Shades of Desire (5 page)

He waited, impatiently it seemed by the tense lines of his body.

She struggled for a way to make him understand that she wasn’t a quitter. That even though she’d known it was coming, she’d still been taken off guard. “I was told when I was seventeen I had a fifty percent chance of suffering retinal degeneration the same way my mother had. That in all likelihood I’d go blind before I was thirty. It could happen suddenly. At any time. Or it could happen slowly, not reaching its height until I was sixty. For me, it was triggered almost two months ago. It was slow at first, then started speeding up. Every day I lost more and more vision. Even then I thought I had some time to adjust, to…” To get used to the idea that she’d soon lose the ability to do the things she’d loved most.

Even love was too weak a word for how she’d felt about her career. For her, taking pictures satisfied a deep need. It filled her up and gave her energy the way caffeine or alcohol or even drugs did for other people. She was still going through withdrawals without it. “But one day it was just gone. Thankfully, it improved a few days later. Not by much. I still barely see anything. But something…”

She lifted a shaky hand to her forehead. Why was she telling him all that? Why, when it didn’t matter? All that mattered was letting him do his job and then returning to what relative peace she had left. “I’m—I’m not feeling well. If you need to ask me anything else, please do it, but then I’d really like you—you both to leave. Please.”

This time, Agent McKenzie didn’t answer her. “We’re sorry to have bothered you, ma’am,” the other man, Jase Tyler, drawled, the pity she’d wanted so desperately to avoid clear in his voice. “Any more questions, Mac?”

The man’s question had a definite air of sarcasm to it. She waited, her shoulders stiff but her chin still held high.

“You live alone here?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to ask someone to stay with you?”

“Why would I do that? I thought criminals rarely return to the scene of a crime.”

“Rarity isn’t impossibility. I’d think you’d at least be a little scared. Are you?”

Of course she was scared, but she refused to show it. “If I wasn’t blind, would you be asking me that question?”

His hesitation was her answer, and she wasn’t surprised.

“We’ll leave our business cards with our cell numbers on the dining room table if you need to reach us. I’m assuming someone can help you—um, that is, I know you can’t read, but—”

“I can get in touch with you. If necessary, dialing 411 shouldn’t strain me too much.” Now it was her sarcasm that laced the air.

He hesitated for several seconds, just enough time for her to feel cranky and childish. “Then I think we’re done here,” Agent McKenzie finally said. “For now.”

* * *

J
ASE
BROKE
THE
SILENCE
as soon as they stepped out onto the porch. He shook his head and laughed softly. Almost mockingly. “I tried to tell you.”

Mac froze and struggled to hide his embarrassment. “So you figured out she was blind before I did. And?”

“And nothing. Officer Munoz obviously missed it, too. Plus, my sister’s best friend is blind, so I spot it more easily. But you were too rough on her, Mac.”

Mac’s brows shot up. He’d sensed Jase’s protective demeanor the longer he’d questioned Natalie, but the fact that the other man chastised him about his interviewing technique was out of line, not to mention uncharacteristic. Jase was well aware that cops had different methods for questioning witnesses, and while Mac might have been aggressive, he hadn’t been inappropriate—not outside his own mind, anyway.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Jase had suddenly donned his coat of armor. “Would you be saying that if she wasn’t blind? Or was it her rack that made the biggest impression on you?”

Jase opened his mouth, then shut it. He shifted uncomfortably.

Mac bit back a retort. Hell, he couldn’t blame him. The guy had a pulse, after all. Of course he’d been attracted to her.
He,
however, hadn’t let it affect the job. Mac had.

Had
he been too rough on her? Because of the attraction he’d been fighting? Because he’d been shocked to learn about her blindness? He didn’t want to accept he’d made her uncomfortable because of his ego or libido but… For a moment there, when he’d squatted in front of her, he’d stared into her eyes and sworn she could see him. Every. Single. Part. Of. Him.

And the curious thing was that he hadn’t cared. Hadn’t wanted to run or hide.

Instead, he’d had the crazy urge to take off his clothes and let her see more. And he’d wanted to strip her naked, as well. Make her show him who
she
was. Make her open up to him. Literally.

One second he’d been interviewing a witness in a murder investigation and the next he’d pinned his sights on her, not as his prey, but still as his target. He’d felt a primitive hunger infuse him. A sense of possession. He’d wanted to throw her over his shoulder, away from Jase and the entire world, and carry her into the bedroom, lock the door, and spread her out on a bed. Then he’d wanted to explore every inch of her from top to bottom, figuring out exactly where she liked to be touched, for how hard and for how long.

