In His Sights

by Justine Davis

  Rand’s jaw tightened. “And?”

  “It’s quite something.”

  Damn. He’d hoped, when he hadn’t heard back right away, that there had simply been nothing to find. “Go ahead,” he said, even though he knew he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.

  “She’s in a hole, all right. Took some digging to find out why. It’s pretty sad.”

  “Sad?” He was certain it wasn’t drugs, or booze. Was she a closet compulsive gambler?

  “Apparently she went deep in debt, sold her house, and robbed her 401K, all for the same reason. Her little girl.”

  Rand blinked. “What?”

  “That’s why this took so long. Getting medical info is tricky. Even Redstone research was only able to get the basics. Apparently the baby was born with multiple, life-threatening health problems. By the time she was two, she was in the hospital more than out.”

  “And Kate spent everything trying to save her.”

  “Yes.” If Sam noticed his use of the nickname, she didn’t comment on it. But then, Sam had always been the soul of discretion.

  “What about her husband?” he asked, wondering why the man hadn’t even been mentioned.

  “Oh, now there’s a real man.” Sam’s tone was unusually sour. “According to this, he bailed the minute he found out the baby wasn’t perfect, that they were looking at long-term problems. Left her holding the bag, the baby and the bills.”

  When the going got tough, he got going—to a divorce lawyer, Kate had told him.

  “Bastard,” Rand said. No wonder Sam was angry; that kind of thing was a hot button for her. Her little brother had some long-term problems of his own, and Sam had spent most of her adult life fighting for him.

  “My sentiments exactly. No wonder the first thing she did after the child died was take her maiden name back.” Then, as if giving in to curiosity, she asked, “What’s she like?”

  All the things he felt about Kate bubbled up and threatened to come pouring out. He bit them back, not even to Sam could he spill the truth about how much trouble he was in on this job. If he told her, he knew she’d feel compelled to come rescue him, and right now he wasn’t sure he wanted to be rescued.

  “She’s exactly what you’d expect a woman who would do that for her child to be.”

  “But is she the thief?”

  “I hope not.” And that, he thought, was the understatement of all time.

  “You all right, partner?”

  No, he said silently. “I will be,” he said aloud. “I just hope I don’t have to destroy some people I like to resolve this.”

  “Good luck,” Sam said softly.

  He knew she meant it. After they’d disconnected he sat there for a few minutes. Maybe he should have talked to Sam. Who would better understand? She’d told him about how she’d fought her attraction to Ian, when he’d been her assignment.

  And she’d lost that fight, he reminded himself. But she’d won, in the end. The biggest prize of all.

  He needed to think. And make some decisions. With a sigh, he put the car back in gear. He went past Kate’s driveway, past the turnoff to the Crawford’s house, and kept on going. He wasn’t sure where he was going. But sooner or later in this land of beautiful vistas, he’d find one to park and stare at, while he tried to make sense out of the tangle he was in.

  When the phone rang, Kate was so soundly asleep that she sat up completely disoriented. It was a gray day, dark enough that for a moment she thought it was either dawn or twilight. By the second ring she had glanced at the clock, and had managed to remember it was instead midmorning.

  Moments later, as she hung up, she was wide-awake. Wide-awake, and furious. This time they’d done it literally right under her nose.

  She leaped to her feet and dressed hurriedly. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so angry. Even when Dan had walked out, she’d been so consumed with worry about her child that she’d had little emotion to spare for her deserter husband.

  She arrived at her office with her anger still running high. Her greetings were uncharacteristically terse; she was in no mood to be cheerful, and she couldn’t help wondering which of them was the traitor. The only other option was Jim, the driver, and she just didn’t believe it.

  Of course, she didn’t want to believe it of anyone.

  She spent the rest of the morning watching the hours of video from last night, never taking her eyes off the screen without pausing the tape. Even on fast forward, her already tired eyes were gritty by the time she reached the halfway point. And she saw nothing she hadn’t already seen.

  Watching it reminded her, however, and she picked up the phone and called the shop manager. He told her the night mechanic sometimes went home for his lunch break. That explained, she went back to work.

  She spent the afternoon going through every person on the staff here, making a list of reasons why they could or could not be the culprit. When she was done she threw her pen down on her desk in disgust. She hated having to think this way about people she worked with and liked. Hated having to think in such negative ways about them, trying to remember anything they’d ever said or done that might hint at trouble. She was no good at it, never had been.

  She thought she’d left this kind of thinking behind, in the city, in the corporate world she’d escaped. She’d even been hesitant to take the job with Redstone, for fear of finding more of the same. But Redstone was a different beast altogether, Redstone was like a family, and Redstone people looked out for each other.

  She stood up and began to pace, trying to think. She’d been through this so many times she didn’t see how she could think of anything new, but she was determined. She’d always worked well under pressure, under a deadline. So she’d just give herself one.

  “I’m not leaving this office until I have a plan,” she said out loud, and hearing the words solidified her resolve.

