Not Without Risk

by Sarah Grimm

  “Eventually, he’s going to figure that out.”

  “Yeah,” Justin muttered as unease crept up his spine. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The day was warm. The sun shone brightly through the living room window, casting a shaft of light across the computer screen that made it impossible to read. Paige adjusted the angle of the monitor and glanced at the bottom right corner of the display. The clock read quarter to twelve.

  She groaned as she realized that she had been sitting there for over an hour, staring sightlessly at the monitor. She’d turned it on to check her e-mails, to keep her mind focused on something other than Justin’s absence. Obviously, her plan for distraction failed.

  She’d drifted awake that morning in the center of Justin’s bed, surrounded by a tangle of sheets and the scent of him. Filled with contentment, she’d reached for him, but instead of warm flesh, her hand met with cold, empty space. Barely awake, she wrapped the sheet around her middle and stumbled into the living room, expecting to find him sitting on the couch, buried in his files. But the couch was empty and the files gone.

  It wasn’t hard for her to figure out where he’d gone or what he was doing. Still, that didn’t stop the seed of disappointment that filled her. More than anything, she had wanted to wake up in his arms, the warm press of his body against hers. Wanted to make love with him again, look into his dark chocolate eyes and see her longings reflected back at her.

  Instead, she’d been alone. Left to wonder if he regretted a single moment of their night of lovemaking—regretted that he’d opened up to her.

  Justin had done more than claim her body last night—he’d claimed her heart. He’d told her of his injury, his struggle to recover, and his partner’s concerns about his ability. As a result, she felt his pain, heard his own unspoken fears, and quietly slipped the rest of the way in love with him.

  Leaning back in the executive chair, she stared at her web provider’s home page and waited for the realization to stop her cold. But like the previous day, as she’d watched him prepare to go to work, it didn’t. She loved Justin. No matter his job or the chance that he might never return her love, she loved him.

  It was that simple.

  It was that complicated.

  Raising her hand to her forehead, she carefully fingered the stitches that bisected her left eyebrow. Odd, how things could change so drastically in less than a week’s time. The swelling around her eye had lessened so she could once again see out of it, the bruising shifted from vibrant purple to an unfortunate combination of purple and green. Still, it wasn’t the signs of violence that she saw the most change in, but herself.

  She accepted that Justin might never return her feelings. Knew that falling in love with a man who didn’t want a relationship wasn’t her smartest move. Yet she’d done it. She loved him and that left her future even more up in the air than ever.

  The phone on the desk rang, snapping her out of her thoughts. Since it was Justin’s home line, Paige didn’t answer it. Instead, she squared her shoulders and entered her password.

  She held her breath as the page loaded, breathed a sigh of relief when she discovered no more threats awaited her in cyber-space. After deleting the spam emails promising her a better sex life or wealth beyond her wildest dreams, only one new message remained. A message from her father. She positioned the cursor over the command to open the message then stopped as a deep, male voice sounded from the answering machine.

  “Sergeant Harrison, this is Detective Jon Brennan.”

  Brennan. Didn’t Justin tell her that Leroy’s partner was named Brennan?

  “I’m trying to reach you regarding the murder of Detective St. John. I’m in San Diego, staying at the...”

  Paige lifted the phone from its cradle, cutting off the recording mid-sentence. Normally, she would not have answered Justin’s telephone. But nothing about the past week could be called normal. Besides, she figured he would want to talk to this man as soon as possible.

  “Detective Brennan?” She waited while the detective realized he was no longer speaking to a machine.

  “Hello, yes?”

  “Justin’s not here right now. You might try the station where he works.”

  “I’ve left multiple voice messages there for him already,” he said briskly. “He has yet to return any of them.”

  She glanced at the coffee table, to the spot where the files had sat all day yesterday. No files sat there now. “I’m reasonably certain that’s where he is right now. I can give you directions from your hotel.”

  “I know where it is. I’ll head over there right now. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She hung up the phone and turned back to the computer. The subject line attached to the message from her father drew her attention.

  Second honeymoon.

  She stared at the two words for a few minutes before their meaning clicked. With everything that had happened to her recently, she had forgotten her parents’ anniversary.

