The Masked Man. B.J. Daniels

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      “Where is it, bitch?” the hoarse voice demanded. “Where’s the damned ring?”

      The ring? She felt him pull hard on the silver charm bracelet at her wrist, felt pain tear down her arm. She struggled to get one leg free of his body and brought it up hard into his groin.

      He let out a howl of pain, then reared back and hit her in the side of the face. As she slid to the floor, she heard him stumbling down the stairs and out of the building.

      “AS FAR AS YOU CAN TELL nothing seems to be missing?” Deputy Rex Duncan inquired. Duncan had done a thorough search of the apartment while Samuelson had gone down to the bakery to make sure no one was in the building.

      Jill felt numb as she shook her head. She sat in one of her overstuffed chairs watching the deputy as he looked around the room. The paramedics had left, after telling her how lucky she was. She just had a cut on her forehead, a small abrasion on her cheek where she’d been hit and a scrape on her wrist. Neither blow tonight had been life-threatening. Nor was anything broken. No concussion. Just a headache from the first blow and a bruise to go with the other one.

      “No signs of forced entry,” Samuelson said as he came up the steps and joined them in the living room.

      Jill saw the two exchange a look. “What does that mean?”

      “Is it possible you forgot to lock a door?” Duncan asked.

      “No. They were all locked when I left for the party.”

      Samuelson was eyeing her again as if she was lying. “Unless you left the door open or the guy had a key.”

      “Who has a key to your apartment?” Duncan asked.

      “My father and…Trevor had one.”

      “There were no keys on him other than the boat key when he was found,” Duncan said.

      Her blood went cold. “You mean the person who was in my apartment had Trevor’s key?”

      “We don’t know that,” Samuelson said.

      Jill shook her head. “Trevor’s key to my apartment was on the same ring as the one to my car. It stands to reason that whoever has my car has a key to this apartment.”

      “But you said you thought the person at the condo earlier who’d been driving your car was a woman,” Samuelson pointed out.

      She nodded, her head aching. “I smelled the perfume, but I never saw her. I can’t be sure.”

      “You’re sure the person in your apartment tonight was a man, though?” Duncan asked.

      “Yes.”

      “Well, you said nothing seems to be missing.” Duncan glanced around. “The place has been tossed pretty good.”

      “He must have been up here waiting for you while we were downstairs in the bakery,” Samuelson said. “It seems like we would have heard him.” He turned to Duncan. “Make some noise,” he said, and went downstairs again.

      Duncan walked around, opened and closed drawers, moved furniture. Jill watched him, knowing what Samuelson was trying to prove. That maybe she herself had torn up this place, hit herself in the head, pretended she was attacked. And for what possible reason? To somehow cover up killing Trevor? She groaned and closed her eyes as she heard Samuelson come back up the stairs.

      “Well?” Duncan asked.

      “I didn’t hear anything,” the other deputy said, sounding disappointed. “The apartment is over the kitchen, not the coffee shop, and the building must be pretty well insulated.”

      “It appears he was looking for something in particular,” Duncan said. “He didn’t take the stereo or the TV or that expensive camera sitting right there on his way out. It has the same MO as the others.”

      The Bigfork area had been hit by dozens of burglaries over the past year, all believed to have been executed by someone local who knew exactly what he was after because of the items he didn’t take.

      With a start, Jill opened her eyes. “He asked me where my ring was.”

      “Your ring?” Duncan asked.

      “I assume he meant my engagement ring since it’s the only one I wear—wore.” She frowned and looked down at her bare wrist. “He broke off my bracelet.” Her skin was raw where the chain had scraped her.

      “What kind of bracelet was it?” Samuelson asked.

      “A silver charm bracelet with a small silver heart with my name engraved on it,” she said. “It was a present from Trevor.” She could feel Samuelson staring at her again, wondering no doubt why the thief would take something like a cheap charm bracelet and not her camera.

      “Is there someone you could stay with the rest of the night?” Duncan asked.

      Her eyes felt as if they had sand in them. She was bone tired. Her head pounded. And she was sore and scared and angry and as vulnerable as she’d ever been. She just wanted the deputies to leave.

      She wasn’t waking up her father at this time of the night. Not when he’d been too sick earlier to attend the party. Nor was she going to a friend’s. She just wanted to go to sleep in her own bed and pretend none of this had happened.

      “I’m staying here. I’ll lock the doors from the inside with the slide bolt. The windows are locked. I doubt he’ll come back tonight, anyway.” She saw the deputies exchange a look, but she didn’t give a fig what they thought at this point.

      “I suggest you get your locks changed,” Duncan said. “In the meantime we’ll see if Trevor’s keys turn up. You have my number.”

      She nodded and followed them downstairs to lock and bolt the door, then she checked the entry to the bakery. Double locked and bolted.

      Back upstairs, she headed for her bedroom. She would straighten up the mess in the morning. Tonight all she wanted was to get out of this ridiculous costume, take a hot shower and go to bed.

      By the time she finished, she was so exhausted she crawled between the clean sheets and fell into a comalike sleep haunted by men with ski masks—one masked man in particular.

      JILL AWOKE to pounding. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the man next to her in the bed, the memory of their lovemaking so fresh—

      Her eyes flew open, and her hand jerked back from the empty space next to her, the memories coming in nauseating waves. Trevor. Murdered. Trevor, the man who had betrayed her.

      She sat up, remembering the other Scarlet silhouetted in the doorway, the woman’s words echoing in her head. A woman who called Trevor “darling” and had planned to run away with him last night.

      Jill groaned as she recalled that last night she, the woman who’d made love only once before, and that with her fiancé, had made love—an amazing and passionate and wonderful experience—with a complete stranger. And now she was a suspect in Trevor’s murder.

      She wanted СКАЧАТЬ