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The illusion of objectivity had never seemed further away. He rubbed a hand over his nape, where the muscles bunched tight. He couldn’t let it matter. Hayes had one purpose—to keep Reese safe. The fact that he could have lost her today was a grim reality check.
He straightened up the documents and started toward the laptop, intent on checking to see if there’d been a hit on the ViCAP submission. A sound halted him in his tracks. He went to the patio doors, but the noise wasn’t coming from outside. It came again, a low whimper. Followed by, “No! Get back!”
Reese. He reversed course and eased open her bedroom door. The blankets were crumpled around her waist, her body thrashing, arms flailing. “Stop! I won’t…”
“It’s okay. You’re dreaming. Wake up now.” He knew better than to touch her or get too close to her flailing arms. Reaching for the lamp on the table next to her, he switched it on. Hayes pitched his voice louder. “Reese. Wake up.”
She came upright with a surprising suddenness. If he hadn’t ducked, he would have taken a fist to the mouth. Blinking, confused, she stared at him blankly.
“You’re okay. You’re fine.” He sank onto the edge of the mattress next to her, his voice low and soothing. “It was a dream. You’re safe.”
She rubbed the base of her palms against her eyes. “I saw him again. McNulty. He dragged me into that building. I couldn’t get away.”
“But you did escape today.” Hayes stroked her back. “Very capably, too. He’s still in a cell. He can’t hurt you now.” He felt the shudders quaking her body. And would have done anything to take away the terror she’d relived in her nightmare. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still nursing sore nuts.”
A strangled laugh escaped her, but her body still trembled. Without a conscious decision, he reached over to turn the light off again. “Scooch over.” When she only looked at him uncomprehendingly, he moved her. “There you, go. Lie down. I’ve got you.”
Slowly, she obeyed, rolling to turn her back to him. Hayes disentangled the covers to pull them over her again. Stretching out next to her, he looped his arm over her waist. Pulled her close. “I’ve got you,” he murmured against her hair. “Sleep now.”
He lay awake long enough to feel her body relax against his. To see her snuggle deeper into her pillow. Long enough to realize when she slept again. That would have been the time to leaveher. To go back to his room. Rebuild the emotional distance that was growing more and more elusive.
But he couldn’t help himself. Defying good sense, Hayes stayed put. With his cheek pressed against her hair, he followed her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
25
Hayes woke early, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings and the warmth pressed close to his. Awareness returned a moment later, and he carefully moved away from Reese. He couldn’t bring himself to regret holding her all night, but his presence there in the morning would be awkward.
Not to mention that being near her was punching holes in his ever-disintegrating impartiality.
He went to his bedroom and grabbed some clothes, then headed to the guest bathroom for a shower. Setting the spray to a couple of degrees below scalding, he stepped inside and let the water pound away the remnants of sleep while mentally mapping out the day.
After a few minutes, he shut off the water and reached for the towel he’d hung just outside it. He swiped it over his hair and stepped out, carelessly wiping off when an alert sounded. Hayes froze. The sensor.
He lunged for the door, one hand pinning the towel around his hips. When he ran into the apartment, his gaze went immediately to the front entrance. The sensor wasn’t blinking.He turned toward the patio door, which stood slightly ajar. He took a few quick steps toward it but then halted.
Reese was on the balcony dragging aside the small table and chairs. Then she moved fully into his line of sight, clad in leggings and a sports bra. She went through a series of stretches, before settling into a centering position. He recalled something she’d said a few days ago:
I tried self-defense classes, but they were too triggering. It was only when I discoveredTai Chi that I could find that inner peace. Combining meditation with martial arts served a dualpurpose.
There was a degree of stiffness in her movements, telling him better than words that she was feeling the physical effects of yesterday’s assault. But her flowing arm pushes and leg positions were still graceful.
Belatedly aware of how much he’d dripped onto the floor, he retreated silently to his room. It was grimly ironic that working through the trauma she’d experienced at Thorne’s hands could help her deal with her assault and kidnapping yesterday. But Hayes wasn’t surprised. She’d already proved that she didn’t lack grit.
He dressed and then went to the kitchen for coffee. He never felt quite human before that first jolt of caffeine entered his veins. Carrying his mug to his laptop, he sat down and scrolled quickly through the news before checking his email.
His pulse quickened when he noted the reply from ViCAP, and Hayes mentally steeled himself for disappointment. Although the reasoning behind the database was superb, there was a massive backlog of cases.
Clicking on the email, he found a map highlighted with a cluster of yellow dots. Fifteen in the ten-year time range he’d submitted. Eight of those occurred in the last three years. He examined the addresses and, aided with a city map of streetshe brought up on his computer, discovered that six of the eight most recent victims reported being kidnapped within twenty miles of the site McNulty had driven Reese to.
Adrenaline thrummed in his chest. A few minutes of digging proved the abandoned building had closed while the con was locked up, and only two rapes with similar MOs had occurred during those four years. In the three years prior to his imprisonment, however, there were seven similar rapes.
He brought up his prior research to look at the man’s addresses since age eighteen, trying to figure out McNulty’s proximity to the location victims had reported being taken from. It took some time. All of the man’s prior residences were apartment buildings without private parking. Not conducive to the isolation necessary to conduct his criminal activity.
Hayes was still intent on the task when the sensor sounded again. Reese stepped through the sliding glass door, closing and locking it behind her. Seeing him, she halted. He watched her flicker of surprise turn to discomfort.
“Good morning.” She veered into the kitchen, taking longer than necessary to pour herself a mug of coffee and then turning to survey him across the island that divided the room from the dining area. “What has you so engrossed?”
“We got a hit from ViCAP. I’m drilling down further into McNulty’s addresses prior to living with his stepmother.” She came to stand next to him, staring at the laptop as he returned the screen to the map showing the rapes. “Search parameters going back ten years, up to twenty miles from the address of the abandoned building he took you to, and rapes involving transporting the victim both ways. The structure has only been vacant for three years, meaning it’d have been accessible since he got home from prison, but not before. I need to run a new search for the ones occurring before he was sentenced and workbackward, trying to match his address at the time of each to see how near he lived to the site of the kidnap location.”