Naturally, Jess would have provided an access code for emergencies without second thought, since she knew and trusted everyone who'd have access to it.
“Tell your dispatch to advise Jess we're coming around to the bedroom patio doors.” Kayne would hate for someone to get shot.
Rafe grabbed his arm. “Now wait a second, Kayne. We've got to search the house.”
Kayne yanked his arm free and started walking again. “It will take us hours to do that, and there are five staircases alone in the damn thing. We don't have the crew. If I can get the generator up and running, the alarm will tell us exactly who's in the house and where. Besides, I think the intruder was Cody. He seems to be having a hard time accepting the fact that she's married, and not to him.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Nick said as they played follow-the-leader through the rose garden toward the southeast corner of the house. “Before she was married the first time, there were a couple incidents where she thought someone had been in her house while she was gone. We all kinda wrote it off, because even she wasn't sure. The only clues were things like leaving a light on that she was sure she’d turned off, or finding a door unlocked she thought she'd locked. The one that really creeped her out was the laundry incident—she came home and laundry she'd sworn she folded and put away was laying on the end of her bed. It was lingerie.”
Kayne’s head swiveled around to look at Nick. “What the fuck?” That was stalker activity.
“I went over personally and dusted for prints because she didn't want anyone to know,” Nick said. “There were no prints anywhere.”
“So she'd been mistaken?” Kayne couldn't picture Jess being that scatterbrained.
Nick shook his head. “No. I mean there were no prints anywhere, not even hers. Every surface had been wiped clean. She wouldn't file any official report, but I quietly passed the word around, and we all kept an extra eye on her. Figured even if she found out, the only way she could be mad at me was if she was still alive. It spooked her enough that she let me follow her home after work for a good long while so I could check the house.”
“What happened?” Why hadn't Jess ever told him about a stalker problem?
“Nothing really. Well no, that's not true. A couple of nights later, I found the door unlocked, but there was no one there, and this time only the bedroom had been wiped clean of prints. My gut told me someone was keeping an eye on who she was or wasn't inviting into her bed, if you know what I mean.” Nick tossed him a grin. “I never told Jess, but I made sure my prints were strategically locatable around her bedroom and stayed for coffee that night.”
“They were wasting their time,” Rafe scoffed. “She was saving herself for marriage. Believe me. I wasted a great deal of my misspent youth trying to get into her pants.”
When Kayne turned on him, Rafe quickly took a step back, both hands up in surrender. “Whoa, I gave up my stalking Jess days back in college, when she introduced me to my wife, Bianca. While I might have liked to have started something after Jarred died, it never happened, and I sure as hell would never poach.”
Kayne shook his head. He’d heard about Bianca Chatham. Rumor had it she’d been brutally raped and murdered in their Chicago home while Rafe had been working a missing person’s case.
Payson, it seemed, was the place injured souls came to lick their wounds and heal.
“Did the stalking start back up when Jarred died?” Kayne asked.
“I don't know.” Nick shrugged. “If it did, Jess never said. I'm not saying anything Trace and Rafe don't already know, but we haven’t seen much of Jess since Jarred's funeral. She let Joe help out for the first week or so with the kids, and after that she managed to keep her distance from everyone except for Del and Polly St. Phillips. Well, and Cody, though she was thankfully smart enough to recognize him for the alley cat he is.”
“Let her know we're here.” Kayne climbed over the balcony railing. “Once I know they're okay, we can go down to the basement and figure out why the generator didn't kick on.” Then he could find Cody and kick his ass. He didn't even want to think about what Cody could have done to Jess tonight, especially with thoughts of Rafe's wife having flashed through his head only moments before.
Rafe slapped a hand on his shoulder. “You leave Cody to me.”
The door flew open, and a violently trembling Jess threw herself into Kayne's arms and began sobbing. “Kayne!”
“It's okay, baby, I’ve got you.” He took the firearm from her trembling hand and handed it off to Rafe, then scooped her up and carried her inside, out of the rain.
