To Trust a Stranger

by Karen Robards

  “Hi, Josephine.” Julie squatted to pet her. Josephine waxed ecstatic, wagging her tail so hard her whole body shook, licking Julie’s chin and her hand and in every doggy way possible giving Julie to understand that she was delighted to see her.

  “What did you do?” Julie glanced up at Mac accusingly. He had straightened away from the car, she saw as her gaze traveled up the lean, hard length of him with appreciation, and was at that moment in the act of removing his sunglasses.

  “What? Oh, you mean the collar? I got her a new one. The pink was doing bad things to my self-esteem.”

  “She looks like dominatrix poodle.” Julie gurgled with laughter as she stood up.

  “She does not.” Tucking the Oakleys away in his shirt pocket, he looked at Josephine, who was balanced on her haunches in front of Julie with her front paws waving in the air in an obvious bid for more attention. “Damn, she does.”

  “Yes, I know. He has no taste,” Julie said to Josephine in a commiserating tone as she picked the poodle up. “You can tell from his shirts. But don’t worry, I’ll talk to him about getting your collar back, I promise.”

  “You got a problem with my shirts?” Mac sounded affronted. He was also grinning.

  “Not at all. Except that a person needs sunglasses to look at them.”

  “They make me look like a tourist. I’m trying to blend in.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to break the news, but I don’t think it’s working.”

  Julie was smiling as she glanced up from petting Josephine. Her eyes met Mac’s and held. The memory of the last time they were together quivered in the air between them, as intangible but indisputably there as the heat, and Julie felt her body quicken in instinctive response. Then, from the security of Julie’s arms, Josephine wriggled and whined, drawing Julie’s attention away from Mac to her doggy self, as was, no doubt, her intent. Which was probably a good thing, Julie thought as, acting as Josephine’s surrogate, she unfastened the offending collar and handed it, leash still attached, to Mac with an audible sniff, while Josephine shook her head in obvious pleasure at being liberated. She was still a married woman in the first throes of a divorce, after all, and Mac was still, hard as it was to accept the Oprah-certified truth, probably no more and no less than a predictable phase she was going through.

  A hunky predictable phase.

  A hunky predictable phase who had saved her life.

  A hunky predictable phase who had saved her life and whose mere presence made her day.

  “Just like two females to stick together. For your information, Mr. Blackwell, she’s lucky to be alive to get a new collar,” Mac said, shooting Josephine a dark look as he unlocked the passenger door. “While you and I were out having fun the other night, she ate my bathroom wall. Chewed a hole in it the size of a basketball.”

  “Oh, dear.” Julie couldn’t help it. She laughed. “She must have been bored.”

  “She must have been something. Like suicidal.” Mac opened the door and waited for Julie to get in. As she passed him, his gaze touched on her bruised temple and the corners of his eyes tightened in obvious concern. “How are you feeling?”

  His tone had gentled.

  “Better than I look.”

  “Not possible,” he said, and closed the door before she could reply.

  Julie sat there with her arms around Josephine and her heart skipping like a little lamb in springtime while he came around the front of the car to slide in behind the wheel. He’s a phase, she reminded herself sternly once again as he tossed the collar and leash in the back and she got a good look at an athlete’s muscled arms and torso in motion. Just a phase.

  “So what do you want to talk to me about?” she asked in as businesslike a tone as she could muster as he started the car. Josephine wriggled out of her hold, then stretched her length across her lap and closed her eyes. The warm weight of the little dog was soothing. Absently, Julie stroked Josephine’s frizzy coat.

  “Word on the street is that nobody local did this.” His gaze touched meaningfully on the bruise on her temple. The Blazer headed for the street. “At least, if it’s someone local, he’s not one of the usual cast of criminals and perverts.”

  Julie felt her stomach tense as she tried to ward off memories of the attack.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It could mean a lot of things. A burglar escalating things to a whole new level. Somebody just moved in from out of town, whose MO’s still off the radar. I’m not sure yet. Which is one reason I wanted to talk to you. I want permission to search your house.”

