by Hinze, Vicki
“Okay.”
She stopped near the black Porsche and waited.
Parker looked over at her. “I’ll meet you here at six in the morning.”
“Six? That’s awfully early.” She had been hoping for a little time to work on her own. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. People sleep in,” she said, trying to dissuade him. “It’s after midnight now.”
“What did you find?”
She might have trouble reading him, but Parker certainly had her number. His look said he half expected her to lie. But she wouldn’t. Even if he was lying about why he was getting involved, he meant her no harm. His having aided her in getting out of Decker’s house proved that. She could trust him...a little. “The girl’s bike, and a phone number. I don’t know if the number is important, but the girl’s name was engraved on the bike.”
“What is it?”
“Misty,” Caron said around a lump in her throat. The fear and betrayal she’d sensed so strongly on touching the bike flooded her again now. “Her name is Misty.”
Parker’s eyes softened. He pulled his wallet out of his jacket and passed Caron a business card. “Call me when you’re ready to get started in the morning.”
“I thought we were to meet here at six.”
“I’ve reconsidered.” His gaze flickered over her face, then lingered on her mouth. “You need some rest. You look like hell.”
“You’re such a charmer, Parker Simms.” If her looks mirrored her feelings, she did look like hell. Her mind had been reeling for days, and there was no relief in sight.
“Charm comes with the tall-dark-and-handsome package. But to tell you the truth, it causes more problems than it’s worth.”
That remark redeemed him a bit. He accepted his assets and knew that alone they fell short of making a patch on a good man. It was what was inside that really counted.
“Parker.” She stared at the speedometer. “Misty doesn’t have a lot of time.” Caron glanced up to see how Parker took her remark.
His lips pinched together, and he dropped his lids to half-mast, hiding his thoughts. “She’s sick,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft. “You’ve told me.”
Caron couldn’t talk; Parker still didn’t believe her. Oh, why did it matter? But it didn’t just matter, it hurt. Weary from their battles, she sighed. “See you tomorrow.”
He started to reach for her hand, then drew back. He wanted to say something, she could see that he did by the way he twisted his mouth, but he decided against it, nodded briskly and backed away from the car.
So he was shutting her out again. Before she could talk herself out of it, she got out of the car and slammed the door. Breasts to chest, she glared up at him. “I’ve had it, Parker. Damn it, why won’t you believe me?”
“Because I can’t. Because—” He clamped his jaw shut.
“Go on, spit it out. Let’s get whatever’s bothering you out in the open. Then, just maybe we can clear the air.”
“We can’t.” Regret laced his voice. “I don’t want to talk about it, Caron.”
“Well, I do want to talk about it.” She clenched her hands into fists and squeezed. “You pour on the charm and wheedle secrets out of everyone, but, by heaven, you won’t share your own. That’s not fair, Parker.” Angry tears stung her eyes. Furious tears, because Parker wasn’t any different from the others. “What are you so afraid of?”
“Leave it alone,” he said sharply. “You don’t know what you’re asking from me.”
“Then tell me. I’m not stupid. I know you hate me. What I don’t know is why.”
He spun away and strode to his car.
“No.” She ran after him and grabbed his sleeve. “No, not this time, Parker Simms. You’re not walking away from me without telling me what this is all about.”
He stood stock-still. The muscles in his arm were as rigid as steel.
She leaned her forehead against his arm. “Please, Parker. Talk to me.”
He blinked, then looked down at her. “You’re crying.”
He sounded surprised that she could cry. “I’m not crying.” A sniffle joined the tears, proving her a liar.
Gently, he brushed at her wet cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Okay, you’re not.”
She raised her face to his hand. “Talk to me.”
A frown formed between his brows. “It’s best if I don’t.” A sadness that touched her came into his voice. “It’s best to keep this inside me.”
Her voice was an explosion of sound in the silent night. “What have I done to you? Can you at least tell me that?”
