by Julie Miller
“I’d offer you my jacket, but it’s up in the apartment.” Sam closed the screen door quietly behind him and walked past her to lean his shoulder against a post, again carefully keeping his distance. Like the dog, he, too, seemed to be evaluating the weather and their surroundings. “I’d offer you me, but—”
“I accept.” Sam glanced over his shoulder, obviously surprised by her response. She was tired of tiptoeing around her feelings for Sam, tired of still being the victim of something that had happened months ago. She liked sparring with him, knowing she was safe and equally matched in any trade-off of words and ideas. She needed his strength and protection. And right now she very desperately wanted his comfort. “Unless you have somewhere to go?”
A pleased smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’m in no hurry to leave you.”
He held out his hand, and Jessica took it as easily as she had in the kitchen. Maybe she was finally getting used to touching a man again, or maybe it was just that this one provided such a tempting reason to move past her inhibitions.
But she was still taking it one cautious step at a time. She moved to his side instead of accepting his hug. Bless his patience, he didn’t complain. Keeping their fingers entwined, she wrapped her arms around his and rested her cheek against his shoulder. The goose bumps that had pricked her skin dissipated quickly as she cuddled closer. “How come men generate so much body heat?”
She’d meant it as a rhetorical question, a compliment. But he’d inherited enough of the blarney to have an answer for her. He laid his free hand over hers where it curled around his bicep and winked. “So women need us for something. We had the whole jar lid thing covered, too, but then somebody invented those rubber grips.”
Jessica laughed, allowing this man to warm her, inside and out. “Careful, Agent O’Rourke. Your tough-guy image is in jeopardy. I’m going to start to think you have a sense of humor.”
“I like making you laugh.” Jessica rode the expansion of his torso and arms as he breathed in a heavy sigh. The moment of shared humor quickly dissipated and was lost in the dark, wet silence. “It seems like a hundred years ago, sometimes, when laughter was easy. Kerry was the real comic of the family. Man, she had a wicked tongue. Dad said she was just like my mom—sharp and sassy. I used to laugh all the time.” His fingers kneaded her hand in his grip. “God, that was a long time ago.”
Jessica understood all too well how tragedy skewed the passage of time. She pressed her lips to the jut of his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Sometimes I’m so damn angry about all that’s been taken from me, I…” For a split second his hand tightened painfully around hers. “I swear to God, I’m gonna get this guy.” He held up the first two fingers of his right hand and sighted along them into the darkness. “I will put a bullet right between his eyes.”
An instant fear buzzed through her at the violence she felt simmering through every part of Sam’s body she touched. She wasn’t afraid for herself. This is what she’d feared her brothers would do. She’d never be able to stop all of them. She might not even be able to stop this one. She slid her hand from his arm to his chest, pressing her palm against the pounding of his heart. “Sam,” she whispered, trying to soothe his grief and anger. “You carry a badge. You have responsibilities. You want justice for Kerry, not vengeance. Please say you understand the difference.”
They stood like that for a few tense seconds that seemed like eternity. But gradually she felt his heart slow to a steadier beat. He covered her hand with his. “I will give him every chance to surrender himself. But if there’s no other way to stop him…I won’t let him hurt anyone else.” He turned and pressed a kiss to the crown of her hair. “Especially you.”
Jessica tipped her head back and ensnared herself in the vow that shone from his eyes. She wanted him to kiss her again. To seal that promise. She wanted to return his kiss. To ease the terrible burdens of duty and honor a man like Sam faced. His mouth moved closer, and she stretched up on her toes.
But just as they were close enough for the coffee on their breaths to mingle, a movement in the darkness caught her eye. A light flickered on and off through the trees. “Sam?”
He twisted around, pushing her behind him, his hand already reaching for his gun. He saw it, too. Mutual healing would have to wait. Someone was moving around in the trees near the storage shed again.
