Forever Mine (18 page)

“As far as I can tell, everything out there is normal.” He wanted to reassure her. He also wanted to bring in the damn flowers. If they’d come from Barnett, he needed to call Lt. Chase. Since he couldn’t let Allie open the door, he’d had to leave them on the steps. He also needed to limit his own exposure, but for a different reason.

Although nothing to cause alarm had caught Ben’s eye during his circuit of the neighborhood, he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure Barnett wasn’t somewhere in the vicinity. If he spotted Ben pulling in the flowers, it would most likely kill any chance of luring Barnett into the house.

Allie let out her breath. “Do you think he sent the flowers?” No need to identify Dave. She rarely mentioned him by name. Maybe it was her way of keeping him at a distance, at least psychologically.

“I hope to find out. Stay here.”

He pulled off his hat and tossed it onto her work table. The sweatshirt that covered his tee followed. Then he headed into Allie’s office to the side window and fingered aside the bottom edge of the shade, just enough to view the flowers. The arrangement was substantially larger than any he’d ever sent to Danielle or other woman he’d dated.

It surprised him a psycho like Barnett knew how to impress a woman. And what did that say about his own past efforts at winning over the opposite sex? Not much. Shit!

He dropped the shade back in place, steered his concentration back on track. This was not about the ABCs of making a good impression on women. This was about protecting Allie. For twelve hours a day, he formed the only barrier standing between her and the kind of danger that chilled his blood every time he thought about it. So far, no one seemed to have an accurate count of the number of unfortunate women whose paths had crossed Barnett’s. He mulled the happenstance that had brought the police into her life. Suppose no one had caught on to Dave. Would Allie have let down her guard and agreed to meet him? Would she have innocently invited him into her home and paid for the mistake with her life?

He ventured a peek out the window again. The street appeared as quiet as it had been the last time he’d looked. Satisfied, he cracked the front door, hauled in the flowers and carried them into the back room. Their cloying scent filled the air. When he set the massive arrangement on Allie’s work table, she eyed it as if he’d handed her a bucket of live grenades.

Ben knew enough about flowers to recognize carnations and roses, but the blue, yellow and pink blooms, along with the greenery, mystified him. From past experience, Ben knew what a hundred bucks could buy at a florist. Considering the size of this arrangement and the delivery fee, it had set someone back—Dave most likely—a good piece of change. This extravagant display was an attempt to capture Allie’s interest, to ensure his welcome when he showed up.

But how could Barnett pony up the kind of cash an arrangement like this one must have cost? The police in Seattle hadn’t been able to put him together with a steady job. So, he must have had money on him. He and Rix had probably hitched rides, but Ben couldn’t see them sleeping outdoors. Not Barnett, anyway.

Jimmy had mentioned finding a cabin. Northern California was heavily wooded with lots of secluded vacation cottages. Maybe they’d broke into an empty one to sleep and scavenge for food. By Jimmy’s account, he still had some of the hundred Allie had wired him. But where had Dave gotten his money?

“There’s a note,” Allie said, breaking into his speculations. She pointed to a generic white envelope edged in pink and stuck in a slender plastic holder that resembled a miniature pitchfork. The florist’s name and address were printed on the corner of the envelope. Ben retrieved his discarded sweatshirt and fished in its pocket. Like all cops, he’d been trained to keep latex gloves handy in case he needed to handle evidence. Now, he tugged on a glove then extricated the enclosure card from the envelope and laid it on the table.

Allie leaned closer to study it along with Ben.

A red heart had been hand drawn in the center of the card. The printing inside the heart read:

To: Allie

Forever Mine

From: Guess Who

Chapter Nineteen

Confusion spread across Allie’s face. “I don’t understand why there’s no signature.”

Ben expelled the breath he’d sucked in and held ever since he read the card.

“The sender either didn’t want to use his name or couldn’t use it.”

“You’re pretty sure Dave sent them, though.” Allie shuddered enough for him to notice.

