She nipped his chin and settled a kiss on his throat. ‘That’s your fault. You could have joined me this morning. I wouldn’t have turned you away. The door was unlocked, but you know that, don’t you? I mean, I know you’d already showered and all, but you came right on in. You were standing right there at the bathroom door staring at me. All you had to do was take off your clothes and join me.’
Garrett felt a sudden chill climb his spine and clench at the nerves low in his belly. ‘Kendra, what are you talking about? I was going to join you, but my editor called, ragging on me about Texas Fire. I never made it upstairs, and if I had, I’d have done a helluva lot more than stand and stare at you.’
She pushed away from him and sat up quickly, pulling her shirt around her as though she was suddenly cold. ‘Garrett, you were standing right there in the door. I saw you. I asked you to come in and join me and you just stood there and stared. Then when you left, I figured you were mad at me.’
‘Kendra –’ He sat up and took her gently by the shoulders. ‘I swear to you, I didn’t come upstairs at all while you were in the shower. Are you sure? Are you absolutely positive there was someone?’
Suddenly, she was shivering. ‘I’m positive. Jesus, of course I’m positive. I mean, the glass was steamed, yes, but when I heard the door open, I turned and I could see … Well, I thought it was you. There was a man. I could see him, Garrett. I swear he was there. He was your height. I didn’t think … How could it have been anyone else? How?’
He pulled her tight against him and fumbled with his BlackBerry, punching in the number for the head of the security team at his house. ‘Gabe, yes, I need you to do something for me. I need you to check the windows upstairs. I think we might have had a break-in.’
Kendra pulled away and began dressing; he heard her more than saw her in nothing but the light of the BlackBerry. While he waited, he struggled to pull his jeans up with one hand while holding the device with the other. ‘You all right?’ he asked her.
‘Fine.’ Her voice was breathy, like she’d been running. ‘Put it on speaker phone, I need to hear.’ Still, in spite of everything, K. Ryde came to the forefront. K. Ryde, he thought, K. Ryde was just one of the many amazing facets of Kendra Davis. She wasn’t a different person, no matter how hard Kendra tried to keep the two separate, and no matter what she chose to call herself, no matter how tough she pretended to be, he knew better. But he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. He wouldn’t! Ever.
At last the security man’s voice came onto the phone. ‘Mr. Thorne, there’s nothing amiss. There’s no evidence of forced entry, and nothing in the house out of place that we can see.’
‘Did you hear anything else, anything that might have seemed out of the ordinary?’ Garrett asked Kendra.
‘No.’ She chafed her arms. ‘Wait, wait, there was a smell. It didn’t smell like you. It smelled, I don’t know, disturbing. But then, before I had a chance to think about it, the man was gone.’
‘What about Ms. Emerson?’ Gabe asked. ‘Could it have been her you saw?’
‘Of course not,’ Kendra said. ‘This was a man and he was wearing jeans. Look, I know what I saw.’
‘Besides,’ Garrett added, ‘Stacie never left my side while you were in the shower, and even if she had, she would have never barged in on you. And while you were planning with Harris, she was in my study pumping me for more details about the situation. That’s where we both were when you called us down. You got ready in the guest room, for the meeting with the press. Did you notice anything strange then?’
‘Honestly, I wasn’t paying any attention, Garrett. I was too busy thinking about talking to the press.’
‘Fuck!’ Garrett ran a hand through his hair and yanked Kendra close to him, ignoring her little gasp of surprise. He returned his attention to the security man. ‘Both of the bedrooms look out onto the back yard. He must have come in from there.’
‘If there had been someone there,’ the man said, ‘we would have noticed. The back is being patrolled as well as the front. I don’t see how anyone could have sneaked past us. But frankly, that guestroom window’s very vulnerable. Easiest thing in the world to shimmy up that trellis.’
‘And you’re just now thinking about that?’ Garrett lost it. ‘Ellis told me you were the best. Tess could have been kidnapped or killed, and you would have never known the difference.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the man managed before Garrett ploughed on.
