The Silenced by Heather Graham Page A

she’d ever face. Every move he made was planned; for every step he took, he had a backup plan. He had access—anywhere he wanted to go.
    He could watch her, as he had watched others. Watch, and not make a move until the time was right. He could make her disappear; he could make her reappear—whenever he chose.
    Now, Lara Mayhew...
    The time wasn’t right!
    But this woman...
    She annoyed him. She couldn’t leave well enough alone. Had to be a cop, had to be an agent. Thought she was tough.
    Well, it didn’t matter how tough she was. He had strength and power. Physical strength—and the power of the right people behind him. And power, everyone knew, mattered much more than strength.
    He’d watched her as she’d looked around, watched her face, and the emotion she couldn’t hide. She was an open book, especially when she didn’t know she was observed. She was beginning to doubt her own senses, her own sanity. She was afraid she was letting it all get to her, that she was paranoid.
    Slash smiled. He liked paranoid. Paranoid was good.
    A scowl replaced his smile. He didn’t like Bosworth. He didn’t like the “special” unit, the Krewe of Hunters. They were secretive. They had separate offices. They had more security cameras than the damned White House or the Capitol building.
    But he knew about Bosworth. He knew some of his weaknesses.
    And while the man might be tall and solidly muscled, that didn’t really mean anything. A single bullet could bring down a football tackle, a Hulk Hogan, a mixed-arts expert...
    Slash reminded himself to stay on target.
    Right now,
she
was the target, pretty, tall, lithe, with all that raven hair drawn back, indigo eyes still giving so much away.
    It was going to be fun taking her down.
    He smiled, revved his car and began to mentally plan the things he might do to her.
    * * *
    “We don’t know about the second girl yet,” Jackson said. “No prints in the system and we haven’t been able to find a missing-persons report to match up with her. But the information about Cathy Crighton is interesting. She was tentatively identified by a coworker from a police sketch, and then a DNA match was made. She grew up in foster homes in Kentucky, moved to Los Angeles, worked in a few restaurants there, then moved to New York City, and came to Georgetown about five weeks ago. A friend in Oklahoma—someone she’d met in one of her foster homes—first filed a missing-persons report. She has no known family and was just starting to make friends at the restaurant, Big Fish, where she was working. Police interviewed her old boss and they don’t think he was involved. She’d been late for work previously and he’d told her that if she failed to show up for her shift on time again, she was fired. It never occurred to him to call her in missing.”
    “What was their take on the boss?” Matt asked. He was in Jackson’s office in their Alexandria facility, sitting in one of the handsome oak chairs in front of Jackson’s desk while Jackson sat in his swivel chair behind it. The office also included a sofa grouping with a number of chairs by the fire; it was a pleasant place, conducive to group discussions and brainstorming.
    Matt’s own office was just down the hall. While the four-story row house wasn’t furnished with antiques, it still seemed to offer more of an at-home feel than their more modern facilities around the country. At first Matt had been surprised that the Krewe of Hunters chose to be outside the Bureau’s main offices. But their tech services here were top-notch, and so, Matt gathered, was their security.
    They had access to various labs and nonagent employees, computer whizzes and experts in all kinds of fields. The special agents of the Krewe units, overseen by Adam Harrison and managed by Jackson Crow, occupied the entire second floor with offices that allowed for consultations and a large boardroom with screens and computers and everything they needed for major