The Marine Next Door (6 page)

At least, not in her book. Captain John Murdock, USMC, retired, with the strong hands and gruff sarcasm, was all male, all muscle and as much a mystery to her as the handwritten note that still haunted her nights.

Mags—

I miss you. I know I’ve done you wrong in the past, but I’m a changed man. I’ve got me a job and I’m not drinking.

I’ve paid my debt.

When can I see you?

Love,

Danny

Maggie’s nostrils flared as she breathed in deeply, willing the frissons of terror still sparking through her system to dissipate so that she could concentrate on the job at hand. The elevator snafu had to be a horrible coincidence that had made Danny Wheeler’s note seem that much more threatening. Still, she’d put in a call to her attorney the next morning to discuss getting a new restraining order against her ex-husband. Having the flower delivered to a public building like Fourth Precinct headquarters was easy enough. But how had he found her unlisted address? How had he gotten into the building, past the security gate at the garage and Joe Standage? And why had not one of her neighbors on the seventh floor—whose doors she’d knocked on before some of them were even awake that next morning—seen Danny come and go? Not even those piercing green-gold eyes of John Murdock had seen anyone lurking around her apartment.

Was she living with a bunch of hermits?

Were the tenants in her building too elderly, too foreign, too nearsighted, too hard-of-hearing, too afraid to step up and get involved with their neighbors? If they ever got to know Danny Wheeler the way she did, they’d be smart not to come out of their doors.

But one man had stepped up. Although circumstances hadn’t given him any choice, Captain John Murdock had gotten involved.

As Dr. Kilpatrick and the two detectives discussed their strategy for approaching Bailey Austin, Maggie’s mind replayed every moment of that encounter with her new neighbor. She could still hear the deep voice demanding she do the right thing despite her fears—still feel the big hands that had accidentally warmed her backside and made her feel unexpectedly secure when he’d clasped her fingers. She could easily recall her gratitude that he’d spoken kindly to her chatty son even though she’d done nothing to encourage any type of conversation. John Murdock was bigger and stronger than she in every way except for the fact she was armed and had two good legs. She should be supercautious about developing any kind of a relationship with him. She should be afraid of a man like that.

And yet she’d run to him for answers and assurances.

Why had she expected him to be alert to the comings and goings around her apartment, and concerned about her troubles? Yes, he’d stayed calm and gotten her off that elevator when her own fears had kept her from thinking straight. But blindly trusting a man like that was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. Did she think his handicap, and the burn scars on his arms and neck from an obviously terrible injury, meant he couldn’t harm her? Was she a fool to believe the military cut of his golden-brown hair and proud carriage of his shoulders meant he was a man who’d defend
her?

Danny had done a stint in the Navy right out of high school. She knew better than to think that just because a man wore a uniform, he was a good guy. She was smarter than that—smart enough to know that outward appearances and little flickerings of awareness in her pulse were no way to judge the true character of a man. She’d fought too hard for her independence to let one panic attack and a lingering curiosity about her mysterious, attractive neighbor keep her from standing on her own two feet.

She
would figure out what had gone wrong with the elevator.
She
would find out how Danny had gotten that note to her.
She
would make it clear that he could never be a part of her life, or their son’s, ever again. It was what a strong woman would do, what a well-trained KCPD detective would do. This morning she needed to set aside her fascination with John Murdock, and her fears about her ex, to become that detective she wanted to be.

Still,
“Sarge, um, Maggie…are you okay?”

When was the last time a grown man who wasn’t an E.R. doctor or a fellow cop asked her that question?

She knew better than to make anything out of his concern. Heck, they’d barely spoken two words since that night. But it was nice to be asked. Nice that someone was polite enough to notice her distress. Nice to know that wigging out on a man didn’t automatically mean he couldn’t care. In a neighborly, we-just-survived-a-small-crisis-together kind of caring, of course.

Tamping down the smile that softened her lips, Maggie waited for the other task force members to exit the elevator and get a few steps ahead of her before falling into step behind them.

