by Shawna Seed
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. Wait here.”
He ran around the corner of the building but returned quickly. “No sign of him. Let’s get you inside.”
“I dropped my keys,” Genevieve said.
“OK, hang on.” Julien pulled out his phone and began to use it as a flashlight, sweeping it around the pavement near her. The light passed over a spot of blood, paused, came back. Julien brought the light up to her face.
“Shit.”
“I hit my head,” Genevieve said. “I think it’s bleeding? Maybe a lot?”
“It’s going to be OK.” Julien looked around, then began unbuttoning his shirt, the same one Genevieve had admired earlier that day. He shrugged out of the shirt, balled it up and handed it to her. “Use that,” he said.
Genevieve accepted the shirt wordlessly and pressed it to her head.
Stripped down to his T-shirt and jeans, Julien walked a circle around her, then reversed course, expanding the perimeter. “Maybe the keys are in your purse? He took it, right?”
“I didn’t have it. He was dragging me that way, around the back...”
Julien stopped, shook his head. “What am I doing?”
He raised his phone and dialed 911. He gave her address to the dispatcher. “The woman who lives here, a man grabbed her outside her apartment. He... Hang on.”
Crouching next to her, Julien looked her in the eyes. “Genevieve, can you describe him? Clothes, hair color, anything?”
“No. I didn’t see him at all. He was behind me.”
“She didn’t see him,” Julien said into the phone. “I only got a glimpse. Dark shirt, dark pants... No idea. I couldn’t see. Maybe 5-11? A little stocky.”
Julien stood and scanned the area. “He ran... northeast, I think. Yeah, northeast.” He listened for a few beats. “Yeah. OK.”
He scrolled through his phone and dialed another number.
“I’m at Genevieve’s. A guy just tried to drag her...”
Julien paused, listened. “No, I didn’t follow... She hit her head and she’s bleeding. She dropped her keys and we can’t... I can’t tell... Uh-huh. The one by the door? OK.”
He ended the call and dropped back down into a crouch next to Genevieve.
“I called the police and Melvin. If we can’t find the keys in the next couple minutes, I’m going to break a window and we’ll get in and see what’s up with your head, OK? Just hang on a minute.” He patted her knee. “You doing OK?”
Clutching his shirt to her head, Genevieve peered up at him. “Why are you here?”
“Let’s find those keys,” Julien said.
Genevieve watched as he walked back and forth, sweeping the phone’s light on the ground before him. Her head was throbbing, and her thoughts were jumbled.
What had just happened? And what was Julien Brooks doing at her apartment?
It was all too confusing. Genevieve closed her eyes.
She heard a jingling sound and opened them again. Julien was standing over her, keys in hand.
“Success,” he said. “How do you feel about standing up?”
Genevieve braced one hand against the wall behind her and began to rise.
“Go slow,” Julien said, taking her elbow.
They made their way carefully, crunching through broken glass from the light over her door. Julien flipped through her key ring with one hand, keeping the other on her arm to steady her.
“It’s the one with the square head,” she said. “What are you doing here? You think I’m a con artist.”
Julien fitted the key into the lock, and the door swung open.
“Yeah, about that,” he said. “I was wrong.”
Mona took one look at them and raced into the bedroom, skidding as she took the corner.
“Let’s look at your head in good light,” Julien said. “Maybe the bathroom?”
Her knees sagged a little when Genevieve saw herself in the mirror. Blood had soaked the top of her cardigan and splattered over her chest. Her neck was smeared red.
Julien caught her elbow and met her eyes in the mirror. “Are you lightheaded or just reacting to the blood?”
“There’s a lot of it.”
“Hang onto the sink with your other hand there,” he said. “You’re not going to fall, OK? I’m right here.”
That was true. Even with the bathroom door open, they had less than three feet to maneuver in.
Julien took off his watch and tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. Reaching around her, he turned on the water, pumped soap into his hands and washed them. He grabbed a clean towel and washcloth from the rack behind him and threw them over his shoulder. Slowly, he peeled away the shirt she’d been holding to her head and dropped it to the floor.
Genevieve watched in the mirror as he took her head in his hands and gently tilted it side to side.
“What made you decide you were wrong? About me?”
“Let’s tackle one thing at a time,” Julien said, “I need to figure out where the blood’s coming from, but it’s matted in your hair, and your hair’s so thick, it’s hard to see your scalp.”
He tilted her head forward, so that Genevieve was staring down at the sink. “We need to rinse the blood out so I can see what I’m doing.”
“Kitchen sink would work better,” Genevieve said. “We can use the sprayer.”
With an assist from Julien, Genevieve shed her blood-soaked cardigan and grabbed a towel to wrap around her shoulders.
In the kitchen, she bent awkwardly over the sink, her hair falling forward. Julien tested the water temperature, the muscled forearms she’d admired so many times now just inches from her face. She closed her eyes.
“Let me know if it’s too hot.”
Wielding the sprayer with his right hand, he slowly worked his left hand through her hair, rinsing away the blood.