Ben’s furrowed a path through his hair with his fingers. He debated telling Allie about the significance of
Forever Mine
but decided against it. She had enough to frighten her without knowing Barnett left the same message in a heart on the bodies of the women he killed. Yet, since she’d faced the threat head-on, she had a right to know what she was up against.

“Yes, my assumption is he sent the flowers, considering he’s trying to make points with you. Sounds to me like a winning play.”

She folded her arms across her chest. Her fingers dug into the bare flesh below her sleeves. “The card doesn’t say anything about arriving in San Francisco, like ‘hope to meet you soon’ or ‘see you tomorrow.’ What’s he doing? Building up suspense? Trying to get me all excited from anticipation?” Her face contorted in a grimace.

Ben replaced the card. “Yeah, giving us a head’s up on his plans would have been a good break. Or…”

“Or what?”

He could have kicked himself for voicing his thoughts. In the future, he’d better make more of an effort to monitor the darker ones.

“Aren’t you going to answer? For heaven’s sake, I’m his target. That entitles me to know whatever you do.”

Her forceful tone warned him there was no sense trying to evade telling her what he thought was evident. Allie was pretty persistent, and he knew, from past experience, she’d keep at him until he relented. Finally, he spit it out: “There’s a good chance he’s already in the city.”

A deep-throated sound pulled at her breath as if she’d seen something poised to attack her. He wanted to take her into his arms and calm her anxiety, but the most he could do was place a reassuring hand briefly on her shoulder.

“I hope he’s caught soon,” she said and shivered visibly.

“With luck, he will be. We’ll stop him.”

“Can you please get rid of those flowers?”

“You bet.” The proof Dave had sent them turned their innate beauty into something horrific and evil. The overly pungent smell of carnations and lilies held a funeral connotation.

“I’ll take them to the garage.”

He jammed them into the trunk of his car then changed back into his trousers and dress shirt and clipped his holster and gun to his belt. He didn’t feel right sitting around Allie’s house in his running shorts. Besides it not being professional, it also struck him as too familiar. His job was to guard Allie, not to put his legs on display. What he’d seen of her legs gave him the kind of jolt expected from a healthy male. Ditto for her bare back and any other area of her body she’d unwittingly exposed to him. She was a beautiful woman inside and out. But she wasn’t for him. She already had a good taste of his job requirements. Giving a hundred and ten percent, which was the only way he know how to do his job, left little time for recreation.

When he reentered the house, he called Lt. Chase. He informed him about the delivery and gave him the florist’s name and address. The lieutenant put him on hold for a few minutes before coming back on the line.

Ben listened, nodded then said, “Okay, let me know what you find out.”

He closed his cell and told Allie they might have company. “It depends on what the lieutenant learns, if anything.”

“What will the police do now?” Her mocha brown eyes deepened in color with the intensity of her stare.

He massaged the back of his neck where stress had squeezed the muscles. Instead of conducting the investigation himself, he was stuck in here, waiting for information gathered by someone else. An occasional stakeout was confining enough, and he’d had more than his share over the past dozen years. When this was over, he’d put up a hell of an argument before he let the lieutenant sign him up for guard duty again. The lieutenant owed him something.

He rotated his shoulders to ease their tightness. They ached as if steel pincers had gripped his muscles. He renewed his resolve to exercise more. Otherwise, his body would start feeling as if it was trapped inside a straightjacket.

“I don’t there’s any fingerprints of interest, but our lab boys will pick up the card and flowers later as evidence. While I was on the phone, my lieutenant contacted the florist, and two detectives are on their way to his home now. They expect him to cooperate, which means he’ll open up the shop and dig through the day’s receipts. At this hour, it won’t go over well, but a smart business person will cooperate with the cops. You never know when you’ll need one.”

“Like me you mean, needing the police.” Her bottom lip arced downward.

He didn’t know if it signaled disgust with herself for being caught up in the Dave situation or negative feelings she harbored toward cops. Maybe both.

“Like anyone,” he assured her. “Police are kept busy around the clock in this city.”

“I know.” She pulled in a deep breath then slowly exhaled. “What do they expect to learn at Peter’s Garden?”

