Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Jasper had never liked the color of police lights.
Red and blue strobed through the front windows and over the pale walls. An officer was taking notes near the door, and Detective Mallory was standing in the hall with his hands on his hips, studying the wreckage of the bedroom as if the room might confess if he stared hard enough.
The broken window let in a blade of cold September air that carried the smell of wet leaves and gunpowder through the house. Beneath it was something sharper, metallic and intimate—the scent of blood drying on skin.
Katherine sat on the couch with Priss tucked beside her, answering questions in a voice so precise it made Jasper’s stomach tighten.
She told the detective who she was, why she was in Blackridge, and the sequence of the break-in without a hitch in her voice, even though she was still shaking.
She described the man in the black ski mask, dark clothing, and gloves.
“Height approximately six feet. Medium build. Brown eyes. One of his shoes made a scuffing noise on the kitchen tile.”
Even half in shock, Katherine Townsend cataloged what mattered.
The detective, a thickset man in his late forties, glanced up from his notepad. “You’re sure he used your name?”
“Yes,” Katherine said. Her hands were folded in her lap, one over the other, the cut across her palm mostly hidden. Blood had dried on her cheek where glass had kissed her skin. “He said I should have stayed in the archives.”
Detective Mallory knew Garrett and Jasper from previous encounters. His gaze shifted to Jasper. “And you think this was connected to her work?”
Jasper kept his voice even. “I believe a masked man broke into this house, forced his way into the bedroom, and fired a weapon at her. The connection to her work is going to be part of what we help you establish.”
Mallory’s mouth flattened at the edges. “You’re not law enforcement, Perault.”
“No,” Jasper said. “But I was on the phone with her when the attack happened, and I heard him use her name. He didn’t pick this house at random. She was his target.”
Katherine’s breathing changed at that, just enough for Jasper to hear it.
Her shoulders remained straight, her chin level, her eyes dry, but the skin around her mouth was tight.
He’d seen soldiers stay upright through shock and blood loss on nothing but discipline and denial.
Katherine was doing the civilian version of the same thing, holding herself together because the alternative was falling apart in front of strangers.
Garrett stood near the hallway, speaking quietly with one of the responding officers. He’d already cleared the yard, checked the broken window from outside, and confirmed the intruder was gone.
The man had fled through the narrow strip between the rental and the neighboring fence, leaving broken glass in the dirt and a piece of dark fabric snagged on the window frame.
Another officer had bagged it. The gun had been recovered from under the bed, a compact semiautomatic with the serial number filed down.
Now the room was full of procedure, and Jasper wanted Katherine out of the middle of it.
Mallory closed his notepad and told them both not to leave before he strode toward the bedroom.
Jasper crouched in front of her, putting himself between her and the front window without making a production of it. “Katherine.”
She blinked at him as if he had spoken from far away. “Yes?”
“You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.” Her voice sounded detached, far way.
“You’re shaking.”
“Just adrenaline.”
“It is. You’re also cold. We need to get you warmed up.”
She looked down at her hands, seeming surprised to find them trembling. Priss looked up at Jasper and issued a small, hoarse meow that sounded like an accusation. “We can’t leave,” Katherine said. “The detective isn’t finished.”
He kept his voice quiet. Every officer in the place seemed to be listening even when they weren’t looking.
“You don’t need to sit in front of the windows while they work.
How about we move to the laundry room? It’s out of the way, and Mallory can find you there if he needs more from you.
It would be better for Priss, too. She’s had a hell of a night and we don’t want her to get spooked and dash out the door. ”
A small crease formed between Katherine’s brows. Her gaze went past him to the hall and the direction of the bedroom. He watched her mind run the map of the house and assess the suggestion as if it were a route in hostile territory. Then she nodded once. “All right.”
Jasper stood and offered his hand. She looked at it for a second before taking it. Her fingers were cold, the skin rough with the dried blood in her palm, and he had to fight the urge to close his hand hard around hers to anchor her. Instead, he helped her stand slowly.
While she leaned down to gather Priss, Jasper hurried to carry a kitchen chair into the laundry room, then went back for a folded throw blanket from the arm of the couch, a bottle of water from the fridge, and the small first-aid kit Garrett had left on the kitchen counter.
