by D. D. Ayres
The suit would make all the papers. With a prominent person like Jaylynn Turner involved, it would be front-page news. Everyone in the state would know about it. About her. About her past. And then Eric would pile it on. Perfect excuse. He’d love this shit. Oh dear Lord! He’d make his claims about her public, too. Once more she’d be painted as a crazy, vindictive bitch. She would never escape.
“Shay?”
The sound of her name coming from so far away badly startled her. And then she realized she hadn’t disconnected. James was still on the line. She lifted the phone to her ear.
“Leave me alone, James. You should have just left me alone.”
“Not a chance.” He took a breath. “You’re angry. You’ve got every right. I messed up. But we can fix this. Not now. Not over the phone. I can’t get away until tomorrow. But I’ll be there, Shay, by two P.M. I’ll come straight to you and we’ll figure this out. We’re in this together and we’re worth fighting for.”
He’s using his calm, authoritative police officer’s voice, Shay thought absently. She must sound genuinely shaken. Like the mother at the accident scene. He was good at handling crises. That was his job.
She had been in one emotional traffic wreck after another during the two short weeks since they’d met. She didn’t doubt he would try to help her. He might even succeed. But she didn’t need a trained professional to clean up behind her. She wanted to be his friend and lover. Not some lost cause he’d taken on out of pity.
“Don’t come here, James. Just leave me alone.”
She did hang up this time.
When would she learn? She could never rely on anyone but herself.
She turned off her phone as it began to ring again and stuffed it in the sofa cushions. This time she did feel as if her heart were shriveling up and dying. James wanted to help but she knew better than he did what was about to happen.
She had wanted to be someone different. Her job at Logital Solutions and her friends were less than eighteen months old. She’d wanted to be normal. Just that. And she had almost succeeded.
Shay drew in a shuddery breath. She had been determined not to make any more mistakes, to build her life into something worthwhile. But what was the point when it all was about to explode in lurid headlines she wouldn’t be able to live down this time?
She went and curled up on her bed, sobbing until there was nothing left.
* * *
Just before her alarm went off, lying dry-eyed in the dark, Shay had a thought. Something didn’t make sense. Not all the things that had occurred since James barged through her door were necessarily connected. Eric. Stalker. James. Carly. Now Jaylynn. Her life these days wasn’t making sense. She was missing something. But she wasn’t going to get it straight as long as she was darting at shadows. She needed to get out of town.
But first she would go in to work and talk to Perry. Because if she left Logital Solutions in the lurch she would lose her last connection to what had been her life. If that happened, she might just retreat into a feral being that people avoided on the street.
As for James, well, she was in no emotional state to hold him at arm’s length if he came near her. She needed to hide from him, too, until she had sorted out her feelings. As it was, those feelings were swamping her highly tuned protective instincts. When he was too close, her brain turned to mush. So she needed to get away, even from him.
She ignored the little sinkhole that hollowed out in her middle when she thought of James leaving her life.
She needed to think. She needed to get to the one place of solace in her life. A safe place away from everything and everyone trying to ruin her life.
The cabin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The dawn was a frosted glass of beer, chill and opaque with an amber glow. Fog hugged the lowland clearing then lifted where the woods began, branches holding it tented at treetop height.
James’s feet made very little sound as he jogged along the dirt road in back of the K-9 kennel site. Bogart bounded along beside him, putting in less effort to keep up. They had run several miles before James’s breath became labored and his energy began to flag. So he pushed harder.
Anger was sometimes a useful motivator. Right now it was the prime reason he was up with the sun, beacons flashing on his cap and armbands, and on Bogart’s collar. He’d fucked up. Bad.
Shay had every right to be furious. Hell, he was furious. But she wasn’t going to get away that easily. As soon as the awards ceremonies were over, he was heading to Raleigh to face the pissed-off woman in his life.
After another mile, he paused and dropped down at the base of a loblolly pine, resting his back against the thick rough bark. Bogart settled in beside him, pressing in close to his side as he panted from his exertions. He stretched out one leg, bent the other at the knee and rested an arm on his partner’s back.
“We’re just a couple of simple guys. We like things simple.” He glanced down at Bogart. “Okay, I got a bug up my butt about a beauty queen. But that was just my dick thinking. Now I’m in real trouble. But for the first time in my life I feel good about that. This making any sense to you?”
Bogart watched him with quiet eyes and then licked the sweat off his handler’s chin.
“Yeah.” James nodded. “Shay’s tough. She’s not simple. But there’s a good heart inside all that barbed wire. She doesn’t complain or ask anyone to take on her stuff. Hell, I’m still not even sure that I know all her stuff. But there’s something about the way she looks at me. Like I was everything a woman could want. Like I’m enough.”
James gazed up at the new morning sky growing mauve at the edges. That’s how Shay made love. Like it was the first and the last time and every ounce of her, body and soul, was in it because it had to be enough. She did everything that way, come to think of it. She had been totally in for Bogart. She’d been ready to face down Eric all on her own. That counted for a lot. Maybe everything.
