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The Marine Next Door
Julie Miller



Captain John Murdock, USMC, Retired, with the strong hands and gruff sarcasm, was all male, all muscle and a mystery to her.
Maggie’s mind replayed every moment of that encounter with her new neighbor. She could still hear the deep voice demanding she do the right thing despite her fears—still feel the big hands that had accidentally warmed her and made her feel unexpectedly secure when he’d clasped her fingers. She could easily recall her gratitude that he’d spoken kindly to her chatty son even though she’d done nothing to encourage any type of conversation. John Murdock was bigger and stronger than her in every way.
She should be afraid of a man like that.
And yet she’d run to him for answers and assurances.
But blindly trusting a man like that was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. Was she a fool to believe the military cut of his golden-brown hair and proud carriage of his shoulders meant he was a man who’d defend her?

About the Author
JULIE MILLER attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and to shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.
Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA.

The Marine
Next Door
Julie Miller


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Prologue
“Maybe there won’t be a wedding!”
“How can you say that?”
Hidden by the trash bins where he’d been working after regular customer hours, the man lingered in the shadows outside the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop near downtown Kansas City and watched as the back door swung open and the young couple stormed out into the parking lot.
An older woman, her hair gleaming like brass in the illumination of the trendy neighborhood’s wrought-iron lights, hurried after them. “You ungrateful little girl.”
“Please.” The shopkeeper following behind her tried to intervene but wasn’t assertive enough to be paid any heed. “You shouldn’t be making big decisions right now—”
“No, Mother.” The young woman whirled around and he caught his breath. She was so classically beautiful. So perfect. So like … No, don’t go there. “It’s young woman. Grown woman. Not little girl. You can’t force this on me. It’s too big. Too much. I don’t want this.”
“You still want me, right?” The tall man in the tailored suit reached for her.
She shrugged off his touch with an unladylike grunt and no answer.
“Sweetheart.” The tall man smiled and clasped his hands around her shoulders, trying to soothe her temper. “Let’s go to our dinner reservation and use the time to cool off. It’s been a long day.”
“I’m not hungry.” She shook him off.
The man in the shadows smiled beneath the mask he wore over his nose and mouth. That one had fire. An insidious awareness of her feminine strength licked through his veins and made him clench his fist around the bag he carried.
“Then let me drive you home. We’ll talk.”
“No!” The young beauty spun around and stamped her high heels toward the sidewalk that ran along the street. “I’ll catch a cab.”
“Sweetheart?”
“She really shouldn’t—”
When the young man and mousy shopkeeper moved to follow, the mother stopped them both. “Don’t bother. She’s been like this for weeks now. I’ll try to talk some sense into her when she gets home.”
Seriously? They were letting her march off by herself? Not that this was as dangerous a neighborhood as it had once been now that buildings were being renovated and new shops and young professionals were moving in. And the Shamrock Bar just a couple of blocks over, where a good cross-section of KCPD cops liked to hang out after hours, offered some degree of crime deterrence. Still, a woman alone, brave enough to face the city at night—too upset to be truly aware of her surroundings …
The man glanced up. The last vestiges of graying twilight were giving way to stars and a dim crescent moon. Night was falling, and it would be a dark one. Traffic was light between the race of rush hour and the incoming surge of the city’s nightlife.
She wouldn’t find that cab anytime soon.
The forgettable woman went back into her shop. With a silent nudge, the bossy mother and groom-to-be climbed into their car.
His pulse raced in anticipation at the opportunity at hand. The shop door locked. The car drove off. It would be so easy. It had been so long.
“Don’t.” A voice of reason inside his head tried to warn him off the impulse heating his blood. “You don’t need this anymore. You’re better than this.”
But he wanted. Hungered.
And she was all alone.
He dropped his bag to unzip his jacket and reach inside his pocket. Everything he needed was in his vehicle. It would be so easy.
“I told you to get rid of those things. Don’t think this way. Stop.”
But he’d done without for so long, he’d been so good. Still, the rage burned inside him every time he thought of … her.
And the hurt. The humiliation.
It wasn’t his fault. She couldn’t do this to him. Not again. He wouldn’t let her. He needed her to pay. He needed to take back all she’d stolen from him.
“It’s not the same. You’re confused.”
“Shut up,” he muttered, feeling his own hot breath moisten the fibers of the mask he wore.
He moved from the shadows to peek around the corner of the brick building. The street was practically empty. Storefronts were dark. The apartments above them were far removed from a world that was quickly shrinking to the quick, purposeful strides of the blonde woman and his own raging need.
Sliding his hand into his pocket, he turned off his phone, in case someone called and distracted him. In case someone thought they could track him down. This was just him and the woman now.
“Stop. She isn’t worth it,” the voice argued.
But the white-hot haze inside his brain wasn’t listening. He ran to his vehicle and started the engine. He looked to the right, to the left, then pulled out of his parking space.
And even though the sun had set, he put on his dark glasses and followed her up the street.

Chapter One
I want to see you.
KCPD desk sergeant Maggie Wheeler had never seen an uglier flower. Not that there was a thing wrong with the cultivated shape and color of the pink spring tulip or the matching ribbon and tall bud vase.
But the florist’s card burned her fingertips, and everything the flower that had once been her favorite represented stirred like a swarm of angry bees in her stomach. She breathed a measured sigh between tight lips. Why couldn’t the past just stay buried in the past?
If the young man who’d delivered the gift hadn’t already disappeared, she’d have sent it back to be delivered to a hospital or nursing home where the tulip and baby’s breath could be appreciated. But because that option had left the building, she had no choice but to drop the whole thing into the trash at the end of the counter and empty out the shavings from the front desk pencil sharpener on top of it. She wadded up the card and tossed it in for good measure, too.
“Maggie.” Fourth Precinct chief Mitch Taylor tapped the counter as he strode by, then flicked his finger toward the bank of meeting rooms on the far side of the maze of detectives’ desks that filled the main floor. “You’re with me. Bring your computer and sit in on this meeting.”
Maggie shot up to attention, as startled by the order as she was by the interruption. “Me, sir?”
The chief turned and winked, walking backward without slowing his pace. “If you want to see how a task force works, get in here and take notes for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
She didn’t wait to be asked twice.
The flower was forgotten as Maggie grabbed her laptop off her counter, made sure Officer Allen could cover her station at the front desk, and hurried down the hallway after Chief Taylor. She followed him through the door into Interview Room A and quickly slid into the closest empty seat around the long conference table.
She was used to handling odd jobs around the precinct office, but anticipation had her perched on the edge of her chair. Her gun and badge were just as real as the other hardware in the room. And even though her expertise was paper pushing and patience, she was more than ready to move up in both pay scale and prestige at the police department. At thirty-five, she might wind up being the oldest rookie detective on the force, but she’d finally earned her college degree. She was ready to take on investigative work, ready to take the professional rank test and do the interviews to earn her detective’s shield. A little casework experience, even vicariously tagging along at the inaugural meeting of KCPD’s new major crime task force, would look good on her résumé when she put in for the promotion.
Per the chief’s specific request, she’d notified each of the law enforcement professionals gathered here this morning. Detectives. A police psychologist. Uniformed officers like herself. A representative from the crime lab.
You deserve to be here, she reminded herself. It had taken her a long time to feel like she was worthy of anything good or exciting in her life. Sometimes, a new situation like this one could still make her flash back to that awful time when she hadn’t believed in herself—when she hadn’t even thought she’d survive.
But she believed now. She was here for herself. Here for her ten-year-old son, Travis, and their future. She was in this room because Chief Taylor believed she should be.
Letting those positive thoughts drown out the unsettled worry over the message and flower she’d received, Maggie wiped the perspiration from her palms on the navy twill of her pant leg, steadied her nerves with a quiet breath and opened her laptop. All right, so maybe she was just here as a glorified stenographer to take notes, but her pulse still raced. This was the kind of work she wanted to do. Not just man a desk and be the smiling, efficient, nonthreatening face of KCPD that most citizens saw when they came into the building.
Maggie knew Chief Taylor had a soft spot for her. She’d served in his precinct back when he’d been the newly appointed captain of the first watch. Now he was running the show. She’d lost a little girl, given birth to a son, gotten divorced and worked her butt off to maintain a full-time job to support her child while she’d taken classes to earn the degree her ex had once denied her. The chief understood how badly she wanted that promotion and had no doubt invited her to sit in on this meeting to give her some real experience and a taste of where she wanted her career to go.
