Task Force Bride (14 page)

With Jake daring the much smaller man to argue with him, Leon quickly gave up the fight. “See you around, Hope,” he said, sneering. “If anything else goes wrong at your shop, you get someone else to fix it.”

“I will.” He scurried away to the flower shop van, sparing one contemptuous glare toward Hope before shifting into gear and speeding out of the parking lot.

She was still running through a list of names of men who had access to her shop when Jake braced his hands at the open window of her car. “There’s something about that little weasel I’ve never liked. Call your boyfriend. Tell him you’re on your way. Robin and I will wait until you leave.”

Boyfriend. Right. The undercover ruse was working if both creepy Leon and her true friends believed she and Pike were a couple. Wishing more than she should that her time with Pike Taylor wasn’t a lie, Hope looked up and smiled. “Thanks, Jake.”

Robin and Jake followed her out to the highway before turning off to their home in the country outside the K.C. area. Hope waved them a thanks and continued toward downtown.

As the miles passed, she was torn between simmering resentment at the unnecessary fear Leon had caused her, and a fear that ran much colder, much deeper, when she thought about someone even more devious, more dangerous stalking her. Leon’s misguided efforts would have provided the Rose Red Rapist a perfect misdirection to throw the police off their ability to track down his movements and his threats against Hope. He could have been watching her from that very first night she’d spotted his van.

Could the lights reflecting in her apartment, and the movements in the shadows around her, be attributed to Leon Hundley? Or were Leon’s crude attempts to work his way into her life a convenient distraction for the police while a more secretive threat watched her from unseen vantage points and hidden cameras? Maybe Leon was a really, really good liar—and her would-be suitor and the serial rapist were the same man. The one thing she was certain of was that she needed to get home to Pike and tell him about Leon’s disquieting confession.

Hope rounded a wide turn on the interstate to head south toward the city, and found herself veering a bit into the passing lane. She tapped on the brake to turn off the cruise control. Although the light on the dash blinked off, centrifugal force was still making her lean toward the door. “Slow down, already.”

She tapped on the brake without detecting any change on the speedometer. If anything, as the straight stretch of highway dropped into a valley, she was picking up speed. “Really?”

The third time she pushed, the pedal went all the way to the floor and she went faster yet.

“Oh, my God.”

She had no brakes.

Panic bubbled up in her throat, but she swallowed it down and gripped the wheel harder, judging the thankfully empty stretch of road, the brown grass median to her left and the trees climbing the steep hill to her right. She tapped on the useless pedal again. “What do I do?”

Turn off the engine? Then she’d have no steering.

Shift to a lower gear? Not at this speed!

“Call me.
I’ll be here.”

Hope risked taking her hand off the wheel to pull her cell phone from her coat and punch in Pike’s number. She’d clicked it to speakerphone and dropped it onto the seat beside when Pike picked up. “Hope?”

She put both hands on the steering wheel again and raised her voice so he could hear her. “Something’s wrong with my car. I can’t slow down.”

She pitched forward when she hit the bottom of the valley and raced up the next incline at breakneck speed. “Pike?”

“Where are you?” She could hear hurried footsteps and measured breathing. Pike was running.

She gave him the highway number and closest exit she remembered passing. “I’m heading up a hill now. I’m losing some speed, but not much yet. I’ll try to pull off. But if I reach the other side—”

He muttered one swift, succinct swearword, then started giving orders. “Put on your blinkers and make sure you’re buckled in. I’m calling highway patrol right now. Listen to me. Pump your brakes. Sometimes you can rebuild the pressure.” He went through a list of things to try to compensate for the damaged brakes.

But none of them were going to do her any good.

Hope’s eyes went to the rearview mirror, and her breath locked up in her chest.

A white van crested the hill behind her, rapidly closing the distance between them.

“Pike?”

“I’m on my way.”

He’d be too late.

* * *

H
OPE
’
S
HAND
TIGHTENED
around Pike’s. “Wait.”

