God, help her have a quiet, boring night, please, he prayed, surprised at how deeply he felt it. Had it been a while since he had prayed with so much sincerity? Thinking back on the last few weeks, he thought it might be true. Longer than that, even, really.
His faith had always been important to him, but Judah felt like he was failing in that, too, lately. Always trying but never quite succeeding in having the strong relationship with God he’d had once.
Judah felt trapped in his thoughts all the way home. Besides going over the state of his spiritual life, he was going over the day, too, second-guessing everything like he was sometimes prone to. One of the hazards of being an introvert. He still felt like he’d made some kind of mistake with Piper tonight, but he didn’t know what it was. And he was distracted by her to a point where he was starting to question all of the decisions he’d been previously confident of.
Surely that wasn’t right? He’d made his choice and needed to stick to it.
It was too late at night for this kind of thinking, especially the mulling-it-over-and-over-in-his-brain kind, but Judah was an introvert. He was used to living inside his head sometimes.
He parked in his own driveway, took a deep breath and went inside. With any luck, he’d sleep well and not think any more about Piper McAdams until morning.
SEVEN
Sleeping was likely a pointless endeavor. At least, that was what Piper had thought after at least half an hour of tossing and turning.
She’d been just about to leave the bed and get herself a snack when she’d nodded off. She must have, because she now woke up suddenly, aware that she’d been sleeping.
Why had she awakened?
Piper blinked against her exhaustion, her eyes dry and tired. She lay there in the darkness, looked at the sky outside the window. It looked like the blackest point of the night, which at this time of year put it near two o’clock in the morning. Not moving, she kept listening.
A door creaked downstairs.
No one should be inside the house but her.
Immediately her heart rate kicked into overdrive and Piper widened her eyes. Sleep was now the furthest thing from her mind. She had a weapon, but she didn’t often use it. It was a 10 mm she’d bought to hike with after being warned by one too many well-meaning friends that hiking without some kind of bear protection in Alaska was asking for trouble. She kept it in a case inside her closet. Was it too far away to get to now? Which was better, to lie still and hopefully remain undetected, or to risk getting the gun?
The gun won out. It wasn’t as though this was a normal home invasion type of situation; at least, Piper assumed it wasn’t. It would be too coincidental. If whoever was in the house was connected to the threat against her, then they were here to harm her. It was somewhere around two in the morning, and her bed was the obvious place she would be.
Piper moved to the closet, clicked the light switch. Nothing happened. The house remained in darkness. Piper shivered. Not only was someone in her house, but had he shut off the power? Blowing out a breath and trying to stay calm, Piper stood on tiptoe to reach the shelf. Her hands were shaking, she noted, but she managed to grab the case and get it down. She pushed a loaded magazine into the weapon, then chambered a round and took a deep breath. Her heart was still racing, but she managed to take a few deep, calming breaths.
Phone. Where was her phone? She needed to call the police.
Or Judah?
The thought crossed her mind, completely unwelcome. Of course 911 made more sense.
But he was the police. And he knew her better.
Piper could roll her eyes at her girlish fantasy of having Judah come rescue her. It was ridiculous.
Still, it was his number her fingertips dialed once she got her phone from the bedside table.
“Hello?” His voice held no trace of sleepiness, but plenty of alarm. And no wonder; there was no safe reason for her to be calling this late.
“Someone is in my house.”
“I’m on my way. Stay on the phone.”
Piper shook her head. “I’m going to call 911, too.”
“Okay. Stay on the line with them, then.”
She didn’t know what good that would do, except potentially force someone to listen to her being shot, or worse, but she dialed, whispered the same words to them she’d said to Judah with some more details, and then put the phone down beside her.
Now the waiting. Piper hated waiting, hated the way that the darkness felt as if it was pressing in on her chest, like a tangible enemy who wanted to cause her harm.
The dark wasn’t against her, she reminded herself. Piper took a deep breath in, like her counselor had told her to once. Years ago, when she’d first learned to be afraid of the blackness. Then another breath out.
She heard a sound from downstairs, a gentle creaking of the floor. The sound sent chills up her spine and she was forced to confront the reality: this was likely calculated, an attempt to cause her harm.
Or worse.
She stepped into the closet, worked her way past her shoes into the back corner, weapon in one hand, phone in the other.
More waiting. More pressing darkness. More breathing. In. Out. Piper squeezed her eyes shut for a second.
God, help me.
A footstep sounded close and then Piper could hear breathing. A silhouette moved toward her and she leveled the gun, hand trembling.
The pressure on her chest worsened and her vision blurred. Piper blinked as a wave of dizziness threatened her.
No. No. No.
She’d felt this way a few times in the last few years. It was nothing like those first weeks when she was seeing the counselor. Then, she’d battled panic attacks and a level of anxiety that she hadn’t known someone could have.
She couldn’t feel this way right now.
