Authors: Sarah Grimm
He disconnected, shoved his phone back into his pocket and was nearly to the archway
before realizing Jon Brennan remained hot on his heels. He stopped, leveled his gaze
on the man.
“I’m with you on this,” Brennan stated boldly.
Justin hesitated.
“You’ll need another set of eyes. Someone to watch your back.”
The man wasn’t going to back down, that much was obvious. There was a fierce gleam
visible in Detective Jon Brennan’s eyes. A thirst for justice.
“The bastard killed my partner,” Brennan reminded Justin unnecessarily. “I can help
you keep him from getting the woman.”
“All right,” Justin acquiesced, his voice unsteady. He forced back panic, refusing
to even consider that he might be too late. He’d made Paige a promise and he was damn
well going to come through for her. “Did you bring your sidearm?”
“No. Too much hassle to fly with it.”
Justin reached down and removed the .38 from the holster he’d had custom made for
his boot. He handed it to Detective Brennan. “Then you’re going to need this.”
Paige couldn’t move. She couldn’t seem to draw a deep breath. In some sick way, everything
made sense. It was all suddenly so clear to her. Because Justin was right, her stalker
knew her. He knew her intimately.
“Put down the phone, P.C.,” Rick Preston repeated as he stepped further into the room
and swung the door closed behind him.
He’d been shot in the face, in the forehead, near his left temple. He’d been down.
Bleeding. Dying. She’d watched it all transpire. Saw, with her own eyes, the ambulance’s
arrival, the paramedic’s hurried attempts to stabilize him. The mad rush to load him
into the waiting ambulance and speed him to the hospital.
Where he’d been pronounced dead.
Rick.
Her heart hammered so hard it hurt. She swallowed, a bit hard to do since all her
saliva seemed to have dried up. “How? I saw you…”
“What? Die? You saw a man shoot me,” he replied, leveling an automatic at her chest.
His old service weapon, the one she’d kept in a drawer all these years. He’d done
more than just call her while in her house. He’d armed himself.
Rick’s gaze followed hers to the Beretta. The coolness of his smile sent a shiver
down her spine. “You know, when I swapped your wireless security remote for an identical
one, while you lay there on the sidewalk, I wasn’t sure I would even use it. I’m glad
I did. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to discover you’d held on to my service
pistol all these years. I didn’t know you cared, P.C.”
“I don’t. And stop calling me P.C. You know I hate that nickname.”
His smile faded. “Drop the phone. Now!”
She dropped the phone. It clattered off the edge of the desk and landed at her feet.
“Good. Now move away from the desk.” He gestured with the Beretta. “Have a seat. On
the couch.”
There had to be some mistake, she kept telling herself as her legs moved mechanically.
This couldn’t be Rick standing before her, holding a gun on her. Rick, the man she’d
once planned to marry. The man she believed had loved her.
He couldn’t be alive.
Yet even as part of her denied the plausibility of it, another part of her recognized
it as truth.
He’d changed dramatically over the past three years, more than could be explained
by the passing of time. Obviously, he’d undergone reconstructive or cosmetic surgery
to alter his features. His cheeks were sharper than they’d once been, his chin broader.
But his eyes, they were the same.
Paige blinked, struggling with the harsh reality of it all. “Why?”
“We’ll get to that.” Piercing blue eyes tracked her progress across the room until
she stopped alongside the couch. “Sit down.”
She obeyed, settling onto the very front of the cushion, prepared to spring to her
feet and run for the door should the chance for escape arise. It stood open a good
three inches, its latch damaged when he’d kicked the door in.
Seconds ticked by, turned to minutes. Paige stared at him. He stared at her.
“Now what?” she asked when she couldn’t take it any longer.
“Now we wait.”
“What are we waiting for?”
He moved closer, the automatic centered on her chest. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“No, I—”
“You want to have a nice little chit-chat for old time’s sake, is that it? We can
do that. We’re waiting for your cop lover to arrive.”
Icy fear twisted around her heart. “Who says we’re lovers?”
“Don’t insult me. I know what the two of you have been up to.”
“Justin won’t come here.”
Rick smiled.
“He won’t, he’s—”
The ringing of the telephone cut short Paige’s denial. Her pulse jumped. Her fingers
curled around the edge of the couch cushions. She watched Rick, waiting to see what
he would do.
On the third ring, the answering machine clicked on.
Justin’s voice sounded from the machine.
