He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not (18 page)

She moved farther into the room, her gaze lightly touching on the walls of bookshelves, the grouping of chairs in front of the fireplace, the flat screen TV over the mantle. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said, stopping in front of his desk with a half-smile on her face.

Logan stared into those deep blue eyes and tried to remember what question she was talking about, but it seemed that every one of his brain cells had taken a vacation when she walked into the room. “What question was that?”

“I was wondering how late you were going to work. You have to take a break sometime or you won’t be able to function tomorrow. There’s an old Miami Dolphins game coming on TV in a few minutes. I thought you might like to watch a few plays, take your mind off . . . things.”

“You like football?”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t?”

“Hell yes, I like football. It’s sort of a genetic requirement, being a guy and all.”

She put her hands on her hips. “So, being a woman and all, I’m not supposed to like sports? Is that what you’re saying?”

He laughed and held his hands up in mock surrender. “Please accept my apologies. My chauvinism is showing.”

The smile that curved her lips had him groaning inside. The woman had no idea how appealing she was.

“You’re forgiven. But only if you watch the game with me.” She plopped down in one of the stuffed armchairs next to the desk.

He looked down at the stack of interviews he hadn’t read through yet.

“Half an hour. You can spare that much time, can’t you?” she said. “We’ll just watch the game for a few minutes, give your mind a break. It will help you see things differently once you get your mind on something else. I’ve spent hours in front of my computer before trying to solve a problem. I’ve found that when I step away for a few minutes, I come back at the problem with a fresh perspective, and I can usually solve it much more quickly that way.”

That’s exactly what he did when working on a case. “All right, I’ll defer to your wisdom. You sound like you know what you’re talking about.” He shoved his chair back and stood. “We can watch the game in here if you want.” He grabbed his remote control out of the top desk drawer and handed it to her. “I’ve got to run upstairs for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

He strode across the room to the door.

“Logan?”

Amanda’s soft, hesitant voice had him turning back around. “Yes?” he asked, hating that the sadness that had disappeared from her eyes a moment ago was back.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me stay here. For keeping me safe.”

He wanted to cross the room and pull her into his arms, hold her close and tell her no one would ever hurt her again. But he wasn’t sure if she’d welcome his comfort or if she’d withdraw back behind the wall she often used to block the world out.

His fingers curled around the door jamb and he forced himself, against every protective instinct he had, not to run back into the room and scoop her up in his arms. “Any time.”

L
ike a rubbernecker on the highway, unable to pass a horrendous crash without looking, Amanda inched toward Logan’s desk to see what he’d been reading when she entered the room. She leaned forward to look at the papers when a stack of envelopes caught her eye. Her name and address were on the top one. A utility bill. Logan must have picked up her mail for her. She hadn’t even thought about her mail since she’d temporarily moved into Logan’s house.

She picked up the stack and flipped through it. Bills, loan offers, the usual assortment of junk mail. The last envelope didn’t look like the others. It had her name on it, but it was addressed to the police station. Why would someone send her mail there? Curious, she ripped open the envelope and pulled out the small folded piece of paper inside.

L
ogan threw some water on his face and stood gripping the sides of his bathroom sink as if it was a life preserver. He’d been trying to convince himself that his fascination with Amanda was just physical, but her innocent remark about the football game had made him start to panic. They had so many things in common. They liked the same foods, the same beer, the same movies, and now he knew they both had the same favorite football team.

By now he’d almost grown used to the way his body reacted every time she walked into the room, the way he hardened and ached for the relief that he instinctively knew only she could provide. But tonight, his constant desire for her had paled next to his desire to see her smile finally reach her eyes, to hear her laugh, to hold her close and keep her safe. He’d caught a glimpse of the carefree woman she once was and he wanted more.

He pitched the towel on the countertop and shut off the water. There were only two things he should be focusing on right now: keeping Amanda safe and finding the killer. He was letting his concern for her cloud his judgment, affect his decisions.

The man in the mirror stared back at him and Logan knew he couldn’t ignore his duty anymore. Amanda hadn’t told him everything that day at the cabin. She was holding something back about her abduction, something that he sensed could be the missing piece of information that would make everything else fall into place. It was time to confront her and get her to tell him the truth.

After changing his clothes, he started down the stairs, but he paused halfway down. The house was quiet. Too quiet. The light blinking on the alarm panel by the front door should have reassured him, but it didn’t. Something was wrong. He could feel it.

His gun was out of its holster before he reached the bottom step. As quietly as possible, he made his way to his office, praying harder than he’d ever prayed before that he hadn’t let Amanda down, that he hadn’t missed something, and that she wasn’t now paying the price for his mistake.

Careful not to step on any of the boards that were prone to creaking, he crept to the open doorway. Amanda was sitting in one of the overstuffed brown leather recliners beside the dark, rarely used fireplace, her feet curled up beneath her. Relief filled him as he realized she was okay, that no one else was in the room. He holstered his gun before she saw it and stepped through the doorway.