The laundry room was narrow, with a washer and dryer along one wall, shelves of detergent and cleaning supplies on a shelf above them, and a tile floor cold enough that Katherine’s bare feet curled when she stepped inside.
The room smelled faintly of bleach, fabric softener, and the dusty warmth of the dryer, which was still holding a forgotten load of towels.
“Sit,” he said.
She sat, cradling the cat. Priss immediately leaned against Katherine’s chest with exaggerated offense. A feline shield.
Jasper unfolded the blanket and draped it around Katherine’s shoulders. She pulled one edge close with her uninjured hand. The gesture was small, but it made something in his chest loosen and hurt at the same time.
“Drink.” He twisted the cap off the water and handed it to her.
She took two obedient sips, then lowered the bottle. “I’m not incapacitated.”
“You’re in shock.”
Her eyes lifted to his. Hazel, shadowed, too dull under the laundry room’s overhead light. “Why are you hiding me in this room and looking like you’ll kill anyone who gets too close to me?”
Because I heard the shot and the line went dead.
Because for three minutes on the road, I didn’t know if I was driving toward you or toward your body.
Because if I start thinking too hard about the sound you made when you saw the gun, I’m going to put my fist through a wall and that won’t help anyone.
He set the first-aid kit on top of the dryer and opened it. “There are too many windows in the living room.”
“What?”
“You were too exposed. This room is safer.”
For a moment he thought she would question him further. Katherine liked complete answers. She demanded truth, even when it was ugly. What he said sank in. “Oh,” she said, “because the intruder might try again. To…kill me.”
“It’s precautionary. My training kicking in.” He pulled a clean washcloth from a stack on the shelf, wet it in the utility sink, and wrung it out. “I need to clean the cut on your cheek.”
“I can do it.”
“No. You hold Priss so she doesn’t attack me.”
That earned him a weak smile. She nodded, stroked the cat, and tilted her face up.
Permission granted. Jasper stepped closer and braced one hand lightly against the back of the chair, not touching her yet, giving himself half a second to get his head right.
Blood had dried along the delicate line of her cheekbone, a thin red track against skin that had gone too pale.
A few tiny glittering fragments clung near her jaw.
He touched the washcloth to her face as gently as he could.
Katherine inhaled, quick and sharp, but she didn’t pull away. Priss’s ears flattened.
“Sorry,” Jasper said.
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Her eyes flicked to his, and for one strange second the room narrowed to the space between his hand and her cheek, the soft rasp of cloth over skin, the faint tremor she was trying to suppress.
He’d been trained to treat injuries under much worse conditions.
He’d cleaned blood off men in the dark, wrapped wounds with incoming fire snapping overhead, kept pressure on arteries while calling coordinates into a radio.
None of it had prepared him for the simple act of wiping blood from Katherine Townsend’s face in a laundry room while her cat glared at him from her lap.
“You’re angry,” she said.
He kept cleaning the cut but didn’t answer.
“At me?”
His hand stopped. “Of course not.”
“At him.”
“At him. At whoever sent him. At the owner of this rental for the painted-shut window. At best, it’s illegal. At worst, it’s fatal.”
A small grunt escaped her mouth. “I hated that window before tonight. Now I feel vindicated.”
Her gaze moved past his shoulder toward the kitchen and the hall beyond. He knew exactly where her mind had gone. Back to the bedroom. Back to the crack in the door. Back to the black mask and the gun.
“Katherine.” He waited until her focus returned to him. “Stay here.”
“I am here.”
“Keep your mind here with me.”
She swallowed. “I’m trying.”
“I know.” He folded the washcloth to a clean corner. “The cut is shallow. It’ll sting, but it doesn’t need stitches.”
“Good. I’d rather not have a scar from tonight.”
“If you do, it’ll be small.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you think.”
“Let me put some antiseptic ointment on it and a bandage. That will tip the odds of no scar.”
“As long as I don’t look like Frankenstein’s monster.”
“You’re far too pretty for that.”
She stilled. He did too, the words hanging between them with enough heat, he would have thought the dryer was running. Then he made himself keep working, because meeting her eyes now would only make it worse.
Her citrus scent was still there, mixed now with sweat. He applied the ointment gently, his pulse hammering too hard as he noticed her near-perfect skin. Her eyebrows. Even her nose was perfectly balanced on her face.