McIver's Mission (5 page)

Arden spent a few hours at the women's shelter,
answering questions and dispensing legal advice. If one woman listened, if one
woman managed to break the pattern of abuse, she knew the time was well spent.
Just as she also knew that most women would return to their homes, their
partners, the abuse. Even more never found the resolve to leave at all. And
those were the ones whose lives, and those of their children, were in danger.

She sighed, again remembering Denise and Brian. Their
deaths had proven that leaving isn't always enough, and that a restraining
order is no match for a gun.

Arden also knew that it was next to impossible to
protect someone from an unknown threat. On her way home from the shelter, she
stopped at the police station, anyway.

She sat in a hard plastic chair across from Lieutenant
Creighton's desk and studied him. Early thirties, she guessed, with hair so
dark it was almost black, eyes a clear and startling blue. Today his jaw was
unshaven and his eyes showed signs of fatigue. Still, he was a good-looking
man, and she wondered why he failed to make her heart race and her blood heat
the way Shaun McIver could do with a simple smile.

"Ms. Doherty. Good morning."

"I got another letter," she told him,
carefully lifting the envelope by the corner so as not to destroy any
fingerprints that might be on it.

"Today?" he asked, already starting to scrawl
notes on the legal pad on his desk.

"Last night," she admitted.

He looked up at her and frowned. "I gave you my
pager number. Why wasn't I contacted right away?"

"I didn't think the delivery of another letter
was an emergency." It was the third one she'd received, after all.

"You haven't opened it."

"I didn't want to contaminate it," she
explained. And she wasn't sure she wanted to know what it said. "This
one—" she swallowed "—was delivered to my apartment."

His head came up, his eyes sharp, concerned.
"With the rest of your mail?"

"No. It wasn't in the mail slot. It was under my
door."

"You should have called me," Creighton said,
putting on a plastic glove before picking up the envelope.

Arden nodded again. She couldn't admit that she'd
forgotten the letter—and everything else—when Shaun had kissed her.

Creighton sliced open the flap and withdrew the single
sheet of paper inside. When he unfolded it, she could see that the words on it
were in the same careful block print and the same red ink as her name on the
outside of the envelope.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE."

She wrapped her arms around her waist and leaned back
in her chair, as if she could ward off the threat by distancing herself from
the letter.

"We'll send the letter and the envelope to the
lab to check for prints."

Arden nodded, but she knew better than to expect that
they would find anything. The only prints on the other letters had been her
own. "Oh, um, a friend of mine picked the envelope up off the floor,"
she told him. "His prints will be on it."

"Who?" Creighton asked.

"Shaun McIver," she said, unaccountably
embarrassed.

"Colin McIver's brother?" Creighton asked.
"The lawyer?"

Arden nodded.

"I played peewee hockey with Colin," he told
her. "Even then we knew he was going to be a superstar."

"Colin's married to my cousin," Arden told
him, wondering why she felt the compulsion to share this information. Maybe to
somehow explain Shaun's presence at her apartment Friday night. Not that it was
anyone's business but her own.

"Small world," Creighton said.

Smaller town, Arden thought wryly.

"As a member of the local bar association, his
prints will be on file. That will make it easy to isolate any unknowns."

"There weren't any prints on the other
letters."

Creighton nodded. "There probably won't be on
this one, either, but we have to go through the motions. Sometimes these guys
get sloppy."

Arden didn't think so. Every step this guy took had
been planned with care and deliberation. He wouldn't slip up.

Lieutenant Creighton pulled copies of the other two
letters out of the file. Arden glanced away as he laid them side-by-side on the
top of his desk. The bold lettering was ominous and compelling, drawing her
gaze reluctantly back to the pages.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN I WOULD FIND YOU."

"YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO INTERFERE."

The first note had been delivered to her office. She'd
found it within the stack of regular mail, although the envelope bore no
postage or address, just her name scrawled in the same bold lettering. That had
been almost two months ago. The second had also been delivered to her office,
about three weeks later. But it was this last letter, delivered to her home,
that increased her feelings of trepidation. Somehow she knew this wasn't a
prank, an empty threat. The letters were a warning of something to come. But
she didn't know what or why.

"You're sure you have no idea who might have sent
these letters?"

She shook her head. "If I did, I'd tell
you."

"This one—" Creighton pointed to the first
letter "—suggests that you're acquainted with your pen pal."

Arden wrapped her arms tighter around herself and
pushed away the painful memories that nudged from the back of her mind. More
than twenty years had passed since Aunt Tess had brought her to
Fairweather
; there was no reason for Gavin to look for her
now. Mentioning her stepfather's name, reliving the humiliation and the pain,
would only hurt her again. She refused to give him that kind of power. "If
I thought I knew who was doing this, I'd tell you."

"An ex-boyfriend?" Creighton prompted.

Arden's thoughts drifted from Gavin to Brad. But the
way their relationship had ended was unlikely to suggest that he was obsessed
about her. "No."

"A beautiful woman like yourself must have
admirers."

She frowned.

He held up his hands. "I didn't mean any
offense," he said. "It's just an objective observation."

"I'm sure it's not an ex-boyfriend."

"A rejected suitor, perhaps?"

Arden rolled her eyes; Creighton shrugged.

"You know as well as I do that almost one-third
of all violent crimes against women are perpetrated by their partners or former
partners."

