Take the Key and Lock Her Up (23 page)

She tried to scream, but it came out a muffled moan against the gag.

“Don’t fight it,�� a male voice said from beside the bed. “It will only make it hurt
worse. I’m really sorry, Detective. Killing you goes against my training, but an EXIT
order has been issued. I don’t have a choice. Cyprian doesn’t change his mind on these
things. Ordinarily, I’d have killed you while you slept. Quick and painless. But I
need you. For a little while anyway. My apologies.”

His
apologies
? What kind of twisted lunatic tied someone up, threatened to kill them, and apologized
for it? In spite of his words, she didn’t believe he had any regrets. She sensed his
excitement, the thrill of anticipation. The only person he was fooling was himself.

She tried to kick toward the sound of his voice, but her legs pulled up short. They
were cuffed, just like her hands. She was staked out on the bed like an obscene offering
to some primal beast, a sacrifice.

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Not tears of pain or even fear. They were tears
of rage at the indignity of being treated this way. She tried to speak, hoping the
intruder would be curious about what she was saying. If she could get him to remove
the gag, or even remove her blindfold, she might have a chance. A chance to figure
out what was happening, to make a plan. Talk to him. Stall for time.

“It won’t be long now,” he said. “You’re the perfect bait. Ace thinks he’ll feel guilty
for involving you, that he’ll feel compelled to save you. That’s what we’re counting
on.”

Bait?
Who
would feel guilty? Wait . . . that voice. There was something familiar about it.
Where had she heard it before? She tried to push the gag out of her mouth with her
tongue. The material was wadded up tight, held in place by tape that pulled and contorted
her cheeks as she fought against it.

“You’re making this harder on yourself,” he chided. “No need to suffer. Relax. I promise
I’ll kill you quickly. You won’t feel a thing, or at least not much.”

The horrifying words said in such a nonchalant tone made the hair on her arms prickle.

A rush of air swirled through the room.

She jerked against her bonds, expecting the crushing blow of a bat or the sharp, biting
thrust of a knife sliding between her ribs. She tensed, waiting for the inevitable
blow.

A muffled curse sounded from the foot of the bed. Something heavy fell to the floor.
Another rush of air. Awful sounds, someone . . . choking, gagging.

Footsteps. The mattress dipped and sagged beneath someone’s weight. The hard warmth
of a knee pressed against her right side. Her captor must have been standing by the
bed, bracing his bent leg on the mattress as he knelt over her.

She protested against the gag and tried to twist away. The metal bit into her wrists
again, holding her tight.

A hard tug and the blindfold was suddenly gone. She blinked against the overhead light,
trying to focus on the man leaning over her, his hands doing something with the cuffs
on her right wrist.

Devlin Buchanan. She stared in confusion, unable to associate him with the voice she’d
heard moments ago. But what other explanation was there? Her confusion gave way to
shock and horror. She’d been a fool to think he wasn’t involved in the deaths of those
women, or to doubt her first impression that he was some kind of assassin. Now he
was here to silence her, to keep her from exposing the truth. Oh God, how could she
have been so wrong? How could she have kissed him and fantasized about making love
with him if he was capable of such heinous crimes?

Her wrist jerked. The cuff fell away. She balled her hand into a fist and aimed a
punch at the handsome face that hid the monster within. His left hand whipped up and
her fist slammed into the flat of his open palm. The blocked blow zinged through her
arm, making her cry out.

“Be still so you don’t hurt yourself again.” His words eerily echoed the words she’d
heard seconds earlier. But the voice seemed different—deeper, with the snap of authority
that had been missing before.

He leaned over her again, his hands working at the cuffs on her left wrist. She blinked
up at him, her right arm throbbing from her failed attempt to hit him. When the left
cuff fell away, she didn’t try to hit him again. Confusion paralyzed her. Was Devlin
the man who’d attacked her? If so, why would he free her without hurting her?

He bounced off the mattress and moved to the foot of the bed, his warm hands gently
lifting her right foot. Click. The third cuff fell away. He was definitely freeing
her. Then . . . he wasn’t the one who’d handcuffed her in the first place?

