Silent Guardian

by Mallory Kane

  But she'd surprised him. Within five minutes, she drove out of the subdivision alone. He didn't want her to see him. He wanted her to be terrified that she would see him.

  Now he was ready to put his next step into motion. He wanted to spook not only Theresa, but Archer, too.

  He grinned and stuffed his mouth full of pretzels. This got better and better every day. He had his plan ready. When the time was right, he would make an anonymous phone call to Archer's day manager, Frank Berry. What better way to mess with Archer than to give him more than one person to worry about?

  As soon as Archer got the call from Frank and headed over to his house, Earl would case Archer's place. He needed information on how to get close to his house without being seen. He needed to be familiar with the safest and straightest course from his car to Archer's house and back. It was all about avoiding risk while satisfying the inferno that raged inside him.

  But this time, it was also about pleasure—pleasure Earl had never realized could be his. He'd never played with his victims like this before. He'd never had time. In the past, he'd been forced to juggle his work with the days his wife and kids were out of town. He'd had to carefully plan his time in order to be able to take care of the burning before his family got home.

  This time was lots better. Fun. Jerking folks around like puppets was a huge turn-on for him. Almost better than attacking the women.

  Almost.

  Resa bent over the little cotton top and pushed the needle through a turquoise bead, added two rhine-stones and a silver bead, then secured them to the neckline.

  There. The last one. She leaned back in the desk chair and arched her neck to take the stiffness out, just as a knock sounded on her door.

  "Resa?" Archer's voice carried through the closed wooden door.

  "Come in."

  He pushed the door open. "Everything all right?"

  "Sure," she said. "Why? Has something happened?"

  He shook his head. "I just hadn't seen you all morning."

  "All morning?" She looked at the clock on the mantel of the unused fireplace. "Oh, it's almost noon."

  "I noticed you'd gotten a cup of coffee earlier, but I thought maybe you'd gone back to sleep."

  "I'm finishing this outfit for my client. Although I'm sure she'll want me to change it."

  "Clint called a few minutes ago."

  Resa sat up straight. "Has he got something?"

  "Yeah. They got a partial print from the back of the note he left in your car. No matches though."

  "It's not mine, is it? I tried to be careful but—"

  He shook his head. "It's not yours. He's had it run against the only other print we've recovered so far— a full clear print left on a bedroom window latch."

  "So that's what the other evidence you mentioned is. Another fingerprint. Where was it? Which victim?"

  "My wife." Pain flashed in his eyes but it was gone instantly. "The window had an intricate lock. We figure he must have had to take off his gloves to work it."

  Resa clamped her jaw. She should have expected that. That's why he hadn't wanted to discuss the other evidence. She should have known better than to ask. Now, perversely, she wanted to know more—more about what had happened on the night his wife was attacked. What had happened the day his wife shot him and then turned the gun on herself?

  She took a deep breath. "Those intricate locks— they're on this house?"

  He shook his head. "We lived in a town house. I bought this place...afterward, partly because of the huge basement. It had been empty for years. It still needs a lot of work."

  She nodded. He hadn't wanted to stay in the house where his wife had died. She understood. She'd moved as soon as she could from the apartment where her sister had been attacked.

  "I'm really sorry about your wife."

  "Yeah. Me, too."

  Resa felt her eyes sting as she watched Archer struggle to maintain his neutral expression. He worked so hard to pretend that nothing affected him.

  But it did. It was obvious. Even when he smiled, he made her want to cry.

  She stood and took the top she'd just finished over to her dressmaker's form, where a long suede skirt hung low on the form's hips. She put the top on the form and stood back.

  "Not much to that top," he said, eyeing the huge gap between the bottom edge of the top and the top of the skirt. Resa gathered up some material at the back of the top and folded it together, then pinned it with a straight pin.

  "Archer, do you think it's a coincidence that he left a nice perfect fingerprint at your house? I mean, as careful as he's been, it's kind of hard to believe that he'd slip up on the one job that would draw the most attention."

