He moved forward, pushed the gate open. “All’s clear,” Juan yelled. “APD, Detective Acosta here. All clear!”
Two officers rushed around the corner. Juan recognized Billy Johnston, a fellow poker player, followed by Officer Smith.
Billy yelled out, “Gun!”
Shit. The little ballbuster hadn’t listened to his advice.
“Drop the weapon,” Smith ordered.
Freaking great. Juan might die tonight after all. “Don’t shoot!” Juan yelled. “She thinks I’m the bad guy.”
One hand held out to the cops, he scowled at her over his shoulder. “Drop the gun before you get us killed!”
She did, but cut him a look that was equally lethal. Billy and Smith rushed forward. Juan moved in front of his neighbor, stopping them from taking her down. “It’s okay. It was a misunderstanding.”
He looked back at her. “Go see about your daughter.”
Smith stepped in front of her.
“Let her go,” Juan said. “She’s got a scared kid inside.”
Smith backed off, but followed her into the house.
After explaining about seeing the man jump over the fence and getting attacked by his neighbor, then being ribbed by Billy, Juan went inside his neighbor’s house. While his fellow officers stood, he pulled out a kitchen chair. The house was almost like his. His neighbor, a frown on her lips and fear in her eyes, stepped out of the bedroom. Oddly, she appeared more concerned now than when she’d been held at gunpoint.
As she spoke with Smith, Juan studied her. Jeans and a pink T-shirt now hugged her petite, well-toned body. Dark auburn hair framed her pretty face.
Smith’s six-foot-four frame could be intimidating, but she faced the officer with a kind of bravado hard not to admire. “As you know, all of this was a misunderstanding.”
“Your name, ma’am?” Smith asked, holding a clipboard.
“Nikki Hanson. It’s late, so if we could just call it a night…”
“Ma’am, you called us. And we have to make a report.”
Juan ran a hand over his sore lip. It was clear his neighbor wanted them gone. But was it the late hour, or something more?
Her gaze met his. She flinched, walked into the adjoining kitchen, and grabbed a damp towel.
“Your head’s bleeding.” She stepped back. As he pressed the towel to his wound, he noticed she had blood on her elbow, but before he could point it out, she turned back to Smith. “Do I need to sign something?”
“Yes. But I have some questions first. Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“I heard a noise. I called 911 and ran outside. When I did, I saw”—she looked toward Juan—“him, and—” Her eyes widened. He knew why, too. With some of the charcoal wiped away, she’d gotten her first look at his face. At his scar. “And I thought he was breaking in.” She glanced away, a hint of embarrassment spotting her cheeks. He was used to the reaction. From women especially. Oh, the irony. He’d once been dubbed Pretty Boy, and now women couldn’t look at him. “And we fought and then you got here.”
Was he grateful she’d left out the part where she’d kicked him in the balls? Hell, it didn’t matter. It would’ve been nice if she’d believed he was police, but he couldn’t blame her. Not when he was barefoot, shirtless, and badgeless.
“I see.” Smith scribbled down information. “Is there anyone you know who would’ve tried to break in? An ex-husband? Boyfriend?”
He wasn’t sure if anyone else noticed, but her lips tightened. Her eyes flinched. She blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. “No. I’m new in town. Just moved from Colorado.”
You think I don’t know why you’re here? Her words played in his head. “What about someone from outside of town?” he asked.
She faced him. “No.”
She didn’t flinch that time, not from the sight of his scar or from a possible lie. He still didn’t believe her.
“Mama?” The young voice echoed from down the hall.
Conversation stopped. The little girl, wearing a pink nightgown, entered the room. She was four, maybe five, with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and light olive skin. He winced. She looked…she looked how he expected his daughter would’ve looked. His next breath swelled in his chest.
“I’ll be right there.” Nikki faced Smith and Billy again. “I’m sorry to rush, but my daughter has her first day of school tomorrow. And she’s not going back to sleep until you’re gone.”
Frowning, Smith looked over his papers. “Right.”
