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Trip’s fingers tightening at the nip of her waist encouraged her to stay in the moment and continue. “I loved to read mysteries, solve puzzles. But I was just as interested in climbing trees and exploring whatever new places I could get myself into—a friend’s attic, the museum’s back rooms.”
“So you’ve always been the explorer.”
“It wasn’t like I had any dates to keep me busy. I had my friends, my homework, my adventures … I guess I always did march to the beat of my own drum.”
“High school’s a tough place to be different, isn’t it?”
Charlotte nodded against the rough weave of his vest cover. She had an idea he was referring to his own experience about being labeled for his brawn and learning disability, rather than commiserating over her odd habits and plain looks. But he understood. Maybe more than most people, he understood why she’d made the choices she had. “That’s why I was so excited about going to prom. It was my first date that Dad and some social event of his had nothing to do with. Landon Turner. He was a new guy in school my senior year—he had that whole swarthy Italian look going on.”
“I hate him already.”
She felt the first sprinkle of rain on her cheek, and while the initial drop startled her, she soon savored the cool trickles of moisture on her skin. “He had a soccer scholarship to play on the team with my friend, Harper. I’d been pining after Harper for years, but he never saw beyond the glasses. A buddy of mine, Donny Kemp—he was on the quiz bowl team with me—had asked me first, out of the blue—I didn’t really know him, didn’t know he even liked me—so I said I needed time to think about it. I guess I was still holding out for a miracle invitation from Harper.”
“Sheesh, the soap opera of high-school relationships. I don’t miss that.”
She tiptoed her fingers up his vest until she found the warmth of skin above Trip’s collar to cling to. “I’d been tutoring Landon, to help him keep his grades up so he could stay at Sterling instead of going back to a public high school. When he asked me, I thought it was as close to dating Harper as I was going to get so I said yes. And then I found out he’d done it as an initiation rite. One of the kidnappers had given him a hundred dollars to get me to the school, away from Dad and his security.”
“What the hell kind of initiation involves getting you kidnapped?”
Charlotte flinched at the sudden sharpness in Trip’s voice and he immediately released her.
“Sorry.” He skimmed his hand over his face, but she didn’t think he was snarling at the rain wetting his skin. “No wonder you don’t trust men.”
He turned away, muttering a curse, then startled her when he swung back around to face her. “Did Turner pay for his part in the kidnapping? Does he have any reason to come after you again?”
“He didn’t come after me.” Her guardian had returned in full force. How did a man turn his compassion and gentleness on and off so quickly? She hugged her arms around her waist, afraid of her own warring needs to run away or offer a reassuring touch. “Landon’s prank was a cruel one, but he didn’t know about the kidnapping. He testified on my behalf at the trial by identifying the man who’d paid him, and helped get the conviction. He was kicked out of Sterling Academy, and I think lost a couple of college scholarships. But the judge didn’t file any criminal charges. He has no reason to want to hurt me now.”
“Don’t defend him.” Charlotte backed away as Trip advanced, his suspicions overriding his patience with her. “If he didn’t know about the kidnapping, then how did the kidnappers know about the initiation?”
“All the guys at school knew about the initiation dare. If I’d been more of a social creature, I would have heard the gossip, too. One of them must have let it slip somewhere, and the kidnappers paid Landon to make sure it was me he took that night.” Talented though he was with his feet, Landon had never been the brightest bulb at Sterling. “He apologized, over and over. He used to call me …”
Every day. For months.
Charlotte. You have to forgive me. Charlotte? Answer me!
Oh, my God. Had she missed a connection between Landon and her kidnappers? A connection between then and now?
Charlotte’s heart rate kicked up a notch. Her breathing went shallow. She was going back in time. Slipping into the past. Remembering. “I want to go home.”
“Honey, are you—?”
“Don’t ‘honey’ me!” She whirled around, looking for Max. “Stay in the moment. Stay in the moment,” she chanted. “Max?”
“Jones.” Captain Cutler’s voice buzzed into the radio, loud enough for Charlotte to hear the summons. “Is there a problem up there?”
“Charlotte?”
She put her fingers to her mouth and whistled. “Max!”
“She’s on the verge of a panic attack, sir. Call everyone in. We’re coming down.”
Charlotte yelped at the big hand that closed around her arm.
But it wouldn’t let go. “Look at me, Charlotte.” He had her by both arms now, had hunkered down so she could see his face. “Look at me.”
It was Trip. She knew it was Trip. But she was afraid. Afraid of the calls and the memories and the mistakes she couldn’t save herself from. She blinked her eyes into focus. “I need to go home. I want to go home.”
