The Seven-Day Target

by Natalie Charles

  “Coffee’s fine. Thanks.”

  Nice of him to remember that she was trying to reduce her caffeine intake, although she didn’t see what difference a cup of coffee would make in her anxiety level. Her jaw already hurt from grinding her teeth all night.

  She didn’t have a court appearance that day, so she dressed in a simple floral print skirt and a short-sleeve cotton blouse that revealed just the top swell of her breasts. Business casual cleavage. She shook out her hair but then decided she’d let it air-dry. Her waves looked more like ringlets as she walked out of the bathroom, greeted by the smell of pancakes.

  Nick was standing with his back to the kitchen doorway. He was barefoot, dressed in black mesh shorts and a gray T-shirt. He turned his head as she entered. “Coffee’s ready, and I took out the cream and sugar.”

  Libby lurched gratefully toward the coffee, taking one of the mugs Nick set out and filling it to the brim with the hot black caffeinated goodness she needed to fully clear her head. She tasted it before adding cream and a little sugar. “This is really delicious,” she murmured.

  “That’s because I bought it,” Nick said matter-of-factly. “Enjoy a decent cup of coffee. My treat.” He turned his head and gave her a broad, easy smile, flashing the dimple in his left cheek. “I hope pancakes are on your diet. I ordered groceries last night, but they won’t be here for another hour. This is all I could find.”

  He paused, and Libby caught his gaze wandering up and down her frame. She didn’t know why, but the subtle appraisal sent a rush of pleasure through her. “I told you, I don’t have any special diet. I’m trying to be better about that. No more food rules, no more chewing on my nails. No more coffee, except for this cup. I’m making changes.”

  About a month ago Libby had decided she was ready for a change and set about methodically fixing all of the things she didn’t like about herself. She’d made a list and had placed each item into one of three tiers. Tier one represented the bad habits, such as nail biting and coffee drinking. Tier two represented her more compulsive tendencies, such as her need to organize her bookcase alphabetically by author. All of the elements in tiers one and two would be easier to fix than those in tier three, which contained things like her fear of social gatherings, or her inability to generate charming small talk. Moving through one tier at a time, Libby reasoned, she would become a less anxious person, less of a control freak.

  Less of a tight-ass.

  “As long as you don’t change too much.” He said the words breezily.

  She froze. “That must be a joke. You told me when we broke up that I was difficult to love.”

  His shoulders tensed. “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “You said I was uptight and that you’d always found it difficult to love me. And now I’m trying to...change things.” She inhaled. “I’m not angry about what you said. Not anymore. But I want to fall in love some day, and I want someone to love me, and it seems that for that to happen I will need to be less like myself. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Nick was facing her, the spatula hanging limply in his hand. He winced at her words. “That was a rotten thing for me to say to you.”

  She started. She hadn’t expected that. “We both said rotten things that day.”

  He appeared to reflect upon her words and then turned back to the stove. Libby studied him as he prepared breakfast. Yesterday at Coffee On Main, Nick had been a tight coil of masculinity: hard, strong and poised to erupt like a spring gun if tripped. Now he seemed so boyish, with his bed-rumpled hair, bare feet and shorts, that Libby fought the urge to run up and bite him playfully on the neck. He turned then and gave her a smile. “Breakfast is ready.”

  They sat at the little breakfast table to eat, and after they were finished, Libby cleared the dishes. “So you’re going to drive me to work this morning?”

  He looked surprised. “You’re going to work?”

  “Uh, yeah. Did you see the way I’m dressed?” She gestured to her outfit. “And what else would I do?”

  He paused. “But how is that supposed to work? I’m trying to protect you.”

  “You could come with me to the D.A.’s, I guess. Look, I’m not putting my life on hold. I’m not living in fear. I thought this was the plan.” But even as she said it, the reality came back to her: someone wanted her dead. She’d be trying hard to feel normal today.

