by Anne Conley
Simon would join the rest. Not that the kiss was a bad memory, but if it had ended with anything less than him jerking away and running, she wouldn’t put him in there. But he had.
It was time for bed. Lacie needed her comfy pajamas and a cup of tea to settle herself. Tomorrow was a new day and she had to work with this guy. His tongue in her mouth was not something she needed to dwell on.
That night, in his own fake home, Simon looked over notes Dex had emailed.
There had been six women in the Austin area who had reported the multiple break-ins of different men in the last month. Each woman had between three and six different men break into their homes or approach them at work, gyms, or bars.
Looking at the women, Simon saw where Hollerman had compiled lists. Thank God for cops and their lists.
Victim number one was Andrea Peterson, a bank teller, thirty-five years old. She was a divorced, blonde, Pilates instructor at the gym in her neighborhood. She’d had three break-ins and an attack at the gym where she worked. One reported rape. Moved after the second attack in her home but was attacked once more in her new apartment.
The second victim was Shelly Alfred, a Postal employee, twenty-nine years old. She was single, brunette, and partied at a bar on Sixth Street. She’d been slipped a date rape drug there, taken home, raped, brutally beaten, and left for dead. While recovering in the hospital, another man had slipped into her hospital room and tried to force himself on her but didn’t make it before nurses came in and called security. Her home had also been broken into four times. Four different perpetrators. She’d shot and killed the last one.
Victim number three was Jennifer Anderson. She was a housewife and thirty-one years old. Married, she lived in an upscale neighborhood. Her fancy security system had been breached five times, and she’d been raped twice. Her husband was currently working from home and reportedly armed to the teeth.
The fourth victim was Marcia Vold, a stripper at a bar on Sixth Street, twenty-three years old. Single, blonde, lived with a roommate. Security was tight where she worked, but her home had been broken into six times in the last month. She and her roommate had both been attacked, beaten, and would have died, except the boyfriend of the roommate had come in on the attacker, who got away. She was looking for a new apartment.
Victim number five was Hilary Walton, roommate of Marcia Vold. She was twenty-two years old, unemployed, and living off her parents’ money while attending the University of Texas. Currently, she was in the process of moving home with parents in Lubbock, Texas.
The final reported victim was Lacie Hill.
Simon leaned back and sighed. Lacie had gotten off easy compared to some of the others. She was a fighter. Older than most of the others, she had a certain life experience the others may not have, even though she seemed so fresh and innocent. There were few commonalities between her and the other victims besides being female, relatively fit, and being clean-cut, middle-class women.
They didn’t go to the same gym, grocery stores, post office, bars, clubs, or hairstylist. Hollerman had checked into their habits like the pro he was, looking for similarities.
Simon checked profiles of the attackers who’d been arrested. All he had were the ones in custody, but there was zero in common with either of them. Different M.O., different looks, and nothing to give him a clue as to what was happening with Lacie.
Nothing that would lead him closer to figuring out how to stop the attacks.
Chapter Ten
Lacie forced herself out of bed the morning for her run. Last night had been too intense, and she hadn’t slept well, her body repeatedly living through the gamut of emotions she felt last night. All of them ending with Simon.
What the frack?
When he met her for the morning run, she blinked furiously as her eyes teared up. She was so mad at him for playing her body the way he had, with no intention of moving forward.
“You don’t have to run with me.” Honestly, she didn’t think she could run with him next to her, all sweaty and smelling amazing and stuff.
“I will.”
She sighed at his declaration. Of course he would. He was Simon Pierce. He would do whatever he wanted to do, whether she liked it or not. He took his standard position of slightly ahead of her and next to the traffic.
Protecting her.
His movements were the practiced motions of someone who ran a lot. They were graceful, his stride long, his breathing even. He was perfect to watch.
Turning up her iPod, she ignored the perfection and ran her usual route, eyes blind to the magnificent male running with her.
The silence was blessed, and Lacie quickly got lost in her thoughts. She’d tried to call Trent this morning, but it was too early. He slept later than she did, so she’d try again after her run. She needed to tell him it was over between them. Last night had been the epic illustration of everything that didn’t mesh with them.
She did manage to talk to her dad, an early riser like her. He refused to call off Simon, instead insisting she tell him why she wanted him gone. But she couldn’t do that. Telling her father Simon had kissed her and hurt her feelings wasn’t the way to go.
Lacie was a grownup. She could live with this. But she was ready for it to be over. Now, even more so.
She wanted to demand answers from Simon—ask him why he had kissed her, what he was trying to prove and to whom—but she couldn’t. Every time she looked at him and saw the intensity of his gaze as it roamed the neighborhood, looking for danger, she clammed up. She sighed, wishing her mother were here to talk to. As soon as she wished for it, she realized the fruitlessness. Her mother had been gone almost thirty years. She should be used to this sense of something missing by now.
So she ran faster, making the three miles in record time.
Later, in class, he still refused to meet her eye or talk to her unless he had to. But when he snapped at one of the children, she had to step in.
“Why are you so stupid?” Jaremiah said to Mase. “Oh, I forgot, you were born that way.” Cackling laughter followed, and Simon stalked over to the boys.
