Shades of Desire (9 page)

“I’m not mad about my eye anymore. You were scared. I just need to know what you know. What you’ve told the police. Why you’re going to see them again. And whatever happens, I’ll make it quick. God would want me to.”

He wasn’t
mad
? The bastard! The crazy, murderous bastard, using religion to justify the way he hurt others!

Nausea had her closing her eyes and battling not to throw up. She took several deep breaths, then slowly folded out the end of her cane until it was partially extended. Long enough, she hoped, to reach the driver’s seat.

A fraction of light edged into her vision, and she squinted, trying to see him.

She couldn’t. Not even how tall he might be while sitting behind the wheel. She could hear him humming, though.
Humming.

It was “Singing in the Rain.”

“You like Gene Kelly?” she asked even as she thought that was odd for a murderer…wasn’t it?

The car jerked as his foot on the gas did. “Shut up,” he snapped.

No way. “Why? Why did you have to kill Lindsay? She had a family. Someone who loved her.” Somehow, although Agent McKenzie hadn’t said so, Natalie knew someone had loved her.

Again, she thought of her own mother. How she’d longed to be close to her. How her mother had rejected her at every turn even before she’d no longer been given the option of loving anyone again.

Shifting subtly, she touched the cool metal of the door handle against the back of her fingers, judging its location. She leaned against the door, pretending she was scared and sick, resting her face against the coolness of the window glass. She positioned her body so it leaned slightly forward, thinking it would help her land beyond the reach of the vehicle’s spinning tires.

“Abraham had a son and God ordered him to kill that son. Despite his struggles, Abraham knew he had to comply. God’s Word. God’s kingdom. We can’t ask why.”

Abraham? She tried to remember the story about a man ordered to kill the son he adored. What had been the son’s name?

Isaac. Yes, that was right. And if she was remembering correctly, Isaac hadn’t died. “God didn’t let Abraham kill Isaac,” Natalie pointed out.

Unbelievably, the man seemed pleased with her answer. “That’s right. He stopped him. Rewarded him for his obedience. With Lindsay? God would have stopped her death if he’d wanted to. He didn’t. He could give me a sign for you, but He hasn’t done that either. Not yet, anyway, but who knows? We need to talk first. I need to know what you saw. There’s plenty of time.”

Even at his seemingly calm words, his breaths were erratic, as if he was struggling to maintain control.

Her body fell slightly back as he stepped on the gas.

Shit. Now. She had to get out of the car now.

If she could see, she’d have scoped out as soft a landing spot as possible, preferably grass or even dirt. Of course she couldn’t, just as she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t be throwing herself straight into oncoming traffic. But the traffic was what she needed. Witnesses. Help. In a crowd, he wouldn’t stop and come back for her. It would also increase her chances of someone calling for help once they saw she was injured.

She had no doubt she’d be injured. That she might even die. But it would be by her own means, not someone else’s.

“You want a sign?” she asked. With a cry of rage, she swung her cane, putting the force of her desperation behind it. He cried out and the car swerved.

She’d hit him!

“Here’s your sign!” she yelled. Before she could give it another thought, Natalie pulled the car handle, swung the door open hard and flung herself out and forward.

It was probably a blessing she couldn’t see the asphalt coming toward her. The blast of air and noise slamming into her was frightening enough as she curled her body into as tight a ball as possible. Vaguely she heard a distant curse, then screams, but whether they were her own or someone else’s she couldn’t be sure.

The impact took her breath away. All thought went with it. Pain exploded then spiked, then vanished—its absence, not the darkness, was how she recognized she was about to pass out.

Incredibly, her last thought was of sandalwood and citrus.

And the way she’d felt when Agent McKenzie had touched her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

R
UBBING
HIS
HANDS
over his face, Mac was torn between feelings of disappointment, anger and escalating worry. It was just past the hour Natalie had predicted it would take to get to the local police department. He’d already called her cell and home numbers with no answer.

