Seeing the way he gaped, she hesitated. Not many people understood her chosen profession. Her parents certainly didn’t. They’d been happy having her work the local beat on a small Virginia paper, in a small Virginia town, reporting on bake sales and teen vandalism. They hated that she now immersed herself in violent crime, and especially hated that she sometimes interacted with violent killers. If they knew what she intended to do during this research stint in LA, they would lose their minds. Which was why she hadn’t told them.
Lightning doesn’t strike twice.
She couldn’t possibly be repeating history by stumbling across a nearly invisible trail left by a serial killer. One nobody else in the world even realized existed. How could one person, a simple crime writer, come across two cases like that in her lifetime? No, it just wasn’t possible.
And yet. Yeah. And yet.
She had questions, she saw connections, and while she was here in Southern California working on her contracted book, why couldn’t she do just a little bit of snooping into this other matter?
Twelve women, their murders spread out over the last fifteen years, the crimes unsolved. Different jurisdictions played hell with investigations here in the sprawling Los Angeles area, and the crimes didn’t leap out as being connected.
Maybe they aren’t.
Maybe not. But maybe they were.
The cop who’d saved her stepped closer. “You sure you’re okay, murder fan?”
Realizing she’d gone deep into her brain, she nodded quickly, and the arrival of a patrol car saved her from having to explain. The two police officers inside got out and hailed her rescuer, one calling him Detective Winchester. A crime scene investigator showed up ninety seconds later.
While the detective explained what had happened, Evie took a moment to look around on the sidewalk and found her phone. The screen was cracked, but the phone was still on, and she could see some of what was displayed.
Right away she noticed she had more than twenty text messages.
“Crap,” she muttered, and she opened them, seeing a long string of “What’s going on?” type questions from Candace Oakley, her agent and good friend.
Going back through the stream, she soon realized why. Candace had been the last person she had texted this evening as she left the hotel…and was the one who received the weird picture Evie had taken a short time later.
“Not bad,” she murmured when she saw her own efforts hadn’t been entirely in vain. She’d caught a digital image of her attacker looming out of the darkness, his face not clear, but possibly recognizable. She supposed there was some comfort knowing she might have helped solve her own murder if she’d had her throat slit in that back alley.
Enough, Evie, she thought, even while wondering what it would be like to have a normal job that didn’t have her seeing psychopaths, sociopaths, and sheer monsters around every corner.
Then again, she had known psychopaths, sociopaths and monsters, and the guy who’d just attacked her could be one of them. Job or no job.
“The officers are going to take him in and book him. The crime scene guy wants to talk to you and will probably want to take some scrapings from under your fingernails. Judging by the marks on his hands, you scratched the guy, right?”
She nodded. “Can we can do it here rather than going in to the station?”
He hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I can probably arrange that, if you don’t mind somebody looking you over right here on the street.”
“Honestly, I’d prefer that than being paraded through a police station right now.”
“It’s usually done in a hospital. But since he didn’t get any further than a grab, and you say you’re fine, I’ve already convinced him that’s not necessary.”
That was a relief.
“But you will have to go in tomorrow.”
“I have an appointment at Headquarters in the morning anyway.”
The LAPD captain she’d met with today had been very gruff. He didn’t know who she was or what she did and had resisted when she’d asked for specific old case files and reports. She was supposed to go back in the morning and hoped that with some pressure from her agent and publisher, she’d get the all-clear.
“Okay, then.”
“Give me a second to send this message and then the guy can scrape away.”
His brow went up and his mouth tightened. Figuring he thought she was some flighty social media type who was posting about her near-miss, Evie swung the phone around so he could see the image.
He leaned close, staring at the picture on the cracked screen. “Is that…”
“Yes,” she said. “When I realized he was following me, I snapped a picture and sent it to a friend.”
This time when his brow went up, he managed a small, lopsided smile. Good Lord, the man had a nice smile to go along with his oh-so-nice face.
“Very good thinking.”
“Thanks. But the friend I texted it to is in panic/meltdown mode.”
“Let her know you’re okay, and then you can answer some questions. You’re also going to have to turn over that phone.”
“Of course.”
She had a digital image of the man just before he attacked her. More solid evidence that would be used to put him away, she had no doubt.
She sent Candace a quick text that all was well, she was fine, and she would be in touch later. No way was Evie going to tell her that she had been attacked; the phone would ring a split second later, and she’d never get off the call. Candace had moved to California from New York when she married the owner of a talent agency two years ago. She was pretty jaded when it came to street crime. But even she would freak out if she found out somebody had tried to drag Evie into an alley.
After a couple of quick follow-up texts, she handed over the phone and allowed the crime scene analyst to do his job. While he studied her hands, her scrapes, and her clothing, she answered the questions posed by the responding cops. The detective who’d tackled the mugger—Winchester—filled in some blanks too. One thing she noticed: The other cops were deferential to him. Since he’d said he didn’t work at their location, he must have a wide reputation.
