Smolder (21 page)

“All I want to do is sit next to Nancy at the hospital.” He got up and left.

Dmitri came over and sat with me on the couch. “So a normal courtship seems out of the question.”

“I think a normal courtship wasn’t part of our equation to begin with,” I said.

He kissed me gently and pulled me into his lap. “As soon as this is over, I want to take you out to dinner. We can go dancing, even sailing if you want.”

“I would love sailing. I love boats and being on the water. Do you have a boat?” I asked.

“We will buy one. We can call it ‘Crazy with Knives’.”

I turned around to him and kissed him on the nose. “That sounds perfect.”

“You’re a strange lady,” he said.

“It works for me.”

We kissed gently at first. He slowly teased my lips open with his tongue and pulled me against him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and lay on top of him. There was no urgency to our movements. He left teasing kisses across my face and down my neck, stopping to hold me closer before we moved any further.

“Lurking serial killer ruins the mood,” I said.

“This time, I don’t think we pretend it’s not happening.”

We lay together all evening watching the television. No more news reports came in, and we didn’t stay up to watch the evening newscast.

Josh came in shortly before we went to bed and said the plan had changed. Nancy was recovering faster than expected, and with Vince on the run now and considered more dangerous, they were going to wake her up in the morning to see if she could help.

“What about the burns?” I asked.

“Dr. Evans said when the swelling went down after surgery, the burns weren’t as severe as they first looked. She will need plastic surgery to help re-grow her skin. They think she may fully recover.”

“Physically,” I said.

“I thought that too. I met her parents, and she had told them about me. She said I was a huge teddy bear, and she felt safe with me.” He started to cry.

“Do I need to say it?” I asked gently.

“No, but it won’t take the pain away. Her parents rented a house here, figuring they’d be here a while for her recovery.”

Josh went up to bed, and we followed.

“Your brother is quite a man. He hadn’t known her that long and look at his dedication.”

“They met within a few days of us, my dear,” I said. “We’re living together right now.”

“I know it’s only temporary. Until it’s safe, and you can go back to your place.” He looked so sad.

“Then we can do the romance part right. You can stay at my place some times,” I offered.

We curled up in bed, and he pulled me close. “If you won’t move in with me, I’ll spend every weekend at your place.”

I felt safe and happy with Dmitri’s arms around me. I wasn’t sure I could go back to sleeping alone again, or if I’d want to.

Josh was gone when we woke up. Dmitri cooked breakfast, and we took it out to the pool. Our cell phones sat on the table under the umbrella while I swam laps, and he sat on the steps. The pool house had an entertainment system with speakers around the pool. We wanted to turn the music on, except we might not hear the phones if they rang.

So I swam for an hour. I was out of the water and collapsed into a lounge chair when my phone rang on the other side of the pool.

Dmitri answered it. “It’s Josh.” He jogged over and handed it to me.

“Josh, how is she?” I asked.

“She’s awake and trying to convince us she doesn’t hurt. El, breathing takes a lot out of her right now. Her captain came by and talked with her. There’s a picture on her phone of the cabin Vince took her to. She thinks she tagged it with the GPS, but the phone wasn’t with her when she was found.”

“God, I hope Vince doesn’t have it.”

“He doesn’t. She kept it in her sock, and he didn’t take those off. The paramedics may have gotten it when they pulled her torn clothes off her.” He stopped for a moment. “Oh God, El. Her wounds are healing up. He filleted her,” he finished in a rush.

“She’s alive, Josh. I’m willing to bet she doesn’t remember everything. Our brains are amazing and can block out horrific memories even if we want to remember. Don’t ask her though, unless you’re ready to hear her describe it, if she remembers details talking those out, more than once, will be therapeutic.”

“The police set up appointments for her with a therapist,” he said. “She said it’s what they do anytime an officer is hurt.”

“Call us when you know more. If it starts to get to you, leave the room for a minute, take a short walk, and get coffee. Good lord, just don’t barf on her.” I was a weird one.

