Knocked Out Read online

  It rocked, didn’t it?

  She brought her thoughts back from the personal and focused on finding the creep terrifying this woman. Then she could get back to that husband.

  And figure out what was going on with his sister. Something was up with FBI Barbie, there was no doubt about that.

  The woman had letters that were somewhat stereotypical of stalkers, though she was younger than many victims. But then again, victim ages varied so wildly.

  She was only twenty-three, young and vulnerable. Just like her friend Emma, who’d been stalked and harassed back in December.

  Did it ever end? Why did people continuously hurt each other?

  Paige would probably never understand it.

  Chapter 5

  THEY dove into the case. Al knew this one was bugging Paige, and how could she blame her partner for that?

  Gillian Birch was the exact kind of woman they both strove to protect. Al had known her fair share of women like Gillian. Those who weren’t comfortable making waves in life. Who were contented with the simple things like knitting a sweater for a friend, or reading a good book curled up in bed. Good people, honest people. People who didn’t deserve to be terrified in their own homes this way.

  I’m watching you. Bitch.

  That was the mildest of the letters she’d received over the last four months. Sixteen letters, each one progressively more threatening, more violent.

  The last six had been delivered every other day for the last twelve days.

  The escalation was what had caused the Texas State Police to call for a consult. Mal, Sebastian and Hell had determined that there was enough of an imminent threat to warrant a CCU team’s investigation.

  Al knew Sebastian had volunteered Team Three to take it.

  He had a soft spot for women being stalked and she knew it.

  Al and Paige had copies of the letters spread before them on the desk in the Garrity post of the Texas State Police. It was a small law enforcement branch—the TSP was the smallest law enforcement agency in Texas—but it seemed to be well ran.

  Gillian Birch had a cousin with the TSP. It was to her that Gillian had taken the letters once they became too frightening.

  That cousin was pretty far up the TSP food chain, and she’d been the one to request a consult with the FBI.

  Al understood the women’s fears. “Look at this one.”

  Paige took it from her hand. “What?”

  “Look at the slant of the words on the bottom half of the letter. I’m no expert, but they look different.”

  “Not a lot.” Paige held it up to the light. “But it’s there. I’ll fax it to Questionable Documents.”

  “Send it to Payton’s attention.” Payton Lucas was the head of the Questionable Documents department and was one of the best forensic handwriting experts Al had ever worked with.

  She was also Paige’s sister-in-law. Married to Paige’s older brother.

  Another family connection.

  Al knew what many agents thought of PAVAD. And she knew about the reputation the division was getting.

  PAVAD had been created by a man who was legendary in the Bureau. And he’d packed the division with men and women just like them—but he’d also hand selected younger agents who had no real glory or successes behind them. Men and women who he saw something in. Agents he knew would build the division to one of the best—the best—in the nation.

  It was also fast getting a reputation for being one of the horniest.

  Al bit back a snort at that stray thought.

  It was true, in a big way, but it never seemed like it. Yes, there were plenty of agents who’d gotten together since its inception—including the man who’d founded the division—but that wasn’t all that surprising, was it?

  A good portion of the division were single, and they worked in an extremely high-stress job. Long hours, often far from home, young and attractive people.

  Yeah, there were going to be romances.

  To expect anything truly different was a bit naïve. And there wasn’t that many, really. Not when you considered the fact that PAVAD had grown to over four hundred people, including agents, technicians, forensics, and support staff. A dozen or so marriages or relationships was barely a drop in the water.

  Funny how most of those relationships were within the CCU, though.

  “You really need to get out of the clouds. What’s going on?”

  Al refocused on the issue at hand. She was getting a little spacey, wasn’t she? “Nothing. I’m just exhausted. Auggie’s teething.”

  “Ouch.” Paige shifted the papers around on the table, putting them in a chronological order. “Better get your head in the game, or you’ll get your ass chewed.”

  Paige was right. Brother-in-law or not. If she couldn’t focus on the case, Sebastian would come down on her hard.

  And that was the way it should be.

  Chapter 6

  IT would take Questionable Documents a few hours to come up with an initial assessment, and still longer for Payton, or Erin—Payton’s new assistant—to run the assessment past the on-site profiler.

  Ed Dennis had added four more behavioral analysts to the PAVAD division over the last few weeks. They were responsible for all in-house consults for any team that needed it. Not every PAVAD team had a profiler assigned to it—profilers were rare—but Ed Dennis felt that every team should have rapid access to one, if needed. Ed so believed in the strength of profiling that he wanted everything possible evaluated by behavioral analysts whenever it was feasible.

  It was a gargantuan task that faced the new team.

  Paige had met the four newbies and she thought they were ok. She was reserving judgement for a while. Like everyone else in PAVAD, they’d need to prove themselves eventually.

  Her initial thoughts about the letters were pretty clear—somebody was seriously screwed up in the head.

  Either that, or Gillian Birch had somehow ticked someone off big time.

  She wasn’t discounting the idea that someone could be attempting to terrorizing the woman for some other purpose.

