Anywhere She Runs

by Webb, Debra

  She nodded. “It was different this time. I could hear voices. My dad . . . I guess . . . and another voice. A man or boy. Sounded young.”

  “Your dad?” Maybe being back here was playing havoc with her emotions. What the hell was he thinking? There was no maybe about it. They were both . . . on edge. Raw-nerved.

  “He kept saying . . . ‘here’s daddy’s little princess . . .’ ” Her gaze searched his. “He never called me ‘princess.’ I was his angel.”

  Princess. Wyatt’s insides twisted with the worry that didn’t completely fade even when he slept. “It’s the case,” he assured her, “that’s all. Your subconscious is scrambling the past with the present.”

  She inclined her head, seemed to think about something before saying more. “But the voice was wrong. Not my dad’s.” She shook her head. “I didn’t recognize it.”

  “How ’bout I make some coffee? Warm us up?”

  She ignored his question, seemed lost in her thoughts. “And the boy—the other voice—that was truly bizarre.”

  “How so?”

  “He kept saying, ‘just die . . . just die . . .’ ”

  Those precise words hadn’t been in any of the letters sent by the perp. Wyatt dropped his towel on the floor and swiped his feet, then ushered it across the tile in her direction. “Slide that under your feet so you don’t slip. Tile’s slick as hell when it’s wet.” He backed up a step, mostly to put some distance between them. This was, he felt fairly certain, one of those moments when she needed her space. “I’ll make the coffee.” The dream had really rattled her. But it wasn’t just the dream. It was that and this case.

  Addy wanted to present this situation as just another investigation but it was deeply personal. This perp had picked her out, just as he had Prescott and Arnold. And he was coming for Addy. It was only a matter of time. That had to be getting to her.

  It was sure as hell getting to him. He wasn’t backing out of the cramped bathroom and into the hall because he thought she needed space . . . he needed it. He had to get his head on straight before she noticed and definitely before he said or did something he would regret.

  “Wyatt.”

  He hesitated. “Yeah?”

  “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

  The urge to scoop her into his arms and carry her to his bed then and there hit him hard. “Sure.”

  He could handle having her sleep in his bed. It would be a little awkward but he would manage.

  Who the hell was he kidding? On a difficulty scale of one to ten . . . this was a definite twenty.

  If he survived it would be a miracle.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  6:40 A.M.

  Adeline moaned softly. The sound roused her from that sweet zone somewhere between asleep and awake. Something heavy lay across her back. She told her eyes to open but they refused. This felt so good. Warm and familiar. Her breasts were crushed against that firm warmth.

  Her body tingled. She pressed her pelvis into something big and hard. Damp heat seeped between her thighs. Oh, now this was a good dream. She tilted her hips again. Sighed. Felt real good.

  The weight on her back shifted.

  Her eyes opened wide.

  It was dark.

  The smell of rain and warm flesh filled her nostrils.

  Her hand moved . . . glided along a muscled arm.

  Wyatt.

  She raised her head, analyzed the situation.

  She froze.

  Her body was draped along his like a sheet.

  If she moved—even breathed—he would wake up and . . .

  His arm, heavy on her back, tightened around her.

  A generous length of rock-hard flesh nudged her thigh. She closed her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip.

  This was . . . not good.

  All she had to do was ease out of his—

  “Addy.”

  Her name was nothing more than a breath on his lips. She shivered at the sound. Desire detonated in every damned mutinous cell.

  “Morning,” she muttered.

  His body tensed as his own realization dawned.

  She told herself to say something or to just move. Couldn’t.

  His fingers tangled in her hair.

  She gasped.

  He drew her face down to his . . . their lips so close she could feel his warm breath on her face.

  “Say the word,” he murmured, “and I’ll stop but I have to do this.”

  He lifted his head just enough to ensure their lips met. The kiss was slow, slow, slow. She told herself to pull away. To say the word. To do anything but . . .

  Melt against him like butter on hot toast.

