Christmas Peril, page 7
“I’ll get it from you one way or another. We’ve looked everywhere else. We know you have it.” He blasted her with his fury, towering over her. “Remember what happened to Bryan. I can do the same to her and you,” he said, indicating Sara in the chair.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She poured all her confusion into her voice and expression. She couldn’t give the man something she didn’t have. Lord, help.
Hauling her to her feet, he pushed his face into hers, the scent of garlic and onions assaulting her. “Bryan gave you something to keep for him. Where is it?”
She screamed again.
He slapped her, sending her head reeling to the side. Her ears rang with the sound of his hand striking her cheek, reminding her of what he’d done to Bryan. Cold fury and fear tangled together, vying for dominance.
“If you scream again, you’ll regret it.” He pulled a knife out of his pocket then put it back. “Where are your things?”
“Upstairs.” She balled her hands in preparation to punch him in his belly and then run.
But before she could, he hefted her over his shoulder and started for the stairs. “Show me.”
The air swooshed from her lungs as her stomach connected with his shoulder. The blood rushed to her brain. She managed to kick off her other shoe while trying to hit him.
Where’s Caleb?
As the intruder climbed the steps, her cheek impacted with his back with each jostling move. The farther away she was to the shoe at the bottom the more her fear grew that Caleb wouldn’t reach her in time. She had to do something. She fisted her hands and pummeled his back.
On the second level he unceremoniously set her down, and she grabbed for the banister to steady herself.
“Which room?”
“That one.” With a shaky hand, she pointed to her bedroom where she and Jayden were staying.
He gripped her arm and yanked her down the hall. She tugged in the opposite direction, dragging her feet. The assailant had killed once before, and she wasn’t a fool who thought she would make it out of this alive if she gave him what he wanted.
Caleb sat in his car out in front of Sara’s listening to the radio with the stepladder lying across the backseat. For the fifth time he checked the clock on the dashboard.
Where’s Annie? She should be out here by now.
He shoved out of his vehicle and headed for the house. On the porch he found the front door ajar and pushed it open. He scanned the foyer. His gaze riveted to one of Annie’s shoes lying on its side near the stairs. Then he caught sight of the other one in the entrance into the dining room. Alarm bolted through him. Still dressed in his uniform, he drew his gun.
As he eased toward the living room, warning bells clanged full force in his mind. When he peeked inside, he spied Sara tied up. He rushed to her, removing the gag.
“Where’s Annie?” Caleb started untying her.
“A man took her upstairs. He’s looking for something. Go. I’m okay.”
He quickly undid the last knot, saying. “Call the station,” then moved out into the foyer. He quickened his pace and climbed the stairs two at a time.
The assailant tossed Annie on the bed. He withdrew the switchblade from his pocket again, the movement exposing the gun strapped to his belt under his jacket. Her panic surged to a level that threatened to incapacitate her.
“I don’t have time for games. Where is it?”
While his gaze swept the room, she inched toward the side away from Bryan’s killer.
His steely look fell on her, his forehead puckered. “I’d hate to cut that pretty little face. Move again and I will. Where is it?” He shouted the last sentence.
“I’ve been trying to tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about. Bryan hasn’t given me anything to keep for him. What is it you’re looking for?”
“You know. I have a way of loosening the tongue.” He caressed the length of his knife as though he were stroking a woman he loved.
Every muscle locked in place. Where’s Caleb?
Bryan’s killer knelt on one knee on the bed, his dark eyes pinning her down.
Terror crammed her throat. She crawled to the side and back, trying to get away from him.
Plastered against the wall outside the bedroom, through the crack in the open door Caleb saw the man kneel on the bed near Annie, her eyes wide, her face as white as the coverlet she was on. He shifted to pivot into the entrance and aim his gun.
Protect Annie, Lord.
With a calming breath, Caleb swung into the entrance and pointed his weapon at the man’s chest. “Police. Drop the knife, now!”
The intruder hesitated, his gaze flying toward the door.
“Don’t make me use this,” Caleb said as Annie scrambled from the bed, out of reach of the man.
The clunk of the knife as it hit the hardwood floor echoed through the room.
“You’re okay?” Caleb asked Annie without taking his eyes off the intruder.
“Yes.” She hurried toward him. “He has a gun in a holster on his belt.”
Her brave front that vied with her quavering voice made him want to hold her and reassure her he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. But he couldn’t until he took care of the man. “I untied Sara. Make sure she’s okay.”
“Will you be okay alone?” Annie skirted around Caleb.
His chuckle eased some of his tension. “I think I can manage.”
As soon as Annie made her way down the stairs, Caleb said to the intruder, “Kick the knife under the bed, then lie facedown on the floor in the middle of the room, arms outstretched.”
The second the assailant complied, Caleb approached him, his gun at all times pointed at the man’s back. After patting him down and removing his Glock, Caleb withdrew his cuffs and snapped them on the suspect and then jerked him upright. It took all his willpower to keep from slamming the man a few times up against the wall.