“Pretty bold sons of bitches to try it two nights in a row.” Sam cocked his gun to load that first bullet and leaped off the porch into the rain.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking it out.” He spared her a glance over his shoulder. “Get inside and lock the door. Call the sheriff. Tell him you have trespassers and that shots have been fired.”
“I didn’t hear—”
“You will.”
“Sam!” Oh, God, what was he going to do? “Be care—” But the rain and the darkness had already swallowed him up.
He’d left her. Alone. For a few precious seconds, Jessica’s lungs refused to work. She’d been alone that night, too. Her vision blurred and swam before her eyes as her mind tried to take her back. “No.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, refusing to be sucked in by the debilitating fear. “No. Call the sheriff. I can do that.”
A sound in the distance kept her from going in. Something low-pitched and unintelligible, muffled by the rain. She went to the edge of the porch and peered into the darkness.
Energy crackled through the air, as dangerous and unpredictable as the lightning storm had been. There was something evil in those woods. Something watching. Something waiting. “Sam?” she breathed into the night.
She wiped away the splashes of rain that chilled her face and tried to make him out as he darted around the barn toward the shed. In the distant shadows, one light became two, weaving in and out through the trees. He’d be outnumbered. She swallowed hard to keep her apprehension locked down inside. She should go help him. Warn him of her suspicions. But he’d told her to stay put, to stay safe. Experience with her brothers had taught her that a cop could focus more intently on his job and his own safety if he knew his loved ones were safe.
Not that she thought Sam classified her as a loved one. But she was a responsibility.
Then another sound, more distinct this time, reached her ears.
Frantic barking.
“Harry!” Galvanized by the same vicious warning that had alerted them to the vandals last night, Jessica flew down the steps. “Damn that dog.”
Eternally grateful. Always protective. Ever vigilant. An innocent creature bound by instinct and loyalty to guard his territory and protect his mistress. The creep last night had said they’d be ready for him next time. What if they’d returned to shoot or poison him? “Harry?”
She slid to a stop in the wet grass at the corner of the barn, catching her breath and orienting herself before she ran into the trees. The rain quickly soaked her hair and dribbled blinding rivulets of moisture into her eyes.
The illumination from the yard light didn’t reach this far, and the two roving lights had disappeared. She couldn’t see to find her dearest friend.
But Harry didn’t need to see to find her. Jessica pressed her tongue behind her teeth the way Cole had taught her and whistled. The loud, shrill sound pierced the darkness. Harry woofed in response.
“Yes!” She pumped a victorious fist in the air. “Come on, boy!” She whistled again. She’d head back to the cabin. He’d find her there. He’d be safe. She’d be safe. Sam would be safe. She whistled a third time. “Har—”
Her shout gurgled into silence as black-gloved hands clamped around her mouth and waist and lifted her off the ground. Her scream burned inside her throat and sinuses, fighting for escape. But the hands were rough, her abductor strong and fast. She banged her heel against his shin and tripped him up. He stumbled, hissed a wicked breath, but didn’t fall. He dodged her swinging fists and squeezed his arm around her gut, jerking her flush
against his sinewed body in a brutal mockery of an embrace. He carried her into the brush, into the shadows, into the trees.
Sam! She screamed his name behind the hand that pinched off her voice. Jabbing, biting, twisting, she fought for her freedom. She was wild and fierce, but the man who’d captured her was made of steel and stone.
With a heave of strength he threw her to the ground. She hit hard, landing flat on her back, knocking the air from her lungs. Even before the jarring pain and stabbing bits of twig and rock registered, even before she thought to inhale or scream, he was on top of her, pinning her down. His knee in her gut, his hand on her mouth, stretching her head back at an excrutiating angle.
Something sharp and cold pricked her throat. Circled around it. Cinched it tight.
Like that night.
Jessica’s mind screamed as she flashed back in time.
The sounds of revving motors and gunshots in the distance became the sounds of city traffic and classical music inside her head.
The black figure above her smelled of wet, pungent wool that had been stored in mothballs. Just like that snowy night in Chicago. In the cab in front of the museum. The driver’s clothes had reeked of the same musty scent.
