Had the person who’d attacked Catherine vandalized the property
first? He frowned, stepping into the foyer, heat pressing in on every side. No
breeze to cut the oppressive air. No open windows to clear the heavy scent of
cigarette smoke.
Sweat trickled down his temples and rolled into his eyes. He
ignored it, his attention on the creak and groan of the old house, the moan of
settling wood. Life had a different sound, a different feel, and he walked
through a small living room, knowing it was empty. The dining room was empty,
too, a nicked wood table and an old china cabinet the only furniture. No chairs.
No painting. No curtains on the windows. Everything spare and worn.
The floor creaked as he walked back through the foyer and into
what might have once been a family room. The room held a fireplace on one wall,
a hospital bed, a dresser and a chair. A small refrigerator sat on the floor, a
half dozen medicine bottles sitting on top of it. Someone had installed a window
air-conditioning unit, and it hummed softly as Darius checked the closet and a
small bathroom.
Empty.
The kitchen was the same. Nearly gutted with nothing but an old
oven and a chipped sink, it had seen better days. Tools lay on the floor and
paint peeled off the windowsills. Someone had been working hard, but the house
still felt tired and old as if the life had been sucked out of it. Lived in, but
already abandoned.
The front door opened, the floorboards in the hallway creaking.
Footsteps on stairs and someone walking above his head. Not the police. They’d
follow protocol and announce their presence.
He eased up the stairs, slowly, quietly. Whoever was in the
house wasn’t being quiet about it. Drawers opened. Something slid across the
floor.
Searching for something?
He followed the sounds, lunging as a figure darted from the
room at the far end of the hall. His bum leg screamed in protest, phantom pain
spearing up from the place where his calf had been, but he didn’t hesitate,
didn’t let the pain stall his momentum. He slammed the perp against the wall,
his forearm pressed across a soft throat as he looked into a bruised face and
dark blue eyes.
Catherine.
“You’re supposed to be at my place,” he said, biting back the
harsh words that were on the tip of his tongue.
“I have to get to the hospital.” Her voice shook, but it was
the only indication of her fear.
“Not at the risk of your life.”
“The person who attacked me would have to be crazy to hang
around.”
“The police were okay with you walking off?” Because,
he
wasn’t.
“There are officers all over the road looking for evidence. I
was safe enough,” she hedged.
“You didn’t get permission to leave, did you?”
“I was waiting to be interviewed. It was taking too long.”
“You can’t do your grandmother any good if you’re dead.”
“I’m not, so it’s a moot point,” she said, her cheeks heating,
her eyes flashing.
“It doesn’t pay to take chances.” He tried to keep the
exasperation out of his voice as he followed her down the stairs.
“I need to get to the hospital.” She grabbed keys from a small
table in the foyer and shoved them in her pocket, her hand shaking.
She put on a good show, but she was terrified.
“You’d better let the police know that you’re leaving.”
“They’re smart. I’m sure they’ll figure it out.” She walked
outside, and he followed, ignoring her dark look. “Thank you for your help,
Mr....?”
“Osborne. Darius.”
“Catherine Miller, but I’m sure you already knew that.”
“I’ve seen the news stories.”
“Who hasn’t?” She smiled, her eyes empty and quiet. “You saved
my life, and I don’t take that lightly, but I’m fine now, and I need to get
going.”
So did he. He’d planned every minute of his two-week vacation.
Paint the house. Strip and refinish the hardwood floors. Fix the leaking kitchen
sink. Get the house he’d bought three months ago in order so it seemed more like
a home and less like a place to stay.
But the bruises on Catherine’s face, the welts on her neck, the
quick beat of her pulse in the hollow of her throat made him hesitate. “How
about you let me give you a ride to the hospital?”
“I have a car.”
“So do I.”
“What—”
“The police are here.” Darius cut her off as a police cruiser
parked on the cracked and crumbled driveway. A tall dark-haired officer got out.
Darius knew him. Deputy Sheriff Logan Randal. They’d run into each other on a
couple of cases, and Darius had liked the guy.
“Catherine!” Randal called. “You were supposed to stay inside
and wait for me.”
“I told you my grandmother needed to be picked up.”
“I can send an officer for her.”
“And scare her to death? I don’t think so.”
Randal sighed and took off his hat, running a hand down his
jaw. “Osborne, you were there when everything went down?”
“I heard Catherine’s screams, but I didn’t see the perp. No
sign of him here, either.”
“I need to leave.” Catherine sidled past, and Randal grabbed
her arm.