She was expecting formal introductions, maybe some kind of pep talk to get them fired up for a particular project. At the very least, she expected Chief Taylor to spell out the new team’s purpose and why the commissioner had charged him with the job of selecting a task force for a special investigation.
She wasn’t expecting the terse greeting from her barrel-chested boss when he reached the head of the table. “He’s back.”
He followed up the cryptic pronouncement by slapping a file folder on top of the table.
Even from the opposite end of the room, she could see the crime scene photos that spilled out. She could make out a woman’s blond hair and a puffy, bruised face. She could see a lot of crimson on those photographs. Blood.
Nick Fensom, the stocky, dark-haired detective sitting closest to Chief Taylor pulled the folder in front of him and opened it. “The Rose Red Rapist?”
“That’s right.”
Maggie’s stomach knotted beneath her thick leather belt and her gaze darted up to the chief’s brown eyes, questioning him. Maybe his invitation to sit in on the meeting hadn’t been an impromptu gesture of kindness after all. She’d once been in photos like that.
But Chief Taylor wasn’t even looking at her. What if she had a unique understanding of that victim’s emotions—shock, betrayal, pain, rage, fear, distrust? That didn’t mean the chief had an ulterior motive for inviting her to the meeting. A decade had passed since that horrific time, and she’d put it behind her to focus on the present and future. She was simply overreacting to a gruesome coincidence. She was a cop. A future detective. A fast typist.
Not a sacrificial lamb lured into the room to be probed and profiled by the others at the table. Get a grip, Sarge.
Maggie’s nostrils flared as she eased the prickly instinct to defend herself on a deep, quiet breath, and dropped her gaze to the screen in front of her. While that feverish impulse to guard against any sort of attack dissipated through the pores of her freckled skin, she concentrated on typing in the names and initial comments of everyone in the room.
Chief Taylor spelled out the details included in the file. “Same M.O. as that unsolved serial rapist case we worked a few years back. Blitz attack. Threat of a weapon once the victim is conscious. None of the victims have been found at the actual scene where the rape occurred, although how they’re moved from one place to another isn’t always clear. We’ve got nothing but the vaguest of descriptions of our perp. Male. Tall. There’s not even a consensus on his race. He wears gloves and a mask. None of them have seen his face although this most recent victim has some other identifiers that might give us a lead.”
“Other identifiers?” Detective Spencer Montgomery, whose short red hair had occasionally earned a question about whether he and Maggie were siblings—other than her son, Maggie had no relatives in the Kansas City area—sat across from his partner, Nick Fensom. Detective Montgomery adjusted his tie and leaned forward. Glancing around the room, she could see he was the senior detective, and his cool and confident demeanor reflected that status. “Such as?”
“His voice.”
“Voices can be altered,” Montgomery pointed out.
“Smells,” the chief countered. “She thought she detected something chemical.”
“That’s pretty vague.” Detective Montgomery wasn’t easily convinced.
A dark-haired woman, wearing a CSI windbreaker and sipping something from a stainless-steel travel mug, introduced herself as Annie Hermann, the task force’s liaison with the crime lab. “If we can identify the chemical or compound the vic smelled, then that could be a significant clue. It might give us the perp’s profession or a medical condition. Or tell us something about his vehicle.”
Detective Fensom shot CSI Hermann a look across the table and shook his head. “The perp leaves a red rose with each of his vics. It’s probably fertilizer or preservative from the florist’s shop.”
The petite Annie Hermann straightened in her chair. “Then maybe he works with flowers. The back of a florist’s van would be the perfect place to hide a body. The lab is running tests right now to isolate and eliminate any chemicals absorbed by the rose.”
Maggie continued to type. Analyzing a rose? Would an analysis of the tulip she’d just trashed reveal the motive behind the anonymous gift? Not that she had any doubt as to the sender and the seeming innocence of his request.
“It’s a viable clue,” Annie Hermann insisted.
“We’ll see.” Detective Fensom rocked back in his chair, unconvinced.
The CSI poked the tabletop with her finger. “Science gives us facts. It eliminates false leads and solves cases.”
“Not without any context to put those facts in. Cops solve cases. I’ll bet my gut has led to more arrests than your science.”
“Back to your corners, you two.” Chief Taylor silenced the debate. “The perp’s smell isn’t much to go on, but it’s a lead. Hermann, I want you to follow up on it.” He turned to the dark-haired detective. “And, Nick, I want you to use that gut to lead you to anyone on the streets who can tell us about this guy or these abductions. Anything is more than we’ve got right now.”
“Yes, sir, Chief.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the detective and the CSI settled back in their chairs, Maggie typed in the information, ignoring the crawl of memories over her skin beneath her uniform. Smell was indeed a vivid identifier because it left such an impression on the senses. Some of the most indelible memories she had from that hellish weekend her ex had gone off the deep end were of the smells—blood, booze, smoke, sweat—and the flowers he’d given her afterward. And to this day she would not use scented fabric softener or scented detergent in the laundry because of the memories that particular fresh smell evoked.
She nodded in silent approval of the victim’s power of observation. If she could identify her attacker by whatever scent was uniquely his, then the task force had a good shot at nailing him.
Provided they could catch him first.
Detective Fensom grumbled as he gathered up the photos. “What’s with the rose, anyway? It’s as though he thinks that hint of romance makes it an act of passion instead of violence.” He shoved the folder onto the blond woman in an elegant suit sitting beside him.
Dr. Kate Kilpatrick was more interested in skimming through the transcript of the report from the investigators who’d originally handled the case. Although Maggie had received counseling from the police psychologist years earlier, she’d never known Dr. Kilpatrick to work actively on an investigation before. “Maybe it’s a sign of remorse?”
“More like a sick memorial for everything he’s taken from her.” Edison Taylor was the only other uniformed officer at the table. But the patch on the short sleeve encircling his biceps indicated he was a specially trained K-9 cop. “I thought he was off the streets, Uncle Mitch. What’s it been? Eight—”
“Ten years, Pike,” the chief answered, using a nickname that Maggie knew referred to the surname Edison had before he’d been adopted into the Taylor family as a young teen. “Either he went away to prison for some other crime and now he’s back on the streets, or we’ve got us a nasty copycat.”
“So why exactly am I here?” Pike asked. “I’m not an investigator, a profiler or a lab tech.”
“I’m counting on you and your unit to provide extra security around the crime scenes. Run searches for us and so on.”
Dr. Kilpatrick nodded. “Everything I’ve read so far on the case indicates our perp is someone who blends into the community well. His victims appear to be unfortunate targets of opportunity. Yet no one seems to notice anything suspicious, much less feel threatened, before the attacks. It would make sense that he’d also be around after the fact, perhaps reliving the assault by watching the neighborhood and police response to his crimes.”
“Flying under the radar the entire time,” Chief Taylor continued. “The commissioner and I agree that stepping up patrols all across the city might drive our perp underground and create an unnecessary panic. If this is the same guy from before, he’ll stick to a part of Kansas City he knows. I want to narrow down the area where he hunts for his victims and use your unit and the dogs to keep a close watch in the neighborhood where he’s most likely to strike again.”
“And that would be?”
“Right now we’re looking at Irish Town and the City Market district. There are a lot of new businesses, renovated offices and apartment buildings there. Plenty of women live or work there, or travel in and out to shop and socialize. That’s where he abducted his latest victim.” He circled the table to scan the file for the info he needed. “She was abducted just after an appointment at the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop.”
“I know the area well enough.” The blue-eyed officer reached down and scratched between the ears of the muscular German shepherd stretched out at his feet. “Hans and I will be ready.”
Mitch Taylor returned to his chair at the head of the table. “Maggie?”
“Sir?” She snapped to when the chief called her name, forcing herself to interact instead of just recording information.
“I want you on the computer getting me the name of every violent offender whose prison term fits the time frame for when our perp was missing in action. The conviction doesn’t have to be rape. Look for physical assaults, armed robberies.”
“Specifically, crimes against women,” Dr. Kilpatrick clarified. “This guy is all about power. Either he’s punishing his victims for some perceived wrong done to him by a woman, or he’s compensating for a real or self-perceived weakness—and women are easier for him to control. He feels stronger, more masculine, by putting someone else down.”
“He could just be some sexual deviant nut job,” Fensom groused.
