There were two answers to her problem.
One, she had a stalker who had gained entry to her home and her things. Over the course of a few weeks, this unknown person had removed items from her home, eaten her food and slept on her couch—maybe even her bed. As terrifying as that was, in Jenna’s world, it was the lesser of two evils.
Two, she was suffering delayed PTSD. Lord knew she’d seen enough and lost so many during her eight years in service. It wasn’t out of the question to think she’d lost a few marbles. Of those she kept in touch with, half were diagnosed with some level of PTSD. If she had to guess, there were a few more hiding it. Was she imagining her stalker as a solution to her real problems? War hadn’t been easy. She’d been torn up, chewed up and spit out a time or two herself, and while she had her fair share of scars, she’d been cleared as of her last psych eval. But they didn’t catch everything.
Suck it up, princess, her father’s voice echoed through her thoughts.
The houses around the station were some of the safest places to live. When a rental had come available in walking distance, she’d jumped on the opportunity, though the hospital was clear on the other side of town.
She dug her keys out of her pocket and slid them between her fingers. Even if her worst nightmare was finding out it was all in her head, she still took comfort in being prepared for a physical threat. There was no way to explain where her missing belongings had gone. A stalker who had the ability to slip in and out of her home would have the most intimate details of her life on hand.
The older homes surrounding the station gave way to newer builds. Her duplex was one of those developments that had sprung up on what had once been pasture land.
Jenna paused at an intersection, peering at two streetlights bordering a brand new condominium complex. They were out. In fact, the whole condo building looked dark.
That was strange.
There’d been a big to-do by the city council about making the streets safe, which included a well lit project to ensure all street lights were in working order. One light being out was odd, two was downright fishy.
Could she circle the block? She’d walked this route so often she could do it blindfolded, but she wasn’t up to date on the little side streets that seemed to shift and change as the city grew.
She grabbed her phone and flipped on her flashlight app. There was no sense in going completely out of her way when she was ready to drop from exhaustion. Besides, her paranoia would not rule her life. One person could not black out a whole building and the street lights. This was real life—not TV. That sort of stuff didn’t happen.
Jenna crossed the street, keeping her flashlight aimed at her path and her gaze sweeping for any sign of movement. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and her mouth went dry.
“This is stupid,” she muttered to herself.
She’d strode down village streets in Afghanistan knowing she had enemy guns on her back with less concern than she had now for phantoms that may or may not exist.
But what if there was someone out there, watching her? It was more personal. It was someone who knew her. Who’d peered into her life, taken pieces of her and could be following her every movement.
Jenna glanced over her shoulder, but the street was just as empty as it had been a moment before. She turned back toward her destination as a large, dark figure stepped out from a gate set into the high brick wall around the condos. She gasped and stumbled sideways. He was so close she could see the shine of her flashlight in his eyes.
He’d been waiting for her.
She had not survived two IEDs, countless air raids and attacks to go down on the streets of her home town. Not her.
He grabbed her arm, wrapping his thick fingers around her wrist. She slashed at his forearm with her fist of keys, driving in the teeth as she kicked his shin.
“Jenna!”
She flinched at the sound of her name on his tongue. That voice would become part of her nightmares—if she lived that long.
The grip on her arm was too tight. She couldn’t get a breath in. Panic made the muscles of her chest constrict, suffocating her. She brought her knee up with all her might, but he twisted and she drove her knee into his thigh.
“Jenna, it’s me, Alex.”
All the air went out of her lungs in a whoosh.
She blinked up at him, the beam of her flashlight catching half his face in LED light.
It was Alex.
Her Team Leader.
Oh, God, how unhinged am I?
Jenna sucked in a deep breath and swayed on her feet.
His brown eyes were narrowed as he peered over her shoulder, no doubt already looking for a threat. Even in the darkness she could trace the bump in his nose from one too many skirmishes with a suspect. He had a strong jaw, cheeks that looked as if they’d been carved from stone and his mouth was a hard line. Alex wasn’t GQ chic, but she’d never gone for pretty guys. Tall, dark and capable were her type, and Alex fit the bill. Add in completely unavailable and uninterested for fun, and hello misery.
“What happened?” One hand went to his hip where his service gun would be were he in uniform.
She pulled against his hold. He let her go though he didn’t seem like he wanted to. She wrapped her arms around herself as the first tremors shook her body. In the dark, she’d been certain it was her worst nightmare made real, but it was just Alex. Not that there would ever be a just Alex for her, but he wasn’t what made her keep her lights on at night.
“Jenna, was someone out there? What did he look like? Where did he go?” Alex turned toward her, bending slightly so he could look her in the eyes.
He was there.
Watching her.
She turned in a circle, feeling eyes on her.
Who was he?
Or was it all in her head?
“Jenna?”
She faced Alex once more. What kind of shit luck did she have that the one night he said more than, Good job, to her, it was tonight? She opened her mouth, not quite sure what she’d tell him, but found the ability to speak had left her. There were no words, only the tremors that shook her.
