Cold Hearted (Cold Justice Book 6) (35 page)

“Get guards on her door. She needs protection at all times,” Erin ordered. From the press and the killer.

“Ully’s got it handled.” Darsh pressed a card into the patrol officer’s palm. “Call that number if you need anything. Time for you to get home to rest, Detective.”

“She needs protection, too.” Ully spoke to Darsh as if she wasn’t there.

“I’m on it,” he answered.

“I don’t need protection.” She patted the Glock in her pocket.

“Some good that’ll do you if you’re seeing double,” Ully snorted.

Erin rolled her eyes and winced from the way it hurt. Dammit.

Darsh’s hand tightened around her upper arm. “Courier that evidence to Quantico. Tell them to run a match on the other rope. Call me as soon as Rachel wakes up. I’m going to catch a few hours’ sleep while I can.” Erin opened her mouth to argue, but he spoke over her, which would have made her crazy, except she was so exhausted she was swaying on her feet. “And so is she.”

Ully nodded as Darsh helped her out of a side exit. She hid her face as she realized the press had already caught wind of a good story and were waiting at the front. Or maybe
she
was the story. Darsh wrapped his arm around her waist and helped her to his vehicle.

She turned to him when he got inside and started the engine. “I can’t believe she survived.”

The look on his face was grave. “I can’t believe
you
survived.”

It hit her then, how close she’d come to dying. She reached out and clutched his fingers. “Did I thank you for finding me?”

He drove slowly out of the parking lot, keeping as far from the reporters as possible. “Thank me by getting into bed and sleeping through the night like a good girl.”

Her ribs hurt when she laughed. “No crazy monkey sex?”

His features were stark when he turned toward her. “I thought you were dead, Erin. I thought I’d never get to hear your voice again.” His mouth was a grim line. “I know you don’t like anyone thinking you’re weak or vulnerable, but all I want to do is wrap you up in cotton wool and keep you safe.”

She bristled.

His eyes swept over her features. “Because that’s what decent men do,” he said, clearly reading her disgruntled expression. “But I know your ex fucked you up when it comes to normal relationships, so I’ll content myself by making sure no one else hurts you tonight. It’s not just about sex.”

There was hurt in his tone. And anger. It was a combination she knew well, but maybe she had to stop comparing everyone to Graham. Graham had been sick. She touched Darsh’s arm, felt his muscles coil beneath her fingers. “How about you just hold me while I fall asleep?”

His mouth twitched. “I can do that.”

She closed her eyes, wondering if he knew what a big step this was for her. Trusting him. Trusting anyone.

*     *     *

Erin fell asleep
in the car, and Darsh didn’t want to wake her, so he lifted her out and carried her. She didn’t stir. It reminded him of when he’d been a child, falling asleep somewhere and then magically ending up in bed. An echo of his mother’s voice singing him to sleep came to him and, for the first time in years, he felt a little of her love cross the barriers of time.

He used keys he’d found in Erin’s pocket to awkwardly unlock her back door while still holding her in his arms.

She trembled, and he wished he could wipe the terror that must have overwhelmed her when her truck had been forced off the road. He pushed the door closed with his heel, flipped the lock, carried her up the stairs and eased her onto the bed before removing her boots. Gently he tugged the parka off her shoulders, grabbing the Glock and putting it in the drawer beside her bed. She lay watching him with tired eyes. Not asleep, but too exhausted to protest.

There was a bruise on her cheek. A cut on her lip. Her back when he’d seen it earlier had looked like a two-year-old had gone crazy with purple and red paint. Darsh had wanted to hit something. Had wanted to shout and yell and pound, but he held onto his temper. You didn’t yell around people who’d been abused. He wasn’t a dick.

“I’m going to make a hot drink. Want something?”

“Just water, please.” Her voice was croaky.

He covered her up with the bedclothes, kissed her, then systematically cleared every inch of the house. Maybe he was paranoid, but he sure as hell wasn’t taking chances. An asshole had run her off the road and when they found out she was still alive, they might try something else. Was it the killer, or just another member of Erin’s fan club taking advantage of an opportunity? Or just some fuckwit too inebriated to realize what he’d done?

Except for a few spiders in the attic, the house was clear, so he went and got her a glass of water—the hot drink had been a ruse so as not to freak Erin out as he searched the place—and headed back to the bedroom.

Putting his SIG on the nightstand, he stripped to his boxers and climbed in beside her. Something clenched inside his chest when she snuggled into his arms. After a few minutes of silence, she spoke.

“I can’t stop thinking about it. I just see this rush of trees flying past me. If I hadn’t managed to throw myself out of the truck before impact…”

Her head rested on his chest. He held her hand tightly in his.

“It used to be that every time I closed my eyes I’d see Graham raising that gun to his head, grinning at me before pulling the trigger. As if he’d finally figured out a way to invade my life forever. I suppose he did.”

The things people did to one another never ceased to amaze him.

“I see my mother,” he confessed. “The last time she kissed me.”

“Did she really not tell you she was going?”

“She just kissed me goodnight, and I never saw her again.” He rubbed his chin gently against her silky hair. “Experiences like that—like Graham, like my mother walking out without a word—they make it hard to trust anyone. Harder to let anyone get close.”

Something wet hit his chest. Erin’s tears.

“The thing is, there are never any guarantees.” Because they both knew better than most, death could take them at any moment. A bullet, a dangerous curve in the road. A madman having them in his sights. “We either take a chance and try for happiness, or…”

“We miss out on the good stuff.”

“Did you ever think about us? About that night in Quantico?” He needed to know.

Her fingers clenched his. “All the time. Whenever I got lonely I thought about that night. Whenever memories of Graham became too much, I’d remember the two of us together instead.”

