by Paula Graves
He went utterly still, as if he’d turned to stone. She could almost feel the warmth seeping from him.
“I don’t get to be happy.” He let her go suddenly and rolled over to sit up on the edge of the bed, his back to her. “I can’t make you happy.”
She lay still a moment, her body thrumming with arousal, trying to get her sluggish brain to catch up with the sudden, unwelcome turn of events. Pushing to her knees, she crawled across the bed to where he still sat and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “You didn’t kill Brenda. You’d have done everything you could to protect her if you’d known—”
“I didn’t do everything. You know that.” He pushed to his feet. “I need to take a shower. We’re looking for Tyler Landon with Tony today, remember?”
Just like that? He was going to walk out of her bedroom and back to the way things were without another word?
“Gabe, we should talk—”
He stopped in the doorway to look at her. “No, we shouldn’t. We’re running out of time to keep you safe. No more distractions. Tony said we should get started early, in case Landon’s trying to get out of town—”
“Wait—I can’t go today,” she remembered. “I have inventory at the lab.” With all the recent distractions, she’d forgotten all about it.
“On a Saturday?”
“It’s the only day we have the lab to ourselves.” She tried to ignore the flames still flickering low in her belly. Gabe clearly wasn’t ready to let go of his control. She wasn’t going to seduce him into doing something they’d both regret.
At least, not yet. Many more nights alone with Gabe Cooper and she might be capable of anything.
“I don’t like this—you’ll be alone—”
“There are Saturday courses in the building, just not in the lab. Marlon will be doing inventory with me, and there’s usually a cleaning crew working on Saturdays. It’s not like working alone at a convenience store late at night.”
“I could stay with you. Tony can handle looking for Tyler alone,” Gabe suggested.
She found the suggestion tempting, but there’d be no way she could get much done with Gabe hovering around, a constant distraction. Or temptation. Whichever.
“Go with Tony. I wouldn’t wish inventory on my worst enemy. It’s mind-numbing. We don’t know how much more time we have before the killer strikes again.” She didn’t add the obvious—that she didn’t know how much more time she had before her stalker made good on his implied threat. “You should be doing something constructive.”
He looked ready to argue but finally nodded. “I’ll take a quick shower, then I’ll fix breakfast for us. My turn to prove I know my way around a kitchen.” He flashed her a quick smile and then he was gone, heading down the hall to the bathroom.
Alicia sank to the bed, pushing her hair away from her hot face with trembling hands. She was losing all sense of perspective where Gabe Cooper was concerned. It was way past mere attraction and heading somewhere dangerous.
And exciting.
I don’t get to be happy. Gabe’s bleak words rang in her head, dampening her mood. Had he been punishing himself this way all these years? How many relationships had died on the razor’s edge of his guilt?
She had to find the man who killed Brenda Cooper. Not just for her own sake but for Gabe’s as well. He was in just as much danger as she was, though the peril to him was emotional—spiritual, even—rather than physical.
He deserved a life. He deserved to be happy. And if solving Brenda’s murder was what it took, then Alicia had no choice but to make it happen.
“IT JUST WON’T GO.” Alicia looked up from the passenger seat of her Ford Focus, frustration lining her forehead. “And it’s after ten. I’m going to be late meeting Marlon.”
“He’ll wait.” Gabe looked around to make sure they weren’t blocking traffic. Midmorning on Saturday, traffic was light as the college town slept off an end-of-term Friday night. As soon as the little car had started sputtering, Alicia had pulled over, not far from the Cedars Café, and flagged Gabe down.
“No, he won’t. Marlon hates doing inventory and, if I don’t show, he’ll bug out on me. I’ll be stuck doing inventory all by myself until after midnight. It’s happened before.” She slammed the heel of her hand against the steering wheel and made a growling noise low in her throat. “Damn it.”
“I could take a look at the engine.”
“And do what? Magically conjure up a new alternator or whatever it needs?”
