by Lori Foster
“Senator Welling. He was there with an intern, doing the same thing I was doing, checking out the park. He’d supported it, you see. He always supports the conservation of land whenever possible. I’ve admired him so long, I even took a few pictures of him. He waved to the camera for me.”
Riley sighed. For a reporter, she sure had a hard time getting around to the point. “So what happened, Red? Did someone attack you in the park? Did the good senator try to come on to you—”
“No! Senator Welling isn’t like that.” She looked genuinely annoyed by his teasing remarks. “The reason I admire him so much is because he’s such a dedicated family man. He’s a wonderful politician, too, of course, and I agree with most of his political stands, but it’s his dedication to his wife and children that’s his real appeal.”
Personally, Riley thought the man was a schmooze, but then he wasn’t about to get into a political debate with Regina. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Still disgruntled, she said, “He politely posed for my pictures, even did one with him and the intern standing on either side of the fountain. He walked me to my car and opened my car door for me.”
Maybe he’d been coming on to her after all and Regina was just too naive to realize it. “So what happened at the park that made you feel threatened?”
“Oh, it was as I was leaving the park. I was almost to the main road when some jerk sideswiped me.”
Riley straightened. “What do you mean, he sideswiped you?”
“I drive a little silver Escort, and this fancy SUV tried to pass me, but he didn’t clear my hood before cutting back into my lane. His rear end hit my front bumper and my car went into a spin, then off the road. I plowed into a tree. The guy didn’t even stop, just kept going.”
“And you think that’s related somehow to—”
“If you’ll just let me finish,” she said in exasperation.
“Sorry.” Riley held up both hands. “By all means.” He only hoped she got to the point before midnight.
“It wasn’t easy, but I got the car out of the ditch and made it pretty close to the main road. I probably did even more harm to the car, but I didn’t like the idea of sitting there alone in the park, especially since it was starting to get dark.”
“Smart.”
“I thought so. My cell phone had gone dead, so I thought I’d have a long walk ahead of me, but then the senator came by and he drove me to a phone. He even offered to wait with me, but I told him to go on. Wasn’t that awfully nice of him?”
“He’s supposed to serve the people, honey.”
“Not as a taxi. Anyway, I called my boss from a diner. He called for a tow truck then came to pick me up and drive me back to my car. You won’t believe what I found.”
Numerous possibilities ran through his mind, but he said only, “What?”
“Someone had broken into it.”
“You didn’t lock it up?”
“Of course I did. But the driver’s side window was smashed. I thought for sure my stereo, speakers and CDs would be gone.”
“I gather they weren’t?”
“No. The car had been ransacked, my glove box emptied, all my papers strewn around, but nothing was missing as far as I could tell.”
Riley frowned. He had to admit that sounded odd. Had someone been looking for something specific? “What did the police say about it?”
“That I must have returned in time to scare the robbers off.”
Possibly. But he wasn’t one to always accept the most obvious explanation. “You have another theory?”
“Yes. Looking back, I think that SUV ran me off the road on purpose. I think he came back later to look for something in my car.”
“If that’s so, if he was really that determined, why not just follow you home?” Even saying it made Riley’s protective instincts twitch. If someone had followed her, what might have happened? He didn’t even want to contemplate such a scenario. From now on, he intended to keep a closer watch on her.
“I’m not a criminal so I can’t know how a criminal’s mind works. But maybe he knew I lived in a busy complex, so going through my car wouldn’t have been easy. The thing is, I can’t imagine what I’d have that anyone would want, but I am really grateful that Senator Welling was there to drive me into town. If he hadn’t…”
“You might have been sitting in your car, all alone, when the burglar showed up.” Riley reached out and took her hand. “Could be your presence would have deterred him.”
“But maybe not. He did run me off the road without much concern, so maybe he’d have just hit me over the head or something. Maybe he’d have even—”
Riley’s teeth hurt from clenching his jaw. “Don’t.” No way in hell did he want her to cavalierly discuss deadly possibilities. They’d already occurred to him, of course, so he didn’t need embellishment of his own grisly thoughts.
“Well, after everything else that’s happened…”
“Such as?”
“I left work one night after finishing up some research. Phone calls mostly. It was about eight, dark outside already. Just as I started to step off the curb, a black Porsche nearly ran me down. I had to jump back fast to keep from being hit. I landed on the ground, tore my panty hose, broke two fingernails and twisted my ankle.”
Anger swelled inside him. “Jesus. You could have been killed.”
“I think that was the point. But the police wrote it off as a sloppy driver, not a deliberate intent to hit me. They thought it was unrelated to the other incident and they said there was nothing they could do about it since I didn’t get the license plate number.”
Rationally, Riley knew they were right. Without a direct witness or a way to track down the car, the police were helpless. But at the very least, they could have taken the threat to her seriously.
Only, he didn’t know if he would have either. Not with so little to go on. The first violation appeared to be a bungled burglary. The second could have been a drunk driver or a speeding kid….
“A week after that, some bully tried to grab my purse. I held on to it—”
Riley had gotten more and more rigid as the enormity of her dilemma sank in, and now his control nearly snapped. “You held on?”