As he descended to the first floor with his suspect, Caleb heard Annie in the living room talking with Sara. Her voice still shook, but with each word it grew stronger. The thought of what this man in front of him could have done to Annie twisted his gut in a hard knot.
Later that night, when everyone had left and Jayden and Sara went to bed, Annie came down the stairs, the soft glow from the fireplace and the lights on the Christmas tree in the front window drawing her toward the living room and Caleb, who was waiting for her. When she entered, she found him poking the blaze, sparks flying up the chimney.
Putting the poker up, Caleb rotated toward her. For a long moment, he didn’t say a word, but his visual tether roped her to him. Words fled her mind.
Slowly the corners of his mouth inched up. “Is Jayden tucked in?”
“When her head hit the pillow, she was almost instantly asleep. I wish I could go to sleep that fast.” Exhaustion cleaved to her. The past few hours had been hectic, but she was happy to be alive. She could have ended up dead, like Bryan.
“Sara?”
“She’s fine. Told me she was made from sturdy stock.” She wished she could say the same about herself. She clasped her hands together to still their quivering.
“That man acted like he knew you. What was he after? He isn’t saying anything except he wants a lawyer.” His perceptive gaze held her again.
Tell him everything, not just part of it. You can’t do this alone anymore, and it’s not over. What if the assailant’s acting on Nick Salvador’s orders?
Caleb’s forefinger whispered a path across her face, along her cheekbone. “I can see your worries in your gaze. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
She closed her eyes. “I know I’m an open book. I wish I wasn’t.”
“I like you the way you are.”
His words weaved their way through her mind, tantalizing her with the idea she could put down roots in Christmas, be a part of the town, be a part of Caleb’s life. She lifted her eyelids and looked at him. The warm expression, as if she were special to him, only added fuel to that fantasy.
“Annie, you can trust me. I care for you and Jayden. You can’t do everything alone. We all need others.” He took her hand and led her toward the couch. “What’s going on? I can help you.”
She couldn’t resist his enticement. He was offering her something she hadn’t had in a long time: someone to confide in. Did You lead me to Christmas for this, Lord? Is Caleb Your answer to my prayers for help, for a solution to my problem?
He sat so close his leg pressed against hers. He slipped his arm along the back of the couch, cocooning her in the shelter of his embrace, loose but protective. “I see a look in your eye that tells me you’ve been hurt. You’re still hurting and it goes beyond what you told me a few days ago. It has something to do with the man I have in my jail.”
Dropping her gaze to her lap, her hands twisting together, she nodded, the pain of the past swelling in her chest. “And with Jayden’s father.”
“Tell me about him. You said he was dead. When?”
She sucked in a fortifying breath. “He died twelve days ago.”
“I’m sorry, Annie.”
The words she needed to say lodged in her throat. She was so tired of holding everything inside. “I wasn’t ever married to him. In fact, he didn’t live in the town I lived in but Daytona. I saw him occasionally because of Jayden.” Trying to prepare herself for a disappointed look in Caleb’s eyes, she glanced toward him. What she saw stunned her. There was no condemnation, only sympathy. “We met in college. I fell head over heels in love. Until I got to know the real Bryan. He was exciting, charming and in the end totally focused on himself. He partied too much. He drank too much. He even went to jail for a DUI. He asked me to marry him, but I couldn’t, not even when I found out that I was pregnant. It would have been a marriage doomed from the beginning. He didn’t have much money, so he didn’t help much with raising Jayden except to sweep into her life every once in a while, give her presents, then sweep back out.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone. I don’t understand a man chucking his responsibilities, especially to his own daughter.”
“I learned to take care of things myself.”
“But you don’t have to. I’d like to help. Sara cares about you, too.”
She wouldn’t think of what his words implied—that he cared about her possibly more than a friend. “You don’t really know me.”
“I know a woman who loves her daughter and has done a great job raising her. I know a woman who’s been wonderful with Sara, giving her a reason to look forward again to Christmas. You don’t have to worry about going it alone anymore. You don’t have to leave town when your car is fixed.”
“I’m used to going it alone. That’s not what I’m worried about.” She collapsed back against the cushion, tired of holding herself so tense that her muscles ached. “Bryan got into something bad and somehow pulled me into it. I got a call from him the day he was killed—murdered.”
“Murdered?” Caleb pulled her into the crook of his arm as though to prove to her she wasn’t alone, that he was right there with her.
“I wasn’t sure exactly—I’m still not—what was happening when he called. But I read later he was found beaten and shot. I heard it happen, and the man you have in jail is the one who killed Bryan, although I didn’t see him do it.”
Caleb tensed. “What happened?”
“The killer interrupted the call to finish the deed. Bryan called me to warn me not to trust anyone and to run and hide.” She turned toward Caleb. “And before you ask me why, I have to tell you I don’t know the reason. All I know is that he was going to finally pay his father a visit. The father he didn’t know he had until after his mother died last month.”
“So that man is Bryan’s father?”
“No, but I think his father sent that man after Bryan. After what I learned about who his father is, it’s definitely a possibility. But then again, why would the man do that to his own son, even if he didn’t know about him? I know that Bryan thought this was the answer to all his financial woes, but still…” She let her voice fade into silence, still perplexed by the whole situation.
