Killing Lucas

by Dominique Eastwick

  She toed off her shoes just as she entered the master suite. Afraid if she sat on the bed, she’d never get back up, Kiloran undressed standing. She pulled off her socks, pants, and finally her ratty, old T-shirt, letting them stay where they landed on the plush bedroom carpeting. Her bra was next to go, flung on a nearby chair. Walking into the bathroom, she headed to the state-of-the-art shower, complete with five showerheads. Turning two of them on, she tested the water and waited for cold to turn hot. She faced the mirror, about to take off her panties and find an elastic band to hold up her hair. The breath caught in her throat as panic rose and she let out a piercing scream. She ran blindly, only knowing she needed Lucas now.

  Her scream echoed through the large house. Lucas didn’t wait for a second for Kiloran to scream again. He was running full speed nearly tripping over the puppy sleeping in the kitchen door.

  He took the stair two at a time and met Kiloran dressed only in a pair of underwear in the hallway coming straight at him. She was pale—and that said something, as she was always pale. Only the splattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks gave her any color. She wrapped herself around him with a death grip.

  “What the hell is wrong?”

  She buried her face deep into his shirt shaking her head. Good Lord, she was trembling. He forced her back to look at her—a mistake, as now her perfect breasts were staring at him. Coral-colored nipples that he wanted to take into his mouth were perky and erect. He had been too long without sex. Looking back at her face, Lucas leaned down to force her to look in his eyes.

  “Tell me.”

  “He was here.”

  “Where?” Lucas knew damned well who he was.

  “Bathroom.” She pointed a shaking hand in the direction of her room. He halted when she grabbed his shirt. “Please don’t leave me.”

  Lucas pulled her to him and headed to the bedroom. Stopping only long enough to grab the blanket off the foot of the bed, he wrapped it around Kiloran and forced her to sit on the bed’s edge. “I will be right here.”

  She nodded, enfolding the blanket around her tighter. Moving into the bathroom, his gaze went to the large mirror along the length of the wall over the two sinks. In big red letters was a message:

  “Get rid of Lucas or I will.”

  And if the bold letters written in every shade of lipstick they could find wasn’t enough, perhaps it was the twelve exclamation points that followed. Anger filled Lucas. He wanted to shatter the mirror with his bare hands. But instead, he took a deep breath, clicked a photo with his camera phone, and sent it to Agent Vassar and Detective Henry, and copied Tony and Hunter for good measure. He looked out the bathroom door at Kiloran, who sat still as a statue staring off into nothing, her green eyes huge with fear.

  Fuck! Punching nine-one-one on his phone, he gave the operator the information they needed before heading back out to Kiloran. She jumped at his touch. “Honey, we have to get you dressed.”

  “You have to leave, Lucas. You can’t stay.”

  “This ends now. Do you understand?”

  Her hands gripped his arm so tight he started to lose circulation. “He is going to kill you. I just know it. You have to leave, tonight. Right now.”

  “He is not going to hurt you anymore.” Pulling her to her feet, Lucas picked up her discarded clothes and helped her into them, minus the bra—he wasn’t that much of a gentleman. “Come on, the police should be here soon. Let’s wait for them in the kitchen.”

  “We should leave. He could still be here.”

  “No one is here. I disarmed the alarm when we got here.” Keeping his arm firmly wrapped around her waist, he led her down the stairs. He only let go long enough to pick up the puppy, who had managed to make it up the second step of the stairs. Handing him to Kiloran for comfort, Lucas forced her to sit as he went into the other room to get her a shot of bourbon. “Drink this.”

  “I don’t drink anymore.”

  “Drink. Now. You’re in shock.” His phone rang, playing steel drums. “Tony, I’m fine,” he said, without even bothering to question who it was.

  “Just checking.” Tony’s voice sounded doubtful, but he didn’t say anymore.

  “I’ll call you back later,” Lucas said, ending the call.

