Authors: Sarah Grimm
The man slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his navy sport coat and withdrew
a leather case. He flipped it open in a move smooth from long practice and replied,
“Detective Jon Brennan, Boston PD.”
* * * * *
Paige shut off the tap with a flick of her wrist, frowning as the water continued
to spill over the side of the pitcher and down her hand. Distracted, lost in thought,
she hadn’t noticed the level of the water until it was too late. So much for making
herself some lemonade.
She dumped the contents of the pitcher down the drain and reached for a towel to dry
it. She’d been like this ever since talking to Justin about her two telephone calls.
Unsettled and edgy; unable to keep her mind off thoughts of him as she waited impatiently
for his call back. Something had to happen and soon. She didn’t know how much more
of this she could take.
Setting aside the pitcher along with her chance for a tall, cool drink of lemonade,
she removed a glass from the cupboard and crossed to the refrigerator for a bottle
of water. Why hadn’t he called her back yet? Surely enough time had passed for him
to get from the precinct to her warehouse.
Pressing her free hand into her stomach, she told herself to get a grip. She breathed
deeply, slowly, doing her best to restore her calm. But calm would not come. No matter
how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was coming to a
head.
Today.
Her stomach tightened painfully. As soon as the thought presented itself, she knew
it to be true. Before this day ended, she would know the identity of the man who’d
killed Leroy, the man who’d been getting his thrills keeping her on edge.
The man who wanted her dead.
High-pitched, melodious notes sounded throughout the house sending Paige’s heart into
her throat. She jumped at the abrupt sound, barely biting back a scream. The glass
slipped from her hand. She fumbled it and the water bottle a few times before they
both landed on the tiles at her feet. Glass shattered, scattering tiny shards in all
directions.
“Hello?” a voice called from the other side of the front door. The doorbell sounded
a second time. “Sergeant Harrison, it’s Jon Brennan.”
The doorbell, it was only the doorbell. It took a few seconds for her heart to return
to her chest.
Mindful of the broken glass, she pushed through the swinging kitchen door. She’d progressed
halfway across the living room before her mind caught up with her feet and her steps
halted. Why would Jon Brennan come here, to Justin’s house? She’d just spoken with
him not forty-five minutes ago and informed him Justin was not home today.
Unease settled in. Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to get out of there.
She took a deep breath. Where could she go? Even if she slipped through the kitchen
and out the side door, whoever waited for her outside could catch her before she got
away. Perhaps if she remained silent, the man would think no one was home and leave.
“Sergeant? I heard glass breaking, is everything all right in there?”
Paige pressed her lips together to keep her gasp of alarm from breaking free. She
had to think. She needed to figure out how to get out of there.
Edging around the couch, she moved as quietly as possible toward the desk and her
cell phone. She could go back into the kitchen and use the telephone in there, but
she didn’t have Justin’s mobile number memorized. She needed her cell phone and the
information programmed into its memory.
“Ms. Conroy?”
She froze, her hand in mid-air as she reached for her phone.
He knew her name? How did he know her name?
The feeling of being watched had her glancing to the window. She couldn’t hold back
the squeal of alarm when a face suddenly appeared in the front window. The man—brown
hair, her mind catalogued, bleached tips spiked above dark sunglasses—looked right
at her. His mouth curved into a smile that under different circumstances she might
have described as charming. Today, right now, she found it supremely unnerving.
“Ms. Conroy,” he repeated, his smile firmly in place. “Could you open the door please,
I need to speak with Sergeant Harrison.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off his face. Reaching out blindly, she stretched, brushed
her hand across the desk a few times but couldn’t locate her phone.
Suddenly, his head turned, his attention locked on her searching hand. His smile dimmed.
She weighed her need to keep the man in her sights against her need to get hold of
her cell phone. Accepting the risk, Paige turned her gaze to the desk and snatched
up the phone.
She looked away for only a moment, still, he no longer stood at the window when her
gaze returned. Precious moments where wasted as she wondered where he had gone, what
his next move would be. Moments she should have spent calling for help.
