No doubt he would be sending it to Nikki.
Then he moved across the room. “I’ll put it into the mail tomorrow morning,” he said. “Nikki might be able to use her magic to get prints or DNA.”
Carmen watched as he took the seat in front of the desk, booting up his laptop.
She moved to stand at his side, not sure if it was curiosity that sucked her across the room or his gravitational force field. Somehow over the past few days, she’d come to depend on having him near.
A knowledge that should have terrified her. Instead, she laid a hand on his shoulder, savoring the heat that seeped into her palm and through her body.
She didn’t realize until that moment just how cold she was.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Using my own magic,” he told her, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “The hotel has to have security cameras.”
Carmen raised her brows. “You can break into their security system?”
“I prefer to think of it as borrowing their video for a short period of time,” he informed her.
She watched as the computer screen was filled with the image of the hotel lobby. He really did break into the security system.
He touched the keypad and the image shifted to the empty restaurant. Another touch and she could see the kitchen.
She shook her head, caught somewhere between admiration and wry amusement. She hadn’t realized what a formidable enemy Griff Archer could be when she’d blithely plotted to lure him into helping her with a new book. Otherwise she would never have tried to cross his path.
“No wonder Nikki didn’t ask you any questions,” she murmured.
Griff ’s attention remained locked on the screen. “This could take a while,” he warned.
Accepting that she couldn’t help, Carmen reached into her purse and pulled out her phone to plug it in. She didn’t bother to glance through the dozens of messages. The details of her upcoming book tour would have to wait, along with the numerous invitations to speak around the country.
She didn’t have the energy to concentrate on anything beyond catching the bastards who were killing innocent women.
Pacing from one end of the hotel suite to the other, Carmen racked her brain for any memory that might give her a clue. There was her family who hated her, but it seemed a stretch to think they could brutally kill five women. And later, there’d been a few boyfriends. None who had seemed unstable, although who knew? It was impossible to look at someone and know that they might be capable of murder.
There’d also been men during her college years. A few lovers, several friends, and two professors who had been her mentors.
Again, it was impossible to think of them as psychotic killers.
She’d moved to stare out the window when Griff broke the silence that filled the hotel room.
“I got it,” he said, leaning toward the computer screen.
Carmen’s heart skidded to a halt. Was it possible they had caught the killer on camera? That this might all be over?
She hurried to stand directly behind Griff, leaning over his shoulder as he replayed the security footage to share what he’d seen.
The image of the hallway outside her hotel room came into focus, the camera obviously hidden in the ceiling only a few feet from her door. The video ran for a few minutes without any movement, and then a shadow fell across the carpeted floor.
Carmen leaned even closer, her hands grabbing Griff ’s upper arms to keep her balance. On some level she was aware of the hard muscles beneath her fingers, and the intoxicating scent of his male cologne, but her focus remained centered on the video.
The shadow lengthened, a pair of shiny, black leather shoes appearing first, followed by long legs covered by black slacks and then a uniformed jacket. Seconds later, the young man was in full view of the camera as he halted in front of her door.
The man looked from left to right before he squatted down and shoved something under the door.
The postcard, Carmen acknowledged. It had to be.
With another quick glance to see if he was still alone, the man straightened and hurried back down the hallway, turning the corner and going out of the range of the camera.
Carmen frowned. The man’s round face and shaggy brown hair seemed vaguely familiar. As if she’d recently passed him in the street. But he certainly wasn’t someone she actually knew. Not now, and not in the past.
She would swear to that.
Her breath hissed between her clenched teeth. The video had just created more questions than answers.
“He’s one of the porters,” Griff said, rewinding the video once again to study the man. He pointed toward the fitted jacket with the hotel emblem stitched onto the lapel.
Carmen straightened and stepped back, disappointment curdling through her. “That’s why he seemed familiar.”
Griff abruptly rose to his feet, turning to face her with a grim expression.
“I saw him when we first checked in and then again in the lobby when we arrived tonight,” he said. “I’m going to have a word with him. You stay here and lock the door behind me.”
He was headed toward the door with long strides. Carmen briefly considered going with him. Griff wouldn’t be happy, but he couldn’t actually force her to stay behind.
Then she gave a shake of her head. Griff was capable of tracking down the young man without her assistance. And she suspected that he might use more than his winning personality to get the information he wanted. She wouldn’t be much help in a physical confrontation.
Besides, she had things to do.
Whatever they did or didn’t discover from the porter, she was convinced that at least one of the killers intended to follow in the footsteps of the Morning Star. Which meant that he was headed to the West Coast.
With a flurry of activity, Carmen locked the door and then moved through the hotel suite, packing her clothes and then heading into Griff ’s bedroom to gather his belongings. They were both in need of a laundromat, or a shopping mall, but for now she was more interested in heading to the airport.
