Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The chili had been hot when he carried the bowl into his room.
It wasn’t now.
Jasper sat on the edge of the bed with the bowl on his knee and the spoon in his hand. He hadn’t eaten any of it. The film on the surface suggested it had been sitting untouched for a long time.
He set the bowl on the nightstand. He should be working.
The Caldwell thread was open in three different windows on his laptop across the room, and he had two leads on the Vienna meeting he wanted to pull.
He’d told himself, while carrying the chili from the kitchen, that he was going to eat dinner in his room precisely so he could work straight through without small talk in the kitchen and common area.
Instead, he’d spent twenty minutes on the edge of his bed with cooling food because of Katherine.
The clean, faintly citrus scent that wasn’t perfume had lingered around her chair today. He kept catching ghost traces of it now, even in his own room, where there was no possible source for it.
Then there was her laugh. The short, surprised, fully bodied sound that had come out of her when he’d made the joke about absence as data being her love language. Her shoulders had been up around her ears, and he’d made a dry remark, hoping to get her to relax.
It worked. The sound had warmed his chest in a way he still didn’t know what to do with.
Worse, he kept hearing the small, startled noise she’d made afterward when she pressed her fingers to her mouth as if she could put the laugh back.
The final straw had been her sympathy. She’d laid her hand lightly across the back of his when he’d told her about his father. The touch, the steady look in her pretty eyes—he hadn’t known what to do with it.
He’d flinched. Just the small contraction that caused her to pull her hand back at once, and her cheeks had gone a faint pink.
He hadn’t flinched because the touch was unwelcome. Not really. He just hadn’t been touched like that in a long time. He hadn’t wanted anyone’s sympathy. Hadn’t known what to do with a woman who offered it without pushing it at him like medicine he hadn’t asked for.
He stood and carried the bowl to the kitchen to dump it in the sink.
The walk didn’t help.
Neither did the walk back.
He sat at his desk in the corner of the room, opened the laptop, and stared at the Caldwell window. He read several of Caldwell’s consulting firm employee bios before realizing he was reading them in Katherine’s voice.
He closed the laptop.
This was a problem.
At his window, he stared out at the dark gravel of the compound lot. The trees on the hillside were a black mass against a navy sky.
Katherine was a client. The case was real, and his attention had to be where it belonged—on what the people who’d buried her flag were going to do next, not on the brand of soap she used or the sound of her laughter.
Whatever was happening to him after one workday in a public library meeting room was not something he could afford to indulge.
At his closet, he pulled out his running shoes. A few miles in the cold air would clear his thoughts. Or at least give them somewhere else to go.
He sat down on the bed and started loosening the laces. His phone rang. He picked it up and frowned at the caller ID. “You’re working late. What’s—”
Katherine spoke over him, her voice pitched higher than normal. “There’s someone at the back door. Priss heard him before I did. He’s working the lock—I can hear it. I think he has a pick or something.”
He shoved to his feet. “Where are you in the house right now?”
“The hallway outside the bedroom.”
“Get inside the bedroom. Now. Does the door lock?” He was moving as he spoke, scooping up his keys, grabbing his sidearm and jacket. He shot out the bedroom door and was halfway down the hall before she answered.
“Yes,” she said. The word came tight. “I’ve got to grab Priss.”
“Don’t worry about the cat.”
“Don’t worry about her?” Panic cracked through her voice. “I’m not leaving her to—”
Her voice cut off, and his heart dropped to his knees. “Katherine?”
A thump. A muffled curse. Then, breathless, “I’ve got her. We’re in the bedroom. Door’s closed and locked.”
He blew out a hard breath. “Push the dresser against the door.”
“It’s heavy.”
“You’re stronger than you think. Push.”
The phone clattered as she set it on something. He heard the scrape of wood against wood, then her breath coming in hard, fast gasps with the effort.
“Done,” she panted.
“Stay on the line. Don’t hang up, no matter what happens. I’m on my way. What’s the address?”
She rattled it off. He reached Vivi’s bedroom door and barely knocked as he called, “I have an emergency.”
He heard her swear, and then the door swung open. She was in pajamas, hair flattened on one side, eyes sharp. “What is it?”
“Katherine. There’s an intruder at her place.
One of the rentals on Gold Rush Street.” He’d almost rented one of them before Vivi had offered him a permanent room at the compound.
“I’m on the phone with her now. I need local Blackridge PD, and a callout on the comms for whoever’s closest to back me up. ”
“Go,” Vivi said.
She was already turning, already reaching for the phone on her side table.
He was running before her door clicked shut. He pulled the phone back to his ear. “I’m ten minutes out. Tell me what you’re hearing.” He hit the gravel lot and raced to his truck.
“I think he’s inside now,” Katherine said. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “I heard the door open.”
Damn it.
He jumped into the cab and roared through the gate and out onto the highway. “Find a weapon. Anything sharp or pointed.”
“Weapon?” Her voice broke on the word.
“Do you have a lamp you can hit him with? Any type of sharp knickknack? A can of hairspray?”
“Um…I didn’t bring many of my personal effects. I have a couple of books on my nightstand.”
Of course she did. Not a bat. Not pepper spray. Books.
“He’s not going to make it through that door,” Jasper said, even though he knew the lock and dresser wouldn’t stop the intruder for long. “But just in case, grab something.”
A pause. “He’s in the kitchen,” she whispered. “I can hear his shoes every other step, like one is scuffing on the tile. He’s stopped. No, wait, he’s moving again, but…”
“But what?”
“I think he’s circling the kitchen table.” She released a tight sigh. “Oh God, he’s going through the papers I left there. The 2001 file. I brought it home to finish tonight.”
