Chapter Four
Riley
Annalise stood with her back to the windows, looking hunted. She was thinking of running again. I could tell. Annalise had made a career out of running. I should know, I’d been keeping track of her for years.
She should have been an award-winning photographer.
She had an eye for it, and she’d loved her camera almost as much as she’d claimed to love me.
Instead, she was a pro at staying on the run.
Annalise knew how to get a fake ID, how to find jobs that would pay under the table, how to disappear in the dead of night.
Nothing the oldest daughter of the infamous Winters family should have known. If she wasn’t a famous photographer, she should have been married to a country club boy, having kids and organizing luncheons, or helping her brothers run the family company. Not living like a fugitive.
These days Annalise Winters was nothing more to me than a case file. There was nothing between us. Maybe there never had been. But I wasn’t going to let her live like this anymore. I’d help catch the creep who’d been stalking her since she was a teenager, and then I’d walk away.
The plan had sounded good on paper. Now, seeing her up close for the first time in years, I wondered if I could do it. There was a part of me, deeply buried and mostly ignored, that hated this woman.
She was just a girl I dated for a few months a decade ago. No big deal. But I could still remember the feel of her hand in mine as I lay half-conscious in the hospital, my head in agony. I'd never forgotten the letter she’d left behind, dismissing me. Dismissing us.
Annalise Winters was a loose end in my life. I'd taken the job to tie it up. Clean and simple. Do this, I reminded myself, and you'll be finished with her for good.
I watched her, seeing the way her crossed arms didn't just shut us out. She was protecting herself. She was scared. I had to stop thinking of her as the enemy and remember that she was the client.
Sometimes the client didn't know what was good for her. It was my job to make her face reality.
I stood and shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to look as nonthreatening yet competent as I could manage.
"Why don't you guys give me a minute alone with Annalise. She might find it easier to make a decision when we're not all ganging up on her."
Aiden Winters gave me an assessing look that, I'll be honest, made me a little uncomfortable. There was something about him that left me feeling as if he could see all the way to my soul.
We'd only met once before when he’d delivered Annalise’s letter.
When Annalise and I had dated, I hadn't rated an introduction to her family.
I turned to see her older brother Gage giving me the same penetrating look.
Fuck, the two oldest Winters men were like twins—tall, broad, and ready to tear the world apart to protect one of their own.
At the moment, I wasn't liking the part of my plan that had me living in the same house with the two of them. They'd do anything for Annalise, and I was disposable. Collateral damage if necessary. It was part of the job, and it had never bothered me before.
Aiden and Gage exchanged a look and rose, nodding at Cooper. Evers and Knox followed along as they filed out of the room. A moment later Annalise and I were alone. I decided to jump right in. This was going to be hard enough. Annalise didn't need me to baby her.
"What part of this has you hesitating?" I asked, sure she was going to say it was me. I should have expected her to surprise me. Lise was always good at surprising me.
"I'm afraid someone's going to get hurt," she said, quietly, her back to me as she studied the gardens of Winters House.
"Someone? Or you?" I took a few steps closer until I stood beside her at the window, only an arm's reach away. She took a tiny step to the side, brushing the heavy silk curtain. Interesting.
"Not me. Someone else. I'm sure you've noticed I have a big family."
"Hard to miss anything about your family," I commented, wryly. There wasn't a single person in the country who didn't know about the Winters family, and in Atlanta, they might as well have been royalty.
Wealthy, powerful, and scandalous. I knew more than I wanted to about the Winters, thanks to my work at Sinclair Security.
Annalise went on, "Then you know we've expanded in the last few years.
Charlie and Tate and Vance are all married, and Vance has a daughter.
It's too many people to keep track of. Too many targets if this guy changes his pattern.
What if he goes after Rosie? Or Aunt Amelia?
She went through enough when Sophie's husband came back. And Sophie—she’s been through so much.
I can't ask her to live with this kind of risk when her life is just calming down.
She and Gage are planning their wedding.
I don't want the house put on lockdown again, everyone afraid to go out by themselves. It's not fair."
"I don't think they'd see it that way," I said, gently. Annalise shook her head.
"If we’re going to do this, I still like the cabin in the woods idea. No one else around who can get hurt. Just me."
"We've already gone over why that won't work, Annalise.
Not visible enough. I've seen this guy's pattern.
I think his wet dream is you, isolated, waiting for him to make contact.
If we put you in some mountain cabin by yourself, you might never leave.
I thought you wanted to end this. I thought you were ready to stop running. "
"I am."