A sudden thump sounded against the door, then a second time, louder than the first.
She jumped, her pulse skipping as the sound came again and again, until with a resounding
crack, the front door swung in and slammed against the inside wall.
The man stood, framed in the doorway, one arm raised and holding the door against
the wall to keep it from swinging back at him. His glasses were gone now and the sight
of those eyes looking at her, staring at her from a stranger’s face, actually made
her feel faint.
Her breath clogged in her lungs. Her body began to tremble even harder. She’d seen
those eyes before, staring down at her as she slept. She’d thought she’d dreamed them,
but here they were. Eyes so blue that had she not known better, she would have believed
they were colored contacts.
“It can’t be,” Paige whispered, clutching her cell phone so tightly her fingers went
numb. “You’re dead.”
“Put down the phone, P.C.”
* * * * *
“I don’t like not being kept abreast of your investigation,” the man claiming to be
Detective Jon Brennan stated. “I’ve called, left numerous messages. I think you could
give me the consideration of returning my calls.”
The department’s voicemail had been down for days now. Every time someone attempted
to retrieve their messages, the system would play their outgoing message back at them.
A technician had been brought in and the system was supposed to be repaired. However,
Justin hadn’t checked his messages yet today. He’d been too busy worrying over his
growing feelings for Paige. Busy shuffling through reports, searching for answers.
He glanced at the telephone now, as he struggled with what the man before him was
saying. “There’s just one problem. Jon Brennan arrived on Friday.”
The man straightened his stance ever so slightly. “I assure you, Sergeant,” he stated
quietly, “I am Detective Jon Brennan.”
Justin’s gaze shifted between the man standing before him and the identification he
held. He went very still inside as his mind fought against the truth. He couldn’t
allow himself to believe it because if he did, the man he’d been searching for all
week had been right under his nose. He’d sat in nearly the exact spot the real Jon
Brennan now stood and garnered every bit of information they had on the St. John homicide.
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me a man came to this department, claiming
to be me?”
Justin couldn’t wrap his mind around it either. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
“How?”
A damn good question.
“I flew in yesterday,” Brennan announced, tucking his identification back into his
pocket. “Half our department is down with the flu and I couldn’t make it out here
until then. I left all of this information on your voice mail.”
“The system’s been down most of the week. Apparently it takes messages just fine,
it just won’t allow us to retrieve them.”
Justin’s gaze returned to his desk, to the items he’d begun to clear off the top of
it. That something niggled his mind again, but still remained just out of reach. “You
were St. John’s partner for the last three years?” he asked the man at his side.
“Yes?”
“Tell me something, did you know your partner well?”
“Of course. He was my partner.”
Justin pushed aside anger at himself. He’d known, deep inside he’d known something
was wrong when the other man who’d called himself Brennan claimed not to know his
partner. His heart started to beat faster. Dread spread throughout his body, painfully
tightening the muscles in his side.
He needed to get a handle on what was going on. “Then can you tell me why St. John
came to San Diego?”
“He came looking for a woman by the name of Paige Conroy. He wanted to interview her
again. To see if she saw what she thought she saw.”
What she thought she saw?
“He had a picture,” Brennan continued. “It haunted him.”
Justin shuffled aside the items on his desk searching for the photo found in St. John’s
hotel room. He showed it to Brennan. “This picture?”
“No. A picture of a man.”
“You saw it? Describe him to me.”
“Medium build, early thirties I’d guess, brown hair, blue eyes.”
It could be the first Jon Brennan. Of course with such a vague description it could
be anybody. “Did you notice any scars or tattoos? Anything to help identify the man.”
“Not that I saw. It wasn’t much of a picture, just a snapshot of a guy, but it haunted
Leroy. He said it was the man’s eyes. ‘Dead eyes,’ he called them.”
Eyes.
What had been bothering him for days clicked in that instant.
