Conflicting Interests (10 page)

“What did they find?”

“I don’t know, Imogen. That’s what I’m saying. Detective
Stephens said there was evidence to collect but he didn’t say anything else. I
don’t even know if Kitty is okay.”

She was calming her nerves with a rather large glass of wine
as they sat on Imogen’s back deck. Imogen’s property was on the lake, along
with a multitude of others but it was still secluded. It was buried in trees
and they surrounded the deck, closing out the rest of the world. There was
little backyard and it was a rocky steep incline down to the water below. There
was no place Katrina felt safer at the moment.

When her phone started vibrating on the arm of the lounger
she was sitting in, she snatched it up, seeing Dillon’s number. “Hello.” She
sounded desperate.

“Kitty’s fine. She was hiding under the spare room bed.
Forensics is still here and I’ll stay until they leave to make sure
everything’s locked up. I’ll leave some food and water for Kitty. I found a
spare motion bulb the technician left and I’m replacing it before I leave too.
The lightbulb was broken out at some point. I’m guessing he slipped by during
the day and broke it. We have a patrol car drive by your house twice an hour
during the day when you’re not at home but that leaves it uncovered for much of
the time. Can’t be sure when he broke in but I’m guessing it was when you were
in class or earlier in the afternoon.”

“What did you find? I mean, evidence. Detective Stephens
said there was evidence.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” His voice was awkward,
strained perhaps. He was hiding something and there was no guessing what it
could be. “I’ll leave enough food and water out for Kitty for a couple days. I
want you to stay at Imogen’s for a while. We’ll figure something out for
Kitty.” He was waiting for a response from her.

“Okay.” At the moment there was just no argument to be had.

“I’d like to stop over at Imogen’s whenever you get home
tomorrow. We need to talk about some things.”

He left her with that and she sat stunned for a minute after
they disconnected. Imogen just watched her. Their normal brand of sarcasm was
lost at the moment and she didn’t even attempt to make a comment about Dillon’s
ass. She was worried—and Imogen didn’t do worried.

After a couple of minutes, Imogen turned to her. “Spring
break’s coming up, Trink.”

“And?”

“And I’m going to be on the other side of the world for
nearly two damn weeks! Just say it, love. Tell me to cancel and stay and I’ll
call my mum and dad. They’ll understand. Or better yet, come with me. They love
you and I can’t stand the idea of—”

“I can’t go, Imogen. I’ll be okay.”

“You can’t honestly say that, now can you! Damn stubborn
girl you are!” She was pissed. But it was only because she was so worried. It
was about the only time Imogen ever got angry. “Then stay here. Bring that damn
old cat with you and you stay here. Please?” She was just plain begging now.

Katrina watched her. Her eyes were as pleading as her voice
was and after a deep breath, Katrina nodded. Imogen grabbed Katrina’s hand and
refused to let go. She had tears in her eyes and that alone left Katrina
sniffling back her own emotion.

She’d been very wrong to assume this could possibly or would
possibly go away on its own. How was it really possible Katrina could ever have
caught the attention of a psychopath who wanted her dead? She was just Katrina.
A lackluster junior-high teacher who hadn’t dated for months, had never been
much of a flirt and was too quiet, too normal and just too damn boring to
attract the attention. Why was this happening to her?

* * * * *

The next day was entirely too long and difficult to get
through. She’d gotten choked-up during lunch as she’d watched a couple of young
teachers laughing about something and had to escape the teachers’ lounge in a
hurry with Imogen on her heels.

Something had changed. Or nothing had changed and she was
just finally figuring that out. The night before was a glaring and ugly
reminder that absolutely nothing had changed at all. The psychopath was still
after her, he’d certainly not been scared off and yes, Katrina was an absolute
idiot to be lulled into the notion that perhaps this whole nightmare was over.
It was very much
not
over.