No! He was taking her the wrong way.
She pounded her fist against his shoulder. Stop the cab!
They sped into the darkness. She threatened to open the door and jump out. The doors latched with an ominous click, and he swung his arm over the front seat, drawing the blade of a long, deadly knife across her throat and warning her to be still.
Air and consciousness faded. Memory and reality blurred.
Stop! Help!
“Die…” The voice was real. Here. Now. “Bit—”
The hounds of hell clamored in her ears. A charging beast hurtled out of the darkness and collided with the man on top of her, knocking him to the ground.
The noose around her neck went slack, and Jessica’s chest swelled with a reviving breath. The duel beside her was harsh and unmerciful. Punctuated with curses and growls, it ended with an inhuman shriek.
“No.” She mouthed the word. Her throat was too raw to work, her lungs too sore to breathe. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, tugging loose the band from around her neck and tossing it aside. “Stop.”
Two red lights flashed in the distance. A concussion of sound exploded in the air and one of the lights went out. But this wasn’t any flashback to a back alley in Chicago. This was real. It was definitely real. Oh, God. “Harry?”
She spun around on her scraped knees, knowing her enemy was behind her now.
“Get away from him.” Her voice was little more than a rasp of sound. The coughing that seized her immediately inflamed every bruise and wound on her body.
Maybe her attacker heard something in the woods. Maybe he simply sensed the approaching danger. His hand stilled in midair, interrupting his gruesome work.
“Get away,” she warned him, forcing herself to crawl forward, finding strength in the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. Not this time. Because she could hear the sounds now, too. The thump of booted feet on the wet ground. Coming closer, ever closer.
Like a ghost leaving its abandoned body, the figure in black rose, hovered an instant over the still form at its feet, then scurried away into the night.
Chapter Ten
Sam cradled his Sig Sauer in a firm grip between his palms and pressed his back into the thick trunk of the ancient elm. His deep, silent breaths kept him alert and virtually invisible to the comedy duo of thieves who were trying to load Jess’s green buggy onto the back of their pickup.
The buggy was heavy, and the rain made it almost impossible to get a good grip or secure footing. They were easy prey, rolling a wheel over a toe, landing ankle-deep in a muddy puddle. Dropping a flashlight into the same puddle.
Despite their slips and stumbles and curses, Sam hung back until he’d determined that neither man was armed. Neither of them was over the age of twenty-five. And while they were clearly thieves, neither one of these bumbling, wanna-be intimidators fit the profile of a calculating killer.
An uncomfortable sense of warning teased the fringes of Sam’s subconscious mind. Sam. He felt the word inside his head as if he’d heard the call with his ears. He turned his gaze back toward the cabin, seeing little more than gnarled branches and the bulk of the barn silhouetted against the yard light. An edgy need to take action danced through his feet. Figure it out, O’Rourke, he commanded of himself.
He turned his attention back to Mutt and Jeff, creeping to the next bit of cover and crouching behind a fallen pine bough. Under pristine conditions, he could easily take down both men without firing a shot. But the mud and reduced visibility would work against him, too. One slip and he’d be vulnerable to a lucky punch.
But he’d love to ask those bozos a couple of questions. Namely, Why? Why frighten an innocent woman? Why steal and destroy her things? Why her?
What was their connection to Jess’s rape? Or, more likely, what was their connection to Jess’s rapist? The sick message they’d left in the shed last night was no coincidence.
Was the threat here real? Or an overreaction from the hyperawareness that had stayed with him ever since Jess’s voluntary cuddle on the porch. He’d damn near poured his guts out to her, all because she’d pressed a hip, a breast, her hands and lips against his hungry body. She’d held him. He’d talked about things he’d never shared with anyone. Because she understood. She knew about vengeful thoughts and soul-eating anger and bottomless grief.
She knew. And yet she went on with her life. She moved forward. As tough as it was for her to trust a man, she could share a normal moment and care about his pain.
