Tactical Advantage (11 page)

“Involved?” She met him coming out of the bathroom, where she guessed he’d inspected the security of the window in there, too. “Who says we’re involved?”

“Well, I don’t go around practically having sex on the kitchen counter with just anyone.” She’d never done anything so spontaneous and foolish and out of her comfort zone with any man, not even her fiancé. “I’ve never...I mean, I have, but never like...” She snapped her mouth shut, too embarrassed to elaborate on the boring parameters of her previous relationships.

He paused for a moment, granting her one sliver of truth. “Okay. So maybe things have gotten a little complicated between us tonight.”

She jumped on the concession. “Exactly. I’d like to go back to the way things were between us yesterday. There was friction, yes, but there was a pattern to our behavior. We accomplished—”

“Yeah, I’m still here,” he muttered into the phone, gathering information from his partner and moving down the hallway again.

She tried to block his way into her bedroom, but Nick simply moved her aside and went straight to the window there. Locked. Everything was locked. She was perfectly safe. Right? Yet he still didn’t relax the grim expression on his mouth or show any willingness to listen to reason.

He picked up a pen and pink notepad from the table beside her bed and jotted something down. “Yeah, Spence. Got it. Send somebody to check it out, will ya? I know he’s probably long gone, but do it anyway. Thanks, buddy.” He disconnected the call and tore off the top sheet of paper, holding up the phone number and an address she recognized. “That call came from a pay phone down by the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop.”

That information shifted her attention. “Where Rachel Dunbar was killed?”

“Same neighborhood. Spencer is going to send a squad car around to see if anybody’s in the area. But I’m guessing that crackpot’s long gone.”

She definitely needed to think like a criminologist and not a woman fighting her feelings for the wrong guy right now. With a nod of renewed determination, Annie opened her closet and pulled out a fresh pair of blue jeans. “You have to drive me down there so I can dust for prints and look for any kind of trace he may have left behind. And because we’re right there, I can get my car and drive myself home.”

“No.”

She tossed the jeans onto her bed and went to her dresser to pull out some knee socks. “Time is a factor, Nick. If that guy left any evidence, I need to find it sooner rather than later.”

“No, you are not driving your car or coming back here by yourself.”

Her shoulders sagged with a groan of frustration. They lifted just as quickly as she crossed the room to push him out into the hall. But as soon as Nick braced his feet, he became an immovable object stuck in her bedroom doorway. “What are you doing?”

“I need to get some warm clothes on if we’re going uptown to that pay phone.” She pushed at the center of his chest, but the remembered sensations of strength and heat only made her back away. “Your things on the radiator are probably dry by now.”

“I never said—”

“I need to dust that phone for prints. If there’s any chance that guy took off his gloves, we might be able to ID him. Maybe he left a shoe print in the snow—with temperatures dropping and the snow and slush freezing over, I could make a casting. I can at least take a photograph.”

“If you aren’t the stubbornnest...” He nodded, and suddenly, that handsome grin was back in place. “All right. Let’s bundle up and get out of here.”

“Why don’t I just drive my car back afterward and you can go home and get some sleep?”

The grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Twenty-four hours ago, a man nearly killed you to get his hands on the evidence in your possession. He knows where you live. Are you going to trust that he thinks he got everything and has no reason to come back to finish what he started?”

“If you stay here, we can’t...you have to promise—”

“You’ll know when I make a promise to you, Annie.” Before she could guess his intent, his hand snaked out to cup the back of her neck. His fingers tunneled into the curls there and her skin dotted with goose bumps, remembering his touch. He stroked his thumb against the thumping beat of her pulse. “I am keeping you safe whether you like it or not. You’re right. We are on this task force job together—so you do your brainy thing and I’ll do what I do so that you can get us whatever clues you can. I’m tired of this Rose Red bastard and his sick fan club having the upper hand on us. This investigation will not be compromised. You will not be hurt. Not while there’s breath in my body. Understood?”

Annie nodded, reading the promise in those dark blue eyes. She reached up to wind her fingers around his wrist, holding on to his coiled strength, finally resigning herself to his round-the-clock protection.

The tone of his voice gentled, but the vow behind it was no less adamant. “It may be coincidence that there was some jackass in a big car who doesn’t know how to drive in this weather or thought it’d be a nice practical joke to drench us in snow and ice. Maybe that call came from a phone a block from where Rachel Dunbar died because there are no other pay phones in the city. But that attack this morning was no mistake. I don’t buy two coincidences, much less three. Now, either I get the couch or I’m sleeping out there on the landing. And I don’t think the neighborhood-watch guy is going to like that.”

