by Julie Miller
Gratitude and irritation warred inside her. “Then why did you? If I’m such a burden, if we’re such an intrusion on your life, why did you come all the way down the block and get rid of Mr. Houseman for me?”
“It’s my job to keep trouble away from the bar.”
“Like men who accost women on the street?”
“Like you, lady.” He scanned the sidewalk and street as they walked, and Robin realized that she, too, was learning to check inside every car and doorway for anyone who might be watching or waiting for them as they walked past. “I’ll take you to the corner, and watch you down to your shop. But then you are no longer my responsibility, understand? We’re done.”
Again.
Chapter Seven
“What are you doing in here, boss lady?”
Startled by the interruption, Robin crumpled the sick note she’d been rereading and stuffed it into the pocket of her apron. She looked up from the stool where she sat in the shop’s refrigerated stockroom to see Mark Riggins standing in the open doorway.
I’m taking your baby.
Mark was unrolling the sleeves of his shirt and buttoning the cuffs at the wrist. “It’s quittin’ time.”
Gathering her wits and taking note of the late hour, Robin set the last handful of gerbera daisies she’d been counting back into their vase on the bottom shelf and entered the number on her clipboard before getting up.
She pulled her sweater more tightly around her neck and hugged her arms at her waist. “Are the boutonnieres for the Vanderham second wedding finished?”
“Packaged and ready for delivery in the morning. Along with two dozen small sprays and the biggest altar piece I’ve ever put together. Tacky and too much, but if it makes the client happy, who am I to complain?” Frowning, he took a step into the cold room. “Are you okay? You look a little pale. Are you thinking about the assault again?”
Was there a moment in the week since her attack that she hadn’t? She slipped her hand into her apron pocket, feeling today’s latest threat burning against her fingers. But her personal problems weren’t Mark’s concern—or anyone else’s, apparently, according to the police’s inability to act on a few prank calls and messages. So she pasted on a reassuring smile. “No. I didn’t realize it was nine o’clock. Is everything locked up?”
“You bet.” Mark inclined his head toward the workrooms in the back. “We’re all getting ready to head out so we can get an early start on tomorrow’s setup. I think Linda and Christine are going out for coffee, but the rest of us are heading home. You should do the same.”
“I know.” Since the assault nearly a week earlier, she’d taken every safety precaution she knew to heart—especially since that first drunken phone call had turned into some sort of anonymous hate mail campaign. Every day there’d been something new in her bills and correspondence at the shop. And each letter, sent from a Kansas City post office with no return address, had grown more disturbing by the day.
The Rose Red Rapist didn’t make mistakes and would come back to finish what he’d started.
A single woman had no business adopting a child.
Emma would be taken from her and Robin would be punished for abandoning her the night of the attack.
Abandon? As if she’d been given a choice.
At one point she’d considered digging out Bill Houseman’s card and calling him to find out if he was behind the terror campaign. He’d claimed to be related to Emma, and this could be his sick effort to get her to reverse the adoption so he could take custody of the baby. But how could the attempted rape be related to a legal claim? Besides, a call to Robin’s attorney had assured her that the adoption was legitimate and airtight, and there was nothing requiring her to have any contact with the birth parents who’d surrendered their rights to Emma.
The motive might not be clear, but the message was unmistakable. Some nut job had fixated on Robin and Emma, and it was up to her to maintain a vigilance that would keep her, and everyone around her, safe.
She pulled herself from her thoughts and smiled her thanks to Mark. “Will you make sure that no one leaves by themselves?”
“Sure. I’ll ask Leon to move the van and secure the loading dock, too.”
“Thanks.” Even though she’d be making the rounds herself to make sure everything was locked up tight before she left, it was reassuring to have a second pair of eyes checking the security of the place. “I need a few minutes to get things back in order here and pack up Emma. Then we’ll be leaving, too.”
Mark let the door close behind him and joined her in the middle of the tall, metal shelves that lined the room. “What are you doing?”
She exhaled a weary sigh that clouded around her face. “Old-fashioned inventory, counting out the flowers we have in stock one at a time.”
“Sounds tedious. Want some help?”
Robin smiled and shook her head. “It’s nearly done. Besides, you’ve been talking about those late dinner plans of yours all day long. You need to skedaddle.”
“My date can wait,” he volunteered.
She waved off the offer and picked up one of the long, narrow boxes she’d set on the floor. “At first I thought maybe a couple of orders hadn’t been logged in. But then you showed me your records and I realized we were just encoding entries differently.” She laid the box on a matching stack and opened the lid. “Now I’m thinking the number error is coming from the distributor’s end. We were shorted two stems in each of these boxes. If that’s been going on the entire time I was gone, that adds up to over two thousand dollars.”
“I’ll call them and ask what’s going on. Get them to adjust the billing.” Mark thumbed over his shoulder. “In the meantime, if you won’t be too much longer, I promised Shirley I’d walk her to her car.”
