“Come on, Padre.” Trent downed the last of the tepid coffee and set the thermal mug in the console between him and the dog curled up in the passenger seat of his pickup. “Are your muscles getting as stiff as mine?”
Well, curled up was a relative term. The moment Trent pulled his attention from the sun rising dimly on the horizon behind Katie’s apartment building and spoke to the dog, the former Stinky McPooch leaped to his feet and straddled the center console to rest his neatly trimmed front paws on Trent’s thigh. The dog’s excited posture and wagging tail diffused the weariness permeating every bone in Trent’s body. “You’re hungry for some action, aren’t you, pal?”
An eager slurp across the scruff of Trent’s jaw indicated an affirmative answer. With a laugh, he reached over to attach the new leash to Padre’s harness, which peeked through the bright red Kansas City Chiefs sweater he’d gotten to keep the dog warm and to make him an easy target to spot when the mutt dug into the snow he seemed to love so much. “All right, all right, I’m moving.”
Padre was in his lap, ready to leap outside into the street, before Trent could turn off the engine he’d been running for the heater and pocket the keys. A slap of cold air and a brisk walk would do him some good, too, after sitting outside Katie’s building for most of the night. Olivia Watson and her fiancé, Gabe Knight, had voluntarily ended their date early the evening before to stand watch while Trent went home to shower and try to get some shut-eye. But he’d only lasted a couple hours before coming back to send Liv and Gabe on their way and watch over the Rinaldis himself. There was already more distance than he wanted between him and Katie, and though she was leery of taking any emotional risks and doubtful of her ability to make a relationship work, he had no doubt about what was in his heart. He wasn’t going to let any harm come to the woman and child he loved. They were his to protect, even if they never got the chance to become the family he wanted them to be.
“All right, boy.” He scratched Padre around the ears and looked into the dog’s dark brown eyes, imagining he could talk more sense into him than he’d been able to with Katie last night. “Now mind your manners on the leash. Let’s go.”
Leading the dog to the sidewalk while he locked up the truck, Trent scanned up and down the block. Although it had been a relatively quiet night, there was plenty of activity this morning, with folks in the neighborhood out shoveling snow or sweeping the blowing flakes off their vehicles and warming up cars as they got ready to head to work or school. He wasn’t the only brave soul out walking a pet, either, and there was even one diehard out for a morning jog who’d already worked up enough exertion to mask his face with a cloud of warm breath.
Trent negotiated a silent compromise with Padre by agreeing to walk faster if the dog stopped tugging on the leash. Besides working the kinks from his muscles after sitting in the truck for so long, Trent figured he could kill two birds with one stone, letting the dog manage his business while he scouted the perimeter of Katie’s three-story building along with other buildings and patrons of the neighborhood.
While Padre snuffled through the snowdrifts, Trent took note of faces and locations and whether or not anyone was more interested than they should be in anybody else. On the way back, he located the windows to Katie and Tyler’s apartment. Behind the curtains and blinds, the lights were on in the rooms he knew to be her bedroom and the kitchen. He slowed his pace when he saw the shadow moving at the kitchen sink and imagined what she might be doing in there. He wondered if she’d gotten any more sleep than he had.
When they’d kissed last night, Katie had given him a little taste of heaven. She’d forgotten the rules, lowered her defenses and clung to him with an abandon that was even hotter and more reality shifting than he’d imagined it would be between them. But then that brain of hers had to kick in. She’d gotten spooked by the possibility of their relationship deepening into something more, and she’d backed off all the way into her violent and unpredictable past. After all this time, Katie still didn’t believe in him enough to trust that he’d be there to catch her when she stumbled. He believed in the two of them together enough for the both of them. But she wouldn’t let it happen. She blamed herself for screwing up before there was anything between them to destroy.
Okay, so there were a few things about the woman that made him a little crazy—like holding back details after starting a conversation and refusing to explain herself. Like those damn rules, which he supposed were some kind of survival code in her mind. Still, those were just quirks he had to work around; they were challenges he was willing to meet. Trent tried to think of one thing she could do to make him not want her in his life and came up empty. But until she came around to the idea of a relationship, until these threats against her could be stopped, he’d better concentrate on the job at hand. And maybe get back inside the warmth of his truck. “Come on, Padre.”
