The Marine Next Door

John locked the door behind him and leaned back against it, sweeping his gaze across the beige apartment decorated in wrapped furniture and sealed boxes.

So this was where he was going to live now.

It beat the cot and caves and blood he’d left in the Middle East. It beat the VA hospital and physical therapy units where he’d learned how to walk again.

But with nothing but bare walls and the paranoid lady cop next door, the jury was out on whether he’d call this new place home.

Chapter Three

“I know it’s an imposition, but it would be a huge help. Thank you, Coach Hernandez. Yes, I know. Thank you, Michael,” Maggie corrected at his insistence. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Maggie locked her double-cab pickup and hurried after the other woman and two men striding through the sliding glass doors into St. Luke’s Hospital. She’d been working the task force for nearly a week now, and this was the first time she’d been invited to leave the precinct office. If chauffeuring the members of the team was the only way she could get out and do some field work, then a chauffeur she’d be.

“I should be able to pick up Travis after practice this evening. With my new assignment at KCPD, my hours aren’t as structured as they used to be, and I just can’t get away today to pick him up after school and get him to Little League. But I’ll be there by the time you’re done.”

With an apologetic frown, Maggie nodded to the reception desk volunteer who was pointing to the sign requesting cell phone usage be limited to the lobby and outdoor areas of the hospital. But Michael Hernandez was saying something about his son having Webelo Scouts after practice and that his late wife used to take care of all the transportation stuff anyway, and would Maggie and Travis want to go out to dinner with him and his son afterward? Maggie wasn’t finding any polite way to break in to end the conversation with the man she’d asked the favor from.

Seeing Nick Fensom’s beefy hand holding the elevator doors open, and withering under the glare from the volunteer, she opted to simply interrupt and wrap up the personal call she’d had to make. “I’ve got work to do, Coach,” she apologized, carefully avoiding using his first name and encouraging anything that might be construed as a personal interest in him. “But I’ll call the school to let them know Travis can leave with you. No, I’m quite sure about dinner. I appreciate your help, though. Thanks.”

Worried that she’d kept the other task force members waiting, Maggie snapped her phone shut and darted through the open doors to an empty corner of the elevator. As the doors closed, she tried not to make too much of the feeling of déjà vu that skittered along her spine. Was it just last week that she’d gotten stuck on an elevator with her new neighbor, John Murdock? She’d been just as nervous about sharing the tight space with the imposing former marine as she was about joining other members on her first victim interview.

Joe Standage’s assertion that he didn’t know what the heck was going on in his building, and that he’d have to wait for an expert to help him repair the elevator before it went back into service, was hardly reassuring. Maggie and Travis had gotten into the habit of taking the stairs down to the parking garage anyway, so it wasn’t that much of a hardship to use them coming back up, as well. And even though dinner conversations with her son, and her own dreams at night, had centered around the possibility of crashing elevators and being trapped on one with a monster far less interested in helping them escape than John Murdock had been, Maggie refused to let her fears keep her from doing her job today.

For the trade-off of a free ride this morning, she’d get the chance to observe some of KCPD’s best in action. Maggie figured she’d learn more about how to conduct an investigation in one morning by watching the real thing than she’d learned in an entire semester of her interrogation tactics class.

But as the elevator moved upward, it wasn’t the anticipation of doing actual field work that had her heart pounding in her ears. Irrational as it might be, sharing an elevator with a man was always a challenge for her. Getting stuck on one was a real nightmare. Perhaps if she’d chosen to take the stairs ten years ago instead of allowing herself to get cornered in the elevator by her enraged husband, she might have gotten away. She might have been spared the attack that had forever changed her life.

She was justified in her aversion to sharing tight spaces with someone bigger and stronger than she was. Even compared to her, standing six feet tall with her work shoes on, John Murdock was an imposing man. Maggie’s gaze flickered to the red-haired detective in the tailored suit and tie. Spencer Montgomery was tall, but John Murdock was taller. She looked to the shorter, stockier detective in the black leather jacket. Nick Fensom was broad across the shoulders and muscular, but John was bigger. Not even the artificial leg and obvious limp could lessen the intimidation factor of the unsmiling Goliath who’d moved in next door.

At least, not in her book. Captain John Murdock, USMC, retired, with the strong hands and gruff sarcasm, was all male, all muscle and as much a mystery to her as the handwritten note that still haunted her nights.

Mags—

I miss you. I know I’ve done you wrong in the past, but I’m a changed man. I’ve got me a job and I’m not drinking.

I’ve paid my debt.

When can I see you?

Love,

Danny

Maggie’s nostrils flared as she breathed in deeply, willing the frissons of terror still sparking through her system to dissipate so that she could concentrate on the job at hand. The elevator snafu had to be a horrible coincidence that had made Danny Wheeler’s note seem that much more threatening. Still, she’d put in a call to her attorney the next morning to discuss getting a new restraining order against her ex-husband. Having the flower delivered to a public building like Fourth Precinct headquarters was easy enough. But how had he found her unlisted address? How had he gotten into the building, past the security gate at the garage and Joe Standage? And why had not one of her neighbors on the seventh floor—whose doors she’d knocked on before some of them were even awake that next morning—seen Danny come and go? Not even those piercing green-gold eyes of John Murdock had seen anyone lurking around her apartment.