  He’d managed to get her to drink the brown liquid and eat half a sandwich when blue-and-red lights illuminated the room through the windows. “Stay right here.”

  She nodded and didn’t move.

  Lucas threw open the door, taken aback to find a tall, dark man coming up the drive way with the local police officers. “That was quick even for you, Agent.”

  “You didn’t really think we would be sending you up here alone, did you?” Agent Vassar said outstretching his hand. “Shame to be seeing you again, Mr. Sherman.”

  Introductions took place before Lucas could fill in what he knew—what they’d touched and where they hadn’t checked yet. Two uniformed officers searched the house, while one called the security firm that ran the home alarm and another two searched the outside of the house. Agent Vassar came in to chat with Kiloran, who didn’t say much, simply shaking her head and nodding.

  “Should we leave?”

  “That’s up to you two. We’ll have someone stationed outside from now on, and I’m sure the alarm company is setting up a new code as we speak. Who knew your alarm code, Ms. O’Connor?”

  “Um… The housekeeper, but she’s in her seventies and was hired by the owners, has been with them for years. She sometimes brings a family member when she brings my groceries.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  Lucas ran through the list of people she would have let into her house and into her confidence. “What about Nancy?”

  “Nancy?”

  “Nancy April, her assistant.”

  “No, she has the code to my home in LA but as I’m so out of the way here, I haven’t needed her to come and get anything for me, so I haven’t given it to her.”

  “Your agent or manager?”

  “Murray might know it, but I doubt it. He negotiated the house into my rider with the studio but didn’t have anything to do with the actually picking out the place.”

  “What about your director, Daniel Ivan?”

  “No, Danny wouldn’t have it either.”

  “Ms. O’Connor, is there anyone you can think of who could have done this? Maybe someone you beat out for a role? Perhaps Mr. Sherman has a jilted lover in his past?”

  “No to both.”

  While a police officer pulled Vassar aside, Lucas refilled Kiloran’s glass for lack of anything else to do. When Vassar turned back to them, his face held no hint of what was going on. “The alarm company said that between the times you both left at six a.m. and set the alarm and the time you got home at eight p.m., the system had been disarmed two other times. Once at nine, which I presume was the housekeeper, and again at quarter to four this evening for about thirty minutes, before it was rearmed. That must be when he came into the house. Somehow he had the code.”

  “Can they change it?”

  “They’re doing that while we speak. I would ask that you not tell anyone what the code is for the rest of your stay, or at the very least until we catch the unsub. I will have an officer go and speak with the housekeeper in the morning and explain that, for the time being, she doesn’t need to come and clean. To be honest, it’s as much for her safety as it is for our investigation.”

  “Please do. I would hate to have her hurt.”

  “I have a team coming in and they will go over that bathroom with a fine-tooth comb. We can put you both up in a hotel.”

  “No,” Kiloran said, placing her glass down on the end table with a thump, “We’re staying put. If we leave, he wins.”

  “Very well. I can’t tell
you how late they will be working.”

  Kiloran looked at the officer and shook her head again. “I don’t have to be at the set tomorrow until late. It doesn’t matter.”

  But it did matter. Lucas could see she was barely holding it together. And although they tried not to, the local police were staring, and at any moment one might just be stupid enough to ask for an autograph. Yet when he looked at Kiloran, he could see a vulnerability he had never witnessed before. He wanted nothing more than to whisk her away, but knew they needed to stand their ground. With a sigh he gave up the inner battle and nodded “He’s right. We both need rest and it isn’t going to happen here tonight. You said you could get us a hotel room?”

  “Yes, it’s all arranged. There is a little bed and breakfast about fifteen minutes from here. They’re expecting you. They’ll even let you bring the mutt with you.”