His hands trembling, he gripped her arms and glared down at her. Anguish warred with rage and flooded his face. “You’ve made me give a damn about you. That’s what you’ve done, Caron. That’s what you’ve done.”
She expelled a puff of breath, and the fury drained right out of her. Parker was hurting; she could feel it so clearly, so deeply. She softened her voice. “Is giving a damn about me that bad?”
“Yes.” The word seemed to have been ripped from his throat. He let go of her so fast that she nearly stumbled.
When she looked up at him, his face was a bleak mask of desperation. “Go home, Caron. Please...just go home.”
Frightened by the intensity of his emotions, frightened of not getting help she might need to save Misty, Caron rushed back to her car. Without risking another look at him, she punched down on the accelerator and tore down the street.
By the time Caron crossed the Greater New Orleans Bridge, she’d stopped trembling. But by the time she reached her apartment, she was shaking all over again. Not in fear now, but in anger. She was furious with Parker, but even more so with herself. What good was a partner who didn’t believe her? One who wouldn’t talk to her? She didn’t have time to nurse him along, to probe the depths of his soul to find out what she’d done that had made him so bitter. Her energy had to be focused on Misty.
Inside the apartment building, a bleak yellow light spilled down the dingy stairwell. Caron grabbed the scarred banister and grimaced at all the graffiti on the steps. There were nearly more markings than wood. In a blue funk, she climbed up to her second-floor apartment. Just once, why couldn’t a man she cared about have a little faith in her?
It still didn’t sit well that Sandy had no report. In every case she’d imaged, he’d always had one. Self-doubt crept in. Maybe Parker was right. Maybe this wasn’t real.
Caron fought back. She was not losing her mind. Misty had been abducted. She was sick.
“Nothing like fighting for a child’s life with one hand tied behind your back,” Caron muttered, dumping her shoes just outside the door to her apartment. Muddy from Ina’s iris bed, they hit the bare boards with a dull thunk and splattered gooey mud. The shoes were ruined. She didn’t care to think about what the mud had done to the carpeting in her car.
A creepy feeling seeped through her. She looked both ways down the empty hall. At the far end, near the stairs, a single bulb flickered. It always had, and that flickering always had made her jumpy.
Telling herself to get a grip, she leaned back against the doorframe and dug through her purse for her keys. If it took more than another five seconds to find them, get dry and get to bed, she’d have to paste her eyelids open and tie knots in her knees to stay upright.
As she fished for her keys, her arm banged against the door. It inched open on creaky hinges.
She gave it a blank stare. She’d locked that door; she knew she had. Her heart in her throat, she looked inside from the dim hallway. Dark. Cool. Nothing stirring.
Tense as strung wire, she flipped on the light and took a tentative step inside. Certainty suffused her, and she resisted the urge to shrink back. Someone had been there.
From what she could see, nothing was missing. The stereo, television—even the VCR—were all in place. Nothing had been stolen, but someone had been in her apartment.
Her heart hammering in her temples, she walked through the living room, darting her gaz
e everywhere, then went into the kitchen.
Nothing amiss. Coffeepot still plugged in, its red light glowing. Her cup, still half-full of coffee, sat where she’d left it on the chipped porcelain table. The box of food she’d brought back with her from Midtown was still on the counter, beside the phone. Her palms slick with sweat, she silently eased a butcher knife from the wooden block near the stove, and turned.
The refrigerator’s condenser kicked on. Caron jumped. Recognizing the whirring noise, she took a calming breath and warned herself to settle down.
When she’d regained a little composure, she checked the pantry and the hall closet, then moved on to the bathroom. At every corner, every door, she expected someone to spring out at her. But no one did. She found nothing unusual, yet the sense of invasion, of violation, grew stronger and stronger.
A bit more confident, she walked into the bedroom. Her floral bedspread was wrinkled, but she’d probably done that earlier, sitting on the edge to put on her shoes. Her bra and jeans lay where she’d flung them on the stuffed chair near the window. She dropped to her knees and checked under the bed, then the closet. Systematically she moved on until she’d searched every crevice in the apartment.
