Love Inspired Suspense May 2015 #2 (45 page)

“Aunt Rose!” Laney protested, but Grayson was already walking out the door, pulling it firmly shut behind him.

She crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain just enough to peek outside. She felt foolish doing it, like a teenager mooning over a secret crush, but she still watched him stop and chat with the officer before getting in the car, anyway. Her work cell phone buzzed, but she ignored it. Probably Kent checking in on her.

It buzzed again, and she sighed, letting the curtain drop and grabbing the phone from the coffee table. She had two text messages from a number she didn't recognize. Curious, she opened the first one.
Get away from the window, and save this number in your contacts. Gray.

The second one said,
See you tomorrow afternoon.

That made her smile. She was still smiling as she said good-night to Rose and headed to her room.

SEVEN

L
aney usually slept with her windows open in the early fall, but after Grayson's warnings, she thought it best to keep them closed. It was nearly midnight by the time she pulled the comforter around her and lowered her head onto her soft down pillow. She closed her eyes against the dull ache in her temple. Even after Rose had retired to the spare room and the house had grown quiet, Laney found herself shifting restlessly in her bed, sleep evading her despite her exhaustion. It seemed like hours before she was finally lulled to sleep by the soft breathing of her dogs.

She woke with a start, blood rushing loudly in her ears with every beat of her heart. She lay still, trying to control her breathing, listening for some sign of what had yanked her from her sleep. The silence was deafening. Pale silver moonlight streamed in through a sliver of an opening in the curtains, casting its eerie glow across her bedroom walls and floor. The blue numbers on her digital alarm clock announced the time as two-fifteen.

Suddenly Brody emitted a low growl. Rising from his spot on the floor, hackles up, he walked toward the window. Soon Jax was beside him, a silent sentry focused on the window. A small scraping sound caught her attention—like a tree branch brushing softly against the screen or the siding. But there were no trees outside her window.
Was someone there?
A dark shadow outside the window blocked the moon's light for a brief instant, and she knew. Something—or someone—
was
there.

She grabbed her cell phone, hands shaking as she found Grayson's number and dialed. He picked up on the first ring.

“Grayson?” Laney whispered. “It's Laney.”

“Laney.” His voice was instantly alert. “What is it?”

“I'm not sure.” Her voice trembled as she tried to keep from being heard by whoever was out there. “The dogs are growling, and I thought I saw a shadow pass by my window.” She paused, listening. “I'll admit I'm a little on edge after tonight, so I might be overreacting... It could just be the officer looking around. Should I go check?”

“No,” Grayson answered quickly, voice firm. “I'm on my way. Stay away from the windows. Call 911, wake up Rose, and turn on every light in the house. If it's the officer, we'll sort it out in a hurry.”

“Okay, I'll do that now—” A muffled thud interrupted her, followed by a sudden shout from down the hall.

Aunt Rose!

“Oh, no!” She gasped, dropping her phone as she launched herself from the bed with a yell. “I'm coming, Aunt Rose!”

Heart in her throat, she ran toward the door, grabbing her mace from the dresser and rushing down the hall, the dogs at her heels. Flinging the guest room door open, she barged in, mace at the ready, prepared for the worst.

The window was wide open, screen missing. The curtains flapped in the breeze. Bright silver illuminated the room.

And a man. Dressed in dark clothing and wearing a ski mask.

He advanced toward Rose who was backing toward the wall, mace in hand. Ducking his head, the intruder shielded his face with one hand to avoid the foam mace shooting out from Rose's special-edition breast-cancer-awareness canister. The mace did actually have as good a range as the canister, and Rose, had claimed. Unfortunately, Rose's aim was not as reliable. From the amount of foam on the floor, wall, and intruder himself, there couldn't be much left in the canister.

The intruder must have known it. He snagged Rose's nightgown, jerked her toward him. Something glinted in his free hand.

Laney's pulse jumped. A gun.

Without thinking, she rushed toward them, bare feet slipping on the hardwood floor slick with foam mace. The dogs followed her in.

“Halt!” Laney commanded the dogs to keep them out of the mace. The dogs stopped immediately at the emergency command. Both Rose and the intruder looked her way.

Aunt Rose ineffectively pelted the man with her small fist and the mace can, her face flushed and angry. Foam mace covered the left side of the intruder's ski mask. Though his left eye was squinted shut, he glared at Laney with his unaffected right eye. It was then he caught sight of the dogs behind her and hesitated.

