Page 381 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“You think he’ll come in here?” Jacob’s desk phone was probably easier than his cell at this point. He lifted the handset.

She kept her attention on the door, her stance loose. Prepared to defend both of them. He had a gun in his safe at the apartment but didn’t figure she’d think she needed help.

Jacob put the phone to his ear.

There was no dial tone. “Huh.” He pressed the button the handset pushed in, then tapped it twice. He dialed anyway. “Nothing’s happening. The phone was working earlier, I got a call on it.”

“What about a cell?” She shifted her stance, as though any moment now someone would bust in and attack. She had to be ready.

Jacob went for his backpack and found it. “You want to talk to them? They’re more likely to come with guns blazing if it’s you in trouble.” He dialed and moved to her so she didn’t have to leave her spot. “They’ll want to help a fellow cop.”

She said nothing about that, just took the phone and held it to her ear while she kept her gun and all her attention on the door.

It didn’t seem like anyone was coming in.

“This is gonna be great.” She sighed, then quickly perked up again. “Yes, this is Special Agent?—”

Before he could ask why she stopped, she handed the phone to him. “I think the call dropped.”

Jacob looked at the screen. “There’s no signal. That’s weird. It was working a second ago.” He moved to the window and held the phone up in case he could get bars by the wall. “Come on.” He tried to dial again, and nothing happened. The desk phone was still silent. No dial tone. “What’s going on?”

She shifted, and he figured she was getting antsy from the inactivity.

He looked out the window and didn’t see anyone. “Maybe whoever picked up for a second on the other end at dispatch will send someone here to check our GPS location, just in case.”

He figured it was more likely they’d assume he was responsible for some crime, and she needed help to takehimdown. Not whoever was outside. “I want to check out the front. See if there’s someone out there.”

The police might not see it, but she’d come here to take refuge with him. That meant something to Jacob. Knowing she saw him as a lifeline—even if it was just because she happened to be driving by. She hadn’t gone anywhere else. She’d stopped here and come to him.

He checked all the windows, locked the back door, and found her in the middle of his studio. Watching his back without being right in his face and giving orders like a lot of cops would.

Addie turned in a circle. “No one is coming in, are they?”

“The truck is still there.” Jacob had seen the vehicle but no driver. No one was walking around out there, either. “Could we make a run for it? Maybe take my car and head for your office?”

Addie worked her mouth back and forth. “I thought I was being attacked.”

“It’s okay.”

“Why did he do that?” She shook her head, tension he didn’t like seeing in the set of her shoulders. Before he could answer she continued, “He could have killed me, running me off the road. Or hit me so I flipped into a ditch.”

“You made it here, where you’re safe. That’s what counts.”

She frowned. “I did make it here.”

“What?”

“He herded me here.” She rolled her shoulders. “Maybe that was the plan all along.”

“From the freeway?”

“I walked right in.”

He wasn’t so sure it was possible to control someone to that extent. Not without them realizing they were trapped. The two of them knew that firsthand. He knew precisely what her eyes would look like the moment she realized there was no escape. The point where she knew death was inevitable—at the end of who knew how many hours of terror.

Right now she didn’t have that in her expression.

She struggled, but she had control.

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