Alex took a step toward her. If there was anyone who could protect her from the Big Bad Wolf at her door, it was Alex. It would take more than huffing and puffing to move him. She hunched her shoulders and glanced away as he came closer still. Trusting him came with consequences. He was the kind of black and white cop that would turn her in for being unfit for duty. Tomorrow she’d be tossed off SWAT, by the end of the week she’d undergo an evaluation—and what if it turned out to all be in her head?
“Jenna, I need you to take a deep breath for me.” Alex’s warm hands landed on her shoulders. For some reason she was cold, the tremors turning to shivers. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Just crazy. She sucked in a deep breath, all the way to her diaphragm. Her head tingled, and she wiggled her toes.
“Come sit over here.” Alex ushered her toward a big pickup truck sitting at the curb. He clicked the key fob and opened the passenger side door. The truck was so tall there was even a step to help her get in. “What happened?”
“You scared me.” It was the truth—but not the whole truth.
He guided her up to the seat, peering at her in the way she hated, with his brows drawn down and his lips pressed into a thin line. Why of all the cops, did it have to be him she had a thing for? Anyone else and she could have quietly had the hottest fling of her life, but it had to be Alex. And he was so not fling material. Alex was forever, and ever amen material. Bring to Florida to meet Mom and Dad material. The kind of man you stayed with for a lifetime material. And she so did not have her shit together for a man like that.
Alex reached into the back seat and grabbed a zip up hoodie. He wrapped it around her and bent to stare into her eyes, probably to determine if she had a concussion or was high.
A car started down the street. Jenna jumped as the headlights flipped on, blinding her momentarily.
“Close the door,” she said.
“Why?”
“Just close the door.” She pushed at Alex’s shoulder and clawed the door for the handle.
“Okay, okay.” Alex stood back.
Jenna slammed the door shut and jammed her finger against the lock button. She wrapped his hoodie tighter around her and watched the car turn at the corner.
From that spot, someone could watch her walk almost half her route home. They’d have a clear view of her front door now that the hedges had been trimmed.
The driver’s door opened and Alex climbed into the truck, thrusting her phone at her. He closed his door, and the locks engaged again. The silence was deafening. Her thoughts screamed too loud. Hell, she could even imagine some of what he was thinking right now.
She knew she should give him some explanation for her behavior, and yet—there was none that didn’t make her sound nuts.
“Why were you here?” Jenna asked, not that it was any of her business, but she needed to know.
“Delores is home on leave. She fell at the station and did something to her hip. I was coming by to check on her since the power is out on this side of town.” His answer was so—reasonable. She would never have expected Alex to make house calls, but he was that kind of Team Leader who checked up on his team.
“She’s the lady in dispatch with the pink, rhinestone glasses?”
“Yup.”
“Oh.”
Jenna could hear his unspoken question. The weight of it made her bend almost double in her seat.
“I’m not crazy,” she blurted.
Great, everyone knows the guilty people always claim innocence first thing.
“I never said you were,” Alex replied, so even keel she wanted to punch him just to get some emotion out of him.
“I just—I’m tired. I need to go home.” She glanced around, realizing that though the streetlights were on, the typical security lights on houses were all off.
He’d just told her the power was off.
Home would be dark.
Maybe tonight she’d sleep in her car. It would mark a new low, but hell, she had to do something to keep her sanity and get more than a couple hours sleep.
“Jenna, I have to ask you, what’s going on? Are you okay? Are you in any trouble?”
Why did it have to be Alex?
“Nothing’s going on.” At least nothing she could prove. All she had was a hunch, a suspicion and some missing coasters. Her Founder Ring, well, maybe she misplaced it?
“You just tried to knee me. Something’s going on.”
“Just forget it, okay? Nerves. Tonight freaked me out.” The lies tasted bitter.
“That’s not a good enough answer. Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“I don’t want to have to—”
“What? Threaten me with the rule book?”
“No, I was going to say I don’t want to have to sit here all night and wait it out of you.”
Jenna slumped in her seat. What was wrong with her? Now she was suspicious of her own Team Leader, someone she should trust completely. If she couldn’t trust him with at least half of the truth, she couldn’t trust anyone.
“I think I’m being stalked.” She stared straight ahead. Though she’d thought the words many times, she’d never before said them. Dread wound round her throat. As if speaking her fear gave it new life, she wanted to crawl under the seat. “I don’t have any proof. It’s just—little things. A feeling. That’s it.” Or it could be delayed PTSD. Just last month one of the medics she’d served with on her last deployment had been arrested for attacking someone during a vivid flashback. From the accounts, she’d known the moment he was reliving. It was the material of some of her worst nightmares.
Either way, she was living her own, personal hell.
3.
ALEX FORCED HIS HAND to uncurl. Wanting to punch the windshield wasn’t going to help Jenna calm down.
“Tell me about the feeling,” he said.
Jenna flinched and finally—finally—looked at him. Her lips parted, and she blinked a few times.
“It’s just a feeling, like someone’s watching me.”