“Brody. Jax. Danger.” On her command, the dogs growled. “Don't move, or you'll be dog food,” she yelled, mace at the ready.

It was a bluff, a scare tactic. Jax and Brody were search dogs, and not cross-trained in protection. But their teeth were bared, their growls menacing. The man stilled. “Put your hands where I can see them and step away from my aunt.” Laney's calm command belied her terror for Rose. Years spent working with dogs that were far more sensitive to moods than the average person had taught her to control her emotions.

The man released Rose, shoving her away from him and taking a step toward Laney, hands raised, gun still in his grasp. Glancing first at the door, then toward the window as if calculating his likelihood of a quick getaway, he took yet another step closer.

Could this be one of the kidnappers? If he was, Laney couldn't afford to let him get away. He could lead them to Olivia and the others. She needed to figure out how to detain him until help arrived.

“Drop the gun,” she ordered, her gaze and the can of mace trained on him.

“That's not gonna happen,” he sneered, teeth gleaming behind the ski mask as he stepped forward. Brody's growls turned to a menacing bark.

“Don't move another step,” she warned him. “I mean it.”

Behind him, Rose quietly sidled around the wall to the dresser. Grabbing a large vase of flowers and hoisting it over her head, she launched it with as much force as she could muster. Unfortunately she wasn't very strong, and the water-filled vase was heavy. It hit him near the base of the neck, covering him with flower petals and water as it deflected off his shoulder and smashed to the floor—shards of glass mixing with flowers, foam mace and water.

The man cursed, quickly turning on Rose. In a blink, she grabbed the empty mace canister and pitched it at the intruder. He deflected it easily, rushing toward her as she scrambled across the bed in an attempt to evade his reach.

She wasn't fast enough.

He grabbed Rose's ankle. She cried out, kicking him ineffectively with her other foot.

Not wanting to inadvertently spray Rose with the mace, Laney frantically scanned the room for something she could use as a weapon. Anything to give them a fighting chance until help arrived.

A lunge whip Laney used to evaluate play drive in puppies rested by the closet. Snatching it up, she furiously slashed at the man's head and hands with the heavy nylon cording. The last hit left a welt on the bare skin between his gloved hand and his sweatshirt sleeve, causing him to release his grip on Rose.

He angrily grabbed at the whip as it angled down toward his head, trying to yank it from Laney's grasp, but it was slick with foam mace.

Jerking it back, and ignoring biting shards of glass under her feet, Laney rushed toward the intruder. The only other weapon she had was the mace, so she brought the canister down with force on the side of his head and ear. Letting out a howl, he cursed again and came around swinging. Laney ducked. Scrambling backward, she narrowly avoided the blow. Her feet lost purchase on the slippery floor and flew out from under her. She landed on her backside, the jarring force sending pain shooting through her body all the way up to her aching head. She felt dizzy, sick, and then he was on her, one hand on her throat, the other pointing the gun. She lifted the mace, pointed and prayed.

* * *

Gravel crunched under the tires and pelted the bottom of Grayson's sedan as he sped along Laney's drive. It had been several minutes since Laney had called, and time wasn't on his side. It took only seconds for a life to be snuffed out. Grayson knew that all too well.

Pulling his car to an abrupt stop in the front drive, he noticed the officer in a heap by the open driver's-side door of the marked car—head bleeding, gun holster clearly empty. There was no time to check his condition.

Leaving his emergency lights flashing, Grayson rushed to the front door, the distant approach of another car on the gravel road giving him hope that backup was on the way.

The house was locked tight. He'd never be able to break down the solid oak door. Knowing that the sliding glass door to the kitchen was his best bet, he ran the length of the porch, vaulting over the railing and sprinting around the corner of the house.

“Laney! Rose!” he called out, racing toward an open window and the scuffling sounds of a struggle mixed with barks and growls.

“Gray! In here! Help!” Rose's voice.

Hoisting himself up, he dropped through the window, into the room.

Laney was on the floor, wrestling with a man for a gun. One of the dogs had a hold of the man's pant leg. The other dog was by Laney, barking and growling furiously. Rose was doing her best to help, pelting the intruder around the head and neck with a boot.

“Get back, Rose!” Grayson yelled, rushing forward as the man wrenched the gun from Laney's grasp and rose to his feet, turning the gun on her.

