Taylor stared at the swirling crowd. “I need to leave.”
She could have made a mistake. It was more than likely the man she had seen sidling through the crowded nightclub had been familiar on a professional level, not a personal one. Maybe an agent or a narcotics cop working Cold Peak’s nightclub scene.
When Fischer’s fingers closed on hers, she didn’t argue. After a quick detour to let Mandy and Dane know they were leaving, they threaded their way outside.
Fischer released her the second they stepped outside. Taylor positioned her handbag to give her easier access to the gun if she needed it. She skimmed the crowded café tables set out on the sidewalk and the groups of teenagers spilling out onto the street, but there was no sign of the man she’d seen in the nightclub.
They turned a corner and strolled toward Fischer’s truck, footsteps echoing in the empty street. With every step the sound of the nightclub receded, but Taylor couldn’t relax. For a split second the man she’d glimpsed had seemed familiar.
Maybe what she was feeling was just another stage of paranoia. But with her track record, she couldn’t afford to make assumptions.
A buzzing sound broke the silence. Fischer flipped his phone open and set it against his ear.
A monosyllabic reply later and he slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Sorry about that. Business.”
At eleven o’clock at night? “I thought your business was personal training.”
He shrugged. “I don’t spend all of my time in gyms.”
The sound of a window closing in one of the apartments overhead made the skin at her nape tighten. Both times she had been shot it had been from apartment buildings. The ones in Cold Peak weren’t as high or as elaborate as either of the buildings in Washington or Wilmington had been, but they were high enough to do the job.
She felt warmth down her back as Fischer moved closer, his proximity distracting.
“Anything wrong?”
She scanned the apartment block. Four up, six across. Twenty-four balconies. Her attention dropped to the parking area out front and the service alley to one side, both of which were well lit. Common sense told her that if there was a shooter, he would be opening a window to get a clear shot, not closing it. “Nothing. I just like to watch my back.”
“Anything to do with this?”
His fingers brushed the scar just below her shoulder blade and adrenaline surged for the second time that evening. The scar was still ultrasensitive, but that didn’t explain the intensity of her reaction, or the sudden conviction that he knew it was a bullet wound. She stepped away, reestablishing her personal space. “It’s nothing. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Fischer’s truck pulled up at the curb outside her front gate. The light she’d left on in the kitchen glowed warmly, but that wasn’t what compelled her attention. Beneath the glare of street lighting the pale glow of paper strewn on the sidewalk in front of Letty’s gate was clearly visible.
Taylor climbed out of the truck and walked over to examine the litter, which turned out to be a collection of envelopes and advertising flyers which had obviously dropped out of Letty’s mailbox. A breeze must have blown the mail across the sidewalk.
Looping the strap of her handbag over one shoulder, she gathered up the papers. When she straightened, she noticed one of the curtains had been partially pulled aside, leaving a gap of a few inches. The previous day, when she had walked around the house to speak to Hansen, the curtains had been pulled.
Shoving the mail down in a pile beneath the mailbox, she glanced at Fischer, who had stepped out of the truck. “Something’s wrong. Wait here.”
She extracted the Glock from her purse, no longer concerned with hiding her enforcement background. The metallic snap as she chambered a round was preternaturally loud as she strode down the front path. Surveying the blank windows and the shadowed areas to either side of the house, she stepped up onto the porch and tried the door. It was locked. A faint scraping sound jerked her head around. Fischer had followed her. She caught the gleam of a key in his hand.
“It was under a pot plant. People are predictable.”
Not always, she thought grimly, as he stepped past her, unlocked the door and pushed it open in one smooth motion.
Glock still in a two-handed grip, she stepped past Fischer and stumbled to a halt as the stench hit her in a wave. Cold light from the streetlamps washed across the hall. Letty was lying crumpled on the hall runner, one side of her head oddly misshapen.
With her hand clamped over her nose and mouth, she crouched down to get a closer look at the wound and the dark stain on the carpet, then rose to her feet and backed out of the hallway onto the front step, taking care not to touch anything.
