“Because I need to be completely certain that there’s no connection between the man who hurt Jenny and the person stalking you.”
Olivia looked at him, thinking. Finally, she said, “OK. I’ll tell you a bit. Enough for you to make that decision. Not one word more.”
“Alright. First, how long ago was she hurt?”
“Just over six years ago.”
He blinked, surprised that it had been so long. He’d assumed that whatever had happened to Jenny had occurred maybe two years ago, at most.
So what happened to her was so bad, so traumatic, she’s still reeling. Goddammit.
“And the man who did it…”
“Men.”
He paused, feeling a bit sick. “Men. How many?”
Liv swallowed. “Four.”
“Four.” Dallas stared down at his hands, wanting to strangle someone. An image of Jenny setting a piece of chocolate cake down in front of him came to mind; she’d been smiling and glowing that one night at her restaurant, so happy to be hosting them all at her place. Dallas had never seen her so relaxed, so completely beautiful. Chris had hardly been able to keep his eyes off her that evening, and Dallas hadn’t blamed him at all.
He took a breath and removed the personal element from all of this. “Where are these men now?”
Liv shrugged, her eyes cold. “No idea. They served their jail time, such as it was, and are now free men.”
He looked up sharply. “How long ago were they released?”
“Oh, years ago.” The anger in her voice was palpable. “The one guy got three years, and he served less than half-that. The others got shorter sentences, and were out even sooner.”
“They’re in Denver?”
“Maybe. They – what happened took place in the mountains, just outside the city. They may still be around.”
“I need their names, Olivia. I need to find them.”
She nodded. “I’ll write them down for you.” She hesitated. “Can we leave it there for now? See what you find out?”
“Yeah,” he said. “If they’re gone or dead or whatever, I see no need to take it any farther. I’m just trying to cross them off the suspect list, and as soon as I do that, I’ll let it go.”
“OK,” she said. “And you’ll look in to Emma and Kat?”
“Yeah, a bit. Just enough to make sure that they aren’t being followed or surveilled without their knowledge or permission. As soon as I eliminate them as possible unwitting sources of information, I’ll drop the investigation.”
“One more thing, Dallas.” She spoke quietly.
“Name it.”
“I know your team is good and professional, but…”
“I’ll handle the investigations myself,” he said, knowing what she was going to say even before she said it. “Nobody else, I swear it. Just me.”
“OK,” she said. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “You’re welcome, hon.” He looked at her now, saw that she was more relaxed than she had been even a few minutes earlier. “So… tell me about your day tomorrow.”
“Oh,” she said. “Nothing too exciting, I think. A few meetings with the Hope Perfume people.”
“A new campaign?”
“Yeah. The photo shoot is in a couple of weeks.” She smiled. “So this dinner with you now is the last big meal I’ll have for a while… I need to get in to a fancy, skin-tight evening gown.”
He grinned. “OK, baby. Let’s enjoy it, yeah?” He lifted the serving dish. “More rice? Maybe some more chicken curry?”
“You better believe it,” she said. “Gimme loads of carbs, Dallas. And I’m going to eat fattening cream sauce until I pass out from pure happiness.”
**
Late the next day, Dallas sat in his office. In front of him were two files. Both of them disturbed him, for completely different reasons.
The first file contained the police and medical reports about what had happened to Jennifer Marie Sawyer. Dallas had read the details about Jenny’s attack with a knot in his stomach, and by the time he’d finished, he was fucking livid.
It was with savage glee that he found out that three of the men involved were now dead – one in prison, one in some drugs mess, the last one shot by a cop during an armed robbery – and the last guy was currently in jail. It seemed that after years of assault and battery, he’d finally graduated to murder and the state had seen fit to stick his ass in prison for a nice, long stretch. Dallas didn’t think he’d breathe free air for at least another fifteen years.
He felt deeply uncomfortable knowing all this about Jenny: like what he knew about Olivia, he’d have preferred for her to have shared these details with him by choice. But he was wearing his professional hat right now, not his personal one, and as hard as it was, he had to treat Olivia, Jenny and Kat as simply a part of an investigation.
Yeah, right, man. You’ve been crossing personal lines all over the fucking place since this whole thing began, and you know it.
As bad as Jenny’s file was, though, it was the second one that really threw him for a loop. It was Katherine Lawrence’s file – Kat’s – and it was completely fucking empty. He’d been digging for information about her life for almost twelve hours and it seemed that Kat simply did not exist.
She didn’t have a bank account, didn’t work legally at the hair salon, so she didn’t pay taxes. She didn’t have a registered cell phone, no registered address. He knew her middle name was Joanna – the same as his mother’s – and she’d told Jim that she was originally from Oregon. But a thorough search through the birth records showed that no Katherine Joanna Lawrence who matched Kat’s physical description had been born in that state in the past thirty-five years. Dallas had then gone through the driver’s license photos of every single woman with that name from Oregon, and none of them was Kat.
So either she doesn’t even have a driver’s license… or that’s not her name.
