One (Count to Ten Book 1) Read online

  Kate smirked. “Is that your professional or personal opinion?”

  Xavier became serious. “He barged in twice, both when we were interviewing Annabelle and then again with Nicole. I think he was listening to what we were saying, to what they were saying. When we were talking to Annabelle the second time and she became hysterical, he came in prepared with a syringe of sedatives. How would he have known Annabelle was hysterical unless he was listening? Maybe he suffers from something like Munchausen Syndrome. Sets up these women to need him and then swoops in as their savior. I don’t know,” he finished helplessly, wanting a definite direction to move in so he could finally feel like he was doing something. “I just think we should keep an eye on him.”

  * * * * *

  8:36 A.M.

  “Thanks so much for coming.” Annabelle didn’t know what she’d do without Ricky.

  “Any time,” he smiled at her, his blue eyes twinkling comfortingly. “Anything else you need?

  “No, I think you’ve got me everything.” Annabelle wondered how she was ever going to repay her neighbor, Ricky Preston, for everything that he’d done for her. When she’d arrived at the motel yesterday, she’d placed a call to her friend and asked him if he could lend her a little money, just until she’d gotten her purse back from her house and had access to her accounts and credit cards again.

  Annabelle had felt embarrassed turning to him for help, but Ricky had assured her it was no problem and turned up at her motel room a couple of hours later with food, toiletries, and clothes. Overwhelmed by his generosity, Annabelle had been mortified to find herself bursting into tears. Ricky hadn’t seemed to mind; he’d just held her as she cried, and then made her something to eat.

  They’d chatted all through the afternoon and for a while it had felt like old times with her friend, and Annabelle had been almost able to forget what had happened.

  She remembered what her brother, Paul, had told her one day not that long ago, that he thought their neighbor had a crush on her. Annabelle had been embarrassed. Had protested that she and Ricky were simply friends, but to herself she had prayed it wasn’t true. Ricky was about her only friend and she didn’t want to lose him if he found out she wasn’t interested in him that way.

  Throughout the afternoon, Ricky had been nothing but a kind and generous friend, nothing in his behavior or attitude indicated that he thought of her as anything more. When he’d made a move to leave, Annabelle had found herself absolutely terrified at the prospect of being alone. Ricky had seemed to sense that and offered to let her stay in his spare bedroom until she sorted things out.

  Of course, she had refused; she hadn’t wanted to lean on anyone for support. She was, after all, a self-reliant girl. In the end, though, her fear of being alone had won out and she’d asked if he’d mind spending the night on the couch here at the motel with her. Ricky had happily obliged and spent the night on the couch. The comforting sound of his snoring had been all that had gotten her through the night.

  “Oh no,” Annabelle groaned. Through the window, she caught sight of two people approaching her room.

  “What is it?” Ricky asked, instantly concerned.

  “Those detectives are back,” she replied.

  “The ones who accused you of being a killer?” Ricky’s face grew dark. “I met them. You want me to get rid of them for you?”

  She sighed. As much as Detective Montague and Detective Hannah were the last people on the planet she wanted to see right now, she knew it would only be putting off the inevitable to refuse to see them now. “No, that’s okay,” she assured him.

  “You want me to stay with you?” Ricky asked as a knock sounded on the door.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “Thanks, but I can manage.” Drawing up every ounce of strength she could muster, she opened the door. “Good morning, detectives.”

  “Good morning, Miss Englewood,” Detective Montague returned formally, his face completely passive, but his eyes assessed her carefully.

  “We were wondering if we could ask you a few more questions,” Detective Hannah explained.

  “Of course,” she held the door open wider to allow them entry.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you, Annabelle?” Ricky asked.

  “No, I’m fine,” she replied, noticing how Detective Montague froze when he noticed the man in her room.

  “All right, I’ll be going then.” He crossed to her and held her by the shoulders, careful to avoid her injured one. “You call me if you need anything, or if you want me to spend the night again. And the offer still stands, my spare room is available for as long as you need it.”

  “Thanks, Ricky,” Annabelle smiled, wondering whether she’d take him up on his offer but knowing she most likely would not.

  “You’re welcome,” he grinned, and gave her a tender kiss on the forehead, before turning to catch the detectives in a glare. “You take it easy on her, she’s been through hell,” he warned them as he headed for the door.

  “I thought you said you weren’t involved with Ricky Preston,” Detective Montague spoke tightly once they were alone.

  Annabelle saw the look his partner shot him and wondered with horror whether Detective Montague was interested in her. If he was, then he was in for some bad news; Annabelle didn’t date.

  Ever.

  No matter how hot the guy was. And Detective Montague was even better looking than Dr. Daniels.

  Even if she did date, right now this man was the focus of all her pent up anger, so any hope he had of becoming involved with her was absolutely and completely futile.

  “I’m not,” she answered simply. “I told you we were just friends. I called him yesterday and asked if he could lend me some money until I got my purse back. I was intending to go shopping myself but Ricky brought me clothes and food. We spent the afternoon talking, and then he slept on the couch because I was scared to stay by myself.” She tried to keep her voice as emotionless as possible, desperately wanting to avoid stirring up her turbulent feelings.

