by D. C. Stone
“Of course, Agent Rossi.”
Was it her, or did the woman’s voice drop an octave and turn smoky?
“It was in my bedroom. Follow me.”
Is she blushing now? Oh for the love of…
He followed the woman up the stairs.
Charlie shadowed them.
“It was as if someone was shifting around in the closet.” The woman called over her shoulder and stepped into a room at the top.
Charlie walked in behind Rossi and scanned the area. The furniture was a deep brown, heavy oak. The far wall held a six-drawer dresser with a large mirror framing it on top. In the center of the room was a huge oak bed, same wooden color, with a lacy white comforter and a few blood red pillows tossed on top, giving the room some color and blending well against the white background. The front of the house was to the right. The bay window punched out from the wall, and nestled inside of the open space was a simple desk with a black computer on top. Everything seemed to be in pristine condition, clean, devoid of dust. But from the disgust marring the woman’s face, it was almost as if the place was caked in filth.
“And where were you standing, Miss,” Rossi asked.
The blush on her cheeks brightened, and she tossed a beaming smile. “Hempstead. Katherine Hempstead. I was standing right here by the bed, um, undressing.”
He nodded and pulled out a notebook, glanced up every few minutes as he jotted down notes. Charlie folded her arms and despised the angst she felt over the woman’s innocent flirtation. She couldn’t help it, though. She and Rossi had a moment, their moment, just minutes ago outside the station. “And you said there was a message left for you?”
Katherine nodded, and tears filled her eyes again as she walked over to the small desk. The woman went to reach down and Rossi intercepted, guided her hand from where it was about to touch the wireless mouse. He nodded at Charlie and pulled Katherine away. The woman didn’t pay any attention to her. Instead her gaze fastened with obvious adoration at him. Charlie shook her head, snapped the latex against her skin a little too hard, and fought to hide the wince when Trent turned her way, an eyebrow lifted.
With her hand covered, she brought the sleeping laptop to life. Rossi let out a vile curse. On the screen, in large red letters was a note that pulled a shudder from her. “Go ahead and call the police. I’ll be back soon.”
****
Charlie walked into her house, tossed her keys on her table, set her Glock aside, and stopped just inside of the great room. The scene in front of her was so out of the norm, so bizarre she had to shake her head just to make sure she wasn’t imagining things.
Dwayne lay horizontal on the couch, one leg propped up on the end, the other bent at a ninety-degree angle. That wasn’t the weird thing, although seeing her best friend sprawled out on the couch and not moving about was something different. No, it was more about what he was wearing, which only included a pair of gray-blue sweatpants, a white tee that molded to his chest, and nothing else. No Italian loafers, no three-piece suit cut to perfection on his almost flawless body.
He had one hand tucked behind his head, the remote for the TV on his stomach, and just as quickly, she recognized something wasn’t right. In the six months he had been living with her while the contractors finished his house, she’d never seen him like this, so dressed down, and so relaxed. For anyone else, she’d think they were fine, especially as one would think you’d normally relax when you were comfortable. But with Dwayne, it wasn’t like that at all.
It had a lot to do with his childhood, but Dwayne wore his clothing and dressed up his appearance like a knight would with armor. She never pushed him on this, accepted him as he was. She understood he had deep-rooted issues that even she’d never be able to help him with. It’d take a whole lot of time, and a woman with more patience than her to break down those walls. She loved Dwayne in her own sister-like way, but she had no doubt that even though he loved her in return, he didn’t love her that much.
She took her jacket off and set it on the back of a chair, then leaned against the counter separating the kitchen from the great room. He watched her, his green eyes intent and a little sad.
“Hey,” she said, “what’s going on? You okay?”
He gave a single nod, but didn’t smile. “I’m tight. You?”
Okaaaay. Checkmark number two on the list of “something is wrong with Dwayne.” He always gave her something about his day, actually encouraged her to talk more. Two word sentences were not a part of his vocabulary.
