Barrow had to smile as he sped toward the guarded door just down the hall, assuming that it was hers. So, Bucky is standing guard over her, good. He would owe that little fluff-ball a steak dinner. When he reached the guarded door, he recognized the officer assigned as the same one he had posted outside the Lyski apartment only a few days earlier. When the guard saw him coming, he turned and slid the glass door open. As Matt moved to enter, the officer said softly, “I thought you would want to know.” Barrow stopped short and blinked at the man. The voice on the phone, he was the one who had called him.
“Thank you, I owe you one.” The man smiled at Matt and motioned for him to head on in, sliding the door closed again as Matt moved as quickly as his feet would allow. The curtain had been pulled around the end of the bed so that she could have a little privacy and as he quietly tiptoed around the end, she came into view. Lying in the hospital bed, her head reclined and her eyes closed, she looked so much smaller and weaker than she was, like a child tucked into her parent’s bed. He wondered if she was asleep as his eyes moved over her. Her hair was pulled back clumsily and there was a small bandage over her right eye. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light beside her bed, the faint bruise on the right side of her jaw and the small split in her lip tore at him. Tracing the barely perceptible curved lines of her small body lower, he could see that her wrists were slightly bandaged and the thought of her being bound stirred his ire. He was beginning to fume when he noticed the small white lump laying next to her hand. As he drew closer, Bucky’s alert head popped up, giving a soft, rumbling growl.
“It’s okay, Bucky, it’s just me.” As if the dog had understood his whispered words perfectly, the growl turned into a whimper that was accompanied with a wagging tail. Matt reached out and scratched the dog behind the ear. “Thank you for protecting her for me.”
“He did. More than you know.” Elizabeth’s voice, though weak, was music to his ears as her hand lifted to touch his. “I’m pretty sure he saved my life tonight. As far as a bodyguard goes, he’s hired.” She smiled slightly as she stroked his head, letting hers fall back against her pillow. Matt’s eyes narrowed, she was so weak. Reading the concern on his face she sighed. “I’m alright, Matt, just exhausted. The chloroform is still in my system, but my head is starting to clear now.” Her voice was breathy and soft, but she smiled sweetly at him. He spied a stool not too far from the bed and pulled it over. Settling down as close to her as he could get, he cradled her hand, running his fingers delicately over the bandage. She was damaged, in pain, and he hadn’t been there. Pressing his lips softly to the back of her hand he sighed.
“I should have been there. This is all my fault. I should have walked you to your door, been there with you. Maybe they wouldn’t have tried to rob you if you hadn’t been alone.” He was dangerously near to tears as he rubbed her hand over his cheek.
“They weren’t there to rob me, Matt. It was him. I’m sure of it. I just don’t understand what the other men were doing there. Everything about the murders pointed to a single killer, not a group.” She moved her fingers against his skin as he turned to look at her in shock, still holding her hand to his face. He wanted her touch, needed to feel her warmth, to know that she was going to be fine, but the idea of that man being in her apartment, tying her up, made his heart stop.
“Him? Are you sure?” The caress of her fingers was sending ripples through him. He brushed his lips over her hand once more, feeling the terror she must have felt coming face to face with him, yet again. “Did you get a look at his face? A description? Anything?” His questions were halfhearted. At the moment he could care less about the killer, she, safe and sound and in his arms, was all that mattered.
“He’s a big man, burly and barrel chested, but that’s really all I have. He was wearing a mask and rubber gloves. I did manage to break my mirror over his head, maybe he got cut. There’s always the chance we got a little D.N.A. out of it.” He snickered against her skin a little at the thought of her small body slamming the mysterious figure of the killer into a mirror. “Would you mind terribly kissing me instead of my hand? You’re just about to drive me mad doing that.” Her request cause his heart to flip. Of course he would kiss her, if she asked it of him, he would never stop. He moved with amazing speed to her mouth. Pressing his lips lightly against her wonderfully lazy smile. She returned his pressure, but when he slid his tongue over her lower lip, the taste of blood, accompanied by a slightly pained sound from her, made him pull back a bit. “Sorry, my lip still hurts a little.”
