On Dangerous Ground

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Sky raised an eyebrow. She’d taught two hours of strenuous self-defense to the academy’s female recruits. Then worked up a sweat with Johansen. She’d put off taking a shower so she could talk to Grant before he left the Training Center. Now, her skin was moist from the heat. He was right—she definitely didn’t feel fresh.

“We need to compare notes, I missed lunch and I’m hungry as hell,” he stated, pulling a small ring of keys out of his pocket. “There’s a hole-in-the-wall drive-in two blocks over that serves killer chili dogs, fries and shakes that come in giant gulp size.” He swept his hand toward the Porsche. “They’ve got a couple of ceiling fans hanging from the metal awning. If we leave the top down, it’ll be cool enough to eat in the car.”

Sky blew a slow breath between her lips. She had spent the past six months avoiding Grant Pierce. She knew she should turn down his dinner offer, climb inside her Blazer and drive home. She needed to take a shower. She had a briefcase bulging with lab reports to review. It made sense to ask Grant to call her later so they could compare notes over the phone. That would be the smart thing to do.

Her gaze took in the man who stood inches away, his thick, blond hair rustling in the breeze, his starched shirt stretched appealingly across his broad shoulders, his handsome face an alluring arrangement of planes and shadows. God help her, this was one instant she didn’t want to be smart. She didn’t want to avoid Grant; she wanted to be with him. They would go their separate ways soon enough.

She tilted her head. “You’re sure that hole-in-the-wall has giant gulp shakes?”

Amusement slid into his eyes. “Positive.” He bounced his key ring in his palm. “If you talk nice, I’ll spring for double chocolate.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Does that lame line usually get women into your car, copper?”

The grin he shot her was pure male. “Works every time, Milano.”

“So, the OSBI chemist confirmed your findings.” Grant selected a French fry from the cardboard carrier wedged on the Porsche’s console, then looked over at Sky. He fought a smile when he saw that her eyes were barely visible over the rim of the cup that held her double-chocolate giant gulp shake. Silently he calculated the calories in the chili dog, fries and shake, and figured they might help add back some weight to her too-thin frame.

“Right,” she said, sliding her straw up and down in the creamy drink. “The DNA from the suspect blood found at the Benjamin and Peña crime scenes is identical. You can take that to the bank.”

“Since I checked and made sure Ellis Whitebear is still in his cell on death row, we can also take it to the bank that he has an identical twin brother.”

Sky pursed her lips while gathering up napkins and unused salt packages. “Unless that was actually Ellis’s blood on the bandage found under Carmen Peña’s body,” she mused as she dumped the trash into the paper sack the food had come in.

Grant set his shake aside. He’d thought of that angle, then discarded it for being too far-fetched. He had also worked Homicide long enough to know you never completely wrote off any scenario until you had cuffs on the suspect and a full confession. And sometimes even then you held your breath.

“You really think a man on death row would give a bandage with his blood on it to some other guy to leave at a crime scene?”

“If the man in prison wanted to make it look like he was innocent of the first murder. No way he could have killed the second woman while he was locked in his cell. So, logically, the cops might start to question if he’d actually committed the first crime.”

“If that’s the case, whoever planted the bloody bandage would have made sure the MO’s on both murders matched. That’d give us more reason to think the same person killed both women, and that the real killer had been running around free the whole time. We don’t have identical MO’s. Benjamin died in the communal laundry room off her office at the apartment complex. The suspect stayed around just long enough to cut her throat. Carmen Peña’s killer kidnapped her from her job at the convenience store. Took her to an abandoned house. He probably spent hours with her. Granted, he cut her throat, but he raped her, too. Repeatedly. The only real thing that links the crimes is the identical suspect DNA.”

“That takes us back to the twin brother theory,” Sky said, sliding her empty cup into the sack.

Grant nodded. “I doubt the brother even knows he left the bloody bandage at the house where he took Peña, not when he was so careful about everything else,” Grant continued. “He didn’t leave any prints. No semen, which means he either wore a condom or used a foreign object to rape her. You found no stray hairs on her body.”

“He probably wore a knit watch cap,” Sky stated. “Had it rolled down to cover his hair.”

“No footprints, no fibers from his clothing,” Grant added. “Nothing but the bloody bandage.” He tapped his fingertips against the steering wheel. “The guy was too careful. I put my money on the fact that the bandage was on his neck or face when he kidnapped Peña. The bandage is small, the size a man would use if he got a deep nick shaving. He put it on, and forgot about it. The defense wounds on the victim’s hands and arms suggest she put up a fight. The bandage probably came off in the struggle and wound up under her body. I doubt the guy knows he lost it there.”

