Unbound (Crimson Romance) (18 page)

She watched Burke pace across the floor in front of the chief’s office for the billionth time. She could tell it drove him nuts not to be in the room with Dean and the chief. He walked over to her when he noticed her watching him.

“Can I get you some water or anything?” he asked.

“I’m good.”

Officer Smith shook her head at him. “You’re a moron, Pierce. You’ve asked her three times in ten minutes if she needs something to drink. If she said no the first time — ”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“He can’t help himself,” Payten told her. “Burke hates being left out of a problem.”

“Busybody,” Smith accused.

“Worse,” Payten replied. “He’s a fixer. He thinks he can fix everyone’s problem and keep the peace.”

“Martyr,” Smith said with disgust.

“Yup. That’s our Burke.” Payten smiled. “Out to save the world.”

“I’m about to fix two of my own problems right now,” he muttered.

“We love you, Burke.”

Officer Smith snorted. “Speak for yourself.”

“I love you, Burke. And no worries. Officer Smith will warm up to you.”

“Sheesh, what’s wrong with the men in this town? ‘He grows on you.’ ‘You’ll warm up to him.’ Are you women really that desperate?”

“I’m not dating either one of those types.”

Burke snorted. “No, you’re dating the slow-and-steady-don’t-make-a-move-until-someone-tries-to-kill-her type.”

Payten laughed. “Slow-and-steady, my tush. We’ve been on one date, and we’re living together.”

“After how many years of mooning over you?” he asked.

“Why do people keep saying stuff like that? What did I miss?”

“Apparently a lot,” Smith answered.

The implication pissed her off. Standing, she marched across the room and slung open the door to Chief Whitley’s office. Dean and Chief Whitley glared at her.

“I’m sick of waiting,” she informed them. “Maybe it is Peterson. Maybe it isn’t. Standing here screaming about it isn’t doing anybody any good. Move on,” she demanded.

They stared at her like she’d grown horns. She squirmed a little, but refused to apologize. She was right, damn it.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked.

Chief Whitley regained his composure first. He sat down in his chair behind his desk. “Whoever this man is — ”

“It’s Kevin!” Dean insisted. “It was him on the phone this morning.”

“Shut up,” she ordered. He gaped at her. She did her best to ignore it while she gestured for Chief Whitley to continue.

“He’s a dangerous man.”

“Duh,” she said. “Sorry, but I knew that three days ago.”

“The point is, the two of you need to be protected.”

“She needs to be protected,” Dean argued. “She’s the focus.”

“I don’t think so,” Burke said. He slid into the office as if he’d been invited into the conversation. “We’ve put the pictures in order as best we can by the timestamps. He left them on the pictures, so we assumed he did so for a reason. The positioning of the first photographs as well as the progression of them indicates the man was originally focused on Dean. He shifted to Payten later.”

“So he wants Dean too?”

“I believe so,” Burke answered her.

She looked at Dean to judge how he was taking the news. He shrugged. “Idiot,” she muttered.

“Kevin said he wants to take you,” he objected. “He plans on killing you to hurt me. He isn’t going to hurt me.”

“It cannot be Peterson,” Chief Whitley protested.

“For argument’s sake, let’s say he was somehow responsible,” Payten said. “What’s that mean for Dean and me?”

“He’s a dangerous man.”

“I got that already. He killed Dean’s mom.”

“It wasn’t just Liv. After Liv, he went on a killing spree,” Chief Whitley said. “You should be old enough to remember.”

She shrugged. “I really don’t. I only remember Liv because she and Mom were friends.”

“Kevin Peterson murdered eight women total,” Burke told her. “He avoided capture for three weeks after his first murder.”

“Eight women?”

Chief Whitley nodded. “Eight single mothers all from this county. All of them were murdered when at least one of their children was home.”

“I thought Kevin was a normal guy. Don’t serial killers have like criminal pasts or something?” she asked.

“You watch
CSI,
don’t you?” Chief Whitley asked.

She couldn’t help but smile a little at his disgusted look. “I watch
Criminal Minds
too.”

“Ruined,” he muttered.

