Caught in the Storm Read online

  It was as if the door had been flung wide open and they were both helplessly caught in the storm. Hands roamed across each other’s bodies and their moans filled the room. Needing to be closer, they searched for skin.

  This was the closest she had felt to being alive in years. It had broken her heart to leave him, but she knew that, with all of the lies, there was no way they could have a future together. She had banked on the fact that he wouldn’t come back while she was here, but she should have known better.

  They jerked apart when a loud voice came from the stairs. “Jackson, get your ass down here, we are waiting on you and Kat,” Evie yelled up to them.

  Kat was on her feet in seconds and making sure all of her clothes were where they should be as she watched Jackson get up slower, their eyes locked together.

  “This isn’t over,” he growled.

  Kat knew exactly what he was talking about, their make-out session and their relationship. She shivered, not knowing if it was from the memory of them in bed or where they might be heading.

  They had all gathered in their normal meeting area with plenty of food set out by Martha. While they discussed what they had learned, she watched Jackson stuff his face with food. When he caught her looking, he just smiled and shrugged. She shook her head and decided to put some extra food on her plate as soon there might not be any left.

  “We know he’s got some money now. But is it enough? How much does he have? Could he be out there now trying to get more from another woman?” Noah asked.

  “His history would say that he would want more. We know he didn’t have much growing up and once he got the taste for what money could do for him, he always craved more. We’ve got to assume she isn’t the first, and that there could be more. All we’ve got to go on is the fact that he’s got enough money to do whatever he wants and go wherever he wants,” Anthony replied.

  “Yep, he’d do what he could to make sure he’d have all the toys to watch us, to track us.” Evie leaned over and stole some fruit from Anthony’s plate.

  “At least we know he’s not watching now.” Lexi looked over to where the plaque containing the camera and bug had been. “Did you notice anything in Boston?”

  “No, damn it. I’d love to get my hands on him. Bastard. I’d give him more than just a knock upside the head this time.” Evie punched the couch cushion.

  “Easy there, slugger. I think you’d have to stand in line.” Noah patted the top of her head and laughed, easily side-stepping her as she tried to punch him too.

  “We didn’t notice anything here either. All four of us went out at some time or another. There is no sign of him. I don’t know if that is scarier than if we knew he was around.” Lexi shivered and Noah went over and wrapped her in his arms.

  “We’ll get him, love. He can’t hide forever.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Anyone have any ideas on what we should do next? Does anyone have any events they need to attend in the next month?” Jackson asked.

  Lexi walked over to the counter and picked up an invitation. “This just came in the mail today. It’s a Halloween fundraiser. It came for Noah and me, and since you all have been out there maybe it is time for us to make an appearance.”

  “Oh, hell no. No way in hell I’m letting my pregnant wife out there so some mad man can get to her. Next idea.”

  “Come on, Noah. You know I’ll be—”

  “Don’t you say fine. No. Not. Going. To. Happen.”

  “Fine.” Lexi just smiled when Noah growled at her. “Come on. We’ve got security all over the place, even if we can’t see them. If it would make you feel better, I could wear a tracking device.”

  “No.” Noah folded his arms across his chest.

  “Come on. It’s for a good cause.” She waved the invitation under his nose so he’d see the children.

  “Hey, you guys could always just show up for a little bit and then skip out,” Evie added.

  “See, even Evie thinks it’s a good idea. Come on. You’ve already made a large donation and they want to give you an award, so you need to go to make a speech.” Lexi leaned into him and batted her eyelashes at him. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “Yeah, it’ll be fun wondering where psycho Jeremy is and worrying about you the whole time. No.”

  Kat cleared her throat and waited for everyone to look at her. “I think it’s a good idea.” She simply held up a hand to stop all the protests and waited until they were done before she continued. “Have you seen the old Hitchcock movie starring Cary Grant? To Catch a Thief? In order to catch the person who was impersonating him, he went to a masquerade ball and once everyone knew he was there, he went up to the room and someone changed places with him. I could take Lexi’s place. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about her.”

  “And put yourself in danger. This would be a perfect opportunity for Jeremy to come out. We wouldn’t know which mask he was behind.” Jackson stood up and started to pace the room.

  “Exactly, and as I said, then we wouldn’t have to worry about Lexi.” Kat folded her arms across her chest.

  Noah stood up and squinted his eyes at Jackson. “So are you saying you’d rather have Lexi in danger than Kat?”

  Jackson shook his head. “Damn it. No, that is not what I meant. I don’t want any of them in danger.”

  “We all agreed we would do this in order to catch Jeremy. We can’t go back now,” Anthony stated.

  “I know we did.” Jackson shrugged, “This just seems like too big an opportunity for Jeremy to do something.”

  “We’re at the point when we need to do something big. He’s been hiding for too long. We’ve got to put an end to this once and for all,” Anthony said.

  “You’re right.” Jackson sat down heavily next to Lexi and put his arm around her. “Sorry Lex, you know I love you.”

  “I know jerk face. I love you, too.”

