by Karen Rose
“Thanks, Cindy.” Rafe waited until she was gone, then pointed to the interview room door where Daisy Dawson was waiting. “You want to join me?”
Gideon didn’t really. But then he remembered that the Dawson woman’s attacker had said, They all do. If they had a serial rapist or killer on their hands, he wanted to know. And if he could aid in the investigation in any way, he’d ask his boss to lend him to SacPD first thing in the morning. No matter how uncomfortable it made him. Because deep down he doubted that Miriam the locket owner really was okay. That she’d willingly handed the locket over to . . . anyone. He doubted she’d have had the inner strength.
Mercy hadn’t, after all, and she was the strongest woman he knew. Mercy had escaped with her life but still hung on to that little piece of silver. Not because it brought back good memories, because it most certainly did not.
The locket had power. Not the power they had claimed, of course, but it held power all the same. He hoped he was wrong, that Miriam did have the strength to have tossed the locket into the nearest dumpster, that Daisy Dawson’s attacker had just happened upon it, but his gut didn’t believe it. And Gideon trusted his gut.
He squared his shoulders. “Sure. Lead the way.” He followed Rafe through the doorway of the interview room and . . . just stopped.
Stopped walking. Stopped breathing. Stopped thinking about lockets and Mercy and women named Miriam.
Because Irina Sokolov was wrong. The woman sitting at the table next to Detective Rhee was . . . not cute. Nor was she little. She was . . . Wow.
A soft pink cashmere turtleneck sweater molded to wicked curves, cupping breasts that were the perfect size for a lover’s hands. Blond hair hung past her shoulders in loose waves, framing a face that was too wholesome, too pretty, despite a slightly red nose and swollen eyes. Eyes that caught his attention. Blue. Like the sky on a beautiful day.
Those eyes widened in a moment of surprised recognition, spurring his feet to move. She abruptly schooled her features as he approached her side of the table, one blond brow arching. “So you are the esteemed Special Agent Gideon Reynolds,” she said dryly, and he had to fight a shiver because her voice was husky. Sexy. And strangely familiar.
“Irina has shown me more photos of you than all of her children put together,” she went on before he could place where he’d heard her voice. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Smiling politely, she rose with a grace that belied any residual pain from her attack. She was so composed, so poised, that he might have believed nothing had happened at all.
Except that her face still bore evidence of recent tears. And her hand trembled ever so slightly as she extended it for him to shake. Miss Dawson wasn’t as cool and collected as she wanted to appear. But she was faking it well and Gideon respected the hell out of that.
“Yes, I’m Gideon,” he said, relieved his voice didn’t crack like a teenager’s, even though he oddly felt that nervous. He took her offered hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Her skin was too cold, he thought, resisting the urge to sandwich her hand between his own, letting her go instead. “‘Esteemed’ is a bit of a stretch, though,” he added, trying to return her smile but suspecting he’d come up short. He had never been good at faking a smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I wish it were under better circumstances.”
Her polite smile faltered and she flicked her gaze to Rafe. “True enough. I’m going to assume you aren’t doing your mother’s bidding and arranging a setup because that would be completely unprofessional, which you are not. So why is he here?”
“He’s here to help me with the case,” Rafe said, which was actually true.
Daisy frowned. “He’s federal.” Then her eyes widened again, this time in dismay. “Oh my God. He said they all begged forgiveness.” She looked up at Gideon, true despair written all over her face. “Are there others? Are you here because there are other victims?”
Gideon found himself needing to soothe her, the words escaping his mouth before he’d thought twice about any repercussions. “I don’t know. I’m here because of the locket.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 10:50 P.M.
Daisy stilled, blinking up at him. His startlingly green gaze was fixed on her face, his expression kind. Sympathetic. His voice soft and comforting.
And then his words made it through the haze in her head. Wait. What? She’d assumed a federal agent was there because her attacker really was a serial rapist. Or killer. Because Daisy had certainly felt her life flashing before her eyes in the moments before muscle memory had taken over her movements. “The locket? The one he was wearing?”
