Mirror Image

He could easily imagine Jenna sitting outside, enjoying her patio while grilling burgers and brats. Not too different from the life he’d once envisioned for himself and Helen.

Griff closed off the painful reminders of his past to focus on the here and now. He crossed over to meet Jenna, who was coming in from the other side.

“No sign of him,” she said with obvious disgust. “No doubt you scared him off.”

“Probably. Or he had a car parked nearby.” Up close, he could see that she was bleeding from the corner of her lip, and the edge of her jaw was beginning to swell. “Let’s get some ice for your chin.”

She grimaced and gingerly palpated the tender area. “Yeah, he packed a mean punch.”

Griff took her arm to escort her to the front of the house. He swept a keen eye over the area as she opened the door, flipped on the lights and crossed the threshold.

He followed her into the kitchen and then hesitated in the doorway as she rummaged in the freezer for a bag of frozen peas. The corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. What would she say if she knew his cold pack of choice was a bag of frozen corn?

“Much better,” she mumbled, pressing the bag against her jaw.

His smile instantly evaporated when he noticed the dark bruise marring her beautiful skin. “Are you sure you don’t know him?” he pressed. “Maybe an old boyfriend?”

She rolled her eyes in a flash of annoyance. “I only have one old boyfriend, and we broke up six months ago,” she said, moving the bag of frozen peas so she could talk. “Eric used words as a weapon, not his fists, and he wasn’t as tall or broad in the shoulders. I was thinking more along the lines of this guy being a part of some case I worked on. Or maybe someone connected to the women’s shelter I help support. You know as well as I do, this isn’t the kind of job where we make many friends.”

He stared at Jenna for a moment, not liking the thought of her ex-boyfriend using words to lash out at her. Obviously, she was better off without him.

She was younger than Griff by almost five years, had long blond hair, bright blue eyes and a lean frame that was toned without being overly muscular. Her light blue blouse and denim jacket complemented her eyes.

Not that he should notice just how attractive she was. He wasn’t at all interested in going down the path of having a relationship. Not after the way he’d lost his wife just two years ago.

Two years, but at times it seemed like yesterday.

“Put the ice back on your jaw,” he said mildly. Once she did as he requested, he returned to the mysterious assailant. “Okay, so maybe you’re right about this guy being connected to one of your cases. Anyone in particular stand out in your mind? Anyone at the shelter have an angry ex?”

She shrugged. “All of the women at the shelter have angry exes or they wouldn’t be there. But no one specific comes to mind. And nothing stands out in any of my recent cases, either.”

He’d been afraid she’d say that. After all, they’d worked dozens of cases over the past year. And Jenna was well-known in the community as an advocate for abused women, too. “Fine. Then we should go through the recent ones and see who might have gotten released from jail.”

She arched an eyebrow. “For all we know, the perp could be related to someone in jail. Or was paid to attack me.”

He didn’t want to think about the endless possibilities. “You could be right, but somehow I get the sense that this was personal.”

She stared at him curiously. “Why do you think that?”

He was caught off guard by the fact that he wanted to go and gently hold the ice pack against the bruise himself. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t the first time one of his deputies had got injured. Just a few months ago, Deputy Nate Freemont had been shot in the line of duty.

He cared about the deputies who reported to him. But, for some reason, he found himself more preoccupied with Jenna’s attack and subsequent injury than he should be.

The image of the guy slugging Jenna hard enough to send her sprawling backward onto the hard, unforgiving concrete was etched in his memory. The vicious attack had come out of nowhere. There had to be some reason for it.

When he realized she was waiting for him to answer, he shrugged. “He didn’t use a knife or gun, which is what most assailants would use to get what they want. Not to mention he didn’t ask for money. And he hit you directly in the face, which is always an indication of being personally involved with the victim.”

She nodded slowly. “You’re right. We learned about that at the academy.”

“Tell me how he approached you,” Griff continued. “Did he call you by name? Or just grab you?”

“He didn’t call me by name, but he did grab me from behind,” she admitted. “He locked his arm across my throat so I couldn’t breathe. He smelled like stale cigar smoke.”

It was too easy to visualize exactly what had happened. He frowned with concern. “How did you get away?”

She sent him an exasperated look. “I did pass self-defense training, you know. I finally caught him a good one in the kneecap, enough at least to make him loosen his grip. That was all I needed to break away from him.”

“Then what happened?”

“He kept coming after me,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Griff swallowed hard, wondering what the assailant had intended. A physical beating? Or worse, a sexual assault?

Neither option was at all acceptable.

“Do you have time to go and look through old files now?” he asked, driven by the need to find out just who this guy was. The sooner they had a suspect, the sooner they could slap cuffs on him and drag him into custody. “We can also review the known assailants of women who you’ve recently taken to the shelter, see if anyone looks at all familiar.”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I probably won’t get much sleep anyway.”

He caught a glimpse of the open scratches on her hand. “Wait a minute. What did those come from?”

She glanced down at her hand and smirked. “I managed to catch him in the mouth with my fist. Too bad—I was aiming for his nose.”

Griff almost smiled at her wry sense of humor. Jenna was tough; he knew that better than anyone. But it still bothered him to see her get hurt. “That settles it. We need to go to the hospital, see if there’s any DNA evidence we can use.”

She nodded, adjusting the frozen peas against her jaw. “You’re right. It’s worth a shot.”

“Wrap your hand in a brown paper bag to preserve the evidence, and I’ll drive you to the hospital,” he said, glad to take some sort of action. He was determined to find this jerk, no matter what it took.

“Okay, okay, give me a sec.” She turned and set down the peas to rifle through a junk drawer, finally coming up with a badly wrinkled brown lunch bag and a roll of tape. She stuck her hand inside the bag and awkwardly wrapped the tape around her wrist to hold the bag in place. Then she grabbed her makeshift ice pack with her free hand. “Okay, I’m ready.”

He nodded and stepped to the side so she could precede him out of the kitchen. He followed her to the front door, where she stopped abruptly.

“Hang on a sec,” she said, removing the frozen peas from her jaw to reach out for the light switch. She flipped one lever on and off several times, then pushed past him to head outside.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when she craned her neck in an attempt to see something overhead.

“I need to see inside the light fixture.” She glanced back at him. “Aim the screen of your phone up there.”

He did as she asked, as understanding dawned. “Something wrong with the light?”

“I noticed my porch light was out when I drove up,” she confessed. “Looks as if someone removed the lightbulb.”

It took a minute for her statement to sink into his brain. “You mean on purpose?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I guess you were right. This obviously wasn’t a random event. This was a premeditated, personal attack.”

The hint of fear in her blue eyes stabbed deep. This was one time he wished his instincts hadn’t been right.