Kat changed her appearance so often, it made Dallas’ head spin. She was cagey about any details to do with her life. She had no job history, no taxes filed under that name, no social insurance number that he could find. No social media at all: no Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts. It was like she’d just popped up out of the ground a year or so ago, taken up work at the salon for cash-in-hand, and conjured a whole life out of thin air. She was totally off-the-grid, and Dallas had only ever come across that kind of thing once before… when a woman was hiding from her ex-husband, who had tried to strangle her with piano-wire.
What’s your real story, Kat? If that’s even your name…
There was a knock at the door and he glanced up. “Come on in.”
The door opened and Marnie Lyons stood there holding a file. “Hey, Dallas. I got that information about Abraham Castell that you requested.”
He immediately refocused. “Tell me.”
“No way the man was at work on Friday night,” she said.
“Where was he?”
“No clue. I went through his cell history and he had it off all that night.”
Dallas frowned. “So no way to get any sense of his location.”
“None.”
“Dammit.”
“I know. You want me to keep digging?”
“Damn right I do,” he said. “Go back in to his life for the past nine months, OK? Work schedule, credit card receipts, bank account activity, internet presence, the works.”
“You got it, boss,” Marnie said. She set the file on Dallas’ desk and left the room.
He sat and thought for a few more minutes, then he got to his feet. He picked up Jenny’s and Kat’s files, and he looked down at them.
Too far over the lines, Foreman. Way too fucking far. Shut this down. Now.
Dallas walked down the hall and punched in the code to what was fondly known around the office as the Scorched Earth R
oom. Dallas usually just shredded sensitive documents, but this time, he felt the need to symbolically destroy every single piece of physical evidence of what he’d been up to.
He opened the furnace door, recoiled a bit from the blazing heat. He threw in Jenny’s file, watched the papers and photos burn and turn to ash. He held Kat’s empty file in his hand, and on the way back to his office, he slid it in to the supplies cabinet. Somebody could reuse it.
He sat again, took a deep breath. Nobody ever had to know any of what he’d found. He’d tell Olivia that nothing had turned up on her friends – and in Emma’s case, that was actually totally true – and leave it at that.
It’s a white lie, man, but you’ve got no choice here. Just let it all go.
Chapter Five
Three days later, Liv was standing in the kitchen, drinking her coffee. She was staring out the window at the SUV parked right outside her house; she saw Selena and Griff inside, talking. She knew they’d be in soon for a coffee and some breakfast after Mark and Sully arrived, so she had the croissants heating up in the oven, and the bacon frying on the stove.
She heard a noise behind her and she turned to see Dallas standing there, fully clothed. He was looking at her, taking in her long hair tumbling down her back, her clear brown eyes, warm and sparkling in the morning light.
“How you doing, darlin’?” he said.
“Good.” She smiled at him, thinking how much she liked seeing him first thing every morning. “Coffee’s ready.”
He poured a large mug and took a grateful sip. “God, I love this stuff. I truly cannot function without it.”
She laughed. “You’re preaching to the converted, baby.”
They shared a grin.
“Dallas?”
“Yeah?”
“I have somewhere I want to go tonight… but it’s kind of complicated.”
He leaned back on the counter and gazed at her. He had long dreaded this moment, when Olivia was going to want to go on a date with some shmuck, or – worse – stay over at said shmuck’s place.
He knew that Olivia wasn’t dating anybody special right now, and that she hadn’t done for a while. Her entire dating history was in her file, and Dallas had been over and over it with her, looking for jilted lovers, vengeful exes, guys who’d been a bit too persistent in asking for a date. Nobody had popped, and Dallas had let it go. It was one of those things about her personal life that he felt weird knowing as much about as he did, especially when he realized that she knew next-to-nothing about his own love life.
So, the fact of the matter was that if she was interested in someone now, and she wanted to stay over at his place, or have some yahoo stay over here, they’d make all necessary arrangements, of course. But Dallas was going to be annoyed. And jealous.
Not that you have any right, you asshole. You want her so bad? Make a fucking move.
He just couldn’t though. Dallas had never had one second of hesitation when it came to hitting on random women in bars and bringing them home to fuck. But his feelings for Olivia were strong and real, and that meant that if he did something, he’d better be prepared to stand by it. No way he was going to just screw her and get on with his life: if he kissed her, he’d want the whole thing with her. Sex, friendship, love. Everything. And with all that was going on in her life right now, he wasn’t sure she needed any more pressure on her.
When this guy is caught and she’s safe, then see if there’s a chance. But right now, she depends on you to keep her safe. She trusts you. Don’t take advantage of that.
“OK,” he said, his voice calm. “Where do you want to go?”
“Let’s wait until Selena and Griff some in here,” she said, turning over the bacon. “It’ll involve them too.”
He opened his mouth to agree when he heard the front door open. He set down his coffee, put his body between Olivia and the door, his hands automatically reaching behind him to touch his gun.
“Good morning!” Selena’s voice drifted up the stairs. “Just us.”
“Hi,” Liv replied. “Come on up, guys.”