  Julie stared at him. A blue Corvette just outside her window kept pace with the Blazer, and Julie realized that they had reached the street and were moving with the flow of traffic. The wizened little man driving it, natty in a linen sport coat and striped shirt, had to be at least eighty. You go, guy, she thought with a tiny inner smile, and returned her attention with some difficulty to the topic at hand.

  “The police have already searched the house.” Her voice was constricted. She did better if she just flatly refused to think about the attack.

  Something in Mac’s expression made Julie feel like there was a drop of ice water trickling slowly down her spine. Looking at him, she gave an involuntary little shiver. Josephine, apparently feeling the movement, looked up from her nap with big, questioning eyes. Julie rubbed her ears, and found some relief in doing so.

  “I know,” Mac said. Julie was starting to recognize that impassive face. It meant there was something he wasn’t sharing with her. “But you’ve got to understand that the police are busy. They’ve got lots of crimes to investigate—and your husband made it clear to the powers that be that he wants to minimize this one. Any clue why he’d want to brush a brutal assault on his wife under the rug?”

  Julie gave a bitter little laugh, and burrowed her fingers deep in Josephine’s coat. “That’s easy. The subdivision. Sid’s company developed it, you know. It might hurt property values if people started thinking that women were being attacked in their own homes there. And Sid is really, really against anything that might hurt property values.”

  Josephine responded to the attention with an enormous yawn. Her lids drooped, and her head returned to her paws. Julie wished that she could rid herself of her own worries that easily.

  “Property values are important.” Mac’s tone was dry.

  “I thought you were supposed to be finding out who my husband bought the Viagra for.” Julie deliberately tried for a lighter note. Having her stomach tie itself in knots was not a pleasant sensation, and she was getting tired of it.

  Mac grinned, glancing at her, and the atmosphere did indeed lighten. “Hey, what can I say? I’m a full-service investigator.”

  Julie made a face at him, relieved that the knot in her stomach was easing. “For your information, Mr. Full Service Investigator, Sid’s going to Atlanta this afternoon. He’ll be gone for three days. So what are you doing about it?”

  “I know that. You think I don’t know that? That’s another reason I wanted to talk to you. Ordinarily, I’d follow him, because cheaters tend to hook up with their honeys on out-of-town trips. But under the circumstances I think it’s better if I stay here. I don’t like the idea of leaving you on your own.” A serious note entered his voice as he said that last.

  “You think the guy’s coming back, don’t you?” This time her spine was assaulted by an icy river instead of an icy drop. Julie shivered again, more violently this time.

  “Slow down.” He saw her shiver and shook his head. “I don’t necessarily think he’s coming back. What I think is, it pays to be careful. Whatever happens, I’ll make sure you’re safe until we get this all sorted out. Trust me.”

  Julie took a deep, steadying breath. “I do.”

  The smile he gave her then was slow and sweet, and sexy as hell. “That’s my girl.”

  His girl. God, what she wouldn’t give to be. Phase or no.

  The Blazer stopped, and Julie rea
lized that they were pulling onto the grass verge in front of the DeForests’ big brick house, which was across the street and catty-corner to her own.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I told you, I want to search the house. Now’s the best time, because none of your neighbors are home during the day, and Sid’s headed out of town. What I’d like you to do is come in with me, show me around, maybe walk me through what happened Saturday night. Are you up to it?” He put the car in park and looked at her steadily. Julie’s every instinct quailed at the prospect. She had not entered the house since Mac had carried her out of it; Sid had spent the last two nights in it alone. Left to her own devices, she was more likely to fly to the moon than walk inside that house again. Even thinking about it made her start to hyperventilate.

  But if Mac thought this guy would be coming back . . .

  She took a deep, calming breath, clenched her fists so that her nails dug into her palms, and nodded. Josephine, sensing her unease, looked up again.

