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It wasn’t an excuse and he knew it.
As he drove, peeling through yellow lights and ones that had just turned red, Clay kept his siren on. With any luck, it would scare away whoever it was who was attempting to break into her house. He tried not to let his imagination run away with him.
It was the longest seven minutes he could ever remember spending.
Pulling up in front of Ilene’s fashionable, tidy two story tract house, Clay all but ripped the key out of the ignition. He was out of the car almost before it stopped moving.
Someone raced from the side of the house.
Clay lost no time giving chase.
With a decent lead, the darkly clad figure dashed straight for the entrance in the gray cinder-block wall that led onto the greenbelt beside the development.
He was only a few seconds behind the man, but by the time Clay reached the entrance, he couldn’t see anyone in either direction. Whoever had tried to get into Ilene’s house had melted into the shadows.
Clay bit off a scalding curse and hurried back to Ilene’s house. The lights were on in the front, but he couldn’t see any movement through the curtains. He rang the bell. There was no answer.
His heart froze in his chest. Had he caught the perpetrator breaking in or leaving the scene of a crime? Abandoning the bell, he knocked on the door. Pounded on it would have been a more apt description. He wasn’t a patient man when agitated.
“Ilene, damn it, it’s Clay, open the door.”
Taking out microtools that were not exactly smiled upon by the department, he was about to break into Ilene’s house himself when he heard the lock on the other side being flipped.
The next moment the door opened. Ilene stood there, her eyes wide with a fear she desperately tried to contain. A fear she was clearly unaccustomed to and hated.
She scanned the area right behind him. The street-light showed the street to be empty. Ilene held on to the door for support, her knees feeling horribly rubbery. “You came.”
Clay walked in, taking command of the situation the way he always did. His voice remained deceptively laid-back. “Protect and serve, that’s our motto.”
He could see that she was trying to hold herself together as she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. Only when her breathing was steady did she ask, “Did you see him?”
He nodded. “I saw someone running from the side of the house into the greenbelt. But then I lost him.”
Ilene knew how he hated that, hated losing at anything, whether it was a card game or a sporting event. Clay was destined to be a winner and expected to be, no matter what the situation. He’d always equated losing with having a personality flaw. Being part of a large family had made him competitive at a very young age.
Just having him here made her feel better. Stronger. And maybe a little silly for overreacting. But that was partially his fault. He and his cousin had made her believe her life was in danger.
Embarrassed, annoyed at having to ask for help, she shrugged, moving toward the mantel and straightening photographs that were perfectly orderly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take you away from anything.” When he looked at her curiously, she explained, “I heard noise in the background when I called.”
Ilene felt herself fumbling for words as if they were covered with slippery soap and she was trying to grasp them with her hands. Damn it, what was happening to her? To her life? She’d always wanted to be in control and now it felt as if everything was spinning all around her.
He hadn’t realized that the noise in the bar had followed him out. “No, you didn’t take me away from anything. Just a retirement party I was leaving, anyway.” He could swear that she looked as if she was about to pass out. The color had suddenly drained from her face. She looked vulnerable, he thought. “Hey, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said defiantly just before she felt herself crumbling inside. She shut her eyes to keep the tears from suddenly leaking out. Where had they come from? she thought accusingly. This wasn’t like her. She was strong, resourceful.
But he and his cousin had made her think that her baby was in danger, and that changed everything.
“No, I’m not,” she admitted. “Someone tried to get in here, Clay. Someone I didn’t know or want in my house was trying to break in. They could have scared my son. I—” Her voice cracked and she covered her mouth with her fingertips to keep the sob from breaking free.
“Shhh.”
Faced with the promise of tears, not knowing what else to do, Clay did what came naturally. He took Ilene into his arms and held her against him. She struggled for a second before giving in and letting him hold her.
A flood of feelings instantly rushed over him. Six years ago, he was holding her to him because they were wildly, unreasonably in love. Back then, at times like this, he’d find himself loving the moment he was in because she was in it, as well.
And being terrified of that same moment. Because Ilene represented everything that could make him weak, that could make him codependent. Everything that could take his manhood and cut him off at the knees.
She’d had that kind of power over him. Until he’d taken it away from her. But for now she needed comfort, and he needed to be able to give it to her, such as it was.
Stroking her hair, he whispered against it. “It’s going to be okay.”
Just for a moment Ilene allowed herself to cling to him, to cling to the moment and pretend that he could protect her. Pretend that nothing had changed and she could put her faith and trust in this man who would always be there for her.
But he hadn’t been.