“Whoa! Slow down, Catherine. I can’t let you walk away
unescorted. We don’t know who attacked you, why he did it or where he is
now.”
“Neither do I, and Eileen is waiting.”
Obviously, they knew each other.
Even more obviously, Catherine didn’t care about the connection
or Logan’s authority as an officer of the law. She seemed bound and determined
to leave.
“I’ll escort her to the hospital.”
“I don’t need an escort.”
“Yeah. You do.” Darius followed her down the porch steps and
around the side of the house.
She ignored him, not glancing over her shoulder, not telling
him to leave. Just walking, sunlight pouring over her bright red hair and
casting shadows beneath her eyes.
He could go back to his renovation work, go back to his first
day of vacation and let Logan deal with Catherine and the person who’d attacked
her.
He
could,
but he followed Catherine
to a rickety garage, anyway, because following her was a whole lot better than
going home to his silent house. His boss and friend Ryder Malone had insisted
that four years was too long to go without a vacation. He was probably right,
but vacation without family didn’t feel like much of a vacation. All it did was
remind him of what he didn’t have.
Catherine hefted the garage door, but he pulled her back before
she could walk into the dank interior.
“Let me check things out, first.”
He expected her to argue, maybe tell him to go home, but she
stepped aside, staring out over the golden-brown fields, silent, stiff and
expressionless.
He had the impression of careful control and deep emotion.
That made him want to poke a little, see what kind of reaction
he could get.
Surprising, because he didn’t believe in poking or prodding or
searching for something deeper. He’d tried it before, found what he’d wanted to
find instead of what was there. He wouldn’t make that mistake again, but he
would
check the garage and make sure danger
wasn’t waiting in the dark corners and deep shadows.
He turned away from Catherine and walked into the musty
garage.
TWO
P
lease, go.
That’s what Catherine needed to say to Darius.
Two words that she’d said to all the news reporters, old
friends and strangers who’d come around trying to get the scoop on the Dark
Angel of Good Samaritan over the past two months.
She couldn’t manage to get the words out, and she stood
silently as Darius preceded her into the garage.
No one was there.
She was as sure of that as she was that the sun would shine in
the morning, but she let him look, because she didn’t want to be alone. Not
yet.
Her neck burned and throbbed, but she didn’t touch the bruised
skin, tried not to remember the feeling of fingers on flesh or think about what
might have happened if Darius hadn’t called out. Another minute, and she would
have been out of breath. All the fighting skills she’d learned in prison had
been useless against someone double her size and strength.
Would she have died on the dusty old road?
She shuddered, taking a step into the dim garage. It smelled of
gasoline and oil, mildew and wet wood. She’d have to tear the place down
eventually, but she had too many projects on her hands already, and not enough
time to get to them.
“It’s clear. Come on in,” Darius called out, and she hurried to
the 1965 Buick, grabbing her purse from under the front seat. She took out her
cell phone, shoving it into her pocket. Leaving it in the car had been a mistake
that she wouldn’t repeat. From now on, she’d carry it everywhere.
Just in case.
She gave in to temptation, touching the swollen place on her
jaw, the hot flesh of her neck. Raw and dry, her throat tightened, her breath
catching.
Stop!
The last thing she needed or wanted was a panic attack.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” Darius asked, his light
green eyes glowing in a deeply tanned face. Dark hair fell across his forehead,
silky and blue-black, but it didn’t make him look boyish or approachable. He
looked hard and tough and capable, the gun she’d watched him take from his
closet held loose in a broad hand.
Was he a cop? FBI? He had the look. All hard lean muscle and
lithe movements.
“Catherine?
Do
you want me to drive
you to the hospital?” he asked again, his hand brushing her shoulder, his touch
so light she barely felt it.
“No. I’m fine. Thanks for all your help. You can leave.” There.
She’d said it. Easy as pie.
“I’ll wait until you get this beast out of the garage. Think
it’ll start?” He patted the hood of her grandmother’s rusty old car.
“It should.” But just like everything else around the farm, the
car had seen better days. She got in the driver’s seat, turned the key in the
ignition and heard nothing but a quiet click. She tried again and again with the
same results.
Just once.
Just
once,
she wanted things to go
her way.
She turned the key one more time, wrenching it hard.
“Sounds like you need a new battery or a new starter. Breaking
the key in the ignition won’t change either of those things.” Darius reached in
and pulled the key from the ignition.
