The Damsel in This Dress (8 page)

She jumped like she’d just been shot. In two strides he was past her. With one hand lingering on her arm, he picked up the receiver with the other. “McKennitt.”

He strained to listen, but was met with only silence. Was the caller still there or had they been disconnected? “Who’s there?” he said. “Hello?”

“You can try and protect the little bitch, McKennitt, but it won’t do any good. I’ll win. I always win.” The voice had been electronically altered. There was no telling the age or sex.

“Who is this?” Hey, it never hurt to ask.

“I know she’s in your room. I know everything.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The caller laughed. “You’re the detective. You figure it out.”

Betsy could still taste Soldier on her mouth. She could feel his hands roaming her body, and knew she wanted more. Her heart beat rapidly and her fingers curled into tense fists as she stood watching him talk on the phone.

His hand was still on her arm, his eyes locked with hers. As he spoke, he kept her frozen in place with a penetrating stare.

Soldier placed the phone back in its cradle. Tugging gently on her arm, he said, “Come sit down.”

His cell phone lay on the nightstand. He picked it up and punched in some numbers.

Betsy sat on the edge of the bed, never taking her eyes off him.

“Yeah, this is McKennitt. I want a trace . . .”

He gave whomever he was talking to the information, then slapped the phone closed and replaced it on the nightstand.

As Soldier lowered his body to sit next to her, he moved his hands to cup her shoulders, turning her to face him. She already knew what he was going to say.

“It was him.”

“You must think I’m pretty dim not to have figured that one out.” She was proud at how calm her voice sounded. She blinked several times in rapid succession, then tried to bring her tattered emotions under control. “So,” she said, a little louder than she had intended. “Wh-What did he say?”

Soldier released her shoulders but continued looking into her eyes. “Basically, he warned me that protecting you wouldn’t do any good, which is a lie, by the way. He also said that he knew ‘
everything
,’ whatever that means.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

Soldier shook his head. “No. He was using a voice transformer.”

“I thought only guys in creepy movies used those things.”

“Not anymore. They’re cheap, easy to use. Anybody can buy one. But that’s okay, he told me a lot, whether he realizes it or not. By calling, and actually speaking, he’s being more aggressive. He’s accelerating his plans. He’s probably somebody you know, although it may only be a man you’ve met once. Today, at the conference, did you see anybody at all that you recognized? Anyone from Port Henry or someone you may have met casually at one time?”

“No. No one.” Her head was beginning to ache like hell. Lack of sleep, not eating, stress . . . they were all beginning to take their toll. “So,” she sighed, “what happens next?”

“I call my captain to let him know the UNSUB—or unknown subject—has made contact, even though the guy didn’t make any outright threats and didn’t do anything illegal. I’ve already requested a check on the phone records, but I’m pretty sure they won’t find anything we can use.”

“Well, as long as everything’s under control. I feel so much better now.”

Soldier smiled, making his dark lashes tangle together at the crinkly corners of his eyes. “That’s my girl,” he said. “Keep that sense of humor. You’re going to need it.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m not your girl.”

He leaned forward, settling his elbows on his knees, and looked deeply into her eyes. She thought he was going to say something. It was there, in his eyes, then he blinked and the look disappeared.

They stared at each other as the moments ticked by. Betsy’s heart kicked violently against her rib cage as she tried to keep her breathing even. He was too confident, too sure of himself, too . . . everything. And she was in no mood to fight him. And she was too stubborn to give in.

Folding her hands in her lap, she asked, “So, are you going to be assigned to my case, officially?”

“That’s what I’m going to ask my captain, yes.”

“Haven’t you been on some kind of leave or something?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Soldier stood and walked to the window. He drew open the curtains. The first, weak light of morning cast a soft glow on his brow and cheek, the line of his jaw, the strength of his neck.