Gabe knew her irritation wasn’t limited to her uncooperative car. He’d hurt her with his rejection that morning. Even though she understood the demons that drove him, she was angry that he wouldn’t set aside the complications of his past and just enjoy the here and now with her.
If only he could.
“I’m sorry.” She subsided against the car seat, dropping her hands into her lap and looking up at him with remorse. “I shouldn’t snap at you. It’s not your fault.”
“Look, grab your stuff and I’ll take you to the university. You can crack the whip over Marlon and then I’ll come back and take a look at the car. Is there a particular garage you go to, if I need to have it towed?”
“Donnelly’s Garage on Beaker Street. Here, I have the card in the glove box.” She dug in the glove compartment until she emerged with a dog-eared business card. She handed it to Gabe as she got out of her car and locked the doors behind her. She removed her car keys from her key chain and handed them to Gabe, then got into the cab of his truck. “Thanks for doing this. I’m sorry I was such a pain earlier.”
Gabe felt a stab of guilt. “You weren’t. And I’m sorry, about earlier, too. I’m sorry I can’t—”
“It’s okay. I really do understand.” She shot him a wry smile. “Can’t say I’m happy about it, but I understand.”
At the university, he pulled up by the front door of Atchison Hall and put the truck in park. “You’ve got your cell phone with you, right?”
She pulled it from the side pocket of her purse and waggled it at him. “All charged up.”
“I’ll probably be running around with Tony all day, hunting down Tyler Landon and a few other possibles on the list.” Before Alicia had run out of steam the night before, she’d helped Gabe compile a list of several males connected to the Behavioral Sciences program who might fit their general description of the stalker—young, physically fit, between the ages of twenty and thirty.
Gabe and Tony would spend the day tracking them down and attempting to assess whether or not they seemed worth a more formal investigation.
Alicia got out of the truck and turned to look at him through the open door of the cab. “I’ll call you when we’re through, but it could be late. Maybe even into the evening.”
“Call me whenever. I’ll be here.”
Her eyes narrowed. “For now.”
“Now’s all I’ve got,” he answered gruffly, hating himself.
“So, that’s it, then? You spend a few more days here until, what? We catch the killers? What if we don’t? What if they do what they’ve done before, decide it’s time to move on? You just pack your bags and you’re gone, just like that?”
“I’ve never lied, Alicia. I’ve never said anything different.” With horror, he saw tears forming in her dark eyes.
She batted the moisture away, her movement jerky with anger. “Okay, then.” Her chin came up, the gesture now so familiar to him that he knew exactly what her voice would sound like when she spoke again. Steel on steel.
He was right.
“I’ll call when we’re done.” She turned and ascended the steps to the door of the building, her steps quick and sure.
He watched her all the way inside the building, until the door closed behind her, a tugging sensation behind his breastbone, as if they were attached to each other.
Maybe it had been the high stakes tension of their situation, the constant togetherness foisted upon them by the circumstances, but whatever had created the fe
rtile ground for their growing attachment, Gabe could no longer pretend it didn’t exist. It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t fleeting attraction or mere admiration. In a lot of ways, he felt as if they knew more about each other than anyone else in the world. Bone deep.
But there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. He didn’t trust himself enough to throw out all caution and take a chance on getting things right with Alicia long-term. He didn’t know how anymore. He’d spent his whole damned life in the “right now,” once by choice, then later by necessity.
Forever was just a nebulous concept singers sang about and preachers preached about, but it had no meaning to him. For Gabe, nothing was forever.
Nothing but the pain he’d caused.
He went back to Alicia’s car, hoping he’d beat the police there. It wouldn’t take long in a town this size for a policeman to come by, see it sitting there abandoned with its blinkers on and see the opportunity for a little parking violation revenue.
The car was still where he’d left it, free of tickets and untouched. He used the keys Alicia had left with him to open the car and unlatch the hood, where he quickly found the problem. The car’s serpentine belt had snapped and started shutting down engine functions.
