Authors: Sarah Grimm
She blinked. “You don’t believe in holding things back do you?”
“Would you prefer I lie to you?”
“No.” She appeared adamant about that much. “What is a remote trigger?”
Her ability to handle the information without tears or histrionics impressed him.
In his years on the force, he’d seen people break down over much less. Not Paige Conroy.
She was afraid, he knew, and not unfeeling. That much showed in her inability to get
a decent night’s rest. He’d been unhappy to discover that when she removed her dark
glasses, her features were more drawn than the night before. Still, not many women
he knew could function at anywhere near normal with a madman terrorizing them. Yet
here Paige stood, exhausted, but facing her problems head on, with courage and intelligence.
“Have you ever wondered why your car didn’t blow when you first started it? Why you
got out and walked away before it exploded?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Our boy was watching you that morning. From across the street, from down the block,
who knows for sure? The point is he never planned to kill you, just scare you. He
made the bomb small, to prove a point maybe, and then he waited and he watched for
the right moment to key the trigger.”
“He put the picture on my door, so I would get out of the car.”
“Yes, then he stepped over your unconscious, bleeding body to remove it.”
“Justin,” Allan warned as Paige’s features slackened.
Justin bit back the anger that had simmered all morning, only now reaching a full,
rolling boil. Fear for her well-being clawed at him, tore great holes in the wall
of indifference he wore for his partner. He wanted, no needed more than anything,
to drag Paige into his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. Five,
even ten minutes before he might have, now, he wasn’t at all certain it wasn’t an
outright lie.
“He knows you, Paige. Well enough to know that photo would draw you. Well enough to
get into your building without setting off your alarm.”
“He has her code key,” Allan supplied.
“That would be my guess.”
Paige shook her head in denial. “That’s not possible.”
“Of course it is,” Justin continued, his tone less harsh but still tight. “Most people
use something familiar to them. Something easily remembered. If this guy knows you,
it wouldn’t be difficult for him to figure out what that code is.”
“He wouldn’t have enough time. The system’s too fast, it…”
“What?”
“Last night before I called 911 I tried my wireless remote. I hit the panic button
multiple times, but the alarm never sounded. I assumed it was the remote, that it
was damaged in the explosion. But if it’s the system…”
“Then he could get in.”
“That doesn’t play for me,” Allan stated. “He would have to know that the system had
been damaged and how would he?”
Justin kept his gaze locked on Paige. “At this point the how doesn’t matter as much
as the why. He watched you, while you slept, as he pushed the button and blew up your
car. And he’ll keep watching you. He’ll keep at you until he finally has what he came
for.”
“Which is?”
“You, Paige. He wants you.”
Her face went sheet-pale. “Dead, isn’t that what you mean? He wants me dead.”
Justin took a deep breath into his lungs, and held it even as his recovering injuries
protested. He wouldn’t let it happen. He’d do whatever it took to keep her alive.
“St. John came to San Diego. He came to see you, Paige. And whoever took him out has
set his sights on you.”
“If he wants me dead, then why not just kill me?”
Much as he hated admitting it, he had no answer to that particular question. Paige
didn’t wait for him to think one up. She took a deep breath and broke the uncomfortable
silence.
“So I’m giving him exactly what he wants. This is a game to him and I’m playing right
into his hands.”
“We don’t know that,” Allan reassured.
“I’m scared aren’t I?”
Allan moved about the room as he spoke. “The key to all of this is to stay one step
ahead of his game.”
“How is that possible when we don’t have any idea what his next move will be?”
“That’s why you came to us.” Although meant to encourage, Justin could tell that his
words fell short of their goal as Paige lifted her gaze to meet his. He brushed his
fingers over the back of her hand. “We’ll figure it out, Paige.”
“I have to believe you or I’ll lose my mind,” she admitted softly. “I have to believe
you, so I will.”
She had great confidence in him. Confidence he wasn’t at all certain he had earned.
“In the mean time,” Allan continued, “I suggest you get the hell out of Dodge. Do
you have someone you can stay with for a while, just until this blows over?”
“No. At least not anyone I’m willing to put in harm’s way.”
“Go back to Boston.”
Her spine went stiff as a rail at the firm command in Allan’s voice. Color returned
to her cheeks, a spark of fire to her eyes. “That won’t do me any good. You said he
knows me, that this centers around me. If that’s true, then how do you know that’s
not his plan? If he knows me, he knows where I’d run to.”
