Kitabı oku: «Mistaken Twin», sayfa 3
THREE
I can’t give you anything. Wyatt dropped his head against the seat of his truck and stared across the street at Jenna’s apartment. Maybe he was being overly suspicious, but it sure did feel like her insistence was a lie. Fine. He’d go around her. He’d find out the truth on his own.
Any news yet? Wyatt tapped out the message to fellow officer Brian Early, then rested his cell phone on his leg, settling in his seat to watch Jenna’s front door. He’d had Early bring his personal truck then take his SUV to the station. He wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible as he sat parked in the dark end of the alley across the street from Jenna’s apartment. Thankfully, the historic building’s second story offered only one way in, the very stairs he’d practically had to chase her up earlier to keep her from running headlong into the unknown of her own apartment.
In some ways, she appeared to be heedless of the danger. In others, she appeared to be hyperaware of exactly what was going on, of what his department suspected. A brazen attack on Jenna could be random, or it could mean traffickers had already gained a toehold in the town, and they weren’t planning to be too careful about hiding themselves. If that was the case, this could be the start of a violent struggle for control of his hometown.
It was a leap, sure, to go from an attack on one woman to a human trafficking ring that had been dormant since the early fall. But his gut... His gut wouldn’t let him downplay the coincidence of those Texas license plates. A thin thread, but a thread nonetheless.
His phone buzzed on his thigh and he glanced at the screen. Nothing yet. Guy’s a ghost. Could be he cut and ran.
Anything on the car? They’d called in the county and had the car behind Jenna’s shop processed, but it would take time to get more than an owner’s name. Without a clear link to the traffickers, nobody higher up the chain than the county was going to get involved. In fact, the state and federal agents had cleared out weeks ago, their final report stating the gang had either had trouble with the van while passing through, or had been spooked enough by law enforcement’s presence to move on.
The almost-physical gnawing at the back of Wyatt’s brain said no.
His phone buzzed. Registered in Texas. Same county as the box truck. Working on getting more.
Thanks. Pushing deeper into his seat, Wyatt worked his shoulders back and forth, trying to ease some of the tension building there. Jenna had been cagey tonight. She tended to keep a low profile, and she was definitely hiding something. She’d asserted a dozen times that she didn’t know the man who’d been waiting for her in the shop, and Wyatt had finally stopped asking.
But something about her answers to his questions rang false. No, he didn’t think she was a criminal, but she certainly was not telling him the truth. Frustrating would be an understatement.
Chief Thompson was going to have to put someone else on this protection detail. Even with thin evidence, the man was cautious, wanting to be certain the smugglers weren’t behind this. Mountain Springs wasn’t a town with a high crime rate, even with all of the tourist activity. Violent crime was practically nonexistent. A kidnapping was unheard of.
The suspect was definitely an outsider, and no one randomly came to town to cause trouble. Until they knew for certain Jenna was safe, they’d keep an eye on her. But Wyatt couldn’t be the guy on point this time. The two of them had the worst kind of personality conflict. Worse than oil and water, they were ammonia and bleach. Put them in the same room and everyone else fled to get away from the toxic reaction.
And that was on a normal day, when she had no reason to lie.
Wyatt had had his fill of lying women. After what Kari had done to him, it was hard enough to trust anyone else. Nearly a decade later, the wound his former fiancée had inflicted still smarted, mostly in his pride. She’d strung him along for months, her eyes on what she viewed as “the prize.” Wyatt had been a young soldier from a small town, ignorant of the fact there were women in the world who preyed on guys like him, on the steady paycheck and benefits the army offered.
Hearing Kari tell a friend on the eve of their wedding how she’d “hit the jackpot” in death benefits and insurance if he died while deployed...
Her callousness had gutted him. The calculated way her expression shifted from disdain to adoration when he made himself known and it was clear what he’d heard... She’d tried to play it off as the nervousness of a young bride, as a joke.
His life was no joke.
His heart hadn’t shattered when he’d turned and walked out of the room, away from his dreams for the future. It had hardened into a mountain of stone.
Jenna Clark’s behavior since she’d arrived in town shook that mountain like an earthquake every time he looked at her. Something about her had a way of tweaking his attitude.
