Married Or Not?: Married or Not? / Ian's Ultimate Gamble

She returned his gaze, her eyes dry. “I think I got that. It looks like every Friday is the thirteenth to me.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done this? A former boyfriend, a jealous female?”

“I have no former boyfriend and if anyone is jealous of me, that’s news to me. “

He took her hand and she saw a flash of the Greg with whom she’d spent the evening. “I’m so sorry you have to go through this.”

She looked down at their clasped hands. “Me, too. It really is a bit much. Everything I own is destroyed as though a fire had swept through. Nothing is salvageable. The only clothes I have at the moment are what I’m wearing.”

“I know. We’ll deal with that a little later.”

A couple of cruisers arrived and Greg got out of his car. He walked over and spoke to the driver of one of them. Two others got out of the second car and joined him. She recognized one of them whom she’d seen last week investigating the murder.

She shivered. What if— No, she didn’t want to go there.

After several minutes the two men and a woman followed Greg back into the apartment building.

How did whoever had done this know she’d be gone this evening? Was she being watched? She glanced around the parking lot and quickly locked the doors.

Greg returned shortly and she unobtrusively unlocked the doors.

He got into the car and started the engine. Once out of the parking lot he headed away from the university area.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you home with me,” he said softly. “You’ll be safe there, I promise you that. You can use my other bedroom until we get all of this settled.”

She had no intention of arguing with him. “There is one thing,” she finally said.

“Yes?”

“I need to stop at a store and get a few things.”

“We can do that.” He changed lanes and signaled to turn left. After a few miles, he turned into the parking lot of a large store that stayed open late.

There were few cars around. Not too many shoppers at close to midnight on a Friday night.

Greg parked across from the entrance and stopped.

“Thank you. I won’t be long.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m coming with you.”

“Oh, that isn’t—”

“Yes, it is. We’re going to be joined at the hip until this thing is put to rest.”

“You think it has something to do with the murder,” she stated, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“That’s one of the theories I’m working on. We hope to find some prints in that mess. If not, we’ll continue to follow other leads. I don’t want to take any chances where you’re concerned. The men you saw could very well believe that you saw them and reported it.”

“So they’ve been watching me?”

He nodded. “Has anything unusual happened to you this week? Besides your apartment being destroyed, I mean.”

“Well, I don’t know how unusual it is, but I’ve gotten several hang-up calls. Probably wrong numbers.”

“Or checking if you’re home.”

She stared at him in surprise. “I suppose.”

“My guess is that they’re trying to scare you.”

“They have definitely done that.”

He groaned. “And I’ve made it worse by showing an interest in you. They think you’re giving me additional information.”

“That’s a logical assumption.”

“But we both know that isn’t the reason I asked you out.”

She bit her bottom lip. She refused to cry in front of him, but it was tough because he was being nice to her. It had been easier to hide her emotions when he was in his cop mode.

“Let’s go shopping,” he said, opening his door. She got out and met him in front of his car.

“From now on, you wait until I open your door.”

“I’ve been opening my own doors for years. I’m sure I can handle it.”

“So if a car happened to pull up beside you as you were getting out of the car, and a couple of men grabbed you and threw you into the back of their car…or van…you could cope with that?”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“If it makes you a little less independent for a while.”

“I’ve never been the damsel-in-distress type.”

He took her elbow and guided her across toward the front of the store. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

Nine

Greg lived in a quiet, residential area, made up of several apartment buildings that looked so much alike Sherri wondered how anyone would know which one was his or hers.

He pulled into a covered parking area. “We’ll get your car in the morning. I have two parking spaces.”

Sherri had so little energy left she had to force herself to get out of the car and gather the sacks in the backseat that contained all of her worldly belongings.

Greg gathered the ones she couldn’t reach from her side and, once the doors were closed, locked the car. Without a word, he led her across the driveway to one of the buildings, climbed two stories to the top floor and strode to the door of one of the apartments.