The tan-and-white collie mix trotted along beside him while Trent noted an older woman coming out of Katie’s building, trading a friendly nod and a smile with the man who held the door open for her before hurrying in out of the cold. A businessman was backing out of his parking space in the lot while a family was bundling everyone into a minivan. One of the children said something to the mom and she grumbled, fishing her keys out of her pocket and sending him back inside the building to retrieve whatever he’d forgotten. The maintenance super tossed the last of his rock salt on the front steps and pulled the key fob from his retractable key ring to open the door and go in.
Trent glanced up at the kitchen window again. Katie’s shadow had moved on to another part of the apartment, leaving him blind to her exact location. Losing track of her for a few seconds shouldn’t make him antsy like this. His tired brain needed to tune in to what was off here.
His gaze shot to the front door again. The skin at his nape burned with suspicion. “Ah, hell.”
The man who’d held the door for the older woman hadn’t used a key fob to enter the building like everyone else. He hadn’t needed to.
Trent’s breathing deepened, quickened as he glanced around. Everybody else except for the jogger was dressed for the snow-shrouded December morning. But that man...
Brown hair. Long wool coat. Dress shoes.
The alarm going off in his head must have traveled down the leash. Padre danced around his legs and woofed.
“Padre, heel.” Teaching the dog a new command, he gave a sharp tug on the leash. Padre broke into a run beside him as they made a beeline for the front door. Trent knocked on the window and peered through the glass to see if anyone was inside the lobby. Where had the man gone? “Katie?”
Then he turned to the bank of mailboxes and buzzed her apartment. “Katie? Tyler, you in there?”
When there was no immediate response, he shook the front door handle. He wondered if he could break the lock with a ram of his shoulder, or if he needed to fire a round into it.
“May I help you?” By now he’d gotten someone’s attention. The super in the tan coveralls strolled across the lobby, pointing to the no-pets sign on the glass. “I’m sorry, sir. But that dog—”
“KCPD.” Trent slapped his badge against the glass and made the startled man read that sign. “Open it now. You’ve got an intruder in there.”
“An intruder? But this is a secure—”
“Now!”
“Yes, sir.” Jumping at Trent’s harsh command, the older man pulled the fob from his belt and swept it over the lock. “Are we in any danger?” he asked, pulling open the door.
“Katie!” Rushing past the super, Trent sprinted up the stairs to the second floor. Padre kept pace, whining with nerves or excitement when Trent skidded to a stop in front of the elevator. Just as he’d feared, the perp had gotten off on the second floor. Katie’s floor. A door opened close by and Trent flashed his badge to shoo the curious tenant back into her apartment. “Police, ma’am. Get back inside.”
With a quick scan up and down the hallway, Trent saw the rest of the doors were closed or were clicking shut as other curious tenants retreated at the sight of the hulking detective and vocal dog charging down to Katie’s door.
“Katie!” His gaze dropped to the nickel-finished doorknob and easily turned it. Ah, hell. He traced his gloved finger over the telltale scratch marks there and on the dead bolt lock higher up, sure signs that both had been tampered with. He glanced up and down that hallway again. One of those closing doors might be hiding a stalker. One instinct said to pursue his suspicion, but another, stronger urge made him flatten his palm and pound on the door. “Katie Lee! Answer me.”
“For Pete’s sake, Trent, you’ll wake the neighbors.” The dead bolt turned and she opened the door. Pulling the dog along with him, he pushed her inside and quickly shut the door behind him and locked the dead bolt. “Come in,” she muttered sarcastically. “Bring the beast, too. What’s a little fine from the tenants’ association? Were you the one buzzing to come up?”
“No one came in? No one’s here but the two of you? Why didn’t you answer?”
“Slow down, Detective.”
Her irritation gave way to confusion as he handed the dog’s leash off to her and pushed by to make sure everything was as it should be. A blue-eyed woman with damp, freshly shampooed tendrils bouncing against her neck was running around in gray slacks and a flannel pajama top, carrying a blouse she was probably getting ready to change into for work. Breakfast on the table. Lunch being packed. “Where’s Tyler?”