Leaning forward, he studied the front of the building that housed Higher Grounds Coffee Bar downstairs and Jenna’s apartment upstairs. Lights still shone from the coffee shop, which had stayed open past its usual eleven o’clock closing time due to the shows at the Fine Arts Center. Couples and groups of all ages flowed in and out of the large glass front door, seeking warmth against the cold, likely too full of energy from the bluegrass concert to head to the bed-and-breakfasts in town or the hotels about half an hour away. Nobody seemed out of place or overly interested in Jenna’s apartment upstairs.
He leaned forward an inch more. Light poured from the upstairs windows. If he’d expected Jenna to make her way to bed and at least try to rest by now, he’d have missed the mark. She probably wouldn’t catch five minutes of sleep tonight.
Leaving her alone had felt wrong, as though he had abandoned her, but he couldn’t stay after she’d turned on him and practically threw him out. Wyatt’s question had hit a nerve, but as much as he’d replayed their conversation before she showed him the door, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
Unless, though she’d denied it repeatedly, she truly knew the man who’d had his arm wrapped around her throat.
In the big picture, did it matter? The image of Jenna being treated so roughly made him bristle with anger and dredged up memories he fought daily to keep buried. Nobody did that to a woman.
Nobody.
A crowd of seven or eight college students exited the coffee shop and made a right up the hill toward the Fine Arts Center and the parking lot beyond it. A man at the rear of the pack broke away and edged to the left. He wore a hat pulled low so that his face was hidden in shadow. He leaned against the faded brick at the end of the building closest to Jenna’s, seeming disinterested in the crowd. The way his head moved, though, he was watching. Waiting.
Wyatt sat taller and wrapped his fingers around the door handle. The guy could have a buddy inside paying their bill. He could be two seconds from lighting a cigarette.
Or he could be trouble.
After double-checking to make sure the interior lights in the truck were off, Wyatt slipped out and eased the door shut.
The stranger didn’t seem to notice. He simply stood, leaning against the wall, watching as a chatting, laughing group passed between his position and Wyatt’s.
When the people cleared the space, the man lifted his head and looked directly across the street at Wyatt. With a sly half smile, the man lifted his hand and flicked a two-fingered mocking salute against his forehead before he turned toward the stairs to Jenna’s apartment.
A jolt of familiarity shot through Wyatt. He was the same man who’d tried to kidnap Jenna at her shop. Wyatt shifted to run, but a weight slammed into the small of his back, driving him to the ground and forcing the breath from his lungs. His cheek smacked the pavement and he slid several inches on his chest, rough gravel grinding into his shoulder. Using the momentum from the fall, he rolled onto his back and threw his arm out in time to deflect a blow from a muscular man wearing a dark shirt and a baseball cap.
His face wasn’t covered, which could only mean one thing...
He didn’t intend to let Wyatt live long enough to identify him.
With a lethal smile, he dove toward Wyatt, his face shadowed in the dim light from across the street.
Wyatt rolled to the side, years of military and police training kicking in with a vicious muscle memory. As his attacker stumbled, Wyatt threw out his leg and kicked beneath the left knee.
The man went to the ground with a howl, his cheek smacking the pavement with a sickening thud.
Handcuffs out before he even thought to grab them, Wyatt planted a knee in the man’s back and held him to the ground, cuffing his attacker before he could catch his breath. Tugging a second pair of cuffs from his belt, Wyatt jerked the guy upward and anchored him to the tow hook on the truck bumper.
The stranger’s head lolled to the side, blood dripping from his top lip, where his teeth had driven in. He sneered at Wyatt with a horrid amusement. “Don’t be in any hurry. The girl’s already dead.”
Footsteps pounded on the metal stairs outside the apartment.
Jenna set the coffeepot on the granite kitchen counter next to the .38 revolver she’d taken out of her closet after Wyatt left. The likelihood she would be able to pull the trigger while aiming at another human being was almost zero, but it still made her feel better to have protection at hand.
She stared over the bar at the door as the footsteps stopped outside. Wyatt had probably decided he had more intrusive questions to ask. Well, the door was dead bolted and the chain was on. Let him think she’d gone to sleep, was in the shower, whatever... He was not coming in here again tonight. She had to have time to think, to pray. The packed bag in the attic called to her, but what if running wasn’t the way out this time?