Part of her was anxious to see Dillon. She felt safe when he
was by her side—likely the only time at all she felt safe anymore. But it was
uncomfortable. She didn’t want to admit just how much his reaction a couple
days before had hurt her feelings. He’d very intentionally ignored her and it
just plain hurt. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it, even amid all the
fear and chaos in her life. He’d found it more than easy to simply look away,
walk away, drive away as though he hadn’t even seen her. Still, she wanted to
see him.

Imogen was intentionally going to make herself scarce that
night but when Katrina had assured her it wasn’t necessary as they’d finished
their lunch in Katrina’s classroom, she’d gotten nothing more than a
mischievous smile.

“It’s not like that, Imogen,” she’d said very truthfully. It
was exactly what she believed.

“I don’t think you have a clue. That man can’t take his eyes
off you when you’re together and the fact you’re blind to that is
oh-so-very-Trink-like. Sorry love but you’re the queen of underestimating
yourself. The man’s smitten.”

“Doesn’t really matter and I’m starting to get that.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not.” She hated that she was starting to understand
this. “Think about it. You let yourself care about someone you’re trying to
protect—how do you keep your perspective?”

“Maybe it makes him work harder for you.”

“Or maybe it makes it hard to be rational, logical, focused.
I’m just saying I get it. If you have to do this for a living, it’d kill you to
care too much for every victim you encountered. Wouldn’t it?” And then the bell
rang. They were sitting in Katrina’s classroom after her mild lunchtime meltdown
and as Imogen stood to leave she pecked Katrina on top of her head.

But now it was hours later and she was nervously pacing in
Imogen’s kitchen waiting for him to arrive. He’d sent a quick text when he was
on his way and she’d pathetically checked her face and hair, changed into one
of Imogen’s far-cuter shirts and ran through a light cloud of Imogen’s best
perfume.

When she stepped in front of the bathroom mirror, she took
in the sight of herself. Her eyes had those ugly dark circles again after
another night of tossing and turning, she’d lost a bit of weight—no complaints
there—and she looked depressed. “Idiot,” she muttered to herself as she heard
the doorbell ring.

He looked quite incredible standing on Imogen’s porch, wearing
a perfectly fitted pair of jeans, lightweight sweater and impeccably polished
brown loafers. He held a folder in his hand and her eyes instantly moved to it.
Whatever was in there was meant for her to see and she was suddenly on high
alert. He’d said they had something to talk about. She’d not missed the subtle
if not vague insinuation in his voice and it had something to do with that
folder.

She held the door open for him as he walked in. He seemed
mildly uncomfortable around her but then wasn’t that just where they were at
this point?

“I let myself through the gate. I hope that was okay.” She
nodded and offered him a cup of tea before she put a kettle on the stove. When
she turned back to him, the folder was sitting on the counter and he rounded the
bar to sit at one of the stools.

“May I?” She asked, meeting his eyes as she touched the
folder. He nodded, steepling his fingers against his mouth and studying her
calmly. However calm he might have outwardly appeared, she wasn’t buying it.
There was a tension to his body, a seriousness to his eyes he couldn’t
disguise.

Her hands trembled as she reached back to the folder and
opened it. Then she sucked in a shocked breath. She was aware her mouth was
hanging open but what the fuck!

It was her—or parts of her. It was her face but it was most
definitely not her body, not unless she posed for some hard-core pornographic
photos without recalling. The Photoshop job was bad to her estimation but it
was good enough to not look comical.

If someone didn’t know better, they’d likely think she was a
pinup girl with a proclivity for spreading her legs wide and splaying her own
vagina open with her fingers. This was more than soft porn. This was gratuitous
and her fucking face was on it!

“Oh my God! This isn’t me!”

“I know. I know. You don’t have to look at them if you don’t
want to but I don’t want to hide it from you either.” Not look? How the hell
could she
not
look? There’d been countless people traipsing through her
home the night before, seeing these images. How the hell could she
not
look?

She found more of the same on the next page. This pose was
beyond compromising and featured another stunning, voluptuous body bound with
the legs again splayed open and hiding nothing at all. She was mortified and
her cheeks were burning furiously. His eyes drifted away from her as she
flipped to the next picture. Her own shyness at having her face attached to
this body made sense, his sudden shyness did not.