Another mile marker flew by. The eyes of a nocturnal animal flashed in the ditch. “Okay, listen,” Jasper said. “He’s looking for something, not you. If he’d come for you, he would have moved straight to the bedroom. Stay where you are. Stay quiet.”
“I’ve got Priss in my arms. She’s not making a sound.”
“Good girl.” He pushed the truck to eighty. He knew every curve of this highway. He’d run it a hundred times. “What’s he doing now?”
“I don’t know. Everything is…” Her voice faded. “Quiet. Too quiet.”
Jasper’s grip tightened on the wheel. “You need to be just as quiet, you hear me?”
“But the file is there. The pages I started reading this morning at the library and didn’t finish.” She was still whispering, but more frantically now. “Jasper, I can’t let him read those.”
“This isn’t the time to play hero, Katherine. Your life could be in danger.”
“But—”
“No buts. You stay where you are.”
She made a small sound.
“Katherine.”
“I heard you.” She didn’t sound happy about it.
“Don’t talk now. Just breathe. I’ll talk. I’m going to ask you some questions. Tap on the phone--one for yes, two for no.”
He told her how far out he was, what road he was on, what he could see from the truck. He asked if Priss had ever encountered an intruder before—two taps. No. Good, Katherine was still with him. Did she have an opinion on burglars? One tap. Did Katherine still have the phone in her hand? One tap.
Five minutes out, he heard her exhale longer than her previous breaths. “I think he’s leaving.”
His own shoulders dropped a fraction. “Stay where you are. Do not come out yet. I’m almost there. Don’t move until I tell you it’s safe.”
“Okay.”
A beat of silence. Then the sound came through the phone. A metallic scrape. Small. Sharp.
Katherine sucked in a hard breath. “Jasper?”
Jasper’s blood went cold. “What was that?”
The sound came again. “He’s at the bedroom door,” she panic-whispered.
The words hit him like a fist to the sternum.
“He tried the handle. I think he’s using that pick now.”
Every thought in Jasper’s head went silent except the ones that mattered. “How many windows in the room?”
“One.”
“Can you get to it?”
“Yes.”
“Go. Take the phone with you.”
He heard movement, a shuffle, the small, distressed chirp of Priss, then Katherine whispering something to the cat that he couldn’t catch.
The truck ate another curve. “Can you open it?” he asked.
Wood groaned. “It won’t move.”
“Unlock it.”
“I did.” A pause and a grunt. A shaking exhale. “It’s painted shut.”
Of course it was. His jaw clenched until pain radiated in all directions. “Is there an attached bathroom?”
“Yes.”
“Does it lock?”
A pause. “No.” The word came out thin and small, and something vicious woke in Jasper’s chest.
The bedroom door handle rattled again. Then a heavy thud came through the line.
Katherine gasped. “Guess the lock pick didn’t work. He hit the door.”
“How solid is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s old and made of wood. Solid, I guess.”
“Good. That buys you time.”
Another thud. Harder.
The phone crackled with Katherine’s broken breathing. “He’s trying to break it down.”
“Listen to me. You’re going to break the window.”
“With what?”
“The lamp. A chair. Anything heavy.”
“The lamp, maybe.”
“Do it now.”
“I’ll have to put Priss down.”
“Put her under the bed if you can.”
“She won’t—”
The door boomed again. Wood cracked inside the sound, a sharp splintering note that shot straight through Jasper’s spine.
Katherine cried out.
“Katherine.” His voice came out hard. “Break the window, Katherine.”
“I’m trying.”
He heard a scrape, a grunt, the clatter of something. Then a crash—not glass. Something heavier hitting the floor.
“I missed.” Panic shredded the edges of her voice. “Oh God, I missed. The lamp’s broken on the floor.”
Damn it. “That’s okay. You’re going to get in the bathroom and jam something against the door.”
The truck’s tires hummed over the asphalt. Two minutes out.
Another impact hit the bedroom door. Then another and another. Each one seemed to shove a little more air out of Katherine’s lungs.
“He’s getting through.” Her voice sharpened with pure panic. “The frame is splitting.”
Jasper saw the road, but he wasn’t in the truck anymore. He was in that room with her. At the dresser. At the door. At the line between her and the man on the other side.
He needed to be there. He was driving to her, but helpless to stop what was happening.
The old, familiar horror reached for him with Deacon’s hands. His friend, gone in an instant. Too late. Missed it. Didn’t see the signs. Didn’t stop a fatal mistake.
No. Not this time.
“Is there a piece of furniture you can drag into the bathroom and brace the door with?”
“There’s a flimsy chair.”
“Take it and—”
The door cracked again, louder. Katherine shrieked. “He can see me.”
Jasper’s vision tunneled.
“He’s wearing a mask.” The words trembled from her mouth. “A black ski mask. He’s looking through the crack.”
“Bathroom. Now.”
“He has a gun.”
The words went through him clean. Cold. Final.
Her voice was so small, so scared. “Jasper—”
“I’m almost there.”
He took the next curve too fast. The back end fishtailed, gravel spitting under the tires as he corrected and punched the accelerator again.
A man’s voice came through the phone. Too close to her. “You should’ve stayed in the archives, Ms. Townsend.”
Jasper stopped breathing. The intruder knew her name.
Katherine made a strangled sound. The phone jostled, fabric dragging over the microphone.
“Katherine, listen to me,” he barked. “Get in the bathroom. Now.”
The man hit the door again. The crack of wood came through like a shot. Katherine screamed.
A gunshot cracked through the phone. Breaking glass followed, violent and bright even through the tiny speaker. Priss shrieked somewhere under it all.
“Katherine!”
The phone hit something hard.
“Katherine!”
The line filled with static, a scuffle, one sharp cry, and then nothing.