Red Hot Santa Page 4

  “He escaped at five this morning.” He crossed to the bank of windows on the far wall. Really. He shouldn’t be anywhere near a bed with this woman around. Bed? Hell. Who needed a bed? Any fairly flat surface would work.

  She glanced at her watch. “Twelve hours.”

  Joe locked first one window, then the other. “He’s encountering the same storm we are. So he won’t be moving fast. Plus he has to find transportation.” He decided not to tell Kendall that Treadwell had slashed the throats of two prison guards, killing both, before he’d carjacked a guy on his way to work. Took his clothes as well. That guy too was dead.

  Three people dead before Treadwell crossed into Mullan, Idaho, at nine this morning. Another when he’d switched vehicles in Foracre, Montana, at noon. All with Treadwell’s signature. They’d been brutalized, played with. Sliced and diced, before he’d cut their throats.

  At Roz’s last update, the authorities knew Treadwell was on Route 90 and headed this way.

  The snow must be putting a serious crimp in his travel plans, but Treadwell was determined enough, crazy enough, to persevere.

  The son of a bitch was like a heat-seeking missile.

  Joe had given serious consideration to taking one of the snowmobiles. Denise and Adam had half a dozen guest cabins on their property. Too close to the house, he’d already decided. But he knew of several holiday cabins on neighboring ranches fairly nearby. Of course fairly in these parts was twenty-plus frigging miles. And while no one would find her there, traveling those distances in this weather would be asking for trouble.

  He might be able to stand the elements, although honestly Joe knew even he wouldn’t make it far or fast. One thing was for sure. Kendall would never make it down the freaking driveway in this weather. It was brutal out there. Even experienced ranchers and locals didn’t brave the outdoors when it was this bad.

  But the second the snow let up enough to take off, they’d be gone. If he could get the chopper up, he’d take her to the Andersons’ place thirty miles south of here. If the winds were still too high, he’d risk one of the snowmobiles. But get her away he would.

  Treadwell knew to come here, but he’d never find Kendall once Joe whisked her away from the Camerons’ ranch. Damn it, he wished to hell they could leave now.

  “I’m willing to risk it, if you are,” Kendall offered as if she were reading his mind. It was a disconcerting habit she had.

  “Too dangerous.” Joe brushed aside a strand of hair caught in her lashes, then let his fingers linger on the warmth of her cheek for just a second.

  It was a mistake. Because he didn’t want to lightly touch this woman with victory scars on her body and fear in her eyes. He wanted to take her to bed and love her all night long. He wanted to wake up beside her in the morning and see her with sunlight on her face.

  To paraphrase old Will Shakespeare, Joe thought facetiously, he was melting in his own fire. Too bad. He’d have to burn alone. Because the last thing this woman needed right now was his horny self. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Cold.

  Chapter Four

  JOE TOLD HER TO PICK A ROOM, ANY ROOM. KENDALL chose the last bedroom at the end of the hall. It was beautifully decorated in cream and terra-cotta, and even had its own fragrant Christmas tree in the corner near the fireplace. Not that she cared about the decor at this point. The room was big and had a luxurious en suite bathroom. It also had an interleading door into an adjoining room.

  Three exits should they need one. Forget they. She needed multiple ways out. The ordeal with Treadwell had taught her that—just as he’d taught her the true meaning of terror.

  Joe locked the bedroom door, then went around checking windows. “All secure. Stay here while I shower. I won’t be long.”

  Kendall was tempted—more than a little—to ask if she could shower with him or just sit on the floor so she wouldn’t be alone. But that would be turning her power over to Treadwell on a silver platter and she refused to do that. She’d worked too hard, come too far to do that again. Instead she asked, “Would you mind if I used your phone?”

  He handed it to her, warning her that the charge was getting low and not to talk too long, then went into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  She gave a bemused shake of her head as the shower turned on. She imagined him dragging that thick cream-colored sweater over his head, she imagined him dropping his jeans. God help her, she imagined Joe Zorn buck-naked under the spray. All of which gave her a hot flash.

  Her emotions were all over the place. She needed to focus and get her brain in gear. She quickly dialed Becky’s home number.