  She walked over to the window, to look down at this place that had restored her joy in doing productive work. She went through it once more in her mind, every step she’d taken yesterday and last night, trying to see where she’d missed something. From the packing of the boxes to the loading, to the night spent with the truck’s doors secured and undisturbed, to the recheck in the morning and Jim’s departure. She couldn’t see where she’d missed anything as blatant as the theft of the entire shipment.

  But as she stared toward the loading dock, the germ of an idea glimmered in her mind. She turned her head to look at the shop area. She walked out of her office and headed across the courtyard.

  “You look tired,” Rand said. Of course, he knew she was, and he knew why, but it seemed like he should say something anyway.

  She sipped at the last of the glass of lemonade she’d ordered with her fish and chips. “I am. I went in to work last night.”

  He lifted a brow at her across the restaurant table. “Odd. I drove by there and didn’t see your car.”

  She gave him a startled look. Did it also hold guilt? He couldn’t tell. And again he wondered what she would do when she, as she inevitably would, learned the truth about who he was and why he was here.

  “I…I parked a ways away. To walk. For the exercise.”

  She was not a practiced liar. Or she was so practiced she knew how to make it look that way. “At night?” he asked mildly.

  “This isn’t the big city,” she said. “It’s quite safe here.”

  “Safer,” he agreed. “But I’m sure even Summer Harbor has the occasional crime. You know, vandalism, a theft now and then.”

  She didn’t look at him this time. He wondered if she was afraid of what he might read in her expression.

  “Of course we do. It only looks like Eden.”

  Something in her voice made his stomach knot. He couldn’t do this. Not to her. He couldn’t keep poking at her, to see if she’d let anything slip.

  “That wasn’t a criticism, Kate. I know you love this place. And I can see why.”

 
She smiled then, and his gut relaxed. And even as it happened, he was ruefully aware he’d never been so befuddled before. Just when he’d decided she was, regretfully, the most likely suspect, something like what Sam had relayed came up, and he was convinced she couldn’t be all over again. No matter that she was the one with the best opportunity, a motive and the brains to pull this off over and over again, it just didn’t fit with who she was.

  Or who he thought she was.

  He couldn’t deny that he was too involved to be objective. Nor could he deny what it was going to do to him if he was wrong. It was a dilemma that had no solution at the moment, and wouldn’t until he unraveled this case.

  But for now, he chose to believe she was the woman who loved her grandparents enough to change her life to care for them, just as she had loved her child enough to sell everything she owned and mortgage her future to give her a chance.

  “I was going to suggest a movie or something, but I think I’d better just get you home so you can get some sleep.”

  “I…thank you.”

  She was very quiet as they drove back to her house. Except to give him directions at an intersection marked by nothing more than a dead tree and a broken fence, she barely spoke until they were standing on her front porch.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “My pleasure.”

  He leaned down to her. He meant only to give her a good-night kiss, simple and quick. But the moment his mouth touched her lips, that heat that flared so quickly scorched all his good intentions.

  He barely managed to pull away before he was completely out of control. When he saw an echoing heat reflected in Kate’s eyes, he nearly lost his resolve.

  “You want to come in…for that ‘or something’?”

  The rich, husky note that had come into her voice completed the job of crumbling his determination to go away and let her rest.

  “Are you sure you’re not too tired?”

  “I was,” she said, “until you kissed me.”

  And with that simple declaration Rand was lost. He’d never before felt like those few words made him feel. He didn’t know if it was the straightforwardness of them, or simply that it was Kate saying them. He didn’t care. He only knew that for her he would put his job, his common sense, and everything else on hold. He already had.

  But he hadn’t forgotten how tired she was, although he tried not to think about the reason why.

  “Let me,” he said softly as she fumbled with her coat. And she did.

  He said it again when they were in her bedroom, and again she let him. He undressed her carefully, gently, telling himself that if she fell asleep he would let her be. But instead she sat down on the edge of the bed, watching him as he pulled off his own clothes.

  “You’re as beautiful as I remember,” she whispered, and his belly tightened.

  “I think that’s my line,” he said. “Because you are, Katy. You are.”

  She held her arms up to him then, and he went down to her like wax.

  “Let me,” he said a third time. “You just relax, and let me take care of you. Just for tonight, Kate, let someone else do the worrying.”

  She lay back then, looked at him for a long, silent moment. Then she nodded. He began slowly, tenderly tracing every curve and hollow, stroking and petting and until she began to move restlessly beneath his touch. He kept on, until there wasn’t a part of her he hadn’t explored.

  Then he started all over again with his mouth, following the same paths, savoring the hot silk of her skin and the luscious, female softness. He kissed, tasted, licked and suckled until she was moaning, a low, rough sound that made his already aroused flesh ache.

  When at last he slid into her, she was hot, slick and ready, and she cried out his name in welcome. He began to move, trying to concentrate on her, but it was nearly impossible when she began to move with him, meeting his every thrust, rousing him to a fever pitch only heightened by the sound and sensation of their bodies joining.

