“No way. You can’t be in this house and like the Yankees.” Cliff shot daggers in her direction, doing his best to keep his laugh in check, but he failed miserably. One chuckle happened first, then it was quickly followed by a few more. “I’m just kidding, get back here,” he said with his arm open wide, gesturing for her to nestle her sweet body against him. Reluctantly she crawled her way back over to him, perching her body against his. “Now, if you were a Red Sox fan, that would be a whole other story.”
A knock sounded on his cabin door in the middle of a romantic comedy Alexis picked out after the sports channel moved to a different topic. He hated to admit that he was very intrigued to find out if the girl took the guy back after his fifth failed attempt at a date.
With a grunt, Cliff moved from beside Alexis, hating the loss against his side as he moved toward the front door. He paused in the hallway and muttered a curse. This was the second time today he was so focused on Alexis that he didn’t have his mind straight. He should have heard the car approach the cabin, or the alert from the security system. And looking down at his phone, he scrolled through seven alerts. If he couldn’t get his act together, Cliff may have no choice but to follow Dylan’s plan b, even after he had promised her that he would keep her by his side.
At the door, he greeted Preston, who slowly stepped over the threshold before addressing Cliff.
“Do you know why I’m here?”
“No. Unless you’ve captured her father, then we should go celebrate.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Not a single precinct across the country has got a tag on him. He’s either invisible or has a lot of guys in blue working for him.”
“Okay, then what brings you by on my only day off from the shop?”
“I need you to turn on the news,” the officer said vaguely.
On numb feet, Cliff walked toward the living room with Preston following closely behind. In the jumbled mess of his mind, he could make out Alexis asking what he’s doing as he stole the remote from her hand and changed the channel.
A red banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen displaying that six girls between the ages of twelve and nineteen went missing in Asheville, North Carolina within the last week. The girls all resided in a small suburban town on the outskirts of the city closest to the highway leading to Carson.
“Do you think. . ?” Alexis left her question hanging in the air.
“I learned this morning that there was something left at the home of each of these girls. They were targeted specifically,” Preston explained, dread crawling up like spiders on his back.
“What was it?” Alexis’ small voice inquired, her eyes never leaving the television screen.
“A heart-shaped locket. Identical to yours.”
“Dammit!” Cliff shouted in the room, throwing the remote against the wall in his fury. “He’s coming for her, and we don’t have much time.”
“Look, I know not everyone trusts me here, and I get it. I hurt one of their own doing my job. But I think we should let him come,” Preston said. “Alexis doesn’t want to live her life always looking over her shoulder and if we are just waiting for someone to find him, then we could be waiting forever.”
“You want to use her as bait,” Cliff seethed.
“It’s not a bad idea,” Alexis added, her voice stronger than before. It was the powerful FBI agent in her spurring forth and damn if Cliff didn’t find that sexy as hell.
But his heart won out. “I can’t let you do that.”
“You don’t have a choice. I don’t want to constantly wonder. It was one thing to think we could trip him up somehow, but now we know he’s close by. We could use that to our advantage. He thinks so little of women, so little of me; he would never suspect that we have the one up on him.”
“I don’t like it,” Cliff growled.
She strutted over to him, her small hands reaching up and resting on either side of his face. The gentle touch of her thumbs rubbing against his cheeks instantly soothed him.
“Cliff, I love you. I need you to trust me just as I’ve trusted you.”
Tilting his head toward hers, he captured her lips in a soft kiss, savoring the sweet words that she just spoke.
“You love me?” he asked, his lips brushing against hers.
“I do.”
Nodding, he pulls her close, regretting that he held her back from saying those three words until now. He had been on edge waiting, but not wanting to know if she felt the same as him.
He took a deep breath, the fragrance of her shampoo filling his lungs. Gazing at the picture across from him, he stared at the image of Alexis across the field.