  Not gonna happen.

  Images of him standing in the rain . . . rivulets of water sliding down his chest as he reached out to her . . . the way those sweatpants hung low on his lean hips kept flashing in her brain. The feel of that powerful body under her now . . . all of it was just too much to resist.

  She banished the warning voice . . . pushed away the propriety vying for her attention. Right now she wanted to feel . . . all of him. Every gorgeous, hot part of his body.

  He tugged her jersey upward. She reared back and pulled it the rest of the way off then tossed it to the floor. His hands went immediately to her breasts. She closed her eyes and groaned as he squeezed and kneaded. Her nipples budded beneath the attention of his thumbs. His hands slid around her torso, pulled her against his chest then rolled her onto her back. He nestled his hips between her welcoming thighs.

  His mouth found hers. Those lips . . . God, she had missed his lips. Full and firm and always hungry for more. He left a trail of kisses along her jaw, down her throat, and to her breast. His mouth closed over her and her back arched to give him fuller access. He sucked first one and then the other. Sucked hard. Her nipples were on fire. He soothed them with his tongue. Her body responded to his every touch.

  She wanted him. She wanted him. All of him.

  Now.

  She reached down, pushed the sweats over his hips. His thick penis bumped against her panties. She shivered. Used her feet to push the sweats past his knees. Her hands couldn’t get enough of touching him. She glided her palms over his strong back . . . along his lean waist, then she flattened them against the well-defined ridges of his chest.

  He drew back onto his knees. Dragged her panties down her thighs. She pulled her knees forward, let him pull the last pair of panties in her possession down and off her feet. He braced his hands on either side of her head and lowered that awesome body between her thighs once more. She skimmed her feet down the backs of his legs, over his ankles, until the sweats were history.

  Nothing between them now, their bodies meshed fully. Skin to skin. His heart beat against her breast. His powerful muscles quivered with anticipation, assuring her that he, too, wanted this as desperately as she did. That thick, hard muscle between his powerful legs rubbed up and down along the part of her waiting to be filled. But they couldn’t stop kissing long enough to move onto anything else. Couldn’t get enough of the taste of each other. His skin tasted just like she remembered. He smelled so good. She wanted to taste, to smell, to feel all of him . . . to saturate her senses.

  His mouth moved down her torso. That wicked tongue circled her bellybutton. She smiled, sighed. He pressed his mouth to her sex. His tongue lapped at the damp, quivering folds, then delved inside. She cried out. He nibbled at her clit. Her body squirmed. Then one long finger slid inside her. She shuddered, arched into his touch.

  “Lift for me, baby,” he murmured against her inner thigh.

  Helpless to do anything but obey, she locked her heels against the mattress and lifted her hips. He burrowed into her, lapping, nibbling, and teasing her with his mouth.

  Pleasure spiraled deep inside her. She fisted her fingers in the sheet. Her breath came in shallow pants. She was coming. God, she was coming already.

  He stopped.

  She whimpered.

  He came up on a
ll fours, started that sweet path of kisses along her torso. Her mind spun with the madness raging through her body. She had been right on the edge and he’d jerked her back. Made her wait.

  She sank into the sheets, reached down, and pulled his face up to hers. She couldn’t take this anymore. She needed him. “Do it. Now.”

  He kissed her. The salty essence of sex filled her mouth, tantalized her taste buds. She rubbed her sex against his. Curled her legs around his thighs and ushered him into her. Her muscles throbbed with anticipation.

  Those teasing fingers slid down her rib cage, reached between their damp bodies and guided his penis to her. She gasped. The sweet burning sensation of penetration seared through her. She lifted her hips, tried to push him deeper. He held back, gave her an inch, then two.

  Her fingers tangled in his hair. She pulled hard. “Give me the rest. All of it.”

  He plowed fully into her. She came. Her whole body tensed with the burst of sensations. He moved. She whimpered. His arms snaked under her, lifted her to his chest. He pulled her upward as he sat back on his heels, sending his penis deeper inside her. So deep she couldn’t breathe . . . couldn’t do anything but drown in the incredible pleasure.