  Nick’s face looked stormy, and his mouth pulled tightly shut as he thought. “I’d prefer that you keep a low profile.”

  “Fine. I’ll go to work, not talk to anyone.” The usual.

  “No, I mean that I’d rather keep you in a controlled environment. Like here, where you’re guarded. He doesn’t even know we’re here, and the less you go out, the less chance you give him to find you.” His eyes darkened. “Six signs over six days, and he strikes for the final time on the seventh. We don’t know where the next sign is going to be delivered, or what it will entail. For all we know, sign three is an attempt on your life. And there’s always the possibility that he gives up on the signs entirely and attacks you. This individual is clearly unstable.”

  She rubbed down the hair on her arms as it stood on end. “But maybe he won’t even come near me today. He planted the first sign near that poor woman he killed, and I wasn’t anywhere near that crime.”

  She felt like a prisoner. He had a point and he was only trying to help, but the thought of sitting in the house all day, hiding out from a bogeyman, made her nearly frantic. She’d go stir crazy. “Nick, you can’t lock me in the house all day. Please. What if he sees me at work and that flushes him out of hiding? You’ll be right there to protect me—nothing is going to happen. Right?”

  But he didn’t look too sure. “I need to think about this. I’m going to take a quick shower. The groceries will be delivered soon, but don’t open the door. Got it? I want you to sit right here and be bored for twenty minutes.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I got it. Geez.” And he’d called her the control freak.

  She plopped on the overstuffed couch and pretended to flip through a coffee table book on tropical birds, but she watched Nick as he left the room. Specifically his muscular legs and firm backside. Not bad at all. Her pulse jumped slightly and she turned back to her book.

  He’d checked her out, too. Fair is fair.

  * * *

  “I’ve decided I can’t let you go out,” Nick declared as he carried the bags of groceries that had been left by the door into the house. “It’s too risky. We don’t know what his third sign might be, and I don’t want to give him any help. We need to throw him off his little game, make it impossible for him to succeed.”

  She groaned loudly, sounding more like a frustrated teenage girl than the professional adult she was. “You can’t do this to me. I thought I was free to go about my day as long as you were with me!”

  “What part of hiding out in my parents’ house makes you think that you’re free to go about your day?”

  She was sulking in response, acting spoiled and petulant. She was even slamming the groceries into their proper place. A bag of carrots landed with a thud in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, and she plunked oranges down almost forcefully into the fruit bowl. He gritted his teeth and told himself not to snap, to keep his cool.

  “This is awful!” She finally stopped in her tracks. “I don’t want this. You can’t turn this house into a jail cell. I want you to drive me to work, or else I’m going to walk.”

  That last threat was most certainly calculated to press him into submission. She knew perfectly well that he’d never allow her to walk out that door, and he knew that she meant every word. She would walk the five miles to work if she had to.

  Damn it.

  He gripped his fists and looked out the window, avoiding her glare. Officer McAdams was still parked in front of the house. “I’m going to go talk to the officer who was out here last night,” he said. “I want to know if he saw anything strange at all.”

 
He heard her sigh dramatically as he stepped out the door and walked down to the bottom of the driveway. The sun was still sitting low on the horizon, and an oak tree near the sidewalk cast a heavy shadow over the vehicle. As Nick approached, he saw the officer in the front seat of the car, the side of his head resting against the window. He’d fallen asleep. Nick frowned and prepared himself to give the officer an earful. His blood pressure skyrocketed thinking about all the officer might have missed while he’d been catching some shut-eye.

  Then he froze. That wasn’t the officer’s head on the window. It was blood.

  He stood in the dead center of the road, paralyzed, his breath stalled in his lungs. He walked toward the front of the vehicle, keeping a distance, looking through the windshield. The interior of the vehicle was obstructed from view by light and shadow, but then he walked closer and saw it. His stomach tilted.

  Officer McAdams was staring back at him, his eyes wide open. He’d been shot execution-style.