He turned his back to her, giving Betsy a chance to admire his broad shoulders and tight, excellent buns. Sure, he’d kissed the hell out of her, but in the long run this man would never settle for plain ol’ Betsy Tremaine from Port Henry, Washington. Oh, he might sleep with her, have a brief affair with her, but he’d move on.

As he looked out the window, he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “There isn’t much to the story,” he said. “My partner was killed and I was accused of arranging his murder.” He placed his hand on the window, splaying his fingers against the glass. Beyond his tapered fingertips, Betsy could see the deep green of Puget Sound, the early morning fog giving the view a surrealistic quality.

“I nailed the killer,” he said. “The guy had not only murdered Marc, but had tried to set me up to take the fall for it. I was really pissed off that I’d even briefly come under suspicion.” He shrugged. “And then there was the fact that Marc had left behind a widow and two little kids. So, I’ve been riding a desk for the last few months instead of being out there on the street.”

“You feel guilty, about your partner’s death?”

“Yes.”

“Even though it wasn’t your fault?”

Silence.

“When are you going back, you know, full-time, to being a detective?”

He moved away from the window and came to stand directly in front of her. Lifting a lock of her hair, he twirled it around his finger. A moment later he let the curl go and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

With a shy grin and a sparkle in his eye, all he said was, “Today.”

B
etsy had been holed up in Soldier’s room since the night before, and it was now nearing noon on Friday. After another conversation with Lemsky, Soldier had sent an e-mail to his brother, ordered lunch, wolfed down that same lunch like a man who hadn’t eaten for a week, then hopped into the shower.

He’d warned her that when he emerged from the bathroom, they were going to do that interview whether she liked it or not. She was not looking forward to documenting her entire life, or at least the last six months of it, for the benefit of J. Soldier McKennitt, but apparently it had to be done.

He would log the information she gave him and forward it to his brother, who was going to meet them in Port Henry. Soldier and Taylor McKennitt, also a detective and the occasional police sketch artist, would work with the Port Henry Police Department to try to put a name and a face to the voice Soldier had heard on the phone.

Soldier had assured her it was not going to be an easy task.

“Ready?”

Betsy nearly jumped out of her skin at his question. She’d been deep into her own thoughts and hadn’t heard him finish up in the bathroom. “I’d rather have a root canal,” she stated primly.

Standing over her, he seemed so tall and strong, as though just his mere presence would keep her from harm. His hair was damp and a little curly, his lashes wet from his shower. He’d shaved, and looked as though he just stepped out of a men’s health magazine, all fit and sexy. His body was made for blue jeans and T-shirts, and Betsy tried her damnedest to keep her eyes away from his crotch. She merely glanced then looked away.

Button-fly. Mmm, pop, pop, pop.

Although she wanted to ignore them, her feelings of attraction were working triple time and, though common sense told her that he would only hurt her in the end, she couldn’t help but find Soldier fascinating. He was good to look at, he was smart, and he seemed genuinely interested in keeping her safe, above and beyond his responsibilities as a cop.

He was a knight in shining armor and every girl’s dream, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

“A root canal?” He grinned. “Ah, this won’t be so bad.”

She stood and faced him. “Whatever. I’m ready.”

They sat at the table where he had his laptop booted up and ready to go.

“I have to tell you before we begin,” he said. “I’m a little worried that this stalker hasn’t identified himself yet.”

“Why is that? I mean, what about that worries you?”

“Well, mostly, not always, but mostly,” he answered, “they
want
you to know who they are. They want your attention. They are desperate to have you notice them, love them, give them the satisfaction of being forced to deal with them. The fact that this guy is still anonymous after at least three contacts bothers me.”

“Thank you for sharing that. I feel ever so much better.”

He cracked that killer smile again. “To keep yourself safe,” he said, “you have to be well-informed. That includes things you may not want to hear.”

“I don’t want to hear any of it.”

His smile widened. “There’s that sense of humor again.”

Betsy frowned. “Who’s joking? I’m
serious
.”

Ignoring her last comment, he began typing. “What’s your date of birth?”

