24

Jackson shouted Avery’s name while Mitch pounded on the front door of her house. They’d watched the lights come on, one by one, from the front seat of his Honda parked in a neighbor’s driveway nearby, but they had no idea what she was looking for.

A muffled cry from inside confirmed that whatever she’d found wasn’t good.

The sound of splintering wood ripped through the quiet of the night as Mitch kicked in the door. Jackson let his eyes adjust to the light as he stepped through the threshold, the urgency to find her growing.

“Avery!”

He found her sprawled on the kitchen floor, still dressed in her pajamas, with blood running down her arm.

Glass crunched beneath his shoes as he bridged the distance between them. He squatted down beside her. “Avery? What happened?”

Her eyes opened and she looked up at him, seeming disoriented. “Someone . . . someone was in the house. He attacked me.”

“Where did he go?” Mitch gripped his gun at his side.

“I don’t know.”

“Stay with her. I’ll check the house.” Mitch disappeared down the basement steps, while Jackson slowly helped Avery into a sitting position.

He knelt on the floor next to her and pulled her into his arms, lifting up a prayer of thanks that they’d gotten to her in time. But as much as he wanted to hold her, he had to find out how badly she was injured. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest. Her breathing came in rapid bursts.

He brushed back a strand of hair from her forehead, careful to avoid the goose egg developing, and caught the look of fear in her eyes. “Everything is going to be okay. You’re safe. And if someone else is still in the house, Mitch will find them.”

“I need to help.”

She tried to pull herself up, but he stopped her. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until I find out where you’re hurt.”

She reached up and pressed her hands on either side of her head. Blood ran down her forearm, forming a long jagged trail before dripping onto the floor. “He knocked me around a bit, but I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay. Your arm is bleeding, and you’ve got a lump on your head. Where else are you hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

Jackson took her wrists carefully and pulled her against him. “What did he do to you, Avery?”

“Grabbed me from behind and left me with a few bad bruises.”

“You must have hit the tile when you fell. Stay here for a moment.”

Thankfully, she didn’t argue as Jackson got up, pulled open a couple of drawers, and found a dishtowel. He soaked it in warm water from the faucet and wrung it out before carrying her to one of the chairs in the dining room, making sure she didn’t step on the glass in her bare feet.

Jackson held up her arm to see where the blood was coming from. He pulled out a shard of glass an inch square. “You’re lucky. You’ll probably need stitches, but this piece could have done some serious damage.”

Avery winced as he set the glass on the table and wiped away the blood from her arm. “You never told me what you’re doing here.”

“Rescuing you.”

“What did you and Mitch do? Spend the night in my front yard?”

“I talked to Mitch, and we both decided that while you might not have wanted to think the card was a threat toward you personally, we weren’t willing to take any chances. So we grabbed some junk food and caffeine and hunkered down for the night.”

“I suppose I could have offered my couch and a couple sleeping bags.”

“We agreed that you might argue over the fact that you needed protection.”

“I can’t imagine why you would think that.”

“I can.” Jackson pressed the cloth against her arm, still trying to stop the bleeding. “Besides, I would have shown up this morning anyway. That was a promise I made to your father. He asked me to keep an eye on you and make sure you’re okay while he looked out for Tess.”

Avery rested her arm against the oak table and sighed. “So what, in the end it’s easier to ask forgiveness than get permission?”

“Pretty much.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll answer all your questions later, but for now, I’m calling an ambulance.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital, Jackson.”

He caught her gaze and shook his head. “Like you didn’t need the two of us standing guard tonight?”

She reached out and traced her finger along the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I hate feeling vulnerable, and tonight . . . you were right. He got into my head.”

“You have every right to feel the way you do. That’s why we’re here.”

He laced her fingers between his own and, as soon as the 911 operator answered, gave instructions for where to send the ambulance and police backup. It was going to be a long time before he was willing to let her out of his sight.

Mitch came back into the kitchen. “Whoever it was is gone, but he left a huge mess downstairs.”

Avery leaned into Jackson’s chest, her body language matching the fatigue in her eyes. “Can you tell how he got in?”

“The alarm didn’t go off, so we can assume that he found a way to disarm the system.”

Jackson wrapped his arms around Avery, careful to avoid the gash on her arm that had finally stopped bleeding. “How would he do that?”

