Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“Do I think some people are born evil? Hell, yes.”
– Gray Stone
Emerson’s breath sawed in and out. She couldn’t believe that Nathaniel had come to see Gray and then showed up on her doorstep. The bastard was trying to discredit her with Gray.
But Gray isn’t falling for Nathaniel’s tricks.
Nathaniel. Smart. Deviously so. Driven. Driven to steal other people’s work. Manipulative. He’d sure tricked her into thinking that he might actually care about her, only for her to find out that he’d been using her all along.
Her mother had been furious when Emerson had broken things off with Nathaniel. Emerson, on the other hand, had just been relieved.
Only now he’s showing up at my door. Nathaniel could just stop that crap.
They were not working together. She hurried through the condo.
Darted in her bedroom and rushed straight through to her attached bathroom.
She wanted to splash some water on her face and get her control back before Gray arrived back at her place.
He’s giving me the chance to work undercover with him. I will not screw this up. I will not ? —
Her heart seemed to stop. Emerson had just looked into her bathroom mirror.
A mirror that reflected her fractured image back to her.
Fractured and distorted because the mirror had been smashed.
Cracks ran across its surface like hundreds of tiny spiderwebs.
Her hand lifted, as if she’d touch one of the cracks.
But she stopped before making contact. Fisted her hand.
Then she was running out of her bathroom and back into her bedroom. Rushing toward her dresser and the mirror connected to it. She hadn’t even glanced at the dresser before. Or its mirror. But now her focus was on it completely.
Fractured. Smashed. A dozen broken images of me.
Her head shook. One mirror being smashed…okay…maybe some random accident had happened.
Uh, exactly how did a random accident happen, Emerson? When you weren’t even here? So the accident theory was weak, granted, and when you added the fact that it wasn’t just one mirror that had been shattered, but two…
She backed away from the dresser and its mirror. Her steps were much, much slower now. Her heart thudded in her chest. This had…happened before.
Her hand rose to her neck. Slid around to the lower right side. A small scar. Barely an inch. Usually hidden by her hair. An old scar.
I got away.
She backed up more, then she turned and lunged. One more mirror in my place. In the small, half bath off her den. Her heels tapped over the flooring as she raced for that bathroom. She threw the door open.
Broken. Twisted. Spiderwebs across the surface. Except a big chunk of the mirror was missing. Right in the center. A big chunk, maybe six inches long and two inches wide, was missing. And she thought of another time. Another place.
When a chunk of a broken mirror had been used like a knife.
She retreated from the bathroom. The drumming of her heartbeat was far too loud, and her right hand touched the scar on her throat.
That long ago night, the broken piece of mirror had been placed against her throat. It had cut into her, deep enough to make her bleed. To leave a scar.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Emerson?—”
She screamed and grabbed for that hand. She twisted and heaved, and her foot went beneath her attacker’s ankle. She was going to take him down and get out. He wasn’t going to hurt her again. She would not let him hurt her.
But her attacker remained upright. He shifted his position, dodged her attack, and suddenly, Emerson was up against the wall. He’d moved lightning-fast, and he had her hands pinned on either side of her head.
“Emerson,” Gray snapped.
She blinked. Her breath heaved.
Worry had a faint line slanting between Gray’s brows. “No way did you just get the sudden, random urge to spar me.”
Her heart was about to shoot out of her chest.
“What’s happening?” he demanded.
“L-look at the mirrors.”
“What?”
“The mirrors.” Her wrists twisted in his hold. He didn’t let go. “They’re all broken.” Or at least, she thought they had been smashed.
No, no, don’t second guess yourself. The breaks are real. Someone smashed the mirrors. But in order to do that, someone would have needed to break into her home.
What if he’s still here? She hadn’t searched the rooms thoroughly. When she’d arrived, Nathaniel had come pounding at the front door right after she and Gray had entered the condo. There had been no time for a search of the premises.
And that was why she’d freaked and attacked Gray when he touched her. Because she was so afraid the attacker was still in her home.
“Your mirrors are broken?” The line between his brows deepened. “And that made you try to toss my ass on the floor?”
“Go look.” Her voice was too husky.
Slowly, he let her hands go. Frowned at her. “I don’t like it when you’re scared.”
Yes, well, she wasn’t particularly fond of the feeling, either. Her hands dropped.
Only for him to immediately manacle one wrist again. “Where I go, you go.”
