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tight as he began gathering the photos and putting them into a large manila envelope.
    Charles shook his head.
    John slid the envelope across his desk to Charles. “Keep these as a little souvenir.”
    He reached out and grasped the envelope, his heart beating fast.
    “And just so you know,” John said, “those aren’t the only copies.”
    Bastard. Charles clenched the envelope, likely warping the photographs. They seemed to burn through the envelope to his hand.
    Out of his peripheral vision, he saw something on the TV that caught his attention. When he looked at the screen shock made his skin prickle.
    Along the bottom of the screen ran a ticker:
    Randolph Eckstrom, head of the NSA, dead at fifty-one.
    “Turn it up,” Charles said, his throat dry.
    John was already holding the remote and he increased the volume.
    “…found dead in a hotel room,” a female newscaster reported. “Sources say that Eckstrom was bound to a bed and gagged in what appears to be a case of bondage with a prostitute gone bad.”
    Charles shuddered and glanced at John who had blanched. “His warning shot,” John muttered so low that Charles wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
    “Eckstrom is survived by a wife and three grown children.”
    “The Man did this,” Charles said as he turned to John. “Some kind of message.”
    For a moment John didn’t answer, as if weighing what he should say. He gave a single nod. “He’ll make more examples of everyone involved if he feels that person betrayed him.” He narrowed his gaze. “You should be concerned, Charles.”
    Charles swallowed. “Whatever you need done, just tell me and I’ll do it.”
    John gave Charles a hard look. “Get her.”
    With a sharp nod, Charles backed away, turned, and walked out the door.
     

Chapter 6
    Over my dead body
     
    The room is hot. Stifling. I struggle against my bonds but I can’t budge.
    Fear grips my insides so tight I feel as if I might bleed inside as I watch him bring the knife to my gut.
    He slices into my skin and I cry out then grit my teeth as he begins to carve his initials into my belly. Hopelessness and fury combine as he cuts into me. I’m going to kill him the first chance I get and I imagine snapping his neck.
    When he’s finished, he sets the bloody knife aside and picks up a bottle of ink. Horror tears through me as he injects the tattoo ink into the initials, making it permanent.
    I want to kill him so badly I can taste it. One careless move and I’ll destroy him.
    But I’m helpless to stop him from branding me, and I want to throw up. This is worse than any beating I’ve ever taken. Worse than all the torture I’ve endured.
    And then he dissolves and reforms, taking the shape of an enormous snake. Its forked tongue darts out as it stares at me, its mouth wide, poison dripping from its fangs.
    It strikes and I scream.
     
    I woke up screaming, holding my hand to my belly as I sat up in bed. My hands shook as I pulled up the T-shirt and looked.
    The diamond piercing sparkled in the sunlight that poured in through my window. The Chinese symbol for dragon was tattooed across my belly, hiding Cabot’s initials. Nick had done that for me, had taken me to a tattoo parlor to hide the horrid initials that would only serve as a reminder of the sick man who had captured me.
    Before I had killed him.
    I pushed my hand through my hair and took a deep breath. He could never hurt me again.
    Too bad I couldn’t kill him twice.
    I shook off the nightmare and slid out of bed. My dreams had become random, going from one thing relating to our case to another. This nightmare about Cabot. Another one about the poor girls taken into sex slavery. And dreams about Bachmann who was responsible for it all.
    The sick, sick man I intended to take down.
    I stumbled into my bathroom and pushed my messy hair out of my face. I missed the days when Nick slept with me and held me when I had nightmares of the past, nightmares of when I’d been a sniper and