by Lisa Childs
“I saw a monster…” Maisy whispered, so softly that Nikki had to lean closer to hear her.
“A monster?” She must have had a bad dream. “Where was this monster?”
She couldn’t lie to the kid and say there was no such thing as monsters. Nikki had met too many of them in her lifetime to convincingly sell that story. But she could look under the bed and in the closet and assure the little girl that none were in here.
But then Maisy whispered, “In Mommy’s room. I saw the monster in Mommy’s room.”
And dread filled Nikki. She’d left her subject unprotected and alone with a monster.
Chapter 8
Cole couldn’t wait until morning to find out the truth. He had already been in the dark for six years. And dark was how he found the hallway outside Shawna’s room—dark and empty. Where the hell was Nikki?
While Lars was at the hospital with Astin, Manny patrolled the main floor and Cooper and Dane were on the outside perimeter, Nikki was supposed to be protecting Shawna. Maybe she’d gone inside the room. But when he tried the knob, he found the door locked. Nikki wouldn’t have locked it.
Would she?
He knocked. “Hey, it’s Cole, let me in!” He needed answers and not just about whether or not he was a father. He needed to know whether or not Shawna was safe.
Something clattered, then must have rolled to the floor and shattered. He could hear the tinkling of breaking glass inside the room. Then he heard something that scared him even more—a scream. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t strong. But it was unmistakably Shawna’s. She sounded weak, though. And even more scared than he was.
He stepped back, then hurled his body at the door. Wood splintered as the jamb broke and he fell into the room. Only a tiny pool of dim light from the hall penetrated the darkness inside but it was enough for him to see the dark shadow looming over the bed.
But he couldn’t see enough to safely fire his weapon. He might hit Shawna or Maisy. So instead of drawing his gun, he hurled himself at that shadow. It moved as he did, and instead of knocking a body to the ground, he knocked the air from his own lungs as he hit the floor hard.
He didn’t stay down. He rolled to his feet and pursued the shadow as it slipped through the drapes. Cole tore the fabric from the rod, jerking them aside. The shadow had slipped through the open window and onto the balcony that stretched the back of the entire house. Cole swung one leg over the windowsill to pursue the intruder before glancing back at the bed.
Shawna lay limply against the pillows, her face stark white in the moonlight. She wasn’t unconscious like she’d been in the car after she’d crashed it through the garage door. Instead she was desperately clawing at the rope drawn tightly around her throat.
His heart slammed against his ribs as he rushed toward the bed. He pulled a knife from the sheath next to his holster. Careful of her throat, he sliced the blade through the thick rope.
She gasped for breath, drawing in deep gulps of it, as tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked. Her skin was so red and chafed from the coarse fibers of the rope.
She nodded, then she threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him as she trembled. Maybe it was in fear. Maybe it was from the cold wind sweeping through the room.
His arms wound around her, holding her tightly. “You’re all right,” he told her even though he wasn’t convinced that she was. “You’re safe now.” She was nearly strangling him, as she clung to him.
He should have peeled her arms away, should have gone out the window after her attacker. But he needed to hold her as much as she needed to be held. He needed to assure himself that she was all right, that she was alive.
Because he’d nearly lost her…
If he hadn’t come to see her when he had, he most certainly would have lost her. He trembled slightly with dread at the thought. Then he forced himself to pull back and ask, “Did you see who it was?”
She shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice just a raspy whisper. “It was too dark until you pulled down the drapes and by then he was already gone.”
It was probably painful for her to talk, with the way she sounded. But he had to know more details so he could stop this person. “He?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed him back and peered around the room. “Where’s Maisy? When I fell asleep, she was here!” she exclaimed, her voice rising now as it cracked with panic. “Did he take her?”
“No,” Cole assured her. The intruder wouldn’t have been able to move so quickly if he or she had been carrying a child. “No.” But then where was the little girl?
Before he could look for her, he heard a noise—one he knew too well. It was the metallic click of a gun cocking. He tensed, furious with himself now for dropping his guard.
But then a slightly husky yet feminine voice murmured, “Somehow I don’t think you’re the monster that Maisy saw.”
*
Maisy saw the killer?
Shawna tensed and jerked herself out of Cole’s arms. After her second close call with death, it had felt so good to be held, to be comforted.
But now she needed to be the one offering comfort. “Where is she?” she asked the curly-haired brunette who still held her gun on Cole. “Where’s my daughter?”
But before the woman could reply, Cole whirled angrily toward her. “Nikki! Where the hell were you? An intruder nearly strangled Shawna to death.” He held up the rope that he’d hacked off her throat.
“Oh, my God,” the woman exclaimed. “I’m sorry I left my post. But when Maisy came out of the room, she didn’t say anything about the monster…until I was tucking her in to her bed.”
Shawna’s heart lurched with fear for her daughter’s safety. “She saw him! Where is she?”
“She’s in her room with the door locked,” Nikki said. “Manny’s on his way up from the main floor and Cooper’s coming in from the grounds.”
Cole cursed. “He might miss the intruder.”
