Dangerous Kisses (8 page)

As she came more fully awake, common sense returned. He was probably up on deck. Had he spent the entire night up there? Judging by the chill permeating the cabin, he would have spent several mighty uncomfortable hours exposed to the night air.

Sydney slipped from the bed and immediately shivered in the chill. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and climbed the stairs. Her mouth nearly fell open when she reached the deck. The boat sat in the middle of the lake with dense fog crowding its sides. She shook her head as if to clear cobwebs. Had she fallen into Oz while she slept?

She searched the deck and found Jake asleep, leaning against a box that stowed life jackets and other assorted boating paraphernalia. His face, while it still held its hard edges, had lost its tenseness in sleep. She couldn’t help but smile. The big, tough detective slept like the rest of the world.

Sydney removed the blanket from her shoulders, then leaned down to place it across Jake’s body. Silly man, he could have slept inside on his couch. Although with him so close, she doubted she would have slept a wink.

When the fabric had barely touched him, Jake sprang wide awake, immediately in defensive stance with his legs poised to spring forward. His sudden movement startled her so much she fell backwards before she could prevent it. She righted herself only to find a gun pointed at her chest. The sight of that menacing dark barrel pulled a frantic gasp from her as she scooted away.

"Wait, Sydney." Jake lowered the weapon and overtook her. "Wait. I’m sorry."

Before she could reach the stairs, Jake pulled her into his arms. "Shh. I won’t hurt you."

She sank against him and squeezed her eyes shut to prevent tears from falling.

"You startled me," he said as if that explained all. "I’m a cop, remember? One who’s trying to keep you safe from a killer."

That she didn’t need to be reminded of. Against the better judgement she would have exhibited had she been anywhere but in Jake’s arms, she accepted the comfort and warmth he offered, if only for a few minutes. She treasured her control, but every once in awhile when she was at her most vulnerable she wanted someone to take care of her — like her mother used to when she was little, like her father had in those horrible, lonely days after her mother’s death.

Jake wrapped his arms more tightly around her. "Don’t ever sneak up on a cop."

"I’m sorry. I thought you looked cold, so I was trying to put the blanket on you."

He leaned back from her enough that he could look down into her eyes. "Now who’s in danger of sounding like she cares?"

"Self preservation, I assure you. If you freeze to death like an idiot out here, I have no idea how to drive this boat. Speaking of which, how did we get in the middle of the lake?"

"This was the only place I was going to get any sleep."

"You think he would have come after me with you here?"

"I wasn’t taking the chance."

When they stopped talking, their position grew more awkward. Truth was, Sydney loved the feel of Jake’s muscular chest next to her, but the contact also worried her. What if her body tattled the attraction she had to hide? Could he detect the warmth flooding her, feel her heart hammering against her chest? She couldn’t handle Jake’s indifference, not after everything that had occurred in the past twenty-four hours. But when she moved to rise, her leg brushed next to his, revealing that perhaps Jake wasn’t so indifferent to her after all.

Her gaze met his, and there in those dark depths she could have sworn she saw interest, maybe even desire. She tried not to let her heart run away with itself. Time stretched as if the boat sat alone in a universe where time didn’t exist. Jake continued to stare at her, even dipping his gaze to her lips. She licked against the dryness there. He was going to kiss her, and she was going to enjoy it.

She nearly fell backwards again when Jake looked away into the fog and extricated himself from the blanket. He stepped to the edge of the boat.

"I’ll take us back in so we can check your apartment."

Sydney blinked against sudden, hot tears. She’d almost made a fool of herself. His reaction had been purely physical, nothing more. She stood with as much dignity as she could and retreated down the steps without so much as a word to Jake. Never again would she allow herself to be tempted by dreams of another life only to have that fantasy dashed. His lack of interest was for the best, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

****

He pressed the binoculars more firmly against his eyes in an effort to see her better. There she stood in the morning mist thinking she was safe, that she’d escaped him. Little did she know that he’d watched her for some time now, even before he’d taught the other two their lessons. But she hadn’t been first. No, he’d known she’d write about him, and that gave him immeasurable pleasure.

Now everyone quaked when they thought of him, feared he was around every blind corner, inside every dark closet. Many of them never knew they spoke to him nearly every day, even looked forward to seeing him in some instances.

