Seeing Red (26 page)

The truth of the matter is, there are other suspects from that original crime who have recently returned to our community.

Let’s all keep our minds and our eyes open. We do not want to lose another young life.

Let us keep both Kimberly and Laura, as well as their families, in our hearts.

Ellis took the paper from his hands and threw it in the trash. “The man is a broken record. No one will listen,” she said with conviction.

Unfortunately, Nate had experience that proved otherwise.

Ellis watched Nate as he readied himself to go “hunting.” He’d been polite and eaten the food she’d set in front of him. But she could tell he had forced his consumption.

He was unloading the black duffel onto her coffee table when he glanced up and caught her staring at him.

“Let me take you to stay with your mom.”

This was an argument they’d already had more than once this evening.

“If you’re hunting for Hollis, I need to be here,” she said, returning his determined gaze. “I won’t take a chance of leading him to my mother.”

“She has protection.”

“Yes, but all of us are safer if I stay here,” Ellis said crossly. When was he going to get it through his head she wasn’t going?

He left what he was doing and walked over to her. Looking down into her eyes, he put his index finger beneath her chin. “Please.”

His nearness was making it difficult to breathe.

Straightening her spine and narrowing her eyes, she said, “I was fine alone last night. I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself.”

When it looked as if he was going to argue, she put a finger against his mouth. She’d intended only to shush him, but she let her finger stay there, resting against the warmth of his lower lip.

“You said it yourself; we have to go on the offensive,” she said softly. “We can’t sit around and wait for him to hurt someone else.” She realized how seductive her voice sounded, even with the not-so-romantic subject matter. She pulled her hand away, cleared her throat, and continued in a no-nonsense tone. “If I suspect he’s here in the complex, I’ll call the police right away—the real police. We have to catch him doing what he isn’t supposed to. You do your part and I’ll do mine.”

He reached down to her side and captured the hand she’d just taken from his lips. Opening it, he brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss in the center of her palm. The look in his eyes was more than obligation, more than concern. He looked almost hungry for her. She’d felt it in his kiss, but that had been a physical need. This hunger shone from his soul. It reached out and touched her own, caressing the core of her vulnerability. And for the first time in her adult life, she didn’t shy away.

Then he said, “You are one amazingly brave woman.”

With a blush of shame, she pulled her hand from his and turned away. “No. I’m not. I’m a coward.”

Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her to face him again. “How can you say that?” Now that steely gaze probed deeply. And this time she flinched.

She looked away. “because I live every night hiding behind locks and alarms. Because I structure my whole life based on my limitations. Because I can’t let go of the fear.” Her throat tightened. “I can’t let go of the guilt. I could have saved her.”

Her eyes snapped back to meet his at the startling impact of what she’d revealed. She wanted a way to recall her words.

But as she continued looking into his eyes, the panic ebbed. Relief flowed into her like the trickle of a pure mountain stream.

For the first time, she’d admitted what her life had become. Everyone saw her as strong, controlled—exactly the image she’d cultivated. The bareassed truth was that she was neither. She’d sold everyone, including herself, a false storefront. And people had let her hide behind that façade, because they felt sorry for her.

Nate captured her hands and placed her palms over his heart. He seemed to understand the significance of this moment for her, and he waited in silence. She was so glad he hadn’t come back with a contradiction, with manufactured excuses for her.

Blinking away tears, she said, “How could I
not
have heard? I was
right there,
less than four feet from her. I heard other things. I heard Alexander when he was cutting back to the road. Why didn’t I wake up and help her?”

Tears now flowed down her face.

Nate kept her hands pressed against his chest when he leaned close and kissed the wet trail on her cheek. He whispered against her skin, “I don’t know why.” He kissed her cheek again, near her ear. “But I do understand how you feel. I failed her too.”

Ellis leaned her forehead against his shoulder and, for the first time in years, allowed herself to cry from the center of her aching soul.

He released her hands and wrapped his arms around her. He held her tight, rubbing her back, but he never tried to halt her tears.

After a while, she cried herself out. She lifted her face from his shoulder and looked up with a sniff. Framing his face in her hands, she said, “Thank you.”

His own eyes looked misted when he replied, “Better?”

She managed a smile. “Not as good as I’m gonna be when we catch him.”

Nate smiled back, the scar at the corner of his eye crinkling.

She traced it with the tip of her finger. “I don’t remember this,” she said.

“I got it in the marines. Wasn’t enough to earn a medal . . . ” He winked and took a step away. “Let’s catch us a bad guy.”

“Let’s.” She graciously accepted his back-to-business turn.

Nate rubbed the tracks of her tears dry with the pads of his thumbs. Then he kissed her forehead and headed back to the black duffel. The moment had passed. The warrior had returned.

“I’m going to trade the Hummer for Jake’s truck—less conspicuous.”

He started laying his gear out on her coffee table. His face bore a look of steely concentration, his eyes so distant that it gave her a little shiver.

Ellis looked at the equipment. There were a pair of nightvision goggles (she recognized them from TV), a couple of gadgets she couldn’t begin to identify, a belt with pockets and hooks, and a knife sheathed in leather.

He had two magazine clips that he loaded from a box of ammunition. Ellis flinched at every click as each bullet snapped into place.

It looked like he was heading to a shootout.