“We’ve seen it before. Professional thieves gain access to the schematics of particular security alarm systems, either via the internet or an employee of the security company. His entry point was one of the windows in the basement. Bottom line is that this guy knew what he was doing.”

“So much for my high-tech alarm system.”

Mitch leaned against one of the bar stools. “Did you get a good look at him?”

“No. He grabbed me from behind, and I was never able to see his face because it was covered with a ski mask. I do know that he was taller than me by several inches. Stocky and solidly built.”

“I guess that’s a starting point. We’ll go through the house and see if we can come up with something else, but this wasn’t some low-life thug from off the street. We’ll be lucky if we come up with a fingerprint.”

Avery checked the jagged gash on her arm. “I want to look downstairs. Clearly he was after something.”

While she might be right, Jackson wasn’t convinced she needed to do anything but wait for the ambulance. “You can do that later. Your house is secure for now, which means any clues he left behind will be here when you get back.”

She shot him a weak smile. “I’m okay. Really. I need to do this. The quicker we can find out who broke in, the further ahead we’ll be.”

Jackson found himself relenting. “You have until the ambulance arrives, okay?”

“Okay, boss.”

Jackson grabbed a pair of flip-flops for her from beside the back door, then helped her downstairs with Mitch following behind. While he hadn’t found any other significant injuries, there was a good chance she had a concussion, and that had him worried. Maybe he was being overprotective, but the last thing she needed was to lose her balance on the narrow staircase.

Downstairs, she stopped in front of the window where glass lay shattered across the top of the desk. The burglar’s point of entry. Photos had been rummaged through, the crime board marked through with a black marker, and her painting dumped onto the floor.

“Avery?” He watched while she examined the damage without touching anything. “You okay?”

“For the moment. I’ll have to deal with my emotions later. For now, we need to figure out why he was here and what he took.”

Mitch stood in the corner of the room, hands clenched at his sides and a scowl written across his face. It was clear he didn’t appreciate anyone messing with his partner.

Jackson moved to stand beside her. “Tell me what you notice.”

“I had three files sitting on the upper left-hand corner of my desk. All three are missing.”

“Good. That gives us a place to start. What were the cases?”

“The first one was my notes from our current investigation.”

“And the second file?”

“It was related to the Browning case.” Her leg started shaking.

Jackson rolled the black office chair toward her. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Instead of arguing like he expected, Avery sank into the office chair. “Until about a month ago, it was classified as a cold case. Sarah Browning was murdered in her bedroom five years ago, and even though most of the evidence pointed to her husband, the prosecutor was never able to get a conviction. I pulled out my personal notes from the case a few days ago because some new evidence surfaced recently. Mr. Browning is going to be tried for the murder of his wife, and I was going to be a witness for the prosecution.”

“And the third file?”

Avery heard Jackson’s question and tried to force her mind to focus. To bring order to the chaos surrounding her so she could make sense of what she had found. But nothing added up. Her head hurt, her ears were ringing, and the cut on her arm ached along with every muscle in her body. But as awful as she felt, she wasn’t ready to stop yet. “Michael’s case.”

“Anything significant?” Jackson asked.

Avery rubbed the back of her neck. “I was following a new lead regarding a witness. He was named in one of the reports, but I never found any record of a follow-up or mention of his name in any of the other reports. His name was . . . Ben. Ben Jacobs.”

“Did you tell anyone about this Jacobs?”

She tried to answer Mitch’s question, but thinking hurt. “Besides my father, I made a few phone calls trying to track him down. But it’s no secret that I’ve been investigating Michael’s death.”

“Did you find Jacobs?”

“Not yet, but I do know that he’s been in and out of prison, with no evident connection that I’ve been able to find to Michael’s death or his undercover role. I started putting out some feelers. I planned to follow up on any information I could get, which so far isn’t much. Which leads us back to our current case. It’s the only option that makes sense.” She caught the concern in Jackson’s eyes while she spoke. “For some reason, he went upstairs, encountered me in the kitchen. If the two of you hadn’t shown up . . .”

No. She wouldn’t think about what could have happened if the two of them hadn’t arrived when they did.

Sirens loomed in the distance.

Jackson reached for her hand. “You’re not going to argue, are you?”

Avery shot him a half smile that managed to only make her head hurt worse. “Between you and Mitch, I don’t think I have a choice.”