by Mallory Kane
She stared at him, remembering how exposed, how alone and violated she had felt. She’d hated it. “They were just doing their jobs,” she muttered, looking away.
“Not much fun, eh?” he asked softly.
She lifted her chin, refusing to answer. He was not making her question her career choices.
“Cher—” He came toward her.
She stood frozen in place. She didn’t know what she expected him to do, but her heart sped up, and her tongue crept out to moisten her lips.
He held out his hand. “Give me your cell phone.”
She blinked. “Why?”
He shook his head in exasperation. “Because I asked nice?”
Confused, she dug it out of her purse and handed it to him.
His hand dwarfed the tiny unit as he punched buttons with his thumbs. “Who do you have on speed dial number 1?”
She heard him talking but had no idea what he was saying. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his hands. They were large and graceful, with long fingers and clean, square-cut nails. She already knew they were comforting and strong. But she hadn’t noticed how beautiful they were until now.
“Connor? Speed dial 1?”
She gave herself a mental shake. “My producer. Why?”
“I’m putting my cell number on 1. I’ll put the center on 2, and the number for the Eighth District station on 3.”
Finally, she pulled her gaze away from his hands, but then she got caught up in looking at his bent head as he manipulated her phone. His hair was straight and unfashionably long, and it slid across his forehead like black silk slipping off a coat hanger, flowing, shimmering, alive.
He looked up and caught her staring. He held out the phone. She took it, and his hand brushed hers.
Her pulse fluttered, and that curling heat rose again. “O-okay,” she said, closing her eyes, savoring his scent and his warm breath. “But I don’t know why I need—”
“Just in case, Connor,” he said gently. “Just in case.”
His soft words raked across her nerves her like claws flaying her skin. “Just in case, what?” she croaked. “They left their message. They’ve had their fun.” A shard of fear lodged itself in her heart. “Haven’t they?”
He didn’t answer.
“You think they’ll do something else? Do you think whoever it is hates me that much?”
Dev’s eyes were dark and cold as obsidian. “Let’s just say I remember how I felt toward you.”
…
Connor’s already pale face turned white as a sheet, and she stared at Dev in horror.
He felt a pang of regret for his careless words. “Hey,” he backpedaled, “it was only for a couple of days. I got over it.” He reached out a hand, but she jerked away.
She took a shaky breath and lifted that mulish chin of hers. It was fascinating to watch her. She was scared spitless, but from somewhere deep inside she’d still managed to dig up that stubborn streak of determination that irritated the hell out of him.
“Thank you for the ride home,” she said formally, without looking at him. “And for the phone numbers. Though I’m sure I won’t need them.”
She walked to the front door and turned to face him. Her expression was wooden. “Good night, Detective.”
He wanted to shake her, or kiss her, or…he didn’t know what. Anything to knock down that wall she threw up every time something or someone threatened to break through her tight hold on herself. She was so tense and strained he was afraid she might actually pass out.
“You need to relax, cher. If you don’t unlock your knees, you’re going to faint.”
“Unlock…?” She looked down, puzzled. He saw her sway, and when she looked up again her eyes had lost focus.
“Whoa.” He grabbed her arm, steadying her, surprised when she didn’t immediately pull away.
“What are you doing?” she asked weakly. “I’m fine.” She reached for the doorknob, her limbs jerking like a marionette in the hands of a child.
“Yeah, no. You’re about ninety-nine percent of the way to a full-blown panic attack.” She might think she could out-stubborn him, but he’d never met anyone yet who could. “You’re in no condition to stay here alone tonight.” He put his arm around her tight shoulders and steered her through the door toward the staircase just beyond the foyer. “Go up and get some clothes.”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“Yeah. That’s why your jaw doesn’t move when you talk.” He touched it with the tip of a finger, ignoring how petal-soft and smooth the skin over the hard bone was. “Get clothes if you want them. You’ve got five minutes.”