He laughed. “I needed that.”

I hung up the phone. Tears ran down my face as I let relief replace my fear. He didn’t get one, and she may have the key to finding him.

Dmitri pulled up the chair next to mine and set snacks between us. “She is safe?” he asked.

When I nodded, he smiled and kissed me. “Now we can relax a little more and maybe you can nibble on some food. Your figure is beautiful, and I’d like to keep it curvier.”

“Ice cream,” I said and laughed. “I can be downright fluffy with enough ice cream.”

He reached over and grabbed my hand. “They will catch him next. You will see.”

Chapter Twenty-One

You know that feeling you are being watched? I had it bad when I woke up. Not aware I had fallen asleep, I turned to see Dmitri sleeping next to me. I looked around and couldn’t see anyone. Not even a passing boat in the expanse of marsh just beyond the yard. The feeling wouldn’t go away, so I grabbed my towel and walked toward the garage.

As I was about to round the corner at the driveway, I heard voices coming from the front of the house. My knives were in the garage with the training equipment. I kept behind the bushes until I got to a back garage door. Once inside, I grabbed my knives and looked for something to wear over my swimsuit. In one of my boxes, I found a pair of jeans and pulled them on.

A knife in each hand, I crept out of the door I came in. The voices were louder now as I stepped quietly onto the path. My bare feet didn’t make a sound. I turned the corner to see Josh standing at the curb twenty yards away, arguing with a policeman. The lights on the car were on, and I realized the siren might have been what woke me up.

I felt Dmitri walk up behind me before his hand settled at the small of my back.

“You might want to put the knives away.”

“He looks like he wants to punch Josh. I can hit him from here,” I said.

“We can have a forbidden death row romance,” he joked.

“Better yet, I can put them back.” I walked back to the garage and put them away.

When I returned, Dmitri was at the curb yelling at the cop with Josh.

This is not good.

My approach was not noticed. “Excuse me.”

Three pairs of eyes glanced at me for a moment, and the fight resumed.

“Enough!” I yelled.

That got their attention. “Anyone want to let me on the argument?”

“Ellie, this is the cop leading the search for Vince. He wants to do something very dangerous and stupid, and we won’t let him,” Josh said.

“Won’t let him what?”

“Use you as bait,” Dmitri said.

I’m usually gung-ho about being capable of taking care of myself. This was not one of those times.

“Hell, no.” I said it quietly, and yet they stopped and looked at me. “I’ve seen this movie. I saw Nancy’s body. Embracing my inner wimp is the wisest course of action. The answer is no.”

“He wants you,” the officer said and stepped toward me.

That was a bad idea.

Josh grabbed his collar and picked him up off the ground. “She said no.”

“Put the officer down. I don’t think he was planning on dragging me into his car.”

Something flashed in his eyes that told me I was wrong. “You were?”

He nodded.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“That man watched the video feed from my daughter’s high school. The pervert saw…” He couldn’t finish.

“Shit. The security company put cameras in the locker rooms to stop pedophiles and this creep watched the feed.” I had to admit he was smart for a twisted creep.

“Throwing me at him won’t stop him, Officer. If I lay on my sword, or any other cliché you can think of, he will keep going. I’m part of his problem, not yours.”

And that is when it hit me. He’s a bully, like his uncle. A bully with some severe mental issues above and beyond the norm who had a chance to kill me, in my hot tub, all alone, and didn’t. Why? His uncle wanted him to scare me.

“You have that look, El.” Josh let the officer down.

Dmitri pulled me into him.

“El?” Josh waited.

“My light bulb just flickered. Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance? At the house, I was asleep in the hot tub, and he let me be. He wrote on the glass and left. With his work at the security company, he had to know they would find out he had cameras rigged.”

The officer grunted.

“Just let me talk through this. You have your skill set, let me play with my tools for a minute. I can figure out at least where the guy lives. He wasn’t always at their house. I could use Owen though.”

