“Can you get this tape off me?” She turned the plea on him, but she already knew the answer.
Reaching out, he stroked the hair back with his fingertips. “It’s evidence. You’ll have to wear it until the CSI team can collect it, but I can get you out of the rain.”
Grateful, she touched his forearm with her hands. A wave of relief flooded her body. Help had come. It had come in the form of a man who for some overwhelming reason made her feel safe for the first time in weeks.
“I’m Detective Royce Beckett.”
“Adelaide Charboneau,” she whispered as he gently brought her up onto her bare feet, as if she were made of something fragile. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.
Heat ignited in her body, chasing away the chill. She swallowed hard, knowing if it weren’t for Detective Royce Beckett, she’d be trying to kick her way out of a car trunk right now.
She pushed the haunting image into the back of her mind, knowing it would resurface, but not tonight. Tonight she was safe and she had every intention of relishing it.
Royce spotted a cluster of chairs on the veranda next to the open front door and aimed for them, but the moment he stepped forward, Adelaide let out a yelp of pain and sagged against him.
Without hesitation he scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the expanse of grass, up the steps and onto the porch. He carefully set her down on a wicker settee and stepped back.
In the glare and shadows of the headlights, he could see the intense shade of purple forming along the narrow shaft of her bare ankle. “You need to have that looked at. It could be broken.”
For the first time tonight he finally got a solid look at her face. It was a fresh face, a beautiful face, he decided as she stared up at him with eyes the color of smooth jade.
The drone of another squad car hummed from up the block, and it pulled in just as the other officers appeared from around the side of the house using their flashlights to comb the darkness.
“Anything?” he asked, dragging his gaze away from Adelaide.
“Nothing. We saw a car pull away from the curb a block over, but we weren’t close enough to get a description.”
“Do an inside sweep in case the unsub had a partner. I’ll call in CSI.”
The two officers climbed the steps, drew their weapons and disappeared inside the front door.
Royce pulled the radio from his belt and called in the team, hoping the thug had left evidence he could use to nail him.
Two more uniforms sloshed up the walkway and stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Miss Charboneau?”
Royce turned just as one of the officers took the stairs a couple at a time and knelt next to the settee.
A jolt of protectiveness jumbled his thoughts, and he had to fight the urge to step closer to her, to pull his jacket tighter around her shoulders, to cover the smooth expanse of her bare leg stretched out on the settee.
“Officer Brooks. It’s a horrible night to be out.” She gave a tired smile.
Brooks’s face was stern as he stared at the tape locking her wrists together, then back up at her face. “What happened?”
“A man broke into my house and tried to take me.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“No, I never saw his face.”
“You mean you didn’t recognize him?”
“I mean I never saw his face. He blindfolded me in the closet.”
“Dammit.” Officer Brooks came to his feet and turned to face Royce. “She’s the best sketch artist the department has ever hired. If she’d seen the bastard, she could draw him, and I’d catch him.”
It hit him then, like a Mack truck on the 10 freeway. Adelaide Charboneau, NOPD sketch artist. In fact he’d just used a composite she’d drawn to catch a serial rapist. “I got a look at him.”
Adelaide glanced up a him. “If you saw him, I can create a composite.”
Royce pulled the image in his brain, then realized how obscured the details were by the man’s ball cap. “We’ll give it a try, but between his hat, bad lighting and the rain, I’m not sure it’ll make a difference.”
A look of acceptance passed across her features, and she nodded in agreement. A gesture that seemed to him to be out of place in the exchange.
Glancing up, he watched a long white van pull up to join the string of cop cars bedazzled with flashing lights.
The whole neighborhood was awake now. People rubber-necked from their porches, dressed in their jammies. Fortunately the rain was letting up one bucket at a time, and dawn was just over the eastern horizon.
“It’s clear, Detective.” One of the uniformed officers stepped through the doorway, while the other one flipped on the porch light from inside the foyer.
“There are a dozen muddy footprints coming in across the kitchen floor, and broken glass at the point of entry. We’ll take a look around the perimeter and turn it over to forensics.”
“Thanks.” Royce turned his attention back to Adelaide, noticing a shiver quake her body. He needed to get her inside and dried off.
Officer Brooks’s radio broke squelch and Royce was relieved when his unit was called out by dispatch on an MVA.
“Take care, Miss Charboneau.”
“I will.” Adelaide raised her bound hands in an awkward wave and watched the two cops hurry for their car, nearly colliding with a woman carrying a case almost as big as she was.
She rushed up the steps, put the case down and shook off the rain before wiping a hand across her face and looking up at Detective Beckett.
“I’ll be glad when hurricane season is over.”
“How are you, Gina?” Royce stepped forward.
“Soggy.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. “But I suspect you knew that, Beckett. Looks like everyone gets wet tonight. Let’s just hope it doesn’t flush all the evidence down the storm drain.” She gloved up and looked at him. “It’s your crime scene, what’ve ya got?”
“A break-in using the back door of the home. The unidentified subject crossed through the kitchen. Officer Jones indicated there are muddy tracks leading from the point of entry. The subject then attacked the occupant of the home, Miss Charboneau, and dragged her outside via the front door, then onto the lawn, where I confronted him.”
Gina glanced over at Adelaide. “Glad you’re okay, miss.”
“Thank you.”
“First order of business is removing the tape he used to bind her hands.”
“Let’s get her inside, then.” Gina picked up her forensic kit and stepped inside the house.
“Can you stand?” Royce asked, glancing down at her swollen ankle.
“Maybe.” She rocked forward and slid her legs off the settee, then put her bare feet on the floor.
Royce moved in next to her and helped her up. She put pressure on it, and recoiled when searing pain shot up her leg. She lifted her foot, only to have Royce catch her before she went down.
“No way. There’s no way I can put full weight on it.”
In one fluid motion he scooped her up into his arms again.
Embarrassment