She clung to him. “He was just standing there, watching us sleep.”
Kayne looked around the room, now lit by candlelight. Four little bodies that’d been huddling in the middle of the bed scrambled toward him.
Rafe crossed the bedroom, yanked the step-ladder out of the way, and flung open the bedroom door. “Gee, what a surprise, Cody. Been here long?”
“Jessica, thank God you’re okay.” Cody tried to move past Rafe without answering his question.
Rafe shoved him up against the wall and patted him down, Cody protesting all the while. Apparently satisfied with the negative results of the search, Rafe let him go, but pointed to a spot by the door and ordered, “Stand right there and don’t say a word, or I will arrest your happy ass.”
Cody was clearly pissed, but after a moment’s protest, he reluctantly obeyed Rafe’s order.
“Why don’t you take Jess into the sitting room.” Rafe pointed through the doorway. “Cody and I will stay here with the kiddos.” He paused to look at the kids. “If you lay back down, I’ll tell you a bedtime story.”
Once they were settled in the sitting room, Jess explained to Nick, Trace, and Kayne what had happened, but she looked nervously at Nick when she claimed she wasn't a hundred percent sure it hadn't been her imagination, perhaps a remnant of a bad dream. But listening as Jess relayed the situation, Kayne was convinced someone had been there. One look at the other officers, and he knew they agreed.
“Can you stay here, while we check the house? I want to see what's wrong with the generator.” Jess hadn't let go of him since she'd thrown herself in his arms.
“I'll stay with Jess,” Cody volunteered quickly from where he still stood by the bedroom door.
Rafe stepped into the sitting room. “I'll stay with Jess and the pack of sardines.”
He met and held Kayne's gaze, not in challenge, but friendship. Yeah, he might have had a thing for Jess, but he'd meant what he said. He recognized that Jess belonged to Kayne, and he supported it.
Kayne deliberately looked at Cody. “You should have seen me trying to extricate myself out of that sardine can when I got the callout earlier. They crawled into bed with Jess and I after the storm hit.” He surreptitiously watched Cody's demeanor change with that revelation. Sure enough, he looked ready to blow a gasket for a moment before masking his emotions. Kayne glanced at Nick and Trace. They hadn't missed it either.
“Let’s go.” Cody stalked off.
Trace grabbed his arm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re not a cop; you have no business being here.”
Cody motioned toward Kayne with his chin. “Even if he could find the generator, I doubt he’d know how to work it.”
Trace lifted his hands in surrender. “You know what, it’s your funeral.”
Cody stormed off, heading straight for the hidden staircase. The same staircase that Isabelle claimed she’d seen someone using earlier.
“Swa-eeeet! The castle had hidden passageways,” Trace whispered behind Kayne. “Did she build a dungeon too?”
“Yeah, it's labeled In-law-quarters on the blueprints.” Kayne smirked.
He knew they should be taking this a little more seriously, but he couldn't shake the gut feeling that Cody was the intruder. He prayed to God that was the case. Just the thought of some shadowy nemesis from his past touching this family scared the ever-loving shit out of him. At
least with Cody he knew who his enemy was and how to deal with him.
Besides, he might not know what really happened the night Tasha was taken, but the people who'd taken her were dead.
Nick whistled low. “This place is so much more amazing in person than on paper.”
“On paper?” Kayne flashed him a curious glance.
“Yeah, this was Jess's dream house long before Jarred. She found it online one night when she was surfing the Internet.”
“So anyone could have access to the house plan?” That thought did not make Kayne happy.
They discovered the main breaker had been thrown. Though it could have been done manually, more than likely lightning had struck the tower and kicked the breaker. Kayne shoved the lever into the on position, and everything powered up, including the light in the utility room. That made him frown. He was sure he would have noticed light coming from under the door at some point when he retrieved or put away his duty belt and service weapon in the safe down the hall.