The quiet click of the trigger, then nothing.

No bullet. No blood.

And no way was Grayson giving the guy a second chance. He rammed into him. Hard. They were both thrown off-balance as Grayson grabbed for the guy's gun hand, twisting it around until the perp had no choice but to drop the gun. It clattered to the hardwood floor.

“Aunt Rose—get the lights!” Laney called out.

Balling his fist, Grayson slammed it into the guy's ribs, then quickly followed that blow with an uppercut to the jaw.

The lights flicked on, and Grayson dodged a punch. Then another. His opponent was slower, half-blinded by mace. But Grayson still had the image of Laney at the barrel end of the gun in his mind. Still heard the click of the trigger. He had no mercy as he returned the attempted blows with an onslaught of punches to the perp's face and ribs.

The guy dropped to his knees with a grunt.

Grayson helped him the rest of the way to the floor with a hard shove, then pressed his knee into the guy's back.

Reaching for his cuffs, he saw Laney going for the gun. “Leave it,” he cautioned her.

Laney stopped short. Dressed in black yoga pants and a tank top, her feet were bare and bloody. Smudges of mace lined her bruise-covered jaw. Her hair fell in wild, tangled waves around her face. “What do we do now?” she asked, worrying her bottom lip. Somehow she managed to look both tough and vulnerable.

“There's a police cruiser pulling up to the house. You two meet the officers at the door and bring them back to me.”

Ten minutes later, he and Laney were seated at the kitchen table while Rose busied herself making a pot of tea. Laney's foot was elevated. A paramedic used tweezers to extract small shards of glass. Grayson was certain it hurt, but probably not as much as being shot had. And she'd come close to having that happen again, close to dying.

She winced as a larger splinter of glass was removed.

“You holding up okay, Laney?” he asked, his eyes turning toward the suspect who'd been read his rights and brought to the kitchen to be cleaned up. His ski mask had been bagged as evidence, along with a glass-cutter and some duct tape. The only other thing he'd had on him was a folded piece of paper with Laney's address printed on it.

And the gun. He'd taken it from the patrol officer after he'd knocked the guy out.

“I'm great,” she responded, and Grayson turned his full attention back to her. She had the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.

“You're lying,” he replied with a soft smile.

“Maybe a little.” She flinched as the paramedic dug another piece of glass from her foot.

One of the officers was none-too-gently wiping remnants of the mace from the intruder's face with a washcloth. Grayson wished he'd hurry. Having the guy who'd tried to kill Laney in the same room had to be disconcerting for her.

There was a flurry of sound from the foyer. Then Kent Andrews rushed into the kitchen with Deputy Chief Tom Wallace right behind him.

“What have we got?” Andrews asked Grayson. In his early fifties, Andrews was a fitness buff who made the gym part of his job. Grayson had brought him into the case six weeks ago when the first Maryland victim, an eight-year-old girl from Annapolis, had disappeared. Since then, Andrews kept an open line of communication between the MPD and Grayson. Though Grayson was used to working alone, he appreciated another set of eyes on the case file and ears on the streets.

“White male. Possibly late twenties, early thirties. No ID on him, and he won't give his name.” Grayson sighed. “He's lawyered up, not talking.”

“Typical.”

Grayson nodded in agreement. “The officers are cleaning him up. Quite a bit of mace squeezed through openings of the ski mask he was wearing. We're hoping either Laney or Rose will recognize him.”

“Any signs of an accomplice?” Wallace asked.

“Not that I could see. He appears to be working alone. How's the officer?”

“He's conscious. Paramedics are loading him into the ambulance,” Andrews said. “He's a little fuzzy about what happened, but we surmise the suspect staged a distraction and attacked after the officer got out of the car to investigate, obviously stealing the gun while the officer was down.”

“It was fortunate the safety was on and the perp didn't have a clue,” Grayson replied.

Andrews nodded. “Right now we're canvassing the area to see if we can tie a vehicle to him. It stands to reason he either lives or is parked somewhere in the community and came up the gravel road.”

“That's my thought, too,” Grayson agreed. “Though there's still a slight possibility he has a car and driver waiting for him, or a scheduled pickup time with an accomplice.”

“Agreed. This property backs right up to Route 2, I've got two cars searching,” Andrews offered with a glance at the suspect, whose back was to them. “But the underbrush is heavy this time of the year, and he looks way too free of thorns, burrs or dirt to have taken that route.”