Читать книгу Task Force Bride - Julie Miller - Страница 12

Chapter Three

“Hope? Hope!”

“Get back here, girl! You runnin’ from me?”

Hope bolted the door behind her and scrambled up the stairs, desperate to put some distance between her and that huge, horrible monster.

The bugs were gross, a sick joke—maybe even from her dad. Probably meant to scare her into thinking she needed a man here. Maybe he’d even hoped she’d open the box inside her shop or apartment and then she’d hire him to exterminate every last one of them. Never. A bug she could step on.

But the dog...

“Hope?” The pounding on the door pushed her across the landing, past the double door leading to a loft storage area and straight to the restored antique door to her apartment. She dropped her keys when a thundering bark joined the pounding. “Are you in there? Are you okay?”

Knowing she was acting on blind panic, but feeling just as helpless to stop it, she scooped up the fallen keys and unlocked the door.

“Hope? Answer me!” Wood splintered around the lock below as she pushed open the door and ran straight to her kitchen. “Go, boy! Voran! Hope?”

She yelped when she heard the galloping up the stairs, the long legs running her down. The rapid drumbeat filled up her ears and she could barely catch her breath. She swiped away the foolish tears that stung her eyes and reached for the biggest weapon she could find.

Pulling a carving knife from the butcher block on the counter, Hope swung around into the open dining and living area to meet the beast at her front door. A man in black filled up the opening, but he was just the imposing backdrop to the real threat.

Gripping the knife in both hands, Hope prepared to defend herself. Far better than she had done twenty years ago. This time, she was no little girl. This time, she wasn’t weak from starvation. This time, she was armed.

She heard the growl. Saw the rush of movement. Screamed.

“Hans! Platz!”

The charging dog halted as if he’d jerked to the end of an invisible chain and plopped back onto his haunches. He slowly walked his feet forward until he was lying down beside the black military-grade boots of the man in the doorway. Hope didn’t believe that relaxed posture for a moment. The dog was breathing just as hard as she was, and those big, midnight-brown eyes still had her in his sights.

“Miss Lockhart?” The man raised one hand in a placating motion, then stooped down to clip a leash to the harness the dog wore. He dropped his voice to a deep, husky pitch. “Hope?”

Something short-circuited in her brain, cutting off the instinctive fight-or-flight response long enough for her to see what was really happening here. Pushing the falling hair off her face, still breathing deeply and erratically, still holding the knife, Hope blinked Edison Pike Taylor into focus. Clear blue eyes in a rugged, masculine face. Broad shoulders. Black ball cap. KCPD embroidered on the shirt that stretched over a black turtleneck and protective vest. A badge and gun on his belt.

Not her father. Not the damned babysitters. “Get her!”

Hope cringed and looked away from the ugly nightmare that tried to surface.

Pike Taylor slowly straightened, filling up the doorway again. “Why did you run? I turned around and you were gone. I thought you’d been abducted or something—that maybe your dad had come back or...” He took a step toward her and she lifted the knife, gripping it between both hands. He stopped, put up his leather-gloved hand again and drilled her with those startling blue eyes. “Don’t be afraid of me.”

The sharp words, more command than request, pierced the fog of fear that lingered in her brain. “I...I’m not. I don’t think I am.”

“Could have fooled me.” His gaze dropped briefly to the knife she still wielded, and she suddenly realized that with a gun and a guard dog and the sheer size and strength he had over her, she hadn’t stood much chance of defending herself, anyway. But he still didn’t make another move toward her. “Did you see something out there? That van? Was it the bugs? Trust me, they’ve scattered.”

“They’re not especially pleasant, but—”

“Is it me?”

She was the target of Pike Taylor’s piercing blue eyes again. “Not exactly.”

She couldn’t handle the intensity there—the suspicion? The anger? Hope blinked. She blinked again, trying to understand exactly what was happening here. Damn, he was big—more man than had ever been in her apartment before. He’d come by her shop nearly every day for months now—had always tipped his hat and said hello or winked as if they were some kind of friends. And now he was in her apartment, shrinking the wide-open space down to the few feet that separated them.