“Possibly,” the doctor conceded. “As I recall, there’s no real pattern to his victim type. He’s assaulted a Black woman, an Asian, blondes, brunettes. There has to be something that ties these women together—that makes them his type.”
Okay, support. Tech support. Maggie wasn’t the best-trained person when it came to researching through the KCPD database, but she was a fast learner. “I can do that. Look for men recently released from prison convicted of crimes against women.”
She could already name at least one suspect who fit the description without typing in a single keystroke. And she’d tossed his gift into the trash.
Annie Hermann had a different idea. “You know, some sickos can suppress their urges for a while. Or maybe the crimes just haven’t been reported.”
Despite the subtle tension between Annie and Detective Fensom, the chief thought her idea had merit. “It’s possible he took his game to some other town and now he’s back.”
Maggie raised her gaze to the chief’s and put forth an idea of her own. “I’ll access the FBI’s database and run a nationwide scan for any reports that match our perp’s M.O.”
“Better make that international,” Spencer Montgomery suggested. “Our guy could have been way off the grid.”
Maggie opened up a note pad on her screen and jotted down the task. She scooted the case file with the haunting photos around the table while she typed.
Chief Taylor pulled back the front of his suit jacket and propped his hands at his waist. “I know all the scenarios to explain why he’s back in KC, doing this sick stuff to women. I want to know how we stop him.”
“Is this …” Annie set down her drink and pulled an 8 x 10 of the latest victim from the file.
“Bailey Austin.” Spencer Montgomery plucked the photo from her hand, perhaps looking at it a little longer than necessary for simple identification before picking up the folder and sliding it back inside. But he was a hard man to read, and maybe Maggie had only imagined the hesitation regarding the victim’s picture. “It doesn’t help that his first victim out of the block is the stepdaughter of one of the wealthiest men in Kansas City. Her stepdaddy, Jackson Mayweather, will do whatever it takes to protect his family. That could generate a lot of press we don’t want.”
“And makes us look bad that he’s still on the street,” his partner added. “That has to feed this perp’s power trip.”
Chief Taylor nodded. “I’ve already gotten a call this morning from Mr. Mayweather, after he talked to the commissioner. He’s agreed to use discretion and defer to us, at least until we get our investigation under way.”
“Is Miss Austin okay?” Montgomery asked.
“Look at the pictures,” Annie said. “She was brutalized.”
“I’m asking, did she survive? Is she alive? Coherent?” Maybe Maggie had only imagined an emotional reaction from Detective Montgomery because he cleared his throat and his tone became every bit as clipped and clinical as a scientist discussing his research. “I’d like to question her—as soon as Dr. Kilpatrick here thinks she can handle it. If we can’t talk to a suspect, the next best thing is talking with the vic. If we could get a grasp on what she was thinking and doing that made her pop up as a target for this bastard, that might give us a lead to track him down.”
Dr. Kilpatrick held the detective’s gaze across the table. “I’d suggest sending an interrogator with a little more tact and compassion than you, Spencer.”
“I get the job done,” he argued.
The police psychologist was unfazed by the chill in his tone. “Whoever interviews the women who were attacked needs to understand their victimology. Rape victims require an intuition, an empathy, even, to get them to communicate. You may be dealing with anger, extreme distrust, fear of reprisals. They could be shut down and unreachable. Research indicates that some women even feel they deserved the attack, and won’t cooperate with police to catch their rapist.”
Nick Fensom swore beneath his breath. “Nobody deserves what happened to her.”
Kate Kilpatrick nodded. “Unless you’ve been through that, though, it’s difficult to understand the victimology.”
The letter k repeated in row after row on the computer screen as Maggie’s fingers stilled on her keyboard. Chief Taylor hadn’t asked her into the meeting just to take notes after all. She was certain of it.
Detectives, a police psychologist, a crime lab liaison and a security expert. Their presence on the task force made sense. Now she understood that her presence here made sense, too.
Maggie knew what it was like to be a rape victim better than anyone else sitting at this table, as far as she was aware. She’d long ago locked down that part of her life and moved on the best she could to raise her son and provide a healthy, normal existence for them both. But if she could help Bailey Austin recover from her attack—if she could get the other victims to talk or offer some unique insight that could prevent the Rose Red Rapist from striking again … then maybe it was time to for her to unlock that terrible expertise.
Her attacker had been a free man for precisely forty-three days now. And even though a court order legally prevented Maggie from ever having to deal with her ex-husband again, she’d awakened every morning and fallen asleep each night for the past forty-three days, wondering if this was the day Danny Wheeler would return and finish what he’d started ten years earlier. The tulip this morning told her she’d been right to worry. She knew how frightened Bailey Austin was feeling right now—how wary and exposed and unable to trust she’d be until the bastard who’d raped her was put behind bars.
Maggie Wheeler understood victimology. Chief Taylor was a smarter man than he sometimes let on. He’d known exactly what he was doing when he’d asked her to join this meeting. Some favor.
“I’ll let you all work out the details.” He was wrapping up the meeting. “Montgomery’s running this show, but I want a daily report. Anything you need, don’t wait and go through channels if there’s any kind of delay. You need a warrant, you need to talk to another division, you need access to sealed records—whatever it might be—you come to me and I’ll expedite the request. As of now, this investigation is priority one.” Maggie deleted all the extra letters and saved her notes, working up the courage to raise her hand and interrupt. “I have a wife and a daughter. I want this bastard off the streets.”
The answering chorus of “Yes, sirs” told her the meeting had ended. People were breaking into smaller discussions. Pike Taylor urged his dog to its feet. The chief opened the door and was leaving the room.
Do it. Ten years of recovery and a hard-won independence urged Maggie to rise to her feet. One gift from her ex wasn’t going to intimidate her into sitting on her hands and allowing another woman to be hurt. She had a unique skill that no one else in this room could bring to the table. She breathed in deeply and made her decision. Men like her ex-husband and the Rose Red Rapist didn’t get to terrorize the women of Kansas City. Not when she could do something to help stop them.
“Do it,” she whispered to herself, closing her laptop and hurrying after Chief Taylor. She caught up to him in the hallway just outside his executive assistant’s office. “Chief, could I talk to you a minute?”
He pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch before offering her half a smile. “I was hoping I’d pique your interest.” He nodded to the woman at the desk in his outer office as he ushered Maggie through to his office. “Brooke, hold my calls.”
“Right, Mitch.” Brooke Kincaid, probably Maggie’s best friend here at Fourth Precinct headquarters, mouthed a question to Maggie. Are you okay?
Maggie nodded, trading a thumbs-up sign with her friend, even though she was certain she looked pale as a ghost. She had to do this. She needed to be a part of this team.
Chief Taylor closed his office door and gestured to a seat on the near side of his massive walnut desk. “I know you don’t have investigative experience yet, Maggie. But I also know how much you want to make detective. I hate to lose the efficiency you bring to running the front desk, but I think you could be an asset to the team. You’d be invaluable talking to the victims.” His leather chair creaked as it took his weight. “I don’t want to force you because I know it’s a personal subject for you, but—”
“You don’t have to give me a sales speech, sir,” Maggie assured him. “You know my history with Danny. And I know that’s why you asked me to join that meeting.”
A much younger Mitch Taylor had been the arresting officer when her ex had finally answered for his violence against her. “I didn’t want to give you too much time to think about it. I figured you might talk yourself out of helping.”
“If you want someone who understands the victimology of the women the Rose Red Rapist preys on, I’m … qualified.”
“You’re sure? This could bring up some painful memories.” He braced his elbows on the desk and leaned toward her. “And I won’t lie to you—Danny has been out of prison a couple of months now, hasn’t he? This has to be a particularly trying time for you. Nothing about this investigation will be easy.”
She should have known a cop as experienced and on-the-ball as Mitch Taylor would be aware of her ex-husband’s release from prison. Maybe he even considered her ex a person of interest because Danny Wheeler’s time locked up in Jefferson City roughly matched the gap in the Rose Red Rapist attacks. She didn’t know whether Danny would target any other woman except her, but then she hadn’t known the extent of the violence he was capable of when she’d married him either.
“I want to do this, Mitch.” This was her chance to prove to Chief Taylor that she was not only ready, but that she also deserved to make detective. It was also her chance to prove to herself that she truly had moved beyond the past that had once shadowed every aspect of her life. She was a fighter. A mother. A cop. A college graduate. She was nobody’s victim anymore. “Some things, no matter how difficult they are, are worth doing. I want to fight for these women—be their advocate if I can. I want to join your task force.”