“Paige, honey, pick up the phone.”
“Let me, Rick. Let me tell him I’m fine. He won’t come then.”
“I want him here.”
“Paige?”
The sharp edge of fear tinged his voice. It tore into her, cut her insides like glass.
Her fingernails punctured the fabric of the couch as she gripped the cushion harder.
“Listen to me. Get out of there. He knows where you are.”
The machine clicked off.
“Excellent! Let the game begin.”
“Game? This isn’t a game, Rick.”
“Yes, my dear P.C., it is.”
She shook her head. But as she stared into his eyes, the only part of his face that
resembled the man she once knew, she saw the truth. Rick Preston might not have died
that night outside the restaurant, but whatever humanity he’d ever possessed did.
A new kind of fear froze her blood in her veins. “Why, Rick?” She still didn’t understand.
If she was going to die, she needed to understand. “Why are you doing this?”
The cold fury in his face made her stomach roll. “Leroy just couldn’t let it go. As
far as everyone was concerned, I was dead. I died that night outside of the restaurant.
He should have let it go.”
“You killed him.”
“He knew I was alive. I had to stop him before you found out, too.” He moved another
step closer to her. “You should have run away, P.C.”
There was something in his voice, a change. He no longer sounded cold and disconnected,
but... “You almost sound as if you care.”
“All you had to do was run—away from San Diego, away from Harrison.”
“Which bothers you more, Rick, the fact that you have to kill me? Or that I’m involved
with Justin?”
His eyes darkened. His hand tightened around the grip of the Beretta until his knuckles
went white. “You should have stayed away from him.”
“He’s a better cop than you. A better man.”
In the blink of an eye he had her by the throat, jerked her to her feet. Paige choked
and gagged. She staggered, her shins making painful contact with the coffee table
before he pulled her away from the couch and against the front of his body.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said, his face so close to hers his breath brushed
across her lips. His fingers tightened. Her vision blurred. “But you won’t push me
into ending this before he gets here.”
Desperate for air, she tugged on his arm, raked her fingernails across the back of
his hand. As abruptly as he’d taken her by the throat, he released her. She gasped,
then began to greedily suck oxygen into her lungs.
He produced a long, thin strip of plastic from his back pocket. If the item had a
name, she didn’t know it, but she knew what it was used for. Securing a suspect’s
hands in place of handcuffs.
“Turn around.”
In order to free up both of his hands, he tucked the automatic into his waistband
at the small of his back. When she didn’t immediately do as he’d ordered, he clamped
onto her wrist and twisted her arm until she had no choice but to offer him her back.
Forcing both arms behind her, he tightened the plastic strip and bound her hands together.
Immediately, she began to struggle against the restraint. It tightened around her
wrists, biting painfully into her skin. “This is suicide, Rick.”
“I survived a shot to the head, remember? No one can take me down.”
She faced him, noted the Beretta once again aimed at her chest. “You got lucky. You’re
not really Superman, you know.”
“Damn but you’ve changed, P.C. Where’s that malleable young thing that used to believe
everything I told her?”
Gone. She was no longer that woman. Hardly recognized herself in the person he continued
to describe.
“I liked that girl so much. I liked coming home to her knowing she had no idea the
things I did, the man I really was.”
“You mean that you’re a liar and a manipulator? I figured it out.”
“Not soon enough though, right?”
Fire burned through her wrists as she continued to twist and tug in an effort to pull
her hands free.
“You might as well give up. You can’t break free. Your efforts will result in nothing
but further pain.”
Paige clenched her jaw and ignored him. She feared he was right, her struggles would
get her nowhere, but she couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t give up.
“You do know that’s what attracted me to you in the first place, don’t you? Your innocence?
Well, that and your mouth. Baby, you’ve got a mouth on you just made for wrapping
around a man’s co—”
“I get the point.”
Rick laughed. “I forgot how much of a prude you are. Is it any wonder I had to go
elsewhere for fun?”
“If you found me so disappointing, why did you stay? Why the act the night you were
shot?”
“I told you, I got off on the fact that you were so clueless.”
“I didn’t remain clueless for long.”
“Long enough for me to get what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“I got tired of busting my ass on a case just to watch it fall apart. Tired of witnessing
just how much money could buy. It taught me money is power. I wanted some of the power
so I approached Alex Trubane with a deal. The entire time I was with you, I worked
for Trubane. Did you know that, P.C.? Was that one of the things you figured out about
me?”