Although Justin preferred her anger over the cold fear of a few moments ago, his nerves
remained fractured. Paige needed more than anger to survive this, she needed protection.
Undaunted, Allan continued, “There has to be someone you can stay with. Anyone who
would offer to help you hide out, someone this guy wouldn’t know about?”
“She’ll be staying with me.”
Paige’s eyes grew large as saucers. Her mouth dropped open, but no argument broke
loose.
The firm grip of his partner’s hand upon his arm drew Justin aside. “I hope you know
what you’re doing.”
Warning, along with a note of concern colored Allan’s words but failed to pull Justin’s
attention away from Paige. She messed with his head but good. To the point that things
he never imagined could come out of his mouth did. Like asking her to go home with
him. Twice. To his home, his sanctuary, the one place he never invited a woman.
She crawled under his skin, swam through his bloodstream. Bullied her way past his
defenses until he was left with no defenses where she was concerned. No one, not ever,
got past his cop barriers, the thing that kept him alive. Yet she had.
Thoughts of her ate at him, chased him whether awake or asleep. He hadn’t been able
to push her from his mind since meeting her. It made no sense. Even now, his mind
kept wandering back to the previous evening, to the mind-numbing feel of her in his
arms. To how well their bodies aligned. Just the memory had his pulse racing, his
blood heating in anticipation.
“Justin?” Allan’s voice broke through the fog of his mind. “I hope you know what you’re
doing.”
“So do I.”
“She’ll be staying with me.”
Justin’s words circled round and round Paige’s head as she watched the two men converse,
their voices dropped to an octave she was unable to hear. Not that she would have
made sense of anything past the five words still spinning through her mind. Words
spoken with enough authority as to invoke no argument.
Uncertain that her legs would hold her up any longer, she sank into one of the chairs
about the table. Her gaze settled on the window across from her and the dancing dust
motes. Her left hand tinkered with her sunglasses. Her head throbbed in time with
her heartbeat.
Within the course of a week, everything had changed. Her life was a puzzle she couldn’t
sort out. Things she’d always known about herself, she suddenly questioned. Emotions
she thought she’d reined under control years ago ran free, muddling her thoughts,
confusing the issues. She felt a connection to Justin, a connection she didn’t want
to feel. He was a cop, the type of man she knew she should avoid.
Still, she knew she was out of options. She was going home with Justin. Fear of their
mutual attraction aside, he seemed to be the only option available to her. He would
help shoulder her burden. He would keep her safe. Common sense told her any threat
he offered paled in comparison to the threat from her faceless assailant. The knowledge
did nothing to ease her discomfort.
It was only temporary, this glitch in her routine, this confusion she called her life.
Soon enough things would level out. The answers would come, the case would close,
and she would move on. Back to her studio and her photographs, back to evenings spent
in the darkroom instead of curled in the corner of her bed. She closed her eyes and
pictured it, only to be struck with one last thought. When that time finally came,
how much of herself would she be able to salvage?
With a sigh, Paige folded her arms upon the top of the table and dropped her face
onto them. Her life was a puzzle all right, one of those five-thousand-piece numbers
with raw, uneven edges and no picture on the box cover to guide her.
The door to the room clicked open. At the same time, the chair on her left pulled
out and someone eased into it. She didn’t need to look to identify who sat beside
her. The jolts of electricity that wracked her body whenever Justin was near told
her.
“I’m not any good with puzzles. Somewhere in the middle, despite my eye for detail,
those pieces become nothing more than a multitude of odd shapes and sizes that don’t
fit together no matter how I turn them.” Straightening in her seat, she met his gaze.
“I’ve been turning everything over in my head, but none of it makes sense.”
Especially her overwhelming urge to ask him for comfort.
As his hand reached out, cupping the side of her face. Paige closed her eyes then
opened them. She shouldn’t feel so drawn to him. Even if she could handle his career,
she knew what kind of man she wanted in her life and he wasn’t it. She wished she
were different, wished she could enjoy him, his nearness, the electricity and heat
they generated, the connection they shared without letting him matter. Without letting
him in too far. Without the pain.
She couldn’t.
She wished she could forget about him. Go home to her boring life, to her staid career,
and have things back the way they used to be. Before one phone call turned her world
around. Before she walked into that hotel room and discovered Leroy dead. Before she’d
looked up into the most intense pair of brown eyes she’d ever seen.