But Sydney’s search for his identity grew too dangerous. She had lessons to learn as well. He had to teach her just like the others that he wasn’t a man to be overlooked.

His jaw tightened as the anger threatened to overwhelm him. Not now. He must control it until the time was right.

She looked toward the shore with a wistful, yearning expression on her face. Was she thinking of that damned cop who dared to think he would catch him? His hands squeezed the binoculars as if they were Radley’s throat. Why did the beautiful ones always go for guys like him, the ones who couldn’t give them what they deserved?

Sydney retreated out of his line of sight. Soon. Soon he would scold her for her errant ways. And if he planned perfectly, perhaps he’d make Radley watch before he taught him his own lesson.

Jake leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, scanning Sydney’s living room for anything he and the evidence team might have missed, any scrap that might point toward the killer.

He glanced out at the balcony where Sydney was watering her plants. She hadn’t said so during her walk-through of the apartment, but he could tell that even the possibility that the killer had invaded her home bothered her a great deal.

While the evidence guys examined the bathroom, he wandered into Sydney’s bedroom, feeling a little like he was intruding in her private sanctuary. So this was where she slept with her long, shiny, white-blond hair in disarray.

He shook his head to direct his thoughts back toward the task at hand. He stepped into her small walk-in closet but didn’t note anything out of the ordinary. Nothing on top of her dresser rang warning bells — no ominous silver-wrapped chocolate, no scrawled notes, no visible fingerprints, nothing that would indicate anyone other than Sydney had been in this room before his arrival.

Jake looked around the room one more time. The red blinking light on Sydney’s phone caught his eye. Probably only a message from a friend or co-worker, but he was leaving nothing unchecked.

He walked to the open doorway to the balcony. "Sydney."

She turned from where she’d been staring across the parking lot, a look on her face like she was trying to figure out a puzzle.

"You have a message on your phone. We need to listen to it."

She snapped back to what he considered the normal Sydney. "Okay." She passed him and went straight to the bedroom, didn’t even hesitate before pushing the message button.

"Did you enjoy your candy, Sydney?" said a muffled voice. Jake’s spine stiffened, and he strained to hear everything the recording had picked up. "You sure did look pretty in that red dress last night. Too bad you were with that cop. But don’t worry. He’ll learn his lesson. Then you and I can be together."

"Save the message," Jake said.

Sydney did so, though she appeared to be operating on autopilot. He reached past her and replayed the message, trying to distinguish identifying noises in the background. The killer sounded as though he was speaking through a balled-up bath towel.

So his spine tingling the night before hadn’t been without cause. The bastard had been out there in the dark somewhere. Maybe not when they’d been on the boat, but sometime during the evening he’d watched Sydney. The thought of some faceless murderer watching her when she looked so beautiful sent thousands of shivers scurrying over his skin.

The message had leeched the last of Sydney’s color out of her skin. Jake reached over and guided her to the side of the bed. She needed to sit before her legs collapsed.

"Did you recognize the voice?"

"No."

"We’ll make a copy of the message and do some analysis. See if we can pick up any clues, try to track the number."

"He probably called from a public phone. He seems like the smart, organized type of killer."

Even as she was being targeted, the journalist in her had evidently prompted her to do research. Maybe because she was a target. Her assertion had been that she wanted potential victims to know everything they could so they could protect themselves. He saw the merit of that argument more clearly now.

She seemed okay considering, but some instinct deep in his gut told him she needed reassurance that she would be safe. He sat beside her and took her hand. "We’ll get this guy. I swear it."

"I know." She said the words, but he couldn’t tell if she believed them.

****

Sydney flipped through the packaged chicken, looking for the best combination of freshness and price. She tossed her choice into the cart, then consulted her grocery list. When she was stressed, she cooked. By the looks of her cart, she was darn near ready to have a heart attack.

Well, it couldn’t hurt to feed the officers who evidently would be watching her day and night. She knew the kind of crap those guys ate while on duty. She wouldn’t be responsible for the hamburger that sent one of them into cardiac arrest.