“Oh god, Liz, don’t apologize to me for hurting you.” He pressed his forehead to hers lightly, brushing a wanton kiss over her cheek.
“You could never hurt me, Matt. Never.” Her smile nearly sent him reeling. He had rushed to the hospital fearing the worst, and yet here she was comforting him.
As they sat cuddling each other, a nurse entered the room. Carrying a small tray in her hands, she rounded the curtain and cleared her throat. Matt jumped to his feet, though his fingers did not release Liz’s hand. Smiling sweetly, the nurse said, “Don’t mind me. I’ll be gone just as soon as Ms. Cord takes her meds.” Matt backed away from the bed and allowed the nurse to do her job. True to her word, as soon as Elizabeth swallowed down the small cup of pills the nurse turned and hurried away without so much as a farewell. As soon as she was out of sight around the edge of the curtain Matt resumed his post at Elizabeth’s side, cradling and caressing her hand.
“Matt, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about the attack on my parents.” She swallowed hard. She needed to tell him all of it, but it was just so painful. What if he looked at her differently afterward? What if he turned away from her? The words she had just said would become lies, because to lose him now that she knew she needed him so desperately would likely kill her. Still, if she was going to be with him it would have to be in truth. He would have to know all of her, including her horrid past. He read the weary look on her face and brushed another soft kiss across her mouth. She wanted his kiss, needed his closeness, but she ached all over. “Matt…I…”She started, but the gentle press of his finger on her lips silenced her.
“We will have time, Liz. Right now you need to rest. I need you back, full strength. Besides, I have to go soon. Moreano wants me to work the scene.” She grimaced at the thought of her apartment, thoroughly destroyed, its sanctity shattered. “I’m sorry, Liz. I know it was your sanctuary.” How could he read her so easily?
“How do you always know what I’m thinking?” She managed a weary chuckle. She was so tired, so weak.
“Because I know you, better than anyone.” His face was so close to hers. She wanted to kiss him again, but the strength to do it properly was ebbing from her. “Is there anything you need from your place? I can pack some of your clothes and things for you, if you want.” She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice failed her. All she could do was nod. “Okay. I can do that. Do you want me to get you a hotel room? Or call a friend for you to stay with? You’re not going back to your place anytime soon, I won’t allow it.” She nodded again, a wicked thought coursing through her fading mind. “Alright, hotel or friend’s place?”
Gathering her strength, she managed to say, “Friend’s.” She wasn’t really sure what was happening to her. The world was growing soft and fuzzy. The hospital bed was swallowing her whole. Matt was all she could focus on anymore, and even he was starting to fade.
“Whose place do you want me to take it to? Liz?” He could see her fading, slipping into sleep.
As she fell into nothing she placed her hand against his cheek and whispered, “Yours.” She didn’t hear him call the nurse back in, or hear the nurse explaining to him that she had given Liz a sedative. The last thing she had seen was the wonderfully, sinfully, shocked look on his face at her request.
Chapter 25
Barrow got off the elevator on her floor. He had wanted to get back into her apartment since the day he had set foot in it, but this wasn’t what
he was hoping for. Nearing her door, he could see the splintered frame and it made his blood start to boil. Crouching down to take a look at it, he heard a voice from just inside the apartment. Looking up, a C.S.I. was squatting down over a small pool of blood. “What was that?” He hadn’t been able to fully hear her.
“That’s not from the robbery. The first responder had to kick the door open. Apparently, she bolted it before she fainted.” He stood up and nodded to her as she went back to processing the area where one of the surviving assailants had been found. As he looked past her, his mouth went dry. Her expertly appointed, and utterly delightful, apartment was now a whirlwind of shattered glass and shredded cushions. Moving carefully through the disheveled rooms, he came upon the first body. A man, a homeless man judging by the state of his clothes, lay crumpled against the side of her kitchen cabinets. A rather gruesome dent in the side of his head, and the accompanying blood stain on the edge of the counter top, told the story of his final moment. Matt scowled down at him, serves you right.
