Revenge by Meli Raine Page B

ass as he rummages in his pants pockets to find his phone. I jump out of bed to find my backpack, but by the time I get to my phone the buzzing’s over.
    It’s my morning alarm, but it’s S a turday. No work.
    Mark, on the other hand...
    “Shit,” he mutters.
    “What is it?” I ask.
    Secrecy flashes in his eyes before he can hide it. He gets that blank look I’ve come to realize is a mask. I t’s a way to protect who he really is on the inside from who he has to pretend to be on the outside.
    “Don’t,” I say in a voice filled with warning. “Don’t go into lock-down mode.”
    His eyes widen, nostrils flaring, lips drawn . He gives me a raw look.
    “You’re right,” he says with a ragged breath. “Habit.”
    “W e have a lot of habits we need to break.” My words are so true I feel tears fill my eyes. “It’s not just you. It’s me, too.”
    He sets his phone down on his dresser and is in bed in seconds, cradling me in his arms.
    “ I’m not on duty today, but this case with Amy is so big that we’re all pretty much on standby. I don’t want to turn on the television, but if I do, you’ll see that some hikers found a body in a canyon.”  
    My whole being goes tense.
    “Oh, God,” I whisper.
    “It’s not Amy,” he reassures me. I let out a huge breath, not realizing I’d held it. “But it’s a woman who looks a lot like her, and who looks just like one of the suspected kidnapping victims.”
    “ N o. Oh, that poor woman. ”
    I feel him swallow, hard, his neck against my back. Something about his body, his voice, sets me on edge.
    “There’s more,” he says reluctantly.
    I’m right.
    “More?”
    “The body. It was found—” He interrupts himself and makes a strange sort of groaning sound, like he can’t say what he needs to say next.
    I just wait him out.
    He inhales, his shoulders tense. T ime is frozen. Whatever he’s about to tell me has something to do with Amy. I almost don’t want to hear it. As long as it’s not her body they found, I still have hope.
    “The body was found mangled.”
    “Mangled? Like an animal got to it?” Out in the canyons, there are plenty of predators. Wild cats, for one. It wouldn’t surprise me if a dead body got chewed on by an animal. I shudder at the thought, though.
    “No. Someone mangled her very deliberately. A human did...this. ”
    A cold chi l l radiates up my back. “Mangled her...how?”
    Mark takes a deep breath and says, “She’s missing both arms and legs.”
    I jump up, separating my skin from hi s. M y horror mak es me instinctively move away from him for no reason I can understand.
    “She’s WHAT?”
    He grimaces. The pain of humanity is etched into his face.
    “I know. It’s disgusting. Her kidnappers did t h is.”
    “How do you know?”
    “The arms and legs were removed with surgical precision.”
    “And she wasn’t like this before?”
    He shakes his head.
    “No. She wasn’t.”
    Oh, God.
    Amy.
    I close my eyes and will myself to be logical. Rational. To think my way through this. I can’t be of any help to anyone, much less Amy, if I freak out.
    “Any leads on who did this?”
    Agony fills his face. “No. I wish. We’ve made it a federal case now. One of the women who was kidnapped is a confirmed Mexican citizen. Another is from Nevada, so it’s crossed state lines. Except I’m deep undercover, so the chief here doesn’t know that.”  
    “He doesn’t know it’s a federal case?”
    A bitter grin takes over Mark’s expression. “Oh, he knows that . He’s pissed about it, too. Most small-town cops are. No one with any local power likes to have it taken away, but in this case, I can’t be outed. I’m still just Mark Paulson, the local cop. They have no idea I’m really DEA.”
    I nod, absorbing all this. Then I realize we’re talking about it all naked and in bed. T he sun is streaming in and highlighting our bodies. It’s like we do this all the time. No big deal. Just having our morning