When he strode over to rejoin her and Sam, he stopped too close and glared down at her from his cringe-inducing height. “Tell me what happened.”
He was so close she felt she couldn’t draw a decent breath. Why was he trying so hard to intimidate her? “He came out of nowhere, hit the windshield and ran away.”
“Wearing?”
“Black.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Black pants, black shirt, black hat . . . or ski mask, I guess. Black gloves.”
“Gloves?”
“Yes, he had on gloves. It didn’t register at first, but he was definitely wearing gloves. I can’t even tell you if he was black or white.”
“Build?”
“Tall and thin.”
“How do you know it was a guy?”
“I assumed, I guess, because he was strong enough to break the windshield.”
“Any ideas who would want to scare you?”
“No.”
“Anything else suspicious happen lately? Other than the sabotage at the construction site.”
“No.”
“Weird phone calls? Hang ups? E-mails?” He fired the questions at her so quickly they seemed to whirl around her.
“No.”
“Have you had a falling out with anyone since you returned?” He leaned closer, as though trying to blast the truth out of her with his laser vision.
“No,” she said steadily. Breathe, breathe.
When he turned to squint up at the stucco walls of the health club, she felt as though the air-conditioning had just kicked in on a steaming hot day. As her shoulders relaxed and she managed a full breath, the spinning sensation in her head leveled.
“This place have security cameras aimed at the parking lots?” Chase asked.
Sam shifted to peer at the building, too. “Looks like there’s one at the east corner. I don’t see any others.”
“Quinn would know about that,” Kylie said.
“Is he here?” Sam asked.
“Yes, in his office.”
“I’ll check with him,” Sam said, and took off.
As soon as they were alone, Chase rounded on Kylie. “Why didn’t you go inside like I told you to do?” he demanded.
“If whoever did this wanted to hurt me, he had ample opportunity.”
“Which brings up another point. Why the hell are you parking in a back lot that’s virtually empty?”
“Safety has never been a problem here.”
He took a jerky step toward her and made a furious gesture at her SUV. “You don’t call
that
a problem?”
This time, she couldn’t check her urge to take a step back, and the heel of her tennis shoe caught on the curb. Chase’s hand shot out, wrapping hard and firm around her upper arm to keep her from stumbling.
“Careful,” he said.
The timbre of his voice had shifted lower, and suddenly they were standing close enough that his cool breath feathered over her cheek. Before she could fortify her guard, his heat invaded her space, enveloped her, and she stilled, overwhelmed by the desire to lean against his strength.
As if he knew what she was thinking, he lifted his free hand to tuck stray hair from her ponytail behind her ear.
The gesture, so tender and caring, completely disarmed her. She could have melted right against him, let his strong arms enfold her. So easy and what a relief to—
“Ky,” he said.
The sigh in his voice had the same effect as if he’d placed a chisel on the crack in her defenses and tapped with a hammer. Alarmed, she tried to pull away, but his grip tightened, and the bare skin of her arm started to burn where his long fingers almost completely encircled it.
“Let go,” she said.
Her cheeks heated at how she’d sounded. Like she was choking. Oh, God, she was so close to losing it. Right in front of him. But that . . . thing, it was just like the one that shattered her dreams. And someone, some twisted
bastard
, was using it against her. Why? Why the hell . . .
why
? And Chase . . . God, Chase, was right here. Watching her every move, her every expression and reaction, analyzing and scrutinizing. What the hell was he looking for anyway?
Chase dropped his hand to his side, and the tight muscles in his face visibly relaxed. “I’m not trying to upset you, Ky.”
He used the even, conciliatory tone of a cop dealing with a hostile witness, and it hit her like a slap that he was trying to
manage
her. As she snapped her spine straight, she bit back the urge to snipe at him. It wouldn’t accomplish anything but make her feel bitchy. And none of this was his fault. He was just there to do his job.
“So what do we do now?” she asked. “Do you have to gather evidence before I call someone to come fix my windshield or what?”
His expression gave nothing away as he pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call in the crime scene unit.”