The C.S.I.’s voice broke in on him again. “There’s another body in the bedroom. Two assailants were taken to the hospital with major injuries. It’s hard to believe she managed to do this all by herself. I mean, she looks so small in all these pictures.” She gestured to the multitude of shattered picture frames that had once covered the shelves, table tops, and free wall space of her rooms. Bending down to nudge a photo of her and Alex in graduation gowns free of the debris, smiling so proudly as they held their diploma’s high, he snorted.
“She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. I don’t think there is anything she isn’t capable of doing if she puts her mind to it.” His tone had been far warmer and more intimate than he had intended. When she cleared her throat, he looked up to see her grinning sheepishly at him. “I mean, Detective Cord is very highly trained. She is perfectly capable of defending herself.”
Standing, she held her sheepish grin as she said, “She’s quite lovely, too. Though I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you either.” He returned her smile and turned back to his scan of the scene.
“If this was a robbery then why is all her TV stuff still in place? All theses movies and AV equipment are worth a lot of money and yet it hasn’t been touched.” Walking over to the edge of the kitchen, he look back into the nook of her dining room, where she had assembled a tiny office. “See, look, her laptop and print station are untouched, too. What kind of thief tears a room to shreds and then doesn’t take anything?” He wasn’t really talking to her anymore and she seemed to know it. Moving to the far side of the apartment, he nudged the bedroom door open. Her beautiful space was now a nightmare. Her comforter was torn, down spilling over the edge of the bed. The shattered mirror she had mentioned was spread across the floor just beyond the crumpled, and strangely twisted, corpse of yet another apparently homeless man. “Be sure you collect every piece of this mirror. Detective Cord believes we maybe be able to find D.N.A. on it that will connect back to our serial case.” He looked back at the C.S.I. to make sure she heard him. After she nodded, he went back to looking over the room.
Walking around the end of the bed, he caught a glimpse of silver tape under the edge of the foot board. Crouching down, he lifted the edge of the comforter to find a wadded cord of duct tape, tinged lightly with blood. His jaw clinched remembering that she had been bound. “And there’s duct tape bindings under the bed.” He shouted out to her.
“Yes, sir. I’ll be sure to collect them.” Standing again, he worked his way around the room. With each new clue, he pieced together the events that had brought him here. She had been tied on the bed. She must have rolled off when the killer was thrown into the mirror. Then, judging from the location of the two duct tape cords, she must have freed herself under the bed. From there, she fought back. An odd mixture of pride and terror filled his aching heart. She could defend herself, he knew that, perhaps better than most, but it still tore at him that she had had to.
A short time later, the coroner appeared to collect the two bodies. Matt then waited patiently for the C.S.I. to finish collecting everything that could possibly be evidence. When she nodded to him and left, lugging her heavy case with her, he went back to Elizabeth’s bedroom. Finding her luggage in the untouched closet, he set about packing a few of her clothes for her. He started with the innocent things, slacks and blouses, a couple skirts pulled from hangers. Shuffling through the clothes, he came across a rather fetching little cocktail dress in that warm lavender color she loved so much. Imagining her sitting across from him at a small candlelit table, swathed in it, smiling slyly at him with those magic eyes of hers over the rim of a glass of wine made him pull it from the rack. Just in case, he though.
As he removed it, it revealed the next outfit in line. That delightfully sinful catholic school girl uniform came into view, complete with the white knee high socks and Al-star tennis shoes. The image of her in it, leaning against the door jam down stairs the night they met, flooded him with heat and tension. The cad in him wanted to grab it, too. Maybe he could persuade her to…no. Trying to push the luscious image from his mind, he pulled her closet door closed, quickly, and turned to the bags he had spread out on the bed. Folding the dress gently into the nearest one, he set about gathering the far more personal items. The tension in his thighs only heightened as he slid open her underwear drawer and started pulling silky wisps of lace and satin from within. Each delicate article he rubbed between his fingers sent lustful shivers over him. I should not be here, should not be touching her things like this. The thought only served to make him harder. Grabbing up whole handfuls roughly, he turned and stuffed them unceremoniously into a side pocket of one of her bags, breathing deeply to calm himself.