Under different circumstances, Genevieve thought, it might have been sensual.
Then the spray found the laceration on her head, and she winced.
“Oh, there it is.” Julien rested his hand on the back of her neck.
He turned off the water and gently pulled her hair aside with both hands. “It’s not so bad, actually. Still bleeding a little, but that might be from the water. It’s not deep – you don’t need stitches.”
He held a washcloth to her head, and when he was satisfied the bleeding had stopped, he washed the cut. Then he dabbed it with antibiotic ointment he found in her medicine chest, chiding her because it was past its expiration date.
Genevieve was blotting her wet hair with a towel when someone knocked on her door.
“That’ll be the cops,” Julien said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It wasn’t the police at her door. It was Melvin.
When she saw him, Genevieve picked up her laptop, walked to her bedroom and loudly closed the door. She still hadn’t forgiven him for trying to confiscate her computer.
She flipped the lock on the door and stripped out of her damp, bloodstained T-shirt. Blood had soaked her bra, too. Disgusted, she took that off, and then her skirt. At least it was black – she had some hope of salvaging it.
She felt strangely numb. What she really wanted to do was put on her flannel PJ pants and a tank top, pull the covers over her head and go to sleep. Instead, she changed into a tee from a long-ago Lyle Lovett show and her most faded jeans, and topped the whole ensemble with a ratty Texas Tech hoodie, size XL, that she’d liberated from a boyfriend’s closet in college.
The next step would be dealing with the bloody laundry. Before she could contemplate it, though, came a tentative knock on her door.
“You OK?” Julien asked.
She sighed. “Just changing clothes. Be right out.”
Genevieve blotted her hair again and ran the towel over her face before tossing it on the sodden heap of clothes.
She found Julien cleaning the counter with anti-bacterial wipes he’d found under the s
ink. She stood for a moment watching his shoulders move under his T-shirt as he worked his way around her small kitchen.
“Oh, good, I was going to suggest you wrap up in something warm,” he said when he saw her. “Melvin’s outside taking a look around. I know he’s not your favorite, but he’s going to want you to walk him through what happened. You feel up to answering questions?”
“I will if you will.” Genevieve was a little surprised at how pugnacious she sounded, but Julien took it with good grace.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I am really sorry about earlier.”
Genevieve pulled out a bar stool and sat.
“I was just about to suggest that,” Julien said.
“So, you realized you were wrong when...” she said, gesturing for him to continue.
Julien leaned back against the counter. “Do you want to get into this right now? I’m a little worried you’re in shock.”
“I would rather talk about this than think about what just happened,” Genevieve said. “Humor me.”
“OK,” he said, shrugging. “I called Henry before I hit the bottom of your driveway, all ‘where did you find this woman, what do we know about her?’ ” Julien made a stern face.
“He said you were recommended by someone he trusted, that Melvin had vetted you and his assistant could send me the file. Then he put his assistant on. I hate it when he does that.”
Genevieve frowned. “Who recommended me?”
“He didn’t say. You don’t know?”
“No idea.”
“I was on the phone with Henry’s assistant, and I was stuck in traffic, and I asked her to look up this academic. I figured you – or somebody – made him up. But he really exists. Then I thought, he’s either in on the scam, or he’s just some schmuck whose name is being used and he ought to be warned. So I called him.”
“The guy Thomas contacted?”
“Right. Who went on for 20 minutes about Florentine craftsmanship. Totally sincere. And I thought, ‘They’re scamming this guy too.’ ”
Julien stopped his narrative and watched Genevieve. “You look pale,” he said. He looked at her hands, which were resting on the bar. “Your hands are shaking.”
“I’m hungry. I was getting ready to call for a pizza before this happened.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“I had a muffin at the airport in Dallas.”
Julien opened her refrigerator, his face registering surprise at its contents. “Which was how long ago?”
Genevieve thought about it. “I don’t know. I can’t do the math.”
Julien banged the refrigerator door shut and moved on to her cabinets, opening and closing them.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “There’s nothing here.”
“Seriously?” Shaking his head, Julien crossed back to the fridge, pulled out a carton of orange juice and checked the date. “Expired yesterday. Probably won’t kill you.” He found a glass and poured for her. “Drink that,” he said.
“In my defense, I have been out of town,” Genevieve said. She sipped the juice. “So you talked to the pendant guy.”
“Right, and when I got home, the file from Henry’s office was waiting in my email. So he did do the homework. I was at my computer, thinking... thinking... And I realized I still had the pendant in my shirt pocket.
“I blew the old wedding photos way up, and it did look like the same necklace. So then I’m thinking, well, she saw the photos, and then they had a good replica made.”
“Except the guy says it’s not a replica.”
“Yeah,” Julien said. “There’s this jeweler in Beverly Hills, my parents used them for everything, and I... well, anyway... They’re kind of the family jeweler. So I ran the pendant up there, and they’re not experts on Florentine craftsmen, but they know what’s old and what isn’t, and what’s real and what isn’t. They say it’s the real deal.
