And yet from the looks of it someone had been spying on her, and she hadn’t had a clue.
Or was she being paranoid?
“Can you at least tell me why you don’t talk about why you ended up here in Mesa Point the first time?” Duke asked, the rim of his coffee cup still holding his gaze.
Rather than go down that road again, she stood up and walked over to the kitchen cabinet. She pulled out a glass and filled it with water. From the window over the sink, she caught sight of someone in the tree line. “He’s back.”
Those two words sent Duke flying out the door.
She started after him but lost ground because she had to grab her keys and lock the door behind her. There was no way she was taking chances now that she was a target. By the time she reached the area where the boot prints were, Duke was long gone.
Also gone were the boot prints in the dry earth. Someone had come back to erase the fact they’d been there. Any hopes of a random Peeping Tom being responsible were dashed.
This just got real.
Chapter Four
The sound of twigs snapping underneath heavy footfall drew Duke’s attention east. He glanced behind and realized he had lost Audrey. As long as the perp was somewhere in front of Duke, he wouldn’t worry too much about the bastard circling back to get to her.
Duke pushed his legs to ramp up his speed. He’d always been a fast runner, and his job required him to stay physically fit to meet the demands of chasing felons while wearing a Kevlar vest. His perps had a habit of running. And shooting at him. Folks facing the rest of their lives in jail didn’t have a whole lot left to lose. They tried pretty much everything in the book to avoid capture.
Adrenaline gave him a much-needed boost of energy, considering his body was dead tired from stress coupled with lack of sleep. Even so, the runner stayed far enough ahead Duke was having trouble keeping up.
The fact there’d been one set of footprints around the tree made Duke believe the perp was working alone. This guy might be a loner who had a grudge against law enforcement officers. Females. Similar in look to Audrey. Those details didn’t exactly narrow the possibilities by much. Getting more facts would help narrow down what felt like finding a needle in a haystack. In Duke’s line of work, he would usually have a case file with the felon’s name on it. Tracking a perp down might be a challenge, but at least he knew who he was looking for and where their usual hangouts were. Flying blind carried a whole new set of challenges. He shouldn’t get ahead of himself, though. Footprints weren’t definitive proof Audrey was the next target.
Tree branches slapped him in the face as he tore through the wooded area by the lake. He knew this area like the back of his hand, which made following the perp a helluva lot easier.
Until the footfalls stopped, and he heard a splash coming from the lake.
Duke cut right toward the water as he shrugged out of his shirt. He toed off his boots at the tree line, then bolted toward the rocky shore. Sharp rocks lurked just beneath the surface of the water in this area of the lake. Keeping his boots on would slow him down swimming, so he wouldn’t put them back on.
Breaking through the trees wearing only jeans and socks, Duke stopped at the edge of the water. The perp would have to surface at some point unless he could hold his breath for the ten minutes it would take to cross the water. Did he think he could outswim Duke?
Under different circumstances, that might be funny.
There was no sign of the swimmer. The perp must be able to hold his breath. Unless he hadn’t jumped into the water like he wanted Duke to think. Duke spun around and searched the thicket. Movement to his left caught his eye.
Uncharacteristically, he hadn’t holstered his weapon when he’d stopped by Audrey’s cabin. In fact, his service weapon was currently locked inside his trunk along with the backup weapon he kept in an ankle holster.
Since he stood at the water’s edge far from the trees, he couldn’t exactly put a tree trunk in between him and the perp. The thick bark would have offered some protection against a bullet, and zigzagging through the thicket would have further reduced his chances of being shot.
Right now, he’d chased the perp right into a potential trap.
Duke bit back a curse that would make his grandmother reach for a bar of soap if he was still living under her roof.
A female figure emerged from the thicket as he tried to catch his breath. The run had knocked the wind out of him.
Audrey.
Duke turned toward the water again and scanned the surface for bubbles. The perp had to breathe at some point. It was then that he caught sight of the pool of blood that hadn’t reached the shore. The gentleman in him wanted to tell Audrey to turn around so she wouldn’t have to see all the blood. Except she worked in law enforcement and no doubt had seen this and much worse.
“What happened?” she asked, grabbing her side as she slowed her pace when she got about ten feet away from him. Those green eyes of hers searched his.
Rather than explain, he turned toward the water and pointed.
Audrey covered her gasp with a hand over her mouth. When she caught her breath, she asked, “Did you get a description of the perp?”
Duke shook his head. “He hasn’t surfaced, either.”
“This part of the lake has a lot of rocks and branches underwater,” she said. Her eyes said she was thinking the same thing as him. The body of the perp had to have been pierced when he dived into the water. He was far enough out to be hidden by the dark water. “What if he’s bleeding but still alive in there?” Audrey kicked off her shoes.
“He would have surfaced by now,” he said, placing a hand on her forearm to offer some kind of reassurance. Instead of comfort, he got the equivalent of a jolt of electricity from the contact. He’d forgotten the physical effect Audrey had on him every time their skin touched.
If she felt the same energy, she sure hid it. Then again, they’d been away from each other fourteen years without so much as a word. Most attractions would dim given enough time.
Rather than get inside his mind about why his hadn’t, he jogged over to slip his feet inside his boots and locate the shirt he’d chucked.
He found his clothing hanging off scrub brush. After shrugging into his shirt and pulling it down over his stomach, he rechecked the water. Red blossomed against the dark blue. At this point, he’d be tampering with evidence if he walked in to retrieve the body, so he didn’t interfere. Besides, Audrey was already on the phone with her boss, explaining the situation and requesting assistance.
Duke squatted down next to Audrey after she finished the call, noticing some fresh prints in the dirt. “Tennis shoes,” he noted.
“Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not the same person,” she said as he pulled out his cell phone and snapped a couple of pictures. Audrey did the same.
“True,” he agreed. Only time would tell. He wasn’t the same type of investigator as Audrey. His specialty was tracking known criminals.
“I guess we’ll know the identity of my Peeping Tom, if that’s what we’re going to call him, soon enough,” she said on an exhale.
“I can’t imagine whoever is in the water knew the area, or he would have known this part of the lake is dangerous to dive into.”
