Game On (8 page)

“You’re being paranoid. I have to go home.”

“How about for one night you don’t?” He was so serious she decided to stop arguing. She didn’t really believe that there were cameras hidden in or around her apartment. But the possibility was awful.

“I can go to a hotel.”

“No family?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

Friends who’d offer her a guest room? She had a few, she supposed, but what would she say? “I’ll be fine in a hotel.”

“Why don’t you stay here? I’ve got a spare room. I even have a spare toothbrush.”

Before she could answer, the kitchen door was simultaneously knocked on and opened.

Max walked in, followed by their firefighting friend Dylan. Both men wore running shorts, athletic shirts and sneakers.

“We were jogging when you called,” Max said. He jerked his head in Dylan’s direction. “He insisted on riding along.”

Dylan had already discovered the pizza box and flipped it open and was tearing into a slice with big white teeth. “Thought you might need another hand,” he said with his mouth full.

Serena couldn’t think of a friend to call who’d give her a bed, and these guys dropped everything for each other. She wondered what it would be like to have friends you’d known forever, to have grown up in the same leafy suburb, gone to school together, got drunk together, had each other’s backs. She didn’t envy many things, but she found herself yearning for close-knit friendships like Adam’s.

Adam glanced at her. “Okay if we let Dylan in on what’s going on? He doesn’t look like much, but you can trust him.”

She smiled, as he’d meant her to. Nodded. “All right.”

Briefly he related her story. If the other two men were shocked, they gave no sign of it. Max’s jaw tightened and Dylan’s hands fisted when Adam revealed the contents of the latest text message, but otherwise they simply listened.

When Adam was done, Max turned to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll get you a bodyguard. The guys we hire are the best. Most of them ex-military or ex-cops.”

“A bodyguard? For a few weird emails? I—”

Adam interrupted. “Let’s start with having your security company sweep her apartment and office for any surveillance equipment.”

Max nodded. “I’ll have a team there tomorrow.”

“Discreetly. We don’t want the perp to know we’re onto him.”

“Please. Do I look like a novice?”

Dylan, now on his second slice of purloined pizza, said, “Do you have anyone who can trace the emails and the call?”

“I’ll do that,” Max said.

“What can I do?” Dylan asked.

“Stand by.”

He nodded. Ripped off a piece of paper towel and wiped his mouth. Turned to her. “These guys may act like the Keystone Kops, but luckily they’re a lot smarter than they look. You’re in good hands.”

“Thanks.”

Max turned to go. “I’ll get the team set up for tomorrow.” He looked almost apologetic as he turned to her. “I’ll need keys, codes.”

“Of course.” She went for her purse.

“We’ll do your office early. Before anyone gets in. I’ll have a report to you as soon as I can.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“The apartment is easier in regular daytime hours. You okay with that?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You have a place to stay tonight?”

“She’s staying here,” Adam said.

He and Max exchanged a look that clearly meant something to them and simply looked like an intense if fleeting glance to her. Then Max nodded. Headed for the door, Dylan in his wake. Dylan waved and headed out first. Max turned back. “Take care of her,” he said softly.

* * *

A
FTER
THE
OTHER
two left, she was suddenly and deeply aware that she was alone with Adam, who had kissed her senseless in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. But that was before the text message. He turned to her. For a moment they were both frozen. What was the protocol here? She had no idea. Didn’t seem as if he did, either.

“I’ll get you that toothbrush,” he said.

“Okay.”

It wasn’t that late. Barely ten o’clock, but she was bone tired, she realized, from a long busy day followed by the stress and emotional torment of those messages and the way Adam and Max had reacted. As though she was in real danger.

She busied herself putting the pizza box in the recycling bin, tidying up, wiping the table.

When he returned, he had a toothbrush in its packet, a small tube of toothpaste and a gray T-shirt that was larger than some dresses she’d owned.

She accepted the offerings. “Thank you.”

There was an awkward moment when she wasn’t sure if he was going to move closer or back away. She was rooted to the spot, unsure which way she wanted the evening to go. It lasted only a second and then he was turning away. “The guest room’s through here. It’s not fancy but you’ll be safe,” he said.

“Safe sounds good.”

