She’d been dizzy, sure she was going to die. Closing her eyes, she’d cringed under the vile assault, too afraid of the knife to call out to Mac or bite again or—do anything. He’d sniffed her, licked her, his other hand still plastered over her mouth, and her heart climbing up her throat.
By then, he’d cut her, up high, under her chin. He’d hit her again. Punched her face. Her mouth, nose, and neck were bleeding. But Mac’s arrival must’ve spooked him. That was the only way she could explain why he’d suddenly jumped to his feet, grabbed his bag, and ran out her front door.
By then, Mac was gone. So was the creep. He’d even taken his fake tool bag.
Ashley had locked herself in, then went to her bathroom and wrapped a towel around her neck. Her throat hadn’t been cut through, just sliced deep enough to bleed. Later, when she’d stopped shaking, she’d called a cab and went to the free clinic to get stitches. The doctor there had wanted her to go to the police, but she’d refused. She’d been too scared. Besides, the assault was her fault. She hadn’t locked her door.
That was when she’d moved to her current apartment and invested in an expensive deadbolt.
Were those footsteps behind her? Was someone following her? Was it—him?
Ashley didn’t dare turn around to look.
“God, no,” she scolded herself, her breath a frozen stream of vapor that shone white against the dark night. The vapor seemed to glow tonight, probably because she was sweating and scared. “I’m not scared,” she lied to herself. Why admit it and make matters worse? Denial could be a darned strong friend to have in your corner when memories of past attacks whispered too close for comfort.
Ashley threw her heart into making it the last two blocks to her apartment. All she had to do was get inside the lobby, and she’d be safe.
Run, run, run, her paranoia prompted.
“I am,” she answered back, her elbows cocked at her sides, her feet pounding the wet, treacherous sidewalk like machined pistons. Home. She was going home where she could lock her door and turn on her music and drown herself in a big mug of hot chocolate. Where she’d be safe. While she shivered and shook until every last wave of panic subsided. Until she knew for certain her trustworthy deadbolt was latched, her windows were blocked and locked, and that she could keep everyone out!
“I can make it,” she promised as the deadly chill of the latest attempt on her life invaded her lungs with terror. Her sudden burst of frantic energy attacked her side with sharp clenching pain. Copper lifted up the back of her throat. But that was what running for your life did to a person. These pains were nothing compared to—
Run!
In panic, she turned her thighs into pumping machines of speed and fury and pounded the wet pavement home. After Friday night, she’d sworn she’d never be vulnerable again. Yet, here she was. Alone. At night. In the rain. Without her phone or her mace. She should’ve stayed at Tripp’s office like he’d asked. She wished she had.
The oddest sensation that someone was watching her, shivered up her spine like an icky, sticky spider. There was no way she could run faster. She’d already given her all. All she could do was endure to the end of this miserable rainy night, hit that lobby door, and get inside!
At last. Ashley turned the corner. Her apartment was just three blocks away. But she was out of air, could barely suck in a breath. And she was dizzy. She ground to a cold, sweaty stop at the corner, put her palms to her knees, and risked a quick glance behind her.
A dark vehicle with its headlights off was inching along the curb on her side of the street. A stocky man in a long gray trench coat was walking on the other side. Both were heading in her direction. That was all she needed to see.
Ashley sprang headlong into the hardest run of her life. Only three blocks left. She could do it. Why had she ever thought she was brave enough to walk home alone? Never again!
Chapter Twenty
Ah, look at her run. Good form. Long legs. Great stamina. She must’ve taken track sometime during her miserably short life. Well, good for her. This one was already wet. She was going to be so much fun. And to think he’d followed that other skank when he should’ve stayed the course and tracked this one.
Lesson learned. Let Ashley Cox think she was safely home. That’s when he’d strike and strike hard. Wouldn’t she be surprised to see him again? Might do things to her he hadn’t done with the others. Might let her linger while he… played.
