Closer Than You Think

by Karen Rose

  ‘How bad is it?’ he asked.

  ‘They shot him,’ Dani snapped, exasperated. ‘That’s bad enough. When are the cops going to get trained to recognize disabilities? Here they come now, so you need to go. Oh,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Knock before you go into the office. I left Faith scrubs to change into.’

  He watched Dani spring into action, impressed and proud of the doctor she’d become, before heading down to the little exam room where Faith Corcoran waited.

  Changing her clothes.

  Deacon blinked hard to clear the sudden barrage of inappropriate images from his mind. He hit a few buttons on his phone, bringing up the photo of Arianna, beaten and bloody. It was more than the jolt he needed to focus. It had affected Faith as well.

  This was the photo that had convinced Faith to spill her secret.

  Because I stalked him first. This should be interesting.

  Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 12.25 A.M.

  Deacon’s heart squeezed painfully as soon as he saw Faith’s tear-streaked face. She’s still beautiful, he thought. Perhaps even more so since he’d read those heartfelt posts by her former clients. He had to fight the urge to stroke her hair, to give her comfort.

  I’m in trouble here. I should have handed her off to Bishop. But he didn’t want to. He wanted her story. He needed to understand why a sex offender had hated her so passionately.

  ‘I’m ready to go to the precinct,’ she said. ‘Or your field office. Doesn’t matter to me.’

  His gut also told him that he’d get more out of her in a less stressful environment. Her distrust of cops certainly qualified as stressful. And . . . he wanted her to himself for just a little while. ‘We can stay here if you’d like. You’re not a suspect.’

  ‘Yet.’ She waited for him to sit. ‘I liked being a therapist. I made a difference.’

  It was an odd segue, he thought. ‘Then quit the bank and go back to being a therapist.’

  ‘I might. Later. Of course that will ultimately depend on you.’

  ‘How so?’ But he thought he might know. ‘What did you do, Faith?’

  ‘What I thought was right.’ She met his eyes, hers filled with a fierce resolve. ‘I couldn’t stomach the offenders. Couldn’t stomach their excuses when they got caught. “She came on to me.” “She’s a little slut.” One of the “little sluts” was four years old, Deacon. Four.’

  Deacon. Not Agent Novak. His pulse kicked up. ‘I know. I’ve arrested some of the bastards. Unfortunately there are a lot more out there.’

  ‘The ones you arrested probably didn’t serve much time, and many went right back to abusing kids. They just got smarter about how they did it, which made it harder for the cops to catch them the second time around.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘So I helped the process along. The only way I could make a bad situation remotely right.’

  ‘What did you do, Faith?’ he murmured.

  ‘I told you. I stalked them. Kept a camera with a zoom lens in my car at all times. Took photos when they went where they weren’t supposed to, like the homes of children with whom they had court-supervised visitation only. Or the homes of children belonging to their newest girlfriends. Or when they hung out near playgrounds with a hungry look on their faces when they were supposed to stay a thousand feet away from a school.’

  ‘What did you do with the photos?’

  ‘Gave ’em to a cop,’ she said with grim satisfaction.

  ‘Your ex-husband?’ He didn’t want to think of her with her ex. He didn’t want to think of her with any other man. He shouldn’t think of her at all. But he did. How could he not? Careful, Novak. Be very careful here.

  ‘No,’ she said on a soft exhale, as if there were a whole lot of other words she’d chosen not to say. ‘I knew a detective in Sex Crimes named Deb. I became her confidential informant.’

  He held her gaze for a long moment as something settled within him. This made sense. This was the woman who’d scaled a rocky embankment in bare feet to save a girl she didn’t know. This was the woman who’d stood watch over Arianna Escobar, armed and ready to defend her.

  ‘And if you’d been exposed?’ he asked.