Judging from the lack of blood, Letty had died instantly. The fact that the blood was dried meant she had been dead for some time, at least a couple of days. In all likelihood she had died the day Buster had moved into Taylor’s place, which meant her body had been here when Taylor had done her nighttime circuit of the house.
The implications began to pile up. If Letty had been dead that long, that meant someone else had moved the curtains, and not just on one occasion but over a period of time. The cold-blooded nature of a murderer who had either stayed in the house, or returned after committing the crime, not once, but on at least two occasions, added a level of calculation to the crime that made her feel queasy.
She reached for her cell phone, but Fischer was already calling the cops. Gulping in fresh air, she stepped back into the house.
Fischer’s hand clamped around her arm, halting her before she got more than a half step into the hall. “I’ll go first.”
She considered arguing, then decided against it. Fischer was physically fit, with a cold toughness that was becoming more and more evident. He didn’t have a gun or her enforcement expertise but, if the murderer was still inside the house, she couldn’t ask for better backup.
Flattening herself against the wall, she let Fischer glide past. A thin flicker of light indicated that he had a penlight, which meant they wouldn’t need to risk switching on lights and thereby compromising any prints left on the light switches. Cold Peak’s finest would have a fit when they found out they had walked through their crime scene, but after what had happened in Wilmington—even though the M.O. was totally different—Taylor needed to know if Letty’s killing could in any way be related to the two attempts on her life.
Keeping one hand clamped over her nose and mouth, she followed in Fischer’s silent wake and began a systematic check of the house. The sitting room was a mess, the television, VCR and stereo gone. Within seconds she had established that the spare room downstairs and the upstairs bedrooms were undisturbed, which made sense if this had been a simple appliance theft. The bedrooms were filled with heavy, old-fashioned furniture; there wasn’t a piece of digital equipment in sight.
Aside from the sitting room, the kitchen was the only room that wasn’t as neat as a pin. The remains of a meal and a number of dirty plates and utensils littered the table and the kitchen counter was covered in dishes that had been washed but not put away.
The scene in the kitchen didn’t make sense. From the partially filled sink and the already cleaned dishes stacked in a drainer, it looked like Letty had finished her evening meal and had been in the process of drying and putting away dishes, which didn’t explain why a fresh mess had been made.
Unless the killer had decided to help himself to a meal from the leavings in Letty’s fridge.
As repulsive as the thought was, if that was the case, it was manna from heaven for the Cold Peak PD. Lifting prints off the crockery and cutlery would be child’s play.
When Fischer jerked his head toward the door, Taylor followed him out. As she skirted Letty’s body she noticed a kitchen towel lying on the hall floor and the picture of what had happened became clear. Letty must have been in the kitchen drying dishes when the doorbell had rung. She had opened the front door with a towel in her hand; the thief had hit her on the head, then walked inside. He had stolen the TV, VCR and the stereo, then helped himself to a meal.
The assault appeared to be a straightforward blow to the head with a blunt instrument, no exotic weapons, no weird aberrations, just old-fashioned brute force mixed with a dose of miscalculation that had shunted the Cold Peak appliance thefts into the murder category. Although that didn’t explain why the killer had come back to the house later. Revisiting the scene of the crime wasn’t the kind of behavior practiced by appliance thieves, unless there was more to steal. That clearly hadn’t been the case here because, aside from the sitting room, the rest of the house appeared to be intact and the Buick was still parked in the garage.
Cold congealed in her stomach when she realized that the killer must have been in residence when she had walked around Letty’s house in the dark. With Letty dead and the house securely locked, that was the only explanation for the curtains that had moved. It also pointed to the fact that the killer had either stayed there for at least two days or else come back again at intervals, which posed the burning question: Why?
Apart from that aberration, it seemed cut-and-dried that Letty had been just one more victim in the rash of appliance thefts in Cold Peak, only this time she’d had the misfortune to be at home when the perpetrator had called.
Taylor gulped a mouthful of fresh air as she stepped outside and relief hit her in a surge. Maybe relief was an odd emotion to feel when her next-door neighbor had been brutally murdered, but the nature of the crime underlined the fact that the murder couldn’t have had anything to do with her.
