As for Mr. Tie-Her-Up-and-Fuck-Her, he quickly rolled off of Shayla. Peter was pounding toward them, his teeth practically bared. If she were an asshole-bad-guy, and saw that coming at her, she would’ve run like hell, too. The man bolted in the opposite direction that his co-burglar had gone, which was smart, since Peter now would have to choose whom to chase.
Not that he was about to go after either of them while she was lying there, still unable to fully catch her breath, with bits of his lawn in her hair and probably even in her teeth. Shay struggled to sit up as Peter skidded to his knees next to her. “Don’t move, baby,” he told her. “Just stay right there.”
That baby aside, his concern for her was actually quite lovely to see as he ran his hands gently around the back of her head, and then down her entire body, arms and legs included.
“I’m okay,” she told him, still unable to do more than whisper as he helped her sit up.
“Did he hit you in the throat?” he asked, his hands now warm on her neck.
“No. Here.” She pointed to her center.
“Good,” he said. “I mean, not good. But better than…” He held her face between his hands. “Jesus, Shay, I’m so sorry.”
“How was this your fault?” she whispered.
“I should’ve checked that the house was clear before I left you in there with a fucking intruder.” Peter helped her to her feet as the first emergency vehicle arrived—sirens screaming. It was, of course, a fire truck.
He looked at her. “You called the fire department?”
Shay looked at him. But he was a smart man, and he figured it out even as she pointed at her phone, which was still lying on the lawn.
“They said, nine-one-one, you said Ugh or a variation, so the dispatcher made his best guess,” Peter said as a police cruiser also pulled up.
And, of course, since the police had no idea why the emergency call had been placed and all they saw was a large man with his hands on a woman who looked like she’d just been tackled and thrown onto the front lawn, they exited their vehicle with a lot of noise and hostility.
“Sir, step away from the woman! Ma’am, are you all right?”
Peter put his hands up, and Shay did, too, because yeah, those guns were drawn.
“I’m all right,” she called out in as clear a voice as possible—glad she had back at least this much ability to talk. “I’m Shayla Whitman, I live across the street. This is Navy SEAL Lieutenant Peter Greene. He lives here. We went inside his house and interrupted either a burglary or a home invasion in progress. Two men, both dressed in black, ski masks, gloves. One of them assaulted me in his haste to get away.”
Crap, even though she’d played the Navy SEAL card, the two officers didn’t lose their expressions of grim suspicion, and those weapons didn’t get lowered.
But then a thin voice piped up. “I saw the whole thing from my window. It’s true.” It was Mrs. Quinn. “I even saw the two men when they first arrived. Someone dropped them off and drove away. They were riding in the back of a big black truck. They knocked on the front door, but then they went around to the back.” She looked at Shayla. “You and the SEAL must’ve been in the garage, doing God knows what.”
But Shayla ignored the elderly woman’s obvious judgment and focused on the most important thing that she’d said. “A big black truck?” She looked at Peter. “Wasn’t the truck, you know, with the bucket…? Wasn’t that also big and black?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
$12K NOW
The large block letters were written on the wall of Maddie’s bedroom in red spray paint. The police had taken away the paint canister, but since the intruders had been wearing gloves, no one expected them to find any fingerprints.
“This can’t be good,” Shayla said, taking Peter’s hand because if this message had shown up on Tevin’s or Frank’s wall, she would’ve wanted someone holding her hand.
He was silent, just looking at it.
It’s very, very not good.
For the first time in a while, Harry was back.
Peter’s SEAL friend Izzy was standing silently beside them. He’d shown up as the fire truck was pulling away, as Peter, Shay, and Mrs. Quinn were all giving their statements to the police.
It takes a lot to silence that one, Harry commented as he glanced at Izzy, and Shay nodded. Yeah.
Of course Izzy’s current silence might’ve been due to the awkward fact that he’d walked right into Shayla earnestly telling both the police and Peter that she wanted to be completely honest about why they hadn’t heard the two men approaching the house while they were in the garage “sorting through boxes,” as Peter had reported. She appreciated his attempt to be discreet, but she was a grown woman, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with what they’d done. They weren’t in public, they were in the back of the garage in essentially a separate room created by the stack of boxes and, yes, they’d been having an “intimate relationship moment.”
At the time, Izzy had coughed, probably to cover a laugh, but Shay hadn’t needed to look at the man to know he’d been thinking, I knew it!
He thought you guys were gettin’ it on before you were getting it on, Harry pointed out now. Kind of like life imitating art.
“Not even close.” And yup, she’d just said that aloud. Thanks, Hare.
“What does it mean?” Peter asked. “I mean, what could it mean, besides the obvious?”
“I’m not sure I know what the obvious is.” Izzy finally spoke. “Aside from prank, which nah, I’m not buying.”
The police had suggested that the entire incident was little more than a high school prank run amok. Maddie was obviously dealing with some personal issues, and had “no doubt” run into trouble at her new school.
“Those weren’t kids breaking in to prank her,” Peter said again. He’d said it a lot while the police were still there. “Those were men.”
“Big men.” Shay glanced at him. “I, um, didn’t tell the police this, because it didn’t seem all that relevant, but after my personal creepy assailant threatened me, I told him I was, um, an FBI agent, and that he was under arrest. Sadly, he did not comply.”
Peter managed a wry smile as he looked down at her. “Still. Nice try.” He looped his arm around her shoulder to pull her in even closer.
You didn’t tell the po-po because you thought maybe impersonating a federal agent might be a crime, Harry pointed out. For the record, if you’re flinging handfuls of bullshit around in order to defend yourself from physical harm, as you were in this case, it’s not an issue. But say you go around telling old Mrs. What’s-Her-Name that you work for the FBI, that’s when your problems get real.
Izzy was laughing, too. “Grunge, my man, your woman is a keeper.”
Awkward.
“That one man,” Shay said, bringing the conversation back on topic. “The first man. We saw him without his ski mask. He was not a teenager. In fact, I would bet my life on the fact that he had gray in his stubble.”