Forever Mine (11 page)

Allie changed her shoes, and grabbed a hat and a tube of 45-SPF sunscreen. She pulled back her hair so her ponytail poked through the opening at the back of her billed cap. Then she pulled two chilled bottles of water out of the refrigerator and went downstairs and entered her workroom at the same time Sutter came in from the garage. He wore navy nylon running shorts, running shoes and a loose gray T-shirt imprinted with a bold black logo: BRING IT ON.

Was he using some kind of cop shorthand? In her view, what he brought on was a picture of a man in fantastic shape. Muscles everywhere, sculpting a body that built to shame all of those runty actors who fill a movie screen as if they stood at least six-feet. Allie’s heart pumped out an extra tick.

She set the water bottles on her work table, unscrewed the cap on the sunscreen and squeezed a small amount onto her finger then dabbed it on her face. She spread a thin film on her arms.

“Would you like some?”

She held out the tube, but Sutter looked at it like she’d offered him a squirt of axel grease. She shrugged and dropped the tube into her pocket. Her newly minted partner was apparently
muy simpatico
with the sun’s UV rays. Possibly, he grooved on all kinds of danger.

She gave him a quick covert glance. Over the past six days, during the times they were together, his skin tone hadn’t really registered. Now, she noticed his face had a slightly burnished appearance. Detectives, at least on TV, spent a lot of time at crime scenes outdoors. Possibly, the late-spring sun accounted for his healthy color. Or maybe it was due to genetics. Both of Allie’s parents had fair complexions, and she had followed their genetic code. However, Sutter came by his skin tone, the darkish component bumped him pretty high up on the looks and sexually attractive scale.

“Ready?” He turned toward the door leading into the garage.

“Are you carrying a weapon?”

He raised the back of his shirt, enough to expose a gun snugly tucked into the leather holster now clipped to the waistband of his shorts.

“No matter where or when, I never leave home without one.” He smiled at her over his shoulder. The dimple dented his cheek.

Allie smiled back.

“Not even when you go for a run?”

He gave a barely audible laugh. “What are you afraid of? Did you worry it might go off, and I’ll shoot myself in the …heel?”

Allie’s eyes snapped up and away from Sutter’s shorts. She pressed her teeth together. “Hardly,” she muttered.

“Okay then. Let’s go. We’ll head for the Cliff House and distance ourselves from here. Strictly a protective measure.”

Allie shivered at the reminder of what might eventually await her if Dave slipped through a three-state dragnet. How much longer must she live with the threat of a psychopath hanging over her head? She took a deep breath and grabbed the water bottles.

Sutter led the way into the garage, climbed into his police issue vehicle and leaned over to open the passenger door. She settled in and engaged her seat belt. He pressed the opener, and the garage door slid up with a muted squeal. It reminded Allie to press him into further service and ask him to oil the metal tracks. While he maneuvered the car into the street, he belatedly pulled his safety belt across his chest. A big ticket, except he was on the other side of the law.

He steered the car onto the Great Highway and headed north. Once in the flow of traffic, he reached into the glove compartment and fished around for his sunglasses.

“Keeping cool during the phone call was tough on you,” he said. “You pulled it off like a pro.”

She’d earned another compliment from him, her second in less than a half hour. Third, if she counted the one he’d written on his yellow pad. Allie’s tension eased somewhat, and she wondered what it would take to garner a fourth.

“Yeah, you earned a good citizen’s badge today. Dave’s sticking to his purpose, which is to build a warm relationship with you. All we need is one small slip up from him and…” Sutter helped himself to one of the water bottles Allie had placed in the drink holders. “…the only women he’ll ever connect with again might be a cop, a defense attorney or a judge. Though I doubt he’d hire a woman to defend him. On second thought, maybe he would hire a female attorney. One sitting beside him would suggest a woman need have no fear of him. A judge he’d have no control over.”

He held the wheel and the bottle with his right hand and unscrewed the cap with his left. The car never wiggled an inch. She always waited for a stop sign or light before attempting such a maneuver. He took a long pull from the bottle.