She drew her brows down and crossed her arms. “What happened? You feeling okay?”
He shrugged and sat up, tossed his feet to the ground, and hunched his shoulders as he rested his elbows on his thighs. “I’m fine, Charlie. I’m just not that up for talking tonight.”
Again, this was not her best friend. She pushed off the counter and went to sit beside him, still watching him carefully. “You’re not acting like you. Did something happen? Hailey lose the game?” She waited for a few moments and when he didn’t answer, she pushed. “Will you please talk to me?”
He turned his face to her, but kept his elbows on his thighs. The move made him look tired, but his eyes had her heart breaking for him. Something had happened today, and she really wanted to help him.
“It’s not too important. I think I just realized that there is only so often that I can be ignored.”
She went to ask who was ignoring him, opened her mouth, but he talked over her.
“Before you ask, I’m going to request that you don’t. I really don’t want to talk about this tonight. Let’s just say this…” He took a deep breath and grabbed her hand. “Charlie, I think of you like a sister, I do, but there are times that I just want to strangle you. I say this because I see the games going on between you and Rossi, and yet you are hell bent on ignoring it. I’m not saying you should rush off and jump in bed with this guy, but what could it possibly hurt to open yourself up a little bit to him? Could it hurt to not ignore what’s sitting in front of you while you still have a chance?”
She tried to pull on her hand, not liking the direction this conversation was going, not liking how it’d come up out of the blue, and really not liking how well he knew her. “It’s not that easy,” she said.
“Stop it. Yes, it is. And before you go throw a hissy fit and ignore me, because,” he said and smiled, “we both know that’s going to be the next step. You don’t like what someone says or does and you shut them out, pretend they don’t exist. But this is me, and I adore you, so I’m not going to let you run.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked and pulled at her hand again. It was futile seeing as his grip had turned into an iron lock.
He held her gaze. “Because I wish someone would have done it to me. I wish someone would have kicked my ass to make a move years ago, yet instead I’m sitting here forced to give up something I’ve wanted for so long. I never got the chance to have it. I kept my mouth shut, hid the truth of what I felt, and all I have to show for it is what? Nothing.”
He shook his head, released her hand, and sat back on the couch, rubbing his eyes with two fingers. “I know you’ve been hurt, Charlie. Just don’t be a coward like I was. It’s not worth it and actually makes you feel like shit when you realize how alone you are.”
She grabbed his hand this time and leaned back with him, tucked her body close to his. She didn’t have a full understanding of what was going on, but she suspected. Her heart went out for him. He’d had a rough childhood, and while circumstances had made it better, she’d always seen the question of when the shoe would drop. You couldn’t miss it. It sat in his eyes. “You’re not alone, D.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
Chapter Seven
Hours later, Charlie stood in a small bedroom so unlike her own, looked out the window, and watched the eerie blue lights flash in a rhythmic pulse. She had yet to catch any sleep and between the stress of the case, her jumbled attraction to a certain special agent,
and having less than ten hours of shut eye in the past three days, she couldn’t seem to focus. Her mind was in complete disarray, worried about the cryptic words from Dwayne, to the fact that she’d been calling Trent for hours, and not once had he picked up his phone.
“What happened after that, Ms. Butler?” she asked the most recent victim, having received a call to come out to a new scene about an hour ago. With a glance at the clock, she barely hid her wince as the digital display read three a.m.
A shaky voice answered her question. She turned toward the sound. Katrina Butler sat on the bed, tears flooding her face, eyes swollen and red from the hours she’d been held doing only God knew what. She rocked an infant in her arms, clinging to the baby. Charlie kept a wary gaze on the mother and child, prepared to intervene.
“He changed me.” Ms. Butler seemed to shrink in on herself as if warding off the memories. “I begged him not to hurt my baby.” The woman regarded the sleeping child snuggled to her, and her face relaxed a tad. “He kept telling me over and over, if I listened, if I did as he said, he’d leave after he was done.”
