A Whisper in the Dark (12 page)

“You’re suggesting we let the cops operate on the assumption that this guy is obsessed with you?” he asked.

“That’s not too far from the truth.” But she felt foolish for feeling the need to hide something so trivial when just over an hour ago she’d been fighting for her life.

“Cab’s here.”

Julia turned to see Claudia approach, her bag slung over her shoulder.

“Don’t go anywhere alone,” John said to her. “Keep your doors locked. Alarm system engaged, if you have one. Keep your cell phone under your pillow tonight.”

“He really knows how to make a girl feel safe.” Claudia smiled.

But Julia saw through the bravado. Claudia was rattled, too. She hugged her younger sister tightly. “Thanks for hanging out with me tonight. I’m so sorry you missed the show.”

“Don’t worry about it. If you need anything, just call.”

A horn sounded from the street. Claudia pulled back, her gaze going to John. “Take good care of her.”

“I’ll be fine.” Julia motioned toward the door. “Tell Rory I said hello.”

With a wave, Claudia dashed to the door. “See you tomorrow.” The bell jingled as she opened it and rushed outside.

John followed her as far as the sidewalk and watched to make sure she got into the cab safely. Once the cab had pulled away, he engaged the lock, tested it, and closed the miniblinds, effectively locking them in for the night.

A quiver of nerves swept through Julia when he turned to face her. She wanted to blame her jumpiness on what had happened; pan assault in a dark alley was enough to rattle anyone. But she knew the sudden case of nerves had more to do with the man and the way his eyes swept over her.

“I’m staying here with you tonight,” he said.

Alarms started going off in her head. The instinct to argue was strong, but Julia didn’t. The truth of the matter was that for the first time in her adult life, she was afraid.

“There’s a cot in the back room.” Needing something to do, she crossed to her desk and looked desperately for something to straighten. “Or you’re welcome to use the sofa upstairs.”

“The cot will be fine.”

“Are you expecting him to come here tonight?”

“No.”

When she ran out of things to do at the desk, she crossed to the counter. “So then why do you feel the need to stay?”

His gaze sought hers, held it. “I don’t trust fate.”

She knew it was crazy, but for an instant she didn’t know if he was talking about the stalker or his spending the night with her.

Discomfited by the notion, she bent and straightened the novelty bags beneath the counter. “So what’s our next move?”

“We let the cops do their jobs.”

“And tonight?”

“There’s nothing we can do tonight.” He shrugged. “Check the doors and windows.”

She smiled. “Check for monsters under my bed?”

He didn’t smile back. “Yeah.”

“That was a joke.”

A shiver moved through her when his gaze swept down the front of her. He grimaced when his eyes landed on her knees. “Since you’re too damn stubborn to go to the emergency room, why don’t you let me see to those abrasions?”

She’d almost forgotten about her scratched knees. But now that the adrenaline had ebbed, the scrapes were beginning to burn, the bruises beneath coming to life. The wounds needed tending. But having John do it somehow seemed far too intimate.

“If you’re up to it, I’d like to go over what happened one more time,” he said.

Dread rose inside her at the thought of reliving it. The logical side of her brain knew any small detail could possibly help find her attacker. But the more emotional side of her brain did not want to venture back.

“I’m up to it,” she replied. “I’ll just check the doors.”

Before she could move, he started toward the rear door. “Front door is locked down tight,” he called out over his shoulder.

Because she needed something to do, Julia rechecked the front door lock anyway, then walked to the rear of the shop. John had already opened the door and stepped into the alley, leaving the door open. From where she stood, Julia saw spindly fingers of fog rising from wet pavement. The slightly unpleasant odor of garbage hung in the air. John was standing stone still a few feet from the doorway, looking around.

She came up beside him. “What is it?”

He looked back at her, then motioned to the darkened light fixture across the alley. “Is that light always out?”

She hadn’t noticed before, but now that he’d pointed it out, the alley seemed darker than usual. “I think it’s usually lit.”