She was finished and had returned to her task of pacing the carpet when she at last heard a soft tap on the door. She hurried forward, taking the time to check through the peephole to make sure it was Griff on the other side.
Clicking back the deadbolt, she waited for him to walk past her, his bleak expression revealing that the meeting hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped.
Still, she had to know. “What happened?”
Griff turned to face her, his hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans.
“He denied knowing what I was talking about, at least until I threatened to haul him to the security office,” he said, his dark eyes burning with a smoldering fury.
Carmen studied his lean face, a strange pang tugging at her heart. It was more than just his sheer male beauty. It was the fierce determination that was etched in his features and the clenched muscles of his hard body.
In just a few short days this man had become her rock, her self-appointed protector. Someone she could depend on after years of being on her own.
The question that whispered in the back of her mind was whether he would still be there after the danger was gone.
“And then?” She forced herself to concentrate on far more important matters.
“Then the porter admitted that some man approached him when he was taking his cigarette break. I guess the management doesn’t let the employees smoke near the hotel, so he always goes to the parking lot down the street,” Griff said. “The man paid him fifty bucks to slide the postcard beneath the door. He didn’t see any harm in it, so he took the money.”
“Did he get a description?”
Griff shrugged. “Medium height, wearing a long trench coat with a scarf around his neck and a hat.”
“Of course he was.” Carmen rolled her eyes. She felt more resigned than disappointed. She’d already prepared herself for the fact that the killer was
too clever to reveal his identity to the hotel porter. “He couldn’t tell you anything helpful?”
“Nothing more than the fact that he’d talked to a fellow porter who’d been approached by the same man earlier in the day,” Griff told her. “That porter refused.”
Her brows drew together. She sensed there was a reason he mentioned the first porter, but she didn’t understand how it could help.
“Did he recognize the man?”
Griff shook his head. “No, but he spoke with the first porter at ten in the morning.”
“So . . .” Her impatient words died on her lips. Her eyes widened as she realized just what he was saying. “Oh.”
He nodded, his lips pulled into a humorless smile. “Exactly. He couldn’t have been the person who tried to run us off the road. Not unless he’s capable of being in two places at one time.”
Carmen muttered a curse as she pressed her fingers to her aching temples.
“I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel, running as fast as I can but never moving forward.”
He stepped toward her, wrapping her tightly in his arms. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” She felt his lips brush the top of her head. “I swear.”
She leaned against him, trying to absorb his strength. A chill was crawling over her skin, like an icy breath from the grave.
Or perhaps a warning that she was running out of time.
“We have to go to California,” she said softly.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he shocked her by saying.
She tilted back her head, studying him with suspicion. What was going on? She’d expected him to fight her tooth and nail.
“You agree?” she demanded, assuming this was some sort of trick.
His hands framed her face, his expression hard with resolve.
“We’re going to my house and you’re staying there until Rylan can join us,” he said, the tone offering no room for compromise. “By then Nikki will hopefully be on the case and we can track down the bastards and put an end to this nightmare.”
She held his gaze. They were going to California. That’s all that mattered for now.
Once they got there, she would decide how she was going to lure the killers out of hiding.
“Whatever you say,” she meekly agreed.
Chapter Nineteen
December 27, California
It was just after midnight when Anita King trudged through the dark streets of Oxnard.
She’d worked a double shift at the local diner. This time of year the regular customers were out of town, or staying home with family to eat leftovers. Which meant she had to work twice as hard for the tips she needed to pay the rent this month.
A few years ago, the endless hours on her feet wouldn’t have bothered her. But she wasn’t thirty anymore. Hell, she wasn’t even fifty. Now each step jarred her knees that ached from arthritis, and her shoes cut into her swollen ankles.
Which was why she’d decided to take the shortcut instead of remaining on the main thoroughfare.
Most nights she was happy to take the longer path. The price of aching feet was worth paying to delay the moment she had to walk through the door of her apartment.
She grimaced, hitching her purse strap higher on her shoulder.
It hadn’t always been that way, she thought with a nostalgic pang of regret. She’d come to California forty-five years ago. She’d been young, barely seventeen, with big blue eyes and a girl-next-door beauty. But she hadn’t just been another pretty face.
She could sing, and dance. She’d worked every summer to take tap lessons. And she could act. But after a few small roles, and one local stage production of Annie Get Your Gun, she’d made the classic mistake. The one thing certain to bring an end to her dreams. She’d fallen in love.
She’d played at being a sophisticated woman of the world, but the truth was, she’d remained that naïve girl from Nebraska. So when she’d gotten pregnant, she’d never considered the idea of getting rid of the baby. Instead, she’d demanded the handsome young actor who’d knocked her up put a ring on her finger.
No big surprise that the marriage had barely lasted long enough for her to give birth. By the time she’d returned to their cramped apartment with the baby her husband had already flown the coop.