Fischer folded his phone closed and slipped it into his jeans pocket. “Are you all right?”
“Not entirely.”
Letty had deserved to live out her final years in peace and dignity. Instead she had been struck down, her body left sprawled on her hall floor, and all for a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of secondhand goods that she could have replaced with an insurance claim.
What had happened hadn’t been particularly gruesome or even shocking, but the fact that she had known and liked Letty made the murder personal. The conversations over the fence and the quiet presence of the older lady had helped anchor Taylor in Cold Peak when she hadn’t been certain she would be able to settle anywhere.
The distant sound of a siren cut through the night air. Seconds later a cruiser parked outside Letty’s gate.
Fischer leaned in close. His breath feathered her cheek, and for a crazy moment she thought he was going to kiss her, until she met the remote flatness in his eyes.
“Give me the gun.” In a slick movement he loosened her fingers and slipped the gun into the waistband at the back of his pants, letting his shirt cover the bulge it made.
The easy way he’d disarmed her and the smooth way he’d concealed the gun sent a ripple of unease through Taylor. But then it wasn’t the first time Fischer had surprised her. “You look like you know your way around weapons.”
“I was brought up on a farm, plus I used to shoot as a sport.”
His arm came around her waist as he urged her down the path toward the open gate. The second the heat of his palm burned through the silk of her top, her body reacted, shudders rolling through her in uncontrollable bursts. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d become walking through the dark rooms of Letty’s house.
The doors of the cruiser slammed and two uniforms appeared. The officers introduced themselves as Driscoll and Hart. Driscoll produced a notebook and began asking questions, while Hart retrieved a flashlight from the cruiser and went to have a look inside the house.
Taylor leaned against the bonnet of the cruiser, folding her arms across her chest to preserve warmth. Seconds later, Fischer, who had taken time out to lock the truck and stow the gun, draped a leather jacket he must have grabbed from behind the seat around her shoulders.
Fingers closing on the lapels, she hugged it around her, luxuriating in the soft leather and wallowing in the pooling warmth. Within seconds the deep shudders had stopped, although she was aware that she had been suffering from reaction as much as the cold. Trying to decide whether or not a hit man had moved in next door for the specific purpose of killing her didn’t make for a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Hart came back, looking queasy. He reached into the cruiser, grabbed the radio hand piece, confirmed the homicide and popped the trunk. Within minutes, Letty’s house and the backyard were sealed off with crime-scene tape and a second police vehicle, this one unmarked, had arrived.
Driscoll continued the interview, wanting names and contact details and a record of where they’d been that evening, along with the exact times, if they could supply them.
Fischer leaned against the side of the cruiser, his expression unreadable as he waited out Driscoll’s process. “You’re going to be looking at a time frame outside of the last twenty-four hours. She looks like she’s been dead a couple of days.”
“I’d go for three,” Taylor said flatly. “I haven’t seen Letty since I talked to her late Tuesday afternoon.”
Driscoll swore and yelled for Hart. When Hart backed up what Fischer had just said, he made a note and started all over again, increasing the scope of his questions.
Taylor stared at the clean line of Fischer’s jaw and his level, dark gaze as he answered the new raft of questions. Most men would be shaken by finding the victim of a homicide, but not Fischer. The cops even responded to him, which wasn’t always the case. When Fischer had seen Letty’s body, he had quietly assumed control, calling the Cold Peak PD, then insisting on taking point when they’d searched the house. He had also had the presence of mind to conceal her weapon. The action, protective as it had been, could have landed him in hot water. If the Cold Peak police had searched her handbag and found the weapon, she would have been able to pull some strings and smooth out the situation. If Fischer had been searched, he could have been arrested for carrying concealed. It was even possible he could have been held on suspicion of murder, despite the fact that a gun hadn’t been used to kill Letty.
Within minutes an ambulance arrived, followed by a news van. The reporter, a cocky young guy in jeans, lifted his camera. Taylor turned so he couldn’t catch more than the back of her head.
