So he kept his distance when he could.
What he didn’t like was knowing she had nobody to follow her when she left work each day. He was aware that she attended a couple of evening meetings that week, too, which meant she’d be driving home alone at night and having to cross her dark yard to the safety of the town house. If it was safe, given that it had no security system and could easily be breached by a man determined to terrorize her—or to claim her, once and for all.
A few times, he found himself driving by her place, just casually glancing to see if her lights were on, not sure what that told him or what he’d do if they weren’t.
One night at the library, they sat two chairs away from each other in a brief meeting about the pipeline replacement project. Walking out, he asked if the moving truck had showed up yet.
She shook her head and said in a low voice, “I’m getting by.”
He had clenched his teeth on the impulse to ask if she’d had dinner. She’d murmured a vague goodbye, her eyes not quite meeting his, and veered off to talk to someone else.
Good, Noah told himself, but he felt irritated instead of relieved.
The murder of a respectable and longtime local citizen was causing a lot of talk and worry, but the investigation had apparently stalled. Jerry Hegland had often stayed late in his office at the airport. Nobody had seen him leave the night before his body was found. Investigators were confident he’d made it home, though, and eaten a typical bachelor’s meal of a couple of microwave-heated burritos and a beer. All that went in the dishwasher was a dirty fork, which meant he’d eaten out of the tray the food came in. One beer can, crushed by hand, reposed in the otherwise empty recycling container. His Jeep was in the garage. It seemed likely his killer had come to his house, but the absence of blood said he wasn’t murdered there. Unfortunately, the neighbors either hadn’t been home or had pulled the blinds and been engrossed in television shows or their own doings. Nobody saw a thing.
The latest came from Cait’s brother, whose path crossed Noah’s in front of the courthouse that Friday. Both men hesitated, then met under a cherry tree in full bloom.
“I haven’t heard an announcement yet,” Noah commented.
“Next week or two.” Colin squeezed the back of his neck as if it hurt. “You’re following the Hegland murder?”
“Yes.” He was getting a little pissed because most of what he knew came via gossip, listening to the police band or overheard conversations rather than directly from his police chief the way he expected.
“Lieutenant Vahalik let me know this morning that it’s looking like he’s been taking payoffs for years.”
Noah muttered an obscenity.
Colin made a noise suggesting agreement. “This thing is spreading far and wide.”
“But why would they have knocked him off?”
All he got was a head shake.
“The appointment of his replacement will be mine,” Noah said, frowning. “I’ll be damn careful. Traffickers have lost the airport.”
“Maybe they don’t need it anymore. There are half a dozen private runways in the area now.”
“You mean he’d become redundant.”
Colin lifted a shoulder. “It’s possible. If they wanted to cut off payments, and he threatened to talk...”
What else was there to say? Speculation didn’t get them anywhere.
“What happened with you and your sister?” Noah asked.
“None of your business.” There might be a dark shadow of pain in those gray eyes, but no give in the hard voice.
Noah moved his shoulders in what he meant for a shrug, but it felt more like an attempt to lessen tension. He couldn’t claim her family problems were his business. Hadn’t he been trying to make sure they weren’t?
“I take it you haven’t located the boyfriend?”
Looking no happier than he felt, McAllister shook his head. “It’s been a week and a half now. She might be right that he didn’t hang around.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Goddamn it, no, I don’t!” Her brother glared at Noah. “Tell me what I can do that I’m not.”
He felt violent and had to hide it. “You could have avoided getting into it with Cait, so she doesn’t have to go home to an empty house every night.”
McAllister closed his eyes. “Shit. You think I like it?”
“No.” Noah didn’t have to admit it, but he wasn’t being fair. Cait wasn’t a pushover. In fact, given her feisty personality, he could see her being at fault.
“I’ve hung on to the memory of my kid sister,” said Colin in a strange voice. “She hit me with how little I really know her.” After a brusque nod, he strode away.
As he watched the police captain go, Noah had an uncomfortable realization. He’d taken to thinking of him by his first name. As if... He didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.
Mumbling under his breath, he went the opposite direction.
* * *
THANK GOD THE moving truck was supposed to arrive tomorrow. Of course, the company had first promised to deliver on Saturday. The cause of the delays meaning they wouldn’t arrive until Tuesday had been unspecified.
Cait was especially irked because, once again, she’d have to take time off work, but she didn’t care. She wanted her television, her big squishy chair, a dresser with real drawers, so she could put her clothes away. Pans, a mixer, cookbooks and her box of recipes. And her books—she missed her books.
She turned into the alley behind the row of town houses, and her headlights picked out garbage cans behind a lot of the other units. That meant tomorrow morning was pickup. Not really cooking, she hadn’t generated that much trash yet, but she had some. She might as well put her brand-new can out.
The garage door rose as she approached and she turned neatly into it, leaving the door open so she could pull the can out.
