When he reached the bedroom he saw the source of Clair’s scream. Her entire room was trashed. The bedding and mattress had been cut to shreds, almost gutted. Pieces of bedding covered the floor. The one mirror in the room was broken to pieces; the flat screen television was dangling from the wall. Her pictures were cut to shreds and there was writing all over the walls. Chocolate éclair, was right there in red on every wall. Then he checked the closet. Every piece of clothing she owned was shredded to irreparable pieces. Damn, the bastard had found her, had gotten into her place and…God, had she been there alone.
“Call the cops,” he barked at Janet.
“On it,” she said as she placed a reassuring hand on Clair’s arm. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get this guy.” She went to make her call.
Greg stalked over to Clair. “My God, Greg. He’s found me. How did he find me? I’m not listed.”
Greg pulled her into his arms. He felt her body trembling violently. There were a lot of ways Levins could have found her, but right now he didn’t want to tell her that. She worried enough about her safety as it was, he didn’t want to exacerbate her fears…not tonight.
When he caught the bastard returning him to prison wasn’t going to be his main concern. He was going to kill him. He was going to end Clair’s nightmare once and for all. The bastard wasn’t going to get another chance to escape prison and come back for her. The courts had already given him a death row sentence, why the hell shouldn’t he kill the bastard and save the tax payers some money.
Damn. He was angry, beyond angry. He tried to control his emotions because she didn’t need some near crazed agent with a gun protecting her, but right now it was taking all his strength not to go on the hunt tonight.
“How did he find me?” Her weak voice registered with him again.
“Come on,” he guided her away from the room. “Let’s go downstairs.” She didn’t fight him on his suggestion; she just feebly went along with him. Each step had been slow, taking a lot of her energy.
He knew the words on that wall had reminded her, taken her back twelve years to what Levins had done to her. She had felt safe in the park, just as she had felt safe here in her home, and once again he’d taken that away from her.
“Why would he trash my stuff like that?”
“It’s probably rage,” Janet said. “Cops are on their way, Greg.”
He nodded.
“He’s been in prison for a long time. He probably blames you for that and he wanted to get back at you before he…”
Greg held up his hand to stop her. He didn’t need her telling Clair that Levins was going to torture her before he killed her.
“But why my room. Why not trash the entire house. I mean that was deliberate. My clothes, my bed, my pictures…my clothes,” she repeated.
Janet shrugged. “Maybe it’s all he had time for. We weren’t gone long.”
They had been gone long enough; Greg wrapped one arm around Clair.
“He couldn’t have known when we’d be back and I don’t know about you all, but I didn’t see anybody running from here. If he’d wanted to trash the place he could have. Besides, how did he get in?”
There were no signs of forced entry in the front of the house, but he hadn’t exactly made it around to the back yet. Clair had screamed and he took off up the stairs; he hadn’t left her side since.
He heard the sirens come to a halt and saw the blue and red lights flashing just outside the house. “Get the door, Janet. Please?”
She nodded and went to let the cops in. “I have to talk with them,” he assured Clair. She nodded her understanding and released her grip on his free hand.
Officers moved around, checking the house, fingerprinting the rooms, all the while on high alert. He knew Levins wouldn’t return tonight, but they obviously thought he might.
Reporters had already amassed across the street. Levins escape had been news, and the fact that the only survivor of one of his attacks was still alive in Colorado had made the story just a little bigger. Fortunately, Clair was unlisted and the people at the gym she worked with had obviously been good enough not to take advantage of the situation and sell her location out for the money. Up until now, no reporters had been sighted at her house. Reporters were probably preoccupied with other stories anyway. Levins escape had made front page the day after he broke out, but hadn’t been on the front page since. People probably assumed he had left the state by now.
Levins had just made a move on Clair, and now this was going to be sensationalized front page news for a while. He could already see the headlines and all of them would point at the hunter and hunted angle. He was sure he would have to field off reporters. He couldn’t exactly keep them from being camped out in front of her house, but he would take her some place safe, some place where she wouldn’t have to be stalked by a group of story hungry vultures.
He just needed to convince her to go with him. He didn’t think he would have a hard time given the condition of her room. But with Clair it was hard to tell. She threw herself into work whenever she was upset and he wondered if she would attack repairing her room the way she attacked her work. She was visibly upset. He hadn’t seen her this shaken since he found her after she had been abducted. She had been upset since then, but this, this was eerily reminiscent of the day Levins took her.
He had been at work when her father called. The ice cream vendor, Jack Grant, had called him with the disturbing news before the cops even notified the family. Greg had been her father’s first phone call. He had asked for his help, near pleaded for it, not that he had to. The moment he heard the word kidnapped used in the same sentence as Clair’s name he was on his way out the door.
He didn’t have jurisdiction, and the police hadn’t asked for his help, but lucky for him they had let him help. The lead investigator had been sure to tell him his place. He didn’t care if he had to ride shotgun or in the back seat he just wanted to find Clair, and Amy.
