Shielded In The Shadows

Just when he’d been relaxing into the idea that Emma wanted him in her home as badly as he wanted to be there, she came up with a perfectly valid, completely professional justification for his presence that had absolutely nothing to do with him personally.

“Just for tonight, then.” Chantel nodded. “Because it’s so late. We’ll reassess in the morning. See if Luke’s been picked up by then. If not, we can figure out whether or not we should move you out.”

Emma nodded. Thanked the detective. And walked out the door.

Presumably expecting Jayden to follow her.

* * *

Emma had a few rough minutes that night. Pulling into her driveway was one of them. The police still at the scene told her they had checked her house, both inside and out, with no sign of anything other than the writing on her back door. Her desert rock landscaping prevented even so much as a footprint. They took some pictures, would analyze everything, but they had very little to go on. The perp had probably been wearing gloves, so what fingerprints they’d managed to collect—nowhere near the writing on the glass—would probably belong to Emma.

At least they’d cleaned the words away. A courtesy to her, she was sure. Because of who she was.

Jayden, who’d come in right behind her, having asked her to wait for him before entering the house, confirmed her thoughts. That whoever had been to her house investigating had been nice enough to wipe away the evidence.

He’d insisted on looking around one more time, too. It was his first time in her home. She kind of wanted to walk through it with him, but didn’t. His being there was business. Not personal.

Still, she thought about each room as she heard him move to and from them. Wondered what he thought of the little trunk filled with flowers and antique perfume bottles in her bathroom. Or if he noticed that she hadn’t dusted in over a week.

She held her breath while he checked out her room—the floral quilt ensemble on her bed, with all the matching throw pillows and wall art, made the room her happy place. She loved every single thing about that room. The way the sun came in. The view of the ocean in the far distance if you stood just right and knew what you were looking for. The plush carpet.

Definitely not a guy place.

She allowed the distraction of Jayden in her home, to keep her from the darker thoughts threatening...what if whoever had left that warning had actually come inside her home? What if he came back?

By the time Jayden had come to join her in the living room, she already had a sheet on the couch, a blanket and the bed pillows from the spare room. She’d thought about suggesting he just stay in the extra bedroom, but he’d better serve his purpose for being there by staying close to the entrances of the home.

He hadn’t balked. Had wished her good-night. And she’d gone to bed.

Ms. Shadow had whined a bit. And in the middle of the night, when she’d sat straight up in bed from a sound sleep, she’d thought about going out to Jayden, maybe asking him to join her, but then she’d heard the flush of the toilet in the hall bathroom and knew why she’d woken in the first place.

It had taken a while for her to get back to sleep. Her fault, not his. Or rather, Ms. Shadow’s. But, all in all, they made it through what could have been a

hugely awkward situation with little discomfort. He’d gotten up before her, all of his bedding folded on the couch when she came out—dressed in shorts and a T-shirt because she had company—to make her coffee. She’d offered him a cup. He’d said he had to get home to shower and get to work and was out the door before she’d even put her pod of dark roast in the brewer. He was working on Saturday. That didn’t surprise her.

It was what she planned to do, too. Just as soon as she’d inhaled her first cup of coffee. And cleaned her back window again. Hell, she’d clean all of her windows, just in case the creep had touched any of them.

By her second cup of coffee, she was feeling better.

She was showered, dressed in a casual, tie-dyed summer dress and on her third cup of coffee, in her home office, when she heard from Chantel again. And then hung up and called Jayden.

“Luke’s been picked up. And he has an alibi,” she said the moment Jayden answered. He’d be hearing officially, she was sure, within minutes. Chantel had just called her immediately. “After he left court,” she continued, “he went to spend the night at his mother’s. She and his sister don’t get along, apparently, and she sided with him, in that the sister shouldn’t have taken him in if she was going to feel the need to put him at risk by having a gun. The mother verified all of that. They apparently were both confused to see police at their door, thinking he’d been released because he’d had the charges dropped.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a mother lied for her son,” Jayden noted.

“A neighbor saw Luke leave there this morning.” She needed him to be on Bill. To not let up. Not for her sake. For Suzie’s. “The police caught up with him when he went into work. He said he was going to try to get moved to his mother’s house. Said that he didn’t want to go back to his sister’s since ‘she’d done him wrong that way.’” She quoted Chantel’s rendition of Luke’s own words. “That’s when they told him his release had been a mistake.”

“A more accurate account might be that his sister refused to have him back after he made her lie for him in court. And that the gun is his,” Jayden said. “I’m on my way to speak with her now. The preliminary parole revocation hearing has not been canceled. The board will hear from me and witnesses, and determine if they think Luke violated the conditions of his parole. It’s set for Monday.”

Emma hoped justice would be done. Trusted that it would be. It appeared that Luke had an alibi for that night. That he wasn’t her stalker.

But that could be a lie, too.

Turning to her own case, she said, “The surveillance tape showed no instances of a car entering my community on the back of another last night. However, there was one walk-in. Looked to be male, six feet, two hundred pounds. Blue long-sleeved shirt. Jeans. Dark baseball cap with no logo visible. The image was blurry and the guy’s head was turned away from the camera.”

“As though he knew where the camera was,” Jayden observed.

“Bill Heber once lived in a gated community. He fits the description.”