“Who’s his father?”
“Nick Salvador, a man who lives in Tampa and is basically a wealthy criminal from all I can learn. The last thing I knew, Bryan was in Tampa to meet him.”
“So he got mixed up with the wrong guy? I’ve seen that before, and I’ve even seen a father kill his son, but you’re right that there are definitely questions that need answers.”
“From what I could tell, the person with Bryan in the end wasn’t his father. The little I heard didn’t indicate that at all. The reason I didn’t go to the police is that Bryan warned me not to even trust them. And the last message he left me on my cell phone was he’d left his father’s disappointed. The meeting went badly with Nick Salvador. Bryan started to tell me something else when he was pulled over by a cop. Then not an hour later Bryan called me at home. He was running for his life. That’s when I heard him being killed.”
Caleb sucked in a deep breath, his face paling. “So somehow Bryan thought the police might be involved?”
“That’s why I didn’t know where to turn. When the man called me, I panicked and fled Crystal Creek. After about a day on the road, I decided to come here and hide. Sara was my mother’s second cousin. When we came to Christmas all those years ago, it was really to see Sara’s mother. My mother and hers were close at one time. I just ended up over here a lot because I loved Sara’s house. Great places to hide. That’s what made me think of Sara and Christmas.” Palms sweaty, she rubbed them on her jeans. “I know I can’t stay long. I don’t want to in any place until I figure out what’s going on.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the man you caught tonight threatened to kill you. He’s the one who tried to run you down. He was making a point to me that anyone I cared about could be hurt if I said anything to you.”
“No more running, Annie. It ends here. I’ll protect you.” Anger laced his voice, the muscles in his arms still bunched. “If Nick Salvador is behind this, we’ll deal with it on my turf.”
She inhaled a soothing breath, and yet it did nothing to calm her.
“And until we get to the bottom of this whole situation, I’ll be with you, or one of my men will.” He patted the couch cushion next to him. “I’m a light sleeper. This will serve nicely as a bed. I’m staying here at night. Sara would be the first one to agree to that.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You aren’t. I’m insisting, as the police chief of Christmas. There won’t be a repeat of this evening.” Caleb brushed his hand through her hair, then leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose, saying, “You’re safe in my town.” Then he proceeded to graze his lips over each corner of her mouth.
The sensations bombarding her from all sides made it difficult to think straight. All she managed was to nod her head. Everything else took too much thought.
After sampling her lips in a deep kiss, he framed her face. “Let’s go out together tomorrow night to take your mind off all that’s happened.”
“A date?” She hadn’t been on one since Bryan, and look what happened there. Wariness inched into her thoughts.
He chuckled. “Yes, a date. How about it?”
“Yes,” she whispered, right before he kissed her again.
SEVEN
Sitting at his desk on Friday, Caleb scrubbed his hands down his face. He hadn’t slept at all the night before. Sara’s couch had been comfortable enough, but his mind kept going over and over all the facts and questions concerning Annie and what had happened the evening before. Bruce Downey, the suspect, still hadn’t said a word, and from what Caleb understood, a lawyer was arriving later today. An expensive, high-powered one from Oklahoma City.
What bothered him the most was that Downey was an ex-policeman for the Tampa Police Department. That ate at his sense of fair play. Had he stopped Bryan and pretended to still be a cop? It appeared Bryan knew his attacker had a connection to the police.
A match for a fingerprint found at the vacant house came back a little while ago. It was Downey’s. How long had he been in town watching Annie? Waiting for his chance to get her alone.
He flinched at the sudden ringing of the phone cutting into the silence. Snatching it up, he said, “Jackson here.”
“I got some more information for you,” Don said.
Caleb had called his friend in Florida first thing when he’d arrived at the station this morning. “Shoot.”
“Nick Salvador has disappeared. No one has seen him for the past day. Someone thought he might be on vacation in Mexico.”
“You think he’s fled the country?”
“No, I don’t think anyone knows where he is. He’s bad news. I’m warning you to keep your guard up. Someone I know on the Tampa police force said it’s been rumored that Downey went to work for Salvador. Downey was basically kicked off the force three years ago.”
“Thanks. If you hear anything else, I’d appreciate a call. I feel like I’m flying in the dark.”
“I’d hate to see you crash. I’ll call if I hear anything.”
After Caleb hung up, he stared at his phone and decided to call Tyler, the police officer watching Annie. “Everything okay?”
“Quiet. Well, not exactly quiet. Jayden is dancing to some Christmas music in the living room and Sara is keeping time to the song.”
“Where’s Annie?”
“Fixing us lunch. She’s serving us leftover homemade chicken pot pie.”
Remembering when she served it the first time, Caleb licked his lips, his stomach churning his hunger. “I’ll be there in a few hours. The man who might be behind what happened last night has disappeared in Florida. Don’t let down your guard.”
As soon as Caleb finished with Tyler, the questions returned to plague him. What had Downey been looking for? The only thing that Bryan had given Annie lately was the family Bible and he’d checked that out. Nothing.
