Ben isn’t here.
Erin exhaled. One less worry. Because she’d sure been dreading seeing her ex-lover.
She still wasn’t sure what to say to him. How to explain…
“Erin?”
Her head jerked. “Uh, thanks, Pat.” She pointed toward the stairwell. “This way, Jude.” Vince would be on duty. He was always on the day shift. He’d run the search for her, and they’d see what turned up.
The door slammed behind Jude, echoing hollowly. “Who is Ben?”
Her right foot came down too hard on the step.
“I saw your face when the cop mentioned him.” A pause. “He’s…something to you.”
She turned to face him, slowly. “You caught any other shifter scents while you’ve been in the station?”
His brow wrinkled.
“Didn’t think so.” Her arms crossed. “You won’t. The city’s too small. Full of humans. Humans like Detective Ben Greer.
Humans who don’t realize what’s really happening in this world.”
“Ah…like that, is it?” But there was still something in his eyes and in the lines bracketing his mouth. Anger.
“The bastard after me—he shot Ben.” Her left foot was tapping. With an effort, she managed to still its fast beat. “Cops on the scene thought it was a robbery gone wrong, but I knew it wasn’t. The bastard left me one of his notes.”
Always the damn notes.
“This Ben—you were seeing him, weren’t you?”
Seeing him. Hoping to live a normal life with him. Even thinking about the brick house and the stupid picket fence with him.
“I was, until I realized that being with me wasn’t safe for him.” Not safe for many guys. But it had been easier with Ben. He’d been a good lover. She’d held tight to her control with him. So tight. He’d always been patient, and if he sensed she’d held back, he hadn’t said anything.
Jude caged her with his body. The stairs put them at eye level. “I’m not real worried about being safe.” His gaze searched hers.
Her stomach knotted. “Maybe you should be. You know this guy could set his sights on you, too.”
The tiger’s smile. “That’s what I’m counting on, sweetheart. That’s what I’m counting on.”
And why he had kissed her so hard and deep back at her house. Thought I heard something. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
He shrugged. “I know the rules and the risks—and I’ve always liked to play.”
Yeah, she just bet he did.
His hand lifted and cupped her cheek. “Something I need to know, though.”
His touch jolted her. Callused fingers should never have been so gentle. And his claws, just waiting below the surface. I can do soft and easy. “Wh-what’s that?”
“You carrying a torch for the cop?”
The grated question had her mind going blank.
His eyes narrowed. “I won’t be a stand-in, not for any damn one.”
As if he could ever be. No, Jude was too strong, too dominant, for something like that. “I wanted to be with Ben.”
Wanted to fit in. To be loved. “But—”
“But what?” His thumb brushed over her mouth. Her eyes closed at that touch and heat streaked through her.
“But I knew, even before the attack, that we weren’t going to make it.” She’d broken it off with him just days before the attack, but the bastard out there had still gone after him. Her eyes opened and she found Jude watching her with a predatory stare. “Ben had no clue about me.” She swallowed. “Our relationship wasn’t fair to him or to me. So I ended it.” He’d wanted her to be someone that she wasn’t. Someone that she could never be.
Someone normal.
“You got regrets about him?”
“Some.” She’d be honest about that. “But what we had is over.”
He flashed his fangs. “Good.”
His mouth crashed onto hers.
Her hands flattened against his chest. Not normal—she wasn’t, he wasn’t.
But she was still pretending, dammit.
Jude would have to learn the truth about her sooner or later.
Maybe later…much later.
His breath panted when he raised his head. “Now let’s go see what we can find out about the bastard.”
Jude realized right away that the cops liked her. Respected her. It was in their eyes. On their faces. They opened their offices to her. Broke rules that they shouldn’t have and they did it for her.
Jude and Erin poured over files. Searched databases. They looked for clues in the crimes that might have been overlooked.
Links that weren’t noticed.
They found jackshit.
At six o’clock that night, Jude leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes and stretching his back. As far as they could tell, the attacks by Erin’s stalker had ended as soon as she left town.
The precinct had been a dead end for them.
Time to try his way.
“Here you go.” A slim female cop with a long braid of red hair tossed a file onto the already overflowing desk. “Last info on the Trent case. Shame about the wife…”
“What?” Erin’s brows snapped together. “What are you talking about, Wendy? What happened to the wife?”
“Ah…” Wendy shifted from her right foot to the left. “Thought you’d heard. Sylvia was the vic in a hit and run. The kids were with the grandmother at the time. Sylvia had just gone out for some groceries. She was walking across the street, headed back to her car when she got hit. Such a shame.”
Erin grabbed the file and began flipping through the notes. “Yeah, it sure as hell is.”
Jude waited until the cop shut the door, then asked, “Did you know her well?” She’d paled at the news of the woman’s death. Her breath had caught.
She glanced up at him. “Donald Trent spent five years beating his wife whenever he wanted. I wanted to put the bastard away, but Sylvia recanted on the stand.” A hard exhalation of air. “She had twins, two little boys, real cute kids.” She licked her lips. “But the boys would jump anytime a door slammed or a voice was raised.”
His hands clenched. Through Night Watch, he’d seen kids, human and Other, with shadows in their eyes—and it always pissed him off to know where those shadows came from. Whenever he could, he tried to make that fear go away.
Permanently.
“She didn’t want him back.” Erin was definite on that. “She had a new life going. She’d moved in with her mother. Filed for divorce. But he got to her. I know he did. Threatened her or the kids, and she changed her story so that he could walk.” Her gaze fell to the folder. “Now she’s dead.”