Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (5 page)

The doorbell buzzed again

“I hear you.” Heather smiled at the persistence of the little salesperson as she grabbed her wallet and lightly ran down the stairs from her apartment to the front door. Because of the steep hill on which the apartment building had been built, her one-room apartment was on the second floor, while her front door and her minuscule entry hall were at street level.

Five other apartments were fitted around each other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, over, beneath, and next door to her. A single, male schoolteacher, two young female flight attendants, a male bank teller, a female physical trainer, and a waitress and her young daughter. Each with their own street entrance.

That was about all she knew of her neighbors. All she dared to know.

She had to constantly remind herself that the isolation was imperative. Her father had warned her what might happen if she were ever found. She got it. Boy, did she get it. But God—she missed human contact, the interaction between two people, the give and take of trust. Her guard had to be up constantly. She couldn’t afford to let anyone scale the walls. Nobody had touched her in almost a full year. Forget sexually. She’d had no physical contact other than an impersonal handshake in what felt like forever.

She felt…invisible.

God only knew, she was thankful, and lucky, to be alive. But the constant fear, the constant looking over her shoulder, the constant knowledge that she could never let down her guard, was starting to wear thin.

And she was lonely. Acutely, deep down, desperately lonely, for the first time in her life. The loneliness had become almost a physical weight inside her. For a naturally outgoing, gregarious person, this was as close to purgatory as she could get. Like being thrown into solitary confinement indefinitely.

Eleven months of isolation. She wasn’t the kind of person to dwell on the negatives in her life. But then she’d never had to. Her life had been filled with beautiful clothes, parties, and shopping trips. No one had ever told her “no.” She’d led a life of privilege and pleasure and never given a thought to her future or how she would feel if it all ceased to exist.

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That life had changed in the blink of an eye last March.

It had always taken her forever to make decisions, a mildly amusing trait when that decision was which designer to favor. Not so damned amusing when every decision could mean life or death. When the
right
choice might have to be made in a split second. Just the thought of going through that process again made her break out in a nervous sweat.

This past year had been a sharp learning curve for her. But she’d learned to depend on herself. Learned to make faster life choices. Learned…herself.

Since she’d moved to San Francisco, she’d taught herself to balance a checkbook, was teaching herself to cook, and was shocked and a little embarrassed to discover she could do her own laundry. Things other women took for granted were achievement milestones for her. She was damn proud of what she was becoming.

Too bad there wasn’t anyone around to witness her little triumphs, she thought wryly. “Ha! Maybe that’s the point of
being
a grown-up. Making good choices
without
any applause.”

It had been almost a year, and they hadn’t found her. She chose not to add the “yet.” She was building a nice little business for herself. She was living in a beautiful city, and she was alive. For now that was enough.

One day soon her father would place the “all clear” ad in a Sunday London
Times
and she’d know that it was over. Until then she’d learn and grow and become a fully functioning member of society.

Oh, Maman,Heather thought with an aching heart.
Look at me, independent. Who knew?

She smiled. Fortunately, to keep herself amused she relied on her active imagination. Which came into play when she felt a tingle—something—an unexpected rush of excitement, as she approached the front door. In all this alone time, she’d developed a pretty acute sense of fantasy, based largely on the romantic old movies she often watched to break the tedium of her solitude in the wee hours of the morning.

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She imagined that she’d open the door to find a nice-looking, nonthreatening man on her doorstep.

Some normal guy who had a normal nine-to-five job. A nice guy who would have pleasant friends, a loving family, and—of course—would love her to distraction. A man who would look her straight in the eye when he talked to her.

A man with integrity, honesty, and honor. Someone rock solid and dependable.

Or, and she grinned, he’d be drop-dead gorgeous, shallow, and hot in bed. Been there, done that, but it had been a while. A hell of a
long
while, she realized. Hmm. He’d look into her eyes and without a word, sweep her into his strong arms and carry her off. Not happily ever after, just for a hot, fast, passionate encounter.

Those were fantasies. Reality was she’d open the door, find one of the little Scouts, make her purchase, and settle for cookies. At this point in her life a Thin Mint was safer than a brief encounter with a good-looking guy.

Bzzzz-bzzz-bzzz.

“I’m coming. I’m coming. Hold onto your merit badges, cutie. I’m just as eager as you are for this sale.”

Heather smiled as she ran lightly down the stairs. “You’re preaching to the choir. I
want
your cookies.

Hang on a sec,” she yelled through the door as she deactivated several locks. Both cylinder and electronic.

The day she’d moved in she’d replaced the front door with a metal, high-security model. No peephole.

The door was too thick. But she’d had five locks installed, as well as a reinforced plate on either side to mount the strongest security chain she’d been able to find.

“Victory,” she muttered as the last lock disengaged and she opened the door the six inches the sturdy chain allowed.

Because she was expecting a little girl, it took her a second to compute the large male standing in the gently eddying white fog of her tiny front porch. Her heartbeat kicked into high gear, and her mouth went cotton dry.

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Stupid.

Stupid to open the door like this.

Maybe fatal.

Schooling her features to be nothing more than politely blank, Heather met his gaze in the narrow space between the door and the jamb. His eyes were ink dark, intense.