Still stiff as an old maid schoolteacher, she shrugged off his touch, but she didn’t move away. He put his arm around her and walked her up the curved staircase, telling himself he was treating her as he would any victim who’d been through the same trauma. At the top landing, he said, “Five minutes, Connor.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” She sent him a glare designed to incinerate him where he stood. He almost laughed, but decided he’d best not do that while standing at the top of the staircase. He just might find himself tumbling unexpectedly to the bottom.
“Okay, I’ll pack for you,” he said reasonably. “Where do you keep your underwear?” To his immense satisfaction and relief, color flooded her face.
“You’re insane.” She sailed through the first bedroom door, went straight into the bathroom and slammed the door after her.
He smiled to himself as he surveyed the second floor of her home. He’d only gotten as far as the front porch on the night of their one ill-fated date. Too bad, he thought, glancing into her bedroom. He liked what he saw. It was a study in contrasts, like her.
Her personal retreat was neat, with a place for everything, but the tiny sleeveless top and the drawstring pajama bottoms she’d worn earlier were tossed in a heap on the foot of the bed, along with a wispy white fragment of lace that lay beside them, innocent and sexy. Ah, hell. A tortured shudder of lust speared him. His mouth went dry, and his pulse hammered as he swelled and grew hard. He pushed air out between his teeth and struggled to tear his gaze away from the bit of lace.
Behind him, the bathroom door opened. He turned, a little embarrassed to be caught staring at her panties and more than a little surprised that she was ready so soon. But something was wrong. Her face, if possible, was whiter than it had been earlier.
He crossed the room in two strides. “What’s the matter?”
She gestured toward the bathroom with a hand that shook.
He stepped inside. There, on her bathroom mirror, scrawled in bright red lipstick was written, I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T LISTEN, BITCH!
Dev’s hand instinctively went for his weapon. His innate caution, learned and honed over a lifetime, had taught him never to enter a room without scanning it first. He was already confident the house was empty. He left his weapon tucked in his belt and turned his attention to Connor. “Did you touch anything?” he asked.
She gave her head a jerky shake, her face shiny with sweat and turning a pale, sickly green color. Uh-oh. He grabbed her and dragged her into the bathroom, pushing her down in front of the toilet just in time. Not wanting to contaminate the scene any more than he had to, he yanked a wad of tissue off the roll and placed it in her hand, then pulled her hair back and pressed his palm against her forehead.
Once she was done being sick, he gently urged her to stand and half-guided, half-carried her out of the room and down the stairs. She meekly allowed him to lead her, a shocking contrast to her determination just a few minutes earlier not to need him. In the kitchen, after he double-checked with her to confirm nothing was out of place, he turned on the hot water tap and retreated into the hall to give her some privacy while she cleaned up.
And he called Lieutenant Flanagan.
…
Reghan rinsed her mouth for the third time and splashed cold water on her face. She leaned her forearms on the sink and let the water run over
her wrists.
Dev was still here. The amount of relief that thought gave her was immeasurable. What if she’d been alone when she’d seen the awful words scrawled in her bathroom? She’d thought twice before that she’d never felt so violated—first when she discovered the DVD missing, and again when she saw the painted graffiti on her porch. But this—this was the worst. Someone had walked up her stairs, looked at her bed, stood in her bathroom and looked at himself in her mirror. Someone had desecrated her home. A brutal shudder wracked her body.
She grabbed a dish towel and wiped her face. She folded the towel, then shook it out and folded it again, concentrating on squaring the corners perfectly. Then she laid it on the kitchen counter and smoothed it out with shaky fingers that felt as numb as her brain.
Through the door to the living room she heard Dev’s voice. “So get the hell on over here.” He was on his cell phone. “Because I’m not going to wait all night, and she’s not waiting at all. I’m taking her to the center. When I get back, you can ask me your questions.”
Stepping to the door, she saw him pacing and pushing his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I’ll tell you why,” he said. “Because she didn’t see anything.” He glanced up and frowned, assessing her.
