Chapter 18
A sharp sound pulled El from her fitful sleep. Something was wrong. She had to act. Now!
“Nine one one. What’s your emergency?” The confident yet soothing female voice came over her phone.
“This is Detective Elaina Lyons. Someone’s in my house.” She quickly but clearly gave them her address. “I’m inside and armed. I need immediate backup.”
“Copy that, Detective Lyons. Are you safe right now?”
“Yes, I’m in the bedroom. Suspect’s in my living room searching for something.”
“Understood. Units are en route. Do you know if there’s more than one intruder?”
“Sounds like only one.”
“Stay on the line, Detective. Help is on the way. Keep yourself secure and don’t engage unless necessary.”
“I’m holding my position but won’t be staying on the line. I have another call to make.” She hung up before the dispatcher challenged her decision. She dialed Gabe.
“El?” he answered, sounding tired, but not as if he’d been asleep.
“Someone’s in my house. Not sure what they’re up to. I’ve called 911, and I’m in my bedroom behind my bed.”
“Is the door locked?”
“No, but I don’t want to risk him seeing the door close. I’m hidden, and I’m armed. I should be fine until backup arrives.”
“Stay safe and in control. I’m on my way.” He ended the call.
He said exactly what she hoped for. Not that he could actually be of help. Patrol should be here before him.
A siren sounded in the distance.
Frantic rustling of papers in the living room followed.
She laid her phone on the floor and aimed her gun over the bed.
She listened.
Waited. Heart racing.
Running footsteps. The flash of a person moving past her bedroom. Headed for the front door.
She counted to ten, waiting to see if another intruder followed.
She hit ten. Bolted around the bed to her doorway. Paused for a minute. Her phone. She didn’t have pockets in her pajamas, and she wasn’t about to let go of her weapon to carry it with her.
Heart pounding loudly in her head now, she stepped out, then cautiously cleared the living area.
Empty.
She made her way to the front door. To the edge of the porch. Peered around the heavy support column.
There he was. Tall, six feet or so. Wearing a gray hoodie with the hood up, jeans, and athletic shoes. Bolting down the sidewalk. Just reaching a corner. He barreled to the right.
She caught sight of her laptop and some file folders under his arm, but he was too far gone for an effective foot pursuit.
Thankfully, a patrol car raced toward her from the opposite direction.
She shoved her weapon in her waistband and rushed over the grass to the curb.
The deputy stopped and lowered his window.
Good, Deputy Price. Someone I know.
“Intruder bailed,” she said, her voice shaking. “He’s on foot. Headed east from here. Turned south at the corner. Uncertain if he’s armed, but didn’t see a weapon.”
She described the suspect and backed away from the car to stop Price from wanting to talk further when he had all the information she could provide.
He took the hint and floored the gas pedal, flew to the corner, then careened around it.
She wished she could’ve ridden along with him, but she wasn’t on duty or in uniform.
If something terrible happened, it would reflect poorly on not only herself, but Price, too. She wouldn’t do that to him.
Her nerves consumed her whole body, and continuing to stand seemed impossible.
She dropped to the grass and breathed slowly as she’d told victims to do in the past. She’d handled many intruders and some home invasions and believed she’d understood what the victim was going through.
Now she knew. She’d been wrong. Way wrong.
From the other direction, a black pickup flew down the street. Gabe.
His brakes squealed as he stopped on the other side of the road. He jumped out and raced across the street. She put the caring in his expression at the highest DEFCON number.
He reached her and looked down on her, that intensity still present, but he’d mixed caring and compassion in equal measures.
Her heart fluttered.
“Are you okay?” Sounded like anger tried to swallow his words.
“Fine. Intruder’s gone. Raced away on foot. Deputy Price went after him.” Tears pricked her eyes.
Stop it. You’re a detective. Be strong. She looked away, trying to stop herself from falling apart and letting the tears flow. She failed.
He dropped in front of her and enveloped her hands in his.
The warmth of his skin was bliss against hers, but even with his support, her hands shook uncontrollably.
“Aw, sweetheart, don’t cry.” He released her hands to draw her into his arms. “I’m here now. It’ll be okay.”
She reveled in his touch, loving that he thought if he came to her rescue, she should believe everything would be okay.