He had no doubt that if she
had
answered, she would have been snippy with him. Again. It seemed to be her go-to mode where he was concerned. When she’d called to tell him her ride had fallen through, his natural instinct had been to offer to pick her up. But she’d responded so poorly to his previous offer of assistance, seeming to take it as a personal affront, that he’d held back. She obviously wanted to prove, either to him or herself, that she was still independent. And she was. She’d been getting along just fine without him.

At least that’s what he kept trying to tell himself. It was just taking her longer to get here than she’d thought. If she’d changed her mind she would have called. If she’d been hurt, someone would have—

His cell phone rang, and he flipped it open. “McKenzie.”

It was Jase. “I’m on my way to Natalie Jones’s house right now.”

He shot to his feet. “What?” he growled, instantly sensing from Jase’s voice that something was wrong.

“She called my cell. Said she was contacted by Lindsay’s murderer.”

Disbelief seized him first, then something close to panic. “That’s impossible. Why would he contact her? How? She told us she doesn’t know—” Mac shook his head to clear it and stop his pointless rambling. “Where was she calling from? What else did she say?”

“Her house and that’s it. She sounded pretty shook up. You said she called an hour ago, right?”

“Yes. To say she was going to be late.” In turn, Jase had said he had something to do and would be back shortly thereafter. If Natalie had encountered trouble, why had she called Jase instead of Mac?

As if he could read Mac’s mind, Jase said, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but she sounded bad, Mac. Shaken. Maybe in shock. And when I mentioned calling you…she tried to talk me out of it. Said I could ask her any questions that needed asking for a report.”

Disbelief. Rage. Appreciation. He wasn’t sure what he felt most, but he felt all of them. Silent understanding passed between them over the line, both professional and personal. “Thanks, Jase. How far are you?”

“I wasn’t too far when she called. I’m pulling up.”

“I’ll be there in less than twenty.”

He hung up and immediately ran for his car. For this trip, Jase had driven his own.

On the drive, he forced himself to catalog what he knew. All the evidence. He’d assumed Lindsay’s murderer had been looking for something specific but that his attack on Natalie had been a result of her coming home and interrupting him. What if he’d wanted to hurt her all along? What if he wasn’t going to give up until he succeeded in killing her?

When Mac arrived at Natalie’s house, Jase immediately opened the door. He motioned to the hallway to his right. “She’s in the sunroom toward the back of the house.”

Mac stepped in and shut the door. “What the hell happened?”

“A man posed as her cab driver. Melissa Callahan was supposed to accompany Natalie to the police station, but never showed. When I arrived, she wanted me to drive her to her friend’s apartment. It took me a while to convince her she needed to stay put. I’ve got an alert out for her friend now, indicating officers are to check her apartment, workplace and relatives and friends for any sign of her. But from what he said to her…” Jase’s expression, if possible, turned even grimmer. “She jumped out of the car. Said she knew it was her only chance.”

Mac sucked in a breath. The possibility of Melissa ending up being another murder victim was disturbing, but right now his focus had to be on Natalie and the fact
she
very well could have died if she hadn’t acted. Again. That was assuming, however, she’d been right about the danger she’d been in and hadn’t just freaked out. It wasn’t unheard of, and it was his job to think of every possibility.

“Have you talked to witnesses? Can anyone confirm whether she was actually in a cab or not?”

“I’ve got some patrol officers over at Artisan Park now. There’s a witness who saw a cab driving away. Natalie landed on a grassy incline that rolled her down into a softball diamond, where bystanders helped her.”

“Did you identify the cab company?”

“Plain Cab Co. She called for a ride at about twelve-fifteen and dispatch says the cab should have been there around twelve-thirty, but they lost contact with the driver, a man who’s worked for the cab company for about ten years. We have his info and are on the lookout for him, as well.”

An hour had already passed since the driver had gone missing. Mac could only hope that wherever he was, he was still alive. “How is she?”

