Dark Legacy: (Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 3)

by Trish McCallan

“Let me check my clothes. I stuffed some jewelry in there,” Ariel said and led the way to the back of the bedroom and the built-in bank of drawers. After opening and closing several of them and scanning the contents, she shrugged and stepped back. “Nothing is missing in here. But we should check the kitchen. That’s where I left my laptop and purse.”

  If this had been a normal 10-23, both items should be missing. Thieves normally grabbed the most portable, most expensive items they could find. From Ariel’s tin can alarm system, they knew the perp had entered through the kitchen. He would have seen both her laptop and purse as he crossed the room. They would have been sitting there, easy to grab on his way out.

  It was possible he’d stumbled across the bedroom while he was looking for more items to pawn or fence.

  Or hell, maybe he’d been ripe for some sexual assault, ready to mix in rape with his thievery.

  Fuck—maybe this break-in wasn’t personal at all. Maybe the timing had just been coincidental.

  Sure…

  He shook his head, disgusted with his wishful thinking.

  His chest tightened when they entered the kitchen. Her laptop and purse were still sitting on the table. She rushed over to them.

  “Thank you, thank you, baby Jesus,” she whispered, her relief and gratitude vibrating through the words. “My life is on that laptop. My financial world in my wallet.”

  She stopped speaking, sudden dread plastered across her face, and yanked her purse closer. Hunching over it, she pawed through the contents. Eventually a gusty sigh broke from her.

  Turning back to face him, she offered Rhys a blinding smile. “My wallet is still here. So everything’s accounted for. At least among my stuff.”

  Trepidation congealed in Rhys’s chest.

  In a normal 10-23 the lack of theft would be something to celebrate. It meant the intruder had been scared off before grabbing anything. But in this case… The wallet and laptop hadn’t been taken. Even though they were both in plain view. Even though they were small and easy to carry. Even though the intruder had had plenty of time to grab them and split before the first responders arrived.

  Dammit, the implications were ominous.

  The perp hadn’t been after easy-to-grab items, he’d been after the woman in the bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ariel smothered a yawn and glared across the conference room table at Captain Scanlon. How in the world did the woman manage to look so put together so early in the morning? Her hair looked and smelled freshly washed. Her gray slacks and pastel blouse freshly ironed. Even her black pumps were scuff and dirt-free.

  Rhys’s boss had arrived at the station by the time Ariel had been hauled in, protesting for all she was worth—without meaning a word of it.

  It was hard to admit she didn’t want to be alone… or how vulnerable she felt. Being surrounded by cops actually felt good… at least until she started comparing herself to Rhys’s captain.

  Pretending to stretch, Ariel dipped her head and discreetly sniffed her armpits. As she’d feared, she smelled rank. While she’d been allowed to change into jeans and a thick sweater at the condo, Rhys hadn’t let her take a shower before hauling her down to the station. She could add body odor to the bloody welts on her arms, legs, and face—not to mention her bandaged feet—yeah, she was princess material this morning, all right.

  Scanlon’s femininity was so far above hers at the moment they didn’t look like they were within the same species, or gender. But then Scanlon hadn’t fled through the dark streets of Dark Falls and hidden in a damn bush to avoid a serial killer.

  Or, at least, potential serial killer. There was no doubt in Ariel’s mind that if her unwelcome visitor had incapacitated her, she’d be the second body dumped in Dark Falls this week.

  “Take us through everything again,” Detective Sevier said, his golden eyes heavy lidded and sleepy. “From the beginning.”

  “I’ve already told you all this.” She sighed… rolled her eyes… shuffled in her seat. When she was certain everyone in the room had picked up on her frustration, she planted her elbows on the table and propped her chin in her hands. “How many more times do we have to go over this?”

  This had to be the one trillionth time she’d been asked to drag them through the events of the day.

  “Until we stop asking.” Rhys’s voice was flat, no give there at all.

  Disappointed, she scowled back at him. He’d always been able to ignore her theatrics. Which was probably why he’d been so appealing. There was no fun in getting your way all the time.