“Or maybe he didn’t figure out until later what happened to the bandage.”

Grant thought for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “The body wasn’t discovered until at least two days after she died. He had plenty of time to return to the scene and look for the bandage.”

A car with a spitting muffler sped by on the dimly lit street. Grant flicked a look sideways, then let his gaze rise. A full moon had just broken through a group of oaks on the vacant lot across from the drive-in. “Ellis has to have a twin, and he’s out there somewhere. It’s my bet he doesn’t know we found his blood at the Peña scene.”

“Sounds logical.”

He looked back at Sky. The casual observer might think she looked totally relaxed sitting there, her back against the passenger door, her dark hair shifting softly in the breeze from the overhead fans. But Grant’s observation wasn’t casual, and he saw clearly the remnants of the haunted look that had filled her eyes earlier.

He tightened his hand on the steering wheel. The thought of how some gutter-scum rapist had come up from behind and grabbed her had anger stirring just below the surface of his control. The emotion grew hotter when he thought about how he’d done the same thing. True, he hadn’t known any details of what her attacker had done, but he’d known she’d survived a rape. He’d been careless to even lightly taunt her at the gym the way he had. That was one mistake he wouldn’t make again.

The one positive thing that had come from the incident was that she’d opened up to him. Minutely, he acknowledged, but at least the barrier had shifted. Considering they’d had zero communication during the past six months, he would take what he could get and be satisfied.

He glanced at the ceiling fan that spun lazily overhead, then shifted his gaze to the drive-in’s paint-chipped building with the faded handmade sign in the window that advertised Giant Gulp Shakes. Sam had insisted they eat lunch here at least once a week, and on those days Grant had opted for iced tea and left the cholesterol to his partner.

Now that Sam was dead, Grant hadn’t imagined he’d ever show his face again at this hole-in-the-wall. He’d been wrong. He was here now because there was no way he would have left Sky after she’d opened up to him. Standing there in the parking lot of the Training Center with her face pale and her hands jammed into the pockets of her shorts, she’d looked vulnerable and exposed, as if she might break into a thousand pieces if he touched her.

It had undone him to see her like that. He’d wanted to gather her close, swear he’d never let anybody hurt her again. Instinct had told him her nerves were too raw for her to welcome the gesture. Told him, too, the last thing he should do was try to get her into the closed confines of his not-so-spacious Porsche. So when the idea of this far-from-elegant drive-in popped into his head, he went with it.

He pursed his lips, mulling. If he thought Sky would make a habit of coming with him, he’d eat here every day and say to hell with the cholesterol. But she wouldn’t come, he reminded himself. He’d been lucky tonight. She hadn’t meant to walk back into his life for even a few hours, but here she was. The realization came slowly, stunningly that he had no intention of letting her walk out again. She was the only woman he was compelled to be with. The only woman he’d ever considered the possibility of a future with. The only one he’d spent uncountable nights with her face lodged in his dreams. The only one whose loss he’d grieved. He would not—could not—let her leave again.

“Your next step is to go to Austin?”

Her soft voice jolted him out of his thoughts. “Right,” he said, and paused until the emotion that had flooded into his chest eased. “There’s no guarantee the judge will let me have a look at Whitebear’s adoption records, but I’ve run into a brick wall trying to get a line on his twin.” As he spoke, Grant scooped up the sack with the remnants of their meal and tossed it into a nearby trash container. “I called our state pen. Other than the indigent defense fund lawyer assigned to Whitebear, the only person who’s visited him since he’s been there is his son. The twin brother hasn’t shown his face.”

“Maybe he writes to Ellis,” Sky ventured.

“I checked. The whole time he’s been in slam, he hasn’t received one piece of mail. Hasn’t sent any that the guard knows about. Of course, it’s possible his son, or some other inmate, helps Ellis communicate with his twin.”

“Are you going to question Whitebear or his son about the twin brother?”

“Not unless I have to. I don’t want to tip my hand at this point and let them know I’m on to them.” Grant turned the key in the ignition; the Porsche’s engine purred to life. “I need to run everything down to the lieutenant in the morning. As soon as Ryan approves my going to Austin, I’ll hit the road.”

They made the trip back to the Training Center in less than five minutes. Grant nosed the Porsche into the space beside Sky’s Blazer and left the engine running. He didn’t want to spook her, didn’t want to make her think he was going to try anything. What he wanted was her trust.

She smiled. “Thanks for dinner. The shake was awesome.” In the glow of the parking lot’s lights, her face was all intriguing angles and planes.

