ARCHER HEARD her high heels echoing across the concrete floor of the firing range. He tilted the desk chair back and glanced at his watch. 10:15 p.m. on the nose. Same time every night for the past two weeks. It was almost as if she stayed those extra minutes after closing time to taunt him.
Well, she taunted him all right. But not the way she intended to, he was sure.
She was persistent. And stubborn as hell. It seemed to him that she’d been here every night for at least a month.
He’d have to ask Frank when she’d originally signed up. Frank usually handled the billing and he’d warned Archer that she’d been coming during the day, but was planning to switch to evenings.
There were so many contradictions about her. She was obviously terrified of guns, yet she was determined to teach herself to use one. She did her best to project an image of calm assurance, but her dark-green eyes held a fear that she couldn’t mask.
The bank of monitors on his office wall showed every accessible area of the range. He glanced up at the one connected to the camera at the top of the basement stairs. As she trudged up them, Archer saw the weariness etched in her face.
Quickly, he signed the last check and set down the pen. His hand ached. He rubbed his palm and then stretched his fingers, wincing as the tight muscles and newly reattached tendons resisted.
When he heard the door at the top of the stairs close, he stood and followed. At the top of the stairs, he flipped the light switch off. When he was fully cloaked in darkness, he opened the door and crossed the small foyer. He eased the front door open.
She was backing a white, late-model Sedan out of a parking space. He glanced at the dimly lit license plate—out of habit. He already knew her tag number. He’d watched her leave every night, just to make sure she got safely to her car.
She drove down the hill to the end of his driveway and turned right onto the farm road.
He stood there for a few seconds, then started to close the door. Just then he caught a flash through the brush, coming from where the driveway dead-ended into the road. He froze, stopping the door with his hand.
Within a few seconds, he saw another flash—the unmistakable reflection of the moon on metal. It was a car, running without lights. Following her.
“Damn,” he whispered. “Who are you?”
For an instant he considered jumping into his own car and taking off after them. He considered calling her to warn her.
But it was none of his business. The flash could have been anything. A soup can on the side of the road. A puddle of water.
Hell, even if it were a car, for all he knew it was her boyfriend, making sure she got home safely.
“None of my business,” he muttered as he locked the front door. He glanced to his right at the door that led to the main part of the house, but instead of locking up the firing range and heading to the kitchen to find something to eat, he pushed open the door labeled Firing Range and took the stairs back down to the basement.
The daily sign-in book was beside the entrance at the bottom of the stairs. The last line read, Resa Wade: in 8:03 p.m., out 10:15 p.m.
He flipped the pages backward.
Resa Wade: in 8:02 p.m., out 10:12 p.m.
Resa Wade: in 8:00 p.m., out 10:14 p.m.
His detective’s brain catalogued the information and categorized her. She was honest. Careful. Detail-oriented.
And familiar. At least her name was. He knew he’d never met her before she’d come to his range. He’d have remembered that creamy skin, those dark-green eyes, that sun-shot brown hair.
And that attitude. His mouth almost curved into a smile before he stopped it. Frowning, he headed for his office. There were only two reasons for him to be so certain he knew her. The first could be eliminated out of hand. He hadn’t been with a woman since his wife had died more than a year ago. In fact, he’d hardly seen a woman in all that time, until Resa Wade showed up.
So the reason he found her name familiar had to be reason number two. He went into his office and sat down at the desk. Locked in the bottom drawer was a thick file folder containing all the information he’d gathered over the past three years on the Lock Rapist—the monster who’d caused his wife’s death—who’d taken away the only two things that had ever mattered to him. His wife and his career.
With a gun hand that didn’t work, he’d had no choice but to take a disability pension. They’d offered him a desk job, but there was no way he could be chained to a desk for the next fifteen years. The forced retirement was marginally less humiliating than answering phones and doing computer searches while enduring his fellow officers’ pity.
He pulled his key ring from his pocket and unlocked the drawer. Using his left hand, he lifted the heavy folder out.
An icy chill of dread snaked down his spine as he opened the file. This had to be how he knew Resa Wade.
She was somehow connected to the Lock Rapist.
RESA WAS almost home. She glanced at the dashboard clock. Ten forty-five. A huge sigh escaped her lips. She was so tired. It was a bone-deep weariness that came from too much stress and too little sleep.
She’d been to Archer’s firing range every single night for the past two weeks, ever since she’d come back from Louisville, Kentucky.
That last trip to her mother’s home was her seventh in the six months since Celia had been attacked. Her mother wanted her to move to Louisville and help with her sister. Celia wasn’t doing well. She couldn’t sleep despite tranquilizers and sleeping pills. She sat in the living room looking out the picture window and chain-smoking. She wouldn’t wash her hair or eat unless someone was there to coax her.
Resa’s mother was at the end of her rope, and so was Resa. She’d offered to pay for Celia to go to a psychiatric facility, but her mom wouldn’t hear of that.
So Resa had told her there was nothing else she could do. She’d been away from her work too long, and her work was in Nashville. Her stress level wasn’t helped by her guilt over leaving her mother to deal with Celia.
She lifted her hair off her neck. A dull pounding headache reverberated through her skull. She was exhausted, and yet she felt jittery. It would be another long night without sleep. And tomorrow, she had two fittings and a consultation.
A country-music award ceremony was coming up in August. Her most important challenge yet. She was designing outfits for two of the nominees and a performer. She had to get some sleep. She couldn’t afford to screw up her biggest chance at exposure for her clothing designs.
She turned onto Valley Street, headed toward her new apartment. As she straightened the wheel, she glanced in the rearview mirror. A dark sedan had turned behind her, about three car lengths back.
She examined the shape of the headlights and the grille. It looked like the same car she’d spotted following her last week—last Tuesday to be precise.
Just like last week, she had no idea where she’d picked him up. She hadn’t noticed anyone behind her, then suddenly there he was. It had to be him. The Lock Rapist. Who else would follow her?
Despite the warm May night, her palms grew clammy and cold. Fear skittered up her spine. She reached over and dug the Glock out of her purse, a futile gesture. Even if she were able to load it, she’d never get off a shot in time to save her life. Her only hope was that maybe if he saw the gun, it would scare him.
The idea that the same man who’d brutally attacked her sister and five other innocent women was following her sent terror arrowing through her chest. But why would he follow her? And how had he found her? She’d moved and changed her phone number and her e-mail address.
Her face might be familiar. After all, she’d been interviewed several times about her sister’s attack. But she’d