The hand holding the gun quivered. She let go of the phone and wrapped her other hand around the weapon, too.
The shadow moved. Too fast. She squeezed but her finger never caught on the trigger. Instead the impact of a body coming at her full force knocked her back against the closet wall. She tasted blood and her tongue hurt—she must have bitten down on it. The back of her head throbbed, too, as he did her shoulder, from where she’d hit it.
Her gun. Where was it?
Everything was disjointed. Confusion. Piper didn’t know how much was from her panic attack and how much was from the way the attacker moved. The figure didn’t move like a person who was angry. Instead, his movements seemed practiced, like those of a person skilled to disable and kill.
She’d only just recovered from the first hit when the second came. This time it was his arm, which wrapped around her in a headlock, choking her.
She’d felt this way before. This was familiar.
Instead of the panic she would have expected, anger flooded her. Piper threw a punch, felt it land somewhere on her attacker’s face. Still, he fought her. She punched again, to no effect, then jerked her knee upward, like she’d seen on Miss Congeniality once. Her assailant stumbled, just enough for Piper to push herself up. She was out of the closet, but not free yet.
Twisting her body to the left, she fought to get away.
“Police, freeze!” The shout came from downstairs.
Piper found herself suddenly released, and fell down against the floor.
She heard something hit her window and the sound of shattering glass.
Her attacker had escaped.
* * *
“Piper!” Judah ran into the room, every argument he’d given himself earlier about needing to distance himself disappearing in the dark room, as he saw her form crumpled on the floor. A weapon was a few feet away from her.
“Is this your gun?” he asked her.
Piper blinked. Nodded. He reached for the gun, unloaded it and set it on her dresser.
&n
bsp; She groaned. It sounded like she was in pain, but she was alive, and right now, Judah would take that. As long as there was hope.
People were what was important in life, he knew with startling clarity. How could he pretend he didn’t feel the way about Piper that he did?
He looked over at her. There was a red mark on her neck, already darkening with hints of purple, the beginnings of bruise under her eye, and she was rubbing her shoulder.
Someone had hurt her. Had nearly killed her.
“Where is he?” Judah looked around, realizing whoever was responsible had escaped through the now-shattered window.
Judah hoped with everything in him that the other responding officers would catch whomever had done this to Piper. It was probably best that he wasn’t outside helping with the on-foot pursuit. He was in no position right now to be the kind of law enforcement officer he wanted to be. Hot rage at Piper’s bruises was building inside of him, and Judah knew that for the life of him, he couldn’t promise that he would be able to act appropriately.
He knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”
She was breathing, but not responding to him. She was staring into the distance, eyes open.
Judah racked his brain for reasons she could be in this state. There were absolutely no good ones, plenty of bad ones.
As far as he knew, she’d never been the victim of a crime, which was one of the possibilities on his mental list.
“Piper, you’ve never... I mean, you’ve never had anything like this happen before, right? Had someone come after you?”
She shook her head.
During his years of police work, the only other time he’d seen someone respond like this to violence was when they’d seen violence before. Several of those women he was thinking of now had been in abusive relationships.
Could that be why Piper was acting like this?
And why she had never seemed quick to commit, either? Why she hid her feelings behind smiles when she thought no one was paying attention?
Judah hoped for her sake that he was wrong. “Piper, I’m going to touch your arm, okay? It’s me, Judah, and you’re okay.” He laid a hand on her upper arm.
She startled. Blinked and sat up. “Judah...” She trailed off. Shook her head. “He got away. I couldn’t... I couldn’t...” She broke off and started to sob.
“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”
Her tears didn’t scare Judah, something that surprised him. He hated that she was crying, and sure, he’d make it go away if he could. In fact, he’d fix the whole world if that would make it so she never had a reason to cry again. But right now he wished for her to know that she wasn’t alone, that he was here with her, and he wasn’t leaving.
Maybe that was what surprised him the most. He didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to give her space or to claim any space for his own.
What he wanted was Piper and him together. Right here, just present in this moment, even if it wasn’t a pleasant one.
“You can do this, Piper. Whatever it is, you can do it. You can get through it.” He felt the words even more firmly than he said them.
She took a shuddering breath. Then another. And then she met his eyes. “He got away.”
“But you’re still here. That’s what matters most to me.”
She blinked, surprise lining every feature of her face. He was surprised at how easily he could read her. It was almost like her perpetual openness, her smile, was a mask of its own that obscured how she really felt. He’d thought she was one of those easy-to-get-to-know people.
Now he was realizing that was a carefully crafted appearance on Piper’s part.
What had she been through to make her like this?
Oh, Piper.
“Let’s get to the police station, okay? I’ll have EMTs meet us there to check you out, just in case. Then I’ll take you over to my brother and sister-in-law’s house. You don’t need to be alone tonight and I can’t stay here with you without someone else in the house. I care too much about your reputation for that. Come on, stand up.” There was a fine line between pushing someone too far and not pushing enough. Judah felt like Piper needed to keep moving for now. When they were back at Levi and Adriana’s house, he’d talk to her about whatever had made her respond like this to tonight’s attack.
