Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Anne thought about that for a moment. She had never had anyone rush to defend her before, let alone promise annihilation of the enemy. And she had no doubt that he would do exactly what he said. His expression was just this side of fierce. He radiated power. She felt a little like she had poked a stick at a lion.

“Let me see you home,” he said, dialing down his intensity a notch.

“I’m capable of driving myself home,” Anne said.

“I’m well aware you’re capable,” he said, brows lowered over his dark eyes. “I would feel better seeing you home. You’re upset. You’re not going to be paying attention. There’s still a killer on the loose. Now that I’ve fucked up-pardon my French-your relationship with your student, making sure you’re safe seems like the least I can do. Is that all right with you?”

Without examining her reasons too closely, Anne handed him her car keys.

Anne led the way up the sidewalk to the home she had grown up in, a sturdy Craftsman-style house of dark painted wood and stone. Soft amber lights flanked the front door. Rosebushes lined the front walk. The roses glowed white in the moonlight.

Vince followed her up the steps, admiring her behind in a pair of blue jeans. “You live here alone?”

“With my father. He allegedly needs a keeper.”

“Right. You said his health is poor. What does he have?”

“His heart is bad,” she said. “Literally and figuratively.”

“How old is he?”

“Seventy-nine,” she said, unlocking the front door and letting them in. She glanced up at him, catching the surprise on his face. “My father was an English professor with a wandering eye. My mother was his much-younger student.”

Vince kept his mouth shut. He had to be happy her father was seventy-nine and not forty-nine. Anne started to go down a dark hall, and he caught her gently by the arm.

“Whoa, sweetheart. Don’t go charging down dark hallways,” he cautioned. “Do you keep all your doors and windows locked?”

“As of this week I do,” she said.

Vince flicked on the hall light. “You can’t be too careful. We still don’t know who this killer is, but he’s not the guy sitting in jail. He could be someone you know.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“And that’s what this kind of predator counts on. He hides in plain sight and gets a rush out of knowing no one suspects him.”

“That’s unnerving,” she said, that emotion plain in her pretty brown eyes as she looked up at him.

“Better that you know it than not. You don’t exactly fit the victimology, but you’re the right age, and God knows you’re pretty,” he said, tracing a blunt-tipped forefinger down her pert little nose. “You don’t have a connection to the Thomas Center, but I don’t have a crystal ball, either. He could know you some other way and decide you meet his profile well enough.”

“You’re scaring me,” she whispered.

“I just want you to be careful, honey. If you’re in a situation that doesn’t feel right to you, there’s a reason you feel that way. Get yourself out of it and call me. Day or night. Or call the sheriff’s office and ask for Mendez. Okay?”

She nodded solemnly as she looked up at him. His gaze lingered just a little too long on the full soft bow of her lower lip. The memory of the taste of her was still in his mouth. Electricity hummed in the scant distance between them. It made her skittish.

“I’ll give you the nickel tour,” she said, her voice a little breathless as she turned and started down the hall.

The first door they came to was a cozy library/office with a big old mahogany desk and heavy leather chairs. A masculine room. Her father’s study, the built-in shelves crammed to the ceiling with books. Vince checked the window to make certain it was locked.

Amber light shone under the last door on the hall. Her father’s bedroom.

Anne knocked and cracked the door open. “I’m home.”

Her father was sitting up in his bed in maroon pajamas, reading. An oxygen tank sat beside the bed, clear tubing conducting the air into his nostrils. He didn’t even look over at his daughter, but merely grunted his acknowledgment.

“Did you take your meds?”

He made a sound in his throat that might have meant anything.

“If you didn’t, I have an FBI agent here with me, and he’ll make you take them.”

Even that got no response from the old man. Anne shut the door and rolled her eyes. “The love is overwhelming, isn’t it?”

She said it with such dry sarcasm, Vince thought she must have long ago stopped caring whether her father felt anything for her.

“Does he have a problem with speech?” Vince asked as they started back down the hall.

“No,” she said. “He’s an ass.”

“Oh.”

And yet, she had given up finishing her education and going into her chosen field to come home and take care of him. When her mother died. It wasn’t difficult to piece the story together from what she had said at dinner the night before and what he had just seen for himself. She must have come home because her mother had asked her to. The fact that she had, despite her feelings for the old man, spoke volumes to the kind of woman Anne Navarre was.

“Do you think I’m a terrible daughter?” she asked.

“No. Actually, I was just thinking you’re pretty remarkable.”

She wasn’t comfortable with that and dodged his gaze. “Damn, I forgot to ask him if he’d seen any homicidal maniacs in the house.”

“That’s my job, anyway,” Vince said.

She showed him through the rest of the house, hesitating a little when they came to her bedroom.

“Afraid to go in there with me?” he teased as they stood outside the door.

“No! Of course not,” she protested.

He liked watching her when she got rattled. She made him think of an annoyed little cat, ready to get her back up and hiss at him.

He leaned down a little too close to her ear and murmured, “I promise to be a perfect gentleman.”

Brows low, she huffed an impatient sigh and pushed the door open.

The room was neat and tidy, feminine but not frilly. Vince wanted to take time and absorb the surroundings, knowing what he found here would speak volumes about her, but she wasn’t having it. She backed out of the room before he could say anything and started down the stairs.

“Looks like the place is all clear, ma’am,” he said, following her.

“That’s a relief,” she said, leading the way back into the kitchen. “I’m not a very good hostess. I should at least offer you a drink for making sure I’m not going to end up a corpse tonight. Would you like something? Wine? Tea? I have arsenic, but I’m saving it for my father’s birthday.”

“A little wine is never a bad thing,” Vince said.

“I don’t have anything chilled, but I have a nice cabernet from a local vineyard.”

Vince flashed the big grin. “I love California.”

She got a couple of glasses out, uncorked the bottle with efficiency, and poured the drinks.

“I like the look of that porch out back,” he said as she handed him his glass.

“Will we be safe?” she asked, glancing up at him from under her lashes. Almost flirtatious , he thought. He wondered if she realized it.

“You’re with me,” he said. “I have a gun.”

She smiled that crooked little smile. “What more could a girl want?”

The back porch was a mirror image of the front, but filled with well-used green wicker furniture strewn with thick flowered cushions; an outdoor room with armchairs and a coffee table and big lush ferns on plant stands.

Anne curled up in the corner of a wicker sofa at one end of the porch where the illumination was as soft as candlelight. Vince took the other end, letting her have some space.