“Who?”
“Ah, there’s a glimpse of that naïve young girl I know and love,” he said with derision.
“Alex Trubane, the largest drug trafficker in Boston. He runs a very profitable operation
under cover of his three nightclubs.”
The pain in her wrists increased. A warm trickle of blood ran down her hand. “Why
would he even consider letting you in? What did you have that he wanted?”
“I’m Superman,” he stated baldly, his mouth curved into an arrogant smile. “I held
the highest closure rate in the department. They needed me either out of the picture,
or on their side. It’s cheaper to buy a cop than it is to kill one.”
“So you switched sides and then what happened? Trubane turned against you?”
“I worked both sides, until Internal Affairs began looking at me. Hard. Seems they
got a tip about me.”
“From Leroy,” Paige guessed.
“My very own partner tipped them off. Can you believe that?”
A measure of satisfaction crept through her fear. Leroy St. John was everything Rick
wasn’t. He was honest and loyal. He never would have stood idly by while Rick abused
the system Lee believed in.
“I had to disappear. I decided the best way for that to happen was for me to die.
I had it all arranged, the hospital switch, my new identity, everything down to the
last detail. I’d even paid off the coroner to falsify records identifying the body
delivered to them as mine. It wasn’t very difficult. The man had a nasty drug habit.”
“You took a bullet to the head just to get out of facing an indictment?”
He rubbed his temple. The move brought to her attention a thin, pale scar at his hairline.
“The bastard wasn’t supposed to go for my face.”
“You went through the trouble of faking your own death. You took a bullet in order
to keep it real, and for what? Just to die today?”
“It’s not me who’s going to die today.”
“If you’re going to kill me, do it. What are you waiting for? Do it, Rick!”
“I told you,” he said, his tone as flat as his eyes. “We’re waiting for your cop lover.
He won’t let this go. He’ll keep digging and I can’t let that happen.”
The realization that Rick could in fact kill Justin came hard and fast. Rick had the
upper hand. He had the leverage. He was armed with both a Beretta and a hostage. With
her standing between them, Justin would hesitate to take a shot.
Rick wouldn’t.
A skitter of panic crept up her spine. Desperate, she began to beg. Not for her life,
but for Justin’s. “Please, Rick, please don’t do this.”
His head came up. His blue eyes glinted as he smiled at her.
“Please, Rick, just shoot me now. You still have a chance to get away.”
“You’re in love with him. This will be even better than I planned.”
Frenzied, Paige lashed out at him. She brought her heel down atop his foot as she
rammed her shoulder into him. The move pushed him back but failed to knock him off
his feet.
His eyes darkened. “Bad move,” he growled just before the back of his hand smashed
against her cheek.
Light splintered. Pain exploded in her head and she dropped to her knees. Tears filled
her eyes. She blinked them away, forced her eyes to focus as his gun hand pulled back
to swing at her again.
“Let her go,” a hushed voice demanded.
Paige’s gaze shifted toward the voice, locked on the man who’d entered the house unnoticed
and now stood near the front door, his Glock aimed in both hands.
“Justin,” she whispered as her panic ratcheted up another notch. “No!”
Instantly, the man Justin now knew was Rick Preston grabbed Paige by her bound wrists
and forcefully yanked her to her feet. Using her body as a shield, he pressed the
muzzle of his automatic against her ribcage, just under her right arm. “We’ve been
waiting for you, Sergeant Harrison.”
“Here I am,” Justin countered, doing his best to keep his expression carefully schooled
as a mix of rage and fear tore through him. “Now let Paige go.”
“That’s not gonna happen. Drop the gun.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“I’ll kill her,” Preston said, his voice calm. Viciously calm.
Justin kept his finger firm on the trigger of his Glock. “The way I figure it, if
you wanted her dead she would be by now.”
“Are you willing to risk her life on that?”
Justin’s throat tightened at the possibility that he was wrong. He pushed back the
panic as best he could. He needed to believe Preston wouldn’t shoot her. He’d had
too many chances before this if her death was all he wanted. Silently praying he was
right, Justin held his ground. “You made a mistake. You should have left after you
learned how much we knew. You never should have threatened Paige. Now it’s over.”
Preston pulled her closer to his body and pressed the Beretta more forcefully into
her ribs. He made himself as small a target as possible. “Is it?”