Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (63 page)

“Go away,” she whispered.

When he was ready.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and snapped a dozen pictures of the painting. Then he stepped away from the easel to walk around the room, paying little attention to the large abstracts he didn’t understand, his gaze returning to the easel in the middle over and over again.

She sat with her eyes closed and her hands up to shade them from the light.

“Head still hurts?”

“It’ll be better in a minute.”

Not having the light in her eyes would probably help. He strode to the top of the stairs and flipped the switch. Some light still filtered up from downstairs, but the loft was lost in a twilight of semidarkness that surrounded them like a cocoon.

He could no longer see the painting clearly, but every detail had been etched into his mind, the entire image, and the way she’d created it.

His brain circled back to the same question over and over again. What had he just witnessed? A carefully choreographed performance was the only logical answer. He didn’t believe in psychic phenomena.

The police departments he’d worked for over the years often received calls from psychics on high-profile cases.
“I see a body near water.” “A body near a cabin.”
All general predictions, bound to come true once in a blue moon in an area that was riddled with creeks and lakes, or in woods where hunting cabins abounded.

Out of a hundred calls, one would hit close enough for the media to make a big deal out of it and it would be splashed all over the news as “proof.” Even a blind squirrel found an acorn now and then—law of statistics—was his opinion.

And if Ashley Price wasn’t psychic… Blackwell had to be somehow behind her convincing little play. He walked around, trying to figure out their game.

As he passed by the bank of windows, he caught sight of a dark figure outside, illuminated by moonlight at the edge of the trees, and the last small doubts he might have had disappeared.

Blackwell.

Instantly, his entire body was alert. “I need some air. You stay inside.”

She still had her eyes closed. She didn’t even acknowledge him, too busy to be pretending to be off in her own little world of dire visions.

Had the bastard come to watch the performance? To make sure she was convincing?

Jack brushed past her and took the stairs two steps at a time. He ran through the house, burst through the door, nearly slipping on the slick steps outside. He caught his balance and set off across the snow.

The shadow man took off, slip-sliding on a patch of ice. Jack pushed forward, sucking in his breath against the cold. He’d left his gloves in his car. He shoved his hands under his armpits as he ran. He’d need his fine motors skills when the time came to go for his gun and squeeze the trigger.

Adrenaline filled him, and elation.

Now.
He would have the bastard this time.

The man up ahead jumped a ditch and scrambled up a snowy incline. He slipped back. Jack put everything he had into an all-out dash, caught up, and vaulted on top of the rising figure.

“I didn’t do anything!”

Not Brady’s voice.
Definitely, not. This one sounded much younger.

Disappointment slammed into him like a fist.

He flipped the gangly boy onto his back and held him by the front of his down jacket with both hands. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing out here?”

The kid, about fourteen or fifteen, stared up at him, wide-eyed and breathing hard from his dash, scared now. “They dared me…go out to the creek in the dark. Where that cop was buried.”

“They who?”

“My friends.”

Jack pulled both of them to standing, anger pumping through him. Every breath stung; the cold bit into his skin. “And where are your friends now?”

“They were right behind me. I think they took off when they saw you coming. I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

He gritted his teeth. “You were trespassing.” But he let the boy go. Stupidity wasn’t a crime.

He watched as the kid scampered toward the road without looking back. “And don’t come here again! This is private property,” he called after him.

The adrenaline had worn off, and his whole body ached, reminding him that he was far from fully recovered. He swore, hating the weakness. He couldn’t afford aches and pains. When he caught up with Blackwell, he needed to be ready.

He hadn’t been ready tonight. He’d seen the shadowy figure, rage had taken over, and he’d acted without thinking. What the hell was wrong with him, tackling that kid? But he could have sworn…

He took a slow breath, let his lungs fill with cold air.

Bing would warn him about becoming so obsessed that he was starting to see what he wanted to see. Good thing the captain hadn’t been here to witness this.