  A warm smile curved her lips. Her parents had been married for thirty years. In love with each other, even longer than that. Her mother always dreamed of a trip to Europe and this year, her father surprised her with one.

  He’d spoken of nothing else, the last time Paige had talked with him. His mood giddy, his excitement contagious. In great detail, he’d told her of the trip he’d planned, about each stop they would make, and the sights they would see. He’d been so pleased that he’d managed to keep the trip a secret from her mother, not an easy feat, Paige knew. Elizabeth Conroy had the uncanny ability to uncover any and all secrets. None were safe around her. Yet somehow, her husband had managed to keep her from finding out about a major trip overseas, a second honeymoon, he planned for her.

  She looked at the subject line again and opened the message. Read with delight the words on the screen before her, telling of the good time they were having and some of the adventures they’d taken. Her smiled broadened at the attached photo—her parents, arm in arm before the Eiffel Tower.

  As the cell phone near her elbow went into its own unique rendition of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, Paige reached out and snapped it up. She’d forwarded all calls coming in to her business phone to her cell two days ago, before leaving with Justin to come here.

  “Conroy Photography,” she replied automatically.

  Silence.

  “Hello?” No one spoke. Only light static, the kind that told her the line was open. “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  Pressing the ‘end’ button, she replaced the cell atop the desk and decided that while she was on the internet, she would begin her search for a new car. She entered the web address, classiccars4sale.com, and waited while the web page loaded.

  Her cell phone began its dance again.

  Believing the person was calling her back after getting a bad connection the last time she answered, “Conroy Photography.”

  Silence.

  Her mouth went very dry. A flicker of apprehension coursed through her. Unsettled, Paige pulled her cell phone away from her ear and looked at the display.

  What she saw there caused the hair on her arms to stand on end as a chill snaked up her spine.

  * * * * *

  Justin set aside Rick Preston’s autopsy report and rubbed at the ache in his neck. He’d been at this for hours. Poring over what information they had on Preston and St. John, searching for that one piece of information that made everything slide into place. It was here, somewhere, it had to be. The niggling in his gut told him so.

  For days now, something had been bothering him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He felt it again now, the sense that there was something he should be seeing. Some clue, hidden amongst the reports he had read uncountable times. He needed sleep, he told himself, blowing out a breath. Everything he looked at seemed to be clouded in fog because he hadn’t been sleeping well all week. His concentration suffered as well, no matt
er how hard he fought against it, his mind kept drifting back to Paige.

  She looked good in his bed, her dark hair spilled out across his pale sheets, arm wrapped tightly around his pillow. He’d stood by the edge of the bed and watched her as she slept, all the while fighting the need that rose inside him. More than anything he wanted to shuck his jeans and slide back into her arms. He wanted to forget she was in danger and that it was his job to help her. For once, he wanted something more than his job.

  Because he wanted it so badly, Justin gathered the notes he could have reviewed at home and headed into the office. He needed time, space to get used to the unfamiliar emotion. He knew that if he wasn’t careful he would be the one to get ideas. Like coming home to her on a regular basis. Waking up with her in his arms on a regular basis. Her caring enough to stay with him after he closed the investigation.

  What had he been thinking? He’d believed he could take her to bed and work her out of his system. But what he’d expected just to be good sex was much, much more.

  So what was he supposed to do now? Damn it, he didn’t know how to handle this. He had no idea how to act the morning after the most amazing night of his life.

  Rubbing at his gritty eyes, he had to wonder if Allan was right. Could he be falling in love with Paige? Had he already fallen?

  No. No way. Just because Paige was the first woman to slip under his skin, the first he needed as much as he needed his next lungful of air. The first to make him imagine there could be more to life than work.

  Justin tightened his jaw against the very idea. He slid his fingers into his shirt pocket then mumbled under his breath when he found the pocket empty. Love equaled pain. Loving Paige—a woman who told him she couldn’t handle his being a cop—was suicide. Eventually she would leave him. Better now than later, after getting used to her in his life.

  Ignoring the tightening in his chest at the thought of letting her go, he refocused his mind on the information spread across his desk. He shifted the items found in a locked drawer of St. John’s desk before him and shuffled their order the same as he’d done on the morning St. John’s partner had finally showed up.

