Shadow Warrior (Shadow Riders 4)

“Could these accidents have been coincidences?”

Grace shook her head and then winced when her shoulder reacted to the movement with a wave of pain. “The cops said he must’ve made a mistake when he installed new brakes, but this guy was a total gearhead. He wouldn’t have made that sort of mistake. I tried to tell myself that, but I knew better.”

“Do you want to stop and go to sleep? We can talk later.”

His voice was so gentle, almost a caress of velvet stroking over her skin. Caring. Tender even. She’d never heard a voice quite like his. She should have known he would notice the way the color drained from her face when the pain hit. She hated moving, but she had to finish telling him about Haydon. If her foster brother managed to get to her, someone had to know and believe her. Vittorio Ferraro was a man everyone would listen to.

“I want you to hear this before I lose my courage,” she said. His hand pressed hers to his thigh and once again, his thumb started that soothing rhythm that somehow relaxed the tension that was cramping her muscles.

“Haydon got mad at Kyle for insisting that he do his own chores when Julie told him I was doing all the laundry and cleaning his room. They had a beautiful lab that went missing. Kyle loved that dog. They looked for weeks for it. Someone found its remains in a park—it had been tortured.”

“Grace, it’s clear this man is fixated on you. Is it about money? Did he try to take your relationship to a romantic level?”

His voice remained the same, gentle and low, but something made her gaze jump to his when she’d been closing her eyes because her lids had suddenly gotten so heavy. Just his saying it aloud made her heart go crazy.

“He never so much as tried to kiss me, but he doesn’t like anyone close to me at all. I don’t go out with friends, not even Katie. She suspects I have a stalker, but I always act as if Haydon is my friend. I never let on that I’m afraid of him to anyone. That would be disastrous to them. He was angry with me for not getting another loan, and I’m certain whatever deal he was making with those men was temporary. He’d probably kill anyone who was with me. That would be like him.”

“Are there other bodies? Others you have suspected he killed?”

She closed her eyes. “I’ve suspected, but I don’t have proof. There’s never anything to connect him. He lets time go by before he strikes. When he does retaliate, it’s usually gruesome. I’ve read about three individuals killed in the same way Dwayne was, or at least similar enough that I suspected. One was my first landlord, who wouldn’t allow me to have any visitors, Haydon included. The man disappeared three months after I moved out. They found his body in a freezer across town. It was quite awful. They said he’d been kept alive for hours.”

“The three you know of that you suspect he killed, were all three connected to you in some way?”

She nodded. “One was a cop who gave me a ticket. Haydon was in the car and he was angry with me. He stomped on my foot on the gas pedal to scare me. He said he’d drive head-on into oncoming traffic. When the cop gave chase, he laughed and let up, so I could pull over. The cop gave me a lecture and said if I did something like that again, and he heard about it, he’d take me to jail. The cop died in a similar way to my ex-landlord. It wasn’t here in Chicago. I’d moved to another city in order to get away from Haydon, but he followed me.”

“And the third?”

She gave a little shudder that she knew he saw even though she tried not to let what she was saying affect her. “One of my neighbors at the apartment I lived in when I first moved back to Chicago. I accidentally bumped into him in the hall. He caught my arms and we both laughed. After that he’d always say hello. Really, that was it. But Haydon got angry with me because I wouldn’t let him move in. The man, Howard Bennet, disappeared. People came knocking on my door asking if I’d seen him. Haydon was in the hallway, just lounging there with that smirk and I knew Howard was dead. They found the body about a month later. It was very gruesome.” She didn’t want to think about Haydon Phillips anymore. Not when she was about to go to sleep.

His fingers felt like magic in her hair. So soothing. She just wanted to close her eyes and give in to the drug, let it take her away. She turned her face into his arm and breathed in the intoxicating scent of his skin. It was a mixture of sexy sandalwood and vetiver, but so faint it was almost elusive, making her want to chase after the scent. The combination was masculine and powerful, very sensual to her. “You smell so good.”