“You’re stupid, Jaremiah,” Simon growled, and Jaremiah’s face paled.
Lacie cleared her throat. “Mr. Pierce, a word, please?” She motioned him to the corner of the classroom, where they could have a semi-private conversation.
“You can’t use language like that with these kids,” she began sternly, her voice a fierce whisper.
Simon sighed, raking his hand through his hair. “I know. I’ll apologize to him. But he was being a bully, and I can’t stand that shit.”
“Watch your language,” she warned. “Jaremiah’s father is in prison, his mother took off, and he lives with his grandma. If you’ve ever met her, you’ll know exactly why all her boys are in the pokey.” The fact his eyes glittered in amusement annoyed her. “I’m surprised he used such mild language. He needs a positive role model in his life, not another name-caller.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The contrition surprised her, and she suddenly saw a younger Simon being lectured by his mother. She wondered what his mother was like, then kicked that thought in the hiney. It didn’t need to be running around in her head.
“Go take him outside and talk to him. Apologize.” Her tone brooked zero arguments, and he ducked his head in a display of chagrin. Good.
She needed him out of this room for a few minutes so she could fracking breathe.
After school, Simon called Quinten and grabbed the bottle of Glenlivet he’d rescued from his bottom drawer before taking this job. It was some skewed sense of needing something to resist in his possession. The last two days, it had been in plain sight, untouched, next to Tanya’s picture. Tonight would be a different story. Since he couldn’t resist the woman across the street, he didn’t see why he needed to resist this too.
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He was so fucked.
When Quinten arrived, Simon was well on the way to being drunk.
“Hey, what’s got you twisted?”
Waving his glass at the window, Simon muttered, “Her.”
“Trip down memory lane? Man, you have to know you did what you had to. Anybody could have been put in that situation. She was good.” The table with Tanya’s picture was in front of the window, and Quinten clearly misunderstood, thinking Simon was talking about the photo.
Simon did a double-take when he figured out who Quinten was referring to. “No, not her.” Lacie chose that moment to walk to her mailbox, gauzy skirt flowing in the wind. “Her,” he waved at the picture, “and her, too, prolly.” He finished off his two fingers of scotch and poured two more.
For a grand total of ten fingers in an hour and a half. Too much.
Quinten studied the woman through the glass but remained silent. Finally, he looked at Simon. “What’s the problem?”
“She’s making it all too hard. She won’t talk to me or even look at me. She knows I’m here to protect her, and she’s making my job so hard.” Simon sounded like a petulant child, but the scotch was doing that. He felt raw, and the only person he could be that way around was patiently sitting in front of him, his finger rubbing his jaw.
“Why?”
Simon laid it all out there. “I kissed her. I lost control and kissed her.”
Quinten remained silent while Simon drank. “Are you afraid she’s like Tanya?”
The scotch didn’t burn anymore. It was smooth going down his throat into his belly, sloshing around with other scotch and lunch’s protein shake. He should eat a loaf of bread to soak up the alcohol, but he didn’t want that. He needed to feel all the alcohol and take a one-way train to oblivion.
“No.” Simon leaned his head against the chair back. “Yes.” He sighed, a rough sound in the silent room. “I mean, she’s not like Tanya. I don’t think she’s going to kill me, but when I’m with her, I feel so …”
“Happy?” Quinten grinned as if Simon was talking about Santa Claus.
“No. Edgy, uncomfortable, I don’t know how to describe it, but I don’t like it. And I can’t control it. It’s like I’m out of sync with myself around her, and I don’t know how to fix that.” He looked his brother square in the eyes. “I imagine myself having a family with her. What the fuck do I do with that?”
“Is she in danger?”
Simon remembered the man at the bar last night. “Fuck yes. A lot of danger, and I don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s like she has an army out to get her, in a dozen tiny battles. It’s killing me that I don’t know what to protect her from.”
“Is the scotch helping?”
Simon put his head in his hands. “No.”
“Then get your ass in a shower, sober up, and continue your job. She either lets you in or she doesn’t, but these feelings you’ve got for her …”
“What about them?”
“You have two choices. You can follow your own advice and keep it strictly professional, which is safe but won’t really help you man up about your issues with Tanya, or you can explore them and see how they relate.”
“I can’t explore them. I’ll get distracted and Lacie’ll get hurt. You don’t know the danger. Someone’s setting her up with all these guys who have her whereabouts and trying to get her away from me.” Simon knew how he sounded. He heard the words, the disconnect in personalizing the case like this, but he was powerless to stop it. It only reinforced things for him, but he was too drunk to figure out what.
“I think you need to. You asked me over here for something, and that’s what I’m leaving you with.” Quinten stood. “I love you, brother. If you need me, call.”
Simon followed Quinten’s advice about the shower, but as he dressed for bed in pajama bottoms, he was still torn about the rest. Maybe with sleep would come sobriety, and he could figure things out from there.
Three hours later, when the motion detector alarm went off, Simon blinked at the monitor by his bed. A man was walking directly to Lacie’s bedroom window.