“The tenth of June.”

“A June bug. Cute.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay, then, physical traits.” Though he asked her no questions, he mumbled as he typed
blond, hazel, Caucasian, female,
and a few more assorted physical details. Pausing for a moment, he gave her the once-over, then said, “How tall are you, exactly?”

“Five-foot-four.”

His fingers moved. “How much do you weigh?”

“Right.”

“What?”

“Like I’m going to tell you how much I weigh.”

“I need to know.”

Her laugh dripped with sarcasm. “No you don’t.”

He stopped typing. “Betsy, I don’t care how much you weigh. You look great. A woman’s weight is—”

“Two hundred pounds.”

“No way!” he blurted. His gaze examined her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “I’m six-two and even I don’t weigh—” His eyes narrowed on her and his mouth flattened. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“See?” she said. “It
does
matter, and you can’t deny it. You reacted.” She had him there, all right.

Resettling himself in his chair, he returned to typing. “How does . . .” He glanced at her again, his fingers pausing above the keys. “How does one thirty sound?”

What a comedian!
“I’ll take it.” On a good day without any clothes on, if she shaved her head, pumped her stomach, wore no heavy makeup, and put only one foot on the scale, yeah, she could weigh 130 pounds.

“Next is occupation,” he declared. “Tell me everything you’ve done in the last five years, beginning with your current job. I’ll also need to know any special training you’ve had, any classes you’ve taken, that sort of thing.”

After she’d dug out every memory she had of her professional life, he asked her to name everybody she could think of at work.

“Stalkers are commonly somebody you either work with now,” he insisted, “have worked with in the past, or have some kind of working relationship with either in your own office or in an office you do business with.”

Betsy shook her head and gestured at him with her hands. “That could be hundreds of people. I can’t possibly name—”

“All right. For the sake of expediency, just name the people you work with the most. We’ll do the others later. First of all, besides your mother, who are you closest to?”

“That would be Claire. Claire Hunter. She’s a doctor. We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

“You two getting along okay? Any problems lately? Jealousy over a guy or—”

“Absolutely not!” Betsy snapped. “Jealousy between us over a man? That’d be the day.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, you’d really have to see Claire. She’s stunning. Men fall for her all the time. Gosh, anybody meeting the two of us, well, I gave up a long time ago and just sort of step back and let . . .”

She felt herself blush, realizing what she was about to reveal. Although she loved Claire like the sister she’d never had, Betsy had learned that when it came to men, they always preferred Claire and that was simply the way it was.

“What I mean to say is, we never compete over men. Other doctors, technicians, patients, they all fall for Claire, but she never gives any of them a tumble. She’s all work and no play, which I have tried to tell her is simply no way to live, but she’s a very dedicated internist and—”

“Okay,” Soldier interrupted. “I get the picture. Now, what about the people you work with?”

Soldier typed as Betsy began naming her coworkers. She closed her eyes as the images of the people she worked with every day trotted through her brain, people she liked, people she cared about, people who could not possibly be stalkers.

“Ryan Finlay is my boss. He’s the executive editor of the
Ledger
. I’ve known him for about five years. He’s a good man, has a wife and three daughters.”

“Has he ever made a pass at you?”

She nearly gasped at the shocking suggestion. “Oh
gosh
no. Ryan’s devoted to his wife and family. Besides, he’s old enough to be my father!”

Soldier’s lips curled into a wry grin. “Like that ever stopped a man from hungering after a sweet young thing. Who’s next?”

Sweet young thing?
The way he was looking at her now, she just about believed it.

“Well, next would be Carla Denato, I guess. She’s been my assistant for about five months, ever since I became managing editor. Before that, I was features editor. The paper is so small, though, that we all do a little of this and a little of that. Both Carla and I do some reporting and write special interest articles when the needs arise. But she’s been primarily the editorial assistant for the last year. Carla’s very quick and efficient. I certainly couldn’t do my job without her.”

