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Dark anger stirred. Her stomach clenched. She didn’t lower her gaze. She willed him to listen and believe.
“I know that men who get off on hurting women, children or animals should be tortured, castrated and imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives.”
R.J. blinked and sat back. His brow furrowed as he studied her.
“Tell me where Valerie is,” she pressed.
He scowled while his jaw clenched with some dark emotion. “I wish I knew.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Valerie disappeared from Heartskeep sometime last night.”
Teri closed her eyes as defeat washed over her. She was too late. Again. Bleakly she opened her eyes and regarded him.
“Lester got to them?”
“We don’t know what happened.” His voice roughened. “The police found her cell phone crushed behind the house near the fountain. Her car, all her belongings, everything was still there, except her.”
Her heart pounded faster. “What about Corey?”
To her surprise, R.J.’s features gentled. “The boy’s fine. Valerie left everything behind, including her son.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that Valerie wasn’t Corey’s mother. She stopped the words in time, but it rankled all the same. Still, Lester hadn’t gotten Corey.
The jolt of hope was tempered by questions. “Why would Lester take Valerie and not Corey?”
Could Valerie still be alive?
“We don’t know that anyone did take her. It’s possible she left on her own.”
“Right. After crushing her cell phone.”
To her surprise, a hint of embarrassed color washed his face.
“It’s possible.”
Anything was possible. Maybe Teri hadn’t been too late after all. Maybe Valerie had sought asylum at Heartskeep in order to leave Corey behind so she could continue to run unhampered by a young child. She could have crushed the cell phone herself in an effort to point the police in Lester’s direction.
Staring at his troubled expression, Teri decided R.J. didn’t have the answers she needed.
“This Heartskeep place is a woman’s shelter, right?”
He nodded.
“Can you take me there?” If he noticed the edge of demand in her voice, it didn’t seem to bother him.
“At the moment? No.”
“In the morning, then.” But she let her dissatisfaction show.
“Valerie is gone, Teri.”
But Corey wasn’t. “She may come back.”
“For Corey,” he agreed. “I can’t see her leaving her son behind.”
She swallowed a retort. “Doesn’t Heartskeep have safety precautions in place to protect the women?”
“Of course it does. For one thing, there’s a high fence around the perimeter of the estate.”
She snorted. “Fences can be climbed.”
“Not this one. And the house is wired with an alarm system.”
She dismissed the alarm with a wave of her hand. “No cameras? No guard dogs?”
“It’s a woman’s shelter, not a prison.”
“Well, someone must have seen something.”
“The police have questioned everyone.” He rubbed his jaw in frustration. “No one knows what happened. Valerie simply disappeared sometime after she went to her room last night. We spent most of the day searching the grounds. Heartskeep has umpteen acres of ground to cover and a lot of it is wooded. Despite that, there should have been some sign somewhere if she didn’t leave under her own power, and there wasn’t. Except for the cell phone.”
Wearily, Teri leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes. He could be lying, but she didn’t think he was.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Tell me about it,” he agreed.
When she opened her eyes again, he was studying her with a masculine expression that made her distinctly uneasy. Self-consciously, she pushed at a strand of hair slipping out from under the towel.
“Have they asked her husband what happened?”
“They have to find him first.”
“He’s…not at home?” she corrected, changing the tone to make it a question.
“Not according to the police in Maryland.”
Her fingernails tapped restlessly against the steaming mug. Reflected firelight flickered across his features. His dark good looks stopped short of being to-die-for handsome, but R.J. projected an aura of self-confidence that would be irresistible to most women.
Teri scowled at him. “Will you please take me to Heartskeep?”
He picked up his mug and took a long swallow of the rapidly cooling chocolate. “Why?”
“So I can talk to the people who were there last night.”
“You don’t need me for that. All you have to do is go and ring the buzzer.”
“But you know them. You could introduce me.”
He set his mug down and regarded her with dark blue eyes that didn’t seem to miss much. “I could, but I don’t know you, do I?”
The towel slipped to one side. Thankful to have an outlet for her jumpy nerves, Teri released it and began to briskly rub the terry cloth over her wet hair. Exhaustion threatened to overtake her at any moment. The snapping heat of the fire and the calming warmth of the hot chocolate were conspiring against the need that had driven her this far. She was fading fast and she knew it.
“Why did you come here, Teri? Why didn’t you go to the police and enlist their help instead of coming to me?”
She hoped he didn’t see her flinch. She knew exactly how much help she’d get from the authorities if she told them who she really was. She thought about her sister lying in that hospital bed in a deep coma from which she might never awaken and set her jaw.
If Lester even had a suspicion that she and her sister were still alive, he wouldn’t rest until he finished what he’d started, and no one would be able to stop him.
A gust of wind shook the house, rattling windows. Abruptly, R.J. set his cup down and stood. Her gaze flashed to his face.
“I’m going to assume we’re on the same side for now, Teri, but I’ve been up since four-thirty this morning and tomorrow promises to be another bad day. I have to be up again in a few hours, so let me have your gun and you can spend the night.”