“Okay.” His grip shifted to one arm and he gentled his tone as he towered over her. “I’m sorry I upset you. Stay in the moment, okay? Stay with me.”
“I’m sorry, Trip. I must have pushed myself to be outside a little too long.” She felt twenty-five pounds of furry warmth wedge its way in between them and sit on her foot. Max. Thank goodness. She reached down to stroke his fur, taking the edge off her panic. “Good boy, Max.”
“You have no idea what a fighter you are, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You could summon the troops with that whistle.” Trip pulled the dog’s leash from her coat pocket and hooked him up. He rubbed Max around his neck and ears before pushing the leash into Charlotte’s hand and straightening. “I’m the one who pushed you too hard. I thought Turner might be some kind of break on the case.”
“You were just doing your job.”
“I was being a jealous idiot and I scared you instead of helping.” He held out his hand for her to take. “Let’s get you home so you can make those phone calls about Richard’s memorial, okay?”
She nodded, wrapping both hands around the leash, unsure what to make of his compliment or apology or the whole idea of a man being jealous over her.
Trip’s gaze dropped to her fingers, understanding the unspoken message and accepting it. “And as far as Turner goes?”
“What about him?”
“Innocent or not, he’d better never show his face around me.” Backed up by an ominous rumble of thunder overhead, his vow triggered a riot of inexplicable goose bumps across her skin. If they’d been sparked by her usual anxiety or the possessive promise in his words that tickled something new and uniquely feminine inside her, she couldn’t yet tell. “Come on. Let’s get out of the rain.”
Although she hadn’t taken his hand, he still put his fingers at her back to position her in front of him and lead the way down the hill with Max. He released her to tap on his radio. “We’re heading back to the car. Bring it in, guys.”
“That’s a negative. Stand fast, big guy.” Captain Cutler’s crisp voice buzzed over the radio. Charlotte spotted the reason for the warning appearing from behind a mask of trees and doubling back on one of the cemetery’s hairpin turns. Her eyes widened. Her steps slowed. “We’ve got an unmarked vehicle approaching on your six. White van, local plates.”
“I see it.” Trip’s hand clamped down on her shoulder, stopping her beside a red marble headstone. “Let it pass.”
Charlotte grabbed hold of the red marble, swaying as the van crept up behind the black SUV.
Her brain spun around inside her skull as Charlotte pushed herself up from the pavement. Where were her glasses? What was happening to her? Was she bleeding?
“Sir, it’s slowing down.” A woman’s voice broke through the static in Charlotte’s ears. “All I can see is the driver. One male. Sir, he’s puttin’ on the brakes.”
But Charlotte was slipping back in time.
The screech of tires echoed through her aching head. What was going on? She squinted the blur of white into focus. A van. A white van. She tried to push up to her knees, but her head was so heavy. A yawning black hole opened in the side of the van. “Get up!”
Clarity kicked in a moment too late. There were hands on her, rough hands pinching and grabbing and countering every kick and twist she made. “No! Let go! Don’t take me!”
“Shut up, Charlotte!” She flew through the air and landed in a heap on the dirty, rusty floor. She screamed as a hood came over her head and the van door slammed shut.
They were speeding away as a needle pricked her arm.
“Charlotte!”
Someone had pushed her down to her knees and shoved something warm and furry against her.
“Charlotte, you’re all right—stay in the moment.”
She fought inside her head to ground herself, to find her way back to reality. Her pants were wet. Something cold and wet was soaking into her jeans. Max. Max had his front paws on her shoulder and was licking her face. Her hands crept around his neck, hugging him tight. “Good boy. Good boy, Max.”
“Stay in the moment,” the deep voice beside her commanded. She took a deep, calming breath.
And then she saw the white van. “No.”
It stopped at the bottom of the hill. They were coming.
“I won’t go. Don’t take me!”
He turned her bruised face into the stale bedding. “I’m tired of waiting for my millions. It’s time to show Daddy just how serious we are.”
And then she felt the cold scissors squeeze her earlobe. “No!”
“Charlotte!” the voice snapped. “Honey, I don’t want to touch you right now. Listen to my voice. Stay in the moment.”
“Trip?” She pulled one hand from Max’s fur and reached out.
The driver’s door opened and a man climbed out of the van. “Charlotte Mayweather?”
He looked right at her. He was coming for her. She backed away.
“I have something for you.” He held up a small package wrapped in plastic.
Charlotte answered with a scream.