  “I remember what you like,” he murmured.

  Even as he said the words, she had started to ride him. Those delicious waves started to build again. She resisted the urge to speed up, kept it slow and purposeful. Up, down, savor the breathtaking friction. He groaned each time she sank fully onto him. Then the slow drag back up stole her breath all over again. Slow, slow, slow. Up, up, up, down, down, down. He trembled. She smiled. As close as she was to her second orgasm . . . he was close to coming, too.

  He tried to take her back down to the tangled sheets but she usurped the move, forcing him onto his back. She pressed her hips all the way down, until there was nothing more to take. He was the one gripping the sheets this time.

  “I remember what you like, too.” She started to rock back and forth. Fast . . . then slow. She could feel him pulsing inside her . . . getting closer and closer.

  Then she stopped. Lay down on his chest and savored the feel of his heart beating. Their bodies pulsing. So close to completion.

  She focused on relaxing her muscles . . . slowing those swirling sensations. Slowed her breathing. She wanted to draw this out . . . make it last.

  His arms felt so good around her. Safe.

  Home.

  The word echoed inside her. She tensed.

  As if sensing the change in her, he rolled her onto her back. Cradled her face in his hands and kissed her hard. Not slow and sweet like before. This was undeniably desperate . . . turbulent.

  He drew his hips back. Plunged into her. She gasped, the sound filling his mouth. He held still, then repeated the move. She clawed at his back. Couldn’t bear the waiting.

  His fingers threaded into her hair as his hips flexed and withdrew. Slow. Slow. Slow. Then faster. Faster and faster. Harder. Until she was coming again.

  He put a hand under her ass, lifted her just enough to go a little deeper. Long, deep thrusts. Each one a precisely executed move to send her spiraling out of control.

  She screamed with the eruption of sensations. She bucked her hips to meet his . . . once, twice . . . and then she collapsed. Physically spent and mentally floating on that cloud of pure sensation.

  He plunged one last hard, deep thrust as if he were trying to brand her . . . ensure he went where no one else had been. Then his movements grew frantic as his own orgasm claimed him.

  He pushed into her one final time, before collapsing on the bed next to her. Their bodies still joined at the hips, he pulled her against his chest.

  She let him.

  “I’ve missed you, Addy.”

  The words whispered against her temple sent confusion . . . and . . . fear roaring through her.

  She wasn’t supposed to feel this anymore.

  She wasn’t supposed to be here.

  How long would it take this time to exorcise Wyatt Henderson?

  You’re next.

  Then again, if the perp had his way . . . she wouldn’t have to worry about the future at all.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Jackson County Sheriff’s Office 10:00 A.M.

  Wyatt turned the floor over to Detective Sullenger to recap for the benefit of Detective Ferguson of Hattiesburg PD and Detective Cummings from Wiggins.

  “The two victims share a few characteristics,” Sullenger began. “Both in their thirties, blond hair, blue eyes. Petite, though Arnold is a couple inches taller than Prescott. Other than being career-oriented women, that’s where the similarities end.”

  “Detective Cooper,” Wyatt added, “fits that somewhat ambiguous profile and, according to the messages she has received from the perp, she is his current focus.”

  At the other end of the table, Addy met Wyatt’s gaze but quickly looked away. He was pretty sure she’d purposely chosen to sit as far away from him as possible. What they’d shared this morning only appeared to have put more distance between them. As soon as they’d rolled out of bed, she’d mentally taken several giant steps back.

  Something they would both have to deal with eventually whether she wanted to or not.

  “And that’s it?” Detective Cummings said, obviously frustrated. “Two women are missing and there’s no evidence. No nothing. Two crime scenes, a dozen cops and techs, and this is it?”

  The two letters sent by the perp to Arnold had been discovered in a drawer in her bedroom. There was no way to know when or how she had received them. Her husband hadn’t seen the letters. Forensics had confirmed the letters were a match to both the ones Prescott had received as well as those sent to Addy.

