The envelope was blank. I knew it had to be from the person who had been taunting me. They’d been silent, and it had only been a matter of time before they came back. I took it off the door and opened the envelope.
Another stack of pictures and another note.
I pulled out the note.
I can get to you anywhere.
You’re next, Caroline Leigh Conroy.
I shivered. The fact that this person knew my entire name, had hacked into my computer, and had shown up at work—and now at my home—proved that they were right. They could get to me anywhere. Fear coated me and I couldn’t breathe as I pulled out the pictures.
The tears I’d worked hard to battle away after leaving dinner came back as I stared down at the photos. Another tally mark in the column proving that they could find me anywhere. It was photos of Kiernan and me having sex in the MarxMen training area. I’d watched Kiernan turn off the cameras. I knew they’d been off.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and the feeling of being watched reappeared. And the safety I’d allowed myself to feel was smashed to smithereens.
29 Kiernan
I’d never imagined what it would be like to come home to someone I wanted to see after a long, tiring day. With every passing day I was getting more frustrated with being unable to find Caroline’s stalker and with the missing person’s case turned homicide case we were assisting Maddox with.
Her body had been found.
In the same area as the vet’s.
We’d speculated that they were connected before, but this was the proof we’d needed that it was definitely the same person. I wanted to sit on Caroline’s back porch with her curled up in my lap as I sipped a beer. I just wanted her near me. I already knew she would be balm to my soul and exactly what I needed on this long day.
I smiled when I saw her standing on her front porch as I pulled into her driveway. She hadn’t invited me over. Pepper Jack wasn’t even here, but Caden and Avery were having a sleepover and had convinced Savannah and Liam to take in Pepper Jack too. So I was showing up at Caroline’s unannounced.
Her hair was down and straight. Her dress hugged her body, and the heels on her feet made her legs look impossibly long. I wanted to spend the night kissing my way up them and devouring her, getting completely lost in Caroline.
I slid out of my truck, jogged across the lawn and up the steps, and wrapped my arm around Caroline’s waist. She screamed and pulled away, spinning around. “Caroline, what’s wrong?”
Her hand was over her heart, and she was breathing deeply. “Kiernan,” she breathed. “You scared me.”
“Why were you so scared?” I asked.
I scanned her face. Her eyes were red from tears, and her cheeks were flushed. I took a step toward her and glanced down at the envelope in her hands. I tensed, my muscles coiling tightly. I took the envelope from her and stared at the pictures.
It took a moment to fully comprehend what I was seeing. Once I did, rage flooded through my veins. My grip tightened and crinkled the edges of the photos. “Let’s get inside,” I said through clenched teeth.
Caroline unlocked her door and turned off her alarm once we were inside. I went to the panel and scanned the footage, going back hour by hour, until I found what I needed. A teenage boy with a hoodie on stopped on his skateboard in front of Caroline’s house and strolled up the driveway. He was patting the envelope against his thigh. When he reached the door, he peeled off some adhesive and let the trash from the sticker fly into the wind and stuck it to her door.
Caroline was behind me, her hand on my back, watching the small screen with me. “Do you know him?” I asked. “Recognize him?”
“I’ve seen him around the neighborhood, but I don’t know who he is or which house he lives in.”
“We’ll find out.” I glanced at the pictures again. I wanted to rip them in half and destroy them. Light them on fire. That moment between us had been perfect. That moment for Caroline had been monumental, and some bastard was trying to destroy it.
“Do you think he’s the one doing all of this?”
I shook my head, lifting my gaze to meet hers. I put the note, which I hadn’t even read yet, and the pictures on the side table and cupped her face. “No, I don’t. He was probably paid to drop it off and had no idea what was in it. With any luck, though, we could have him sit with a sketch artist.” I kissed her and leaned my forehead against hers for a moment, breathing her in. Her arms wound around me, and her hands fisted in my shirt at my back. She closed her eyes and stood in this moment with me. “Don’t let this asshole destroy that memory for you, Caroline. That was one of the best days of my life, and I’ll be damned if I let him take it from either of us.”
“I won’t,” she whispered. “That was ours. It’s still ours.”
I kissed her again, once and softly, before releasing her to grab the photos and the note. I looked at the pictures again. They were definitely from MarxMen security cameras. The ones I’d turned off and knew my men wouldn’t turn on until I gave the all clear. This was personal. This was meant as a slight to me. I knew it. We’d been battling back and forth, trying to gain more information, and he’d done everything he could to block me from infiltrating