  Chapter Six

  “Please don’t leave me.”—Kiloran to Lucas

  One room, damn it. One fucking room. With one queen-size bed and the only chair in the room a wooden, antique number that wouldn’t even hold Lucas’s weight. But what could he do? And honestly, looking at Kiloran, what else was there to do? She stood there numbly holding the puppy as Lucas placed the travel crate down and put the whimpering dog in for the night.

  “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  “Please don’t leave me.” Her voice was so small.

  Breathing out a heavy sigh, he mumbled something close to he wouldn’t leave her and focused on getting her into bed. A female officer had packed a bag for her, complete with a nightgown. Handing it to her, he watched as she walked silently into the bathroom. It didn’t pass his notice that she left the bathroom door cracked just a bit either. The incident had spooked her, of course. But her reaction was much stronger than even Lucas would have thought. He wondered why?

  If in fact she had been dealing with this crazy man for six years, Lucas would have thought something as simple a lipstick on the mirror wouldn’t have gotten to her. But then maybe it was more than that; she had felt safe from this man, safe in her belief that he couldn’t or wouldn’t get in the house.

  “Kil?” he asked, going to the door. “Has the stalker ever entered your house before?”

  She opened the door, tears in her eyes. Shaking her head, she bit her lip. “I don’t think so. Before notes were always left outside somewhere. I don’t know what to do anymore. I am so tired of being strong.”

  Pulling her to him, Lucas lifted her into his arms. Strong was the last word he would use to describe Kiloran O’Connor right now. She seemed frail as he carried her to the bed. Placing her down as gently as he would a china doll, he pulled the comforter over her.

  “Try and sleep. I’ll be right here.” Lucas pulled off his T-shirt and kicked off his shoes, then lay on top of the blankets next to her. And when the sobbing started, as he knew it would, he did the one thing he would have sworn forty-eight hours ago he would never do again: he pulled her into his arms and held her. Held her tight.

  “We are going to get this guy. I promise you that.” He swore not to Kiloran as much as to himself. Tomorrow he would call Hunter and see what kind of game plan they could come up with. By then, if they were lucky, Agent Vassar and his team would have found something, to help track down the source of Kiloran’s nightmares.

  Before leaving, Vassar had mentioned it looked to him like the stalker was escalating. Lucas’s reappearance in her life might have caused a snap. For eighteen months, the stalker had remained quiet, but with the newspaper article and now the speculation that they were back together, this might be a tipping point. For good or bad, that was what they wanted. They needed to tip this asshole’s hand.

  Whatever his feelings for Kiloran were now, Lucas had loved her once and no one deserved to live in this much fear. No one.

  He listened as her breathing slowed to the familiar cadence of her sleep. So many nights he had lain similar to this, holding her, just watching her and wondering how he had been so lucky. Now he wondered just how one man could be so unlucky.

  They had first met at a benefit event full of A-list actors and the top of society. The only reason Lucas had been there was because Tony had asked him. Tony’s date had bailed, apparently realizing that Tony was no more serious about the relationship than he was about anything else.

  But as Tony never asked for anything, Lucas hadn’t been able to deny him the request and had pulled his tux out of the back of his closet and flew out the West Coast to join him. It had been a good chance to look at the labs Sherman Engineering had in San Diego. Besides, Lucas usually found hanging out the Tony to be a nice break from the quiet solitary world of his lab and he was always willing to help a benefit that helped art museums.

  They’d been at the party for an hour, rubbing elbows with people Lucas guessed he should have been impressed his brother knew, but wasn’t. Tony could only grumble how he would prefer to be elsewhere while schmoozing and smiling all the way. Lucas’s brother had a gift, among many, of making everyone feel special. Tony could remember their names, spouses, and what they did even from one meeting. It’s what made him great at PR, even if no one else seemed to see past his pretty-boy face. As a teenager, Lucas had hated how all the girls only every saw Tony; now he saw the burden being a human Adonis could take and wondered if it was for that reason he had become the playboy everyone thought he should be.