  Those knots of dread he’d been ignoring clenched hard in Wyatt’s gut. How could they have two victims and not a single shred of usable evidence?

  Womack nodded. “Unfortunately.” He picked up one of the numerous documents he’d brought to the conference table. “According to the Verizon report your office faxed over, the call Penny Arnold received early yesterday morning came from the pay phone at the Big A convenience store on Highway 29 just outside Wiggins.”

  “That’s right.” Cummings slid a pair of reading glasses into place and looked over a report from the file in front of him. “As far as we can tell there’s not a single connection between the two vics. Arnold’s husband is certain his wife didn’t know Prescott. He wasn’t even aware Prescott was missing.” Cummings lifted his gaze to those seated around the table once more. “His wife had been out of town, and with watching the kids, the laundry and meals, he said he’d had no time to catch up on the news.”

  “Was Penny afraid of the water?”

  Wyatt’s attention shot down the table to Addy. He hadn’t brought that up. He’d hoped to discuss that privately with Cummings, but the man hadn’t arrived until the rest of the group was already assembled.

  Cummings drew his eyebrows together in a frown. “That hasn’t come up in the interviews.” He looked from Addy to Wyatt. “Is that relevant somehow?”

  “Cherry Prescott,” Ferguson put in, “only a few weeks before her disappearance related certain fears to her closest friends. Fears she hadn’t experienced in the past. Drowning was one of them.”

  True to the family’s requests, Ferguson had veered away from specifics. They were way past protecting anyone’s image at this point. Wyatt clarified, “She’d started having dreams of drowning her daughter. We’ve considered the possibility that she disappeared in some sort of desperate attempt to protect her child.”

  Cummings looked totally bewildered now. “You’re saying there’s some chance she wasn’t a victim? That she just ran off? What about the letters?”

  “That is absolutely not what we’re saying.” Ferguson blasted the point. “We don’t believe that any more than you believe Ms. Arnold stayed in Phoenix an extra day to carry on an illicit affair. Even if there was some question, the letters undeniably connect the disappea
rances.”

  “In light of Arnold’s disappearance,” Wyatt intervened, “and the continued threat to Detective Cooper, the possibility that Prescott disappeared of her own accord is no longer a viable scenario.”

  “It was never,” Ferguson pressed, “a viable scenario.”

  Wyatt conceded to the detective’s assertion with a nod. This case made maintaining objectivity next to impossible. His gaze settled on Addy once more. No one understood that better than him.

  “I don’t see the relevance then,” Cummings tossed out. “What does Prescott’s fear of drowning have to do with anything?”

  Addy pushed back her chair and got up. She rounded the table and snatched the pack of cigarettes from Womack’s shirt pocket on her way out the door.

  “Carry on, Detective Sullenger.” Wyatt got up. He didn’t need to hear the rest of what they didn’t have. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “Here,” Womack called after him.

  Wyatt turned back to the table. His deputy pitched him a cigarette lighter. “She might need this.”

  The frustrated voices in the conference room followed him down the corridor. All present were sick with the idea that there was not a single piece of evidence that provided any hint whatsoever to the perp or his motive. Not a goddamned thing to lead them anywhere.

  How the hell were they supposed to stop this guy if they couldn’t find a damned link between the victims? A pained laugh erupted from his chest. Hell, they even knew the identity of the next victim and they still couldn’t do shit except wait for the bastard to act.

  Wyatt passed through the lobby, disgusted with the cheery Christmas decorations. There wasn’t a damned thing to be happy or festive about. He couldn’t remember having such a screwed-up holiday . . . not since the first one after she left.

  Then again, as bad as this one was, at least she was here.

  His chest tightened at the idea that she would be leaving again. There was nothing he could say or do to stop her.

  She had a life six and a half hours north of here.

  The distance felt like another universe away . . . for him it was exactly that.