“That feeling between your shoulder blades? Skin crawling? Raised hair?” There was a lot of credibility where a woman’s intuition was concerned. He’d seen a man walk right past a threat while a woman sensed danger and steered clear. If Jenna said she was being watched—he’d believe her. Besides, it would take something serious to shake a battle hardened medic like her.
“Yeah, exactly like that.” She blew out a breath and slumped in her seat.
Had she thought he’d fight her on a hunch?
He wanted to comfort her, to do something to relieve this burden. But the most important thing to do now was to assess the situation. Was Jenna in danger right now? How aggressive was the stalker?
“How long has this been going on?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe three months? I’d cropped it up to bad dreams, but then...” She pushed a hand through her hair. After the op, she’d washed her face, now dark crescents marred her cheeks. It was no trick of the moonlight that made her look paler than normal, too.
“Then what?”
“Then stuff started disappearing from my house.” She stared at him then.
His vision hazed red. Not only was someone following her—but taking things from her home, too? This was serious, more serious than she realized. Stalking was a behavior that escalated over time, which meant the perpetrator had probably started before the three month window. Long before. Where would it lead to next? That was the real question.
“Why haven’t you reported it?” He knew the answer, but he still had to ask.
“Come on, Alex.” She rolled her eyes. “Any one of the guys will go in my house, ask me what’s missing, if I’ve had a broken door or window. There’s no sign that someone’s been in my house, no evidence. But I know it. I feel it. You can’t prove a feeling. And the only things missing are leftovers and random things. Nothing valuable. Stuff they’ll say I misplaced. The guys will have a good laugh and peg me with a new name for a couple of weeks.”
Alex grimaced. It was a regular practice to christen each member with a nickname. Usually they stuck with easy stuff. Most of the guys called Jenna Doc. If a team member did something stupid, they inevitably paid for it with a new name. But this wasn’t stupidity—it was serious.
He’d thought she seemed a bit on edge as of late. She was holding it together pretty well, but he didn’t want to upset her more. However...she needed to know.
“I can see your point.” No, he couldn’t. He could see himself punching some asshole until his nose crunched, Alex broke a couple knuckles, and the guy was in the back of a cruiser. “What concerns me is that you’re telling me someone has broken into your home and taken personal items. That’s breaking and entering.”
“I know that.”
“It’s a crime.”
“Yeah, well aware of that.”
“Then why not report it?”
“Because no one broke anything to get inside. I’ve had my locks changed three times and still—stuff disappears. I’ve used two different companies. The only key to the house is in my pocket and with my landlord. It really fucks up that breaking and entering theory.” She pulled her knees up, perching her heels on his seat, arms crossed over her chest.
If she was being that careful, then it meant they were dealing with someone much more dangerous. A chill passed over Alex. There was no way in hell Jenna was stepping foot in her house alone until he’d caught the guy. In fact, he wouldn’t mind setting a twenty-four-hour security detail on her.
He’d never seen Jenna shaken. Actually, she’d never gotten the least bit flustered. He’d keep his thoughts to himself and hope she agreed to the plan formulating in his mind. First, he had to keep her safe. Second, they needed proof to open a case. Lastly, they’d bag the asshole and slam him so deep in jail he couldn’t b
reathe without chains rattling.
“What kinds of things are missing?” he asked.
“The only thing that really matters is my grandmother’s Founder Ring.”
“Founder Ring?” Alex blinked. “I didn’t realize your family went back that far.”
“Yup.” Jenna chuckled, and she almost smiled. “Grandma always said the ring was hideous.”
In the eighties, some historical foundation had voted Ransom as Texas’s most untouched town and presented those families who had roots back over a hundred years with a set of gaudy gold rings with black stones. They were ugly, but those families that had them were proud of them.
“I’d like to take a look around. Would you mind?” he asked.
“Mind? I might kiss you.” She slumped in her seat. “Take a left, third house on the left.”
He didn’t tell her he already knew that. She didn’t know he drove patrols occasionally when she was coming or going. The kiss, well, he couldn’t allow himself to think about that. He started the truck and eased down the street, around the turn and into her drive. All the houses were nearly identical, from the brick to the landscaping to the cookie cutter way the mailboxes were staged at the street.
“I’m going to leave the truck running.” He dug in the center console for a moment before coming up with a spare notebook and paper. “I want you to write down anything that’s gone missing, any time you felt like you were being watched or something wasn’t right. There isn’t a detail too random or silly sounding, okay?”
“I’m not making it up.” Jenna’s fierce stare would have frightened a lesser man. It just made Alex want to take her up on that kiss.
“I didn’t say you were. A detailed account of what was wrong and when might tell us who we’re looking for. Patterns. I’m trying to build a case to prove you’re right.”
“Oh.” She took the notebook and stared at the blank page.
“Keys?”
“Right. Crap.” She handed the keys over, brushing her fingers across his palm.
Fighting Redemption: A Small Town Romantic Suspense (Texas SWAT Book 1) Page 2