“The first time I spoke with him,” she said, “before I knew he might be a…you know…serial killer…” She forced the words out against her will. “I didn’t think too much about it. The call lasted maybe a couple minutes or so. I never expected to hear from him or Jimmy again. When I did, I wondered what was going on. Unlike Jimmy, Dave sounded educated, like he was an architect or a lawyer or something.” She reached for the other water bottle and unscrewed the cap. “Do the authorities know much about him?”

Sutter swung a quick glance at her then turned his eyes back to the road.

“Some. One night in a bar, he tried to poach another man’s date. The brawl that ensued started with a shove. Dave landed the first punch before a bunch of guys joined the fray. The cops were called and hauled them all in. Jimmy included. Dave claimed to be a law student at the University of Washington, which earned him no concessions at the jail. The hell of it is he was enrolled for two terms. Dropped out three years ago. So far, the educational information, and his connection to those women, is all the information the authorities have on him right now. They’ll let us know what else they come up with.”

“I guess he’s pretty clever.”
Wily
.

“Probably. Although the ones with brains screw up almost as much as the dummies do.”

Allie supposed no one would ever accuse Sutter of being a dummy. From what she’d observed, he came across as alert and intelligent. She had no doubt he took every aspect of his job seriously. Even to anchoring a gun to his running shorts to protect her.

“Do you think Dave and Jimmy are still up in Washington?”

“They disappeared after the bar brawl. They never showed up for their court date. My guess is not.”

“What do you suppose the chances are that the next time he calls he might be in the city?” She shuddered at the thought.

“That’s anyone’s guess. Hard to say unless he phones again and gives his location. Just remember, he’ll never gain entry to your house. Not with either me or Thompson there. I promised to keep you safe, and I never break a promise.” He turned toward her and offered a hint of a smile, enough for the dimple to make another brief appearance—one she’d have missed if she’d blinked.

They approached the Cliff House, and Sutter swung the car into a parking space facing the beach.

Allie showed him a slight smile. Maybe it took the latest call from Dave for her to see Sutter as a human being and not just a Robocop. His comforting tone surprised her, and she appreciated his putting his hardboiled persona on hold, at least for now.

They exited the car and headed for the concrete steps leading down to the huge expanse of Ocean Beach. It was Allie’s favorite running venue even on bleak winter days. Walking toward the ocean, she felt the pull through her leg muscles when her heels sank into the sand. The sun, having grown in intensity, shot silver darts at the water’s surface. White, frothy spray tumbled from the cresting waves. They broke and swirled over the hard-packed sand, creating a bubbly arc along the shoreline.

At the water’s edge, Sutter stopped and pulled his elbows tight across his back. He raised one foot, grasped his ankle from behind and pulled upward until his heel touched his butt. Allie did a few twists then bent and pressed her palms onto the wet sand. Energy flowed slowly back into her body, and she straightened and set off at a trot. Moments later Sutter, his legs pumping in tandem with hers, was at her side. No twenty to twenty-five foot distance that day.

She set the pace, eventually bumping up the trot to a full-fledged jog. Sufficient for her but probably too slack to seriously challenge him. Once, he took her elbow and guided her away from the encroaching surf about to roll over her shoes. Another time, he put his hand on her hip and guided her away from a back-peddling kite-flyer. She saw nothing unnatural or intrusive about him touching her, considering his role of protector.

When Allie’s breath came in ever-shorter bursts, she eased into a lope, slowed and stopped. She took a moment to pull in a deep lungful of air. With her hands on her hips, she gazed out over the ocean to where an oil tanker plied a course far out to sea. Overhead, seagulls clamored. Along the shoreline dogs romped. Surfers sat on their boards waiting for the waves to swell. Her own freedom invigorated her.

She sank down onto the sand and leaned back on her elbows. Sutter lowered himself, keeping his back to the ocean so that he faced her. He parked his left hip and shoulder inches from hers. His elbows rested on bent knees; his eyes roamed the beach as he studied everyone within the arc of his gaze.

The sun warmed her back. Sutter’s presence reassured her. Still, it was impossible not to project into the future.