“You go ahead. I just need to push this pallet out of the main path and shut off the lights in here.” She turned the handle of the pallet mover and released the brake. “I’ll be out shortly.”
“Good.” He pulled the handle on the insulated steel door and pushed it open. “Shirley, my love, are you ready for your escort?”
Robin smiled at his over-the-top charm. She was glad she and Mark had sat down together to work out the bookkeeping issues. It was a relief to finally feel like she’d gotten back into the routine of work and running her shop. Heaven knew that, except for Emma’s bright shining star, her personal life was still a complicated mess.
Inhaling a resolute breath and refusing to let the fear those letters and phone calls engendered take hold of her again, Robin leaned her shoulder into the pallet mover to start it rolling. By the time she’d parked it out of the way and retrieved her clipboard, she was back in cool, calm and collected mode. She went to the door and pushed.
But nothing happened.
She quickly squelched that bubble of fear that had never truly left her and pushed the handle again.
Nothing.
She jiggled the handle one more time and pressed the emergency release latch. Only, something had jammed and it wouldn’t engage the lock. This door wasn’t opening. At least, not from her side.
“Mark?” She knocked on the door to see if anyone was on the other side. “Shirley? Leon?” Robin knocked again. “Hello? I’m in here.”
Someone had gotten a little overzealous with the locking-up directive. At least she hoped it was an accident—that whoever had slipped the locking pin into the other side of the door handle simply hadn’t realized she was in here, and that, considering recent events, this wasn’t some poorly timed joke.
“Hello?”
The same insulated walls that kept her from hearing anything outside the fridge room were probably muffling her shouts, as well. Maybe the guys were walking the female employees to their cars and no one was out there. It was impossible to hear through the thick door unless they were standing in the adjoining hallway.
A fearful suspicion simmered inside her. But she tamped down the panic and tried to think this through. Had she
stayed in here longer than she thought? She reached for her cell phone, but that was in the diaper bag in her office. She found the tiny canister of pepper spray in the pocket of her jeans. She’d started carrying it again after that awful night. But she was locked in, not under attack. At least it was a walk-in refrigerator, not a freezer. Things could get mighty uncomfortable, but she wouldn’t die in here. And this door wasn’t the only way out.
“Ugh. Robin.” She chided the foreboding that had momentarily silenced logic and ran over to check the delivery entrance where they loaded and unloaded large orders through the double doors. She rattled the handle on one, tried them both. But nothing budged. Normally, this was padlocked from the outside unless they were using it. “Leon?” Maybe he was back there with the van. She flattened her palm against the cold steel and pounded. “Leon!”
Everything was locked up tight. Just the way she wanted it. Two sets of locked doors to keep anyone from sneaking into the shop from the back alley.
Two sets of locked doors that trapped her in between.
The panic bubbled over and Robin ran back to the hallway door and pounded again. “Hey! Mark? Anyone? I’m locked in!”
Robin was trapped. But that wasn’t what scared her.
She couldn’t get to Emma, who was sleeping peacefully in Robin’s office. Unguarded. Alone.
This was no accident. And it was certainly no joke.
I’m taking your daughter.
Forget cool, calm and collected. Robin pounded on the door and shouted. “Help! Let me out!”
* * *
JAKE LEANED AGAINST the top railing of the fence surrounding the Fairy Tale Bridal parking lot and watched the lights in Robin’s shop go out one by one. Careful not to let the glare from the street lamp reflect off the face of his watch and alert anyone to his presence, he checked the time. 9:00 p.m. sharp. Good. He appreciated punctuality when it came to security.
Robin Carter had been consistent for four nights in a row now. He’d seen her lock the front door, check the windows, turn out the lights and walk to the parking lot with the rest of her staff before loading that bulky baby carrier into the backseat and driving off to whatever all-American suburban home they lived in.
Despite his best intentions to forget the leggy brunette and her blue-eyed baby, despite every lick of sense that said he shouldn’t care about her troubles or get involved any further in their lives, Jake had planned his dinner break from the bar just before nine. And for the past four nights, he’d made the brisk walk around the corner to this hiding place away from the bridal shop’s security cameras, and watched to make sure the Carter girls got safely out of this neighborhood where too many innocent women had gotten hurt.
He justified his sneaky voyeurism as a matter of mental survival. He refused to care about Robin and Emma on any personal level, but a man had to live with his conscience. Jake had enough violence and unanswered questions haunting his dreams. He didn’t need his waking moments to be plagued with doubts and guilt, too. He could watch from a distance without interacting with them, and appease his conscience by making sure they were safe without risking developing any personal connection to them.
Knowing his black shirt and dark jeans helped him blend in with the ivy vines trailing over the fence, he rolled his neck and allowed himself to stretch out some of the kinks of fatigue that came from standing in one position for so long. At least this was an easier gig than that night he’d spent out in the rain waiting for Robin to reappear. Not that he minded the elements. He’d needed to see her that night to make sure she was okay—that his own self-preservation instincts hadn’t left her exposed to any more danger.