  A well of rage bubbled in Nick’s stomach and he pulled out his phone, releasing a string of curses. Finally Dom answered. “Vasquez.”

  “Dom, it’s Nick. You need to get out here right away. McAdams is dead. Shot in his car.”

  “Son of a—!” He heard Dom slam a drawer shut.

  “How did he find us?” Nick demanded. “No one followed us. I was watching.”

  “How the hell would I know? I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Well, he knows, Dom. He knows where we are, and he killed one of your men.” Nick paced. His face was hot; his breath was coming in spurts. He couldn’t bear to look at the body in the vehicle. “He could have tried to kill us last night,” he said, more to himself than to Dom. He cursed again, and this time he kicked a dent into the door of the black vehicle.

  “But he didn’t.” Dom mumbled something in Spanish. “I’m on my way. You’re gonna be there?”

  Nick balled his right fist until the nails pinched his palm, and then he squeezed it tighter. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

  He hung up the phone and turned back toward the house. Libby was standing next to the front door. Her eyes were wide, and as he approached, he saw that she was crying, the tears streaking silently down her cheeks. “Pack up,” Nick said. “And call in sick from work.”

  This time she didn’t argue.

  * * *

  The road was blocked off to traffic, and a large area around the vehicle was roped off with yellow crime scene tape. The responding officers did their best to block the view of the scene from the gathering crowd of neighbors that stood on the front lawn two houses away.

  In all the years he’d known Dom, Nick had never seen his face so dark. Both men stood across the street from the vehicle, side by side. Their silence spoke volumes. “You’ve got a leak in your department. Even if you didn’t say anything, someone found out where we were. McAdams could’ve told the wrong person where he was going.”

  Dom’s jaw clenched and the lines between his eyebrows deepened. “I can’t say that for sure.”

  “I’ll say it, then.” He was fighting to keep himself together. The killer had found Libby. Whoever was responsible for leaking that information had better pray Nick didn’t find out who he was. “From now on, no one knows where we are. I mean no one, Dom.”

  “No one,” Dom repeated. “You have my word.” The sergeant had his hands on his hips and was watching the officers process the crime scene. He had a sharpness in his gaze that Nick had rarely seen even when they were working together almost every day. He wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that glare.

  Libby was sitting on the front steps. He hadn’t asked her to remain within his eyesight; she’d done that on her own. Her suitcase was packed and resting beside her. She’d called Cassie at the hotel, and she and Sam were fine, thank goodness. “No one knows where her sister is, right?”

  “I’m the only one, and I plan to keep it that way.” Dom stopped as a member from the crime scene unit approached, carrying a plastic evidence bag. “What is it?”

  “It’s a note of some kind. Looks like it’s written in blood. Sick bastard.” He handed it to Dom.

  “‘Seven tons hatred,’” he read aloud. “That mean anything to you, Nick?”

  “The killer said he was giving seven days,” he volunteered. He noticed that Libby was watching them. “I’ll go ask Libby. All of this seems to revolve around something her father did, so maybe she’ll know.”

  She had her knees close to her chest and a light blanket wrapped around her bare legs. Her dark hair had dried in messy waves, and the wind lifted tendrils across her face as he approached. “We found a note. Sign three.”

  “And?” Her throat sounded hoarse.

  “He wrote ‘seven tons hatred.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  Her face was blank, and she continued to watch the crime scene investigators. For a moment Nick wasn’t sure she’d heard him, but then she shook her head. “No. I don’t know.”

  He lowered himself onto the step so that they were sitting side by side, her arm pressing against his. The current of fear he felt darting through her made him painfully aware of his helplessness. He’d promised to keep her safe, and he’d underestimated the monster they were dealing with. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders; he didn’t know what else to do.

  “I didn’t tell you this, but it seems the first murder victim wasn’t selected at random.” He stared at the ground, but out of the corner of his eye he observed her turning to face him. “Until about a year ago, she’d been a court reporter who worked closely with your dad. We can’t assume it’s coincidental that someone killed your father’s court reporter and is now threatening you.”