  “Call him your early Christmas present,” Becky told her as soon as Kendall let her know Joe was with her. His cell phone was crackly, and Becky’s voice faded in and out every time Kendall moved her head. “I’ve been . . . ing to call you since . . . cops called this . . . rning at the crack of,” Becky continued. “I even booked a flight out there to come and . . . ind you myself. Damn it. You scared the crap out of me w . . . dn’t reach . . . ou.”

  Kendall wasn’t feeling too sanguine herself. Both her body and brain were on sensory overload. She walked over to the window to see if the reception was any better. Worse. She crossed the room to sit on the slipper chair at the dressing table.

  “Detect . . . Abrahams r . . . mended the Agency wh . . . lled . . . ell Tre . . . escaped,” Rebecca told her. The cell phone was trying to die. Kendall turned her head slightly for better reception. “The manhunt—” Becky’s voice was clearer. “—Roadblocks yadda, yadda, yadda are all over the news here. Despite the weather up your way, he’s getting past all these damn people hunting for him.

  “Every time that monster ditches a car and highjacks another one, he kills someone. The press has been Johnny-on-the-spot with the lurid details. I hate to scare you even more, sweetie, but you do know at last count he’s killed seven people today?”

  Kendall let out a little murmur of panic. She hadn’t known. But she’d bet Joe had. She swallowed down the lump of terror in her throat. Sound calm. Be calm. “The house is locked up like Fort Knox, and Joe has the biggest gun I’ve ever seen.” She suspected there were a lot of other very big things about Joe Zorn, and smiled. Really. Fantasizing about him beat to hell being scared out of her mind.

  “Don’t let him out of your sight,” Beck warned unnecessarily. “On the plus side, if the local cops can’t get to you, neither can Sick Bastard. But be careful until they have him in custody.”

  Kendall had no trouble getting Becky to agree to cancel her plane reservation. With the danger of Treadwell looming, and the weather, there obviously wasn’t going to be any party tomorrow night.

  “I don’t give a damn about the commission,” her friend said fiercely. “I just want you safe. I’m glad the Agency guy’s there with you so you aren’t alone. But do not,” she warned, “do any of that stupid dumb girlie crap you see in movies, like wandering around outside in the dark by yourself. Let this Joe guy stick to you like glue until Treadwell is back in chains. Is back in a cage. Is somewhere far, far away from you. Promise me.”

  “Believe me,” Kendall said dryly, “that’s an easy promise to make.” Joe had proved just how easily someone could take her gun away from her. So much for her false sense of confidence in her ability to protect herself.

  She kept an eye on the slightly ajar bathroom door. He was gloriously naked in there. Was he tanned all over? Good God. Stop that, she admonished herself. But why? her devil side demanded. It wasn’t as though the man was a mind reader for heaven’s sake. It was much easier to fixate on Joe’s body than it was knowing a killer was rapidly approaching. Both thoughts made her blood pressure throb behind her eyeballs. “I’m not saying I’m not terrified at the prospect of Treadwell showing up, but having Joe here does wonders for my . . . comfort level.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line as her voice trailed off. “And? But? If? And then?” Becky tried to finish
the thought. “If you don’t trust him to keep your ass safe, tell me. I’ll call Roz and have her—do something.”

  “He’ll keep me safe from Treadwell,” Kendall assured her friend. “But who’s going to keep me safe from Joe Zorn?”

  While Kendall went in to take a shower, Joe turned off the emergency radio they’d brought upstairs with them. He’d had enough freaking Christmas carols to last a while. He crouched and lit kindling in the fireplace. Probably not such a swift idea. Coupled with the muted glow of the oil lamp, the ambiance was a little too romantic and seductive for his peace of mind. Especially now that he’d kissed her.

  If Roz hadn’t called when she had, Joe wasn’t certain he wouldn’t have taken Kendall right there on the floor of the mudroom. He raked a hand through his wet hair.

  There was no getting away from the fact that he was attracted to her. God only knew, what man wouldn’t be? She was gorgeous, smart, funny, and sexy as hell.