  ‘Hard to say. It’s a gray area, to say the least. Some people might think that was my responsibility – to protect the victims – but the reality is that the offenders were my clients too. Most of them paid for their own therapy, so in invading their privacy, I broke procedure. At the very least I’d have lost the trust of the agency I worked for, which would have rendered me useless in helping victims or putting reoffenders away. And I probably would have lost my job. The evidence I provided as a CI might have been deemed inadmissible in court, weakening the state’s case. At worst, I’d have lost my license to practice entirely. But I never got caught.’ The look she gave him spoke clearly. Unless you turn me in.

  Not going to happen was his knee-jerk response. But he didn’t say it. Couldn’t promise it until he knew all the facts. ‘Didn’t anyone suspect?’ Didn’t your ex-husband know?

  ‘No. I watched the offenders assigned to other therapists as well. Deb and I managed to spread it out. We made it work.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘For two years. Until Combs.’

  ‘Did your husband know?’

  Hurt flickered in her eyes. ‘No. He never suspected a thing.’

  Deacon left it alone. For now. ‘What happened with Combs?’

  ‘He’d molested his twelve-year-old stepdaughter, who just “wouldn’t snap out of it”, according to her mother. Sometimes I wanted to hurt the mothers worse than the offenders. They offered their children up like sacrifices, just to get a man.’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, his stepdaughter wasn’t sleeping, afraid he’d come to her room again in the night. She waited until Combs and her mother went to work, then went to a friend’s house to sleep. Combs followed her one morning, saw her friend as fresh game. He waited until the friend came home from school and his stepdaughter left.’

  Deacon hated that he knew what was coming. ‘He molested the friend, too.’

  ‘Yes. The friend refused to tell anyone, but I had to do something. I tried all afternoon to call her mother, but didn’t reach her. My last session was with Combs himself, so I thought both girls were safe. If he was with me, he couldn’t be with them, right?’

  ‘He didn’t show.’

  ‘No. And I knew.’

  ‘He was molesting the friend when he was supposed to report for a session with you? Doesn’t seem smart to take such a chance. Missing his session was a violation of his probation.’

  ‘You’d think these guys would make every effort to show up for that one hour a week with their therapist, but so many don’t. They believe they can lie their way out of any “mistake”. It’s pathological. They got away with rape, after all. Surely they can get away with missing a little old appointment, and who knows what they’re doing during that hour? In Combs’s case, though, I think he simply lost track of time. The young girl he’d molested told the police that at one point he looked at his watch and cursed that now he’d be late “for the bitch”. I think part of his thrill was going to be coming to see me for a session having just raped a child.’

  ‘I wish that surprised me, but I’ve seen similar behavior myself. They get a rush from the crime, but pulling one over on the cops makes it that much sweeter. So what happened next?’

  ‘I drove to the friend’s house. Combs’s car was in the driveway. He was hurting her, and . . . I couldn’t let him do it. Deb had made me promise not to enter any of the houses, to let the cops handle it. But that day, something snapped. I drove up to the house to stop him, but then Combs came out, casually adjusting his tie, like he hadn’t just been raping a twelve-year-old.’

  Deacon’s jaw tightened, his eyes dropping to glance at the scar on her throat. ‘He saw you.’

  ‘No. I had some sense of self-preservation, I guess, because I hid behind my car and took a picture of him with my phone. I sent the photo
to Deb, who told me that the cops were on their way and for me to go. She didn’t want me to get hurt, physically or professionally.’

  Again he glanced at the scar on her throat. ‘She was right.’

  ‘Yes, she was. I went straight back to my office and called Combs’s probation officer. Reported him as having missed his session. That was grounds for dismissal from the program, which would have violated the terms of his probation and sent him to jail. The PO called Combs and within an hour he showed up at our office with an excuse – he’d had to change a flat and had gone home to shower and change, but now he was ready for his session.’

  ‘He washed away the evidence,’ Deacon said grimly.

  ‘Exactly. I told him to reschedule and figured the police would catch up to him. Deb sent a unit to his house, but his wife called to warn him to hide. The next day he showed up in my office with a knife, put it to my throat and dragged me away. He blamed me for reporting him to his PO. He was arrested by Miami PD, went to trial, and was sentenced.’

