Guardian by Kaitlyn O'Connor (ebook e reader txt) 📗

she might touch something that could shockher.

But she wasn’t as convinced as shewanted to be.

It seemed to her that she could justas easily interpret the exchange as a very cold bloodedthreat.

He didn’t strike her as cold blooded,but she had to admit that she hadn’t really ‘read’ him all thatwell.

The inventor thing could fit, but thatfit the geek scenario and he just didn’t seem to fit in thatcategory at all.

Not that there was any such thing as‘one size fits all’. She was pretty sure most people thought of heras a nerd, or geek.

But she didn’t believe Jarrod was evenalmost a geek.

Accepting that she’d read him wrongfrom the beginning, she began to wonder, a little hopefully, ifshe’d assumed wrong when she’d decided he knew she’d been snooping.What if had been nothing more than a ‘be careful’ sort ofwarning?

And did it matter?

Because he was bound to check if hehadn’t already.

Well, it did matter, she supposed,because she was already trying to hide and the suspense was reallygetting to her.

She considered whether it would behelpful to go back and talk to Dillard, or not helpful at all.She’d overheard the conversation between him and Jarrod. And maybethe story wasn’t a story but an actual case he was working on, butit was also possible he’d decided to check out the tale she’d spunfor him.

Did she really want to tell him she’dsearched Jarrod’s apartment, though? And now she was afraid he wasgoing to make her disappear, not because she’d actually foundanything, but because she’d been snooping.

She might be better off locked up, shethought glumly.

But she’d seen jail—in movies. Shedidn’t want to experience jail.

On the other hand, she didn’t want toexperience dead either.

Could he be that cold blooded? To fuckthe daylights out of her three times and turn around and killher?

Who was she kidding! Men did it allthe time. Any time a woman went missing, they checked out thehusband or boyfriend and exs first—because it was usually one ofthem that had disposed of her. She watched true crime!

She was exhausted from the nighttimeromp—all the unaccustomed emotion and exercise—and worry by thetime she got off work, but she didn’t know what to do except gohome. It wasn’t as if she had the money to go on therun.

It really sucked that she’d barelyclimbed the first flight of stairs when she realized the men’svoices she heard at the top belonged to Jarrod and DetectiveDillard.

Chapter Nine

Marilyn halted indecisively forseveral heart beats and then turned to tiptoe back down thestairs.

Unfortunately, they’d heard herapproach and when she flicked a look back over her shoulder, bothmen, who’d clearly been standing just out of sight at the top ofthe stairs, had leaned over to look down.

She met Jarrod’s gaze with a wide eyedlook of her own, glanced at Dillard, and then back atJarrod.

His eyes narrowed, his expressionharder than she’d ever seen it and she knew instantly that herealized she knew the cop and …. Probably everything. She curledher lips up in a semblance of a smile. “Forgot something!” shecalled out merrily and then virtually raced down the stairs, outthe front of the building and then whipped around the side and keptgoing until she reached the dumpster. Taking cover behind it, shehuffed for breath, struggled to listen over the noise her heart andlungs were making.

“Please, please, pleasedon’t follow!”

By the time her heart had stoppedtrying to beat its way out of her chest and she could catch adecent breath she’d decided the fates had been smiling down on herfor once.

She didn’t entirely trust,though.

Getting to her feet with an effort,she rose slowly and carefully until she could see over the edge ofthe dumpster.

With her shit luck, she shouldn’t havebeen surprised to see Jarrod standing at the mouth of the alley orthe fact that he whipped a look in her direction just as she stuckher head up.

She ducked, crossing her fingers thathe hadn’t actually seen her.

“What are you doing downthere?”

Inwardly, Marilyn winced. Outwardly,she lifted her head and smiled as if she was so pleased to see him.“Jarrod!” she said, playing for time and wracking her brain for abelievable lie.

She decided to throw Dillard to thewolves. “I was hiding from that man. I think he might be stalkingme.”

Jarrod stared at her, doubtful butwilling to give her a little rope. “The detective?”

Marilyn gasped. “He’s adetective?”

She got up and dustedherself off. “That is soweird! I don’t know why I’d keep seeinghim. I certainlyhaven’t done anything.”

“Well, except search myplace.”

Marilyn gaped at him. “I was … uh …looking for something I dropped.”

“In my closet? Under thecouch? Something you dropped that ran away and hid?”

Marilyn looked at him in dismay. “Youhave a camera in your room, too?” she asked instead of telling himshe’d been hunting the bathroom then. “I was looking for thebathroom. Mine’s on that side. I swear!”

He shook his head at her, but aspissed off as he was that he was probably screwed because of hersnooping, he knew it was his own damned fault, not hers.

If he’d been doing his job and notfocused on chasing ass, as humans called it, he wouldn’t have givenenough away to scare her.

And he had scared her.

“It’s ok, Marilyn.” By thegrace of the gods she hadn’t actually found anything that wouldenlighten her. She just had suspicions, and he had to make sure itstayed that way.

Turning, he left her standing in thealley and headed back to his apartment to see if he could figureout some way to convince himself that he could preventdetection.

There was going to be hell to pay ifhe’d fucked up so badly the head honchos thought they needed torelocate everybody—hundreds if not thousands.

Which wouldn’t just be a headache, itwould be dangerous for the people being relocated.

And expensive.

It didn’t bear thinking on and heshoved it to the back of his mind when he reached his apartment andsettled to trying to decide the best course of action.

Unfortunately, a message came in fromcommand before he’d managed to even get so far as to banish Marilynfrom his mind.

He had a whole family coming in. “Godsdamn it to hell!