by Julie Miller
“Sam?”
Shaking off whatever inconvenience had frustrated him, he gave chase, making no pretense of stealth as he leaped into the clearing and ran after the speeding truck.
“Sam!” Jessica ignored his warning and followed. This was her place, her haven that had been violated. Her dog that had been in danger. Next time the man had vowed. They’d be coming back? She was the one who wanted to demand answers.
But though she’d run cross-country in high school, her sandaled feet were no match for the jagged gravel. She quickly realized she was too far behind to catch Sam or the truck. And when Harry dashed past her to join the pursuit, apparently neither injured nor in need of her attention, she turned around and jogged back to the shed. There’d be answers there, too.
The darkness and at least one of the crashing noises was easy to explain. Broken glass crunched beneath her feet as she neared the shed’s front door. Jessica paused and looked up. The security light that hung over the entrance had been smashed, leaving only a few shards of the globe and light socket hanging from the metal frame.
She debated about five seconds whether or not she should go get her shotgun before opening the door. But she hadn’t been able to help herself that night in Chicago. She wouldn’t repeat that mistake. She wouldn’t run and let Sam or anyone else take care of this problem for her when she had smarts and character of her own to draw from.
Though the lock had been broken, the door wouldn’t budge. Studying her options, Jessica took a cue from the intruder and hoisted herself up and in through the broken window. Her burglar had either used a flashlight or disabled the lights inside, as well. In the pitch darkness inside, she stubbed her toe against a block-shaped object on the floor. She ignored the sharp jab of pain that radiated through her foot and made her way toward the doorway to find the light switch and circuit box.
When the light switch proved inoperable, she trailed her fingers along the connecting electrical conduit and reset the circuit breaker. She squinted her eyes shut as the one-room structure flooded with light.
As her eyes adjusted to the brightness, the sabotage became obvious. Shock slowed her reactions, forcing her to process the scene bit by painful bit. She slowly turned, her mouth agape as she inspected the damage of what would have been complete destruction if Harry hadn’t intervened.
“Jess?” The crunch of gravel outside the shed told her Sam had returned. “Jess!”
Reacting to Sam’s frantic call, she quickly pried loose the ax that had been wedged beneath the doorknob and swung the door open. “In here. I’m okay.”
When he would have taken her in his arms, Jessica backed away. After clinging to him in the woods, she didn’t think she could stand to be touched by him—by anyone—right now. Still clutching the ax in her grasp, she hugged her arms around her waist, afraid she’d break into tears if she surrendered what strength she had left to him.
Accepting her rejection with a stoic lack of argument, Sam paused in the doorway. His nostrils flared and his chest expanded and fell as he caught his breath. “They drove straight north toward Highway 50. There was too much dust to read a license. All I got was a beat-up truck. Two-tone stripe on the side. I couldn’t see anything in the back,” he reported. “Harry must have interrupted them before they had a chance to steal whatever they came for.”
“I don’t think anything’s missing,” she said, a dull, dead tone in her voice. Jessica knew with bone-chilling certainty that this break-in wasn’t about theft. The old buggy had been turned over on its side in the corner. The chest of drawers she’d bought at the auction that morning had been chopped into irreparable pieces, probably using the ax she held in her hand. The drawers had been pulled out and crushed with equal ferocity.
But that wasn’t how she knew.
“Son of a—” Sam saw it now, too.
Scarlet spray paint, trickling down the walls like bloody tendrils. Six letters. Meant to be eight.
D-I-E B-I-T
She thought of the message on her computer the night before and wondered how an anonymous stalker from somewhere in Chicago had wound up in her own backyard.
Chapter Seven
“That’s a pretty serious message for a couple of teenagers just out gettin’ their kicks. Seems more like they want to throw a scare into you for some reason.” Sheriff Hancock rolled the brim of his hat in his hands, leading this nighttime summit of sorts on her front porch. “Of course, it could be they just singled you out because you’re a woman alone out here. Easy prey and all.”