Bogart nudged his nose up under the hand dangling over his head. James grabbed him by the muzzle and wagged it playfully. “Yeah, she likes you. I notice she didn’t kick you off the sofa the other night.”
Bogart made a funny noise low in his throat.
“You’re right. That was me. But I got dibs on her in the sack. And the shower. And the front seat. Hell, I got dibs, period.”
James climbed to his feet. All he had to do was make Shay understand that he wasn’t going anywhere. He would stand by her, fix what he could for her, and have her back when she stepped out to fight her own battles. He just hoped she’d let him fit all that into their next conversation before she tossed him out.
* * *
James was devouring his final lunch plate of fried catfish, hush puppies, and coleslaw when his cell buzzed. He set down his fork and surreptitiously pulled it out of his pocket. They were in the middle of the awards luncheon.
Jaylynn. What could she possibly want? Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to find out until he had talked with Shay.
Twenty seconds later a text came through. He peeped at it.
A man broke in. Tried to rape me. Please come.
It was a testament to his feelings about Jaylynn, James decided, that it took him a whole five seconds to decide that it might be true.
“Shit!” He grabbed a piping hot fillet of fish and stood up.
“Woman getting restless because you been gone too long?”
James winked at his chuckling tablemate. “You know it.”
He retreated to the hallway, wolfing down his catch before calling her.
“Jimmy! Oh my God, Jimmy. Where are you? I need you! Come to my place now!”
“Sure, Jaylynn. And why would I want to do that?”
“A man broke in and robbed me!”
“Call 911.”
“You know I can’t do that.” He noticed her voice lost some of its fear to irritation. “Not after—well, you owe me. This is your fault!”
“I don’t owe you. And just to p
rove what a great guy I am, I’ll call it in for you.”
“No! Oh God, Jim—James. You don’t understand. He—threatened me. And your new girlfriend.”
“Right. Good try.”
“No! Please. Don’t hang up.”
He’d heard Jaylynn in a lot of different moods, from lusty to pissed off. He’d never heard this note in her voice before. It sounded like genuine fear. Oh, she was definitely trying to get into his head.
“Sorry. No. Call the cops.”
“I don’t trust anyone else.” He heard her swallow. “I need you.”
She was trained in emotional vocal delivery but he knew she wasn’t that good an actress. He heard weakness in her tone. She was really scared.
Or did he just need to get his head checked?
“I’m more than two hours away. If this is some kind of trick—”
“Swear to God it’s not!”
“Did you go to church on Sunday, Jaylynn? Because all hell’s going to break loose on you if you’re lying to me.”
* * *
“Tell me that again.”
“What part?”
“Start at the beginning.” James sat on the white sofa in Jaylynn’s apartment, the one she had never let Bogart near because he shed. Still dressed in his police uniform from the K-9 ceremony, he was in full law enforcement mode. Nothing about her story of forced entry and robbery added up. “Why would a man think you’d have a lot of money in your apartment? You never carry cash.”
She made a helpless gesture with her hands. She looked small, huddled in a nearby chair with her legs pulled up under a short pink kimono. Her hair was back in a messy ponytail and her makeup was smeared from crying. But there was no bruising, no cuts or abrasions on any part of her that he could see. She looked vulnerable and adorable, and he wasn’t buying any of it.
“You know this guy?”
“No!” She looked horrified by the suggestion.
“Checked the locks coming in, Jaylynn.” He glanced over to where Bogart lay calmly on the rug before the front door. “There isn’t even a suggestion of a shoulder smudge or a scuffle on the door or frame. Of course, forensics will check for prints.”
“Why?” Her brow furrowed.
“You’re wondering who else’s prints might turn up when we run them?” James had the rare satisfaction of watching her try not to squirm. “Let me guess. The new guy is married.”
“Not technically.”
“Will his wife verify that?” He shook his head. “Why am I here? And it better be a better lie than the first one you’ve told me.”
She straightened up under his stare. Long legs came untucked. Funny how he hadn’t noticed she was wearing next to nothing in November until now. “Okay, Ji—James. Here’s the truth. I’m being blackmailed by a man who said he was trying to help me track down the person who’s been spreading rumors about me.”
That was probably a lie, too, but he’d set that aside for the moment. “Why would he do that?”
She offered him a double wrist roll signifying “I don’t know.” “I have fans. Lots of loyal fans. When I went on TV to say I was the victim of a cruel hoax, they got really upset for me. I’ve gotten e-mails and tweets of support like you wouldn’t believe. My agent is fielding all of it. I simply wanted to get my version of the story out first but my agent says it’s been a huge PR boost. I couldn’t have bought publicity like … this.”
His expression must have prompted her faltering on the last word. Now he knew a bit more. “Why didn’t he field this guy?”
She frowned, clearly unhappy he was calling the shots. “He called my cell number. He said he knew I wouldn’t want anyone else to know about him.”
“Because?”
She leaned forward suddenly, one hand landing lightly on his knee. Her attempt at seduction was as subtle as a baseball bat to the groin. “You’ve got to understand, a celebrity isn’t responsible for who becomes a fan. After I made my announcement on the morning show last Friday I got a call from a really loyal fan. He said he knew people who could help me track down my unknown detractor.”
