by Marie Harte
While he was gone, Shannon spot-cleaned and went from window to window putting little tiny pieces of blue tape over the crack where the window met the sill. She had heard once that you could tell if somebody had opened a window that way. If the tape was loose, there was a high probability that somebody had been in the house.
She felt neurotic doing it, and a little stupid, but it made her feel better. Every piece of tape was hidden out of sight from the exterior. It didn’t make sense to do it at the garage door, because she used it so much. The French doors at the kitchen she put two pieces on.
At noon, she sat down to watch the news. It wasn’t good. A cold front was sweeping down from the north. When it hit the warmer air over Colorado, it was expected to dump a boatload of snow. The mountain passes were already closed, and were expected to be closed for several days, if not weeks.
Shannon took stock of her pantry and set candles and gas lamps out, in case she lost power. What little laundry there was she finished, then ran several buckets of fresh water, and filled several large soup pots as well, leaving them sitting on the back burners. She emailed her family, telling them she would probably be without power for a couple days. Courtney, her sister, lived about four hundred miles south, and would probably get the same, if not worse, weather. Shannon debated telling her family about the Pepsi can and the fears that had been nagging her, but changed her mind. It wouldn’t be fair to scare them without concrete information yet.
John arrived shortly after four, laden down with several bags of groceries.
“Oh, wow. You didn’t have to do that, John.” Shannon struggled to relieve him of them, and even the small contact of his fingers on hers transferring the bags sent a thrill through her. He had on the standard leather, but this coat was longer than the bomber jacket he normally wore, with a wool collar around his neck. The dark brown complemented the color of his skin perfectly, and the beard stubble growing in made him look dangerous. More dangerous, actually. There was an army-green duffel hanging off the back of his wheelchair.
“If you take the groceries, I’ll get my bag.”
Nodding, she carried what she could into the kitchen, then returned for a second load. He must have bought two of everything. Two packages of steaks, two containers of potato salad, two bags of chips. Ten cans of miscellaneous veggies and fruit. There were also several bags of the frozen steamer bags of vegetables she preferred. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Her heart warmed as she found her favorite dark chocolate treat. Times four.
Tears actually came to her eyes. Why would he do that for her?
Heading back out, she found him in the guest room, pulling clothes from the bag.
“I hope you don’t think I’m too presumptuous. I claimed the closet.” With a big hand, he motioned to the closet to the right of the door. “I think I’ll probably sleep out on the couch, more central, but I’ll keep my things in here.”
Shannon nodded, trying not to let the sight of his clothing hanging in the closet mean too much. “That’s fine. I’m sorry you have to go to so much trouble, but I really appreciate you being here, John. I slept better last night than I have in several days.”
He nodded. “I checked on you once, and you were totally out. You looked exhausted.”
Shannon felt color creep up her neck at the thought of being watched in her sleep, especially by John. “Was I snoring?” she asked with a laugh.
John shook his head firmly. “Nah, you were just deep asleep. Hey, uh, I talked to Jamison. He called a friend of a friend, and Michael J. Gerbowski is still behind bars in the state penitentiary.”
Shannon plopped down on the end of the couch, her legs suddenly boneless. What a relief that was. She had logged onto the prison website to try to find out if he was still there, but the computer kept locking up on her. After several attempts she had stopped looking.
John rolled in front of her, looking her directly in the eye. Knee to knee, he stopped, and Shannon knew more was coming. “Shannon. The prints on the can matched Gerbowski’s intake prints.”
“What?” Shaking her head, Shannon tried to understand what he just told her. “You said he was still in prison.”
John nodded. “I know. He is. I called my own contact and confirmed it as well. Michael Gerbowski is still in prison, but somehow his prints are on that can.”
Shaking her head, mouth open in disbelief, she just sat there. “How the hell is that possible?”
John’s face had hardened into a glower. “I don’t know. But we will find out. Consider Lost ’N’ Found officially on the case. I already talked to Duncan about it.”
Shannon nodded. How had everything blown up this way? God, in had been almost ten years exactly since all this crap had gone down. Why was somebody resurrecting it now?
John touched her knee with his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll be here. I’ll be everywhere you are. If I’m not, one of the other guys will be.”
Shannon was more heartened that he touched her than by his words. It was one of the few times she remembered him actually doing that. Hell, John didn’t touch anybody if he could avoid it.
Nodding her head firmly, Shannon straightened. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken. I’m not worried, though.” She patted his hand in return, and he pulled away. “So, logically, if he is still in prison, how can his prints be on that can?”
Shrugging, he rolled back a bit, readjusting in the chair, cocking an arm over the back. “Well, somebody may have smuggled it out of the prison. Most have scanners going in, but I’m not sure if they make visitors pass through one going out. It may be a can from several years ago. The logo looks a little dated. It may be a fingerprint transfer somebody lifted and placed on the can. It’s hard to tell. There are a lot of different options.”