“She’s not alone.”
Jessica slid her gaze to the black-haired Irishman leaning against the post at the far end of her porch. Sam’s emphatic assertion thrummed through her body. His matter-of-fact defense of her was both enervating and a tad frightening. It wasn’t right for him to intimate that he was willing to do more than haul her furniture and repair her driveway, was it?
She wasn’t the only one who questioned his presence here.
“It doesn’t have to be that way, kiddo.” Mac Taylor was her second-eldest brother, a relatively quiet man on the Taylor scale. But there was no mistaking his strength and authority. “You know Ma and Dad have room in their condo over the shop with all of us moved out. And you’re always welcome to stay with Jules and me.”
To keep Sam from placing the call himself and putting her name and address over the dispatch wire where someone in her family might hear it, she’d phoned the sheriff at home to report the “incident.” Interesting how one of her brothers had managed to find out about it, anyway.
Jessica settled back on the bench beside the front door. “I appreciate the offer, Mac. But no one’s scaring me off my place. That sounds so…Perils of Pauline-like. This isn’t a melodrama. I’m a professional woman. I’ve been running a business here for five years.”
He raked his fingers through the short spikes of his burnished hair. He looked tired. He should. He’d been working a crime scene when he’d somehow intercepted the information about the break-in and driven out to her cabin. “Then the family can take turns staying with you.”
“No.” She tempered her refusal with a smile. “I don’t have that much space to put anybody up. The extra bed in the garage apartment is being used right now.”
Sheriff Hancock leaned in and whispered in a voice that was still loud enough to carry to the end of the porch. “You sure your new guy’s got nothing to do with it? Wouldn’t be the first time organized groups have come from the coasts to steal antiques here in the Midwest to resell back in the big cities where the demand’s so high.”
“I’m sure Sam had nothing to do with it.” She was pretty sure of a couple of other things about Sam O’Rourke, and was anxious for him to verify what she already suspected. Being a thief wasn’t one of them.
Though the sheriff didn’t seem satisfied with that particular answer, he continued to ask a few more routine questions. He paced off the length of the porch and stared out into the dark toward her driveway as if the trees and gravel could tell him something useful.
She certainly couldn’t. Yes, she kept the shed padlocked. No, she didn’t think anything was missing. Yes, her insurance would cover the damage to her property.
No, she didn’t know any reason why someone would want to hurt her.
Jessica studiously ignored the pair of ice-gray eyes that drilled holes through her when she answered that question. It wasn’t a complete lie. She understood the threat behind the words and vandalism, she just didn’t know who was responsible, or why she was being targeted like this again.
But she didn’t feel the need to justify her omission to Sam. She’d listened to his perfunctory report of the night’s events to the sheriff—the details he’d picked up, the way he described them.
She wasn’t the only person on her front porch keeping secrets tonight.
Jessica stole a look at Sam, hovering in the shadows at the far end of the porch, opposite from Sheriff Hancock. She should have recognized that miss-n
othing intensity in his gaze from day one. Lord knew she saw that same look at every family get-together. There’d been other clues that should have given him away to her discerning eye. But she’d been too attuned to his alleged grief over his sister to pick up on them. She’d felt the pull of the charm he’d tried to hide. The kindred spirit her soul had longed to reach out to. She’d sought out his protection, even welcomed his touch when it hadn’t startled her.
But Sam O’Rourke wasn’t everything he appeared to be. She’d bet Harry on it.
Jessica turned away and petted the dog stretched out at her feet. Harry had suffered a few bruises from the flying gravel, but nothing serious enough to impede his mooch and cuddle drive. She was glad because right now Harry seemed like the only male she could trust.
When the sheriff turned to face her, she automatically buried her fingers in the fur beneath Harry’s collar. “You sure this incident isn’t something more personal?” he asked.
Mac certainly wasn’t the most reactive member of her family, but he was definitely the most perceptive. He adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses that masked the scar tissue around his blind left eye and addressed the sheriff.