As one officer put the suspect into the back of the patrol car, the other said, “Right place right time, huh, Cop Hollywood?”
Her incredibly sexy savior shot back, “Bite me, Bingham.”
The other cop laughed. “You gonna make sure she gets safely to her car?”
“Yeah.”
Evie hadn’t really thought about that—about being alone with this man again or about walking into that parking garage. She’d assumed she would be fine now. What were the chances she would run into two predators in one night?
Tell that to the Beachside Butcher’s last victim, who escaped captivity from her abusive boyfriend and landed in the hands of a serial killer.
One bad thing about Evie’s line of work—she was an expert on brutal murder, and she had a damn good memory. Random tidbits of horror often popped into her mind without warning. She only hoped she remembered who this Winchester guy was soon, because it was starting to drive her a little crazy.
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
She pointed to the garage.
“Come on, I’ll walk you to your car,” the dark-haired detective said. “Before you refuse, it’s really no trouble, and I’d prefer to do it.”
“I wasn’t going to refuse, Detective Winchester.” She didn’t mention the Beachside Butcher. Some people were a little squicked out by her encyclopedic knowledge of murder. Given the way he’d reacted when she said she’d been at the Cecil, he could be one of them.
“Sensible.”
“Actually, yes, I usually am, despite what you might think given what happened tonight.”
As they stepped off the curb into the street, he put a hand on her arm. The touch was supportive, as if he feared she might still be shaky from what had happened, and there was nothing terribly intimate about it. Still, even throug
h the leather of his jacket, which she was still wearing, she felt the strength of his fingers and the warm cup of his palm against her elbow.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you were careless. You just didn’t know.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” he asked.
“I caught a tone.”
“I don’t recall throwing one,” he said. She thought his mouth quirked a bit.
“You did before. When I mentioned the Cecil.”
They reached the garage and entered through the access door next to the ramp. No one was inside the stairwell, but it was full nonetheless. Full of garbage, dust, broken glass, dampness, and shadows. Her heart pounded. Despite the capable man at her side, she wanted to swing around and go right back out.
“Look, no offense, but ever since the TV show came out about that place, it’s been a magnet for lookie-loos and thrill seekers,” he said as the door swung shut behind them. He either hadn’t noticed her sudden fear, or he was trying to distract her with normal conversation. “Which one are you?”
“I’m neither.”
They began to ascend the stairs, shoes tapping on concrete, him still holding her arm. She probably could have managed with just the handrail—gross and germy as it probably was—but something about that completely innocent, yet somehow intimate, touch made her decide not to shrug him off. Evie had never felt like the type who needed anyone’s protection, so the desire to stay close to him caught her off guard. Maybe it was because of the quiet. Or the smell. The dirty, rust-colored stains on the cement drew her eye, and the pitted handrail scraped against her fingertips. Smutty graffiti competed with smeary stains to cover the walls.
Evie’s footsteps slowed. She was breathing heavier, despite being in good enough shape to take a few flights of steps without a gasp. And she was suddenly having trouble hearing—there was an echo in her ears, a pounding in her head.
“So why the interest in the place?” he asked, still focused on the hotel.
She swallowed, trying to find her voice. “It’s research…for my job.”
Even in the low lighting, she saw his mouth twitch. “Serial killer?”
“Not yet.” Even to her own ears, the quip sounded weak and forced.
He glanced up and down the deserted stairwell. “Good thing for me.”
“I think you could hold your own.” But following his stare, seeing all those hollows of shadow and secrecy, she wondered if she could have.
Her stomach churned as she realized something. If she hadn’t noticed the man following her, she might actually have been in here when the attacker had launched. No way would anyone have come to her rescue. The stairwell was tall and cement block-walled. Probably soundproof. She could have been dragged under the bottom-floor stairwell and…
Just envisioning it, she stumbled a tiny bit.
He immediately slid an arm around her waist and steadied her, pressing against her side as they reached the first landing. He was preventing her from taking a nasty fall, only that, but there was no doubt all her senses tingled at the contact of his hard, broad body against her own. It was almost enough to distract her from the dizziness in her head and the churning of her stomach, neither of which were dizzying or churning in a good way.
They were bad. All bad.
“You okay?” His deep voice held concern.
All light conversation was gone; he had noticed her tension. She sensed he had been aware of it all along, and the casual talk had been a mere cover as he waited for…something.
She nodded, swallowing hard, confused as hell about all the crazy signals her body was sending her. Her brain ordered her to remain calm, but every other part of her was on high alert.
Finally, her brain was too.
I was attacked.
Yes. She had been. She had just been assaulted, on a public street, in the late evening, by someone who’d intended to hurt her very badly. If not for this man’s arrival, she couldn’t even imagine what she would be going through right now. Or if she would even be alive to go through it.
“Oh God,” she groaned.
“Don’t picture it.”
Swinging her gaze up to his, she saw the concern in his face. “What?”
“Don’t let yourself imagine what might have happened. It didn’t.”
Forcing a shaky laugh, she replied, “I am, unfortunately, pretty good at picturing things.”
