Jakob had been assigned as her bodyguard, a role he’d already been playing. A job he had taken very seriously since then.
Even after the trail ran cold.
Even after every lead had been followed, every possibility explored.
Even after she’d given up her job at the Kripo, no longer able to effectively perform her duties, her confidence and independence both ground to dust. She’d lost her objectivity and the ability to compartmentalize, which was necessary in her line of work.
Annalise was perfectly aware her one-sided longing for Jakob was most likely driven by the fact the two of them had been in close contact for an extended period of time and her interactions with other men had whittled down to practically nil. The only other men she conversed with were colleagues from the university and her male students.
Clinically, she knew the “why” behind her feelings, and it was more than just proximity and a lack of other people who could serve as suitable prospective romantic partners. It was quite natural for people to develop feelings for either their caregivers or rescuers, and he was both. He’d served as her Prince Charming and white knight and was the only person who really knew her anymore.
Jakob, a strong, silent presence, had stayed by her side as her life changed. And now, because she was meeting with someone she didn’t know, he was here.
“I know you have other duties to attend to, Jakob.”
He put his arms behind his back in parade rest. His standard pose and one she was very familiar with. He didn’t say anything, but the body language spoke for him.
I’m not going to let you meet a strange man on your own.
She sighed, wishing she had the courage to insist Jakob leave. In truth, she hadn’t slept well last night, anxious about this afternoon’s meeting. She’d been surprised when an American medical doctor, Walt Hayden, had contacted her. The email said he wanted to talk to her about the profile of a serial killer he was tracking.
Why was a doctor tracking a serial killer?
She’d forwarded the message to Jakob, and the Ritter had run background checks. Dr. Hayden ran a clinic in Africa, so maybe the local police force was overwhelmed and he’d stepped in.
Still, why would he come to her?
There were plenty of Americans he could have gone to. Maybe the suspect was a German national or someone she’d profiled before.
She’d tried to tell him she didn’t do that sort of work anymore, even going so far as to give him the names of other profilers in the Kripo who could assist him, but Dr. Hayden had insisted that it be her.
After retiring from the Kripo shortly after her sister’s attack, she’d accepted a position at Heidelberg University, about an hour south of Frankfurt. Her life had fallen into a comfortable, if boring, routine that consisted of her ping-ponging between her new Fort Knox-like home on the university grounds—and therefore monitored by university security and protected by the very fact that the university was never really quiet, with students constantly coming and going even late into the night—and her office. Her office was in the psychology building, which was next door to the lecture hall she used, both a seven-minute walk from her faculty housing.
Teaching abnormal psychology was far easier than her job with the Kripo. The people she discussed in class were already safely captured or dead, their names and faces known.
If Dr. Hayden had contacted her a few months earlier, she would have unequivocally rejected his request for a meeting. But lately it felt as if she was starting to come out of her skin. Hiding from the real world, drowning in the guilt she felt every time she thought of what her sister had suffered, hadn’t done anything more than allow an evil man to remain free. While she couldn’t profile her stalker, perhaps she could help bring whatever man the American was looking for to justice. Maybe the distance—helping hunt a man who was half a world away—would be easier than trying to profile someone she knew was loose in her city.
“You researched Dr. Hayden,” Annalise said. “You said he is who he seems to be. Did something change?”
Jakob was a man of few words and even fewer expressions.
“Nothing is certain,” he said after a long pause.
Annalise’s lips twitched.
Right after Adele’s attack, Jakob had stayed with her twenty-four seven, sleeping on the couch in her secret, secured house’s living room. Eating every meal with her. And while she’d never admitted it aloud, she had been grateful for his presence and his diligence.
Because she’d been terrified.
As time dragged on and her stalker continued to elude arrest, Dolph had begun to pull Jakob away because he had other tasks that needed to be performed, and it appeared that the man pursuing her had lost interest. Then, when it seemed like it was over, another letter came. All it said was, “Don’t try to trick me again. It wasn’t right.”
She’d spent hours trying to decide if the “it” in the second sentence was her “tricking” him or the rape itself. That it hadn’t been right because it hadn’t been her he’d attacked.
The day after she got that letter, she turned in her notice at the Kripo.
For the past year and a half, Jakob escorted her anytime she left the university grounds. Annalise suspected that, officially, Jakob was no longer on bodyguard duty and was now acting of his own accord. He would certainly never admit as much to her.
Just as she was fairly sure he, personally, was screening her mail. She’d made special arrangements for the university’s mail-receiving office to set aside all her letters and packages for screening. Every package she received had been opened and resealed. And the letters she did receive were all safe, normal.
The letters hadn’t stopped, though there were
