“Phoenix wasn’t at the drop point. But she was,” Lucas said carefully, his hard-eyed attention on Riddick. He pulled some crime scene photos out of his jacket and dropped them on her coffee table.
Riddick glanced at them, then raised his eyes to hers. His expression gave nothing away, but Harper saw that muscle in his jaw tic, and she sank down on her couch in preparation of bad news.
She knew better than to touch the photos. Touching crime scene photos sometimes gave her flashes—not true premonitions, but brief visions of the dead and what had happened to them. Since they were usually so brief, and since there was nothing that could be done to help the dead, the flashes were generally useless and gave her marathon migraines. Riddick must have realized that, too, because he turned one of the photos toward her.
Harper bit her lip. Yikes, what a mess, was her first thought when she looked at the photo, which was quickly followed by, why doesn’t Lucas ever bring me crime photos of simple gun shot wounds and knifings? No, he had to bring her pictures of women with their throats torn out.
“Vic’s name is Shannon Endler,” Lucas supplied. “That’s what’s left of her.”
For all the blood below the woman’s neck, her face and hair were clean. Oddly clean, in fact. Harper had a clear, unobstructed view of the victim’s heart-shaped face, pale brown curls, and sightless, horrified green eyes, frozen open forever…
“Wait a minute,” Harper murmured. “She looks…”
“A lot like you,” Riddick finished for her.
Harper felt like someone had whacked her in the chest with a two-by-four. “He was going to kill me before to get to Riddick,” she whispered. “Now he wants me dead because I ruined his arrangement with Lisa. Now it’s personal, right?”
Lucas nodded and reached for one of the other photos. “This was written on the wall in blood.”
She’s mine now, Riddick.
Harper blinked back hot, stinging tears. “So this woman… died…just because she l-looks like me.”
Riddick grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “No. She died because Phoenix is a crazy son-of-a-bitch. This is not your fault.”
Lucas cleared his throat. “He’s right, doll face. If it hadn’t been this woman, it would’ve been another. From what I can tell, Phoenix has been killing women for over a hundred years. Hell, Lisa confessed to giving him ten just this year alone. And he’s always been a few steps ahead of the authorities. But now, for once, we’ve got the upper hand.”
Harper turned and faced him, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve never known before who his next target was. Now we know who he’s after.”
She would have sworn she heard Riddick growl. “You want to use Harper as bait,” he said.
“It’s the only way.”
“No.”
Riddick’s voice was insistent, angry, but she tried to ignore it. She kept her eyes on Lucas. “This really is the only way, isn’t it?”
“The fuck it is,” Riddick argued.
She glanced at him. “He’s going to come after me no matter what I do, right? The least I can do is help the police catch the bastard. Set a few traps, you know?”
“No, the least you can do is get out of town and let me catch the bastard,” he insisted.
Lucas shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest. “And of course what you meant to say is that you’ll help the police bring the bastard in, right, pal?” he asked dryly.
Riddick snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause you and your boys in blue have done such an amazing job of catching people lately.”
“Fuck you, Riddick.”
“Sorry pal, you’re not my type.”
Harper rolled her eyes. “Yes, you’re both manly men, and I’m sure you can piss equally far. Now that that’s out of the way, can we talk about how we’re going to catch Phoenix?”
“We’re not doing anything,” Riddick snapped.
She turned back to Lucas. “I could go out at night, and you could have cops follow me and grab him when he comes after me, right? Is that how you’d get him?”
“It’s a little more complex than that. We figure you can keep questioning local vamps about Phoenix’s whereabouts, at night, of course, with your undercover police escorts in tow. At some point, we assume he’ll get impatient and take a run at you.”
Riddick surged to his feet and started pacing, muttering under his breath.
She shot Lucas a pleading look, and with a sigh, he wandered into her kitchen, out of earshot.
Harper moved in front of Riddick and laid her palms on his chest to get him to stop pacing. “Riddick, please just listen to me for a minute.”
He blew out an exasperated breath and raked his hands through his hair.
“Look, I know you think I’m being reckless and stupid —”
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“—but you know me well enough by now to know that I can’t just sit back and let this—“ she gestured to the pictures on the table “—happen when I could be doing something to stop it.”
“Harper…” he trailed off, took a deep breath, and started again, “…do you honestly think a few cops can stop Phoenix from grabbing you?”
Was this a trick question? “Um…yes?”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “No. I know you can take care of yourself against humans, but Phoenix isn’t human. He won’t let anything stop him. He’ll keep coming until he gets what he wants: you. The cops mean nothing to him. He could grab you and be miles away before they even noticed you were gone.”
Harper couldn’t help but gulp. “You don’t know that.” God, she hoped she was right.
His hands tightened on her shoulders, and his expression bordered on desperate. “What I know is Phoenix, Harper. I know how he thinks, how he operates, what drives him. And do you want to know what drives him?”
She nodded, but she wasn’t at all sure she really wanted to know.