“Dane’s out there yet,” Nikki said. Then she headed toward the window, her gun still drawn. She apologized again before she stepped over the sill and onto the porch.
But Shawna was relieved. She was glad Nikki had made certain that her child was safe before checking on her. But how safe was the little girl if she’d seen the attacker? Shawna threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. But before she could step onto the floor, Cole jerked her back.
“There’s glass over there,” he warned her.
And in the moonlight, she could see the shards of the broken Tiffany lamp glittering against the hardwood floor. When he’d knocked on the door, she’d managed to knock over the lamp to alert him that she needed help. If he hadn’t broken in the door when he had…
She shuddered, thinking of how close she had come to dying, to leaving her daughter without a mother.
Cole touched her neck. “It looks bad. You need to be taken to the hospital and checked out.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going back there.”
“But you could have broken bones—”
“Nothing’s broken.” She could move her neck. Her throat wasn’t as sore from the rope as it was from the carbon monoxide. “It looks bad because my skin is so pale.”
But because it looked bad, she couldn’t have Maisy see her like this. The little girl was already afraid of the monster she had seen in Mommy’s room. “You need to check on…” She nearly said it, nearly said, our daughter.
He needed to know in case the next time he wasn’t able to save her. He needed to know so that if the killer was successful, Maisy wasn’t all alone in the world.
Before Shawna could say anything, though, they heard knocking from the hallway—on Maisy’s door, from the sound of it. And a deep voice called out gently, “It’s okay to let me in. I’m not a monster.”
Cole chuckled. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Cole helped Shawna out of the bed on the other side
, away from the glass, and he picked up her robe from the bench at the foot of the bed. “Here,” he said. “Put this on and pull the collar around your neck.”
He must have known that she needed to see her child. And Maisy needed to see her. They walked quickly to the little girl’s room, where Manny was standing just outside. The minute Shawna called through the door, “It’s Mommy, honey. You can open the door,” the knob rattled, then turned and the door opened.
Maisy threw herself against Shawna, clinging to her. “I shouldn’t have left you alone with the monster.”
“I’m okay,” Shawna assured her. “I’m okay.”
Manny watched as Shawna dropped to her knees and held her daughter closely. But he wasn’t staring at her with the suspicion he’d shown earlier. Instead there was compassion in his dark eyes. “Monster?” He glanced at Cole then. “You?”
Cole shook his head. “I didn’t get a good look at him.” And he, too, got on his knees next to Maisy. His hand shook slightly as he patted her back. “Did you see the monster?”
The little girl lifted her head from Shawna’s shoulder and peered at the man she had no idea was her father. But did Cole know?
Would he be shocked when she told him? Would he hate her like his father had hated his mother for getting pregnant? But Shawna hadn’t done it purposely. She’d been using oral contraceptives for a while, but they weren’t a hundred percent effective. And she and Cole had made love so many times that last night.
At least she’d made love. She wasn’t sure what he’d been doing because it wasn’t long after that he’d broken their engagement and her heart.
“Did you save Mommy from the monster?” Maisy asked Cole.
“Yes, he did,” Shawna told her.
Maisy pulled away from her to throw her arms around Cole’s neck. She clung to him like Shawna had after he’d cut that rope from around her throat.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for guarding Mommy from the monster!”
“That’s my job,” Cole said.
Was that the only reason he was so determined to protect her? To save her? Just because it was his job?
He stroked his hand over Maisy’s hair. There was still a slight tremor in it. “I will protect you, too,” he assured the little girl.
And he sounded like he was doing more than just his job. He stared down at the child almost in wonder. Did he suspect that she was his? Or did he know?
“You can tell me what you saw,” he urged their daughter.
Maisy’s breath escaped in a shaky sigh, and her little brow furrowed. “I was sleeping,” she said. “But I heard something. Then I saw the curtains moving.” She shivered. “And I got out of bed and came into the hall.” She turned back to Shawna and her eyes, which were already so deep a blue like her father’s, filled with tears of regret. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m sorry I left you alone.”
“You did the right thing,” Shawna assured her. “You were very smart and very brave.”
“The window was open?” Manny asked. And now his brow was furrowed with confusion. “We checked all the windows in your room earlier. We made sure they were locked.”
Shawna’s face heated with embarrassment over her stupidity. “I—I opened one a little bit after everyone had left. I needed some air.” Despite all the oxygen she’d been given at the hospital, Shawna hadn’t been able to fill her lungs deeply enough with fresh air. But she had selfishly put herself and her child at risk. “I’m sorry.”
Cole reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “I understand.”
“But you need to be more careful,” Manny added. And now the judgment was back. The man really didn’t seem to trust her at all. And with the way he was studying Cole and Maisy, it was clear he had his suspicions about the little girl’s paternity.
Shawna wasn’t about to admit the truth in front of him. Or in front of Maisy. But she needed to tell Cole.
Because no matter how determined he seemed to protect her life, the killer seemed just as determined to end it. And if she didn’t survive, she needed to know that Maisy would not be alone in the world like she had been after she’d lost her parents. She needed to know that her little girl would have Cole, too—saving her from all the monsters in the world.
