Conflicting Interests (13 page)

“Thought you were going to San Francisco to see your parents
this Friday.”

“I decided to stay here.” Stephens was eyeing him. Molly had
called to see if she could take the boys out of school earlier than their
normal dismissal time on Friday and naturally Stephens had overheard.

“And this wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain
off-limits teacher with a secret admirer who’s tormenting her, would it?”

He just looked at Stephens across the desk but said nothing.
Did he really want to lie? It was completely about her. It was hard enough
coping with the fact he wasn’t part of her case. It was just as hard knowing he
couldn’t talk to her. But leaving for some reason was impossible. He was
terrified something was going to happen and even though he’d be sitting at home
alone, he needed to be close.

He’d talked to Molly about it the night before and she
didn’t want him along on the trip any more than he wanted to go. She understood
why he needed to be here but the man sitting across from him glaring didn’t
seem to understand any of it.

“Unless you want me to be honest, I suggest you not ask.”
Stephens tapped his pen on the desktop as he glared at Dillon. He was
considering just what he did or did not want to say on the matter and Dillon
held his gaze.

“You’re going to stay away from her, right?”

Dillon nodded. “Don’t have much choice now do I?”

“Then I guess I just don’t see the point.”

“You don’t need to understand.”

Dillon was having a hard time taking his eyes off Smith and
Terrell across the room. It had been that way all week. He was torturing
himself with them. He hated it when they weren’t at the precinct because he
wondered just where the hell they were. He hated it when they were there
because the very sight of them was a slap in the face. It hadn’t gone unnoticed
by Stephens either, and every time Dillon’s eyes shifted to them, he shook his
head in discouragement.

When Terrell’s phone rang and Dillon was forced to watch as
the man tensed and muttered some words to Smith as they both grabbed their
jackets, Dillon’s anxiety skyrocketed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. They
took off, glancing quickly to Dillon and leaving Dillon’s eyes trailing after
them.

He was tempted to follow but if he thought he was in hot
water before, he’d be boiling in it if he were so bold as to force his way into
their investigation. But there was no hiding the panic and as he stood and started
pacing around his desk, hating their absence, he started contemplating.

He had to get the hell out of there before he lost his mind.
There was no way he could sit there, knowing something was going on. He looked
at his cell phone and then he looked at the clock. It was six o’clock on
Wednesday night. She should be at class. Fucking hell. What if something
happened with Josh Grant? What if she didn’t even make it to class because
something happened to her on her way? He started clicking his pen in his hand
as he walked back and forth over and over and over again.

Stephens continued to watch him, silently glaring at his
partner. He likely thought he’d lost his mind but Dillon didn’t really give a
shit what Stephens thought of him. Just when he’d decided he didn’t give a shit
what the chief thought, said, did to him or otherwise, Stephens stood.

“You’re going to drive me crazy.”

“I can’t sit here.” He shook his head in resignation. He was
going to lose his fucking job over this but there was just no chance he could
sit back not knowing what the hell was going on. Something was fucking going
on!

“Chill. You stay put. I’ll go find out what’s up. But don’t
you leave this damn desk or you’ll get us both in trouble.”

He sat and he stared at his cell phone as Stephens left. He
couldn’t call her. He needed to call her. He
had
to call her. His
fingers trembled when he reached for his phone and as he dialed he looked
around to make sure Stephens wasn’t coming back yet. The man was being oddly
helpful but he didn’t want to get caught trying to reach her.

As the phone rang, his heart pounded. His heart pounded
every time he knew he was going to hear her voice. The fact she wasn’t
answering and he couldn’t get the reassurance he needed from her left his heart
pounding more by the second. It finally went to voicemail and he hung up.

He stood and went back to pacing. Fuck! He felt like his
body was pulling apart at the seams. He thought this must be what it felt like
to go crazy because at any minute he wasn’t going to be able to stifle the need
to scream at the top of his lungs to release the building tension in his chest.
His throat was on fire as it constricted painfully and he was panting as if it
was the only way he could keep himself from passing out.