Bailey Austin’s hospital room was easy to spot. It was the one with the John Murdock-sized SWAT cop pacing back and forth in front of the door. She recognized Trip Jones as a coworker who checked in at her desk every morning before the precinct’s daily roll-call meeting. His wife was Charlotte Mayweather-Jones, stepsister to the rape victim they’d come to interview. Normally Trip greeted Maggie with a friendly smile.

But there were no smiles for any of them as they approached. “Detective Montgomery. Nick. Dr. Kilpatrick. Sarge.” Trip shook hands with each of them. “So this is the new task force?”

“Officer Jones,” Spencer acknowledged for all of them. He pulled back the front of his suit jacket to splay his hands at his waist. “How is she?”

Trip shook his head and shrugged. “It’s not good. I’m afraid to go in there. I could tell I made her nervous.”

“Did she say you remind her of her attacker?” Spencer asked.

“She didn’t say anything to me. I guess I can be kind of scary when I’m in the mood to wrap my hands around the neck of the bastard who did this.”

Dr. Kilpatrick squeezed his arm in reassurance. “That’s an understandable reaction, on both your parts. I’m sure that somewhere inside she appreciates you being here for her.”

“Maybe. This family has been through enough with Charlotte’s kidnapping, the murder of that worthless stepbrother of hers, and now this. I don’t know how much more she can handle.”

The blonde psychologist reached for the door handle. “We’ll be gentle with her, I promise.”

Spencer Montgomery caught the door and followed her in, with his partner right behind them. But when Maggie reached the open door, she stopped. “Wait a minute. We’re
all
going in there?”

“We need to question the victim while the incident is still fresh in her mind.” Detective Montgomery looked faintly annoyed at having to stop and explain his actions when he faced her.

Maggie shivered with the memory of when
she’d
been the woman lying in that hospital bed. “Her mind’s probably still in shock right now. And to see a crowd of armed police officers storm into her room—”

“We’re hardly storming,” Spencer argued in a hushed tone.

“We’re not the bad guys here,” Nick Fensom echoed.

Maggie looked over her shoulder to share a rueful glance that included Trip, as well. “Right now, in her mind, pretty much everybody’s a bad guy.”

A tremulous voice from the other side of the privacy curtain silenced the standoff. “Don’t touch me.”

Maggie had never met Kansas City socialite Bailey Austin, but she recognized the tenor of a woman fighting to hold on to normalcy and civility, and failing miserably.

A man’s voice shushed her. “Sweetie, I’m just so worried—”

“I know.”

“This doesn’t change how much I love you, how much I want to still marry you. Tell me what you need.” Frustration colored his voice. “Anything.”

“Bailey, dear, Harper loves you.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t… I don’t want to talk about the wedding right now, okay?”

“Loretta, dear.” That was an older gentleman’s voice. Probably Bailey’s stepfather.

“No.” Loretta Austin-Mayweather’s shrill voice took care of any need to be secretive about KCPD’s arrival. “I’m going to make everything okay for my daughter. She’s going to get married. She’s going to have her happily ever after.”

“Dear—”

“I just want everything to be the way it was before this happened.”

“They’re ganging up on her.” Maggie whispered the thought out loud.

Nick Fensom’s blue eyes narrowed at the observation. “They’re family.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re not listening to what she needs right now.”

Spencer was shaking his head as the conversation on the other side of the curtain escalated toward an argument. “We need to talk to her alone if we can. I don’t want anybody else’s well-intentioned comfort or defense of her to shut her down and keep her from talking, or taint whatever details she can recall.”

Nick nodded his agreement. “She may not feel comfortable sharing some of the grittier details in front of her family, anyway.”