“In the tub. Why is the dog here? What is going on?”
He went straight to the bathroom door, pulled off his watch cap and leaned his ear against the wood, relieved to hear the sounds of a little boy playing with ships in the water on the other side. He checked both bedrooms and the hall closet before rejoining Katie in the main room. “Someone tried to break in.”
“Inside the building?”
“At your front door. I must have scared him off.” Her knuckles turned white around the dog’s leash. He should be outside, checking for signs of the intruder’s escape route, making sure he wasn’t still lurking in the building. But he couldn’t leave Katie unprotected, not until he understood what the hell was going on and had a plan to deal with it. “He’d gotten your knob unlocked. Fortunately, you had the dead bolt in place. You didn’t hear anything?”
“No. I was running a bath for Tyler.”
Speaking of, a barefoot boy in superhero underpants ran out of the bathroom. “Padre!”
“Tyler,” Katie cautioned, “where are your clothes?”
“Mom, Padre came to see me.” Dropping to his knees, he hugged his arms around the dog’s neck. There was licking and giggling and tail wagging and petting before Tyler jumped to his feet and the dog bounded after him. “Come on, boy. Let’s eat.”
Tyler paused to give Trent a quick hug around his hips, then ran back to follow the dog as Padre sniffed his way around the apartment. The little boy stopped at the table to scoop up a forkful of scrambled eggs and stuff it into his mouth. Then he stabbed another bite and dropped it to the floor, where the skinny dog gobbled it up.
“Tyler,” Katie chided. “Not at the table.” She hurried to the kitchen window, where Trent was pulling open the blinds to check outside. Where had that guy disappeared to? If he was still inside, Trent would have to do a room-to-room search, and with eighteen apartments in this building, the guy could stay one step ahead of him, sneaking out while he cleared each space. If he’d already made his escape... “Padre can’t be in here. Tyler, you need to finish dressing before you catch a cold.” She latched on to Trent’s sleeve when he brushed past her to get another view from her bedroom window. “This isn’t a friendly visit for Tyler’s sake, is it? What’s going on?” When she peeked out the window behind him, her tone changed from suspiciously annoyed to simply suspicious. “Who are you looking for?”
Trent looked over the top of her head to see a blur of movement. Son of a... The alarm in his blood reengaged. He caught Katie by the shoulders and turned her attention to the man in a long coat stumbling through the snow. “Him, Katie. Do you recognize him?”
Trent was already backing toward the door as she shook her head and faced him. “Who’s that? Why is he running?”
“I intend to find out.” Trent pulled open the apartment door. “Lock up behind me. No one comes in except me.”
“Trent—”
“Lock it, Katie!”
He had to get to that pervert before he reached whatever vehicle he was headed for. Once he heard the secure click of the dead bolt sliding into place, Trent booked it into overtime, running down the stairs, skipping a few with each stride. He shoved open the outside door and rushed straight across the snowy ground. “Police! Stop!”
The man with the dress shoes might have cold feet, but he was fast. He dashed across the street and climbed into a black sports car. He had the engine revving before Trent reached the pavement. What the hell? Who was this guy? What did he want with Katie?
Trent held up his badge and pulled his gun. “Police! Get out of the car!”
But the perp showed no signs of cooperating. He jerked his wheels to the left and floored it.
Trent planted his feet and took aim as the driver swerved out of his parking stall. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!”
He squinted and turned his face from the pelting of slush and ice crystals. The car roared down the street, and by the time Trent could look back and get a bead on the fishtailing back tires, he realized he didn’t have a clear shot. There were too many people around, frozen in their morning routines, some ducking behind their vehicles, others standing in open ground, staring at him—including the curvy brunette with her face pressed to the second-story window.
“Son of a...” His breath whooshed out on a frustrated curse as the car veered around the corner and sped away. There wasn’t even time to get to his truck and get turned around to pursue the suspect.
But he wasn’t about to give up on finding the answers he needed and putting a stop to the danger escalating around Katie and Tyler. With a wave of reassurance to the people around him, Trent holstered his weapon and pulled out his phone.
Max’s gruff voice answered. “It’s early, junior, and I’m in bed with my wife. This better be good.”