“You’re welcome.”

“Drive careful.”

“I will.”

She climbed out and shut the door.

“Sky,” he said softly, then waited for her to turn back and meet his gaze.

“Yes?”

“I appreciate you telling me why you reacted the way you did in the gym.”

Emotion flickered in her eyes. “I owed you an explanation.”

“You can trust me. I’ll never hurt you.”

Her lips parted. He sensed her hesitation. Finally she nodded. “I know.” She turned, unlocked the Blazer and climbed inside.

A minute later, Grant watched the taillights of her vehicle disappear into the night. “You know,” he said quietly, “but you still don’t trust me, not enough to let me into your life.”

A blade, long and sharp and deadly flashed before Sky’s eyes. The thick fist slammed into her from behind, exploding air out of her lungs. She went down hard and fast, and before she could scramble up, he was on her. Pain, blinding, numbing, mixed with her terror; a scream tore from her throat in the same instant her eyes flew open.

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” She scrambled onto her knees, her legs tangling in the sheets as she dragged in quick gulps of air.

Lungs heaving, pulse pounding, she flailed for the lamp on her nightstand. Squinting against the light, her eyes swept the room. Her ivory robe was where she’d left it, looking like a shimmering ghost draped on the arm of her grandmother’s wooden rocking chair. The neat stack of scientific journals she needed to scan sat undisturbed on the antique desk angled in one corner. On the nightstand, her glasses still lay on top of the thick paperback she’d used to lull herself toward sleep only hours ago. Everything in the room was as it should be.

Everything but me, she thought, scrubbing her palms across her sweat-drenched face. “It wasn’t real,” she whispered. “Wasn’t real.”

Trembling beneath her thin nightgown, she waited on the bed only until she felt certain her legs would support her. Then she fumbled for her glasses, shoved them on and fled down the hall, switching on every light as she went.

When she stepped into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, she winced. Her eyes were swollen from lack of sleep, her skin as pale as a corpse’s, her mouth grim.

She splashed icy water on her face, toweled off, then continued to the living room, switching on every lamp. Two nights ago, she had decided Streisand’s was the best music to stay awake by. Fickle, last night she’d changed to the Stones. She clicked on the stereo, engaged the CD player.

Now a graveled-voiced blues singer assured her she could lean on him.

“I’d love to,” she said in a shaky voice. “Come on over.” She closed her eyes and waited for the soothing notes to erase the remnants of the terror that had grabbed her by the throat and squeezed.

“It wasn’t real,” she whispered again. To verify, she looked across her shoulder at the alarm panel beside the front door. A red light glowed, indicating the system she’d activated before going to bed had not been breached.

That knowledge did little to calm her. After all, the monster hadn’t crashed through the door. It had been inside her all the time.

Just the simple gesture of shoving her hair behind her shoulders proved difficult with her hands shaking so badly. Her hands weren’t the only unsteady thing about her. Her legs trembled, her heart stuttered against her ribs and her teeth chattered at intervals.

She was an expert in self-defense, but there was no defense against this internal monster. Like cells gone mad, it had grown and gathered strength, finally forcing itself back into her consciousness after so many years.

Nine, she thought dazedly. It had been nine years since the rape. The horrifying nightmare had started days after, had lasted months. But the monster had faded and eventually gone away. Forever, she had thought. Hoped.

It had returned violently three nights ago. She’d had dinner with Grant, come home, showered, then fallen into bed and slept. Hours later, the terror had slammed into her. She had tried to use logic to shake off the nightmare’s stunning effects, telling herself that by confiding a few details of the attack to Grant, she had stirred everything up.

After the second night of hell, she’d called Dr. Mirren. In her typical soothing manner, the psychiatrist had assured Sky that the nightmare was a result of her recent attempts to come to grips with the rape. After a lengthy discussion, the doctor had offered to prescribe a mild sedative, but Sky had declined. Her problem wasn’t getting to sleep. It was what happened after she got there.

Her flesh had turned to ice; she wished she’d taken the time to put on her robe. She gave a wary glance down the brightly lit hallway. The nightmare was still too real for her to venture back into the bedroom. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her waist and tried to get her breathing under control.

Over the past six months, she had begun to believe she’d made progress. Grown stronger. That maybe the part of her that had shattered would mend—not completely, but enough so that an intimate relationship could be more than just what other people had. No, she realized, she was back where she’d been nine years ago, vulnerable and afraid.