Not for worlds would she have admitted to anyone—specifically Noah or Colin—that she dreaded that quick dash across the small yard to let herself into the back door when she got in at night like this. But it would be two weeks tomorrow since Blake’s last stunt, and she was starting to cautiously believe he really wasn’t in town.
Even so, after letting herself out into the yard, she peeked cautiously around, then hurried. She should have left a back porch light on. No, better—she’d get a motion-activated floodlight installed, like Colin had over his garage.
The yard wasn’t totally dark, because neighbors on each side had outside lights on and second-story windows were lit, too. Even so, she was almost to the back door when she saw that the siding looked funny. Like...something was smeared on it?
Heart pounding, she unlocked and flipped the switch that turned on lights both over this door and on each side of the French doors that led from the dining room onto the deck. They were enough to illuminate the entire tiny enclosed backyard. She was alone out there.
Still cautious—someone could have hoisted himself to watch over the fence—she took only a couple of steps out so she could see.
Words seemed to be scrawled in dark paint all over the lower rear of her town house. They started small at the far corner, getting bigger and bolder as they got closer.
“Sorry Sorry Sorry.” Over and over and over.
Dear God.
Gasping, Cait scurried back inside and locked the door, leaning against it until she could catch her breath.
911? Colin?
Noah.
Her hands shook as she pulled her phone from her bag and scrolled for his last call, then pushed Send.
“Please, please, please,” she whispered.
“Cait?” he said.
“Blake has been back,” she said, and her voice shook, too.
* * *
NOAH DROVE SO quickly
he should have gotten a ticket. He’d have been glad to pick up a cop on the way.
“It’s not an emergency,” she had assured him and then sounded embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry. I guess I just need to report this and then...” She’d lapsed into silence.
And then what? he thought savagely as he rocketed around a corner. She’d go to bed and get a good night’s rest?
He slammed to a stop in front of her town house, lit from top to bottom, and ran up on the porch. He was reaching for the doorbell when the door opened. Cait had been watching for him.
He hated seeing how finely drawn her features were, how pale her face was. Even so, she gave a brave attempt at a smile.
“I really shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry, Noah. I panicked.”
He stepped over the threshold, shouldered the door closed and took her in his arms. For a moment she stayed stiff, vibrating like high-tension wires, but then as if someone had pulled the plug on the power, she sagged against him. Her arms came around him, and he felt her grab handfuls of his dress shirt as if afraid he’d push her away.
She wasn’t crying, but fine tremors shook her body. In the heels, she was tall enough to bury her face against his neck, where he had unbuttoned his shirt earlier after ripping off the tie the minute he’d walked in the door at home.
“Of course you should have called me,” he murmured. He kept on, probably repeating the same thing half a dozen times before progressing to, “I’d have been pissed if you didn’t. I’m sorry. Damn it, I’m sorry.”
Her shoulders shook, and for a moment he thought she finally had broken down, but then he realized she was laughing.
Whatever had struck her as funny gave her the strength to pull back. Noah reluctantly let her go, realizing the laughter had the shrillness of hysteria.
“What do you have to be sorry for?” she asked.
“That we haven’t been able to stop this son of a bitch.” He frowned, realizing what he was most sorry about. “I don’t like you having to come home alone at night,” he said more slowly.
“None of it’s your fault.”
“It’s because you’re working for me that you have so damn many evening meetings.”
“This kind of job always does,” Cait pointed out, steadier now. “I considered applying for a couple of jobs in California. Would it be better if this was happening in Santa Rosa or Escondido? Where I don’t know anybody?”
“You know that’s not what I meant. Have you called your brother?”
“Yes. Right after you.” She cocked her head. “That’s probably him now.”
It was. He opened the front door to see Colin moving as fast across the pocket-size front yard as he had earlier. Noah would have sworn McAllister’s dark SUV was still rocking.
Her brother’s gaze went to her face first, assessing, worried. Then it hardened when he looked at Noah.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, irritation plain.
“I called him,” Cait said.
Bristling, he entered the town house. His gaze swept the front room, bare but for the lonely sofa, pausing on the fireplace, moving on to the entirely empty dining area and the French doors covered by drawn vertical blinds.
“All right,” he said. “Show me.”
She nodded, tension tightening her face again, and led the way to the kitchen and the back door with the glass pane inset.
Colin said what Noah was thinking. “This place would be damn easy to break into.”
She rolled her eyes. “It would be so cozy without windows.”
Despite the snappy comeback, her hesitation was more obvious than Noah suspected she’d want it to be before she opened the door. She peered outside like a turtle sticking her head out of her shell, then led the way.
Colin had brought an enormous black flashlight, which he switched on to supplement the porch lights. They all stared at the spray-painted writing, which got larger, more ragged, angrier, as it went. The lettering was scrawled across the French doors, windows, kitchen door.
“Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry.”
Colin growled something profane as the beam of his light moved steadily across the back of her rental. It stopped at the end, where “Sorry” changed to “Is that enough?”
Both men looked at her.
Her arms wrapped herself tightly and she pressed her lips together. Nobody moved.
“The last time I saw him,” she said in a taut, reluctant voice, “he kept saying he was sorry and he asked how many times he had to say it.”
“Sorry for what?” her brother asked suspiciously.
She didn’t want to tell them; that was obvious. Her gaze darted from Colin’s face to Noah’s and back again, her eyes widening at the implacable expressions she saw.
“What difference does it make?” she cried.
Noah let Colin handle this. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth.
“Did that piece of shit hurt you?”
Brother and sister stared at each other for a long moment. Then she straightened. “I will not discuss my relationships with you. Or what ended this one. It really doesn’t matter. I told him apologies were irrelevant. He’s refusing to accept that I’m done with him. I have no idea why he won’t let go of the idea that saying ‘I’m sorry, I love you, come back to me’ is all he has to do.”
Noah wanted to get his hands on that scumbag. Ralston might have lost his temper and hurt her; he might have cheated on her. Either way, Noah could understand her not wanting to talk about it. But, by God, he wanted to know which it was.
“All right,” Colin said with a sigh. “We’ll get pictures in the morning. The usual. I want you to pack a bag and come home with me.”
“You don’t really think he’ll be back tonight.”
He frowned. “No, I don’t, but I can’t be sure. What if he shows up on your doorstep to find out whether you are satisfied by his apologies?”
“I won’t answer the door. I’ll call 911.”
A predictable argument ensued. Noah stayed silent, although he’d have been happier if she’d agreed to go home with her brother. He wished he understood whether she was just being stubborn because that was her nature, or whether this had to do with the argument the two of them had had.
Finally Colin snapped, “On your head be it,” and stomped back into the house. The front door closed a moment later.
“Let’s go back in,” Noah said, gripping her arm above the elbow.
He locked the door, thinking how useless it was to install a dead bolt when all a would-be intruder had to do was tap the glass to break it, then reach in. Still, the glass breaking would give Cait some warning.
He started opening cupboard doors. “Do you have tea? Something warm and sweet would be good.”
Her eyes were a little glassy. “Oh. Yes. To the left of the refrigerator.”
At least she had done some serious grocery shopping. He put water on to boil in the one and only saucepan she had, then chose a decaf orange-spice tea. She had only one mug, too, which meant he was probably the only visitor she’d entertained here yet.
“If you want something—” she began.
He shook his head and found a ten-pound bag of sugar in another cabinet beside bags of white flour, whole wheat flour, rolled oats and other staples. Tearing open the sugar, he put two spoonfuls into the mug.
She still stood in the middle of the kitchen, her arms wrapped around herself. It was all he could do to lean a hip against the counter and keep his distance.
“Why don’t you pull up a stool?” he suggested as gently as his rough voice allowed.
Cait nodded with unexpected docility and obeyed. He was able to pour boiling water into her mug and carry it over to her, staying on the kitchen side of the breakfast bar.
Her eyes met his, then shied away. She shook her head.
“What do you think he’ll do next?”
She used the spoon he’d left in the mug to stir, her head bent. “I don’t know.”
“You have any reason to think he’s done this kind of thing before with other women?” Noah asked. Surely Colin had looked for a police record.
“I... If he has, I didn’t know. Neither of us were seeing anyone else when we met. At the time, he seemed smart, funny, kind of intense but in a flattering way.” She stole a look up at him. “How could I have had a clue?”
Noah shook his head. “You couldn’t,” he said flatly. “Short of doing a background investigation on every guy you date.”
“And even then...”
“He may never have been this obsessed before.”
She screwed her face up in an unhappy expression. “Wow. I hope that’s not true. I don’t want to think there’s something about me—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He found he was scowling. “This isn’t your fault in any way, shape or form. Got it?”
Her lips quivered into a near smile. “Understood, sir.”
Okay, Mr. Sensitive he wasn’t.
“Here.” He pulled the plastic trash container out from beneath the sink. “Let me have that tea bag.”
She squished it with the spoon and deposited it in the container, watching as he put it away again. “It was nice of you to come, Noah, but I’m okay now.”
“Trying to chase me out?”
“As soon as I finish this—” she lifted the mug “—I need to shower and get to bed.”
His entire being revolted at the idea of saying good-night and leaving her there alone, but he really didn’t see the scumbag making another appearance tonight. And anyway—what was he doing there?
Say it again. I am not her boyfriend. I’m not even a friend. There was a whole lot of awkwardness attendant on him doing something as stupid as offering to spend the night on her sofa.
“All right,” he said with deep reluctance. “You’ll keep your phone close.” It wasn’t a question.
Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore Page 10