Why had he touched her hair tonight? And why had she...? Her heart had never raced like that before—not with anything except fear. Why had his fingers tangling into her wayward hair felt like a caress? As if she had the experience to recognize a man’s gentle caress.

Hope shook her head, dispelling the unfamiliar imprint of a man’s warm hand brushing across her cheek and ear. Blue eyes and distracting touches didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford to take her gaze off the black and tan dog. She could smell him now—the heat of his panting breath, the outdoor scents that clung to his thick fur. Hope finally lowered the knife, but only to slide her fingers beneath the sleeves on her right arm and rub at her wrist. The ridges and dots had softened and faded over the years, but she could feel the pain and itch of every scar as if they were new.

“Is it Hans?” At this hushed volume, Pike’s deep voice danced along her fried nerves like a soothing balm.

As embarrassing as her phobia might be to admit, her behavior put her past the point of lying or making a joke about it. Hope nodded. “I’m sorry. I guess I had a panic attack.”

“You think?”

“I haven’t had one for a long time. I usually can control it. But with the running and...and he was tracking so hard, so relentlessly. He’s so strong—all muscle, isn’t he?” She pushed her glasses into place at her temple, then found her fingers sliding beneath the collar of her blouse and loose hair to touch the scar there. She’d lost her big hair clip somewhere, and had probably left a trail of bobby pins on the stairs. Her hair was most likely sticking out in all directions, looking as wild as the pulse beat at the side of her neck felt. “I’m sure it seems irrational to you. I know he’s specially trained, he’s a member of the police force, and that he helps—”

“He’s not going to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that.” She blinked away flashback images of tearing flesh and searing pain. Of a gunshot that jerked through her even now. The final tragedy of two desperate children’s struggle for survival.

“Stay with me, Hope.” Pike stepped forward and Hope retreated.

“I am.” She managed to keep the knife pointed to the floor, although she couldn’t seem to ignore the phantom throb beneath the scars on her wrist. She pulled up a coat sleeve, a jacket sleeve and unbuttoned the cuff of her blouse to massage the skin there. “I will.”

Tall, Blond and Rugged was moving closer again. Hope focused on the black button at the center of Pike’s shirt. She could still hear the dog panting, but she could no longer see him past the width of those shoulders and chest.

“I trust Hans with my life. I trust he’ll do whatever I say. He’s trained to be an extension of me on the job, not a rogue wild animal.” Pike pulled off his cap and rubbed at his short dark gold hair, leaving rumpled spikes in its wake. He dropped his gaze to the leash in his hand and followed it back to the dog lying in the doorway behind him. The dog’s black muzzle lifted up and he tilted his head in some sort of anticipation.

Hope’s fingers tightened around the knife handle.

But Pike raised his hand and the dog settled down again, resting his head on his front legs. When Pike faced Hope again, his narrowed, probing eyes looked straight into hers. “I never had a chance at getting you to trust me, did I. All these months I’ve been patrolling this neighborhood, I’ve been trying to get to know you. Trying to find out if you were stuck-up or just unaware of my efforts.”

Regret followed closely on the heels of her simmering panic, sapping the remainder of Hope’s strength. It was a shy person’s worst nightmare to have her quiet moods and awkward social skills mistaken for arrogance or indifference. It compounded her frustration to discover that the time she needed to process her thoughts, emotions and reactions could be interpreted as a lack of caring. It hurt to know that the fight it took to assert herself sometimes came off as disdain.

“I’ve even been a little ornery about it,” Pike went on. “Making up excuses to come by your shop, demanding that you give me your trust and respect. But you were never going to give me a real chance.”

“I’m not stuck-up,” she whispered, mindlessly massaging the scars again.

“No. You’re terrified. Doesn’t make me feel like much of a cop—or much of a man—to see you look at me like that. I’d like to fix your perception of Hans and me.” He reached out, and for a moment, she thought he intended to disarm her. Instead, he reached past the knife and slowly closed his fingers around her wrist, brushing the warm pad of his thumb across the pale web of scars there. “What happened to you?”

“I...” Gentle though his inquisitive touch might be, Hope jerked her arm away and quickly pulled down her sleeves. What did she tell him? Long version? Short version? Was there any version that didn’t make her sound sad or eccentric or worth anything more than his pity?

