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“You thought the cat tipped over your end table?” Luke asked.
“She’s a really big cat and she’s rather upset with me right now.”
“The sooner we can get a description of the man you saw in the garage, the more accurate it will be,” the chief said.
“You don’t think he killed her, do you?” Krista asked, her eyes rounding with fear. Wide, green, helpless eyes.
“Now, why would he kill your cat, Krista?” the chief said.
Krista narrowed her eyes. “You, of all people, should not be asking me that. Gladys still has scars from the quilting open house.”
“Point taken.”
“Anastasia? Here, kitty, kitty.” She glanced at Luke. “Get the Whiskas. On top of the microwave.” She disappeared upstairs.
Luke glanced at the chief.
“The sooner we find the cat…” the chief said with a shrug.
Luke found the bag of cat treats in the kitchen. As he grabbed them, his gaze caught on a photograph on the windowsill of a teenage Krista, and he guessed her mom, and perhaps grandmother. They looked like a team, arms around each other, ready to take on the world.
They were a loving family. He’d always wondered what that looked like.
It’s not like he hung out with the guys at work and their families. He’d had a few invitations, but he knew he didn’t belong and would make everyone feel awkward.
He never seemed to belong.
And that was fine by him.
“I got the cat treats!” he called out, more than a bit irritated with this diversion from their course of finding her attacker.
The chief was on the phone, and Luke started up the stairs. Krista met him halfway.
“No shouting,” she whispered.
“I was shouting?”
“You shake and I’ll grab.”
“Excuse me?”
“The cat. You go ahead of me and shake the bag and I’ll grab her when she comes out.”
“Ma’am, we really need to talk about—”
“Shake and grab.”
If the guys found out about this, he’d be more of a laughing stock than if he’d been shot by Rookie West.
She motioned for him to slip around her. The staircase was narrow and he couldn’t help but brush up against her as he passed. She smelled fresh, like flowers, even after a twelve-plus-hour flight. How was that possible?
Shaking the bag, he started down the hallway, glancing into a bedroom. Neat and tidy, the four-poster bed was covered with a down comforter and the curtains looked handmade.
“Kitty, kitty. I love you, kitty,” she crooned.
He kept shaking, ignoring the generous use of a word he’d rarely heard growing up. What the heck was wrong with him tonight?
Lack of sleep. He’d gone too long on five hours a night. It was bound to catch up to him.
“Wait.” She touched his arm.
Warmth seeped through his leather jacket as he eyed her petite fingers.
She pointed to the next bedroom and released him, tiptoeing ahead. He glanced at his arm, struggling to remember the last time he’d felt any gentle, nonthreatening human contact.
Yeah, man, you do need sleep.
After he nailed Garcia and his production line. After the murderer was in jail. After…
What? There’d always be another Garcia.
Luke’s job would never be over and he’d never be satisfied.
Krista crooked her finger and he followed her into the bedroom. This one had to be hers. A canopy bed centered the room, draped in light purple and pink material. A Bible lay on her nightstand and a tray of antique perfume bottles lined her dresser.
Luke glanced away.
Krista pressed her fingers to her lips and kneeled down pointing beneath the bed. He motioned to the bag of treats and she nodded for him to shake. He shook. They waited. No cat.
“Oh, boy. She’s gotta be under here.” Krista shimmied beneath the bed.
He felt something brush against his pants and glanced down to see a black-and-white cat doing a figure eight around his legs.
“Miss Yates?” he said.
“Yeah?” her muffled voice answered.
“Is this the cat you’re looking for?”
She wiggled back out and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Anastasia?” With a confused frown she glanced up at Luke. “She hates people.”
“I’m not people. I’m a federal officer, remember?” He smiled, hoping she’d be able to shift gears quickly and give them the intruder’s description before too many other things clouded her memory.
“Wow.” She looked up at him with awe. Respect.
He didn’t deserve it.
“Not a big deal.” He passed her the treat bag and she opened it.
The cat pounced on Krista. “Okay, okay,” she laughed, a sweet, carefree sound.
“About your statement…” he said.
