I See You Read online

  PRAISE FOR MARY BURTON

  THE SHARK

  “This romantic thriller is tense, sexy, and pleasingly complex.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Precise storytelling complete with strong conflict and heightened tension are the highlights of Burton’s latest. With a tough, vulnerable heroine in Riley at the story’s center, Burton’s novel is a well-crafted, suspenseful mystery with a ruthless villain who would put any reader on edge. A thrilling read.”

  —RT Book Reviews, four stars

  BEFORE SHE DIES

  “Will keep readers sleeping with the lights on.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  MERCILESS

  “Burton keeps getting better!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  YOU’RE NOT SAFE

  “Burton once again demonstrates her romantic suspense chops with this taut novel. Burton plays cat and mouse with the reader through a tight plot, credible suspects, and romantic spice keeping it real.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  BE AFRAID

  “Mary Burton [is] the modern-day queen of romantic suspense.”

  —Bookreporter.com

  ALSO BY MARY BURTON

  The Criminal Profilers

  Hide and Seek

  Cut and Run

  The Last Move

  Her Last Word

  The Forgotten Files

  The Shark

  The Dollmaker

  The Hangman

  Morgans of Nashville

  Cover Your Eyes

  Be Afraid

  I’ll Never Let You Go

  Vulnerable

  Texas Rangers

  The Seventh Victim

  No Escape

  You’re Not Safe

  Alexandria Series

  Senseless

  Merciless

  Before She Dies

  Richmond Series

  I’m Watching You

  Dead Ringer

  Dying Scream

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Mary Burton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542007603

  ISBN-10: 1542007607

  Cover design by Caroline T. Johnson

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The face is the mirror of the mind, and the eyes, without speaking, confess the secrets of the heart.

  —Saint Jerome

  PROLOGUE

  Tuesday, June 11, 2:00 p.m.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Two Months Before

  “One hundred bucks,” Nikki McDonald said. “That’s all I’m paying.”

  The building manager’s gaze dropped to the creased bills carefully smoothed out so they did not look like they had been jammed in a pantry mason jar. “I could lose my job.”

  Nikki’s cash reserves were on vapors, and her credit cards bumped against their respective limits. What resources she still had needed to last until the end of the month, when her corporate freelance gig coughed up the two grand needed for rent. “No worries. Open the door, and no one will be the wiser.”

  A string of sixty-watt bulbs skimmed along the top of the low, dark ceiling, dribbling light on the storage units housed in the basement of the Alexandria apartment complex they served. Moisture clung to the walls, and a musty scent filled the air. God only knew what the mold count was down here, and because Nikki’s medical insurance expired at the end of the month, she did not need some kind of bullshit allergic reaction.

  The manager quickly pocketed the money and thumbed through a collection of keys until he found the right one. He jammed it in the lock and twisted. It did not budge. He removed the key, inspected the worn ridges and teeth, and then tossed her a baffled expression.

  Nikki grinned but sensed her attempt to appear patient fell flat as the man’s brows knotted, and he refocused on a second attempt. He wiggled the key back and forth. This time he teased the tumblers into alignment. The lock clicked open.

  His expression triumphant, he pushed open the door. “What are you looking for?”

  “A trunk,” she said.

  She had received a tip through her website, Crime Connection, which she had set up two months ago after she’d left the news station. The purpose of the site was to turn cold or hot case tips into stories that would earn her another job in television. So far, the tips had been either bogus or so vague they had been unusable, but this one was so specific it gave her hope it would be different.

  The sender had detailed the building’s address and this specific storage unit, along with a note to open a gray trunk. A little digging into the building’s history, and the unit’s owner revealed a Helen Saunders rented this space. By all accounts the eighty-eight-year-old lived quietly and had been retired for over two decades. She still volunteered at a food bank, had no criminal record, and always paid her rent on time. When Nikki had visited her yesterday, the woman had had trouble concentrating and had admitted she did not own a computer. Clearly, Helen had not sent the message via Nikki’s website.

  Look in the gray trunk.

  Nikki studied the dusty brown boxes covered in what looked like a decade’s worth of dust. She fished her GoPro from a large black purse and clipped it onto the V of her blouse, between her breasts. Back in the day, she would have had her cameraman, Leo, do the filming. But Leo, along with the steady paycheck and insurance, was gone. “Can you find Helen Saunders’s original rental application?”

  “Those records would be in the warehouse, if we still have them.”

  “There’s five hundred bucks for the guy who can find it for me.”