“You really need all that?” she asked.

His hands continued their deadly task as he gave her a cold, quick glance. “You don’t go hunting underarmed.” His voice was so matter-of-fact that she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

She wondered about this job of his. What kind of stuff was he responsible for protecting—and from who?

When he pulled out his handgun, she averted her eyes. It was a monster that made her little revolver look like a child’s toy.

As she watched Nate strap on the belt and holster the gun, the thing that struck her was what he
wasn’t
taking with him.

“Don’t you have handcuffs in your bag of tricks there?” she finally asked. “How are you going to deliver him to the police?”

His gaze snapped up. The truth was written in his eyes before he uttered the lie. “I’ll pick up some plastic wire ties.”

She should have called him on it. She should have insisted he promise that Hollis Alexander would be delivered in one unharmed piece to the police for the justice system to do its work.

But she kept her mouth shut.

With Nate’s connections, it hadn’t been difficult to find out where Alexander worked. A quick call to Heidi’s House of Hounds confirmed his work hours. Nate parked Jake’s truck across the street from the kennel just before seven. There were only two vehicles left in the lot at Heidi’s—a newish bright red crew-cab pickup and an old light blue cargo minivan with rust craters around the wheel wells and at the base of the rear doors. It didn’t take a genius to figure out which one was Alexander’s.

Ten minutes later, Alexander emerged and got into the van.

Nate followed him to the halfway house, slightly disappointed that the man had gone straight home. But the night was young, still early for slime like Alexander to crawl out from under his rock and engage in his perverted pursuits.

If Nate was very lucky, he’d catch the man in the act of something that violated his parole. If he was luckier, Alexander would give him a good reason to shoot him.

Sometimes Nate wished he was a baser human being, a man like so many of those he dealt with in his job—a man with no conscience. Then he wouldn’t hesitate to blow Alexander away on general principle alone. But he wasn’t a man without the burden of a conscience. Besides, such an action would screw him right out of his job. He had a lot of leeway, but hunting Alexander down and shooting him without provocation would definitely cross the line. Nate would be done. Forever.

No matter how frustrating, he had to get Alexander back behind bars using the proper channels—or shoot him in the act of a crime.

Thirty minutes later, Alexander came out of the halfway house. His hair was wet and he’d changed his clothes.

He got in the old van and pulled away.

Following at a safe distance, Nate’s nerves started to thrum with anticipation.
Come on, man, do something corrupt.

He was on high alert when Alexander parked on a residential street and got out.

Peek in one window.
Nate turned on his camera and entered 911 into his cell phone. He was ready.

Disappointment dampened his enthusiasm when Alexander walked up to the front door of the largest house on the block and rang the doorbell.

He was quickly let in.

Nate hunkered down to wait.

Within a half hour, it was fully dark. Nate got out of the truck and walked closer to the house. Every room on the first floor was lit, making it easy to see inside. The room facing the street, what appeared to be a formal living room, was empty. He crept along the tall hedges that lined the property at the side of the house.

A brick walkway lay between the hedge on Nate’s right and the house. About fifteen feet from the front of the house was a set of narrow steps that led to an exterior basement door.

Nate moved deeper into the narrow lot.

He finally found Alexander. He was seated at the dining room table with a woman who looked old enough to be his mother. But Alexander’s mother was long dead.

A relative?

Nate’s research hadn’t turned up any, other than a sister in Sumter who had disowned Alexander long before he attacked Laura. She’d been Nate’s first call when he’d learned Alexander had been paroled. She hadn’t sounded happy to hear her brother had been released.

Nate studied the two in the dining room for a moment. It seemed aboveboard, nothing more than a friendly dinner.

Returning to the truck, he jotted down the address. He’d find out who this woman was and how she was associated with Alexander.

It was after eleven when Alexander emerged through the front door. He waited on the front walk as the lights on the first floor went out. Then he walked around the side of the house.

Nate started the truck and inched forward with the lights off. Using the night-vision goggles, he saw Alexander descend the steps and let himself into the basement door.

“What are you up to?” Nate whispered.

This could be it.

Nate was just getting out of the truck to get closer when Alexander reemerged and locked the door behind him.

He hurried to his van, got in, and drove away.

Nate followed at a discreet distance.

Alexander drove directly to the halfway house.

The residence had only one entrance at the front for normal use. The others were emergency exits wired with alarms. If Alexander left again, he’d have to come back out that front door.

Dawn colored the sky violet, then pink, and Nate was still sitting there waiting.

Alexander was scheduled to work from eleven to seven. His employer was to call and report to Alexander’s parole officer if he didn’t show up to work. No sense in sitting here any longer.

He stretched the kinks out of his neck and rubbed his eyes. Then he started the truck.

“I
am
gonna get you,” he muttered as he drove away, back to Belle Island.

Back to Ellis.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

H
ollis cleared his throat, then made a couple of practice passes at his excuse. Once he was happy with his performance, he dialed the number for Heidi’s House of Hounds.

“Hello, this is Heidi.”

“Hello,” he said in a rasping croak, “this is Hollis. I’m sick and won’t be in today. Got a fever and all.”

“Oh, poor dear.” Heidi’s sympathy was no surprise. He couldn’t believe his luck in finding this particular employer. “You just take care of yourself and get well, y’hear?”