-a48db694ed33)
About the Author (#u070e4c07-ba16-548f-a102-e9cbfaea2899)
Prologue (#u5d038a1b-80bd-50d0-a320-449511e8ef13)
Chapter One (#ucbfda67c-7989-5857-90a8-5a643fc1b042)
Chapter Two (#ua5fa3bb4-d771-5988-9f2c-e852431eecdb)
Chapter Three (#u3fb27d23-b61d-58c1-b8b9-2346cf04b1e9)
Chapter Four (#u3cfe1659-70d9-5fe3-bfa1-7dba738576f6)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
JENNA RYAN loves creating dark-haired heroes, heroines with strength and good murder mysteries. Ever since she was young, she has had an extremely active imagination. She considered various careers over the years and dabbled in several of them, until the day her sister Kathy suggested she put her imagination to work and write a book. She enjoys working with intriguing characters and feels she is at her best writing romantic suspense. When people ask her how she writes, she tells them, “By instinct.” Clearly it’s worked, since she’s received numerous awards from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. She lives in Canada and travels as much as she can when she’s not writing.
To Merlyn. Keep fighting, sweetheart. Win or lose, we’ll always love you.
Prologue
“Who are you?” The man on the dock frowned. “You said it was urgent. You told me…” His voice flattened. “You lied.”
“I did. But you love, so you believed. You were vulnerable. That’s how I succeed. Love is joy. It’s also pain. Which emotion we experience depends on the person we love.”
A cruel north wind blasted the man from behind. His muscles tightened beneath his overcoat. His hand crept toward his pocket.
The person opposite smiled. “There’s no point trying to be subtle. I can see you have a gun.”
The man’s fingers balled.
“You know, for such an educated man, you strike me as rather stupid. Still, I don’t really expect you or anyone to understand. It doesn’t work that way in my case.”
A knife blade appeared out of nowhere to press against the man’s throat. He made a choking sound and froze.
“Maybe not quite so stupid after all. But an unfortunate victim just the same.”
“Why are you doing this?” the man whispered. “Can’t I at least know that?”
“I already told you. Love is pain.”
“Which you’re going to inflict.”
“Unfortunately.”
Before the man could react, the knife shifted. The blade slashed.
Blood spurted, a steaming red fountain of it.
The man jolted and clawed. He tried to grab the knife, as if that would help. He staggered forward in an attempt to run.
But he was dead, and he knew it, even if he didn’t know why.
When the job was done, the man’s killer stood back. A measure of sorrow crept in and, yes, pity. But no second thought. No regrets.
The time for waiting was over.
It had begun. Again.
Chapter One
A dockyard in Boston
Wind whipped the rain-soaked body of the forty-something male who lay prostrate on the pavement. Two pennies, one shiny, one dull, sat on his closed eyelids. Even so, FBI agent Angel Carter thought he looked shocked, as if he couldn’t believe he was dead.
Behind her, a Boston police officer made notes and muttered. About the federal presence, Angel imagined. Or maybe he didn’t like the traditional “time of death” pool taking place around him.
“Four hours,” one of the patrols said.
“It’s forty degrees,” another argued. “Factor in the wind chill and we’re talking thirty or less. The guy’s stiff and blue. I’ll go under three.”
Their voices swirled around Angel’s head like the stinging pellets of rain. She studied the corpse and waited patiently for the official pronouncement of death.
At length, the medical examiner stripped off his gloves and blew on his hands. “Someone sliced him up real good, Angel.” He pointed. “Opened the carotid artery, which is why you’ll find a diluted stream of blood from the dock halfway to your place. Guy’s big and well built. Probably put up a fight, but only with one hand. He was trying to stem the blood flow with the other.”
One of the uniforms leaned in. “How long d’you figure, Doc? I’m in for three and a half hours.”
“Joe’s the one who puts the stamp on the time of death,” Angel reminded him.
“I only confirm that he is in fact dead.” The medical examiner signaled the ambulance attendants. “And this one definitely is. Has been since a minute or two after the knife sliced his neck.”
Angel had trained herself long ago not to let a victim’s facial expression affect her. Easier to focus on the wounds.
As the ME left, Angel’s eyes followed the gash on the victim’s neck. “It’s a jagged slash. Either the killer had an unsteady hand or the victim was struggling. Second thing makes more sense.”