  Archer leaned against the door facing and crossed his arms. "I wondered about that at the time. Wondered if he was so arrogant, so confident, that he'd risk leaving such an important clue just to taunt me. But every victim has described him as wearing gloves, and there were marks on the window hardware where someone had wiped the surface with a cloth."

  He straightened and nodded at the clock. "Clint wants to show you a photo-array of various grilles and headlights of cars. He wants you to go through them, see if you can pick out the car that followed you."

  "He offered to let me do that when I first called him."

  "And you didn't?"

  "I wasn't sure how much good it would do, and I was angry and scared that the police didn't care that I was being followed. Do you think it'll do any good?"

  "It'll be a start. We might be able to get the make of the car. It depends on how unique the front grille and lights are. If it's a Mercedes, it'll be easy to identify. If it's a GM model, well, many of their vehicles have a family resemblance in the shape of the headlights and grille."

  She nodded. "So it's another long shot."

  "We'll get him, Resa. Piece by piece. That's how evidence works."

  "He's been out there three years. When do you think you'll have something other than a long shot? What about the partial print? Did it match the full?"

  He shook his head. "One was a finger and one a thumb. Hard to tell."

  "The prints don't match anyone in the files?"

  "Fingerprint evidence isn't as easy as the TV shows make it look. There is a database kept by the FBI, but for the most part the only people whose fingerprints are on file are government employees, military personnel and criminals. An ordinary guy with an ordinary job has probably never been printed."

  "You aren't telling me that the Lock Rapist is an ordinary guy."

  "To everyone in his everyday world he is a normal guy. He's got a wife and kids, a job that pays well and is steady but is beneath his intelligence level, and when his neighbors find out what he's done, they'll all say they can't believe he's a rapist. He was always so nice and quiet."

  Resa didn't get very far with identifying the car that had been following her. They finally narrowed it down to a mid-sized Ford product. Based on the shape of the headlights and the width and length of the grille. Archer figured it was probably a Taurus, several years old. By the time she and Archer got back to his house, she was hot and tired and grouchy, and so was he. They hadn't spoken on the car ride home.

  Archer closed the front door then unlocked the door to the living room for her.

  "I'm going down to talk to Frank about opening the outdoor range."

  "Outdoor range? Where's that?"

  He pressed his lips together impatiently. "It's around back. For shooting longer targets and more powerful weapons than we can handle downstairs. The indoor range is only twenty-five yards."

  "Oh." None of what he was saying made a whole lot of sense to her except that the outdoor range was much bigger than the one in the basement. "Um, why hasn't it already been open?"

  "Because we just finished it. A lot of the guys on the force want a bigger range to practice on."

  She nodded. "They don't shoot toward the house, do they?" she said in a gently teasing voice.

  He frowned at
her for a second. Then his eyes crinkled just a little at the corners. "No. Not usually."

  "Good to know."

  He nodded and wiped his mouth. She'd like to think he was wiping away a smile, but that might be too much to hope for.

  "I'm going to take a shower, if that's all right with you."

  Archer scowled at her. "Of course it's all right with me."

  "Where should I go when I'm done? I wouldn't want to surprise you in the basement while you're shooting."

  Any hint of teasing was gone from his face. She'd gone too far and angered him. "You can go wherever the hell you want to go. In fact, maybe you ought to come downstairs. I thought you wanted me to teach you how to shoot."

  Resa cocked her head at Archer. "You know—I'd love that. But I've gotten the very definite impression you'd prefer not to have me anywhere near you or your range—either of your ranges. Maybe I'll ask Frank to teach me."

  "I'll teach you. Bring your weapon and your ammunition downstairs when you're ready."

  After a quick shower, Resa felt a lot better. She put on a pair of soft linen pants and a white sleeveless top. With a touch of lip gloss and her damp hair in a ponytail, she was ready.

