She handed him a mug, stirred cream and sugar in her coffee and settled back at the table. “Andy was abusive.”
“He hit her?”
“His mistreatment was emotional, not physical. Andy Hayward is a control freak. Lea couldn’t take a breath without his permission. If she crossed him, he punished her with cold, disapproving silence. He was undermining her self-esteem and making her life miserable. I suggested she get out.”
“Do they have kids?”
She shook her head. “They married last year. When they were dating, Lea used to say how attentive Andy was. She didn’t see his attentiveness as a form of control until after the wedding.”
He had answered enough domestic complaints to recognize the truth in Heather’s assessment. No woman should be a doormat for any man.
You never treated Heather that way, so why did she leave you?
He ignored the nasty voice in his head. “Did Andy threaten you?”
She placed her mug on the table and ran her fingers through her hair. “He stormed into my classroom one day after school, screaming and hollering that he’d kill me if I didn’t stay away from Lea and quit feeding her ideas.”
The hair rose on the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you report this to the police?”
“Because he apologized.”
“What?”
Her face crinkled in a self-deprecating smile. “After I screamed and hollered back at him.”
His jaw dropped.
“I called him a petty little dictator and told him, after the way he’d treated Lea, he deserved to lose her.”
“And he just backed down?”
“After I called his bluff. I told him if he ever burst into my classroom and threatened me again, I’d file criminal and civil charges.” Her eyes flashed with remembered fury.
This was the Heather of his memory, queen of spunk, champion of the underdog, exactly the kind of person who might send a control freak like Hayward into a murderous rage. “Maybe we should let Cramer deal with Lea’s husband.”
“Lea’s soon-to-be ex-husband. She filed for divorce when she learned how he’d threatened me. His tantrum opened her eyes.”
He drained the last of his coffee. “Which gives Hayward an even stronger motive for hurting you.”
“Andy Hayward is all hot air. He doesn’t have the guts to do anything more than threaten.” Heather picked up his mug and hers and rinsed them in the sink.
“What about these others on the list?”
She turned and reached for a hand towel. At the same instant, the window behind her exploded in a hail of shattered glass.
Chapter Eight
Heather dropped to the floor when the window exploded. Dylan dived after her, covering her with his body as more shots whined overhead.
When the barrage of bullets ended, he eased off her and ran his hands over her face and through her hair. “Are you hit?”
If she was, she was too stunned to detect it. When he withdrew his hands, she saw blood, and a sudden light-headedness seized her.
“I don’t feel anything,” she said weakly. Her statement wasn’t entirely true. In spite of shock and terror, she had registered every burning contact with his body, every tingling sensation of his hands’ exploration.
Drawing her head against his chest, he lifted her hair and skimmed his fingers across the back of her neck. “It’s just a scratch. You were hit by flying glass.”
He shifted to tug a handkerchief from his pocket, and the pressure of his hips against hers sent her already giddy senses reeling. Gently, he pressed the folded linen against the cut on her neck, then wriggled against her again to take out his phone and crush it into her free hand.
“Call the police. Then crawl to the hall closet and stay there until I come back.”
“Don’t leave.” She choked back a sob. Outside waited a man with a gun. Dylan would be barging into his sights.
“You’ll be safe. Call 911, now.”
One instant he was there, his warmth a bulwark against terror. The next, he was gone. With unsteady fingers, she punched in the emergency number and reported the shooting, then scurried in a crouch up the hallway into the closet and closed the door.
Waiting in the darkness with the phone jammed to her ear, she realized Dylan had misinterpreted her plea for him to stay. He had assumed she was afraid and wanted his protection. She couldn’t deny that, but keeping him safe had been her overriding motivation.
The brief moment of physical closeness, the scorching heat of his body, the warmth of his breath and the euphoria of his arms around her had reminded her with cruel clarity of all she had lost.
She loved him. She would always love him, and the possibility he might be injured, or worse, filled her with numbing despair. While she prayed for his safety, long minutes dragged by.
“Ma’am?” The 911 operator spoke in her ear. “The cruiser’s at your house now. The officers are coming inside.”
Vibrations in the floorboards communicated approaching footsteps. The police had arrived, but where was Dylan? He should have returned by now. Anxiety, thicker than the closet’s inky darkness, seized her.
“Heather, it’s me,” Dylan called from the other side of the door. “It’s safe to come out now.”
The closet door opened and he reached for her. With a sob of relief, she leaped from the floor and flung her arms around him. “Thank God, you’re all right.”
He clasped her in his arms, and she buried her face in his neck. Time stopped as she inhaled his familiar, cherished scent, and her body, fired by his heat, molded to his. She tossed back her head and lifted her lips. A peripheral glimpse of a female officer waiting in the hall brought her to her senses.
Heather stiffened and shoved away. In her joy at seeing him unhurt, the inhibitions that protected her had dissipated. Letting him know she still cared was courting disaster, and she had more than enough trouble already.
To avoid his puzzled gaze, she knelt in the closet to retrieve his handkerchief, which she’d dropped when he opened the door. After composing her features, she faced him again. If her display of emotion had affected him, his expression didn’t show it.