Chapter Nine
Ignoring the barking dog jumping at his legs, Trip threw his arm around Charlotte and twisted to put himself between her and the perp. He muffled her screams against his chest, pressed his lips against her hair and muttered every apology he could think of as he took her down to the slick wet grass and rolled his body over hers, waiting for the attack.
“Gun?”
“Remote?”
“Bomb?”
He heard the speculation over his radio, heard a slew of curses, then Randy Murdock’s harsh, “Drop it! Get down on the ground! Now!”
“Madre de Dios!” Trip turned his head at the thick Latin accent and saw Randy’s blond ponytail flying as she kicked aside the package and put the driver on the pavement. “I surrender! I surrender! Por favor!”
Murdock hooked her sniper’s rifle over her shoulder, put her knee in the man’s back and cuffed him. Captain Cutler pointed his gun at the windshield as Sergeant Delgado approached the rear of the van at rifle-point and swung it open. He paused, climbed inside, then jumped back out to the ground and flattened himself on the road to look beneath the van.
He could read the results in his team’s posture even before he heard Delgado’s report. “Clear. The van’s clear.”
“He’s clean,” Murdock reported, rising after frisking the driver for weapons.
“Let me up.” Charlotte’s panicked screams had subsided to a hoarse plea. “I’m okay, Trip. I need to see him.”
“Not yet.” He got around the dog’s frantic need to get to his mistress by grabbing him by the collar and pulling him down to the ground beside them. “Clear” wasn’t the same as “all clear,” and Trip had no intention of any surprises popping out to finish whatever the driver had started.
Captain Cutler lowered his weapon to a forty-five-degree angle and came around the van’s front bumper while Sergeant Delgado turned his back to the van and circled, eyeing each direction along the asphalt and into the trees that dropped off to the bottom of the hill across the road. The captain nudged the plastic bag that had tumbled into the ditch with his toe, then knelt beside it.
The dog pushed against Trip’s shoulder. Or maybe it was Charlotte. “I can’t breathe.”
Cutler holstered his gun. “No weapon. I repeat, no weapon.” He plucked the bag from the water draining into the brick ditch and stood. “I’ve got one red-rose corsage with a note attached.”
“A note?” Charlotte’s breathy terror entered Trip’s ear and went straight to the heap of guilt already twisting his gut. “For me?”
“Charming son of a bitch. Let’s get this guy up,” the captain ordered. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes.”
“Did you write this note?”
“No, sir. No, I just deliver.”
“Let’s get you moving, too.” Trip shifted his weight off Charlotte and rolled to his feet, bracing as he pulled her up in the same movement. “The RGK used a bomb when he went after Audrey last year,” he explained, suspecting an apology alone wouldn’t erase the wide-eyed shock behind Charlotte’s glasses. “I wasn’t taking any chances of a replay of that attack. And after shooting at my truck, I’m not waiting to see if he graduates to real bullets. Are you hurt? Are you with me?”
She had one hand on her ear, the other clutched tightly around Max’s leash. Her eyes were transfixed by the van, but hopefully not focused in the past.
He’d protected her like the cop he was trained to be. But it was the man in him who cupped her cheek in his gloved hand and tilted her face up into the rain. “Charlotte?”
The rain splashed on her glasses, making her blink. Then some of the haze cleared away and she slowly shook her head. “I’m not hurt.”
But she was still rubbing her ear. Had she hit her head on the way down? “Honey?”
He pushed her hand away and brushed aside her hair. Her earring was missing.
“Don’t.”
She jerked away, but he’d already seen it. The jagged line. The tiny white scars and stiff molded skin. She’d lost part of her ear and plastic surgeons had rebuilt it. No wonder she was so sensitive about him touching her there.
“Honey, I …” But the stamp of her features warned him she didn’t want an apology. A quick scan up the hill a few feet led him to the gold earring. She snatched it from his hand and clipped it back on. “Are you with me?”
This time she nodded. She wiped the rain from her glasses and looked him in the eye. “The kidnappers took me in a white van. I was flashing back.”
“I suspected as much.” How could a woman he wanted to reach for so badly not welcome his touch? He had to remind himself that protecting Charlotte wasn’t about what he needed, and he curled his needy fingers into his palm. “Can you walk? Stick close. I intend to find out what this guy wants.”
Trip tried not to read too much into Charlotte capturing his hand and holding on with both of hers as he led her down the hill. Yeah, maybe she was more scared of her stalker and the rest of the world than she was of him right now, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still afraid of his big, bad self barging into her life and into her personal space.
He wasn’t ready to let go, either. He raised his voice, not needing the radio to communicate. “What’s in the note?”