“Right behind you,” he said from his SUV. “I heard about the plan, and I was here to offer to step in for you.”

“Oh, no. Enough people have been hurt in my place.”

Owen got out of his car and leaned against the police car with the officer.

“Okay, dazzle me.”

“He lives with his mother,” I stated and was proud of myself.

The others however, looked at me like I needed meds.

“You want to explain that?” the officer said.

“It makes sense.” Owen agreed before I could start. “He never lived with his uncle and her family. He had a cell phone for the office and one for personal use. If anyone asked him about it, he called it his ball and chain. We figured he was referring to a wife until he said that he wanted to get married one day.”

The radio in the cruiser piped up and the officer went to see what was going on. He returned. “Travis is out of jail.”

“How?” Dmitri asked.

“It seems we found out why Vince needed security training. There was an unexpected blackout at the jail this morning while the inmates were in the yard, and the security gates popped open.”

“Why wasn’t he in solitary?” Owen said.

“Apparently, they moved him after his not-guilty plea. Without his cellmate to say that was who attacked him, they let him back into the general population. I think they were hoping the other inmates would kill him. It was his second day back.”

“Ellie, are you okay, you look madder than I’ve ever seen you,” Josh said.

“I’m furious. I deal with slightly off every day, and I love it. This is ridiculous. Short of a group of superheroes showing up, I’m going to be dead soon. And that makes me angry.”

The officer backed up two steps. “Maybe using you as bait is a bad idea.”

“Now that I’m mad enough to pull their nuts off with my bare hands? Now it’s time to pull back? I may die in this operation, Bubba, but I will make sure neither of those pricks makes any more Reamers.”

My knives were in the garage, and I headed straight for them. As I walked into the garage, I noticed the heavy bag hanging there and hit it. It felt good, so I hit it again. I punched until my hands were bruised and the edge had worn off my temper. Then I gathered my knives and turned to leave.

Four men stood in the doorway with completely different expressions. Josh grinned like an idiot. Punching things was a reaction he knew well. Dmitri looked concerned, and Owen and the officer both looked puzzled.

“No. I am not going to go vigilante and hunt them down. That’s the beauty of being their target. I’m going to keep throwing knives and hitting things until they show up to find me.”

I was scared, frightened for myself and the people I cared about. I didn’t want them to see it, so I walked into the house and did everything I could to keep my back straight until I got upstairs. Locked in Dmitri’s bathroom, I stripped and got into the shower. The water washed my tears away as I cried.

“One evil idiot at a time, please, Karma. I don’t know if I can take this much longer.”

Scrubbed clean and empty of tears, I came out of the bathroom to find Dmitri seated on the edge of the bed with swollen eyes and tears on his face.

“I barely get to know you, and this keeps happening. I can’t stop it. Here you are safer, but a beautiful prison is still a prison.” He stopped and looked at me. “My mother’s favorite saying from Russia. I am afraid for you.”

I walked over to him and sat on his lap. “I don’t plan on dying, baby. I can handle more crap than other people. It’s always been that way. My home is my sanctuary where I come at the end of the day to relax and unwind. Except for the last few weeks. Sorry about my outburst; I needed to yell and hit things.”

“That part I understood completely.”

“You are getting to know all the prickly parts of me up front. Any desire to run away now? Ask me to leave?” He would not be the first person to use my job as the reason to walk away. With two psychopathic killers involved, he had better reason than most.

“I’m not leaving your side.”

He kissed me with more passion than ever before. I lay back on the bed, and he rolled over on top of me. Tears ran down his cheeks as he buried his face in my neck. I tried to kiss him or move him, and he resisted and held me tight.

“This is another moment I want to remember forever,” he said.

Rubbing his back with my hands, I felt the tension in his muscles relax.

“El?” Josh walked in the door. “Oh my. Okay. Cover up there, sister.” He put his hands over his face.