  “I’ll be right with you every step of the way.” A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he glanced down at Josephine, who was getting to her feet in Julie’s lap and arching her back in a luxurious stretch like a cat. “And hey, you’ve even got a guard dog on duty. What could be safer than that?”

  It was hard to picture Josephine as a guard dog, Julie reflected, but she smiled gamely nonetheless. And, paradoxically, smiling made her feel better. And braver.

  She still had her I’m so brave smile firmly in place when she walked around the front of the Blazer, Josephine cradled in her arms, to discover Mac affixing a large, white, magnetic sign to the driver’s door.

  LAWN-PRO LAWN AND LANDSCAPING, it said, above a local telephone number. Reading it, Julie’s eyes widened.

  “I keep it in the back for occasions such as this,” Mac explained, in response to Julie’s look. “Nobody ever gives me a second glance with this thing on the door. You’d be surprised how many of these services operate in neighborhoods like this during the day.”

  Indeed, now that she thought about it, Julie could hear the muted roar of a lawn mower in the distance. A glance around showed her a man sitting atop an orange commercial mower several yards over, paying them not the least attention as he merrily did his thing. Ordinarily, she never would have noticed him.

  “It’s called hiding in plain sight,” Mac said as if he could read her mind. Curling a hand around her upper arm, he practically towed her up her own driveway.

  The contrast between the relentless sun and baking heat outside and the cool, dim hush of the house couldn’t have been more unsettling as, using her key, Mac opened the front door and they stepped inside.

  He closed the door behind them. Julie’s heart raced as gloom enveloped them, and her stomach felt like it was playing Twister. Her breathing quickened; sure enough, she was going to hyperventilate.

  Stop it, she ordered herself as she took several hesitant steps inside her own front hall. Carefully she regulated her breathing: in and out, slow and steady.

  At least, she thought, there were no words of warning from her little voice. If she ever heard that puppy again, she was listening up big time.

  Josephine, lying contentedly in her arms, was a godsend. The little dog gave her something to concentrate on besides her fear. She was no heavier than Kelly or Erin on the day they’d been born, and her woolly coat reminded Julie of a fleece the girls had slept on as babies. Holding the dog closer, she grew calm enough to look around. There was no visible reminder of her ordeal, she was relieved to see: no footprints, no drops of blood, nothing. The house was pristine, and smelled faintly of Murphy’s Oil. Of course, the cleaning service came every Tuesday and Thursday morning; that also accounted for the fresh sheen on the marble floor and the gleam on the just-polished furniture. Strange that the house should be exactly as it had always been, unchanged by what had happened within its walls, while she felt as if the attack had altered her inner landscape forever. Fear was now part of her internal language, which it never had been before.

  Her glance fell on the imposing staircase with its wrought-iron railing, and her breathing quickened again as images of herself fleeing for her life down those steps scrolled unbidden through her mind. She could almost feel the hideous yank of a fist closing on her hair. . . .

  “You okay?” Mac’s hands dropped onto her shoulders, making her start. He was behind her, solid and strong and infinitely reliable, and it was this knowledge that calmed her down and enabled her to breathe normally again. She nodded, clutched Josephine closer, and, taking a tight mental grip on her courage, walked on toward the staircase, determined not to give in to the fear that threatened to engulf her.

  Despite her determination, speaking was an effort; she swallowed, realizing her throat was dry.

  “The cleaning people came today. If the police missed any kind of evidence, it’s probably gone now.”

  Mac muttered something short and probably profane under his breath. Julie was almost at the foot of the stairs now, and he was a few paces behind her, looking around with weighing eyes. The marble floor, the crystal chandelier, the staircase that was designed to impress—the whole house that was designed to impress—would be new to him.

  “I was in my bathroom . . .” Julie began, looking up the stairs. Then memory assailed her again, and she shivered and shook her head. “Mac, I don’t think I can go up there.”