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, trying to slow his blood. If he was this excited just from seeing her clothes how was he supposed to behave himself with her in his apartment? Sighing sadly, he decided that he would have to convince her that staying with him would be too dangerous for her sensibilities. Yeah, right. He would never be convincing. He wanted her there too much. He was wasting time. Forcing himself to move, he went into her bathroom. Yet another room left completely untouched by the invasion, and everywhere he looked he saw, breathed in, traces of her. The smell of her soap and perfume hung in the air and her cosmetic sundries were spread femininely across the counter top. Warmth began spreading over him again, and he grabbed her shampoo and body wash hastily, tossing them into the small tote bag from her luggage set. Then he added her razor and as much of the cosmetics that he could manage to fit, not really sure what she used every day. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if she even wore makeup. Her complexion was perfect and he couldn’t remember seeing eyeshadow over those mystical eyes of hers. Regardless, if she needed it he was going to get it for her.
Deciding he was done, he turned to leave when his foot knocked Bucky’s food dish over. Remembering the dog, he grabbed the dish and food bag from the corner of the bathroom and headed back to her bed. Gathering up the bags, he left her apartment, sighing at the loss she would feel when she saw it again. He closed her splintered door and headed for his apartment, hoping to get a few hours sleep before he headed back to the hospital to see her again.
Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably in her hard hospital bed. Bucky flopped over on his side between her legs and nuzzled the inside of her blanketed thigh with his snout before huffing himself back to sleep. She couldn’t sit still anymore. They wouldn’t let her leave and they kept coming in and turning on the television. The annoying morning shows were driving her crazy. She was so bored. Her head was finally clear now and she felt fine. Her lip was the only thing that still hurt, and it only hurt a little. She had always been a fast healer and the faint bruise on her jaw had already faded to almost nothing, the split in her lip now no more than a thin red line. She wanted to go home, but her home had been violated. No, she didn’t want to go to her home, she wanted to go to his home. She closed her eyes and sat back into her pillows
as she let thoughts of Matthew flood over her. There was so much she had wanted to tell him last night, but the sedative had robbed her of the comfort his presence had brought her. She was wondering when he would get here. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he would come, as early as he could manage.
The smell of the hospital breakfast that they had brought her turned her stomach. Who eats cardboard flavored cream of wheat? She had though disdainfully as she had forced herself to swallow her first, and last, spoonful. She was so hungry. Her hands flattened across her growling stomach and she pinched her eyes together, trying to bring the thoughts of Matt back.
“Anyone for a sesame seed bagel and cream cheese?” Her eyes popped open the second she heard his voice, her face spreading wide with her smile, the small cut in her lip pulling slightly.
“I think I might love you!” She had meant it playfully, but when she saw the flush of color spread over him, she flushed, too. What scared her the most was that she quite possibly meant it. Trying to wash away the awkward moment, she patted the bed next to her. A ridiculous gesture as the bed was barely big enough for her and the dog, but he seemed to understand. He moved across the room and held out the evidence box in his arms so that she could take the bag of goodies and the beverage tray off the top. While she held the food for him, he set the box aside and went about rearranging the furniture in her room so that they could eat and work from here.
“Can we eat yet? I’m starved!” She feigned a pout as he smiled at her. Pulling the now cleared bed table up between them, he sat on the stool and took the food from her. Slapping her hands away teasingly, he prepared her bagel for her and then, as she bit into it greedily, he added her customary sugar and cream to one of the cups of black coffee. Setting the cup near her, he started prepping his own breakfast. Then, as if they had been partners for years, they were sitting together, eating breakfast in blissful silence.
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