A KNOCK ON THE DOOR woke Dillon and Kate. They were still entwined from the night before, naked, but Dillon had pulled the comforter on top of them in the middle of the night.

“I don’t want to move,” Kate said.

He kissed her neck. “Don’t.”

He slid out from the sheets, slid his jeans on, and crossed to the door.

“Who is it?”

“Quinn Peterson.”

“One minute.”

Kate moaned and got out of bed. She grabbed her pack and went into the bathroom.

Dillon opened the door. “Come in.”

Peterson entered. “Merritt’s on his way over. Where’s Kate?”

“Why? What’s the rush? Doesn’t he have more important fugitives to pursue? Does he know where Adam Scott is?”

“I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s adamant.”

“I’m not going to let Kate be arrested.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Dammit, Peterson, I thought you were going to do something about this!” Dillon ran his hands through his hair. “She’s the one who found Lucy.”

“Merritt is questioning that. He’s floated the theory that she intercepted a transmission meant for him from his undercover agent and because of that four people died and Adam Scott got away because of her maverick ploy.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Mallory told us he sent that message to Kate.”

“Mallory’s in ICU and unable to talk.”

“This Merritt has it in for Kate. He isn’t going to listen to the truth. He’s already made his mind up.”

“I agree. Where’s Kate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dillon, don’t do this. I need to talk to her.”

Kate stepped out of the bathroom in clean jeans and tank. “I’ll go into headquarters on my own terms,” she said.

Peterson raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

Dillon took Kate’s arms. “You don’t have to do this. Remember what I said.”

She smiled sadly at him. “I remember. And this is the right thing to do. Full disclosure, and let the chips fall. I’m ready to tell the truth. But I don’t know if anyone will believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“If you want to piss Merritt off, we should leave now for headquarters. We’ll just miss him,” Peterson suggested. “That way you’re turning yourself in.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kate said.

“I’m working double time trying to get him off this case,” Peterson said. “He’s not thinking straight. But I have to smooth the way at Quantico and that’s not an easy task.”

“I appreciate it, Quinn. Really.”

“So hang in there. All I need is time, okay? And you’re in my jurisdiction. I’m not letting him take you out of it.”

Kate was packing up her equipment when her computer beeped.

Dillon and Quinn both crossed over and watched as she retrieved a message.

There was no return e-mail or identification.

“It’s him,” she said.

Kate:

You took my lead actress, so I had to find an understudy. Click here. The show must go on.

Trask.

She glanced up at Dillon and Quinn. They both nodded. She clicked the link.

The digital video had been set up in the corner. Adam Scott didn’t try to hide his face. A woman with short blond hair had been tied to a bed. She was pleading. Scott wrapped his hands around her neck.

Cut.

The next shot was him raping her, putting his hands around her neck again.

Kate frowned. “A glitch?”

“No,” Dillon said. “He edited the video.”

“Why?”

Dillon watched closely. Something was off about the tape. It was only five minutes long. At the end Scott gave out a primal scream as he pummeled the dead girl’s body.

Cut.

“I need to see it again,” Dillon said.

Kate played it again. Dillon watched closely. “Stop.”

She froze the frame. “I don’t see anything.”

“There.” He pointed to the lower right-hand corner, where Trask was mounting the girl.

“I still don’t see anything.”

“Can you enlarge that frame?”

Kate typed on the keyboard. The frame enlarged four times.

“I don’t see anything.”

“He’s soft. He can’t rape her. Now run the film enlarged.”

They focused on Scott’s shrunken penis. Now the digital splicing was obvious. He had deleted parts of the video, probably those showing how he’d managed to get himself hard enough to penetrate her.

“He might have said something he didn’t want us to hear,” Dillon surmised, “or done something to himself to enable penetration. But he never climaxed.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s a guess, but he has no condom on. When we find the victim forensics will be able to tell. But it was really the rage on his face. He was angry that he couldn’t climax. This girl wasn’t giving him what he needed. Either because it’s not live, or because he has severe sexual dysfunction. Or both. Maybe having the show live gives him the sense that he’s playing a part. And”-Dillon clicked on the original message-“look how he signed his name.”

“Trask,” Quinn and Kate said in unison. “But he knows we have his real identity,” Quinn added.

“Trask is his public persona. It’s who he thinks he is, or who he wants to be,” Dillon said. “Adam Scott is weak. Adam doesn’t fight back. Adam was abused. Trask hasn’t been abused. He’s in charge. He fights back. He hurts those who hurt him.”

“You’re not giving me some crap about a split personality,” Quinn muttered.

“No. Adam is fully aware of who he is. For him, it’s image. He needs to think of himself as strong, successful, virile. That’s Trask. I think his sexual dysfunction is growing because we know who he really is. While we don’t know enough about his childhood to figure out what caused this, he doesn’t know that. He assumes we know everything.”

Dillon looked from Quinn to Kate. “You’re not safe, Kate. Not until he’s caught.”

“He can’t get to me,” she said.

“Did you get a good look at that woman?” Dillon asked.

She nodded. “She looks just like me.”

When Kate Donovan walked into the Seattle field office heads turned. She entered with her head held high, her pride intact, but inside she was scared. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Jeff Merritt since the day Paige had died, when he’d told her he’d track her down to the ends of the earth.

There was nothing he, personally, could do except bring her in front of OPR. They would launch an investigation-one she knew had been going on for years-into the op that had gotten Paige and Evan killed. She didn’t know what they believed or what they knew. Even if they believed her that Paige had told her they had backup, Kate had broken protocol by not briefing the backup squad herself.

She had trusted Paige.

She had run five years ago because she was scared and angry. Mostly scared. And Jeff had been wild-eyed, overcome with grief she knew all too well. She had watched Evan die in front of her.

She’d intuitively believed that the only way to clear her name was to find Trask-Adam Scott-and prove that he was the brutal killer she knew him to be. She’d done that over the years, but still Merritt wanted her head.

Because Paige had died and he blamed her as much as Adam Scott. He didn’t know the truth. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him at the time, but he wouldn’t have believed her anyway. How could she have ruined the reputation of her dead partner? It had seemed so much easier to run and work outside of the law.

But now? She just wanted it to be over.

Quinn let Dillon stay with her in an interview room. “I’ll be here the entire time.”

She shook her head. “Merritt won’t allow it.”

“Then I’ll be right outside.”

Again, she shook her head. Dillon frowned.

“I can’t let you do that. You need to go home with Lucy.”

Dillon took her hands, squeezed them. “Lucy is in good hands. Carina is with her. She’s going to be overwhelmed as it is when she sees everyone. And we haven’t told her about Patrick. We didn’t want her to know until she regained some strength.”