Bodyguard/Husband

by Mallory Kane

  He knew he stuck out like a sore thumb. Not only because he’d presumed to show up unannounced, married to one of theirs, but also because he had no idea how small towns worked. He’d grown up in Memphis, then moved to Washington D.C. as soon as he turned eighteen. He qualified for an academic scholarship, and when he graduated he applied for a job with the FBI. His job was his life.

  His home life had been just him and his mother and her constant stream of boyfriends. He hardly remembered his father, who had died when he was five. He’d loved his mother, tried to protect her, but he’d been too young, too small. He had no experience with the kind of family and friends Holly had.

  And he certainly had never lived with a woman before. He was the quintessential fish out of water.

  He wished he could use the fact that everybody knew everybody else in this town to his advantage. He glanced over at Holly. He was counting on the towns-people accepting him because she had married him, and using that acceptance to observe and catalog their behavior.

  Would it take much to form an obsession with her? He didn’t think so. She was lovely and caring. It wasn’t hard to understand how she would attract an erotomaniac, the type of delusional psychopath who believed that he was in a relationship with the target. All it would take was a smile and a kind word to have him believing she loved him.

  Jack had never had a case quite like this one. Most of his stalking cases had involved domestic violence. Too often, the locals didn’t call in the Division until the victim or someone she cared about had been murdered by her stalker. And in almost one hundred percent of cases, the victim had known the man who killed her. He’d only worked a few cases where the stalker was unknown—mostly celebrity stalkings.

  He’d occasionally gone undercover as an employee or a relative, but he’d never posed as a victim’s husband, living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed.

  So much about this case was different. Usually if he had a live vic, she cowered helplessly, not really believing anyone could stop the nightmare. Her innocence and trust were already gone. Holly still clung to hers with a ferocity that amazed him.

  As he pulled into Holly’s driveway, his cell phone rang. Holly opened the passenger door, but he motioned for her to sit still.

  “Hey, Ice Man.”

  “Nat.” His pulse sped up at the sound of the Division’s computer expert’s low-pitched voice. She’d only call for one reason. She had the background checks for Hanks and Winger. “Thanks for the quick turnaround. I know you’re working several cases.”

  “Anything for you, darlin’.” Natasha Rudolph’s sultry voice was as exotic as her appearance. She was tall, blond, with eyes so dark blue they were almost black.

  He snorted. “Right. So, what have you got?”

  “Stanley Hanks did a nickel in the state penitentiary for armed robbery of a liquor store when he was eighteen.”

  “What about Winger?”

  “Robert Winger has been picked up a few times for domestic disturbance. Seems he has a temper. Of course, lucky for him, he also has a mother who would do anything for her little boy. Two of the three incidents were against her, and she refused to file charges. The third was in a public place, against a man he was apparently having dinner with, who also refused to file charges.”

  Jack glanced at Holly. “Domestic disturbances. Thanks, Nat. This helps a lot.”

  “You sure found a little hotbed of intrigue down there in Mississippi, didn’t you.”

  Jack laughed shortly. “Small towns.” He turned off the phone and got out of the car, going around to open the door for Holly. She opened it herself and waved him away.

  “I’m okay,” she said softly, shading her eyes. “It’s just that these headaches make my eyes sensitive to sunlight. What was that all about on the phone?”

  Jack explained as he took her arm to help her inside. She looked as if she was in a lot of pain. He checked the street. It appeared quiet and calm, a peaceful southern street in a peaceful southern town.

  They walked in through the garage.

  Jack’s gaze automatically swept the kitchen as he headed to the sink and grabbed a glass. “You go get your medication. I’ll bring you some water.”

  She walked through to the living room. “Now what?”

  The odd note in her voice instantly warned him that something was wrong. “What is it?” He stepped through the kitchen door in time to see her bending down to pick something up.

  “Stop!” he ordered sharply.

  Holly jumped, but to her credit, she froze in place, awkwardly bent. “Jack. It’s just a book.”

  “Quiet.” He stood perfectly still, balanced on the balls of his feet, one hand out in a warning gesture.

  He listened. There was no sound but their breathing. He berated himself for letting down his guard. He’d let the fact that Holly was in pain and needed medication distract him from doing his job. He should have done his usual sweep of every room. He should have found the book.

  He looked at its position, lying open on the floor, then at the front door, the windows, the hardwood floors. Everything looked undisturbed, even the shelf above the book. There was no sign that anyone had been there.

  “Can I move now? I’m going to throw up if I don’t get something for this headache.”

  She did look as if she might faint at any moment. He nodded curtly. “Slowly back away the way you came. Try not to disturb anything. There may be some hairs or fibers.”

  Her heart pounding, Holly straightened cautiously and took a step backward.

  Still poised like a tiger ready to spring, Jack pulled a pair of latex gloves and a small high-powered flashlight from his pocket. He pulled on the gloves, then carefully examined the floor with the flashlight.

  Holly watched him with interest, trying to ignore the pain in her head. He was looking for evidence, she presumed. Finally, he moved slowly toward the fallen book.

  “Do you recognize the book?”

