Jodie Bailey - Mistaken Twin

Leaning forward, he studied the front of the building that housed Higher Grounds Coffee Bar downstairs and Jenna’s apartment upstairs. Lights still shone from the coffee shop, which had stayed open past its usual eleven o’clock closing time due to the shows at the Fine Arts Center. Couples and groups of all ages flowed in and out of the large glass front door, seeking warmth against the cold, likely too full of energy from the bluegrass concert to head to the bed-and-breakfasts in town or the hotels about half an hour away. Nobody seemed out of place or overly interested in Jenna’s apartment upstairs.

He leaned forward an inch more. Light poured from the upstairs windows. If he’d expected Jenna to make her way to bed and at least try to rest by now, he’d have missed the mark. She probably wouldn’t catch five minutes of sleep tonight.

Leaving her alone had felt wrong, as though he had abandoned her, but he couldn’t stay after she’d turned on him and practically threw him out. Wyatt’s question had hit a nerve, but as much as he’d replayed their conversation before she showed him the door, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

Unless, though she’d denied it repeatedly, she truly knew the man who’d had his arm wrapped around her throat.

In the big picture, did it matter? The image of Jenna being treated so roughly made him bristle with anger and dredged up memories he fought daily to keep buried. Nobody did that to a woman.

Nobody.

A crowd of seven or eight college students exited the coffee shop and made a right up the hill toward the Fine Arts Center and the parking lot beyond it. A man at the rear of the pack broke away and edged to the left. He wore a hat pulled low so that his face was hidden in shadow. He leaned against the faded brick at the end of the building closest to Jenna’s, seeming disinterested in the crowd. The way his head moved, though, he was watching. Waiting.

Wyatt sat taller and wrapped his fingers around the door handle. The guy could have a buddy inside paying their bill. He could be two seconds from lighting a cigarette.

Or he could be trouble.

After double-checking to make sure the interior lights in the truck were off, Wyatt slipped out and eased the door shut.

The stranger didn’t seem to notice. He simply stood, leaning against the wall, watching as a chatting, laughing group passed between his position and Wyatt’s.

When the people cleared the space, the man lifted his head and looked directly across the street at Wyatt. With a sly half smile, the man lifted his hand and flicked a two-fingered mocking salute against his forehead before he turned toward the stairs to Jenna’s apartment.

A jolt of familiarity shot through Wyatt. He was the same man who’d tried to kidnap Jenna at her shop. Wyatt shifted to run, but a weight slammed into the small of his back, driving him to the ground and forcing the breath from his lungs. His cheek smacked the pavement and he slid several inches on his chest, rough gravel grinding into his shoulder. Using the momentum from the fall, he rolled onto his back and threw his arm out in time to deflect a blow from a muscular man wearing a dark shirt and a baseball cap.

His face wasn’t covered, which could only mean one thing...

He didn’t intend to let Wyatt live long enough to identify him.

With a lethal smile, he dove toward Wyatt, his face shadowed in the dim light from across the street.

Wyatt rolled to the side, years of military and police training kicking in with a vicious muscle memory. As his attacker stumbled, Wyatt threw out his leg and kicked beneath the left knee.

The man went to the ground with a howl, his cheek smacking the pavement with a sickening thud.

Handcuffs out before he even thought to grab them, Wyatt planted a knee in the man’s back and held him to the ground, cuffing his attacker before he could catch his breath. Tugging a second pair of cuffs from his belt, Wyatt jerked the guy upward and anchored him to the tow hook on the truck bumper.

The stranger’s head lolled to the side, blood dripping from his top lip, where his teeth had driven in. He sneered at Wyatt with a horrid amusement. “Don’t be in any hurry. The girl’s already dead.”

Footsteps pounded on the metal stairs outside the apartment.

Jenna set the coffeepot on the granite kitchen counter next to the .38 revolver she’d taken out of her closet after Wyatt left. The likelihood she would be able to pull the trigger while aiming at another human being was almost zero, but it still made her feel better to have protection at hand.

She stared over the bar at the door as the footsteps stopped outside. Wyatt had probably decided he had more intrusive questions to ask. Well, the door was dead bolted and the chain was on. Let him think she’d gone to sleep, was in the shower, whatever... He was not coming in here again tonight. She had to have time to think, to pray. The packed bag in the attic called to her, but what if running wasn’t the way out this time?

The door rattled as he grabbed the knob, then there was silence.

Jenna reached for the coffee carafe again.

The door exploded inward, wood splintering around the lock.

The coffeepot slipped from Jenna’s hands, hit the side of the sink and shattered in the basin as she released a strangled cry and stumbled backward until her back collided with the cold stainless steel refrigerator.

A man hulked in her doorway.

Not a man. The man. The one from her shop. The same leer curled his lip as he stepped onto her door and stood between her table and her couch, blocking her exit.

Panic robbed her muscles of strength. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. There was nothing to do but stare as the man stalked slowly toward her, his dark eyes never leaving hers. A deepening bruise ran along his jaw where Wyatt had delivered a near-crippling blow earlier.

Wyatt. He was watching. He had to have seen what was happening. He’d be on the stairs any second, bursting through the door to save her. She swallowed hard, pulled herself taller and found her voice. “You’d better leave. The police are watching.”

“Is that a fact?” The man stopped, his chuckle a low rumble. “You mean your boyfriend? The hero who rescued you earlier?” He sniffed and waved a hand in the direction of the door, his eyes practically glittering with amusement. “Sorry, hon. By now, he’s dead.”

The words hit her in the chest, rocking her backward until she was pressed fully against the refrigerator. The cold of the metal seeped through her shirt into her spine, bringing a shiver. No. He had to be lying. Wyatt couldn’t be dead because of her.

He couldn’t be dead at all.

Methodically, as though he enjoyed torturing her with his presence, the man stepped closer until he stood in the doorway of the kitchen between the column and the wall, a few feet from her position. “Here’s what you need to know to make this easier on both of us.” His hand went to his side and rested at his hip, where a gun was likely concealed beneath his navy blue windbreaker. “My boss pays me whether I bring you in alive or dead, though there’s twice as much in the bank if you’re breathing. He’d like the pleasure of taking care of you himself. It’s really up to you to decide what happens next. You can come to Texas with me all nice and quiet, or you can find yourself in the morgue next to your boyfriend. Either way, my wallet thanks you.”

The truth hardened her resolve and it flowed from her core to strengthen her weakened joints. If she walked meekly out her front door with this man and let him take her to El Paso, she was dead. Logan would never let her survive, not if he was willing to go to these lengths to drag her to her past.