Bodyguard/Husband (3 page)

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.” She glanced around at the passengers, acutely reminded of how his gaze had scrutinized every face as he’d walked toward her. So different from the way she had entered. She’d been tense and preoccupied. “I really didn’t notice.”

“You need to.”

His voice was low and hard. It rumbled through her like faraway thunder, a promise of a future threat.

“You need to be aware of everything around you all the time. You need to observe, analyze, catalog the information in your brain. The killer could be your grocery clerk, your best friend, your pastor.”

Denial leaped up to shield her from the horrifying possibility of his words. She took a shaky breath. “I can’t believe you’re really going undercover as my husband. I think my great-uncle Virgil overreacted to the notes. He’ll be seventy-three his next birthday and he’s under a lot of stress right now. He’s always been too protective of my sister and me. Those notes could just be from some sick person who wants attention. This is all Danny’s fault.” Saying his name made her heart ache.
Poor Danny.

Jack stiffened beside her. “Danny?”

“Detective Danny Barbour. When he moved to Maze back last September, his first case was my fiancé’s disappearance. Danny had the notion there was some connection between Ralph’s disappearance and my husband’s death. But Brad died in an accident six years ago. And Ralph probably just changed his mind about marrying me and couldn’t tell me to my face. Now poor Danny’s gone.” She shook her head as a lump of fear lodged in her chest.

“Why would your fiancé change his mind? Were you two having problems?”

“No. Not at all. I guess I was trying to think of a different reason for him to disappear, other than—”

Saying it all out loud made the idea that the deaths were related more real, and Holly did not want to face that possibility. “What if it’s all just a tragic coincidence? You’d be wasting your time. You might not even need to be here.”

“That decision’s been made,” he snapped. “Your case has been turned over to the Division.”

“What division?”

“The FBI’s Division of Unsolved Mysteries cooperates with local law enforcement on unsolved cases. Usually homicide.”

Holly processed that information. “So what about your hostage situation? That wasn’t a homicide, was it?”

He stared past her for an instant, his eyes focused inward. Then his gaze brushed her face briefly. “Yes. The father killed his wife several years ago and stole his kids from their grandparents. We caught up with him yesterday.”

“Oh.” He kept blindsiding her with horrific visions, made all the more sinister by his matter-of-fact recital.

She didn’t like anything about this scheme her uncle and the FBI had dreamed up. Jack O’Hara was obviously a dangerous man, experienced in dealing with atrocities she could not even imagine, and now he was telling her she was stuck with him.

Feminine steel crept into her voice. “So you think you’re going to take over my life because you’ve decided this is an ‘unsolved mystery.’”

Just then the loudspeaker announced that the plane had been cleared for takeoff.

Holly tightened her seat belt with trembling hands. She hated the loss of control she always felt in an airplane, but she couldn’t do anything about that. However, losing control of her life to this FBI agent was something she was not going to allow. She could take care of herself. She always had.

It infuriated her that Jack O’Hara was using scare tactics on her, with his talk of killers. Danny had hinted that her husband’s death and her fiancé’s disappearance might not be accidental. He’d thought the notes she’d received were from an obsessed admirer, but so far as she knew, he’d never found any proof.

“Sweetheart, you need to relax.” Jack took her hand as the plane picked up speed on the runway.

The rough warmth of his touch surprised her, as did her reaction. As irritating as he was, as unsettling as his reason was for being here, his hand cradling hers made her feel safe and protected. It was a vaguely familiar feeling, a memory wafting across her mind like an almost recognized odor. Her tall, handsome father holding her hand as they walked into church
each Sunday. Holly had always felt proud and happy, but most of all she had felt safe.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, staring at his long fingers wrapped around hers.

“You’re afraid of flying.”

“How do you know that?”

He squeezed her hand, rubbing his thumb over its back. “You’d be surprised what all I know.”

What was that supposed to mean? How much had Uncle Virgil told him? Everything? She didn’t like the idea that her great-uncle and this stranger had discussed intimate details of her life.

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re not succeeding,” she muttered.

