Silver Sparks Page 9

  Fear soaked her, momentarily sapping her strength. The pressure against her windpipe didn’t help. She drew deep, panicked breaths down her aching throat, exhaling through flared nostrils and heating the suffocating darkness around her face. Each breath became more difficult as his grip tightened.

  Beside her right ear, his face pressed against the cloth, millimeters from her clammy skin.

  “Like this,” he whispered. The words were soft, feathery against the dark cloth. In one swift movement his hand left her mouth and slid below her chin. Before she could even try to scream, her jaw was forced shut by the pressure of his forearm below it, cracking her teeth together and arching her neck outward. He held her there as his free hand marked a slow, thin line on her neck below his arm. A weak scream stuck in her throat as the gloved finger drew slowly, almost lovingly, across her neck. “It would be so easy,” he breathed.

  The next second the gloved fingers clamped around her trachea. Her heart thundered in terror as the last of her air was cut off. Breath rasped in her throat without making it to her lungs, and dizziness closed in. As she felt herself fading, he pushed her sideways. She fell onto the porch, one hand clutching her throat, gulping raw, harsh breaths into her lungs.

  Fresh air fanned her face as the hood was ripped away. Maggie opened her eyes. Sunlight stabbed her expanded pupils, blinding her for the first few seconds. She sat still, gasping, and squinted against the brightness until her vision returned. The familiar peaceful view wavered into focus in front of her eyes. Off to her right and out of sight behind a stand of aspen trees and scrub brush, a car squealed its tires as it took off down the road. He was gone.

  Her purse lay five feet away, contents spilling onto the porch. She crawled toward it and pulled out her phone.

  Cal told himself there was no need to hurry, the police were already with Maggie, but he cursed under his breath at the tourists who ambled across intersections or held up traffic while searching for parking places. The last skiers of the season were using the morning to shop while the sun melted the crusty top off the ski runs. Right now, he hated every one of them.

  He cut off the main road and sped up just as his phone rang. Bluetooth on his ear, he snapped out, “Hello.”

  “Cal, they’re taking me to the police station.”

  Maggie’s voice made heat rush through him, relief and tension in one confusing mix. She sounded composed but strained, as if it hurt her to talk. He gripped the wheel tighter. “Why?”

  “Pictures.”

  She was using as few words as possible, but he understood. They wanted to photograph the marks on her neck. Just imagining the red blotches on her fair skin made him want to hit someone. No, not someone—Rafe. “The station just off the interstate?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  Whipping into the first driveway, he turned around and headed back through the congested downtown of Barringer’s Pass, cursing the lack of alternate routes through the narrow valley. The ten-minute drive seemed like forever to his frazzled nerves, proof that Maggie had become more important than he wanted to admit.

  He never should have kissed her. Before, he’d been able to pretend she was no more than an irritant, that his concern for her was professional and platonic. He’d almost believed it. He wasn’t sure exactly what he felt now, but it sure as hell wasn’t platonic.

  The thought caused a weird twisting in his gut. He forced it away, assuring himself that not platonic didn’t mean love. Desire, sure—Maggie was undeniably hot. But what he felt for her was responsibility. The woman obviously needed someone to watch out for her.

  He finally cleared the downtown and gunned it to the station. He used his police shield to get past the front desk without prolonged explanations, and found Maggie standing near the wall in a large office, holding her hair up for the man who was snapping pictures of her neck. Cal strode past desks, ignoring looks from a couple of officers.

  Maggie spotted him. “Cal. I was telling Sergeant Todd that—”

  She broke off as he took her by the shoulders and pushed her hair aside to get a better look. Angry red blotches dotted her neck where fingers had dug in to close off her airway. A vision of Maggie gasping for breath burned through his mind. His gut clenched into a hard knot of pain and he swallowed back bile.