  “Fine.” Flouncing back in her chair, she took them through her night from hell again.

  A tiny frown furrowed Rhys’s tanned forehead as he listened to her recital of events. “Did you notice anything about him? Height? Weight? What he was wearing?”

  Ariel straightened. At least Rhys’s questions were new, and it wasn’t about the gun or the shots she’d taken. She’d wondered if they’d ever veer away from that topic. Good God, they’d covered all things gun related in excruciating detail.

  She gave Rhys’s questions some serious thought, only to sigh and shake her head. “He was a big, scary shadow. That’s all I noticed.”

  “Really? You didn’t notice anything else?” Rhys’s follow-up question was neutral, which made it hard to assess.

  Was he being sarcastic? Did he doubt the accuracy of her account? She stiffened slightly and glared at him. He could be more considerate or attentive, or both. She’d been through a trauma, for God’s sake.

  “What about smells or sounds?” Rhys asked, his frown spreading to his eyes and darkening the blue to gray.

  She opened her mouth, all set to launch a snarky rejoinder, when a memory stirred.

  Come to think of it… there had been a smell. A very distinct one. And it must have come from the intruder since she’d never smelled it in the condo before.

  “What?” The question burst from three different mouths simultaneously. Apparently everyone had picked up on her hesitation.

  “There was a smell about him. Kind of sickly sweet.” She chose to respond to Detective Cantu because he’d been nice to her, solicitous, even flirty—unlike Rhys, who’d hauled her to the table, shoved her in a chair, and told her to stay put.

  Like she was a damn dog.

  “Sickly sweet? Can you use it in context?”

  Again, it was Rhys who asked the question. So she smiled across the table at Eric, ignoring Rhys completely. “Of course I can. He smelled overly sweet. Like decomposing fruit.”

  Treat me like a dog, will you? I don’t think so.

  A moment of silence claimed the room as everyone chewed on her description.

  “You’re certain the odor came from him?” This time the question came from Detective Sevier.

  “I’m positive. It wasn’t there when I went to bed. And I’ve never smelled it in the condo before. It had to have come from him.” She gave Sevier a slow, flirty smile.

  She liked him too. He’d given Rhys a smackdown after witnessing the kiss. She hadn’t been able to hear what the two men had discussed, although she suspected it had been about her, but judging by Rhys’s scowl and rigid body, he hadn’t appreciated his coworker’s lecture.

  Go Detective Sevier. Anyone who lectured Rhys was A-OK with her.

  Besides, he looked like Dean from Supernatural. How could any red-blooded woman not appreciate that?

  Settling back in her chair, she crossed her arms and tried to project steely-eyed confidence. She’d answered all their questions. It was time to reestablish their tit-for-tat rule. They owed her answers to her questions now.

  The most important one being—“How did he find me? The condo wasn’t rented under my name. Nor was the payment on my credit card. He couldn’t have traced my phone. I take pains to make sure it’s untraceable.” And paid through the nose for that untraceability. “So how did he find me?”

  It was unlikely he’d found her through searching the Airbnb sites and c
ontacting owners. There wouldn’t have been time to track her down that way.

  None of the men or the other woman seated around the table looked at each other. The fact they were so careful to avoid each other’s eyes told her everything she wanted to know.

  They knew. They knew how her stalker had found her. But they weren’t going to share.

  The bastards—and bastardess.

  Before her anger had a chance to hit full boil, someone to her right cleared their voice. She was pretty sure that someone was Rhys.

  “We found a GPS tracker on your car. Beneath the hood. He must have followed you.”

  And yep, it was Rhys’s voice that broke the silence. Some of her resentment toward him softened—until his words hit home.

  What the hell?

  A tracker? Her stalker had found her because of a GPS tracker?

  No damn way!

  His explanation was a direct hit to her sense of self. Like a bomb had gone off and shredded her internal image of Ariel Hamilton, aka Beaubien. Because his explanation made her look stupid, and she was never… ever… stupid. Particularly when it came to her safety and her ability to take care of herself.