12
QUINN JOGGED TOWARD KYLIE, WHO STOOD ON
the sidewalk facing her SUV, arms wrapped around her middle as though chilled. An official-looking black woman with glossy, close-cropped hair and gold hoop earrings snapped pictures of Kylie’s Liberty from all angles. Chase Manning, down on one knee at the head of the truck, scribbled on what looked like a sandwich-size Ziploc bag. Several other small Ziplocs littered the asphalt around him.
Quinn’s stomach seized at the sight of the truck’s windshield. Sam had told him what had happened, but knowing didn’t blunt the shock of seeing.
“Hey,” he called to Kylie when he was still several feet away. She could be so jumpy, and he didn’t want to startle her.
She turned to greet him with a smile he recognized as plastered on only because he’d seen her give that same smile to the well-wishers at their father’s funeral. Not too big as to look fake, not too small as to look forced. Christ, she was so good at it that it scared him sometimes.
When he spotted the aluminum bat on the ground, his gut flipped. He hadn’t quite believed Sam, but there it was, the sun shooting blinding blue sparks off it.
Kylie’s voice broke through his shock. “They’re gathering evidence.” She indicated the woman with the camera. “That’s Sylvia Jensen, a forensics expert.”
He glanced sharply at his sister. She sounded as though they were at a party, for Christ’s sake—hey, that’s my buddy Sylvia over there; you’d like her—when a normal person would have been huddled on the curb shaking her ass off. Hell,
he
was shaking, and he hadn’t been attacked.
Guilt added to the queasiness in his stomach. He should have gotten his butt out here as soon as Sam told him, but the detective had had a bunch of questions about the video surveillance, and then Quinn had had to set him up with the equipment so Sam could find what he was looking for. Meanwhile, his sister had stood in the hot sun with who knows what kind of crap circling in her head.
He gently grasped her elbow, felt tension instantly infuse her already rigid muscles. She didn’t pull away, though, and he didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign. “Why don’t you come in while they finish up?” he said. “It’s too hot out here.”
She relented without a word, and he led her inside and down the cool hallway to his office without speaking. While she sat in the lone, metal-framed visitor’s chair, he popped open the mini fridge in the corner and retrieved a bottle of water. After twisting off the cap, he handed her the bottle, glad when she drank without being prodded.
He hated that he had no idea what to say. He hadn’t known what to say for years and berated himself for not dogging her more. But she’d been so far away, physically and emotionally, that he hadn’t known where to start. Letting her work it out on her own had been easier. He’d had his own issues to focus on, after all.
“You might want to think about replacing this chair,” she said. “It feels rickety.”
His throat closed. Leave it to Kylie to focus on something that had nothing to do with the blue aluminum symbol for her shattered sense of identity.
“Funny word,” she murmured. “Rickety.”
“Kylie—”
“Unless that’s the idea. Most of the people who use this chair are probably employees in trouble. You wouldn’t want them to be too comfortable while you rip into them.”
“Kylie, come on. Don’t you want—”
“Can we just sit here and not say anything? Just for a few minutes?”
Quinn sighed. Agreeing to be quiet, for her sake, was easy. It always had been.
13
WHILE FORENSICS EXPERT SYLVIA JENSEN FINISHED
cataloging the evidence, Chase went looking for Kylie. He hadn’t been to the fitness center before, but he’d heard about its state-of-the-art equipment and Olympic-size swimming pool. He would have joined if the monthly fee had been slightly less than astronomical, but the place clearly targeted rich retirees and the Fortune 500 executives whose vacation homes dotted Kendall Falls’ beaches.
Not for the first time, he felt a nudge of admiration for Kylie’s choice of location for her own facility. She planned to cater to the less-well-to-do portion of the population on the other side of town, something few entrepreneurs in the area ever did.
Chase stopped a young woman wearing the health club’s uniform of white polo shirt and navy shorts. “Can you tell me where I might find Kylie McKay?”
She gave him a big, flirtatious smile as she gestured down the hall. “Just saw her in Quinn’s office, on the left.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey,” she called after him. “I’m a personal trainer. If, you know, you ever want a one-on-one workout.”
