Too long since he’d been this close to someone like Christie.
SHE GOT TO HER BEDROOM DOOR and fought the urge to look back at Boone. She’d embarrassed herself enough with him for one day. She wanted him with a hunger that was foreign to her, that made her feel like a first-class slut. Ironic that for most of her adult life, she’d been considered pretty cold. She wasn’t, of course. Just picky.
She went straight to the closet and turned the dimmer light on because, frankly, she didn’t want to see herself in the mirror in the corner. She just stripped off the workout clothes and pulled on her bathrobe. Never so grateful for her incredible Whirlpool bathtub, she couldn’t wait to get in and soak for a week or two. Anything that would make her feel like herself again. Did she even remember what that was like?
She sighed as she went to her big dresser. She got out her old pair of flannel pajamas, the ones with little cowgirls on them. They’d been a gift from her best girlfriend, Stacey, who lived, unfortunately, in Colorado. Four years ago, they’d had a slumber party, and while Christie had provided the munchies and the chick flicks, Stacey had brought matching pj’s. It had been such a great night.
Christie thought about her old friend a lot, especially lately. A year ago, she’d have turned to Stacey for help, but her friend had enough on her plate. She’d married the love of her life, and they’d had a child. But the baby, a sweet little girl, was born with spina bifida. Stacey knew nothing about the stalker, nothing about the deterioration of Christie’s life, and that’s how it would remain. The pajamas weren’t the perfect substitute for the sympathetic shoulder of a best buddy, but they’d have to do.
She slipped on her fluffy slippers, and went into the bedroom, stopping right by the bed to see if she could hear Boone. He wasn’t in the shower, because she would have heard the plumbing. No, he was still going over the house for bugs. He’d probably wait until she was in the bath to do this room, which meant there was no way she was turning on the light.
She shivered as she thought about the bastard watching her, and immediately tried to think of something else. She sat on the edge of the bed and opened the bedside-table drawer. Shoving her vibrator to the very back, she pulled out one of her favorite books, something she’d read at least a dozen times, but Pride and Prejudice always made her feel good.
She held the book in her hand, thankful for small delights. A bath, Jane Austen, scented candles and a good night’s sleep. And no thinking about Boone. Not even for a second.
Yeah, right. Clearly, she’d lost her mind, which was understandable, considering. She’d never attacked a man before, never been so brazen, so nuts. Maybe if she got a few more good nights of sleep, he wouldn’t seem so attractive.
She should get up now. Go pour her bath. Maybe she’d put that lilac-scented oil in the water, along with the Epsom salts. Thinking of the bubbles that would swirl in the tub, she stood, ready to be immersed in heat, when she brushed the back of her robe over her butt. Her hand came away damp, which was weird because Milo hadn’t had an accident in a really long time, and only once on her bed when he was a puppy. She looked at her palm, but it was too dark to see. Her gaze moved to the bed. Something was wrong. Off.
She stepped back and reached over to the bedside lamp. The light spilled over the bedspread, which was stained a deep, dark, bloodred.
BOONE DROPPED THE SCANNER and had his weapon out before her scream died. He saw her in the room, her hands splayed to her sides, her posture rigid, her mouth open in horror. What he didn’t see was the geek.
Instead of just slamming into the room, he came in soft, checking the right, the left, the windows, the closet door. Nothing. Nothing but a terrified woman standing over a blood-stained bed.
“Shit,” he said, looking Christie over, even though he knew it couldn’t be her blood. “Are you hurt?” He kept his voice low, although after that scream, it made no difference.
She shook her head.
“Did you see him? Was he here?”
“No.”
“Go into the kitchen,” he said, “and stay there.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere alone.”
Boone knew it wouldn’t do him any good to argue with her. He moved closer to the bed. There was an extraordinary amount of blood. It had drenched the comforter, splattered the pillows and the wall behind it. Too much blood, and it didn’t smell right. There was none of that copper odor he knew too well. He touched the comforter, dipping his finger in the wet, and brought it to his nose. He smelled sugar. “This is fake. It’s stage blood.”
“That’s not as big a comfort as you’d think.”
“I know,” he said. “It still means he was in here, and he’s probably listening, if not watching us right now.”
Christie clutched her robe, but she kept her composure.
He walked to her, touched her arm. “Go into the kitchen. Take your weapon. I’ll be right there.”
She went into her closet and came out holding the Glock. She looked once more at the bed, at him. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“Okay. You stay here. Don’t say anything.”
She nodded. Boone doubted the camera would catch the trembles that ran through her body.
He reached for his scanner and remembered he’d left it in the other room. He looked to Christie. “I’ll be right back. Stay put.”
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t object.
It took him a minute to retrieve the gadget, and another to get Milo from the kitchen. The dog followed him to the bedroom and immediately went to the bed to sniff the syrup. Christie called him over. Milo looked regretfully at the treat, but he obeyed and the two of them went to the corner of the room where there were no windows and hunkered down together on the carpet.
Boone’s first instinct was to go over to her. She still looked incredibly scared, and her palm was smeared with the sticky red goop. He’d seen the back of her robe, which looked ruined. Just like everything else in her life. But the way he could help the most was to catch this sick freak. So he got to work.
The first camera he looked for was the one he’d placed in a hinge on the door. He didn’t touch it, or even look at it, in case there were other cameras, but his meter showed him it was there and functioning. He’d look at the tape later, after Christie was asleep. The camera would have caught any activity in the room, and with luck, would identify the geek. He could then get a still, and use his buddy at the FBI to run facial-recognition software. It would be a simple matter of tracking the stalker down once they knew who he was. Boone couldn’t wait to get his hands on him. He wouldn’t be stalking anyone else. Not in this lifetime.
As he went inch by inch over every surface, he thought about the significance of the blood spatter. For one thing, the geek had managed to get into the house. Boone had checked every lock, and they were damn good. He’d even jimmied a couple of them to make them stronger, but that hadn’t stopped him. The fake blood was a message, but what kind? That the geek had access to her bedroom. That he wanted her dead. Or that he wanted her even more vulnerable, more frightened,