“You like to be in control, and when you’re a passenger in an airplane, you can’t be. You’ve felt that way ever since your parents died in a small plane crash when you were a child.” He glanced past her at the window. “That’s why you like the aisle seat. You feel safer there, more in control. It’s why you take on so much responsibility.”

She sent him a suspicious glance. He had just echoed her own thoughts. Somewhere along the line, while she’d been seeking a way to feel safe and in control of her life, her great-uncle and great-aunt, her sister and the people of Maze had begun to depend on her, and she had accepted the responsibility, hoping for their protection and caring in return. But the hollow fear that had been planted inside her when her parents were killed had never gone away.

“Thanks so much for the ten-second recap of my life, and especially for mentioning crashing. So why did you insist on the aisle seat? Are you afraid of flying, too?”

The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “No. There are too many things you can control to spend time worrying about the things you can’t. You’re my assignment. I always take your vulnerable side.”

Sometimes that feels like every side,
she thought, trying to extricate her hand from his grasp, but he wouldn’t let go.

“You’re creeping me out,” she said.

“It’s my job to know all about you, to protect you.”

“That’s what’s creeping me out.”

J
ACK
O’H
ARA SAW
the poorly disguised fear in Holly Frasier’s eyes as she licked her lips. He had to fight to keep his gaze from lingering on her mouth. He ran the pad of his thumb along the back of her hand. Then he realized what he was doing, and stopped.

He hated to admit it, even to himself, but for the first time in his career, his assignment had him disconcerted. From the instant he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d been off his pace. He’d like to attribute it to exhaustion and the lingering pain in his shoulder, but he knew he’d be lying.

He just hoped it hadn’t shown.

He’d been at this a long time, and not much surprised him anymore. But Holly had. She wasn’t at all what he’d expected. The picture her great-uncle had sent him didn’t do her justice. It must have been taken several years ago, possibly right after her husband died. Maybe it was the only one her uncle had.

In the photo she appeared small, fragile, with a lost look on her face. A sad look. She was thin, and her brown hair was carelessly caught in a ponytail.

Her expression in the photo reminded him of his mother, of other stalking victims who lived their lives
in terror of the next event in the nightmare that wouldn’t end. It was his job to take that terror away, to give them back their lives. On a visceral level, he knew it was more than his job, it was his passion. But he kept the passion tightly leashed, because he also knew that emotion crippled judgment.

The woman sitting beside him was nothing like her picture. She wasn’t thin or carelessly groomed. Her short-sleeved sweater revealed well-defined arms and shoulders and round, delectable-looking breasts. Her hair was thick and chestnut-brown, as were the delicately straight, no-nonsense eyebrows above her amber-shot brown eyes.

He hadn’t recognized her until she’d looked up and he’d spotted a hint of the sadness that shone so strongly out of the photo. It had disappeared immediately, replaced by wary curiosity, then irritation. But for an instant her brandy-colored eyes had reflected the look of fear that haunted his dreams.

Her fingers tightened around his, wrenching his thoughts back to the task of distracting her during takeoff.

“So, Holly, you surprise me. I thought you’d be less…”

She bristled. “Feminine?”

Oops.
He’d spoken carelessly and obviously struck a nerve. What had he been about to say? Less self-assured? Less attractive? Less of a woman? He shrugged.

“I’m a physical therapist, not a Russian weightlifter.” She glared at him.

He cocked a brow at her. “You are definitely not a Russian weightlifter,” he agreed. Then, too aware of
her nearness, he shifted and casually let go of her hand. “We’re in the air.”

Her eyes widened. “I didn’t even notice.” She paused. “Thanks for taking my mind off the plane.”

“You looked like you needed a distraction.”

She smiled, and Jack stared. She really was lovely. He was puzzled by his reaction to her. She wasn’t his type at all. She was a little too tall, a little too physical for him. He’d never been one for serious relationships, but when he dated, he generally gravitated toward petite blondes. Women who looked like they needed protection.