He rubbed his hand over his face, then climbed out of the ditch and slogged back through the snow. Her front steps were covered in snow and ice, he registered again, and reached for the shovel leaning against the stairs before he realized the handle was broken. He kicked the snow off the steps the best he could, then walked inside, stepped out of his snowy boots, and padded up the stairs.

Ashley stood at her easel, arms wrapped tightly around her body, staring at the painting in the semidarkness.

He came to a stop behind her, trying to see what she saw when she looked at the macabre image. “There were some teenagers out back.”

“What?” She turned, her eyes disoriented. She blinked a few times. “Sometimes I hear snowmobiles in the night. Just kids having fun.”

He looked back at the canvas because he suddenly couldn’t stand the broken look in her eyes. In the dark, the painting looked muted, almost black and gray, precious few light areas with way too many shadows, the old man in the lower right quadrant lifeless and crumpled.

“It would be best if you told the truth,” he said but didn’t have it in him to really get up into her face again. The run and tackle out in the cold had taken the bluster out of him, as did her palpable misery.

He wanted the whole vision thing to turn out to be fake. Like he’d wanted the kid out there to be Blackwell. But if he wasn’t strong enough to accept reality, he wouldn’t be strong enough to catch the bastard. And reality was that she’d painted the image out of nothing. Reality was his cop instincts said she wasn’t faking her emotions. His most basic instincts said she was real in every way.

And as much as he resisted it with all the willpower he had, something inside him responded to her.

She is going to be a complication.

He didn’t like the idea. He didn’t like that someplace deep inside, he was softening toward her. He’d come for something completely different.

Her chin came up and she held his gaze, some of her fire coming back as she said, “You want the truth? The truth is, I’m going crazy.”

Okay, not what he’d expected, but he considered the words for a second. He’d certainly seen his share of the mentally unbalanced in his years of working for various police forces. “People who are crazy usually insist that they’re completely sane.”

She didn’t seem relieved. “Are you going to take this painting too?”

He didn’t need it; he had the photos on his phone. He nodded anyway. “It’s evidence.” Although of what, he couldn’t say.

And he wasn’t sure whether he was taking the damned thing because part of him wanted to give her a break and he didn’t like that so he felt the need to make sure he wouldn’t give an inch. Or because it looked like the painting was hurting her and he felt some weird need to stop it.

He didn’t do emotions.

He sure as hell didn’t do mixed emotions.

“Don’t leave town,” he said, to make sure the both of them knew it.

Chapter Six

After a night that started pretty roughly, then continued with her tossing and turning, worrying about what Jack Sullivan would do with her paintings, Saturday morning came too early. Ashley lay in bed, the bedroom dim in the gray winter morning light.

She looked at her cell phone on the nightstand, dread and disappointment filling her little by little. She had to call her father and Maddie, let them know she couldn’t come today.

Detective Sullivan had ordered her to stick around. On any other day, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But today was the day she was supposed to show her father that she was making progress.

She wanted to get into her car and try, even if her throat would close up when she reached I-95. Even if she would be gasping for air and swimming in cold sweat. Even if she had to pull over. Even if it took her all morning to make the two-hour drive.

She needed to face her fears. She couldn’t give up, or she’d never have Maddie back.

She sat up in bed. She would
not
give up. She felt stronger now than last night. She would call Jack Sullivan and demand her freedom back. She hadn’t committed any crimes, hadn’t been charged with anything. He had no right to put her under house arrest or whatever he was doing.

She reached for her cell phone just as the sounds of a rumbling motor reached her from outside. A snowmobile. She hesitated. Maybe she should go and talk to those kids and warn them about the creek. Her property in the back was really becoming a mess. Come spring, she would have to hire Eddie to clean it up a little. If one of those kids got hurt on her land…

She pushed to her feet and hurried to the closet, shrugged into the first set of clothes she put her hands on, jeans and a thick sweater. She shoved her phone into her pocket and hurried downstairs, combing her hair with her fingers as she ran. She wanted to catch those kids before they rode away.

