Surprise flickered on his face. Surprise, then rage. “Who?” It was a low, lethal whisper.

Sarah swallowed. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”

He shot to his feet. His restraints groaned and stretched with his movements. “You think I sent someone after you? Sarah, no! Never! You are mine. My flesh and blood and I would protect you . . . always.” His eyes glittered down at her. “Always.”

She could feel goose bumps rising on her arms. No, I’m not. I’m not yours and I am nothing like you. “Do you remember Gwen Guthrie?”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You know I can’t forget her.”

Right. Not Gwen. Because she’d been her father’s first.

“Life is funny,” Sarah said. “It’s filled with all of these chance encounters. Random events that don’t seem to make sense.”

He slowly lowered back into his seat. The guard who’d stepped forward also eased back.

“Your mother’s death wasn’t a random event,” her father said. “That woman killed her. She almost killed you.”

And that was the instant her father’s life had changed. Now, with the understanding she’d gained through years of study, she realized that her father had probably managed to control his darker urges. Maybe her mother had even been some sort of anchor for him. True psychopaths didn’t form strong connections with others, but it certainly seemed that her father had bonded with her mother.

And with me.

Or, at least, bonded as much as he could.

But when Sarah’s mother had died in that accident, her father had lost his anchor. There’d been no more hope for him. There had only been rage.

“She’d been drinking,” Sarah explained as she glanced over at Jax. He was silently watching the byplay between her and her father. “Gwen Guthrie had been out partying that night. Mixing drugs and booze, and when she drove away, she never even noticed that the light at the intersection was red.”

Gwen had smashed into her mother’s side of the vehicle.

It had sounded . . . well, just like a bomb had gone off. Sarah knew she’d never forget that sound. Boom. The impact had woken her from sleep in the backseat, and Sarah had screamed and screamed.

Screamed as the glass fell.

Screamed as the seat belt cut into her skin, seeming to burn her.

Screamed . . . screamed while the firemen used the Jaws of Life to cut her mother out of the car.

Her screams had stopped when she realized her mother wasn’t moving.

“She laughed,” her father said. His gaze seemed to be focused on the past. “The cops were trying to get Gwen Guthrie in the back of their car, and she laughed while my Sabrina lay dead on the ground.”

Sarah eased out a slow breath. “Gwen was sent to rehab. The judge gave her probation. She was a young, single mother. She had two small children. The judge put them in foster care while she was getting help—”

“She wasn’t going to get better, Sarah.” Her father’s fingers tapped on the table. “When I found her, she was at the liquor store. Such a loving mother.”

And Sarah had woken later, to Gwen Guthrie’s screams.

I didn’t know! I didn’t!

“Random events,” Sarah murmured. “Guess where I’ve been? Down in the Big Easy. I’d just finished working a case . . . when a woman named Molly Guthrie went missing.”

Her father blinked. That was it . . . the only change in his expression. A slow blink.

“The man who took Molly contacted me. You see, Dad, he knew about you. About your connection to Molly. He told me that Molly would suffer, just like Gwen had, if I didn’t find her.”

He wasn’t tapping his fingers against the table any longer.

“So my team and I started looking, but it was all a trap. For me. For them. The first place he led me to . . . it exploded just when my partner Wade was about to rush inside.” Her spine was so stiff that it was starting to ache. “The next time he called me, I managed to keep him on the phone long enough to get a trace—”

“You were always so clever.” Pride beamed in those words.

“We tracked him. Found the missing woman, but he’d wired that place, too. If it wasn’t for Jax,” her gaze darted to him, then back to her father, “I wouldn’t have gotten out, and neither would Molly.”

Her father’s attention shifted to Jax. “You saved Sarah.”

“He carried Molly out,” Sarah explained. “He—”

Her father’s hands slammed into the table. “I don’t care about her.” He pointed at Jax. “I know what you are. I can see it. I could always see it.”

Her father saw his own evil, that was all. Evil tainting everything around him.

“The man wasn’t done, even though we got Molly away from him.” She waited for her father to look at her again, but he seemed only focused on Jax. “That’s when he came after me and my boss. He was following behind us, and he shot at the car.”

Her father’s head slowly turned back to her.

“The bullets were aimed at Gabe. I think he wanted to take Gabe out so that he could get to me.”

“He’s a dead man.”

Really? Her father was going to make threats? In prison?

“He wants revenge,” Sarah said. “Maybe you can understand that. After all, isn’t that why you killed Gwen? For revenge?”

“I stopped her from hurting anyone else! From destroying another family!”

“And you were mad because Ryan had been mean to me, so you killed him—”

“He was always going to be bad, Sarah. Always.”

“You had a reason for them all, didn’t you? You could find a reason why every single one of them needed to die. Jonathan Kerns—”

“He’d been selling drugs! He was going to hurt—”

“Eliza Mayo—”

“She was a prostitute, Sarah. She was sick and she was—”

“Jennings White—”

“That bastard was corrupt. He was taking away money that was mine—”

“There was always a reason that you could come up with, but the simple truth is that you just wanted to kill. You came up with excuses so you wouldn’t have to admit to yourself . . . you’re a murderer, Dad. Murphy the Monster. You killed when the urge came to you.”

He was silent. A faint line of red stained his cheeks.

Most serial killers had preferred victim types. All blond women with blue eyes. Or college-age girls or—hell, a type. But her father had claimed victims of all ages, all races, and all sexes. That was one of the reasons he’d been so hard to catch. The cops had thought they were looking for multiple killers.

Not just one man.

“I thought you knew me better than this, Sarah.” The beam of pride was gone. He shook his head, disappointment slumping his shoulders. But . . . did he really feel disappointment? Did he really feel anything?

Or was he just pretending?

“Do you love me?” Sarah heard herself ask.

“Of course,” he said instantly. “You are the only thing that matters to me.”

“Then help me.” She couldn’t look away from him. “This man is coming for me. He wants to hurt me. He knows how to rig bombs and he knows how to fire a gun from a moving vehicle. He’s got training—”

“Sounds military,” her father said.

Because, yes, he’d been the one to teach her how to profile long before she’d studied psychiatry.

“He’s a white male, probably in his thirties, maybe early forties.” Because he was fit and strong. “He has blond hair. Blue eyes . . .”

Her father grunted. “Sounds like the guy next to you.”

Jax leaned forward and put his hands on the table.

“Nice tats,” her father murmured. Sarah shook her head. “Who does this perp match to? Who did you take from him?”

Her father glanced back at her.

“The blond man with military training. I gave you his description, his age. He’s in New Orleans now, but he could have been anywhere before.” And that was key because her father had crossed state lines. Another smart way to avoid detection. When the kills were spaced so far apart, it had been harder for the authorities to connect the dots and find their perp. “You took someone away from him, and now, Dad, he’s trying to take me away from you.”