Shannon stood and started to pace. What craziness. The man was in prison, but he still caused problems.
Her brother Chris was going to be devastated.
Thanksgiving was a few weeks away, and she would have to see him then.
Emotion swamped her, and she walked to the window, fighting tears. She felt more than heard John roll up behind her. “Shannon, I know this is hard. I’m sorry.”
She turned to him with a smile and pushed away the tears. “John, that sounded very comforting. You better be careful, or you’ll turn into a nice guy. I’m all right.” Smoothing her face, she turned to him fully. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
Rubbing a hand over the stubble of his face, he avoided her eyes. “I got enough.”
In other words, no.
Cursing stubborn men in general, she gave him a reproachful look. “What good are you going to do me if you can’t keep your eyes open?”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Believe me, my body knows what it can take and what it can’t. I’m nowhere near my breaking point.”
*
OVERALL, SHANNON BELIEVED him, but she watched him a lot. This was not a chore, of course. She just didn’t want him to overwork himself. For the most part, he stayed busy. He had stopped at the office and gathered some “toys”, as he called them. To her it looked like a jumbled box of wires, but to John they were security. When she asked what they were, he explained they were door wires, window sensors and cameras. Shannon found herself recruited for mounting in places she could reach but he couldn’t. By the way he gritted his teeth and was short with her, Shannon knew he hated having her do anything like that. He wouldn’t let her get on the ladder to mount the higher cameras, though. Roger, he told her, was on his way over to do the job.
No sooner had he said that than the front door bell rang. Automatically, Shannon headed for the front of the house.
“Shannon! I’ll get it.”
Rolling past her, John gave her a scathing look. Shannon bit her lip, because he’d warned her that she was not to open door for anyone unless she knew exactly who it was, and even then with caution. He positioned himself beside the doorway and she was hit with exactly how much danger they could possibly
be in. John in particular. Fear tightened her scalp as he pulled the gun from the holster he wore constantly now. Michael had already proven he was willing to kill for her. The shot that hit Chris should have killed him. And as forceful and masculine as John was, it was a fact he was still in a wheelchair, and definitely would not have the same advantages of an able-bodied man in a fight.
She hoped they caught whoever tormented her before it came to that.
Roger called out a greeting from the other side of the door, and John opened it cautiously, before sliding back to let him in. The gun disappeared into the holster.
The men nodded to each other, and talked briefly about a stakeout Roger was assigned. He held out his arms, and she had no problem taking a firm hug from him.
“You okay, girly? John filled us in on what’s going on.”
“I’m fine,” she told him honestly. “John’s here. Nothing’s getting through him.”
Roger gave her that knowing look, and she gave him a reassuring smile back, telling him without words she really was okay. Roger knew how she felt about John. She had admitted it a month ago during one of their lunches. Actually, Roger was the only one that knew.
“And when John’s not here, one of us will be,” he promised. “We’ll get these cameras up and catch this guy.”
The living room turned into security headquarters, cluttered with wires and closed-circuit monitors. There were now seven cameras mounted in and around the exterior of her house.
Shannon felt like she was living in a goldfish bowl. They even put one in her bedroom. When she objected, John overruled her. “It’s your most vulnerable place,” he told her simply.
Which didn’t make her feel any better.
He called her over to the table and motioned for her to sit down in the chair beside him.
“I want to give you something.”
Her heart slammed in her chest when he stretched a glittering tennis bracelet between his hands. Shock held her immobile for several long seconds before she held out her wrist. She felt blood rush into her cheeks and she struggled for something to say. “John, I—”
“You need to keep this on twenty-four seven, even in the shower. It has a short-range transmitter in it that feeds to this GPS”—he pointed to one of the black boxes on the table—“but it only has a range of about five miles.”
Shannon blinked at him, knowing she had “stupid” written all over her face. “Oh, okay.”
“And I want you to start carrying your gun. Do you have a holster for it?”
She nodded. “An ankle one.”
“Good. Later we’ll get it out and go over its action.”
John turned back to the monitors and she was left sitting in the chair with her arm still held out. She pulled it back and lurched to her feet, humiliated tears burning her eyes. Roger stepped forward to say something, but she waved him away and escaped to the kitchen.
How stupid could she be? John would never have actually given her a piece of jewelry. They weren’t dating. They were barely even friends. She’d just let herself react before her brain had a chance to compute.
At loose ends, she started to bake. In little time, she had a corn cake in the oven, and Mexican food simmered on the stove. The men entered the kitchen just as she removed everything from the burners.
“Damn, girl, whatcha cookin’? Smells too good in here.”
Shannon laughed at Roger. “Mexican food. Hungry?”
“Even if I wasn’t I’d eat, just to have your cooking.” Eagerly, he grabbed a plate and began building a burrito.
John was still in the doorway, brows furrowed, watching the banter between she and Roger.
“You okay?” she asked.
He nodded and rolled forward. “Fine.”