The door rattled as he grabbed the knob, then there was silence.
Jenna reached for the coffee carafe again.
The door exploded inward, wood splintering around the lock.
The coffeepot slipped from Jenna’s hands, hit the side of the sink and shattered in the basin as she released a strangled cry and stumbled backward until her back collided with the cold stainless steel refrigerator.
A man hulked in her doorway.
Not a man. The man. The one from her shop. The same leer curled his lip as he stepped onto her door and stood between her table and her couch, blocking her exit.
Panic robbed her muscles of strength. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. There was nothing to do but stare as the man stalked slowly toward her, his dark eyes never leaving hers. A deepening bruise ran along his jaw where Wyatt had delivered a near-crippling blow earlier.
Wyatt. He was watching. He had to have seen what was happening. He’d be on the stairs any second, bursting through the door to save her. She swallowed hard, pulled herself taller and found her voice. “You’d better leave. The police are watching.”
“Is that a fact?” The man stopped, his chuckle a low rumble. “You mean your boyfriend? The hero who rescued you earlier?” He sniffed and waved a hand in the direction of the door, his eyes practically glittering with amusement. “Sorry, hon. By now, he’s dead.”
The words hit her in the chest, rocking her backward until she was pressed fully against the refrigerator. The cold of the metal seeped through her shirt into her spine, bringing a shiver. No. He had to be lying. Wyatt couldn’t be dead because of her.
He couldn’t be dead at all.
Methodically, as though he enjoyed torturing her with his presence, the man stepped closer until he stood in the doorway of the kitchen between the column and the wall, a few feet from her position. “Here’s what you need to know to make this easier on both of us.” His hand went to his side and rested at his hip, where a gun was likely concealed beneath his navy blue windbreaker. “My boss pays me whether I bring you in alive or dead, though there’s twice as much in the bank if you’re breathing. He’d like the pleasure of taking care of you himself. It’s really up to you to decide what happens next. You can come to Texas with me all nice and quiet, or you can find yourself in the morgue next to your boyfriend. Either way, my wallet thanks you.”
The truth hardened her resolve and it flowed from her core to strengthen her weakened joints. If she walked meekly out her front door with this man and let him take her to El Paso, she was dead. Logan would never let her survive, not if he was willing to go to these lengths to drag her to her past.
No. She could die right here, but at least she’d go down fighting. She turned and backed down the long galley kitchen one foot, two. If she could reach a knife, something...
Her gaze drifted to the counter. The pistol.
His eyes followed hers and he walked into the kitchen, feet heavy on the tile floor. “I wouldn’t if I were you. You’ll never make it.”
No, she wouldn’t. Jenna jerked her hand toward the gun and, when the man lunged for it, she shifted to the right and shoved his back with everything she had in her, edging around him as he stumbled off balance and crashed into the wall behind her.
She ran for the door as more footsteps rang on the stairs from outside. Jenna stopped, her heart thumping painfully, freedom a breath away.
She was trapped.
A man appeared in the doorway.
Wyatt, his pistol drawn. In one smooth motion, he grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her behind him, leveling his weapon on the assailant in her kitchen. The man grabbed his head and stood staring wide-eyed at the police officer he’d assumed was dead.
“Put your hands behind your head. Don’t you dare even twitch in any other direction.” Wyatt’s voice was deep and commanding, daring the stranger to disobey him.
More sounds on the stairs. Officers Brian Early and Mike Owens crowded around Wyatt, weapons drawn, easing into the room.
Holstering his pistol as the other officers moved to apprehend their suspect, Wyatt reached for Jenna and drew her to his chest, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
“It’s over. We got him.”
Jenna shook her head. He could believe it was over if he wanted, but it wasn’t. There was clearly a price on her head, and unless Logan lifted the bounty...she was dead.
FOUR
“It’s time to tell the truth.” Wyatt held a glass out to Jenna. She was huddled in the corner of the couch, staring at the door that Greg Jenkins from the hardware store had hastily repaired. Apparently, Wyatt had sent out a late-night emergency plea to the Summit Community Church men’s group.