Apparently, he still needed to see her to put his conscience to rest each night. But there wouldn’t be any more hand-holding or running his fingers through her hair or thinking about kissing her. There wouldn’t be any more stabs of protective jealousy and charging to the rescue when some other man put his hands on her. Despite his ugly facade, he was a man who wanted and lusted and could learn to care, just like any other man. But Jake knew that the monster he might also be made him too dangerous to ever give in to those normal wants and needs. If he knew he was responsible for hurting Robin or her daughter, it would open up a wound no one would ever see, and from which he might never recover.
Jake stilled again to watch the progression across the street. Like clockwork, the back door opened beneath the green-and-white awning and the employees of the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop came out.
The dark-haired guy with the bow tie came out with the middle-aged blonde. Good. Bow-tie guy was walking her to her car. They laughed about something before she got in and drove away. Bow-tie guy waited as two more women came out together, got into their cars and drove away.
“Hey!” Hearing the slam of a door, Jake moved his attention back the shop entrance. A young man in a green uniform shirt jogged out and stopped Bow-tie guy outside his car. With his senses going on alert, Jake leaned forward, turning his ear to eavesdrop as their conversation flared into a heated argument.
He was too far away to catch everything, but Jake quickly realized this was not as happy a family of coworkers as he’d expected. Uniform kid said something about “...your fault.”
Bow-tie guy kept his cool while the younger man blew up.
“Ms. Carter...twice now.”
“...not going to lose your job.”
“I’ll take care of it if you won’t.”
Interesting.
Almost as quickly as it had started, the argument stopped. The two men separated to their respective vehicles. Both immediately pulled out their cell phones, either taking or making calls as they got into their cars. The younger man started his car and sped out of the parking lot while the older man sat inside his car, chatting on the phone.
Had Robin made a discovery about the accounting discrepancy she’d been stewing over that night she’d been attacked? Not a smart move to confront Uniform guy on her own. A man wouldn’t have to be built like Jake to out-muscle her if he really wanted to.
Jake’s blood heated in his veins at the thought of Robin getting hurt again. Three more minutes passed before Bow-tie guy ended his call. He watched the back door for two minutes more before checking the time and then driving away. Jake’s feet itched to follow one or both of those men to find out what they’d been arguing about, if it had to do with Robin and what calls were so important that they had to be made before they’d even left the parking lot.
And where the hell was Robin, anyway?
Changing the kid’s diaper? Dinking with those books again? The whole idea of safety in numbers was that she had to be with those numbers.
Jake checked his watch again. It was a full fifteen minutes after closing and her rental car was the only one left in the lot. “Walk out to your car, Robin,” Jake willed, hating the instinct that warned him he needed to get over to that shop now. “Five more minutes,” he argued with that darker urge.
Several more cars were parked on the street in front of the shop—maybe one of those belonged to a last-minute customer. The goal of coming here was to make sure she was safe—not to talk to her, touch her or be some kind of hero to her again. That wasn’t the role he was here to play tonight.
He bargained with the silent red alert churning through his blood by slipping out of his hiding place and moving down the street to scan for the green sedan that had been watching her place the other night. There was no green car, but there was plenty of traffic tonight—people leaving work, others pulling into empty spaces to try out the coffee bar or dance club on the corner.
Funny how nobody noticed a man strolling through the shadows if he didn’t want to be noticed. A trio of women heading into the club breezed right by him, either too eager to get to the party or too ignorant of the dangers of this neighborhood to pay him any mind. A young couple exited the coffee bar. The woman bumped Jake’s shoulder as he turned the corner, and she mumbled an apology without taking her attention away from the
man she was with.
Was he really that good at blending in? Or were these covert skills an unfortunate byproduct of having a face that no one really wanted to look at? Pretty good cover for a hit man or whatever kind of lowlife he might have been in his forgotten past.
Swallowing the bile that the possibility of being that kind of man invariably triggered in him, Jake walked another half a block without any sign of the green sedan and turned into the alley behind the businesses to make his way back to Robin’s shop. He hoped her car was gone before he had to get back to finish his shift at the Shamrock. And if she was still there...
What the hell?
Jake pulled back against the bricks when he recognized Bow-tie guy from the shop pulling into a parking space and getting out. Maybe the guy had an aversion to exercise and half a block was too far to walk after work. But those sly looks up and down the street before reaching back into the car and pulling out a flat manila envelope made Jake think this stop wasn’t about laziness. When Bow-tie guy walked to the car parked directly in front of him and climbed into the passenger side, Jake’s suspicions jumped up another notch.
He inched out of the shadows to read the plate number of the first car and try to get a glimpse of the driver. The angle was wrong to see a face, but the dark clothes and general build could have been a match for the man in the green sedan the night of the assault. Was this a different rental car? If so, why would the guy go to so much trouble to cover his tracks and mask his identity? Or was this the guy who’d accosted Robin outside the Shamrock? Could they be the same man?