The lunch rush was slowing down, Paige was selling a clearance nightgown, and Hailey was starting to set up the Thrill Him Tonight plus-size display when Paige’s phone buzzed on the counter. She knew it was Lily before she looked. Checking in on her.
The customer, a blonde whom Paige was pretending to know, said, “All of us are so shocked about what happened to you the other night. It’s all anybody’s been talking about.”
“Really?” Paige swiped the woman’s credit card and keyed in the amount. “Nobody’s talking about Jace?”
“Well, maybe.” The blonde sighed. “I wish I’d been there last night so I could have seen the pictures. It all sounded very exciting. I’m sure you don’t need that kind of excitement, of course. I mean,” she went on hastily when Paige smiled, “the attack part. Oh, dear. Sorry.”
Paige laughed. It still hurt, but it helped. “Yeah. Some excitement is better than others.” She wrapped the nightgown in tissue, set it carefully into a cream-striped Sinful Desires carrier bag, and handed it over. “Here you go.”
“Thanks,” the woman said. “I’ll be back.”
She left, and the store was empty for the moment, so Paige seized her chance and called Lily back. Lily said, “Paige.”
“I’m doing great for your business,” Paige told her sister. “You should see how many women are coming in today just for the news value. And then they see our sale rack. Wait until we make our switch and they all realize what’s actually been going on. That’ll really be something. You’ll have a line out the door.”
“Wait,” Lily said. “Listen.”
It was the tone in her voice. Paige had already grabbed her purse and was out from behind the counter. She told Lily, “Hang up and call 911. I’m on my way.” How hadn’t she realized something was happening? And why hadn’t Lily called Jace? That had been the plan.
She was halfway to the door when Lily said, “It’s not me. Get back in there. Just listen. It’s Jace.”
“What?”
“He didn’t call you?” Lily asked. “See, that’s what I was worried about. Why do you both have to be so tough all the time? He only called me to warn me. Otherwise, he’d have bitten the bullet. Would he even have told you tonight?”
“Lily. What happened? And where is he?” Oh, no. She’d been thinking so much about Lily’s safety, she hadn’t thought nearly enough about Jace’s.
“He’s at home. Somebody trashed his place. And Paige. When you talk to him—remember that he’s just like you. He’s not worried about himself. He’s worried about you.”
Ten minutes later, she was there. No cop car at his cabin. No Tobias. Nothing but Jace’s black truck backed all the way up to the porch and a boarded-over front window on the cabin that matched the one at the shop. And two kitchen chairs, a pile of couch cushions, and a few trash bags stacked neatly in the back of the pickup like it was moving day. Except that it wasn’t anything like that.
By the time Paige had turned the car off, her pulse rate had picked all the way up, and she was having to work to control her breathing. Jace stepped out onto the porch holding two green trash bags, and no matter what Lily had said, Paige couldn’t help it. She was coming in hot.
Jace slung the bags off the porch and into the bed of the truck and said, “Get your hands off your hips and take a breath. It’s fine. I’ve got a plan.”
She didn’t do either. “It is not fine. Why would you say that? Why didn’t you get Tobias back? Lily said you refused. Did you call the cops? What did they say? Tell me they took it seriously this time.”
He regarded her much too calmly. “Which question do you want me to answer first? And do you want to hear, or do you want to fight? What did I say about your hands?”
Oh. They were still on her hips. She relaxed her arms with an effort, heaved some air into her lungs, and said, “OK. I’m calm. OK.”
“Good. And you could give me the rest of that earbashing from down there, or you could come on up here with me.”
She headed up the stairs, and he took her good right hand and helped her. When she got there, she blew out a breath and said, “I was scared for you.”
“I know.” He pulled her in gently, kissed her cheek, rubbed a slow hand over her back, and said, “It’s good to see you, too.”
She needed to stand here a moment longer. Just a moment. “Lily didn’t tell me much. I couldn’t tell if you’d been here when it happened, even. Let me guess. You didn’t want to scare her.”
“Could be.” He kissed her cheek again. “Or could be I didn’t want her to call you. I told her not to. Pity neither of you listen.”