“Apologies to Rosie. I need you to run a plate for me.”
The tenor of Max’s tone changed instantly and Trent imagined his partner rolling out of bed with an urgency belying his burly stature. “You need backup? Everything okay?”
“No. But I’m not sure what I’m dealing with yet.” He strode back up the sidewalk “A guy just tried to pick the lock on Katie’s apartment. He drove off after I chased him from the building.”
“Hell, I’d run, too, if I had a defensive tackle chasing me down,” Max teased, writing down the number Trent gave him.
His partner didn’t even question that he was at Katie’s this early in the morning. “The perp matched the general description of the guy taking pictures at the theater last night. I want to know why he was here.”
“I’m on it. You stay with her. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.” He heard Max exchanging a kiss and muttering some kind of explanation to his wife. “Anything else?”
“Just get me the info, Max.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks, brother.”
Katie was waiting for him when he knocked on her door. Trent pushed inside and locked it behind him. Baggy plaid flannel draping over those generous breasts shouldn’t trigger this instant desire in him, but he’d had a lot of practice ignoring those traitorous impulses around Katie. It was harder, though, to ignore the concern in those wide blue eyes, or to turn away from the wary frown that dimpled her forehead. Trent pulled off his glove and brushed her hair away from her worried expression. He’d barely felt a sample of her warm, velvety skin before she pulled away from his touch.
“Did you catch him?” she whispered, darting her eyes toward Tyler and Padre playing on the floor beside the Christmas tree.
Right. The rules. Although Trent wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and feel with his own two hands that she was safe, she was in touch-me-not mode this morning. He shook his head and unzipped his coat before crossing to check the lock on the kitchen window. “I got the plate number on his car, so hopefully it’ll be enough to ID this guy.”
He peered outside to see the sun glinting off the snow and the world turning back to normal before heading through the apartment to ensure that all the access points were secure. A parade of mom, dog and boy followed him through the apartment.
“How did he get in?” Katie asked.
“It’s not that hard if you bide your time and have a charming smile.”
“He conned his way in here?” She snapped her fingers and shooed Tyler and Padre across the hall when they reached her bedroom. “Clothes. Now, young man.” Departing on a three-toned sigh, Tyler grabbed Padre’s collar and went into his room. Once she was certain her son was changing for school, Katie tugged on the sleeve of Trent’s coat and pulled him into her bedroom. “You’re going to scare Tyler if you keep this up.”
The fresh, flowery scent that was all Katie was stronger in here. But he conquered the urge to draw in a deep, savoring breath and crossed to the curtains to secure the window and fire escape outside. “The dog will distract him.”
“Not entirely. He’s a sensitive kid.” He shivered at the touch of her fingers at the nape of his neck. But what he’d mistaken for a caress was pure practicality. She held up a palmful of road slush that was melting on his collar, then carried it over to the damp towel tossed across the bed from her morning shower to wipe her hand. “My God, you’re a cold mess. You were out there all night, weren’t you?”
“Most of it.”
“I thought I saw your truck. I couldn’t sleep, either, after our...discussion.” She reached up and used the towel to dab at the moisture still beading on his neck and jaw. Ah, hell. Now, that was a caress. Goose bumps prickled across his skin in the wake of her touch, and her soft sigh teased something deeper inside. But she must have realized she’d crossed the very boundary she’d asked him to respect and quickly pulled away to stuff the towel into the hamper in her closet. Her shoulders came back with a forced resolve and she crossed to the desk she used as a home office. She picked up a stack of papers from the printer there.
“So I did some work, too. I compiled a list of Leland Asher’s known associates and ran them through my database to see if there were any hits that matched up. I’ve been doing it backward—lining up the cases and then looking for connections between them to pop. This time I plugged in a bunch of suspect names we’ve been tossing around and ran them through the cold case data.”
Fine. They were safe for now. He couldn’t do a damn thing until he heard back from Max. So he let her turn the conversation to work. “Did you find anything?”
Katie nodded and handed him the papers. “Isabel Asher—Leland’s sister—was a sorority sister of Beverly Eisenbach’s at, get this, Williams College.”