“Obsession. His obsession changes from one victim to the next, but right now he’s obsessed with you. Nothing will stop him.”
Harper wasn’t sure what terrified her more: his words, or the extreme emotion behind them. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him so out of control. Not even with Benny had he looked this ready to…kill. “How do you know so much about Phoenix?”
“Because I’m realizing that I’m not all that different from him.”
She frowned up at him, wanting to tell him that being a natural didn’t make him a murderer like Phoenix. But she wasn’t supposed to know about that. “Riddick, you’re nothing like—”
“For Christ’s sake, Harper, I’m obsessed with you!” He set her away from him firmly. “I don’t have a single fucking thought anymore that doesn’t begin and end with you, so don’t tell me I’m nothing like him.” His hands shook as he shoved them through his hair again. “The entire Whispering Hope police department couldn’t keep me from you.”
For once in her life, Harper Hall was speechless.
He looked torn between yanking her up against him and kissing her senseless, and throwing her out her apartment window. No one had ever looked at her quite like that before, and his intensity was more than a little daunting.
She could feel Lucas’ attention on her—apparently he’d given up on giving them some privacy and was listening intently to their little soap opera—but she couldn’t take her eyes off Riddick, who still had his hands on his head and was staring at her as if she was going to knife him in the heart at any moment.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” she whispered, taking a step toward him. She tried not to feel hurt when he retreated a step. “I can’t stand to have you look at me like you hate me.”
He shook his head helplessly, and after a moment, his expression softened. Well, it softened as much as Riddick’s expression ever softened, she supposed.
“Harper, if I was capable of hating you, we wouldn’t be in thi
s mess. This thing never should have gone this far.”
Dread gnawed at her stomach. Something told her she wasn’t going to like what he had to say next. “What shouldn’t have gone this far? The situation with Phoenix…or you and me?”
He took another step back, and suddenly the distance between them felt like the Grand-freaking-Canyon to Harper. “All of it,” he said with a humorless laugh. “I don’t know what’s worse: you being around Benny and Hart, or you being around me for as long as you have been. I shouldn’t have let any of this happen.”
Now that really riled her inner feminist. “As I remember, you were against me going with you to see Benny, and you threatened to throw me in the trunk when I wanted to help rescue Dylan.” She moved up before he could retreat another step and poked him in the chest with her index finger. “I do what I want, so you didn’t let anything happen.”
She glanced over her shoulder and glared at Lucas until he frowned and wandered to her refrigerator, hopefully out of earshot once again.
Turning back toward Riddick, she lowered her voice and said, “And nothing happened here,” she gestured wildly to the couch, “that I didn’t want—okay, really want—to happen. So don’t you dare say you shouldn’t have let that happen.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face “Are you going to let them use you as bait, or are you getting out of town?”
She straightened. “I’m not running away. I have to do what I think is right.”
“Fine,” he said through clenched teeth. “Then I’m going to go do what I have to do.”
“Which is?” she asked as he grabbed his coat and stalked toward her door.
“I’m going to find him before you start walking the streets, begging to get yourself killed.”
“You’re just leaving me?” she asked, incredulous.
He paused with his hand on her front doorknob. “It’s almost dawn. He won’t come after you in broad daylight.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly.
But he didn’t hear her. He’d already gone.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Riddick, wait.”
Riddick didn’t even break stride as he hit the street in front of Harper’s building. After all, he didn’t really give a fuck at this point what Lucas Cooper had to say to him.
In addition to his concern—ok, fear, if he wanted to be totally honest—for Harper’s safety, he was nursing some fairly immature feelings of resentment toward Cooper. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he had a sneaking suspicion it was because Harper had sided with the cop instead of him on the bait-Phoenix-or-get-out-of-town debate.
Was this what jealousy felt like?
Fuck, how did normal people get anything done with so many Goddamned emotions swirling around inside them all the time?
Cooper jumped in front of him and grabbed his arm. The guy had balls, Riddick would give him that much. Not many guys—werewolves, vampires, or humans—had the nerve to body-block him.
Riddick glanced at Cooper’s hand on his arm, then raised his eyes to the other man’s, letting him know that while he respected guts, he wouldn’t hesitate to break a cop’s hand. Especially not today.
Cooper raised his hands in surrender. “Look, I just wanted you to know that I care about what happens to Harper too.”
And somehow that only made Riddick want to break the guy’s bones even more.
“I’ll have no fewer than ten cops watching her at all times,” he went on.
Riddick snorted but refrained from commenting. He’d already had this argument once today, and he didn’t really feel like explaining to the good detective that forty cops watching her at all times wouldn’t be enough.
Lucas put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to pick a fight with you. All I’m trying to say is that Harper is covered. I’ll personally make sure of it.”
Riddick cocked his head to one side. “No, what you’re trying to tell me is that Harper doesn’t need me. Trying to clear the playing field, Detective?”
Cooper’s color heightened. Curse of the fair-skinned, Riddick supposed. Childishly enough, Riddick felt a slight edge.