Muffling a curse, he sensed Jase staring at him and bit out, “Sorry you didn’t like my technique, but I’m through coddling needy women. Blind or not, whether she knows it or not, she might know something that can help us. So I’ll be back. And if you don’t like how I do things, you can damn well stay behind.”

He stalked to the car and hesitated before he got in. A quiver of sensation ruffled his neck, causing him to take a quick glance around. The neighborhood was well kept but quiet. Officer Munoz and Detective Carillo had assured him that the neighbors had been interviewed and shown both Lindsay’s and Alex’s pictures. Even though no one had seen anything yesterday, he wondered if the neighbors ever thought to check in on Natalie. Whether they’d tried to befriend her and she’d rejected their attempts.

From what little he knew about her, she’d likely view a well-meaning gesture as pity, and in many cases she’d probably be right. It was difficult not to feel pity based solely on her situation. Still, she was overlooking one thing. Once someone stood in front of her, talked to her, spent any time with her at all, it was equally difficult not to realize that the woman was extraordinary. Probably the only person that needed to be reminded of that was her.

With a final glance around, he climbed into the car, barely giving Jase time to do the same before he sped away. Their conversation during the two-hour drive back to SIG Headquarters, located within a separate city building next to the San Francisco Police Department, was nonexistent. They immediately went their separate ways once they arrived.

Mac didn’t verbalize his snide thoughts by telling Jase to have a good time on his date. When he got to his office, he shut the door. That was a benefit of being a supervisor—he didn’t have to share a cubicle with the rest of the agents in the detective pit. His computer monitor was still logged on to Natalie’s website. He navigated to her bio page and the professional photograph posted there.

It was strange seeing her all made up, her hair curled, her lashes layered with makeup so they looked smoky and even longer than they had in person. It was also hard to believe those eyes were nothing but window dressing.

What he’d felt when he’d taken her arm, what he’d felt as he talked to her, was unlike anything he’d ever felt with a woman before, not to mention a woman he was supposed to be interviewing for a case. He’d never met someone—not even his wife—who could distract him from the job. Of course, that was the reason he’d never truly been able to meet a woman’s expectations out of bed, never been able to meet her emotional needs. Sure, it was a common failing among men, especially cops, but Mac’s failure rate in that regard was definitely noteworthy. It was also the reason he’d sworn to keep his relationships with women brief, uncomplicated and emotionally uninvolved.

Frankly, he hated failing. At anything.

Natalie’s needs obviously exceeded those of the average woman. Had his dick cared? No. Quite the opposite. She’d hardly tried to draw his attention, but her prickly demeanor and the body underneath her sweat-stained gym clothes had still made him ache. And that had been
before
he’d found out she was blind.

Her vision or lack of it shouldn’t have made a bit of difference—it should have been a major turn-off actually—but the minute he’d realized she was blind he’d been hit by compassion, admiration and—as much as he wanted to deny it—a spike in lust that had made him dizzy.

Her blindness wasn’t the reason he wanted her, but it added another dimension, a pinch of intensity to the arousal he’d felt the moment he’d seen her picture on her website.

Need saw need.

She was clearly in need of human contact, of human connection, of a man’s touch to make her remember that she was a passionate, attractive woman. His primal urges howled to be that man.

To compensate for them, he forced himself to rerun their conversation in his mind. What she’d told him about taking a professional break due to her vision loss made sense. That didn’t change the fact she’d lied to Officer Munoz about her blindness. Granted, it had been a lie of omission, one understandable given her need for privacy, but she’d still lied. Hell, she would have let Mac walk out of her house without telling him about her blindness, either. If he was going to stop the man who’d left those bruises and finger marks on her skin, he needed to know
everything
she knew.

He also had to consider something else.

As ludicrous as it seemed, as much as it went against his instincts, could Natalie have had anything to do with Lindsay’s murder? Had she worked with someone? Perhaps even Alex Hanes?

A man who’d then turned on her?

Mac didn’t know the answer to any of those questions, but he wasn’t going to rest until he did. Natalie was merely a piece in a puzzle, not a prize to be won, not a woman to rescue and certainly not a female to fuck.

With a scowl and an abrupt click of his mouse, he wiped her photo off his computer screen. In the back of his mind, however, he knew getting her out of his head wasn’t going to be quite so easy.

CHAPTER SIX

A
LEX
H
ANES
HAD
GIVEN
himself to God.

After almost three decades of fucking up and being fucked over, he’d left prison a changed man. He’d thought the church would keep him far from temptation, or at least help guide him away from it, but instead it was his very past the church needed. He had sinned, but for a grander purpose. All those years of misery, for himself and his victims, had been designed to train him, like a boy being molded into a warrior, so that he could do what was needed to spread God’s word.

