to her dorm room at George Washington University all those years ago. He’d let her go the next morning, drugged and disoriented, carrying a permanent reminder on the back of her neck.
Maggie felt herself sway and clutched the table as she read the last line. It was different from any of the previous letters.
The Fishhook Rapist was coming back to DC. And he was coming back for her.
“You got another one?” Maggie’s older brother, Scott, was scowling furiously, clenching his fists so tightly, the knuckles looked ready to break through skin. He was standing in the entryway to her row house a mere thirty minutes after she’d called him, which meant he’d broken a lot of traffic laws to get there.
Normally, Scott was all charm, all the time, with an easy grin and a swagger. But today, even with his eyes red from being ripped from sleep before dawn, he looked angrier than she’d seen him in a long, long time.
Their best friend, Ella Cortez, had arrived ten minutes earlier; she lived within DC and closer to Maggie’s house. Maggie had called them instead of heading to the bar, and Ella had gotten in her car practically before Maggie had finished telling her what had happened.
Now Ella put a hand on Scott’s arm and gave him a look Maggie could read as well as Scott could. Go easy.
The three of them had grown up together, back in Buckley, Indiana, and Ella might as well have been her and Scott’s other sister. After Maggie’s assault her senior year of college, they’d made a pact together. Throw out all their plans for the future and join the FBI. Stop this kind of thing from happening to anyone else.
But she couldn’t even stop the man who’d hurt her.
Maggie tightened her jaw, tried not to let them see her fear. “Yes. But the letter was different this time. He said he’s coming back to DC. He said he’s coming back for me.”
“What?” Scott shouted.
He ran a hand through his close-cut blond hair, and she could see him trying to rein in his fury.
Scott was a year older than she was. They’d always been close, but since her attack, he’d become even more protective. She’d expected him to worry less once she’d joined SWAT, but it was only recently that his new girlfriend had taught him to loosen up at all. That would change back now.
“Have the case agents taken the letter?” Scott asked. As a sniper with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, Scott was used to being able to take action. Not knowing who the threat was drove him crazy.
“Were those his exact words? That he was coming back to DC, coming back for you?” Ella asked. She was calmer, but Maggie still heard her worry.
“They just picked it up,” she told Scott, then looked at Ella. “His exact words were, ‘I’m coming home for our anniversary.’” She choked the words out. Even saying them made bile rise up in her throat.
Scott swore, and Ella paled, but she still nodded thoughtfully. “Home,” Ella mused.
Her brother took a loud, calming breath, but rage still filled his eyes. “What do you think it means?”
Just like her, Scott had gravitated toward a specialty that would let him physically, personally, take down threats. On the outside, they didn’t resemble each other at all, though they were only a year apart in age. Scott was a head taller than her at six feet, with blond hair and chocolate-brown eyes. She looked more like their younger sister, Nikki, with her dark brown hair and light blue eyes.
But inside, they were so similar, both of them attacking every challenge head-on.
Ella was different. She’d been the glue that had held them together, kept them from butting heads over the years. And while Scott and Maggie had gone into physical specialties with the FBI, Ella had wanted to understand. So she’d become a profiler with the Behavioral Analysis Unit. If there was anyone who had a chance of deciphering the Fishhook Rapist’s motivations—and hopefully his next move—it would be her.
“What does it mean?” Ella repeated. “Well, it could be the obvious.”
“That he was born here,” Scott replied, nodding. “Okay. What else?”
“Well, we know he doesn’t live here now.”
Part of the reason the Fishhook Rapist had managed to evade capture for so long was because he moved around a lot. He claimed one victim a year, and never in the same place. His last victim had been in Florida, and the second letter Maggie had gotten had been postmarked from there.
The first one had come from Georgia, and the most recent one had originated in North Carolina.
“Then, what?” Scott demanded.
Ella frowned, her deep brown eyes pensive. “This guy is a narcissist. He brags about what he does. It’s why he lets his victims go. He wants the attention, and he gets off on knowing the women he abducts can’t identify him. His attacks have become the main source of pride in his life. So the location of his first attack—”
“You think he might see DC as home because it’s where he assaulted me,” Maggie broke in.
She’d gone to school here—and she’d even finished out her senior year after her attack, putting all her focus into her new goal of making it to the FBI—but then she’d moved back to her parents’ house in Indiana for a while, wanting to put physical distance between her and the memories. When she’d made it through the FBI Academy, and they’d assigned her to the DC office, she’d almost backed out.
But she’d stuck with it, then worked her way onto the SWAT team. DC had truly become her home now. It made her sick that he thought of it as his, too.
Ella looked uncomfortable, but she didn’t fidget or honey-coat anything. “Yes. It’s the start of where he got his name.”
The media had dubbed him the Fishhook Rapist after they’d gotten wind of what he did to his victims, branding them on the backs of their necks with the image of a hook. Maggie’s hand tensed with the need to touch the puckered skin on her neck that would never be smooth, but she clutched her hands together.
Ella looked apologetic as she finished, “To him, this is home.”
Nausea welled up, and Maggie sank onto her couch. Scott sat next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. A few seconds later, Ella was on her other side, hooking their arms together.
“He can write as many letters as he wants, but he’s not getting anywhere near you,” Scott vowed, in the dark, determined tone he probably used on the job. It sounded convincing.
So did Ella when she added, “We’re going to get him, Maggie. He’s making a mistake trying to come back here.”
She wanted to believe it. Wanted to believe that the case agents, and her brother and Ella and all of her FBI and SWAT training were enough to keep her safe.
But that fear she’d pushed down for ten years rose up, strong and painful, like the feel of fiery metal on the back of her neck.
