Jaxson's Song (5 page)

The image that dwelled
deep within her mind was undeniably graphic, dramatic, but she felt
that her concern was a valid one. Who was to say the
intruder
wouldn’t
come back? The more she thought about it, the
more sense her theory made. Whoever had violated her space tonight
had essentially just gotten away with it. What was to stop him from
coming back?

She shivered and inched
closer to Jaxson. If someone had told her that by this evening she
would be tromping up her creaky porch steps with a police escort on
one side and a transvestite on the other, she would have laughed it
off as pure fiction. Her arm bumped against the soft fabric of
Jaxson’s gown, and she was reminded that sometimes truth was
definitely stranger than fiction.

He made her feel safe.
Heat infused her skin and she ducked her head, holding out her hand
to take her set of keys from the officer who had picked them out of
the grass beside the front porch. She didn’t even remember dropping
them. Considering the panic she’d been in, and her mad dash to
Jaxson’s front porch, it wasn’t a surprise that her keys had been
the last thing on her mind.

Kate had been running for
her life—and then he’d slammed the door in her face, she reminded
herself. Her next door neighbor was a transvestite who apparently
suffered from mood swings. He shouldn’t make her feel safe. Kate
knew that wanting him here with her right now probably spoke
volumes about her mental state…

But she didn’t want to be
alone. Not tonight. And he
had
helped her, after all, so he
couldn’t be all bad. A little odd maybe, she cringed when he
adjusted the blond wig and stepped over the threshold of her home.
Was transvestite the proper term for what he was? She wondered,
looping the cold steel key ring over one finger and following him
through the door.

“
Have you been feeling well, lately, Miss Delaney?” A tall,
dark-haired police officer asked the moment she walked into the
foyer.

“
Um.” Her tongue snaked out, nervously licking her bottom lip.
What did this man care how she’d been feeling? She met the man’s
intent stare and nodded briefly. “Yes, I feel fine, except for the
fact that someone just broke into my house. Why?” she asked, the
word coming out stilted, unsure.

“
You haven’t been experiencing any unusual stress?”

Stress? What was he
getting at?

Jaxson had paused at the
entrance to her living room, and Kate watched him turn and frown at
the officer. The cop noticed Jaxson staring at him and returned the
disapproving look with interest, his eyes skimming disdainfully
over the ladies clothing and the bleached, teased wig.

“
I haven’t been under stress,” Kate answered, stepping forward
and blocking his view of Jaxson. “Why do you ask?”

“
Then are you playing some kind of joke, tonight? Do you have
a history of mental illness, Miss Delaney?”

“
Wha—mental illness?” she croaked.

“
What’s the word, Carl?” One of the officers who had been with
her next door asked, coming into the room. It was the young one.
The one who’d remained by the arched doorway to the sitting room
while Kate was being questioned.

“
I’ve got a few questions for Miss Delaney,” Carl told the
other man. “We didn’t find anyone in the house. There were no signs
of forced entry.”

“
But my front door—” Kate began, shoulders tensing.

“
Oh, there was damage to your front door, all right.” Carl’s
lip curled. “The lock had been picked; from the inside.”

The tarnished steel key
ring bit into the palm of Kate’s hand. The lock had been picked
from inside the house? How? How was that even possible?

“
That can’t be. It doesn’t make any sense,” she argued,
unconsciously taking a defensive stance.

“
That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Carl fixed her with
another one of those disconcerting, measuring stares. “Reporting a
false event is a crime.”

“
I didn’t make it up.” The words left her lips in a rush.
“Someone really did break into my house tonight. He was waiting for
me when I came home. I heard his footsteps on the porch and then I
ran. The front door was open, he’d definitely been in the
house.”

“
Is anything missing?” Carl countered, though why he asked,
she couldn’t say. He’d seen her walk in just now. He had to know
she hadn’t yet had time to walk through the house.

“
I don’t know.”

“
Let’s look now,” Jaxson interrupted, crossing the room and
taking her hand in his much larger one. His rings pressed into her
fingers, the chill of the silver and gold dragging her out of her
dazed state.

“
Jaxson, I don’t get it,” she whispered fifteen minutes
later.

They’d gone through both
floors of the house, painstakingly checking each room, especially
the bedrooms and the kitchen. Granted, she and Lilly didn’t own
anything that could be considered extravagant, but there were a few
pieces of jewelery each had brought with them from Atlanta, and
Aunt Viola had left them a set of sterling silver cutlery. Neither
of which had been touched.

Beyond that, they owned
the typical household items—a couple of televisions, a VCR, a DVD
player, I-pods and a handful of movies. Nothing that couldn’t be
tossed into the back seat of a car.

The art on the walls was
antique and the furniture was of good quality but those were not
things that any average, run-of-the-mill petty thief worth his salt
would bother making off with. Regardless, everything was in its
place, arranged just as Kate had left it when she’d locked the door
behind her that afternoon.

“
Well, at least nothing was stolen, right?” Jaxson shrugged
and headed down the stairs to join the officers who waited
impatiently in the front entryway. “So…what’s with the mirrored
room?”

“
Don’t ask. And yeah…” Kate spoke slowly and descended after
him, “that’s great, don’t get me wrong. But you heard those men.”
She lowered her voice and, ahead of her, Jaxson slowed his pace and
glanced back over his shoulder. “They think I made the whole thing
up. That I…I don’t even know, picked my own lock? And made this up,
for what I have no clue. Who would do something like
that?”

“
A crazy person?” He shrugged again and picked up the
pace.

“
I’m not crazy.”

