"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I said no."

Pete seized control of the conversation then. "You said you were feeling guilty. Why?"

Deciding to ignore Nick, she stared at the delicate rose pattern on the oriental bowl when she answered. "I want to run away and hide until you catch him, and I’m ashamed because I feel that way."

"You have nothing to feel ashamed about, and your desire to run away is quite natural," Pete said. "I’m certain I’d feel the same way."

She wasn’t buying that. "No, you wouldn’t. My reaction is cowardly and selfish."

Suddenly feeling restless, she got up and walked over to the front window. Lifting the lace curtain, she looked outside just as Monsignor was getting into the passenger seat of a black sedan.

"You’re being too hard on yourself," Pete said. "Fear isn’t a flaw, Laurant. It’s a safety mechanism."

"He’s out there now… looking for another woman, isn’t he?"

Neither Pete nor Nick answered.

"Get away from the window," Nick ordered.

She immediately stepped back and let go of her tight grip on the curtain.

"Are you worried he’s watching the rectory now?" She took a step toward Nick. "You told me you thought he’d accomplished what he came here to do and that he was on his way home."

"No," Nick corrected. "I told you he was probably gone. We aren’t taking any chances."

"Is that why Monsignor has an escort today? Yes, of course it is."

"As long as you and Tom are here, Monsignor will have an agent watching out for him," Pete added.

"We’re putting him at risk?"

"It’s just a precaution," he insisted.

"This man… he’s going to kill another woman soon, isn’t he?"

Pete chose his words carefully. "Until we can prove otherwise, we must assume he was telling Tom the truth. Therefore, the answer is yes, he’s going to take another woman soon."

"He’ll torture her and kill her." The room seemed to be closing in on her, and she took a deep breath in an attempt to collect herself. "And he won’t stop with just one more, will he? He’s going to keep on killing and killing."

"Come and sit down, Laurant," Pete said.

She did as he requested, sitting sideways in the chair to face him.

Her hands were clasped on her knees. "I have a plan." He nodded. "You’re ready to push off that mountaintop, aren’t you?"

"Something like that," she agreed. "I still want to run away," she added. "But I’m not going to do that." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nick straighten. "I want to catch him."

"We will get him," Pete assured her.

"But I can help you," she said. "And I have to help. For a lot of reasons," she added. "First and foremost are those women out there who don’t have an inkling that this monster is looking for his next victim. They’re the overriding reason I’m not going to hide."

Pete was frowning in anticipation. When he began to shake his head, she knew he had guessed what she wanted to do, and so she hurried to explain before he put an end to the discussion.

"I can be very stubborn and determined, and once I make a decision, I stick to it. All my life other people have tried to control what I do. After my mother died, the lawyers handling the trust made all the decisions for me. That made sense when I was young, but as I got older, I began to resent their totalitarian tactics. They certainly weren’t interested in how I felt, and I wanted to at least have some input in the decision making, but that wasn’t allowed. They decided what schools I would attend, where I would live, and how much or how little I could spend."

She paused to take a quick breath and then continued. "It took me a long time to get out from under their control, but I finally managed it, and I’ve found a place where I feel that I belong… really belong. Now this monster is trying to take that away from me. I can’t let him do that. I won’t."

"What is it you want me to do?"

"Use me," she blurted out. "Set a trap and use me to get to him."

"Are you out of your mind?" Nick exploded.

She heard the anger in Nick’s voice but tried to ignore him. She kept her gaze fixed on Pete. "Help me convince my brother that I should go back to Holy Oaks. That’s the first step," she said. "You have no idea how scared I am, but the way I see it… I don’t really have a choice."

"The hell you don’t," Nick argued.

She glanced up at him. "The only way I can get my life back is to take control."

"It’s out of the question," Nick insisted.

"No, it isn’t out of the question," she said, surprised at how calm she sounded. "Pete, if I go back home after he’s told my brother to hide me away, won’t he see it as a challenge?"

"Yes, I’m sure he will," he agreed. "This is a game to him. Otherwise, why would he have mentioned Nick? He knows Nick is with the FBI, and he wants to prove that he is much more intelligent than any of us."

"Then if I go back to Holy Oaks, he’ll think I’m playing into his hand, right?"

"Yes."

"There’s no way in hell you’re going back until this bastard is either dead or behind bars," Nick said.

"Will you please let me finish and then you can argue?"

She kept a wary eye on him. He looked like he wanted to pluck her out of her chair, drag her into the hall, and shake some sense into her. It was just the resistance she had expected.

"You can get into his mind, Pete. You can figure out what buttons to push and make him come after me, and if I make him angry enough… then he’ll leave those other women alone. At least that’s my hope. You and Nick could set a trap. You do this sort of thing all the time, don’t you? And Holy Oaks is a small town. There’s only one major highway leading in and out. I don’t think it would be too difficult to close the town, if you needed to."

"Laurant, do you realize-" Pete began.

"Yes, I know what could happen, and I assure you I won’t take any chances. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. I promise. Just let me help you catch him before he kills again."

"Using you as bait," Pete said.

"Yes," she answered quietly. "Yes," she repeated resolutely.

"You’re out of your ever loving mind. You do know that, don’t you?" Nick snapped.

"The plan makes sense," she argued.

"What plan?" he demanded. "You don’t have a plan."

"Nicholas, calm down."

"Pete, we’re talking about putting my best friend’s little sister into a situation-"

"Maybe you should stop thinking of me as Tommy’s sister," she suggested. "And start thinking like an agent. This is a golden opportunity."

"Using you as bait." He was repeating Pete’s statement, but unlike his superior, his voice wasn’t calm. Nick’s bordered on a roar.

"Will you please lower your voice? I don’t want Tommy to hear about this until we’ve made a decision."

Nick glared at her and began to pace around the room. Laurant was depending on Pete now to become her ally because, as bad as Nick was taking her plan, she knew her brother’s reaction was going to be ten times worse.

She knew she had to convince Pete. "I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding. We both know you wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Nick and Tommy. With all the work you have to do, you couldn’t possibly drop everything and go running every time you heard about a threat. Isn’t that right?"

"Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of us to handle the load these days," he admitted.

"Your time’s valuable, and so I thought that maybe we could speed up this man’s agenda."

She could have sworn she saw a speculative gleam appear in the doctor’s eyes.

"What are you proposing?"

"Let’s make him crazy."

Nick had paused in his pacing and was staring at her with an incredulous look on his face. "He’s already crazy," he told her. "And so are you if you think Tommy and I are going to let you put yourself in the middle of his playground. Hell no, Laurant. It isn’t going to happen."