  Not after what had happened to Jules and Mal a while back. To her.

  They’d been stalked for a variety of reasons, mostly obsession.

  But for some reason Paige didn’t think this was the case here. The letters were just too… “Canned.”

  Her partner looked at her. “What?”

  “I said, the letters seem too canned. Almost scripted. I’m not an expert, but if you were trying to frighten someone with letters, what would you put in them? Especially if you knew it was the shy librarian type you were targeting?”

  What would scare a woman like that? One who wasn’t extremely comfortable with people? Men, in particular?

  “These fit. Someone wasn’t stalking her for a romantic reason or even an obsessive reason. But maybe…a deliberate use of sexual threats to terrifying or control,” Al handed Paige a letter. “Look at this one.”

  Paige took it and read it quickly. “It’s almost something you’d see on a crime drama, isn’t it?”

  “Thirty years ago it would be letter cut out of a magazine and poorly glued to construction paper. I’m not linguistically trained, but…It’s more stilted and almost less educated than some of the others.”

  “And look at the spelling here.” Paige pointed to the word. “It’s wrong. But the same word is used in two other letters, and it’s spelled correctly then.”

  “So either we have someone with inconsistent spelling issues—which most people misspell the same words over and over again—or we may have more than one person.”

  “Not likely. Stalkers tend to work alone, after all.” At least most in her experience. There had been one or two in PAVAD history that had worked together. But they had other motives than just stalking. “Unless the stalking is a part of something else. Something bigger.”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know. But I think we need Seb, and the rest of the team. Beca
use if we’re correct, then…”

  “We’re looking for more than just stalkers. We’re looking for someone close to Gillian Birch.”

  Chapter 7

  AL watched the police officers of the TSP milling around the small bullpen. It was one of the smallest she’d ever been in, but it seemed to be well ran.

  The man in charge was about Sebastian’s age, and handsome in a Texas cowboy ranger kind of way. Nothing like Seth—or his brothers—but he had that same kind of assured self-possession that she had always admired.

  This was a take-charge, no-holds-barred kind of man.

  He held out his hand to Al and she shook it, impressed with his no-nonsense handshake. She and Paige had forgone the initial set up at the TSP precinct to meet with the victim earlier. But Jaz, Hernandez, Seb, and Ken had been there for a few hours already.

  “If you ladies, Agents…”

  “Brockman and Daviess-Brockman.”

  He raised a brow. “Related?”

  “Sisters-in-law.” Would they go through this every time she and Paige worked together from now on? Al had worked with her brother Mal before, but never as his partner.

  How did Georgia and Hellbrook manage it? They were on the same team, and Georgia had taken Hell’s name when they married.

  “Interesting. On the same team?”

  “Oh, it gets worse.” Paige grinned quickly. Al didn’t miss the guy’s momentary flicker of interest at the younger woman’s smile. Paige had a killer smile. “Our team leader is Al’s brother-in-law. Her husband’s brother, and well…mine, too. Married my sister. We’re family. In different ways. We’re a close bunch.”

  “Apparently. You’re all lucky to be so close.” There was a sadness in his eyes that had Al’s attention sharpening. “The rest of your team is through here.”

  “Thanks.”

  She liked him. There was something about him that reminded her of Mick, in a way. That wounded warrior exterior. He even looked a bit like her brother around the eyes and in the height.

  Of course, Mick would never wear cowboy boots on the job.

  Paige was first in the conference room where the rest of their team was set up. Al was a few steps behind. She threw a glance over at the Chief. “Thank you. Chief—“

  “Marshall. Elliot Marshall. I’m glad your team could come to help so quickly.”

  “We tend to move quickly. It’s one of our hallmarks.”

  “We at the TSP don’t often have the connections necessary for special teams from the FBI. So we definitely appreciate it.”

  She understood what he meant. The Texas State Police was the smallest branch of law enforcement in Texas, and the types of cases they handled weren’t the big news-worthy ones. They handled the smaller things, the day-to-day crimes that had to be dealt with.

  Like stalkers threatening innocent women. “I have a few friends with the Wichita Falls TSP. I know how hard you all do work. We’re happy to help.”

  “And it’s appreciated. Look, Gillian Birch is a kind woman. Sweet. She doesn’t deserve this. She brought the letters to one of my people two weeks ago. And something about them set off my instincts. Yet I’ve found nothing. I don’t want to wait and take a chance on something happening to her. I simply don’t have too many resources to track this guy down. I’ve tried, but…the letters worry me. I see an acceleration that I don’t like. But…I have fourteen detectives here, and that’s it.”

  “I understand a lack of resources.” And how it would bother a man like Marshall. Heck, it bothered Ed Dennis when funding was tightened for PAVAD. “We’ll handle the Birch case. And let your people carry the rest of your load. We know what it’s like to be short-handed, Chief Marshall. I can promise you that.”

  “Always a dollar short anymore. But we do what we can.”

  Al wasn’t a profiler, but she suspected what he couldn’t do weighed on this man more than what he could.

  Mick was a lot like that, too.