“Sometimes people snap,” Burke told her. “There’s all the technical mumbo jumbo you want to add to it, but sometimes people just snap.”

She nodded. “All right. So whether or not this man is Kevin Peterson — ”

“He is,” Dean interrupted.

“ — Dean and I are in danger,” Payten continued. “What do we do about that?”

“You’ll both need a guard,” Burke said.

“Excuse me?”

“Payten needs one. Not me,” Dean protested.

She smacked his arm. “If I get one, you get one.”

“You both need one,” Chief Whitley stated. “I only have so many officers, though. You’re going to remain together under the supervision of one officer around the clock.”

“Even at night?” she asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Chief Whitley answered. “He took pictures outside your window and broke into your house. Twice. We’re still not sure how he did it.”

“He has to have access to a key,” Burke muttered. “Nobody’s that good.”

Her stomach dropped. “Oh, shit,” she muttered.

“What?” Burke asked.

“I had an extra key. Under my doormat. I told Dean it was there the night he took me home from Bridgett’s engagement party,” she said. “The next morning, Maddie told me it was missing. I never thought about it.”

“That explains that,” Chief Whitley said.

“No way he was close enough to hear,” Dean protested. “We would have noticed.”

Burke shrugged. “Voices carry pretty easily at night. We’ll look into whether or not her key’s missing.”

“So, we stick together, we have an officer with us around the clock, and we stay at Dean’s?” Payten asked.

Chief Whitley huffed. “You had better buy the best damn security system money buys.” He open a desk drawer and dug through it. “Here,” he said, offering Dean a business card. “They’re the best. I’ll call ahead for you.”

Dean nodded. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I want an officer with you every time you step out of the house. I don’t care if you’re walking to your truck. You have an officer with you. Period. Your alarm will be on at all times. You’ll both get cell phones this afternoon — why you don’t already have one is a mystery to me — and don’t even think about not answering them.”

“I don’t need one,” Payten said. “I’m always at the diner or at home.”

Dean nodded. “Someone always knows how to get ahold of me.”

“Look how well that worked when we were trying to call you about Richards getting fired,” Burke pointed out.

“Hmm…”

“I don’t particularly care whether or not you think you need one,” Chief Whitley snapped. “You’re getting them. You’ll answer them every time you’re called. You’ll work out an emergency word with Officer Smith. She’ll inform the rest of us. She’ll escort you to the security shop.”

“What about Peterson?” Payten asked.

Chief Whitley sighed. “I talked to the warden as soon as Burke told me what Dean said. Peterson is rotting in the same cell he’s been in for the past twelve years.”

“I’m telling you I talked to him this morning,” Dean said. “I don’t know how, but it was him.”

“I’ll send Burke to the prison,” Chief Whitley said. “He can sort out what’s going on.”

“I can live with that,” Dean said.

• • •

“What do you mean he’s in prison?”

Dean stood inside the security store his father had suggested. His father had neglected to mention it was in the mall nearly an hour and a half away from town. Officer Smith and Payten were in a store a little farther down the maze of mall hallways. His father would have thrown a fit if he knew Officer Smith had left him, but he could tell the security store made Payten edgy. He appreciated Officer Smith distracting her.

“I saw him myself,” Burke told him.

Dean stared blindly at a display in front of him. “That’s not possible. I talked to him this morning.”

“Are you sure it was him?”

“I’m positive,” Dean snapped.

“Dean — ”

“The fucker murdered my mother, Burke. I don’t think I’m going to forget what he sounds like.”

Another man in the store gave him a weird look, but he was too pissed to care.

“Dean, I don’t know what to tell you. The chief has been on the phone with the phone company since you left, trying to track the call. We’ll figure this out.”

Dean nodded even though Burke couldn’t see him. “Thank you.”

“That’s my job, Dean. I’d like to get back to it. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Burke?”

“Yeah?”

“If it isn’t him, who is it?”

Dean heard Burke sigh. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Dean hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. Their first stop inside the mall had been the cell phone provider. Officer Smith and Payten had hemmed and hawed over phones for an hour before finally picking the two they had.

“Mr. Whitley?”

