Page 33 of Deadly Attraction
“Where are you going?”
He heard her footsteps pounding up the stairs. Her voice came back muffled. “To pack.”
Wait.What?
Pack, as in leave the ranch?
He knew she’d been rattled by the idea that someone had been on her property, but in the heat of the moment, she’d seemed normal. In denial mostly. Inside the house, she hadn’t flinched when he’d taken her room by room to make sure there were no intruders.
So why the sudden change of heart?
Leaving the cookie and the file on the table, he followed her up the stairs.
He found her in her bedroom stuffing a couple of T-shirts into a pale blue overnight bag.
Okay, kiddos, what’s wrong with this picture?
Fuck if he knew.
On one hand, he was relieved she was finally coming to her senses. On the other…the woman hastily throwing clothes into a bag wasn’t the same Emma Collins who’d been driving him nuts for the past day. The one with a telescope in her attic and a fondness for lost causes.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I was wrong,” she said with a shrug. She’d changed clothes and returned the gun holster to under her arm. “You were right. I should leave the ranch for now and go to a safe house.”
And yep. Mind blown.
This woman. He couldn’t get a handle on her. One moment, she was sitting in a rocking chair downstairs with a shotgun on her lap refusing to leave, and the next her butt was on fire to get away from the ranch as fast as she could.
Not only did no woman,ever, tell a man he was right, this woman definitely never admitted she was wrong.
Her change of heart, along with her absolute mechanical movements and lack of eye contact, was starting to freak him out.
“Emma, what’s going on? Why the sudden change of heart?”
She off-handedly pointed over at her nightstand. “Someonewasin the house. They left me a message.”
On the nightstand, he saw a lamp, a stack of books, and a box of tissues. Nothing looked different from his last foray in the room only minutes ago.
He moved closer. The plastic green toy next to the base of the lamp was so small, he almost missed it.
Removing a tissue from the box, he snatched it up and took a closer look. An army man, like the kind he and Mac had played with as kids.
On closer inspection, he realized what he was looking at. “Is this what I think it is?”
“One of the many Tom Monahan resistance fighters marketed to kids around the world. I hear they’re collector items among adults as well.”
Her voice was neutral; her jerky movements not so much.
The green army man was a replica of Tom Monahan in a famous scene at the end of Season Five. Mitch had seen it while researching—one of the most valuable of all of the collectors items. The Tom figurine held an Uzi in one hand and had a patch over his right eye. In his other hand, he held up the severed head of a cyborg.
Great for kids.
“Goddammit,” Mitch said under his breath. No wonder Emma was now ready to leave. “Did you touch this?”
Her sharp gaze snapped to his. “Yes, sorry.”
“I’ll bag it anyway and we’ll get it dusted for prints.”
