“Why did he do it?” Melody’s tortured whisper echoed inside Parker’s car.
He hated seeing her so distraught. When she’d almost fainted on the steps after realizing the rifle Jim carried matched what they believed to be the weapon that killed Daniel, he’d propelled her away from the scene. She needed to process what had happened.
Better to do it in a safe, familiar environment. It would take time to heal from this wound and the quicker she put it behind her, the better. This ordeal had taken a devastating toll.
At a stoplight, he reached to take her cold hand in his. “I’m so sorry.”
“I should have seen that something was wrong.” Self-recrimination echoed in her voice. “All the signs were there. His nervousness, his furtive activities.” She let out a tortured laugh. “His seeming dedication to the center was all a sham. How could I have missed that?”
“You were too close to it. You trusted him. There was no reason not to. We all did.” Okay, Parker hadn’t fully trusted him, not after the way he’d treated Sherlock. The light turned green. He stepped on the gas but kept his hand on hers.
A half scoff, and half sob escaped her throat. She extracted her hand from his. “You’d think I’d know better than to trust. Even God let me down tonight.”
Appalled that she’d think that way, he said, “No, He didn’t. We prayed for protection for Ally and Joy, as well as Jim. He came through for us. Ally and Joy are safe now.”
“And Jim is dead.”
Parker touched her arm. “But he had a chance to save himself. He’s dead by his own choice.”
There was no doubt in Parker’s mind Jim Wheaton had chosen to end his life on the steps of the center by forcing the tactical team’s hand to avoid facing a prison sentence.
“You can’t blame God for that. He gives each of us free will to choose for ourselves how we’ll act, whether we’ll choose good or evil.”
“Right. You’re right.” She shifted away, out of his reach. “Jim was stuck between the police, prison and The Boss. I guess he didn’t like his options.”
“Did he admit to working for the crime syndicate?”
“Not in so many words.” She rubbed at her forehead. “He said he was a dead man either way. I can only assume he meant he feared The Boss would get to him.”
Parker’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “He probably could have identified the crime lord.”
“Yep. But we’ll never know what secrets he harbored, will we?”
His gut clenched at the bitter tone to her voice. “You’ll have some closure in Daniel’s death if the ballistics come back a match to Jim’s rifle.”
“Closure? Hardly. All that report will tell me is Jim fired the shot that killed Daniel, but it won’t tell me why. Or why he killed Sierra. The why is going to haunt me the rest of my life.”
Parker wished he could refute her words, but there was too much truth there. They would never know why. But at least she was safe from Jim now.
However, a niggling feeling of disquiet tugged at Parker. “Could Jim have been the guy dressed all in black that ransacked your office?”
She shifted in the passenger seat to stare at him. “Maybe. It all happened so fast... The man seemed bigger to me, but it could have been the shock of interrupting the intruder that made him appear so large and scary.”
An uneasy tension settled between them. “But you can’t be certain, which means you could still be in danger.”
She shrugged and turned to face the front window. “I suppose. But once again, why?”
Frustration echoed in her words and reverberated through him. They still didn’t know what the masked man had been looking for in her office and her apartment. They suspected it was the code. If only they knew what that was. Jim probably had known. Though their search of his house revealed nothing helpful on that score.
As he pulled into the hotel’s parking garage, Parker’s cell phone rang. The caller ID showed the police station’s number.
“Adams,” he answered.
“Parker, Slade here. How is she?”
Sliding a glance at Melody slumped in the seat next to him, he said, “Holding it together.”
“Good. She’s strong. She’ll get through this.”
“Yes.” And Parker would be there to make sure she made it through this ordeal in one piece. She’d come to mean a great deal to him, more than he’d thought possible. No matter how much he wanted to remain emotionally detached from the pretty detective, she had worked her way beneath the protective barrier around his heart.
He loved her.
The thought rocketed through him, leaving behind a white-hot trail of shock. He leaned his head back against the headrest. He loved Melody. He wasn’t sure how to deal with the realization. He certainly couldn’t declare his feelings to her. Not now while she was grieving and full of anger.
“I need you and Sherlock to meet me at the Lost Woods,” Slade said, drawing Parker back to the conversation.
“When?”
“As soon as you can. I want to have Sherlock try to find Rio.”
“We were there this morning, Slade. Sherlock didn’t pick up on his scent.”
“I know, I read your report. All the sightings of Rio in the woods have been at night. I have a feeling that with Jim’s death The Boss might get overconfident and show up more often. I want us to be out there waiting for him when he does.”
Parker was tempted to tell Slade no. Parker didn’t want to leave Melody. She was hurting and he wanted to be the one she turned to for help.
If they caught the crime lord and brought him to justice, Parker would have no legitimate reason to stick close to her. Unless...he admitted his feelings.
And risked her rejecting him because she couldn’t trust anyone.
Was he ready to take that risk?
No. He needed time to absorb this shocking truth and make a plan on how to proceed.
“We’ll be there in twenty,” he told Slade, and hung up.
“Be where?” Melody asked, her blue eyes luminous in her lovely face.
“My captain wants Sherlock to try to track Rio again.”
“Tonight?”
He nodded. “I’ll walk you up. Officer Truman should be there waiting for you.”
“I want to go home, back to my apartment.”