“I’ve got blankets and pillows for the couch.” Annie pulled away and picked up the clothes off her bed. There were no more arguments to be made. She resigned herself to having Nick’s company 24-7, so she’d better shore up the resolve that guarded her heart before she foolishly forgot that they weren’t
involved.
“I’ll get changed and grab my kit.”

Chapter Seven

Annie climbed out of Nick’s silver Jeep and squinted against the bright morning sun reflecting off the blanket of snow that sloped up to his parents’ front porch. Her headache and occasional wooziness from standing or turning too quickly seemed to have gone after a good night’s sleep. But her trepidation about visiting the two-story yellow-and-white Victorian—and all the people she’d met at the hospital gathered there—made her cling to the door handle and consider climbing back inside.

“This will be a quick stop.” Nick’s door shut behind her and she transferred her grip to the strap of her purse hanging across her chest. He circled around the car and joined her on the curb. “I just need to pick up a few things. I’ll get my bag and clothes and we’ll be gone.”

The big house and sprawling yard certainly looked big enough to accommodate all of them. But still, Nick had to be twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? “You live with your mom and dad?”

“Very funny. Natalie and I have our own apartments in town. But because Noah, Nadine and Nate are home from college, and Grandma and Grandpa Fensom are visiting, Nat and I came home for the holidays to make it a real family reunion.” He touched his hand to the small of her back to guide her through the snow at the curb onto the cleared sidewalk. “That way, if we get caught up in a twenty-four-hour game of Risk, or want to watch the complete
Lord of the Rings
DVD marathon, we don’t have to worry about cutting out on the fun early, or showing up late for breakfast. Besides, the midnight snacks here are way better than anything I’ve got at my place.”

She moved away from the brush of his hand, more alarmed by the instant tingling of heat and awareness she felt than by the holiday traditions he described. “You played a game for twenty-four hours?”

Even in this well-tended, tree-lined suburban neighborhood, Nick kept looking back and forth, scanning up and down the street, taking note of cars driving past and neighbors shoveling or snowblowing their driveways and walks. “I won, by the way. Reclaimed the title that Nate stole from me last year.”

Despite the friendly chatter and clear sunshine, he didn’t seem any more relaxed about watching over her than he’d been last night. But if he could pretend he hadn’t moved closer to shield her from a direct line of sight from the street, then she could pretend her nerves weren’t perched on a thin ledge, waiting to jump at anything that moved in the shadows. “With your competitive streak? Who could believe that?”

He laughed at her sarcasm, pausing for her to precede him up the painted white steps onto the porch. “Did you and your folks ever do anything crazy like that for the holidays?”

Annie’s boots stuttered to a halt. He was bringing up her parents? After the horrific loss she’d shared with him last night? But then she looked up into her reflection in his wraparound sunglasses and saw the sadness and shock there. A pang of guilt made her look away. Steve and Amaryllis Hermann had been supportive, fun-loving parents. She was doing them a disservice by focusing on the loss instead of remembering the good times, too.

She looked up again and watched her face transform into a wistful smile. “On New Year’s Day, we used to set up all the TVs we had in the apartment in the living room, so Dad could watch as many football games as he could. Mom and I would set up a card table and put together jigsaw puzzles or play cards. The only rule we had was to have fun and not work. We’d order pizza or pop popcorn for dinner. Sometimes we’d stay in our pajamas all day.”

Nick’s answering smile felt like some kind of reward she’d earned for sharing that part of herself. Her parents were probably smiling, too. “All play and no work. Sounds like a celebration I could get into.”

That he made the effort to include memories of her family amid all the talk of his own warmed a chilly place inside Annie, and fortified her for what promised to be another challenging social situation for her. He pulled open the storm door and knocked on the welcoming red door inside. “Hello? Anybody home?”

“Do-o-or,”
someone yelled. A herd of trampling feet stormed the door from the opposite side.

Annie couldn’t stop herself from startling when the door swung open with a flourish. But the hand at her back reminded her there was no retreat.

“Nicky!” Trudy Fensom threw her arms wide and welcomed her eldest son with a hug and a kiss.