“What are you doing to me, lady?” Sweat popped out on his forehead as the force of his emotions tried to overtake him. He didn’t deserve that kindess. He hadn’t earned that trust. But he wanted it. He wanted her. Everything. If Jessica Taylor was willing to give any part of herself, he realized he was selfish enough to take it.
It was an unsettling admission for a man who’d counted on the ice in his heart to sustain him to the end of this mission.
A shrill tomboy whistle cut through the soupy air, jerking him out of his dour mood and planting him firmly back in the danger of the moment. “Jess?”
Stay put. Lock yourself in. Had he expected that of a woman who boldly marched forth and greeted strangers with a shotgun?
She whistled again.
“Ah, hell.”
The goons heard it, too, and jumped from the back of the pick-up. “Tie it down. I’ll start the truck.”
“Tie it with what?”
“Did you bring the rope?”
“I thought you were bringing the rope.”
“I brought the hamburger for the dog.”
These two thugs weren’t the real danger. They were barely competent clues that could lead him to the man he was after.
They were a damn diversion.
“Son of a bitch.” Sam bolted from his cover and charged the road. The men scrambled for the cab of the truck. “FBI! Stay where you are!”
The engine roared to life and screeched through its gears.
“FBI? Nobody said—”
“Go! Go! Go!”
The driver floored the truck, slinging up mud and rock until it found traction and lurched full speed down the road. They hadn’t even taken time to latch the tailgate, and at the first jolt, the buggy bounced out the back. Sam dodged the rolling wheels as the carriage clattered past him and crashed into the ditch.
He fired two warning shots, but the driver wasn’t slowing and he couldn’t fly. Screw that. Sam didn’t waste another step in pursuit. He’d ask his questions later.
Swiping the rain-soaked hair off his forehead, he blinked the moisture from his eyes. He squared himself off in the middle of the road, braced his right hand in his left palm and took a bead on the only clear target he had.
Breathe out. Think ice. Squeeze the t
rigger. Boom.
The right taillight was history. Before the satisfying jolt of the shot had dissipated through his arms, he was running.
The busted light would give the sheriff and his deputies something more concrete to search for in the light of day. The search tonight was his alone. “Jess!”
There was no whistle to guide him now, but he could follow the sound of the barking. More like a rabid, snarling version of his own thoughts. If Jess was hurt…
He didn’t waste his breath with cursing; he didn’t give voice to his fears. He raced through the trees toward the house, veered right, toward the sound, shoving aside branches and snapping twigs beneath his boots. Until a sudden and consuming silence more frightening than the sounds of battle stopped him in his tracks.
“Jess?” His call was a husky cry into the night.
With no answer.
Oh, God. He’d been too late to help Kerry. Was he too late to help Jess?
Sam’s chest heaved with the exertion of his run, but he breathed noiselessly in and out through his mouth. Where was she? Where was the damn dog? Why the hell was it so quiet?
“Sam?” The froggy croak of a whisper came from behind him.
He jogged toward the pained sound into a clearing beneath a canopy of pine and oak. The branches overlapped here, reducing the rain to a drippy mist. Jess was in the center of the cavelike darkness, kneeling over a black, bulky object on the ground. The stark white outline of her bra glowed against her skin in the darkness.
“Where’s your shirt?”
She angled her head and looked deep into the heart of the woods, opposite the direction from which he’d come. “He went that way. Toward the creek.” He? Bloody hell. The instinct to pursue his quarry jolted through his legs and he ran to the far side of the clearing. “If you hurry—”
But her voice cracked on a ragged sob, and Sam stopped in his tracks. Oh, God, she was hurt. He couldn’t leave Jess if she needed him. Sam peered into the pitch-dark mix of rain and trees and night, knowing that son of a bitch was out there somewhere, just beyond his reach, eluding him. His chest heaved in and out, taking calming breaths as he warred between the urge to finish this job or to help Jess.