  He’d felt this tug of attraction before. Several times, he thought ruefully, as he turned up the wick in the lantern as far as it would go. The room became marginally brighter, and he crossed to sit in one of the extra-wide easy chairs flanking the fireplace.

  He liked women. He particularly enjoyed attractive, intelligent women. Which Kendall Metcalf was. In spades. So his heightened physical attraction to her didn’t come as a surprise. The woman’s sex appeal was off the charts.

  Stretching out his long legs toward the fire, Joe absently rested his Heckler & Koch double-action pistol on the chair arm beside him, keeping his hand on the custom tooled grip as he contemplated the flames dancing in the old-fashioned stone fireplace.

  He wasn’t a guy who spent a hell of a lot of time contemplating his own navel, but his visceral reaction to Kendall Metcalf was as intriguing as it was puzzling. He tried to pinpoint exactly what he felt when he was with her. The high lust factor was a given. But it was the strange, unfamiliar feeling in his chest that had him mystified.

  A . . . flutter? An extra heartbeat? Something that was wholly alien. He hadn’t felt this way about Denise. Which was probably why, five months after saying their vows, their marriage had ended with a fizzle in divorce. That had been almost ten years ago. Clearly Denise felt that alien something for Adam Cameron.

  They had three kids, another on the way, and appeared to be as in love now as they had been when Adam had rushed the ex–Mrs. Zorn to the altar three months after her divorce was final.

  Joe was happy for them. He really was. He liked them both. He hadn’t even been heartbroken at the end of his marriage. He thought he should have been, but he wasn’t. Every now and then he wondered, on a purely academic level, exactly what that elusive something factor was that the couple had and he’d never found. Denise called it spark, magic, and lots of other girl words that until a few hours ago, he’d pretty much dismissed as the rantings of a romantic.

  Spark was a pretty damned good description for the sensations currently annoying him. Why Kendall Metcalf? Why now? When his total focus should be on protecting her from Treadwell. He should be thinking about guns, ammo, close combat, points of entry, etc. Instead his mind conjured all sorts of enticing images of his protectee.

  Sparks, he decided, were distracting as hell.

  Without making a conscious decision, Joe had created this nomadic lifestyle. Well, not created it so much as fallen into it without much objection.

  Every now and then he thought about assessing his choices but then backed off immediately. In his experience, nothing good ever came of that. He shook his head at musings brought on by flickering firelight and thoughts of a wet, naked Kendall in the other room. “Get a grip,” he told himself firmly.

  From his vantage point he could keep an eye on all the doors in the room. He didn’t like sitting here waiting like this. He was a man of action. But Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating. If he had backup he’d go outside and check the perimeter. But he wouldn’t take Kendall out there, and he sure as hell wasn’t leaving her in the house alone.

  It would suit him perfectly if that son of a bitch Dwight Treadwell did one right thing in his miserable sick life: walk in right now.

  One shot between the bastard’s eyes and it would be over.

  Roz had faxed Joe the court transcripts while he’d been waiting for the ground crew to ready the chopper. He’d scanned them while standing in the small airport terminal. And he’d been sickened by what Kendall had endured at the hands of that psychopath. He’d also felt the ticking of the time bomb, knowing that while he was en route to her, Treadwell was, too.

  At the time Treadwell had kidnapped and tortured Kendall, it was known that he’d brutalized and then killed five other women. At his arraignment that number had jumped horrifically to twenty-three.

  Kendall was Treadwell’s only living victim, the one person left to identify the serial killer in court. Which, according to the transcripts Joe had read, she’d done. Clearly and succinctly. Her attention to detail and minutia in her party-planning business had served her well.

  She’d recalled in stark, no-nonsense language details that only one of his victims could possibly know. She’d given a specific and succinct physical description of the man. And she’d gone into clinical, precise detail about what she’d endured for seventeen hours at Treadwell’s hands, the reading of which had turned Joe’s stomach.

  What she’d suffered, and the retelling of it, had taken unimaginable guts. Joe had a clear picture of the physical characteristics of the serial killer. He’d also understood the subtext in Kendall’s testimony. The sick bastard had played with her like a cat with a half-dead mouse. He’d slashed her deep and he’d slashed her shallow, letting her suffer as he taunted her with death but kept her alive. Barely.