The dog lunged at him for raising his voice. Riley pulled Butch up to his chest with one hand cradled under his body. He bounced him as he’d often done with his nieces and nephews when they were fussy babies. Butch had no idea what to make of it. He looked confused, but he quieted. His eyes were wide, his ear perked up. He peered at Regina, then back at Riley.
“It was my purse, Riley. No way was I going to just give it up.”
“He could have hurt you, damn it.”
“He did hurt me.”
Through stiff lips, Riley growled, “Tell me.”
His tone was so gruff, she gave him an uncertain look. “He…well, he belted me. Gave me a black eye.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Riley!”
The dog howled and Riley released Regina’s hand to stroke the dog’s back, scratch his ears. “What did the police have to say about that?”
In a strange shift of mood, Regina scooted closer to him and stroked his shoulder. “It was weeks ago, Riley. There’s no reason to get so upset now.”
She attempted to soothe him much as Riley soothed the fractious dog. “I’m furious, not upset,” Riley muttered, then added, “Women get upset.”
“Your shoulders are all bunched and one eye is narrowed more than the other and you’ve got this strange tick in your jaw.”
“Fury.”
“All right, then don’t get so furious. That won’t help.”
Knowing she was right, he drew a deep breath that didn’t abate his anger one bit but gave him the elusion of calm. “Tell me what the cops said.”
“Well, they were a little more concerned this time because after the guy hit me, my purse was dumped, only he didn’t steal anything. My wallet was right there with two credit cards and about forty d
ollars, but he just rifled through the stuff on the ground, cursed me, and when we heard people coming, he ran off without a single thing.”
Butch flopped onto his back in Riley’s arms and went back to sleep. Apparently, he liked the rough rocking.
“What did the man look like?”
“I’m not sure. It was raining that day so he had on a slicker that closed up to his throat. He wore a hat and sunglasses, though there wasn’t a speck of sunshine to be found. I noticed he was dark because he had five o’clock shadow and dark sideburns. His hands were tanned.”
“Did the police try to follow him?”
“By the time they got there, he was long gone. They didn’t know what to think until I explained about the other things that had happened. Then they wanted me to tell them about all my recent assignments.” She shrugged. “But there hasn’t been anything that would upset anyone. I don’t write derogatory, cutting-edge pieces.” She looked disgruntled with that admission. “I cover parks and new cookbooks and special-interest groups.”
“So what had you written?” Riley continued rocking the dog. Butch twisted awkwardly, tucking the back of his head into Riley’s neck and nuzzling closer in doggy bliss. Damn it, he was starting to like the dog.
“Let’s see. I’d done the park feature….”
“No, before that. Everything started the day of the park, right? So it had to be something you’d done prior to that.”
“That makes sense.” She scrunched up her nose in thought. “Well, I did do an article on a professional football player arrested for a DUI, but my angle was on the time he donated to underprivileged children, something he’d been doing even before being assigned community service. And I did an interview with the author of a popular cookbook. The book was a hit, but it turned out the author had stolen some of the recipes from her mother-in-law’s great-great-grandmother. But she in turn donated half her royalties to her mother-in-law’s favorite charity, and they worked everything out amicably.”
Riley frowned in thought. “Not exactly life-altering news, huh?”
Sounding defensive, Regina said, “I have done a few more critical pieces.”
“Like?”
“About a month earlier I’d covered a dog shelter that wasn’t treating the animals right. They were crowded, dirty, underfed, and naturally I was outraged.”
The mistreatment of animals would have outraged him, as well, but Regina was so softhearted, so genuine, he could imagine how emotional she’d gotten over the whole thing.
“The article I did was small, but it ended up getting a lot of attention. The shelter got shut down and heavily fined. With the help of the paper, I spearheaded a campaign to find homes for all the dogs. We eventually succeeded. I would have loved to have kept a few of them myself, but I had no hopes of getting my own home then, and a small apartment is no place for a dog.”
Riley looked down at Butch. The dog peeked at him, turned his head to lick Riley’s hand and stretched. Riley grinned. “Unless the dog is really small.”
Regina smiled, too. “Look at him. He’s already fond of you.”
Hearing that special soft tone in her voice gave Riley an idea. He could get closer to her by getting closer to her dog. “He knows I respect him. But I imagine if I touched you right now, he’d go right back to bristling.” Riley gave her a long, intimate look. “He’s going to have to learn to share. But I’ll be patient—with him and you.”
Regina’s lips parted. She caught her breath, then looked at his mouth.
Oh, she was begging to be kissed. Unable to resist, Riley slowly leaned toward her.
He ended up kissing the dog when Butch leaped up between them. He nipped at Riley’s mouth and nose, making an awful racket.
“You ungrateful mutt.” Mindful of his intentions, Riley kept his tone friendly instead of irritated. Seeing that no kissing would occur, the dog resettled himself against Riley and gave him a big-eyed innocent look.
Regina smothered a laugh. “How could anyone ever hurt an animal? I can’t understand it. I don’t regret what happened with the shelter, but afterward the owners showed a lot of animosity toward me. Of course, that’s understandable because I started the ball rolling that eventually lost them their business. The thing is, unless they just wanted to harass me, they wouldn’t make likely suspects because I don’t have anything they’d want to steal.”