“Hey, Mom. Grandma.” Nick moved on to his white-haired grandmother for another hug and kiss. As he moved through the crowd, there were handshakes with his father and grandfather, a pinch on the cheek for one of his sisters and a smack on the shoulder for his youngest brother.

Annie thought she could slip inside the door and wait for all the greetings to finish. But Nick’s mom pulled her into a hug. “Welcome, Annie.”

“Hi, oh.” She felt honor-bound to hug her back. “Thanks.”

She was reintroduced to his grandmother, Connie, who squeezed her hands and smiled. “You’re looking much better this morning, dear. There’s a rosy glow to your cheeks.” She reached up and patted Annie’s face. “Oh, but you’re cold. We’d better get something warm inside you.”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

But Connie tugged on her daughter-in-law’s sleeve and the two hurried off to the kitchen. Then she was ushered through the same lineup of handshakes and hi’s Nick had passed through. Clay Fensom took her coat. Noah, no, this one was Nate, scarcely more than a teenager, blushed.

“I’m Nicolas, remember?” Nick’s grandfather took Annie’s hand and slipped it through the crook of his arm to lead her along the hallway next to the stairs. “We’re just getting ready to sit down for some breakfast. Have you eaten yet?”

As charmed as she was by the gallant escort, she was
already starting to feel the clan closing in on her. “Thank you, but we can’t stay long. We have to get down to the precinct. There’s a task force briefing this morning.”

“We’ll wrap up something for you, then.” He took her through a squared-off archway into a spacious kitchen with tall white cabinets and green tile backsplash. “Connie, we need to get some meat on this girl’s bones. What can we send with her?”

Trudy pulled a cookie sheet of scones from the oven and swatted Nick’s hand away from the steaming treats before pointing to the long farm table already set for breakfast. He snatched up a strip of crisp bacon and jostled aside the other brother—Noah, a shade taller and skinnier than Nick—to get first pick from a basket of baked goods.

“Where’s Nell?” he asked around bites.

“She went out to walk the dog,” Noah answered. A dog was part of all this, too? “Nadine’s in the shower, getting out of setting the table.”

“I am not.” A new voice entered the fray as Nadine Fensom walked in, wearing a black-and-gold Mizzou sweatshirt. “It was your turn to set the table. I’ve got dishes after we eat. Hi, Annie.”

“Hi.”

Nadine walked over to the table and pulled out a chair. Nick leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Morning, shortstuff.”

This was beginning to look far too cozy, far too much like he was settling in for a big holiday meal while she floundered as the odd man out. He’d promised this would be a quick stop. Annie held up the watch on her wrist. “Nick, remember the time.”

He poured himself a glass of milk and gave her a thumbs-up as he downed half of it.

“Here, dear.” Grandpa Nicolas pulled out a stool at the island counter for her. “Will you at least join us for a cup of coffee? Nicky always has a glass of milk with breakfast.”

When she realized he was politely waiting for her to sit before he did the same, Annie’s
no, thank you
died on her lips and she replaced it with a smile instead. She was starting to get an idea of who had gotten the charm in this family. His bullying grandson might give her fits, but this one was hard to resist. She supposed one cup of coffee couldn’t hurt, and climbed onto the stool. “Do you have any sugar?”

Seeming delighted that their guest had asked for something, Nick’s father quickly pulled down a mug while Natalie brought her the coffee carafe, a spoon and the sugar bowl.

Annie was cradling the warm mug between her hands and inhaling the fragrant brew when Nick walked by with two more strips of bacon in his hand. He took a bite and chewed around his words. “Give me five minutes to pack all my gear. Then we can go.”

“You’re leaving me?” No. He was already gone. She heard his booted feet on the stairway as his grandmother set a platter of something warm and spicy on the counter in front of Annie. She was being bombarded with delicious smells and friendly conversation, and needed to concentrate on the rest of the busy family to keep up. She took a deep breath. She could manage five minutes on her own if she occupied herself with something to eat. “Cinnamon rolls?”

“Freshly made.” Connie’s smile was as warm and irresistible as her husband’s.

Annie surrendered. Socializing like this was stressful for her because of that pesky shy gene and the fact it was so different from her day-to-day life. But it was good stress. It was safe stress. Besides, the warm icing was oozing over the edge of the platter, tempting her to run her finger beneath the rim and pop the yummy sweetness into her mouth. “I love cinnamon rolls.”