He understood her need to go home, but couldn’t allow it. “I’m sure you do. But you know you can’t. Not yet. We don’t know if you’re out of danger.”
“I can’t live in a hotel forever,” she stated, her voice flat.
“It won’t be forever.”
“You can’t make that promise,” she said. “You can’t promise you’ll bring down the crime syndicate or predict when. At some point, I have to return to my life. I can’t keep living like this. I need to get back to normal.” Her voice caught on the last word.
His heart twisted. She was grieving and not taking into account the possibilities that her life could still be in danger. “You’re safer at the hotel. Jim put a hit out on you, remember?”
“But with Jim dead, there’s no one to pay for the deed, right? That’s no longer an issue.”
“We can’t be certain that’s true.”
Her fingers curled into fists. “I wonder what my life is worth?”
“Don’t go there,” he said, worried that self-pity would take a hold of her. “You’re worth more than any amount of money there is.”
“Careful, Parker, I might think you care,” she shot back.
“I do, Melody. I love you.” The words were out before he could call them back. His breath caught and held.
In the dim glow coming from the overhead parking lights, her eyes widened with what he hoped was joy, but she remained mute.
A charged silence filled the car. Parker’s heart hammered so hard in his chest he was surprised the whole car wasn’t rocking from the vibrations.
Melody closed her eyes. A spasm of pain crossed her face.
An unnerving dread choked Parker.
She pressed her lips together. Then she took a breath, her shoulders rising and lowering as she exhaled. When she finally opened her eyes, the total lack of emotion shining in the swirling blue depths sent his stomach plummeting.
“I’m sorry, Parker. I can’t. I can’t do this.” She turned away from him to climb out of the car.
A deep, welling pain carved out a hole in his heart. He dropped his head to the steering wheel. It was better this way, he told himself. He’d known surrendering to his feelings would put himself at risk of disappointing her, failing to live up to her expectations. Yet, he’d hoped with Melody he could be the man she needed.
He’d known she wasn’t interested in romance. Too many men had hurt her in her life to trust again.
It had been wrong to profess his love and expect her to feel the same back.
Forcing himself to move, he climbed out and escorted her to her hotel suite, careful to keep a distance. A distance he should have maintained all along.
* * *
After Parker left her hotel suite, Melody placed her holster and weapon on the dresser with care, double-checking the safety. Her insides quivered with a strange mix of regret and sorrow and possibility. Flipping off the light switch, she collapsed face-first on the bed in a weepy mess.
The darkness, broken only by the faint glow of the living-room light seeping in from beneath the bedroom door, allowed her a sense of privacy. Truman was out in the living room. But here alone, in the suite’s bedroom, Melody could break down.
Her mind reeled. Pain throbbed in every fiber of her being.
I do, Melody. I love you.
Parker’s words played over and over in her head like a CD stuck on a scratch.
Part of her wanted to shout with joy. Hearing those words from him was a dream come true. He made her feel special, cared for, loved. Every act, every gesture had pointed to his growing feelings. She saw that now. She should have realized long before that she’d let her guard down around him.
Who was she kidding? She’d fallen for him almost from the moment he had strode into the youth center all swagger and charm.
Yet her self-preservation was too strong. Her trust broken and abused too often to think she could really risk finding lasting happiness with Parker.
With anyone.
Parker had said God gave her free will to choose. She was choosing life without love. Life without the risk of betrayal and hurt.
That’s what she wanted. What she needed. She would learn to live with this throbbing pain in her heart. It would scab over like the other wounds and she would be fine. Okay, not fine exactly, but she’d survive.
But just barely.
And really, what more could she hope for?
Spent, her tears dried and her heart aching, she flopped onto her back. Her backpack-style purse dug into her flesh. She hadn’t realized she still wore the bag. She shrugged the straps off her shoulders and dropped the purse on the floor. Lying prone, she stared at the shadowed ceiling, praying for the abyss of sleep to take her away from the thoughts marching through her head.
The youth center wouldn’t be the same without Jim. He’d been such a big part of its conception and implementation. A fixture.
But she had to believe the center would survive. It would take some adjustment and time. Lots and lots of time.
Just as it would take her time to figure out how to live without Parker.
Oh, they’d still see each other on occasion. But that was all she dared. Life would somehow go back to the way it was before he stormed into her world, upsetting all her carefully constructed ideas of keeping her heart safe.
But any contact would be torture. Seeing him, being near him but knowing she had to refrain from confiding in him, from depending on him. From loving him.
She wanted to do all of that and more, but she was too afraid. Too afraid to give herself over to the uncertainty, always wondering when the day would come that he, too, would leave her or betray her, when he would destroy her trust.
A thump from the outer room of the suite raised the hairs on her arm. She bolted upright.
Officer Truman had probably bumped into a table.
Still, Melody strained to listen.
The slight squeak of the bedroom doorknob turning knifed through her. She rolled off the bed and crouched on the floor, reaching for her sidearm. She grimaced with frustration. She’d left her weapon on the top of the dresser.
The door swung open. Light flooded the room. The dark silhouette of a man filled the space.
A man wearing a ski mask. His eyes blacked out. He held a gun.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. She wedged herself under the bed. On her belly, she inched herself toward the other side. If she could reach her purse, she could call for help.
A hand closed over her ankle. She kicked for all she was worth.
Please, dear God, save me.