  “Why?”

  “Never know.”

  “I don’t know. I could lose my job.”

  She leveled her gaze on the guy, sensing that despite his worry, he would be looking for that application. “Thanks for your help. I can take it from here.”

  “I should stay. I got an obligation to my tenant.”

  “I’m not here to steal,” she said. “Just following up on a tip.”

 
The manager eyed the camera and its strategic placement several beats before he raised his gaze to her face. “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He shook his head, wagging his finger. “You do the news.”

  Nikki switched the camera on. “Did.”

  “You got canned, right?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She had been chasing a story on political corruption and government contracting. The deeper she had dug into the systemic graft, the more committed she had become to the story. In the end, she had been damn proud of the final draft, which was some of her best work. However, the politically savvy station manager had not been as thrilled, and his heavy-handed edits had gutted the story. The stubborn streak that had propelled her up the career ladder now demanded she dig in her heels. Despite her manager’s ultimatum, she had read the story on the air during prime time. The next morning, when she had arrived at the station, her manager had canned her on the spot and had had her escorted out of the building. She had been taken aback, though not surprised, but as she had marched out of the office with her box of belongings, she had been optimistic because she’d believed her credentials would land her a job in another market. What she’d discovered was that her story had offended some powerful people who had seen to it that every major and minor news market was closed to her.

  Refusing to let her temper rise, she angled her camera toward the building manager’s face. “Make sure I don’t accidently film you when I go live.”

  He turned his face away. “I can’t be on camera. We’re not supposed to be here. I could get fired.”

  “Take it from me—you don’t want that.”

  The manager eased away from the door. “I’ll be back here.”

  “Whatever works.”

  Of course, she wasn’t actually going live. Given her luck, this entire adventure could be a stunt designed to humiliate her.

  She plucked her phone from her back pocket and held it up, knowing a second camera angle might come in handy during editing. In selfie mode, she began to record. “I just received an anonymous tip through my website, Crime Connection,” she said, loud enough for the camera to pick up her voice. “My source tells me to look for a gray trunk in this particular location.”

  She panned around the space and then propped her phone on an old dresser mirror and continued to move boxes filled with crap that should have been tossed a decade ago. Dust soon coated her jeans and very expensive turquoise top. The grime would enhance the television drama but would be hell on the dry cleaning bill.

  The camera jostled when she bumped it with a dusty box. “It’s an average storage unit that most of us who’ve lived in an urban apartment would have used at one time or another.” She moved a lamp from an ugly 1970s-style end table and angled her body around the table.

  Nikki looked directly into the frame, wanting the lens to catch her pensive look. As she turned, she spotted the gray trunk.

  After grabbing the leather side handle, she hefted the trunk and found it much lighter than expected. She set the trunk in the hallway, where the light was marginally better. Though she felt a rush of excitement, she did not hurry the opening. The buildup could be as important as the payoff. “A gray trunk.”

  She picked up the phone and pointed it toward the tarnished brass lock. Multiple angles always worked well in editing. Her fingers hovered over the lock.

  As she adjusted the lens in for a close-up, the manager peered over her shoulder, partly blocking her shot. She swatted him back as she pressed the release button on the lock. To her delight, it popped open. She lifted the lid. The box was filled with stained, brittle tissue paper, which crumbled on contact. Her insides tingled. She still lived for this and remembered how much she missed investigative journalism.

  As she scooped up paper, she froze as she stared at the box’s contents. “Is this a joke? Did Rick put you up to this?”

  “Who’s Rick?”

  “My former boss at the news station.”

  “I don’t know Rick,” the manager said. “It looks like a Halloween decoration.”

  It was a complete skeleton that was discolored and darkened. She reached into the box and wrapped her hands around the skull, expecting it to feel slick like plastic. However, the moment she touched the skull, she knew it was not made of a smooth synthetic. It was porous like a pumice stone.

  She raised the skull, and the jaw immediately dropped. Darkness radiated from empty sockets as the lower jaw dangled in silent laughter before the delicate hinge joints failed and sent the mandible to the cement floor. It broke into several pieces.

  The manager stepped closer. “Is that real?”

  Her heart raced in her chest as she thought back to the person who had sent her the message. The tip had been anonymous, and she had not bothered to trace the sender. Why her? She was a pariah in television news now. All the visitors to her website were really drawn by morbid curiosity over the epic implosion of her career. She had yet to receive a legitimate tip.

  Until now.