He crossed to the light and reached inside the globe. An instant later, dim light flooded the alley.

“Loose bulb?” she asked.

“Or maybe someone unscrewed it.”

A chill went through her at the thought. “John, I don’t understand why someone would do this.”

“The mentality of a stalker is so outside the normal realm of a normal person’s mind, it’s hard for anyone to grasp.”

Julia wasn’t sure she wanted to understand, but she knew this was one of those times where ignorance was not bliss. “You think he’s obsessed with me?”

“I think he’s fixated on you and/or some perceived wrong that you’ve done.”

“My book?”

He crossed to the door and ushered her inside, locking it behind them. “A lot of stalkers are disenchanted with reality, or unable to cope with reality, so they create their own. They tend to blame their problems on others. For example, if this guy has created a world where your novels cause him or others problems, he may feel compelled to somehow rectify the situation. At that point you become the focus of his obsession. His obsession becomes the center of his imagined universe.”

Julia shivered as they started up the stairs to her apartment. “Scary thought.”

“I’m no profiler,” John said. “But this guy probably thinks you’ve wronged him. He may even have convinced himself that you are the one who needs help.”

“Or saving.”

“Exactly.”

She unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside. A sense of comfort flooded her at the sight and smells of her ordinary things. The overstuffed sofa and chair in front of the television. The clutter of books on the coffee table. The cup she’d left on the kitchen counter this morning. The pleasant scent of the citrus and peppercorn potpourri she’d picked up at the candle shop on Poydras the day before. Until this moment she hadn’t realized just how badly she’d needed to be safe in her own home.

Normally when she closed the shop for the evening, she would make dinner or perhaps grab something to eat at the Cajun restaurant two doors down from the shop, then settle down with her laptop until bedtime. It was her relaxation, her escape. Tonight, however, writing was the last thing on her mind.

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

She turned to see John close the door behind him and engage the lock. He looked large and out of place in her small apartment, and it struck her just how seldom she had male visitors.

“In the bathroom. I’ll get it.” She started toward the hall.

“I’ll get it.” He motioned toward the chair. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

Sighing, Julia crossed to the chair and sat. She turned on the reading lamp beside the chair and for the first time got an up-close-and-personal look at her knees. Her panty hose were torn and sticky with drying blood, exposing deep abrasions. She could already see the swelling where the bruises were beginning to bloom. Realizing her hose would be in the way, she rose and walked into the kitchen, peeled them off and dropped them into the wastebasket.

“You’re going to be feeling those bruises tomorrow.”

Julia looked up to see him standing in the living room, the small red and white first aid kit in one hand, the bathroom water glass in the other.

“I’m already feeling them.” She crossed to the chair and settled into it.

“How’s your throat?”

“Sore.”

He offered three ibuprofen tablets and the glass of water. “These might help.”

Julia downed the pills and drank the entire glass of water, all too aware that her throat hurt with each swallow. “If I hadn’t maced him, he would have . . .” She set the glass on the table next to the chair. “He would have—”

“He didn’t,” John cut in.

That she could have been killed tonight made her feel sick and intensely vulnerable. Julia had never thought of herself as weak or defenseless; she’d never been afraid of anything in her life. But suddenly she found herself very glad that John was there.

“It keeps playing in my mind like a bad movie,” she said.

“A dozen different scenarios could have happened, but they didn’t. You’re okay. You’re safe.” His expression softened. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to keep it that way.”

“You’re not going to get an argument from me.”

“There’s a first.” Lowering himself to the ottoman, he opened the first aid kit. “Now let me have a look at those knees.”

Julia leaned back in the chair and propped her feet on the ottoman. She tried to relax, but the fact that someone had purposefully done this—injured her not only physically, but emotionally as well—was beginning to eat at her. “The more I think about what he did to me, the angrier I get.”

“It’s okay for you to be angry.” He looked away from her knee and made eye contact. “It’s normal.”