Uninterested, the uniform moved off. Another pair of boots sloshed in. The woman wearing them hunkered down. “The victim’s name is Lionel Foret. Forty-two years old. Officially, he lived in Boston, but his work appears to have taken him between here and DC.”
“Government?”
“So his soggy credentials say. State Department. Bergman might know more by the time we check in.”
“He has the look of a politician. Or a lawyer. Whatever he is, Bergman barked at me to get down here, and in the year and a half I’ve known him, he’s never barked.”
“Ditto.” Liz fingered the man’s coat. “His clothes say major money, but with the exception of his driver’s license and a few credit cards, his wallet’s empty. My guess is he was rolled by a junkie.”
The skin on Angel’s neck tingled, as if an army of invisible ants were marching across it. She glanced behind her. “Do you feel something, Liz?”
“Other than waterlogged?”
“I think we’re being watched.”
FBI agent Elizabeth Thomas blew out a steamy breath. “Any thief desperate enough to slice a guy in this weather won’t be hanging around to observe the cleanup crew. He’s long gone and probably high as Franklin’s kite by now. Which is why we’ll nail him before first light.”
“If the perp’s an addict.”
“Okay, it’s an assumption, but my money’s on the easy answer this time.”
Sensation, like a finger stroked across the back of her neck, sent a shiver of reaction down Angel’s spine. “Okay, this is way too weird.” She whipped her head around, but saw only shadows behind the fish processing plant. “Someone’s back there.”
Liz rose with her. “I promise you, Angel, there’s no one. We told the cops to secure the area, and they did. All shadows duly checked, all boxes on the list ticked empty.” She nudged her partner’s high-heeled boot with her toe. “Maybe your brain’s starting to freeze. You’re not exactly dressed for this weather.”
“I was at a play when Bergman called.”
“Lucky you. I’d just settled my toddler into bed and was thinking about streaking my hair for the holidays. Can you believe Thanksgiving’s only three weeks away?” She squinted at the threatening sky. “It seems like summer just ended.”
“Apparently you turned Rip Van Winkle and slept through last week’s blizzard.”
“That was a freak storm.”
“That was six inches of snow the last week of October. Normal for Juneau, but in Boston I expected a glorious New England fall, up to and hopefully through Thanksgiving. Didn’t get it last year, and so far this one’s a rerun.”
“Write to the Tourist Bureau. They print the brochures.” Liz ran her fingers through her short blond hair. “Was the play good?”
“The first act was.”
Although she scanned and rescanned the darkness, nothing moved except the rain, currently being driven sideways by a gale-force wind that gusted in hard from the water.
And still the sensation persisted, a featherlight breath on her face, then along the line of her cheek to her throat.
Liz nudged her again. “We need to get inside. You might have grown up in Alaska, but I’m a Corpus Christi girl and highly susceptible to wet rot. I swear on my nine years of federal service, there’s no one and nothing back there.”
One final hint of warm, and suddenly it was only the wind on her cheeks.
Angel shook her head. “Weird,” she murmured one last time. But she had to admit as the victim’s body was prepped for removal, that despite the unsettling aspect, the sensation had felt strangely like a caress.
Completely sensual, and in an instant, completely gone.
HE WATCHED HER from the narrow walkway that split the old processing plant in two. She’d sensed him. He’d seen it in the way her eyes cruised the shadows, as if she’d known more than rats and cockroaches lurked within them.
Suspicion had come first, followed by speculation. Then, when the feeling persisted, impatience.
In unguarded moments, Angel Carter wore her emotions on her face, her incredibly beautiful face. Those same emotions added an element of intrigue to her already exotic features…
And he was thinking like a man obsessed.
Still, he didn’t move, didn’t let his gaze waver. Didn’t mean he missed the body at her feet, but he’d seen that already, before she’d arrived.
“Someone’s back there, Liz…”
He heard the determination now, and his lips curved. He should go, leave her with partner and corpse, let her draw her conclusions and see where they led.
Icy rain slid along his neck beneath his upturned collar. The man in black. The man who lived in the dark. A phantom. That’s how people described him. He didn’t care. Phantoms could slip in and out undetected.
Except, apparently, by an Angel.
When her partner set a hand on her arm, he knew it was time to vanish. He’d done what he’d come to do. Now it was her turn.
The shadows shifted as the ambulance arrived. He allowed himself one last look, then disappeared into the heart of them.