She clamped her jaw tight, holding back the next words because she didn’t want to hear them out loud. Words that nevertheless screamed through her mind. The one I ripped off his throat when he was trying to choke me to death?
Gideon nodded cautiously, having no doubt noted her tension because he was watching her through eyes that narrowed. “Yes.”
Forcing herself to relax, she tilted her head to one side, watching him back. Studying his face. His very handsome face. He was far younger than he’d appeared when he’d first come through the doorway. It was the threads of silver in his crisp black hair that had her forgetting for just a moment that he’d gone to school with Rafe, so they were of a similar age. Thirty, plus or minus a year.
There was something here, she thought. Something in the set of his mouth, framed by a neatly trimmed goatee, which was also threaded with silver. Something . . . personal.
“Why?” she asked. “What’s so special about the locket?”
Other than that it was a delicate thing worn by a brute. Other than the fact it said Miriam. Other than that he’d rasped They all do in her ear as he’d dragged her into the alley.
Curiosity prickled across her skin. Or perhaps that was awareness because Gideon Reynolds was still staring at her with an intensity that left her trembling inside.
Daisy didn’t like that. It’s curiosity. Nothing more.
Go on thinking that if it makes you feel better, the snide voice whispered in her mind.
Yes. Yes, it does, she answered back. Firmly, because the snide voice had to be nipped in the bud. It was the same voice that tempted her to have “just a taste” when her anxiety started to overwhelm her. Like right now. Just a little taste. Beer. A sip of beer wouldn’t be so bad, would it? One little beer?
No. She gritted her teeth. Nip it in the bud.
He hadn’t answered her, she realized. He was still watching her and she wondered how much of that little internal chat had been broadcasted from her expression.
“Well?” she pressed. “Why is the locket special?”
A throat clearing had her turning around to where Rafe’s partner, Erin, sat waiting patiently. “Let’s get your statement, Daisy,” Erin said levelly, and Daisy didn’t miss the flicker of gratitude in Rafe’s eyes. Evidently Agent Reynolds had made a bit of a slip.
So she’d focus on that. On the locket. On the mystery. Not on the fact that tonight was her father’s worst nightmare coming to life and that he’d probably be on the next flight to Sacramento as soon as he found out. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Daisy gave them a terse nod and retook her seat next to where her bag sat on the tabletop, Brutus nestled comfortably inside. She could hear the dog’s gentle snores if she listened hard enough. It grounded her.
Rafe and Gideon took their seats, Gideon on her right and Rafe on the other side of the table. Erin Rhee was still on her left, having not moved since Rafe had stepped out, saying he’d had to make a call. Which had presumably been to Gideon Reynolds.
Because of the locket. Her skin quivering with nervous energy, Daisy reached into her bag, giving Brutus a gentle stroke before withdrawing an emery board from one of the inside pockets. “They clipped my nails in the ER,” she said, filing away the shar
p edges of her newly cut nails. Because she’d scratched her attacker as she’d managed to escape.
“They’ll grow back,” Rafe said soothingly.
“I don’t think I want them to. They got in the way tonight. My nails, I mean. I did a joint lock on his hand but my thumbnail was so long that it kept me from digging in as deep as I needed to, to incapacitate him. I could be dead because I’d had a mani-pedi,” she added lightly.
She needed to stop talking. Her nerves were showing. Focus on the story. On Gideon Reynolds’s face. On anything that’s not the memory of his arm across your throat.
“You did a joint lock?” Gideon asked carefully, his doubt evident.
Meeting his eyes, she nodded. “Yes, I did. Want me to demonstrate?”
Gideon shook his head quickly, seeming unsure if she was serious or not. “No. That won’t be necessary.”