She found nothing. But her door had been unlocked, and someone had been here. The question was who? And why?
She put the knife down on the kitchen table and went back through the living room to close and lock the door.
The little hairs on her neck lifted. Her muddy shoes weren’t where she’d left them. One was close by, and the other one had been kicked halfway down the hall.
And then she knew, as certainly as if she’d seen it happen. The someone who had been in her apartment had still been there when she’d arrived home. And, just as she had done with Decker, the intruder had slipped past her and fled.
She slammed the door shut and slid the lock, ramming the bolt home. Slumping against the door, she dragged in air, forcing it down to her lungs. Something wet her cheek. It smelled...hauntingly familiar.
Queasy with dread, she dragged her fingertips across her cheek, then looked at the bright red streaks on the pads of her fingers. Blood.
Whimpering, she backed away...and stared in horror at the words smeared on her door, you next.
Parker crawled into bed and let out a sigh. It had been a long day, but a productive one. After a year of intense effort, he was finally closing in on Caron Chalmers.
He honestly didn’t know what to make of the woman. That made deceiving her tough on his conscience. He raked a hand through his hair and stared at the ornate ceiling in his bedroom. If he hadn’t known what she’d done, if he hadn’t known Harlan’s death was her fault, Parker wouldn’t have believed her capable. She seemed so sincere. But he did know. So why was he suffering these conflicting emotions about the woman?
She was attractive. Slim. Pale. Delicate. But he’d met lots of attractive women, and none of them had tied his stomach into knots. Her courage, maybe? Con artist or no, she had more than her share of guts. Like sex, fear had a distinct scent, and when she’d gone into Decker’s, Caron had smelled of fear. But she had gone in. Alone. Willing to confront whatever awaited her.
Parker couldn’t help but admire her for that, even if the incident had given him a few gray hairs. It’d been a tense few minutes there, trying to get her out before Decker realized she was in the house.
When she’d gotten back into the car, Parker had been even more tense—and suspicious. Could she and Decker be working together? Only a fool wouldn’t have considered the possibility. But one look at her and those suspicions had died a natural death. Soaked to the skin, she’d looked so shaken, so incredibly vulnerable.
It was her eyes. They were intriguing, riveting, lavender, almost translucent when he’d kissed her. But only until she’d regained her senses. Then the shadows had come back. Pain hid in those shadows. Gut-wrenching, soul-shattering pain. What—who—had put it there?
Questions. Always questions about her. But few answers.
Restless, Parker flipped onto his side, yanked up the comforter and concentrated on the aquarium’s droning hum. Usually the sound soothed him. Tonight it agitated.
It was Caron. The idea of busting her had been easier from a distance, when he hadn’t yet seen those shadows in her eyes. Maybe that was her attraction. Maybe it wasn’t. The shadows confused him. Cold and calculating con artists like Caron Chalmers didn’t get hurt. Yet that was what those shadows made him feel. That she’d been hurt and she hadn’t recovered. Not that she seemed fragile so much as brittle and ready to snap.
“You’re getting soft in the head, Simms,” he muttered, scrunching up his pillow. “Get some sleep.” He forced his eyes closed. Tomorrow would be here soon enough, and Chalmers was quick; he had to be quicker.
She’d been ticked about how he’d kept Meriam Meyer busy, and about him not showing a lick of compassion at her near miss with Decker. Parker had had no choice but to play hardball then, though. Caron had looked a beat away from panic, and he had been a beat away from smothering her with relieved kisses. His stomach muscles clenched. After meeting Decker, Parker agreed she’d been right. Kidnapping or no, if Decker had caught her in his house, he would have killed her.
That thought had Parker nearly climbing the walls. He wished he didn’t care about her as a woman. Something in her pulled hard at him. Hard, and at gut level. She was attracted to him, too, which was the only thing that made his being attracted to her easier to take. Still, she didn’t know him; he hadn’t done anything to her. But he did know her, and she’d cost him probably the best friend any man ever had in his life.