“I’m driving home from there thinking, ‘what other thread can I pull, because I just have to find the right one to make the whole story unravel,’ ” Julien said. “So I called your mother’s old roommate.”
Genevieve nearly spewed orange juice across the kitchen. “How did you find her?”
“You said her name, Christine,” Julien said. “I went through the file Henry sent, and I found a Christine Jensen in Chicago you used as a reference for your first apartment in LA, a lease you signed with Peter somebody.”
Genevieve blanched.
“Melvin is a private detective,” Julien said. “I told Christine who I was, and I got basically the same story you told me. And then I felt like a total shit.”
He stopped there. “That’s not an easy story to tell, and I accused you of making it up. That was heartless, and I promise you, I’m not heartless.”
“No, I don’t think you are.”
She’d met Julien Brooks less than a month before – how could she know that? But she believed it.
“I tried calling to apologize, but it kept going to voicemail. I figured you were ignoring me, and I didn’t blame you. But then Melvin called. He’d managed to track the guy who sent the last email a little bit online, and he is into some sick, scary stuff.”
“Scary how?”
Julien didn’t answer. “I started thinking about you not answering your phone for hours, and what Melvin told me about this guy, and I got a bad feeling.” He shrugged. “The next thing I knew, I was in my car.”
“I’m lucky you got here when you did,” Genevieve said.
The short-term physical and emotional anesthetic that adrenaline provided had begun to wear off, and she started to cry. “If you hadn’t showed up...”
“But I did.” Julien started around the bar toward her. “And you’re...”
A knock interrupted him, and Julien rerouted to the front door. “Will you please talk to Melvin? He’s trying to help.”
Genevieve recounted everything for Melvin. She even fetched her laptop so he could see the email that had sent her to the neighbor’s porch.
Melvin suspected someone had spoofed her neighbor’s email address to lure her out.
He pressed her for details about her attacker, but Genevieve couldn’t name a single physical characteristic.
She propped her elbow on the bar and rested her head on her hand, tired to the bone. “I’m going to have to go through this all again with the police, aren’t I?”
Julien pulled his watch from his pocket and checked it. “Where are the police? I called them an hour and a half ago.”
“Let me make a call,” Melvin said, stepping outside.
He was back a few minutes later. “Dispatch coded the call as a failed purse-snatching.” He held up a hand to forestall Julien’s protest. “I know. Bottom line, they’re not going to get anybody out here tonight.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Julien said.
“Budget cuts,” Melvin said with an air of resignation. He exchanged a look with Julien. “Did you tell her what I found online?”
“General outline,” Julien said. “Not details.”
“Would you two stop talking over my head? I’ve already been in a chokehold tonight,” Genevieve said. “How much worse can whatever you found online be?”
Julien pulled out the other bar stool and sat.
“Let’s start with what I found tonight: a path through the brush behind your building, going up the hillside,” Melvin said. “I’d say somebody’s been spending some time up there, watching you.”
Genevieve dropped her head into her hands.
“I don’t like this apartment,” Melvin said. “No alarm, the security lights inoperable, all this brush where someone can hide.”
“You still haven’t told me what you found,” she said. “This afternoon?”
Melvin and Julien exchanged another look, and Julien nodded.
“I shadowed him online for a bit,” Melvin said. “In the time I observed him, he looked at sports websites, porn and images of mutilated anima
ls. The animals especially worry me. In police work, that’s considered...”
Genevieve held up a hand to stop him. “I’ve heard enough.”
“I don’t know what the man who grabbed you tonight was after,” Melvin said. “Maybe it was just a scare tactic, but I think we have to operate on the assumption that he meant you real harm. I don’t believe you’re safe here.”
Genevieve’s shoulders sagged.
“There’s a hotel we use regularly when we need to park a client in a very secure environment,” Melvin said.
“What about Mona?”
Melvin looked to Julien, clearly confused.
“The cat,” Julien supplied helpfully. He turned to Genevieve. “What do you usually do? Did she go to Texas with you?”
“She stayed here, and Thomas fed her every day.”
“So why not leave her here,” Julien said, “and then we’ll worry about the rest tomorrow?”
“Leave her here? With a guy who likes to mutilate animals watching my apartment?”
Realization dawned on Julien’s face. “Well, what about one of those kennel places?”
“This late at night? I don’t even know if they’re open.”
“Could your friend Thomas keep her for you?”
“His partner Philip is allergic.”
Julien looked at Melvin, whose expression clearly said, “You’re on your own, pal.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “What if I took her to my house – just for tonight – and then we figure out a better plan tomorrow? She won’t do anything disgusting, right?”
If she hadn’t been so tired, Genevieve might have thrown her arms around him in gratitude. “What happened the other day was really out of character.”
“I’ll go make a call to the hotel,” Melvin said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
To Genevieve’s relief – and complete shock – Mona went into her carrier without protest.
“You’re quiet,” Julien said when they’d been on the road about 10 minutes. “Are you OK?”
“Just thinking,” Genevieve said. “What would that guy...” She shivered. “You know what, I don’t want to think about it. Please distract me.”