Free Fear No Evil by Allison Brennan Page B

had informed Kate that there was no backup, Merritt hadn’t authorized it. He’d looked at Kate as if she’d lied to him. But she hadn’t.
    She’d repeated what Paige had told her just that morning. She’d never thought to question her partner. She’d never thought her partner would put them in jeopardy.
    Evan had died believing Kate had lied to him. It still hurt.
    She glanced up at the screen just as Roger climbed off Lucy Kincaid, a crooked grin on the bastard’s face. The poor girl was crying, then the picture was cut off. Trask’s voice came over the speakers as another “best of” compilation began.
    “Lucy wants to clean up after her first act. Wasn’t that fabulous? Lucy definitely has a future as an actress. So while she takes care of her business, here are highlights of our past shows.”
    Kate didn’t watch, not this time. She was frantically trying to isolate a frequency. But as soon as the highlights began, Lucy’s feed was off the network. Kate was tracking phantoms.
    She buried her head in her arms. She’d been so close, then he cut her off. Did he do it on purpose? Or was he trying to set her up, give her a false location like he had with Paige? Could Kate even trust her skills anymore? She was better, much, much better, than five years ago, but so was Trask.
    Again, it was all about power. Trask had all the money he could ever want from his pornography trade. He didn’t need to kill women to increase his cash flow. And on top of the legitimate money, she suspected he had a number of illegal schemes going on.
    So why kill? And why kill online? Why show the world what he was doing?
    He thinks he’s God.
    For five years the FBI had been trying to find Morton and Trask, but they didn’t even fully believe Trask existed. The Bureau wanted vengeance for the murder of two federal agents. They’d take anyone and everyone they could. Some believed “Trask” was an alias of Roger Morton’s, and no matter how Kate tried to convince them that they were two different people, they’d found no proof that Trask was a separate individual. Through her contact, Special Agent Quinn Peterson, she knew they’d raided Trask Enterprises, arrested and interviewed everyone on staff. But Roger Morton had disappeared, and no one else in the company had ever heard of an individual named Trask. They all believed it was just the name of the company, not related to a living, breathing person. Then, a new CEO was appointed by the board, a man above reproach—other than the fact that he ran a strip club in New York.
    There was no evidence that Trask Enterprises had anything to do with Paige’s murder.
    But Kate knew the truth, even if she couldn’t prove it.

SEVEN
    T HE DIVE BAR in the depressed border town of Hidalgo, Texas, was open from six a.m. until two a.m. Dillon suspected it had never been cleaned. Stale beer, cheap cigarettes, and sweat assaulted his senses as soon as he entered. He approached the bar, sat on a stool, the knowledge that he was far from his comfort zone hitting him hard. He should have brought Connor. He would have fit in better with this rough-and-tumble crowd. And Connor knew how to use a gun. Dillon didn’t own one, and hadn’t been comfortable with Connor’s offer of his backup piece.
    The fact that he was the only Kincaid who didn’t know how to shoot wasn’t lost on him. What was he doing going after a renegade FBI agent? What was he doing trekking through dangerous Mexican territory, enlisting the help of the twin brother he hadn’t seen in eleven years?
    Lucy. She would die if he didn’t do something, and even with all the gun power the Kincaids had—and their ability to use it—only Dillon could think like Trask. And understanding the mind of the killer might just be the key to saving Lucy.
    “I told you to come alone.”
    Dillon hadn’t heard Jack approach. He turned to face him. They were not identical, and at first glance one might not think they were brothers at all,