Dark things. Ugly things. Violent things. She had movies playing in her mind almost all the time, especially when she was working on an in-depth examination of a killer and his or her crimes. Police departments and the FBI gave her access to evidence deemed too violent and gruesome for public consumption. The stuff was nightmare-inducing, though she’d rarely suffered from nightmares.
Tonight, she just might.
Then there was tomorrow. And all the tomorrows laid out before her while she stayed in this city, writing her new book.
Intentionally or not, the research into the seediest, most brutal underbelly of Los Angeles had begun tonight…with her being dragged toward an alley by a strong attacker. It had set a dark pall over the work she was about to begin. For the first time since she’d proposed the new book to her publisher, she let herself acknowledge it was going to be more brutal than anything she’d done before.
Because it wasn’t just one monster’s crimes she would be focusing on.
It was many. So, so many.
She would soon immerse herself in a world populated by the dead, who’d lived their worst nightmares in the final moments of their lives. People victimized by single killers, by duos, by cults. Killers with catchy names the press so enjoyed: the Night Stalker, the Hillside Stranglers, the Grim Sleeper, the Lonely Hearts Killers. And some whose last name could conjure terror across the world: Manson.
She needed to be in complete control—dispassionate and unafraid—for what she was about to tackle. Not a near-victim.
That, however, wasn’t going to be easy after tonight. Evie didn’t know what her attacker had had in mind, but her darkest mental wanderings were certain to offer some possibilities.
Her shaking intensified. It started in her legs, and only her stiff leather boots kept her ankles from wobbling. Her knees did, though, practically knocking together, and then shudders rolled up her body. From out of nowhere, a thick lump of something jammed itself in her throat, suffocating her. Her teeth chattered, her eyes watered, and her stomach churned.
“There it is,” he whispered.
Evie didn’t understand his words. Besides, she wasn’t hearing well, seeing clearly, reasoning at all. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fill her lungs, couldn’t draw air down her throat. She was spinning, reeling, tumbling into a truth she’d managed to hold back for an hour.
He caught her. “It’s okay, honey. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
She didn’t so much fall as collapse against his body, all of her strength—physical and mental—gone.
He wrapped strong arms around her and held her close against his chest, one hand going to the back of her head to gently cup it as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.
Every drop of bravado and adrenaline had seeped out of her like a squeezed sponge. Energy and excitement had been holding her upright, and all of those things were gone now as reality filled every cell in her body. The could-have-beens lived in her imagination and chased away reason until all that remained was a weak, quivering, breathless, nauseous near-victim.
As tears burst from her eyes and sobs from her throat, she could only think about how very much she owed to this strong, handsome stranger, holding her so protectively in the night.
Chapter 2
Rowan Winchester had been waiting for the dam holding back Evie Fleming’s emotions to break. Considering most would-be crime victims fell apart almost immediately after the police were on scene and they knew they were safe, this one had held herself together for a remarkably long time.
Now reality had set in. That real
ity had blasted down her defensive walls, leaving her exposed to the fear, rage, and helplessness her attack had almost certainly inspired.
“You’re okay,” he murmured, stroking the very pretty woman’s fine blond hair as she cried away her tension and her fear. “You’re going to be fine.”
Although her arms weren’t wrapped around him, she was leaning against him hard enough that he knew he was supporting her weight. Were he not here, she’d probably have collapsed onto the filthy concrete landing.
Of course, had he never been here at all tonight, he didn’t even want to think about where she might be right now.
Had they been close enough to a bench or a car, he would have lifted her onto a seat and held her on his lap like a kid, but they were stuck inside what must feel like a tomb to her. It was the worst place she could be. He kicked himself for not keeping her outside, where she wouldn’t see corners where someone could be lurking and where the smell of sweat and desperation wouldn’t have tinged every breath.
“Let’s get out of here and have a cup of coffee,” he said, not wanting to take her any higher up this stairwell that reeked of urine and vomit. “You shouldn’t be driving tonight, anyway. You can come back for your car tomorrow when it’s daylight and you’re feeling a little better.”
He didn’t wait for her assent. Feeling the boneless way she still sagged against him and the wetness on his shirt, he made the decision for her. Bending down, he picked her up behind the knees and pulled her into his arms.
She jerked her head up, her startlingly blue eyes wide. “What are you…”
“Coffee. Fresh air. In the reverse order.”
To his surprise, she didn’t argue. She had enough sense to know she had to get out of this place pronto and probably also knew she’d fall on her cute ass if she tried to walk down on her own.
Being slim and of average height, she was easy to carry down a single flight of stairs. Hell, he’d carried heavier gear during training exercises. And she was a lot more pleasant—soft and smelling of cinnamony cookies.
Reaching the bottom level, he turned and pushed the exit door open with his hip to bring her right outside into the moonlit night. Los Angeles wasn’t exactly the fresh air capital of the world, but it seemed like a tropical paradise compared to the miasma inside that stairwell.
Wanting You Page 2