Not Without Risk

by Sarah Grimm

“Sure.” Justin motioned to the chair Brennan had left vacant.

  “Um…” He couldn’t be certain, but he got the distinct impression that her eyes left his. Paige shifted the case she carried from her side to her front. Her right hand joined her left at the handle momentarily before she dropped it to her left side once more. “Somewhere else. If you don’t mind.”

  “Not a problem.” She was wound tight as a spring, as evidenced by her steely posture and the fact that she clutched her case so tightly, her knuckles were white. Justin wondered whether her discomfort extended from seeing him again after last night, or if she’d had yet another incident. Perversely, he wondered which he would find most unsettling. “There’s a conference room, this way.”

  She didn’t move. Not immediately and not in the direction he indicated. Instead, Paige turned back just as Allan prepared to sit down.

  “Sergeant Simmons, I think you should hear this as well.”

  * * * * *

  Brilliant slashes of sunlight shone through open blinds, warming the room and its occupants. Though the table centered in the space could easily accommodate twenty, no one sat.

  Standing just inside the closed door, Paige watched as dust particles danced in the ray of light. She was running on sheer nerves and had been for days. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and thanks to the pictures she had in her possession, she was chilled to the bone. Cold—the way no sweater or blanket could warm. Cold and filled with a healthy dose of fresh angst.

  She couldn’t grasp what she’d done to wind up in the center of this mess, whom she’d hurt. In her exhausted state, she couldn’t grasp much of anything, except that she was quickly running out of options. Burying her head in the sand and pretending everything would be okay no longer seemed like a viable solution. So this morning, she’d decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Time to stop sitting idly by while her world fell apart around her.

  Wiping her damp palms on her slacks, Paige moved the short distance to the table where she placed her laptop case. She removed her dark glasses and with a deep breath, turned and faced the detectives at her back. “Justin.” He’d come up behind her and stood only inches away. The heady male scent of him made her senses spin.

  She hadn’t slept well last night. Plagued by thoughts of him, she’d lain awake, imagining what it would feel like to have that perfect mouth take hers again while his hands slicked over her bare flesh. To wake up wrapped in the comfort of his arms, his scent warming every breath she took. Unable to control herself, her gaze settled on his mouth. The chill that had thickened her blood all morning thawed. Her body heated. Her breasts tingled.

  The man kissed like a dream. Desperate, demanding yet controlled and gentle. Her mouth went dry and for one insane moment she wanted him to kiss her again.

  Here.

  Now.

  But the answering heat, so clear in his gaze the night before, was gone. His eyes were sharp and assessing as they scanned her face. His voice held accusation. “You didn’t sleep.”

  “I’ve been having a problem with that.” The even press of his fingers against her shoulder made it difficult for her to concentrate. As did the deep bite of need that streaked straight up her spine and tensed every raw nerve. She edged sideways so he no longer touched her. “Last night was worse than normal.”

  “The mind can only handle so much. You need to let it out.”

  The smooth baritone of his voice wrapped around her like a blanket, promising heat, comfort. She was a fool if she took it. “How do you do it?”

  His dark-chocolate eyes held hers as he skimmed his knuckles over her left cheek. “Smoke, or I used to.”

  That wasn’t what she meant. Paige looked at him, at the concern that now filled his gaze and wondered just when the cool indifferent cop had been replaced by this compassionate man. When had her world flipped upside down, leaving her to question everything she believed to be true?

  “We all have our vices, our ways of diminishing stress before it can take over our lives. You need to find yours.”

  “Normally I work through a crisis.” She could really use that cool, indifferent cop right now. The one who would listen to what she’d come to tell him and remain calm and detached, emotionless, at a time when she was anything but. Where last night Justin’s presence soothed the ragged edges of her fear, today it drove home the hard reality of what was happening to her. “Staying busy helps.”

  “It doesn’t appear to be helping this time.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Paige closed her eyes, struggling for control. She knew, without a doubt, that the photos she carried changed everything. There would be no turning back. No restoring the order to her utterly boring life. Not until this man was caught. This nameless, faceless man who slowly pushed her closer and closer to the edge.

  No, she corrected, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to relax. It would take more than a few threats to send her over the edge.

  She hoped.