She couldn’t.
Reaching up, Paige removed Justin’s hand from her face. When her fingers began to
curl around his, she released his hand abruptly and stood. She needed space, needed
to put distance between them and pull her reeling emotions back under control. For
whenever he was near, control was the very last thing she possessed.
As her gaze flitted about the room and the knowledge that they were alone settled
in, she took a step in retreat.
Justin’s dark brows drew together. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” His white shirt buttoned up the front, and tucked into his jeans. The
top few buttons hung open, revealing tanned skin lightly sprinkled with dark hair.
Heat licked through her veins and she was struck with the sudden desire to work the
rest of his buttons free and push his shirt off his shoulders, revealing the rest
of his broad chest to her gaze. “Where’s Allan gone off to?”
“He went to see one of the techs about those photos of yours.” He watched, a curious
look upon his face as she plucked her sunglasses from the table and turned them end
over end in her hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She laid the glasses back down, raised her hand to the pounding in her temple. “Of
course.”
He said nothing for a moment, his eyes on hers. Finally, he motioned to her laptop
case. “Most likely they’re going to want to take a look at your computer, see if they
can trace who sent the photos to you. By the looks of it, you already knew that.”
“I didn’t know for sure, so I brought it along.”
“Any passwords or special security features they’re going to need to know about?”
The ache behind her eyes was becoming unbearable. She pulled the aspirin bottle from
the pocket of her suit jacket and struggled against the child-proof cap. “No.” Her
fingers fumbled. She forced her eyes to focus and tried again, but lack of sleep made
her clumsy. Frustration ground her molars together, a move she immediately regretted
when her head pounded harder. ”Are you any good with these?”
He took the tiny bottle she offered him, fisted his free hand, propped the lip of
the bottle lid against the edge of the table and brought his fist down atop it. The
lid snapped free, flipped into the air and landed unceremoniously in the center of
her laptop case. “Two?”
She held up three fingers.
A frown furrowed his brow even as he dropped the caplets into her waiting hand. “When
did you last eat?”
“What day is it?”
“Shit.” Justin pushed to his feet. He crossed the room to the water cooler on the
opposite wall and filled a paper cup, waiting until she swallowed the caplets to comment
further. “I can be at your place by six. I’ll pick up something to eat on the way.
Anything particular you want?”
“My life back.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I know you don’t want to come home with me. But Allan’s
right, you need to get out of your place.”
She did want to go home with him. More than he understood. He would make her forget,
quite easily in fact. Worse, he made her want…much more than he was offering. “What
if you never find this guy? I can’t hide forever.”
“How about we focus on today and leave tomorrow for tomorrow?”
“Like a puzzle? One piece at a time?”
“Exactly.”
He would be very good at puzzles. Patient, competent, willing to do whatever it took
to arrange the pieces into order, slowly building one on another until the complete
picture came into focus. After all, wasn’t that what investigative work was like?
Paige looked up into those amazing dark-brown eyes of his. Circled in thick, black
lashes, they were creased at the corners in a way that told her those few wicked grins
he’d sent her way were far more normal for him than the sober look of contemplation
that colored his features now. Swamped by the urge to smooth those frown lines from
his brow with the tips of her fingers, to ease the grim line of his mouth and work
the corners up into a dimpled smile, she shoved her hands toward her rear pockets.
They slid over the smooth fabric of her pocket-less slacks, leaving her fumbling.
His frown deepened. “I know what you’re thinking, you know. And you’re wrong.”
The lump in her throat made swallowing difficult. “What am I thinking?”
“Making choices that keep you alive does not make you weak. It would be much simpler
to just give up and let this bastard win.”
“I could stay where I am, refuse to run and face him.”
“You could die in the process.”
The thought sent a ripple of alarm through Justin. What if she refused? He couldn’t
hog-tie her, couldn’t make her come with him. He understood her ill-ease, for he felt
the same stirrings of discomfort as she at the low hum of sensual awareness that circled
about them like a hungry shark. Even right now, he had to fight against the urge to
haul her into his arms. And not to ease the clawing panic clearly visible in her eyes.
No, his motives were not that heroic.