Tonight had been unusually full of coincidences. First, running into that other slut. Then, discovering the slut’s brother was the same hero who’d captured Ashley’s attention Friday night. There was a certain pleasure in knowing he’d hurt that alleged hero as deeply as he had. Then… making it back to that cruel, cold bench just in time to see Ashley Cox venture into the dark all by herself. That had been the biggest coincidence of the night. He’d had to drive like a bat out of Hell to get back to King Street in time, but he’d made it. Which told him that destiny ruled nights like this one, else the stars wouldn’t have lined up as precisely as they had.
It wouldn’t take long now.
While he followed his panicked prey, he ran his tongue over his bottom lip in anticipation, imagining all the ways he would make her scream. Mmmm, mmmm, yes. He adored the way she’d cried and whimpered the last time. She’d been shocked when he’d cut her. But pitiful noises were not what he needed. He was more into the scorching adrenaline rush coursing through his blood when a woman screamed. After all the trouble this woman had caused him, he was due the small satisfaction of playing outside the box, so to speak. He could keep her for days. Maybe even make her come while he bled her dry. Yes, that’s precisely what he would do.
But for now…
He needed somewhere to accommodate the noise this sneaky bitch would make. The blood. Because there would be screaming and bleeding. Crying. Pleading. Some place nearby, close and convenient, would be perfect. Something close to the river would be better. Rivers made body disposal so much easier.
Look at that. She was headed to the multi-unit apartment complex ahead, the one surrounded with pine trees. Thousands of tiny white lights decorated those trees, but there were also shadows where a man could hide. Okay, good. Let her get inside. No need to hurry the inevitable.
Silly girl. Ashley Cox wouldn’t escape this time. He’d make sure of it. Everything he needed to get the job done, he now carried with him. On fortuitous nights like this, his trench coat might make him look like a secret agent. In fact, he knew it did. He’d seen the way people looked at him with deference when he wore it. They wanted to be him. They were envious. Maybe even intimidated.
Too bad for them. It was his disguise, and if they came too close, they’d quickly find out that its many loops and hidden pockets hid a wealth of not-so-nice surprises.
He stopped in front of the double glass doors his prey had just scampered through. Interesting. Entry required some kind of access card, which he didn’t have. That might be a problem.
The informative yellow plastic tripod standing inside the door declared the lobby elevator wasn’t working. Which meant Ashley Cox was right then running up flights of stairs to her apartment. Probably sweating. Breathing hard. He closed his eyes at the thought of all that luscious panic wasted. Imagining the sweet sounds of her panting, crying, or screaming—he wasn’t choosy—he closed his eyes and recalled the way she’d smelled the last time he’d had her. Almost had her.
Some flowery scent, sweet and rich, mingled with the natural sweeter scent of fear. What. A. Rush. A man could live forever on those vivid, sensual memories. The smell of a woman’s sweaty body when she fought back was a powerful aphrodisiac. If he worked her just right, it was enough to unman him. But when she bled and cried and couldn’t get away no matter how hard she tried… He was a real man then. A supercharged superhero. If people only knew the power that came with killing.
Hmmm. Wonder which floor she lived on. Which room?
As
luck would have it—and luck was a large part of everything he did—an ordinary man in coveralls entered through the door marked Do Not Enter at the far side of the lobby.
He rapped on the plate glass window to get the unlucky guy’s attention.
“Can I help you?” the idiot asked through the lobby door he’d just—luckily—opened.
“Why yes, as a matter of fact, you can,” he replied as he stepped inside the lobby. “I just moved to Virginia, and I’m in the market for an apartment. Is there a very long waiting list here? Or are there any apartments available now? May I take a look around?” It never hurt to ask.
“Sorry, man, but this is a secure complex. You can’t just come into these buildings and look around. See that number over there?” The foolish man pointed at the cardstock taped to the door. “Call it and talk to the manager. He’ll know if anything’s available. Not my job.”