  Evie rolled her eyes, “Can we get back to business?”

  Jackson jumped up off the couch and grabbed her in a bear hug, “Oh, are we feeling a bit jealous?” He started giving her loud smacking kisses on the side of her face. “I love you, too.”

  “Blah! Stop, you ass wipe!” She tried to stomp on his foot.

  “Kids, could we please get back to business,” Anthony said dryly.

  “Yes, let’s.” With one last elbow into her brother’s stomach, she walked over and sat down next to Anthony. “So it’s decided. Kat will take Lexi’s place. You going to be okay with that, Noah?”

  “Yes, that will be fine.”

  “I’ll take Noah’s place,” Jackson said while looking at Kat.

  “What do you mean you’ll take Noah’s place? He’s fine. I can work with him.”

  “Yes, I know you can; however, if they both disappear into a room, and we walk back out together, they will think we are them. And that way they can both go home and get some rest. You know Lexi will be on pins and needles waiting for Noah to get back. This way, the one who’s got a bun in the oven can sleep.”

  Kat didn’t want to admit it, but he had a point. “Fine.”

  “Well now, since that is all settled, time for the fun stuff. What kind of costume should we dress up in? Maybe we should get Grams and the ladies up here. I’m sure they’d have plenty of ideas!” Jackson said.

  Kat shivered at what they might come up with, the only saving grace was that it would have to look exactly the same with two different couples wearing it.

  Jeremy pulled at his ears. Every day this week, something had been off in his room. This wasn’t right. He knew he left things a certain way, and now it was wrong. Everything was wrong. Kill the bitches. He had to find them and kill them. That would make everything right. They shouldn’t be allowed to live. If he could just kill them, he’d be able to make Anthony suffer and he would be free. Free to move on and kill others. He had to kill. There were so many more to kill.

  She had the photos of his journal developed and went over them again and again, putti
ng them all in order, almost like a book. This was exactly what she needed. She could say she knew his soul now, knew it almost as well as her own. It was so close to time. Her hands shook with anticipation, wondering what it would be like to slide the knife into him and watch his blood flow from his body. Wondering what his body would be like once it was an empty shell devoid of its twisted soul.

  Shaking her head, so she didn’t get lost on that train of thought, she began to plan what to do next in order to play with Jeremy. She needed to make him pay, make him hurt, just as he’d hurt all of those women.

  It was strangely quiet in the house. Lexi and Noah were at a doctor’s appointment while Evie and Anthony were over at the cottage getting some work done on their businesses. Lucky for them, the Troublesome Trio was over at the senior center. That left Kat alone with Jackson to go over the information they had. Again. She was so bored by the whole thing and just wanted it to be over. How many times could you look at the same piece of paper expecting to find something different?

  Throwing the papers on the table, she stood up and started pacing the room. “This is ridiculous. It says the same damn thing it did yesterday, and the day before that. There is nothing new. Why are we even doing this?”

  “Because we might see something differently. It’s happened before.”

  “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen anything different.”

  “Well, what do you suggest we do?”

  She knew what she wanted to do. She didn’t give in to it years ago; she’d been strong enough to leave him even though she’d wanted more. She sure as hell wasn’t going to give in now. Sitting down next to him, staring at the map laid out, she said, “I don’t know.”

  He reached over and started massaging her shoulders. “Come on, just relax, something will come to you.”

  His fingers on her tight muscles felt like heaven. She could feel the tension leaving her body at his magical touch. Her vision started to blur as she looked at the map marked with the places Jeremy had been sighted. Shaking her head and sitting up straight, she turned to Jackson. “I know what we can do.”

  “Now you’re talking. I’m up for anything.”

  Seeing the look in his eyes, she knew he wasn’t talking about searching for Jeremy. Locking that image away, she continued, “What if we start looking at places where he could be staying? You know he’s not going to be that far away. He’ll want to be close by.”

  Jackson jumped up and bent over to look closer at the map. Kat tried not to think about sinking her teeth into his ass, which was only inches from her face.

  “That’s a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Look here. There are tons of places he could be staying. Come on; let’s start getting names and numbers.” He looked back at her and smirked. “Unless you’d really like to take a bite out of my rock hard ass. I seem to remember you being a biter.”

  When she didn’t immediately answer, he turned around and lifted her up so she was sitting on the table with him between her legs. Grabbing her by the ass and pulling her close so that she was nestled against his hardness, he said, “Come on, baby, let me chase the darkness away.”

  His hands ran up her back until he framed her face, bringing it closer to his. “Let me in.”

  She closed her eyes and allowed herself to get lost in his touch. Tentatively, she brought her hands up and rested them lightly on his shoulders. Their kiss was filled with tenderness and longing, remembrance of what they’d had. She felt him shiver under her touch as she explored his body. It seemed to ignite something in her she thought was long buried. Wanting more, she hooked her legs around his waist and was rewarded by a deep growl in his throat.