  Chapter 8

  AL had found a new friend, and Paige could understand it. He reminded her of Mick, and that made her miss home more than she’d ever thought possible.

  She’d make a point of texting home as soon as she could. Seb looked up when they entered and Paige knew he was wanting what they’d found.

  She got right into it. “Possibly two. Possibly not stalking based at all.”

  “Go on.” Her brother-in-law was an absurdly beautiful man, with his sleek suit and the black hair and green eyes. More than that, he radiated confidence and strength.

  Most of the men she knew were just like him. That had her thinking of connections and how people were more closely tied than they realized. Look at the CCU itself.

  Seb was married to Carrie, Paige’s sister. Seb’s brother Seth was married to Al. Who was sister to Paige’s husband. And Mal, who was married to Jules, who was a former sister-in-law of Georgia, daughter of the founder of PAVAD, and wife of the founder of the CCU. That was just a fraction of the connections. There were still so many more within PAVAD’s upper echelon.

  What kind of men were in Gillian Birch’s life?

  Or…what kind of people?

  Stalkers weren’t just men, after all.

  “We need to find out who she knows. And fast.”

  Chapter 9

  HER house was small, but Gillian Birch kept it neat and tidy. There were flowers; Al recognized them as marigolds and hyacinth. The place wasn’t run-down, exactly, but it was a bit outdated.

  Quiet and unassuming. Like the woman that lived in the small bungalow on the outskirts of the town. Al and Paige had accompanied Seb to Gillian’s home.

  The profiler would get a feel for the woman in question, and her family.

  Paige and Al would be going through the woman’s friends, family, and the colleagues and patrons of the library where she spent twenty-four hours each week.

  It wasn’t the most pleasant aspect of their jobs, but it was one that Paige and Al were used to.

  “Let’s grab a sandwich on the way.” Al was starving, and it was past three. She’d been too tense to eat too much before they’d hopped the jet, but now?

  “If this place has a restaurant. Look. Only one bank.” Paige pointed, one hand up to keep the wind from blowing her hair around too much. “And is that the only gas station in town?”

  “Wow. Probably.” This was probably one of the smallest towns they’d worked in. Al didn’t know if that was going to be a good thing or a bad one. “At least that means everyone will know everyone else.”

  “Which will either make things easier for us, or far more difficult.” She’d seen it before. Small towns closed ranks against outsiders. There was no doubt about that. And she understood it. It was a biological imperative—protecting your own from any threat.

  And like it or not, she and Paige were going to be seen as a threat.

  “Scope out the gas station. Pick up something—anything—to eat, and get the lay of the land.”

  “What’s eating you?” Paige was staring at her out of those practically black eyes of hers. There was worry there, and it made Al feel like a jerk. “You doing ok?”

  “I’m fine, Paige. I swear. I just skipped breakfast this morning.” It was hard to brush it aside with her best friend. Extremely so. “Let’s just get to work, ok?”

  “Lunch first. But you’re buying. Or I’ll tell your secret.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Jules says cloth diapers are better. You’d better stock up.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Easy. You left your purse open and it was right on top. I don’t think anyone else saw…but…I’m going to be an aunt again, aren’t I?”

  “Yes. But don’t say anything. I have to figure out how to tell everyone first.”

  Leave it to Paige to figure things out.

  Chapter 10

  THE gas station attendant was all of nineteen years old—maybe, skinny, and in awe of the two of them. Paige smiled at him, more than w
illing to take advantage of the kid’s obviously raging hormones to get the information they needed.

  Between the kid’s drooling over Al and trying to look down Paige’s blouse, their biggest hurdle was going to be getting the attendant to focus on what they were asking—rather than what they weren’t truly displaying.

  She tapped her palm against the counter. “Sonny, is that your given name?”

  “Yu-yu-es, ma’am. My daddy named me.”

  “Well, Sonny, we’re with the FBI.”

  “Like the real FBI? Like on TV.”

  “In a way. There’ a lot more paperwork in real life than on television.” Paige studied him for another moment. “Can you tell us a bit about your town?”

  “What do you need to know?”

  The next part was where she’d have to tread carefully and Paige knew it. They didn’t want Gillian to be the center of gossip needlessly. “Anyone in town have issues with law enforcement lately? Any major disputes in the town?”

  Not exactly what they were wanting to know, but it would set the tone. And prime the kid’s pump to work him in the direction they needed. If they could get a real feel for the town and the people in it, they might be able to isolate anything related to Gillian Birch—or those closest to her.

  If they could get Casanova to focus… “Sonny, do you know the Birch family?”

  “Clayton and Geoff. They have a farm up Garrity Hollow. Why? Are you investigating them?”

  Paige recognized the names of Gillian’s brothers. “No. But they may have some information we need. Can you give us directions to this Garrity Hollow? We’d really appreciate it.”

  “Yeah…but…”

  “What is it, Sonny?” Al asked.

  “That Clayton Birch, he’s got a really bad temper. He doesn’t like it when strangers come on his land.”

  He’d just have to adjust, wouldn’t he?