“Of course it’s personal.” He pushed away from the post he’d been leaning against, straightened his jacket and sat on the bench beside her. He placed his palm between her shoulder blades and began rubbing soothing circles across her back. “You should be looking into any employee she’s had to fire who would know about that shed back in the woods. Old boyfriends. Disgruntled customers.”
“It’s okay, Mac.” She reached out and squeezed his knee through the khaki work slacks he still wore. As a forensic pathologist, he was more scientist than cop. But he still wore a gun and a badge, and he was all big brother. She smiled, anxious to ease the lines of strain bracketing his mouth.
“Tell me what old boyfriend is going to cause trouble with the six of you watching over me. And I don’t have any disgruntled customers. My prices are fair and I know how to make a deal.” She purposely ignored the deceiver at the end of the porch she should fire. “And I’ve only had to discharge one employee. He’s since gone back for his GED and, last I heard, has a job repairing telephones and making more money per hour than I ever paid him. What reason would he have to vandalize my property?”
“You should still—” Mac began.
“I’ll get a name and look into it, just in case,” said the sheriff. Jackson County was his jurisdiction, and while the sheriff’s department got along well with KCPD, he wasn’t about to turn over his authority to an outsider.
But Mac was thorough. If he had a point to make, he would make it. “If it is just a couple of teenagers out partying on a Saturday night, I’d like to know who they are and why they don’t have anything better to do.”
“Mac—”
“We’re working on it.” Curtis Hancock defended himself before Jessica could. He propped his hands on his belt and the butt of his gun as he crossed back toward them. “I’ve got a description of the truck from that handyman of hers, and what men I can spare are out looking for it now.” Mac stood as the sheriff came closer to make his point. “I have other security priorities at the moment, Mr. Taylor. But Jessie here is a citizen of my county and a friend, to boot. I take the protection of her property and her person very seriously.”
“Well, since you’re booked up with other priorities right now, I don’t suppose you’d mind letting me take that ax back to my lab to dust and run for fingerprints.”
“I don’t mind a bit. We run a lot of our evidence through KCPD’s lab.” Hancock’s expression creased with a good-ol’-boy smile. “As long as you share the results with me.”
“Absolutely. You do your job, I’ll do mine.” They exchanged a businesslike, if not exactly friendly, look before Mac pulled her to her feet. “Need anything else, kiddo? It’s been a long day and I’d love to see my wife before she goes to bed.”
“Go. Say hi to Julia for me.” She stretched up on tiptoe and welcomed his familiar hug. “Don’t say anything to Ma and Dad, okay? This may be nothing and I don’t want to put any more stress on Dad’s heart than necessary. You know how they worry.”
Mac released her with a smile. “We all do.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward Sam. The two men hadn’t spoken directly beyond introductions, but she had a feeling Mac had been observing him the entire time. “You’re sure you’re okay alone here with this guy?”
“I’m fine.” She was actually looking forward to a few minutes alone with Sam. Though not for reasons he might expect. “He’s been very helpful.”
Mac slid Sam a look to let him know he was being watched. “If you say so. I’ll let you know what I find out.” He brushed a kiss across her cheek. “Love ya.”
“Love you.”
Jessica stood in place, watching Mac and the sheriff walk down to the parking lot together and then drive away in their separate official vehicles.
“So am I suspect number one?” Sam didn’t waste any time addressing the tension in the air. He left the relative exile he’d withdrawn to and strolled toward her with an easy, pantherlike grace. “Your brother doesn’t like me.”
“He doesn’t trust you. There’s a difference.”
“Why didn’t you tell him and Hancock that this wasn’t the first threat you’ve received? That whoever sent it is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a couple of bored teenagers?”
Jessica shook her head. “Uh-uh. It’s my turn to ask questions.” With a snap of her fingers, Harry rolled to his feet and sat by her side, pressing his head up into her hand as his reward for obeying. She obliged him with a thorough scratch around his ears. “Let’s go inside. I think we’ll want full-strength coffee for this discussion.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed to slits of gray. But he said nothing more as he held open the door and waited while Harry pushed his way inside first. Before she could follow, Sam snatched her by the wrist and held her back while he pulled the door closed, trapping the dog on the other side.