Selena arrived first, her dark eyes checking Liv out for signs of sleeplessness or stress. Her dark hair was short and curly, her body fit and toned. She was a triathlete and competitive marathoner and every waking moment not spent at work was spent in the gym, the pool, the track. Her keen intelligence shone bright out of those eyes, and her wit was fast and funny.
Two nights earlier, Liv had been unable to sleep and had gotten up to make some tea. Not wanting to disturb Dallas, she’d crept in to the kitchen and turned on the light. Selena and Griff had spotted it from outside and she’d come in to make sure everything was OK. The women had sat up for almost three hours, drinking green tea and talking. By the time Liv was tired enough to go to bed, they had decided that they liked each other very much.
Liv and Selena exchanged smiles now and Liv handed her a cup of coffee. Selena took it with a sigh of thanks.
“Sully and Mark are outside?” Dallas asked.
“Yep, they just got here. They’re walking the perimeter now.” Griff sniffed and his blue eyes opened wide. “Liv. Is that bacon?”
Liv grinned. “Yep. By special request…”
“Thanks, Liv,” he said. “You didn’t have to.”
“But I did,” she said. “I love it too.”
“You going to eat breakfast today?” Dallas said. He’d been perturbed by how little food she’d actually consumed since their Indian dinner. A bit of fruit for breakfast, a small salad for lunch, some chicken and vegetables for dinner. It was barely enough to sustain a squirrel, he thought, let alone a grown woman.
He knew it was Olivia’s job, of course, to look good and God knows, he’d spent enough time in his life appreciating her assets. But he had never really considered what Olivia would have to do to look that good, and then stay that way. He felt disgust at himself now, for all those times he’d ogled the woman’s ass, before he knew her. He actually wished she’d put on a few pounds, but he knew the clients would let her go if she did. So he kept his mouth shut and an eye on her, looking out for dizzy spells or fatigue.
Liv looked at him. “I’m going to have one piece of bacon. One.”
“Ooooh, Liv,” Griff teased. “Go crazy, babe.”
“I know, right?” she said. “But I will go certifiably insane if I have to eat just unsweetened grapefruit for breakfast again.”
They laughed and filled up their plates. They all sat down together at the table and started to eat.
Dallas cleared his throat. “So, Olivia… where do you want to go tonight?”
The others looked up.
“Tonight?” Griff said. “Nothing on your itinerary for tonight.”
“Yeah,” Liv said. “I know. This… this is off the itinerary.”
Dallas’ stomach tightened. It sounded like a date and/or sleepover for sure.
“OK,” Selena leaned back, her dark eyes watchful. “Tell us.”
“I need to go somewhere alone.”
They all started at that. Then they set down their cups and cutlery, ready to fight her on this.
“No,” Dallas said. “No way.”
“Yes.”
“Olivia,” he said. “We told you the rules, and you agreed to them. One of those rules is that someone is always with you. No exceptions.”
She crossed her arms. “Then we need to figure out something exceptional for tonight.”
“OK,” Griff said. “Tell us where you want to go… maybe we can work it out.”
Liv nodded. “I want to go to a house in Parker.”
“OK. That’s a nice area of the city,” Selena said cautiously. “What’s out there?”
“A – a house that I own.” She bit her lip. “I bought it for cash a few years ago, free and clear, and it’s a secret shelter.”
&nb
sp; “For whom?” Griff said.
“Battered women,” she said. “And their kids. Parker’s an amazing area, with large houses, and great schools. It’s ideal for hiding these women and getting them started again.”
They all stared at her and then at each other.
“There’s nothing in your file about your work with battered women,” Dallas said. “Nothing about another home. Why don’t we have this information?”
“Because it’s not something that I want to be common knowledge,” she said. “The only way this shelter is safe is if the abusive men can’t find it. The fewer people who know, outside of some organization workers that I trust, the better.”
“But we’re your protective detail, Olivia!” Dallas said. “For all we know, your stalker has something to do with this shelter! There may be a whole range of suspects that we haven’t even considered, all because we knew nothing about this!”
She looked down. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to keep the families safe.”
He took a deep breath, calming himself down. “OK. We know now. So, why don’t you want us to go with you tonight?”
“Oh, you can. I mean, you can take me there. But I don’t want any of you to come inside with me.”
“Forget it,” Dallas said. “Eyes on you at all times, unless you’re in a locked bathroom or your own home. Any other time, one of us is with you.”
“I know what I agreed to, Dallas, and I have no desire to put myself or any of you in to a dangerous situation, OK? But these women and kids… they don’t trust men. They’re scared of them, so if you showed up – with your tattoos and muscles – you’d frighten them. Same thing with Griff and Mark and Sully – they’re all huge guys, right? And they don’t trust law-enforcement, for the most part, so if they saw Selena standing there looking all authoritative, they’d freak out. I just – I don’t see a way to get anyone from your team inside without scaring these people half to death.” She looked at them, pleading. “This is supposed to be a safe place for them, guys, where they can totally relax.”
They thought about that.
“You got a floor plan of the house?” Dallas asked slowly.
Enemy Outside (Unseen Enemy Book 2) Page 7