Hans raised his head and woofed a split second before Pike turned his head and Hope heard a whisper of sound from the foot of the stairs. The outside door opened.

No version.

She clutched the knife in both hands again. There were knocks at both the shop and stairwell doors.

“Taylor!” a man shouted from the vestibule downstairs. “Pike! You here?”

“We’re not done with this conversation.” Pike adjusted his ball cap on his head and turned to the door. “I’m here!” he shouted. “Hans. Fuss!” The dog jumped to his feet and fell into step beside him. “Detective Montgomery? Nick? What are you doing here?”

Hope followed them out the door to see man and dog jog around the landing and down to the entryway below.

She heard a second man’s voice now. “We saw your rig out front. Thought maybe you knew something we didn’t.”

“Knew something about what?” Pike asked.

Hope crept to the top of the stairs behind him. “He took someone else, didn’t he? That’s why he was here.”

“The Rose Red Rapist?” At the foot of the stairs, Pike stood taller than either of the two men, one in a gray wool suit and tie, the other wearing jeans and a black leather jacket. The badges they wore identified them as cops, too.

Hope sank onto the top step, still holding the knife. “That was his van I saw, wasn’t it? That was him.”

The shorter of the two detectives pulled back the front of his leather jacket and reached for his gun, his gaze zeroing in on Hope—or, more specifically, on the carving knife she still held in her fist. “Ma’am? I need you to put that down.”

Hope’s breath locked up in her chest and she instinctively recoiled.

Pike put up a hand and warned the dark-haired detective not to unholster his weapon. “It’s okay, Nick. She’s a witness, not a threat. I...” His head tipped down toward Hans. “We...scared her.”

The air gradually eased from her lungs at Pike’s politely vague explanation. She’d pulled a knife and freaked out on him, yet he was still kind enough to defend her. And although she appreciated having that blockade of Pike Taylor’s shoulders between her and the two plainclothes detectives, Hope wisely set the knife down on the floor beside her. She spotted two bobby pins on the next step down and remembered that she probably looked as if she’d been fighting something more than her own fears tonight.

The red-haired detective who seemed to be in charge slid his gaze up to her, too, assessing her unkempt appearance and dismissing her before giving a concise, emotionless report to Pike. “We’ve got a body dump around the corner in the alley. Red rose inside her coat.”

Body dump? That meant the victim was dead, didn’t it? Raped and murdered. Hope’s audible gasp echoed through the walnut banister and across the crisply painted white landing. The dog’s ear pricked to attention, but none of the men seemed to notice. Hope pressed her fingers to her lips and whispered, “Oh, God. She was inside there, wasn’t she? She was in that van.”

The red-haired detective heard her hushed voice and looked up the stairs. “A LaDonna Chambers. Do you know her?”

“LaDonna?” For a moment, the detective’s hard eyes swam out of focus. But she blinked away the emotions that made her light-headed and nodded, picturing the friendly acquaintance she’d seen just yesterday morning. “Not well. She’s interning at a law office on the next street over. I’ve waited in line with her at the coffee shop several times.”

The detective in the suit jotted something into his notebook before tucking it inside his jacket pocket and turning his attention back to Pike. “Some college kids who’d been at Harpo’s Dance Club found her. That’s not the call you’re answering?”

Pike shook his head. “Miss Lockhart called in that she’d seen a suspicious white van on her way home tonight. I came to take her statement.”

“She saw the van?” The redhead pulled back the front of his jacket and splayed his hands at either side of his waist. “His van?”

Pike answered. “Could be, sir. She gave me a detailed description, but no plate number.”

The dark-haired detective looked agitated. “When? Did she see our guy? Can she ID the driver? Is that what spooked her?”

Clearly, the two detectives suspected there was more to her story than a helpful citizen’s phone call. But Pike didn’t mention her father, the sick present she’d gotten or her off-the-charts paranoid reaction to his efforts to help her. Thankfully, neither detective had questioned her erratic behavior, either. Until now.

They had bigger problems than hers tonight.

