Savior (First to Fight Book 4)

by Nicole Blanchard

  Sofie shoots him a stern look. “Don’t even think about it, Rafe.”

  Rafe slumps back in his seat with a commiserating look from his brother.

  Chloe grins at the pair of them, then says to Livvie, “Sienna had Logan over this morning. Early this morning.”

  I groan inwardly as all eyes at the table shift to me, pinning me to my chair. All I can think to do is nod because my throat closes up.

  “I’m so glad,” Sofie says with a rush of enthusiasm.

  My mouth drops open. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Sofie shares a significant look with Livvie as Chloe’s eyes brighten, and she nibbles on another piece of bread. “I’ve been telling Livvie for forever we should fix Logan up with someone, but he beat us to it.”

  “Because you’re so nosey.” Rafe elbows Sofie.

  Sofie simply shrugs. “Hey, they were the ones talking loud enough for the rest of the world to overhear. Plus, it’s not often Logan of all people talks about a woman.” She looks across the table to Livvie. “I don’t think he’s even dated since he and his wife split years ago.”

  As the conversation shifts to trash talk his ex-wife, I turn my eyes to my lap. Try as I might, I can’t direct my attention anywhere else and my ears strain to listen as they continue.

  “Yeah, Sienna has been working at the bed and breakfast,” Chloe says, once they finish raking Logan’s ex over the coals.

  “Ohhhh,” Livvie sends a longing glance toward me. “I love that place. Ben took me there for our anniversary. The views are spectacular. I’ll have to come for lunch sometime. I remember the food is amazing.”

  There is a pause where all eyes turn to me. For a second, the words stick in my throat. Then I swallow and push through. “I’d like that.”

  The three women beam at me, and I relax into my seat.

  “Do you ever get to eat there?” Sofie asks as she sips from a glass of wine.

  I nod. “Diane practically forces me to take leftovers after dinner.”

  Livvie groans. “Now she’s just being mean.”

  I surprise myself by laughing. Chloe glances over and beams at me, and I have to admit . . . I needed this more than I realized.

  * * *

  The next morning, I wake up before my four thirty alarm, and I’m still smiling as I wake Logan up so he can go get ready for work. It doesn’t even damage my good mood when I find out I’ve run out of coffee

  The sun is just brightening the sky as I lock and re-lock my front door. Dew sparkles on the patch of grass between my house and Logan’s. The sound of a door opening draws my eyes up as Logan exits his own front door.

  I tear myself away from watching him and keep my gaze on my feet as I go down the steps and cross the front yard to the sidewalk leading to the B&B.

  Even though I tell myself not to do it, I glance back before crossing the street, and I find Logan watching me. Surprise and then heat, flares and I duck my head back down as I cross the street with a hidden smile. His eyes follow me until I open the kitchen door and close it behind me.

  Leaning heavily against the wood, I focus on catching my breath and calming my racing heart. Once blood isn’t thundering in my ears, I push off the door and hang up my purse in the close just off the kitchen. Work will help me push him from my mind. After the whirlwind lunch with the girls, I could use the monotony of cleaning the now empty guest rooms in preparation for the next occupants.

  Before I get started with the cleaning, I make a pot of coffee for Rose and Diane, who normally rise mid-morning to start the light brunch for the early rising guests. Once it’s ready, I fill a cup for myself and sip it while I greet the morning sun through the kitchen window as it rises over the deep, calming blue of the lake. Once finished, I rinse out my cup and set it on the drainer by the sink. Rocky waits patiently by the back door for his walk. I decide I’d better take him before I get distracted by work.

  Tonight’s the night, I decide as Rocky winds around me on our normal route through the trees to the rocky edge of the water. I’ll make him a romantic dinner, and we’ll see what happens.

  Because he’s right. What’s the point of being alive if you don’t live?

  Lightness suffuses my being, and I whistle to Rocky, who has disappeared over a small hill. Knowing he likes to wander, I step off the path and follow him.

