Seeing Red (33 page)

He didn’t pursue that topic. “You’re all right?”

She nodded. Shame began to creep into the light. Oh, yeah, she was a real kickass woman. She was behaving like a frightened ninny.

“You’re shaking,” Nate said.

“I’m wet. The air-conditioning is on.” She knew that wasn’t the cause.

He was kind enough not to call her on it.

He stroked her wet hair. “Okay,” he said. He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Go get dry. Then you can tell me everything.”

She nodded. But neither of them moved from the embrace.

He held her for a long while, like a gentleman, his hands remaining stationary
and
on the towel. He kept assuring her, in a low, lulling voice, that she was all right, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

And she believed him.

So much so that she began to think of other things . . . like his hands on her bare back.

Now was not the time.

She took a step backward, making certain the towel stayed in place.

“Oh, I’ve soaked your shirt.” She placed a hand on his chest. Were her fingertips lying, or did his heart seem to be beating too fast?

“I’m hot. It’ll cool me off.”

She tried to make a joke. “Not very flattering, standing naked in a man’s arms and having him cool off.”

He gave her a slightly crooked grin. “I didn’t say I was hot when I came in the door.”

She caught her lip between her teeth, for a moment tempted to test and see exactly how hot he was. But that grotesque doll was just feet away, with all of its hideous implications.

She turned away. “I’ll get dressed. Then we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Nate clenched his teeth. What if Alexander had been waiting in here when Ellis had come in? It was a thought too horrible to contemplate.

How had the man gotten in and not tripped the alarm?

Nate realized that he hadn’t asked Ellis the most obvious question—how did she know he’d been here?

Nate prowled from window to window, from entry to sliding door, with his insides twisted like a steel cable.

All of the access points to Ellis’s condo were locked from the inside. All glass was intact. He scouted the windowsills—not that anyone without a very tall ladder could have accessed them. They were clean and unmarked. The sliding glass door had a sturdy safety bar, a good one that couldn’t be flipped up by fishing a coat hanger between the doors.

Ellis’s bedroom window opened onto the balcony too. He’d have to check that one when Ellis was finished changing; not that he hadn’t already had a very nice view of her beautifully curved backside. She’d made him so hot and hard that he’d hardly been able to think.

He blew a long breath to clear his head. He had to keep his mind on deciphering Alexander in order to protect her. Not that he should even
consider
giving in to the carnal urges she set off.

Moments later, Ellis reappeared wearing a pair of jeans and a silky sleeveless top. Her wet hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung down between her shoulder blades.

He caught himself wishing she’d left it down.

“Figure out how he got in?” she asked. The assurance in her voice made him feel grossly inadequate to play his role as hero.

“No. I still want to look at your bedroom window.”

She turned and headed back the way she’d come. “There’s something else in here you need to see.”

He’d spent considerable time over the past days fantasizing about getting them both into this bedroom. This particular scenario had never come to mind.

A lacy pair of black panties lay on the floor next to her bed. He averted his eyes.

She led him to the master bathroom door and motioned for him to go on in. Her posture was stiff. Whatever was in here, she wasn’t anxious to see it again. No doubt Alexander’s calling card.

Nate stepped around her.

There was water all over the tile floor and a bra that matched those panties lying next to the tub.

“In the shower,” she said.

He pushed open the curtain.

“That son of a bitch,” he muttered as he stepped closer to examine the thing hanging from the showerhead.

The doll was nasty in its own right. But what Alexander had done to it . . . Nate’s hands balled into fists so tight his arms trembled. He wanted to reach out and yank it down. Tear it into pieces. But he couldn’t touch it.

The screwdriver was small enough to look proportional to the doll’s size. Alexander had gone to a lot of trouble in his presentation. Nate figured the panties were from Ellis’s drawer. As he looked more closely, it appeared he’d used her dental floss to hang it.

From behind him, Ellis said, “Get rid of it.”

He looked over his shoulder. She still hung in the doorway, looking at everything except the doll.

“You need to call the police. This could be key evidence.”

“I suppose it’s a confession,” she said. “He wants me to know he killed Kimberly Potter.” She still didn’t step into the bathroom.

He shook his head. “The doll has your hair color and green eyes. I’d lay money on those being your panties.” He took her silence as an affirmative. “It’s a threat, and it’s personal.”

“We already know Alexander—”

Nate cut her off. “I’ve been thinking and want you to hear me out before you say anything.”

“All right,” she said, her tone wary.

Nate moved her away from the bathroom. He motioned for her to sit on her bed.

“The roses and note I saw didn’t have anything to name Alexander as the person who left them—no signature, nothing that would definitely ID him. And you said the previous note was equally ambiguous. And now there isn’t a single thing to indicate forced entry. The alarm wasn’t tripped.” He looked into her eyes and could tell she didn’t know where he was heading. “Who has a key and knows your alarm code?”

“Only Mom and Dad.”

“
No one
else?”

“No . . . ” Light dawned in her eyes—actually, more like lightning. She shot to her feet. “Rory did not leave these things!”

Nate didn’t back down. “Take a step back and look at this. First of all, there wasn’t anything threatening in those roses, other than their surreptitious deliveries. You said you’d recently broken up with him. Think about the notes.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, pressing her lips together and shaking her head. “No. No way.”

“Ellis, all I’m trying to do is look with an open mind. We’ve been so focused on Alexander that we never even considered another source. The only reason for Alexander to leave them would be to let you know he’s out there stalking you. Why leave doubt that he was responsible?”