After they found Levins’ truck, he had been the one to think about the abandoned cabin. He remembered it from when he had gone fishing once with her dad. They could see the cabin from the lake and from what he had been told, nobody had lived there for a couple years. The place didn’t appear to be falling down, but it needed some work. He had thought about seeing who owned it and putting in an offer, but changed his mind when he thought about the work he already had to put into his own house.
Levins truck had been parked by a stream and the dogs couldn’t track the scent through water. He had been the one to suggest they cross the stream and head toward the cabin. The cops had been skeptical at first. There were no cabins listed on the map. They weren’t sure there were any there, but he knew there was at least one. They were losing daylight, and soon the light would be completely gone. He knew the odds of finding them alive as time dragged on; the odds were not good.
Thankfully, they followed his suggestion despite their skepticism and the moment the dogs crossed the water they picked up the scent. He could easily find the cabin from the lake he had been fishing on, but finding it through the woods was a different story. He had to keep pace with the dogs and the other officers no matter how much he wanted to push ahead of them.
Then they had found the cabin and spotted Levins on the run. Several cops went after him with the dogs, while he and a few other officers entered the house. He saw Amy’s body first. His heart nearly stopped beating thinking Clair had suffered the same fate, but then he walked farther into the room and saw her with her hands tied to railroad boards that had been nailed to the floor.
“She’s alive,” one of the officers had said. “We need an ambulance.”
Greg knelt beside her. “It’s okay, Clair. I’m here now.” He tried to keep the anger out of his tone. She needed comfort and soothing. It was obvious what the bastard had done to her. “We’re going to get you out of here. He can’t hurt you anymore.” At the time he hoped his words were true because he hadn’t heard word on rather or not they had
caught him yet. It wasn’t until they were loading her into an ambulance that he heard they had caught Levins. He didn’t stick around for the investigation; he rode with her to the hospital. Another officer went to inform the family, and to bring them to the hospital. Neither parent showed up, and he couldn’t understand that.
He understood they were hurting, but she was hurting too. She needed them and they wouldn’t come. They refused to come. The officer had been sure to tell him that they “refused” to let him bring them to the hospital. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he had said. “Most parents will knock you over to get to the car.”
“She doesn’t find out about this,” he said through gritted teeth. She had enough to worry about; she didn’t need to find out her parents refused to see her. Fortunately, everybody involved agreed it would be better if she didn’t know, so they left it out of the conversation anytime they were within earshot of Clair.
The doctors had let him stay even though he wasn’t family, and that night she had asked for her parents. He couldn’t tell her the truth, but he couldn’t lie to her either, so he shushed her and told her to rest, not to worry. Those few words had calmed her—a little, and she had dozed off to sleep again. She hadn’t slept well that night, or the nights that followed, but he had been there each time she awoke from her nightmare. Each time she had asked for her mom, and each time he had had to avoid telling her the truth.
She was a bright girl, even then. “They won’t come; will they?” She had looked in his eyes and he saw the pain hidden behind her words.
“No,” he said softly, as if the lowness of his voice would lessen the impact. “They won’t come.”
She hadn’t said anything after that. She just turned her head to the side and looked out the window at nothing in particular. It was that day when he started to hate Hayden and Kevin McPhee. They were shit for parents and he couldn’t forgive them for that.
For the first few nights after her release he had stayed at her parents’ house. She still had the nightmares and they wouldn’t comfort her. Two days after that Hayden went to the Pembrook Mental Institution and that was the last he had seen of her. He eventually had to go back to his own home, but he assured Clair she could call him, anytime, day or night and he would be there. If she needed him to come over and sit with her he would. He had felt utterly stricken by her pain. He wanted to take it away from her, wanted to change what had happened, but he couldn’t. There was nothing he could do except be there for her.
Now, this night, looking at her shaking body and the pale complexion of her once blushed face, he couldn’t help but think of her back then. He couldn’t do anything then, nothing other than hold her hand and be the friend she needed, but he would do something more now. He was going to kill Levins. He had already set his mind to it and he didn’t plan to turn back on his decision. The bastard was going to die. One way or another he was going to make sure Levins died.
In his entire career he had never been tempted to play judge, jury and executioner…until now. Of course he was really just going to be the executioner because the judge and jury had already sentenced Levins. Hell, he didn’t care if he lost his badge over this. He had money saved. He could take her away. They could go live on some small island in the pacific. She could do yoga on the beach, open a studio, whatever she wanted, just as long as she was safe. Clair’s safety was his prime mission and he wouldn’t fail her, not this time.
“Clair,” he placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to take you some place else for tonight. Then tomorrow I’ll take you some place safe. I promise.”
