Page 47 of Silent Threat
She was also grateful for the time she’d gotten to spend with Cole in the deer blind the day before. He had opened up and gone along with her guided meditation. Her heart warmed at the idea of him accepting help. He needed it, but he was like a fortress. For him, admitting that he needed help was the same as admitting weakness. She understood why he’d pulled back at the end—fortresses did not advertise cracks in their walls—so she was able to set aside her hurt feelings.
She focused on the fact that hehadrelaxed with her. He had fallen asleep again.
Under other circumstances, if she was just a woman and he was just a man, the fact that he kept falling asleep on her might hurt her vanity. But considering her occupation, she knew the times that he could relax with her and trust her were a compliment.
He’d pulled her against him. She wasn’t sure aboutthat, about why she’d let him. She shouldn’t get that close to him again, even if she didn’t think he meant the embrace in any sexual way. He’d acted as if he simply needed that touch. Like he had needed his hand touching her knee at the meadow.
She even understood why. Because he couldn’t hear her breathe, and with his eyes closed, he wouldn’t be able to tell if she was still there. Did he need her to be there in order to be able to relax deeply enough to sleep? Was her presence like a changing of the guard? She was with him, she was on duty, so he could take a break?
He’d smelled like man, and sweat, and rain. She’d been filled with a completely inappropriate yearning to move her head to his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart. Except ...
Cole Makani Hunter was herpatient.
He was a patient who needed her. And it looked like she might be able to help him. She could not mess that up under any circumstances. And she wouldn’t. So Annie put him out of her mind.
After she finished with her animals, she decided to toss in a load of laundry. She put the clothes in the machine and turned it on, then straightened the laundry room. In a house full of chaos, this small act of control made her feel better.
That good feeling lasted until she glimpsed a shadow cross in front of the laundry-room window. Annie jumped, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Every word Cole had said aboutescalationrushed back.
Here comes the attack.
She should have taken Cole more seriously. She should have prepared.
She eased out into the kitchen and picked up the nearest weapon, a chunk of two-by-four from the rubble on the floor.
She gripped the chunk of wood as she listened to the footsteps on the other side of the tarp, barely audible above the sound of the blood rushing loudly in her ears.
Someone was definitely out there.
And he was looking for a way in.
Cole needed to take a step back from Annie and focus on his own problems. He went to his afternoon session with the shrink, then two hours of PT. After that, the rest of his day was open. Time to get to work.
He glanced at his cell and brought up the schedule he’d put together from observation, a list of who would be in what therapy at this time. He had patient rooms to search. He couldn’t do that at night. Night was for searching the empty staff offices.
He went straight to Shane’s room down the hallway from his own. The Texan’s comment—Love my country, hate the damn government—had stuck in Cole’s brain. Exactly how much did Shane hate the government? His mother had some complicated version of bone cancer. That had to cost a boatload of money, and it could be a motive for selling secrets to the enemy.
Cole popped the lock with the pick on his slightly modified Swiss Army Knife.
Room empty. Clothes tossed all over the place. While Shane probably wouldn’t notice if someone turned his room upside down, not in this chaos, Cole was careful anyway.
Aware that since he could not hear anyone coming, he wouldn’t have any notice, he searched for a burner phone as fast as he could. He checked under the mattress, behind the headboard, in and under the desk, the dresser, the closet, the bathroom.
He found nothing interesting other than Shane’s stash of comic books about immortal warriors, the Harreda. Finished with their earthly wars, the warriors couldn’t die since neither heaven nor hell would take them. They were tasked by the gods with guarding the border between heaven and hell, doomed to never find rest.
Cole could relate. He certainly felt stuck on the border of hell at times.
He hurried to the door, ready to be out of there. But as he pulled the door open, he came face-to-face with Shane. The Texan was coming back early. He had his key in his hand and a surprised look on his face.
“What are you doing here?”
“Who is it?” Annie’s voice shook as she called out, reaching for her cell phone with her free hand. Her heart pounded. Sweat beaded on her upper lip.
“David,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“David who?”
“The producer. From the TV station.” Brief pause. “I’ll come around to the front.”