  Still needing that cool, emotionless detective, she turned her attention from Justin to his partner. “Sergeant Simmons, I don’t know if Justin has mentioned anything to you about my break-in last night?”

  “He did and call me Allan.”

  His attention appeared hung up on her face. Suddenly self-conscious, the urge to hide behind her sunglasses flared to life. She’d done her best to camouflage her bruising under a few layers of makeup. Had believed she’d done a credible job. His distraction made her wonder if she shouldn’t have just left it alone.

  “Okay. Well, Allan, last night there seemed to be some question about whether or not someone had been in my home. This morning, I received proof.”

  “What kind of proof?” Justin ran his hand through his hair and then shoved it into his front pocket in a move she was beginning to understand indicated his level of tension.

  Briskly, she unzipped her laptop case. Without glancing at them, she passed the photos she’d printed just that morning to Justin. His steady stream of expletives, spoken under his breath, brought the tiny hairs on her arms to attention.

  “Where’d you get these, Paige?”

  “When I checked my e-mail this morning, I found them.”

  Justin fell silent, a muscle flexing in his jaw as he flipped through the photographs one by one, studying each one individually before passing them to Allan.

  “Look at the way the body’s positioned,” Allan said as he studied the first picture.

  “Body?” Paige couldn’t stop the shiver that passed through her. “That’s not just any body.”

  “It’s you,” Justin growled.

  “Yes. You have to stop this guy.” The irony of this latest threat hadn’t escaped her. The fact that this man had used photographs against her—a photographer. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  “The message is clear,” Allan began, taking the remaining photos from Justin and shuffling through them. “He took the time to manipulate her, but left her unharmed.”

  “Is it? I’m not certain I’m getting it. If he wants me dead why—” Shock slammed through her system as his words registered. “Wait a minute. What do you mean by manipulated?”

  “Did you eat or drink anything out of the ordinary last night?”

  “No. No, of course not. Why?”

  The expression that settled onto Justin’s face had Paige stepping back. Tension pulsed off of him in waves. His hand fisted against his thigh.

  “Why?”

  Allan looked up from the photographs in his hands. “These pictures are similar—”

  “Frighteningly similar.”

  “Yes,” Allan agreed. “To the shots we have from the St. John homicide.”

  “Leroy.” Nausea rolled in her stomach as she saw him again, stomach down, sheet tangled around his legs.

  It hadn’t registered. Not when she opened her email and discovered them, or later as she’d developed them. She hadn’t realized just what about those photo
graphs froze her heart with fear. The thought that someone had been in her home, standing over her bed for God knew how long before she came awake was terrifying enough. But now…

  The images shifted in and out of focus—images of her, deep asleep, face buried into her pillow, sheet riding low on her hips. Shock snapped across her nerve endings.

  “N-no.” Her gaze swung between the two men. “The similarities don’t mean anything.” They couldn’t mean anything. This put a whole new spin on things. One she couldn’t accept. “I did not sleep through some…” What was the word she wanted? “Person positioning me like the body of one of his victims. That’s just how I sleep.”

  Justin and Allan’s swift exchange of looks spoke as loudly as their silence.

  “I’ve always been a stomach sleeper. The rest is just coincidence.”

  “I believe this goes a step beyond coincidence,” Allan replied gravely.

  “No.” The trembling started in her knees and worked up her legs. She circled her fingers around Justin’s bicep. “It’s not possible.”

  “Paige, listen to me.” Justin spoke softly but firmly, his hand settling over hers. “There’s no other explanation. The photos are damn near identical.”

  “How can that be?” She closed her eyes, opened them. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “You need to—”

  Paige jumped as his cell phone trilled loudly.

  Justin pulled the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “Harrison,” he intoned automatically.

  “Anthony Sullivan here, you asked that I call you as soon as I had something on Ms. Conroy’s car bomb.”

  His timing couldn’t have been more unfortunate. Too much acid churning his stomach already, Justin prepared for more nerve-racking news. “What did you find?”

  “Okay, technical jargon aside, the bomb was not designed to do major damage. You saw the scene, I’m sure you noticed the building itself suffered no structural damage beyond the shattering of the front windows.”

  “I noticed. Exactly what does that tell you?”