  “It doesn’t feel as bad as—”

  The rest was muffled as he pulled her against his chest, tucking her head under his chin as he squeezed his eyes shut against the image of the fingerprints on her neck. Surprisingly, she stilled, allowing him to take a couple of deep breaths as the red haze cleared from his mind. When he finally set her back, she watched him as if unsure what he might do next.

  “I’m okay,” she tried.

  He clenched his teeth, biting back the rebuttal that she was certainly not okay, not with those red marks on her neck. “Was it Rafe?”

  Sergeant Todd stared at him. “Rafe De Luca?”

  “I didn’t see his face.” She pressed her shapely lips into a tight line, obviously annoyed with the admission. “I couldn’t tell.”

  “One of his bodyguards, maybe?”

  She shook her head. “He seemed less, I don’t know . . .” She searched for a word. “Less bulky? Strong, but more lean.”

  “Rafe isn’t that muscular.”

  “I know.” She coughed lightly and massaged her throat, and Cal figured in another minute steam would be coming out of his ears if he couldn’t find the guy and slug him.

  “You can’t be sure it was him?”

  She huffed out an irritated breath and shook her head.

  Todd studied Maggie. “You’re the owner of Fortune’s Folly? The one who got into it at The Aerie with De Luca?”

  “Yeah,” Maggie grumbled.

  “Did you tell that to the officer who took your report at the house?”

  She nodded again, then bit her lip and looked at Cal. “There’s something else. He ran his finger across my neck and . . .” She took a deep breath, steadying her voice. “He told me how easy it would be to cut my throat.” Her hand went to her neck as she said it, fingers splayed protectively.

  “Son of a bitch,” Cal growled. “It is him.”

  The sergeant’s gaze shifted between them, settling on Cal. “Does that mean something to you, other than the obvious?”

  Maggie kept her eyes on him, letting him decide whether to tell.

  He had no evidence, nothing but a string of coincidences. But this latest one involved Maggie, and he wasn’t willing to take a chance with her safety. “A month ago, my sister was killed by having her throat cut after a sexual assault. She was dating Rafe De Luca at the time.”

  Todd’s face got the shuttered, emotionless look Cal recognized from having used it so often himself. “Doesn’t prove anything.”

  Cal stared him down. “Forget he’s a celebrity. Just think about the facts. One girl he’s dating ends up dead with her throat cut. He has a public fight with Maggie, then goes after her in the press. Next thing you know, she’s attacked by someone who chokes her and threatens to cut her throat. And that’s not even considering a couple girls he’s gone out with here who have disappeared.”

  “Who?” Todd snapped out. “When?”

  “Rachel Anders and Tara Kolinowski.”

  He nodded. “I know those cases. The detective thought Rachel was a runaway, but the case is open. Tara had a history of hooking up for short-term flings. A drug rep from Dallas was a person of interest.”

  “Rafe was in town both times—I have witnesses.”

  “He was in town. That’s it?” Todd held his gaze for a long time before finally speaking. “How come I never heard of your sister’s case?”

  “It was in L.A. Julie lived there and started dating Rafe after they met at a party. He has a house out there.” Reluctantly, he added what he knew Todd would ask next. “De Luca had an alibi—his bodyguard and a friend. They both said he was with them, for what it’s worth.”

&nb
sp; Todd scowled as he thought about it, obviously unhappy with this new wrinkle. Cal knew he’d just handed the sergeant a messy situation that he wouldn’t have been happy to have dumped in his lap, either. He waited it out until Todd muttered something under his breath and gestured to a chair beside one of the desks. “Sit. Both of you. I want the whole story.”

  Cal drew up a chair from another desk and sat beside Maggie. He kept his voice unemotional as he recited the basics of Julie’s death and the police investigation. Todd wrote it all down, then wiggled a finger between the two of them and asked, “How do you two know each other? You live in L.A., or here?”

  “Neither. I’m from Oklahoma.” He laid his shield on the desk so Todd could copy down the badge number, and added a business card with his phone number. “I’m on leave, but my captain can tell you anything you want to know about me.”

