"Actually, things do seem to be winding up."

"I knew it. The first time I saw you I knew you'd solve everything. I could just see how smart you were. I said to myself, now that he's here, we women'll be safe again." She danced her tongue over his. "You're a hero, Matthew."

"I'm just doing my job." He preened as she rolled over on top of him. "It's all been very standard, really."

"Catching a murderer?" She skimmed her lips over his chest. Though he was white as a fish, she thought he had a nice build. "Why, nobody had figured out anything before you came along."

"It's simply a matter of having the experience, the proper equipment."

"I just love your equipment," she purred, wrapping her fingers around him. "Tell me how you did it, Matthew. It just makes me shiver."

His breath started to catch as she guided those clever fingers over him. "First you have to understand the psychology of a serial killer. Their patterns, the stages. Statistics. Most murders are committed on impulse, and for a few standard reasons."

"Tell me." She pressed her lips to his belly. "It makes me so hot."

"Passion," he managed as a red haze coated his vision. "Greed, revenge. Those aren't the motives of the serial killer. For him it's control, power, the hunt. The kill itself isn't as important as the anticipation, the stalking."

"Yes." She licked gently along his inner thigh. She was doing some stalking of her own, and the anticipation was rising like a hot river in a summer flood. "Don't stop."

"He plans, feeds on the plan. He chooses, and he hunts. All the time he does, he may lead a perfectly normal life. Have a family, a career, friendships. But the need to kill drives him. After he destroys his victim, the need to kill begins to build again. And the desire for control, of course." His hand fisted in her hair as she took him into her mouth. "Taunting the authorities, even using them." Burns began to pant as she sucked him deep. "He may want to be caught, he may even suffer from guilt, but his hunger outweighs everything."

She slid sinuously up his body, straddling him. "So he kills again. Until you stop him."

"Yes."

"And you're going to stop him this time?"

"He's already been stopped."

She lifted her hands to her hair, combing it back, arching her breasts to him. "How?"

"Unless other evidence comes to the surface, I'll report this case closed with Austin Hatinger's death."

Josie shuddered as she lifted her hips and took him deep inside her. "You're a hero, Special Agent. My hero." She threw back her head and started the hard ride to paradise.

Chapter Twenty-One

A storm was moving in. The evening was cooling as it approached, and for the first time in days a real breeze ruffled leaves and brought the sweet scent of rain to the air. Dusk came early as the sun hid behind rough pewter clouds. In the west, heat lightning popped and fizzled.

Even knowing the storm might be a nasty one, knocking down power lines and swelling riverbanks, the delta sighed with relief.

Darleen Fuller Talbot left her mother's in a foul temper. Happy had smiled and cuddled Scooter even as she'd raked Darleen to the bone over Billy T. Her father was no better, she thought as she slammed her car door shut. All he could do was shake his head and leave the room. Darleen had suffered through twenty minutes of listening to her mother ramble on about how Junior was a decent man who hadn't deserved to be betrayed in his own home.

Well, it was her home, too, and her signature on the mortage. She pouted, wiping away angry tears before she started the car. Nobody gave any thought to that. No, it was poor Junior this, and poor Junior that. Nobody cared that poor Junior was treating her worse than the dirt you brushed under the rug.

Was it any wonder she was beginning to miss Billy T. to distraction? Her own husband wouldn't even sleep in the same bed with her anymore. Not that he'd done much but sleep in it, even before the trouble started. But now she was going to bed every night as dry and frustrated as an old maiden aunt.

She was going to fix that, all right. As the first fat drops of rain splattered the windshield, she set her chin. Happy would have recognized the look, and though it might have surprised Darleen, would have wholeheartedly approved.

Scooter was going to stay with his grandma overnight. And she was going to see to it that her husband did her duty by her.

If things didn't turn around soon, she might as well become one of those papist nuns and go live in a convent.

Going without was making her jumpy, Darleen thought, switching on the wipers as the rain began to batter her car. Junior had interrupted Billy T. before he'd come close to finishing her off. By her calculations, Darleen had been celibate for more than a week.

It wasn't healthy.

That's why she was so nervous and irritable, she was sure. For days she'd had the edgy feeling someone was watching her. It was more than the smug looks she'd been getting from some of the town biddies as the story made the rounds. It was more like someone was keeping a bead on her. And there were the phone calls, too. The calls when nobody was there after you picked up.

Probably Junior keeping tabs on her, she thought. He probably had one of his buddies watching the house, too, in case Billy T. came around.

As if Billy T. would speak to her now.

It didn't seem fair that she lost her boyfriend, her husband, and had to listen to her mother's lectures all because she'd wanted to have a little fun.

She skidded on the wet road, and slowed to a crawl.

She wasn't going to put up with it anymore. Crying hadn't worked, and she'd cried buckets. Keeping the house nice and putting a hot meal on the table every night hadn't done much good either. Junior just ate whatever she put in front of him and went off to play with Scooter.

Tonight he was going to play with his wife.

She knew just how to set the stage. There was that new nightgown she'd mail-ordered-for Billy T.'s benefit, but that didn't matter. She'd spent the best part of the afternoon in the Style Rite getting her hair washed and set. She'd even suffered through having Betty Pruett wax her eyebrows and the little fuzz over her top lip.

All that was left was to set the stage.

She had that bayberry-scented candle left over from Christmas, a Randy Travis album, and a bottle of cold duck. Junior got positively romantic after a couple of glasses of cold duck.

Once she got him back in bed, he'd forget all about Billy T. and his manly pride. She'd be his devoted wife. And if she ever took on a boyfriend again, she'd be a damn sight more careful.

She almost didn't hit the brakes in time. The curtain of rain obscured the road so that she didn't see the car sitting across it until it was nearly too late. Her tires slipped and skidded. She gave a quick squeal as she fishtailed sideways. When the bumpers barely kissed, she sat back, one hand over her speeding heart.

"Goddamn." She squinted through the windshield but could see no one, just the abandoned car stretched diagonally across the road. "Well, isn't this just fine and dandy." Shakily, she pushed open her door and stepped out into the storm. Instantly her hair was plastered over her eyes so that she had to scrape it back. "Twenty-two seventy-five shot to hell!" she shouted to the rain. "Chrissakes, how'm I supposed to get my husband back if I go home looking like a drowned cat?"

She thought that over, decided it might work to her advantage on the sympathy scale. But if she wanted Junior to fuss and pet because she'd got caught in the rain, she had to get home first. Hands on hips, she kicked the tire of the car blocking the road.

"How the hell's anybody supposed to get around that?" The prospect of turning around and going back to her mother's was so daunting, she ignored the rain and walked around the car to find a solution.