“Did you catch him?” she asked.
He shook his head. “If he used a rifle with a scope, he could have shot from anywhere—a tree, a roof. Wherever he was, he’s gone now.”
Detective Cramer barged in the open front door and muttered something to the female officer, who turned and left. He approached Heather. “You okay?”
“As soon as my adrenaline level drops to normal so I can stop shaking.”
She avoided Dylan’s gaze. He bore as much responsibility for her spike in adrenaline as the sniper, but she would never admit it. Better for him to suspect she’d thrown herself at him in hysteria.
The female officer returned. “All clear around back now.”
Cramer acknowledged the report with a nod and turned to Dylan. “Let’s check the damage.”
Dylan led the way to the kitchen, and Heather followed the detective. When she spotted the destruction the rifle slugs had inflicted on the pantry door and realized what the bullets could have done to her, her knees threatened to buckle. She sagged into the nearest chair while Dylan and Cramer studied the room.
They measured the trajectory of the bullets, one of which had lodged in a roll of paper towels on the pantry shelf, and established that the shots had been fired from the second floor of an unoccupied house across the alley. Cramer dispatched an officer to search the building.
After taking Polaroid shots of the shattered window and pantry, he placed the recovered slugs in a plastic evidence bag and turned to her. “Do you have those names and addresses you promised me?”
She shook splinters of glass from the papers she had abandoned on the table and handed them to him.
“Heather also drew up a list of potential suspects,” Dylan said. “Since you’re shorthanded, I’m volunteering to interview the top three.”
“Your department is also on this case, so your involvement won’t violate policy.” Cramer’s face creased in a speculative frown. “In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve had a murder-suicide, a DUI homicide and a drive-by shooting added to my caseload. I can really use the help.”
“I want this guy caught,” Dylan said.
She shuddered at the ferocity of his expression. He’d neglected to tell Cramer that he was on vacation and officially off duty. Before, he had always operated by the book. His willingness to circumvent procedure proved his determination to nab Chip’s kidnapper.
Cramer stuffed his notebook and her lists into his shirt pocket. “I’m finished here. Take care of yourself, Ms. Taylor.”
Dylan walked the detective to the door, and she swept broken glass and dumped it in the trash. When she finished, she looked up to find Dylan watching her from the doorway. His stoic expression revealed nothing of his thoughts, but the heat in his eyes spoke volumes.
“Come here,” he said.
She replaced the broom and dustpan in the pantry and crossed the room, expecting to follow him up the hall and out the front door.
But he took her by the shoulders and directed her toward the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“Tending to that cut on your neck.”
She tried to wrest free of his grasp. “It’ll be okay—”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
He held her fast and shoved her gently into the bathroom. After turning on the fluorescent light, he lifted her hair away from her neck. The combination of cool air and warm fingers on her nape raised goose bumps.
“The cut needs cleaning,” he said.
She stared at the shower where that one night eons ago, she and Dylan had indulged in long, passionate lovemaking beneath the steaming spray. Her adrenaline surged again, speeding her respiration and pulse. If he touched her once more, she wouldn’t be able to hide her longing.
She whipped around to face him. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t see what you’re doing back there.”
He hovered with his face inches above hers, and her gaze locked with the molten brown of his eyes, reflecting her desire.
“God help me,” he said with a groan. Tangling his fingers in her hair, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Unable to stop herself, she returned the pressure of his kiss, reveling in the familiar taste of him, heady as her favorite wine. The curves of her body conformed to his with the effortless ease of remembrance, as if their perfect fit had been imprinted on her brain.
Every cell in her body sparked with exquisite need when he glided his fingers across her shoulders, down the length of her arms and grasped her bottom, pulling her closer, blasting the last barricades of her resistance.
Intoxicated with desire, she explored the planes and contours of his back, soaked in his beloved heat through her palms, her breasts, the tops of her thighs. Giddy from the taste and feel of him, she yielded to the urgency of his lips and hands and abandoned all conscious thought, aware only of tactile pleasures.
Abruptly, he released her and stepped away. The remorse etched on his face doused her passion.
“I’m sorry.” His heavy, ragged breathing was amplified in the small room. “It won’t happen again.”
He leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on his face, while she straightened her clothes, rumpled by his roaming hands. She should feel grateful he’d stopped them from going further. Their lovemaking might bring them transitory pleasure, but it wouldn’t change things. It would only make returning to life without him harder.
Dylan had stated emphatically he wasn’t the marrying kind. If he offered marriage for Chip’s sake, passion might sustain their relationship temporarily, but eventually resentment would set in. He would feel trapped, and she and Chip would bear the brunt of his misery, whether they continued to live with an unhappy Dylan or their forced union succumbed to divorce.
Undeniable heartache awaited her at the end of a walk down the aisle.
She had recognized the futility of continuing their relationship when she left Dylan two years ago. The only difference in their situation now was that a killer stalked her and her son. She had to focus on keeping Chip safe and convince herself nothing else mattered.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“About what?” He lowered his towel to reveal a face once more composed. The earlier heat had faded from his eyes, replaced by a glint of wariness.