  Todd took the card and handed the shield back, giving Cal a long, assessing look. “As long as I don’t hear that you’re some whacked-out cop with a grudge against De Luca, we’ll be looking into this. If they tell me you’re a nut job . . .”

  “You’ll be looking into me. I know.” It was more than he’d hoped for. “I’ll help in any way I can.”

  He shook hands with Todd and walked Maggie out, one hand at her back. He needed to touch her, to reassure himself that she was okay. They paused outside, tolerating the cool breeze in order to soak in the bright, cleansing sunlight. The snowcapped peaks around them sparkled against the blue sky, as majestic as anything Cal had ever seen. It would be easy to pretend that the ugliness of the attack had never happened, except for the red blotches he saw on Maggie’s neck when she stretched her face toward the sun.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled, letting her breath out slowly. It seemed to work like a yoga exercise for her, erasing the lines of tension from her forehead. It didn’t help him at all.

  “That’s what I meant by escalating the argument,” he told her.

  Maggie nodded.

  “You have to stop fighting him in the press.”

  Her brows snapped together, creases instantly returning to her brow. “Excuse me?” He couldn’t believe she really intended to argue the point, but she turned on him, hands on hips. “Whether or not Rafe did this”—she pulled her collar out to expose her neck—“we know it’s because of him.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then do you expect me to show Rafe that threats work? That violence against women is the way to get what he wants?”

  “I don’t care what Rafe wants! I’m more interested in what I want—to keep you safe.”

  “Oh, what you want.” She lifted one delicately arched eyebrow. “You think that just because I let you kiss me, you can tell me what to do?”

  Throwing their kiss into the argument didn’t help his disposition. “I don’t think you ever let anyone tell you what to do. I just had this crazy hope that you might use common sense.” He lifted an eyebrow at her, unwilling to let her skim the facts. “And you didn’t just let me kiss you. You kissed me back.”

  “So I like the way you kiss,” she said, the admission so casual he nearly lost the thread of their argument. “It’s not an invitation to run my life.” She huffed out a breath, signaling that the topic was closed. “Now could you please give me a ride to my store? Holly can drive me home later.”

  He rubbed the center of his forehead, the sore spot that was beginning to feel like it had her name on it. Forcibly shutting down the part of his brain that wanted to dwell on how much she liked his kiss, he concentrated on her ridiculous request to go to Fortune’s Folly. She obviously had no idea what she was going to find when she got there. He could tell her, but she didn’t seem to be in the mood to take advice from him.

  He shrugged. “My pleasure.”

  Chapter

  Six

  Maggie sat quietly in his pickup truck for the three-mile trip back to town. He pulled into the small lot behind the store, letting the truck idle in park. “I’ll just wait here.”

  She gave him a quizzical glance. “I’m not just dropping in, you know. I’ll be here all day.”

  He smiled. “See you in ten minutes.”

  She gave him a suspicious look, but got out without another word. He watched her disappear through the back door, then looked at the clock on the dash. And waited.

  Nine minutes later Maggie hurried out the back door and slid into the passenger seat. “Go!”

  He threw the truck into drive without a word. Several photographers rounded the corner of the store at a run, snapping pictures of them as Cal zipped past, bounced over the sharp dip where the lot met the street, then slid into traffic. Two photographers jogged beside them for half a block, cameras pointed at the truck’s windows, but fell back as Cal lucked onto a green light and sped up.

  Maggie slunk low in the seat. “How’d they find out so fast?”

  “Police scanners.”

  “They were all over the store,” she complained, wrinkling her nose. “Like an invasion of cockroaches. Holly said they’d stopped asking her questions, but as soon as I came in they swarmed around me. They wouldn’t leave, and if I’d called the cops it would have caused an even bigger scene.” She sighed. “Holly finally slapped a handful of phone messages at me, and begged me to leave. Even then, they tried to catch me.”

  “Vermin,” he agreed.