Juan stood. He offered a quick nod to Nikki as he walked out.
Billy and Smith followed.
The second they cleared the door, Billy grinned. “I can’t believe you got beat up by a girl.”
“Stop.”
Billy coughed to disguise a laugh, then asked, “Do you need stitches?”
“No. It’s just a scratch.”
“That’s a lot of blood for a scratch.”
“Head wounds bleed a lot.”
Billy frowned back at the neighbor’s front door. “Did she seem skittish to you? Almost as if she didn’t want us here.”
So I’m not the only one thinking something is off. “She’s probably worried about the kid.” His own words of defense surprised him.
On the way to the car, Smith stopped to take a call. He spoke for a few seconds, then turned around. “Officer Lewis caught a guy in Glenloch subdivision breaking into a house. He had a ski mask on. We’re pretty sure it’s the same perp. Lewis knows him. Says he’s homeless. Usually only breaks into empty houses. We’ll need you to ID him to make sure he’s our man.”
“Yeah, she only just moved in, so he probably thought this place was still empty, too.” Juan looked at his neighbor’s house. “You going to tell her you got the guy?”
“Why don’t you? I gotta assist Lewis with this arrest. I think she liked you better anyway.”
Juan frowned.
“I’ll swing by when we head back to the station and let you ID him,” Smith said.
Juan watched him and Billy drive off before walking back to his neighbor’s porch and pushing the doorbell.
He heard Nikki on the other side of the door, and said, “It’s Juan. Detective Acosta.”
“Yeah?” Her voice lacked the earlier edge. She opened the door.
He met her eyes…brown, or were they?…“I wanted to let you know that they caught the intruder. He was breaking into an empty house a few miles down the road.”
Her shoulders dropped and a soft breath sounded on her lips. “Are you sure it’s him?”
Her tone, filled with both relief and disbelief, notched up his suspicion. “Who did you think it was?” he asked.
“No one.”
“You said something about knowing why I was here.”
“I…I was scared, and when I’m scared I ramble.”
“Look, Nikki, if you’re worried about—”
“I’m not.” Her answer came quick and with a sharp edge. Not very convincing.
“The guy the cops caught was trying to break into an empty home and was wearing a ski mask, just like the guy I saw here. I thought you’d want to know.”
She cupped her hands together. “Thank you.”
The gratitude sounded sincere. He stood there until he realized he didn’t have anything else to say. While still suspicious, he offered her a nod in lieu of goodbye, then turned to go.
“I’m sorry.” Her soft-spoken apology had him turning back around and burying his hands in his pockets.
Their eyes met. “Me too.” He motioned to her arm. “For your elbow. You should probably wash it.”
She stared at her arm as if she hadn’t known she’d been hurt.
“I will.” Their eyes met again. She closed the door while he stood there.
What was his neighbor hiding?
And who was she hiding from?
Chapter Two
Her head was swimming after dodging all of the cops’ questions. Her neighbor had asked if she was w
orried.
Worried? No, she was petrified. But she had to fake it. Her whole life was about faking it. Most of her résumé was fake. She’d never lived in Colorado. Even her name was fake. Her real name was Vicki. At least “Nikki” was close enough to avoid too many slip-ups. But the biggest lie of all? She was faking being Bell’s mom.
“Why were the police here?” Bell asked.
Vicki pulled the sheet up to Bell’s chest, forcing a smile. Not that she didn’t feel a hell of a lot better knowing the man trying to break in was a common criminal.
“I told you. The neighbor lost his dog and was looking for it in our backyard. I thought he was a bad man and called the cops. I didn’t know he was the police.” It was a lie, but the truth would only scare her niece. And she’d been scared for way too long.
“You don’t like police,” Bell said.
Vicki flinched. She’d never said that, but her niece was way too smart. “Not all police are bad, sweetheart. Look, it’s late. And you have school.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“It’s going to be great. You’ll make new friends. You can wear your new pink tennis shoes and your new princess shirt.” Her words felt as hollow as her chest.