  “Not much on its own. The vehicle tells us that the bomber placed the device on the rear floorboard of the car. That, along with the fragments collected, and I can tell you that this was not your run of the mill, rig-it-to-the-ignition car bomb. This one had a remote trigger. Pretty short range actually, your guy had to be no farther than a half mile from Ms. Conroy when he detonated.”

  One by one, Justin’s muscles coiled. His shoulder screamed. He stared at the fear shining in Paige’s green eyes and fought back rage. “Close enough to watch.”

  As if she heard both sides of his conversation and couldn’t ignore the significance of Sullivan’s words any more than he could, Paige straightened. She removed her hand from his arm and wrapped her arms around her waist.

  “He never intended to kill her, Sergeant Harrison. He just wanted to send her a message.”

  “I think she got that message, loud and clear.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything else you need from me.”

  “Yeah, I will.” With a flip of his wrist, Justin disconnected. He didn’t replace the phone in his pocket just yet, but used it as something to keep his hands busy.

  Damn, some days he really missed smoking. He closed his eyes and imagined tapping a cigarette from a pack and lighting it, savoring the smooth taste as it filled his lungs and calmed his nerves.

  He wasn’t happy with the direction of the case. No matter how hard they tried, they hadn’t come up with squat. Not on the St. John homicide, or whatever the hell was going on with Paige. She’d come close to dying the other day, damn close. Discovering that the bomber’s intent had not been to kill her did nothing to stop the uncomfortable sensation climbing up Justin’s spine.

  A game was afoot. A game Paige had no idea she was playing. Justin didn’t doubt for a minute that destroying her car, breaking into her house in the dead of night and taking pictures of her while she slept, then making certain she knew he’d been there by e-mailing her the photos, was some sick bastard’s idea of a good time. He also didn’t doubt that eventually, the man would tire of the game. He would end it, and when that happened, there would be no warning and very little chance of stopping him before it was too late.

  Something had to be done. Paige needed to realize just how serious the risk to her life was. She needed to understand that from that moment, all bets were off.

  He opened his eyes, refocusing on the woman before him. “The report on your car bomb came through. Seems our boy likes to watch.”

  Her spine stiffened, the arms around her middle tightened, but she remained silent.

  “He was there?” Allan asked. “How do they know?

  “Remote trigger.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow you,” Paige said.

  “The crime scene techs discovered pieces of a remote trigger in the debris. Whoever this is, whatever his motives, he’s sending you a message, Paige. Whether you figure that message out or not, I don’t think that matters to him. All that matters to him at this point is making you as uncomfortable as he can. He’s out to break you, to push you over the edge.”

  She blinked. “You don’t believe in holding things back do you?”

  “Would you prefer I lie to you?”

  “No.” She appeared adamant about that much. “What is a remote trigger?”

  Her ability to handle the information without tears or histrionics impressed him. In his years on the force, he’d seen people break down over much less. Not Paige Conroy.

  She was afraid, he knew, and not unfeeling. That much showed in her inability to get a decent night’s rest. He’d been unhappy to discover that when she removed her dark glasses, her features were more drawn than the night before. Still, not many women he knew could function at anywhere near normal with a madman terrorizing them. Yet here Paige stood, exhausted, but facing her problems head on, with courage and intelligence.

  “Have you ever wondered why your car didn’t blow when you first started it? Why you got out and walked away before it exploded?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Our boy was watching you that morning. From across the street, from down the block, who knows for sure? The point is he never planned to kill you, just scare you. He made the bomb small, to prove a point maybe, and then he waited and he watched for the right moment to key the trigger.”

  “He put the picture on my door, so I would get out of the car.”

  “Yes, then he stepped over your unconscious, bleeding body to remove it.”

  “Justin,” Allan warned as Paige’s features slackened.

  Justin bit back the anger that had simmered all morning, only now reaching a full, rolling boil. Fear for her well-being clawed at him, tore great holes in the wall of indifference he wore for his partner. He wanted, no needed more than anything, to drag Paige into his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. Five, even ten minutes before he might have, now, he wasn’t at all certain it wasn’t an outright lie.

  “He knows you, Paige. Well enough to know that photo would draw you. Well enough to get into your building without setting off your alarm.”

  “He has her code key,” Allan supplied.

  “That would be my guess.”

  Paige shook her head in denial. “That’s not possible.”