That sounded like an excellent plan. He led the way to the half bathroom. She edged in behind him. Saw the shattered mirror and their twisted reflections.
“I’m guessing you didn’t break the mirror?” His voice had gone grim.
Emerson shook her head and told him, “The bedroom.”
“Right. Stay behind me, would you?” He bent, and his right hand pulled out his gun from the holster on his ankle. His left maintained that unbreakable, manacle grip on her wrist.
He crept toward her bedroom, moving soundlessly, and she stepped out of her heels so that she, too, would make no sound. He glanced back at her, and his frown seemed to deepen as he noticed that she suddenly was smaller.
Then he was in her bedroom. She’d left the door wide open. He eased toward her dresser. His jaw hardened even more as he took in the broken mirror above the dresser. Emerson pointed toward the attached bathroom.
He sees it, too. The broken mirrors are real. Someone came in my home. Broke them all.
Not just someone.
“What in the fuck is going on?” he rasped. Then in the next instant, “I’m searching the condo.”
Yes, good, brilliant. They should search the condo. They headed out of the bathroom. He let go of her wrist, but she quickly grabbed his arm. “A chunk of glass was missing from the half bath. Be careful. He used the glass like a knife before.”
Silence.
Then, utterly lethal and rumbling with rage, “Before?” Gray repeated.
She let go of him. Her fingers rose to her neck. Slid over the faint scar. Emerson nodded. “Before. Y-years ago…”
“He’s a fucking dead man.”
“You didn’t have to bring me to your place.
” Emerson stood right beside the couch in Gray’s den, with her overnight bag near her feet.
“We both checked my home. The intruder was gone.” Her gaze tracked around the room.
Lingered for just a moment on the wide bookshelves to the right.
Her eyes seemed to take in each book. For just a moment, he could have sworn that her lips even moved as she began to count the volumes there.
One, two, three…
Gray’s teeth snapped together. Emerson counts when she’s stressed or scared. A habit he’d picked up on early in their partnership. And he knew with certainty that she was terrified right then. How could she not be? Some sick sonofabitch had broken into her home. Shattered her mirrors.
He was furious that she’d been terrorized. Add the fact that this shit had happened to her before? Oh, the hell, no. Every protective instinct that he possessed was in overdrive. Then again, his protective instincts were always on high alert where Emerson was concerned.
He’d insisted on calling the cops. Filing a B&E report with the local cops, though they’d been pretty useless on scene. There had been no sign of a forced entry at Emerson’s place, and the cops hadn’t exactly bought that someone had just come inside in order to break some mirrors.
Gray bought the story. The mirrors had been a message. A taunt. A threat. All of the freaking above. Those broken mirrors terrified Emerson. Exactly what the perp had wanted.
“Let me be very clear.” He knew his voice was too rough, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that situation.
He felt rough. He’d tossed his dirty coat after entering his home.
Taken off his ankle holster and secured his weapon, too.
Now Gray jerked at the buttons on the ends of his sleeves.
With quick, angry motions, he proceeded to roll up both sleeves.
“There is every need for you to stay with me. Someone broke into your house tonight.”
“Yes.”
Just that. Her eyes—solemn, scared, sad—held his.
“He was good enough not to leave any marks at the doors, and he didn’t set off your alarm.” He’d watched her disarm the alarm right after their arrival at her condo. “That means you’re not dealing with an amateur.”
She shook her head, sending her hair sliding over her shoulder. Her hand rose to her neck. Then dropped almost instantly as if she’d just caught herself.
Screw that. He marched toward her. A hard, angry stride. His hand lifted toward her.
Emerson flinched.
Her flinch cut straight through him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I would never do that.” One vow he’d made long ago…
You never, ever hurt someone weaker than you.
Her long lashes flickered.
“I want to see what happened to you.” I want to utterly destroy the bastard who hurt you. The person who’d smashed the mirrors had been long gone by the time Gray searched the place but…
Sure seems suspicious as hell that Nathaniel Hadaway was at the scene of the crime. He’d told the cops about Nathaniel. They’d agreed to question the guy, mostly just because Gray was FBI—an FBI agent with a lot of power in that town—and they’d been intimidated as hell by him.
Gray fully intended to follow up their investigation with a questioning session of his own with Nathaniel.
“It’s hardly anything now, really. The scar is very old.”