Charlie fought an urge to wrap her arms around the woman, to help shoulder the despair palpable in the room. It was a horrible feeling of helplessness for a cop to have to sit there and make victims relive their trauma all over again. Charlie understood she shouldn’t get too emotionally involved in what had occurred here tonight. But as with anything else, her feelings were already wrapped up tight in the scene, and it wasn’t just because of the pain on the woman’s face, nor the child she held in her arms.
“I was prepared to do anything for my child, detective. Anything.”
Charlie nodded and shifted to a chair, sat and leaned forward. “When you say he changed you, Katrina, what do you mean?”
Ms. Butler drew in a heavy breath. She shook visibly and cast fearful glances around the room. Her emotions, the trauma so strong, waves of terror emitted off her skin. “I was in a tank top and shorts. He changed me into different pieces of my lingerie, and then took pictures.”
Charlie barely managed to keep her face blank of emotion. What the hell? “Your lingerie, like bras, underwear, things like that?”
Ms. Butler nodded and her gaze darted around the room like a trapped doe faced off with a hunter. “Yes, I know the pieces were mine. He said as much.”
After so many years on the force, growing up with a father who’d been a cop, the chief who was like family, Charlie had never heard of a crime like this. What was the purpose? What was his motive? Her mind worked furiously to keep up and put together the pieces of the puzzle. Could they link this to their guy? And if they did, did that mean his crimes were escalating?
Tendrils of unease skated along her spine. “What happened next?”
Fresh tears dropped from the woman’s blue eyes. The color reminded her of the Hudson River in the spring, clear but holding unseen and dirty secrets. Ms. Butler leaned over and pressed a quivering kiss to her child’s head. “He told me to count to a hundred before I took off the blindfold. I started counting, thought he left, and got to twenty before I started to pull the cloth away, but he was right there, stopping me. I thought he’d kill me then, but he didn’t. He made me repeat his instructions, so I began counting again. This time, I waited until I finished.”
“Do you live alone?” Charlie asked and gestured to the sleeping child. “Is the father in your life?”
The woman shook her head and bit her lip. “No.”
Charlie frowned, not at the lack of the father, but that it seemed like their suspect had done his homework, watched the house. Otherwise, how would he be so sure Katrina would be alone?
“Did he have any sexual contact with you?” Charlie flinched as the cold, clinical words came out.
I’m so sorry.
Their perp had moved from being a Peeping Tom, to a B&E offender, and now assault. The logical step next would be rape. Right? God, she hoped not.
Katrina shook her head. “Not penetration if that’s what you mean, although his hands did touch me often.”
Charlie latched on to her words and considered the probability of being able to get fingerprints off her skin. In the previous scenes, there’d been none found and they suspected their perp had worn gloves, as he’d worn in the video. It was the only explanation for why everything had been so clean. No hairs, no prints, nothing to help identify who this guy was.
“Was he wearing gloves, Katrina?” Charlie asked gently. Inside, her chest was tight with anticipation, excitement at catching this guy.
Katrina bit her lip and looked up at her with unshed tears. The knowledge of why Charlie was asking sat on her face and her brows scrunched together when she answered. “Yes, yes he was.”
Dammit!
She nodded and held up a hand, seeing Agent Rossi enter the room. She tried to ignore the dip in her stomach as it went for a ride that rivaled the roller coasters at a theme park. The side of her face heated as she felt his gaze. “Okay, Katrina. Here’s my card.” She handed one over and fought the wave of anger as the woman’s hand shook when she took the paper.
I’ll get him, honey. I promise.
But how in the hell could she really make a promise to keep the community safe? Were all the women in their village at risk now? When you looked at it, Charlie was just as helpless as this woman had been hours ago.
“Call me, anytime, you hear? Anything, even if it is a sound outside you want checked. I’ll come. In the meantime, the Chief has already authorized a patrol car outside your house.”