Chapter Two
This was getting old.
John Murdock’s thick arms and thighs flexed easily as he lifted two more boxes of books from the back of his pickup and shut the tailgate. But his right knee ached, and shards of phantom pain radiated down into his ankle and foot. He’d been at this all day—long enough for the sun to go down outside—packing, carrying, unpacking, hauling some more. Even though he’d made the trip several times already without incident, habit had him checking the cars on either side of him, and behind each crumbling brick-encased support pillar as he limped across the cracked concrete of the parking garage below his building.
He wondered how long the pain that wasn’t really there would stay with him—possibly the rest of his life according to many of the doctors and therapists who’d worked on him. He wondered how long it would take before it stopped feeling like he was just going through the motions expected of him by civilized society, and he truly felt like he was home. He was getting used to the quizzical looks from strangers, setting him apart because they viewed him as some kind of hero or they felt sorry for him. Either option set his teeth on edge and made it hard to interact without second-guessing every word or gesture directed his way.
He wondered when he’d feel like celebrating surviving his last tour of duty in Afghanistan, when he’d feel like unpacking his Purple Heart, Silver Star and other medals and deployment ribbons. He wondered when he’d be ready for a beer with old friends or facing the job—and the woman he loved but could never have—that he’d left behind. It didn’t matter that he’d lived his whole life in Kansas City before reupping with the Corps. He felt like a stranger in his own town, with his own things, inside his own skin.
He’d left a part of himself behind on that roadside in Afghanistan. In more ways than one.
Returning to the Corps was supposed to have been a fresh start for him—coming home after his stint was up, the beginning of a brand-new chapter in his life. Yet he felt stuck, like nothing had changed. He’d loved the wrong woman, raised a sister who no longer needed him, given his spleen and a good part of his right leg, a couple of friends and half of his soul to the enemy he’d gone to fight.
Inside, he was still a long way from coming home.
Adding boxes of books and kitchen supplies, along with a few civilian clothes, to the boring beige of his furnished apartment didn’t do much to make this feel like a homecoming. But it got him out of the spare bedroom at his sister’s place so she could sell it and get on with marrying her fiancé. And, it was mindless exercise that tired him out and didn’t require much thought. Right now it was enough to feel less like a burden and to look forward to a decent night’s sleep.
John slowed when he heard footsteps ahead of him. Two sets of footfalls on the far side of that last pillar. He was a big enough man that it’d take a pretty bold mugger to come after him. But size alone wasn’t a deterrent if the perps were hyped up on some kind of drug or they took a closer look at his disability and mistook him for an easy mark—if there was a mugger at all.
Running into normal, everyday people who expected normal, everyday conversation out of him was almost more daunting than facing someone who wanted to hurt him. He’d been in survival mode for over a year now, and adjusting to normal was taking just as long as the psychologist who’d debriefed him when he’d mustered out had said it would.
The curve of a butt in navy blue slacks disappearing between the open doors of the garage’s elevator almost made him stop in his tracks as he rounded the last pillar and passed the wall of junction boxes and access panels and fire emergency equipment. So the challenge would be normal, everyday civility if he got on that elevator. Would the woman who owned those curves notice the empty pant leg? Or the carbon-fiber composite rod sticking out of his boot? Would there be a slew of curious questions or politely stilted silence as she avoided eye contact with him? Maybe she’d just stare at the scars on his neck, arm and hand. A vein ticked along the column of his throat as the relative tranquility of being alone warred with his common sense.
Who knew how long he’d have to stand there holding the heavy boxes before his ride returned again? The Corsican might be rich in architectural history and renovation potential, but the building had just the one elevator that ran to all ten floors. He might as well start dealing with normal, everyday now rather than putting it off indefinitely.
“Hold the elevator,” he called out, lengthening his stride.
The woman gasped. Maybe he’d just startled her. “Hurry up,” she muttered—to her companion.
John bristled at the whispered slight. Were they trying to get away? Maybe she’d gotten a glimpse of him as well and wasn’t thrilled about the idea of sharing the tiny space with him either. But if he could make the effort to be civil, then the woman attached to that backside could damn well do the same.
“Hold it,” he ordered in a sharper tone. He heard a “Mom,” and then a slender, tanned arm shot out to catch the door as he slipped inside. He looked straight into a pair of emerald-green eyes, silently telling the woman that he knew she’d tried to leave him behind. “Thanks.”
But when the doors closed and John retreated to the opposite corner to rest his boxes on the railing, he wondered if he’d made a tactical error. That verdant gaze, sparkling with defiance or warning or some other kind of intense emotion, followed him all the way to the back of the elevator before the woman blinked and turned away. Seeing her adjust her stance to position herself between him and the chestnut-haired boy with her made John wish he’d waited for the next ride up after all. Nice to meet you, too. He felt her wariness of him like a punch in the gut.
And he’d been worried about making small talk.
This woman meant business when it came to protecting her son from the big, bad strangers of the world. Despite the copper-colored hair twisted up in a bun at the nape of her neck, with a dozen fiery gold wisps popping loose to curl against her skin, she was no dainty female. She was tall, standing nearly six feet, judging by the mere five or six inches John topped her by when he normally towered over most women. She was in uniform and she was armed.
One hand rested on the butt of the GLOCK 9 mm holstered at her waist as she inched closer to the boy who was peeking at him from beneath the bill of his Royals baseball cap. John was pretty sure the protective-mama move was intentional when she turned so he could clearly see the KCPD badge hanging from the chain beneath her starched collar.
“What floor?” she asked politely enough. But her green eyes darted as though they were assessing his height and width and the distance between them.
“Seventh.”
“Travis.” She squeezed the boy’s shoulder beside the backpack he wore, drawing John’s attention to the fact that her skin wasn’t tanned so much as it was dotted with hundreds of freckles.
The boy, whom John put in the nine- to ten-year-old range, slipped his ball glove over the handle of the bat he carried before pushing the button and then twisting from his mother’s grasp. “Do you live on the seventh floor?”
Well, at least someone in this elevator didn’t think he was the spawn of the devil. “That’s why I’m going there.”
“We just came from baseball practice,” the boy announced. “I play in the outfield, but I want to be the second baseman or shortstop. Do you like baseball?”
“Trav.” The redhead chided her son in a soft tone that belied her tough-chick image. “What did I say about bothering people?”
“He’s no bother, ma’am.” Now where did that reassurance come from? He should have been happy she didn’t want to talk to him.
The boy named Travis tilted his face up to John’s, giving him a clear look at the inherited freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but Mom says I need to know all the neighbors on our floor in case she’s not home and I need to go to a safe place. We’re on the seventh, too. I’m Travis Wheeler.”
Safe place? Although there were other eighty-year-old buildings on this block that were in the process of being reclaimed like this one, one of the reasons John had chosen this particular neighborhood was so that his sister could stop in for a visit whenever she wanted to. The fact that Miranda Murdock was a cop, like this woman, didn’t matter. Big brothers looked out for their little sisters—even if she was engaged to a man who was just as protective of her as John.
This building was safe. The remodeled structure now surpassed fire codes and he’d been assured by the landlord that retired tenants and young professionals—not gnarly devil men who terrorized women and children—populated the place.
“I’m Captain—” normal, civilian conversation, remember? “—John Murdock. I work for the Kansas City Fire Department. Out of Station 23.”
“You’re a firefighter? Cool.”
“Sorry.” Mama clasped her hand over Travis’s shoulder and pulled him back to her without sharing her name and completing the introductions. “You’re new here?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been deployed overseas or stationed in the DC area for a couple of years now. Moving in today.” There he went, making a rusty effort to put her at ease.
“What apartment?”
“709.”
“Mom, that’s right next door to us.”
“So it is.” The smile for her son faded when she faced John again. “Don’t worry, I’m not looking for babysitters. Travis won’t be stopping by.”
“I’m not a baby—”
“If he needs to—”
“He won’t.” John almost grinned at Travis’s frustrated groan when his overprotective mama hugged her arm across his chest. “There are plenty of other tenants in the building we tru—”
Her gaze wavered and dropped to the middle of John’s dusty gray-green T-shirt where she could read the letters USMC.
Trust?
Yep, no need to worry about polite civility with this woman. He was free to be his moody, isolated self, as far as she was concerned.