  Then, just as they were about to make a quick exit, Lucas saw Hollywood actress Kiloran O’Connor. She took his breath away. She stood across the veranda, looking as bored as they were, smiling as the person next to her said something that made the others in the circle laugh. Her emerald eyes caught his, and she smiled. Then she saw Tony and excused herself. Oh well, another bites the dust, Lucas thought. After all, when Golden Boy Sherman was in the room what other man stood a chance?

  She maneuvered through the crowd, chatting with a few people along the way. Her pixie haircut framed her round face and made her almost fairy under the paper lantern lights of the lawn party.

  “Tony,” she greeted in a voice that held the slightest hint of an Irish accent and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  “Kiloran, I heard you were filming some movie in New Zealand.”

  “Just wrapped. I got back into town yesterday—feeling ready to collapse, actually. I so hate these things. How’s Hunter?”

  Then Lucas remembered she had briefly dated Hunter Brooks, Tony’s best friend from college. As they spoke, Lucas stood to the side and watched, drinking in her beauty and wondering what it would be like to kiss those pink lips. “Lucas, have you two met?”

  “What?” Oh good Lord, he’d been staring at her like a deranged fool and had no idea what they were talking about. “Um, no we haven’t.”

  She giggled and her eyes lit up. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucas. Hunter spoke very highly of you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.”

  “Hunter spoke highly of him?” Tony teased as he elbowed Lucas in the ribs.

  “Of course. You, though, were another story.” Kiloran’s smile lit up her face “And what grand tales he had to tell, too.”

  “Well on that note, I’m going to get some drinks and call Hunter to find out just what the hell he told you. You two can get aquatinted.” Tony tapped Lucas on the shoulder and, once out of Kiloran’s sight, gave Lucas an enthusiastic two thumbs-up like a sixteen-year-old wingman. Lucas knew Tony wasn’t coming back. And what amazed him was that for the first time ever, a woman left in his company didn’t ask where’d Tony go or when will he be back. She didn’t even question why he never returned with the promised drinks. She asked about Lucas instead, what he did. She even asked him about baseball. A woman after his own heart, if only she liked the Red Sox.

  “My favorite team? That could be a dangerous question.” She laughed.

&nb
sp; “I promise not to hold it against you—much.” He smiled back, wondering just what he would say if she admitted to being a Yankees fan. Not that Lucas didn’t have friends who weren’t Red Sox fans, but being a diehard Sox fan, a house divided was not what he envisioned in his life. For the first time, though, he might make the exception. And while he stood there staring at her, he really was envisioning a future.

  “Red Sox,” she whispered against his cheek, lifting on tiptoe even in her high heels.

  “Well, thank you God,” he whispered back, smelling her perfume.

  She bit her lip. “Do you want to get out of here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know a place that has great coffee and pie.” She hesitated before taking a deep breath. “But I have to warn you, going anywhere with me might mean paparazzi.”

  “I think I can handle a photographer or two.” The next morning, after spending hours laughing and chatting in a little coffee shop in LA, Lucas would have his first run in the newspapers. Kiloran and the Mystery Man. Tony would call to thank him for taking the spotlight.

  They stayed up talking until the sun came up that night and met up for dinner the next night. Within a week, Lucas knew he loved this woman. Even with her heavy work schedule she made time for him, and by the next week he informed everyone that he was relocating to Los Angeles.

  A few weeks into their relationship, Kiloran seduced him. She invited him to her rented condo, had enough candles lit to light up the city, and greeted him at the door, gloriously naked with the exception of the sexiest pair of red high heels Lucas had ever seen.

  “I was afraid you would never make the first move,” she confessed, pressing her body against him.

  “I was trying to show respect and restraint.”

  She pushed his coat off his shoulders letting it fall to the floor. Soon his shirt followed. “I didn’t realize how buff you were.” Her voice was a bare whisper as her fingers brushed over his skin, touching him as he had dreamed for so many nights already. Her hand reached down and grabbed his, placing it on her small yet perfect breasts.