He was shocked when she turned to look at him and he saw how pale she was. He rushed over to her chair and dropped to his knees. When he took her hands in his he was alarmed at how cold they felt.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked.

She took a ragged breath. “He found me,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the last word.

Logan looked down at the envelope in her lap and saw the rose petals and thorns.

Chapter Ten

A
manda sat in the recliner, watching Pierce sitting at Logan’s massive desk, studying the note. Logan hovered over him, his frown creased with worry whenever he glanced over at her, which was often.

She was wrapped up in a blanket, Logan’s endearing attempt to comfort her even though it was the middle of summer.

Thank God for air-conditioning.

Even with the blanket, she couldn’t suppress an occasional shiver, which was why he’d wrapped her up in the first place.

But she wasn’t cold.

She was scared.

Pierce grasped the note between his latex-gloved fingers and held it up to the light.

“You think it’s him?” Logan asked.

Pierce shrugged. “Hard to say. There’s no history of the killer threatening any of his victims before he abducted them. It’s certainly not what I would have expected.”

“But you think it’s him.”

He pursed his lips and considered the question. “If I had to say one way or the other, I’d say yes, but only because whoever sent this note knows about the game. Very few people do, unless the killer’s a police officer. I’ve considered that possibility but it doesn’t seem likely. The profile says the killer has a problem with authority. He’d never make it in law enforcement.”

“Are your profiles ever wrong?”

“Of course. But Nelson’s the best profiler we’ve got. I can’t imagine him being wrong about something that significant.” He set the letter down. “Why didn’t you open this at the station?”

Logan’s jaw tightened and Amanda spoke up. “He was going to ask my permission before opening my mail. I saw that envelope sitting on his desk and opened it before he had a chance to warn me.”

“I should have locked it in my drawer as soon as I got home,” Logan said, shaking his head. “I knew something was off, since it was mailed directly to the station. Amanda’s given me permission now to open all her mail at the station. I’m going to forward it there from now on.”

Amanda rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She certainly wasn’t in any hurry to open any more mail, not after the surprise she’d had tonight. The note had echoed her attacker’s words all those years ago, “He kills me, he kills me not,” with “he kills me” underlined as if the decision had already been made.

“I’ll have Nelson run the evidence to the FBI lab tonight,” Pierce said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll find a fingerprint. We could have a suspect by morning.”

“I don’t believe in luck,” Logan said.

“Unfortunately, neither do I.” Pierce clapped him on the back and took the evidence envelopes containing the thorns, rose petals, and note. He paused beside Amanda’s chair. “We’ll catch this guy, Ms. Stockton. Count on it.”

She nodded. “Call me Amanda, please. And thank you for your help.”

Pierce nodded and walked to the door with Logan.

Amanda looked away as unshed tears stung the backs of her eyes. The cowardice she’d shown at the cabin had to end right now. The one thing she hadn’t told Logan yet was exactly what the killer had done to her, and the horrible thing she’d done to Dana. Neither of those seemed relevant to him catching the killer, but she couldn’t take that chance any longer. The killer had just announced his intentions. She had to fight back. Telling Logan the truth was the only way she knew how to fight.

“You know I’ll keep you safe, don’t you?”

She glanced up. Logan had come back in the room so quietly she hadn’t heard him. “I know you will. You’re a good man and you’re fighting hard to help me.” She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “You’re fighting more than anyone else ever has. It’s time I did the same.”

He crouched down next to her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m ready to tell you what
really
happened four years ago.”

A
fter what felt like an eternity later, but was really only a few minutes, she was sipping a glass of wine that Logan had insisted on getting for her. She didn’t really care for wine, but she wasn’t going to tell him that since he was trying so hard to help her. In typical male fashion, he had to
do
something to fix things when sometimes there was no fix.

He moved the coffee table out of the way and slid a matching recliner in front of hers. If she needed him, all she had to do was reach out.

He leaned forward, worry creasing his brow. “What did you mean, what
really
happened?”

She hugged her arms around her waist and tried to prepare herself for the moment when he would shrink away from her in disgust. “I never told you what the killer did. What I did.” She closed her eyes, partly to avoid seeing the condemnation on his face that would soon be there, partly to put herself back in the cabin as she tried to remember anything that might help.

“He took off our clothes that first day. With a knife. The floor was slippery with blood by the time he’d finished.”

Logan didn’t say anything. She took a deep breath and continued. “There was only one bed. An iron bed, bolted to the floor. He made Dana sit on the floor, shackled her arms to the foot rail. He threw me on the bed—”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” Logan said, his voice sounding strained.

“—but he didn’t rape me. I don’t think I . . . excited him . . . in that way. Instead, he cut me. When he was . . . finished . . . he did the same things to Dana. And then he left. We spent the night tied to a blood-soaked bed in a pitch dark cabin with boarded up windows, crying and holding onto each other, wondering if we’d make it out of there alive.”