“How much longer do you suppose you and Detective Thompson will be able to stay in my house? I don’t imagine the police department can spare you indefinitely.”

He shrugged.

“Well, what do you think? You have an opinion about everything else. My situation can’t be unique. There must be some protocol the police follow in cases like mine.”

“The decision will be made by the captain. Not by me.”

“What happens if Jimmy and Dave don’t make it down here pretty soon?” The thought of being alone when the men appeared terrified her.

“They’re the object of a multistate search. The longer they stay out in the open, the greater the chance they’ll be caught.”

“So you’re guessing they’re a lot closer.”

He nodded. “Dave’s purpose is twofold: finding a place far away from Seattle where he can stay off the radar and hunker down a while and…” he paused and glanced away.

“And what?” His obvious reluctance to complete the thought set her alarm bells ringing.

He opened a perfectly tied shoelace, fiddled with it and retied it. “I think you know what.”

There was no necessity to offer a further explanation. Dave was wanted by the police because he killed women. He could be an hour away from her door.

She pressed a fist to her lips, waited until the tension pulling at her stomach subsided. “I don’t understand why he’d risk capture. He could have crossed the Canadian border. He’d have a better chance of evading the authorities.”

“He doesn’t think like the rest of us. He has a certain scenario in his head. Maybe he’s the kind of person who, once he makes a decision, can’t or won’t alter it. By now, he feels emboldened. He thinks he can get away with anything. That doesn’t mean he won’t become careless.”

She dug up a handful of sand and let it sift through her fingers “I hope he’s caught soon. Today, preferably.”

“Same goes for me. I’m as anxious to get this thing over with as you.”

She suspected his anxiety more than tripled hers. “So you can return to your regular routine.”

He dusted sand off his hands and stood. “Come on, we’d better head back.”

He reached down for her.

She looked up at him, hesitant. There was still plenty of daylight. Her house, which she loved above almost everything else, had become a prison and a magnet for a deranged man. At the set expression on his face, she shelved any arguments. She put her hands in his and felt their strength. She suspected he could open a jar with a single twist and haul a suitcase onto a scale at the airport as if it were filled with feathers. Maybe, in time, he’d use those hands to rid the world of a monster.

He pulled her to her feet. They stood facing each other for a lot longer than necessary, bodies not touching but closer than at any other time. The weird thing was, being a sucker for large hands and a rock-solid palm, she felt in no hurry to disengage from him.

They finally turned and headed back to the car, walking at a steady pace. The wind, blowing in from the sea, tousled his hair and billowed under the edge of his T-shirt. She felt small in comparison to his height. He had a broad chest and perfectly proportioned body. His buttocks sensuously rounded and firm invited a lover’s touch. How many women had reached the same conclusion and acted on it?

A familiar tingle, one she hadn’t experienced in too long, spiraled through her. Surprise, no, shock, almost stopped her in her tracks. Instead, in case he noticed something different about her— certainly their leisurely pace didn’t warrant her quickened breath—she covered by walking on at a faster clip.

By the time they reached the car, she was in control of her emotions. He opened the passenger side door, and she slid onto the seat. He slipped in behind the steering wheel, put the key in the ignition but didn’t fire the motor. The water bottles sat in the holders, and he reached for his, tipped his head back and took several long swigs. She uncapped hers and sipped, her gaze on his Adam’s apple as it bobbed in his throat. His firm jaw was only one component that made up a strong facial structure. She had little doubt that women were attracted to him.

Her sudden fascination with Sutter confounded her. If he had any serious flaws, she couldn’t find them. He appeared highly self-confident, and she suspected he was very successful at his job. Did he have a softer side? On rare occasions, she’d caught glimpses. During some of those rare moments, he smiled, hence the occasional sighting of the dimple.

She decided to risk a walk on the personal side.

“Do you mind if I ask what you do when you’re not enforcing the law?”

“This job takes up most of my time.”

“Maybe most, but certainly not all.”

He remained mute.

“Is there a wife waiting for you at home after a long day policing? Or a girlfriend? It must take a certain kind of woman to hook up with a man whose job requires most of his time.”