She nodded so sheepishly that he felt as if he’d been kicked in his gut. He suddenly wanted her feisty defiance, the sharp tongue that had told him she was going to live her life and he could deal with it. But he didn’t get that tongue; he got uninhibited willingness to conform to his wishes. He never thought that one act would worry him so much. He hoped she wasn’t reverting back to that sixteen year old who had barely survived Levins attack. He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t lose her.
Chapter Nine
“You’ll stay here with me until we get him,” Greg ushered her into his house. They had planned to stay at a hotel she thought, but he took her to his place instead. He had changed things since the last time she was there. The floors were now all hardwood, the walls were still stark white, but he had traded the black leather couch for a more stylish suede sofa sectional. She wondered if that had been his doing or another woman’s influence.
Greg had style; she didn’t doubt that, but he never seemed to put much of that style into his home. She remembered when she had first seen his house; it looked barely lived in, but it was clean.
“You’ll have to sleep with me,” his voice lowered an octave. She had a feeling he didn’t exactly have sleeping in mind.
“Only one bedroom?” She asked innocently. There had only been one bedroom when she was there before. He had turned one room into an office and another into an entertainment room, though she didn’t really think he did much entertaining. Then there was the living room and dining room, two full baths, the master and the guest bath, and he had the deck out back where he use to have a chef style grill.
“Still just the one,” he noted. “Things have changed a little, but a lot is still the same.
“Is it a new bed?”
He grinned. He always did seem to have a way of knowing what she was silently asking and this time wasn’t any different. “New since Janet; if that’s what you’re asking me.”
She laughed nervously. “It is; I guess.” She didn’t exactly want to share the same bed with him that he had spent many nights holding Janet in…or any other woman for that matter. She looked him over, deciding Greg was too cute and too sexy not have shared the bed with another woman since Janet she dropped the conversation before she had a chance to hear him voice how many.
He laughed. “I don’t bring women here anymore. I haven’t since Janet and I broke up.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I guess I just didn’t meet anybody I wanted to share this place with.”
“Oh,” she nodded. “I get it. So, are you sure it’s okay that I’m here. I mean, I’m not breaking any secret code am I?”
He practically scowled at her. “No, you’re not. And of course it’s okay. I wouldn’t want to share my bed with anybody else.”
“Oh, just your bed; do I get to use any of the other rooms or am I confined to the bed only?” She laughed and he laughed.
“I’ll let you know. It depends…”
“On what?”
“On whether or not we decide to come up for air.”
Whoa. Her body was reacting to that statement. The realization that they would be alone hit her. Janet wasn’t staying over; Greg had pretty much made that clear to everybody in the room when he said there wasn’t room at his place for three. Being alone meant he would probably take her at will, in any room, at any time. The thought had her blood pulsing with desire.
“Do I get to go to work?”
“It would be better if you don’t. He might follow you home—”
“Oh my God. Do you think that’s how he found me? Do you think he knew where I worked? But how could he?”
“Clair,” he guided her to the sofa and sat her down before sitting on the wooden coffee table in front of her. “There are a lot of ways people can find out that information. It’s not exactly top secret, so yeah; I think he could have been waiting around outside the gym. Maybe he hid out in the lot across the street. Or maybe he found your information another way. It’s hard to say because there are so many ways he could have gotten to you.”
She sighed. People walked around everyday thinking they were safe, when in reality their personal information was out there for anybody to see, for any crazy stalker to use to get to them.
“If it’s that easy for him to get to me; what makes you think he won’t find me here?”
“
I don’t know that for certain, but if you can take a few weeks off work…”
She shook her head no. “I can’t leave Kevin without an instructor. I’m the only one who teaches my classes, and I’m not saying I’m the only one who can do it out of some sense of inflated self worth; I’m saying he doesn’t have anybody else who knows how. I can ask him to cancel the classes for a week. He can call my regulars and let them know so they don’t drive to the gym just for the class, but I can’t leave them all hanging for longer than that.”
She knew her students would practice the routines at home so they would be ready when she got back. She also knew the classes she taught at night would survive without her because there were other instructors who could cover at the country bar, and the hip hop dancing troupe wouldn’t miss her at all…she was sure of that. Her biggest concern was the gym. If, and that was a big if, but if she decided to open her own studio she planned to give Kevin plenty of time to find a replacement for her. Right now was just too short notice. In fact, it was too late to even think about canceling her Wednesday classes.
“Fair enough,” he said reluctantly.
“If it’s okay with you I’d like to go teach the class tomorrow.” She saw his impending protest. “I’m just thinking at least it’s not so last minute and then I can just let my students know that I’m going to be taking a week off for personal reasons and that they should work on the routine while I’m gone. I’ll even clear it with Kevin, but they can probably just get together and practice at the gym.” She batted her eyes. “Please?”
“Oh hell, you know I can’t resist that look. Okay, but…” he quickly put a halt to her enthusiastic celebration of her win. “We take my car, not your bike, and…”
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