Truer to his word than Annie had given him credit for, Nick came back down the stairs five minutes later. Leaving seemed to require just as many hugs and side conversations. But Trudy’s announcement that the food on the table would get cold had an instant hushing effect, and, just like that, Annie found herself back out on the front porch with Nick. He carried a duffel bag over his shoulder while she carried a plastic container filled with enough baked goodies to either make her fat or make her extremely popular at the task force meeting.

She opened the corner of the plastic tub one more time and inhaled the heavenly scents. “Your mom and grandmother are fabulous cooks. I don’t know which one I liked better.”

“I’d say the cinnamon rolls.” He reached over and flicked a tiny glob of icing from her cheek.

Still enervated from the mad dash of family, the cold brush of leather across her skin had an oddly warming effect. She covered her cheek with her own glove and turned away, hoping a blush hadn’t given away her reaction to the unexpected intimacy. She was the one who’d insisted on maintaining a professional distance from each other. It would be difficult to persuade him they were nothing more than amicable coworkers if she kept turning into a puddle of goo every time the man touched her.

She was facing down the street when a gray schnauzer wearing a red sweater came trotting down the sidewalk, dragging his leash behind him. “Nick, is that your dog?”

“Mozart?” He made a shrill whistle through his teeth. “Mozart!”

With a yapping bark, Mozart bounded up the stairs. He put his front paws up on Nick’s thigh, wagging his stump of a tail in furious excitement. After a scratch around his ears, the dog dropped down onto all four paws to sniff his way over to Annie.

“Is he friendly?” His tail was still wagging as he climbed up Annie’s pant leg. Apparently so.

The thump of Nick’s bag hitting the porch startled the dog and he scooted behind Annie’s legs. She didn’t need to see Nick’s face to read the tension straining those broad shoulders. She looked up and down the street with him. “Where’s your sister?”

“I’ll go find her.” He handed her the dog’s leash and headed down the steps. “It may be nothing. Maybe Mozart got away from her.”

“But?” She could tell he didn’t think this was
nothing
.

He turned and pointed a finger at her. “Stay put. I mean it this time. Keep the little noisemaker with you.”

He was jogging down the front walk before she could answer.

“Stay put” meant stay on the porch, right? Not venture back inside and possibly alarm his family? Nick dashed down to the four-way stop and scanned every direction before deciding to turn right. Once he’d disappeared from sight around the last house, Annie set down the tub of rolls and scones and knelt to give Mozart the tummy rub he’d rolled over onto his back for. “So you’re not a guard dog, huh?”

If she had to wait, had to stay put, then Annie fell back on what she did best. Mozart seemed happy to let her roll him from side to side and check him for any signs of injury. He was less thrilled when she tugged at his paws. If there’d been some kind of accident, the dog hadn’t been a part of it. The sweater was clean except for a black smudge across the dog’s shoulder blades, as though he’d scooted beneath something sooty or—she leaned down to give it a sniff—greasy.

Annie got a lick on the chin for getting too close and she quickly pulled away. Her training wanted her to analyze that smudge. But her kit was in Nick’s car, and if this was a situation where she truly needed to get her kit, then she should be calling 9-1-1.

She was almost ready to alert the family when she caught a glimpse of a dark brown ponytail bobbing beyond the railing of the porch. Annie exhaled a sigh of relief as Nell trudged through the snow around the corner of the house, having cut through the neighbor’s backyard.

Nell grabbed the stair railing with her bare hand and mounted the first two steps before she saw she had company. “Annie.” The teenager dropped her gaze to the dog. “Oh, good. You caught Mozart.”

“Hi, Nell.” Annie was still in analysis mode when she stood. But she didn’t need to be a scientist to see the puffy redness rimming those young blue eyes Nell tried to hide. Or to note the thick red welts circling the girl’s exposed wrist. How hard did a dog have to yank on his leash to leave that mark? Annie glanced down at the tail-wagging fireball. This one wasn’t big enough to do it. “Are you okay?”

Seeing the injury had caught Annie’s eye, Nell tugged her coat sleeves down over her fingers. She climbed the last few steps onto the porch where she could turn and survey the neighborhood. “Where’s Nick?”

“Out looking for you.” The teen’s eyes lighted everywhere except on Annie. Nothing suspicious about that. Much. “You didn’t answer my question. How did you get hurt?”

Now the blue eyes blinked and looked straight at her. “That’s not what you asked.”