He thumbed through the stack. “The place where you and Tyler are doing the play?”
She pointed to the grainy printout from a twenty-five-year-old college annual. “The blonde in the front row is Isabel. Dr. Eisenbach is on the far left.”
“Eisenbach’s the shrink who counseled Matt Asher and Stephen March as teens?” He recognized the younger images of the two women who’d each held a spot on the person of interest board at the squad’s team meeting earlier in the week. “You think that’s how Dr. Eisenbach and Leland met? Through Isabel?”
“You’d have to ask Bev Eisenbach to find that out.” She pointed to the date at the bottom of the photo. “But there’s a reasonable chance that she knew the Asher family years before she counseled Leland’s nephew. This is dated before he was even born. Maybe she’s more than Leland’s latest girlfriend. Having the previous acquaintance could be the reason he selected her to counsel his nephew, Matt. But if they’ve known each other since they were in their twenties, isn’t it possible that their relationship has gone on for a lot longer than we realized? Maybe she counseled Leland for some reason—grief, stress, dealing with his sister’s addiction? She might have confidential information on him that we could use in our investigation. Maybe he even confessed to some of his crimes, or the hits we suspect he paid for. Dr. Eisenbach’s practice is one of the offices I’ve sent requests to for information. They confirmed that Matt Asher and Stephen March were former patients, but any requests for a complete patient list have been ignored.”
“This is good stuff, sunshine. Maybe even enough to ask the lieutenant for a warrant to get a look at Eisenbach’s records.” Trent looked at another picture, this time of a young man with long blond hair or a blond wig, dressed in a Shakespearean costume. “What’s this?” The actor’s dark, beady eyes looked familiar. “Is this the Grim Reaper?”
Katie hugged her arms in front of her, clearly feeling a little less comfortable with this piece of information. “Francis Sergel about twenty-five years ago. I found him through my facial recognition software.”
Trent squinted the name beneath the theater program picture into focus. “Frank Reinhardt?”
“Sergel must be a stage name he adopted. Looks like he’s playing Hamlet.”
Trent couldn’t imagine that walking, talking skeleton of a man playing anything heroic. “He has ties to Asher?”
“Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor didn’t ask me to pursue him as a suspect, so I didn’t exactly have permission to dig through criminal records. But after the last few nights at the theater, I wanted to know if I should be worried about him.”
Was that what had her squirming inside her own skin—that she’d broken a procedure rule? “I’ll request it.”
She offered up a wan smile. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem. I didn’t like Sergel or that Doug Price, either. I want to make sure they check out.” He flipped to the next page and skimmed the information. “So Sergel, er, Reinhardt, has a record?”
“Minor stuff. Nothing violent. Possession of narcotics. A DUI. He never went to prison. It was all time served and community service. And court-ordered NA meetings.”
“Like Stephen March.” And Isabel Asher. And any of a number of pushers and addicts who’d worked for and bought from and crossed paths with Asher’s criminal empire.
“A decade earlier, but yes.” She sank onto the edge of her bed as if her legs had grown too weak to hold her. She’d made the same realization he had. The team’s idea of a Strangers on a Train setup behind several of their unsolved crimes could no longer be discounted as a mere theory. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
Trent knelt on the carpet in front of her, relieved to see that she didn’t swat away a comforting touch when he rested his hand on her knee. “Cold cases are built on circumstantial evidence more than anything else. There are an awful lot of circumstances that your research has linked together. Now we just have to prove that Leland Asher is behind it all.”
Her gaze met his and she tried to smile. “Good luck with that.”
“Look, I’m going to take this information and run with it. I’ll get Sergel and Price and Dr. Eisenbach and maybe even Leland himself all in for interviews. We’ll get the doctor’s patient list and see if she counseled Leland. We’ll make a case against Asher and put him back in prison where he belongs.” He stroked his fingers over the gray wool of her slacks. “But my immediate concern is those threats you’ve been getting. I’ve got a call in to Max to see if he can run down the name of that guy who got away. You didn’t recognize him, did you?”
“From the back? Running away?”
“He was wearing dress shoes instead of snow boots. Like the photographer you saw at the theater.”