“Rattled, but trying to hide it. Holding it together. Scraped and bruised. She might have a sprained ankle, but otherwise she’s fine. It’s a miracle. At her insistence, no one called 911.”

“Damn it, she should have gone to the hospital. She could have a concussion. Internal bleeding.”

“That’s exactly what I said. She refused. Threatened to kick me out if I kept insisting.”

Mac dragged his hands through his hair. They couldn’t force her to go the hospital so long as she was mentally competent; if they could, damn straight Jase would have already taken her, despite her threats to kick him out. In truth, if Jase really thought Natalie was seriously hurt, he’d have found a way to get her medical attention. The fact he hadn’t done so reassured Mac somewhat, but didn’t erase his need to see her for himself. Cursing, he started toward the room Jase had pointed at, then paused. “Get me copies of the witness statements. Have someone email them to me on my phone. Then check again on the status of her friend.”

“Got it. I have other calls to make, too. Let me know when you’re ready to roll.”

“Have you checked into a safe house?”

Jase shook his head. “My next move. I haven’t talked to her about it to get her consent, but—”

“If we’ve got solid proof the driver was connected to Lindsay, she’s going to a safe house with or without her consent.”

Jase nodded. “Understood.”

Mac walked down the hall, then paused in the doorway of the sunroom. His chest didn’t loosen until he saw her sitting near a round dining table.

With her long yellow skirt, cherry-red top and bare feet, she looked ready to have tea with a good friend—at least, she would have if one of her sleeves wasn’t torn, her arms and legs scraped up, and her lip cut and swollen. His first thought was she’d made some effort to accentuate her natural beauty—because she’d been coming to see him?—but any sense of curiosity or foolish pleasure was swiftly overshadowed by an almost violent wave of anger.

She still had bruises on her face and finger marks on her neck from the earlier attack. That made her newer injuries seem particularly grievous.

In addition to the new abrasions and puffy lip, her right ankle definitely looked swollen and was an angry shade of red; she fussed with a bag of frozen peas against it. She had a doozy of a bruise on her right cheek, and he could still see the old bruises from her fall on the treadmill. Banged up, but what had Jase said?

A miracle. It was true. Mac had been raised Catholic. Despite his skepticism about certain aspects of religion, he still believed in miracles. Something or someone had to have been watching over her for her to have suffered so few injuries. His next thought, however, wasn’t at all Christian-like.

He wanted to kill her attacker.

That someone would attack any female, let alone a blind one, was an abomination. Some asshole had now done it twice. But what he was experiencing wasn’t simply anger at mankind’s general willingness to hurt each other. It was a possessive feeling he barely recognized, one that intensified every time he spotted another cut or bruise on her face or body. The only way he could describe it was a “this time, it’s personal” feeling.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t jibe with his desire to be on his own, answering to no one, meeting his own needs during his personal time, instead of someone else’s.

None of that seemed to matter.

To give him time to get his emotions under control, he switched his attention from her to the room she sat in. It was large and airy, with lots of windows that looked out onto a beautiful garden complete with intricate pathways trimmed with boxwood hedges. It would take a lot to keep it up, and he suspected she must have a gardener.

Unlike the sterility of the house inside, which boasted none of the trinkets or colors most women were fond of, her garden was a lush paradise of textures and every shade of the rainbow. Whimsical benches and figurines peeked around rose bushes and cherry trees. It was, he suspected, far more reflective of Natalie’s true personality. The fact she still paid someone to tend it spoke volumes.

Moving slowly, as if the action pained her, Natalie placed the bag of peas on the table. She lifted her arms to support a makeshift ponytail and sighed. Mac stared at the delicate skin at the side of her throat. The subtle muscles in her arms made him think of the sinuous ripple of a slow-moving river. When she released her hair, it fell like a curtain of silk to her shoulders, and his fingers itched to explore the soft-looking but mussed strands.

“Are you going to stand there much longer, Agent McKenzie?”

