Primal Instinct
A killer stalks the city streets, and one FBI agent is determined to bring him down in Janie Crouch's Primal Instinct. On the crowded streets of San Francisco, a serial killer watches and waits. Known only as "Simon Says," he lures his next victim while the FBI grasps for answers. Desperate, they turn to Adrienne Jeffries. Adrienne has an uncanny talent for getting inside the city's most dangerous minds. But first she'll have to get past FBI agent Conner Perigo. Skeptical of Adrienne's abilities, Conner begrudgingly enlists her help…unprepared for the powerful attraction that could jeopardize their focus. With little time, and everything to lose, they must work to find Simon's next victim–before he does.
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Conner put a hand at the small of her back and led her inside the hotel. “I’ll stay here tonight. In the lobby. That should give you a peaceful night’s sleep.”
Adrienne wasn’t sure how to respond. She was so grateful for his offer. The thought of having a night of uninterrupted rest made her feel as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
But she didn’t want him in the lobby. She wanted him in her bed.
Adrienne smiled up at Conner shyly, and reached for his hand. “There’s no need for you to stay down here.”
He pressed the button for the elevator then stepped close enough to Adrienne that his lips were just inches away from hers.
“I think we both know if I stay up there, a peaceful night’s sleep is not what’s going to happen.”
The elevator door opened but Conner didn’t move. Finally Adrienne put a finger on his chest and pushed him back into the elevator and didn’t stop until Conner’s back was against the elevator’s wall.
JANIE CROUCH loves to read—almost exclusively romance—and has been doing so since middle school. She learned to love Mills & Boon>® romance novels when she lived in Wales, UK, for a few years as a pre-teen, then moved on to a passion for romantic suspense as an adult.
Janie lives with her husband and four children in southeastern Virginia. Her “day job” is teaching online public speaking and communication courses at a community college. When she’s not listening to the voices in her head (and even when she is), Janie enjoys traveling, long-distance running, movie-watching, knitting and adventure/obstacle racing.
Janie tries to live by the anonymous quote “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn-out and proclaiming, ‘Wow, what a ride!'” You can find out more about her at www.janiecrouch.com.
To my mother, the smartest and most well-read person I know.
I call you family because I have to, but call you friend because I’m blessed.
Contents
Chapter One
FBI agent Conner Perigo knew throwing the file in his hand across the room would be childish and ultimately accomplish nothing except making a mess, but he was still tempted.
Ten months.
Ten months they had been on the trail of this psychopath. Ten months of being two steps behind and watching, helpless, as another woman was murdered. It wasn’t in Conner’s job description to attend the funerals of women he had never known. That hadn’t stopped him from attending one last week. Or three weeks before that. Or a month and a half before that.
Each time he saw one of these women buried, it renewed Conner’s determination to catch this bastard.
Five women dead in ten months. Most within a fifty-mile radius of San Francisco, which, of course, had the city in a panic.
“I’m not picking that up, so don’t even think about throwing it,” Conner’s partner and friend, Seth Harrington, said without looking up from his desk.
Conner looked at the file in his hand, then set it down. Maybe flying papers would make him feel better momentarily, but it wasn’t worth the aftermath. He sighed. “This case, Seth. I swear I’m about to lose it over this case.”
“I hear you, man. It’s messed up.”
It wasn’t just the murders, although those were bad enough. Now the perp was taunting them.
Yesterday the San Francisco FBI field office had received another package. It was the same thing every time. The outside was a box addressed with an innocuous label—like a care package. Of course, innocent-looking or not, each had gone through the extensive FBI bomb scannings and toxic screenings. There was nothing dangerous in any of the packages.
Every delivery was box after box, wrapped in plain brown paper, nested inside each other like one of those Russian dolls. Every time, inside the smallest box, Conner and his team had found a lock of a woman’s hair.
And every time, the dead body matching the hair had been found a few days later.
The packages also contained a handwritten note, in third person, with the killer referring to himself as Simon. As if this was all a game of Simon Says.
“Simon says, the FBI is too slow.”
“Simon says, you should try harder.”
“Simon says, uh-oh, there goes another one.”
They had kept all info about the packages from the public, knowing it would cause more of a panic. But around the San Francisco field office, the killer was known as “Simon Says.”
There was no doubt about it: this pervert was calling the shots. The game was consistent. The FBI received a package—with zero helpful forensic evidence—then ran around for the next couple of days trying to figure out where the woman was being held with only the city in the return address to go on.
They were always too late. A body would be found somewhere; usually local law enforcement would call it in, and the Bureau would rush to the address. The crime scene, just like the packages, would hold zero helpful forensic evidence.
