Sophie Oak - Lost in Bliss

Cameron Briggs felt like he was storming the castle. His heart was beating, adrenaline coursing through his body as he charged through the double doors that separated the FBI offices from the lobby. It had been years since hed walked through those doors, but he wasnt allowing anyone to keep him out today.

Luckily, the guard on duty was a small, gray-haired woman who smiled brightly at him as he strode through the double doors.

Agent Briggs! Helen Angelo exclaimed, getting to her feet. Its been so very long.

Cam shook his head. Im not an agent anymore, Helen. Is Rafe in?

If Rafe wasnt in, then Cam would find his ass. The bastard hadnt answered his phone, and Cam had left three messages. The printout in his hand nearly burned his skin. Five years. Hed looked for her for five years.

Helen frowned, and Cam felt the weight of her disapproval. Yes, I did hear that you had left the Bureau. I do not think it was a good career move for you.

He hadnt given dick about his career when hed left the Bureau.

There had been nothing for him here after what had happened to Laura. A vision of Laura Rosen leapt into his mind. Blonde, gorgeous, with a soft body and a softer heart. The vision didnt really have to leap all that far. It was always there. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her, smiling and looking down at him, her blonde hair around her shoulders as she rode his cock.

And every time he went to sleep he saw her another way

battered, beaten, and stabbed, being shoved into an ambulance.

Wheres Rafe? Cam didnt have time to argue. This was the best lead hed had in five fucking years. He wanted to follow it now.

He would already be on a plane if he hadnt made that damn promise to Rafe Kincaid.

Hes in a meeting. A very important meeting with the chief and a task force. He and his partner are giving a briefing. Yeah, yeah . They were all important. Everything was important to the goddamn FBI except the agents who didnt perfectly toe the line.

They could go to hell.

Or they could go to Bliss. What a fucking name. How on earth had his cosmopolitan Laura ended up in some podunk Colorado town? Cam doubted shed ever been out of the city.

Cam gave Helen a little wave. Thanks. Ill take it from here. Cam took off. He heard Helen yelling behind him, but he wasnt about to sit in the waiting room for the briefing to be over. He wasnt Rafes lapdog, as so many had claimed. Sure, hed taken money from Rafe over the years, but only because they had a single goal in mind.

A goal Cam had accomplished.

Cam opened the door to the briefing room, but was startled to find absolutely no one there. It was empty and silent, though Cam remembered a time when hed stood in the room and listened for quiet words.

You dont believe me. How could you stand there and tell them all Im wrong? How could you advise the chief to take me off the biggest case of my career?

Cam shut the door. There were only ghosts in there. There were ghosts everywhere in this building. If they werent in the briefing room, then they were in the auditorium.

Maybe Helen was right. Maybe this meeting was important.

Cam slipped into the small auditorium where large-scale briefings were held. The lights were dimmed, and the only illumination came from the projector. No fun movies for the FBI. Only horror shows, and this was no different. Cam was immediately assaulted by the picture projected on the wall. A woman, young, but no longer vital.

Her glassy eyes stared out of the picture, utterly unseeing. Her flesh was a pale white, the only bit of color a shiny mauve-colored lipstick painted on her lips.

She was naked, her hands tied over her head. The victims wrists had been bound so tightly that her hands were almost blue. She would have lost feeling in them long before she died. Her pale flesh was a map of cuts, some shallow, some terrifyingly deep. The killer liked to start with small stabbing wounds to the lower abdomen, painful, but not fatal. Long strips of flesh had been lashed from the victims breasts and thighs. This womans death hadnt been quick. It had been a long, slow opera of torture ending in her throat being slit like a lamb led to slaughter. He had seen it before. Cam let his eyes drift down as his stomach did a flip.

The Marquis de Sade.

Yeah, this was an important meeting.

The victim was discovered just outside the warehouse district on Tuesday morning. Her name is Christine Parker. She was a prostitute working the area.

Cam shrank back, all thoughts of breaking up this meeting gone in a tidal wave of fear and self-loathing. De Sade had been gone for five years. Hed been utterly silent, like a shark who feasted in the shallows of the beach before sinking back into the deep. He was surfacing again. Cam had always known he would. De Sade loved his work too much to stop. Cam knew Rafe had been watching for him, too. They had theorized that he was in prison, or hed moved to another city after his close call with the law. Five years had sped by with not a hint of the serial killer.

How was this happening again? How the hell was this happening just when hed found Laura, the only victim of the infamous serial killer to have ever gotten away?

A tall, broad figure stood by the projector, his solid body almost ghostly in the shadowy light. Cams former partner had been a little like a ghost these last few years. Cam had seen him rarely and only to update Rafe on the progress hed made in finding Laura. Rafe had become a bank account Cam tapped into when he needed money to follow a lead. There was a man standing beside Rafe. Cam couldnt see his face, but he knew the name. Brad Conrad. Ex-college football star and all-around asshole in Cams book. It was kind of hard to believe, but in another years time, Brad would be Rafes partner for longer than Cam had been.

Rafe Kincaids deep voice continued. It was far steadier than Cams heart rate, and, for a moment, jealousy and rage curled in Cams belly. Rafe had never loved Laura the way Cam did. How could he, if he could stand there and talk about the man who had almost killed her the same way a college professor talked about a Shakespearean sonnet?

As with all previous victims, this one was found with lipstick on her. Forensics has already verified that its the same as the others.

Purple Passion. Also, according to forensics, the victim had been killed at least twelve hours before. Blood spatter indicates she was killed where her body was found.

That was the pattern. The lipstick. The victim was a prostitute.

Shed been tortured before she was killed. Everything fit the pattern.

Cam just didnt want to believe it. Hes been quiet for years. Why has he started working again?

At least twenty-five heads turned.

Rafe put a hand over his eyes as though trying to see across the distance. Cam?

Even in the low light of the auditorium, Cam could see Brad puffing up. Briggs, this is a closed session. We dont need low-level PIs here. If you need information on something, please go and ask the secretary.

Rafe turned briefly and exchanged words Cam couldnt hear.

Before Rafe could turn back, the lights came on. There was an almost relieved sigh that swept through the room. The picture on screen seemed to recede a little, no longer the main focus of the world.