It should be an easy enough repair, assuming there were no other underlying problems. He could fix it himself with time, tools and a new belt, but he had none of the above. He was supposed to meet Tony at ten-thirty.
He pulled out his cell phone and called the number Alicia had given him for the garage. The man who answered said he’d have a wrecker service there in minutes.
He hadn’t lied; the wrecker arrived within eight minutes. Within ten more minutes, the little Ford was hooked up and on its way to the garage. Gabe had already given the man on the phone his cell phone number if there were any questions, so he headed straight to Tony’s place after the wrecker drove away.
Tony met him outside. “Let’s take the Jeep. I know my way around town better than you do.”
Gabe suspected Tony also wanted to be the one doing the driving just on principle. He let him have the win. After all, Gabe was the one who’d awakened next to the girl that morning.
His brief moment of secret triumph faded as he remembered the look on Alicia’s face when she’d walked into Atchison Hall. He certainly wouldn’t be waking up in her bed tomorrow. He’d be lucky if she treated him with anything more than the barest courtesy.
He wasn’t sure he deserved even that.
Tony asked about Alicia, dragging Gabe out of his morass of self-pity. Gabe told him about the broken serpentine belt.
“Wow, that’s a strange coincidence,” Tony commented. “Isn’t that what happened to your brother last month when Victor Logan took him and his wife captive?”
“You mean their car breaking down?”
“I mean the serpentine belt breaking,” Tony said. “Or, actually, being cut. At least, that’s what the police report said—I requested it for Alicia a couple of weeks ago.”
Gabe realized he hadn’t learned the details from Jake after they escaped that mess last month. He knew the car had been tampered with, but Jake had never told him specifically how. Gabe had been so glad to have his brother back safe and sound after the ordeal that he hadn’t asked a lot of questions about how Victor had taken them captive in the first place. “That is weird,” he admitted.
“Still, probably just a coincidence. Those belts wear out all the time—I had to replace one just last year.” Tony brought the Jeep to a stop in front of a small four unit apartment complex nestled between a dry cleaning store on the corner and a row of modest but well-maintained residences on the other side. He cut the engine.
“Where are we?” Gabe asked.
“Apartment B is currently rented by a guy named Craig Sandifer. Landon’s roommate says he crashes here sometimes, usually after he’s tied one on and doesn’t want the dorm manager to give him flak for dragging in wasted.” Tony got out of the Jeep and joined Gabe at the curb. “I figure striking out with Alicia might have put our boy in the mood to drink.”
Gabe followed Tony up the sidewalk to Apartment B. Tony pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to Gabe. It was a black-and-white photocopy of Tyler Landon’s Alabama driver’s license. “I figure if he’s been tossing back the Jack, he probably looks about like that right now.”
Tony was right. The bleary-eyed man who answered the door looked remarkably like his driver’s license photo, right down to the bloodshot eyes. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Tony checked his watch. “Almost eleven. You Tyler Landon?”
Landon’s look of irritation shifted quickly to apprehension. “Who’s asking?”
“My name is Tony Evans. This is Gabe Cooper. We’re friends of one of your college instructors, Alicia Solano.”
Apprehension remained, tinged with a liberal dose of guilt. “Aw, man, did she send y’all to beat me up or something?”
Gabe glanced at Tony, wondering if they could get away with roughing the smart-mouthed kid up a little.
“No, she has no idea we’re here,” Tony answered.
“Look, if this is about trying to make time with her, where’s the crime?” Landon shot Tony a sly look. “Come on, you telling me you never wanted to hit that?”
Gabe squelched the urge to plant his fist in the kid’s smug face. “See, Tyler, that’s the problem here. I don’t like the way you’re talking about Alicia. And I’m curious what makes you think that’s okay.”
Landon looked at Gabe as if he’d just now noticed that Tony wasn’t alone. His eyes widened a little, making Gabe wonder if he looked as ferocious as he felt at the moment.
“How long have you been interested in Alicia Solano?” Tony edged between Gabe and Landon.