Outwardly, he’d never hesitated—doing so would have made him appear weak, and the weak were quickly preyed on—but inwardly he’d never been sure if he’d been doing the right thing. Taking the path in life that he really was meant to.

He’d thought Lauren—although now he knew from the news reports that her real name had been Lindsay—had been an accident. At least, that’s what He’d told him. But now Alex knew there were no accidents. God was everywhere, in everything. In his children, no matter how small. The church, however, was the only way God could reach his disciples, and, as such, it was the church, much like the gates of heaven themselves, that needed to be protected and guarded, barricaded and secured and fortified, both from the human heathens and unholy demons that sought to tear them down. When he’d seen the photographs in the paper, a threat to everything He stood for, and confirmed there were more, he’d known what he had to do.

He was part of Him. His conscience and protector. His Savior. He’d spoken to Alex throughout his life, even before he’d exited his mother’s womb, but Alex had ignored Him. Pushed Him away. But no longer. Now he would trust and do what he needed to be granted passage through the very gates he now guarded. He had to be watchful. Smart but bold.

From his position across the street from Natalie Jones’s home, Alex studied the two men standing on her porch.

Things had just taken a major turn for the worse.

Even though he tried not to dwell on that or think about his chances of failure, it was hard not to. After all, he’d never been able to outsmart the police in the past. Eventually, they’d always caught up with him, and these men in particular seemed ruthlessly efficient. Especially the less pretty of the two. He moved with a restless energy, his eyes ever watchful and drifting more than once down the street in Alex’s general direction.

Of course, the cop had no idea he was there, but the man’s sheer intensity was enough to cause a frisson of doubt to play up his spine. This one wouldn’t be as easily evaded as the local police. He had experience. Higher training. Hell, maybe he was even FBI or CIA. The kind of cop that wouldn’t be called in to handle a simple residential burglary, even one where the victim had been assaulted.

That meant they were investigating something bigger. Something like Lindsay’s murder. A whimper of fear escaped him. Fear for himself, but also for Him. His brother. His church. His family.

But Alex reminded himself he was part of a far more powerful organization, one that grew every day and one whose purpose was not just ensuring the domestic safety of the nation, but the eternal salvation of every soul on earth. Given His support, Alex would outsmart the police, and he’d start by staying close to the woman until he had his chance to get to her.

Lucky for him, Plainville’s real estate market, just like most cities in the United States, had been hit hard by the spiraling economy. After failing to subdue the woman yesterday, he’d managed to find a house that was being foreclosed on just down the street and across from hers. Its owners had abandoned the property, and although it had looked respectable from the outside, the inside was trashed.

There were still dirty dishes in the sink. Stains on the carpets. Crap everywhere. It was disgusting to see how people lived or, even if they lived well, how they chose to leave a former residence. Even when he’d been in prison, Alex had kept his cell clean. Respectable. And he’d left it that way on the day he’d been released. No F-you to the guards by smearing his own feces on the wall or pissing on the sheets. Even if he wasn’t afraid it would delay his release, he had more pride than that. More hope. He wasn’t an animal. Not anymore. Not now that he’d given his life over to Him.

Alex stared at the paper on which he’d written His missive days before.

Natalie Jones.

Her name shot up at him like the flames of hell.

All he was supposed to do was get copies of the pictures she’d taken at the farmers’ market that day. Make sure none of them showed Lindsay or the man she’d been walking with. It was obvious from the sequence of photos he
had
copied, however, that she’d been trailing right behind them, closing in on them, increasing the chances she’d actually caught them on camera. She might even remember seeing them. Assuming they’d asked her the right questions, she might already have described what she’d seen to the police or shown them one of the photos he hadn’t managed to copy.

But he didn’t know. Didn’t know her or what she knew. Didn’t know what the police knew either. He needed to find out.

And besides…he had to admit, he was curious about her. About the woman who’d managed to fight him off when so many before her hadn’t been able to.

Her house wasn’t what he’d pictured for an artist. He’d expected her décor to be more…well, just
more
. Her walls were a bland white rather than colorful. They were also mostly blank, not peppered with her photographs, enlarged and custom framed in thick wood or sleek metal.

It’s what he’d have done if the place was his.

He’d have made it into a showcase for his talent so the whole world would be forced to see the beauty inside him. The beauty that no one ever seemed to see. But he’d never had the luxury of living someplace so grand, and he’d accepted long ago that his value to others wasn’t in his inner beauty or deepest longings, but in what he was willing to do for them. Even his brother Clemmons had proven that to be true.