“The detectives will bring along the sketch of Dave when they visit the florist. If Dave ordered the flowers in person and the owner recognizes him from the drawing, we’ll have proof he’s in the area. If he set up the delivery from somewhere else, the florist here will have a record of the originating location. We’ll contact whoever first processed the order and go from there.”

“Do you think Dave suspects anything? Is there any chance he found out the police are aware of his plan to hide out here?”

“He can’t know—unless he’s in contact with the man who tipped off the Seattle cops. It doesn’t seem likely. According to the authorities up there, they were nothing more than casual drinking buddies and sometimes frequented the same bars. And you can be sure those cops warned the guy against alerting Dave. If he even had a way to do it. We have to go under the assumption Dave considers himself in the clear. In his view, he’s almost super human. He does whatever he wants, and he’s clever enough to stay under the radar. Who’s going to stop him? Those flowers might be his first slip-up.”

Allie bit her bottom lip. A line deepened between her brows.

“You should go upstairs and rest,” Ben suggested. “It’s been a long day. No sense stretching it out.”

She shook her head. “Forget it. If I had my way, I’d go for a long run. I’m not asking. I know that’s not possible.”

“Listen, I don’t know how long it will take the lieutenant to find out anything concrete.” He checked his watch. “Thompson’s not due for another thirty-five minutes. Maybe you ought to somehow keep busy…work on your clothes, fill your mind with positive energy.”

Her laugh was short and bitter. “My work takes intense concentration. Right now, my mind is too fragmented.”

“How about if we both go upstairs? You ever drink Coke? I’m going to have one.”

Without waiting for an answer, he reached out and took her elbow. She didn’t resist, and he guided her up the stairs to the kitchen. He flipped on the light switch, pulled out a chair, and eased her onto it. The gun nestled against his hip reminded him of the menace that lurked outside, perhaps closer than he’d anticipated. Ben wouldn’t hesitate to use his weapon if it came down to a confrontation between him and Barnett. One way or another, he’d pledged to stop the killer from harming Allie. He’d settle for an arrest, although nothing short of a bullet to Barnett’s head would give him true satisfaction.

He pulled open the refrigerator door, grabbed a Coke, and set the chilled can on the table. “You want to split this? Or I can get you something else, maybe water or juice?”

He was about to grab the quart bottle of apple juice out of the refrigerator when his cell phone rang.

Chapter Twenty

The ringing of the phone startled Allie. Her gaze locked onto Ben.

He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Sutter.”

He turned away, stepped over to the window and spoke quietly, possibly to his lieutenant. Allie often found the detective’s face expressive, and maybe he realized her accuracy in what she saw and didn’t want to frighten her further with any forthcoming bad news. Although it filled her with dread, some part of her hoped Dave was already in the city. Then, when he showed up, he’d encounter Ben and his handy-dandy gun—or any other weapon Ben might keep in his car trunk along with his running clothes. Maybe a sledgehammer. Anything as long as it provided a lethal impact.

Ben lowered his phone but didn’t disconnect. Instead, he walked back to the table. “Lt. Chase is on the line. He has a question.”

“Oh?”

“Do you recognize the name Jordan Weeks.”

Allie took a moment to search her memory. “No.”

“Negative.” Ben spoke into the phone. A few seconds later, he ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket.

“What?” She frowned.

He snapped the tab on the can of Coke. “We might have a break. The lieutenant’s on his way over. He wants to have a powwow with me and Thompson. Ed should be here soon.”

“What’s the connection to this Jordan Weeks?”

“Maybe nothing. The info is pretty sketchy, so there’s no sense in speculating.”

She’d have liked to pump him, but his tone indicated he’d said as much as he intended to divulge. Her body begged for rest, but her mind was a hive of buzzing thoughts. She knew sleep would be impossible.

“So what do you feel like?” he asked. “Juice? Coke?”

Allie shook her head. Maybe if she didn’t still have the specter of Dave hovering like a malevolent presence, she might have been more appreciative of Sutter babying her, but she was too chilled to want anything cold. She knew what would settle her nerves.