Shawna Delacorte - Her Hero And Protector

“Wouldn’t that be a little too coincidental? Something from out of left field?”

“No more so than finding you in my cabin.”

Brandi leaned back and slowly nodded her head. “Touché!”

“Besides, we’re both connected to Rocky Shores, a town of only thirty thousand people. I worked there and you live there. That ties it together with some reality rather than mere coincidence, certainly much more than if it had been a large city like Seattle.”

He softened his voice to a soothing timbre. “Now, tell me what the man looked like…as much as you can recall.”

“Well, I’m five-seven, and he was definitely taller than I am but not as tall as you.”

“I’m six foot two. So, would five feet eleven inches be about right? Or would he be a little shorter than that? Or taller?”

“That sounds right…five-eleven. He was average weight for his height. His hair was sort of a sandy brown color with some gray mixed in. I’d say he was in his mid-forties.”

The excitement built inside him. His mind raced almost faster than his mouth could keep up with it. “Did you notice the color of his eyes? Any scars, tattoos or other distinguishing marks? A beard or mustache?”

“His eyes? No, I didn’t get that good a look at him. As I said, it was only a quick glimpse before he blindfolded me.” She wrinkled her brow in concentration. There was something else…something she could almost see, but not quite.

He cocked his head and looked questioningly at her. “Yes?”

“I’m not sure. I know I saw something important, but I can’t bring it into focus. It was so fleeting. Maybe I only thought—”

Her body stiffened. A quick jolt of fear crashed through her when he placed his hand over her eyes. She grabbed his wrist and frantically tried to pull his hand away from her face.

Her sudden burst of fear came out in her voice. “What are you doing?” Had her tentative trust been misplaced? Was this the moment she had dreaded? Was he in league with her stalker? Had she said enough for him to realize that she could be a threat to him?

Reece shoved her hand away. “Just relax. I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. Now, close your eyes and try to visualize what happened. What did he do first? Tell me everything you can remember in the order that it occurred.”

Brandi took a calming breath. Had she allowed her fears to shove her imagination into overload? When she wasn’t afraid of what he might do, he managed to instill a sense of confidence.

“Okay.” She took a calming breath, leaned back and closed her eyes. The scene began to replay through her mind.

“He must have been hiding in my garage, waiting for me. When I opened my car door he came up behind me and put his hand over my mouth. As I struggled to get free he put his other arm across my neck and told me I’d better shut up and behave if I didn’t want to get hurt.”

“His voice…what did it sound like?”

“I couldn’t tell. He whispered the words in my ear, sort of a raspy whisper. I don’t know if it was real or if he was attempting to disguise his voice. He shoved me toward the side door of the garage. He turned me loose so he could open the door. That’s when I got a glimpse of his face. He put a blindfold over my eyes and steered me out the door and across the backyard toward the alley. I tripped on something, stumbled and fell. My blindfold shifted position. When he reached down to pull me to my feet, I was able to see out from underneath it.”

She frowned as she pursed her lips. “That’s when I saw his badge…and something else. It was on his arm.”

She sat up straight. Her eyes opened wide as if she had just remembered something. “No—it wasn’t his arm. It was on his wrist.”

Reece’s voice grew anxious. “What did you see? A scar? A tattoo? What?”

“I’m not sure. He had something around his wrist. It wasn’t a watch. I think it was…” The fuzzy image suddenly popped into focus. She saw it clearly. The excitement filled her voice and surrounded her words. She made eye contact with him. “That’s it! It was a medical alert bracelet.”

“Were you able to make out what type of medical condition? If he was a policeman, then he would have been in good health so it wouldn’t have been something like a heart condition. Perhaps an allergy to some sort of medication?”

“I don’t know what it said, but I recognized the medical insignia on it.”

A flicker of disappointment rippled through him, dashing his hopes. He quickly shoved it aside and went on to his next question. “The badge…were you able to make out anything beyond the fact that it was a badge? A police department? A federal agency? Anything?”

A dejected Brandi slumped back against the sofa cushions. A definite air of disappointment accompanied her words. “No, just that it was a badge clipped to his belt.”

Reece shifted the direction of his questions in an attempt to jog her memory a little more. “Was there anything else on his belt? A holster, perhaps? If he was wearing his badge, then he was probably armed, too. Did you notice anything like that?”

“No, nothing.”

“Okay, let’s try something else. How was he dressed?”

She furrowed her brow in concentration as she tried to force an image. “He wasn’t wearing a suit, but he wasn’t dressed in jeans, either. He wore slacks, a shirt that buttoned down the front and tucked in rather than a pullover and some sort of lightweight jacket with a zipper.”

“You’re doing great, Brandi. Just a little more, now. What color were his clothes?”

“The slacks were a charcoal-gray and the jacket a lighter shade of gray. The shirt was blue.”

“That’s terrific—good job.” He squeezed her hand to show his appreciation.

She looked up at him. His expression showed how pleased he was with what she had been able to recall. A little moment of satisfaction nestled inside her. It was a lot more detail than she realized she had noticed at the time.

There was one more thing she became acutely aware of…Reece’s hand still covered hers. Rather than evoking fear, this time his touch filled her with a comfort that she found very reassuring. It was accompanied by a flicker of hope she had not felt since the nightmare began a month ago.

“Does that help at all? Did I remember enough for you to recognize who it was?”

“Well, it wasn’t enough for me to be sure about anything, but it will go a long way in identifying who it was if we come across him somewhere along the line.”

“ We? ” The excitement bubbled inside her. “Does this mean that you believe me? That you’re going to help me?” Maybe there was a way out of this mess after all. She tried to temper her enthusiasm with a more pragmatic approach. “I’ll pay for your investigative services, of course. A straightforward business deal.”

“We can talk about that later.” He withdrew his hand from hers. The moment of intimate contact had infused him with a warmth he had not felt in a long time. The moment he broke the physical contact a sudden feeling of loss flooded through him. That was not a good sign. He needed to double his determination to maintain his emotional distance from this very tempting woman and her obvious vulnerability, which continued to tug at him.

“Do you think you would recognize him if you saw a picture?”

She tilted her head to one side and scrunched up the side of her mouth. “I don’t know. I might. As I said, it was only a glimpse.” She sat up straight and stared at him. “Do you have pictures of the members of the Rocky Shores Police Department?” Then she slumped back again. “Of course, he might be a police officer somewhere else, one of the other cities around Seattle or maybe even in Seattle.”