Between Love and Duty (21 page)

“You’re armed?” he asked Duncan. “Have you gone through the house?”

They did it together, after gently placing Jane with her back to a wall right inside the front door, which Niall locked. They covered each other, one at a time, and silently and smoothly cleared the house, room by room, whether Jane had already done it or not. Somebody could have been upstairs, waiting for a chance to slip out as she succumbed to hysteria. Maybe he had only wanted to see her terror.

Duncan didn’t let himself be sickened by the sight of Jane’s bedroom until he was sure the nutcase who’d gone berserk in here was gone. Then he let his gun hand sag to his side and
looked.

The words on the wall, Duncan thought, weren’t the worst of it, even though the sharp, metallic tang in his nostrils told him that the dripping red
was
blood.

Niall, grimly silent until now, said, “Somebody hates her big-time.”

Her clothes had been torn from closet and dresser and slashed like the bedding. For some reason Duncan’s gaze fixated on a dainty blue satin bra with both cups hacked in a telling display of frenzy. A few perfume bottles and the like on the dresser were smashed. So were the mirror above the dresser and the oval, freestanding, floor-length one. Jagged shards clung to the oak frame.

Almost nothing in the room was undamaged, except the windows and blinds.

He was sane enough to know he didn’t want to risk being seen by a neighbor.

“Glass breaking would have made some noise.”

Niall grunted. “We might get lucky.” He tilted his head. “The troops are here.”

After a last look at the devastation, Duncan followed his brother downstairs, where Jane was letting two uniformed officers inside.

Niall dispatched them immediately to knock on neighbors’ doors. Duncan had gone straight to Jane, who stared up at him with eyes near black with shock, and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to his side.

“You’re coming home with me,” he said gruffly.

She didn’t argue, only gave a little shiver and said, “I suppose I should pack some things.”

Duncan’s eyes met his brother’s over her head. After a moment, he asked, “How far did you go into the room?”

“I didn’t go in at all. I saw enough…” She broke off. Her fingers clenched Duncan’s shirt under his jacket. “There’s more.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.” When he hesitated, she tipped her head to stare at him.

“What?”

“You’re going to need a new wardrobe.”

She stared. Swallowed. “Paint? Or…?”

“He cut your clothes up. I doubt he had time to get everything, but… He did a lot of damage. Smashed mirrors and the bottles on your dresser, too.” He paused. “You can sleep in one of my T-shirts.”

Her self-possession remained formidable although he could feel the quivers running through her body. She gave a stilted nod. “Maybe I could…get some things out of the bathroom?”

Duncan raised his eyebrows at Niall, who nodded. “Sure,” he said easily. “You got a bag you can use, so you don’t have to go in the bedroom?”

“Oh. Yes. I keep my suitcases in a hall closet.”

He accompanied her while she retrieved an overnight-size bag from the closet and packed a few things in the bathroom. He noticed she was careful not to so much as glance toward her bedroom as they came and went.

“Do you need us?” Duncan asked Niall, who shook his head.

“Jane,” Niall said gently, “I think you’d better plan to stay with Duncan for at least a couple of days. I’m going to treat your bedroom like a full-blown crime scene, plus we’ll need to figure out the entry point and hope for fingerprints. I don’t suppose you accidentally left the front door unlocked?”

Her scathing look brought a fleeting grin to his face. “Didn’t think so.”

She left her keys for Niall, and then Duncan hustled her out the door and bundled her into his SUV, not letting her do more than exchange a couple of words with the next-door neighbors standing in a fearful cluster out on their lawn, staring.

“You doing okay?” Duncan asked her a couple of times during the ten-minute drive, and she nodded or mumbled assent.

They were almost to his house when she said, “It wasn’t paint, was it?”

He didn’t want to lie to her, ever. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Where would you
get
so much…?”

“Kill something.” He glanced sidelong at her. “An animal.” They weren’t dealing with a serial killer here, he reassured himself. The blood had to be from an animal, although something bigger than a rabbit, he thought. At least raccoon-size, given the volume of blood used.

She hunched farther in on herself, for which he couldn’t blame her. When he parked in his own garage, she sat like someone in a waking sleep, waiting until he came around and opened her door. As he herded her into the house, she seemed more docile than grateful to be here.

“You had dinner,” he remembered, awkwardly.

Jane swallowed, as if she’d rather not have thought about food. “Yes. Thank you.”

“I think a hot shower or bath would be good for you. You’ve got to be suffering from some shock.”

“That…would be good.”

He delivered her and her overnight bag to the guest bathroom, checked to be sure there were towels and shampoo and anything else she’d want, then went to get something for her to wear. He didn’t have anything like a robe. Sweatpants, maybe? Flannel pajama bottoms? He had a couple of pairs he rarely wore. Eventually he offered a pair of each along with a T-shirt and some warm socks, all of which she accepted without comment. Then he went to the kitchen to heat water for tea or coffee and waited.

She was so long he went down the hall, but he heard water running in the bathtub so he didn’t knock to say,
You okay?
Of course she wasn’t.
He
wasn’t okay. Duncan had seen a lot of ugly things in his career in law enforcement, but this one had been a strike against Jane, and that made it different. This was probably like a doctor whose wife had been diagnosed with some insidious disease. Cancer. That doctor wouldn’t be cool and thoughtful. He’d feel like any other scared husband.

She’s not your wife.

No. But right now, she might as well be, for the impact her shock and fear were having on him.

The sound of the bathroom door opening brought his head around. Jane appeared hesitantly in the kitchen, her cheeks flushed pink from the bath and her hair hanging loose and damp. She’d decided on the green plaid pajama bottoms, which didn’t fit her too badly, what he could see of them. She was long-legged enough, they didn’t even bag at the ankles. His T-shirt hung to nearly midthigh on her, though.