Anita had been a single woman raising a baby without any training to earn a decent living. She should have returned home. Her parents wouldn’t have been happy, but they would have taken her in. Instead, she’d panicked and seduced the young man who worked at the local deli counter. He’d been blinded by her beauty and it’d been easy to lure him into a quickie marriage before he could consider whether he was ready to take on a wife and child.
She grimaced. Unlike her first husband, Earl had done the honorable thing and stayed married to her even after the passion had faded, but Anita knew that somewhere deep inside him, he’d nurtured a small resentment. And that resentment had destroyed any hope that they could build a decent marriage.
Instead of marital bliss, they’d spent forty years bickering and sniping at each other. They fought about the kids. The finances. The shattered dreams.
Her blue eyes had dimmed, her long red hair had faded to a weary peach fuzz. And instead of gracing the silver screen, she was delivering hash to the late-shift workers.
And then the stroke had left Earl in a wheelchair.
And she was stuck.
Again.
Her gloomy thoughts matched the gloom that surrounded her as she walked past the brick buildings with their front windows boarded over and covered with graffiti. At one time the area was ravaged by gangs, but now even they had abandoned the place.
What remained was an eerie husk of a shell that used to be bustling with life.
Like her, she thought with a humorless smile.
Lost in her dark thoughts, Anita was caught off guard when a vehicle rounded the corner and a pair of headlights momentarily blinded her. Coming to a halt she blinked. There were white dots that were floating in her eyes. Until her vision cleared she wasn’t going to risk continuing down the sidewalk that was cracked and pitted with holes. The last thing she needed was a twisted ankle.
When she opened her eyes again, it was to discover a white van had pulled along the curb right next to her.
Instinctively she took a step back as the window rolled down, her hand dipping into the pocket of her jacket. She never left her house without her Taser. Diamonds might be a girl’s best friend, but fifty thousand volts of electricity was a woman’s best defense.
The dome light came on in the van, revealing a nice-looking man with a charming smile.
“Excuse me,” he called out.
Anita eyed him with hard-earned suspicion. She wasn’t stupid enough to think that a man could be trusted just because he was good-looking and was wearing expensive clothes.
They were usually the worst.
“What?”
“I’m looking for Java Central.”
She frowned. It sounded like a place that would be in L.A., not Oxnard.
“I’ve never heard of it,” she told him.
He pointed to the empty building behind her, his expression sheepish in the dim light.
“My GPS shows that it should be right here.”
“Don’t know what to tell you.” She turned to continue walking down the sidewalk.
“Wait,” the man commanded, allowing the van to roll along the curb next to her. “This is really important. I’m supposed to meet my future in-laws there. My fiancée will kill me if I’m late.”
Her lips twisted in a sour smile. Young love. What a bunch of hooey.
Her steps never faltered. “Look, I never heard of it. Ask someone else.”
“Maybe if you’d look at the directions that she texted me, you would recognize where I went wrong.”
“Yeah, right,” she muttered. Even when she first arrived in California she wouldn’t have been naïve enough to let a stranger on a dark street lure her t
oward his car.
“Please.”
She halted long enough to send him an exasperated glare. She wasn’t naturally rude. But after a day of hustling to serve people who assumed she was at fault with everything from the speck of dirt on the plate to their soggy fries, she was tired. Bone-deep tired.
“No,” she said in sharp tones. “Just call your fiancée and ask her.”
On the point of walking the short distance to the end of the street, Anita caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She gave an awkward jump to the side, assuming that it must be one of the nasty homeless people. They were forever squatting in doorways and leaping out to demand money when she least expected it.
But even as her fingers tightened on her purse, the shadowy stranger lifted his arm. Was he holding something?
It looked like a hammer.
With a small gasp she raised her hands, holding them in front of her face as the man swung the object directly toward her head. Like that was going to help.
At the same time, she was aware that the man in the van was just sitting there. Watching.
Which could only mean one thing.
The two men had been working together. The man in the van had kept her distracted as she walked right toward her hidden attacker.
What she didn’t know was why.
One glance at her waitress uniform and ragged coat that she wore over it would tell a robber that she didn’t have much money. Especially for men who clearly weren’t in need of pocket change. And it wasn’t like she had a dozen enemies who could pay for a hit on her. She went from her crappy apartment to her crappy job and back to her crappy apartment. That was her life.
Sad? Sure. But not the sort of existence that made someone want her dead.
She was still mulling over the baffling attack when the hammer connected with the top of her head. Pain exploded through her brain and she shrieked.
She couldn’t think. At least not clearly. Instead, her most primal instincts took control and she fell heavily to the ground, bending forward to burrow her head in her arms. Blood dripped down her cheek, the stench of old cement and piss wafting from the sidewalk. She braced herself for another blow, but astonishingly it never landed.