“Any idiot can see that Harper cares about you, Riddick. I don’t want to see her hurt when you bail. And you know as well as I do that you’ll bail. Forever isn’t in a slayer’s vocabulary.”
Riddick felt the words like a punch to the gut. The idea of Harper being hurt simply by his absence wasn’t a possibility he’d ever considered. Hadn’t wanted to consider.
Cooper got a smug look on his face as he watched Riddick digest his words. Riddick would have loved nothing more than to tell the bastard he’d never hurt Harper, never leave her or let her down, but he couldn’t.
He knew he wasn’t a long-haul kind of guy. As much as Harper made him want to be that guy, he just wasn’t.
Which meant he couldn’t let her any farther into his life than he had already. And unfortunately, that meant he wouldn’t have her half-naked, hot, willing, and under him at any point in the near future.
Riddick rubbed his chest absently. Damn it, he hadn’t even said any of that out loud. Just the thought hurt.
Forcing a cocky grin, he said, “Don’t worry, Detective. I’m sure you’ll have your chance to convince her you’re the better man. If I can keep her alive long enough, that is.”
Cooper looked like steam could come out of his ears at any moment.
My work here is done, Riddick thought as he brushed past Cooper hard enough to knock him slightly off balance and let him know he could have knocked him on his ass.
“Riddick.”
Riddick turned and looked at Cooper with an impatient palms-up gesture, still walking backward.
“If Phoenix turns up dead, I’m putting you away. You’re my one and only suspect.”
“Having one suspect might help you get the job done right this time, Detective.”
With a jaunty salute, Riddick left Cooper seething where he stood. But he didn’t take more than a moment to savor his victory.
It was time to hunt.
Harper stood in the kitchen, arms crossed, and glared at Lucas as he let himself back into her apartment. “You didn’t have the right to say any of that to him.”
He matched her glare for glare, and moved in close enough that she had to tip her head back to maintain eye contact. God, she hated when men used sheer height to intimidate her.
“Eavesdropping is a nasty habit, doll face.”
So was biting her nails, but she did it anyway, and with nothing useful to show for it. At least eavesdropping gave her some good information every now and then.
“You don’t know he’s going to bail on me,” she insisted quietly.
He exhaled. “Christ, Harper, that’s what you chose to hear out of everything that was said? Everyone knows he’s no good for you, even Riddick. You’re the only one who doesn’t get it.”
It would be childish of her to point out that Riddick hadn’t wanted to get involved with her at all, and yet, not only had he helped her save Dylan, she’d had him partially naked on her couch less than an hour ago.
For some reason, Riddick seemed inclined to stick around. Whether or not he thought it was a good idea.
“I know you care about him, but he’s not a good risk, Harper.”
She should cut her losses and walk away, he was saying. To hell with how she felt. To hell with what she wanted.
He went on, oblivious to her quickly spiking temper. “I’m only saying this because I don’t want to see you hurt.”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “You know, everyone is soooo concerned that I might get hurt, and yet no one seems to give a rat’s ass about what I want. You and Mischa and Riddick…do you all think I’m just some emotional retard who can’t make her own decisions?”
He frowned. “I never said—”
“I mean, really, what would happen if I was left to my own devices and allowed to do whatever I wante
d without any of you telling me what was best for me?”
“Harper, I—”
“Would the universe as we know it cease to exist?”
She laughed humorlessly as she warmed to her topic. “Would the fabric of the universe rip, allowing us to slip into bizarro world? Where cats marry dogs and Jessica Simpson is a biochemist? I mean honestly, what the—”
Lucas wrapped his palm around her nape, yanked her into his arms, and crushed his mouth to hers. When he pulled back, she was stunned speechless for the second time that night.
He rested his forehead against hers, his breathing labored. “Harper, I’m only gonna say this once, so listen very carefully: I like you. And when this is all over, I want to take you out and get to know you better. A lot better. Doing that would be real awkward if you’re pining for Riddick. Get it?”
Words still eluded her, so she nodded.
He pushed away from her. “Good. Just think about it.”
Great. Because what she really needed these days was more to think about.
Chapter Twenty-three
Late the next afternoon, Harper was sitting at her table frowning and thinking way too much an hour later when a knock on the door mercifully distracted her.
Thank God for pizza, she thought gratefully as she made her way to the door. Distraction food of champions.
The bad news was that the pizza delivery guy was not at her door. It was Mischa. The good news was that Mischa had her pizza.
“I ran into the delivery guy downstairs,” Mischa said as she brushed past Harper and set the box down on the table. “I heard about the woman Phoenix killed and had a pretty good idea this was for you.”
“Good guess.” She frowned. “How did you hear about Phoenix? I just heard about it last night.”
“I bought a police scanner.”
Harper raised a brow and Mischa rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask,” she said. “Talk to me.”
Harper gave Mischa the abbreviated version of the story, but did manage to include details about kissing both Riddick and Lucas.
Semi-Charmed Page 14