“Who was the managing editor before you were promoted?”

Betsy pushed herself away from the table. She needed to stretch her legs. Walking toward the window, she wrapped her arms around her middle and turned to face Soldier.

“That would be Linda. Linda Mattson. She was the managing editor when I hired on five years ago. As far as her leaving, she met some guy and got married and moved away. It happens, I guess. I miss her, though. She was terrific to work with. Really smart and fun.”

“Where’d she move to?”

“I don’t exactly know. It was actually pretty sudden. She was about thirty-five, divorced, no kids. She went on vacation and met some guy, and the next thing we know, she sends us a letter saying she’d gotten married and was quitting.”

“She didn’t come in and pick up her stuff?”

“No. Her letter asked that Carla or somebody just toss her things into a box and mail it to her. She must have had someone pack her personal belongings from her apartment, because I went by there hoping to be able to tell her congratulations and say good-bye, but she’d already been moved out.”

Soldier had stopped typing. Rubbing his chin with his thumb, he said, “This didn’t seem suspicious to you? It was kind of fast, don’t you think? And you never met the guy she married?”

“Oh, we were
all
suspicious, but what were we supposed to do about it? Her new mailing address was somewhere in Minnesota. Ryan was so worried, he was going to fly to Minnesota and check on her when we got an e-mail from her saying how happy she was, and how sudden it all was, but that sometimes things just happened. We pretty much had to accept it after that.”

“When was this? About five months ago, you said?”

She nodded.

They continued for the next half hour or so. After Betsy relayed her medical and dental history, she recounted her activities over the last month in as much detail as she could remember. A gnawing depression began to eat at her insides when she realized how tedious and mundane her life really was. Until she was forced to relive it, she’d allowed herself to ignore it. After this was all over, she told herself, she really
had
to get a life.

She named the rest of the staff of the
Port Henry Ledger
, thereby creating a list of possible suspects.

“It’s none of them,” she insisted. Soldier just looked at her and smiled. “No, really,” she said. “None of the people on that list is a stalker.”

Changing direction, Soldier asked her about her educational background. Betsy went over it and the people she’d known in high school and college, including the few boyfriends she’d had.

In the five years since she’d graduated, she had been so busy working, she hadn’t dated much. Plus, Port Henry wasn’t exactly a single woman’s playground. Most of its residents were older, retired. The tourist season brought in a lot of people, but they were mostly couples or families on a weekend getaway.

While Soldier had undoubtedly had thousands of girlfriends, she had only six honest-to-God boyfriends in her entire life to boast of, if you could call it boasting.

Soldier stopped typing. Probably knowing this part might get embarrassing for her, he kept his eyes on the keyboard. “So, what about sex?”

“I’m female.”

He focused his attention on his fingers. “Yes, I know. But female is a gender. I’m talking about
sex.
”

“What
about
sex?”

“Do you have it?” He kept his eyes lowered, but he’d begun to take little bites out of his bottom lip.

“Is knowing that important?”

“Very.” He locked gazes with her. “The stalker could be a former boyfriend, a spurned lover.”

Betsy couldn’t imagine any guy getting in an uproar about being spurned by her, but she was reluctant to tell Soldier about her sex life, regardless. If it just wasn’t
Soldier
. . .

Apparently sensing her hesitation, and why she felt it, he said, “Betsy, I don’t care how many men you’ve slept with. I’m not asking you as a man, but as a detective.”

She lowered her eyes and focused her attention on the birthstone ring her father had given her when she’d graduated from high school. Staring at the creamy pearl, she said, “When you kissed me, was it as a man, or as a detective?”

He leaned forward, placing both palms on the table. “Listen, lady,” he said, his voice soft and husky, “I kissed you because I’m so attracted to you I can hardly stand it. I want to kiss you right now. I’d rather skip this whole damned thing and just strip you naked and lick you until you whimper my name and beg me to never stop.”