  Her back hunched under the weight of this development. “Someone is upset about something my dad did? You mean, he’s acting out of revenge?”

  “It may be, yes.”

  Her lower lip trembled slightly. “But why now? Dad...he can’t see any of this.”

  “We don’t know yet. We’re going to try to figure that out.”

  She rested her head on the palms of her hands. “Nick, I don’t know what anyone could be so angry with my father about. I guess it could be anything. He was a judge and a politician, and he was...you know. He was rough sometimes. Harsh.” She paused, and when she spoke again her tone was lined with quiet fury. “How did he find us?”

  “There could be a leak in the department. We’re going to leave and we’re not telling anyone where we’re going. Got it? Not Cassie, not even Dom.”

  She nodded tightly. “Okay.”

  He leaned closer, bringing his mouth against her ear so he could whisper. “No one is going to hurt you. Not on my watch.”

  Her skin was warm and sweet smelling. Soft. His hand was on her bare arm, his thumb caressing her in lazy arcs. He wanted to pull her into his lap, kiss her soundly and then pick her up and carry her far away from here. He wanted to do anything to stop her from shaking.

  His back stiffened. This was not where he was supposed to be. Touching her, wanting her, was not the same as protecting her. She’d been clear about her feelings. He should respect that. He removed his hand from her arm.

  To his surprise she swung her legs closer to his and brought her head down to rest on his shoulder. “Nick, I’m so scared,” she whispered.

  He reflexively pulled her against him, wrapping his other arm tightly around her. Their past hurt melted away for that moment. They were just Nick and Libby, clinging to each other against a cold reality.

  Chapter 6

  They left before the crime scene was cleared. Nick checked his car for a tracking device, searching the undercarriage and opening the trunk, patting down the tires and running his fingers along the edge of the vehicle body. Once he was finished, he thoroughly searched the interior of the vehicle. When he was convinced the car wasn’t being tracked, he drove through Arbor Falls, taking a series of roads and then turning around, watching for following cars.

  He drove them to Ca
ssie’s hotel two towns away so Libby could check on her sister and nephew and verify for herself that they were fine. She also told Cassie that the threats against her had something to do with their father and that Cassie could be a target, too. Libby reminded her to be careful. Once she was finished, Nick swapped his car for a rental and drove to the town of Great Springs. They checked into the Ascher House—a sprawling farm estate that had been converted to an upscale inn.

  “I’ve always wanted to stay here.” Libby hauled her suitcase up the front steps after refusing Nick’s assistance. She wasn’t completely helpless. “There’s horseback riding and walking trails through a wildlife preserve.”

  “We’re not doing any of that,” Nick reminded her. “We’re staying inside, and you’re going to do something quiet and boring. You know, reading or knitting.”

  She shot him a look. “I was just making conversation.”

  The ride over had been silent. They’d both been watching the road: he to check for following cars, and she to lose herself in the certainty of the white line undulating on its edge. Of course, she wasn’t about to go out for a hike. She was well aware that they were hiding out. But she hadn’t realized that she was now barred from talking about anything other than the threat looming over their heads.

  They’d left the crime scene after someone from the medical examiner’s office had conducted a preliminary review of the body. The killer had opened the passenger door to Officer McAdams’s vehicle and shot him at close range. The time of death was estimated to be around midnight. He’d used a silencer. Just thinking about a murder occurring near her while she slept made Libby’s body go to ice. She was glad to put so many miles between her and Arbor Falls.

  This crime had effected a change in Nick, too. His demeanor had grown dark, and he’d spent the long miles on the highway clenching and unclenching his jaw and mumbling to himself.

  Now he kept close to her side. For her part Libby wasn’t thinking about the past anymore, or wondering what the future would bring. The past didn’t matter and the future was uncertain. They had now, and survival meant putting their differences aside.