A Wanted Man (Cold Case Detectives Book 1)

by Jennifer Morey

  She winced and rubbed her side and then her elbow and then her head, lowering her hand to look for blood. A small amount transferred to her finger.

  He put his arm around her. “We have to get out of here.”

  She swayed and put her hand on his chest. “Dizzy. What happened?”

  As she looked up at the square hole, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the stairs. Checking each one for sturdiness, he stopped at the top.

  Penny turned the handle. “It’s locked.”

  Kadin set her to her feet. “Hold on to the wall and step down a few steps.”

  She did, unsteadily.

  He kicked the door down, drawing his gun soon after. With his back to the wall, he swung his aim as he searched the house. Jax had left the front door open.

  Turning back to Penny, seeing she’d climbed the stairs on her own, he went to her and slipped his arm around her.

  “I’m better now. Not as dizzy.”

  At the door, Kadin looked for the shooter. Only the cicadas and a gentle breeze broke the clear day.

  He faced her and handed her the gun. She took it and he lifted her again.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as he began to walk to the road.

  “Carrying you. You keep guard.”

  She flipped on the safety and rested it on her stomach one-handed, having slid her other arm over his shoulders.

  “It’s a long way back to Jax’s.”

  He looked down at her pretty face. “You don’t weigh that much. And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big guy.”

  “You are.”

  “And we aren’t going back to Jax’s. In fact, you aren’t going to be with him alone ever again.” By the time the police and paramedics arrived, they’d be gone and the message to Jax would be clear. Kadin had rescued Penny and he wouldn’t allow her near the bastard again.

  “I can’t even accuse you of being jealous,” Penny said with a sigh of mock dejection.

  That made him smile. “Not today.”

  * * *

  Penny reclined on her sofa in the glow of Kadin’s attention. She told herself not to get used to this, his pampering, his man-protecting-his-damsel-in-distress role. Her accident had scared him, although he’d never admit that. Or maybe scared wasn’t the right emotion. Angry, simmering anger that danger had gotten so close to her.

  He brought her a steaming cup of tea, putting it down on the coffee table within reach. He’d taken her to the hospital himself, and she’d been released with a slight concussion and instructions to rest for the next week or two.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Good.” She kept her smile to herself.

  “No nausea?”

  “None.”

  “Do you need anything else? Another pillow?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you warm enough?” He adjusted her blanket.

  “I’m comfortable. Really, I’m fine, Kadin. Thank you.”

  He met her eyes, somber and intense. “I’m taking you to Rock Springs to rest.”

  “I can’t be away from work that long. Mark is already freaking out that I called in sick today.”

  “I spoke with him an hour ago.”

  Penny sat up a little more against her throne of pillows. “You did what?”

  “He understands that you have to be away from work now. I explained his options. He understands.”

  In other words, he’d threatened her boss.

  “You’ll have your job when all of this is over,” Kadin promised, adjusting her blanket again and then brushing back some hair that she’d disturbed when she’d sat up straighter.

  “What exactly did you say to him?”

  “Just trust me. And by the way, Detective Cohen is on his way here. He’s got some questions for you.”

  “Way to try and distract me. What did you say to my boss, Kadin?”

  “Basically I told him that if he gave you any trouble or tried to fire you, that he’d be hearing from me.”

  She searched his face, especially his clever, light gray eyes that held so much darkness. “What really happened?”

  “I not only let him know that I could physically convince him to do what I want, but also hinted to my knowledge of his financial activities.”

  That must have really gotten his attention.

  “I’m not taking a no, Penny. You’re coming with me and we’ll stay at my place until the forensics results come in and we have more leads. I need you safe while you heal.”

  Her enamored glow dimmed. His feelings for her might drive him, but his quest for justice drove him even more.Her apartment concierge called, signifying Cohen’s arrival. She listened to him welcome the detective and then heard their approach. Penny sat up straighter, Kadin leaning in to move her pillows so they supported her better.

  “Penny. Kadin told me what happened,” the detective said by way of greeting.

  “Trapdoor. Yes. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  He sat down on a chair across from her. Kadin remained standing.

  “He said you saw a man the night you took pictures of the truck in the barn,” Cohen added.

  “Yes, but it was dark. He may have been the same man I saw in the restaurant parking lot, but I can’t be sure.”

  “It’s likely that whoever is doing all this is the same man who hid the truck in the barn. Kadin thinks the killer feels certain that if he eliminates the two of you, he’ll escape the law.” Cohen looked up at Kadin without any indication that he felt injured the killer didn’t consider him a threat, too.

  “Kadin does have a reputation,” she said.

  Kadin stopped pacing. Penny only then noticed he had been.

  “And you went snooping around and are close to Jax,” he said.

  That piece confused her. “I don’t think it’s Jax.”

  “No, but let’s not forget Mark’s suspected of embezzling,” Kadin reminded her, resuming his pacing.

  Yes, the embezzling that implicated Dane as a not-so-honorable man. She met his gaze as he confirmed her unspoken thought.