She added milk and yeast rolls to the cart, then headed for the checkout. Along her route, she passed the candy aisle. She turned down it, searching the hanging bags for the butterscotch candies she liked so much. She deserved a treat. And every time she ate them, she thought of her dad and smiled.

He’d started giving her these candies when her mom wasn’t looking when she’d barely been old enough to know what candy was. Her mother would always scold him, but she never sounded too serious about it. How she missed them both. Her dad had been gone two years now, but at least she’d had time to tell him all the things she’d never been able to tell her mother.

When she found the candy, she lifted onto the tips of her toes to reach them.

"Here, let me get those for you," a man said from beside her.

"Thanks." She stepped back to allow him access. Then she saw the three bags of chocolate kisses in his hand. Her heart battered against her chest, and her breath shuddered. She fought the urge to run. Had he followed her here? Would he dare get this close and taunt her?

"Here you go."

Sydney tore her eyes away from the bags in his hand to see him extending the butterscotch to her.

"The kids will like those," he said.

"What?"

"The butterscotch. I always liked those, but my daughter said trick-or-treaters really want chocolate." He raised the chocolate kisses in his hand and nodded toward the bags of individually wrapped candy bars in his cart. A bright-eyed girl of about seven or eight smiled shyly at her. Sydney offered a weak smile back.

Of course, trick-or-treaters. Her body relaxed, and the relief helped slow her frantic heartbeat.

She’d forgotten Halloween was only a few days away. The farm where she’d grown up had been so out of the way they’d never gotten trick-or-treaters, and none of her various apartment complexes had been favorite stopping spots either.

Sydney accepted the candy from the man who was now looking at her with a strange expression on his face. He was probably wondering what in the world was wrong with her.

"Thank you," she said, then hurried toward the checkout.

He was just a guy buying Halloween candy, nothing more. But her hands shook so badly she dropped her money while paying the cashier and then bumped into the cart of another customer. She mumbled a "sorry" and nearly sprinted for her car. Thank goodness the sun was shining in a bright blue autumn sky. It helped alleviate some of her fear. That and the fact she knew there was an officer nearby.

She loaded the groceries into the trunk of her car, then sat in the driver’s seat for a few seconds until she got her heart rate and breathing under control. This was crazy. Even with her police protection, she’d watched the surrounding cars on the way to the grocery as if the Grim Reaper had been driving each one. She glanced around the parking lot. Nothing out of the ordinary, no reason to believe she was in any danger here. She couldn’t let the threats render her so fearful she couldn’t function. One seemingly unconquerable fear was quite enough.

Sydney took a deep breath, vowed to remain calm and headed back toward her apartment.

When she arrived, she found Jake sitting outside her door. He waved at a passing car, thus evidently completing the shift change. Damn, why was she so glad to see him? He came as close as any man ever had to making her lose her mind and the power of speech, and yet she couldn’t get enough of seeing his face and the buzz she felt when he was around. He was a drug, one to which she could easily become addicted.

Time to don the armor.

"You’re tonight’s babysitter, huh?"

He rose and took the bags from her hands. "So it seems." He peered into the bags. "You stocking up for Thanksgiving early or do you have a superhuman metabolism?"

"Keep it up and I won’t offer you a plate."

"You’re going to feed me?" The teasing was back in his voice, and she could have kissed him for it – except kissing him wasn’t a good idea.

Still, the teasing, the acting as if she wasn’t a fragile flower was what she needed. No coddling, no tiptoeing.

"If you’re not too annoying. And if you carry in the rest of the groceries."

"There’s more?"

She gave him what she hoped was a look of warning laced with humor. From his amused expression as he descended the steps, she succeeded. Lord but that man made her skin burn and her heart perform remarkable feats of beating.

As she worked to prepare pan-fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans, she even managed to relax a little as the last rays of twilight waned and the kitchen filled with familiar, welcoming smells. Jake talked on his phone and worked on his computer. His comments were just vague enough to make her wonder if he was talking about the serial killer or another case altogether.

Her nervousness returned when she placed the meal on the table and they sat down to dinner. While preparing the meal, she’d been able to keep her back to Jake to avoid the impossibly sexy way he moved, his piercing gaze. With him across the table, she’d have to stare at her plate to keep from watching him. Lord, how much sense did it make that a killer wanted to add her to his list of victims and what occupied her mind was the crazy attraction she felt toward a man she barely knew?