Looking around, he noticed a door that he was pretty sure wasn’t on the alarm blueprints. “Where does that door go?”
Cody flashed him a superior grin. “Oh, it's unfinished space.”
Kayne went to the security screen, logged in, and rebooted the system. When it came online, he searched the floors from top to bottom. Everyone showed up where they should be, and there were no bodies unaccounted for. However, Kayne had remembered correctly, and the extra rooms were not on the blueprints. He also noted the tower door to the observation platform was not monitored, something he'd never noticed before. While it seemed unlikely for someone to scale the four-story tower, it wasn't impossible.
A cursory search showed the cavernous room to be empty, save for one small object on the concrete floor. A cigarette butt—something that could have easily been left by a service crew. However, the lingering scent of smoke could not. Nor could the disturbed dust where footprints had been carefully obliterated.
If someone had known about this room, and given that the alarm didn't monitor this section, they could have been in the house for any length of time. Kayne felt physically ill. He'd left his family home alone tonight with a real life monster in the house. He'd been sent out on a wild goose chase to get him out of the way.
Godammit! Jess could have been raped. They all could have been injured or killed. He could have lost everything tonight. If he'd just checked the fucking generator before he left, he would have known someone was here.
Well he'd do it now.
The answer to why it had failed was unfortunately quite simple. The auto/on toggle switch had been flipped to the off/maintenance position.
Kayne leaned against the wall, faking a calm he didn’t feel. All he really wanted to do was wrap his hands around Cody's throat and squeeze until he confessed to stalking Jess. “So, Cody, how did you get here so fast tonight?”
Cody shrugged. “We've been running two hour shifts at the department since the storm hit, patrolling for potential scratch fires from lightning strikes because the fire danger is so high right now. I drove by here a couple times after I heard you check 10-8. In fact, you saw me. I flashed my lights at you as you pulled out in the Tahoe.”
Kayne straightened. He hadn’t been in the Tahoe; he'd been in his patrol car. If he'd felt the need to have four-wheel drive because of the storm, he would have taken his vehicle up to the ADOT yard and switched it out for one of the patrol trucks.
He turned and accessed the security cameras. A quick check confirmed the Tahoe was sitting where it belonged, along with his truck and that damned midlife crisis of a sports car he'd yet to take a look at. Too bad with the power off the cameras hadn’t captured an image of the intruder.
As much as Kayne hated to admit it, the look of concern on Cody's face seemed genuine. Either he was a very good actor, or innocent. Neither made Kayne feel any better about the incident.
Rafe was standing outside the partially closed door when they returned to the master suite. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine. Jess is lying down on the couch.” Rafe shrugged. “It didn't seem right for me to be in there with your wife, when there's no immediate danger.” He looked Kayne in the eye.
“Thank you.” And Kayne truly meant that, for more than just watching over them tonight. Other than his brothers, he'd never really had friends growing up, and then he'd worked so much trying to support Oksana and the kids he hadn’t had time for friends. But Kayne had a feeling he'd finally found a place he belonged and people he could trust to unconditionally have his back.
Kayne walked Cody and the officers across the house to the garage exit. When they reached the door, Cody turned to face Kayne. “You really need to keep your distance.” His voice dripped with anger. “I don’t want Jess moping around for another two years over a man who was never worth her time in the first place.”
Cody’s comment almost sounded like a threat. Kayne shifted, resting one elbow on his firearm and his opposite hand on the keepers to his extra magazines. “Where the fuck do you think I'm going?”
“Once this ninety-day fake marriage bullshit is up and you take Tasha and leave. I told Jess in the beginning that keeping that kid would bring nothing but trouble.”
Kayne grabbed Cody by the front of his jacket and shoved him against the wall. “Her name is Grace, you dickwad! And I'm not going anywhere. That's my wife, those are my children. All four of them. You need to accept that this is my life now, and move on, because it will never be yours.” Kayne shoved the little punk away from him.
“Wanna fucking bet!” Cody stormed out of the house without another word.