  She wasn’t foolish enough to leave her car unattended and hope that people would play nice and not mess with it. There were far too many monsters out there roaming the streets on the lookout for someone to fuck with. When you made a career out of exposing those monsters and becoming their target, you learned to take precautions.

  Lots of precautions. Like setting tin can alarms or sweeping your car for bugs.

  Nope. She was never careless.

  Never.

  She scowled, frustration heating her face. “That can’t be right. I have a bug sweeper, a top-of-the-line one. I always check the car for tracking devices before I head home. Always. I would have found it if he’d attached one. He couldn’t have followed me.”

  Stunned expressions fell over the room. It was almost comical. Did they really not expect her to sweep her car? Didn’t they?

  “You sweep your Honda for bugs?” Cantu asked, his voice strangled, the strangest expression of disbelief, respect, and humor on his face.

  “Well sure. Don’t you?” She stared back defiantly, refusing to feel even a smidgen of paranoia for her precautions.

  Someone had bugged her Honda, after all. It might be the first time anyone had done so, and the electronics sweeper—which she’d paid a small fortune for—might have proved ineffectual. But still someone had bugged her car.

  Irritation heated her face.

  She wasn’t crazy, dammit.

  “No… no I don’t.” If anything, Cantu’s voice was even more strangled, and humor had overtaken the disbelief. Suddenly he launched into a rhythmic chant.

  * * *

  "There once was a young woman named Ariel

  Who could sometimes come off as territorial

  As she scanned for more bugs

  Even under the rugs

  She said 'I’d rather ’twas this than a burial.'"

  * * *

  “Oh for Christ’s sake.” Rhys ripped a sheet from his legal pad, crumpled it up, and tossed it at Cantu’s head.

  The yellow paper ball bounced off and rolled across the table toward Nate Ryder, who picked it up and pitched it into the metal trash can in the corner of the room.

  Ariel stared back and forth between the two men, not sure whether to be amused or humiliated by the limerick.

  “Don’t mind Cantu.” Sevier offered her a sleepy smile. “The guy is operating with no brain cells this morning.”

  “The tracking device was a brand-new model. Our tech crew hadn’t even run across it before. It uses a different frequency, one your scanner must not pick up,” Rhys offered quietly, getting back to business.

  Slightly mollified, she relaxed. When she caught the glitter of respect in his eyes, she relaxed even further and some of the heat left her face. Rhys didn’t think she was foolish.

  And really, that was all that mattered.

  “Ms. Beaubien.” Scanlon’s quiet voice broke into Ariel’s thoughts. “May I call you Ariel?” She didn’t wait for Ariel’s acceptance, just rolled right on. “It’s quite clear that you’re a target. Your hotel rooms have been broken into. Now your condo’s been broken into.” She paused to regard Ariel with solemn dark eyes. “Whoever called you and drew you to town, knew too many details about our latest homicide. He is very likely the killer. And he appears to have his sights set on you.”

  Ariel nodded. She could agree with everything the captain had said.

  “You need protection. I’m offering a police detail. Twenty-four seven. Until we find and arrest this man.”

  That Ariel couldn’t agree with. She shook her head. “I’ll pass.”

  For the first time Rhys’s captain expressed an honest-to-God emotion. Pure frustration flashed across her tanned face and settled into her eyes. “I don’t think you grasp the gravity of your situation—”

  “Oh I grasp it. Believe me I do.” The throbbing in her feet and the stinging in her arms and legs made it impossible not to focus on the danger surrounding her. “But I also grasp the fact that the man targeting me could be sitting around this table or at a desk down the hall.”

  She hid a wince as faces darkened all around her. Big, muscled bodies tensed. Eyes chilled.

  The detectives questioning her didn’t like having their intentions questioned. Why was she not surprised?