*
Cooper slid the library doors closed and focused on his team. At least the team members he’d gathered together. Lars had just arrived back from the hospital. The chauffeur had awakened again but didn’t remember anything more than he had the first time Lars had spoken with him. So he was in no danger.
Shawna was the one in danger. And that was why Cole had insisted on staying by her side—her side and her daughter’s side. But Cooper didn’t want to leave him without backup for long.
“This is going to be a quick meeting,” Cooper said. He prided himself that most of his meetings were quick. He wasn’t like his brothers, Logan and Parker, who seemed to enjoy listening to themselves talk.
As a Marine, Cooper had always been given more to action—like his half brother Nick. When he wasn’t able to act, he was given to frustration, which coursed through him now. He was pissed.
“So you guys didn’t see any signs of the intruder running from the house?” Manny asked.
Cooper shook his head, and Dane, who’d been posted at the gates to the driveway, shook his head, as well.
Nikki glared at Manny. “Don’t try to say it didn’t happen. I saw the rope. And Cole saw someone jump out the window.”
“The window she opened,” Manny said.
“Can you blame her?” Nikki asked. “After being nearly burned alive a few months ago, you more than anyone should be able to understand her wanting some fresh air.”
Manny cursed, either because he was remembering the assignment he nearly hadn’t survived or because he was frustrated that Shawna was no longer a suspect. He groaned. “It’s not her,” he begrudgingly agreed. “But it still has to be someone in this house.”
Cooper didn’t like to jump to conclusions. “We don’t know that for certain.” But he definitely had his suspicions, as well. “Someone could have come inside from the outside. As you stated, she had the window open.”
“But then where did they go?” Nikki asked. “I went out that window after him and didn’t see anything.”
“But me,” Cooper reminded her of how she’d run into him shortly after she’d climbed down the balcony from the second story.
Good thing she didn’t shoot as quickly as she used to, or she might have fired at him—like she’d fired at their brother Nick a few times. Of course none of them was certain that had been an accident. She’d had her issues with Nick. Now they were the closest of the siblings, so close that she’d been the best man at Nick’s wedding.
“And you didn’t see anyone?” Manny asked Cooper.
He shook his head again. “No.”
“Then whoever went out that window must have gone back inside the house,” Manny said. “And I was upstairs checking on the little girl, so I didn’t see who might have come inside through a door downstairs.”
“Whoever it is could have also come back into the house through another open window off the second story balcony,” Nikki said.
“One that he or she might have left open,” Manny added. And he cursed again. “It’s one of Cole’s family.”
“You would rather it was Shawna?” Nikki asked him.
Manny didn’t deny it. Instead he replied, “Cole would probably be safer if it was.”
And they all stared at him. Nikki, of course, was the one who asked, “Why?”
“Because then he wouldn’t trust her.”
“He already doesn’t,” Cooper said. “He didn’t even want to take this case.”
And maybe Cooper shouldn’t have forced him to because now there was no way his friend wasn’t going to get hurt—emotionally. And probably physically, as well.
Chapter 9
While the immediate threat of danger was gone—out the window into the ni
ght—Cole’s heart pounded frantically as fear still overwhelmed him. He was more afraid of this—the little girl and her mother—than he had been of any of his previous missions.
They posed the greatest danger to him.
“I looked under your bed and in the closet and in the bathroom,” Cole said. He had his weapon drawn, but the safety was on. He wasn’t going to risk any chance of it accidentally misfiring around Maisy. “I can vouch that there are no monsters in here.”
Maisy expelled a shaky little sigh and leaned back against her pillows. Her lids seemed so heavy that she could barely keep them open, but she blinked furiously, as if fighting sleep. Her thick black lashes fluttered, as she lifted her lids and focused on his face.
Shawna knelt next to the bed, beneath the pink canopy, her hand over her daughter’s on the edge of the pink blankets. “There is no such thing as monsters,” she told the little girl. She looked up at Cole, as if beseeching him to back up her claim.
But he would not lie to the child. He knew there were indeed such things as monsters. During his missions, as a bodyguard and a Marine, he had encountered too many to deny their existence.
“But—but what about the one I saw in your room?” Maisy asked, her eyes widening now with fear as she remembered what she’d seen.
“It was just the wind blowing through the curtains,” Shawna replied.
Cole felt a pang in his heart over how easily she lied. Would she tell him the truth—if he asked her directly—who the little girl’s father really was? Could he believe whatever she told him? Or would he need to demand a paternity test in order to know for certain?
“Cole…” Maisy sleepily murmured his name. Apparently she, too, was waiting for him to back up her mother’s claim that there were no monsters.
He holstered his weapon and knelt beside her bed on the opposite side from Shawna. He couldn’t be close to her right now. Every time he was, he wound up holding her, so he couldn’t trust himself not to do it again. He couldn’t hold her, couldn’t get close to her, when he couldn’t trust her.
“Yes, Maisy?” he asked the child. If she asked him outright if there were monsters, he wouldn’t lie to her. So he hoped that wasn’t what she wanted to ask him.