“
I never said you were.”

“
I didn’t make this up. Someone was really here.”

“
I know.”

“
And—wait—what?”

“
I said I know.” Jaxson sighed. “I believe you.”

And the funny thing was,
he did. Sure, he didn’t know Kate Delaney, didn’t know a single
damn thing about her, but he knew people. And she’d been completely
terrified earlier. He’d seen the stark look of terror in her wide
eyes; violet eyes, he could see now under the brighter lighting,
not gray or blue like he’d originally thought.

No way had she made the
whole thing up. “It’s not me you have to convince.” He sent her a
meaningful look, then inclined his head toward the officers
clustered next to the front door.

“
I think they’ve already made up their minds.” Kate’s mouth
tightened. “Nothing is missing,” she called to the
officers.

“
If you have any more problems, give us a call,” the older
cop, Benson, advised her, not unkindly.

Jax watched Kate give the
man a grateful smile and he felt his gut tighten. Hell. The woman
was dangerous. She made him feel edgy and at ease, all at once. And
when she smiled, it made him want to do things for her. He felt
ashamed now for snapping at her and slamming the door in her face
earlier.

He watched Carl issue
thinly veiled threats to Kate, reminding her of the penalty of
non-emergency calls to 911, and he felt the unfamiliar urge to put
himself between her and the old bastard. He didn’t. That would have
been very, very stupid, given his current legal troubles. Somewhere
in the house, a clock struck twelve, and Jaxson’s eyes watered as
he smothered a yawn. He needed to go home and get some
sleep.

The cops left, shutting
the door behind themselves, and then it was just him and Kate,
alone in the house. And the ghosts, he amended, exhaling and
letting his eyes do a wide, slow sweep of her foyer and beyond
that, her living room. He hadn’t seen anything during their
inspection of the first and second floors, but he’d felt them—and
heard them. Oh yeah, the place was definitely haunted. Not that it
was his problem. A glance at the wall clock told him it was past
time he left, but still he hesitated.

He didn’t want to leave
Kate, he realized with a start. As if she would want him to stay…
Jaxson shook his head and began to follow the officers out the
door. He didn’t know her. But he was pretty damn sure she wouldn’t
want a strange man hanging around her house after midnight. A
strange man in a fucking dress. He frowned, prepared to tell her
goodbye and make the short walk to his own house. To go to bed and
forget all about a violet-eyed girl who had great hair and too many
problems.

She grabbed his arm.
“Jaxson. Wait.”

Shit.

“
Do you have to…to go?” she stammered, watching one of the
police cruisers disappear down the street and around the corner. “I
mean, right away?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Oh.” She frowned. “I thought, you know, maybe you could stay
for a few minutes.”

Jaxson watched as she
hugged her arms around her waist. “What are you getting at,
Kate?”

“
Nothing.” She clamped her lips together. “I’m sorry. It’s
late and you’ve done enough. Thank you for coming with me…and
calling the police. Thank you for letting me in, earlier. It was
nice meeting you. Goodnight.”

He winced at the faint
hint of sarcasm in her voice, at the reminder of his earlier rude
behavior. He stared down into Kate Delaney’s wide, gray-purple eyes
and felt like swearing. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need her.
He’d be lucky to make it out of this town with both his life and
his freedom intact. The last thing he needed was to throw another
complication into the mix.

“
You can stay at my place tonight, if you want,” he heard
himself say.

* * *

Gabe Bailey adjusted his
shoulder holster and clicked his seat belt into place, then stared
at his partner in silence for several long, drawn out moments. The
veteran officer scribbled notes onto a pocket-sized notepad before
tucking both pen and paper into the shirt pocket of his dark blue
uniform. The pointed ends of the gold star on his chest reflected
the light from the other cruiser as it backed out of the shared
drive between the houses at 502 and 504.

“
Carl?” Gabe questioned after several more seconds had ticked
by. It wasn’t his place to question Carl Jensen’s mood, or his
judgment calls. Not to mention it probably wouldn’t bode well for
Gabe’s career if he made a habit of calling his commanding
officer’s final word into question. Still, even though he was a
rookie officer, he’d never known Carl to be unfair in his dealings
with the people of Crystal Cove. Abrupt, yes, when the situation
called for it, but not unfair, or short-sighted. And as far as Gabe
could tell, Kate Delaney hadn’t warranted that kind of
treatment.

“
Sir?” he asked cautiously.

Carl’s gaze cut to his
rookie partner for a split second, then followed the direction of
the younger man’s stare to the aging Victorian that flickered a
harsh yellow under the faulty streetlight. Carl shifted in his seat
and turned the key in the ignition, bringing the cruiser to life.
He flicked the wipers on as the first drops of what promised to
quickly become a full-on downpour splashed against the windshield.
“I thought we were done with these damn calls about this house,
when the old lady kicked the bucket,” he muttered.

“
I’m afraid I don’t follow, sir,” Gabe said, still staring up
at the old house. A flicker of movement from above caught his
attention, and he raised his gaze to one of the two second-story
windows that faced the street. A light came on in the room, and
Miss Delaney stood silhouetted in the middle of the room. As he
watched, she crossed to the window and stood there, staring out. It
was too dark to make out her features, but he recognized her long,
blonde hair. A flash of lightning lit the sky, illuminating the
thick heavy cloud cover and, for an instant, the woman at the
window. Gabe started, certain that Miss Delaney had been wearing a
pink shirt, not a white one. He watched as her palm went flat
against the glass, then she waved. A moment later, she moved away
from the window, and the room went dark.