She took a swallow of her coffee. It was lukewarm. She worked to get it down and leaned back. Detective Royce Beckett would walk into her realm any moment now, and she’d be forced to explain the drawings he’d gathered up off her studio floor last night.
But she didn’t have an explanation…at least not one that would make sense to a clear-and-present-danger sort of man like him.
Just the memory of him holding her made her cheeks warm. He made her feel safe, made her want to try to survive what was coming.
A couple of quick knocks, and the door opened. He stepped into the room, sucking the oxygen out of the space, and her lungs, too.
She looked up, catching the full force of his intense, dark-eyed perusal, but she couldn’t keep her focus from drifting to the sketches he held in his right hand between his thumb and index finger.
“Detective.” A wash of nervous energy rolled over her.
He smiled for an instant. “Adelaide. Nice place you have here.” He eyed the room, nodding his head in approval before he returned his attention to her.
“I understand how important it is for you to make victims feel safe. Protected. I’m sure it helps them give you the information you need to sketch their assailants.”
She settled back in her chair, feeling the first whisper of fear skitter over her nerve endings. “I like to think so.”
He pulled out a chair across from her and lowered himself into it, setting the sketches on the table next to him. That was when she noticed a Polaroid picture on the top of the pile. He picked it up and put it down in front of her.
“I need you to take a look at a snapshot of the man we believe was looking in your window last night. We got his name from a plate check on a car parked a block over from your place. Do you recognize him?”
She reached for the photo, unable to still the quaking of her hand as she picked up the picture and stared at the shot of the man’s face.
“Yes. I’ve worked with him before. This is Clay Franklin. I did a sketch of his mugger a little over three weeks ago, but they haven’t caught him yet.”
She glanced up to see Royce studying her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
He broke eye contact, pulled a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket and jotted down some information before he looked back up at her.
“I know the mugger’s sketch went out on an APB, and WGNO-TV ran it. Five people have been mugged in the same area, but Clay was the first victim who got a good look at the man’s face.” She licked her lips and tried to relax, but she knew he was dissecting her, her information, and most assuredly the sketches lying next to him.
“Did he say anything to you? Did he put the moves on you? Give you any indication that he was interested in you?”
“Enough to become a Peeping Tom and spy on me you mean?”
An amused grin tugged at his mouth. “Yes. Enough to watch you on more than one occasion?”
“No.” She ran the drawing session over in her mind, sorting for important details she may have missed. “Not at first. But he did take to staring at me profusely once I revealed the sketch of his attacker to him. It made me uncomfortable.”
“That’s an affliction the bulk of the department’s males seem to have in common with Mr. Franklin.”
Embarrassment bloomed on her cheeks. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
His eyes narrowed for an instant, and she wondered about his thoughts. It was true, she’d been approached time and again by the officers of the NOPD, but Detective Royce Beckett was the first one who sparked any interest inside her.
“I’ll pull the file and we’ll bring him in for questioning. See if his shoe imprint matches the one we found under your studio window the night you were dragged from your home. It doesn’t match the ones we photographed on your kitchen floor that night, so it’s safe to confirm he wasn’t the man who broke in and tried to abduct you. It only quantifies the fact that there are two of them.”
Fear bubbled up again, and she worked to push it back from the edge of her thoughts. She couldn’t function if she let it escape; it would only send her into a cycle of terror she couldn’t defuse.
“Did he leave any evidence at the scene?”
“None that we could find.”
Regret welled inside her. If only she’d have seen the man’s face. She’d love nothing better than to let her pencil and sketch pad reveal him and land him in jail.
“And then there’s this.” He reached for the sketch on top and flipped it over. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Adelaide stared at the disturbing drawing. Her throat constricted. Looking up, she met his gaze. Lying about the drawing wasn’t going to work. Detective Beckett possessed more determination and persistence than she’d ever be able to challenge.
“It’s a depiction of my death.”
Royce rocked forward in his chair. Leaning across the table, so close she could smell the slightest hint of his sultry aftershave. His handsome features were set in dead-serious resolve, and she let his intensity coil around her, drawing her into the emotion.
“You can’t mean that,” he whispered. “She’s wearing your face, but I’ll be damned if I believe that’s you.”
Brushing the stunning sketch with her gaze for an instant, she again raised her eyes to his. “Then be damned, Detective, because that’s how I’m going to die.”
She dropped her stare back to the haunting image, disturbed by the tone of certainty in her own voice. Certainty, yes, but acceptance? It was the first and best-developed image of the sketches she’d been compelled to draw for weeks now. It depicted her lying faceup in the trunk of a car. Her hands bound in front of her with duct tape. Her hair fanned out around her face. Eyes wide open, lips parted in a silent scream. A deep ugly gash slashed across her throat.
“I believe you saved me from this the other night.” She focused on him. He clamped his teeth together, sending a visible ripple of tension along his jawline.
“This will be my fate, Detective, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“You can’t believe I’d ever let that happen to you, Adelaide.”
Hope surged inside her for an instant, but dispersed quickly, dragging her back into a reality she couldn’t paddle her way out of.
“I’ve made peace with it. These things happen. God knows in my line of work, I’ve drawn the deplorable things one human being can do to another.”
She reached for her sketches, but he beat her to them and covered her hand with his.
“Effective immediately, I’m posting a uniformed officer outside your home. This nut job is still out there, and you’re not safe until we catch him.”
“I’d like my sketches back. They’re not part of this investigation.” She pulled in a breath, watching Royce’s mouth soften, followed by the rest of his features.
“I’m sorry, but I plan to hang on to them for now.” He removed his hand from over the top of hers and picked up her drawings, then stood up.
“I want you to go home and feel safe. We’re going to catch these people.”
“Thank you, Detective. I’m sure you will.” Someday. She couldn’t embrace his assertion because she knew what she knew, and that truly frightened her.
Royce turned for the door and reached for the knob, just as a knock thumped against the wood.
He pulled it open, feeling like an oppressive weight rested