“You already admitted you haven’t figured out his game plan. I’m sure he had his reasons,” she said stubbornly.

Nate had had plenty of experience with lies; he’d become necessarily proficient at spotting them. Ellis might not be lying, but she was suppressing something. Maybe she had already considered Rory might have left the flowers.

Or maybe she still loved him.

“Why would Rory come into my place and leave that . . . that thing?” She gestured toward the bathroom. “Rory is the most gentle soul I’ve ever met. He would never hurt me like that.”

“The alarm, Ellis. How do you explain the alarm?”

“Maybe Alexander is some genius with electronics. I don’t know! But you’re way off thinking Rory had anything to do with this.”

It certainly wasn’t impossible for someone to disable an alarm—a skill that would be valuable to a man like Alexander. But getting it reset . . .

Nate said, “And maybe you’re blind to the truth. Maybe Rory wants you to be afraid enough to run to him.”

“Ridiculous!” She got up and paced around the bedroom. Then she turned her accusing gaze on him. “What about
you
? You’ve seen me disarm that panel. Maybe I should ask you if you put that doll in there? You haven’t been with me at any of the times my little surprises have shown up. Maybe
you
want me to be afraid.”

“Ellis, you don’t believe that.”

She took a step toward him. “Why does that make any less sense than Rory being responsible?”

He simply stared at her, willing her to come to her senses. Of course she defended Rory. He’d been part of her life for years; it wasn’t easy to admit he might do something like this to manipulate her.

After a moment, she broke eye contact and looked out the front window.

Nate stepped close behind her. His hands rose toward her shoulders; then he stopped and let them fall back to his sides. “I’m only suggesting it as a potential scenario. We can’t blind ourselves to possibilities and still get a leg up on Alexander.” He kept his tone soft, just short of apologetic.

Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “There are some things you don’t know yet.” She paused. “And once you hear it, you’ll see why I’m right and that doll is an admission of murder.” Nate assumed she was about to reveal something about her relationship with Rory, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.

She went on but didn’t turn to look at him. “Kimberly Potter was stabbed in the throat
with a screwdriver
.” Turning, she looked at him with a question in her green eyes. “That’s the murder weapon with
your
fingerprints on it.”

For a moment, Nate adjusted his train of thought. “My fingerprints . . . ”

“Yes,
your
fingerprints. How do you explain that?”

It only took him about a half second to figure out where Alexander had gotten his murder weapon. “When I took the boat back, the motor cut out.”

“So you said—and your phone fell in the water.” There was a knifeedge of challenge in her voice.

“The motor did cut out. Which wasn’t unusual; it’s always temperamental. The flashlight was dead, and I couldn’t find the screwdriver. He must have taken it from the boat while it was tied up here; it hadn’t been there at all.”

“You think he planned in that much detail?” she asked.

“I think the man is damned resourceful.”

For a long moment, she stood there with her arms crossed, staring at him from beneath a furrowed brow.

Then she surprised him by saying, “You just said that motor is always temperamental.
Always,
as in you’ve had frequent, recurring experience with it. I thought you hadn’t been here in fifteen years.” Her mouth hardened and her eyes turned suspicious.

He rubbed his forehead. “There’s something else I need to tell you.” He paused. “It’s important that no one else knows.”

She stared at him with glittering eyes and a frown.

“I bought Belle Creek Plantation and the stables from Helaina Von der Embse. I own it. My ownership is buried under so many layers, even if someone knew what they were looking for, it would take a good long time to figure it out. It’s a place separate from my life. I come here when I can, which isn’t often.”

She looked like he’d just slapped her. “Why keep it a secret from everyone?”

He took a step closer to her. “It’s complicated. Mostly because of my work. There are people who’d use the plantation, or the people connected with it, to manipulate me. It’s imperative that I keep myself distanced from that place. I want to be able to come here and not worry about someone sneaking up on me in the night.”

“Sneaking up on you in the night?” She hadn’t moved from her cross-armed stance.

“I don’t live in a pretty world, Ellis.” He was tired of sidestepping, of plying her with lies of omission. But he could not tell her the truth of what he did. Not now. Maybe not ever. “The plantation is the exception. I don’t want those lines to blur.”

“So you sneak in and out of town.” She made it sound even dirtier than it felt.

“Yes,” he admitted, holding her gaze.

“For how long?” she asked, her voice throwing down a gauntlet.

“Seven years last March.”

She turned to the window again.

“Ellis—”

She jerked around and faced him. “You
left
me. Didn’t even say good-bye. Never dropped a note to say you were alive and well. Just disappeared. Do you have any idea what that did to me? Do you know how worry ate my insides?

“And if that wasn’t bad enough, now you tell me you’ve been creeping back into town for
seven years
—seven goddamn years.” She blinked and he saw that her eyes held unshed tears. “I lost sleep. I cried. I thought something awful had happened to you. I lost Laura. And I lost you.”

Her weight shifted rapidly from foot to foot. Her knees flexed to lower her center of gravity. She might not be cognizant of the fact, but her body was getting ready to attack.

In the end, she only poked her index finger at him. “You
know
you could have trusted me with your secret. I kept every other secret for you! I thought we were friends.”

“We were—we
are
—friends.”

“Bullshit!” She took a step forward and pushed against his chest.

How in the hell had the conversation turned into this?