Against his better judgment, he allowed his gaze to drop, to caress the shape of her
body outlined by her suit. He knew just what that suit of hers covered for he’d had
his hands all over her just the night before. A high, tight rear-end, slim hips, endlessly
long legs that would pull him deep into her warmth. Desire shot straight to his stomach,
swirled there. The palms of his hands began to itch.
Paige wore her clothing like armor, each piece carefully chosen to broadcast an image,
a strength she alone believed she lacked. She’d have chosen this one to disguise the
fear he knew filled her. To tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she could handle
anything thrown her way.
Anything.
Even the need to turn to him for help.
God, she impressed him. Aroused him, challenged him as no other before her had done.
He scrubbed a frustrated hand across his face and focused on the cool green gaze of
the woman before him, the woman his brain told him to stay away from. He’d yet to
fully recover from his injury. The last thing he needed was to get involved with a
woman who screamed commitment. He was a loner. He didn’t do commitment.
His body wasn’t listening. He wanted Paige. Above him, below him, it didn’t matter.
He knew it was bad timing, but he wanted her just the same. And he would have her,
sooner or later. If he had to keep his hands in his pockets, pants zipped until the
threat that chased her was destroyed, he would. He could.
“Suppose I promised not to do anything you don’t ask me to do?”
She eased out a breath. “What if I said, it isn’t you I worry about?”
Shock and awareness filled him, stole his ability to reply. Heat surged through his
limbs, tingled in his side. A groan slid past his clenched lips.
He curled his fingers around her upper arm and urged her closer. Drew the scent of
her greedily into his lungs. “How do you expect me to ignore a comment like that?”
Enough color flashed into her face to tell him she hadn’t meant to reveal that bit
of information to him. “I don’t.”
“Flanders said he’d see what he could do about tracing the origin of that e-mail.”
Allan’s voice brought Justin’s head up. He discovered his partner, just inside the
door, eyebrow raised in silent question.
“He needs Ms. Conroy’s computer.”
Blood hammering, Justin could only nod. Reluctantly, he released his hold on Paige,
who immediately turned away and retrieved her sunglasses from the table. She slid
them into place.
He had the strongest urge to call her on it, to question who exactly she was hiding
from, him or his partner.
“Brennan’s back and looking for us,” Allan stated as he slipped past Justin and lifted
the case off the table.
“Right.” Justin followed his partner to the door, stopped before following him out
into the hall. He needed to get back to work, back to the job and away from Paige.
He needed to focus his thoughts and couldn’t seem to do that when she was near. But
they hadn’t settled this, hadn’t solved anything.
Hand on the doorknob, he glanced over his shoulder in her direction. “It’s not safe
to stay at your place. Paige?”
“I know. I know I can’t stay there.”
“You should be fine for the next few hours. I’ll pick you up after work. Six o’clock.”
The seconds ticked by, ten, twenty, before she replied softly, “Six o’clock.”
* * * * *
Paige’s stomach rolled painfully as she stood before the building that had been her
home for the last two years and felt a sense of dread spread through her at the thought
of entering. Her body ached with fatigue, sorrow, and a sense of violation stronger
than the rest of her emotions combined. In her right hand, she held the cell phone
she’d replaced on her drive back from the police precinct, in her left, the key to
the side door of her building. In her heart, she held the knowledge that she would
never again feel the sense of homecoming crossing the threshold used to offer her.
In the years since her move to San Diego, she’d made the place hers. Her home. Her
success. The building before her, nothing more than a converted warehouse to others,
was so much more. It housed her dreams, her hopes and fears. Within these walls, she’d
known laughter and tears, loss and acceptance, and recently, the thrill of a job well
done. It represented everything she wanted, all that she needed.
Until evil crossed its threshold, infesting its walls like cockroaches.
When the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, Paige knew it wasn’t the taste
of cold fear on her tongue that caused it. She didn’t need to see the curious looks
she drew to know people watched her. The charred curbside to her left and the yellow
tape caused quite a stir amongst the people who lined the sidewalk. Busy with the
comings and goings of the businesses surrounding hers, they watched her now, as they
had before. Unlike any other time, today she found she preferred their stares to the
cool interior of her building.
Pressing trembling fingers to her temple, she fought against the urge to look over
her shoulder. She wanted to be strong, to close the distance between her and her building
and slip inside, shut the door behind her and keep reality at bay. But she no longer
had that option. Her steel doors were not enough to keep the man chasing her out,
how could she hope they would ever keep the world out? How could they ever keep her
safe again?