Page 52 of Only Her (K2 Team)
She wasn’t sure what she would have done without him these past few days. He had stayed at her side, held her until she fell asleep each night, and true to his word, blended into the woodwork during her days at her clinic. She’d cut her day short so Cody could bring her home before he left to see his doctor, but parked in front of her house, guarding her, was a man from K2, one she’d not met.
One thing she didn’t like was that Cody moved to the couch each night after she fell asleep. She wasn’t afraid of him, didn’t believe he would hurt her during one of his nightmares, but he refused to take the chance.
They still hadn’t had sex and that was going to change tonight. Her headaches were gone, and she was more than ready. Her plan for the evening was a romantic dinner and then bed. Her only concern was Cody. He’d been quiet all day, and had spent most of the morning working on the homework he’d been assigned, which he’d declined to talk about.
As she set the table, she glanced at her two cats. Both were curled up with Pretty Girl and Sally, and it amazed her how well Arthur and Merlin had taken to Cody’s dogs. The cats had searched for Pelli, especially Arthur, and they’d been subdued since he’d gone missing. Thinking of Pelli brought tears to her eyes. She was so worried about him. Cody believed that he was alive, and she prayed he was right.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, and went looking for where she’d put the candles, finding them on a shelf in the back of the pantry. They were a nice addition to her table setting. Salad made and the lasagna ready to go in the oven, she turned on some soft music, picked up a magazine, and sat to wait for Cody.
Only a few minutes had passed before she heard his truck, and she watched out the window as he got out and went to talk to her bodyguard. After a few minutes of conversation, Cody jogged to his house and disappeared inside, emerging a short time later wearing a different shirt, and she figured he’d probably showered. The man who had been guarding her had left.
At her mailbox, Cody stopped and removed her mail. As he began walking toward her door, he flipped through the envelopes, pausing to stare at one of them.
Please, not another one. She went to the alarm and turned it off before opening the door. “Is it...?”
“Think so. Your address is in block letters and there’s no return address.” He pulled her into his arms. “Let’s go inside.”
His dogs trotted to him to welcome him back, and her cats, for the first time, nosed their way in. Cody gave them all equal attention. The man was an animal pied piper.
“Down,” he said, and Sally and Pretty Girl plopped at his feet. Merlin, normally aloof, stepped onto Sally’s back and sat. Arthur decided to follow the dogs’ example, and flattened himself out next to Pretty Girl. It was so cute, the way the four of them had bonded, and it only made her miss Pelli all the more. He should be a part of the little family the animals had created.
Riley eyed the envelope. Was it proof Pelli was alive or something bad? “Open it.”
“You have any rubber gloves?”
Oh, right, he’d want it checked for fingerprints. “Be right back.” She hurried to the kitchen, sending up a little prayer that whatever was in that envelope wouldn’t be something horrible. As an afterthought, she grabbed a paring knife for Cody to use as a letter opener.
Back by his side, she held her breath as he struggled to put on kitchen gloves that were sized for her hands. After sliding the knife under the envelope’s flap, he pulled out a sheet of paper and unfolded it.
“Pelli,” she whispered at seeing the photo. Her baby was peering out of a wire cage, and he looked so sad. But he was alive, at least when the picture was taken. At the top of the page were words typed in a funny script.
HOWMUCHDOYOULOVEHIM?
“What does that mean?” Unable to bear seeing him caged like that, she jumped up and went into the kitchen. She needed to start dinner, or cut a lime for beers, or would he rather have something different? Dammit, she didn’t know. She burst into tears.
A pair of strong, masculine arms wrapped around her, and she turned, burying her face against Cody’s chest. “I can’t stand to think of him suffering.”
“I know, darlin’. Why don’t you make us both one of those slushy beers? I have some things to tell you.”
She peered up at him. “Do you have a lead?”
“We have an idea of what kind of person we’re looking for.” He brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “Make those beers while I take the dogs out, then we’ll talk. Grab your laptop, too.”
Twenty minutes later, she sat, clutching her ice-cold bottle while trying not to get her hopes up. “What do you know? Do you have a name?”
“No, not a name, but a profile. I stopped by K2 after my appointment, and Kincaid gave me the profile he got back today from his friend at the FBI.” He opened her laptop and inserted a thumb drive.
A page came up, and she frowned at seeing it was only a few paragraphs.
Cody angled the screen so she could see it better. “According to the boss, this profiler is one of the best, even when she doesn’t have much to go on.”
Riley had to agree that they didn’t have a lot of information to pass on, but as she began to read, she was impressed with the profiler’s insights.
This is personal to the perp, most likely a woman, age forty to sixty, possibly with a history of mild mental illness that has escalated after she suffered a loss. Perhaps more than one loss of someone or something close to her, such as a second family member, or her home, or possibly a beloved pet, which combined, triggered a mental breakdown.
The perp feels she has been tragically wronged in some way by Dr.Austin, and is attempting to make her look incompetent because she cannot save the animals being poisoned. It is my understanding that Dr.Austin has been able to save some of the pets, and this will enrage the perp. Therefore, I advise Dr.Austin to be on guard, as I expect the attacks will intensify and will be directed more at her personally.
Intensify? As if they weren’t already intense. Riley leaned back against the sofa. “How can she possibly get all that from what little we know?” She glanced at Cody to see that he stared at the page—his lips compressed into a thin line—and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. He didn’t like that last line either.
