or if the killer arrived.
The bar was within a half hour of closing, but eight vehicles were still in the parking lot. No one was inside any of them though. No one he could see anyway. The vehicles likely belonged to the cocktail waitresses and bartender. Customers, too. Maybe one even belonged to the killer.
And not just any ordinary killer, either.
But the Moonlight Strangler, a serial killer.
If the tip from the private investigator was right, the killer had staked out this bar as the site of his next murder and would be arriving any minute now.
Too bad Levi hadn’t gotten more notice from the PI or he could have arranged for a better net to catch this dangerous snake. However, the call had come just a few minutes earlier when Levi was on his way home to his family’s ranch. He’d literally been driving right by the place, and that was why he hadn’t even bothered to call for backup.
Not yet anyway.
He would though if he saw or felt anything to confirm that the PI was right. After all, one of his brothers was the sheriff. Another was a deputy. And they could be there in less than twenty minutes if Levi needed them. Still, this was one killer Levi preferred to take care of himself.
Because it was personal.
This killer had spilled family blood, and he was going to pay and pay hard for what he’d done to all those women he’d murdered.
Levi eased into the shadows away from the pulsing neon bar lights and he listened. Waited. It was hard though to pick through the sounds of the crackling lights, the wind and his own heartbeat drumming in his ears.
But somewhere there was the sound of an engine running.
Because the driver had the headlights off, it took Levi a moment to realize the car wasn’t approaching from the street, but rather from the back of the bar. No road there, just a park-like area that the local teenagers used for making out. It could also be the very route a killer would likely take.
Before the car eased to a stop, Levi whipped out his gun and took aim. He froze. And not because of the weather.
A person stepped out of the car, the watery lights just bright enough for him to see her face. Not the Moonlight Strangler, but someone he did recognize. The pale blond hair. The willowy build.
Alexa.
Of all the people Levi thought he might run into tonight, Alexa Dearborn wasn’t anywhere on his radar. Heck, she shouldn’t be anywhere near him, this bar or the town of Appaloosa Pass.
Because she had a bounty on her head.
Word on the street was that the hired guns who were after her had orders to shoot to kill.
It’d been five months since Levi had last seen her. Marshals had whisked her away into WITSEC to an unnamed place. Given her a change of name, too. But five months wasn’t nearly long enough for the memories to fade.
Bad memories.
Of a woman strangled to death. Paige, his brother’s wife. And Alexa was right smack dab in the middle of those nightmarish memories and images that began to jolt through him.
Yeah, this was personal all right.
“I’m sorry,” Alexa said, her voice trembling.
The rest of her had to be trembling, too, since she wasn’t wearing a coat and it was just below freezing. Her jeans and thin blue shirt were hardly fit for a midnight visit on a winter night.
Levi had no idea why she was apologizing, but it did occur to him that she was the reason he was here. “Did you have a PI make a call to me about the Moonlight Strangler?”
She paused, then nodded. “I couldn’t think of a faster way to get you here, and I needed to talk to someone I can trust.”
“You can’t trust me,” Levi grumbled.
But he instantly knew it was a lie. The deputy’s badge on his belt wasn’t just for show. He was the law and would uphold it no matter what the cost.
Even for Alexa.
“I can’t stay out here long. I have to get back.” She glanced behind her.
Levi wasn’t sure where back was for her. “Then you’d better start explaining why you’re here because I’m in a hurry, too.” He’d just pulled a long shift and wanted to get home.
Actually, anywhere away from Alexa, and a long shift didn’t have anything to do with wanting to put some distance between them. He couldn’t look at her without thinking of Paige.
“I still had your personal cell number, but I was afraid you wouldn’t answer if you didn’t recognize the caller. Or that you’d hang up if you knew it was me.”
“Is this explanation going somewhere?” he snapped.
“Yes. I tried calling you at San Antonio PD,” she said after she cleared her throat. “I didn’t tell them who I was, but they said you didn’t work there any longer, that just this week you’d taken a job here in Appaloosa Pass.”
It was his third day on the job as a deputy. Levi had put a decade of city law enforcement behind him so he could come home and devote more time to catching the Moonlight Strangler.
Well, that was the official story anyway.
Other things had played into it. Things he had no intention of discussing with Alexa, even though, in a roundabout way, she was part of that unofficial story.
“I didn’t want to risk calling the sheriff’s office. That’s when I called the PI, James Moser,” Alexa added a moment later.
It didn’t surprise Levi that Alexa would remember the PI who’d helped Levi with the footwork on some investigations. After all, James had done a couple of jobs for her, too, when Alexa had still been running her private investigations agency.
“And you talked James into calling me with fake info about a serial killer so I’d meet you here.” Levi cursed. Not just because he wasn’t going to catch a serial killer tonight, but because he was a thousand percent certain he didn’t want to hear anything else Alexa had to say.
“Something went wrong,” she said, taking a step closer to him.
Alexa gave another wary glance over her shoulder at the car she’d parked. She’d left the engine running.
“Why are you here?” he pressed, figuring that’d give him the answer to a lot of his questions and clarify her “something went wrong” remark.
The cold air mixed with the slow breath she blew out, creating a wispy fog around her. “I think there might have been some kind of breach at WITSEC. I think my identity could have been compromised.”
“This is the first I’m hearing about it.” Of course, he wasn’t exactly in the WITSEC loop. “Are you in danger?”
A burst of air left her mouth. Almost a laugh. But there was no humor. “Oh, yes.” Another