  “Dane’s background checks out,” Cohen said. “But I plan to talk to his associates.”

  There were so many ways this could go. Penny rested her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Her head had begun to throb. Jax seemed as potentially guilty as innocent. Then something her ex said popped into her mind.

  “We can talk later,” Kadin said to the detective. “When you have more from Forensics.”

  Penny opened her eyes. Kadin had stopped pacing.

  “I’ll let you rest,” Cohen murmured to her.

  “Jax mentioned he saw a man in a hoodie,” she said in a rush. “He described the same man I saw. And he told me about the previous owner of his property. The man came to see him after he built his new house and said something cryptic to him. Take care of my house. He didn’t want to give up the property.”

  Kadin looked down at her as the implication of that settled. If Jax had seen a strange man, could that person be the previous owner of his property?

  Penny thought of the trapdoor and Jax leading her inside and the gunman outside. Had they been working together? If Kadin hadn’t been so near, would Jax have locked her in that basement? The plan could have been to kill Kadin and lock her up—to what, kill her later? Jax could have just been pretending to try to help get her out. Or had the previous owner intended the trapdoor for Jax? But why go to all that trouble...and how would the previous owner know Jax would go into the house? Jax working with the hoodie man seemed more plausible. Lure her inside. Trap her. Kill Kadin if he interfered. But what if Jax told the truth? What if he was innocent?

  Chapter 9

  Penny had to con
vince Kadin to allow her a few extra days to wrap some things up at work before leaving for Rock Springs. She’d met with her skittish boss, who’d kept eyeing Kadin warily. Kadin refused to allow her to go anywhere without him now. It was a huge imposition. And then...not. She smiled over the many exchanges they’d had, most of them silent yearning to find a bed.

  She’d assured Mark that she’d work remotely and now, packed and ready to spend some time in Wyoming, she stared out the window of Kadin’s Charger as they sped down Interstate 80 toward the Wyoming border. She hadn’t felt good all morning. The breakfast Kadin had prepared had made her sick to her stomach. She’d tried to swallow a few bites and then had gone running to the refrigerator for a carbonated soda.

  “Are you all right?” he asked from the driver’s seat.

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up.” Had the strike to her head done that? She put her hand to her head. “Will you stop so that I can get something for my stomach?”

  “Sure.”

  The exit for Coalville came up a few minutes later. By then, Penny had to keep swallowing and taking deep breaths. She was really going to be sick.

  Kadin parked in front of a small gas station and she got out and walked quickly inside. Rushing to the back, she found the bathroom. Inside the stall, she barely made it over the toilet before she lost what little she had in her. When she finished, she sat against the stall partition, trembling, pale and weak.

  “What the hell?” she asked herself.

  Flashes of Kadin sliding into her wet, eager flesh inundated her senses. She, arching as she came, an incredible explosion of pleasure while he continued to move inside her.

  She hadn’t had her period yet.

  Penny sat forward, staring at the opposite wall in shock. How late was she? A week. No...two weeks.

  “Oh, baby Jesus.”

  Baby.

  No. She couldn’t be pregnant.

  Her? She wasn’t going to have any kids. She didn’t want any kids. She wasn’t ready for a kid.

  But neither she nor Kadin had taken any precautions. Penny usually made sure either she or the man used protection.

  She recalled how she’d felt sick at Jax’s house and covered her mouth with her hand. No. No. No. She could not be pregnant.

  Penny cupped her breasts. They’d been a little sore. She’d thought that was her period approaching. Yeah, but she’d never thrown up before a period. First time for that.

  Penny climbed to her feet, picturing Kadin sitting out in his car, completely oblivious to her realization. He’d had a daughter. Still mourned his daughter. He’d had a wife. Still mourned his wife. He wasn’t ready for this any more than her. No, he was even less ready than her. He’d freak out if she told him.

  Wasn’t she freaking out right now? Penny stopped from opening the bathroom door. She had to get a hold of herself before she faced him. Daddy.

  “Oh, sweet Lord.” She thumped her head against the door.

  Her career fast-forwarded through her mind. She’d have to fit day care in with her work schedule. When would she find time for a baby? She’d never advance to CEO if she couldn’t invest the time. She’d become a mom.

  Penny moaned her despair, rolling her head back and forth on the door. Maybe she wasn’t pregnant.

  Swinging the door open, she left the bathroom and began searching for a pregnancy test, feeling like a wild, crazed animal fighting for air.

  Finding the aisle, she stopped before the family planning items.

  No planning involved in this...

  Reaching for one of the tests, she caught sight of someone approaching. Tall, big, imposing, Kadin walked toward her in the aisle. She jerked her hand back and turned as though looking for stomach remedies.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he stopped next to her.

  “I can’t find the nausea medicine,” she said.

  “It’s down there.” He pointed down the aisle.

  “Oh.” She waved her hand as though scattered. “I walked right past it.” She went there and began selecting which one.