  “Rocky! You silly boy, c’mon. We’ve got work to do.” His urgent barks answer me, and I speed up.

  When I crest the hill, I wish I hadn’t. The smell hits me first, and then I recognize the bloody heap below me. Initially, all I can see is Paige. A few panic-stricken seconds pass before I can blink away her face. I can’t be sure as she’s been badly beaten, but I’m almost positive the dead woman in front of me is the sweet baker I met a few nights ago.

  Lena.

  My legs threaten to give out, and I stumble back against a tree for balance. As my brain trips over itself to understand the sight in front of me, I put a hand to my mouth to keep from vomiting my breakfast.

  When I manage to still my breathing stir labored. I run back to the B&B and grab my phone. As I wait for the police to answer, I press my fingers to my eyes, trying to separate my memories of the past from the terrifying reality of the present.

  Logan

  I know before Colson even opens his mouth that he isn’t coming for a friendly chat. His wizened eyes are drawn and his normally tan, weathered face has a gray pallor that I’ve only seen on Marines who’ve seen death.

  “What is it?” I ask as I get to my feet, already pocketing my keys and getting to my feet.

  “There was another attack,” he says as I follow him to his truck.

  “Goddammit,” I mutter under my breath. We’d gone weeks without anything and several of the members of the department were sure the perpetrator had moved on. For a few short, blissful days, I thought maybe Sienna would get a reprieve from the horror of repeatedly revisiting her past.

  Colson’s voice turns serious. “He didn’t just beat this one. You were right. He’s escalating. He raped, assaulted, and then strangled her.”

  The stale pizza and shitty coffee I had before Colson arrived turns into a rock in the pit of my stomach. He ducks into the cool interior and flicks on the emergency lights. It’s midday and even crossing the street can be hectic.

  “What do we know?” I ask as he pulls out of the lot.

  “She was attacked this morning as she was walking around the lake. She’s a tourist here, visiting.”

  Ironically, the bottle of water I nab from his console leaves my mouth feeling dry. It’s always the most stressful moments when the need for a drink becomes overwhelming.

  “A the lake?” I ask.

  He sighs before pulling out into traffic. “She was staying at your aunt’s,” he says before I can ask. There aren’t many places to stay in Nassau and since Aunt Diane’s is on the lake, it’s a prime location for tourists. What bothers me even more than that is that it was so close to Sienna’s house. He’s already made a try for her once. A second so close to where she lives and works can’t be coincidental.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say this wasn’t a random attack?”

  He shakes his head. The radio on the dash squawks with chatter. I can make out nearly every voice on our small police force.

  “We’ve never had anything like this in Nassau,” he says as we pull down the long, winding drive that leads to Aunt Diane’s.

  “That bad?” My perception of “bad” probably differs from his, but I keep that to myself.

  “Worse,” he says cryptically. “If he continues, and if it’s the same person who attacked those women in Miami, then it’s not going to get better any time soon.” He nods to the flashing lights and media vans already on the scene. A crowd of people is clustered all the way from the back door to the road. Vehicles whip by, but the pedestrians are too busy straining to catch a glimpse that they don’t even notice how close they are to becoming a spectacle themselves.

&
nbsp; As we climb out of the cruiser, a pair of techs in white lab coats emerge from the front door of the bed and breakfast with a black body bag on top of a stretcher. Inside, the body shifts and sways as the wheels catch on ruts in the ground. The crowd emits a collective gasp, and I frown, wishing for a mint to wash away the taste of bile rising to the back of my throat.

  As many times as I’ve seen death, it never gets any easier.

  A tech nods at Colson. “Helluva Saturday morning, sir,” he says. “Blackwell,” he says to me.

  I pass him on the way up the stairs and jerk my head in greeting. Already I can hear wails coming from inside, and by the time the screen door clangs shut behind me, I’ve already forgotten what the tech looks like. All I can think about is getting to my family, to Sienna.