Alex had been raised in the projects of Los Angeles by his old man. Initiated early into the gang life. The tattered, hollow-eyed youths who’d made up the gang had become his family but always with a price. He was accepted only after being jumped in. Praised only when he defeated others. Stealing and raping and poisoning his body with chemicals became the standard method for proving his loyalty and gaining approval. He protected them and they protected him the only way they knew how to. With brutal force. He who was the most ruthless ruled the streets and lived to tell about it.

Ironically, it was only in prison that he’d learned there was another way. Only when he was incarcerated that his father told him he had a brother, one his mother had decided to take with her, leaving Alex behind with seemingly no thought or regret. More than anything, that had haunted him. He’d felt slighted by his mother, who was long dead, but held on to hope that once he got out, he’d have a real family at last. So he’d prepared.

He’d gotten educated. Learned to read despite the fact all they’d given him at first was a Bible that talked about a God and His son that Alex had never believed in. But he’d started to believe before too long, and that belief had only magnified tenfold after he learned his brother’s name. It had been his old man’s final gift to him—one grudgingly given after Alex had threatened to tell the police about his illicit side-dealings if he didn’t.

From there, things had just gotten better and better, as if God was enthusiastically answering Alex’s prayers and then some. He’d learned his brother was a man of God. He’d written to him, not really expecting to hear back. A week before his release from prison, his brother had contacted him, offering him support during his transition.

Strangers yet not. Blood bound to a man of God before Alex had ever believed God existed. Everything had seemed to fit together perfectly, as if it was always meant to be.

Alex believed now, and he believed in the power of knowledge to raise not just one’s earthly existence, but one’s eternal soul. Luckily, he not only had his brother to rely on, but a whole church of followers, as well. They’d welcomed him in and that act would not go unrewarded.

Yesterday, when he’d found the woman’s house dark during the middle of the day, he’d used everything he’d learned before prison to get inside. Then, he’d used everything he’d learned
inside
prison about computers to get what he needed.

It had taken him less than five minutes to find the pictures he was looking for and begin copying them onto his flash drive. While he’d waited, he’d browsed through them, searching for familiar faces, noting the sequencing that suggested she might have seen Lindsay after all… . But then she’d come in.

A faint noise nearby caused him to jerk in surprise. He glanced at the screen, which indicated only half of the pictures had been copied.

Come on, come on, he urged. Faster.

He heard the front door opening. Muted voices as a hint of light disturbed the cool darkness around him.

He pressed his lips together to silence his breathing, which suddenly sounded too fast and too harsh.

Copying was sixty-five percent complete.

“Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

Another feminine voice answered the first, but it was too low for Alex to decipher what she was saying.

Copying was seventy-five percent complete.

The door closed, and a moment later, a car engine started and the sound of the motor faded as it was driven away.

Inside, the woman sighed. She walked away from Alex, down the hall, toward the other side of the house.

Copying was eighty-five percent complete.

His muscles went limp, and he barely kept himself from blowing out a sigh of relief. Those very same muscles tightened to stone when he heard her muttering to herself and retracing her steps.

Damn it. No!

Copying was ninety percent complete.

She was getting closer. Closer.

Alex yanked the flash drive out of her computer and swiftly turned the power button on the monitor off so the whole room went dark. He lunged toward the doorway, the only doorway to her office, and stood just inside it, praying she’d bypass the room and move instead into the kitchen. Then he could just slip out and she’d never even know he was here.

But this time, God didn’t answer his prayers.

He deliberately stopped his thoughts. Didn’t want to relive the way he’d hurt her. Instinctively, Alex’s hand rose to the pendant hanging around his neck, but then he remembered it was gone.

He’d cursed himself upon finding Lauren’s pendant missing. He knew it had been foolish, carrying it around with him, but it had also given him much-needed resolve. Given him certainty that what he did served a higher purpose. Even now, despite the fact it could lead police to Lauren and then to him, its absence was a sign that the woman needed him just as much as He needed her. That she’d lost her way.

So he tried to focus on the importance of his mission, instead. Because he hadn’t gotten all the pictures off her computer, he couldn’t rule out what she knew and what she didn’t.

He needed to know more, to question her, to be absolutely sure. He needed to know what the police had wanted and what she’d told them. Yes, heathens and demons would forever be a threat, but it was in assumptions and carelessness that God’s kingdom could be most easily toppled.

He’d take her. Kindly. Softly. It was his duty to show her the light of God and teach her the comfort of eternal salvation.

Just as He’d led Alex onto the holy path, so would Alex lead Natalie Jones.