  She was quiet for a minute, then darted a sidelong glance his way. “So how long was I in there?”

  He smiled, savoring his minor victory. “Nine minutes.”

  “Crap.”

  She sulked until they reached her street, then gripped Cal’s arm as they approached the house. “Oh, my God, don’t stop!”

  He’d already seen it. “Don’t worry,” he said grimly.

  She scooted down low in the seat as they drove past, peeking at the string of crime scene tape around her porch and the three white vans out front topped with satellite dishes. Where had they come from? There wasn’t a TV station within a hundred miles. On the sparse grass of her front yard, photographers roamed or sat on the rock outcroppings, smoking. By one of the vans, a man with a microphone conferred with a man holding a large video camera.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed. “This thing is out of control!”

  “I should have anticipated this,” Cal grumbled.

  “How could you?” She wrenched her body sideways, watching the spectacle until the neighbors’ trees blocked her view. “How will I ever get into my house again? Maybe I should call the police.”

  “Don’t bother. They can’t make the TV people leave, they’re parked on public property. And the paparazzi will just scuttle off the grass until the cops leave, then come creeping around to look in your windows again.”

  She made a frustrated sound, then gave it some thought. “I have a rifle.”

  “Jesus, Maggie!” The truck jerked as he shot her a startled look. When she smiled, he turned away to scowl out the front window. “Shit, don’t scare me like that.”

  “You thought I might really shoot someone?”

  “It doesn’t strike me as impossible.”

  She laughed. “I’m flattered.”

  “Of course you are. Jesus.”

  Rattling him made her strangely happy. Cal always seemed so controlled and organized, so damned right about everything, that it made her want to do something to knock him on his delectable ass. She snuck a look toward the part of him in question, then let her gaze roam down the well-muscled thighs, then back up to the wonderfully broad shoulders and the firm jaw that was currently locked tightly enough to make muscles jump in his neck. A contented hum rose in her throat. If he ever let go of that control, it could be mighty interesting.

  As if sensing her gaze, he looked at her. She snapped back to reality. “Where are we going?”

  “Lost Canyon Lodge. That’s where I’m staying. Shouldn’t be any press there. One guy had it staked out, but he gave up and left when he couldn’t find me.”

  Conside
ring her most recent thoughts, going back to his place didn’t sound like a smart move. Looking indulged her fantasies; touching was out of the question with such a control freak. He’d probably tell her where to put her hands and how loudly she could moan. He didn’t exactly seem like he was thinking about making a move on her, but he’d already taken her by surprise once. She hadn’t seen that devastating kiss coming.

  “Why are we going there?” If he made some casual excuse about hiding from the media, she’d question his motives for sure, because they didn’t have to do that in a crappy one-room efficiency cabin that was little more than a glorified bedroom.

  “That’s where I’m meeting Grady.”

  “Oh.” He was thinking business. She was the one with her mind in the gutter.

  She didn’t say anything else for the ten minutes it took to get to the Lost Canyon. Cal drove by the main lodge and followed a curving gravel drive through the trees, passing several scattered cabins and parking in front of the last one. Tall pines crowded around it, blocking even the neighboring cabin from view. She followed him up the steps to a rustic front porch with four inexpensive deck chairs, feeling out of place in her skirt and heels. Quiet enveloped them, save for the distant hush of traffic on the highway and the faint buzz of a bee. He unlocked the door while she noted management’s stab at beautification, a lone clay pot holding three stunted daffodils.

  He pushed the door open and stood aside. “After you.”

  She stepped over the threshold onto worn linoleum and looked around. The cabin was small, maybe twice the size of a motel room. To her left, a small kitchen table and counter were cluttered with groceries. She counted four boxes of macaroni and cheese, cereal, a small bag of potatoes, and another of apples. Bachelor fare. To her right, a couch, chair, and TV anchored a small square of carpet. The bed directly across from her was neatly made. She guessed that the door next to it led to a bathroom.