Ignoring the audience of waiting patients, visitors and staff in the east lobby of the Truman Medical Center, Pike stopped the nurse pushing Hope’s wheelchair toward the exit and knelt beside her. He knew it wasn’t the crowd inside that made her nervous, but the onslaught of cameras and reporters waiting in the parking lot outside that put the shadows of fear into her eyes. Pike brushed a curling lock of hair away from the deep purple bruise on her forehead. “You say the word and I’ll get you out of here through some back hallway or employee exit. You just spent a night in the hospital. You don’t have to talk to these people.”

She adjusted her glasses at her temple, and for several tense moments, those beautiful eyes looked straight into Pike’s soul and tried to tell him something. But then she blinked and the message was hidden behind the dutiful tilt of her gaze up to Detective Montgomery, who stood on the other side of her chair.

Hope’s grip pulsed around Pike’s, and her pale lips smiled. “Yes, I do. I know what I’m supposed to say. I just need a second to gather my thoughts and steel my nerves. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? Using me to bait the trap? We wanted his attention focused on me so he’d come after me. I won’t give up now.”

“The bastard tried to kill you.”

“He didn’t succeed.” But the burn on her forearm from the air bag, the bruising from her seat belt and the bumps and scrapes over the rest of her body told him the outcome of sailing over a ditch and flying up a brushy hillside to finally wedge her car between two trees could have had a very different outcome. “The truck driver who stopped to help me said he saw a man running to a white van parked on the shoulder of the road when he pulled up. The trucker must have scared him away before he could get to my car and...”

Finish the job.
Pike nodded. He’d been there when the EMTs had pulled a dazed and bleeding Hope from the wreck. “Remind me to give that guy a medal.”

“Pike?” Hope’s gentle fingers brushed across his rough jaw, reminding him he still needed a fresh uniform and a shave after his vigil in the chair beside her hospital bed. Why was she smiling at him? After all KCPD and the Rose Red Rapist were putting her through, how could she still be brave enough to smile? “It’s not the first time I’ve been afraid of something and did it anyway because I had to. I may not be a firecracker on the outside, but I can be tough when I really need to be.”

The old scars Pike had seen along her shoulder, wrist and collarbone each time a nurse had come to check on Hope’s progress through the night made him think this wasn’t the first time she’d cheated death. They also made him seethe with something akin to a protective rage when he thought of her father and her fear of dogs and how they all must tie into that painful childhood and grown-up panic attacks she didn’t like to talk about.

The woman shouldn’t have to keep fighting for survival. Pike tilted his head to the astutely patient detective eavesdropping on their conversation. “Montgomery, help me out.”

But it was Hope who answered. “Pike.” With another gentle touch, she turned his gaze back to hers. “I have to do this. Just promise you’ll stay with me.”

He nodded. Yes. Screw the charade. He wasn’t leaving her to patrol his beat or attend a task force briefing. He wasn’t going to family dinners or football games with his brothers. He was staying right by her side until that slimy, cowardly cockroach of a man who’d done this to her was in jail and could no longer hurt her.

Hope inhaled a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

Pike pulled her fingers to his lips and kissed them before rising and taking the nurse’s place behind the wheelchair. “Let’s get it over with.”

Hope’s friend Robin had brought jeans, a sweater and a flannel-lined knock-around coat for Hope to wear home. Yet Pike could feel her shivering in the afternoon sun the moment the first light flashed and the barrage of questions started. With Spencer Montgomery, Nick Fensom and Kate Kilpatrick keeping the reporters at a barely respectful distance, Pike pushed the chair out to the far curb and bit his tongue while the press had at her.

Vanessa Owen pushed to the front of the pack, urging her cameraman in beside her to get a shot of Hope’s bruises and bandages. “You claim the Rose Red Rapist ran you off the highway.”

Hope squinted against the bright light. “I know it was him.”

“You saw his face? You were careening down the interstate at eighty miles an hour and you took the time to look at the driver’s face?”

“I wasn’t going that fast. I was already having car trouble. I’d slowed down.”

Gabriel Knight was there, too, with his notepad and cynical voice. “That unpopulated stretch of highway north of the city where your car broke down is pretty far from the Rose Red Rapist’s usual hunting ground.”