She tore the tape away from her mouth. The white-hot pain made her stiffen and gasp
against the cloth still in her mouth. Blinking away the hot tears that had started
in her eyes, she pulled out the wad of cloth and took a blessedly deep breath of air,
then another.

A gagging, wheezing noise had her sitting up and straining over the foot of the bed
while Devlin worked on the last handcuff.

There, on the floor of her bedroom, the man from the alley—Steve—lay gasping for air,
his eyes wide, desperate, his fingers frantically gouging bloody tracks in his neck.
Her hands flew to her own throat. This must be the man who’d attacked her, the voice
she’d heard earlier.

“What’s wrong with him? What . . . what did you do?”

Devlin glanced at the man flopping on the floor like a dying fish, as if he’d forgotten
about him. “He was going to kill you.” Apparently, he thought that was all the explanation
needed. He pulled the cuff off her ankle, shoved the handcuffs in his pants pocket,
and turned to the chest of drawers against the wall.

Emily scrambled off the bed and knelt by the man on the floor. He was barely moving
now. His fingers, like claws, convulsed in spasms against his neck, his eyes bulging,
unfocused. The overhead light glinted on a thin, shiny line pressing deep into his
flesh. Bile rose in her throat. It was a wire, pulled so tight blood seeped around
it.

She gently lifted his head, following the wire with her fingers, trying to find a
way to remove it.

“You’re wasting time.” Devlin threw something onto the bed.

“Saving a life is never a waste of time.”

“Depends on the life.”

She blinked up at him, shocked at the bitterness in his voice. But he was already
riffling through the dresser drawers again. She plucked at the wire. Her probing fingers
found a bump at the back of his neck. She leaned down to look. The ends of the wire
were twisted together with nothing left to grasp. Beneath the sickeningly efficient
garrote were two discarded pieces of wood with tiny pieces of broken wire sticking
out of them.

“Good Lord,” she exclaimed. “You used the wood as handles and snapped them off so
he couldn’t remove the wire.”

He tossed something else onto the bed.

She pulled her hands from beneath the man’s head and turned his face toward her again.
Her shoulders slumped. It was hopeless. There was nothing she could do for him. He
was gone, his pupils dilated. When she felt for a pulse against his bloody neck, his
wrist, there was simply . . . nothing. Taking a deep breath, she struggled against
the urge to throw up.

Don’t contaminate the crime scene. Don’t contaminate the crime scene.

Two strong hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She looked up into
the coldest eyes she’d ever seen. How could she have thought they were gray before?
They were black, without a hint of mercy or remorse. The eyes of a murderer.

“Get dressed,” he ordered.

She blinked and looked down at herself, only now realizing she was facing him in a
see-through T-shirt and panties. Her cheeks flushed with heat.

He waved toward the bed. “Hurry.”

An outfit lay on top of the comforter—a black, lacy, barely there bra she’d bought
on a whim but had never had the courage to wear, jeans, a navy blue scoop-necked T-shirt.
White sneakers sat beside the jeans with a pair of socks draped neatly over them.

“I have to call this in.” She slipped around him and hurried to the bedside table.
Her phone should have been on top. It wasn’t.

“Against the wall,” he said.

Three feet away from the table, broken pieces of metal and plastic littered the carpet,
pieces that were barely recognizable as the phone they’d once been.

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t. Cougar did.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder without bothering to
look at the dead man lying on the floor.

“I thought his name was Steve. He’s the man from the alley, right?”

He nodded.

She gritted her teeth and yanked the drawer open. Empty. “He took my gun too?”

“No. I did.” He patted his waist, bringing her attention to her gun, shoved into his
waistband. He grabbed the jeans off the bed and tossed them to her.

“We don’t have time to chat,” he said. “If you want to go outside in nothing but panties
and a T-shirt, I sure won’t mind the view. Otherwise, stop talking and start dressing.”

She tossed the pants onto the bed. “I don’t know how you knew that man was in my home,
that he’d attacked me. I’m grateful that you . . . that you saved me. But I’m not
leaving a crime scene. I’m going to call this in from the wall phone in the kitchen.
I’ll be right back. Don’t touch anything else. You’ll contaminate the evidence.”

She headed toward the bedroom door.