Despite her earlier hunger while she cooked, she only nibbled at her food. Every time she dared to look up from her plate, she found Jake watching her. He watched her so closely she imagined he could see straight through her clothes. For a moment, she wished she possessed that power so she could explore what lay beneath Jake’s plain white dress shirt and khakis.

"This is the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time," he finally said as he scooped out another helping of mashed potatoes. He nodded toward her plate. "Aren’t you hungry?"

"Not really."

He smiled. "You cooked a lot for a woman who isn’t hungry."

"Guess I’m more tired than I thought."

"Been sleeping?"

"A little."

Man, who was she becoming? Certainly not herself. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think straight.

"Have you gotten any more leads today?" she asked. "Has the voice recording been analyzed yet?"

"No, to both questions. We’ve gotten a couple of tips, but they turned out to be hoaxes."

"Hoaxes? Why do people joke about stuff like this?"

"Who the hell knows."

Sydney shivered. Not only were there real killers out there, there were also people who got a kick out of joking about it. No wonder cops seemed to be so jaded and unfeeling sometimes.

Jake rose and headed for the kitchen with his dirty dishes.

"I can get those."

"So can I. You cooked, I can clean."

"I hardly think that’s in your job description."

"Hey, it’s better than a lot of the stuff I do."

Focus, Sydney, focus. She had to remember he was off limits. She and relationships were not destined to walk down the same path, no matter how tempting the light at the end of that path.

She wandered to the couch and switched on the TV to the local news and flipped open her laptop. She tried working on a story about a string of robberies along Nolensville Road, but she’d only get two or three sentences typed before switching over to her Web browser and searching statistics about stalkers and serial killers.

"That’s probably why you can’t sleep," Jake said from behind her.

"I didn’t say I couldn’t sleep."

"Didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out."

Sydney switched back to her article and typed a new line. She stiffened, then tried to relax when Jake sank down onto the couch beside her. Not in the matching chair. Not at the dining room table where his laptop still sat. Right beside her.

"You know, there’s such a thing as personal space."

"You don’t say."

Sydney kept typing, determined to prove he didn’t make her nervous – though nothing could be farther from the truth.

Jake leaned toward her. "I don’t bite, you know."

She glanced toward him. "So you say."

He chuckled and slid farther down the couch. "I think I make you nervous."

"Don’t be ridiculous."

He slid a little closer. "Then why won’t you look at me?"

She turned toward him. "This is going nowhere. I’m not the kind of person to sleep around casually."

"Neither am I, though that wasn’t where I was going." He stood and crossed the room to his own computer. "It was just a little flirting, to lighten things up."

Just as she thought. He might flirt with the best of them, but he wasn’t the sticking around kind. And against her better judgement, she’d been thinking more and more about the sticking around kind over the past few days. Each time, he had Jake’s face and sexy voice.

"I know you’re just trying to help, but that’s not me," she said. "I’m not a big flirter."

"Okay, I got the point."

She didn’t think he did, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk about it anymore. Whether he was mad or embarrassed, she couldn’t tell, but his body language was clear – let it drop.

After several minutes of tense silence filled only by the clicking of their keyboards, Jake snapped his shut, tucked it under his arm and stood.

"Where are you going?"

"To my post."

"Just stay in here. There’s no sense in you sitting in your car when it’s in the 40s outside." What was she doing?

"You think that’s a good idea?"

"I think I can manage to resist your magnetic charm."

He laughed, a single burst of unexpected amusement. "You were wrong. You do know how to flirt."

She returned her attention to her article, hoping Jake couldn’t see the frantic beating of her heart even from the outside. If she was flirting without knowing it, she was in deep trouble.

Though she wanted to flee, she forced herself to remain on the couch and work on her story. It took money to pay her rent and buy groceries, and money came from finished stories. She’d love for the serial killer story to be over, but it wasn’t. Until she had more information, other stories would have to earn her paycheck. The merchants who’d suffered because of the string of thefts deserved justice too, but she couldn’t summon her normal enthusiasm. In the grand scheme of things, what were a few missing stereos and cars when lives were at stake?