"I know," Arden agreed. "And I know
this isn't a boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend or a
wanna
-be
boyfriend." That was all she was going to say without admitting outright
that she hadn't had a date in the past two years.

"Okay," Creighton relented. "Then we're
back to considering that the threats must be related to one of your
cases."

"That seems like the most reasonable
explanation," she admitted. "But I've gone through all of my files,
concentrating on new clients in the few weeks preceding the arrival of the
first letter, and nothing strikes me as out of the ordinary."

"I'd like a list of those clients,"
Creighton said.

Arden hesitated. "I can't breach
confidentiality."

"I don't need any details," Creighton said.
"Just names."

She hesitated, hating that her fear outweighed her
sense of professional obligation. "All right."

* * *

When
Arden returned home after her meeting with Lieutenant Creighton, Shaun was
seated on a bench in front of her building, his long, denim-clad legs stretched
out in front of him. Her heart gave a little sigh. No man should look so good.

One of his wide-palmed hands idly stroked
Rocky's
back as he chatted with Greta Dempsey. The dog's
tongue was hanging out of his mouth, his eyes closed. Arden couldn't blame him.
It was all too easy to remember the feel of those hands on her back, stroking,
seducing, and she'd been pretty close to drooling herself.

She shook off the memory and stepped closer, heard the
musical tinkle of Greta's laughter. The older woman's eyes sparkled and her
cheeks were flushed, confirming to Arden that her own reaction wasn't unique.
Women—young and old and in between—adored him.

Shaun's lips curved in response to something Greta
said, and all Arden could think about was how it felt to have those lips on
hers. How much she wanted to feel them again.

Greta spotted her first and waved her over.
"Arden, I was hoping to catch up with you. I have a plate of warm
oatmeal-raisin cookies with your name on them."

Arden stepped toward them. "I'm going to have to
buy a new wardrobe if you keep baking me cookies."

Greta dismissed the comment with a careless wave of
her hand. "A few extra pounds won't do you any harm. A man wants a woman
with soft curves he can cuddle up to." She turned to Shaun and winked.
"Isn't that right?"

Shaun grinned. "I won't argue with that."

Greta nodded, satisfied. "Well, then. Come on
upstairs to get the cookies. You can take them to Arden's apartment to have
with your tea."

"I haven't invited Mr. McIver up for tea and
cookies," Arden said dryly.

"If you're a smart woman, you will," Greta
said then gave a gentle tug to
Rocky's
leash.
"Come along, sweetie. We don't want to miss
Jeopardy
."

"I'm sorry," Arden apologized to Shaun after
Greta and Rocky had disappeared inside the building. "She's a wonderful
lady who just can't seem to mind her own business."

"She cares about you," Shaun said simply.

"She's obsessed with finding a nice young man for
me to settle down with."

"I got that impression."

Arden cringed. "What did she say to you?"

"It wasn't what she said so much as how she said
it. Greta Dempsey could teach the members of the
Fairweather
P.D. a thing or two about interrogation," he said.

"I am so sorry. She doesn't seem to understand
that I'm not looking to settle down."

"You don't want a husband and two-point-two kids
and a house with a white picket fence?"

She lifted an eyebrow. "Is it my turn to be
interrogated?"

He flashed her that quick, sexy smile. "I'm
curious about you, Doherty."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "But when
I figure it out, I'll let you know."

"Are you going to tell me why you're here?"

He held up a tape measure. "To take measurements.
For your shelves."

"Oh."

"You forgot?"

"Actually, I thought you'd forget."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't think you really wanted to
build shelves for me."

"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want
to," he told her.

"Then I guess I'll have to invite you in to take
measurements."

"Am I going to get tea and cookies, too?"

"Cookies," Arden told him. "I still
don't have any tea."

"Coffee would be okay," he suggested.
"Maybe some of that Jamaican stuff."

Arden laughed. "Now I know the real reason for
your visit."

"Just an added bonus," he assured her.

She opened the front door of the building and led the
way up the stairs. Mrs. Dempsey was just coming out of her apartment with a
plate heaped with cookies as Arden turned down the hall. She could smell the
mouth-watering scents of nutmeg and cinnamon.

She wanted to ask Mrs. Dempsey if she'd seen anyone
she didn't recognize in the building the previous afternoon, but she couldn't
do so in front of Shaun. If she did, he'd know she'd been lying about the
envelope coming from her landlord. And she had no intention of discussing the
letters with him.

Greta passed off the plate of cookies to Arden and
smiled. "Smart girl," she said in a stage whisper.

"Thank you, Mrs. Dempsey," Arden said. Then,
to clarify, "For the cookies."

Greta winked at them both. "Enjoy."

Arden shook her head as she juggled the plate of
cookies and her briefcase, trying to reach the keys in her pocket, but she was
smiling. Shaun took the cookies, inhaled deeply, and a low hum of pleasure
sounded in his throat. The sensual sound caused Arden's insides to quiver.

She stepped away from him quickly, into the apartment,
and set her briefcase down. "Mrs. Dempsey makes fabulous cookies."

"And oatmeal-raisin are your favorite,"
Shaun said.

"How do you know?"

"She told me." He followed her into the
kitchen.

Arden didn't want to speculate about what else her
neighbor might have told him. "That doesn't mean she has to give me three
dozen."

"She thinks you're too skinny," Shaun
reminded her, helping himself to a cookie.