And he couldn’t be. No one could. He’d proved that to her.
A cold resolve came over her. She couldn’t depend on anyone but herself. She was all that Alex had. Which meant she had to be brave for both of them. Being brave meant not falling to pieces.
With effort, she pulled herself together and drew away.
“No, it’s not. Nothing’s going to be all right, not yet. And nothing is ever going to be the same again.” She wiped the heel of her hand against the tears. Tossing her head, she tried to regain some of fragmented composure. For a second she tried to deny the obvious. “Maybe it was just a common burglar.”
“Maybe,” he said, his eyes on her face. “But you don’t believe that.”
Another shaky breath left her. She’d never been much for lying, even to herself. “No, I don’t believe that.”
With a sigh she sank down on the sofa, then rose again, as if there were springs in her legs that wouldn’t allow her to relax. She couldn’t sit, couldn’t remain still. Someone had tried to break in, to harm her. To harm her son. And she was powerless to do anything about it except dial a phone.
Frustration chewed at her. Had Walken actually authorized this? Had the man who’d played Santa Claus at last year’s Christmas party, who’d had her son climb up on his knee, given the go-ahead to someone to attempt to break into her house? And do what? Threaten her? Or worse?
Unable to stay still, she began to pace the room again. But there was nowhere to go.
Clay watched her as she prowled about the space. “You want to tell me what happened?”
Talking. Talking about it was good, she thought. Talking about it brought it into the light and maybe would make it fade away. She ran her hands along her arms as she spoke. She was cold.
“I just came down from putting Alex to bed. He likes me to read to him until he falls asleep, and sometimes it takes a while,” she said, a hint of a smile playing along her lips as if she was seeking comfort from the familiar act. He could remember when that smile had been his exclusive property. Now it belonged to anyone but him. “I came downstairs to put away the dishes and thought I heard something at the back of the house. There’s a sliding glass door that leads out to the back patio,” she explained. “When I got there, I didn’t see anyone, but then I thought I heard someone walking along the side of the house.”
She knew she should have checked it out herself first, but all she could think of was that it would leave Alex alone in the house.
“I thought I heard him rattling the window. I guess I panicked and called you.” Her shrug was dismissive as she ran her hands along her arms again. “Maybe it was the wind,” she muttered.
“The wind was dressed in black and wore sneakers.”
Her last shred of hope tore away from her fingertips. Even so, she fell back on another attempt at denial. She didn’t want to believe the worst, not about someone she’d worked so closely with. “Then it was a burglar.”
“Or someone trying to blend into the night until he got in. Let me take a look outside, see what I can find. You stay here,” he told her sternly as she began to follow him. To his surprise, Ilene nodded her head and remained where she was.
He was back within a few minutes, holding something in his hand. A drawing of some sort. “I don’t think whoever it was was trying to break in. He was trying to warn you off.”
“Warn me off?” she repeated, puzzled.
In response, Clay held up what he’d found taped to the window she’d heard being rattled. It was a drawing of three monkeys sitting side by side. One covered his mouth, another his ears, the third his eyes. The message was clear.
“This is only the first step. It’ll escalate. The next time he’ll be inside the house.”
She looked at Clay accusingly. “You’re scaring me.”
“Good,” he retorted flatly. “I want to. I also want you to take Janelle’s suggestion seriously.”
She didn’t want to. Janelle’s suggestion meant going into hiding. She wanted to stand her ground, to stay in her own home. To continue with her life as if nothing had happened.
But she knew that something had happened, and just as she’d said to him when he first came in, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
She couldn’t hide her head in the sand. Not when she had Alex to think of. “So what do I do?”
“Well, you can’t stay here. We can place you in a hotel and—” Clay began to outline the familiar course of action in these cases. She was a witness and had to be kept alive.
But Ilene was already adamantly shaking her head. “No.”
He could feel his temper suddenly getting frayed. No one had that kind of effect on him—except for her. But then, she could always make him feel things no one else could.
“Ilene, this isn’t the time to be stubborn.”
“I’m not being stubborn. But I won’t disrupt Alex’s life.”
He stared at her. “And having people break into his house and possibly abduct his mother or worse isn’t going to disrupt it? Think, Ilene, use your head. This time he was asleep, maybe next time he won’t be—”
She wasn’t going to let him scare her, at least not any more than she already was. “There’s got to be another solution.”
Did she think this was some kind of game that if she didn’t like it, she could just pick up all the marbles and go home? She’d set something in motion by bringing the audit’s discrepancies to light, something that couldn’t be stopped. All he could do was get her out of the way of the rolling boulder that threatened to crush her.