Riley tried to let the pieces come together naturally in his mind, but he knew Regina was right. He was too personally involved. All he could think of was how she might have been hurt worse. “Is there anyone else you can think of who’d dislike you?”
“Why would anyone dislike me?”
That made him grin. “Why indeed? Any problems with the people you work with? Why did you move here?”
The careful way she masked her expression told him he’d hit a nerve. “I got along with almost everyone at work.”
“Almost everyone?”
She folded her hands in her lap. “There was one guy who was pretty persistent in trying to get me to go out with him. The more I refused, the more hostile he got.”
“You left because of him?”
“Partially. He started showing up at my place at odd hours, watching me all the time. But he wasn’t a threat, just a pest. Mostly I left because I thought I might be safer here. I hate to admit to being a coward, but I got spooked. I’m not used to being hit—”
“Hell, I would hope not.”
“—and when that man slugged me, that was more than enough for me. I had to wear sunglasses for a week before the bruise faded enough that I could hide it with makeup. So I quit my job, relocated here in Chester and got hired on with the local paper.”
Wishing he could get his hands on not only the man who’d dared to strike her, but the weasel who’d hassled her at work, too, Riley shook his head. “And you still found yourself in trouble.”
“Right. Unless, as the local police say, it’s just a coincidence. Maybe the fire was an accident.”
Any time Riley thought of the damn fire, his guts cramped. “I don’t think so, Red.”
“You don’t? Why?” And then she asked with suspicion, “Riley Moore, do you know something I don’t know?”
Careful not to disturb the dog, he touched her cheek and gave her a tender smile. “I probably know lots of things you don’t know, especially about dangerous situations. But specifically about the fire, no.”
“Then why?”
“I dunno. It’s just that the day of the fire, you were so jumpy, so nervous. Call it women’s intuition, gut instinct, or just caution, you seemed to instinctively know something was about to happen.”
“I did feel especially edgy. It felt like people were watching me.”
“Maybe they were.” After she’d left Riley that day, he couldn’t shake off the picture of her nervousness. And her nervousness had become his, until he knew he wouldn’t be able to relax for worrying about her. “That sort of thing can be felt,” he murmured, more to himself than her.
“That’s why you were trailing me?”
“Yeah.” He’d known she was meeting Ethan to complete her interview, so he’d gone along, hanging back so that no one would notice him, but close enough to keep an eye out for her. When she’d met up with Rosie first and the two of them had gone to the firework’s dealership, his edginess had increased. With good reason.
“I’m glad you followed me,” she said. “If you hadn’t, who knows what might have happened.”
The alarms had brought Ethan to the scene, only he’d thought Rosie was still inside the building. He would have gone in after her if Riley hadn’t held him back. Regina and Rosie would have been safe, but Ethan would have died.
Riley shook off the awful memories, then touched the corner of Regina’s mouth. It looked tender and ripe and he wanted to kiss her, but first they had to talk. “I was feeling territorial even then.” He watched her eyes darken and smiled to himself. “I wish like hell I’d gotten my hands on the ba
stard who carried you out. He’s probably the one who stole your camera.”
“Likely, since I’d taken some good photos of the fire hazards. If only I’d realized how serious those hazards were, I could have saved poor Ethan a terrible scare.”
“And me as well.”
“You?”
“Damn right.” The picture of her sitting on the curb, blood on her forehead, her eyes dazed, would stay with him for a lifetime. “I felt like I’d taken a kick to the stomach.”
“You didn’t look scared. Not like Ethan.”
“I’d already found you, and though you were hurt, I knew you were going to be okay. Ethan thought Rosie was in the fire.” And he’d been a madman, fighting to go inside after her even though it would have meant his own death. Once Rosie had shown up, having left the building on her own by an upstairs window in the back, Ethan had just collapsed. To this day, Ethan trembled when anyone mentioned the fire. Oh, he was still a fireman, still did his duty with fearless determination, but you didn’t mention the fire that almost took Rosie from him.
Riley didn’t ever want to be so afraid that he lost all reason and discipline. Which was why he was taking matters into his own hands. He didn’t love Regina the way Ethan loved Rosie, but he liked her, he wanted her and for as long as he held a claim, he’d damn well keep her safe.
He dropped his hand. “Maybe I’m just buying into your fears, but its possible you have a good reason to be afraid. I’m not willing to put it to chance.”
She pressed back against the couch cushions. “You say that like it has some hidden meaning or something.”
“It does.” He stared at her hard, keeping her pinned in his gaze. “Regina, I don’t want you by yourself until we figure out what’s going on.”
It took her a second to catch his meaning, then her eyes slanted his way in speculation. “You think you should stay with me?”
“If you move from the apartment, yes.”
“No.”
He went on as if she hadn’t voiced the denial. “Here you’re surrounded by people. Help is only a few feet away and anyone could hear you through the thin walls. In a house, you’d be all alone.”
Her shoulders straightened. “I’m a big girl, Riley. I’ll be extra careful. But I won’t—”