“Yeah, right. Like she’s not going to call me.” Then she looked through the open door and forgot that. Her heart rate picked up again, too. It wasn’t her first crime scene, or her fiftieth. Clearly, though, it was different when you didn’t have any professional distance. She breathed some more, then said, “Well, that’s horrible.”
“Yeah. Crowbar, I’d say.”
She went inside with him and took a look. The pine table was gouged down the middle. How much force had that taken? The thought of that iron bar slamming down like a wrecking ball… it wasn’t doing her one bit of good. One chair stood where three had been, and the couch was missing all of its cushions. “What did they do to the couch?” she asked.
“Had to be a knife.” He still sounded perfectly calm. “A big one. Not an axe, because it was more stabbing than slashing. Killed the cushions, that’s all. They got my laptop, that’s the worst of it, with the crowbar. A laptop can smash into a surprising number of pieces, I discovered.”
Her gaze sharpened on him. “Pieces? How many times were other things smashed?”
“Ah.” He considered her. “More like once each.”
“Personal message. Hitting you where you live.”
“I reckon. I had it backed up online, of course, so no worries. The kitchen was a bit of a mess, though it was more superficial. Nothing like sugar and flour scattered all over the shop.”
“Upstairs?” she asked.
“Come see.”
She did. The bed was devoid of pillows and bedding, and the mattress bore five or six deep gashes, as if somebody had knelt on it and plunged a butcher knife into it over and over again.
Overkill.
“This is the bashing in the head,” she told Jace, working on keeping her heart rate where it ought to be, “not opening the door to the chicken coop. This is like the laptop. It’s rage, and it’s personal. Remember that neat writing on the brick that came through my window? This isn’t the same person. If it’s about my place, and they came after you because they couldn’t get to me, it’s a group effort. Person A and Person B. People like this, though? They don’t play well with others. I don’t think that’s it. Was there a note?”
“No,” Jace said. “Actions speak louder than words, I reckon. I have a law-enforcement question for you. How long did this take? They’d dumped out the drawers as well. Up here, in the bath, in the kitchen. A bit of a mess in every room. And then the crowbar and the knife.”
Her mind was still on that knife being plunged into Jace’s pillow, into the mattress. Into his heart. He waited a second, then said, when she didn’t answer, “I wouldn’t have been lying there. I’m not a heavy sleeper.”
“You were when you were with me.”
“Ah.” He smiled a little. “Call that trust. Odd, isn’t it, as I knew you weren’t who you were pretending to be? Some things, though, your body knows better than your mind. My body would’ve woken me this time, even if they hadn’t smashed my window. On the other hand—surely they would’ve known I’d have woken up. This happened after the meeting, because the cabin was all good when we came by afterwards for my things. If they didn’t know before then that I’d wake up, they had to know after those photos.”
“It wasn’t so much the photos they were focusing on, though,” she said. “It was the speech. Somebody was there. Somebody didn’t like it. A lot. I’m guessing it was the ‘I’m sleeping with her’ part they objected to. To answer your question—it wouldn’t have taken them nearly as long as you’d think. People who are burglarized assume the burglar was there half an hour to make that mess. In reality? Five minutes. In this case, call it a max of ten, because they’re not just dumping everything out looking for the valuables, smash, grab, go. They’re taking the time to wreck the place and leave a more personal message. Still, though—they moved fast. In a rage. There are only a few rooms.”
“Four. Main level, kitchen, bedroom, bath.”
“No garage?”
“No. Which is interesting, as they knew about the garage. They took the ladder when they were here before. They’ve scouted the place.”
“They were afraid you’d come back. Possibly. I’m not sure. A destructive rage like this—I’m not sure how much self-preservation the person was feeling.”
“If they wanted to damage me,” he said, “the garage would’ve been the place. I’ve got heaps of expensive equipment out there. Tools. Riding mower. Probably three times the value of what they wrecked in the house. How much did those chairs of mine cost? A mattress? A laptop? Barely more than my table saw, and nowhere close to that mower.”
“Personal again. Your laptop is your livelihood, and your writing is about as personal as it gets. Your mattress is your life.” The thought was trying to make her shiver. It was a relief to be logical.
“I agree. Next question. Is this still a woman? I haven’t actually served with women, like I said. I know they can shoot, though. I don’t know about a crowbar. It isn’t that heavy. But using this much force?”