Wyatt’s actions were déjà vu, but this time he handed her water instead of coffee. And this time, instead of taking a seat across the room, he settled onto the end of the sofa, his boots planted on the hardwood, his elbows resting on his knees. Deep scrapes marred his cheek, and he stared at Jenna with a bizarre blend of frustration and pity.
Setting the water on the coffee table, Jenna stared at her hands. It was nearly two in the morning, a time when her brain surrendered to exhaustion and sheened the world with a nightmarish tint.
Her worst fears unfolded before her eyes in the most heinous of ways, and now she had to contend with the man who was the definition of “personality conflict” carefully watching her every move.
Nothing felt real, not even Wyatt’s presence. He was so close she could reach across the couch and poke him in the arm, or press her forehead into his shoulder the way she had earlier. He’d stood in the middle of her living room and held her while his fellow officers escorted that terrifying man out of her home. Had held her while another returned to report they’d taken the man who’d attacked Wyatt into custody. He’d held her until the shaking fear began and didn’t let go until her trembling ended in numb, cavernous calm.
Jenna didn’t know what to do with feeling safe in his arms—it was a reaction she’d never expected. It made no sense he should care. She meant nothing to him, yet she couldn’t calculate how long Wyatt had stood holding her against his chest, occasionally telling her everything was okay and she was safe.
“I’m not safe.” The words slipped out, a whisper that brought immediate regret. What she wouldn’t give for a way to inhale them right into her lungs.
She tensed, waiting. Maybe they’d been too low for Wyatt to hear.
The way his shoulders stiffened said otherwise. He angled toward her, though his feet stayed planted in front of him. For a long time, he watched her as though trying to read her secrets, then he abruptly turned toward the fireplace. “You have to tell me everything. If you’re in danger, I need to know why.”
“You don’t know already?”
“If I did, would I ask?”
Jenna opened her mouth, then dug her teeth into her bottom lip. She’d spent three years burying Genevieve Brady, careful not to say or do anything that could lead Logan to her. She’d laughed at her fear on occasion, at the idea of Logan caring enough to search for her, let alone possessing the ability to find her in tiny Mountain Springs. Still, she’d never believed in taking chances. Now her caution proved wise, yet futile.
“Jenna.” Wyatt’s impatience leaked into his voice in a tone she knew well.
The time for hiding was over. There was no other way to protect herself or those she loved. “I’m...” The truth refused to budge. The lock was too rusty, the fear too real.
Maybe if she started at the beginning, the small truths would loosen the bonds around the bigger ones. “I didn’t have a childhood like yours, a mom and a dad who loved me.” She sniffed and waved her hand as though it encompassed the world. “I don’t even know who my father is. It’s right on my birth certificate, a screaming white space where his name should be.” The shame burned. She was, and always would be, the girl without a father, the product of... What? Of love? Of hate? Of pain?
Wyatt’s eyebrows drew together, almost as though he couldn’t comprehend. “You know nothing about him?”
“Nothing. Not his hair color, his age, if he’s dead or alive...” Jenna grabbed the throw pillow from where she’d dropped it on the floor and held it to her chest, toying with the fringe. “I don’t know if my mother never knew who he was or if she hated him or...what. She never talked about him, and the few times Amy or I asked, she changed the subject.”
“Amy’s your sister?”
“My twin sister. She died in a car accident three years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Not as sorry as Jenna was. She should have been there for Amy. In a perfect world, she would have been. “We were almost identical, except she’s blond and I’m caught somewhere between brown and red.” The burgundy pillow fringe knotted beneath her fingers, but Jenna couldn’t make herself care. She’d never spoken about her childhood to anyone except her twin sister. They had suffered under a mother who loved herself more than her children. The story was unfamiliar on her tongue, nearly impossible to put into words. “My mom lived in this someday-my-prince-will-come fantasy. She was constantly looking for the perfect man. She relationship hopped. Sometimes she brought them home, sometimes she took off with them.” Through it all, Constance Brady had ignored her daughters and left them to fend for themselves, only concerned with her own happiness. How often had she abandoned them for weeks to run off with a man she’d eventually dropped?
