Rhys Read online

  “You heard me,” he stated bluntly. “Would somebody have come to you deliberately, shot at your house once, twice, half a dozen times, I don’t know, with the idea of causing you stress, sending you into a session of PTSD to help you spiral downward?”

  She let out a slow deep breath. “God, to have somebody do something like that …”

  “Yeah, it means an asshole of the highest order,” Rhys declared, without skipping a beat. “But you’re not answering my question. Is anybody out there who would do something like that to you?”

  “Obviously somebody’s doing it, but, as for motive, I don’t know,” she murmured. “As far as are there any assholes in my world, yes. Absolutely assholes are in my world, but I didn’t think any lived close by.”

  “And where would they live if they didn’t live close by?”

  “They’re still active military, and more’s the shame for that,” she noted.

  “You need to explain that comment.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said, starting to get angry, realizing that she would have to discuss something that she didn’t want to.

  He just gave her a look.

  “Stop. Jesus, I don’t know how you perfected that look but …”

  “Doesn’t matter how,” he said, “but I can’t help you if I don’t know everything.”

  “You can’t help anyway,” she replied, wanting to get up and run, but also knowing that getting up and running wasn’t possible and, even if it were, it wouldn’t do any good.

  Just then, outside came a series of honks.

  Rhys got to his feet and raced outside and saw the same black truck, now running up and down the street, honking. He exited the small gate and took several photos of it, but it ripped around the corner and left.

  One of the neighbors came out, shaking a fist.

  Rhys walked over and asked him, “Hey, do you know who that guy is?”

  “I don’t know, but if I ever got him alone …” he snapped. “No-good piece of shit.”

  “And yet you don’t know him, but you don’t recognize him either?”

  The man shook his head. “Nope, I sure don’t. Wish I did. I’ve reported him to the cops twice today.”

  “Obviously he doesn’t seem to care.”

  “And you haven’t seen any cops show up, have you?” the neighbor noted, with an eye roll. “I’m sure by the time they do, he’ll be long gone to the next town.”

  “You think it’s just somebody out to cause trouble?”

  At that, the neighbor stopped, looked at him, and asked, “What else would it be?”

  Rhys didn’t have an answer for him. He just smiled and nodded. “Good point.” And he slowly headed back inside.

  As he entered the living room, he found her curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth in fetal position in the corner. And he knew in his heart of hearts that whatever the hell was going on, this asshole was out to make her life miserable. He walked over, crouched down in front of her, and asked, “Who the hell hates you this much?”

  She raised her head, looked at him, and whispered, “I don’t know.”

  “No,” he disagreed. “I don’t accept that. This is personal. This is beyond mischievous,” he said. “This is downright evil. Somebody is after you. I just don’t know why. And you need to tell me. What has happened right now in your life or in your past that’s brought this on?”

  She stared at him for a second. “Somebody in the military,” she whispered. “I had to report them. And ever since then my life’s spiraled completely out of control.”

  The words just broke his heart. He opened his arms, and, with a cry, she threw herself in them, and he just closed them around her and held her tight.

  Taylor knew the questions would come, no way they couldn’t. But, dear God, not yet, please not yet.

  At least ten, maybe fifteen minutes—hell, it was probably three times that—later she lifted her head from his arms and murmured, “I’ll grab another coffee.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed, just as he let her go and stood up with her. They walked into the kitchen, and she poured both of them a cup.

  She stepped in front of the window and stared out into the darkness outside. “I didn’t realize it was this late,” she murmured.

  “No, I didn’t either. Yet I didn’t get here all that early today.”

  She just nodded, not knowing what else to say.

  “Is he likely to come back tonight?” Rhys asked her.

  “I don’t know. I’m not even sure who it is.”

  “But you have a good idea, don’t you?”

  And again she nodded. “But the last I heard, he wasn’t even in town. Wasn’t even thinking he’d ever come back to town,” she added. “I can’t imagine that he would risk this much to be here.”

  “You might be surprised,” Rhys replied. “Particularly if he thinks that you’re a problem for him.”

  “Oh, I’m a problem for him, but not a problem that anybody’ll follow through on.”

  “You want to explain that?”

  She shrugged. “Sexual harassment is prevalent in the military,” she noted. “I tolerated it as much as I could, tried not to rock the boat, just got about doing my business. But this one guy in particular wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave me alone. He wanted sexual favors, to just leave me alone basically. And I wouldn’t fall for it. I wouldn’t get into the game. I reported him to my superior, and then the abuse got worse, as in much worse.”

  “Did he rape you?”

  “No,” she said, “but only because I have self-defense skills. Or I had. Do I still? I don’t know.” She stared at her leg. “It seems foolish to even make that an issue right now, but I think about it all the time.”

  “Of course you do. The minute you’re attacked, you have to defend yourself, and now you’re in this scenario and wondering just where your skills are at.”

  “I can tell you that they’re nowhere good enough to be what they need to be,” she stated.