“It started fine this morning,” she muttered, grabbing her
purse and getting out of the car. Time was ticking, and Eileen was waiting. She
couldn’t spend any more time fighting with the car.
“She’s an old car. She needs a little TLC.”
“Everything around this place does,” she responded, following
him back out into the bright sunlight.
“My place is the same way, but I do have a truck that’s
reliable. Come on. I’ll give you a ride to the hospital.” He led the way back
across the yard, a hitch to his stride that she hadn’t noticed before. Slight,
but definitely there. Had he been hurt while he hunted the guy who’d attacked
her?
She wanted to ask, but the words caught in her throat as he
tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans.
It had been a long time since she’d made small talk.
She wasn’t sure if she still knew how to do it.
“Something wrong?” he asked, his eyes such a pure light green,
she wondered if he wore contacts.
“You hurt your leg,” she said, finally managing to loosen her
tongue and get the words out.
“Not recently.”
“You’re limping.”
“That happens when the lower part of a person’s leg is
amputated.” He responded so casually, she almost missed what he was saying.
“You’re an amputee?”
“My leg was blown off by a booby-trapped weapon cache. That’s
why I’m stateside instead of with my buddies in Afghanistan.” Darius offered the
information, knowing it would distract Catherine, ease some of the tension from
her face and shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m alive. Some of my buddies weren’t so fortunate.”
“Then, I guess I’m even more sorry,” she responded, surprising
him. Most people who heard the story missed the part where he mentioned the
bigger loss he’d suffered. Not his leg. His comrades. He’d give the other leg
and both his arms to have any of them back.
“It was rough.”
“What happ—?”
“How about we save the question-and-answer session for another
day?” He cut her off. Sharing some information to take her mind off what had
happened was one thing. Talking in depth about his loss, that was something
else.
“I thought you were heading to the hospital,” Logan called from
the porch, and Catherine stiffened, her tension flooding back.
“The Buick wouldn’t start.”
“Not surprising. You need to trade that rust bucket in for
something reliable.”
“The car is fine, Logan.” She sounded weary, and Darius had the
urge to slide an arm around her waist, let her lean on him. He doubted she ever
leaned on anyone, though, and he kept his distance, watching as she brushed dirt
from her faded jeans and avoided Logan’s eyes.
“I noticed you had some vandalism on the porch. When did it
happen?”
“Sometime after I left to bring Eileen to the hospital. The
siding was vandalized, too, but I was able to cover that before...” She didn’t
finish, and Darius imagined her out on the porch, covering paint with paint
while danger stalked her.
“You didn’t report it,” Logan said, and Catherine shrugged.
“I reported the broken windows three weeks ago. I reported the
slashed tire before that. I reported crank calls and people driving by the house
at all hours of the night. It didn’t do me any good. I figured calling the
sheriff about this was going to be just as useless.”
“I’m sorry you felt that way, Catherine. We’ve been working
hard to identify the perpetrators of those crimes. It just takes time,” Logan
responded with more gentleness than Darius had ever seen in him. Did he feel
guilty for his part in Catherine’s conviction and incarceration? No doubt, he’d
been with the sheriff’s department when she’d been accused of murdering eleven
patients at the convalescent center where she’d worked.
“I know that, and I’m not blaming your office, Logan. It’s
just...I don’t
have
time. Eileen is really sick, and
I can’t have her stressed out and upset every other week. I figured I’d just
clean things up before she got home and pretend nothing had happened.”
“Pretending won’t make trouble go away.”
“I know.” She touched the bruise on her jaw. “Look, I know you
have a bunch of questions, and I’ll answer them. But I really have to get to the
hospital. I don’t want Eileen waiting and wondering if something has happened to
me.”
“Something
did
happen to you,”
Darius cut in, and she frowned.
“Nothing permanent. We’ll talk when I get back, Logan,”
“We’ll be here. I called in a K-9 unit, and I’m hoping they’ll
catch the perp’s trail. Want me to have an officer give you a ride to the
hospital?”
“I don’t think I want to be seen in a police car, but thank
you,” she responded, a hint of irony in her words.
“We can have an unmarked car—”
“I’m going to give her a ride, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t
run into any more trouble on the way to or from the hospital.” Darius cut into
the conversation again, and Catherine wanted to tell him that
she’d
be the one to make sure that she didn’t run into
more trouble. That she’d take care of herself and her grandmother the same way
she had for most of her life, but saying anything would take time and effort she
didn’t want to waste.
“I guess having a bodyguard as a neighbor is going to pay off
for you, today, Catherine,” Logan commented as he snapped several pictures of
the porch and the red paint.