And really, if he were by her side in life, wouldn’t everything be okay?
Sure, they’d have problems. Maybe lots of problems. But with a strong, honorable Christian man like Gabe at her side, she had twice the strength of one human.
Couple that with God, and they couldn’t lose.
He continued to hold her, and she let him do so longer than a resilient detective should. But she was also a woman. Something she’d tried to ignore in life far too often.
She drank in the feel of his arms for one last moment, then pushed free. “I knew before I called you that you would come.”
“Well, yeah, I would’ve shown up for a stranger, but for you? I would’ve battled any natural disaster you can name to get here.”
“Makes me want to have you in my life all the time,” she said, and held her breath, unsure how he would take her comment.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “Same for me. Sometimes it takes something this terrifying to set priorities.”
“Without a doubt we need to pursue what’s going on between us after the investigation is over.”
“I can hardly wait, and I’m going to kiss you, if that’s all right.”
Oh yes, what she’d wanted for a long time.
She placed her hands on both sides of his face. “More than all right. In fact…” She couldn’t wait and drew his head down, pressing her lips against his before he had a chance to initiate the kiss.
He groaned and tightened his arms around her, pulling her even closer. The kiss started out tame at first, but he deepened it, and she relished every second. She wanted it to go on and on again. To be close to him. Dare she even think about being married to him?
But she wasn’t one for public displays of affection. No one had come out to see why there were sirens, but someone was probably watching out a window. Price would return. Another deputy might be responding to her distress call. Potentially catching them together.
She wouldn’t embarrass herself or them. She inserted her hands in the small gap between them and pushed against him, wanting to stop when the space grew. But she did the right thing and kept pushing.
He blinked a few times and breathed deeply. “I didn’t want that to end.”
“Me either, but Price could be on his way back, and I can’t afford to have a story about our PDA go around the department. You either, if you want to maintain your business’s professional image.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “I should’ve thought of that, but when I finally saw you were okay, I couldn’t think.”
She couldn’t talk about this anymore without flinging herself back into his arms. “We should go inside and see what the intruder was up to.”
He helped her to her feet. “Do you know if he took anything?”
“He has my laptop and some files,” she said, turning toward her front door.
“So if Price fails to apprehend the suspect, I’ll need to get on the phone to my IT department.
I have a challenging password, but if a thief’s a pro and cracks it, then connects to the internet, the tech staff will see it. ”
Gabe nodded. “Allows them to trace the connection and lock it down or wipe the drive to stop him from getting to any data including our investigation.”
“That’s correct.” She stepped inside. “Depending on what we know at that time, we’ll have to decide if we want them to track it before they do anything. We might not want them to alert the thief before we can catch him.”
She flipped on the overhead light in the living area, and he followed her.
She stopped at the dining table now devoid of the investigation files she’d worked on after her dinner with Gabe.
“It doesn’t look like it matters if we wipe the electronic files for this investigation.
He took all of my notes and a copy I made of the murder book. ”
“You made a copy of that?” He didn’t even try to hide his surprise. Maybe he thought their department didn’t allow it. Many didn’t, but she was a stickler for following protocol and didn’t violate department rules.
“I do keep copies. I’m not proud of my reasoning, but every day in an investigation, I have to end the day by reviewing what other people working the investigation have added to the book.”
“The control thing. You need to make sure they’re doing the work to your satisfaction.”
She nodded. “Like I said, I’m not proud of it, and I need to change, but there you have it. Thanks to my foolish control, the intruder has all of the details for the investigation.”
“We’ll talk about the control thing later so you don’t blame yourself for this, but we need to find this person ASAP.”
Thinking more clearly now, she scoured her brain for a solution.
“My security feed. Let me grab my phone from the bedroom.” She raced through the house to pick it up and scrolled to the security app as she walked back to the living room.
“That’s odd. The feeds are live, but blacked out and no notifications. ”
“Likely not an electronic glitch then. You think he covered the camera lenses?”
“Maybe the doorbell, but he would’ve needed a ladder to reach the other ones. That’s why I mounted them as high as I could.”
“You stay here. I’ll go check it out.”
“Perfect,” she said. “It’ll give me time to get dressed.”