Rafe bit back a smile. “No, it’s really not. She could take either one of us down. It’s true,” he declared when Gideon gave him a disbelieving stare. “She ‘demonstrated’ on me when I questioned her ability to defend herself. Not that you ever should have needed to, Daisy.” Sober now, he pressed a button on a remote that turned on the video recorder. “Today is Thursday, February sixteenth. It is ten fifty-six. I am Detective Raphael Sokolov. With me are Detective Erin Rhee, Special Agent Gideon Reynolds, and Eleanor Marie Dawson, also known as Daisy. We are here to take Miss Dawson’s statement.”
Daisy gave Rafe a dirty look. She hated her first name and he knew it. “Thank you for that.”
Rafe’s expression remained sober, but his dark eyes softened. “What happened tonight?” he asked gently.
Daisy drew a shaky breath. “Where should I start?”
“Wherever you’d like,” Erin said. “If we need you to back up, we’ll let you know.”
“All right.” She set the emery board aside. Folded her hands on the table. Then gave up and stuck her hand back into her bag, stroking Brutus’s fuzzy ears because her anxiety was clawing at her from the inside out. She did not want to talk about this again. “My friend Trish Hart and I were leaving the community center on J Street, walking toward the Forty-niner Diner.” Abruptly she turned to Erin Rhee. “Did Trish get home okay?”
“She did,” Erin promised. “I walked her to her door myself and waited until she was safely inside.”
“Thank you,” Daisy whispered. Trish had been so shaken up, crying with her in the ER until Irina and Karl had arrived to stand vigil. Daisy had insisted Trish go home because hospitals were one of her friend’s triggers, threatening her sobriety.
Erin’s smile was steady. “You’re welcome.”
Daisy forced herself to continue, just wanting this part over with. “Trish and I walk to the diner every week.” She glanced up at the camera on the wall. Fuck it, she thought. Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin. “We attend AA on Thursday nights.”
Gideon’s eyes widened, but he met her gaze evenly when she wordlessly dared him to say a word in judgment. He gave her a steady nod, and that it left her feeling settled inside shouldn’t have been a thing. But it was.
“I felt someone following me a few minutes after we started walking,” she went on. “Just a tickle at the back of my neck.” She shrugged. “I thought it was someone my dad had hired. I never considered someone was actually stalking me.”
Gideon’s brows rose. “Why would you think your father would have you followed?”
“Because he’s done it before,” she answered truthfully. “He . . . worries about me.” She considered her words, then realized she didn’t care. She wasn’t hiding anything because she had nothing to be ashamed of.
Keep on telling yourself that if it makes you feel better, honey.
Shut the ever-loving-fuck up.
“My father didn’t see the signs of my alcoholism until my sister brought it to his attention. By then, I was pretty fucked up.” She glanced up at the camera again, then flicked her gaze to Rafe. “Can I say ‘fucked up’?”
Rafe smiled at her. “You can if you want.”
“All right, then. I was fucked up. And I had to go to rehab. After that, he watched me like a hawk. Had our ranch hand follow me around everywhere. Back then it was because we were afraid and in hiding.”
Gideon’s brows shot up higher, scrunching his forehead. “In hiding? Why?”
Why? The question honestly surprised her. “You don’t know, Agent Reynolds?” She gave Rafe a side-eye. “I thought your mother would have told him already.” The woman had been trying to push them together for months now.
You must meet him, Irina would say in her brusque way, her accent thick, but her sweet nature abundantly clear in the smile that was always on her face. He’s a good man. Handsome, too, she’d add slyly. Then she’d regale Daisy with stories of when Rafe and Gideon were boys in school, always ending with a frank appraisal. He’d be good for you, dochka. Let me give him your phone number. Which Daisy had always politely declined, even though hearing Irina calling her “daughter” always made her feel so safe and included that she’d almost wanted to comply.
“My mother is actually very good at keeping secrets,” Rafe said.
Good to know. Irina had gotten the handsome part right, at least. With his perfectly combed hair and perfectly pressed blue suit that sat perfectly on broad shoulders, not to mention his perfect face, Gideon Reynolds could have walked out of a men’s fashion ad. Hopefully he was not only a good man but discreet as well, because if he didn’t know her life story before, he was about to.