  “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.” He was right behind her again, and his hand just brushed over her bare arm in a comforting caress. “We’ll stay downstairs, if you want.” His eyes shifted past her to fix on the open door that led into the den. “Is that some sort of office?”

  Julie followed his gaze, and nodded. “Sid’s desk is in there, and his computer. He does quite a bit of work at home.”

  “Mind if I check it out?” he asked, already heading that way.

  “Go ahead.” She was talking to his back. Trailing him, she stood in the doorway of the den and watched as he conducted a quick search of the desk, opening the drawers and rifling through the contents, then turned on the computer.

  “What are you looking for?” She was feeling better. Steadier, less jumpy. Having her back to the staircase helped, she thought, but she also knew that one day—one day soon—she would be able to climb those stairs. The knowledge eased something that had been twisted tight inside her. Coming back inside her house had been a necessary step in reclaiming her life, she realized.

  Mac shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t suppose you know the password to any of these files, by any chance?” He was staring intently at the screen, typing as he spoke.

  Julie shook her head. “No clue.”

  Mac grunted unsurprised acknowledgment as he continued to point and click, then peck away at the keyboard, apparently trying words at random.

  “Ah,” he said moments later with obvious satisfaction, watching as text popped into view.

  Julie did a double-take. She was just about to ask how he’d done that—clearly he had either figured out the password to one of the files or somehow bypassed the system’s security—when an unexpected sound from somewhere behind her made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She spun around. In her arms, Josephine stiffened. The little dog’s eyes stared alertly toward the kitchen.

  Because there was no possibility of mistake: someone was entering the house through the garage door.

  18

  TERRIFYING MEMORIES CAME BACK IN A RUSH, threatening to swamp every last vestige of calm that remained to her. Julie’s pulse raced, and her breathing grew choppy. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead and her palms.

  “I’m right here.”

  Mac had obviously heard the sounds too. He was behind her before she could break and run, his voice low, one hand wrapping around Josephine’s muzzle. Even as he spoke he drew Julie back inside the den. A glance told Julie that the computer was now dark and still; Mac must have turned it off.

 
; “Keep Josephine quiet,” he breathed in her ear, closing her hand around the poodle’s muzzle as he removed his own. Julie obediently held Josephine’s mouth shut, but to the dog’s credit she showed no inclination to bark. Still, she seemed almost as petrified as Julie felt, and Julie wondered with the part of her mind that was still capable of entertaining such speculations if the dog was somehow able to pick up on her emotions. Josephine’s slight body was stiff in Julie’s arms, and her eyes bugged out, as shiny and round as black marbles in a nest of white frizz. Like Julie, she was breathing fast, and her heart was thudding. Julie could feel it pounding in double-quick counterpart to her own.

  “Shh.” Mac’s arm slid around Julie as they reached one of the two long windows overlooking the manicured back lawn and the pool. He pulled her with him behind the drapes that hung from ceiling to floor, letting the heavy taupe velvet and the whisper-soft sheer beneath wrap around them, hiding them from sight. Enveloped by the sickly-sweet aroma of the rose-scented air freshener that clung to the curtains, shrouded now in shadow, Julie discovered that she was trembling; fear washed over her in waves. Trying to keep her breathing under control, she leaned against Mac, her cheek resting against his chest, listening to the steady drum of his heart. Josephine remained stiffly alert in her arms. Julie prayed that the dog would remain silent and they would not be discovered. She didn’t think she could live through another terrifying encounter, not even with Mac and Josephine the would-be guard dog for protection. Confronted, she would die of a heart attack on the spot.

  Mac held her close, an arm hard around her waist. The sheer size of him was reassuring. She tended to forget what a big man he was until she was in his arms. A sideways glance told her that he had produced a gun from somewhere on his person, which he now held in his hand. It was the black, businesslike weapon she had seen before, when he had appeared like a guardian angel in her kitchen, when the monster had been hard on her heels and she’d been running for her life.