  Aunt Diane and Grandma Rose huddle together on the couch. Two uniformed officers stand close by. Sienna stands behind the couch, her face leached of all color and her eyes glazed over.

  Aunt Diane glances up as soon as I enter, her shoulders sagging with relief. “Logan.” She gets to her feet and crosses the room to my side. “It’s so awful. So awful. She was such a nice woman.”

  “We’ll take care of it, Aunt Diane.” I tuck her under my chin and realize, not for the first time, how small she seems.

  “I know you will.”

  The other officers nod to me and, spotting Colson behind me, take him in another room to talk. With the room to ourselves, I bring Aunt Diane back to the couch. “Have the officers taken your statements?”

  Aunt Diane takes Grandma Rose’s hands between her own. “Yes, they’ve taken ours. Sienna hasn’t given her yet, she was next before you came.”

  Sienna doesn’t look when Aunt Diane says her name. “I’m going to call my friend Ben and have his mom take you to her house until we can get everything taken care of here, okay?”

  “Oh, dear,” Grandma Rose mutters. “What about the other guests? This is just so awful.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve finished up here, and we’ll direct the guests to another location for the time being. Why don’t you get what you need for the night, and I’ll give Ben’s mom a call, okay?”

  Aunt Diane puts a hand to my arm and squeezes. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  After I kiss her forehead, they head down the hallway to the first floor bedrooms, leaving me alone with Sienna, who blinks a few times and then visibly trembles as she realizes everyone else has gone. Her throat bobs with a swallow, and she wraps her arms around herself. Her wariness is understandable, but the fear in her eyes when she looks at me is not.

  “Do you want to sit down?”

  Her throat convulses again and her eyes flit around the room before coming back to me. “No, I’m fine.”

  “Honey, you look like you’re about to drop. Sit down before you fall down.”

  She nods but doesn’t move, and that’s when I know she’s definitely in shock. I end up guiding her by the elbow and then leaving her for only a minute to grab her some water.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” I ask after she takes a couple sips. Then, without looking at me a single time, she tells me about her morning and how she came to find Lena.

  “She was a baker,” she says absently. “Did they tell you that?” I don’t speak because I know the question was rhetorical. “She told me all about how she started her own bakery after this horrible apprenticeship under the most awful man. They got engaged recently.” Her voice breaks. “She was going to marry him. Someone needs to call him,” she says faintly. “He needs to know.”

  “We’ll find him,” I tell her, pulling her close so she can rest her head on my shoulder.

  “I thought it was over,” she says, her voice watery. “I really did. I was so happy.”

  “I know you were,” I say into her hair. “I know.”

  Her spine stiffens, and she jerks up. “We have to find him. We have to stop him.” Her eyes round and she brings a hand to her lips. “What if he goes after Livvie next. Or Sofie. God, Logan, this is all my fault.”

  I turn her head so she’s looking at me. When her eyes clear and she focuses in on me, I say, “This is not your fault.”

  “When my sister—”

  “That wasn’t your fault either. You didn’t do anything wrong. If you’d gone with her, you’d be dead, too. If he’d taken you at the park, you’d be dead.”

  “Maybe I should be,” she says furiously. “Why do I deserve to live and they don’t?”

  “There is no deserving about it. Everyone deserves to live. Just because you did when they didn’t doesn’t mean you deserve to die, too.”

  She buries her face in my chest. “Can you take me home? I need to see to Rocky, and I don’t want to be here while they’re still investigating.”

  “Of course, honey.”

  I guide Sienna to the truck and Rocky loads up after her. While she waits there, I walk down to the line of the water where Colson is talking to the techs at the scene.

  “I’m going to run Sienna home. My aunt and grandma are staying with the Hart’s in town if you have any other questions for them.”

  “That’ll do,” Colson says with his signature calm. “I’ll finish processing the scene and get you a copy of the autopsy when it’s complete. What I can tell you from their cursory analysis is there are trace amounts of bodily fluids and a partial print.”