  “So go on. What happened after you complained?”

  “I believed in the system, and I kept reporting him, thinking that they would eventually do something. They brought him in, talked to him, talked to me, and basically nothing changed, absolutely nothing happened,” she declared bitterly. “One day I was out loading up a truck with supplies. We both worked in supplies, but I was in the office most of the time. So I was out loading up a truck one day, and it blew up. Just like that, out of the blue, it blew up.”

  “And there was no reason?”

  “They did an investigation. Supposedly a gas leak or some such thing,” she explained, “which makes no sense because there was no smoke. There was no fire. There was nothing. Maybe it blew up on its own, maybe not.”

  “But you don’t believe so.”

  “I think he did it,” she stated. “And I think he thought I would die in the process. And, when I survived, I was of course injured, struggling, and was shipped home, thankfully not quite in a box but not far off,” she noted, with a certain amount of bitterness that she couldn’t hold back. “And I never saw him. Then once I recovered, and I was released, it’s almost like he found out that I was still alive and would be okay. But …” Then she hesitated. “I don’t have any proof of this. And, if it is him, he’s doing it just to make my life miserable.” She looked over at Rhys. “And who would do that?”

  “Somebody who would also sexually harass you and then attack you in the military,” he noted. “And, if you can ever prove your case, his career is over.”

  She shrugged. “The higher-ups didn’t seem to give a shit, and, no, it hasn’t been all that long, less than a year ago since I initially reported him, but I did recently contact them,” she admitted. “To see what was happening with my case.”

  “And that could have been the trigger that brought this on. Depending on the timing.”

  She thought about it and nodded. “I’ve been back here for two months.”

  “And where’s he from?”

  She looked over at Rhys and nodded. “Here. This is his hometown.”

  “Oh, nice. And, of course, you don’t want to leave town.”

  “No, I don’t. This is my house. It was my grandmother’s house. My parents lived in it while I was young and my grandmother lived in another house. When she moved into a senior’s home not far from here, I bought it from her. She’s the only family who I have any contact with now. I don’t want to be chased away from here too. I lost my career. I lost so much—my personal confidence, my sense of self, the ability to walk down the street without looking over my shoulder. After something like that happens to you, you just, … you fall apart, but, at the same time, you survive because surviving is mandatory. Yet here and now, I’m not sure I can survive,” she muttered, as she stared around. “Maybe it would be better if I left. Maybe, maybe it would be fine.”

  “What would he gain by scaring you?”

  She stopped, stared at him, and shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I doubt they’ll reopen the investigation. They talked to him, and he was going to improve himself, behave himself after that.” She snorted. “I never did see him improve or behave himself.”

  “Did you guys have a history before you went in?”

  “Four of us signed up together,” she noted. “Like I said, one died, and one’s local, and he walks away every time I see him.”

  “Did the four of you go into the same military unit?”

  She nodded. “All army. And the other two guys are still friends, as far as I know.”

  “Interesting,” Rhys noted. “So, even if nothing else, would this other guy do something against you?”

  She considered that for a moment. “I would hope not. We were good friends in school.”

  “But,
if he’s good friends with this jerk, and somehow this asshole has got him believing that you were making it all up, do you think your good friend would turn around and be the one doing this?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know, and I really would not want to think along those lines.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you want to or not,” Rhys stated bluntly. “This is what’s facing you right now. Sticking your head in the sand won’t help.”

  She gave a broken laugh. “I’d be the last person to stick my head in the sand, but that doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily willing to step up and to crucify a friend of mine.”

  “And yet this same friend now crosses the road when you see him.”

  She winced at that. “Yes. Is that because he thinks I made this other guy’s life miserable? I wouldn’t have thought so,” she replied cautiously, “but maybe that would explain it.”

  “It quite likely would. What are these people’s names?”

  She sighed. “The guy who gave me nothing but hell in my world was Colby Henge, and my maybe-still-a-friend here in town is Andrew Pickering.”

  “Sounds like I need to go spend some time with Andrew.”

  She shook her head. “Not without me.”

  “You know he’ll talk to me easier without you being there.”

  “No, he won’t,” she disagreed. “I’ve known him since we were in grade school. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I could read his face and see the lies on it.”

  He studied her, nodded, and said, “Then tomorrow we’ll go have a talk with him.”

  “What good would that do?” she challenged. “Chances are he knows nothing about this.”

  “Maybe,” he replied, “and maybe you’re wrong there. Maybe he knows way too much about it.”

  She winced. “You really think he could be the one doing this to me?”

  “Are you ready to believe that he’s completely innocent and isn’t doing this to you?” he asked curiously.

  “I want to believe he’d have nothing to do with that,” she murmured, “but I can’t make that judgment either way.”

  “Exactly,” Rhys stated, “and, if you can’t, do you have any idea who even could?” He paused. “Just too much is at stake here. And not the least of which is your self-respect. You need to get your life back on track.”

  She gave a broken laugh. “God, you make me sound like I’m pathetic.”