  Holly started to move closer, but he held up a hand.

  “From there.”

  “No. It looks like a textbook.”

  He stopped directly above the book, and scrutinized the shelves. “It didn’t come from these shelves.” He bent his knees until he was sitting on his haunches. Then he scanned the open pages, his silky black hair sliding over his forehead.

  “So someone brought it into my house and put it there,” she said, unnerved by his careful, methodical caution.

  To her dismay, he uttered a curse under his breath. His jaw was clenched in concentration.

  Holly gazed at the book on the floor as if it were an exposed land mine. Her feet tingled with the impulse to run away. But even stronger was the need to know what her stalker had left her.

  “What does it say?”

  Jack didn’t look up.

  “Come on, Jack. He left it in my house. I have a right to know. Tell me, or I’ll come over there and read it myself.”

  Jack sighed. “One passage is marked. It says, ‘I struck him, he groveled of course— For, what was his force? I pinned him to earth with my weight.’”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  The stalker had sent her a warning. He was coming after Jack.

  Chapter Five

  The killer had made his presence known. This time he wasn’t content to leave a subtle note where it might be found. He’d boldly entered Holly’s home in broad daylight.

  Jack mentioned none of this to Holly as he tucked her in bed. Her migraine had hit her full force. He felt unexpectedly helpless as he brought her migraine tablets to her, then left her to rest.

  He retrieved his portable evidence kit and returned to the living room to finish processing the crime scene. The infrequent times he got to go over a fresh crime scene, he liked doing it alone, without distractions.

  And Holly Frasier could definitely be termed a distraction.

  With his Polaroid camera, he took double pictures of the room, the book lying open on the floor, the
undisturbed shelves above. He wanted a set to send to the lab at Headquarters and a set to keep.

  With a sable brush, he dusted the inside doorknob for prints. He’d like to dust the outer knob but he couldn’t take a chance on the neighbors, or the killer, seeing him acting like a cop. Maybe after dark he could do it while pretending to change the porch lightbulb.

  As he expected, the inside knob had been wiped clean. There weren’t any prints at all, not even the usual smudges that any surface in a house picks up. Whoever the guy was, he was careful. He didn’t want to be caught.

  Jack thought about the preliminary profile he and Eric had put together. Typically, stalkers were one of three types: erotomanic stalkers, revenge stalkers or intimate partner stalkers. The first type built an entire fantasy relationship on a smile or a kind word. The second were usually more dangerous, perceiving some wrong, and out to take revenge on their imagined persecutor. The third type was typically the most deadly—the rejected lover, often from an abusive relationship. Still, the erotomaniac could be capable of violence, especially against those he perceived as barriers to the object of his obsession.

  Jack had the impression that Eric was puzzled by the notes. This UnSub exhibited characteristics of both a serial killer and a stalker. That alone made him an enigma. Serial killers took pride in staying one step ahead of the authorities. Stalkers rarely bothered to hide their actions.

  Most victims of erotomanic stalkers were all too aware of their admirer—receiving gifts or phone calls, seeing them everywhere. Many times the victims moved or even took on new identities to escape. The polar opposite was the hidden stalker, more dangerous because he stalked in silence. The victim might not know about him until it was too late.

  Jack had encountered every type.

  He pressed a special gelatin lifting substance along the curve of the brass doorknob, then placed it carefully back in its container. If there were any marks or irregularities on the knob, the gel would pick it up.

  He copied the phrase from the open page of the high school English textbook into his notebook, then took a close-up shot of the pages before he closed the book and bagged it. On the front of the bag he wrote the page numbers and then filled out the request form. The lab would test the outer surface and the pages for epithelial DNA and prints.

  With a magnifying glass and his flashlight, he went over the hardwood floor more carefully. No hairs. No fibers. There was a fine patina of dust on the wood. The only disturbance was a smear along one plank. He took two pictures.

  As Jack pressed a strip of lift tape along the thin smear of dust to lift and preserve its pattern, a pair of small bare feet with pink painted toes appeared in his peripheral vision. His body tightened with desire.

  “Did you find any evidence? Did the book have a name in it?” Holly asked.

  He shook his head and peeled the tape carefully. “It’s a high school English lit text. There’s not much here. That’s not unusual, though.” He applied the tape to an acid-free backing card. “Most evidence is identified in the crime lab, not at the scene.”

  “Are you taking all that to Uncle Virgil this evening?”

  “No, I usually either deliver it to a contact or mail it back to Headquarters. I’ll probably mail this. I don’t want anyone here to associate me with law enforcement. If your stalker becomes suspicious that I’m anything other than your husband, he could go to ground, and it might be months before he surfaces again.”

  He didn’t tell her there was another possibility. That the stalker could become enraged that Holly had betrayed him—and come after her.

  Neither option was acceptable.

  He rose, rolling up the paper with the tape on it, and looked at her.

  The sight of her stunned him. She had twisted her hair up and caught it carelessly with a barrette, and strands were escaping everywhere. One cheek was pink where she’d lain against a pillow, and her eyes were dreamy with sleep or with the drug she’d taken for her headache.