“He must have planned it.” Her chest rose and fell more rapidly as her breathing quickened. “The police found brake fluid at a church where I was attending a business meeting. They believe my car was sabotaged.”

“Are you sure you’re not just a bad driver, Miss Lockhart?”

Her knuckles were turning white on the arms of the wheelchair. “His van clipped my bumper, sending me into the ditch. I’m lucky I didn’t roll my car.”

“Forget the accident, Gabe. What did he look like?” Vanessa Owen took center stage again. “You say you saw the Rose Red Rapist. You’re certain it’s the same man you identified last weekend, near where LaDonna Chambers was found raped and murdered?”

“Yes.”

“What did he look like?”

Pike stepped in when the brunette’s microphone got too close to Hope. “Enough. The woman could have died. Cut her a break.”

“What about the other women who died, Officer? Don’t their families deserve to know who this man is? Don’t the rest of us have a right to know from whom we should protect ourselves?” With a smile that was more shark than serene, the reporter retreated a step. “Miss Lockhart, give us something. Was he tall? Short? White? Black? Dark-haired? Blond?”

“A white man.” Hope’s voice sounded small.

“How old was he?”

“I...” She lowered her head, tilting only her eyes toward the camera. “He wore a surgical mask.”

“So you didn’t see his face.”

Her chest heaved with a deep breath. “I saw enough.”

“What color were his eyes?”

“Did he say anything to you?”

She twisted her fingers in her lap. “He didn’t speak.”

“Did he touch you?”

Her head shot up. “He tried to kill me. He walked up to my car...after it crashed. He... I heard him coming through the brush... I tried to get out, but...”

Pike could see the panic stirring in Hope’s pale skin and trembling mouth. If she hadn’t run out of patience yet, he had. Ignoring the cameras, the questions and his superior officer, Pike scooped Hope into his arms and lifted her from the chair. “She’s done answering questions.”

“Miss Lockhart!”

As soon as Hope curled her fingers into his collar and laid her head against his shoulder, Pike carried her across the driveway to his truck.

Kate Kilpatrick took over the press conference and diverted most of the reporters’ attention to her. “Please. Miss Lockhart’s car was totaled. She’s lucky to be alive. She needs her rest.”

“Can
you
give us a description?”

Dr. Kate’s voice faded in the distance. “For obvious reasons, the police don’t want to give away all the details of these crimes. But we are looking for a white male, late twenties to forty—”

“I can walk.” Hope’s lips moved against Pike’s neck in a weary protest, but he just held on tighter. He didn’t set her on her feet until they reached the black-and-white K-9 truck. And even then, it was just long enough to get the door unlocked and open before he lifted her onto the passenger seat. “Where’s the beast?” she asked, looking into the backseat.

Pike reached across her lap to fasten the seat belt. “My brother Alex took Hans for the night. He’ll drop him off at your apartment once we get there.”

With Hans gone, what fight she had left seemed to drain right out of her. “I hope that was enough. I tried.” She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from the crowd.

“You did great.” He pulled a stadium blanket from under the seat and covered her up. “I’ll get you home, Hope. Just as fast as I humanly can.” He smoothed her hair off her face and earned a nod of appreciation, or maybe just understanding, before Pike closed the door and hurried around the hood.

A stern-faced Spencer Montgomery stopped him in his tracks. Pike pulled up to his superior height, irritated by protocol and unspoken accusations and his own guilt. “Detective?”

Spencer Montgomery couldn’t be intimidated. He pulled back the edges of his jacket and propped his hands at his waist. “Don’t mess this up, Taylor. We need our perp to think she knows exactly who we’re after.”

“She said enough.”

“Are you getting emotionally attached to this woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir, you won’t blow this sting operation, or yes, sir, you have feelings for her?”

The promise of the coming winter chilled the late-morning air. But there was something as warm and certain as it was unfamiliar filling Pike’s chest when he looked inside the truck to see Hope huddling beneath the blanket. He nudged aside the detective before opening his door and climbing in beside her. “Both.”