So why did it bother him that she turned away to watch the buttons for each floor light up without making direct eye contact with him again?
“Can you play baseball with your leg like that?”
“Travis!”
Mama put her fingers over her son’s mouth and John finally got the silence he’d thought he wanted until the elevator jerked, an alarm bell rang, and the whole car jolted to an unexpected stop. The redhead yelped as she tumbled into the back wall, but she caught her son and clung to the railing with a white-knuckled intensity, keeping both of them upright.
“What the hell?” John swayed on his feet, but the boxes anchored him into place. The light for the seventh floor was lit up above the door, but the doors didn’t open. Beneath the blare of the alarm he listened for any sounds of cables and pulleys reengaging. He reached across the elevator and pounded the alarm button with his fist until it shut off. He tilted his face toward the trap door and machine works above them. Silence. Almost like the building’s electricity had suddenly shut off. But why were the lights in the car still on if there was no power to the rest of the elevator? They were good and stuck. So much for life returning to normal. His gaze zeroed in on the ashen skin of the policewoman. “Does this happen often here?”
“Mom?” The kid tugged on the sleeve of his mother’s uniform. A worried frown veed between the boy’s eyes as he turned to John. “She’s got a thing about elevators. She doesn’t really like them.”
“That’s nonsense. I’m fine, sweetie.” She cupped her son’s face and flashed a smile for his benefit. But John wasn’t buying it. Freckles there definitely had a phobia about something. Being trapped? Closed-in places? Fear of falling? “I’ve never gotten stuck in the elevator here before. But it’s an old building. Stuff happens.”
“It didn’t happen on any of my other rides up and down from the garage.”
Her glare told John that she didn’t appreciate his pointing out that fact. “We just have to notify the super, Mr. Standage, that we’re stuck, and he’ll get things moving in no time.” Assuming an air of nonchalance, probably to reassure the boy, she crossed to the rows of buttons and opened the emergency phone panel. Only, instead of pulling out the telephone, she dropped down in front of the opening. “There’s no phone in here.”
“What?”
“It’s gone. There’s nothing but wires.”
“Let me see.” John set the boxes of books on the floor and knelt in front of the panel beside her. He’d seen billiard balls ricochet across a pool table slower than the woman shot to the opposite corner of the car, pulling her son with her. So maybe he was what she was afraid of.
That didn’t bode well for her staying calm in this crisis.
Drawing on years of training to keep victims or locals calm during a rescue attempt with KCFD or raid on insurgents overseas, John pushed aside any insult or guilt he might feel at her obvious aversion to him, and kept his voice as calm as he could make it. It was a little harder to control the jerky movements that might startle her as he pushed to his feet and locked his bum leg into place.
But the woman was wearing a KCPD uniform with sergeant’s stripes on the sleeve. There had to be some training that she could draw on, too. “You have a cell phone on you, Sarge?”
“Yes.”
He remained by the door and simply spoke over the jut of his shoulder to her. “If you’ve got Standage’s number, call him directly. If not, call 9-1-1 and ask for the fire department. They’ll know how to deal with elevator emergencies.”
She pulled her phone from the bag looped over her shoulder and opened it to make the call. Good. “You said you were with the fire department now. Do you know how to get us out of here?”
“We’ll find out what I can remember.”
John wedged his big fingers into the slit between the doors. He grunted with the strain on his forearms and biceps until he created a gap wide enough to slide his hands in all the way and get a better grip. “Let’s see where we are.”
“Joe? This is Maggie Wheeler from 707. We’re stuck on the elevator. Are you working on the wiring? Or did the power get cut somehow? Yes. There are three of us.”
Once he could get his shoulders and body weight into it, John pushed the doors all the way open and took a step back to assess the concrete wall across from his feet. There was a gap about a yard wide at the top that revealed a white number 7 painted on a pair of outside elevator doors.
“Joe says he’ll be right up,” Maggie reported, stowing her cell phone. “Of course, that means he’ll be taking the stairs, and with his arthritis, that could still be a while. Are we between floors?”
“Yeah.” John wasn’t looking forward to spooking the woman any further, but right now he was a little glad that he’d gotten stuck in the elevator with the flame-haired Amazon instead of someone more petite. He glanced back to link up with those rich green eyes. “You got a name, Sarge?”
She nodded. “Maggie.”
“Maggie, can you reach those doors and help me open them?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she stepped up beside him. Good. That was an old trick that still worked apparently. Calling a person by his or her name got them to focus, maybe even trust a little. Giving that person a specific job to do was often the easiest way to distract her from her fears.
Even though he felt her flinch when their hands brushed against each other, she didn’t hesitate to slide her fingers between the doors and help pull them apart. Now they were looking out onto the carpeted hallway of the seventh floor. Weird. The only time he’d seen an elevator not align with the exterior doors was when the power had been deliberately cut by firefighters battling a blaze.
John glanced up. But the damn light for the seventh floor was still lit up. He wouldn’t be able to see out into the hallway if the lights were off there, too. What kind of crazy wiring did they have in this place?
“What do we do now?” Sergeant Maggie asked.
John was all for getting off this carnival ride until he could figure out just what the heck was going on. “Son?” He turned back to Travis Wheeler. “Are you a climber?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Careful,” Maggie warned, understanding what John was asking of her boy. “Shouldn’t we wait?”
“Give me the bat and glove first,” John instructed. “Backpack, too.” The boy handed over his prized possessions and John slid them through the opening onto the eye-level floor above them. “Hold on a sec. So your mama doesn’t worry.” He met the wary glare of deep green eyes as he picked up the two boxes of books and wedged one against either of the open doors. “That should buy us a few seconds in case anything happens.”
“What could happen?” Maggie asked.
John nodded to her purse. “Call Standage back. Tell him not to touch or do anything until we give him the all clear. We don’t want the power to suddenly reengage.”
While she called the super, John laced his fingers together and bent down to give the boy the boost up he needed.
“Cool, Mom.” Travis paused with his fingers and chin resting on the hallway floor. “This is just like that movie I watched at Juan’s house. The one where the elevator crashed and almost cut that lady in two when she was climbing out.”
“Oh, Lord,” came the maternal gasp from behind.
John cringed at the boy’s enthusiastic but ill-timed observation and pushed him on through the opening. “Not the time to be talking movies, kid.”
As Travis crawled several feet beyond the opening and retrieved his things, John turned to the redhead clinging to the back railing. Without the freckles, there’d be no color to her skin at all. He reached out a hand to her. “Your turn, Sarge.”
She clung to the railing. “Joe says he’ll wait until I call him again.”
“Good, but we’re not going to wait. I don’t think you want to be stuck in here with me any longer than you have to be.”
“You know, it’s not really you,” she insisted.
“If you say so.” But scared was scared, whatever the cause. John’s hand never wavered. “Come on, Maggie.”
With her eyes locked onto his, her shaky fingers revealing the same distrust, she finally reached out and slid her palm into his. She took a step toward him. “It’s been a stressful day. Normally, I’m not a basket case like this. I just … really do have a thing about elevators.”
“Fair enough.” John pulled her up beside him, then stooped down to create the same step-up with his fingers. “I’ve decided I’ve got a thing about this particular elevator myself. There’s something wrong with the wiring for parts of it to work and parts of it to stop cold like this. I think I’ll be calling KCFD to make an inspection of the place. In the meantime, I say let’s get out of here.”
“Okay.”
She braced one hand on John’s shoulder and he lifted her. As she crawled out onto the carpeted floor, she started to slide back and John’s hands automatically latched on to … those curves. The flare of her hips and rounded arc of her bottom were an easy grab. And a nice, firm fit.
John swallowed hard and shook his head. He had no grounds to fault the boy for bad timing.
“Sorry,” he apologized, giving her a second boost. His hands and eyes had already lingered longer than an impersonal firefighter’s should. But the lady cop broke the contact just about as soon as the nerve endings in the tips of his fingers sparked to life at the warmth and suppleness they detected beneath her crisp navy blue trousers.
The view was over and gone within another second, and Sergeant Maggie rolled to safety on the floor above him. John eased a tight breath out between his lips. Something dormant inside him had unexpectantly awakened. Was it just the fact that he hadn’t touched a woman for two years? Hugs with his sister and handshakes with doctors and therapists hadn’t zinged through him and thrown him off-kilter like this. And prickly redheads had never been his type.