“In addition to the private eye you hired to tail Shay?”
“And you.” She smiled and squeezed his knee.
He pushed her hand away and checked his watch. Two fifty-five. He’d promised Shay he would be in Raleigh by two P.M. He was at least two hours away. “You had this fan hire someone. Who is he?”
Jaylynn sat back, her investigative reporter face slipping into place. “You really are falling for her, aren’t you?”
“You really are about to watch me walk out of here with that guy still loose.”
“Okay.” But then she didn’t say anything for so long, James made to rise. “Okay. There is this guy at the state prison who said he had friends on the outside who’d see to it that your girlfriend changed her mind about testifying against me.”
James felt like a rock slide had hit him. “A criminal, you mean. You let loose an ex-con on an innocent woman?”
He must have looked as wrathful as he felt because she leaned back and pulled in her legs to wrap her arms about them. “I didn’t say that. In any case, I don’t think he meant to have her harmed.”
“What exactly did you think he meant to do?”
“I don’t know. Scare her. Oh, for pity’s sake. I didn’t ask. Okay? I didn’t want to know, or get involved.”
“But you didn’t tell this scumbag not to bother her?”
“I didn’t know for sure there was even anyone doing anything until this guy called me yesterday.” She looked away. “He said some things.”
“What things?”
She wouldn’t look at him.
James got up but he didn’t head for the door. He moved to stand over her. He bent over and placed a hand on either side of the back of her chair, bringing his face down to within inches of hers. “I’m a cop, Jaylynn. You keep forgetting that. Talk to me or I’m calling the station to send over an on-duty officer, and you can explain your connections to criminal activity to him.”
Her eyes grew big in defiance, then her mouth went crooked in defeat.
“He said he was doing a job for Big Bog—that’s the nickname of the con I’ve been corresponding with. He said he was doing it for free because he owed Bog. But that it had occurred to him that he didn’t owe me a thing. And how about I show him some respect by paying for his work from now on.”
“What kind of work?”
“How should I know? I told him I didn’t know who he was or what he was talking about, and to leave me alone.”
James levered away from her, afraid he might throttle her if he stayed too close. And he needed to know everything. “Go on.”
“So then he says he could go to a source he has with the police and they might be interested in what he had to say about being asked by a mutual friend on the inside to take an interest in my case. That’s when I knew who he was.”
“And?”
Jaylynn folded her arms, expression going pouty. “So, I told him I would meet him in a public place. We met at the Reedy Creek Park, by the dog park yesterday.”
James stared down at her. “Describe him.”
“He was ugly. Big. Not tall but thick like a brick. Black hair, scruffy, like a street person.” She wrinkled her nose. “He smelled.”
She glanced up at James. What she saw was enough to keep her talking. “He said he wanted ten thousand dollars to keep quiet and keep scaring her. I told him I didn’t have that kind of money. He said in that case, he wanted five thousand not to—to hurt the person. That’s when I got scared.”
“Only then? What do you think he’s been doing to Shay up till now?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I tell you, I didn’t authorize any of this.”
“But you didn’t say no to the idea.”
“I guess I thought, what if the little bit—woman decides it’s not a good idea to testify against me? Then I can go back to my career, which I worked very h
ard for, and get on with my life.” She looked up at James, peeking through her false eyelashes. “I didn’t do anything to her. But she could ruin me. She brought this on herself by interfering.”
“Bullshit, Jaylynn. You deserve what’s happened to you because of what you’ve done.”
She looked at him with incomprehension. “You think I deserve this?” She pulled back her kimono top and he saw bruises on her neck and shoulders. “I told him I’d give him some money to just go away. I’d bring it to the park today at noon. But he came to my door this morning just as I was leaving and forced his way past me. I only gave him five hundred dollars. I told him that’s all I could get together overnight. So then he…”
James licked his lips, his mouth having gone dry. “Did he rape you?”
“He tried to.” She flinched. “But I then remembered about Big Bog. I said Big Bog would not be happy if he heard that he’d done anything to hurt me.”
“That stopped him?”
She nodded. “I guess he owes the guy big-time.”
“Or Big Bog knows people deadlier than him.” James tried to think like a policeman. But his brain was working like a boyfriend now. Shay was in trouble! All he knew was that he was too far away. He needed to get closer fast.
He looked down at Jaylynn. “You didn’t deserve to be attacked. But you started a shitball of trouble rolling downhill. You’re to blame for that.”
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I was just protecting myself.”
“You were protecting your image. Who you really are sent a criminal after an innocent, unsuspecting woman.”
Bogart bounded to his feet as James reached the door.
“Be careful, James. He knows where she lives and has been threatening her with phone calls and other stuff for a week.”
James flinched as her words hit home. Shay hadn’t said a word about any threats from any source but Eric. But then, would she? She was too accustomed to taking care of things herself. That hurt him more than he expected.
“James? If you can handle this, and get my money back, I swear I’ll withdraw my civil suit against Shay.”