‘Fat lot of good that does!’ He was just settling into rant mode when Kendra suddenly grabbed his arm in a bruising grip and shushed him.
‘Shut up, both of you! Listen!’ she hissed. ‘Someone’s out there.’
‘Probably just a deer,’ Garrett said. ‘They come up all the –’
Then he heard it, the crack of a twig, the brush of a limb, and what sounded like soft footfalls. Holding his breath, he squinted into the woods, but it was full night and there was no moonlight. Even the ambient light of the house was blocked out by the steep undulation of the hill leading to the field where they sat.
For a second there was silence. They both held their breath, and Gabe, on the speaker phone, must have been holding his too. Kendra slid back on her bottom and fumbled in the backpack that had contained the blankets and snacks. Carefully, as quietly as she could, she pulled out a flashlight, and when the next crackle of undergrowth broke the silence, she flicked it on. The sound that escaped her throat was one of rage mixed with fear. Adrenaline shot up Garrett’s spine and felt like it would explode through the top of his head.
For a split second, in the periphery of the circle of light, there was something running away, and the woods was suddenly alive with the crackle and crunch of the undergrowth as whatever it was made its escape.
‘Fuck! It was a man! Garrett, it was a man, didn’t you see him?’
Garrett catapulted to his feet, shoving Kendra. ‘Stay here. Don’t move, Kendra. Gabe –’ he yelled back at the device ‘– call Ellis, and get someone down here, now!’
He grabbed the flashlight from her and tore into the woods, undergrowth slapping at his calves and thighs, brambles catching his jeans. He could hear both Gabe and Kendra calling after him to stay put, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He had only seen movement, but something was definitely there. Something, and if some bastard was after Kendra, he just couldn’t sit meekly and do nothing. Suddenly, the sound of escape in front of him was mirrored by the sound of pursuit behind him, and he knew Kendra had ignored him. He would have shouted at her to go back, but that would only give whoever was out there more information. That would only make him aware that Kendra was there, ready for the grabbing. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he shoved forward, nearly tripping over exposed roots and uneven ground. A thin branch thwacked him low on the cheek with the force of a whip and he felt warm blood trickle down his jaw. He ignored it and pushed on. He tried hard to concentrate, to hear the sound of Kendra stumbling through the undergrowth behind him and the sound of whoever it was in front growing fainter and then suddenly stopping. The shiver snaked up his spine. He didn’t know if whoever it was had moved out of the woods or if he had stopped, or if he was waiting, waiting for Kendra. He could be anywhere in the pitch black just outside the spastic slash of vision Garrett’s flashlight afforded. And suddenly he couldn’t hear Kendra either. He stopped dead, listening, struggling to breathe quietly while his lungs felt like they’d burst. But he heard nothing ahead of him and nothing behind him. Goddamn it, why couldn’t the woman ever listen? Why couldn’t she stay safe?
It felt like an eternity that he stood there, his lungs bursting from the need of air, his ears straining for the sound of her, for any sound, for any whisper, but there was nothing. At last he crept forward, trying desperately to keep quiet, but twigs crackled and pine straw schussed beneath his feet. It was high summer and the woods were dry. He was desperate to call for her, desperate to know where she was, desperate to know that she was safe.
Su
ddenly, from behind him there was the bounce, bounce of multiple flashlight beams, and the undergrowth came alive with the crackle and pop of branches and twigs. There was a hand on his shoulder, and before he could brain the owner with the flashlight, a competent male voice said, ‘Security, Mr. Thorne. Go back out of the woods. We’ll take care of this now.’
‘Kendra,’ he managed. ‘I need to know where Kendra is.’
‘I haven’t seen her, Mr. Thorne.’
He could tell the security man was making an effort to keep his voice calm and to keep the irritation at Garrett from showing. He didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to find Kendra.
The man gestured toward the opening beyond the trees. ‘She’s probably back in the field, Mr. Thorne, where you need to be too, so we can do our job.’
