Tailspin (20 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Goddard
It was too easy to visualize exactly what had happened. He frowned with concern. “How did you get away?”
She sent him an exasperated look. “I did pass self-defense training, you know. I finally caught him a good one in the kneecap, enough at least to make him loosen his grip. That was all I needed to break away from him.”
“Then what happened?”
“He kept coming after me,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Griff swallowed hard, wondering what the assailant had intended. A physical beating? Or worse, a sexual assault?
Neither option was at all acceptable.
“Do you have time to go and look through old files now?” he asked, driven by the need to find out just who this guy was. The sooner they had a suspect, the sooner they could slap cuffs on him and drag him into custody. “We can also review the known assailants of women who you've recently taken to the shelter, see if anyone looks at all familiar.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I probably won't get much sleep anyway.”
He caught a glimpse of the open scratches on her hand. “Wait a minute. What did those come from?”
She glanced down at her hand and smirked. “I managed to catch him in the mouth with my fist. Too badâI was aiming for his nose.”
Griff almost smiled at her wry sense of humor. Jenna was tough; he knew that better than anyone. But it still bothered him to see her get hurt. “That settles it. We need to go to the hospital, see if there's any DNA evidence we can use.”
She nodded, adjusting the frozen peas against her jaw. “You're right. It's worth a shot.”
“Wrap your hand in a brown paper bag to preserve the evidence, and I'll drive you to the hospital,” he said, glad to take some sort of action. He was determined to find this jerk, no matter what it took.
“Okay, okay, give me a sec.” She turned and set down the peas to rifle through a junk drawer, finally coming up with a badly wrinkled brown lunch bag and a roll of tape. She stuck her hand inside the bag and awkwardly wrapped the tape around her wrist to hold the bag in place. Then she grabbed her makeshift ice pack with her free hand. “Okay, I'm ready.”
He nodded and stepped to the side so she could precede him out of the kitchen. He followed her to the front door, where she stopped abruptly.
“Hang on a sec,” she said, removing the frozen peas from her jaw to reach out for the light switch. She flipped one lever on and off several times, then pushed past him to head outside.
“What's wrong?” he asked when she craned her neck in an attempt to see something overhead.
“I need to see inside the light fixture.” She glanced back at him. “Aim the screen of your phone up there.”
He did as she asked, as understanding dawned. “Something wrong with the light?”
“I noticed my porch light was out when I drove up,” she confessed. “Looks as if someone removed the lightbulb.”
It took a minute for her statement to sink into his brain. “You mean on purpose?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I guess you were right. This obviously wasn't a random event. This was a premeditated, personal attack.”
The hint of fear in her blue eyes stabbed deep. This was one time he wished his instincts hadn't been right.
Maybe they'd catch a break with the DNA, but he wasn't banking on it. The real problem would be trying to find a way to keep Jenna safe while she continued to do her job as a SWAT team member.
An impossible task, at best.
“Wait a minute. What's that?” Jenna asked with a frown. She bent down next to the porch, tucking the peas under her arm so she could lift something out of the dirt. She stood and held up what looked to be a shiny bracelet.
“Is that yours?” he asked, when she simply stared at it with a troubled expression in her eyes.
“Shine your phone on it,” she said in a hoarse tone.
He did as she asked. She peered at the item of jewelry. From what he could tell, it was a silver chain with a small heart-shaped charm dangling from it.
“That's odd,” Jenna muttered.
A warning tingle skated down his spine. “What's odd?”
“This looks like mine, but it's not.”
“Well, maybe it belongs to a neighbor?” Griff wasn't sure why she was so unnerved about a piece of jewelry. “Some kids might have been running around the neighborhood and accidentally dropped it.”
“No, you don't understand. The letter
C
is engraved on the heart, see?” She lifted her head to look at him. “I have the exact same bracelet with the letter
J
engraved on the heart-shaped charm. It was a gift from my mother.”
The warning tingle became a full-fledged wave of apprehension. He couldn't help turning and sweeping a cautious gaze around her front yard, searching for anything else out of the ordinary.
After being a cop for the past ten years, he didn't much believe in coincidences.
His instincts were screaming at him that this bracelet was somehow connected to the mysterious attack on Jenna.
Copyright © 2016 by Laura Iding
ISBN-13: 9781488008368
Tailspin
Copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Goddard
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