Page 18 of Sweet Temptation

“It’s normal to feel like you don’t know what to feel when this kind of thing happens,” I said. “It can take a while to process. It’s also normal to feel a whole lot of things at once. Scared. Angry. Confused.”

“Is that obvious, too?” Again, she tried to smile, but fell short.

“Professional observation.”

“Well, it definitely feels like the universe ripped its cosmic rug out from under my feet. My night ended with a nice little party with friends, a hot shower… a creep climbing onto my balcony…”

“What did the police have to say about it?” I asked, trying to steer her away from that, to the action that had been taken.

“Not much. They mostly asked questions.”

“And if you’re tired of questions right now, I understand.” Brody had mentioned a possible ongoing situation, which meant he was thinking about hiring one of my guys to beef up her security; that meant the more information I had for a security assessment, the better. But it definitely wouldn’t hurt right now to sit back and not press. Put her in a position of control. Give her the choice. “If you want to talk about what happened… Sometimes it helps to go over it while it’s still fresh.”

The water boiled in the kettle. Summer went to fill the teapot. She seemed to be considering what I’d said.

“Okay,” she said, bringing the teapot over to the bar. Then she took a deep breath. “I was sleeping and something woke me up. I wasn’t sure what it was. I thought someone was in the house. A friend of mine, I mean. I’d had friends over tonight, and I was kind of half-asleep. I thought maybe one of them had stayed over. But I guess I knew that wasn’t true. I just had a weird feeling.” She met my eyes briefly. “I can’t explain it. It was just a feeling that something was wrong.”

“Sometimes feelings are there to tell you things you can’t otherwise know. Instincts.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “So I came downstairs and looked around. And then I saw him out there, through the window.” She pointed into the glass sunroom off the back of the living room.

I could see right into it from my seat at the bar; it was walled in windows on three sides, looking out into her dark backyard.

“He grabbed onto the wall, there,” she said, pointing at the side wall of the sunroom. “He started climbing the wall, holding onto the edges of the windows. He wasn’t all that quiet about it.” Her eyes met mine again. “I don’t know what he was thinking.”

Unfortunately… I had some idea what he was thinking.

I’d been working as a security professional for almost two decades. Not only as a bodyguard, but I’d managed security teams for a lot of high-profile clients, from rock stars to politicians. I’d worked alongside everyone from city police to the RCMP to CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I’d worked private investigations and testified in court. And I could confidently say that I had at least some understanding of the criminal mind.

Anyway, it really didn’t take a degree in forensic psychology to know that a man climbing the wall of a woman’s house to break into her bedroom in the middle of the night wasn’t delivering roses.

But I was hardly gonna say that to her right now.

“While I was on the phone with 911,” she went on, “I watched him through the windows. He was climbing up onto the balcony. The one off my bedroom. That’s where they caught him.”

“The police got here fast?”

“It didn’t feel fast, but it was. I really need to make a donation to their dog unit.” She poured me some tea and slid the mug in front of me. “They were amazing.”

“I’m not surprised. One of the top priorities for the canine unit is responding to crimes in progress, like break and enters. I’ve seen them in action, too. They don’t mess around.”

“No kidding.” She’d poured herself a tea, and came to sit on a stool two over from mine. She glanced into the sunroom. “They scared the shit out of him. The dog attacked him, pinned him against the wall. I saw the whole thing.”

“God bless the police dogs of the world.”

She smiled for the first time, genuinely, and laughed uneasily. “It was pretty badass. I think I was still too terrified to fully appreciate it.” She studied me. “Do you see this kind of thing a lot?”

“Unfortunately, it’s pretty common. One of my partners is an ex-cop.”

She listened intently, and I wondered what I could say to put her at ease. She’d remained calm, collected while relaying the event, but I couldn’t be sure what she was feeling. I definitely didn’t want to add to her trauma in any way.

“There’s no reason to think he would’ve harmed you,” I told her carefully, “even if he found you in the house. More likely, he would’ve done exactly what he did when the cops arrived. Run like hell. He probably didn’t expect anyone to be home. What they do is smash the window and walk away, wait for a moment to see if anyone comes, and if no one appears, then they enter. Grab a laptop or jewelry… Usually they’re just looking for whatever they can trade in for quick cash.”

That was true enough. If all this was was a standard break and enter. I wasn’t so sure.

But until we knew more, there was no reason to alarm her.

My gaze drifted down to her lips. She was chewing a little on the bottom one.

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