Chapter Ten

The cut on his forearm stung like the annoyance Hope Lockhart had turned out to be. He tossed back the whiskey in his glass and poured himself another while the woman who’d doctored his wound sat on the edge of the bed, towel-drying her hair.

“Be a love and pour me one of those, will you?” she asked.

For several seconds, he stood at the drink cart, his hand fisting around his glass so tightly it should have cracked. He drank that shot down, too, needing the sharp burn of the liquid to cut through the anger stirring in his blood and poisoning his thoughts. When he could think again, he poured himself a third whiskey, and filled a glass for her before taking the drink to her.

“I told you to let me handle it.” He nodded toward the television they’d just turned off. “Now it’s all over the news. Hope Lockhart is talking.”

With a smile that was as smug as it was seductive, she clinked her glass against his, then drank the whole thing down like a man. “I’ve given you the perfect alibi, taking the van out to north Kansas City for you while you were here in town. You should be grateful.”

Grateful? To a woman?

He took the glass she handed him back to the cart. He tried to simply set it down, but couldn’t help himself. There were maids to do this kind of thing, but he picked up both glasses and carried them into the bathroom, where he washed them in the sink, removing saliva and fingerprints and any other contaminant that might linger. He dried them with a towel until they sparkled, lined them up, just so, on the counter, then washed and dried his hands until they were pink and chapped and just as clean.

He pulled a bottle of vinegar from his toiletry bag and poured the liquid over his hands, sterilizing them before rinsing again. Then he dabbed on enough cologne to mask the tangy scent and returned the glasses to the drink cart.

He might be a sick man. But he wasn’t a foolish one. “I don’t like that you made the decision without me. I’ve been keeping a close eye on Hope. I don’t think she knows as much as the police claim.”

“Didn’t you hear her at that press conference?” The robe the woman wore barely covered the curves of her body as she stood and sauntered across the room to him. This woman tempted him. Repulsed him. She was good at her job and good for him, and he hated that he needed her. She’d hurt him deeply, yet he couldn’t walk away. He owed her far too much and she knew him far too well. “She saw your surgical mask.”

“Because you wore one today.”

“Because she saw you that night. I never got that close to her car, or she’d be dead by now.” She touched her fingers to his jaw, and his skin crawled, even though he knew she’d just come from the shower. “She knows the color of your skin. She may know more, but she’s too broken to share it.”

“You think Hope is lying?”

She pulled the towel from her hair and tossed it onto the bed. “You obviously do, too, or you wouldn’t be spying on her.”

“Then why hasn’t she called me out? She knows me.”

“She’s afraid of you.” She combed her fingers through her hair and shook the dark layers behind her back in a move that was probably meant to entice. But all he saw was the damp wad of towel soiling his bed. “I’ve looked her in the eye, just like you. That woman’s afraid of her own shadow.”

“Then we have nothing to worry about.”

She faced him, backing up that beauty with cold, hard logic. “We have everything to worry about. Haven’t you ever read fairy tales? The ugly duckling turns into a swan. The poor little ash girl becomes a princess. She’ll change. She’ll snap out of this stupor she’s in. She’ll come up against something or someone she fears even more than you. It may not be today or tomorrow, but one day, she’ll name you for the ogre of the story you are.”

“Ogre?”

The bitch smiled. “How many women have you raped? You’re not exactly hero material, are you?”

“And you’re no princess.”

“I don’t claim to be. I’ve always taken whatever steps are necessary to get what I want and to protect the people I love. I’m a survivor. Are you?” She tucked her fingers into the belt at his waist and inched closer to him, close enough for the heat of her body to seep into his. “Do you want me to take the necessary step of killing Miss Lockhart? Or do you plan to wait for her to destroy us?”

“I’ll take care of Hope myself.”

“You’ll have to get rid of the boyfriend, too, because I think dead is the only way he’ll let anyone get past him now.” Her fingers moved behind his zipper. Despite every urge to deny her affect on him, his body leaped in response to her touch. “Think about it, darling. Have you ever killed a man?”

“I’ve never killed a woman, either. That’s all on you.”