“You want me to tell the whole sordid tale for the record?” she asked lightly, because she hated this part, too. Hated airing her family’s very dirty laundry. Not that it would be the first time, but still.
“Maybe just give us the Reader’s Digest version,” Rafe suggested.
Her lips twitched, which she suspected was Rafe’s intent. “Okay. I can do that. My father was convinced that my stepmother’s ex-husband was stalking her so that he could kidnap their child—my stepsister, Taylor. Dad moved us all up past Eureka and bought a ranch. All through shell corporations, because he’s cagey that way. He taught us how to shoot and defend ourselves in case Taylor’s biological father came to take her away. We lived in isolation for twelve years, doing drills every day like some kind of mini-paramilitary squad. And then my stepmother died. On her deathbed, she confessed to Taylor that she’d lied about the whole thing. Her ex had never stalked her, had never threatened her or Taylor. It had all been a lie. We lost our adolescence because of a lie.”
“And then?” Gideon prompted.
Daisy realized she’d been staring at the wall. Remembering those final days, Donna so emaciated, the cancer having eaten her up. Taylor had been heartbroken. So had her father. So was I. Until they’d learned what Donna had done to them all. And then Daisy had hated her with the power of a thousand suns. But it had been too late. The woman was gone, leaving them all broken and confused.
It had been three years since Donna’s death and eighteen months since they’d learned the truth, but they were finally regaining their lives. Regaining themselves.
She shrugged. “My father felt like shit because he’d believed Donna—she was Taylor’s mother. He’d hidden Taylor away from a very good man for all those years because of my stepmother’s lies. But then there was no reason to hide anymore. Dad moved to Maryland to live near Taylor and her bio-dad and took our youngest sister with him. Taylor’s engaged now, to a really nice guy. My sister Julie is getting the support she needs. She has cerebral palsy,” she added, then smiled, remembering the happiness on her sister’s face when they’d Skyped a few days ago. “Jules has a boyfriend now. And my father is even dating. I’m happy for them.”
“But?” Gideon prompted.
“But I wanted to see the world. So I did. I backpacked across Europe. I was supposed to be gone for six m
onths, but around about month four I realized I was being followed. It was Jacob, the ranch hand who’d grown up with us. My father had paid him to keep an eye on me. And report back. Was I behaving myself? Was I drinking at all?” She sighed heavily. “I know Dad wanted me to be safe, but it pissed me the hell off. So I went home and . . .” She hesitated, because this part of the story was not hers to tell. It was painful and personal and it broke her heart every time she thought about it.
Her eyes burned with tears that she refused to shed because she’d already cried too much for one evening. She scooped Brutus from her bag and, ignoring Gideon’s look of perplexed surprise, cuddled her dog under her chin. “My father has his reasons for being obsessive about my safety. But even though I now understand, it’s not okay. So I made him promise never to do that again. I didn’t really think he’d keep that promise, so when I heard the man behind us tonight, I didn’t think twice.”
“What did you do?” Gideon asked softly.
She shot him a sharp glare because he was looking at her with pity. I am not fragile, she wanted to shout, but bit the words back, answering him in as even a tone as she could muster. “I sent Trish ahead to the diner and I hid, waited for him, then confronted him. Pulled his cap off. He was about six feet tall, by the way. I didn’t have to jump up as high to rip the baseball cap off his head as I would for Jacob, who’s six-two.”
“We found the cap at the scene,” Erin said. “It’s in the lab for processing. What did he look like?”
“He had dark eyes and no hair.” Daisy clenched her jaw, powering through the memory before it could pull her under. “I can’t say what his features were because he had a nylon stocking pulled over his head. He was a smoker. I smelled it on his jacket and on his breath. He kept his voice all low and raspy. Like he was trying to whisper loudly. But that wasn’t his normal voice. He wore gloves.” She frowned. “And black wingtips. With stonewashed jeans.” She made a face, sloughing off the mental image of his lower body, all she’d been able to see as he’d dragged her away. “Very bad form.”