Ignoring the grab of brambles and the slap of overzealous saplings, needing to see her, needing to make sure she was OK, he hurried back into the open, back to where the blankets were spread onto the grass. She wasn’t there!
‘Kendra! Kendra!’ He swung the flashlight wildly, bathing thin strips of woodland in yellow light, light that danced over skeletal branches and hanging moss, light that caught macabre shadows that slunk over tree trunks and burst from behind rhododendrons. In the woods he could hear the security man fanning out, searching. He could see the flicker of their lights.
This couldn’t be happening. Dear God, this couldn’t be happening! She was the bright spot. She was the center pushing back his own darkness, and he couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t lose her!
‘Kendra!’ He yelled for her until his throat was raw. ‘Kendra, answer me!’ Why the hell didn’t she respond?
Almost before he knew it, Ellis and Dee were on either side of him, both with flashlights. Ellis was carrying a baseball bat.
‘I can’t find her,’ Garrett managed between gasps for breath. ‘Jesus, I can’t find her! She was there one minute next to me. I could hear her and then she was gone.’
He headed back into the woods, ignoring Ellis’s call after him to wait.
He had just reached the point where the world was swallowed completely in darkness other than the swath cut through by his flashlight when he saw her, lying face down on the pine straw, and his heart stopped. And the world stopped. And it was all his fault. He raced toward her, feeling like he was moving through quicksand, feeling like everything had downshifted into slow motion, feeling like everything was conspiring to keep him away from her. He stumbled over an exposed root, practically falling on top of her.
Then he heard her moan, and everything launched back into real time. ‘Kendra! Kendra! Jesus Christ! Kendra, are you all right?’ He slid in next to her on his knees just as she forced herself up into a sitting position and coughed and gasped.
‘I’m all right,’ she assured him. ‘Fell. Winded myself. ‘I’m fine.’ Her last words were swallowed up in a little gasp as Garrett pulled her to him.
‘I told you to stay,’ he whispered. ‘I told you to stay. Damn it, Kendra! Don’t ever, ever do that to me again!’
‘I couldn’t stay,’ she managed between his rain of kisses. ‘Not when you were out here alone.’ She touched his cheek. ‘Garrett, you’re bleeding! What happened?’
‘Just a branch,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing.’ He pulled her still tighter to him, forcing another breathless grunt. ‘Jesus, woman, what am I going to do with you? What am I going to do with you?’
‘I don’t know.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck as he eased her up onto her feet. ‘What you did back there on the blanket a few minutes ago, that seemed to work pretty well.’
They barely cleared the woods before Dee broke into a run and grabbed Kendra in a fierce hug. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered against her friend’s neck. ‘I’m so sorry. We thought you’d be safe here. I swear we both did.’
Kendra pulled away and ran a hand through Dee’s sleep-mussed hair. ‘I am safe,’ she replied with a smile that was way more confident than anything Garrett could have expected under the circumstances. ‘Don’t worry, Dee, I promise, I’m fine.’
Dee pulled her back into a rib-crunching bear hug with a laugh that was more of a sob. ‘God, I was so scared.’
‘There was someone out there,’ Kendra said, as Garrett came forward and pulled her back to him, not yet ready to let her go, lest she vanish again. ‘There was.’ She nodded fiercely. ‘You saw him didn’t you, Garrett?’
‘I saw something,’ he said, wishing like hell he’d got a better view.
Just then Ellis joined them with the head of his security team. He gave Kendra a tight hug and surprised Garrett by giving him one too. Then he rummaged in his pocket and handed Garrett a handkerchief for his bloodied face.
‘It’s possible,’ the security man was saying. ‘There could have been someone out there.’
‘There was,’ both Garrett and Kendra said in unison.
The man nodded politely. ‘There’s just no real way of knowing until we get some daylight and can go back and do a better search. If he was there, he’s long gone by now. We’ll go out at first light, before the rain sets in, and if he left so much as a hair on a branch we’ll find it,’ he said.