She considered that. “It probably wouldn’t be, say, Hailey. She’d get tired. It could be any woman in good shape, though. And adrenaline gives you strength. As you know. What we need to ask is—who was at that meeting last night who could be your stalker? That’s who this is. I need to make some calls, to get some ideas about a profile. But I know enough to say that it’s somebody who’s had contact with you. She’s sought out contact. Where do you go most?”
“The Red Rooster,” he said, “but my waitress there—Hailey’s daughter—wasn’t at the meeting last night. And she hasn’t changed much over the time I’ve been here. She’s a mum, which doesn’t mean anything, but she talks about her kids to the other waitresses from time to time.”
“She cares enough to know that you’re a writer,” Paige felt obliged to point out.
“Human curiosity, I’d say, not obsessive interest. Refills my coffee cup and goes on her way. If she’d wanted to chat me up, she’s had her chance.”
“All right. Where else do you go? The call you got? It was from the pay phone outside the Gas & Go. The guy who owns it cares about me selling, by the way. If he’s your stalker, though, he sure has his murderous nature hidden under a cloak of normality. But is there an attendant there who might have a thing for you?” She realized she’d never told him the specifics about that call. Or asked him about the gas station. How had she not followed this up? Her head was pounding, and her body was trying to shake. Adrenaline, like they’d said. The lingering effects of that concussion. Everything.
He was pulling her down to sit on the ripped mattress. “Hang on,” he said. “I’m going to make you a cup of tea.”
“I don’t need a cup of tea. I need to figure this out.”
“Over a cup of tea,” he said. “Hang on.”
“You are an incredibly bossy man. You’re the one with a destroyed house and a maniac after him.”
“And you’re the one who got hit in the head. I know which is worse. And it’s been mentioned. I like to call it ‘decisive.’ Or ‘commanding,’ maybe. Sounds sexier. Hang on. Cup of tea. With sugar, if I still have any.”
“I don’t use sugar.”
“Shock,” he said. “Aussie. Cup of tea. Hang on.”
By the time he came back holding two mugs, the weak moment had passed. “Last two cups on the shelf,” he said, handing her one. “The rest were broken. I’m going to have to go shopping again. I just went shopping.”
“I thought you’d been here six months.”
“Like I said. I just did it.”
She didn’t address that, since she basically felt the same way. “So,” she said, “where else do you go besides the Red Rooster? It could be a man. We should consider that.”
“The gym,” he said. “Yeah, the gas station, but nobody I really remember there other than the owner. Nobody chatting me up.”
“That trainer,” she said. “She was at the meeting. What’s her name?”
“Kelli. There’s the owner, Jennifer, as well, though she’s never seemed to care about much more than my subscription. On the other hand, she doesn’t seem all that balanced to me. If she has a secret passion for my body and wants to get shot of Lily for financial reasons as well? That would be a double dose of hate.”
“Let me think about that.” She took another sip of her tea and said, “I want to stay here and help you clean up. I want to get you out of here. But I need to get back to the shop, too. And we were going to stay here together, draw attention away from Lily, like the mother bird dragging her wing.” She set the mug down and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, feeling too much like she was dragging her wing. “I told Hailey that I’d be staying with you, like we planned. And you haven’t mentioned the cops or what they said. I should…”
“You don’t have to get me out of here,” he said. “That’s my job. And so is cleaning up. It was Sergeant Worthless who came by. He took it more seriously this time. Tied it to the meeting last night, to somebody wanting to chase you out. And took the opportunity to mention that he’d warned me not to put myself out there like that. All but said I’d put a target on my back. And yours. He mentioned that as well, in case it had escaped me.”
She considered that. “Would he wreck your house for his sister? That would be a very twisted relationship. Or would he look the other way if his sister did it? Much more likely.”
“Possible,” he agreed. “He was calm. If he knew, he hid it well.”
She finished off her tea, stood up, and said, “Right. I’m leaving, and I hope you’re leaving soon, too. I hate you being here. I’m making a call to a professor I know. And I guess we should stay at Lily’s. I don’t like it, though. I don’t like drawing them back to her.”
He stood with her. “I know you don’t. Which is why we aren’t doing it.”
“What are we doing? Wait. That came out wrong.”
“Not sure. I have a mad idea, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to ask Lily.”