  “He fucked up this time,” I say to Colson triumphantly. “I told you he’d fuck up. We’ve got him. We’re going to nail his ass to the wall.”

  Piper

  The next few days are laborious. It saps my energy just to get up in the morning. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep without picturing Lena’s body superimposed with Paige’s face. Logan, bless his soul, is patient, even though I snap at him at every opportunity.

  The process of crime scene analysis is just as laborious and can take days, or even weeks if there’s a backlog to process.

  Neither of us say it, but we’re not sure we have weeks, or even days, before he strikes again and another woman’s life hangs in the balance.

  On the third day after Lena’s murder, the phone rings. Both Logan and I tense as he answers it. His brow creases as he talks to whoever is on the other line. His slumped shoulders aren’t a good sign.

  “All right. Well, let me know if there is any more news. Thanks, Colson.”

  I glance at him apprehensively from the table where I’m reworking the B&B’s website in my downtime. “What?” when he doesn’t answer immediately, I add, “Don’t hide things from me Logan. You can say or do whatever else you like, but please be open with me, especially about this.”

  He comes to sit next to me at the table. “We just got the DNA results back. It’s not a match for Gavin Lance.”

  The news physically pushes me back. I slump against the hard backing of the dining room chair, thoroughly stunned. “It’s—it’s not? Are they sure?”

  “Pretty damn sure.”

  “What does this mean?”

  He blows out a breath and leans his elbows on the table. “It means we keep looking.”

  “So it was just a coincidence?”

  Logan sighs. “It’s possible, but I don’t like coincidence. It makes my shoulders itch.”

  “I want to go back,” I say impulsively.

  “They won’t be reopening the B&B until Christmas season,” Logan says as he rubs his fingers in his eyes.

  “No, I mean I want to go back to the apartment. The one I shared with Paige.”

  His head jerks up. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, maybe I can jog my memory about something from that night. Maybe seeing it, being there, will help me remember something.”

  “We aren’t even sure if those two cases are related,” Logan objects. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to put you in danger on the chance you may remember something useful. Plus, it’s been two years, the place has probably been rented out again.”

  I put a hand on his forear
m. “This is something I feel I have to do. I have to go there now. To see it.” I shrug. “Maybe it has to come full circle for me to move on, but it’s something I know I need now, with or without your help. I’d rather you were there, but I’ll go on my own if I need to.”

  * * *

  Logan insisted we take a cab, then another, get off at a bus stop, and then walk to three different terminals before he’d allow us to board our flight. No one could follow us after that.

  He checks us in to a little hotel that takes cash and doesn’t ask many questions. We don’t plan on staying long, so the putrid color scheme doesn’t bother me. While he touches base with his boss, I jump in the shower to rid myself of the travel funk.

  I get dressed and emerge from the bathroom, he’s sitting, more like sprawled, on the high-backed desk chair, his legs spread and his dark brows slated over blue eyes gone molten. I lean against the far wall of the hotel room near the rattling air conditioner and watch him. He hasn’t said much of anything since I told him I needed to come here, and something has to give. If I just wait long enough, he will have to say something . . . right?

  Then he spreads his legs wider and jerks his chin. Before I make a conscious decision, my body makes one for me and is moving across the room. I don't know if I need his closeness or just need him, but I just . . . need.

  He grabs my arm as soon as I’m close enough and guides me between his legs until I'm kneeling in front of him, feeling like very much the sacrifice. It’s the same position as the last time we were intimate, but this time there’s no question about who holds the power. Everything about his posture screams alpha male.

  Something swims in the depth of his eyes, but I can’t read it. All I can do is grip his muscular thighs through his travel-worn jeans to hold on, because if I don’t, I feel like I'll just spin right out of the room and into orbit.

  He lifts one of those big, strong hands and threads it through my wet, matted hair. It catches on the tangles and then his gentleness gives way to violence and he jerks my head back with one flex of his powerful fists.