  He’d kept her holed up in a trailer deep in the woods south of Seattle for almost two days.

  Considering the timeline, the slash across her throat must’ve still been raw and livid as she sat in court facing her attacker. The jury had deliberated for all of forty-seven minutes before coming back with a guilty verdict on all counts.

  Washington was one of thirty-eight states with the death penalty. But Treadwell’s attorneys had managed to get a sentencing recommendation of life without parole after the verdict in exchange for the killer’s cooperation in finding the bodies of the other eighteen victims he’d confessed to killing.

  Dwight Gus Treadwell had received twenty-three consecutive life sentences, plus one concurrent sentence for the attempted first degree on Kendall and another seventy-five years for her torture. He’d also promised, before the court, that he would one day find Kendall Metcalf and finish the job he’d started. And that the next time she wouldn’t get away.

  Yet despite all that, he’d somehow managed to escape while being transported between the intake center and a more secure facility. Joe cursed the fact that all inmates, and Treadwell in particular, were given a thorough evaluation to determine the right prison for their particular personality and propensity toward violence.

  Hell, if it were up to him, Treadwell would be drawn and quartered, dropped down a hole, and left to rot slowly and painfully. An eye for an eye.

  The shower turned off and he glanced up just in time to see, through the partially open door, a flash of pale hip and leg as Kendall reached for a towel.

  It was going to be a long night. He’d wait for the first lull in the storm and haul ass outta there.

  Fully dressed once again, Kendall walked out of the bathroom blotting her hair dry with a towel. She looked deliciously touchable with her still-damp pink cheeks, shining hazel eyes, and dewy velvety skin.

  “Let’s talk about our sleeping arrangements,” she said without preamble. Joe admired her straightforwardness. He admired a hell of a lot of other things, like the fact that he could see she was no longer wearing a bra under that red sweater. He’d like to peel— Hey! Up here, pal!

  Already disconcerted by his strong physical attraction to her, Joe wasn’t about to deb
ate Kendall on the sleeping arrangements. “You’re going to offer to sleep in one of these chairs, right?” he said roughly, trying to ignore the gentle sway of her unfettered breasts and the way the firelight painted her in shades of amber.

  “No, actually, I wasn’t.” Her lips twitched.

  Joe watched her pace. She smelled delectably of fresh pears. He’d used the same soap and shampoo, but he smelled like—a guy. “Good. Because then you’d be between the door and me,” he pointed out, wishing to hell she’d land somewhere. She was making him dizzy pacing like that. Or was it the clean soapy fragrance of her as she passed him? Or her braless state? Or her bare feet—damn it to hell, he was becoming quite attached to her bare, endearingly too large, feet. Joe felt a sharp stab in his belly that was neither pain nor pleasure as she did another circuit of the room.

  She went to the armoire and opened the mini refrigerator that no doubt still held its temperature and removed a bottle of wine. She held it up. He shook his head. No drinking on the job. She found a corkscrew, opened the bottle, poured one glass, then resumed pacing, sipping as she walked.

  She stopped to run a hand through her wet hair. It was the deep, rich orange-red of an excellent XO cognac. Joe loved a mellow brandy on a cold winter’s night. . . .

  “. . . eep with me.”

  “Say what?”

  “I said—” She took another sip of golden wine, her eyes sparkling over the rim. “—you’ll have to sleep with me.”

  Joe nearly choked on his own saliva. “That isn’t protocol, Kendall.” Boy howdy it wasn’t protocol. “Besides, I have no intention of sleeping—anywhere. I’m here to protect you, remember? The second this snow lets up, I’ll wake you, and we’ll be outta here.”

  She met his gaze with a level look. “Under the circumstances I doubt if I’ll sleep either. But to be honest, without a solid five hours’ sleep, I tend not to function on all cylinders. So I’d like to at least try to get a few hours in before we leave. I’d feel a hell of a lot safer if you were beside me. I don’t mind if you want to leave the lantern on all night. I’d just like— I’d just like . . .”