The killing game, p.22
The Killing Game, page 22
“Hey Dad, I’ll be up in a couple of hours. And I’m bringing Stacy.”
She decided to tell him, not ask him. You don’t have to ask to bring family home.
“That girl with the loser parents you take care of?”
“You could put it that way.”
“All right. I’ll have Malcolm make up the spare bedroom. Why haven’t you brought her up before?”
Alexa blinked. “Um, just too busy I guess.”
“Well, look forward to meeting her. See you in a bit.”
* * *
A couple of hours later, Alexa and Stacy pulled into the ranch outside Bumble Bee. The dogs came to the gate to bark their heads off as usual, and they could see her father sitting on the porch. He gave a lazy wave.
“I’ll get the gate!” Stacy said, leaping out of the truck like she had been to the ranch a thousand times. The dogs ran up to her, but she didn’t show any fear and soon they stopped their barking and started wagging their tails and leaping up on her playfully. She unhitched the gate, petted them all, and Alexa drove slowly in.
Dad stepped down from the porch as Alexa parked.
“Where’s Wayne and Malcolm?” she asked.
“Wayne is out back preparing the barbeque. Malcolm is at his meeting.” Alexa’s father turned to Stacy, who was just walking up after closing the gate. “You must be my daughter’s stable girl. She’s told me a lot about you.”
Stacy stood up a little straighter. “That’s right, Mr. Chase. I take care of Smith and Wesson while she’s out hunting bad guys.”
“No need for that Mr. Chase stuff. Call me Uncle Fred. Now I bet you’d like to see our stables, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure! Alexa says you got seven horses.”
“We do, and we got a mare about to foal. Let’s go take a look.”
Alexa pulled out their bags. “I’ll put the things away and say hi to Wayne while you two get acquainted.”
Dad looked at her. “Staying long?”
Alexa shrugged. “I’ll need to get her back to school for Monday.”
“Then you’re coming back here to rest, right?”
Alexa looked away. “Well, I haven’t really given it much thought.”
Dad walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “You should. I want you to. And if this half pint kid is as good a stable girl as you say she is, she can come back up next weekend too. In the meantime, I think you and I have a few things to work out.”
He looked her in the eyes as he said this, something he rarely did, and squeezed her shoulder.
“All right, Dad. I’d like that.”
They hugged. After a moment, her father pulled away, embarrassed. Then he turned to Stacy. “Well don’t just stand there gawking, fill up that bucket over there at the hose and let’s bring the horses some water. You want to hang out at this ranch, it’s going to cost you some work.”
“OK, Uncle Fred.”
Stacy ran to fetch the bucket and Dad ambled off, following her.
Alexa chuckled and carried the bags to the porch. After she mounted the steps, she looked out over the familiar front yard, the dogs lolling in the dirt, the line of her family’s pickups, and the broad open desert stretching as far as the eye could see.
Yeah. This is where I should be for the next couple of weeks, with my screwed up but loving family and adopted family. This is where I belong.
Her phone rang. She put down her bags and checked the number. Marshal Hernandez.
Uh-oh.
“Hello, sir.”
“Deputy Marshal, I just wanted to congratulate you once again on your excellent work on the Drake Logan case.”
“Thank you, sir,” she replied, immensely relieved he hadn’t called with bad news.
“Have you started your vacation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now I want you to take off those two weeks, and I mean the full two weeks. You’ve more than earned it. While you’re relaxing, I do have something I’d like you to think about.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“I was speaking with Deputy Director Sandford of the FBI this morning. He was equally impressed with your performance. He spoke with the people upstairs and they think the collaboration was a success. They want to take it into the midterm and they think you and Agent Barrett would make the perfect team.”
Alexa blinked. “You want us to be partners?”
“For a little while at least. There are a number of open cases that we feel an interagency collaboration might help solve. Many of them are here in the Southwest so it wouldn’t involve a move, at least not for you.”
“And what does Agent Barrett think?” Alexa asked.
“He’s already agreed to come over in the short term, although he said he wanted to discuss some things with you first.”
“Oh.”
What things? Probably a list of demands like “be a real partner,” “don’t run off without telling me,” “don’t get me on the five o’clock news.” Those sorts of things.
Sane things, in other words.
“So give it some thought,” Marshal Hernandez said. “We have some big cases that could use your touch. There are serious ones, though, with some of the worst criminals the region has ever coughed up. It’s going to be tough.”
“I’d like to do it if he’s willing,” she said, her assured tone matching her feelings.
“Oh, you don’t need to answer now. You can have a few days to mull it over.”
Alexa thought of Stuart and how brave he had been in the field, how concerned he had been about the victims, and how his keen mind had solved several of the problems they had faced.
He wasn’t Robert Powers, but then again neither was she.
Neither was anyone.
“I don’t need to mull it over, sir. I’d like Agent Barrett as my new partner.”
Alexa hung up, picked up the bags, and carried them inside. She dropped her own bag in her old bedroom, the one she’d known her entire childhood, and looked around.
Home.
She was home.
NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!
THE KILLING TIDE
(An Alexa Chase Suspense Thriller—Book 2)
THE KILLING TIDE (An Alexa Chase Suspense Thriller—Book 2) is book #2 in a new series by mystery and suspense author Kate Bold, which begins with THE KILLING GAME (Book #1).
Alexa Chase, 34, a brilliant profiler in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, was too good at her job. Haunted by all the serial killers she caught, she left a stunning career behind to join the U.S. Marshals. As a Deputy Marshal, Alexa—fit, and as tough as she is brilliant—could immerse herself in a simple career of hunting down fugitives and bringing them to justice.
But with her last case a big success, the FBI and the Marshals have decided to make their joint-task force permanent. Alexa, reeling from her own traumatic past and her PTSD of hunting serial killers, has no choice: she will now have to work with an FBI partner she dislikes and hunt down serial killers whose jurisdiction intertwines with that of the U.S. Marshals. Alexa finds herself forced to confront the thing she dreads the most—entering a killer’s mind.
Two federal judges are murdered, and startling evidence points to the work of a serial killer with a vendetta. But the judges have tried and convicted hundreds of people over their long careers, and with the suspect list a mile long, Alexa is in the race of her life to find the killer before he kills another judge on his list.
And when the next victim offers a shocking twist, it throws everything Alexa thought she knew into doubt.
Is this truly a vendetta? Or is this killer far more diabolical then he seems?
To find this diabolical killer, Alexa will have to do what she fears most—enter his twisted mind, before he can strike again. It’s a life-and-death game of cat and mouse, and it’s winner takes all. But will the darkness swallow her whole?
A page-turning and harrowing crime thriller featuring a brilliant and tortured Deputy Marshal, the ALEXA CHASE series is a riveting mystery, packed with non-stop action, suspense, twists and turns, revelations, and driven by a breakneck pace that will keep you flipping pages late into the night.
Book #3 in the series—THE KILLING HOUR—is also available.
THE KILLING TIDE
(An Alexa Chase Suspense Thriller—Book 2)
Kate Bold
Debut author Kate Bold is author of the ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER series, comprising three books (and counting).
An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Kate loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.kateboldauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.
BOOKS BY KATE BOLD
ALEXA CHASE SUSPENSE THRILLER
THE KILLING GAME (Book #1)
THE KILLING TIDE (Book #2)
THE KILLING HOUR (Book #3)
Kate Bold, The Killing Game
