Free Power by Debra Webb

were damned lucky that, for whatever reasons, this evening’s warning had been decidedly nonlethal. It didn’t quite fit unless that was only the preview before the main event.
    To her surprise Burnett hadn’t shown up at the scene or at the hospital. Usually he was Johnny-on-the-spot to do the protector thing. Which would have provided the opportunity for her to demand why he’d kept Helen Simmons’s request from her. Why not just tell her that she couldn’t stay on the Chandler case because she had been requested by the family of a possible victim in another case?
    Helen Simmons had prayed for Jess’s help after watching the news. Had she missed the part about how badly Jess had screwed up the Player case?
    Evidently so.
    Jess squeezed her eyes shut and forced images of Eric Spears and Matthew Reed from her head. Spears, the Player, had gotten away. A serial killer with dozens of murders on his score sheet, and he had slipped through their fingers.
    Through her fingers
. Not once but twice.
    His protégé, Matthew Reed, hadn’t been so lucky. He was dead. The sound of the bullet exploding from her Glock echoed in her brain. She’d had no choice. She’d do it again if necessary. Reed had killed Special Agent Nora Miller and he’d very nearly done the same to Realtor Belinda Howard just last week. The bureau had since learned that Reed had killed his own parents and planted them in the backyard of their West Coast home. Those three murders were documented. There was no way to know how many others he’d murdered. As much as she believed in and respected the justice system, there were those who didn’t deserve a trial… who didn’t deserve even the most remote opportunity to repeat their heinous acts.
    Matthew Reed had been one of those people.
    Didn’t matter to the powers that be that she had used that single bullet fired from her weapon on a twisted killer who would have kept on killing as long as he had breath in him. She still had to deal with the consequences. The internal review into her actions was ongoing, and that included a psych eval.
    “Whoop-de-do.” Who didn’t want some shrink crawling around inside their head? She had a degree in psychology, for heaven’s sake. Another human being was dead because of her. Yes, she understood that. She had committed the ultimate violent act against a living being. Got it. But it was either kill him or allow him to keep killing innocent people at the bidding of an even more evil man. She had made the right decision. The only decision.
    Given the chance, she would put a bullet between Spears’s eyes as well. A smart man would never allow himself to get that close to her again. But maybe even the most brilliant of evil men had temptations they couldn’t resist. If she needed to test that theory, all she had to do was consider that Spears still contacted her when the right occasion presented itself.
    He’d had the audacity to text her before boarding a commercial airliner to flee the country just five days ago. The bureau had lost him and Jess hadn’t heard from him since. But she had a feeling that he wasn’t finished playing his games with her just yet.
    Until next time
.
    “That’s right, Spears. I’ll get you next time.”
    If Burnett found out the peace lily plant sent to the hospital when he was recovering from last week’s stabbing had come from Spears, he would be fit to be tied. Spears had apparently placed the order before boarding that flight out of JFK. He could be anywhere now. Part of her hoped he stayed wherever the hell that was, but another, more twisted part of her wanted to end this once and for all. Wanted to ensure he never killed again. Burnett, on the other hand, would prefer that Spears never got anywhere near her again. The problem with that scenario was that letting him close might just be the only way to get a killer like Spears. Dangle the bait and wait. That was precisely the reason she couldn’t tell Burnett about any