She’d talked to Marlowe at the hospital. Hadn’t had a sense that she was capable of violence. To the contrary, she’d seemed to be one of the calming factors in the room. Logical. Still, she had to be aware of possible motive...
The sound of glass shattering broke into her consciousness just seconds before a heavy object sailed by her peripheral vision and landed on the floor just behind her.
Aware of her front window in shatters, and of Rafe moving toward her, Kerry focused on the object. A large brick.
With a note rubber-banded around it.
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS DETECTIVE OR RICHIE RICH IS NEXT.
Chapter 8
Rafe was right behind Kerry as she raced out the front door. He didn’t have a gun in his hand, as she did, but he had a sharp eye. The street was quiet. Serene.
He didn’t say a word as he looked around one corner of the house, following her example as she’d looked around the other. He peered under some flowering bushes that lined the front of her home. Walked to the sidewalk out front. Didn’t find so much as a footprint.
And neither did she, as she told him after she’d checked both neighboring yards and her own backyard in case the culprit was hiding close by.
She was already on the phone to the station by the time they headed back inside, and Rafe heard her say she’d write up the report and log the brick as evidence before
sending it to forensics.
If he didn’t know her, he’d assume she was 100 percent on the job, focused and unaffected by having just had the front of her house shattered, leaving a gaping hole that made her living room open to the outside elements.
She was focused, but she wasn’t unaffected. He saw the unease in the way the blue of her eyes deepened.
Her next call was to someone who agreed to come out within the hour to get the front window boarded up.
“He thinks he can have a new window in later today,” she told Rafe as she hung up from the call. He had calls to make as well, but needed to make sure she was okay, first.
Cop or no, she lived alone and had just been vandalized.
Whether or not seeing her was forbidden to him, he couldn’t keep pretending he didn’t care for her. The way his heart was pounding at the thought that she could have been hurt—not because he could have been—was right there in his face. Kerry was...special.
And not just because they’d had sex. Spent the night in each other’s arms. He’d done that with other women.
None of them made him feel the way she did.
He wasn’t just walking away.
“It’s a standard size for houses around here, so he has one in stock,” she added, putting her phone down on the dining room table and opening one of the files on Odin Rogers.
His cue to go.
He read it clearly.
“I’m going home to shower, but then I’ll be back in town,” he told her. “To see Payne, and with all that’s been going on, I’ve got some work to catch up on at the office.” The oil was drilled, bought and sold whether the boss was lying in a coma or sitting at his desk. “But I’m volunteering to help you on this, Kerry. Whatever you need...even if it’s just an ear to run things by as you think it all through...”
He was referring to her brother, but would do anything he could to help figure out who wanted Payne dead, too. Any of the family would.
“You are not helping me anymore,” she said, her tone tense as she swung around to face him. “I never should have taken you up there to begin with. Now you’re a target, too, and I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to you because I put you in danger. You and your family already have enough to deal with.”
The force with which she spewed her words moved him so much it took a few seconds to respond. Regardless of circumstances between them, she cared.
But then, the passion in her lovemaking the night before had already given him that much.
They both cared. And it wasn’t enough.
The sad story of their lives.