  Relaxing a little, his jealousy floated away. “We have a couple of potential leads,” Detective Montague explained. “May we sit?”

  “Sure,” Annabelle gestured to the small sitting area of the motel room where two battered sofas faced one another, a tatty table in between. She took the couch farthest away, hoping the detectives would sit together on the one opposite. Unfortunately, Detective Montague planted himself beside her, way too close for comfort. To make matters worse, her pulse began to thump wildly in response to the close proximity of such a gorgeous man.

  “Another family has been killed in circumstances identical to what happened to your family,” he told her gently.

  “I know,” she nodded. “Dr. Daniels told me.”

  Jealousy clouded his face again. “What else did Dr. Daniels tell you?” Detective Montague demanded.

  “Nothing, he just told me to be careful.” She remembered the kind look in the doctor’s eyes and the shy smile he’d given her. She never usually attracted the attention of men, and now she was worried that Ricky, Dr. Daniels, and Detective Montague were all more interested in her than they should be. “He was nice to me. He was the only one who was always nice to me.”

  Flinching slightly, he said, “Annabelle, we were only…”

  “I know, I know,” she cut him off. “You were only doing your jobs.”

  “Annabelle, did Dr. Daniels ever do anything inappropriate to you?” Detective Hannah asked.

  “What? No,” she exclaimed. Then suspicious, “Why?”

  “Did he tell you that he’s also treating the survivor from the other family?”

  She wasn’t really sure why that was relevant, but answered, “No.”

  “Did he ask you any questions about what happened to you?”

  “No, not really.” She tried to think but she didn’t remember much of what people had said to her or what she’d said to them while she was in the hospital.

  “What
does ‘not really’ mean?” Detective Montague demanded sharply.

  Annabelle shrugged, “He’d just ask how I was doing.”

  “Have you remembered anything about the night of your attack?” Detective Hannah asked, changing the subject.

  “No,” she replied adamantly. Annabelle didn’t want to remember that night; she wanted to forget all about it. “Why were you asking me questions about Dr. Daniels?” Her eyes grew wide as she realized what they were implying. “Do you think that Dr. Daniels is the killer?”

  Her face must have paled because Detective Montague grabbed her uninjured shoulder and shook her gently. “Annabelle?”

  “I'm fine,” she uttered weakly. Dr. Daniels couldn’t be a killer; he had been so nice to her.

  “We don’t have any evidence that he’s involved,” Detective Montague assured her.

  “Then why are you asking questions about him?”

  “Because he’s been paying a little too much attention to you,” he replied. “Is there any reason he might have to be overly interested in you?”

  Thinking of the way he’d looked at her, at her suspicions that he wanted to be more than just her doctor, but she had done nothing to encourage his interest, she answered, “None.”

  He released her shoulder, “Do you know anyone by the surname Jenner?”

  “Is that the other family?”

  “Yes, do you know anyone by that name?”

  “No, I don’t think so, it doesn’t sound familiar.”

  “This is a photo of them,” Detective Hannah handed her a picture.

  Reluctantly, she took it and studied the four people smiling up at her. Two brown-haired kids, a girl who looked about eleven or twelve, and a boy a couple of years older. The parents were standing behind them, a pretty looking woman with her hands on her son’s shoulders, and a man with a scruffy beard and an easy arm around his daughter. She thought of her own family, of the portrait they had had taken last Christmas. The picture hung above her parents’ bed. Deliberately, she pushed those images away.

  “I’ve never met any of these people before,” Annabelle told them slowly. “Did you talk to her?”

  “To who?” Detective Hannah asked, confused.

  “To the wife.”

  “How do you know she was the survivor?”

  “Dr. Daniels told me,” she replied before she could stop herself, realizing she’d probably given them more ammunition against the doctor.

  The detectives let it go and produced another photo. “Do you know this man?” Detective Montague asked.

  Studying the next picture, this one was of a gruff man, probably in his mid to late fifties, with piercing blue eyes and a head of dark hair. The man looked surly and cross, glaring at the camera. Her hands were shaking badly, “Is this the man you think is the killer?”

  “Right now he’s just a person of interest,” Detective Hannah told her.

  “You think he’s the man who killed my family.” All of a sudden, Annabelle desperately needed to be on the move. Standing, she began to pace up and down the room. “You think this is the man who framed me for murder?”

  “Have you seen him before?” Detective Montague asked, coming to stand before her.

  Unable to rip her gaze away from the photo, it seemed to draw her eyes to it against her will. “No,” she whispered.

  He extracted the picture from her hand. “His name is Lachlan Thompson; do you know anyone by that name?”

  “No.” It was beginning to feel like the walls were closing in on her; she wanted the detectives to go now. She needed them to go now.

  “Are you sure?” Detective Hannah persisted.

  “I’m sure.” Annabelle breathed deeply; she could feel her emotions starting to surge forward but she didn’t want them to come bursting out while she had company.

  “Annabelle, we have to ask you something difficult.” Detective Montague took her arm and tried to lead her back to the couch, but she pulled free.

  “What?”

  “I know you said you don’t remember anything about what happened that night, but…but…” the detective trailed off helplessly and turned to his partner for support.