  Down in the firing range, Archer had changed into jeans and a T-shirt and was sitting at his desk, his forearms on his knees, squeezing a hand exerciser with his right hand.

  He didn't notice her at first, so she watched him. His biceps and the muscles in his forearms flexed with each squeeze. But pain was etched into the corners of his mouth and eyes, and into the sculpted line of his jaw.

  She could tell his hand wasn't working right. It took him too much effort to press the individual finger keys, and his index finger hardly worked at all.

  "If you're so curious, come closer."

  She jumped. "I—I'm sorry—" she stammered. "You were concentrating so—"

  He looked up at her from under his brows. "Why so fascinated? Afraid I'm not capable of protecting you?"

  "No. I just—" Could she tell him she ached to see him hurting so much? That her fascination was with his single-minded determination, his dogged effort to fix his hand that she was terribly afraid wasn't fixable?

  He tossed the hand exerciser onto his desk and joined her at the door, massaging his palm. "Did you bring your weapon?"

  "It's in my purse."

  "You remember I told you Glocks don't have a safety? Carrying it loose in your purse is a dangerous practice. Something could lodge in the trigger pull and the gun could go off accidentally. I'd hate to see you shoot yourself." He slid past her, his T-shirt brushing her bare arm, and headed down to lane ten.

  She followed, finding it difficult to keep up with his long strides. "So how should I carry it?"

  "Either get a purse holster or a paddle holster, which goes back here." He turned and placed his hand on her back, spreading his fingers just below her waist and just above the swell of her hips.

  She suppressed a shiver. The speed at which he removed his hand made her think he'd felt it, too.

  "Maybe I'll get both. It seems like it would be nice to have more than one choice."

  He gently grasped her shoulders and placed her in the very center of the narrow cubicle. "Give that some thought. It's not a good idea to have too many different places to keep your weapon. You don't want to be reaching for the wrong place when your life is at stake."

  He stood behind her, his hands still on her shoulders as she retrieved her gun and the box of ammunition from her purse.

  He talked her through the ritual of inspecting her weapon and loading it. Then he handed her the ear protectors and goggles. Once she'd donned them, he rested his hands lightly on her upper arms.

  "Now spread your legs."

  The words were muffled through the ear protectors. It took her a fraction of a second to absorb what he'd said. When she did, her whole body went rigid. Something about the drowsy warm feeling of her shower combined with his careful touches and the sexy innuendo of his words had her weak as a schoolgirl in the throes of her first crush.

  Archer slid his hands down her arms and shifted them to either side of her waist. "Come on. Bring your legs about two feet apart and balance."

  He was doing it on purpose. He had to be—with his firm yet gentle fingers and his low compelling voice. There was absolutely nothing sexy about learning to shoot a gun. Was he trying to intimidate her? Embarrass her? Make her run away?

  Archer spread his fingers around her waist, cursing himself for giving in to the urge to touch her. If he had any sense, he'd let Frank teach her to shoot. He didn't want to be here. Didn't want his head filled with her fresh melony scent, or his hands filled with her firm, supple flesh. He let go.

  "Are you balanced?"

  She nodded.

  "Good, because if you lose your footing while you're shooting it could be deadly. Now raise the gun."

  She awkwardly lifted the gun to shoulder height.

  His hands hovered millimeters from her bare arms, so close he could feel the heat of her skin. "What did I tell you about holding the gun? Use both hands. You throw yourself off balance when you use just one hand."

  "It still feels awkward," she said. "Maybe the gun is too heavy for me."

  "It's not too heavy. You're afraid of it. You have to master it. That doesn't mean you don't respect it and what it can do. But if you're afraid to use your weapon properly, you'll end up in more danger than if you were unarmed."

  He moved up close behind her, pressing against her and reaching around to take her wrists in his hands. "Relax," he rasped. Then he had to suppress a laugh at himself.