Was she living with a bunch of hermits?

Were the tenants in her building too elderly, too foreign, too nearsighted, too hard-of-hearing, too afraid to step up and get involved with their neighbors? If they ever got to know Danny Wheeler the way she did, they’d be smart not to come out of their doors.

But one man had stepped up. Although circumstances hadn’t given him any choice, Captain John Murdock had gotten involved.

As Dr. Kilpatrick and the two detectives discussed their strategy for approaching Bailey Austin, Maggie’s mind replayed every moment of that encounter with her new neighbor. She could still hear the deep voice demanding she do the right thing despite her fears—still feel the big hands that had accidentally warmed her backside and made her feel unexpectedly secure when he’d clasped her fingers. She could easily recall her gratitude that he’d spoken kindly to her chatty son even though she’d done nothing to encourage any type of conversation. John Murdock was bigger and stronger than she in every way except for the fact she was armed and had two good legs. She should be supercautious about developing any kind of a relationship with him. She should be afraid of a man like that.

And yet she’d run to him for answers and assurances.

Why had she expected him to be alert to the comings and goings around her apartment, and concerned about her troubles? Yes, he’d stayed calm and gotten her off that elevator when her own fears had kept her from thinking straight. But blindly trusting a man like that was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. Did she think his handicap, and the burn scars on his arms and neck from an obviously terrible injury, meant he couldn’t harm her? Was she a fool to believe the military cut of his golden-brown hair and proud carriage of his shoulders meant he was a man who’d defend her?

Danny had done a stint in the Navy right out of high school. She knew better than to think that just because a man wore a uniform, he was a good guy. She was smarter than that—smart enough to know that outward appearances and little flickerings of awareness in her pulse were no way to judge the true character of a man. She’d fought too hard for her independence to let one panic attack and a lingering curiosity about her mysterious, attractive neighbor keep her from standing on her own two feet.

She would figure out what had gone wrong with the elevator. She would find out how Danny had gotten that note to her. She would make it clear that he could never be a part of her life, or their son’s, ever again. It was what a strong woman would do, what a well-trained KCPD detective would do. This morning she needed to set aside her fascination with John Murdock, and her fears about her ex, to become that detective she wanted to be.

Still, “Sarge, um, Maggie … are you okay?”

When was the last time a grown man who wasn’t an E.R. doctor or a fellow cop asked her that question?

She knew better than to make anything out of his concern. Heck, they’d barely spoken two words since that night. But it was nice to be asked. Nice that someone was polite enough to notice her distress. Nice to know that wigging out on a man didn’t automatically mean he couldn’t care. In a neighborly, we-just-survived-a-small-crisis-together kind of caring, of course.

Tamping down the smile that softened her lips, Maggie waited for the other task force members to exit the elevator and get a few steps ahead of her before falling into step behind them.

Bailey Austin’s hospital room was easy to spot. It was the one with the John Murdock-sized SWAT cop pacing back and forth in front of the door. She recognized Trip Jones as a coworker who checked in at her desk every morning before the precinct’s daily roll-call meeting. His wife was Charlotte Mayweather-Jones, stepsister to the rape victim they’d come to interview. Normally Trip greeted Maggie with a friendly smile.

But there were no smiles for any of them as they approached. “Detective Montgomery. Nick. Dr. Kilpatrick. Sarge.” Trip shook hands with each of them. “So this is the new task force?”

“Officer Jones,” Spencer acknowledged for all of them. He pulled back the front of his suit jacket to splay his hands at his waist. “How is she?”

Trip shook his head and shrugged. “It’s not good. I’m afraid to go in there. I could tell I made her nervous.”

“Did she say you remind her of her attacker?” Spencer asked.

“She didn’t say anything to me. I guess I can be kind of scary when I’m in the mood to wrap my hands around the neck of the bastard who did this.”

Dr. Kilpatrick squeezed his arm in reassurance. “That’s an understandable reaction, on both your parts. I’m sure that somewhere inside she appreciates you being here for her.”

“Maybe. This family has been through enough with Charlotte’s kidnapping, the murder of that worthless stepbrother of hers, and now this. I don’t know how much more she can handle.”

The blonde psychologist reached for the door handle. “We’ll be gentle with her, I promise.”

Spencer Montgomery caught the door and followed her in, with his partner right behind them. But when Maggie reached the open door, she stopped. “Wait a minute. We’re all going in there?”

“We need to question the victim while the incident is still fresh in her mind.” Detective Montgomery looked faintly annoyed at having to stop and explain his actions when he faced her.

Maggie shivered with the memory of when she’d been the woman lying in that hospital bed. “Her mind’s probably still in shock right now. And to see a crowd of armed police officers storm into her room—”

“We’re hardly storming,” Spencer argued in a hushed tone.

“We’re not the bad guys here,” Nick Fensom echoed.

Maggie looked over her shoulder to share a rueful glance that included Trip, as well. “Right now, in her mind, pretty much everybody’s a bad guy.”