When his fingers snatched up his jacket and he grabbed his
phone it was over. He’d decided he didn’t give a shit about any of it. He
didn’t care if it meant his career was over. He didn’t care if he wasn’t
supposed to see her. He didn’t care Greenwood had explicitly told him to stay
away from her. He simply didn’t care about anything except getting to her.

He turned to storm from the room, hoping to get out of the
building before Stephens returned and tried to stop him and that’s when he came
face to face with his terror. It was written on Stephens’ face.

Stephens didn’t show much but when he did it was warranted.
He just stood in front of Dillon, his eyes wide, his face concerned. He almost
looked afraid to speak and his hands rose slowly as if to slow the momentum in
Dillon’s movements. But there was no reason to. Dillon was stunned and he
stopped on a dime at seeing the serious expression on Stephens’ face.

“What?” He could barely get the word out and it sounded
choked.

“Something’s happened.” Stephens’ voice broke for a second
as he spoke and Dillon reached for the nearest desk to support his weight,
which suddenly seemed to be getting away from him. His head was buzzing and he
wasn’t at all sure he could bear to hear the rest of what Stephens had to say.

He gasped out the only question he needed an answer to and
he fought to stay standing. “Is she alive?”

* * * * *

She’d only been at Imogen’s for fifteen minutes and in that
space of time, she’d managed to drop the coffeepot, shattering and spilling the
caffeine that was supposed to get her through her night class that night. She
also spent thirty minutes trying to find Kitty, who was staging a kitty sit-in
in protest of being uprooted from her home. Thanks to Imogen’s ridiculously big
house and an old cat who couldn’t hear Katrina calling her, she’d nearly given
up until she heard Kitty’s bizarre-sounding meow coming from the pantry Katrina
had apparently closed her in that morning. Another ten minutes to mop the cat
pee up and she was finally ready to go—sadly, she was nearly forty minutes
later than she wanted to be.

She almost made it to Imogen’s gate to start the trek to the
closest bus stop when she stopped and stared at the ground for a minute. She
was fighting common sense and arguing with Dillon in her mind and finally
telling both Dillon and common sense to fuck off, she turned back toward the
house. She jumped in her Outback and took off, grumbling the whole time. Dillon
would be livid—there was no doubt of that. But he wasn’t her concern anymore
and she was late as hell.

She sped, she cut people off and got herself flipped off
twice, all before she zipped into the parking garage and steered her little car
like a race car around in circles until she found a spot. Pay dirt. Or—one
floor away from pay dirt. But were she taking public transportation, she’d
likely still be on Mercer Island. She hopped the stairs two at a time and
pulled the door open to the fourth-floor building entrance door. It would spit
her right into the back end of a deserted hallway, and a quick route to her
classroom.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she’d gotten hung up on as she
passed through the door to the corridor. All she knew was she was snagged and
powerless to move forward. She had her tote bag and laptop bag over her
shoulder and they both caught on something.

Hindsight being an unfair bitch, she realized just a bit too
late that she should have kept going. Perhaps had she abandoned her bags that
were pulling her back, she could have made it to safety. But not realizing the
hang-up was a lunatic’s strong hands grabbing her bags and yanking her back
into the stairwell, she was unaware of the danger that lurked behind her until
it was too late.

She wheeled around to free her bag and the moment she did a
hand reached from within the stairwell to grab and twist in the hair at the top
of her head, dragging her painfully back into the stairwell. She knew she was
fucked the instant she caught sight of the hand darting toward her head but no
amount of pulling, fighting and bracing herself against the doorframe could
stop his strength from overpowering her.

She heard the heavy door’s latch click behind her and her
heart sank. This was going to be bad. This was very likely going to kill her,
and all for what? Because she’d been stupid enough to value her time over her
safety. She stood frozen facing the man. He was wearing another black ski mask
and his light-colored eyes glared at her. He’d released the hold he had on her
hair and he was simply standing in front of her, his hands raised as if daring
her to try to skirt past him.