The telephone on her bedside table rang and she jumped. Trent squeezed her knee before standing up and giving her the space to move around the bed and answer it. “So that’s why he looked at my driver’s license.”
“If it’s the same guy who defaced your laptop, yeah. It’d be easy to find you.” Trent caught her by the hand before she left him entirely. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into packing a bag for you and Tyler and moving in with me until this all blows over? It’s hell sleeping in my truck, and your couch isn’t big enough.”
He needed her to read between the lines of his teasing tone and understand he was drop-dead serious. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not leaving you alone.
Her fingers trembled for a moment inside his grasp before she pulled away and picked up the cordless receiver from its cradle. “Hello? Yes?” Trent watched the color drain from her face. “Who is this? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Katie?”
She punched the button to put the call on speakerphone and held the receiver between them as an electronically altered voice filled the room. “—want to hurt you, Katie Lee. But you’ve left me no choice. I know what scares you. The dark. A syringe. Your murdering father. Losing your child.”
Trent dropped the photos Katie had printed out and grabbed the phone from her hand. “This is the police. Who is this?”
He gritted his teeth at the answering laugh. “You were warned. Even your boyfriend’s not going to be able to save you now.”
The click of the disconnecting call echoed across the room. Trent hung up her phone and pulled his from his coat. He’d call Max again to find out who’d just dialed her number. Although he’d bet good money this wraith stalking Katie had used an untraceable cell.
Katie sank to her knees, crawling across the carpet to pick up the photos. “He’s not going to hurt you, sunshine. I won’t let him.” His partner picked up. “Max?”
But Katie was more focused on some distant point inside her head than in any kind of shock. She sat back on her heels and crumpled the papers in her fist. “It’s these.”
“Pictures? Printouts? The mess I made?” After relaying the message to Max, Trent picked up the rest of the papers and tried to understand the wheels turning in her head. “You’re not talking to me, woman. What do you mean?”
She blinked and brought those cornflower-blue eyes into focus on him. “It’s the research I’m doing on these cold case files.” She braced her hand on his shoulder to stand and hurried to her computer. Trent followed, anxious to catch up on her train of thought. “I’ve opened up the wrong can of worms somewhere—I’ve breached some piece of information I shouldn’t have. That’s what he wants me to stop.”
Trent looked over her shoulder as she booted up her computer, plugged in her portable hard drive and turned on the hot-spot security device. “The brass isn’t about to stop a criminal investigation. Even if the lieutenant takes you off the case and reassigns you, we’ll still be going after Asher. Are you sure?”
“Every time I ping another database, every time I send an email request—that’s when he contacts me.” With the equipment in place, she tucked her hair behind her ears and went to work. “I need to run a full system diagnostic. It may be on my computer at work, too. He’s mirroring me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Somebody’s tapped into my computer. Or maybe the portable hard drive. Even if he’s not copying my data, he can see what sites I go to. He’s been tracking every movement I make online.”
“How can you tell?”
She’d gotten into the belly of the programming now and was scrolling through code. “Every time I get a little more information about Leland Asher, every time I discover another piece of the puzzle that can build our case against him, something happens. That man at the theater. Vandalizing my laptop. He’s tracking me somehow. Either visually or online.”
Stop what you’re doing, the message had said. “They want you to stop investigating Leland Asher?”
She pointed to the gibberish on the screen. “It’s all right here. But I’ve been too distracted to see it. It’s a virus, a replicating virus that copies everything I do to another computer. Someone got close enough to my laptop or portable hard drive to plant it.”
“At the theater? There’s too much security at HQ.”
“I don’t know. I may be able to track down the source.” Her fingers were flying over the keyboard, clicking on icons and typing in commands he didn’t understand. “I need to notify tech support at work to sweep the systems, just in case they’ve found a back door into the KCPD network. But there are enough safeguards that that might be difficult, even for an experienced hacker. More likely, it’s my personal account that’s been...”
She picked up the hot-spot device and turned it over. “Do you have your pocketknife?”
Trent reached into the pocket of his jeans to retrieve the knife. He marveled at the woman’s intelligence as she pried open the device. “Katie?”