Ms. Butler nodded, her lips pressed into a tight line.
“Some EMTs are going to come and check you out, just to make sure everything is okay.” Charlie bent and brushed a hand over the soft hair of the child’s head. She met Katrina’s gaze, and spoke only for her ears. “We’re going to catch him, Ms. Butler. You have my word.”
Charlie stood and walked out of the room, her chest tight with infuriation and emotions threatening to overtake her. She motioned for Rossi to follow, but didn’t look back as she sped down the stairs and across the foyer, almost fleeing from the house. What wasn’t she doing right? The fact that this guy was still out there scaring and assaulting Nyack women had to be her fault. If she were any better of a cop, he’d be caught by now.
She stepped outside and drew in harsh breaths, trying to gulp the cool air into her heated body. Her skin flushed, and her eyes stung. She set her hands on her hips and tried to find some control.
“You okay, Charlie?” His voice, as smooth as velvet, slithered through the air and brushed along her arms. Between the crazy reaction she had to Rossi and the turbulence in her system from the crimes wrecking her town, she felt like she was losing her mind.
No, I am not okay. Did you see her face? Can you imagine being a woman whose safety has been stripped by some psycho? She thought the rebuttal but didn’t say anything. Instead, she glanced over her shoulder, took in the tall agent watching her warily. “I want to catch this asshole before he manages to put that look in someone else’s eyes.”
Trent’s eyes widened for a beat before he nodded and looked away. “We’ll try, Charlie.”
What a weird damn response. “Try?” she scoffed.
His lips pursed and he set his hands on his hips. “Before you get all excited, let me just tell you that I want to catch him as much as you do. There’s all kinds of thoughts going on in my head as well, angry things that make me want to scream. I know you’re upset, I know this is personal for you. Anyone can see and understand that. This is your town. I want to lock this asshole up and put an end to his reign of terror, so when I say we’ll try, I mean that with all I am. As a federal agent, I will dedicate everything I can to catching him.”
She stared at him, willing him to look at her, wished like hell he’d meet her eyes. What in the hell was he hiding from? She needed to believe his words, wanted to see some sort of faith that would tell her he believed they could do this. She felt so damn helpless, so inexperience
d with her investigative history. No textbooks, nothing in the history of crime covered this. At least nothing she knew about.
And she hated that even with her mind spinning like a late summer’s storm, Trent still stood before her looking terribly handsome, absolutely in control of himself, and in one word that described it all…beautiful.
She ignored the pull her body had to him. “So you really believe we have a shot?” she asked quietly.
He turned then and met her stare, his eyes blazing with some unnamed emotion. She tried to decipher it, but lost.
“I have to believe that. If I don’t, then what good are we? Why are we here?”
Her stomach chose that moment to rumble…loudly. Charlie let out a short laugh and rubbed it, then shook her head. “All this investigative effort apparently works up an appetite.” She eyed Trent, and he watched her, their gazes locked together. There was so much more she wanted to know about this man, but getting anything out of him was like trying to swim through molasses. Oh, he let her ask questions, sure, but whether or not he answered them was something else entirely. She wanted to learn more though, almost itched with the desire to do so.
How amazing would it feel to break through the layer of ice this Special Agent seemed to have built up? And how hard would she be willing to work in order to let herself give a little of her armor away. Dwayne’s words floated through her mind and she briefly shut her eyes, then leapt.
“Are you hungry?” she asked quietly, hating how vulnerable the words made her.
He stood still, didn’t twitch, kept his face impassive, and continued to watch her. “I could definitely eat.”
She bit her lip and released it quickly when his gaze dropped to her mouth. “I could really use a chance of clothes and some food. If you like, I could make you breakfast at my house?”
She tried to stifle a yawn and failed, then wished for more time to add a nap, too. He searched her face and she fought the urge to fidget, knowing she must look like hell. She sure felt like it. “You want to make me breakfast? At your place?”