He glanced quickly at the posted notice before he swung back around and stuck a finely-honed shiv into the guy’s gut. Like the professional he was, he rammed it higher under the unlucky guy’s ribs, tearing the flesh, muscle, and organs in between. Making sure the guy didn’t suffer now that he was dying. That wouldn’t be fair.
“Secure, huh,” he growled in disdain, his gloved hand now out of the body, wet and dripping. “We’ll see about that.” Because it was almost time to play again, and nothing would get between him and Ashley Cox.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tripp called Mother’s number from the Surgical Center. The moment she answered, he asked, “Could you please arrange for someone to drive Ashley home, or call her a cab? I need to stay with my mom. I’m not going to make it back for a while.”
“She already left. I heard about your sister. Is that where you are now, at the hospital? How’s she doing?”
“Yes, we’re at the Alexandria Surgical Center.” He held off sharing anything more personal with someone who didn’t seem to care. “What do you mean, Ashley left? I told her to stay put until I got back.”
“Guess she doesn’t think you’re her boss. What else do you need?”
Tripp ran a hand over his face, wondering how Mother could sound so cold at a time like this. “Never mind. I’ll find her myself.”
He disconnected the call, afraid he’d say something he’d regret. And worried. He didn’t have a way to contact Ashley. She’d left her purse at his place. At the time, he’d thought that meant she’d trusted him. But wherever she was now, she didn’t have her phone or her can of mace.
Quickly, he thumb-dialed Mrs. Harrison and asked her to check on Ashley for him. He was fairly sure they hadn’t exchanged phone numbers yet. Could she please knock on Ashley’s door, then call him back and let him know she was safe?
“Sure, but what’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m at the hospital. My sister’s in emergency surgery, and I can’t get away.”
“Oh, no, I hope it’s nothing. It wasn’t drugs this time, was it?” Mrs. Harrison knew about Trish.
“Not this time.” He went for distraction instead of admitting the horrid truth. “Please hurry. Call back as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting.”
“I most certainly will.”
The contrast struck him hard. Here he was asking a favor from a woman who’d suffered her own personal loss today, yet who was on her cheerful way to do him a favor. All because his selfish sister had continually put herself in harm’s way, for the fun, the thrill of it. It was hard not to want to wring Trish’s neck, while, at the same time, he desperately needed her to live.
Like he had since they’d arrived at the scene of her assault, Jameson was sticking close on his left. Alex, Mark, Tucker, Beau, and several other TEAM agents were sitting with him in the main waiting room outside surgery. His mother sat worrying her rosary beads at his right.
“That girl’s going to be the death of us both, Tripp.” Andy didn’t mince words, and she didn’t waste time on tears or feminine dramatics. She’d been down this same road too many times. After a while, a person, even a mother, grew numb to other people’s death spirals. Even their daughter’s.
“She sure ran into the wrong john this time.” Just once, Tripp wished his mother would’ve said no, and let him handle the mess. But moms never did what was best for them. They always showed up when their kids needed them, and they always got their hearts broken when they did.
The longer Tripp sat, the more TEAM agents showed up. After several long hours waiting for news from the surgeon, the only agents missing were those from the Seattle office, the ones on assignment, and The TEAM task force against human trafficking, now somewhere in the Far East. Zack and Beau should’ve been with them, but they’d stayed stateside to assist Mother. Tripp wondered if they got hazard pay for that.
But mostly, he watched the large, closed double doors at the end of the hall that declared, Do Not Enter. The ones hospital personnel in gray scrubs ignored.
His poor mom. She’d already been through so many different levels of Hell with Trish. Searching the length of the East Coast for the know-it-all, runaway teenager after they’d first moved. Faithfully reporting her missing daughter to APD every time Trish took off. Problem was, it’d happened so often that Andy knew most local police officers by name these days. She even took homemade cookies to the local precincts because she knew how hard they’d tried to locate Trish, and how hard their job was.
Then there were the various detox and rehab centers that had cheerfully taken every last cent of Andy’s meager savings, promised the moon, but in the end, couldn’t contain Trish’s demons any better than her mother could. Add to that all the halfway houses, back alleys, bars, and drug houses Andy and Tripp had searched. The filthy streets and dirty park benches. The worst dives across the Potomac River…
Yet Andrea had never given up. Tripp wished she would.