He waved over his shoulder without acknowledging her wink. “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”
A few strides later, he spotted an office door bearing a plaque that read QUINN MCKAY, MANAGER. Through the half-open door, he saw Kylie sitting with her unbraced leg crossed over the other, her focus intense as she peeled the label off an empty water bottle. The flush that had stained her cheeks while they’d argued was gone, and she’d tidied up the curls that had earlier escaped her ponytail. The Tennis Pony, she’d called it way back when, because that’s how she wore her hair when she played.
With concentration creasing her forehead, she looked older. And tired. Jesus, she looked tired.
He lightly rapped on the door before stepping into the tiny office that held a simple desk and the two occupied chairs.
“Are you done already?” Quinn asked, elbows on the desk, hands clasped tightly in front of him.
“Just about. Sylvia’s bagging up the last of the evidence.”
He glanced at Kylie and found her watching him with the calm, quiet look of someone who’d popped a Xanax. If he hadn’t known her so well, he would have assumed she had. But Kylie McKay didn’t do tranquilizers. She chanted shit in her head, like “eye on the ball” and “breathe.” Mind over matter, that was her motto.
Looking away, he leaned against the wall to wait for Sam. He’d asked her everything he could about the incident, and the bat through the windshield sounded like a scare tactic. The perp had had the perfect chance to harm her—defenseless woman alone in a deserted parking lot—but he’d attacked only the Jeep and immediately fled into the woods. Chase figured someone didn’t want her building the tennis center. Sabotage hadn’t worked, so the perp had tried a more personal approach, just as Chase had feared.
Hearing familiar footsteps, he glanced out into the hall to see his partner striding their way. “Hey,” Sam said with a nod.
Chase gestured him into the office and shut the door. The restricted space would have been close with two people. With four, it was claustrophobic. When Chase sat on the edge of Quinn’s desk, his knee accidentally brushed Kylie’s, and she quickly shifted to avoid further contact. He pretended not to notice, or care. But he did notice. And care. Against his better judgment.
“Any luck with the security camera?” he asked Sam.
“Nope. There’s nothing on the feed for today but snow, and I don’t mean the cold and slippery kind.”
“You’re kidding,” Quinn said. “That can’t be right.”
“Afraid so,” Sam said.
“Crap,” Chase said under his breath.
“So what was the point?” Quinn asked, his face pale.
Sam cocked his head. “Point?”
“Of smashing her windshield with a bat that looks like the . . . other one.”
“Someone’s trying to scare me,” Kylie said.
Hearing her say it in that soft, inflection-free voice made Chase’s insides clench. She might as well have been a robot.
“But why?” Quinn gave Chase an imploring look. “I don’t understand why.”
Before Chase could respond, Sam said, “Maybe Sylvia will turn up something useful from the evidence around the Jeep.”
Quinn didn’t look appeased. “What about protection? If someone’s trying to hurt my sister—”
“No one tried to
hurt
me,” Kylie cut in. “He could have, easily, and he didn’t.”
“Still,” Quinn said. “I don’t want you staying home alone, and I’m working late tonight. Maybe Jane can—”
“I don’t need a babysitter, Quinn.”
His face reddened. “I’m not trying—”
“Hold on,” Chase said, raising his hands to placate both before tension could rise further. “We’ll put an officer in a car in Kylie’s driveway. Does that satisfy everyone?” It was happening regardless, but he liked to be diplomatic when he could.
Kylie nodded. “I can live with that.”
“Okay,” Quinn said, shoulders sagging with relief.
“Are we done then?” Kylie asked as she got to her feet.
“Actually,” Chase said, “I want to talk to you about something.”
Chase sensed rather than saw Sam furrow his brow at him, but he cast his partner a glance that said everything would be fine. Kylie, in the meantime, nodded at Quinn as if to tell her brother it was okay.
Sam indicated the door with his thumb. “I’ll go check on Sylvia’s progress.”
Quinn squeezed Kylie’s arm on the way out. “I can give you a ride home when you’re done.”
Once Quinn and Sam slipped out the door, Chase closed it after them, then resumed his position leaning against the front edge of the desk while Kylie sat back down. Less than a foot separated them, and now that they were alone in such close quarters, he noticed the scent of vanilla that clung to her. It struck him then that vanilla was such a delicate contrast to her tough shell.