Because she was too shaken to maintain the usual tight control on her thoughts, she found herself suddenly aching for Grant. For the feel of his arms around her. For the soothing sweep of his warm breath as he whispered soft words against her cheek. She pulled in a slow breath. Not only was he not there to do any of those things, she didn’t even know if he was in the state. Two days ago, she’d returned to the lab after a meeting at the M.E.’s office and found a message that he’d called to say he was leaving for Austin. Was he still there, searching for a lead on Ellis Whitebear’s twin brother? If so, for how much longer? Or had he already returned and just hadn’t bothered letting her know?

Biting her lip, she reminded herself that he’d had no obligation to tell her he was leaving, much less contact her when he got back. If you care about me, you’ll let me go. She’d made her feelings clear to him six months ago.

He had let her go.

Now she had a monster to face, and she had to deal with it. Alone.

Her gaze went to the sofa upholstered in pale, muted shades and scattered with earth-tone throw pillows and a wool-soft comforter. She had spent the previous two nights huddled there, fighting sleep. Tonight would be the third.

In what was fast becoming habit, she padded into the kitchen, the sparkling white ceramic tiles cold against her bare feet. The digital clock on the coffeemaker glowed 1:02 a.m. Now that the terror was receding, she could feel fatigue settle in her legs and back. She knew the only way she’d stay awake was with a double kick of caffeine. She dumped an extra scoop of coffee into a filter, filled the pot with water, poured it into the machine, then switched it on.

Just as she reached for a mug, the phone on the counter trilled, nearly sending her out of her skin. “Get a grip. You’re on call,” she muttered, perturbed at her skittishness over the simple ringing of the phone. She grabbed the receiver. No matter how perverse, she welcomed the distraction of working a crime scene.

“Milano.” Sliding automatically into chemist mode, she reached for the pen and pad she habitually kept by the phone.

“It’s Grant. We need to talk about the case.”

Something low in her belly tightened at the sound of his voice. “Are you back in town?”

“Just drove in.”

“Did you find Ellis Whitebear’s twin brother?”

“That’s one subject we need to cover.” His voice came over the phone in a level slide that told her nothing. She furrowed her forehead, trying to remember her schedule. “Tomorrow morning I have a nine o’clock meeting at—”

“Now. We need to talk now.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, thinking about her earlier yearning to step into his arms. “Where do you want me to meet you?”

“Open your front door, Milano. I’m right outside.”

Sky made him wait in the hallway long enough for her to pull on jeans and a shapeless T-shirt, and sweep her hair back with a clip. She punched in the access code to deactivate the alarm, hoping the second barrage of cold water she’d splashed on her face had put some color in her cheeks.

She knew it hadn’t when she swung the door open and Grant’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he stepped inside.

“It’s the middle of the night, Pierce. Give a girl a break.” She couldn’t tell him that the few details she’d given him about the rape had resurrected her nightmare. Even now, the thought of the throat-clenching terror she’d experienced the past three nights nudged her toward panic. She didn’t trust herself to tell him without losing control. She had fallen apart once in front of Grant, and she wasn’t going to put either of them through that again. The fact that the nightmare had returned after nine years, as crippling as ever, cemented the agonizing knowledge that she could offer him nothing.

“I usually don’t try for the runway model look until after the sun’s up,” she added, forcing lightness into her voice.

He didn’t smile, just gave her a long, hard look that made her want to squirm. “I don’t like the runway model look,” he finally said. He turned, scanned the living room where the blues singer crooned that he’d keep her safe and warm in the arms of love. Grant shifted his gaze to the brightly lit hallway that led to her bedroom. “You alone?”

“What?” She stared up at him, incredulous. Did he really think she was entertaining some other man?

He turned, eyed her steadily. “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Hard to tell. I was on my way home and didn’t plan to stop. When I saw your apartment lit up like searchlights on a helicopter, I figured you weren’t asleep.”

“Oh.” She’d forgotten she had switched on every light in the place in an attempt to ward off the shadows. Uncomfortable under his assessing gaze, she arched an eyebrow. “You took this route to get home? Since when is my apartment on the way to the snooty part of town?”

This time he did smile. “I went a little out of my way.”

“About five miles.” She flicked a wrist in the direction of the breakfast bar where her briefcase and purse sat. “I’m up because I brought home lab files to review.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, she told herself. She’d finished going over the files before she’d gone to bed.

“It’s hell when you have to bring work home,” he commented easily, then nodded toward the kitchen. “Do I smell coffee?”

“I just made a pot.” She turned, glad for any excuse to avoid the steely gray eyes that made her feel as if he could see right through her. That was the problem with cops, she thought. They didn’t take anything at face value. “Want some?” she asked as she walked around the counter and into the kitchen.