  No one could deny that she was reasonably pretty and had a dynamite body, but right now, with her eyes shining, her lips moist and her hair sexily tousled, she was irresistibly beautiful.

  “Don’t stare at me,” she said. “I’ve been asleep. I’ll look presentable in a few minutes.”

  “You look presentable now.”

  She blinked and a tiny gasp escaped her lips.

  Damn. He shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t even be thinking it. He’d been caught off guard by her drowsy loveliness, and it was playing havoc with his usual careful detachment. Irritated at himself, Jack took it out on her.

  “Listen to me, Holly. We’re supposed to be married. Until this is over, I’m your husband, saying things a husband would say to his wife. As I told you yesterday, even our movements inside these walls must convey, to anyone who happens by, that we’re newlyweds. You need to wipe the term FBI out of your brain. You need to get into the role you’re playing. Think of yourself as my wife, 24/7. We’re in a play and you and I are the stars. You’re center stage at all times. If you forget that, the consequences could be deadly. Got it?”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. For a second he was afraid her composure would crumble. Reluctantly, hyper-aware of the new, disturbing feelings she evoked in him, he reached out and caught a fallen strand of hair, his fingers brushing her soft cheek. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. He had to act like her husband, although it would make his life much less complicated if he could maintain his distance, physically and emotionally.

  “You asked me not to patronize you. I’m asking you to work with me here.”

  She nodded, hugging herself. “I understand. I’m just scared. You can’t imagine what it’s like for me to live like this, knowing someone is out there, threatening the people I care about.”

  Jack’s jaw tightened until it ached as he tried to suppress the vision of his mother, lying so still, his stepfather’s brutal fingerprints outlined in bruises around her throat.

  “I don’t have to imagine,” he said harshly, then winced, regretting his revealing words. He quickly covered. “I see it every day in my work. I’m more interested in keeping you alive.”

  He took a deep breath. “Now I have to ask you some questions.”

  “Do you mind if I get a glass of water and sit down? I’m still a little woozy from the headache medicine.”

  He followed her into the kitchen.

  “Did you know Stanley Hanks had been in prison?”

  Her chin went up a fraction. “Of course. He got in trouble right after the senior prom. He robbed a liquor store with his dad’s gun and went to Parchman, for five years or so.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that when we were talking about him?” He filled a glass with water and handed it to her.

  She shrugged. “I guess I thought you already knew. You seem to know everything else.”

  “How about Winger’s domestic disputes?”

  “Domestic disputes? You’re talking about the couple of times the neighbors have complained about Bob yelling?”

  “Yelling and more, from the reports.”

  She drank the water. “I told you, Bob has problems. His mother is manipulative and demanding. Sometimes he loses control. He’s very…conflicted.”

  “Conflicted enough to become obsessed with a nice young woman who will listen to him whine about his life?”

  Holly frowned and rubbed her temple. “I can’t imagine Bob being violent, but from what you say, I guess it could be him.” A shudder rippled through her.

  “Those two aren’t the only interesting guys on your list of names, either. Donald Sheffield is under a restraining order for getting physical with a girlfriend in Jackson. And did you know that Ralph Peyton had taken out a large insurance policy with you as beneficiary?”

  “What?” Holly’s eyes widened in genuine shock. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Maybe he intended to. Your boyfriend Isley wrote that policy as well as your husband’s life i
nsurance policy.”

  “Earl? Is that significant? There’s only one other insurance agent in town.”

  “It could be.”

  WHEN HOLLY CAME OUT of her room an hour later, dressed in a soft linen dress and backless sandals, Jack was waiting. As usual, he looked crisp and cool, even in jeans. His hair was slightly damp from his shower and his face was freshly shaved.

  Think of him as her husband? She almost gulped. That was not going to be a problem. Her problem was she didn’t have to act like she was attracted to him. She was attracted to him.

  And it wasn’t just because of his dark good looks. It was his strength, his attentiveness to her needs, his occasional tender gestures that drew her to him.

  But she had to be careful. He was here to do a job. When it was over he’d go back to his life and she’d go back to hers. She didn’t like the empty feeling that thought gave her.

  He turned around to pick up the box he’d packed and she saw the gun holstered at the small of his back. The sight of the cold steel magnified the seriousness of their situation.

  He glanced up as he clipped his cell phone onto his belt. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Are you going to carry that thing everywhere?”

  “My weapon? Yes.”

  “How will you keep people from—”

  He grabbed a lightweight jacket from the back of a chair and put it on, settling it onto his shoulders with a sexy, masculine shrug.

  Even the awareness of the weapon he carried didn’t detract from his appeal. If anything, it made him even more dangerously sexy. She swallowed. Not a problem.

  He smiled at her, a twinkle in his eye. “The jacket hides it. Kind of gets in the way of the husband thing, I know. But that’s just something you’re going to have to live with, honey.”

  His words and his devilish smile irritated her. “Are you ready?”

  “Let’s go.”

  She gave him directions to the post office.

  “How are you going to mail that to the FBI? The postmaster is an awful old gossip.”