A plainclothes detective replaced Driscoll. Muir was older, with the calm, patient expression and the worn-down demeanor of a cop who had been in the job a lot longer than he’d bargained for. When Muir had finished taking their statements, Fischer indicated they should sit in the truck. Taylor was more than happy to comply. Even though it was still technically summer, the temperature had plummeted.
Fischer started the engine and turned on the heater, although as lightly dressed as he was in jeans and a shirt, he didn’t appear to feel the cold.
Taylor watched as the coroner went into the house, followed by the evidence techs who had been cooling their heels for the past half hour, waiting for him to arrive. Technically, they couldn’t start work until Letty was officially pronounced dead. A small crowd, comprised mostly of residents looking shell-shocked and wary, had gathered. She recognized Mr. Scanlon from across the road; Beth Graham, another neighbor; one of Letty’s bridge cronies.
At one in the morning the ambulance crew emerged from the house with Letty’s body zipped into a body bag. The stretcher was slotted into the rear of the ambulance and they left with lights flashing, but this time, no siren. Over the next few minutes the crowd quietly dispersed. The evidence team packed up and left, followed by the two uniformed cops.
Muir took time out to stop by the truck and update them. As far as the police were concerned, the discovery that Letty’s television, VCR and stereo were gone made the motivation for the crime cut-and-dried. It seemed clear that the killer hadn’t expected Letty to be home, probably because he’d had prior information that she was going away on vacation. He had pressed the doorbell as a precaution then had been surprised when Letty had opened the door.
Despite the fatality, the M.O. for the theft was familiar. More than half of the appliance thefts in Cold Peak had been from addresses where the occupants were away on vacation. That meant that whoever was committing the crimes had a system for finding out who was leaving town. Letty hadn’t had time to cancel her mail—or else she had forgotten that detail—but she had canceled her regular newspaper delivery. It was possible the thief had checked with the news agency and, when Letty had stopped the paper, moved in. Unfortunately, the theif had been a day early.
To Taylor’s mind, that didn’t answer all of the questions. The Cold Peak appliance thefts had been slick, which suggested that the perpetrator had kept risks to a minimum, although that didn’t rule out the idiot factor. A lot of crimes were solved through stupid mistakes, miscalculation and sheer panic on the part of the perp.
When Muir had gone, Fischer opened the glove compartment and handed her the Glock. “When was the last time you used the gun?”
“About six months ago.” Before she’d become a walking target.
“If you’re going to carry a weapon, you need to shoot regularly. There’s a shooting range just out of town. If you’re interested, I’ll take you Monday afternoon.”
He had a point. The biggest problem with handguns was losing proficiency through lack of practice. To be confident and accurate you had to practice regularly, something she hadn’t considered, and should have.
“Okay.” A shooting range she could handle. It was less like a date; it was home territory. With a practiced movement, she ejected the clip and stowed both the gun and the magazine in her handbag. “You haven’t asked me why I’m carrying a gun.”
His expression was unreadable. “I could say that I assumed the scar on your back was the reason, but the fact is I know who you are.”
Shock reverberated through Taylor. Suddenly, the way he’d stood back when she’d first gone in the door of Letty’s house made sense. Most men would have assumed a protective role and muscled her aside, and Fischer fitted that mold. She hadn’t fixed on his behavior at the time because her need to find out exactly what had happened had been too urgent. “What do you mean you know who I am?”
“You’re a distinctive-looking woman. I was in D.C. when you got shot.”
The story hadn’t been front-page news but, according to Bayard, one of the major tabloids had gotten hold of her photo. The story had also aired on local television and radio stations. There had always been a risk that the publicity surrounding her shooting would compromise her security. It was a miracle that someone hadn’t recognized her sooner. “How long have you known?”
“I recognized you the first day.”
Her jaw tightened. “I need to know if you’ve told anyone.”
His expression turned from guarded to remote. “First off, I don’t make a habit of endangering federal officers. Secondly, given what happened, it’s an easy bet you’re on Witness Security.”
