Officer Next Door (15 page)

Luckily, Alicia emerged from Piggly Wiggly with two grocery bags and no sign of having encountered any trouble.

“Any other stops?” he asked when she climbed back inside the car.

She shook her head as he pulled out of the parking lot, scanning the shoppers walking to and from their vehicles for any sign of a notorious face. All he saw was a sunburnt guy in boardshorts and a mom wrangling a couple of preschoolers into a shopping cart.

“How was work?” he asked, because he wanted to know and because he simply liked the sound of her voice.

“Okay on the actual work front – I started planning a wedding for a really sweet bride today. She’s a breath of fresh air in comparison to the phone-happy one getting married next month. Everyone at Wisteria was a little tense though. You know… Because of the Levinson brothers. A couple of guests left early.”

“Yeah?” By ‘everyone’, he assumed she meant her two friends, the ones they’d be having dinner with that evening. Somehow, he had a feeling the event wouldn’t be quite as jovial as the last one had been. On the other hand, at least escaped convicts were a more legitimate fear than ghosts. The escapees would be caught soon, and after that, no one would have to worry about them going bump in the night.

“Yeah. Which reminds me of something – I came up with a theory today after reading an article in the paper.”

“A theory about what?”

“About last night’s incident.”

An uneasy feeling settled into his gut as he looked away from the road for half a second to glimpse her pretty face. There was a little line between her eyebrows, and she looked as if she was about to drop a bomb on him. “What is it?”

“I think the Levinson brothers may have been responsible for throwing that rock.”

He’d already known that possibility had crossed her mind – it’d been written all over her face the night before. “Why?”

“There was an article about them in the paper today. It was about their childhoods – they grew up with an alcoholic cop for a father. Their home life was really unhappy and both their parents were killed in a house fire when the boys were teenagers.

“They were questioned about possibly setting the fire, but the investigation never really went anywhere. They’ve shown a pattern of hatred and violence toward law enforcement officers – I think they target them on purpose. They resent them so deeply, they can’t resist.”

“So you think they’re targeting me?”

“Someone definitely is, and that seems to make the most sense. After all… You’re part of PERT. You gave the order for Troy Levinson to be shot.”

It was a thought that’d already occurred to Liam. Did Troy Levinson know he was a PERT officer, and if he did, was he bent on revenge?
He hadn’t made it inside Riley’s gates this time, but he’d been incarcerated there before. It was possible he remembered certain officers – maybe even Liam.

It seemed kind of stupid – the more time the fugitives spent in Riley County, the more likely they were to get caught. But then, the reason they’d been incarcerated in the first place was for murdering two cops – a premeditated, cold-blooded crime. Given that, there might just be some truth in Alicia’s theory.

If the Levinson brothers really had killed their parents as payback for shitty childhoods, they’d been more twisted than most criminals for a long, long time and were clearly willing to risk everything in the name of revenge.

“What do you think?” Alicia was looking right at him, her hazel eyes trained on his face, her expression serious.

“If you’re right, at least one of the Levinson brothers is still in Riley County. I talked to Jeremy today and he said they’ve got a lead on a sighting down in South Carolina. Supposedly multiple people called in to report spotting one of the brothers at a bus station. They’re pursuing the tip.”

“Which brother was it that they reported seeing?”

“Randy.” He met her gaze for the briefest of moments and saw the information settling in.

Her frown deepened, and he knew what she was thinking: Randy might have fled the state, but Troy was the one who’d sustained a bullet wound – they knew because the bus station footage showed Randy using both arms, uninjured. Troy was the one who’d lingered in Riley County at least long enough to seek treatment and take a nurse’s life. The one who had a reason to harbor a grudge against Liam specifically.

“Hey,” he said, catching her eye again, “if Troy Levinson is still in Riley County, that just means he’s going to get caught soon. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place isn’t exactly a sprawling metropolis. There’s not a large enough population for him to blend into, and the locals are all on high-alert, keeping an eye out for him. Even if he was the one who threw the rock, he’ll be where he belongs soon: behind bars.”

“I hope you’re right. But until then…” She waited until he met her eyes to continue. “Be careful?”

“I’m always careful.”

She didn’t know about the Glock in the console, about the many threats he’d faced before from the men he was paid to keep locked up. She didn’t know he’d been thinking all day on how to keep her safe, but he had been. Careless was the last thing he planned to be.

“Good.” She settled back against her seat with a sigh, scratching Holden between the ears. For the last couple minutes of the drive, they rode in silence, the wind whipping in through the partially-open windows, providing the only sound.

When they reached their tiny neighborhood of two, he pulled into her driveway instead of his, since the dinner was supposed to be held at her place. He took the shopping bags while she handled Holden, and they climbed the short flight of stairs onto her porch.

She was digging in her purse for her keys when he realized that something was wrong.

The jingle of keys sounded and Holden’s toenails clicked against the porch’s floorboards, but Alicia didn’t move past Liam to unlock the door. “What is it? Oh, no…”

They stood together at the front door, which was open by just a hair.