Paige had mentioned Preston’s eyes. The morning of St. John’s death, as she’d told
them of Rick Preston’s shooting, she mentioned his eyes and how she’d never forget
the look of his eyes after he’d been shot.
Justin fisted his left hand, gritting his teeth against the pain that knifed down
his side. He stared at the autopsy report atop his desk. The report that described
the body of Rick Preston, and how the injury to the man’s face was so extensive, he
was unrecognizable. If he believed the body the coroner autopsied was that of Rick
Preston, there was no way Paige would remember his eyes.
“Brennan.” He could barely catch his breath. It was all so unbelievable. Almost too
unbelievable, yet it would make sense. “What are you saying?”
“My partner didn’t believe Rick Preston died that night outside that restaurant, Sergeant.
Leroy believed Preston is still alive.”
It would explain the man’s ability to get where he shouldn’t have been able to get,
to fool an entire precinct into believing he was Detective Brennan. It would explain
his ability to duplicate crime scene photos because he would know, from his own experience
as a detective, what angles would be taken. Most importantly, it would explain why
Paige remained alive. Why he’d chosen to use fear in order to force her to run instead
of killing her outright, as he’d done with St. John.
“I think your partner was right. Rick Preston is alive. I met him a few days ago when
he presented himself as you.”
“When he…” Brennan’s words trailed off. Justin watched the man absorb what he’d just
heard. It didn’t take him long. “Damn,” he said quietly. “He needed to know what you
knew. Just how much Leroy managed to pass on before he died.”
“Exactly.” Justin continued to talk out loud, bouncing his thoughts off Brennan the
same way he would have bounced them off Allan. “The thing is, once he discovered we
had nothing, no physical evidence, no motive, why didn’t he leave town? Why not just
disappear again?”
“How do you know he didn’t? Have you seen the man since then?”
“No, but he’s made his presence known,” Justin replied, thinking of Paige’s late night
visitor. The thought brought him full circle, back to where he’d been heading before
Brennan approached him. “Why’d he call her?”
“Who?”
“Unless…unless he doesn’t know I’m not with her.”
“Sergeant, what are you talking about?”
“He called Paige from her home, knowing I’d go investigate. He didn’t know I wasn’t
with her.”
“Paige? You’re talking about Paige Conroy?”
Justin nodded, fear rising as everything seemed to slip into place. “That means he
knows where she is. How can he know where she is?”
The moment Justin gave voice to his question the answer came to him. With perfect
clarity, he recalled the events of the morning Preston sat at the apex of his and
Allan’s desk, pretending to be a Boston detective. How their conversation had been
cut short by Paige’s arrival and Preston’s hurried departure. A departure that came
on the heels of Allan’s statement that Paige was there to see Justin.
Paige had described Rick Preston as charming, slick and incredibly smart. The type
of man who could ease into new situations, make everyone believe in him, and walk
away unscathed. It wouldn’t take long for the man she described to figure out where
she’d run off to, once he made the connection between Paige and Justin. And it wouldn’t
take much for a man like that, to charm Justin’s home address out of someone.
“Jesus.” Fear tightened his gut, mixed with the dread already swirling there. Bile
crawled up the back of his throat. “Jesus, he’s going after Paige.”
He needed to warn her. He had to find Preston before Preston could get to Paige. Before
he could kill her.
Paige.
Instantly he imagined his life without her. In that moment, he realized the truth.
He loved her. He hadn’t meant to do it. Hadn’t even realized it was in him to do.
He’d told her he didn’t believe in love, but that was before he felt its power, the
reality of the emotion pulsing through his body like blood.
If only he’d realized it sooner. He wanted what Allan had—a life outside the job.
A family. Love. He wanted these things with Paige.
Justin just had to keep her alive so he could convince her she wanted the same from
him.
With shaking hands, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and punched in his home
telephone number. He waited until the machine picked up. “Paige, honey, pick up the
phone. Paige? Listen to me. Get out of there. He knows where you are.”