A dark shadow separated from the others in the hallway. Emily stumbled to a halt.
A rough shove from Devlin sent her sprawling to the carpet just as a man ran past
her into the room. She rolled and jumped to her feet, whirling around to face the
threat.

Devlin and the intruder grappled for control in the middle of the room, like two grizzly
bears locked in mortal combat. Devlin grunted, his right forearm braced beneath the
other man’s chin, slowly forcing it up and back. The fingers of his left hand circled
the other man’s wrist, down low by his thigh. Emily stared in horror at the long serrated
knife, pointed at Devlin’s stomach, inching forward.

The knife wobbled, slipped, ripping Devlin’s shirt, revealing a Kevlar vest beneath
it.

“Tour guide, my ass.” Emily looked left and right, searching for some kind of weapon.
Her gun: Devlin had it tucked in his waistband. The cords in his neck and arms bulged
as he pressed against the other man’s jaw while trying to wrestle the knife away from
him.

She sprinted forward, ducked under Devlin’s arm, grabbed her gun, and spun away from
the two men. Bracing her feet apart, she aimed her pistol at the man who was trying
to stab Devlin.

“Drop the knife.”

The man’s eyes widened, as if he’d forgotten she was in the room. He suddenly twisted,
pulling Devlin in front of him, blocking her shot.

Devlin yanked one arm free and slammed the man’s knife arm, sending the weapon flying
across the room, burying itself in the carpet inches from Emily’s bare feet. She yelped
and hopped out of the way. The intruder shoved Devlin back and ran out the door.

Emily ran after him, sweeping her gun out in front of her.

“Emily, damn it, wait!” Devlin yelled.

He tackled her from behind, throwing her to the floor, blanketing her body as the
door frame where she’d been standing exploded into sawdust.

Pfft, pfft.
The soft puff of noise echoed through the hallway. Devlin’s body jerked with each
sound. He twisted his arm beneath Emily, still covering her, and grabbed her gun.
Angling his arm beneath hers, he aimed back toward the doorway.
Bam! Bam! Bam!

Running footsteps echoed across the hardwood floor of her hallway as the gunman gave
up—for now—and escaped from the house. The front door slammed shut and silence now
reigned in her small house.

She pushed against Devlin, his heavy weight pressing her into the carpet.

“Can’t breathe,” she choked out.

He rolled off her with a groan.

“I’ll call for help.” She scrambled to her feet and ran out the door. Once in the
kitchen, she grabbed the wall phone before turning to look back down the hall. She
let out a surprised squeak. Devlin was right behind her, a ferocious expression on
his face. He grabbed her right wrist, the one holding the phone.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” The fingers of his other hand rubbed beneath the
edge of his vest where it covered his right kidney.

Her gaze followed his movements. She saw the two holes in his shirt, only now acknowledging
what her subconscious had registered earlier. He’d taken a bullet for her.
Two
bullets. Bullets that would have ripped through her body if he hadn’t covered her
with his own. The Kevlar vest he wore had saved him. But she knew he must have paid
for his chivalry with some deep, painful bruises and sore or cracked ribs. If the
shooter had aimed for his head, Devlin would be dead right now. All because he’d tried
to save her.
Had
saved her. Twice in the span of ten minutes, from two different men.

Her hands started to shake. She let go of the phone and allowed him to put it back
on its hook.

“You’re right,” she said. She drew a deep breath to steady herself. “I don’t get it.
But what I do get is that you were almost killed tonight because you were protecting
me. I’ll hold off on that call until you explain. What is it that I don’t get? What’s
going on?”

He shook his head, clearly exasperated.

“Do you have a Kevlar vest?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Get it.”

“It’s at the office. I’m a detective now. I don’t need to wear it every day like I
used to. Why?”

“We’ll get you one at our next stop.”

“Our next . . . what?”

“Where are your keys?”

She shook her head. “No, no, no, no, no. You are
not
taking my car. You’re not going
anywhere
. I have a million questions for you, like how you knew those men were coming after
me. And how you all managed to get inside my house without tripping my alarm. And
why didn’t you call the police or warn me that you expected intruders instead of going
all commando and almost getting yourself killed?” She pointed to the couch. “Sit down.
I’ll call for a CSI team. I’ll take your statement at the station.”