A watery sheen filled Bell’s big brown eyes. “I want to stay home with you.”
“It’s only one day, and we’ll have the weekend.” Because of a busted water pipe in the school, the first day of school had been delayed. Thankfully, her job didn’t start until tomorrow.
Bell reached up. Her small hand gripped Vicki’s fingers.
“I want to go back to Arizona.”
Staying in Phoenix hadn’t been an option. Not after seeing the same car parked in front of their house two nights in a row. Vicki hadn’t seen the face of the man sitting in the vehicle, but she hadn’t needed to see it to be afraid. Especially when the manager of Bell’s daycare said a Los Angeles police officer had come in with a photo of a younger girl who looked like Bell and asked if they’d seen a missing child.
“You can’t stay home, and I have to work.” She’d been lucky to get a job. Luckier that it was at a gym and she’d be working in the field she was trained in. She’d made a terrible waitress.
She kissed Bell’s tiny palm. “I hate first days, too. How about we be brave? I’ll do my first day at my job, and you’ll do your first day at school, and afterwards we’ll go out for ice cream.”
“What if I forget my name?” Her bottom lip trembled, and Vicki’s breath caught in her chest. Teaching a five-year-old to lie was sure to send Vicki straight to hell. But she’d make it her permanent address and sign over her soul to the landlord to protect Bell.
Vicki brushed a strand of Bell’s dark hair off her cheek. “You won’t forget because we’ve practiced it a trillion times. What’s your name?”
“Bell Hanson.” They’d chosen Bell because her real first name was Belinda and because she loved Belle in the movie Beauty and the Beast.
“And who am I?” Vicki asked.
“My mama. Nikki Hanson.”
“See?” Vicki said, sounding confident, yet feeling none of it.
But she’d do this. Out of love. Out of guilt.
She pressed a gentle kiss to Bell’s forehead. “Love you.”
Bell offered a teary, sleepy nod. “Can you read to me?”
“Sure.” Vicki pulled a Dr. Seuss book from the shelf.
“No,” Bell said. “Charlotte’s Web. Read the next to the last chapter.”
Vicki’s chest felt like a sponge, soaking up Bell’s grief only to add to her own. The professional advice she’d found online was to gently encourage a child to move away from the subject of death, but to never push, because it might help them cope. “We’ve read that book. Let’s read a different one?”
“No, I want to hear about Charlotte dying.”
Relenting, Vicki opened up to the requested chapter and started to read.
She finally recited the last line of the chapter. “‘No one was with Charlotte when she died.’”
She swallowed to keep her words from shaking, but she couldn’t stop her heart from breaking. Aching for a black spider who’d lost her life, aching for a little girl who missed her mom. Aching because no matter what she’d read in self-help books, Vicki felt inadequate to help Bell.
She didn’t know how to be a mother. Not like her sister, Alison, had.
She and Alison used to joke that God had forgotten to give Vicki the maternal gene. She’d wanted to focus on her career, on being a personal trainer to California’s rich and famous. She’d wanted time to run marathons, train for her second Ironman competition. And, maybe, she just didn’t know how to be a mother because their own mom had failed so miserably.
And yet, here she was in Anniston, Texas, trying to do right by her niece. For Bell, she’d walked away from everything. Her life in L.A. Her career. Dan Jefferies. Her first and only real relationship.
Bell shifted under the sheet. Her nightgown slipped off her shoulder. Vicki lifted the soft cotton over the cigar-sized scars and remembered her neighbor’s face.
“Do you think Mama and Charlotte are together?” Bell asked in a drowsy voice.
“Uh-huh.” Swallowing the lump of grief, Vicki reminded herself that the articles said Bell’s obsession with death was normal. But nothing about this felt normal. Not Bell’s fixation on death. Not the hit-and-run accident that left Alison to die alone on the side of the road. And especially not running and hiding from a man who was supposed to be dead.