He was blocking the stairs that led down a level and though
she was closer to the stairs leading up, she could see it playing out in her
mind even as she willed her feet to move. She knew he’d catch her. She had no
idea why or how she knew, but as she darted up the stairs and his hand grasped
the back of her ankle there wasn’t an ounce of surprise. She collapsed to the
stairs, banging her knee hard on the edge of one of the stairs and crying out.

Her yelp echoed through the vacant vertical shaft of the
stairwell and it was the most depressing sound she’d ever heard. It was her
nightmares come true, it was her end, it was everything she’d dreaded but had
been too stupid to avoid.

It was over for her and she knew it. He’d managed to get her
bags off her shoulder and had abandoned them on the floor of the landing and as
she scrambled to crawl hand over knee up the stairs, he caught her by the
collar of the fitted casual blazer she wore.

She let her arms go slack behind her, allowing the jacket to
be pulled free of her arms, rather than letting him pull her over backward down
the stairs, but even freeing herself from him for a brief moment wasn’t enough.

He lunged again with a growl emanating from his throat.
She’d not even made it halfway up the flight of stairs when he latched onto her
hair, yanking her swiftly backward.

She grabbed desperately for the stair railing to keep
herself from being thrown backward. She latched onto it, listening to her hands
skid and slide along the painted metal of the railing. She couldn’t get enough
purchase to stop her backward momentum but she wasn’t falling. It was an
awkward drag as he yanked on her hair and she sank back and down to the stair
below her. It twisted her knee in the process and she cried out again, wanting
to keep her damn mouth shut.

She should be screeching but she was terrified it would piss
him off more. She was dragged down the steps, her flimsy camisole pulling up
and her lower back scraping across the sandpapery safety paint coating the
edges of the steps, intended to keep people from slipping.

The burning on her skin as her lower back grated across the
four steps was painful but it was oddly grounding in some sense. She was
whimpering and begging pathetically by the time he released her hair. Her pleas
were echoing up and down the stairwell just as her cries had and she started
crying as much from sheer sadness as fear.

She staggered to her feet, unable to stop the tears that
were dropping. He stood back and watched. She guessed he was amused, given the
way he subtly cocked his head to the side and watched her calmly. The calm
didn’t last. The moment she was on her feet, he took a swift step toward her,
punched her square in the gut and threw her body into the wall behind her. She
collided with the rough cinder block wall and as she gasped and desperately
tried to suck in air, she slid down the wall. The bricks scraped harshly
against the naked skin of her shoulder as she slid and when her butt hit the
ground she started retching.

She was still trying to get her lungs to work and her
stomach was clenching and trying to empty itself from the fist he’d jammed up
under her ribs. When he knelt down in front of her as she kept fighting to suck
in air, it was to grab the hair along her forehead and pull her head up to look
into his cold, evil eyes. “You can’t believe how much pain I can give you.” His
words were hissed through gritted teeth. She was holding his eyes, unable in
fact to look away.

His hand found her neck and he gripped, pushing her neck
back to the wall and cutting off her airway as she clawed desperately at his
wrist. His free hand moved to the low-fitting neckline of the camisole and
though she couldn’t see what he was doing, she could feel as the fabric was
yanked down below her breast.

The cool air tickled her exposed skin and then it was pain.
Blinding and agonizing pain was shooting through her chest, radiating out from her
breasts. She could feel warmth dripping from her skin and even as her mind
started to go fuzzy and her ears started to buzz loudly, she knew she was
bleeding. She could feel the pulsing beat of hypoxia in her head but it didn’t
dull the searing pain in her chest.

And then there was nothing.

* * * * *

She was suddenly awake and she was being dragged by the hair
again. The tingly pulse running through her head and out to her skin said she’d
been unconscious and as she looked down she saw the blood across her naked
chest but she couldn’t determine the injury. He stopped yanking her and she
listened as he hesitantly pulled open the door to a parking level. And then she
was being dragged again. The moment she was through the door she started
fighting. She was finally in an open space and if she could just get free of
him, she could run, she could hide, she could scream for help.