As authoritative as he looked, she recognized immediately that this guy was not a police officer. He was intimidatingly tall and broad. Despite the chilly January weather, he wore nothing more than jeans and a black T-shirt. He was unsmiling, his eyes a cross between dark blue and teal. His nose was straight, his lips clamped, his jawline slightly darkened by a five o’clock shadow. At three in the afternoon.

He looked…mean.

That was all it took. Her heart started to pound, and an icy cold shower of fear washed over her.

Run.

Too obvious.

She drew in a deep breath of cold foggy air touched with a faint hint of male. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Can I help you?” she asked politely, wishing she’d grabbed her gun before coming downstairs.

Running scared, buying the gun, had been her last-ditch, back-to-the-wall, no-other-choice defense.

She’d bought it in San Cristóbal where she’d gotten her fake IDs, after someone had tried to run her car off the road.

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The gun was guaranteed not to set off airport security, and it never had. It was smaller than her palm.

For months she’d been practicing, over and over again, to fit the tiny component parts together. She could do so in the pitch dark, in mere seconds, and under every adverse condition she could think of. But that damn practice couldn’t pay off if she was here and
it
was in her closet.

“Heather Shaw?”

Her heart dive-bombed, and a spill of sick dread suffused her body. Oh, God! It had taken time, but they’d finally managed to find her.

How? She’d been careful. She’d—
Don’t panic,
she told herself firmly as a familiar surge of fear made her heart manic, and her palms sweat.

Taking a deep breath, she met his eyes with effort, and said politely, “Sorry. No.” When she tried to close the door, she realized the guy had his enormous foot blocking the way. Her breath came out in a strangled whoosh. “Hey! Move that foot.
Now.
” Fear made her voice shake. She put her weight against the solid surface of the door. But it wasn’t going to shut.

“My name is Caleb Edge, Miss Shaw. I want to talk to you about your father.”

Therewas a word that put the fear of God into her. “My father died years ago. I’m not the person you’re looking for. Get lost or I’ll call the police.” Yeah, right. Like she’d be dumb enough to do
that.
All she needed was one person to suspect she wasn’t who she said she was, and she’d be on the run. Again.

And here he was. The devil incarnate’s errand boy.

“You’re not in any danger from me, Miss Shaw. Just tell me where your father is, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“This is Hannah Smith at 3249 Front Street,” she said firmly, out of his visual range behind the solid
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bulk of the door. “I have a male intruder. Could you please send someone immediately? I’m afraid for my life.”

“You don’t have a cell phone.”

Yes. She did. Unfortunately it was upstairs. “Wanna bet? I also have a gun.” Also upstairs, damn it.

“I’m a lousy shot, but I bet it would hurt a great deal if I fired at you at this close range.” She couldn’t imagine actually
shooting
someone, but if it came down to her life or his, she’d do it.

“You don’t have to invite me in,” his tone was smooth. Even. Unemotional. Everything she wasn’t.

“How about if we just talk through the door?”

Invite him in? Was he insane? “What are you? A moron? You’re scaring the crap out of me! If you want to talk, move your foot, and stop trying to intimidate me.”

“Okay. It’s moved—No, don’t—Damn it, woman!”

The second his foot was withdrawn, Heather slammed the door, then engaged all five bolts. Shaking, drenched in nervous sweat, she spun around, racing up the stairs as if the devil himself was after her.

Bzzbzzbzz.

Found, outed, and probably mere seconds from being killed.

She ran faster. “Shit. Shit. Shit!”

She wasn’t safe in San Francisco anymore.

With every crazy beat of her heart she anticipated hearing the stranger’s footsteps on the uncarpeted

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stairs behind her. Out of breath, more from fear than from racing up the stairs, she burst into her apartment, then slammed the door behind her and shot home those bolts too.

Leave. Now. No alternative.

Snatching the gun off the top shelf of the empty closet, Heather clicked off the safety. If the guy made it through the front door somehow, and God only knew he’d looked capable of that feat, she’d shoot to kill.

She’d have to. Because the man they’d sent this time didn’t look like he could be conned or outrun.

This time they’d succeed. This guy
would
kill her.

Ears tuned to the stairwell, she dragged her already packed suitcase out of the big, empty closet one-handed, and threw it on the bed. It took a matter of minutes to toss in the few belongings she allowed herself to keep out. And with every beat of her heart she anticipated the killer kicking down the door standing between them.

SANFRANCISCO

SUNDAY, JANUARY15

12:32:51

He’d handled their first meeting like a bull in a frigging china shop, Caleb thought, limping as he followed
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Heather into the grocery store the day
before
that aborted meeting at her apartment.

He’d struck out the
second
time as well, he thought with annoyance, which was why he was “redoing”

this trip to the grocery store with her.

His special and unique ability to manipulate, or rewind, time frequently came in handy—in life-and-death situations. This incident hardly qualified on either front, and he wasn’t thrilled to be wasting one of his lifetime allotments by using it on the delectable Miss Shaw.

While the aftereffects of a time jump weren’t life-threatening, they
were
annoying. For several hours afterward he’d experience vertigo and nausea, and his ability to teleport was impaired. He’d jumped back twenty-four hours, and then back again another ten minutes. So here he was, limping on his bum knee, feeling like a drunk after a three-day bender as he followed Heather into the grocery store for the second time this miserably rainy Sunday morning.