He supposed he should be pleased to discover that life-threatening injuries and months of recovery hadn’t destroyed the baser urges heating his blood right now. But he was just beginning to get comfortable with being closed-off and antisocial. Just a few minutes ago, working his way up to normal civility had been a stretch. And now he was wondering if that whole sexual lightning bolt had been a fluke or if he was going to have to curb his natural instincts to maintain a “just friends” relationship with his new neighbor.
Busy sorting through his observations and emotions, and putting them away in various mental compartments, he was startled to see the long, freckled arm poking back into the elevator. “Come on,” Sergeant Maggie ordered. “Your turn.”
Her tone was much more authoritative and coplike coming from the free air of the seventh floor than it had been in the tight confines of the elevator. Intriguing. Maybe he ought to latch onto that chilly timbre instead of remembering how she’d filled up his hands if he wanted to keep a polite distance from her.
He chinned himself up on the edge of the outside door track, then reached for her hand. With a surprisingly firm grip, she gave him the extra momentum he needed to hoist himself out onto the floor. Allowing himself a moment to catch his breath, John rolled onto his back. “Thanks, Sarge …”
But the prickly redhead was already slipping her son’s backpack onto his slim shoulders and urging him to their front door. Nope, he didn’t need to worry about hormones going on alert, being confused about social expectations of him or trying to be casual friends at all. Sergeant Maggie’s quick retreat spoke volumes about how the two of them were going to get along.
Still lying on the rug, John realized that a nearby door was propped open and someone with black hair and glasses was peeking out at him. He obliquely wondered if the short, shapeless person was a man or a woman, but there was no mistaking the unblinking curiosity. “Elevator isn’t working,” he explained. “Welcome to the neighborhood, right?”
The door snapped shut and John laughed at the irony of his worrying about being the antisocial one here on the seventh floor. He sat upright and pushed to his feet. He picked up his boxes from the stalled elevator opening and headed for his apartment. “Yeah, this is one hell of a homecoming, John.”
“Excuse me?” the redhead asked.
John shrugged off the polite query. “Nothing, Sarge. Nice to meet you.”
Her hesitation spoke volumes. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Hey, Mom. Look.”
Great. They were right next door to each other. This could be awkward if the woman preferred him to keep his distance. John shifted his boxes and scooted around mother and son as the boy plucked down a folded piece of white paper that had been tacked to their door.
“Let me see that.” Maggie snatched the note from the curious boy’s fingers and unfolded it while John fished his keys out of the front pocket of his jeans. “That son of a … This isn’t happening. Not now.”
“Sarge?”
They both stopped with their keys turned in the locks of their respective doors. The instinctive urge to ask if something was wrong died on John’s lips when he saw the color bleed from her cheeks. She stared at the words scribbled on that paper as though hypnotized. Whatever was in that note scared her just as much as the stalled elevator had. Something was definitely wrong.
Not your business, John. She wanted nothing to do with him, her kid asked too many questions and he wasn’t looking to make new friends, right?
“Mom?” Travis’s fingers touched his mother’s arm. “Is it from—?”
“Go inside.”
“But—”
“Go.” She snapped out of her fixated shock and whisked his cap off his head to press a kiss there before reaching over him to open the door. “There’s a snack in the fridge to hold you until dinner.”
But Travis, his expression looking oddly mature for one so young, seemed reluctant to leave her. “I was just joking about that movie, Mom. I didn’t think you were really going to get cut in half.”
John nudged open his own door, giving them some privacy while his neighbor summoned a smile for her son. “I know, sweetie. I know. Wait for me to go through the mail and check the answering machine, though, okay? Now go.”
John’s muscles were weary with the exertion of the move and their great escape from the elevator as he set the boxes on the carpet. Yet when he turned to close the door, everything in him tensed with guarded apprehension. She was there, standing in the open door frame, the note wadded in her left hand while her right hovered near the gun on her hip again.
The warm smile she’d given her son had vanished. “Did you see anyone out here?” she asked. “A man who might have left this note?”
“No.” He was vaguely irritated that she seemed to be sizing him up again. Yeah, those green eyes had noticed the fake leg. They swept over the scars. He bristled under her scrutiny. Did she suspect him of tacking the paper to her door? “What’s it say?”
“Is this your first trip up from the garage?”
He took a step toward her. This was his apartment after all. She was the uninvited guest. “My sixth or seventh. What’s in the note?”
She braced her feet in an overtly defensive stance and he stopped. What the hell?
John backed up a step and her words came spilling out. “Was there anyone on the elevator with you during any of those trips? Maybe you saw someone in the parking garage you didn’t recognize? Was there anyone messing with the wires or controls on that elevator? Or flowers—did you see anyone trying to deliver flowers?” She glanced around at the closed doors behind her. “Sometimes the florist will deliver them to someone else if I’m not at home.”
“I didn’t see anyone tampering with anything, I don’t know anybody here. And I sure as hell didn’t get any flowers.”
“Did you see a guy with a shaved head and tattoos?”
“I’ve only met the super, Joe Standage.” And the older man wasn’t the shaved-head type.
“His hair used to be black. Sometimes he dyes it.”
“Joe does?”
“No, my …” Her freckled skin suddenly flooded with heat. Was she embarrassed by her ranting? Intimidated by his unapologetic scrutiny? Alarmed to suddenly realize she was the intruder here?
“Is this how you welcome all your new neighbors, Sergeant—” he dropped his gaze to the name badge on her chest pocket, pulled taut by the Kevlar she wore beneath her uniform “—Wheeler? Blow hot, blow cold? Make nice and then freak out? We haven’t even been properly introduced.”
Whatever this woman’s secrets were, she wasn’t telling. Instead of answering his accusation, she stuffed the note into her uniform slacks pocket. Then she huffed up in all her warrior Amazon glory, tipping her chin as her skin cooled to peachy dots over alabaster. “I’m Maggie Wheeler. Travis is my son.”
“John Murdock.”
“Are you military or KCFD?” She eyed the Corps logo on his T-shirt and the jarhead cut that he wore whether he was overseas with his Reserve unit or home in Kansas City, working for the fire department.
“Both. USMC, retired. For about a week now. Moving back to town after my last tour and some rehab. Firefighting is the job I’m coming back to after serving my stint in the Corps.” He made another stab at moving closer. “Sarge, um, Maggie … are you okay?”
Her eyes widened as though the question had startled her. Or maybe it was his advance. Before she answered, she retreated into the hallway. “Of course I’m okay. Thank you for serving our country—Captain Murdock, was it?”
“Just John now.”
She nodded. “I apologize for Travis being so nosy. He’s going through a phase where he’s completely nuts about baseball and firefighters and … everything. And he’s never been shy about speaking his mind.” She barely paused for a breath. “I’m sorry I freaked out on the elevator. And the note. It’s just that I … Like I said, it was a rough day. Well, you don’t need to know that. Welcome to The Corsican, John.”
Yep, that sounded sincere.
By the time John reached the door, Maggie Wheeler’s was closing. He heard not one, not two, but three separate locks sliding into place.
Something about that message, or the person who’d left it, had his neighbor spooked even more than getting stranded on the elevator had. Even though she wore a gun and a vest and sergeant’s stripes, indicating she was no rookie when it came to law enforcement, the woman was spooked.
John narrowed his gaze and looked up and down the hallway. Beyond the super checking him in this morning, and the curious person from the apartment down the hall who hadn’t spoken, he hadn’t seen a single soul out here all day long. A familiar niggle of unease crept along the back of his neck like when he’d sensed a sniper’s rifle focused on him up in the Afghan mountains.
He shook off the hyperawareness and retreated into his apartment. Afghanistan was seven thousand miles away. His years of service were done and he was reporting back to KCFD Station 23 this week to start his new job as an arson investigator assigned to the ladder company with whom he’d once fought fires.
He had plenty on his plate right now to deal with. Leggy redheads and curious kids and somebody else’s bad news weren’t his concern tonight.
John locked the door behind him and leaned back against it, sweeping his gaze across the beige apartment decorated in wrapped furniture and sealed boxes.
So this was where he was going to live now.
It beat the cot and caves and blood he’d left in the Middle East. It beat the VA hospital and physical therapy units where he’d learned how to walk again.
But with nothing but bare walls and the paranoid lady cop next door, the jury was out on whether he’d call this new place home.

