backed away. “You won’t see me again, Robin.”
Her eyes opened to see him striding away. He swiped a hand over his face and never looked back.
The emotional roller coaster of this long, sleepless night shook through her and left her knees wobbly enough that she had to cling to the bricks for support. “Yes, you will,” she called after him, finding her voice and gaining strength. “I’m a determined woman. I repay my debts, Mr.... What the hell is your first name, anyway?”
But he disappeared around the fence, and the night and the rain swallowed him up.
Robin stared into the darkness, willing the sexy, frustrating, mysterious apparition to reappear. Willing her fascination with the man to stop pounding through her blood. After a minute of standing in the rain, feeling as empty and alone as she’d been before bringing Emma into her life, Robin had no choice but to go inside, bolt the doors behind her and trudge upstairs to claim whatever sleep she could.
Chapter Five
Seriously?
Ghost Rescuer Saves RRR’s Latest Victim
Jake set down his mug of coffee and spread the newspaper open across the top of his kitchen table.
“Ghost Rescuer,” he muttered, zeroing in on reporter Gabriel Knight’s latest article in the Kansas City Journal. “According to one eyewitness, the unknown hero appeared ‘like a ghost from the shadows.’” Jake crumpled the edge of the paper in his fist. “What eyewitness?”
The only people who’d been there last night had been an infant who couldn’t talk and the blitz attacker who certainly wouldn’t want Kansas City’s top crime reporter covering his activities. That left the stubborn, dark-haired victim, Robin Carter, to blab about how he’d helped her. Some thanks.
“What are you doing to me, lady?” He didn’t need this kind of publicity. He didn’t need publicity, period. Getting featured in the newspaper worked against the whole idea of hiding out from the nightmares Jake suspected were all too real.
He swallowed the last of his tepid coffee and read the article from beginning to end. “Ah, hell.”
At least she hadn’t mentioned his name. But big, scarred face and man who likes his privacy were all apt descriptors that could lead anyone observant enough right to him.
He skimmed over Knight’s claims that the Ghost Rescuer had done what KCPD had been unable to do for over a year now—stop the Rose Red Rapist. The women of Kansas City could breathe a little easier knowing someone like him lurked in the shadows, watching over them, waiting to save the day. He was making Jake out to be some kind of folk hero. This reporter clearly had a beef with the police department, but Jake wasn’t about to sacrifice his anonymity to become a front-page news story in which Gabriel Knight could vent his anger and disappointment.
Jake glanced behind him at the closet where his go-bag, with all those IDs and his weapons cache, was stored. A man like...whoever he was...had a strong aversion to publicity, even good press.
Would whoever had cut his face, burned his skin and put a bullet in his head see this article and come back to finish the job? Would word of an anonymous hero lurking in the alleyways of Kansas City reach one of those Central American countries stamped on those fake passports? Or had he already taken out the people who’d done this to him? Was there enough detail in this article to get the attention of a law-enforcement agency that had him on their most-wanted list?
“Hell.” Jake knocked the chair backward as he stood up abruptly, sending the shirt he hadn’t yet put on tumbling to the floor. He wadded the newspaper in his fists and tossed it across the apartment. He could damn well be sure the local cops would be keeping an eye out for him now. And he worked in a cop bar! Great place to blend in and eavesdrop on official business, giving him a heads up on any investigation that might lead back to him. Bad place to be if KCPD had an actual suspect description that matched his face.
“You’re ruining my life, Robin Carter.” He stalked across the apartment to the fire escape window and pushed it open so he could sit on the ledge and breathe in several lungfuls of the storm-scrubbed morning air.
He didn’t want to move on. He’d learned how to be good at leaving. He could move quickly and silently and be gone before anyone knew it.
But he liked Kansas City. He didn’t know if he’d grown