Wyatt’s expression shifted to wary compassion. He held a hand out to Jenna, then let it rest on the couch between them. “Did they hurt you?”
“No. Never. Most of them she ran off with and we never saw. The ones who bothered to come around the apartment were usually somehow the good ones. She was this fragile, almost ethereal woman. Men had this thing about wanting to protect her. She wasn’t the stereotypical bad-boy magnet. It’s hard to believe, I know.” It was actually impossible to believe, but all of her mother’s boyfriends had essentially doted on her and ignored Jenna and Amy.
“My mother loved the newness, the fairy tale, the falling in love. Once it got hard, she was done.” Until Anthony. He’d stayed longer than any other boyfriend, had treated them like a family...for a while. “The last one she stayed with for almost two years. He was different. He literally wouldn’t let her edge him out. He truly cared about me and Amy, maybe more than our mother.”
A chunk of the fringe rolled off in her fingers. Jenna dropped it onto the table. The night she’d fled, Anthony had appeared in her semidark hospital room. It was the first time he’d made contact in years. His hair was grayer, his brown eyes bracketed by deep lines. He’d held her hand in the same fatherly way he’d always had. “Your mom tried so many times to kick me out. Fact was, I knew she never cared about me past how I made her feel. But you girls needed a father figure. You were getting to the age where you needed someone to look out for you and I—I couldn’t have kids. You were like my own. I never should’ve let her kick me to the curb but she was right to do it. My work...”
He’d stopped talking, but Jenna knew. His work was likely putting them in danger. He had never been legit. He was tied to things she could never know about, was by his own admission well-known for helping anyone—from wanted criminals to terrified underlings—start over anywhere in the world. Anthony was a master of forged documents and false stories.
His criminal talents had saved her life.
The pillow shifted and Jenna jumped, slammed into the reality of her living room. She was once again facing a life on the run from a man who either wanted to possess her or wanted her dead.
Wyatt took the pillow from her hands and laid it out of reach on the coffee table. “You’re torturing an innocent piece of interior decorating. I can’t sit by and watch.”
Jenna laughed. It felt good. Right... For a second. “Not long after Anthony left, my mom killed herself. Swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills. Amy and I were sixteen. Long story, but we petitioned for emancipation and won.”
It had almost been easier without their mother. They’d been taking care of themselves for years, going to school and working. As time passed, Amy took a personal training gig at New Horizons Day Spa. Jenna built her following in the local art world.
“You think this guy your mother dated is the one who’s after you?” Reaching for his phone, Wyatt poised his finger over the screen to take notes. “What’s his name? Where’s—”
“No.” Jenna put her hand on Wyatt’s wrist. It was warm beneath her fingers, tensed for action.
Tensed to protect her.
It made no sense.
She jerked her hand away and placed it in her lap, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “Anthony helped me get out of El Paso and start a life here. I think the man who’s after me is...” She hadn’t uttered his name aloud since the night she fled forever. It stuck like a razor blade in her throat. “Logan Cutter.”
Wyatt typed something into his phone, likely a text to someone at the station so they could start digging. “Who is he?”
“My ex-boyfriend. Before I became a Christian.” Aside from guilt at having cut Amy from her life, Jenna’s relationship with Logan was the shame she bore. She’d run straight off the rails on their second date. “I promised myself I’d never be like my mother. I’d never go looking for Prince Charming, but Logan was. He sold and maintained equipment at the gym where Amy worked. He was about eight years older than me, had money to throw around, took care of me. Made me feel like...” Jenna buried her head in the couch cushion. She didn’t want to talk about this, especially not to a guy as straitlaced as Wyatt.
He slipped his hand between the cushion and her cheek and gently lifted her head. “You never had a father in your life. You were looking for someone to give you security, to love you unconditionally, the kinds of things a father does for his daughter... Or a man does for the woman he loves.” Wyatt’s voice weighed heavy, as though he could see inside her heart. “What did he do to you?”
“He isolated me from everyone, even Amy. For several years, I turned my back on every relationship for him. I figured when he was jealous, it was because he wanted to be with me. But he was never faithful even when I was living under his roof. He was...” The hard part. The part Amy had uncovered and tried to warn her about. The part that still made her plant both feet on the floor in case she had to outrun the nausea. “He was trafficking women. And when I found out and tried to leave him...”