  “Not at all,” he murmured.

  By the time she finally ran down with bits and pieces of information to add, her stomach started to growl. She stared down at her cell phone. “My God, how did it get to be so late?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “We do need some food.”

  She nodded. “I get that, although I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about it.”

  “You can always order in something,” he suggested, “or, if you’ve got eggs, I can cook.”

  She looked at him. “You’re not staying here, right?”

  “I am,” he stated flatly. “And don’t bother telling me that you won’t be relieved to know I am here.”

  “Relieved to have an end to this nonsense,” she corrected, “but I’m not sure that you’re part of that.”

  “No, maybe not.” He got up. “Let’s go check out your fridge.”

  She snorted. “Sure, just make yourself at home.”

  “I will, thanks,” he replied. “Otherwise I’m ordering pizza.”

  “Pizza wouldn’t be a bad idea,” she noted cautiously. “I haven’t had a whole lot to eat in quite a while, so the carbs will probably be good for me.”

  He immediately pulled out his phone, checking for a pizza place close by, and asked, “Which one? Belly Up? Or this Mario’s Pizza?”

  “Mario’s Pizza,” she said instantly. “Plus it’s run by friends of mine.”

  “Place the order,” he suggested, “or I will.”

  She waved a hand. “You can.”

  “Do you care what’s on it?”

  “No,” she replied, “just that there’s lots and that it’s hot and fresh.”

  With the order placed, he turned and looked at her. “Now, do you have any contact information for this friend of yours?”

  She shrugged. “You won’t try to get a hold of him tonight, will you?”

  “No, but I’ll contact him first thing in the morning.”

  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.

  “We have to at least knock him off as a possibility.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Fine, but I don’t want you terrorizing everybody.” She watched his lips twitch.

  “How about if I just terrorize the right people?” he murmured.

  She had to smile at that. “Okay, I’m all right with that. Yet I doubt that Colby will be anywhere close.”

  “He may or may not be,” Rhys stated, “but better we find out sooner than later.”

  She agreed with that. “What about Tallahassee?” she asked, looking down at the dog, sprawled out on the floor.

  “What about him?” Rhys asked. “He looks to be fairly happy here with you.”

  “And yet I feel like he’s missing something.”

  “Work. He’s been a working dog all his life. He’s looking for a job, something to do.”

  “And protecting me isn’t enough?” she asked, as a bit of a joke.

  “But he hasn’t been with you long enough to understand that that’s his job, has he?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. When I got really upset earlier with the shooting,” she noted, with a wave of her hand, “he was outside, and, as soon as I let him in, he searched the house top to bottom and then came back and basically just cuddled me.”

  “Right. Didn’t you want him for something like a therapy dog?” he asked.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “It was more a case of comfort.”

  “So a watchdog, a companion?”

  She nodded. “Something along that line. So that he could handle himself if things got ugly. So that maybe he would go to bat for me, if nobody else was around. There’s nothing like knowing, should you get caught in the middle of the night without your leg, that you can’t just run out of the house and defend yourself.”

  “No,” Rhys agreed, “and that always adds to the stress too, doesn’t it? My one thought was, what if there’s a fire in the middle of the night, and I don’t have time to put it on,” he added. “I’d get out, but you know that you won’t get out anywhere near as well or as fast as somebody with two good legs.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “Those things are stupid thoughts to consider, but they’re hard to let go of. I do have a spare crutch that I keep in my bedroom closet but I tend to forget about it.”

  “Good idea and thoughts like that are hard to let go of because, well, they’re a part of who we are now and what we do on a daily basis,” he confirmed, “so it’s nothing that we need to feel ashamed about.”

  “And yet,” she said, a challenge in her voice, “it’s nothing that you don’t feel ashamed about either.”

  He smiled. “I don’t think shame is quite the right word, but I will agree that it causes stress.”

  “Exactly,” she muttered. “You can stay in the spare bedroom,” she offered, her comment coming completely out of the blue.

  He stared at her and then nodded. “Thank you.”

  Rhys wasn’t sure what brought about that invitation, but he was happy to have it. He could have booked in at a hotel. He’d just let the hotel slide, knowing that a couple bed-and-breakfasts were close by that had vacancies. But he hadn’t given it a thought, not wanting to leave her in the condition she was in. Physically she looked like she was doing fine, but the thought of somebody tormenting her drove him crazy with fury. “Do you know where your friend lives?”

  She gave him the address, and he wrote it down. Just as he began going through his list of questions, asking her a little bit about timing to make sure that they had everything that they needed, a knock came on her door.

  Immediately Tallahassee got up on his back legs, a low growl coming behind his teeth.

  Rhys looked over at her. “Does he do this when you order in?”

  “I haven’t done any ordering in,” she stated.

  He got up and walked to the door and opened it. It was the pizza guy, but in the background was the same black truck. Rhys paid the delivery guy, gave him a good tip, and asked, “Hey, was that truck here when you pulled in?”