She dropped the pieces onto the desk and sank back in her chair. Trent didn’t have to be a genius like her to see that the innards weren’t connected, so it hadn’t blocked any intrusive signals. She could have been hacked almost anywhere if that wasn’t working—at the coffee shop, at the theater, at home.
He pried the open knife from her grip. “Where did you buy that thing? Who would have access to disable it besides you?”
“Anybody. I bought it months ago. I keep it in my bag. If they could get to my laptop, they could get to the hot-spot device. Then I’d be as vulnerable as if I had no security on my computer components at all. I am so going to lose my job over this, aren’t I?” She closed her hands into fists. “Such a screwup.”
“You’re not,” he insisted. He dropped down on one knee beside her and captured her jaw between his thumb and fingers to turn her gaze toward his. “This just means there’s somebody who thinks he’s as smart as you out there. He’s a lot more calculating and doesn’t give a damn about who he hurts.” He tightened his grasp and pulled her forward to meet his kiss. Katie’s lips were full and sweet and shyly responsive in a way that shattered the caution around his heart and kindled a fire in his blood. “I believe in you, sunshine. Maybe this is a break in the investigation, an opportunity to trace it back to some hacker with ties to Asher. Now take a deep breath and figure this out.”
Her hands came up to cup his face and she smiled. “I don’t know why you’re so good to me.”
“That’s easy.” He leaned in to kiss that worry dimple on her forehead. “Because I lo—”
“Wait a minute.” Trent reeled in the ill-timed confession as a new idea reenergized her. He folded the knife blade and returned it to the safety of his jeans pocket while Katie went back to her keyboard. “I should be able to track back to the date the device was disabled. The time should help us zero in on a location and who could have—”
She drew back with a gasp, her hands raised as row after row of words scrolled across her computer. After the first line, they were the same words, repeating over and over and over until they filled the screen.
Stop, Katie.
Die, Katie.
Die, Katie.
Die, Katie.
Die, Katie.
Die, Katie.
“Trent?”
“Son of a bitch.” Trent pulled her to her feet. He wanted to smash the monitor to erase the threats she’d somehow triggered. He would have ripped the whole thing out of the wall and tossed it across the room if some little sane part of his brain hadn’t remembered he was a cop, looking at a desk full of key evidence. “Log out of there. Do something. Fast.”
Katie quickly shut down her Wi-Fi connection and pulled the cable connecting her router to the internet. He turned off the screen himself before she backed into him. His arms instantly went around her. “Easy, sunshine. You’re okay.”
She shook her head, the nylon of his coat rustling against her hair. “Why is this happening to me? I’m just one little cog on the team. I’m background. I’m nobody. We’re all trying to solve cold cases and connect them to Leland Asher. All I do is the research. Why was that man here? Why is he trying to scare me?”
Probably because they were getting closer to the truth, closer to making a major case against Asher stick. And someone in Asher’s camp was targeting Katie because she was the weakest link on the team—she hadn’t had police training and she didn’t carry a gun, but she was vital to proving that there was nothing alleged about the mob boss and his illegal activities. “Their time to shut us down is running out. Asher gets released from prison today.”
She shook within his grasp. He knew the moment she decided she needed him more than she needed the distance between them. Turning in his arms, Katie shoved open the front of his coat and burrowed against his chest. Her fingers clenched in the layers of his shirts and the skin and muscle underneath. Trent threaded his fingers through her damp waves and cradled the back of her head, dropping his lips to the fragrant sunshine of her hair, holding her tightly against his strength.
“Mom? Are you okay?” a soft voice whispered from the open doorway. Despite the grip he had on Padre’s collar, Tyler’s eyes were wide with concern. Smart kid. He could see his mother was scared.
He just prayed the boy couldn’t see that Trent was more than a little frightened for Katie, too.
“I’m okay, sweetie,” Katie answered, her voice strong to reassure her son. “I just got some bad news.” She tried to push away, but Trent wasn’t budging.
Instead, he held his hand out to the little boy. “You’re going to come stay at my house for a couple days, buddy. Okay?”
With a nod that didn’t quite erase his frown, Tyler left the dog and ran across the room to hug Katie. She lifted her son into her arms and Trent wrapped them both in his shielding embrace.