The first time, he’d denied his depravity and slapped her, then apologized. Held her. Lavished her with gifts. The second time he’d hit her more than once. And the third? She couldn’t remember much of the third after he slammed her head into the wall.
“I thought I was safe here, but... I have to leave.”
“Not this time.” Wyatt’s voice was deep, husky in a way that sent a warm shiver from the inside out. His fingers, strong and reassuring, wrapped around Jenna’s, but he didn’t move closer. He didn’t need to. “You were alone in El Paso, isolated from your friends, without any family. This time’s different. You have an entire town behind you. Before you run all alone, let somebody protect you. Let us end this for good.”
Jenna let her hand linger in his before she pulled away. She might not be alone, but trusting Wyatt could set her free...or get her killed.
A door clicked shut and Wyatt was instantly on his feet, scanning his surroundings. He reached for the gun he’d rested close by after Jenna went to bed in the dark hours of the morning. Twice he’d had to rescue her from men intent on taking her away.
He couldn’t let it happen again.
The small apartment was still. The security bar he’d placed beneath the doorknob before he grabbed some sleep was still wedged to the floor. Dim light from streetlamps pooled meekly through the blinds onto the dark hardwood.
From somewhere deep in the apartment came the sound of running water. Jenna must be awake.
Wyatt glanced at his watch. Not quite five. Had she slept? After telling him her story, she’d seemed spent, and he’d sent her to rest. He’d done some cursory research on his laptop and reported in, setting into motion the means of tracking down Logan Cutter. He couldn’t access much from his machine, but it hadn’t taken much of a database search to piece together the truth in Jenna’s story. Cutter’s company had abruptly shut the doors two years prior due to tax issues. Court records had been sealed, which was something worth looking into, but the man hadn’t done any prison time. No “Logan Cutter” appeared on an inmate search.
Still, Logan’s past was enough to make Wyatt even more suspicious of the link between the panel truck on Overton Road and the attacks on Jenna. While Wyatt believed Jenna was telling the truth about her relationship with Logan, she was still hiding something. There had been too many gaps in her story. The best thing to do was to keep her close, to gain her trust and pray she eventually spilled something to let the authorities stop men like Logan Cutter from taking up a strategic position in Mountain Springs.
He’d run a quick search on Jenna, too. Her name hadn’t raised any red flags on the databases he had access to. In order to search deeper, he’d have to go through the department’s system. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. While he knew she was holding back, he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out how much.
Sitting back on the couch, he ran his tongue over his teeth. He felt every bit like he’d slept in his clothes last night. Too hot, grimy from head to toe. At some point, he’d have to hand Jenna over to another officer so he could run home and grab a shower, but he wouldn’t stay gone long. No way was he going off duty at nine as scheduled. Whether they paid him overtime or not, he was sticking close to Jenna Clark.
Despite her hiding something, he’d developed a grudging admiration for her and a white-hot anger at any man who’d treat a woman the way she’d been treated. Domestic abuse was his hot button, ever since his first call as a rookie cop. His army deployments had shown him the worst of mankind, but he’d never expected to encounter the level of violence on the home front as he’d encountered on a fateful August day a few years earlier.
Julia Pritchett had made a frantic phone call to 911 when her husband, Chad, flew at her in his latest drunken rage. By the time Wyatt and other officers on duty arrived, Chad was already firing out the window, determined to go down shooting.
The bullet that grazed Wyatt’s shoulder had sent a burning shock through him. He’d made it through two deployments unscathed only to get hit at home. Mind racing, fear pumping, he’d watched the situation spiral out of control, had been powerless to do anything but take cover with the other officers, to wait for help to come from the county...
To listen helplessly as Chad pulled the trigger two final times, ending Julia’s life and his own.
Those deaths had nearly broken Wyatt, had sent his mind spiraling through a series of what-ifs. What if the bullet had been a few small inches to the left? What if Julia had pressed charges sooner? What if Wyatt had been brave enough to storm the house and neutralize the threat before it was too late?
He’d given the guilt to God, forgiven himself and even Chad, but he carried one very important lesson from those events... Never, ever lose control of the situation.
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