‘You make sure you do,’ Ellis said. ‘This is my home, damn it. It’s safe, off limits to the world. I hire you to keep it that way. Now take care of it.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
He shoved his way into the Ford Focus, not bothering to take off his wet boots. They were only a minor discomfort, barely registering in the scheme of things. The forced march down the hill had cooled his rage and left him exhilarated, feeling justified, purified, and almost untouched by the whoring he had just witnessed. He had reminded himself all the way down that he had known what he’d find, that he had known what the two of them would be up to there on the ground behind Ellison Thorne’s mansion, and it wasn’t star-watching.
Oh, he’d seen the whole thing, from their arrival with blankets and goodies, to their little argument, to the first thrusts and moans of their passion. He had forced himself to watch. And with the night vision goggles, he could see every detail. He had forced himself to watch and he had forced himself to hold his lust, to sublimate it, to save it back for her. It wasn’t time yet. It was an exercise in patience, in waiting, in pushing his feelings back far enough that he could do what he had to do and not let emotions interfere. It was also his way of reminding them that he could get to them anywhere they went, even on the private property of Garrett’s powerful brother. It was a reminder of how helpless they were and how completely in control he was.
He started the car and headed back toward Portland. His work here was done. The time was getting closer, but he wasn’t quite ready yet. As he drove the car down the winding road, he replayed the view of the two of them stumbling blindly through the woods, unaware of the fact that he could see everything. Everything. It delighted him that he had been so close behind her when she fell. She sensed him there and had just looked over her shoulder when she tripped. He saw it all happening, saw the root she caught her foot in, saw her lurch forward just as he had reached out to touch her.
A bold move on his part, and he would have done it, could have done it, just brushed her shoulder, maybe her cheek; just let her hear him breathe before he vanished into the dark. She would have been terrified, and totally blind to the danger she was in. The thought made him hard, and he absently laid his hand against the fly of his jeans where his erection stirred. The whole incident had aroused him so, even as the sight of Thorne fucking his Tess had enraged him. But this time he held his control. This time he didn’t falter. His time would come. She would pay, and pay dearly.
When she had fallen and winded herself, he decided on discretion. There was so little challenge in frightening her when she couldn’t run, when she was helpless. There was no sport in that, and besides, he had gotten what came for. He’d proven his point. She was his for the taking. And when the time was right, he would take her. And no one could stop him.
He pulled his hand away from the absent stroke, stroke, stroke of his hard-on and took deep, even breaths. He was in control. Complete control, and even his lust he could hold until the time was right.
When he was calm again, and his arousal had settled to the soft buzz of satisfaction from a task well done, he stopped at an all-night grocer as he entered Gresham. He bought eggs, milk, and a couple of steaks. He was pretty sure there was a skillet in the apartment. He was starving, and the steaks would be a treat, a way of celebrating how close he was, a way of savoring the night’s encounter.
Kendra found Garrett in the bathroom leaning over the sink. At first she thought he was being sick until she saw the blood. It was all over his shirt and drying on his face. He was gingerly examining the cut along one cheekbone. She’d cleaned herself and changed into her yoga pants and a T-shirt Dee had let her borrow.
‘You all right?’ she asked. A stupid question, but it made him aware of her presence, and they were all a little jumpy after what had happened tonight. She hadn’t wanted to sneak up on him.
‘Jesus, Kendra, don’t you ever knock?’ The irritation in his voice surprised her.
‘The door was open, and here you are bleeding over the sink.’
‘The door was open because I thought I was alone, and I’m not bleeding any more. Not much.’
‘Sit down.’ She nodded to the edge of the bathtub.
‘I don’t want to sit down,’ he protested. ‘I want you to leave me alone.’ He jerked his arm away from her and she felt his words like she’d been slapped, but she squared her shoulders and nodded to the side of the tub again.
Identity Crisis Page 24