She jumped into her boots and grabbed her coat, and could still hear the motor, coming closer, when she rounded the house. But as she reached the back, it was Eddie driving a snowmobile from the woods, pulling a log on a chain. And then she saw his beat-up pickup parked to the side.

“Did I wake you?” he asked with an apologetic smile as he stopped and turned off the engine. He wore his usual quilted flannel jacket and wool cap, lumberjack boots, and work gloves—he looked like someone out of a maple-syrup commercial.

“I needed to wake up. When did you get here?”

“About an hour ago. I’ve been looking around out back. Plenty of fallen branches. A couple of trees too. Water washed out the roots of a pretty big oak at the far end of the creek, probably when all that snow melted after Christmas.”

“Take as much as you need.” He was doing her a favor, really. He used most of the wood in his woodstove and the big stumps for chain-saw art he made and sold, proving her point that deep inside, everybody was an artist.

He opened his mouth to say something but then looked toward the road, and his eyes narrowed.

She followed his gaze. A black SUV slowed at her driveway and pulled in. The car rolled all the way up to her front door, and three men wearing dark suits spilled out. Her stomach sank as she recognized them: FBI.

“I better see what that’s about.” She stomped up front.

Were they ever going to leave her alone?

The tallest of the men—early thirties, crew-cut blond hair, cold eyes—reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID as she reached them. “Agent Hunter, FBI. We met a few weeks ago.”

“What is this about?”

“We need you to come with us, ma’am.”

Her heart rate picked up. Why now? They’d been out here and had looked over her land, had found nothing and left. Had something new come up? Suddenly, with a sinking heart, she realized what that might be.

Jack Sullivan had handed over her paintings.

She had no idea how she was going to talk her way out of this. Her throat tightened. “I need to lock up.”

“Of course.”

The agents followed her in when she went inside to get her keys.

“Do you think I could have five minutes? I ran outside this morning without getting ready for the day.”

“No problem.”

But Agent Hunter went upstairs with her, checked out her bathroom before she went in. At least he let her close the door behind her. She took care of her morning needs, too nervous to do more than the bare minimum.

What would they make of her paintings? She brushed her teeth with jerky, frenetic movements. Did she need a lawyer?

She’d had one after the accident on the reservoir. She could call him again. She hesitated. Not yet. Lawyering up right now would just make her look guilty. Not to mention she didn’t have the money. But she would definitely call if things got any worse.

On the way out to the car, she looked to the backyard, wanting to tell Eddie that she was leaving, but Eddie had gone back into the woods already. He wasn’t the type to sit around; when he worked, he gave one hundred percent. One of the many reasons why the town kept him even with the budget cuts last fall.

Whatever maintenance personnel they had left now answered to him. The town trusted him with all kinds of things, even sent him to tradeshows out of state to check out new road-maintenance equipment they needed. He’d been proud of that.

“Are you getting some work done on the property?” Agent Hunter asked as he opened the back door of the SUV for her, looking at Eddie’s pickup.

“Just giving away some firewood.”

The agent watched her through narrowed eyes, a cold expression on his face, not looking like he believed her. Which didn’t bode well for the upcoming questioning. She was innocent, had nothing to do with Brady Blackwell or Jack Sullivan’s troubles. How did she end up getting pulled deeper and deeper into all this mess?

At the end of her driveway, the car turned onto the road toward Broslin. Cold sweat gathered on her forehead as she clasped her hands on her knees. And her phobias were the least of her problems.

She hated, absolutely hated Jack Sullivan for forcing her secret out, then doing this to her.

* * *

The fans on the ceiling whirled in a futile effort to evenly distribute the heat through the Broslin Police Station. The phones rang off the hook; the department’s ancient copy machine grated on, giving everyone within ten feet an instant headache,

Nobody sat behind the front desk. Leila didn’t work weekends. She kept office hours Monday through Friday. The rest of the time, the nearest person answered the phone. Whoever was unlucky to be on duty had to fend for himself.