Mallory Kane - Silent Guardian

That had been exciting. Much more exciting than following Theresa’s car. More danger. More adrenaline. But not really more risk.

He liked that. All this sneaking around gave him a nearly fail-safe way to experience the excitement without risking so much.

Slinging the towel around his neck, Earl closed his eyes. Tonight’s excitement had almost dulled the burning for a little while.

And tomorrow… He couldn’t wait for tomorrow to get here. The kids had been out of school for a week, but Mary Nell had delayed her trip because the car needed a tune-up. Tomorrow morning she and the kids were heading up to Knoxville, to her mother’s.

It was time. Earl shuddered in anticipation. Soon he could feed the hungry monster that lurked inside him and the burning would ease—for a while. He smacked his lips, then picked up his comb.

“Earl!”

Grimacing, he quickly ran the comb through his thinning hair.

“Earl! Are you listening to me? What are you doing in there? If you want any of this, you’d better come on. I’m about ready to go to sleep.”

“Go ahead, you old bag,” Earl muttered under his breath. “You dole it out like it was gold anyhow. And I can testify that it ain’t gold.” He chuckled quietly.

Then for a few seconds, he closed his eyes and gave in to the need that never really left him. It was almost to fever pitch, but that was okay.

Tomorrow he could begin his quest to quench it.

ARCHER SAW the scrap of paper as soon as he turned into his driveway after following Resa to her apartment gates. It was fluttering precariously at the edge of his mailbox.

He slowed to a stop, eyeing the road and the surrounding area. Nothing .

He’d followed Resa home every night for a week. Tonight, Tuesday night, he’d anticipated seeing the dark sedan she’d noticed the two previous Tuesdays, but it hadn’t showed.

If Resa was right, and he only followed her on Tuesdays, he must have seen Archer and aborted.

“So you left a note instead,” Archer muttered. “Coward.”

He pulled a small, high-powered flashlight out of his glove compartment and shone it on the scrap of paper. It was caught at the edge of the mailbox door, and he could see writing on it.

He wrinkled his brow. He didn’t have an exam glove—not even a handkerchief. He’d have to grab the paper with his bare fingers and take a chance of contaminating it.

He glanced around the interior of his car for anything that would preserve the fingerprints and possible trace evidence on the note. On the floor on the passenger side, he spotted an empty envelope. He’d tossed it there the other day while glancing through his mail before he got out of his car.

Carefully, he used the tips of his thumb and index finger to grasp the edge of the note while he loosened the closure of the mailbox enough to slide it out. The breeze picked up just as the note came free and he almost lost it, but his damaged fingers managed to hold on.

With the note and his arms back inside his car window, he dropped the note into the envelope, and stuck the envelope in his inside coat pocket. He could barely resist pulling it out and reading it, but his detective’s caution told him to wait until he was safely inside his house, with good lighting and a place to set the note so he wouldn’t have to handle it.

It burned a hole in his jacket as he drove the fifty yards up the driveway to his Victorian house. He parked in the circular drive.

Just as he was getting out of his car, his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and his heart slammed into his chest wall. It was Resa.

“Resa? What is it?”

“Archer?” Her voice was small and trembly. “You told me to call you first.”

“What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. There’s—a note.”

“Where? In your apartment?” Archer’s heart rate tripled.

“Get out of there, Resa. Now!”

“It’s not in my apartment—not exactly—” Her voice caught. He heard her take a shaky breath. “It’s inside my windowsill. I think it was slipped underneath from the outside.”

“Resa, listen to me. Have you checked your apartment?”

“Yes. Nothing’s out of place. I don’t think anybody’s been inside.”

“Good. Leave the note where it is. Call 911, and stay there with all the doors locked. Don’t open the door to anyone until the police get there. I’m on my way.”

“Archer? Hurry.”

“Stay put, Resa.”

He pocketed his phone, patted his jacket pocket to assure himself that the envelope was still there, and climbed back into his car.

On the way he called Clint and told him what Resa had told him. Clint said he’d meet the 911 team there.

Twenty-one long minutes later, Archer pulled up to the entrance to Resa’s apartment complex. A uniformed officer he didn’t know was stationed at the gate. Archer flashed his ID and explained that he was working on the Lock Rapist case as an independent investigator with Detective Banes.

The officer nodded. Clint had cleared him. He waved him through.

Ahead of him, Archer saw several parked police vehicles. He pulled up behind one and scanned the breezeways of the nearest apartment building. On the second floor, the front apartment’s lights blazed, spotlighting an officer standing at the door.

He sprinted up the stairs. When he entered the apartment, he saw Resa sitting in a dining-room chair, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes wide, her face pale. She saw him and her shoulders relaxed visibly.

Across the room, Clint glanced up from examining the inside of the windowsill. He gave Archer a slight nod, glanced at Resa, then went back to his job.

A kid who looked like a college student except for the badge pinned to his belt was balanced precariously on a tiny, non-functional fake balcony under the window and dusting the outside sill.

Archer reined in the urge to yell at the kid to watch where he parked his butt. This wasn’t his case, he reminded himself. It was his ex-partner’s.

Instead, he went over and knelt down beside Resa’s chair. She reached out to him, her green eyes searching his face. After an instant’s hesitation, he took her hand.

“I’m not sure they can decide if he was inside or not. Detective Banes said he could have slipped the note under the windowsill from the inside.” Her voice quavered. “He thinks the Lock Rapist has been inside.”

She squeezed his fingers and it took a lot of willpower not to wince.

“You did the right thing—almost. You got the phone calls backward.” He gave her a little smile. “You should have called 911 first, then called me.”

She nodded miserably. “You were the first person I thought of.”

That surprised him. He frowned. The idea that she’d thought of him first scared him. Being someone’s first choice in a crisis was the last thing he wanted. All he wanted was to be left alone.

The envelope in his jacket pocket burned his skin through the layers of fabric—a painful reminder that being left alone was no longer a choice. He was involved.

“Hey, you did good.”

She pulled her hand free of his. Her fingers intertwined in her lap. Their knuckles turned white. He had an unwanted urge to touch her again. To untangle her fingers and rub them until warmth spread through them and up to put color back into her face.

He glanced at Clint, who was still involved in the evidence gathering.

“Resa,” he said quietly. “Did you touch the note?”

“No,” she said. “You told me not to.”

“Could you read it?”

She nodded, pressing her lips together tightly.

“Tell me what it said.”

She shut her eyes. Tears squeezed out between her closed lids. “It said, ‘You can’t shut me out. I’ll get you.’”