“I know I locked the door behind myself before coming over to your place yesterday,” she said.

He nodded. “I saw you do it.”

He took her by the hand. “Come with me.”

They retreated to the car, where he retrieved his Glock. “Wait right here. I’m going to make sure there’s no one in the house.”

He found no one inside, just an empty home haunted by a breeze that blew in through the bathroom window. It took a good deal of self-control to keep from shooting the billowing curtains that lashed out at him as he entered the small room.

The shower was empty, and the closet too. The blinds were in disarray though, bent and broken. There was some dirt smeared in the bottom of the tub, the blurred shapes reminiscent of footprints. Fainter tracks stained the bathroom tile, fading by the time they reached the door. His blood ran cold at the sight, and he trekked upstairs to finish clearing the house, just in case.

The intruder was long gone. In his wake, there was a certain tension in the air, the realization that Alicia and potentially deadly danger had just missed each other. A gut feeling told him that whoever had thrown the rock through his kitchen window had climbed through her window, too. Two unrelated incidents occurring within hours of each other at both their houses was too much to be a coincidence.

The invasion had to have happened later that night, after the police had left. An officer had checked the house – Jeremy had said so.

He returned to Alicia, and the moment she met his eyes, her face went white. “What’s wrong – should I call the police?”

He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ve got that covered. Someone was inside your house – probably last night, after the police left, or sometime today.”

If possible, she turned even paler. “How did they get in? The door doesn’t look damaged.”

“Your bathroom window was open. Did you leave it unlocked?”

She pressed a hand to her stomach, as if she felt sick. “I don’t know, which I guess is as good as ‘yes’. I made sure my other windows were locked… I can’t believe I forgot that one. I’m such an idiot.”

Privately, he entertained notions of camping out in the tub beneath her bathroom window, ready to use the billowy curtains to strangle any shitbag who dared to enter through it. Or better yet – he’d just continue to keep her safe and all to himself at his place.

“You’re okay – that’s the important thing,” was all he said out loud. As he held his phone to his ear, he reached out and took one of her hands in his, squeezing.

For the second time in 24 hours, Jeremy and a couple other officers reported to Pine Hollow Road. An investigation of her home determined that nothing valuable was missing … a chilling reality which proved that the invader’s intentions hadn’t been theft.

Liam kept turning that fact over in his mind, trying to decipher what it meant. Had the intruder been looking for Alicia specifically, or perhaps for a woman to assault?

“Word of advice,” Jeremy said to Liam, his expression grim. “Watch your back. I think there’s a target painted on it.”

“Any word on Troy Levinson?” Liam asked.

Jeremy shook his head. “Still at large. I spoke to Alicia. She’s intuitive – knows better than to assume that things are coincidental. Between you and me, I think she might be right about a Levinson hurling that rock through your window. Probably Troy. You already know the dogs picked up a scent trail in the woods last night, but it went cold when we hit some water. Could be that he made his way back up here and into Ms. Dalton’s house.”

“Yeah?” Liam’s ire rose, filling his mind with visions of Troy Levinson lurking in Alicia’s home. He didn’t like that idea – not one damned bit. He’d been assigned to search the woods behind his own house that day at work – he’d scoured the forest for any sign of the Levinsons. Had Troy been hiding out in Alicia’s place the entire time?

The thought made him feel physically sick with anger.

Jeremy nodded. “If that’s the case, at least it means this shit’ll be over when we catch him. Until then, keep watching out for Ms. Dalton. Whoever was inside her home wasn’t there for a sightseeing tour. If she’d been home last night, she’d probably be dead.”

It wasn’t like Jeremy’s conclusion was one Liam hadn’t already reached himself. Still, hearing it spoken out loud hit him like a blow to the gut, leaving him feeling sick as the resulting sense of anger swept through him, heating his blood. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

“We’re gonna run extra patrols on this road until the situation’s resolved. If anything – and I mean anything – doesn’t seem right to you, give us a call. We’re also gonna have a search party sweep the woods behind your house. If he’s hiding out back there, we’ll find him.”

Nothing seemed right to Liam, not now that he knew Alicia’s home had been targeted before his. He cast a glance in her direction and saw her leaning against the porch railing, her face silhouetted by the early evening sunlight, her hair glowing gold at the ends and around the top of her head, like a halo.

“Sasha called,” she said when he approached. “I told her what happened. She says she’s still up for cooking if we’re up for eating. Her apartment’s small, but she offered to host dinner there.”

“I texted Grey and Henry,” Liam said. “Henry offered up his place – should be just enough room there for us all.”

She reached out and touched his hand, her fingers twining with his. He felt the flutter of her pulse in her fingertips, her warmth against his skin. In that moment, the idea that she might not have been alive if last night had gone differently caused the world to blur around him, fading as he succumbed to tunnel vision that focused all his senses on her.

He fought the sensation. He had to be aware of everything going on around him, regardless of how bad it was, if he was going to do what he’d promised and keep her safe.