  He pushed back so she was lying on the table with his weight on top of her when suddenly she could feel something sharp poke into her side. The more he relaxed his weight on top of her, the more it hurt. It brought back memories of Jeremy and what he did to her.

  Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest and she couldn’t catch her breath. Panic was building and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The scream started in her belly and built as it neared her throat. She started clawing at Jackson, the lines blurring between him and Jeremy, just knowing that she had to escape someway, somehow. She couldn’t go back; there was no way she’d survive another attack.

  The next thing she knew, cool air was rushing across her body, the weight from on top of her now gone. With her eyes squeezed shut, she couldn’t see what he was doing. She could hear a mewing and thought it was strange because they didn’t have a cat until she realized it was her. She curled up into a ball, wanting everything to go away. Especially Jackson, she didn’t want to look into his eyes and see the pity there. She just wanted it all to go away.

  Jackson didn’t know what to do. He wanted to gather her up and protect her from the demons that haunted her but he didn’t want to push her further away. With his hands clenched at his sides, he tried to talk to her in a quiet, calming voice assuring her that everything was okay. Once the tortured sounds coming from her subsided, he sat down in the chair next to where she was lying on the table.

  “Kat? Kat? I need you to let me know that you know it’s me here; it’s Jackson. Come on, baby. Can you talk to me? Anything?” Her refusal to talk was frustrating him, but he didn’t want to push it.

  “Baby, I’m going to touch you now. I can’t take it anymore. I need to help you.” He reached out his hand toward her. “I’m going to touch your shoulder now.” When she didn’t react to his touch, he kept talking to her, telling her exactly what he was going to do until he picked her up and cradled her on his lap. Gently rocking them both back and forth, he pulled an old story from his football days out of his head and absently told it to her, all the time wanting to kill Jeremy if he ever got his hands on him.

  Kat stayed in Jackson’s arms letting his warmth seep into her. She hated herself for falling apart in front of him. This was part of the reason she had left him before. After one of the most romantic nights of her life, she and Jackson had gone to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms. Then the nightmare started. It was the same one. No surprise there. Jeremy and what he had done to her. It was as if he didn’t want her to have any happiness, and any that she’d find he’d take away from her. He’d know that he hadn’t killed her and would come looking for her. She couldn’t hide.

  She woke up that night screaming, wrapped in Jackson’s arms, not unlike how they were right now. She knew then she had to leave him. Part of her wanted to leave him right now. She knew she could leave without anyone noticing. The instinct was so strong her muscles momentarily tensed in anticipation of her flight. She sighed and knew that she couldn’t. She had to stay and help find Jeremy, doing whatever it took. No matter how much her pride hurt from falling apart.

  Taking a deep breath, she moved away from his shoulder and looked into his eyes briefly before looking down at her hands. “Thank you.”

  She felt his fingers under her chin and allowed him to make eye contact. “Don’t run from me this time.” When she didn’t answer, his fingers grew firmer. “Promise me. No running.”

  Looking him deep in his eyes, she knew there was no way she’d be able to leave him again. They’d lost so much time because of her running. She didn’t know what the future held, but it might just be better with him by her side.

  “I promise. No running.”

  He pulled her into a huge bear hug and didn’t let go for a few moments. “I’m sorry baby. Can you tell me what I did so that I don’t do it again? You know I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She really didn’t want to get into this but knew she had to. “It was just your weight on top of me and there was something sharp poking into my side. It brought back everything. Took me back. I’m sorry.” She looked down.

  He shook her chin gently. “No, don’t you ever apologize. You have no reason to. I’m here for you. I was then, and I still am. You need to realize you can depend on me. I’m not going anywhere.”


  “Sor—”

  He stopped her with a brief kiss. “I’ll keep doing this every time you say you’re sorry for something that was not your fault and completely out of your control. Keep it up, baby; you know I love to kiss you.”

  She smiled a little and wiggled off his lap. “Maybe we should get back to work?”

  He gave her his sad puppy eyes. When he knew she wasn’t buying it, he said, “Probably a good idea. Now, where were we?”

  They worked for the next hour compiling a list of motels that didn’t ask too many questions within a thirty-mile radius. After making numerous phone calls, they finally got the answer they were looking for. The manager said someone matching Jeremy’s description had been renting room six for the past two weeks. Without leaving a note, they raced for Jackson’s Camaro and sped out of the driveway, hoping they’d find what they were looking for. Jeremy.

  As they pulled up to the run-down motel, Jackson stopped the car and turned toward her. “Now you stay here.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Baby, you’ve just been through the wringer, the last thing I want you to do is to see him again.”

  “Well, you should have thought about that before we raced out of the house. No way am I going to be staying in the car while you get to have all the fun. Come on, let’s get this over with.” She leaned forward in the seat and pulled the gun out of the holster hidden beneath her shirt.

  “Shit, you’ve had that on you this whole time?”

  “Jackson, my father is a police chief; I’ve been around guns my whole life. Not to mention I’m trained as a bodyguard. I feel lost without it. Even when I am surrounded by people who are supposed to be looking out for me and have nothing to worry about.”