Still, no matter how capable and strong Holly looked, she was also human, fragile, female, and being victimized by a stalker.

A flight attendant held out a bag of peanuts, and he reached without thinking. A painful twinge in his right shoulder made him groan. He took the peanuts with his left hand.

“Did you just groan?” Holly asked.

“No.”
Damn it.
He was dead tired and he’d been lying in ditches, driving, and flying in planes for the past twenty-four hours. His shoulder was stiff and sore.

She touched his arm. “Yes, you did. What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

Jack shrugged off her touch. He didn’t need sympathy. Just sleep. Being even marginally handicapped by injury pissed him off. “Slight on-the-job injury.”

“Oh.”

Another wide-eyed “oh.” He shifted his gaze away, uncomfortably sure that she’d picked up on what he hadn’t said. The on-the-job injury was a bullet wound.

Why did he get the feeling it wasn’t going to be easy to pretend to be married to her? He’d be happier
if she weren’t quite so attractive or so determined to take care of herself. That combination called up a primal urge in him—the urge to protect.

Who was he kidding? The urge to procreate. He clamped his jaw and swept those thoughts from his head. His lack of sleep was eating into his usual detachment.

This was a job, he told himself, a job like any other.

Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t completely true. Sure, he was the Division’s expert on stalkings and kidnappings, the logical choice to handle this case. But the reason he was here was because he owed Danny Barbour. When Danny called four months ago, Jack had been in the middle of another case, the case that had gotten him shot.

By the time he’d recovered enough to respond to Danny’s call, it was too late—Danny was dead. He’d let his best friend down, and now he was here to make it up to him.

It hadn’t been easy to convince his boss that he was ready to be back on the job. Special Agent in Charge Mitch Decker made it his business to worry about everyone under his command, whether they needed worrying about or not. And he had made it very clear what he thought of Jack’s determination to take this case.

“I’m impressed that you requalified in firearms so soon,” Decker had said. “But I won’t have a vendetta. Detective Barbour was your friend. You won’t be able to maintain the detachment you need to find this killer.”

Jack had calmly reminded Decker that he hadn’t given Jack the nickname the Ice Man for nothing. Jack
was known for keeping his cool, no matter what the situation.

What he didn’t tell Decker was that he’d made a promise to himself the day he’d watched his mother die at the hands of her ex-husband, his stepfather. Even though he’d been only thirteen, he’d known from that moment what he wanted to do. He’d devoted his life to stopping violence against women wherever and however he could.

He flexed his stiff shoulder, then pulled a tin of aspirin from his jacket pocket. He dumped three into his hand, tossed them into his mouth and swallowed them. Not easy without water.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Holly said, digging into her voluminous purse. “Were those aspirin? They’ll eat right through your stomach.”

She handed him a half-empty bottle of water. “Drink all of it.”

Jack took the water and drank gratefully, a little disconcerted by her attention and concern. He looked at her sidelong and found her watching to be sure he finished the water. He’d like to say it was annoying, but the truth was, he could get used to it. He’d never really had anybody to worry about him. Even his mother had been too busy working or going out to concern herself with a kid.

Dismissing thoughts of his mother, he settled back and considered what he knew about the case.

The Division’s profiler, Eric Baldwyn, had provided Jack with a personality sketch of the UnSub, FBI shorthand for an unidentified subject. Eric was a strange guy, but he was the best profiler Jack had ever worked with. He had an uncanny knack for nailing a
subject’s quirks and oddities, and his profile had made the difference in more than one case.

Jack would keep in touch with Eric throughout the case, working with him to isolate the most likely suspects in this worst kind of stalking case. Most stalkers never turned deadly, but Jack knew from painful experience that some could.

Eric had told him the UnSub fit the classic serial-killer profile in many ways. He was almost certainly male, probably relatively young, late twenties or early thirties. If he wasn’t young, then he was emotionally immature, an underachiever in a job that didn’t make a lot of demands on him.

Eric also thought the killer’s fascination with Holly may have begun years ago, perhaps even in childhood, and that his erotomanic obsession had developed over a long period of time.