Sam released her before she could protest his trickery or his touch, and held his hands up in front of him in peaceful surrender. “He’ll be fine on his own for a few minutes and so will you.”
Oddly enough, Harry gave one surprised bark, but then went on in to find his food or a place to sleep. Apparently, he wasn’t alarmed by this separation. Traitor. “This isn’t your—”
“Forget about the coffee.” He lowered his hands and kept his distance, but there was no mistaking the challenge in his voice. “If there’s something eating at you, let’s hear it.”
Fine. She could do this without Harry or the distraction of keeping her hands busy. She inhaled deeply, crossed her arms in front of her and tilted her chin. “Earlier tonight, when we were running through the woods, and then when you took off after that truck, you kept reaching for something at your side. You even cursed when it wasn’t there.” The images of Mac adjusting his jacket, the sheriff using his belt as an armrest, made what was missing so vividly clear now. “You were reaching for a gun.”
There was a beat of dead silence. But he never blinked, his expression never changed. “No, I—”
“Dammit, Sam. Don’t lie to me.” Her temper overrode any misgivings she had about a confrontation. “I’ve been around men like you all my life. I said you reminded me of a cop. Are you?”
His pause was even longer this time. And the expression that darkened his features was resignation, maybe even regret. “No. I’m not a cop.”
Jessica pivoted and stormed away, angry that he would lie to her face. The signs were all there. The awareness. The protective instincts. The readiness to take action. She knew.
“I’m a special agent with the FBI.” The soft-spoken admission stopped her in her tracks. She hadn’t really expected him to be honest with her. And when she slowly turned to face him, she hadn’t expected to see the weary sag in his posture as he sank onto the bench and leaned back against the cabin’s log frame. “My badge and gun are up in
the apartment. In my backpack. I’ll wait here if you want to check. Take the dog with you or leave him here to stand guard. I promise you’re not in any danger from me.”
Oh, but he was the worst kind of danger. The kind that bulldozed around her defenses and got under her skin. He triggered her temper and taunted her hormones and tempted her heart. He made her feel needy, compassionate, womanly things. Things she hadn’t felt for a very long time. Things she’d never felt this intensely.
“The FBI?” She should be gloating that she was right, that she’d caught on to his deception. But all she could see was the bitter twist to his handsome mouth; all she could feel were the unanswered questions in her own heart. “Your friend, Virgil, whom I called as a reference—”
“He’s my partner. We work out of the Boston Bureau. Drug enforcement mostly.” Sam looked at her then. But his attempt at sarcasm fell flat. “I did do some carpentry work for him, and he will vouch for my character most days.”
Jessica sat on the opposite end of the bench, just out of arm’s reach. She wasn’t sure she’d believe what any man told her right now. But she wanted to understand. She wanted Agent Sam O’Rourke’s reason for conning his way into her life to be valid. “So what are you doing all the way out here in Missouri? You’re not really on any kind of sabbatical, are you? Are you working a case?”
“I am on leave. Bereavement.” He hesitated, and Jessica held her breath along with him. “I told you my sister died. She was murdered.” His mouth flattened into a hard, grim line as he controlled his emotions. “She suffered.”
That he said so little so bluntly probably said a lot about how much he had suffered, as well. His fingers silently tapped the bench, one at a time, the only outward sign betraying his tension. His expression eased when he looked at her, but the fingers kept tapping. His eyes were dark, empty shadows. “I’m looking for the man who killed her.”
Jessica scooted an inch closer. But she wasn’t sure if comfort was what he needed, or would accept, from her. He’d lied to her, but with that bleak edge drawing all the color from his voice, how could she not feel his pain? “Sam. I’m so sorry. You don’t blame yourself, do you?”