He must have heard the weariness in her voice. He threw an arm around her shoulders, like a brother or a pal, and squeezed. “We’ll get this thing figured out. Okay?”

She turned to smile at him, found his gorgeous, sexy male-model mouth kissably close to her own and resolutely pulled away. “Yeah.”

“I sleep with my door open,” he said. “In case you need anything in the night.”

They looked at each other for a long moment. She knew it was up to her to move her lips closer, to be the one to make the first move. But she was too strung out to make any kind of an intelligent decision, so she tamped down the lust roaring through her system. “Thanks,” she said in a voice so husky it barely sounded like her own.

As she crawled under the covers in the guest room bed, she was surprised at how safe she felt. For now, at least, she could let go of the stress and tension knowing Adam was there. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

9

S
ERENA
HADN
’
T
HAD
one of the old nightmares for years. A little therapy, a lot of self-talk, some books on the subject had all helped her face the personal demons she still carried from her past. And although they had not healed completely, at least she was able to acknowledge her wounds until they scarred neatly.

So it was beyond awful to wake with the explosive fear pounding through her body, her heart banging and her breath caught in her throat. Some shadowy figure was out to get her and as she ran and ran, her steps grew slower. Couldn’t catch her breath. Heard the dark, faceless man’s pounding steps behind her, gaining. Gaining. She tried to scream and nothing came out. There was something bad ahead, a dark place, a big yawning cave mouth, and because he was after her, she had nowhere else to go. Terror behind, terror ahead.

She whimpered in the dark. Her fear was so intense she felt dizzy.

For a panicked second she didn’t know where she was. Strange shadows, wrong room. Then she pulled herself fully awake, remembered she was in Adam’s guest room and why. She sat up and flipped on a light.

She’d never get back to sleep, not while adrenaline was careening around her system. She knew the minute she plunged the room back in darkness, the irrational fear would start up again.

Sitting up, she pulled her knees to her chest, reminded herself that she was safe. She waited until her breathing was back to normal and her heart was beating at a more reasonable pace.

She’d read. Reading always helped.

Of course she didn’t have a book with her. She’d assumed she’d go home at the end of the day as usual.

The oversize gray T-shirt hung down to her thighs as she climbed out of bed and padded across the scarred wood floors. Easing the door quietly open, she entered the living room. She remembered seeing a bookcase stuffed with enough reading material that she assumed she’d find something that appealed. And if she discovered a book that bored her into slumber, so much the better.

Adam had mentioned he slept with his bedroom door open and she didn’t want to wake him, so she resisted the impulse to flip on a light. Instead she used the dim beam from her smartphone to scan the shelves. She could make out a range of hardbacks, paperbacks, a couple of stacks of magazines, but she was having trouble making out the individual titles. She edged closer. Stubbed her bare toe on the foot of the big couch. Cursed silently.

As she leaned closer, holding her phone within inches of the book spines, she realized her host had pretty eclectic tastes in reading material. Sci-fi and fantasy, thriller, hockey biographies and history books.

She was torn between a book about the Russian Revolution and a biography of Bobby Orr when she saw a hardcover book entitled
Secrets of Sleep.
Perfect. She reached for it and her hand closed on the hardcover just as the overhead light flipped on and she jumped at least a mile into the air.

She turned, clutching the book to her heart, and saw Adam standing outside his door as alert as though it were midmorning and he were on his third cup of coffee. Only the low-slung boxer shorts and the messy hair gave away that he’d been sleeping. In the split second it took him to put his right hand behind his back she saw the glint of dark metal and realized he was holding a firearm.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was looking for something to read.” She glanced at the phone in her hand. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Can’t sleep?”

She shook her head. “Nightmare.” Why hadn’t she stayed in bed like a normal person and waited for morning? “I’m sorry I woke you.” She should have gone to that hotel. Maybe would have if she’d had her car with her. What a truly awful houseguest she was.

“You didn’t.”

“You were awake?”

He shrugged. Rubbed his chest with the knuckles of his left hand. She couldn’t help but follow the movement with her gaze. The man had a spectacular body. Big, muscular, with biceps that made her think he could carry her tucked under his arm if he wanted to. His chest was broad, furred with dark hair that arrowed down, leading her eye south across well-defined abs to where it disappeared beneath the waistband of his faded navy boxers. He had nice legs, she noted, and big working-man feet.