Her thoughts faltered when he gently set his hand on the backside of her knee and raised it so that her leg was slightly bent. The sight of his hand on her leg sent a shock through her system. His fingertips were warm and slightly rough against her flesh. The sensation was heady and startlingly pleasant. She could feel heat rising into her cheeks. Her heart beating like a drum in her chest.

“You have some gravel imbedded in your skin that needs to be scrubbed out.”

He wetted a sterile gauze pad with peroxide and began to gently scrub at the tiny gravel particles. Julia was so caught up by the sensation of his hand wrapped around her bare leg that she barely noticed the sting.

“John,” she said after a moment, “I don’t want this to disrupt my life.”

“It already has.”

“I don’t want to give him that kind of power. It’s almost as if that’s what he wants.”

“What he wants is to get his hands on you.”

A shudder ran the length of her before she could stop it.

John looked up from her knee and grimaced. “Look, if you want to play this smart—and safe—you’re going to have to make a few lifestyle adjustments.”

“I’m not going to lock myself in my apartment or cower every time someone walks into the shop,” she said with some heat.

“I’m not telling you to do either of those things. What I’m saying is to exercise caution.”

“My life isn’t exactly a walk on the wild side.”

“You walk alone in the Quarter after dark. Julia, that’s incredibly irresponsible.”

“I’ve been doing it my entire adult life.”

“That doesn’t make it smart.”

Julia knew he was right. But she didn’t want to concede. She hated it that the stalker was going to force her to make changes she didn’t want to make. She was in a good place in her life. She was happy and independent. She didn’t want to allow some madman to turn everything upside down.

“Look, all I’m asking is that you incorporate a few commonsense things into your routine.”

“Like what?” she asked, not liking the defensive ring in her voice.

“Don’t walk alone after dark. When you’re here at the shop, make sure there’s someone with you. I’ll take care of the locks and the new security system.” He smiled. “Try to keep in mind that this is only temporary.”

“I like my life the way it is, John. I hate it that this happened. That I feel the need to look over my shoulder every time I leave the shop. He had no right to do that to me.”

“No, he didn’t.” Having scrubbed the gravel from her right knee, he set the used gauze aside and applied a thin layer of antibiotic cream. “The situation isn’t going to rectify itself, Julia.”

“What do you mean?”

“Stalkers usually don’t stop stalking on their own.”

“So how do we stop him?”

His eyes glinted. “Next time he comes after you, we make sure he gets me instead.”

 
The plan was good in theory. Big, bad ex-cop from
Chicago coming to the rescue of a young woman being stalked by some wacko dipshit. But John knew reality couldn’t be further from the truth. He knew there was nothing big or bad about the man he had become since
The Incident
.

Hell, two hours ago he’d all but decided to quit the assignment. He’d been prepared to turn the whole mess over to some second-rate PI because he could barely deal with his own problems, let alone someone else’s. If Julia hadn’t burst through that door when she had, he would have walked away and never looked back.

But she had come through that door. And the sight of the bruises on her throat, her bloodied knees and the horror in her eyes had changed everything. Seeing her like that had brought to life the age-old need for male to protect female. His head might be royally fucked up at the moment, but he wasn’t so far gone that he could walk away from a woman whose life was in danger.

So how are you going to protect her when you can’t even pick up your gun, hotshot?

The question taunted him. It burned. Humiliated. Worse, John didn’t have an answer. The brutal reality of that scared him almost as much as the thought of this woman being hurt. Yeah, one hell of a bodyguard he was going to make.

“You can hardly be with me twenty-four hours a day.”

Realizing he’d zoned out, he looked away from her knee and met her gaze. The bottomless eyes that stared back at him were no longer the eyes of a love-struck teenaged girl in the throes of her first crush. They were a woman’s eyes. Gypsy eyes, he thought. Dark and exotic and filled with a woman’s secrets. Eyes that could put a man under a spell if he wasn’t careful.