“About finding the man who shot at me.”
He replaced the towel on its rack and reached into the medicine cabinet for Band-Aids and ointment. With an efficient but dispassionate touch, he cleaned and dressed the wound on her neck. Faking an equally impersonal demeanor, she surrendered to his care.
With her cut clean and covered, he replaced the first aid supplies, left the bathroom and strode up the hall.
“Why won’t you answer my question?” she called after him.
“I’m going to question Robert Tipton and Andrew Hayward and find out where they were this morning,” he called over his shoulder. “You’re going back to my parents’ house.”
She hastened to catch up. “I’m coming with you.”
He stopped so abruptly, she ran into him. He swiveled, glowering. “No way. I’m taking you back to Dolphin Bay.”
She stiffened and drew herself to her full height. “Why shouldn’t I come? I know these men. I can tell better than you whether their actions seem suspicious or abnormal.”
“Forget it.”
“If I’m there, you can observe how they react to me. Their responses might give them away.”
His angry frown switched to thoughtfulness, and the obstinate line of his jaw softened. “I’ll probably regret this, but come on. Just let me do the talking.”
FOLLOWING HEATHER’S directions, Dylan turned his Jeep west toward Tyrone Mall. “You’re sure Hayward still lives in the same place?”
She nodded. “Lea moved into an apartment, and Andy kept the house. When I spoke with her a few days ago, she said he might have to sell. He’s been laid off work.”
“His wife leaves and he loses his job, all in a matter of weeks. He sounds like he might be desperate.”
If Andy Hayward was as unstable as Heather’s description indicated, he might attempt to hurt her. Dylan would have to stay alert.
“Andy has problems, but he’s brought them all on himself,” she said, not unkindly. “He’s a perfect example of a person with a superiority complex.”
“Which is usually a cover-up for poor self-esteem. Why don’t I take you back to Chip?” Concerned for her safety, he used Chip to entice her away from danger.
“Chip’s in seventh heaven with your mother. I’ve never seen two people bond so quickly.” The sudden radiance of her smile shattered his detachment. “He’ll be fine without me for a few more hours.”
He jerked his attention to oncoming traffic. Earlier, he’d allowed his desire to take control. He wouldn’t commit such a slip again. The pain of her desertion festered like an unhealed wound, and he’d been a fool to act as if he still cared. She was probably laughing inside at his sentimentality.
But she kissed me as if she enjoyed it.
She’d just been shot at, for crying out loud, he argued with himself. She was scared and needed comforting. Hell, under those circumstances, maybe she’d have even kissed Cramer. He’d known people who’d done stranger things under stress.
“Take a right at the next corner,” she instructed.
He turned onto a narrow street lined with stuccoed houses in pastel shades. Fierce late morning sun reflected off the white roofs and shriveled the neatly trimmed lawns.
When she directed him to pull over near the end of the block, Hayward’s house with its peeling paint and unkempt yard stood out like a coal lump in a jewel box. If people’s homes reflected their state of mind, Andy Hayward was one unhappy puppy.
Dylan climb
ed from the Jeep and surveyed the area with a cop’s eye. In the open carport, a dark maroon sport utility vehicle was parked.
Heather followed his glance. “It looks almost black in the shade.”
He nodded tensely. “Stay behind me. I’ll do the talking.”
With her dogging his footsteps, he approached the front door. Voices from a television blared through the door’s open jalousie windows. He rang the bell and the sound ceased immediately.
“Yeah, whaddaya want?” A man with tousled hair and an unshaven face scowled through the open jalousies.
Dylan removed his shield from his pocket and held it close to the door. “Officer Dylan Wade, Dolphin Bay police. Are you Andrew Hayward?”
The man grunted. “What do the Dolphin Bay police want with me?”
“We’re investigating a series of crimes, Mr. Hayward, and I want to ask you some questions. May I come in?”
“What the hell, might as well. Ain’t a damn thing on television now.”
Hayward jerked the door open and noticed Heather for the first time. Hatred glazed his eyes, and his lips twisted in a sneer.
“What are you doing here? Did you bring the cop? For your information, Ms. Buttinsky, I haven’t violated Lea’s restraining order.”
“I—” she began, but Dylan cut her off.
“Ms. Taylor is just along for the ride.” He noted Hayward’s medium height and build, the same as the kidnapper’s. “She’s a member of our citizen observer program.”
“Right, and I’m John Kennedy Jr.”
“Do you have a problem with her being here?” Dylan asked. “She can wait in the car.”
Heather scorched him with a withering look, but he ignored her and riveted his attention to every nuance of Andy Hayward’s expression and movement.
“Bring her in,” Andy said with a shrug. “Let’s get this over with.”
He stood aside for Dylan and Heather to enter. The front door opened directly into his living room with frayed upholstered furniture and scarred tables littered with newspapers, beer cans and discarded pizza boxes.
Dylan and Heather stood and waited until Andy had settled on the sofa.
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