“There is.”
“What?” she demanded.
He didn’t like her tone, didn’t like the situation they found themselves in. Didn’t like to think what could happen to her if he couldn’t convince her. “First you can start by trusting me.”
Chapter 4
Ilene looked at the man standing before her for a long moment. How could he ask her to trust him after the history they had?
“If I remember correctly, that was where I made my mistake.”
The next moment she forced herself away from the emotional vortex that was sucking her into its midst. The past was over. She had to leave it behind her. She hadn’t called him because they had a history, she’d called him because she needed a policeman and he was familiar with what was going on. She hadn’t wanted to go into long explanations, she’d just wanted to have someone come quickly.
“Sorry, that was uncalled for.” Her voice was crisp, devoid of feeling. Ilene told herself that the only way she was going to get through this was to keep a very tight rein on her emotions. “After all, you’re just trying to do your job.”
Clay couldn’t shake the feeling he was out in the middle of nowhere, trying to find his way through a minefield. “Right, and my job is to keep you and your son safe even if you don’t want to be.”
Her temper erupted. “I never said I didn’t want to be safe. I just don’t want to have complete chaos.” She thought of her own childhood, of how she’d never felt as if she could count on anything. “A child needs stability in his life, otherwise there’s no foundation, nothing to build on.”
She could see by the expression on his face that Clay thought she was blowing this all out of proportion.
“And going to a hotel would cause chaos?” He wasn’t mocking her, but he might as well have been.
Ilene didn’t expect him to understand. He didn’t have children. And from what she gathered, his own life had been cushioned by a family that cared about him.
“He has a routine,” she insisted. “Kindergarten, friends. If I give up our liberty to a tag-team of policemen, how is that going to make Alex feel? I would be taking him away from everything that’s familiar to him.”
“Except for the most important ingredient. You,” Clay pointed out quietly. “And maybe your son’s more resilient than you think.” She just continued to look at him, not saying a word. She didn’t have to. Her eyes did it for her. Clay sighed, dragging his hand through his hair. He went back to the thought he’d had when she made her initial protest. “Okay, maybe I have an idea.”
Here came the trust part, she thought, her eyes never leaving his face. “Like what?”
Even though he was pretty sure his father would go along with this, he knew he couldn’t just take it for granted. “Give me a second.”
Turning from her, Clay took out his cell phone and pressed a preprogrammed number. It belonged to his father’s new cell phone. The cell phone had been an impromptu gift that hadn’t been all that warmly received. Andrew maintained that he didn’t need a cell phone. That the old-fashioned method of using a stationary telephone was just fine with him.
But Callie and Teri had insisted that he needed to get “with the times” and that this allowed them to always reach him if necessary. The deciding argument that he could also reach them whenever he wanted had finally turned the tide.
Now if his father had only remembered to leave it on, Clay thought, they’d be home free.
The cell phone on the other end rang a total of ten times before the annoying automatic message finally came on. Not bothering to listen to the theory that “the party you are trying to reach is either not answering or currently out of the calling area” Clay closed the phone and then opened it again. He hit redial immediately.
This time he got a response.
“Hello?”
“Dad, it’s Clay.” There was some kind of din accompanying his father’s voice. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like singing. Very bad singing. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“Was that you? I thought I heard something ringing, but it’s so damn noisy in here, I thought maybe it was just me.”
“You’re still at the party?” Clay had difficulty picturing his father in that kind of social situation. Ever since his mother had disappeared, his father had become the very core of the family unit. Because he’d become such a fixture, there were times Clay had to remind himself that his father needed to get out among his own kind.
He heard his father chuckle. In the background the noise level picked up. “You’re missing a hell of a time. By the way, Adrienne Ballard is asking after you.”
Patrol Officer Adrienne Ballard was just one of the scores of women he’d gone out with since his breakup with Ilene. Blond, vibrant and nicely endowed, Adrienne was a woman who knew how to enjoy herself and how not to complicate things by trying to bring up the matter of strings. In short, his kind of woman.
Still, the notion of seeing Adrienne right now did nothing for him. He tried to tell himself it was because he was on duty but the truth of it was after a handful of dates with the woman, he’d found himself getting bored, wanting to move on. She hadn’t kept his mind occupied—the way Ilene had.
“That’s nice,” he said dismissively. “Listen, Dad, I need a favor.”
“Ask.”
That he was one of the lucky ones was once again brought home to him. His father was always there, always willing to help. Clay knew by experience that not too many people could say that about either of their parents.