“Does your gun have a case?” he asked. Piper motioned toward it and Judah put the gun back in it, and then placed it back on the closet shelf where Piper indicated.
She stood and Judah took her hand. She looked at him and frowned.
As they made their way through the darkened house, Judah noticed that the darker the room was, the tighter she gripped his hand. In the hallways, where there were no windows, she practically squeezed the life out of it. She loosened her grip in rooms with windows, where the orange glow from the streetlight could shine through.
God, whatever broke her, I know You can put her back together.
“Wicks.” The voice stopped Judah as soon as he and Piper stepped onto the front deck. It was Officer Cook.
“Find anything?” Judah asked and stopped walking. This time it was he who squeezed Piper’s hand a little tighter, wanting to communicate that he was still there. Maybe that even though he needed to stop and ask about the case, she was still his number one priority.
“No sign of the suspect once we got into the woods past the house. I was able to follow him pretty closely up until then, but it’s someone who either knows the area well or has scoped it out in advance. We’re going to canvass the woods again, look for any kind of evidence that we might not have seen when our focus was on apprehending the suspect.”
Judah nodded. He wasn’t back on duty until morning. Then he might have a choice to make: Stay with Piper, or work? And worse, work meant helping her stay safe, since he would be investigating her case further, hopefully getting closer to discovering who wanted her dead. But leaving her felt wrong, when he considered the fact that he had done so tonight and something had almost happened.
Had happened. Piper was alive and only had minor injuries, nothing Judah even thought needed a doctor—mostly just some bruises on her upper arm and one on her face. But the emotional toll of what had happened clearly went much deeper.
Tonight had been a failure to protect her and Judah didn’t want to let that happen again.
“Sounds like a good plan,” he said to Officer Cook. “I’m taking Piper down to the station to get a statement. She won’t be back here tonight. I’ve got a place lined up for her to stay.”
“Good idea.” The officer’s face sobered. “Officer Holloway has a nasty head injury. Someone jumped her while she was walking the perimeter. It seemed well planned, she says.”
Judah nodded. He’d wondered what had happened to the woman assigned to Piper’s house, but finding Piper and seeing if she was okay had been his first priority. “Let me know what you find.”
“Will do.”
Judah led Piper to his car, opened the door for her, and then hurried to his side. They drove in silence, with Judah glancing over at her now and then to see how she seemed. Her face had settled into an expression that he could only describe as blank. It gave no clues to how she was feeling, unless in fact she was feeling nothing at all.
That didn’t seem like a very good sign to Judah.
He parked the car in the parking lot of the police department, then repeated his earlier steps in reverse, hurried around the car to her door, opened it for her and held her hand as she stepped out. “You’re okay to do this, right? Just a brief statement, that’s all you have to give, and then I can get to you to Levi and Adriana’s.” His brother had only gotten married three weeks earlier, but given the fact that he and his now-wife weren’t unfamiliar with danger and someone being after them, Judah was confident they’d rather Piper stay there than on her own, with the circumstances as they were.
“I can do it.” She squared her shoulders and Judah battled between being proud of her and feeling uncomfortable that she seemed to be putting back on whatever self-protective mask he was starting to suspect she usually wore. She’d clearly been through something and tonight was almost like...
He hadn’t put his finger on it until now, but it seemed like a form of PTSD.
He was definitely unqualified to be diagnosing her. Immediately upon realizing the possible magnitude of what she might be dealing with, Judah found himself pulling back inside, wondering if he should find someone else for her to talk to.
“Everything okay with you?” Piper turned to him and asked, then glanced down at their hands and back at his eyes.
Her eyes. Her eyes were the clearest pure blue eyes he’d ever seen. And it sounded like some kind of badly written romantic song, but when he looked into them, he saw the entire world differently. It was like he was viewing it through Piper’s hopeful gaze, instead of through one that had become somewhat cynical from years of police work and seeing what people at their worst were capable of. How could he reconcile that, the amount of faith Piper seemed to radiate, with how she’d reacted tonight?
“I’ll be okay,” he told her truthfully, praying that they could get through the next little while without too much trauma to Piper.
He hoped he was right, that he would be okay. And even more, he hoped the same about her.
EIGHT
Judah hated every minute of their time at the police station. The officers asked Piper perfectly reasonable questions and she answered them well, but with every one, Judah felt like his heart would break.
What had happened to her in the past that made this even harder for her? Judah wanted to know and didn’t. He was afraid of what the answers were.
When they were finished asking her questions, he led her back out to the car and drove straight to Levi and Adriana’s house.
“Thanks for giving so many details about tonight. You did a good job,” Judah said as they pulled into the driveway.
Alaskan Mountain Attack Page 7