That made Parker feel guilty as hell for being attracted to her. Oh, after they’d kissed he’d told her he hadn’t been. But he’d lied. He had been attracted. So attracted that if Mr. Mud Boots hadn’t nearly knocked the window out of the car rapping on the glass, Parker and Caron would have ended up in the back seat, doing something that would have haunted him as long as he lived.
As aroused now as he’d been when it was happening— and feeling even guiltier—Parker tossed on silk sheets that suddenly felt rough. How could he want her, knowing who she was and what she’d done? What kind of man was he?
It was her, not him. He’d outgrown back-seat tussles years ago. At least he’d thought he had, until tonight.
Parker groaned and again stared at the ceiling. With her sweet curves and sinewy moves, Caron Chalmers was hard on his body. But the woman inside was even harder on his soul. She’d cried for him. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. Because he’d shut her out and not explained his animosity toward her, she’d cried tears that he’d touched. And he’d been so tempted to open up.
The phone rang.
He considered not answering it, but some sixth sense warned him that he’d better. He reached over to the night-stand and lifted the receiver. “Yeah.”
“Parker.”
Her voice was high-pitched and cracked, but he recognized it at once. He sat straight up in bed. “What’s wrong, Caron?”
“Someone’s been in my apartment. They—they left me a message.”
He tossed back the covers and jumped out of bed. “Are you sure they’re gone?” Hiking his shoulder, he jammed the receiver between the crook and his chin and jerked on his jeans.
“Yes. I—I tried to call Sandy. But he wasn’t—”
“Give me your address.” He knew it, but right now he just couldn’t think.
She reeled it off. He repeated it back to her to make sure he’d gotten it right. “Give me ten minutes.”
“I’ll wait outside. I—I don’t want to be alone here.”
“No.” She was reacting on emotion, not with logic. “He might still be around.”
“It could’ve been a woman.”
Parker grimaced and stuffed his wallet into his pants. “Then she might still be around.” He pulled on his jacket. “Sit tight. Can you do that?” Where was his shirt? He’d forgotten his stupid shirt. “Just si
t tight.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you’d hurry, okay?”
Her voice sounded so tiny, so faint. She was afraid. Hanging up the phone was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. Breaking the connection, the link reassuring him that she was safe, was all but impossible. Why she dredged such strong emotions from him, he didn’t know. Nor did he want to know. He just wanted to get to her. If he found a message—and no evidence that she’d planted it herself—then there was a case. Not necessarily a child abduction, but a case. Anyone could be after her. How many cases had she “helped” Sandy solve?
Because he should know the answer to that and he didn’t, Parker moved twice as fast. If anyone touched that woman, there’d be hell to pay. She was his, and if anyone was going to bring her down, it was going to be him.
Caron heard the knock. She couldn’t make herself touch that door. She wanted to, knew she needed to, but, staring at the dried blood, she couldn’t make herself do it. “Come in.”
Parker shoved open the door. “Come in? Good grief, Caron, I could be Jack the Ripper and you just invite me in?”
She stood motionless, her arms curled over her chest, staring blankly at the door. In her peripheral vision, she saw Parker. Where was his shirt?
He turned and looked at the message, then stepped close to her. “I thought you meant a note.”
Tears burning the backs of her eyes, she blinked hard and looked up at him.
His voice softened. “What’s that on your face?”
It was blood. From where she’d leaned against the door. Suddenly, she spun and fled to the bathroom. At the sink, she twisted on the tap and snatched up the soap, her hands shaking so hard she could barely keep hold of the bar. With harsh, grating swipes, she scrubbed her face till her skin burned, then kept on scrubbing. She wouldn’t look up, couldn’t look into the mirror until she felt clean again.
“Caron.” Parker stepped in and touched her shoulder.
“No!” She jerked away and kept scrubbing. “I have to get it off!”
“Caron!” he shouted. “Look at me!”