He looked up at the person addressing him. “Yes?”

“We’ve got everything taken care of. Your father said this was a rush order?”

Dean nodded. “It needs to be installed today.”

“We can definitely handle that,” the man assured him.

• • •

Payten looked over her shoulder nervously. There was no sign of Dean outside of the store. Officer Smith stood next to her.

“I think I’m in over my head here,” Payten said.

Officer Smith snorted. “It’s lingerie. You’re a woman dating a totally hot man. What is there to be in over your head about?”

She squirmed. “I don’t wear lingerie.”

Officer Smith eyed her, then leaned close. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

She blushed and looked around to make sure no overheard. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Officer Smith jerked her head toward the door. “Does he know that?”

“Uh…I don’t know.”

“Why are we buying lingerie?”

“Officer Smith — ”

Officer Smith snorted. “Sweetheart, you just told me you’re a virgin. I think we’re past the ‘officer’ bullshit. Call me Dylan.”

“Dylan, I came in here to get underwear. They have the cutest panties, and they’re always on sale.”

Officer Smith nodded. “I get mine here too. And you’re buying enough panties and bras to outfit a bus full of cheerleaders. Now answer the question. Why are we looking at the lingerie?”

Payten squirmed again. She wished Bridgett were there. Or Quinn. Even Andie would be good. She planned on seducing Dean, and there was no one around to discuss her plan with. No one except Officer Smith.

She wasn’t sure when she made her decision, but it had been sometime in the past three days while she stayed with him. This morning had sealed it. Waking up in his arms felt right. She had managed to roll over and look at him without waking him. Unlike the night she witnessed his nightmare, he looked so peaceful while he slept. She remembered thinking about how dark and thick his eyelashes were against his cheek. She envied those dark eyelashes.

Shortly after that, she’d realized he wore boxers and nothing else. She wasn’t sure how she missed that when he’d lain down beside her the night before. The sight of nearly naked Dean stole her breath. She’d ogled him plenty while he was dressed, and she had no problem ogling him while he was asleep and mostly naked.

More than the sight of him mostly naked and the delicious memories of what they’d already done together — although she thought that was convincing enough — his actions were compelling. His casual teasing and fierce protectiveness, the way he reached for her without noticing, his absolute panic that morning after Peterson’s call, all of it made her melt. Even the way he went out of his way to make sure she was entertained — reading to her and playing a silly card game with her — made her more certain.

Maybe Officer Smith would make a great friend. Maybe she wouldn’t. At that particular point in time, Payten didn’t really care. She needed someone to talk to.

“I’m going to seduce Dean,” she announced quietly.

Officer Smith grinned. “I like. So lingerie is part of the plan?”

And, just like that, Payten thought of Dylan as a friend. That was what her girls — any of her girls — would have said.

“I think so.”

Dylan nodded. “I think you should go with a nightie. Simple, but gorgeous. You don’t need laces and snaps and hooks to deal with. Just a nice silk nightie that goes on and off over your head.”

“That sounds about right.”

Twenty minutes later, Dylan and Payten stepped out of Victoria’s Secret. They were both grinning. Dean waited for them outside the store.

“What are you grinning about?” he asked.

She giggled. She couldn’t help herself. Dylan elbowed her.

“Nothing,” she told Dean, still grinning.

Dean looked at Officer Smith. She shrugged. He spotted the bag in Payten’s hand. “Victoria’s Secret, huh?”

Payten giggled again.

“Underwear,” Officer Smith told him. “Can’t leave the mall without it.”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Why?” Officer Smith asked. “You don’t wear underwear?”

Payten’s laughter caused other people in the mall to turn and look at them, but she didn’t care.

Chapter Twenty

Payten stared at herself in the mirror of Dean’s bathroom.
What on earth was I thinking?

She stood on her tiptoes with her fingertips on the edge of the bathroom vanity for balance. She leaned forward, trying to see all of herself in the mirror. She could only see down to her upper thighs. She couldn’t even see to the end of the nightie. She fell back on the flats of her feet.

This was such a bad idea,
she thought.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I can’t even tell what this damn nightie looks like.