  There were a whole host of scenes missing here, but he’d let her tell the story her way for now. ‘What was his sentence?’ he asked, because that was where she’d led him.

  ‘Ten years. He served three.’

  Three of ten? ‘It’s actually more than most judges would give. I know that doesn’t help.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, because the ten years weren’t for what Combs did to us,’ she said bitterly. ‘He got three years for me and only two years each for the twelve-year-olds. The ten years was a separate sentence for the arson. All sentences to be served concurrently.’

  Deacon frowned. ‘Arson? What arson?’

  ‘He set a fire in one of the restrooms in our office to create a distraction. Everyone evacuated through the front while he dragged me out the back.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I sprayed his face with pepper spray. His hand jerked, and he cut me.’

  ‘He could have killed you,’ Deacon said, relieved when his voice didn’t shake.

  ‘He planned to after he was done with me. While he was dragging me out, he told me all the things he’d do. I knew that if I let him put me in his car, I’d end up in a shallow grave somewhere and my father would never know what had happened to me. So I did what I had to do.’

  Deacon had pulled enough bodies from shallow graves to visualize it all too well. ‘And then?’

  ‘He was shoving me in his trunk when some firefighters saw him. At least the pepper spray had slowed him down enough that they could overpower him. One of the firefighters held him down while the other did first aid on me. They got me to the hospital in time, but it was close.’

  Another quarter-inch to the right would have sliced her carotid, and no amount of first aid would have stopped the bleeding in time. She would have died. I would have lost her before I ever found her. The thought left him shocked and shaken.

  Mentally, he backed away. It didn’t matter how pretty she was, or how valiant. She was a witness. Protecting her was not his job.

  Finding Corinne was his job. Bringing Arianna’s assailant to justice was his job. So focus on Combs. On whether or not the bastard came here to play his sick games. If not, move on and find out who’s responsible for whatever happened in that basement and leave Combs to Miami PD.

  Drawing on every ounce of discipline he possessed, he pressed on. ‘So Combs went away for three years,’ he said tersely, ‘after which he stalked and tried to kill you. Is that correct?’

  She stiffened. ‘Yes, Agent Novak. That is correct.’

  Deacon hesitated. ‘Faith . . . you think I don’t care about what you went through, but you’re wrong. If I let go with what I’m feeling right now, I’d be stealing time and energy that belong to Corinne and Arianna. For now, know that I understand that you have just relived what I can only hope was the worst day of your life. Know that I appreciate it and I won’t abuse your trust.’

  Her eyes held his as the rigid line of her spine relaxed. ‘Thank you. I needed to hear that.’

  ‘Now, after he shot your boss, he ran you off a bridge. That happened when?’

  ‘October third for Gordon’s murder and four days later for the bridge.’

  Combs made two attempts on her life less than a week after her grandmother’s death – after Faith was revealed to be the heir. Deacon wondered if the two attempts were in some way connected to her grandmother’s passing. And if so, how?

  She stilled. ‘It’s the house, isn’t it? I don’t know why I didn’t put it together before. Combs stepped up the attacks after I inherited the house. He wanted me dead because he didn’t want me to take it. Why didn’t I see this?’

  Deacon wrapped his hand around her upper arm, squeezing gently but firmly. ‘Faith. I can’t have you falling apart on me. Breathe.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m all right now.’

  He let her go, watching her intently. Every time he mentioned the house, she panicked. He needed to know why, but she was fragile at the moment and he needed information on Combs more than he needed information on the house.

  ‘Was there any evidence to link Combs to these two attacks against you?’ he asked.

  ‘No. But no one else hated me that much. And it wasn’t two. It was four.’

  Deacon leaned back in his chair, suddenly drained. ‘Hell, Faith. He made four attempts on your life? In a single month?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said calmly. Evenly. ‘He tried to come into my apartment, through the window, when I was asleep. That was on October fourteenth, a week after the bridge. The final time was this past Thursday night, when he set my apartment complex on fire.’