Chapter Three
“I know it’s an imposition, but it would be a huge help. Thank you, Coach Hernandez. Yes, I know. Thank you, Michael,” Maggie corrected at his insistence. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
Maggie locked her double-cab pickup and hurried after the other woman and two men striding through the sliding glass doors into St. Luke’s Hospital. She’d been working the task force for nearly a week now, and this was the first time she’d been invited to leave the precinct office. If chauffeuring the members of the team was the only way she could get out and do some field work, then a chauffeur she’d be.
“I should be able to pick up Travis after practice this evening. With my new assignment at KCPD, my hours aren’t as structured as they used to be, and I just can’t get away today to pick him up after school and get him to Little League. But I’ll be there by the time you’re done.”
With an apologetic frown, Maggie nodded to the reception desk volunteer who was pointing to the sign requesting cell phone usage be limited to the lobby and outdoor areas of the hospital. But Michael Hernandez was saying something about his son having Webelo Scouts after practice and that his late wife used to take care of all the transportation stuff anyway, and would Maggie and Travis want to go out to dinner with him and his son afterward? Maggie wasn’t finding any polite way to break in to end the conversation with the man she’d asked the favor from.
Seeing Nick Fensom’s beefy hand holding the elevator doors open, and withering under the glare from the volunteer, she opted to simply interrupt and wrap up the personal call she’d had to make. “I’ve got work to do, Coach,” she apologized, carefully avoiding using his first name and encouraging anything that might be construed as a personal interest in him. “But I’ll call the school to let them know Travis can leave with you. No, I’m quite sure about dinner. I appreciate your help, though. Thanks.”
Worried that she’d kept the other task force members waiting, Maggie snapped her phone shut and darted through the open doors to an empty corner of the elevator. As the doors closed, she tried not to make too much of the feeling of déjà vu that skittered along her spine. Was it just last week that she’d gotten stuck on an elevator with her new neighbor, John Murdock? She’d been just as nervous about sharing the tight space with the imposing former marine as she was about joining other members on her first victim interview.
Joe Standage’s assertion that he didn’t know what the heck was going on in his building, and that he’d have to wait for an expert to help him repair the elevator before it went back into service, was hardly reassuring. Maggie and Travis had gotten into the habit of taking the stairs down to the parking garage anyway, so it wasn’t that much of a hardship to use them coming back up, as well. And even though dinner conversations with her son, and her own dreams at night, had centered around the possibility of crashing elevators and being trapped on one with a monster far less interested in helping them escape than John Murdock had been, Maggie refused to let her fears keep her from doing her job today.
For the trade-off of a free ride this morning, she’d get the chance to observe some of KCPD’s best in action. Maggie figured she’d learn more about how to conduct an investigation in one morning by watching the real thing than she’d learned in an entire semester of her interrogation tactics class.
But as the elevator moved upward, it wasn’t the anticipation of doing actual field work that had her heart pounding in her ears. Irrational as it might be, sharing an elevator with a man was always a challenge for her. Getting stuck on one was a real nightmare. Perhaps if she’d chosen to take the stairs ten years ago instead of allowing herself to get cornered in the elevator by her enraged husband, she might have gotten away. She might have been spared the attack that had forever changed her life.
She was justified in her aversion to sharing tight spaces with someone bigger and stronger than she was. Even compared to her, standing six feet tall with her work shoes on, John Murdock was an imposing man. Maggie’s gaze flickered to the red-haired detective in the tailored suit and tie. Spencer Montgomery was tall, but John Murdock was taller. She looked to the shorter, stockier detective in the black leather jacket. Nick Fensom was broad across the shoulders and muscular, but John was bigger. Not even the artificial leg and obvious limp could lessen the intimidation factor of the unsmiling Goliath who’d moved in next door.
At least, not in her book. Captain John Murdock, USMC, retired, with the strong hands and gruff sarcasm, was all male, all muscle and as much a mystery to her as the handwritten note that still haunted her nights.
Mags—
I miss you. I know I’ve done you wrong in the past, but I’m a changed man. I’ve got me a job and I’m not drinking.
I’ve paid my debt.
When can I see you?
Love,
Danny
Maggie’s nostrils flared as she breathed in deeply, willing the frissons of terror still sparking through her system to dissipate so that she could concentrate on the job at hand. The elevator snafu had to be a horrible coincidence that had made Danny Wheeler’s note seem that much more threatening. Still, she’d put in a call to her attorney the next morning to discuss getting a new restraining order against her ex-husband. Having the flower delivered to a public building like Fourth Precinct headquarters was easy enough. But how had he found her unlisted address? How had he gotten into the building, past the security gate at the garage and Joe Standage? And why had not one of her neighbors on the seventh floor—whose doors she’d knocked on before some of them were even awake that next morning—seen Danny come and go? Not even those piercing green-gold eyes of John Murdock had seen anyone lurking around her apartment.
Was she living with a bunch of hermits?
Were the tenants in her building too elderly, too foreign, too nearsighted, too hard-of-hearing, too afraid to step up and get involved with their neighbors? If they ever got to know Danny Wheeler the way she did, they’d be smart not to come out of their doors.
But one man had stepped up. Although circumstances hadn’t given him any choice, Captain John Murdock had gotten involved.
As Dr. Kilpatrick and the two detectives discussed their strategy for approaching Bailey Austin, Maggie’s mind replayed every moment of that encounter with her new neighbor. She could still hear the deep voice demanding she do the right thing despite her fears—still feel the big hands that had accidentally warmed her backside and made her feel unexpectedly secure when he’d clasped her fingers. She could easily recall her gratitude that he’d spoken kindly to her chatty son even though she’d done nothing to encourage any type of conversation. John Murdock was bigger and stronger than she in every way except for the fact she was armed and had two good legs. She should be supercautious about developing any kind of a relationship with him. She should be afraid of a man like that.
And yet she’d run to him for answers and assurances.
Why had she expected him to be alert to the comings and goings around her apartment, and concerned about her troubles? Yes, he’d stayed calm and gotten her off that elevator when her own fears had kept her from thinking straight. But blindly trusting a man like that was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. Did she think his handicap, and the burn scars on his arms and neck from an obviously terrible injury, meant he couldn’t harm her? Was she a fool to believe the military cut of his golden-brown hair and proud carriage of his shoulders meant he was a man who’d defend her?
Danny had done a stint in the Navy right out of high school. She knew better than to think that just because a man wore a uniform, he was a good guy. She was smarter than that—smart enough to know that outward appearances and little flickerings of awareness in her pulse were no way to judge the true character of a man. She’d fought too hard for her independence to let one panic attack and a lingering curiosity about her mysterious, attractive neighbor keep her from standing on her own two feet.
She would figure out what had gone wrong with the elevator. She would find out how Danny had gotten that note to her. She would make it clear that he could never be a part of her life, or their son’s, ever again. It was what a strong woman would do, what a well-trained KCPD detective would do. This morning she needed to set aside her fascination with John Murdock, and her fears about her ex, to become that detective she wanted to be.
Still, “Sarge, um, Maggie … are you okay?”
When was the last time a grown man who wasn’t an E.R. doctor or a fellow cop asked her that question?
She knew better than to make anything out of his concern. Heck, they’d barely spoken two words since that night. But it was nice to be asked. Nice that someone was polite enough to notice her distress. Nice to know that wigging out on a man didn’t automatically mean he couldn’t care. In a neighborly, we-just-survived-a-small-crisis-together kind of caring, of course.
Tamping down the smile that softened her lips, Maggie waited for the other task force members to exit the elevator and get a few steps ahead of her before falling into step behind them.
Bailey Austin’s hospital room was easy to spot. It was the one with the John Murdock-sized SWAT cop pacing back and forth in front of the door. She recognized Trip Jones as a coworker who checked in at her desk every morning before the precinct’s daily roll-call meeting. His wife was Charlotte Mayweather-Jones, stepsister to the rape victim they’d come to interview. Normally Trip greeted Maggie with a friendly smile.
But there were no smiles for any of them as they approached. “Detective Montgomery. Nick. Dr. Kilpatrick. Sarge.” Trip shook hands with each of them. “So this is the new task force?”
“Officer Jones,” Spencer acknowledged for all of them. He pulled back the front of his suit jacket to splay his hands at his waist. “How is she?”
Trip shook his head and shrugged. “It’s not good. I’m afraid to go in there. I could tell I made her nervous.”
“Did she say you remind her of her attacker?” Spencer asked.
“She didn’t say anything to me. I guess I can be kind of scary when I’m in the mood to wrap my hands around the neck of the bastard who did this.”