* * *
The knock on Juan’s door came ten minutes after he’d gone into the house. Officer Smith had the suspect in the car. Same dark clothes. Same body shape. When the cop pulled out the ski mask, navy blue with orange rings around the eyes and mouth, Juan confirmed it was the same guy who’d been trying to break into his neighbor’s house.
Juan watched the patrol car drive off, and then his gaze shifted next door. Nikki Hanson, what kind of trouble are you in?
Not that she couldn’t handle trouble. She’d handled him just fine. He passed a hand over his sore ribs.
Moving back inside, he looked at his recliner and the television waiting to replay the DVD.
He should go to bed. But he felt too keyed up to sleep.
He looked at his laptop and the file folder on the table beside his chair. He’d told Mark and Connor, the other two officers working with him in the Cold Case Unit, that he’d do Internet searches into the missing person case they’d started yesterday.
He hadn’t. Lately, work no longer gave him the sense of accomplishment it once had. Was it his upcoming anniversary? Was the grief always going to keep bearing down on him?
He picked up the folder and flipped it open. He’d chosen the Noel case himself after he realized it had loose ties to Guzman’s gang, the one responsible for killing his wife and daughter. He’d thought stirring up those demons might give him a sense of purpose.
It wasn’t working.
Sweetie ran to the back door, yapping in the same warning tone as she had earlier.
“Seriously?” he asked her.
He went to the window and pulled the curtain aside.
Between the fence slats he spotted a globe of light, a flashlight, shifting in his neighbor’s backyard. Was he wrong about the perp he’d identified?
He grabbed his gun and badge, and he and his bruised ribs went back outside. The moon hung low, but the light got swallowed up by the inky darkness.
Moving silently to the fence, he peered through. His adrenaline notched down when he saw Nikki, flashlight in hand, walking in tight circles.
Gone were the jeans. She wore another nightshirt. Not the angel one. This one was black, shorter. Clingy. The material hugged her hourglass curves.
“It’s got to be here.” Her whispered words flowed over the fence.
“You looking for something?”
She yelped, swung around, and glared at the fence. “What are you doing?” Accusation hung in the ho
t air.
“I…” Why did he suddenly feel like a pervert? “I saw the flashlight and wanted to check on you.”
“Checking on me isn’t your job.”
Her allegation stung.
“You’re right.” He swung around. He shouldn’t be checking on her or checking her out. And that’s what he’d been doing.
He only got one step in before she spoke again. “Sorry. You scared me.”
He hesitated but didn’t turn around.
“I lost my necklace.”
The softness of her voice brought him back to the fence. He inched in and heard her catch her breath the moment her gaze met his between the slats. Her scent, a soft feminine aroma, filled his air.
He tried to look away but couldn’t. He didn’t know if he felt trapped or tempted. Or both.
His gaze lowered to her mouth. Full, lush, curvy to match her body.
Definitely both.
“I must have lost it when…when we struggled.”
Lured closer, he leaned in. “You want some help looking for it?”
He had no fucking idea why he made the offer. Then he did. He knew exactly why he’d done it. And that was wrong. It’d only been three years. Three years of not wanting, not needing to be with a woman. Didn’t Angie deserve more time?
“No.” She backed up fast, nearly tripped, as if, like him, she’d felt the need to rewind what’d just happened between them.
“I’ll find it tomorrow.” She took off.
Relief spread through him. He wasn’t ready.
“Night.” He watched her reach down and pick up a baseball bat. No doubt her weapon of choice.
He scooped up Sweetie, went inside, and reclaimed his recliner. You think I don’t know why you’re here?
Putting his dog on the floor, he grabbed his computer and Googled the name Nikki Hanson.
* * *
“What the hell are you doing here? My family’s here. Damn it!”
“Calm down,” Pablo Valado said. With a gallon jug in one hand and a Glock in the other, he continued to pour himself a glass of milk from Detective Sam Milbourn’s fridge. “Sam, Sam, Sam. If you’d answered my call yesterday, I wouldn’t have to be here, drinking your milk. Oh, and you really need to get a better alarm system.”
Don't Breathe a Word Page 2