She stared at the line of his profile, every cell on high alert. “You said you had a business. What is it?”
“I’m an ex Navy SEAL. I run a security business out of D.C. These days I’m not required there all the time. It gives me the latitude to pursue a few personal goals.”
The second he said ex Navy SEAL, the final piece in the puzzle that was Steve Fischer slotted into place. When they’d searched Letty’s house he had reminded her of a cop, but a SEAL made even more sense, and it explained the pull of attraction. She had always gravitated toward dangerous, physical guys, and that was exactly what Fischer was. His background as a SEAL also explained why he’d chosen a place like Cold Peak as an alternative to D.C. The outdoor focus in Cold Peak, with the rock climbing and the skiing, and the physicality of the job at the gym, would fit perfectly with his training ethics. “What kind of security firm do you run?”
He reached into the glove compartment and handed her a business card. She studied the card in the glow of the streetlamp. She didn’t know the firm, which was based out of Georgetown, but she hadn’t expected to. Not that the details made much difference. As solid as Fischer seemed, that didn’t change the fact that she was compromised.
She pushed her door open, bracing herself against the wash of cool air. “Thanks for the date.”
She had inserted her house key in the lock when Fischer walked down her front path.
“You might need this.” He handed her her cashmere scarf, which she must have left in his truck. “If you don’t want to stay the night here you can come back to my place. Or I can book you a motel for the night.”
She took the wrap, pushed the door open and flicked on the hall light. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll be fine.” The fact that he knew her real identity was just one more reason not to take him up on the offer.
“I’ll give you my phone number, and my cell. Just in case.”
She watched as he wrote the details on the back of another one of his business cards and slipped it into her handbag. When she turned to go inside, the warm weight around her shoulders registered. Shrugging out of the jacket, she handed it to him. “You’d better have this.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted.”
The blunt statement sent a raw flash of heat through her. “There’s no point.”
Instead of taking the jacket, his fingers threaded with hers. She had plenty of time to pull back, but the plain fact was she didn’t want to.
A hot pulse of adrenaline went through her. Three days. It wasn’t long enough. She didn’t know enough about him—
Distantly, she was aware that both the jacket and her handbag had slipped to the ground. Her palms slid over his chest, bunched in the fabric of his shirt. His hands settled at her waist. A half step back and her spine connected with the cold line of the doorjamb. A split second later his mouth came down on hers. The first touch of his lips shivered through her and she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave in to the uncomplicated need to be held. It had been years since she’d felt female and wanted, years since she’d felt so needy.
He lifted his head, dark eyes glittering. “If you want me to leave we need to stop now.”
She stared at the taut lines of his face, the stubble that made his jaw even tougher, and regret pulled at her.
He said something low and graphic. His breath washed over her throat. His teeth fastened on the lobe of one ear and a sharp shudder jerked through her.
In an abrupt movement, he released his hold and stepped back, stooping to pick up the jacket. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
Her legs distinctly wobbly, she watched as he walked down the path and climbed into his truck. When the sound of the engine faded, she closed the door and tried to get her breath, and her sanity, back. Not only was her WITSEC placement blown for the second time, but sometime between last Tuesday and two minutes ago she had fallen for Steve Fischer.
The fact that she had let it happen didn’t make sense. Somewhere inside her there was a benchmark that was carved in stone about loyalty, honor and honesty. She applied it to herself and to other people. Fischer had already lied to her, even if only by omission.
Then there was the whole can of worms about trust. She didn’t trust easily, but once she did, that was it—she gave her all. She had trusted a total of three people in her life: her father, her mother and Rina.
Jack Jones had failed her. Maybe that was why she’d become such a difficult sell in the relationship game. Every time she had entered into a relationship with a man she had expected to be betrayed, and she had cut it off before that could happen. The strategy was simple, effective and safe, and it kept her lonely most of the time.
Lately, she’d been lonelier and more isolated than normal. Maybe that had made her more vulnerable, but it wasn’t a reason to consider sleeping with a man she barely knew—let alone trusted.