She nodded once, to let him know she was done throwing up, but the movement of her head brought the nausea back. She closed her eyes briefly.
“I was with her the whole damn time,” he went on. “She doesn’t know anything I don’t know. I’ll be back by the time you get here.” He cut the connection and stuffed the phone in his pocket. Irritation and fatigue shadowed his face. “Let’s go.”
“I didn’t get any clothes.”
He shook his head tiredly. “You can’t touch anything up there now, Connor. I’m taking you to the center.”
She coughed, her throat feeling raw. “Can’t I stay here with you?”
“No, you can’t.” His voice was gruff, his expression forbidding, but she didn’t care. The anger and frustration weren’t aimed at her. Not this time, thank God. This time he was protecting her, and that was all that mattered.
Tired, sick, and utterly terrified by the message on the mirror and all its implications, she gladly gave in. She’d do anything he wanted her to, as long as he kept her safe from whoever was doing this to her.
Dev guided her out to his car, his hand resting just above the curve of her hip. She was acutely aware of the contact, but he was still frowning and she knew his attention was on the crime scene in her bathroom, not on her. When he reached around to open the car door and she felt the warmth and the strength of his body so close to her, she almost broke down and asked him to hold her. But the moment passed, he turned aside, and she missed her chance. So instead, she wrapped her arms around herself and huddled in the corner of the seat as he drove toward Decatur Street and the Johnson Center.
And she bleakly wondered what else could possibly go wrong tonight.
…
Reghan stirred and turned over, pushing back the covers. She felt warmth on her face. She wasn’t sure what had awakened her—not at first. She opened her eyes to a slit. The sun was coming up, but it wasn’t shining through the right window. The sounds, the smells, the feel of everything were wrong. She opened her eyes without moving.
This wasn’t her bed. It wasn’t her room. For a few seconds she let herself drift back toward sleep, but she couldn’t get there. All the differences between this place and her own room in her own house were shouting at her. Especially the smell. She hadn’t noticed it before, but it did seem familiar. She took another sniff, but the sweet odor was dissipating. So she opened her eyes all the way and looked around.
The bedroom was small and plain, but pleasant. It was painted a subtle shade of pink. Large windows with simple curtains let in the early morning light. She yawned—and right in the middle of it, her brain dumped everything that had happened into her consciousness…in Technicolor. The blood-red paint on her front porch. The scrawled message in lipstick on her bathroom mirror.
Dev had brought her here to his center, but that was the last thing she remembered. Or was it? She frowned, looking down at herself. She was dressed in pale blue cotton pajamas. She ran her hand down the front of the top. These weren’t hers, either. Where were her clothes?
Looking around the strange room, she finally spotted the pants, shirt and windbreaker she’d worn the night before, draped over a chair at the end of the bed. She had a vague memory of a strikingly beautiful woman with a long blond braid and a serene smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes handing her pajamas and slippers.
She threw back the covers and got up, reaching for her purse and checking her watch. Seven-thirty. She groaned. No wonder she could barely hold her eyes open. She’d had a grand total of three hours sleep.
She opened the bedroom door a crack and listened, but she didn’t hear anyone stirring. Glancing to the right, down the hall, she saw a door. Bathroom. Was that another memory from the night before or merely logic? How tired had she been not to recall getting here and changing clothes?
Padding to the bathroom on bare feet, she looked around it in dismay. She was dying for a shower, but there wasn’t one—just an old-fashioned claw-foot tub, and no lock on the door. She’d have to ask Dev for a more private alternative. In the meantime, there was a stack of clean washcloths on the back of the toilet and a few brand-new toothbrushes behind the mirror. She washed her face and hands and brushed her teeth, then ran her wet fingers through her hair, trying to tame it. Back in the bedroom, she donned her wrinkled clothes and tiptoed downstairs into the dimly lit front room.
