by Jodie Bailey
“A man’s got to eat. It’s after nine, so I went digging in your fridge. Hope that’s okay.”
“It’s what time?” A glance at the clock on the stove’s display confirmed he was telling the truth. She hardly remembered falling asleep, yet it had apparently been over six hours. “Wow.”
After she let Kito into the backyard for his morning run, she dropped onto a bar stool and watched Trey work. “I don’t usually eat breakfast.”
“So the bacon is for...?”
“BLTs. Or I was going to wrap it around those little sausages and put them in the slow cooker with some brown sugar and stuff and have them for the next hockey game.” Trey liked those. She’d watched him almost single-handedly clear a plate of them once. How he stayed in shape was beyond her.
Not that she cared what shape he was in. Other than he was her friend and, you know, she wanted all of her friends to be healthy.
She should really stop thinking now.
“In that case, I’ll be bringing you more bacon as soon as I can get to the store.” He slid a plate across the bar to her and handed over a fork. “Eat up. We have to make a run to the home improvement store so you can get a whole new door frame and I can put it in today. I don’t like the idea of boards being the only thing between you and the outside world. I think I’ll buy you some new locks, too. Dead bolts that sink a little deeper into the frame to make it harder to kick the door in.”
Macey stopped, her fork loaded with eggs halfway to her mouth. “For you to be so certain this was a onetime random act, you sure are acting like you’re worried those guys will come back.” She lowered the fork to the plate as creeping dread settled like a rock in her stomach and robbed her of her appetite. “You talked to the detective outside for a long time last night. Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know you’d better eat and get moving if you want a door installed today. I have to go in for a meeting later this afternoon and I’d really like to not leave a gaping hole in your house for the gnats and mosquitoes to find.” He aimed his finger at her plate. “Chow down.”
“Seriously, Trey. This is my safety we’re talking about. I think I deserve to know everything you do.”
He eyed her for a moment, then leaned back against the island and crossed his arms, staring at her plate. “I’m worried about your alarm.”
Her alarm? “It’s fine.”
“It didn’t go off when those guys busted in.”
“Like you said last night, maybe I just got distracted and missed a key or something.” Although that had never happened before, there was always a first time. “Kito was kind of wound up last night anyway. Maybe you’re right and I wasn’t paying attention.”
His gaze drifted over her shoulder to the back door and then to something above her head. His eyes never met hers.
“Trey...”
“You armed the doors and the windows last night before you went to bed?”
“Yes.”
With a heavy breath, he finally met her gaze and held on. “When I took the boards off the back door this morning, it popped open. Not a peep from the alarm. You’re sure you—”
“Before I turned it off just now, it said it was armed. You heard the three beeps when I disarmed it. That only happens when it’s been turned on and I turn it off.” She swallowed hard against a wave of fear, then shook her head. “Maybe back when I reset it after Olivia died, I messed something up. I’m sure that’s it. I may have accidentally turned it off. I’m not tech savvy like she was. And how would I ever know I’d messed something up if I never set it off?”
Trey nodded slowly. “I’m sure that’s it.”
That had to be it. She’d made a mistake.
Anything else would mean the break-in was aimed at her for some reason, and that was a nightmare she never wanted to imagine.
FIVE
In all of the months he’d been watching Macey and Olivia, he’d never been as vigilant as he was in the home improvement store. Although the cavernous building was practically empty of shoppers on a weekday midmorning, potential danger lurked everywhere. The parking lot could be hiding someone waiting to run her down with their vehicle. The high shelves held heavy equipment and supplies that could easily be shoved down onto Macey’s head.
Not that the previous night had given him any chance to sleep and even have a nightmare. It had taken a phone call to the detective and some serious discussion to convince the officers on the scene that he was the good guy. They’d finally set off into the woods after the suspect, but by then he’d been long gone.
Trey had collected a sample of the blood the bad guy had left on the window when he’d fled, cleaned up and set everything back to rights without Macey ever being the wiser. How she’d slept through all of the commotion, he’d never know. If he hadn’t been there...
He shuddered and inched closer to Macey’s back as she led the way to the rear of the store, where the exterior doors were kept. When she stopped dead in the middle of the lighting aisle, he crashed right into her and had to scramble backward to keep from tumbling them both to the concrete floor.
She turned on him. “What is your problem today? You’re like my baby cousin when we were kids and he’d walk right on my heels to try to see if he could step on the backs of my shoes so I’d walk out of them.” She shook her head. “Boys.”
Trey had met her “baby” cousin once. He was a six-foot-three army ranger who made even Trey feel like a scrawny weakling. “Just not paying attention. Didn’t sleep well last night. Sorry.”
She pursed her lips, considered him for a moment, then turned and started walking again. “You act like I need a bodyguard. Nobody’s after me. I’m perfectly safe.” Reaching back, she grabbed his arm and tugged him forward to walk beside her. “Unless, like I said before, you know something I don’t.”