  He’d stopped being surprised. ‘Like he’d done to your office. Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘No, but fifteen families lost everything they owned.’

  ‘Fifteen families including you?’

  ‘I didn’t have much to lose. I wasn’t even in my apartment at the time. I didn’t see it on the news until Friday morning. That’s when I hurried through the rest of my new-identity to-do list. I was going to leave Saturday morning. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care. Enough people had suffered because they’d had the misfortune to be associated with me.’

  ‘Okay.’ He let out a breath, giving himself time to parse through everything she’d told him, one statement rising above the others. ‘Where were you if you weren’t in your apartment?’

  Not with a boyfriend. Don’t let her say she was with her boyfriend. The image of her in another man’s arms . . . in another man’s bed . . .

  But then he realized Faith Corcoran was one of the most alone people he’d ever met. It was unlikely she was with a boyfriend through any of this.

  ‘I was staying in a hotel. With good security.’

  A few hours ago, he might have been suspicious that she’d stayed in a hotel the one night her apartment had been torched. Now, he simply assumed there would be a good reason. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of attempt number three. I was too afraid to stay in my apartment after he broke in, but I wasn’t ready to leave the city yet. I had a few more things on my to-do list, like I said. I didn’t want to leave only to have him follow me and start the whole nightmare again.’

  ‘What happened the night he tried to enter your apartment?’

  ‘It was three A.M., and I was asleep. I heard a noise and saw a big, bulky shadow coming through the window. I grabbed my gun from under my pillow and fired.’ She made a disgusted face. ‘But I didn’t have my glasses on or my contacts in, and I missed him. I thought I hit his arm, but there was no sign of any blood when the police came to file the report. There was no sign of the bullet I’d fired. There wasn’t even a sign that he’d been there.’

  ‘There was no evidence of a break-in?’

  Her expression hardened. ‘Yes, there was, but the cop who came said that I couldn’t prove it had been done that night. It could have happened years before. I heard him tell his partner that I was the whack-job who thought everyone was out to get me. Hum
or me and I’d go away.’

  Deacon’s cold blood began to boil. ‘Because of the thirty complaints you’d filed.’

  ‘Exactly. We have a problem in this country when victims of stalking are ridiculed for making reports and denied justice when they don’t. It’s a vicious catch-22.’

  ‘I know.’ He was learning more and more about why she didn’t like cops.

  Needing to give himself a moment to bury his rage, he said nothing more about Combs or cops, instead leaning forward to examine Faith’s eyes. They were clear now, filled with righteous indignation, but free of panic. Deep forest green, unbroken by any other color save the black of her pupils. No sign of contact lenses.

  ‘You should have said you needed your glasses, Faith,’ he murmured. ‘I would have had one of the deputies get them from your Jeep.’

  He’d deliberately encroached on her space, but she didn’t back away. Instead she remained seated, the thrumming pulse in her throat the only sign she was affected by his lack of distance.

  ‘I don’t wear glasses or contacts anymore. The day after the break-in, I scheduled Lasix. The next time he comes for me in the night, I’ll be ready. I won’t miss again.’

  Respect swelled and with it a rush of desire that stole his breath. ‘Good,’ he said, then managed to ease himself back into his chair, uncomfortable as hell and not giving a damn. The mental image of Faith lowering her gun, the satisfaction on her face after ridding the world of a filthy predator . . . That was hotter than hell.

  And if he let himself, he could imagine a whole helluva lot hotter. If you let yourself? Who was he kidding? His imagination had already conjured an entire collection of images that would make it very embarrassing were he to need to stand up any time soon.

  Images that, until he closed this case, were completely inappropriate.

  She was watching him warily. ‘Good? That’s all? No “don’t take the law into your own hands”? No “violence isn’t the answer”? No “let the cops do their jobs”?’