Giving an uncertain smile, Jane said, “I don’t suppose you have a ponytail holder? I didn’t think to grab anything.”

“Uh…” He touched his own head, his hair tousled but short. “No. Would a rubber band do?”

“They break your hair. I’ll leave it loose.”

“Tea?” he offered. “English Breakfast or herbal.”

She decided on herbal. “I don’t need any more adrenaline,” she said ruefully.

He didn’t, either. Duncan poured himself the English Breakfast, anyway. He couldn’t remember why he’d bought the herbal. It tasted like tainted water to him. It was probably worse now, as it had been sitting in the cupboard so long.

His socks looked cute on her, he decided, when she hoisted herself onto a tall stool at the breakfast bar. Saggy on her much-smaller feet. Even so, he could see her toes curl over the rung.

Setting out a saucer for their tea bags, he carried both mugs to the breakfast bar and hitched himself onto the one right next to her. Jane stared into her steeping tea with unwarranted concentration. Duncan had gotten to the point where he was trying to think of something to fill the silence when she spoke, so quietly he barely heard her.

“I feel so violated.”

He swiveled so he was completely facing her. After a minute she raised her head to meet his eyes.

“That’s normal,” he said. “People sympathize when your house is broken into, but they’re talking about your new flat-screen TV and the hassle of dealing with an insurance claim. Unless it’s happened to them, they don’t think about what it feels like. And this…is worse. Way worse.”

She bit so hard on her lip, he almost protested, expecting to see blood. “If only it wasn’t my bedroom,” she burst out.

God. He wanted to take her in his arms and not let go. But she was holding herself together, and he sensed that she needed to keep on doing that.

“I know.”

She shuddered and reverted to staring at her tea. He watched for a couple of minutes then lifted her tea bag out of her mug and dropped it on the saucer. “Drink,” he murmured. “The warmth will do you good.”

They didn’t talk much. He had the furnace cranking so that he was sweating, but she seemed comfortable. The tea helped, he thought, maybe only the comfort of cradling a hot mug, breathing in the steam, sipping. It occurred to him how rarely he’d had a woman in his kitchen. Beth Pannek, a lieutenant on the traffic side who, along with her husband, a county deputy, had become friends. A couple of others who’d come to dinner, none to spend the night. He didn’t bring women here for sex.

He’d never had one sitting here in his kitchen wearing his pajamas.

Duncan couldn’t tell if she had any consciousness of him as a man right now. He shouldn’t be thinking about how much he wished he was taking her to his bed, but he couldn’t help himself. Where was his vaunted self-control?

Slosh, slosh. Iceberg becomes ice cubes become meltwater.

And he wasn’t as disturbed about it as maybe he should be. He wanted her, yes, but…mostly he wanted to hold her. Waking and sleeping. Something he’d never done.

“I wish I had a sleeping pill to offer you,” he said finally.

Jane gave him a funny smile that was all askew. “I wish you did, too. But I think I’m ready to go to bed, anyway.”

“Okay.” Careful not to touch her, he showed her to the guest bedroom, something he’d never quite figured out why he needed. He wasn’t a sociable man. Nobody had ever slept in that bed. He’d never envisioned having guests. He’d also never asked himself why he’d set it up for guests. With faint shock he realized it had something to do with his brothers. He’d kept Niall’s room in the old house while he was in college, so he had someplace to come home to. Conall’s in turn, even though Conall never did come home. He’d wanted them to know they
could,
even though after he had the new house built he never actually said,
I always have a place for you.
He tried to imagine showing Conall to this room, and gave a grunt that earned him a startled look from Jane. “Sorry,” he said. “Just…had a thought.”

Her eyes widened. “About what happened?”

“No. About my brothers. Nothing important.”

“Okay.” She peeked into the bedroom, and he wondered if he ought to offer to look under the bed for her, but she only said, “Do you mind if I leave the door open?” and went in.

“Of course not. I’m, uh, right across the hall.” He gestured. “If you need me, call. I’m a pretty light sleeper.”

Jane nodded, her smile genuine if strained. “Duncan…”

He cut her off quick. “If you’re going to thank me, don’t. No thanks. Good night, Jane.”

She surprised him by stepping closer, rising on tiptoe and kissing his cheek, the touch of her lips so soft it was barely a whisper. Then she whisked into the room and went to the bed. Duncan retreated before he had to watch her actually snuggling under the covers.

WAS IT ANY SURPRISE THAT sleep eluded her? Jane tried to think about anything or everything
but
that awful scene in her bedroom, but the result felt like a too-fragile leaf circling in an eddy, being pulled inevitably toward the center where its fate awaited, like it or not.

As always, she did best when she turned her thoughts to Duncan. Not so much wondering about him—she was getting a pretty good idea why he wasn’t married, for example. The tension between him and Niall wasn’t that hard to read, either. Sibling tension wasn’t meant to get stirred into the push-pull between father and son.

Jane frowned in the darkness. Did that have anything to do with why her sisters had rejected her long-distance overtures with such vehemence? Did they think she was trying to be something to them that she wasn’t? After a minute she thought in resignation,
Who knows?
More likely they were comfortable in the pattern of their lives. Neither had been born rebellious, the way she had.

Back to Duncan. The Duncan here and now, right across the hall from her. He’d stayed up a while longer, after showing her to the bedroom. But not long ago she’d heard his footsteps. He’d paused outside her bedroom door, as if listening for her breathing. The hall light went out. After a pause, the bathroom one went on.