She straightened, coming wide awake. “Not a chance.”
“This isn’t negotiable.”
“Forget it.”
“How do I know you won’t shoot me in my sleep?”
“How do I know you won’t attack me in mine?” she fired back.
“I’d say a little trust is called for here.”
“Yeah? How little?”
Maybe if she hadn’t been so tired she would have been quicker. Then again, probably not. R.J. was incredibly fast. He was across the room in the blink of an eye with her wrists pinned before she could move. Using his weight and strength, he pushed her down into the back of the couch.
Lucky barked sharply as she thrashed, kicking at him, but she’d taken off her shoes. Fear-fed adrenaline surged through her as one hand went to the waistband of her slacks.
As suddenly as it had begun, the attack was over. He released her and stepped back holding the gun. Teri surged to her feet in front of him quivering in rage and fear.
“Sorry,” he told her without a trace of contriteness. “My house, my rules.”
He opened the cylinder and dropped the shells into the palm of his hand. Tossing them on the couch beside her, he held her gaze.
“You keep the bullets. I’ll keep the gun.”
Shock, fear and anger mixed together in her mind.
“For what it’s worth, Teri, if I’d wanted to attack you, I’d have done so. I prefer a willing partner.”
“Bastard!”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Lucky whined at their feet, obviously upset by the tension in the room. R.J. shoved the gun into his pocket and rested his hand on the dog’s large head in a reassuring gesture.
“Feel free to leave if you want, but if you do go out to your car, you won’t be coming back inside tonight.”
The hard-edged words were a promise rather than a threat. Teri believed him. As shaken as she was, part of her understood. He had no reason to trust her and no way to know whether she had another weapon in the car.
“I don’t have a spare bed,” he continued. “But the couch isn’t bad. I’ve slept on it myself on occasion. And it’s better than your car. Warmer, for one thing. I’ll get you some blankets and a pillow while you make up your mind.”
Arrogant bastard.
Lucky trotted beside him as he strode from the room. Badly shaken, she rubbed at her wrists where he had grabbed them in that steely vise. He was even stronger than he looked. He could have easily hurt her if that had been his intent. Yet he hadn’t.
Stay or go?
Teri dropped down on the edge of the couch. What choice did she have? The bottom line was that she needed R.J. if she wanted to get to Corey. It might be too late to help Valerie, but Corey was still here.
But why? Why hadn’t Lester taken him away?
Slowly, she made her way to the tiny bathroom behind his laundry room. Dark smudges of exhaustion underscored the brilliant green color of her eyes. The hue seemed far too bright and out of place against the stark whiteness of her skin. She gazed at her reflection in the chipped mirror over the old-fashioned sink and conceded her stupidity.
She shouldn’t have come here tonight. She should have waited for morning. Now she was stuck here with a man she didn’t like. A man who scared the heck out of her in more ways than one.
She was too tired and too shaken to think straight anymore. Stealthily, she slipped into the kitchen and removed a steak knife from the wooden holder on the counter. Feeling only slightly foolish, she carried the knife with her into the bathroom. If her instincts turned out to be wrong about him, at least now R.J. Monroe wasn’t going to find her totally unarmed and defenseless.
FOR A MINUTE, R.J. thought she’d run after all. He dumped the linens on the couch and started for the door, only stopping when he heard water running in the downstairs bathroom. He relaxed, not sure whether to be pleased or not. He probably wouldn’t sleep a wink with Teri under his roof, but his choices were limited.
Besides, guilt gnawed at him. He’d been unduly rough with her. Her terrified expression when he’d grabbed her was going to haunt him for a long time to come. On the other hand, she’d already pointed that gun at him once tonight and he wasn’t going to apologize for taking it away.
Who was she working for? Why keep her client’s identity a secret unless she was helping the husband? But R.J. couldn’t bring himself to believe that she was. There had been an intensity in her voiced dislike of Lester Boyington that rang true.
Unless she was a good actress, simply pretending.
After making up the couch, R.J. tidied the room, filled and set the automatic coffeepot to drip at the usual hour and added wood to the fire. He was too tired to puzzle out the mystery of his strange houseguest tonight.
Lucky sprawled outside the bathroom door waiting for her. R.J. had a hunch she wouldn’t come out until she heard him go back up the stairs.
“Guard her, Lucky,” he told the dog loudly enough for her to hear if she was listening.
Lucky’s stubby tail whomped the floor. Teri didn’t know it yet, but her biggest danger was in being licked to death.
It was going to be a very long night.
Chapter Three
Morning brought a thick layer of fog and an uneasy truce. R.J. hadn’t expected to sleep at all, let alone so deeply, but the stresses of the day before had taken their toll and he’d awoken at his normal time, surprised that Lucky wasn’t there nudging him awake.
At least she hadn’t murdered him in his bed.
Despite the early hour, she was dressed again in her own clothes when he got downstairs and Lucky was barking to be let back inside. He fed the dog while Teri poured coffee for them both. She diluted hers with plenty of milk and sugar, he noted.