Even though she’d let go of his arm as quickly as she’d grabbed it, the heat of her touch still burned on his skin through his sweatshirt. To be honest, half of his distraction was because of her. The more the evidence stacked up against her, the more she seemed completely oblivious. And the more Trey solidified the belief that she was innocent.
And the more he wondered if she was innocent, the more he felt this strange tug toward her.
Or maybe it was the other way around. He felt the tug and that made him want to believe she was innocent.
Whatever was influencing what, it was trashing his investigative thoughts and messing with his deductive reasoning skills. He couldn’t be attracted to her. She was a suspect. He was an undercover investigator who had a lot to prove even still.
Falling for a suspect was a rookie mistake. One he hadn’t even made as a rookie.
Then again, he’d never been close friends with a female before, at least not since elementary school. He’d skipped friendship with Gia and gone straight to dating.
It was probably natural to feel a little tug deeper into the friendship.
Whoa. No. Macey wasn’t his friend. For a brief few moments he’d forgotten even that. What was wrong with him? If this kept up, he’d have to fess up to the commander and walk away from the investigation.
That would be career suicide.
Fingers wrapped into the back of his shirt and jerked him backward. “Trey. We’re at the doors. You’re still walking.”
He stopped and turned to face the aisle full of exterior doors. “Sorry. Tired.”
“So you’ve said.” Macey marched up the aisle and stopped at a door with double-paned glass windows in the top half. “This one. Find a salesman and let’s go.”
Trey shook himself out of his funk and ran his hand down the door. It was metal and heavy, as solid as solid got. The glass was reinforced and thick enough to withstand some serious force before it shattered. The tag indicated it was meant to discourage break-ins. “You chose that one pretty quickly.”
All morning she’d seemed completely oblivious to what she had to realize: someone was after her specifically, likely because of what she knew. Or who she knew. But the entire thing seemed to confuse her.
Then, just when she seemed innocent, she did something like research industrial-strength doors. The kinds of doors that said someone was hiding something.
Yeah, he really did need to have a long talk with Captain Harrison.
Macey shoved him in the biceps. “Go find someone to write this up and then we can go home. If you get done in time, I can go into the office and catch up on some medical files. Even if I have the day off, I’m behind, and I’m antsy to keep moving so I don’t start thinking again.”
There was no arguing with Macey when she had a goal in mind. Trey had learned that the hard way over the past year or so. With a quick, flippant salute, he marched down the aisle in search of help. Leaving Macey wasn’t his favorite idea, but she was already suspicious of him. It wasn’t like something would happen in the thirty seconds he was away from her. If she was going to run, she’d have done it during the night while she’d believed he was asleep. And if someone was going to come after her, they’d pick a much less public place to attack. They’d proved that with the second attempted entry into the house last night.
It took a little bit longer than he wanted to find an associate, and by the time he made it back to the aisle where he’d left Macey, his mind had spun up a thousand different ways she could have died while he was absent. He rounded the corner with his brain primed to feel relief when he spotted her, but the aisle was empty.
Macey was gone.
* * *
Macey ran her finger down a shower door, then stepped back to look at the display. Trey would be back soon and would wonder where she’d wandered off to, but she needed a second. He was crowding her with staying at the house last night and just now dogging her footsteps like a sheepdog trying to herd her through the aisles. It was hard to breathe.
Honestly, she needed some time to process the break-in without adding Trey’s odd behavior to it. He’d been a great neighbor and a good friend ever since he’d rented the house next door, someone she trusted completely, but last night’s events seemed to have set him on high alert. Maybe his house had been invaded when he was a kid. Maybe it had something to do with his work on post.
Maybe he was just way more overprotective than she’d ever imagined.
Macey jerked open the door to another shower display and stuck her head inside. Her bathroom was way too small. If only she had the money to—
A force from behind shoved her forward, smashing her cheek into the plastic shower wall and bending her neck at an awkward angle. Pain shot down her spine and she tried to scream, but only a whimper escaped from her twisted neck.
Someone leaned hard against her back, their hand against her face, blocking her vision and forcing her head against the wall until she was sure her skull was going to implode. Her mind raced through every self-defense move she knew and came up empty. She tried to fight, tried to struggle, tried to get free, but the attacker’s full weight was on her, too heavy to allow her any movement in the small space and too close to allow her any way to counterattack.
Her heart pounded so hard she could see the pulse in her eyes. She was trapped. There was no way out this time.
Warm sweat broke out on her skin and she whimpered, desperate for air. Desperate for help. Desperate, desperate, desperate.
Hot breath hit her ear and Macey’s knees weakened as she realized her attacker was a man. If the guy hadn’t been pressing her to the wall, she’d have collapsed. Harsh words followed his breath. “Where is it?”
The words hardly computed, could hardly be heard over the roar in her ears. She couldn’t breathe. The world was growing dark. If she passed out, what would he do to her?
He leaned impossibly closer, his body weight pressing the air from her lungs. “Tell me or I’ll kill you right here.”