She was ashamed of herself for checking him out like that. Then when she glanced at him, she realized he was doing some checking out of his own. All of a sudden she was keenly aware of the fact that she was naked but for his T-shirt. Their gazes connected and once again she felt the pull of lust, as inconvenient as it was undeniable.

“Do you want some tea?” he asked when the silence had dragged a second too long and her heart had begun to thud.

“Tea?”

His chin was shadowed with stubble. His eyes had the sleepy, sexy expression of a man on his way to bed, planning to take her with him. “Yeah, tea.”

“A second ago you were pointing a gun at me, now you’re offering me tea?”

“Safety first. I heard somebody creeping around in here. Didn’t know it was you.”

And suddenly she realized. He hadn’t been sleeping because he was on watch. It hadn’t really occurred to her that whoever had written her that threatening text could have followed her here. She’d felt so safe. Now she shivered. “Thank you for protecting me.”

“It’s what they pay me for. Part of the service you get when you pay your taxes.”

She had to smile. He wasn’t on duty and she very much doubted that many citizens of Hunter got to stay in a police officer’s home at the slightest hint of danger. “What kind of tea?”

“Sleepytime.” He walked, barefoot, to the kitchen, opened a cupboard. “Or chamomile.” He pulled a couple of boxes of tea from the cupboard, then grabbed a bottle of pills and placed it beside them on the counter. “These are herbal sleeping pills. Don’t work as well as the real ones, but they help.”

She held a book in her hand about sleep. He had a cupboard full of herbal sleep aids. He was wide-awake at 3:00 a.m. It wasn’t difficult to come to an obvious conclusion. “You’re an insomniac.”

He set the kettle on to boil. “Only at night.”

She chuckled. Picked up the herbal-remedy bottle. Listened to the rattle of pills. Put it down.

She opened cupboards until she found big blue earthenware mugs. Pulled two off the shelf. There was something ridiculously domestic about making tea at three in the morning in a man’s kitchen, both of you dressed in next to nothing. Her skin felt super sensitized. When she reached for the mugs, she felt the soft cotton of his shirt graze her nipples, and even without turning, she was intensely aware of the big sexy presence behind her.

She turned to reach for the tea bags at the same moment he did. Their hands touched. A tiny shock of electricity zapped through her. She didn’t look up. Couldn’t. She moved away—all the way out of the kitchen—and settled herself on the couch at a safe distance. Thought about going to her bedroom and putting on...what? Her suit?

Don’t make a big deal out of it,
she told herself, and pulled the hem of the shirt down as far as it would go, then settled back on the couch, her legs primly together. Then she opened the book about sleep.

The kettle boiled, its whistle loud in the silent cottage, and as he padded over to her with the two steaming mugs of tea in his hands, she shut the book and placed it on the table.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting the tea.

He nodded and sat beside her on the couch. She sipped her drink. Suspected it wouldn’t help her get back to sleep, but the tea was hot and soothing, so she sipped again.

“Do you think whoever sent the message yesterday could have followed me here?” She didn’t like even thinking it, but ever since she’d seen him all steely eyed and dangerous wielding that gun, she’d known the possibility existed.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

She sipped more tea. It was oddly companionable sitting there with him.

“I haven’t had a nightmare in a long time. I used to get them frequently until I worked with a therapist who suggested I practice something called active imagination.”

He glanced at her over the rim of his mug and she got the feeling that she’d lost him somewhere between
therapist
and
active imagination.

“The idea is that you go back into the dream once you’re awake and confront the dark figure that’s chasing you.”

“Does it work?”

“Between that and a few other techniques, I was able to overcome the nightmares. Now I only get them in times of acute stress.”

“Did you try it tonight? The active imagination thing? Maybe your unconscious knows who’s sending you that crap. Maybe it’s trying to tell you.”

Okay, so maybe therapy and active imagination weren’t so foreign to him after all. Interesting. “I wondered the same thing. I did try. But when I turned around, there was no one there. The footsteps faded as though the person following me had run away.”

“Your subconscious is telling you he’s a coward. Which, given the way he’s been communicating, is not a big breakthrough.”

They drank more tea.

“Do you suffer from nightmares?” she asked.