“I’m Detective Spencer Montgomery, KCPD task force, ma’am. This is my partner, Detective Nick Fensom. We work with Officer Taylor here.” Detective Montgomery flashed his badge and looked over Pike’s shoulder, right at her. Somehow the intensity of that slate-colored gaze was even more unsettling than the threat of Detective Fensom’s pulling his gun had been. “We need to talk to you.”

* * *

“WELL, THAT WAS a lousy plan. Do you think she recognized you?”

“I don’t know.” He breezed past the woman in the negligee and robe and headed straight for the bathroom.

“You don’t know?” She followed him in. “You already made one mistake tonight. I don’t think we can afford another.”

He unhooked his belt and slung it at her feet. “We?”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, refusing to let the subject drop. “I did my part. LaDonna Chambers can never hurt you again. But you don’t even know if this woman—”

“Shut up. I need to think.” He opened the shower door and turned on the shower until the water ran blisteringly hot. He stepped underneath the spray, clothes and all. He braced his hands on the tile wall and bent his head. The water beat against his scalp, drowning out the sounds of her calling him all kinds of stupid for going to the bridal shop tonight. Finally, she got the hint and returned to his bedroom. He stood there for countless minutes, letting the hot water sluice through his hair and soak through his clothes while the trapped, steamy air opened the pores of his skin. He stood like that until most of the rage was purged from him.

Once the haze of emotion had cleared his brain and reason returned, he peeled off his sodden clothes and dumped them into the hamper beside the shower. Then he unwrapped a fresh bar of soap and started to wash, cleaning beneath every nail, massaging every hair follicle, rinsing his skin twice and then again.

When he was done, exhausted by the furious emotions and the long night, he pulled a clean towel from the linen closet and wrapped it around his waist. He pulled out a matching towel to wipe down the shower walls and glass door. Then, with a third towel, he dropped down to his hands and knees, sopping up the puddle of water beneath the hamper.

He hated that he’d have to do something about Hope. He knew most of the women he hunted by their face, their habits, their location. But he rarely knew their names until their pictures were splashed across the television screen or centered in a newspaper article. He knew Hope, liked her well enough, he supposed. She stirred nothing inside him—no desire, no rage—but now he could see he’d been wrong to think she was of no consequence.

Hope Lockhart ran a successful business. She was loved by clients and respected by leaders in Kansas City business and society. Who’d have thought she’d have the guts to look him in the eye and call the police?

He’d have to find out exactly what she knew about him, exactly what she’d seen. If he was lucky, she’d still be of no consequence. But if she was a threat to him...

The damp towels fisted in his hands and he felt the stirrings of that damned hunger stirring inside him again.

“I suppose you need me to take care of this problem, too?”

She was in the doorway again, sneaking up behind him, standing over him. With his nostrils flaring as he fought to maintain his composure, he slowly eased his grip on the towels and folded them neatly around the wet clothes he’d discarded. “I’ll handle it. You were messy tonight.”

“Me? You’re the one who was careless. I told you it was too soon, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Really? A gun? Do you know how long it took me to clean up the blood?” He laid the squared package of damp clothes and towels in the bottom of the hamper before turning to face her. “I had everything under control. She was mine to use however I wanted—until you interfered.”

“Do you think she would have given you what you wanted?” He went to the sink to unwrap a fresh comb. Her reflection joined his in the mirror. “She woke up, called you by name when she recognized your voice. I had to silence her.”

“I wasn’t finished with her.”

“Oh, you were finished.” She laughed.

His comb clattered into the sink. “Shut up.”

“I’m the voice of reason in your sad, secretive life. I’m the only one who has always been here for you. Without me, you’d be rotting in prison. I know the lie you live and I’ve loved you any—”

He spun around, clamping his hand around her throat and shoving her against the wall. “I said, shut. Up.”

“You won’t hurt me. I made you. You need me.”

What he needed was to feel in control again. His fingers tightened for a few moments until he heard her choking gurgle. But, damn her, even as her face drained of color, she barely even blinked at the dangerous torture he inflicted.

He popped his fingers open and released her. She inhaled a calm, deep breath and smiled. “You see? You know you can’t hurt me, that I’m the only one who’ll always be here for you.” She left the room to pour herself a drink. “Now. What are you going to do about Hope Lockhart?”