“Divide and conquer, then.” Kate Kilpatrick adjusted her fingers around the strap of her bag and headed for the curtain. She pulled the curtain aside to announce their presence and reveal a tableau of startled friends and family gathered around the bed. “Mrs. Mayweather?” Kate extended her hand to the beautiful blonde woman with the red-rimmed eyes. “I’m Dr. Kilpatrick from KCPD. I’m so sorry this happened to Bailey. As a mother I understand the grief and rage and helplessness you feel at seeing your child harmed.” Dr. Kilpatrick had children? She’d never mentioned them. Maggie had never even seen a picture of any family in the psychologist’s office. But the moment of surprise passed as the psychologist smoothly manipulated the startled family members. “I have some experience counseling the families of victims. Why don’t you and I go out to the lobby and talk for a bit.”

Loretta Austin-Mayweather latched on to the sleeve of her husband’s suit coat. “I want to be with my baby.”

Jackson Mayweather turned his shrewd eyes to Dr. Kilpatrick. “You can calm her down?” The police psychologist nodded, then he patted his wife’s hand. “Loretta, I promise we won’t go that far. But I think we should talk to the doctor.”

Wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulders, the Mayweather patriarch guided her out the door behind the psychologist.

Maggie stepped aside, marveling at the smooth teamwork of the task force members. Nick Fensom said something to Trip’s wife, Charlotte, about the red jacket of the certified therapy dog sitting at her feet, and soon the detective was escorting them out the door to join Trip.

But a tall, golden-haired man in a suit maintained his position at Bailey Austin’s side. Her fiancé, Harper Pierce, according to an article she’d read in the Kansas City society pages, glared at Detective Montgomery. “You again? Didn’t you torment this family enough when you kept harassing us with questions about the Rich Girl Killer?”

“I got the job done, didn’t I? We got our man.” Spencer’s gaze settled for a moment on the bruised face of the young woman in the bed. “We’ll get this guy, too.”

The one blue eye that wasn’t swollen shut blinked open to meet the detective’s curiously blank expression. But just as quickly, Bailey closed her eye and turned onto her side, hiding her face toward the blinds at the window.

“You see?” Harper Pierce taunted. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

With his focus squarely back on the hostile fiancé, Detective Montgomery pulled back the front of his jacket, subtly displaying his badge, his gun and his authority to the other man. “You’re with me, Pierce. If you truly want to help Miss Austin, that is. Because you were one of the last people to see her that night, I’d like to ask you some questions about the time and events leading up to your fiancée’s abduction.”

“Bailey needs me here.”

“Go.” Snatching her shoulder away from Harper’s outstretched fingers, Bailey curled into a ball, making it clear that his touch might be the last thing she needed right now. “Please, Harper.”

Several moments of silence passed before it fully registered that Maggie was alone in the room with the victim. She shifted on her feet in the shadows beside the door, wondering if she should excuse herself to go observe the interviews or just slip quietly out of the room.

But Bailey Austin’s soft voice called to her before Maggie could decide. “You can sit if you want.”

Maggie glanced back at the door, then over to the chair and rolling stool beside Bailey’s bed. Maybe the young woman was one of those high-society trophy wives-to-be who’d been raised to have impeccable manners—under any circumstance.

But no woman in Bailey Austin’s condition needed to be worrying about Maggie Wheeler’s feelings right now.

“You need your rest.” Maggie thanked her and backed toward the door.

“You don’t have to go.”

The other woman’s voice sounded small, almost devoid of inflection, stopping Maggie’s retreat.

She recognized the bleak sound of isolation, the belief that no one could ever truly understand what she’d been through. Maggie’s eyes burned with tears of empathy. But she blinked them away, refusing to let another victim feel the utter loneliness and drifting sense of loss she’d endured. Opening up her well-guarded heart, Maggie crossed the room and took a seat on the creaking vinyl stool.

“Your family will be back soon. Or, if you don’t want them here, I’m sure your brother-in-law Trip could make that happen.” She talked to the gap in the gown between Bailey’s shoulder blades. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You’re probably not ready to hear this right now, but I can recommend a victims’ group and a therapist who specializes in counseling sexual assault victims.”

The younger woman rolled onto her back, turning her puffy face to Maggie. “Were you attacked, too?”

Maggie nodded, going to that matter-of-fact place in her head where she could discuss such things. “January sixteenth—ten years ago.”