  Would any of them be safe to take if she was pregnant?

  “Here.” Kadin picked up a pink box and handed it to her.

  She didn’t take it. “You know what? I feel better now.” She actually did, other than being stunned over her possible condition. “I threw up. Let’s go.”

  She walked to the front of the restaurant and out the door, waiting at the passenger door of his Mustang. Kadin paused on the other side, looking at her over the hood.

  “I just need to lie down,” she said.

  Lie down and wrap her brain around her future as a mother. Without a husband. How would Kadin react?

  He unlocked the doors and she sat inside, resting her head back and closing her eyes to avoid his speculative glances. At least she could blame her concussion for her nausea. Didn’t everything happen for a reason?

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Kadin sat at his square bistro table with his head submerged in the files of the girls that Detective Cohen had copied and given to him. Jessica and Vanessa were twelve and fourteen. He studied their backgrounds until he felt as though he knew them. Two young girls he’d never met who could have been his own daughter, their youth robbed from them, their future erased. He’d studied their files before. Each time he absorbed more, instinct and experience combing to give him an investigative strategy.

  Hearing Penny, he looked up and saw her coming down the stairs against the redbrick wall, her hand gliding over the decorative bronze railing. Light streamed in from the three tall, arched narrow windows and as she stepped into the rays, she looked angelic.

  “You’re up early,” she said.

  As she came closer, he thought she looked a little green.

  “It’s after seven. How’s your head?” he asked, opening the file on Jessica.

  She went into the kitchen behind him and he listened to her open the refrigerator. “Okay.”

  “Still feeling sick?”

  “A little.” She poured something into a glass and then came over to the table, standing beside him, looking down at his piles of scattered papers. “What’s that?”

  “Files on two other girls. Cold cases.”

  She drank some of the orange juice she held. “Related to Sara’s case?”

  “Possibly.” Rather than let his interest in her silky cream-colored PJs veer out of control, he returned his attention to the file on Jessica. Her abduction had occurred prior to Vanessa.

  Penny sat down adjacent to him and slid Jessica’s file so that they could both see it. He watched her stare at the picture of the long-brown-haired, hazel-eyed girl. It looked like her school picture. Kadin had given the police a photo of Annabelle when they went to the zoo. Head tipped up at him as he took the snapshot, she smiled big in the sunlight, some strands of reddish-brown hair flying in a slight breeze.

  “It’s hard to look at them,” Penny said with a sad face. “They’re just kids.”

  Kadin didn’t respond. What could he say? To him, no worse crime existed.

  “What do you know about her?”

  He turned his gaze down to the file, already knowing everything the pages contained. He fell into his role as investigator. It was what spared him extreme grief, looking at each case as a piece of a puzzle, with the grand prize being the capture of a dangerous and demented individual, a person who had severe mental issues and had to be separated from society.

  Sometimes he had trouble accepting that mental imbalance had a lot to do with why people killed children. He still wanted to tear each one of their throats out. Slowly. He wanted to make them suffer the way each of their victims suffered. He wanted them to feel every second of the pain and horror they inflicted on each girl. And then rationale returned and he understood
that justice had a process and the best he could hope for was a death penalty.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t inflict at least a little of his own brand of justice before turning them over to the police.

  And really, the best part of capturing killers was the satisfaction of knowing he’d been instrumental in stopping them from hurting anyone else. Stopping them. Taking their demented pleasure away from them.

  “Jessica was walking home from a friend’s house after a sleepover. She took a shortcut through a field. Her friend is the last one to have seen her alive. She watched her from her bedroom window until she disappeared beyond some trees and over a hill. Her backpack was found a short distance from that point.”

  “How long ago was she murdered?” Penny asked.

  “Three years.”

  She looked up at him, as though seeing if the time frame had affected him. It had. And like his daughter’s, this young girl’s body had been found.

  “They’ve got DNA,” he said.

  Penny didn’t ask how. She could read the details in the file. They were too gruesome to voice.

  Penny picked up the file on Vanessa.

  “Vanessa is a little different.” He showed her the notes.

  “She went to bed and was never seen again,” Penny said. “She could still be alive.”

  “If she is, I’m going to find her.” He felt his whole body light up with that prospect, of finding a girl alive and returning her to her parents. The other missing girls resembled Jessica’s case, so he didn’t hold much hope of finding them alive.

  She looked down at the files. “How did you isolate these girls?”

  “By area. Timing. The way they disappeared. Their ages.”

  She looked thoughtful as she took in his face. “You really are good at what you do.”

  He grinned at the compliment. “Yeah, but I like to think I was good before my daughter died.”

  She smiled back, hers more genuine than his. He didn’t find anything redeeming about getting good at what he did because he’d lost his daughter.

  “You probably were.”

  He enjoyed her soft, sea-green eyes awhile, and her smooth lips revealing a sliver of pearly teeth. She had olive skin he could reach out and caress right now, and a petite nose that made her eyes stand out with those long, black lashes.