“Interested in?” Landon’s eyes narrowed. “Look, if I’d have known this was going to be such a big deal, I’d have looked elsewhere. There are hot girls all over this town. They’re just a little young, you know? Inexperienced. And he said she liked younger guys.”
Gabe stepped closer. “He? Who’s he?”
Landon squinted as if the midmorning sun was playing havoc with his brain. “That guy at the school. Hell, I don’t know his name. I don’t have any classes with him, but he works in the lab with Alicia—Ms. Solano,” he corrected quickly as Gabe shifted forward before he could catch himself.
“Marlon Dyson?” Gabe asked, his gut roiling. “About your height, maybe ten pounds heavier, dark blond hair and green eyes? Mid-to late-twenties?”
“Yeah, sounds right.” Landon looked suspicious. “Why? You think he was punking me?”
“I’d say so,” Tony answered in a wry tone.
Tony asked a few more questions of Landon, but Gabe’s mind was already moving in a different direction. Why would Dyson tell this idiot that Alicia might be open to his advances? Was it a joke gone wrong? It made no sense.
All Gabe knew was that he was suddenly very uneasy about Alicia doing inventory alone with her lab partner this morning.
Tyler Landon ended up providing Tony an alibi for the day Alicia received the cryptic note as well as the night Gabe spotted a lurker outside her apartment.
“I’m going to run to the station and see if I can coax one of my detective buddies to give me the go-ahead to look into these alibis on an official basis,” Tony said. “You want to come?”
“No, I’d rather go back to the university. I don’t like the fact that Marlon Dyson is the one who egged Landon on about hitting on Alicia.”
“Sounds more like a bad prank than something serious,” Tony said. “And Landon could be lying. Besides, didn’t you tell me Alicia said she’d seen pictures proving Marlon couldn’t be the guy you’re looking for?”
“Yeah,” Gabe admitted. “But I’m still going to the university.”
Because pictures could be manipulated. And they were already crawling pretty far out on a speculative limb with this investigation as it was. They assumed th
e guy who’d killed Victor in Mississippi was the new beta killer in the serial killer pair they were hunting, but that was little more than a guess. For all they knew, Victor may have pissed off the wrong people while he was in jail, and the guy who blew up his house could have been a hired gun.
Marlon could still be one of the killers.
He tried to reach Alicia on her cell phone. It went straight to voice mail, so he left a message. “It’s Gabe. I’m coming there. Don’t go anywhere with anyone.”
Tony slanted a look at him. “That’ll make her feel completely at ease.”
“I’m not sure I want her feeling at ease.”
Tony dropped Gabe off at his truck. As Gabe slid behind the wheel, his cell phone rang. He grabbed it quickly, thinking it might be Alicia returning his call. But it was the garage.
“Mr. Cooper, this is Abe at the garage. You were right about the serpentine belt, and we can fix that up for you no problem. But I thought you might want to know that the belt didn’t just wear down.”
“What do you mean?” Gabe asked, suddenly dreading the mechanic’s answer.
“It’s been cut,” Abe said.
“ALICIA, ARE YOU COMING OR not?” Marlon’s voice was edged with impatience.
“I’ve got a message from Gabe—hold on.” Alicia hit the key to play the message, leaving it on speaker. Even through the filter of the cell phone, Gabe’s voice sounded urgent. “It’s Gabe. I’m coming there. Don’t go anywhere with anyone.”
She stared at the phone for a moment, waiting for the message to continue. Surely he wouldn’t leave her a cryptic voice mail like that without further explanation. But the message ended.
Don’t go anywhere with anyone? What on earth had happened to put Gabe on edge? She turned to Marlon, as if her lab partner could answer her question.
As it turned out, he could. Just not the way she expected.
“I’m afraid this is moving faster than I planned,” Marlon said, not sounding apologetic at all as he blocked the lab door. He sounded smug, and if Alicia’s gaze could move as high as his face, she’d probably see a faint smile curving his lips.