He looked down between his boots at the generic, easily-washed and disinfected tiled-floor. He’d given up on Trish long ago. In Idaho. She’d been an embarrassment then. Still was. Yet here he was… God, he was just as bad as his mother.
Andy patted his clenched hand on his thigh. “My turn to get coffee. Would you like a breakfast biscuit or two?”
“No, Mom. Stay put. Let me do that for you,” he told her, squeezing her slender hand in return, wishing he could save her from whatever prognosis still lay ahead. It couldn’t be good, not with all the blood Trish had lost.
“Nonsense. I need the walk. It’ll do me good. Sitting here and worrying is eating me alive. You stay here with your friends. The cafeteria’s not far. I won’t be but a minute.”
Alex sprang to her side, his arm cocked for her to take. “May I accompany you, Mrs. McClane?”
She smiled tiredly up at him but accepted his assist. “Thank you, yes. It’s not a long walk, Mr. Stewart, but this is a big place. I may need help finding my way back.”
“That’s what I’m here for, ma’am,” he replied respectfully.
“Your friends are too kind,” she told Tripp before she walked into the hall with his boss.
Tripp turned his head and asked Jameson quietly, so no one else would hear, “You ever wonder that if you’d died, maybe someone else would’ve lived? Would’ve wanted to live? You know, because the universe is all about balance, and at some cosmic level, your death, no matter how it came down, might turn a wayward person around? Might make them think? Make them care less about themselves and more about others? What they put others through? Make them consider doing something decent with their lives for a change?”
Tripp didn’t expect an answer. His question was more rhetorical and desperate, than earnest. Truth was that Trish had been born selfish, while he’d stepped up and had always taken care of his mom after his dad had died. Even as a little boy, he’d been the responsible half of the pair. Trish had been the selfish princess with a rhinestone tiara stuck up her entitled ass.
Jameson took a long, slow sip of the bad hospital coffee le
ft in the paper cup in his hand. He’d been quiet since they’d arrived after the ambulance. Had only asked Tripp what he’d needed when they’d sat down together and began this vigil. But the guy seemed to have his life figured out. Tripp needed some of that inner calm.
Jameson shifted the cup to his left hand and ran a finger under the lower rim of his dark glasses. “When I first lost my sight, yes. I wondered why them and not me. I lost two good friends in that firefight, but I’ve had a longer time to deal with my survivor’s guilt than you. I know now that mess was the perfect trifecta designed by ISIL to kill American soldiers. It took me a while to realize that, in order to move on, I had to put the blame where it belonged. Saving those little boys’ lives was not a mistake. My buddies and I made the best moral decision that day. We chose the high road, Tripp, something I strive to do every day. In a way, the universe does balance. It took two Navy SEALs, sure, but it left two children alive and…” He set the cup on the table beside him. “We do the best we can, when we can. Do you think sacrificing yourself when you were in Afghanistan would’ve somehow saved your sister from making bad choices now? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Maybe.” Tripp dropped his chin and went back to counting the tiny black flakes in the square tile between his boots. He’d come up with twenty-six each of the last five times. An even number. Like thirteen sets of twins. That had to mean something. He just didn’t know what.
He’d never understood why Trish had acted out as a teen. Why she’d changed so drastically when she’d turned fifteen. He’d been a football jock, a local hero in a way, even back then. Engrossed in the game, the comradery and the plays, basking in the adulation, he’d never missed a single game or a minute of practice. Hadn’t dared. Playing football and running drills with his coach and his team had been his out, his way of dealing with missing the father he’d never known. Mom still loved Boone McClane, said she always would. That everything would’ve been better if he’d lived. But he hadn’t. A weak heart claimed him before his twin babies turned two. Except for the photos Andy still displayed around her house, Tripp didn’t remember a thing about his dad.
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