“You just destroy lives and let them live with the physical and mental pain you inflict. Isn’t my way kinder?”

He fisted his hands at his sides, refusing to give in to her seduction. “There’s not a kind bone in your body. I never asked you to clean up what I do. I never made a mistake before you got into my head and turned me into some kind of misogynistic lunatic. I never asked you to take care of me. You’re a selfish, ambitious bitch like every other woman I’ve known.”

She pressed her body against his and smiled. “And yet you stay with me. You keep coming back to me because you know I’m the only one who understands you—who can handle what you need to do.”

“Stop it!” He picked her up by the shoulders and threw her onto the bed. “I don’t need
handling!
” When she dared to sit up and reach for him, he flipped her onto her stomach and pushed her face into the pillow. “You make me sound like a child who needs to be taken care of. I assure you, I am no child.”

She rubbed her bottom against his traitorous response to her cunning wiles, and he jerked back, giving her a few precious moments to raise her head up and catch her breath. “I protect you because I love you. I do it because you won’t take care of yourself. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, darling.”

Then she made the mistake of looking at him. He never liked to see a woman look him straight in the eye—as though she was his equal, as though she had the right to challenge him.

He grabbed her by the hair and pushed her face back into the pillow. “Then stay away from Hope.
I
want to be the one who punishes her for betraying me. Say you understand. That you’ll do nothing more to interfere. Say it!”

Her muffled voice struggled to answer. “Yes. I understand. You want to take care of Hope.”

“No. I
need
to be the one who does it. Your part in this is finished. She’s mine. Understood?”

He pushed harder until the only answer she could give was a nod.

He left her gasping for air on the bed as he strode from the room. The hunger was eating through his blood now. The rage consumed him. And there was only one way to curb the sickness and assuage his need. The rational part of his brain knew he’d just been manipulated into this. And yet that only fueled the compulsion to prove he was the one in control of his life.

Hope Lockhart wasn’t the submissive speck on the wall he’d thought her to be. She had knowledge of things that could ruin him. And that gave her a power over him that no woman had a right to.

He grabbed his keys and slammed the door on the way out. The gasps from the woman on the bed had turned to laughter. But he refused to hear her.

It was time to prepare for the hunt.

* * *

H
OPE
STIRRED
RESTLESSLY
as she dozed, unable to fall into the deep sleep she needed.

There were still parts of her body that were a little tender after smacking her head against the window and being jostled in her seat as her car had banged across the ditch and bounced up the hill. But she’d found a comfortable position in her own snug bed, was plenty warm beneath the sheet and quilt and even had on her old, comfy favorite—a white cotton nightgown.

But sleep eluded her because she couldn’t shut down the images in her head. A white van filling up the space in her rearview mirror. Shadowed eyes above a stark white surgical mask. Golden lights bouncing off her bedroom walls. And that crawling sense of someone watching, someone she couldn’t see, someone tracking her down and closing in just as surely as two red heeler mixes running down a frightened girl on a dirt-packed road, knocking her to the ground, tearing at her skin.

Hope gasped as her childhood memory blended with the grown-up nightmare of this past week. She rolled onto her back, forcing her eyes open and letting them adjust to the dim illumination from the streetlamp outside her window.

Her gaze settled on the tall silhouette of the man leaning against the doorjamb to her bedroom. Instead of being startled, she smiled. “It’s not polite to stare.”

Pike’s low-pitched chuckle reached across the room like words of comfort. He unfolded his arms and straightened, taking a step closer to the glow from the curtains. He was still a blur until she picked up her glasses from the bedside table and put them on. His blue eyes were warm as he came into focus, but she could see the marks of fatigue lining his face. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight again. Ever. This guy is more ruthless and resourceful than I imagined. I thought you’d be safe away from this neighborhood. He must have followed you out of the city.”

Despite the disturbing topic and the distance of the room between them, their voices sounded hushed, intimate somehow, in the dusky light. Maybe it was the connection to another human being who truly understood what she was going through that made this perfunctory conversation feel so soothing. “Or he knows my schedule. He knew where I’d be.”