Her eyes flicked to mine and then away, too quickly for me to read anything in them. She turned from the window and went back to the sofa, sitting gracefully and pouring herself another cup of coffee. She picked up a shortbread biscuit and took a delicate, precise bite.
I could play along. She wanted distance. She wanted this meeting back on a professional footing. Annalise didn't want to get personal.
That was fine, neither did I. Still, it had to be said.
I took a seat on the sofa opposite hers and poured my own coffee.
Meeting her eyes, I asked bluntly, "Is this about me?
Would you rather Cooper find another operative?
We talked about using Evers. You two have always gotten along.
It wouldn't be hard to convince the rest of the world that you’re together. "
Her blue eyes studied me for a long moment before she shook her head. "Evers has a… thing. A fake fiancée would get in the way."
Curious, I couldn't help asking, "What kind of thing? I know for a fact he's not dating anyone."
A tiny grin worked the side of her mouth, and she shook her head again. "A none of your business kind of thing. I haven't talked to him in a while, so maybe it's not even a thing anymore, but either way, I don't want to mess up his life like that."
She took a sip of coffee and another of those delicate bites of the shortbread before she said, "And you're okay with this? It's not going to be weird? You're making yourself a target, and we have no idea how far this will go. You know that, right?"
She had an unsettlingly realistic view of her situation.
Usually, we tried to make sure the client was aware of their danger enough to keep them cautious, but not so much that we scared the shit out of them.
It looked like I didn't have to worry about that with Annalise.
There was a lot in her simple statement. I'd tackle the hard part first.
"Look, we dated for a few months over a decade ago.
It's ancient history. We've both moved on since then.
The reality is, this is exactly the kind of job I'm best at, and our past history makes me the ideal candidate to play your fiancé.
The smart thing to do is put the past behind us and get the job done.
We'll play the loving couple, your stalker goes nuts, and we catch him. "
"That simple?" she asked, her eyes on the wall behind my head, something in them flat.
She sounded almost hurt. Not for the first time, I wondered about that letter, about her leaving. She was so worried about keeping everyone safe—and again, I dismissed the idea.
If she’d really had feelings for me, she never would've been able to write that letter. She wouldn't have been able to leave the way she had.
Just because she cared about her friends and family didn't mean she hadn't meant every word when she'd dumped me.
"That simple," I said, firmly. "What did you mean about having no idea how far this would go?"
I knew what it meant, but I needed to know if she did.
"I mean that my parents were murdered when I was eight, in their house a quarter of a mile away.
Eight years later my aunt and uncle were killed in an almost identical crime right down the hall.
By then, the notes and gifts and flowers had already started.
They probably aren't related. We're very visible as a family, and we weren't careful enough about the way we handled the press when my parents died.
“There were too many pictures of us, too much attention as we got older.
It's entirely possible that some random creep saw a picture of me online or in the paper and got fixated.
But I also think it's careless to assume that four unsolved murders are completely unrelated to whoever's been stalking me since I was sixteen.
The truth is, we don't know. And if it is related, we're dealing with someone who's killed four people and never been caught. "
"And knowing that, you want us to stick you in a cabin in the woods by yourself?
Maybe we should leave the door wide open at night, just to make it a little easier for him to get to you.
If you really think there's a chance the murders and your stalker are connected then what the fuck were you thinking taking off eleven years ago? "
The door to the living room swung open, and Evers pinned me with a glare, his usual easy-going expression wiped away. "Everything okay in here?"
"Yeah, we're fine," I said, shortly, surprised to find myself on my feet, looming over Annalise. She glared back at me and calmly took another sip of her coffee.
"Lise?" Evers asked, ignoring me.
"I'm fine," she said, in an even, composed voice. "Riley and I are just… having a discussion."
Without another word, Evers closed the door. I knew I should sit, pick up my coffee, and pretend to be a professional. I was a professional, god-dammit.
"If we're going to do this," I said, "you have to have a better sense of self-preservation than this."
"I have an excellent sense of self-preservation," she said, coolly. "It's the rest of you who are throwing yourselves into danger."
"Look, you've had eleven years to end this, and you're still running.
The longest you stayed anywhere since you left Atlanta is eight months.
Lately, it's been more like three or four.
You've lost years to this guy. Years. We know what we're doing.
This is not our first stalker case. It's not my first stalker case. There’s always risk, and everyone around you is aware of that.
We're telling you, this is the best way to get the job done. So are you in, or are you out?"
"I'm in," she said, setting her empty coffee cup on the tray. “Tell me how this works."