“Bodyguard?” Catherine shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d
guessed Darius to be police or FBI. A bodyguard seemed an extension of those
things. Somehow, she
was
surprised, though. She
couldn’t imagine him escorting high-profile clients to high-profile events.
Or maybe she could.
Dress him in tux, slick back his hair and he’d easily pass for
someone with money and looks to spare.
“Security contractor,” he corrected, and then turned to Logan.
“You’ve got my cell phone number, Randal. Give me a call if the K-9 unit sniffs
anything out.”
“I don’t recall you being part of this case, Osborne.”
“Catherine is my neighbor, so I’m making myself part of it,”
Darius responded easily as a police K-9 unit pulled into the driveway.
“How about
I
decide who is going to
be part of the case and who isn’t after Eileen is home?” Catherine tried to put
some force into the words, but they sounded weak and shaky.
“You’re right. We’re wasting time. Call me, Randal.” Darius
tossed the words over his shoulder as he hurried Catherine to the dirt road that
she’d run along less than an hour before. Terror had fueled her then. Now, she
felt nothing but tired. She’d known that returning to Pine Bluff after she’d
been released from prison wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be so
difficult. She’d thought she could hide away in the farmhouse, tend to Eileen
and ignore the people who whispered and pointed, but the townspeople didn’t seem
willing to let her alone. Some of them simply wanted the story of her time in
prison. Others were still convinced she was a murderer.
Apparently, one of them wanted her gone.
She touched her neck, then let her hand drop away. She didn’t
want Darius to know how shaken she was. She didn’t want anyone to know it.
Keep things close to the cuff.
That’s what her
grandmother had taught her, and it’s what she’d always done. There’d been a time
in her life when she’d thought things might be different, that she could let
down her guard, trust someone else with her emotions, but her arrest had proven
just how foolish that had been. That was something else she kept close to the
cuff...how much it had hurt to see her fiancé on local and national news
programs saying he wasn’t surprised that Catherine had been arrested, that her
compassion for the dying must have caused her to snap.
She shoved the memories away. For Eileen’s sake, she tried to
live in the present and let the past go. That was easier on some days than on
others.
Several officers stood near the curve in the road, crime scene
tape marking off the area they were searching. They didn’t meet her eyes as she
passed, but she hadn’t expected them to. The Spokane County sheriff’s department
had issued an apology for the four years she’d spent in prison for crimes she
hadn’t committed. She’d been paid a lump sum for the trauma and time the
criminal justice system had cost her, but that couldn’t buy back her life or the
time she might have spent with Eileen. They knew it.
Still, if anyone from the sheriff’s department had asked, she
would have said that she didn’t place the blame with them. Didn’t really place
blame with anyone.
“I tracked your attacker from the road, through the field and
back to your place. He could have been waiting in the house when you got there,
waiting anywhere along this road. The weeds and overgrowth are so dense you
wouldn’t have seen him until he was on you. You realize that, right?” Darius
said quietly, his hand resting on her elbow as he steered her onto his
driveway.
“The police had already arrived. You were out with a gun
looking for the guy who’d attacked me. Why would he stick around?”
“For the same reason he attacked you.”
“Because he’s a stupid kid who gets his kick out of scaring
people? Kids have been coming around here since the day I got out of
prison.”
“You think that’s what this was about?” He touched her
throbbing jaw.
She flinched away, the movement as unconscious as breathing,
and his eyes narrowed as he studied her face.
She kept her expression neutral, tried not to let him see her
fear and anxiety. They were tools he might use against her one day, and she held
them close, kept them hidden the way she had for years.
“I really need to get to the hospital,” she said, because she
felt his gaze more than she should have, felt it settling deep, demanding
more.
“Right.” He opened the door of an old Ford pickup. Repainted
dark blue, everything shiny and new, it was probably as old as her grandmother’s
car, but Catherine knew the engine would start and that it would probably purr
like a kitten.
Darius seemed like the kind of guy who had all his ducks in a
row, everything shipshape and in order.
He helped her into the truck’s cab, his hand on her back, then
her shoulder, then her arm. Everything so easy and smooth, she barely realized
it was happening. Gentling a colt. Only she wasn’t a colt, and she didn’t need
to be gentled. She needed to be left alone.
She started to close the door, but he covered her hand, his
gaze so intense she wanted to look away.
“Just so you know, we’re not done with our conversation. The
person who did this meant business, and we need to find out exactly what that
business was.”