No time to think about options. Simon grabbed his sidearm and cuffs and sprang into action.
His first priority was to get the motherfucker away from Lacie’s window and diffuse the threat to her. Protection. That’s what he’d spent thirty years on the force doing and what he was trained for. It all boiled down to keeping Lacie safe.
Stealthily, he snuck up on the man who was obviously distracted by the drapery-covered window in front of him. He was fiddling with the locking mechanism, using a chisel to try to splinter the wood around it.
Simon leveled his gun at the perp’s temple and cocked it, the clicking sound noisy in the still night.
“Put your hands behind your back, asshole,” Simon growled. He kicked at the man’s feet, but the man countered by dropping to the ground, making Simon’s fast-action technique irrelevant.
The man rolled, and Simon launched himself on top of him, but the momentum was taking Simon into dangerous territory. The man grabbed at his gun, but Simon wasn’t letting go, twisting his arm out of reach.
Not knowing if the man was armed or not was troubling, but he worked under the assumption he was and did his damnedest to not let him reach for any pockets or around his back. As they rolled and grunted on the side lawn of Lacie’s house, panic gripped him. This man had almost gotten inside her house. She was no longer safe at home. Hell, she’d never been safe there.
Simon maneuvered his body toward the top of the man’s and grabbed his head at his side. From there, he grabbed the arm closest to him and leveraged the elbow against his chest, bending his wrist backward.
The man whimpered, trying to kick at Simon’s groin, but he twisted out of reach, still maintaining control of the perp. He cuffed one wrist wordlessly and crawled on top of him.
“Give me your other arm.” Nothing. “Now!”
The man wriggled his arm out from under himself, and Simon kept his gun trained on the man in case he was armed.
No weapon. Simon exhaled a sigh of relief as he cuffed the guy.
He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
“Yes, I’ve got a 10-84, suspect down, at a residence.” He gave the address, answered pertinent questions, and none too gently got the perp up and in Lacie’s driveway.
He wasn’t on the force anymore, so he accidentally punched the guy in the face, breaking his nose.
“Ow! Shit! What did you do that for?”
The first words the man had spoken were very nearly his last as Simon only saw the red of rage.
“What do you think, asshole? You stood at her window and were trying to break in. Who sent you here?”
“Nobody. I saw what I liked and came to get it. That’s all.” The man spat blood on Simon’s bare feet. He twisted his fist in the man’s stained t-shirt.
“Where did you find her address? Is she listed in some database?” That was the only thing Simon could think of that would make sense. This guy was shorter than the man at the bar, with greasy, blond hair and a variety of tats across his arms.
The man’s mouth was a grim line of silence, his eyes holding a challenge. Simon punched him once more for good measure, then spun him around and searched his pockets for ID. Like the rest of them, he had none.
Red and blue lights lit up the night as two black and whites pulled up to Lacie’s house. Simon relinquished control as one of the police officers knocked on Lacie’s door.
Simon went through motions, watching Lacie do the same. She withdrew into herself the more questions the police asked her about events she’d slept through, rehashing prior events, trying to make sense of it. He understood them wanting to get a firm grasp of the situation, could see that side plainly. He was tryi
ng to do the same. He answered their questions, explaining why he was there so fast and the methods he’d used for the takedown, making the broken nose sound like part of the perp’s resistance.
After what seemed like hours, the police left Simon and Lacie alone. Together.
She was sitting on her sofa in front of her large picture window in the living room, and Simon was seated in a chair across the room.
Lacie’s eyes were wild, darting around the room, looking for something. He’d seen that look before. It was a victim’s way of looking for a semblance of normalcy. If they didn’t find it, they broke.
He didn’t want Lacie to be broken.
Standing, Simon held out his arms. “Come here, Lacie.” She didn’t question him, just ran to him. That gesture meant the world to him. As he cradled her trembling body in his arms, the warmth she pressed against him filled his cold heart with something he wanted to cherish.
Something the man had said while they were outside was still bothering him. Like it was a clue that would break this open, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it could be.
He said he’d seen her and had come to get her. But she hadn’t been anywhere Simon hadn’t been. Unless it was the bar where they’d been last night. Or jogging. But the fact he’d stood outside her bedroom window, without needing to look to see where it was, told him the perp knew where to look.
Simon scanned the room, still cradling Lacie in his arms. Her laptop sat on the coffee table, open as usual, but sleeping. Her TV was on the opposite wall. The sofa. Two chairs. End tables with lamps and vases full of flowers. Pillows and girly shit everywhere. A mirror on the wall with a gilt frame around it. Lots of colorful, folky artwork.
“Get some things together. You’re staying at my place tonight, okay?”
She nodded against his chest and moved away to comply. Simon strode over to her laptop, waking it up with a finger. He closed out the grade program and looked at the desktop for anything unusual. She had the Microsoft office suite on it, some programs for her StrongArm, a photo editing app, browser icons, the usual. When he clicked to open her computer, he noticed there wasn’t a start menu on the desktop, which meant it was a different operating system from Windows 7. Fuck. He didn’t know anything else.