  Maybe Nikki still had a few fans out there.

  She dropped to her knees and carefully collected the broken bits of bone. Normal people did not get juiced over what looked like a torched skull. But she did. Especially if it got her out of purgatory.

  For the first time in months, she felt like things were looking up.

  Her brain shifted into tactical mode. She had been around long enough to know this skull could belong to your garden-variety murdered guy. He would get his five minutes of fame, and that would be it.

  But she had always been a glass-half-full kind of gal. The story could be bigger. And if it was, her former backstabbing boss would be forgotten, and she would be back in the game.

  Nikki reached for her phone as she unhooked the camera and aimed it at her face. “It’s real.”

  “Who are you calling?” the manager asked.

  She looked into the camera. “The cops.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sunday, August 11, 11:00 p.m.

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Two Days Before

  Fresh from the shower, he dried his dark hair and walked across the drab, worn carpet of the motel room toward the television tuned to the local news station. Beside it sat a pizza box. He flipped open the top and grabbed the last slice, plucked off the onions and pepperoni, and discarded them into a pile with the others.

  “It was a waste to order the extra toppings.” He liked his pizza plain and simple. “But I was trying to be a nice guy.”

  The woman behind him said nothing.

  After tossing a sliver of onion into the box, he grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. The mattress sagged as he sat on the edge of the bed. The news anchor was blathering on about local traffic congestion caused by a car accident during evening rush hour. “Same old, same old.”

  He took a large bite. The pizza was cold and the cheese hard, but he had worked up an appetite and was willing to settle.

  The television newscaster continued on about politics, weather, and a soft piece on the elderly, but again did not mention the story he had been expecting for weeks. “Such bullshit. You and I both know she has the story, but there’s been nothing on her site or in the news. She’s got to have figured it out by now.”

  Silence.

  “It’s a good story, one people will want to know about. The public might not care about the bones of a dead whore, but they’ll care about a missing rich girl.”

  He ate the rest of the slice, watching until the thirty-minute news show ended. Pizza grease, smelling faintly of onions, glistened on his fingertips. “Paid two extra bucks for nothing.”

  He wiped his fingers on the comforter before he walked to the window. An overhead vent blasted cold air as he pushed back a small portion of the thick oily curtain. Through a window streaked with condensation, he looked up toward the stars, drowned in a sea of lights flooding from streetlights and neon signs.

  “I miss Nev
ada. The stars. Big sky. A man can hardly breathe in the city.”

  He let the curtain slide from his fingers as he moved toward the dresser. He opened the top drawer, where he had placed his neatly folded clothes. He pulled on his underwear and then his faded jeans before turning toward the woman.

  She was on her back, mouth gagged and sightless blue eyes still brittle with fear as she stared at the popcorn ceiling. Her hands were tied to the bedpost; laid bare were her breasts and the five oozing stab wounds. Blood painted her pale skin red, soaked the bedding, and arched over the headboard and across the framed print of the US Capitol hanging on the wall.

  She was petite and so lean her stomach was nearly concave. Unnaturally blond hair framed a pale, hollow face that was unremarkable. Large silver hoops dropped from her earlobes.

  The sight of her naked frame awash in her own blood was a shot to his loins, and he was tempted to have another go at her. There was nothing better than fucking a woman in her own blood.

  He drew his fingertips over her pale leg, still warm to the touch. The darkness inside him, starved for too long, had finally turned ravenous. Insatiable. “I went for a long time without doing this, and then two of you in as many months.”

  The first one had been easy enough to charm. He was a good-looking guy, and when he tried, he could charm the pants off almost any woman. She had cost him the price of five cocktails in a trendy bar.

  This one was a pro and had willingly climbed into his car as she’d smiled and asked him how he liked to party.

  He traced a finger through the blood, creating a pale path that unveiled a rose tattoo. “After a man gets a taste for death, even the best fuck just doesn’t cut it.”

  Reluctantly, he moved from the bed and washed his hands in the bathroom sink. The hot water stung his palm, and when he looked down, he noted the small nick above his lifeline. He remembered how the handle had grown slick as he had plunged it into his date and, on the last strike, how it had slipped. But he had been so possessed that a small cut had barely registered on his radar.

  Now, he could see he had been lucky. The wound was superficial and would not need stitches.

  He dried his hands on a fresh towel and wiped off the sink, the toilet handle, and the hot and cold shower knobs. Next, he cleaned the remote control and the doorknob before dropping the towel into his backpack.