“Sometimes.” The word was short and sharp. Clearly he didn’t want to talk about his demons. “It’s pretty common in my line of work.”

She nodded. “Dreaming is one way we deal with trauma, how we sort out troubles and emotions.”

“Why did you need therapy for nightmares?” he asked.

Normally she was as protective of her private life as he was, but there was something about sitting here on his couch with very little clothing on, knowing he had her back, that made her feel like sharing. If nothing else, perhaps her candor would help him open up about his own issues.

“I had a very insecure childhood,” she said at last. It was so quiet here. With no traffic sounds, it felt as though they were the only two people awake in the whole world.

“Your parents got divorced?”

She made a sound that was somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. “That was the least of it and happened when I was so young I barely remember anything but the fighting. No. Truth is my mom never should have had a kid. She wasn’t suited for it. She wasn’t much more than a child herself and had addiction issues.”

“Oh, no.” From the tone of his voice she suspected she wouldn’t have to paint him any pictures of her life.

“Yeah. We were dirt-poor. I seriously think she only kept me because she needed the extra welfare money. I was hungry more than not. And she used to go out at night and leave me alone in the trailer.”

He pulled her in close and she let him. Somehow the nightmare tonight and the feelings of vulnerability she’d experienced were bringing back the old fears. “I was so scared.” She heard her voice start to rise and fought to bring it back down. “I’d beg her not to go out every night before I went to bed and she’d promise. But she almost always went out anyway. So I’d wake up all alone and frightened.”

“That sucks,” he said.

“Once, I was so scared I ran to the neighbor’s. When she found me there, she took me home and beat me. She’d never hit me before. She said if I ever did that again, the cops would drag me away and make me live with bad people.”

“You were powerless.”

She nodded. “She wasn’t a terrible person, but the drugs and alcohol made her pretty useless. By the time I was twelve I was running the place. Then things got a little better.”

“How did you get from there to here?” He sounded amazed. “I deal with people who live that life. It’s brutally hard to break the cycle.”

“I’ve thought about that a lot. Strangely, I think TV saved me.”

“TV?”

“Sure. No matter how poor we were, we always had TV. The only bonding my mother and I ever did was over television shows. She loved the big splashy soaps about all those rich folks. She’d say to me, ‘When I get some money together, we’re going to get a house. And buy clothes like Linda Evans and get a maid.’” Serena shrugged. “Of course I knew that was never going to happen, but what those shows taught me was that there was another life out there being lived by people who had enough to eat and didn’t live in utter squalor.”

“You’ve got some guts. That’s a long journey from there to here.”

“Well, the great thing about being a kid is you don’t know how badly the deck is stacked against you.” She sipped her rapidly cooling tea. “I don’t think I would have got out if I hadn’t had a couple of mentors in my life. Apart from the TV ones. There was a teacher at school. You have to realize that at my school there weren’t a lot of college-track types. But I was smart and hardworking. I liked school. There were rules, order. I got fed lunch. And I had a teacher, Mrs. Brand, who told me about the scholarships that were available to people like me.”

She stretched back. His arm was still around her and she liked the warm feel. Found she even liked telling Adam her pathetic childhood story.

“The worst part was I had to keep it all a secret. If my mom found out there was money coming my way, well, let’s say it wouldn’t have gone in my college fund. Everything went through Mrs. Brand. But I did it. I got into college with a full scholarship. I worked a couple of part-time jobs and studied my butt off. One good thing about my background was that I was used to living on nothing. I ate a lot of beans and rice. Bought my few clothes at the thrift store. And I watched how the other kids did things. Dumb little things you take for granted when you have a normal family. How they ate, how they dressed, even their table manners. I studied them and copied them.”

“Did you make friends with them?”

His tone suggested he already knew the answer to that. She turned to look at him. “You’re a perceptive guy.”

“Detective. Remember?”

“No. I was an outsider. Plus, I was so busy working and studying I didn’t have time for friends. I had a great boss, though. Another mentor. Ed owned the bakery I worked in mornings before school and on the weekends. We were allowed to take home day-old bread and things that didn’t turn out for whatever reason. I lived on misshapen buns and cookies that were overcooked. I didn’t care. After where I’d been? It was heaven.”