  He bit his lip, trying to hold back, desperate not to lose control. And then she cried out, and he felt her body begin to clench around him as her fingers dug into his hips as if she were trying to pull him inside her. He felt the undeniable urge to help her, and ground his hips harder against her. Her name burst from him as his body convulsed and wave after wave of hot, pulsing sensation poured through him.

  He collapsed on top of her, gasping, the world spinning around him as if there truly wasn’t enough air in the room. He felt tiny echoes of pleasure ripple through him in response to the caress of her flesh around him.

  He tried to think of something to say, something profound, something she would remember when she finally learned who he really was and why he was in Summer Harbor. She would be, he had little doubt, furious at him for deceiving her. He had to find a way to somehow convince her that no matter the circumstances, this was real and precious and good.

  Before he could find the words to say anything at all, she had surrendered to sleep. And so he stayed silent, holding her close, realizing for the first time just how much he had to lose if this all went sour on him.

  He lay awake for a long time.

  Kate’s plan was coming together, and it made her feel energized.

  Or maybe, she thought with an inward smile, it was as much thanks to Rand as anything else. He’d kept her so occupied this past week that she hadn’t had time to stress about what was going on at work. And when she did go to the office, she was, after a night with Rand, refreshed and more than ready to tackle anything.

  Even you.

  Her thought was directed at that faceless, unknown betrayer she was more determined than ever to discover.

  Everything was in place. Tonight was the night. She’d already told Rand she had to work late tonight. She’d asked him to drop her off, so that her car wouldn’t be there for anyone to track her comings and goings. He’d been puzzled, but had accepted her hurried “I’ll explain later.”

  She had sent the altered schedule to the shipping department three days ago, with word that they were speeding production to make up for the lost shipments. Plenty of warning for the thief. She had taken only Brian into her confidence, and he was helping her now. Between them they sealed up the boxes, with Kate putting a barely noticeable mark in the same place on each taped seam so she could later tell if they’d been opened and retaped.

  When they were done she stepped back to look. The boxes looked exactly like all the other shipments. And from here on, that’s how they would be handled. The only difference was that the next shipment hadn’t been scheduled to go for two more weeks.

  Well that, and the fact that these boxes were full of carefully weighed Redstone logo pens instead of the precious insulin pumps.

  And she alone knew that. Even Brian thought the boxes were full of what was stated on the manifest; she’d only brought him in after she’d packed the boxes by hand herself.

  She thanked him for his help, and sent him on his way. She waited for the loading crew, because she wanted this to seem the same as before. She watched as they loaded the shipment into the truck, none of them apparently noticing anything unusual about the boxes they were hefting.

  She again took over the truck, and moved it to the shop. She hung the keys in the mechanic’s lockbox as always.

  Only this time, she had a duplicate of the shop’s key in her pocket.

  This was, perhaps, not the greatest idea she’d ever had.

  Kate was willing to admit that. In fact, she had little choice, considering how cold she was. But she couldn’t think of anything else to do, and she desperately needed to feel as if she were doing something.

  She sat huddled in a corner, wishing yet again that she’d brought something to sit on. The cold from the concrete beneath her was seeping through even her heavy coat.

  At least her feet were warm, thanks to her sheepskin boots. That helped. That, and being mostly out of the wind that had kicked up after sundown.

  A lo
ud thud made her jump, and she barely managed to hold back a startled exclamation. Her head snapped around to look in the direction of the sound, and she saw a large branch that had obviously broken from a tree and hit the metal side of the shop building.

  She let out a sigh and returned to her vigil. This wind was making it very hard for her to distinguish natural noises from anything that might be human-caused. Of course, that was why she was out here, huddled between the Dumpster and the wall of the shop. She’d decided that just seeing, as on the video surveillance monitors, wasn’t enough. She wanted to hear as well. So she’d come back again after dark, checked the load and found the boxes undisturbed, including her marks, and then settled down to wait it out.

  And in the end, she didn’t hear a thing. But she saw the man, just a fleeting glimpse as he darted from the shadows of the far side of the shop over to the truck. On the side, she noted, away from the camera.

  Her heart began to race as she realized that the way he’d done it, there was every chance the video cameras wouldn’t have picked him up, or it would have been only a split second that would have been easy to overlook. And she could easily have missed it when she was fast forwarding through the tapes. She leaned forward, holding her breath as she strained to see and hear.

  Whoever it was, they were obviously very good. She saw nothing, heard nothing. Seconds ticked by, and she knew she had to do something, before the thief got away. This was as close as she’d gotten and she might never get a better chance. She might never get another chance at all.

  She crept out of her hiding place, her cell phone with the police number ready to be dialed in one hand, a can of pepper spray in the other. She tried to keep the bulk of the van between her and the man. Slowly, barely daring to breathe, she crept closer. She knew about where she’d last seen him, and if she could—

  An arm came around her from behind. It tightened, choking off her scream. She dropped the pepper spray. Barely hung onto her phone.

  She’d never heard a thing.

  “Kate?”

  She went very still. The pressure on her throat eased. She tried to process the information that whispered hiss of her name gave her. Tried to make sense of it. Tried to make it something other than what she knew it was.