Dr. Kilpatrick squeezed his arm in reassurance. “That’s an understandable reaction, on both your parts. I’m sure that somewhere inside she appreciates you being here for her.”
“Maybe. This family has been through enough with Charlotte’s kidnapping, the murder of that worthless stepbrother of hers, and now this. I don’t know how much more she can handle.”
The blonde psychologist reached for the door handle. “We’ll be gentle with her, I promise.”
Spencer Montgomery caught the door and followed her in, with his partner right behind them. But when Maggie reached the open door, she stopped. “Wait a minute. We’re all going in there?”
“We need to question the victim while the incident is still fresh in her mind.” Detective Montgomery looked faintly annoyed at having to stop and explain his actions when he faced her.
Maggie shivered with the memory of when she’d been the woman lying in that hospital bed. “Her mind’s probably still in shock right now. And to see a crowd of armed police officers storm into her room—”
“We’re hardly storming,” Spencer argued in a hushed tone.
“We’re not the bad guys here,” Nick Fensom echoed.
Maggie looked over her shoulder to share a rueful glance that included Trip, as well. “Right now, in her mind, pretty much everybody’s a bad guy.”
A tremulous voice from the other side of the privacy curtain silenced the standoff. “Don’t touch me.”
Maggie had never met Kansas City socialite Bailey Austin, but she recognized the tenor of a woman fighting to hold on to normalcy and civility, and failing miserably.
A man’s voice shushed her. “Sweetie, I’m just so worried—”
“I know.”
“This doesn’t change how much I love you, how much I want to still marry you. Tell me what you need.” Frustration colored his voice. “Anything.”
“Bailey, dear, Harper loves you.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t … I don’t want to talk about the wedding right now, okay?”
“Loretta, dear.” That was an older gentleman’s voice. Probably Bailey’s stepfather.
“No.” Loretta Austin-Mayweather’s shrill voice took care of any need to be secretive about KCPD’s arrival. “I’m going to make everything okay for my daughter. She’s going to get married. She’s going to have her happily ever after.”
“Dear—”
“I just want everything to be the way it was before this happened.”
“They’re ganging up on her.” Maggie whispered the thought out loud.
Nick Fensom’s blue eyes narrowed at the observation. “They’re family.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re not listening to what she needs right now.”
Spencer was shaking his head as the conversation on the other side of the curtain escalated toward an argument. “We need to talk to her alone if we can. I don’t want anybody else’s well-intentioned comfort or defense of her to shut her down and keep her from talking, or taint whatever details she can recall.”
Nick nodded his agreement. “She may not feel comfortable sharing some of the grittier details in front of her family, anyway.”
“Divide and conquer, then.” Kate Kilpatrick adjusted her fingers around the strap of her bag and headed for the curtain. She pulled the curtain aside to announce their presence and reveal a tableau of startled friends and family gathered around the bed. “Mrs. Mayweather?” Kate extended her hand to the beautiful blonde woman with the red-rimmed eyes. “I’m Dr. Kilpatrick from KCPD. I’m so sorry this happened to Bailey. As a mother I understand the grief and rage and helplessness you feel at seeing your child harmed.” Dr. Kilpatrick had children? She’d never mentioned them. Maggie had never even seen a picture of any family in the psychologist’s office. But the moment of surprise passed as the psychologist smoothly manipulated the startled family members. “I have some experience counseling the families of victims. Why don’t you and I go out to the lobby and talk for a bit.”
Loretta Austin-Mayweather latched on to the sleeve of her husband’s suit coat. “I want to be with my baby.”
Jackson Mayweather turned his shrewd eyes to Dr. Kilpatrick. “You can calm her down?” The police psychologist nodded, then he patted his wife’s hand. “Loretta, I promise we won’t go that far. But I think we should talk to the doctor.”
Wrapping his arm around his wife’s shoulders, the Mayweather patriarch guided her out the door behind the psychologist.
Maggie stepped aside, marveling at the smooth teamwork of the task force members. Nick Fensom said something to Trip’s wife, Charlotte, about the red jacket of the certified therapy dog sitting at her feet, and soon the detective was escorting them out the door to join Trip.
But a tall, golden-haired man in a suit maintained his position at Bailey Austin’s side. Her fiancé, Harper Pierce, according to an article she’d read in the Kansas City society pages, glared at Detective Montgomery. “You again? Didn’t you torment this family enough when you kept harassing us with questions about the Rich Girl Killer?”
“I got the job done, didn’t I? We got our man.” Spencer’s gaze settled for a moment on the bruised face of the young woman in the bed. “We’ll get this guy, too.”
The one blue eye that wasn’t swollen shut blinked open to meet the detective’s curiously blank expression. But just as quickly, Bailey closed her eye and turned onto her side, hiding her face toward the blinds at the window.
“You see?” Harper Pierce taunted. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
With his focus squarely back on the hostile fiancé, Detective Montgomery pulled back the front of his jacket, subtly displaying his badge, his gun and his authority to the other man. “You’re with me, Pierce. If you truly want to help Miss Austin, that is. Because you were one of the last people to see her that night, I’d like to ask you some questions about the time and events leading up to your fiancée’s abduction.”
“Bailey needs me here.”
“Go.” Snatching her shoulder away from Harper’s outstretched fingers, Bailey curled into a ball, making it clear that his touch might be the last thing she needed right now. “Please, Harper.”
Several moments of silence passed before it fully registered that Maggie was alone in the room with the victim. She shifted on her feet in the shadows beside the door, wondering if she should excuse herself to go observe the interviews or just slip quietly out of the room.
But Bailey Austin’s soft voice called to her before Maggie could decide. “You can sit if you want.”
Maggie glanced back at the door, then over to the chair and rolling stool beside Bailey’s bed. Maybe the young woman was one of those high-society trophy wives-to-be who’d been raised to have impeccable manners—under any circumstance.
But no woman in Bailey Austin’s condition needed to be worrying about Maggie Wheeler’s feelings right now.
“You need your rest.” Maggie thanked her and backed toward the door.
“You don’t have to go.”
The other woman’s voice sounded small, almost devoid of inflection, stopping Maggie’s retreat.
She recognized the bleak sound of isolation, the belief that no one could ever truly understand what she’d been through. Maggie’s eyes burned with tears of empathy. But she blinked them away, refusing to let another victim feel the utter loneliness and drifting sense of loss she’d endured. Opening up her well-guarded heart, Maggie crossed the room and took a seat on the creaking vinyl stool.
“Your family will be back soon. Or, if you don’t want them here, I’m sure your brother-in-law Trip could make that happen.” She talked to the gap in the gown between Bailey’s shoulder blades. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You’re probably not ready to hear this right now, but I can recommend a victims’ group and a therapist who specializes in counseling sexual assault victims.”
The younger woman rolled onto her back, turning her puffy face to Maggie. “Were you attacked, too?”
Maggie nodded, going to that matter-of-fact place in her head where she could discuss such things. “January sixteenth—ten years ago.”
“I guess it’s a date you never forget.”
“Haven’t yet.”
Bailey’s bruised blue eye sharpened its focus. “Trip said more detectives who were experts in this kind of crime would be in to question me today. Is that who you guys are?”
Maggie spoke in gentle tones but didn’t sugarcoat the truth. “KCPD believes the man who attacked you has raped several women. He disappeared off the radar for a few years, but it seems he’s back in Kansas City.”
“What he did to me, he did to other women?”
“The M.O.’s match. So our chief has put together a task force.” She nodded toward the door. “Detective Montgomery, he’s the task force leader. He’ll want to ask you some questions when he’s done talking to your fiancé.”
“I know Spencer.” Bailey hugged the blanket covering her up to her chest. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
She was on a first-name basis with the task force leader? Detective Montgomery had never mentioned a personal connection with the victim. But then, she’d yet to see the man reveal much of anything he didn’t want to. “He’s one of the best investigators we have.”
“I know he is. He helped capture the Rich Girl Killer.” But Bailey was sinking beneath the covers, pulling up the blanket like a sheet of armor.
“If there’s some kind of problem between you, his partner, Nick Fensom—”
“No.”
Maggie released a silent breath and tried again. “Maybe you’d feel more comfortable talking to a woman. Dr. Kilpatrick is a police psychologist, more of an adviser than a cop. She doesn’t even carry a gun.”
“Why don’t you ask me the questions?” Oh, no. Was she serious?

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