This time Kayne didn’t need Joe Sutton's warning. He planned on keeping a very close eye on Cody Johnson.
THIRTY
It was nearly ten a.m. before Kayne returned home from taking the kids to school and finally called the alarm company. Thick cloud coverage had fooled everyone into oversleeping. It had been a lazy morning with no one in a hurry to be anywhere.
The alarm company had put him on hold to wait for yet another representative. The last four hadn't shared his concern over his perceived glitches in their state-of-the-art system.
Kayne gave Jess a lingering kiss goodbye. “Be careful.” She still looked exhausted, but he'd been unable to talk her out of her volunteer work.
“These are for you.” Jess handed him a box of checks and an envelope. “Just stop by the bank and fill out a signature card.”
His head began to throb. For Christ’s sake, she wouldn't even cash the damn checks he'd been writing her each payday, and she expected him to have access to her money on top of it?
He shoved the box across the counter. “I don't think so.”
They were going to have to have a serious talk about finances. Didn't she understand that he already felt like he’d failed his first family? Now he felt like some damned Shih tzu-hound being taken care of by its mistress. The reality was she didn't need him. For anything. And that stung.
She gave him an indulgent smile as she picked them up. “Be reasonable, Kayne. Use it for household things and stuff for the kids, at least.”
Kayne narrowed his eyes, studying her. “How much are you giving me access to?” Hell, he had no idea how much money she even had. By looking at the house, it was quite a bit. As if any of that mattered. Some of the happiest moments of his life had taken place in a three-bedroom house that was bursting at the seams with kids.
Jess shot him a mischievous smile. “There's already a Vanquish in the garage.” His jaw slacked in shock, and she laughed. “But I suppose there's room for that custom Harley you were drooling over that day at Westgate.”
Damn that had been a nice bike.
Kayne shook the thought away. “That's not what I meant, and you know it. Is that seriously an Aston Martin?” He really should have looked under the cover if that was the case.
The light in Jess’s eyes dimmed. “Yeah, it's a 2007 two-plus-two with the V12. Jarred bought it wit
h trust fund money before his parents cut him off. I should have sold it long ago, but Cody begged me to keep it.” Jess frowned thoughtfully.
It seemed to finally be sinking in that Cody had tried to control Jess's life all under the disguise of friendship. Kayne was certain Cody had simply been biding his time until he could step in and take over the life he’d all but created for Jess and himself.
Jess studied the box in her hands then sat it back down. “You should take it for a spin.” She looked up at him. “It only has a couple thousand miles on it; it's a shame for a really great piece of equipment to go to waste.” She eyed him appreciatively.
Nice attempt at distraction. He laughed. “The car you talked me into. This, however…,” he reached over and tapped the box of checks, “we're going to talk about later.”
Jess raised a challenging eyebrow. Apparently she didn’t agree. With a sigh, Kayne turned his attention to the supervisor who'd finally come on the line.
Thirty minutes later, they'd assured him someone would be out first thing in the morning. Not the answer Kayne wanted, but at least he'd be home tonight, and he wouldn’t be taking any midnight callouts this time.
***
Jess stood in the shadows outside the living room, fighting really hard to keep from laughing. She’d come to let Kayne know she was home, the older two kids in tow, but the sight before her stopped her in her tracks.
This morning Kayne had promised Isabelle and Gracie that if they’d sit and color while he did house work, he’d do something fun with them afterward. Isabelle had asked if she could paint his toe nails, and he’d reluctantly agreed. Now, Kayne was sitting on the couch, a cold beer in hand, his pants legs haphazardly rolled up, as the two little girls blew on his glittery, Pepto-Bismol pink toenails.
She must have made a sound because Kayne looked over his shoulder. He patted the chair. “Hey, baby, come see what the girls have done.”
Jess sat one hip on the arm, then leaned down and kissed him. “Nice nails.” She giggled when he pulled a face. “Traded in your man card, huh?”
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