The man shifted and something sharp stung in a slice along her side through her sweatshirt.
While that terrified her more than his presence, his movement released the pressure of his weight and his hand just enough for her to do something about it.
Macey drove her elbow back into his side and connected solidly with his ribs. He grunted and dropped back farther.
Cool air rushed into the space between them and Macey drew in a deep breath, then tried to scream.
It came out as a terrified squeak, but it was enough. From the next aisle, Trey called her name, his voice frantic.
The man shoved against Macey and fled.
She slid to the floor, her knees hitting with a thud that shot pain throughout her body. Her forehead rested against the cool plastic shower wall as she gasped for air. She was alive. She was okay. The man was gone.
A slight warmth trickled down her side and she slipped her hand under her sweatshirt. Her fingers slid along something warm and wet. Blood? He’d stabbed her?
Outside, Trey called her name again, closer this time. And though she tried to call back, her racing heart choked off her air so that the words just wouldn’t come out above a whisper. She pressed her hand to the wall to help herself up, leaving bloody fingerprints behind. Macey stumbled over the lip of the shower and onto all fours in the aisle, shaking.
Every part of her body shaking.
Trey dropped to his knees beside her. “Macey? Mace? Look at me. Look me in the eye.”
She turned her head toward the sound of his voice, but the roar in her ears was too loud as the room grew increasingly dark. Blackness crept in from the side and narrowed her vision.
Trey looked over his shoulder at someone. “Call an ambulance.”
Grabbing for his arm, Macey tried to force him to look at her. When he turned back to her, she had to push the words out on a breath. “Bleeding...”
But the world faded into a black roar.
SIX
When the door between the ER and the waiting room at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center opened, Trey stood for what had to be the hundredth time.
It was no one he knew.
He’d followed the ambulance to the hospital, and the fifteen-minute ride had felt more like fifteen hours. On arrival, he’d been blocked from seeing Macey. Because he wasn’t family and Macey was in no condition to vouch for him, he’d been left to wait. When her mother had arrived, she’d rushed to Macey’s side, promising to pass news along to Trey as soon as she had some. Knowing Tiffany Price’s flair for excitement, it would be a while. As long as she could soak up sympathy from the doctors and receive attention as the worried mother, she’d stick by her daughter. When the storm was gone, she would be, too.
The small waiting room hummed with low voices. It smelled like a hospital, that unexplainable antiseptic-and-sickness odor that still curdled his stomach, even after all these years. Only that time, it had been his platoon anxiously pacing the waiting room while he lay in surgery.
With a jerk of his shoulders, Trey glanced around the room at the sick and injured who were waiting, some wearing surgical masks and all looking like they’d rather be anywhere but there.
As his heart pounded and his skin broke into a cold sweat, his mind raced out of control. He couldn’t take any more. Turning on one heel, he walked out the emergency entrance, past the security guard, and inhaled deep breaths of cool spring air. It might be filled with pollen, but it was fresh.
There was a big difference between his prior situation and Macey’s. Even though her mother was a monumental flake, Macey still had fami
ly by her side somewhere in the depths of the hospital. And this situation wasn’t squarely her fault.
At a brisk pace, he crossed the driveway and dropped onto a bench near the parking attendant’s booth, then leaned his head back to stare at the bright Carolina blue sky. He was way too deep in his own head for his own good.
It had him frozen, reacting instead of responding. Worse, reacting instead of grabbing this thing by the throat and taking the lead. Straightening, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Captain Harrison to give him a situation report and lay out his next step. A step that twisted in his gut as though he was the bad guy in this entire scenario.
When the commander answered with his typical normal-guy “Hello?” Trey glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot.
“Blackburn?” Harrison’s voice cut in, deep with concern. “Everything good?”
Trey was taking too long to answer, but he honestly wasn’t sure what to say or even why he’d called.
The mission. He had to focus on the mission, even if his head was muddy between past and present, between duty and... And how it had felt to see Macey on the concrete floor with a bloodstain spreading across the side of her sweatshirt.
That was the real issue.
“Sorry.” He cleared his throat and watched an older gentleman help his wife from a wheelchair into a gray sedan on the other side of the parking lot. “We have a minor situation.”
“I’m all ears.” There was that business voice, the one that said the commander knew it was bigger than a minor situation.
Trey ran down the events of the morning, feeling even more like a dog for leaving Macey alone in the home improvement store. But who would have thought someone would attack her in the open?
“How is she?” His commander needed answers and facts before he’d be ready to talk about anything else.
Like next steps. Awful next steps.
“I haven’t had an update since they brought her in, but it’s only been about twenty minutes. Her mother met the ambulance here and is with her. She had a fair amount of blood loss, but I’ve seen a whole lot worse, so my guess is it was a shallow cut. Probably enough for stitches but not enough to do damage. I’ll link up with the police contact I have later to see what the official report says, but someone found a box cutter near the scene.” He prayed her wound truly was minor. If Macey suffered unduly because of him...