Her blonde hair formed a cloud around her head. He took a lock and smoothed it between his fingers. The enormity of what he was feeling, of what he’d almost lost today hit him like a meteor. The words he wanted to say lodged in his throat. All he could manage was, “You’re beautiful.”

She huffed out a disbelieving laugh. He leaned down and kissed her slowly, gently, hoping she could feel what he wasn’t brave enough to say out loud.

“Go to sleep,” he said.

She smoothed her hand up his stomach to rest it against his heart. Gradually her breathing quieted. He hoped she fell asleep and got some rest. They were both exhausted.

Oddly, her curled up against him in sleep felt more intimate than all the sex they’d shared. He and Erin hid their feelings behind desire and passion, but she meant more to him than that.

He was in love with her, and probably had been since the moment they’d met, which was why he’d freaked when he’d found out she was married. He was in love with a woman who guarded her heart as carefully as most men guarded their balls. She snuggled deeper into his embrace, and he pulled the cover higher to ward off the chill. He knew enough about psychology to wonder if maybe he was one of those people who set themselves up to fail at relationships—that way he could constantly relive the pain of his mother’s abandonment. Or maybe he just had a thing for hot blondes with independent streaks the size of the Mississippi. Either way he was going to have a fight on his hands to make this, to make
them
, happen.

First they had a case to solve. They needed to figure out why the killer had wanted Rachel dead, and whether the same sonofabitch had run Erin off the road. Hopefully Rachel would wake up tomorrow and tell them everything.

One of the things Darsh had learned from being a sniper was it wasn’t always easy to spot your enemy, but once you had them in your crosshairs you better damn well be prepared to pull the trigger. The other thing he’d learned was patience, but that was something the town and the chief of police were running short of.

Time was running out.

R
achel was alive.
How the hell had she survived that fall yesterday? And a whole day wandering alone in the wilderness in the middle of a fucking blizzard? Stupidity always managed to find its way into the gene pool, and he had no doubt that, in a normal world, she’d go on to have at least fifteen children. But this wasn’t a normal world. He’d helped forge the woman she’d become, and he didn’t intend to let her live long enough to add to the population.

He’d already visited the hospital in the hopes of catching her unprotected. A cop had guarded the entry, and her parents had been inside.

His fingers drummed his thigh. He had time.

She was in a coma right now and would be for days according to what he’d overheard at the nurse’s station. But eventually the guards would get lax. The parents would need to rest or get an urgent phone call. Maybe there would be a fire in one of their offices? Or drugs would be spotted in plain sight in one of their cars. Something. Anything. He didn’t need long. Just long enough to stick Rachel with a fat ass needle.

Erin was also alive. At least that made him happy.

He looked at his prized possessions. His wall of devotion. Photographs. All of her. In her house, in her car. At work. The naked ones were the most precious. The idea of handing those over to someone else was killing him, but he didn’t have a choice. He’d baited the trap. Now he needed to set the hook. Wearing gloves, he began pulling the pictures off his wall, pushpins flying around him.

He held up his favorite picture of her. He’d taken it with a zoom lens through her bedroom window and had climbed a tree to get it. He slipped the print into his back pocket. He’d buried the memory card of his camera and wiped the hard drive of his computer. He’d downloaded the images onto someone else’s laptop.

He smiled.

It gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction to do that. Apparently, he enjoyed revenge, even for minor slights or insults. Getting back at people was addictive. Now he put the prints in a plastic bag and placed that inside his backpack. He dug into his pocket, removed the one remaining photograph, and shoved it inside with the others. He couldn’t afford to be weak or sentimental. He was smarter than most people on the planet, but he knew he could trip up if he grew overconfident. Rachel needed to die. The investigators needed to follow the breadcrumbs and believe what he was telling them.

He included Cassie’s letters from poor pathetic Drew Hawke. What a loser. He smiled grimly as he cinched the top of the pack and fastened the snaps.

Chaos provided its own kind of opportunity, and he intended to take full advantage of that over the next twenty-four hours.

*     *     *

After a short
fight about whether or not she should be at work, Darsh had helped her get dressed in yoga pants and a loose tunic-style blue sweater. He’d even zipped up her boots and helped her into her jacket.

She forced back the emotions that swelled inside her whenever she thought about him. She’d awakened wrapped in his arms, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that happy. Even if it was just a reaction to careening down that hillside and then managing to escape alive, the fact she wanted to hold on tight to him whenever she saw him was disconcerting. She barely knew the guy, but ever since the murders, her confidence in her own abilities seemed to be eroding. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.

Her sidearm was in a shoulder harness that made the bruises on her back ache. But she’d rather hurt wearing it than get hurt without it. The chance of her pulling her weapon in less than thirty seconds? Small to zero. Whatever. At least she felt like a cop rather than a victim as she walked stiffly down the corridor.

The sight of a broad-shouldered guard outside Rachel’s door made her very happy. Darsh had said they’d arranged additional security. She got to the opening, and he stopped her with a hand on her chest. She squeaked in pain.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Bright blue eyes looked her over. “No one’s allowed inside except medical staff.”

She pulled her badge out of her pocket. He leaned closer to inspect it thoroughly.

“Donovan?” His eyes lit up in recognition. “So that’s the reason you’re looking a little peaky today, huh?”

She laughed at ‘peaky’ and then winced as she held onto her bruised ribs. “And I thought I’d used enough makeup to hide any side effects.”

He tilted his head. “When you go sledding down a mountainside in a truck there’re going to be consequences.” He looked over his shoulder into the room. “The patient is still in a coma. Parents went for a coffee. I think it would be okay for you to go in for a couple of minutes if the nurses don’t object.” A nurse walked by at that moment and gave him a sweet smile. He cleared his throat. “My name’s Jack Reilly. I’ll need to come in too, just to keep an eye out. Not taking any risks with my client.”