The pictures alone would be enough to leave her gasping in
humiliation in front of this man. Add her head to the mix and she was in
humiliation hell. All she could do was cover her mouth, keep her eyes down and
keep moving through the pictures. She made it past seven more similar images
before she finally understood Dillon’s own state.

When she first saw it, her body tingled. It was
inappropriate but it did. On the page, another female with Katrina’s face was
on her hands and knees with her chest to the ground, her nipples brushing the
fabric surface she was on.

But behind her was a man’s torso—a very fit and stunning
torso. It wasn’t the torso that brought her up short but the incredibly
handsome head on top of the torso. Dillon’s calm expression from some unknown
photograph had been transplanted onto this image. His lips were slightly parted
in the photo, and though the original likely hadn’t looked at all seductive,
coupled with the naked torso and the strong masculine fingers that gripped the
woman’s hips, it looked exceptionally sexual. Dillon was fucking her in this
image.

She didn’t even realize she’d started panting raggedly until
Dillon’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Please keep going.” His voice was
husky as he spoke and she couldn’t even muster a glance up at him as she moved
to the next image.

Again she was on the page. This time on her back with her
legs splayed wide open, her neck craned back to look at the camera above and
slightly behind her head. An awkward position to say the least, except
necessary to capture the face of the man between her legs with his dick buried
halfway in her body. Of course the man had Dillon’s face.

In total there were five pictures of them together and each
one sent an inappropriate tingle through her body even as she tried to gulp
down calming breaths of air. Her fingers trembled as she moved from one image
to another, forced to study incredibly vulgar poses with her and Dillon’s faces
on them.

When she flipped to a photograph of her bedroom, she was
relieved. But it didn’t last. At first she couldn’t see the focus of the
photograph but the next moved closer to her bed and the next closer still until
there was little question what she was looking at.

She recognized the flesh-colored silicone phallus lying in
the center of her bed. She choked on her tongue. Around the dildo were a couple
of the pictures she’d just been looking at. Her body was trembling and the
picture was making a fluttering sound against the countertop as her fingers
tried desperately to hold it still.

“I have to ask.” He didn’t need to say anything more.

“Yes. It looks like mine.” He was silent. She knew he was
watching her but she still couldn’t force her eyes up to meet his. “But no, I
haven’t fucked you in front of a camera, if you were curious.”

She was being sarcastic. She just wasn’t sure what else to
be under the circumstances. He chuckled quietly and at the sound of his warmth
she finally managed to look up. He was watching her gently and he wasn’t shying
away from her at all. “And my boobs aren’t nearly that big either or that fake
for that matter.” Now the gentle expression turned to a small smile.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. This lunatic obviously knows you’re working
on this case and I…” He rounded the counter as she spoke and she pulled herself
up to sit on the countertop.

“Stop. This isn’t your fault and I don’t want to hear an
ounce of guilt in your voice.” She pushed the folder away from her, refusing to
give it even one more moment of her time. “I meant to ask yesterday—was Josh
Grant in class last night?”

She met his eyes again before shaking her head. “No. He
wasn’t.” He took a deep breath.

“I don’t know what to make of him. He doesn’t have a
criminal background I’ve found yet, at least not in Washington. It’ll take a
bit longer to know if he’s got something out of state but I don’t like him.
He’s artistic and this…” He indicated the folder sitting next to her. “Well I
wouldn’t call it art exactly.”

“Yeah. Artistic. Not sure that’s the same thing as…as
Photoshopistic.”

His lips pulled up again. He had beautiful lips and her eyes
got stuck there for a moment. When he licked them, her eyes flashed back up to
his just to see him studying her intently.

“I want to talk about the other day.” She was obviously
begging to sour the mood.

“What about it?”

“Why did you ignore me?”

He sighed. He looked guilty. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to
be mean.”