The cat purred and rubbed against Krista’s knee as she put a treat on the hardwood floor.
“Ready?” he said.
“Sure.” She stood and Luke automatically reached out to steady her. He withdrew his hand, afraid his touch might damage her somehow.
He turned to leave the room.
“Wait a second, can you hold this?” She handed him the treat bag.
She put her hands together and stood at her dresser. “Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to help such wonderful children in Mexico, for seeing me home safely, for my friends, for Anastasia and for Agent Luke for being my hero tonight. Amen.”
He wanted to correct her, tell her he was no one’s hero, not by any stretch of the imagination.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”
She took a step toward the door, wearing that pleasant smile.
The crack of a gunshot echoed through the window.
Luke grabbed her and hit the floor.
TWO
Here she was, knocked on the ground again. Not exactly how she pictured her first night home. She’d hoped to get into a bubble bath to wash the plane scum from her skin, sip a cup of chamomile tea and crawl beneath her down comforter.
Instead, someone was shooting at her.
“Stay here.” Agent McIntyre stood and pressed his back against the wall.
“But the cat—”
He pressed two fingers to his lips to shush her. His expression was fierce, intense. She was glad she wasn’t on his bad side. She started to get up.
“Right there,” he ordered, slipping a gun from inside his jacket.
Her breath caught at the memory of little Armando Morales. Images of the little boy covered in blood, moaning in pain, made her freeze in place. Armando had been an innocent bystander caught in a territorial shoot-out among drug dealers.
Yet he was just a child.
The whole experience reminded her how lucky she was. She may not have had a father or siblings, but she lived a safe, healthy life in Wentworth.
At least she had…until tonight.
The stairs creaked as Agent McIntyre went to investigate. She scooted to the door and leaned into the doorjamb, wishing that this was some kind of crazy dream brought on by exhaustion. Sure, she’d returned home, downed a few scoops of casserole and had crawled into bed. The peas in the casserole didn’t agree with her, sparking nightmares that began with her being chased down by her garage stalker.
Another popping sound shattered that wishful thinking. It sounded farther away than the first, definitely from outside. Her windows hadn’t been shattered by the shots.
“Anastasia?” she whispered, needing a hug, even from a crazy cat.
Hugs were something she sorely missed since Gran passed away and Mom moved to Florida with Lenny. Krista missed a lot of things and had hoped to fill that emptiness with her missionary work with kids, and maybe, in the not too distant future, a loving husband and children of her own.
Only, she was a disaster in the relationship department and had decided to stop looking so hard. She prayed about her life, asked God to help her find inner peace.
Kind of hard to find peace when people are shooting at you.
“Miss Yates?” Agent McIntyre called from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes?”
“It’s safe. You can come down.”
She headed downstairs where the intense, yet handsome, agent was waiting for her. Her eyes caught on the gun in his hand and she froze.
He glanced at his weapon. “Sorry.” He shoved it into its holster and pulled his jacket over it to conceal the weapon.
“The gunshot?” she asked.
“A neighbor was trying to scare off a raccoon. The chief’s out there talking to him now.”
“Probably the Bender kid. Someone should tell his dad to lock up the rifle.”
“I’ll be sure to do that. Come on, let’s take your statement about the man in the garage before you fall asleep on us.”
She ambled through the living room. “With all this adrenaline rushing through my body I doubt I’ll ever sleep again.”
Anastasia raced past her into the kitchen.
“How about some tea?” she offered over her shoulder.
“I’m good, thanks.”
Was he ever. Agent McIntyre was good at being there to protect Krista, acting confident and unshakable. He was pretty nice to look at, too.
Warning! Sleep alert!
She was not one to ogle a stranger, but she was tired, hungry and confused. A man had broken into her house and garage. Looking for what? And wait a second, why was a federal agent at her house?
She turned to him. “Hey, you never told me why you’re here.”
“First things first. Let’s get ice for your cheek.”
She touched her face. “It looks bad?”
“Not yet, but it will if you don’t ice it.” He took a kitchen towel from the rack, opened the freezer and dropped a handful of cubes in it. He reached out to place it on the bruise and she took it from him.