  Relax, hell. He was wrapped around her like a lover and fighting his body's response to the almost forgotten, seductive feel of a woman.

  He swallowed and concentrated on positioning her arms correctly. "Grip the gun in your right hand and support it with your left as you raise it."

  Her movements were jerky, her muscles tense.

  "Come on, Resa. Loosen up." He ran his palms up her arms and back down. Damn. Her skin felt like velvet.

  "Try to raise the gun in a fluid movement. One continuous motion." He held her right wrist and her left forearm—not hard, just enough to urge them gently upward.

  "Keep your left arm bent, use that hand like a gun rest. It supports your gun hand." He bent his head close to her ear protector. "Now squeeze the trigger."

  He felt her arms tense, felt her tension all the way up into her shoulders. He watched her index finger as she tightened it on the trigger.

  When the gun went off, the recoil pushed her backward, into him. She dropped the gun onto the countertop and yanked off the goggles and ear protectors and tossed them down beside it. "I can't do this."

  She turned around and Archer saw dampness glistening in her eyes.

  "You're too stiff—"

  "No. That's not it. I can't do anything with you wrapped around me like that. I can't think of anything but—" Her cheeks turned bright pink and she ducked her head. "Never mind."

  Warning bells clanged in his head. This was dangerous ground. He should turn around and leave. Go back into his office and put his desk between himself and her distracting body.

  But he knew he wasn't going to do that. It was too late. He'd passed the point of no return.

  He'd sworn to protect her and instead he'd let himself think of things—dream of things—that shouldn't matter to him.

  The love of his life had died. He had no business thinking of another woman—especially not this woman, and certainly not this soon.

  To his dismay, he realized she wasn't going to drop the subject. She raised her head and met his gaze. "You don't feel it, do you?"

  He couldn't make his vocal cords work.

  She put her fingers over her mouth and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm making an idiot out of myself. I'll get Frank to—"

  "Resa." He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away from her mouth. "I heard what Clint said to you. He's right. You
have some misguided notion that if you're close to me, I can help you get revenge on the Lock Rapist for hurting your sister." He stared into her dark-green eyes, seeing himself reflected there.

  No, not himself. A glorified version of himself. A whole man. A hero.

  His heart ached. As much as he'd like to be that man, he knew he wasn't—knew he'd never be.

  She moistened her lips and desire raged through him, totally inappropriate and completely uncontrollable.

  "Don't expect me to help you, Resa. I can't. I can't even help myself. It's all I can do to get through the day."

  She raised her hand and touched his cheek, a feath-erlight glide of her fingertips along his skin and down the tense line of his jaw. "You do want him, don't you? You'd do anything to catch him."

  He bent his head until his forehead touched hers. The truth scraped like a rasp across his throat. "I'd kill him if I could."

  She pressed her palms against his chest, her heat branding their imprint into his skin.

  "I want to be there beside you," she whispered. "I want to kill him, too."

  He shook his head, rubbing his forehead against hers. "No, you don't. You don't want blood on your hands."

  "My sister's blood is already on my hands."

  "God, Resa, don't talk that way." He pulled her into his arms, his hand cupping the back of her head and his nose buried in her hair.

  Resa wrapped her arms around Archer's lean waist. He felt just as she'd known he would. Hard, strong, unyielding. Like a hero.

  He blew out a shaky breath, stirring her hair and tickling her ear. She slid her hand up to encircle the back of his neck. As she did, he shifted and she felt the hard ridge of his erection through the stiff denim of his jeans.

  Longing spiraled through her all the way to her sexual center. Her thighs tightened and she arched toward him, craving the sensation of his hard body against hers.

  Her lips skimmed his unshaven cheek as she searched for his mouth. He lifted his head slightly. Their lips met.

  Resa felt faint. Her senses reeled at the feel of his kiss. His mouth was firm, his jaw rock-hard, but his lips were surprisingly gentle as they moved over hers.