  “Is there any chance that the man who attacked you might have hurt you in another way?” Detective Hannah stood and came to join them. “Do you think that man may have raped you?”

  “What?” Dots began to dance in front of her eyes. That couldn’t have happened, could it? She would know if someone had done that, wouldn’t she? But she didn’t remember a single thing about that night. How was that possible? How could she have forgotten it all?

  “Whoa,” Detective Montague caught her as her knees buckled. “You okay, Annabelle?”

  She wanted to answer, but there didn’t seem to be enough air in her lungs to produce any sound. She was as helpless as an infant to do anything as Detective Montague lifted her up. For some reason, his touch stilled the violent tremors wracking her body, and she relaxed into him. He carried her to the bed and set her down on it gently. Finally, she found her voice, “That man didn’t rape me,” she insisted.

  “Are you sure?” Detective Hannah pressed.

  “I'm sure,” she repeated more forcefully.

  “Okay.” Detective Montague was watching her closely, “Do you want us to call an ambulance?”

  Annabelle didn’t want to be around people right now, she wanted to be alone. “No, I’ll be okay.”

  He hesitated, then said, “I don’t think we should leave you alone right now.”

  “It’s all right, I'm used to it,” she murmured, closing her eyes, rolling over onto her stomach and burying her face in the pillow.

  The detectives quietly collected their things and left. When she heard the door close behind them, Annabelle expected the tears to flow, but nothing came. Instead, she just curled herself up in a ball and tried to figure out why the man who had killed her family had left her behind.

  * * * * *

  6:21 P.M.

  “You two have a productive day?” David asked as they walked through the front door of her home.

  “Not really,” Kate sighed, pausing to kiss her husband, who deepened the kiss and for a moment Kate forgot all about the case.

  Xavier cleared his throat and rolled his eyes at them.

  “Sorry,” Kate grinned, tingling when she thought of what she and David would spend the night doing once her partner went home.

  “No closer to getting a warrant for your suspect’s fingerprints yet, huh?” David asked.

  Growing serious, Kate explained, “Everyone we talked to was full of stories about what a horrible guy Lachlan Thompson was,” Kate explained. “And everyone knew how much he hated his son-in-law. He blamed Henry Jenner for stealing his daughter and didn’t even attend the wedding. He hated his grandkids almost as much as Henry, because he saw them as his son-in-law’s kids, not his daughter’s. But while everyone knew he hated them, no one heard him expressly threaten them, so…”

  “Bottom line, we don’t have enough for a warrant.” Xavier’s grim face brightened, “What’s for dinner?”

  Kate smiled at her partner, “Your favorite, of course; nice, big juicy steaks.”

  “Yum,” Xavier’s face grew even brighter.

  “Barbecue’s already fired up,” David informed them, heading for the kitchen. “Dinner should be ready any minute. Oh, and I made a salad,” he added as he began tending the meal.

  More often than not, her husband was the one to cook the meals in their house, if she was even home to eat with him. David was a dentist, with nice stable working days, and always the possibility of an early finish if someone cancelled at the last minute. Although she sometimes envied him his easy working life, Kate wouldn’t trade jobs with him for all the money in the world. From the first time she’d met a police officer at the age of eight at a car accident that happened outside her home, she had known that it was what she was destined to do.

  When the food was ready, they made the most o
f the pleasant evening and took a seat at the table in their yard, and for most of the meal, they chatted aimlessly about their days, old friends, and the hot weather they'd been having so far that hinted at a long summer to come.

  As much as she was enjoying hanging out with her husband and her best friend, Kate couldn’t relax. There was something she needed to tell Xavier—something she’d been putting off for weeks—but she couldn’t make herself say the words.

  “So, Xavier, anyone new in your life?” David asked, sliding over to be closer to his wife, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  “Not really,” Xavier shifted uncomfortably.

  She thought back on the look on her partner’s face earlier today when he’d held Annabelle Englewood in his arms. For a second he’d looked just like the old Xavier, the way he used to look before Julia’s assault. Back then Xavier liked to hang out till all hours of the morning with his friends; Julia did not. One night when she’d been home alone, someone had broken into the house and raped her.

  Kate knew that Xavier blamed himself for not being home to protect his wife when the intruder had broken in, and for what had happened next, even though none of them had known that Julia had been sexually assaulted until it was too late. She also knew that although Xavier was desperate to move on and find happiness again, he thought to do so was betraying Julia, letting her down all over again.

  “It would be great if you had a date for our anniversary party next week,” David pushed. Her husband was almost as enthusiastic about setting Xavier up as she was.

  “I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since our wedding.” Kate ran a hand through David’s thick brown hair, temporarily forgetting about Xavier and Julia and Annabelle.

  David’s eyes heated, “It feels like only yesterday that we said our ‘I do’s’ and I got to kiss you for the first time as your husband,” he dipped his head and pressed a hungry kiss to her mouth.

  Xavier cleared his throat and stood, “I think that’s my cue to leave.” Xavier couldn’t quite hide the jealousy and longing from his smile.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Kate stood, as well, shooting David a quick glance to let him know she wanted a minute alone with her partner.