His eyes narrowed, more at her calm tone rather than her actual words. But for her slightly visible injuries, no one would guess this woman had jumped out of a moving car to escape a murderer. Just like before, his natural instinct was to poke and prod at her until he rattled that damn composure of hers. This time, however, he didn’t give in to the temptation. She’d been poked at enough for the time being, and he could tell from her coherent, steady speech that she probably didn’t have a concussion. Matching and probably exceeding her neutral tone, he murmured, “Eyes in the back of your head, huh? You forgot to tell us that. How’d you know I wasn’t Jase? Or another officer?” Or a killer?

She shrugged. “Most people aren’t as quiet as they believe. And you don’t breathe like him.” Her last few words sounded a little cross, but then he realized her swollen lip was making it difficult for her to pronounce her words.

Because he suddenly had to wrangle down his renewed anger—anger at her, this time, for refusing medical treatment—he remained silent for several long moments. She didn’t break. Didn’t start babbling nervously the way most people did after a shocking event. Didn’t make another sound, in fact. She seemed content to just sit there. So content that she might as well have pulled out a file and started buffing her nails.

His eyes immediately dropped to her fingers. Her fingernails were clipped short but painted a perfect shell-pink despite the havoc caused to the rest of her body. Understated yet polished, like everything else about her. Once again, even as he was relieved to see for himself that she was okay, he resented the hell out of her composure. It proved how much practice she’d had hiding her true emotions. From the world. From men in general. It pissed him off.

He walked into the room until he stood directly in front of her. “What’s with you not wanting to go to the hospital?”

She turned her face away from him, the action instinctively evasive. “Please. I’ve gotten more bruised up taking a fall mountain biking. I’m fine.”

Her casual dismissal of her injuries was laughable until he remembered she was the same woman who’d traveled the globe and jumped out of an airplane a time or two. “Then you need to take better care of yourself. Let’s go. Jase is still here making some calls. He can—”

“No.”

“Natalie, I’m not joking. You need to be looked at. If you want me to tell the hospital you’re mentally incompetent to make that decision—”

She lurched out of her chair so violently she almost knocked it over. “Don’t you dare! You try that, and my days of cooperating with the police are over, do you hear me? Over.”

Whoa. She’d gone from mulishly calm to blazingly irrational in two seconds. Her breathing was fast and jerky, and she looked ready to run him down on her way out the room. Somewhere in her past, there was a reason for that. He raised his hands in a placating gesture even though she probably wouldn’t be able to see it. “Okay. Take it easy. I’m sorry I said that. I’m just worried about you.”

She sat down as quickly as she’d stood, turning her head toward the light streaming through the windows. “I’m not crazy or incompetent, so don’t ever suggest otherwise.”

Stepping toward her, he said, “Believe me, I’ve got it. But if you won’t go to the hospital…I’m going to check your ankle now.” He crouched down and reached for her.

“You don’t need—”

She hissed when he touched her foot. Instinctively she jerked back.

“Easy,” he murmured. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.” Gently, he rotated her ankle, watching her face carefully. Beneath his hands, her cool skin warmed, echoing the faint pink blush that now covered her neck and cheeks. Although she took a swift breath and crinkled her brow slightly, she didn’t appear to be in a huge amount of pain.

“See? It’s not even sprained. Tomorrow I’ll be running again. As not gracefully as ever.”

He noticed her attempt at humor, might have appreciated it at another time, but right now he couldn’t let go of the image of her diving out of a moving cab.

“Did you walk to the house or did someone carry you?”

“I walked. With guidance. I told you, I’m fine.”

It grated him to concede she was right, but she seemed to be. “I’m going to look into your eyes now. Make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

“Jase already—”

She sucked in a breath when he gently cupped her face in his hands, moving her head so he could look directly into her eyes. Her breathing escalated at the same time he fought to keep his own steady. He stared into those witchy amber-and-green eyes of hers, marveling at the way they seemed simultaneously cool and hot. Just like her. To distract them both, he asked, “Did you lose consciousness at any time?”