She stopped. The room wasn’t empty. In fact, it appeared full of people. Not just people—kids. Teenagers. Probably six or eight of them. They were sprawled in chairs or stretched out on couches or on the floor, sleeping. A young man sitting on the floor with his back against the wall was engrossed in his phone, its light casting eerie shadows on his face. She vaguely remembered walking through this room last night and seeing the kids. In one corner was a computer on a small table, its monitor casting a pale blue light over the smooth, innocent faces of the teenagers.
She glanced back toward the stairs, considering going back to the bedroom and waiting until she heard someone else get up.
“I thought you were going to sleep in,” said a low, gravelly voice behind her.
Chapter Six
Dev’s voice rumbled over her senses like thunder in the next county. She turned. He was leaning against the kitchen doorway, his long fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee. Gray sweatpants hung on his lean hips, and a white, stretched-out T-shirt clung to his broad chest.
Powerful. The word whispered through her mind before she could put up her defenses. What was wrong with her that, despite all his lies, despite his continued resentment of her and her opinions, just looking at those wide shoulders and athletic legs could turn her brain to mush and her insides to jelly? How big a disconnect was there between her brain and her libido, that she could be this intensely attracted to a man who, just weeks ago, she’d been sure embodied all the careless, casual charm that had characterized her father and her ex-fiancé? Just before they left her.
Suppressing a shiver of longing, and realizing that she was staring at the low-slung waistband of his sweatpants, she dragged her gaze up to his face. Even in the dim light she could see that his straight, mobile mouth was turned down in a moue. The planes of his strong jaw and high cheekbones were made harsher by the early morning shadows. He hadn’t shaved, and dark stubble deepened the hollows in his cheeks.
“You look terrible,” she said, the words slipping out before she thought to stop them. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.
He yawned, arched his neck and said, “Yeah, well, I guess we’re a pair, then. Because you look like a drowned cat.” He cocked one dark brow and lazily drained his coffee cup. “Is wet hair some kind of fashion statement these days?”
She sniffed. “You really should wo
rk on that legendary charm of yours. People might get the idea it’s overrated.”
A glint of amusement lit his eyes, making her realize just how dull and sunken they had been. “Charm is inversely proportional to sleep,” he drawled, then took a swallow of coffee.
“And you haven’t slept at all.” She knew because of the purple shadows under his eyes and the slump to his shoulders. Something elemental inside her, something she couldn’t control or put a name to, sent conflicting signals to her brain. She wanted to cradle his head between her hands, pull it down to rest on her shoulder. She wanted to bury her nose in that thick black hair and promise him that everything would be all right, and then kiss him until he believed it.
She must be more tired than she’d thought to be thinking like that about him.
“You got some sleep, didn’t you?” he asked, his voice sounding concerned.
“Not enough.” She squinted up at him. “Do I remember a woman giving me some pajamas?”
“Penn. Penelope Sims.”
“Penn.” She nodded in remembrance. She wanted to ask who the woman was, but she couldn’t think of a way to word it that wouldn’t sound catty.
Dev raised an eyebrow. He might as well have read her mind. “Penn and her daughter, Katie, live here. In every way but by blood, Penn’s my sister. She helps me chaperone the kids, and she’s studying to be a psychiatric social worker.” He glanced at his watch. “You’d better get ready. As soon as you’re done with Lieutenant Flanagan, you’ll be the guest of the Eighth District station. We’re going to watch that disk.”
“We?” Her heart leapt in her chest—in anticipation or apprehension, she wasn’t sure. “You want me to be there?”
“Givens asked for you. He figures he might have some questions.” Dev headed into the kitchen. “Coffee?” he asked over his shoulder. “It’s from last night, but—”
She followed him. The room was dim, the only light coming from a low-wattage bulb over the kitchen sink. “I could make fresh, if you’ll tell me—”
The kitchen light flashed on. Reghan jumped and squinted against the sudden glare. A young woman with shaggy, dishwater blond hair stood at the door, her hand on the switch.