  The telephone on his desk rang. Thinking it was Sunday and therefore no one should be expecting him to be here, he listened to its insistent ring for a few seconds before answering it. “Harrison.”

  “Justin. I hoped I’d find you there.”

  “Paige? What is it, is something wrong?”

  “My cell phone rang. I didn’t think anything of it, I just answered it.”

  “And?” he asked, knowing there had to be more in order for her to be as upset as she sounded.

  “No one was there so I hung up. When it rang again right away, I figured because of the bad connection the person called back. But there was no one on the line, just silence.”

  Games. More games. “He’s trying to scare you.”

  “He’s doing a good job. The calls are coming from my house. I always program my home telephone number into my cell’s phone book in case I lose the phone. Then, when it’s found, the person who found it has a number to contact me.” She drew in a steadying breath that he heard through the phone. “The two calls just now, they appear on my caller ID as ‘home’. He’s in my house.”

  “How long ago did you get the calls?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago. I told myself not to panic. That there is no way for him to know where I am, and that I’m safe here. I told myself not to give him the satisfaction of letting it get to me but…I needed to hear your voice.”

  He propped his elbows on his desk and absorbed the hot spike of emotion that her words caused. “I’m sorry I’m not there with you.”

  “You don’t have to apologize for doing your job, Justin.”

  Except that it wasn’t his job that drove him from his home this morning, but his growing feelings for her. He sighed, rubbed at the knot of tension in his neck. “I’ll swing by your place and check it out.”

  “No! I mean, you don’t have to do it, do you? Can’t you send a patrol unit instead?”

  Warmth spread through him at the concern that colored her words. Concern for him. “It’s okay, really. He’s just trying to scare you. He’ll most likely be gone by the time I get there.”

  Unless he’d come back to finish his search.

  On the off chance that he just might be able to catch the guy at Paige’s home, bring an end to this once and for all, Justin rose. He pulled his leather jacket off the back of his chair.

  “You’ll call me?” she asked. “Once you check it out?”

  He shifted the phone to his other ear in order to push his arm into his jacket sleeve. “If you’d like.”

  “I would.”

  Justin hung up the phone and began collecting the information that littered the top of his desk. As he did, he debated taking a few uniforms with him to check out Paige’s house. With the chance of the caller still being in her house when he got there so slim, back up could either be necessary, or a waste of manpower. There was no way to be sure.

  “Sergeant Harrison?”

  He cast a glance over his shoulder to find a tall, wiry man with straight black hair and dark eyes standing behind him and to his right. Although he had a healthy dose of gray at his temples, Justin guessed the man’s age to be somewhere close to his own thirty-five years. The man stood with his hands behind his back in an almost military stance and surveyed him openly.

  “I don’t have time right now,” Justin said, turning his attention back to the files on his desk.

  “That seems to be your prevailing attitude,” the man replied flatly. “However, in the interest of professional courtesy, I think you could give me a few minutes of your time.”

  Professional courtesy? The muscles in Justin’s side tightened one by one.

  He gave his full attention to the man behind him. “Who are you?”

  The man slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his navy sport coat and withdrew a leather case. He flipped it open in a move smooth from long practice and replied, “Detective Jon Brennan, Boston PD.”

  * * * * *

  Paige shut off the tap with a flick of her wrist, frowning as the water continued to spill over the side of the pitcher and down her hand. Distracted, lost in thought, she hadn’t noticed the level of the water until it was too late. So much for making herself some lemonade.

  She dumped the contents of the pitcher down the drain and reached for a towel to dry it. She’d been like this ever since talking to Justin about her two telephone calls. Unsettled and edgy; unable to keep her mind off thoughts of him as she waited impatiently for his call back. Something had to happen and soon. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take.

  Setting aside the pitcher along with her chance for a tall, cool drink of lemonade, she removed a glass from the cupboard and crossed to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. Why hadn’t he called her back yet? Surely enough time had passed for him to get from the precinct to her warehouse.

  Pressing her free hand into her stomach, she told herself to get a grip. She breathed deeply, slowly, doing her best to restore her calm. But calm would not come. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was coming to a head.

  Today.