Conceal, Protect - By Carol Ericson Page 0,17
they be after you? Did you ID them?”
“They were wearing masks. I could never give the police a description. To me they seemed ten feet tall, monsters wielding guns.”
Leaning forward, he covered her bunched hands with one of his. “Why would they be after you now if you never identified them? It’s been two years, Noelle. If you haven’t given the police a description by now, you never will. They know that.”
“I don’t know whether I want it to be them or not.” She collapsed against the back of the couch. “I can’t think of who else it could be.”
“Don’t worry about it right now.” He squeezed her hands, still cold even covered by his. “Get some sleep. We’ll take the camera to Sheriff Greavy tomorrow and let him figure it out. In the meantime, I’ll be here keeping watch.”
She slipped her hands from beneath his and stood up. “I hope you’ll get some sleep, too. I still plan to work you hard.”
That thought sent a pleasant buzz to his...fingertips. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll get you a pillow and a couple of blankets for the couch.”
“Do you happen to have a toothbrush I can use?”
“Of course.” She retreated to the hallway with a flip of her silky ponytail.
J.D. pulled off his boots and stashed his backpack on the floor between the couch and the coffee table.
Noelle returned and dumped the blankets and pillow on the couch and placed an unwrapped toothbrush on the coffee table.
“Thanks.”
“Thank you. You’ve been a big help today, like a guardian angel.”
He snorted as he could feel his ears burning. “Not quite.”
They said good-night and she pulled her door shut as he headed into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Several seconds later, the lock on the bedroom door clicked into place.
Guess there were limits to how far she could trust a guardian angel.
J.D. rinsed his mouth, tapped his wet toothbrush on the edge of the sink and left it on the vanity. He crept past Noelle’s locked door on his way back to the living room and unzipped his backpack. He placed his weapon beneath a cushion on the couch and dug for his radio-frequency detector.
With a sweeping motion, he scanned the living room, cocking his head to listen for a hit. If Zendaris and his thugs were monitoring the feed from the camera or multiple cameras, they’d see him looking for the device.
They’d know Noelle had company. They’d know she had protection. They’d know she had someone on her side. So what?
Let the games begin.
* * *
NOELLE STARED AT the picture where she’d found the camera. She’d sort of assumed the D.C. break-in might have been related to Alex’s murder and had been hoping the one at the ranch was just what the sheriff thought it was—junkies looking for a quick fix. The discovery of that hidden camera had torpedoed that theory.
J.D. made sense. Why would Alex’s killers be after her now, two years later, when she hadn’t been able to give the police one clue to their identities?
She had no enemies. No ex-boyfriends. No secret stalkers—even Bruce didn’t fall into that category. The murder of her husband had been the only less-than-ordinary event in her life. It had overshadowed everything else before and since.
“Abby.” She whispered the name of her former roommate.
Could this have something to do with Abby? Was someone looking for her roommate? Abby’s family hadn’t even called her to ask questions. She knew Abby had a sister, at least. Was this their way of finding out what had happened to Abby?
She closed her eyes and dug her fists beneath her pillow. She’d report this new affront to Sheriff Greavy tomorrow, have J.D. replace every lock in the place and sleep with a loaded shotgun next to her bed every night.
She’d been jumping at shadows for the past two years. Now that she had something to jump at, it was time to dig in and put up a fight.
She froze. Someone was tapping on the walls. Someone? J.D. was tapping on the walls.
Had she been insane allowing a stranger into her home? She knew nothing about Jim Davis. Jim Davis. What a conveniently common name.
He could be the one stalking her. Maybe he had broken into the house after running into her in the parking lot of the grocery store. Maybe he had disabled her car. Maybe he had planted the camera.
Her mind had been working this way ever since Alex’s murder. Suspicions. Doubts. Mistrust. It had been her armor. It had steered