“That means he’s someone you know.” His shoulders lifted in a weary sigh. “Doesn’t make me feel any better.”

She wasn’t the only one whose life had been turned upside down this week. “You need sleep, Pike.”

“I’ve got one job, Hope. Keeping you safe. I blew it.”

“I don’t blame you.” She pulled the covers to her chest and sat up in bed. “From the beginning, I understood the roles we had to play. You’re the neighborhood cop. I’m the wedding planner. You moved in to protect me while I’m here, but if you follow me all over the city, then this guy will never make his move and you’ll never catch him. Right?” He shifted on his feet, remaining silent. “And you did save me. You told me how to slow down my car. Your voice kept me from panicking. I could be dead instead of a little dinged up around the edges.”

“I can see the bruises on your forehead and shoulder from here. Sorry, honey. You can’t talk me out of feeling guilty.” He came to the side of her four-poster bed, bringing the worn comfort of his flannel shirt and jeans into view. She could also now see the gun and badge strapped to his belt—and the concern he wore like the uniform and body armor she usually saw him in. He plucked the covers from her hands and shook the wrinkles from them. “Lie back down. I’ll wait a little longer, until you fall asleep.”

“But I can’t sleep. My brain won’t shut down. And you can’t stand there forever.”

“Watch me.” The man took his job seriously enough that she had no doubt he’d stay at his post for days if he had to, no matter what it might cost his health or peace of mind.

But she didn’t need the bodyguard keeping watch over her to chase the rapists and killers and from her dreams tonight. She needed something more than the gun and the badge. “Pike, would you stay and talk to me?”

A grin creased his scruffy jaw. “What have we been doing?”

She pulled the covers from his hands and patted the quilt beside her.

“Oh.” The edge of the bed dipped when he sat and took her hand. “Better?”

Instead of being grateful for the interlocking fingers she’d grown to love, Hope pushed up onto her knees and threw her arms around his neck. “Now I am.”

For one self-conscious moment, she thought she might have misread his caring nature, or that she’d pushed the limits of their charade too far. But with a breathy groan against her ear, he wound his arms around her and drew her up against his chest, lifting her off her knees and cinching her up so tight against his warmth that she felt the imprint of every button and belt buckle through the thin cotton of her nightgown. He rubbed his sandpapery jaw against her cheek and neck, catching loose tendrils of hair between them, kindling tiny sparks of friction that danced across her softer skin.

In the next moment, Hope was back on her bottom in the bed and Pike was leaving her. She quickly reached for his hand, instantly missing his strength and heat. “Pike—?”

“Shh.” He squeezed her hand, whispering as he smoothed her hair away from the knot at her temple. She reached up too late to stop him from pulling her glasses off her face and setting them back on the nightstand. “I guess neither one of us is sleeping unless we do it together, right?”

Together? Wasn’t that what she’d been subconsciously asking for? She held her breath when he stooped down to untie his boots. After he stripped off shoes and socks, the belt followed. She started breathing again, quickly, but soon realized her anxiety came from anticipation, maybe even a hint of impatient curiosity, not nerves or fear. Not of Pike. No, this man would always take care of her, she realized, as he carefully set his heavy black gun and badge on the bedside table. He might teach her things the same way he trained his dog, and speak plainly without a sugarcoating for anything, but his heart was pure gold. The shirt buttons came next, and Hope squinted in helpless fascination while he peeled off the blue plaid flannel and hung it on one of the bedposts. So much bare skin. So much man.

Although the jeans stayed on, he unsnapped the waist before sitting down beside her and sliding his long legs beneath the sheet. The mattress shifted and Hope tumbled into that wide expanse of naked chest. But the shock of warmth and hardness and Pike’s unique musky scent quickly gave way to curiosity and then need. When Pike gathered her in his arms and lay back, Hope tentatively turned her cheek into the pillow of his shoulder. Her hand hovered above the terrain of his chest, feeling the warmth from his skin. But she was unsure exactly where to put it until he caught it and pressed it against the sleek arc of muscle over his heart.