Dinner was a fun escape for her. Roger made sure she didn’t linger on the heavy stuff, and instead steered the conversation to lighter topics. Shannon was a little uncomfortable with how John acted. He didn’t talk. He glowered. At Roger specifically.
Roger didn’t seem to mind, he just kept talking. She couldn’t help but laugh at some of the stories he told her. And it seemed every time she laughed, John frowned all the harder. It was actually a relief when Roger said he needed to head out. It was after nine and he had work in a few hours, covering a shift for a buddy.
Roger promised to see her the next day and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Snow fell heavily outside. “Maybe. Maybe not. Look at it.”
“Aw, Shannon, it’s just a few snowflakes.”
Roger pulled the hood up on his coat, and was gone. Shannon closed the door after him and leaned back against it as she glared at John.
“Why were you mad at him?”
John’s lip curled before he turned away. “I wasn’t mad at him.”
She followed him to the fireplace, where he tossed another log on the already roaring blaze. “Why were you scowling at him like that then? You looked like you were going to rip his head off.”
John stared into the fire and didn’t respond right away. “It was nothing. Just stuff. Don’t worry about it.”
Shannon turned away angrily. She hated feeling like she was not seeing something right in front of her, but everybody else was. And nobody was telling her what she wasn’t seeing.
She stomped to the kitchen and cleaned up the leftover food, then started the dishwasher. The kittens cried piteously, so she sat down on the floor to play with them. Within seconds, she could feel the anger fade away. How could she stay mad holding such beautiful little creatures?
John rolled in and stopped a few feet away. Shannon knew he was too hardheaded to ask, so she reached into the box and fished out a kitten. It was one of the black ones with orange markings that looked like Pickle. Silently, she handed it up to him and watched as he folded it into his chest. He chuckled quietly as the little animal started to purr.
“Not very discriminatory, are they?”
“Nope,” she agreed. “They love all grumps the same.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Shannon noticed he didn’t disagree with the “grump” assessment.
For a good fifteen minutes, they just sat there petting the kittens. John seemed to prefer the gray female she had given him the first day, and the love seemed reciprocal. Pickle preened over her babies and licked each one as they were handed back to her care.
John seemed more relaxed after he held the babies too, but she didn’t say anything. Tiredness deepened the brackets around his mouth, though, and Shannon knew he had to be dragging. His eyes were getting heavy lidded, too. He had probably only gotten a few hours sleep, at most, in the last twenty-four hours. Well, if she couldn’t make him go to bed, she would at least relieve him of watching her.
“I think I’m going to head to bed. I’m tired.”
“Before you do that, why don’t you go get your pistol. I’d like to look at it.”
John seemed impressed with the little gun’s action, and commended her on keeping it clean. He made her go through the motions of loading a magazine and chambering a round, which she did easily. She even held it up and sighted down the barrel.
“I think you should carry it from now on.”
She frowned. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay. Good night, Shannon.”
“Night, John.”
She pulled the stack of blankets down from the hallway closet shelf, along with a sheet, and placed them on the corner of the couch. If he wanted to sleep on the couch, he could make it up.
*
JOHN WATCHED SHANNON leave regretfully. It made him uncomfortable to know she was irritated with him and not do anything to explain. But there was nothing he could say to exonerate himself. Roger had stoked his jealousy, plain and simple. Stoked it to where it was a roaring blaze of anger. But the anger was at himself, not Shannon or Roger.
He should have approached her with the bracelet differently, so that she understood it was work and not personal. Roger had punched him in the arm as soon as
she was out of earshot. “You dumb shit. You just made that girl think she meant something to you, then ripped her down. You need to get your head out of your ass before somebody steps in with a real offer.”
As much as he hated to admit it, the other man was right. Shannon was a fantastic woman. And she reacted to Roger as if he were her best friend in the world. He didn’t blame Shannon for responding that way. The man was likeable. He blamed himself for not making an effort to even try to be personable.
Shannon had to think he was a total ass. And it was his own damn fault.
It wasn’t as if she would seriously consider you for an option, but damn, dude. Show some sense. Don’t alienate her for no reason.
As he rolled up to the monitors, his gaze zeroed in on her form lying in the bed. The blue satin comforter was pulled up and tucked beneath her arms. She was crazy hot, in a simple white flannel nightgown. And she looked to be already asleep. What he wouldn’t give to be in that bed with her.
His mind flashed back to her handling the gun, and the feelings that it had brought up. He was impressed that she knew what to do. More disturbingly, though, he was turned on.
Fuck.
Chapter Four
‡
DUNCAN STARED OUT his apartment window at the swirling snow and tried not to worry about the homeless man. But it was fifteen degrees outside and colder than a witch’s tit. The concrete alleys around the office offered little escape from the weather, and it was only supposed to get worse overnight.
Once again, he bundled up and limped for his truck. It was worth going out in the weather if it would ease his mind. Although he hadn’t seen the man’s face or heard his voice, there’d been something about him that said “military”.