  Although her charge wasn’t quite true. The men ringing the conference table were close to Rhys’s age. Hers as well. They would have been in their late teens or early twenties when her father had been framed. Some of them probably hadn’t even lived in Dark Falls back then. So the likelihood of any of these men being the monster targeting her was pretty low.

  But there were two men who weren’t in the conference room, who could have been the intruder in her house tonight. Two men who’d been instrumental in putting her father in prison.

  There was no way she was trusting her life to them. Or to any of these men surrounding her, who might trust Patel and Osborn enough to leave themselves vulnerable—and thus her vulnerable as well.

  “For God’s sake, Ariel.” Rhys sounded more tired than exasperated. But the exasperation was clearly there. “The Dark Falls Police Department did not frame your father. I know these detectives. I trust my life to them every day. No one in this room is the X Factor Killer.”

  He was probably right about that. Not that it mattered.

  “Maybe nobody in this room,” she admitted, her shoulders stiffening. She fought the rise of hurt at his tone. This was her life they were talking about. He could show a little concern. “But I don’t see Detective Patel or Osborn at this table. Where are they? Have you verified their whereabouts for this morning?”

  Rhys swore again and shoved a hand through his hair. “They’re at your condo, collecting evidence. Trying to keep you safe.”

  He didn’t say “you ungrateful bitch,” but the message was heavily implied.

  His irritation stoked her temper. Or maybe it was the fact that he had chosen the blue wall over her. His police buddies over her. The hurt vanished beneath a blast of anger.

  She sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting any more kisses on the man. Or anything else, for that matter.

  “Okay, let’s back up.” Scanlon’s voice was mild, surprisingly so considering Ariel had just accused two of her detectives of possibly monstrous acts.

  “You don’t trust Detectives Osborn or Patel. I get it. I do. With the history between you three, I understand your reservations. But that doesn’t negate the fact that you need someone to protect you. Your life could very well depend on it.” Scanlon paused to raise her eyebrows and hold Ariel’s gaze. “So whom do you trust? Within the department.”

  Ariel slumped against the backrest of her chair. There was only one person she trusted implicitly within the department. But after his scolding, she sure as hell wasn’t going to stroke his ego with th
at news.

  “My sister,” she said grudgingly.

  Damn… she’d have to call Ashley and explain… which would require her to listen to a whole litany of I told you sos, which would lead to a lifetime of apologies and groveling…

  She groaned beneath her breath. Accepting Patel and Osborn as her bodyguards might be more healthy, at least to her mental state.

  Rhys’s boss shook her head. “Your sister is not within this department.”

  Maybe not, but Ariel clamped her mouth shut. She was not going to ask for Rhys’s assistance.

  It turned out she didn’t have to. Captain Scanlon did it for her.

  “You obviously trust Detective Evans. You called him rather than 911 after the break-in. Do you have any objections to Evans and England stepping in to provide protection?”

  Slouching down in her chair with folded arms, Ariel pretended reluctance. “I suppose I could live with that.”

  From the twitch of Scanlon’s lips and the outright grin that took over Cantu’s face, she was pretty sure no one bought into her reluctance.

  She carefully avoided Rhys’s side of the table, afraid of what she might find on his face.

  If he’d greeted his new duties with reluctance or annoyance… well… she was better off not knowing that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tucked in the corner of a sagging flowered couch, Rhys absently watch the phrenic car chase taking place on the muted television. The TV wasn’t the worst he’d seen. It still had color and picture, even if the sound was pitchy and the remote was missing.

  The utilitarian two bedroom apartment, in the Pacific Heights complex, was simple, no thrills living. But the heat worked. So did the refrigerator and the water came out hard and hot—which, when it came to showering, was about as good as it got in terms of safe houses.

  Shifting away from the spring digging into his spine, Rhys took a long, slow swallow of his iced tea. No beer for him after a hard day’s work. Not for a while anyway. A protection detail, otherwise known as baby sitting, meant the guards were on duty twenty-four hours a day. Which meant you had to keep a clear head through every second of those hours. Instincts and senses had to be on high alert. Which meant no alcohol.