Page 24 of Guilty as Sin
The envelope hadn’t been here when he’d got home yesterday afternoon. It couldn’t have been left during the evening, or Tobias would have barked, even if the person had left a car on the road and walked up the drive.
Wait.HadTobias barked? When Jace had woken from that dream—yes, he was sure the dog had barked. Jace had thought it was a response to his restlessness. Besides, he’d been preoccupied at the time. That must have been when.
What time had that been? Sometime after midnight. His hero, Matt Sawyer, would have known down to the minute. Sawyer was talented like that. But then, Sawyer was a superman. Jace couldn’t even pin down the hour.
He went back into the cabin, set the envelope on the table, looked at it some more, then got his phone and took a picture. Just in case. After that, he grabbed his gloves from the top of the firewood stacked near the stove, slipped them on, opened the package with his knife, turned it upside down, and spilled the contents onto the tabletop.
No paper this time. Two soft things, and one hard thing. He poked at them with the point of the knife. A woman’s red satin thong, size medium. A black satin blindfold with an elastic back. And a red thumb drive.
He took a picture of all of that, too, then texted both pictures to Rafe with a note.Got an anonymous admirer. Don’t have a good feeling about it.His brother was working in Washington, D.C., at the moment, but he’d get it eventually. Meanwhile, Jace went upstairs, pulled an ankle holster from the collection in a drawer, strapped it on under his jeans, and shoved the Glock home.
He’d thought he was done with this, but it seemed you were never really done.
There was no way he was putting that thumb drive into his laptop, but he needed to know. Was this serious, or just stupid? He went downstairs again, pulled out his old computer from the built-in bookshelves on either side of the river-rock chimney, set it on the table, and turned it on.
Nothing happened, of course. He found the power cord, plugged it in, waited an eternity for it to boot up—the reason it wasn’t his work computer anymore—and finally, when it had ground its endless way into functionality, put the thumb drive into the USB port.
Three image files. And a Word document. He thought about that virus, then shrugged and clicked on the first image anyway. The computer wasn’t important. Threat assessment was.
You could say the photo wasn’t illuminating. A selfie in a mirror, close up, going for artsy. A woman’s body half-turned away, the camera zeroed in on her breasts.
He had a little more information now, anyway. He knew his stalker was about a C cup. And that she was probably white. How white, he couldn’t tell. She’d taken it in black and white, and he couldn’t even tell the color of her nipples. Not too helpful.
He clicked on the second photo. Some more close-up, this time a rear view. Averyrear view. He knew something else about her, maybe. That she was flexible, to have taken that photo.
Photo Three was no surprise at all. If these were supposed to make him crazed with lust, they weren’t working. Though he might have a little better understanding of what a gynecologist did all day.
“Tobias, mate,” he told the dog, “I think things are about to get dodgy.” The Ridgeback thumped his tail, and Jace said, “You’re right. Easier to face on a full stomach.” He stood up, pulled eggs, bacon, and bread from the fridge, cooked himself breakfast, going to some effort to get the bacon just right, and refilled his coffee mug.
He was arranging eggs on slices of buttered toast and scooping sautéed mushrooms onto the plate when he realized it.You’re stalling.He was letting her get to him.
Hell with that. He carried his plate over to the table, hooked the chair with a foot, sat down, clicked on the Word document, and began reading, registering the prickling of the skin of his arms, the back of his neck for what it was. His body’s response to a threat he couldn’t pin down.
Information was power. She’d been on his porch in the night. He needed to know.
The woman lay on the bed and listened.
The wind in the pines. The hard rain of a summer storm beating against the windows, coming in waves driven by the gusts.
Slap. Slap. Slap.With each slap of water on glass, her body jerked.
Relax.But how could she?
She checked off the items in the anonymous letter one by one in her head. The latest he’d sent, the instructions she still couldn’t believe she’d obeyed.
Red thong.
Red bra.
Black heels at least 3 inches high.
Leave the back door unlocked.
House dark except the bedroom.
And the last one.
Black blindfold. You will not take it off during the encounter. You will not speak during the encounter.
