The Masked Man

Not that it mattered. There was no way Mac couldn’t take the job. Not if he hoped to save his nephew—although it might already be too late for that. Someone had murdered Trevor Forester tonight. What were the chances it wasn’t connected to the robbery?

Mac also suspected that Pierce wanted him in on this for reasons of his own that had nothing to do with Shane. Shane was just a means to an end. And that made Mac worry he was already in over his head.

Leaning back, he stared up at the stars and knew this restlessness he felt had little to do with Pierce or Shane. As a breeze washed over the bare skin of his chest, he found himself drowning in memories of the woman from the cottage. He breathed in the night, the cool, damp scent of the lake. Closing his eyes, he was engulfed by the darkness and the feel of her. Jill Lawson.

Seeing her was out of the question. But he could no more forget her than he could the image of his nephew and Trevor Forester in ski masks on a grainy black-and-white videotape.

Pleasure and pain. He opened his eyes. A moment of weakness, he thought with a curse as he went inside the houseboat for his shirt, shoes and weapon. There was no turning back now.

AFTER THE DEPUTIES left, Jill locked up the front door and walked through the bakery to the rear of the building and the inside stairs that led up to the apartment.

With her father’s encouragement and some money her grandmother had left her, she’d bought the two-story brick building right out of college and started her bakery, The Best Buns in Town. Gram Lawson was the one who got Jill hooked on baking in the first place. Grandpa had always said Gram made the best cinnamon buns in town.

From the time Jill was a child, she remembered Gram’s house smelling of flour and yeast. She loved that smell. Especially tonight as she walked past the now-silent equipment, the sparkling kitchen. The mere sight grounded her and gave her strength.

As she started up the narrow back stairs, she felt a draft and looked up. Her breath caught. The door to her apartment was standing open. She always kept that door closed and locked when she was gone.

She froze, heart pounding, and strained to listen. She heard nothing but silence overhead. Maybe she’d left the door open earlier. She’d been so upset about Trevor not picking her up on time…

Slowly, she climbed the stairs, all the horror of the night making her jumpy. Her head still ached from where she’d been hit and she felt sick to her stomach when she thought about Trevor. He’d been her first. The only man she’d ever been intimate with—until tonight. Dead. Murdered.

At the top of the stairs she stopped and listened again. Silence. Cautiously, she reached through the open doorway and flicked on the light, illuminating the small kitchen and breakfast nook. Beyond it to the left was the living room.

She blinked in disbelief and horror, a small cry of alarm escaping her lips. Her apartment had been ransacked—just as Trevor’s had.

She heard a floorboard groan in the direction of the pantry. She started to turn, and then she saw him. A man wearing a black ski mask. She screamed as he grabbed her, but the sound was cut off by his gloved hand clamping over her mouth.

He slammed her against the wall, knocking her breath from her lungs, and struggled to pull a wadded-up rag from his pocket. She fought him, but he was too strong for her.

“Where is it?” he demanded, removing his hand from her mouth.

She tried to scream, but he quickly stuffed the nasty-tasting rag in her mouth, pinned her hands to her sides and flattened her body against the wall with his own. She couldn’t breathe! Couldn’t scream! He was going to kill her. Or worse.

“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.