Julie Miller - Yuletide Protector

“Sick?” He shook his head and leaned back, the boardroom glare that had intimidated many an adversary directed squarely at her. “Trusting a woman is what got me into this mess in the first place.”

She smiled. Poor thing. Didn’t he know by now she couldn’t be intimidated? “Trusting a woman is what will get you out of it, too.”

She waited, displaying far more patience than he had ever shown her. At last, his broad shoulders lifted with a heavy breath and he nodded, accepting her promise. Accepting her.

“I love you.” Pursing her lips together, she blew him a kiss. “Oh, and Brian, darling?” There were rules to this relationship, and he needed to understand them. “I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to save you. But if you betray who I am to anyone—a cell mate, a police officer or even a fly on the wall—I will destroy you.” She smiled again. “Now, say you love me.”

She held the defiant challenge in his dark eyes until, with a nod of understanding, he lowered his gaze. “I love you.”

She hung up the phone and walked away.

Chapter One

December

“That’s him. I recognize his voice. The build’s right and the eyes are the same. He’s the man who raped me.”

Bailey Austin braced her hand against the chilly window that separated her from the suspect and decoys lined up in the adjoining room at KCPD’s Fourth Precinct headquarters and closed her eyes. They all wore black clothes and surgical masks over the lower half of their faces. But she didn’t need a visual to relive the sounds and smells and every violent, humiliating touch that had changed her life more than a year ago.

“Shut up!” A fist smashed across her cheekbone when she’d dared to beg him to stop. Pain pulsed through her fractured skull, swirling her plastic-covered surroundings into a dizzying vertigo that made her nauseous. Her stomach was already churning from the stingingly bitter smell of vinegar and soap on the washcloth he was bathing her with. As if he could simply wash away the pain and shock and violation of what he had done to her. Bound and battered, helpless to struggle against him, she tried to blank her mind against the unspeakable things he was doing to her. “I’m the one in charge here, you filthy thing,” he needlessly reminded her.

Dark eyes swam in and out of focus from the grotesque black-and-white mask he wore. “Please...”

“Close your eyes and that mouth, or I’ll put the hood on you again.” She squeezed her eyes shut, dutifully doing what she could to save herself more punishment. “Do exactly what I tell you,” he warned her, scrubbing away any evidentiary trace of himself or the crime scene from her body, “and maybe I’ll let you live.”

Bailey had been one of the lucky ones. She’d survived.

But she hadn’t been able to erase the memory that night, and she couldn’t now. Even with a simple recitation from a Kansas City travel brochure, she recognized his voice—so bitter and devoid of caring. “That’s him,” she repeated, opening her eyes to see a uniformed officer stop and cuff the black-haired man she’d identified. When he peeled off his mask, she recognized his face from the business and society pages of the Kansas City papers. “Brian Elliott is the man who... He’s the Rose Red Rapist.”

District Attorney Dwight Powers stood beside her at the one-way window. “You’ll testify to that in court? You’ll point him out to the jury?”

She swallowed the emotions that rose in her throat. Despite all logic that told her she was invisible to him here in the look-at room, Bailey hugged her orange wool coat tighter in her arms and backed away from the glass when her attacker turned and looked in her direction. She nodded, transfixed by the cruel eyes, warm with color and yet so cold. There was something wrong with that man, something sick or disconnected inside his head. A brilliantly successful businessman, charming on the surface, yet twisted, damaged, inside. And he’d taken all that rage, all that self-loathing out on her. As if she’d been the cause of his pain. Even through the glass she felt his hatred aimed squarely at her.

She could feel his hands on her all over again, her arms pinned above her head, his body on top of hers, and she shuddered.

“This is a dubious identification at best, Powers, and you know it.” Shaking off the nightmare crawling over her skin, Bailey turned away from the glass as Kenna Parker, Brian Elliott’s articulate defense attorney, started earning her expensive fee. The taller woman clutched her leather attaché in her fist and looked down with sympathy. “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, Miss Austin. But if the district attorney here puts you on the stand, I can promise you that my cross-examination won’t be pleasant. If you’re certain my client is your attacker, then why didn’t you identify him sooner? He’s a known figure in Kansas City society.”

“I didn’t know him. Not personally.” Bailey’s gaze darted up to meet the blond woman’s faintly accusatory question. “I identified him by voice. And I did recognize his eyes as soon as I saw them again. Once he was arrested, I picked out his mug shot from a group of several suspects.”

“You had a head injury, didn’t you? Perhaps your memory isn’t as clear as you’d like it to be.”

Before Bailey could form the appropriate words to defend her competence as the prosecution’s star witness, Harper Pierce, the family attorney her parents had insisted accompany them down to Precinct headquarters this morning, interrupted.

“Is that a threat, Kenna?” he challenged.

The woman smiled up at the attorney in the three-piece suit. “Of course not. I’m good enough I don’t need to make threats.” With a polite nod to everyone in the room, she turned on her Italian leather pumps and headed out the door. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go talk to my client. Chief Taylor?”

Mitch Taylor, the Precinct commander who blocked the door, folded his arms across his barrel-chest. “My people made a good arrest, Ms. Parker. They pulled a dangerous man off the streets.”

“Did they?” She waited until he stepped aside to let her pass. “Or did they just find a convenient scapegoat so you could close your investigation and get the press off your back?”

Everyone in the tiny room turned their heads at the onslaught of voices and bright lights that greeted the lady attorney as soon as she stepped into the hallway. Reporters.

“Ms. Parker. Is your client a free man?”

“Will he still be out on bail?”

“Did the witness identify him as the Rose Red Rapist?”

“Who is the witness?”

Bailey clutched her stomach as a wave of nausea churned inside her. They were closing in like vultures. “Oh, my.”

Dwight Powers braced his hand beneath her elbow. “Mitch,” he warned.

“I’m on it.” With a curt nod, Mitch stepped into the hallway. With a booming voice that made Bailey tremble, he took charge of the surging crowd. “This is a police station, not gossip central. Kate Kilpatrick, our task force liaison to the press, will answer your questions downstairs.”

“Is that Brian Elliot?” a woman asked. “Could we talk to him?”

“My client is being released on bail, and we’ll be making a formal statement later,” Kenna promised.

“Joe! Sarge!” Bailey ducked behind the D.A.’s broad back as Chief Taylor called for backup. “Get them out of here. I’m not putting on a press conference for that scum. The reporters can talk to Elliott outside, once we get his ankle bracelet back on him.”

“Yes, sir.” A dutiful voice from the hallway hastened to do his chief’s bidding. “Ms. Owen. Mr. Knight. This way, people. I’ll escort you down to the front door.”