* * * * *

Sasha and Kerry were both obviously freaked out by what had happened last night at Liam and Alicia’s houses, though they showed it differently. Sasha broke into a string of exclamations flavored by the occasional obscenity, while Kerry frowned, her worry darkening her eyes and shadowing her face.

Henry and Grey just seemed pissed.

Nobody was particularly happy, but the get-together seemed to be going well anyway, strangely enough. They were all gathered in Henry’s kitchen, a room characterized by bright lighting and blue tile, belonging to a little house on the outskirts of Cypress.

Apparently, Henry shared his home with one other resident – a German Shepherd named Wolf.

The dog was large, silvery-grey – reminiscent of his namesake – and surprisingly tolerant of Holden, who treated the larger animal much like he’d treated Brutus, darting back and forth with his ears flopping, trying to instigate play with the occasional yap.

When Alicia left the kitchen to walk Holden outside for a bathroom break, Liam went with her.

“Sorry our date was shoved to the backburner again,” he said as Holden sniffed, searching for a blade of grass worthy of lifting his leg over.

“It’s okay. Besides, I’m having a good time.”

He gave her a brief but intense look before returning his assessing gaze to their surroundings – presumably watching for signs of trouble. “All the same, I wouldn’t mind being alone with you.”

He said it with total intensity, no hint of a smile. When he met her eyes again, heat and desire flared to life inside her. “We can be alone tonight, after we leave, can’t we?” They’d ridden together to Henry’s house, in Liam’s car. After last night, she highly doubted that he planned to drop her off on her doorstep with a kiss on the cheek and a reminder to lock her windows.

“If you want to.”

“I do.” Just the thought left her halfway breathless. As crazy – and terrible, for the Levinsons’ victims – as the past couple of days had been, there was one consequence that Alicia didn’t regret: what had happened between her and Liam. She had no doubt it would’ve happened anyway, eventually, but after the previous night, she was convinced that sometimes sooner really was better.

“We’d better get inside,” he said when Holden had finished. “I bet that low land boil is finally done.”

Alicia got the feeling he was thinking more of lurking convicts than dinner, but either way, she didn’t disagree.

Dinner wasn’t quite done when they got back inside, but it seemed like a good time to make the sangria. When Alicia began slicing oranges and limes on Henry’s counter, Kerry offered to help.

“You know,” Kerry said, cutting a lime into thin wedges, “you’re welcome to stay at my place tonight. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone in your house. Not until the Levinson brothers are caught, anyway.”

Kerry and Sasha both shared Alicia’s suspicions that Troy Levinson might’ve been responsible for the rock and the break-in. So did Henry and Grey, which heightened Alicia’s confidence in her intuition and made her stomach tie itself in knots at the same time.

“I appreciate the offer, but I already have plans for tonight. I won’t be at home.”

A clattering came from nearby as Sasha dropped a large wooden spoon on the stove. “What?” She turned to Alicia and Kerry, whisper-shouting, not half as quietly as she probably thought she was. “Are you staying with Liam again?”

Everyone already knew Alicia had stayed there the night before – it wasn’t like they could’ve explained what’d happened at both their houses without including that fact. Alicia had felt herself blush when Liam had explained everything to the group, though he’d only said that she’d stayed there for safety’s sake.

Still, she had no doubt that everyone in the room had drawn conclusions – conclusions that were entirely correct, as it just so happened. One glance at Sasha’s face was all it had taken to see the wheels turning inside her head.

“Yes.” Alicia kept her tone as neutral as she could. “I am.”

“Well, well…” Sasha grinned as she picked the spoon back up and used it to prod the potatoes and sausage she’d just added to an enormous soup pot. “I guess last night was exciting enough to warrant an encore.”

Alicia recognized Sasha’s statement as a thinly-veiled question. All things considered, an unusually tactful move for Sasha. She must’ve really been reining herself in. Alicia cast a glance over her shoulder and saw that the guys appeared to be absorbed in conversation at the dinner table, their brows furrowed in a way that left little doubt as to what they were talking about.

“As a matter of fact,” Alicia said, keeping her voice low, “it was.” She couldn’t suppress a big grin.

Sasha returned the expression as she handled a colander full of fresh shrimp. “I knew it.”

Kerry didn’t say anything at first, just kept slicing away, carving neat little wedges of orange and lime. When she was done, she surrendered them to Alicia, who dumped most of the fruit directly into the sangria pitcher, saving just a few slices to garnish drinking glasses with.

“Be careful,” Kerry said, locking Alicia in eye-contact. “I know you didn’t take us very seriously about the Lady in White, but I think last night proved that you’re in danger. Whether or not you believe in the legend, you need to be extra vigilant. Liam’s house was victimized last night… It could happen again.”

A little chill rushed through Alicia as she was pulled out of memories of Liam’s arms and thrust into thoughts of broken glass instead. “I’m not sure what I think about the Lady in White, but you can bet I’m being careful. Last night really creeped me out. Besides…” She forced a little smile as she tipped her head toward the table. “I think those three are plotting defensive tactics as we speak.”