Lethal Exposure. Elisabeth Rees

As if by stealth, he had become the most important man in her life, and it made her feel very wrong inside. She regretted calling him. She should have called the police again instead.

      A drawer slammed in her bedroom, and she heard heavy footsteps walking on her wooden floor. It sounded like somebody was looking for something, checking all her drawers and cabinets. But whatever it was, he clearly wasn’t finding it. She renewed her efforts to push the shelf nice and tight against the door, noticing the door handle slowly turn. The door held firm. The handle rattled as it was shaken violently from the other side, and she used her body to push against the barricade, hoping that the police would arrive soon. After all, it was their job to protect her, not Jack’s.

      * * *

      Conrad Jackson raced through the dark, empty streets in his Porsche 911. He rarely drove the car, preferring the sturdy robustness of his pickup truck. He only kept the Porsche because Rebecca liked it—she said the yellow color brightened even the darkest of days. And if anyone knew about dark days, it was Rebecca.

      “Bec,” he called into the cell phone hooked up to the car’s speaker system on the dash. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m almost there. I’ve called the police, and they’re on their way back to you.”

      The sounds coming from the speakers were impossible to distinguish, but he thought he could hear dragging noises, probably from the big metal shelf that stood in the corner of the bathroom. She sounded like she was barricading herself into the bathroom well. She was safe for now, and he shifted into fifth, increasing his speed to make sure she stayed that way. Rebecca and her children had been the focus of his life for the last eighteen months, ever since making a solemn promise to his SEAL colleague and best friend to look after his family. That fated mission had been the last for both of them—Ian Grey had lost his life, and Jack made the decision never to return to active duty. Cradling his dying friend in his arms on a dusty hillside in Afghanistan had changed Jack’s life forever.

      He turned onto Charles Street. “I’m here. Just hang on a little longer.” He had no idea if Rebecca could hear his voice over the speaker of the cell phone on the bathroom floor, but it didn’t matter. Talking to her made him feel more reassured. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. This was one promise he intended to keep no matter what, and the welfare of Rebecca and her children would always be his top priority.

      He screeched to a halt outside her home. The front lawn was well-manicured, and the wooden exterior of the large house was pristine white. There was no sign of anything being wrong on this leafy Florida street. He grabbed his cell phone from the dash and slipped it into the top pocket of his linen shirt, making sure he kept the line open. Then he pulled a handgun from his glove compartment and exited the car, making his way quickly and silently to the front door. The door was closed but opened easily with a gentle push. The lock was lying neatly on the carpet where someone had gone to considerable trouble to disassemble it in order to gain entry. This guy was a professional.

      The house was shrouded in darkness, and the only noise to be heard was the slow tick of the mantel clock in a living room strewn with papers and files from Rebecca’s cabinets. He noticed some of her award-winning prints amongst the clutter—photos of Somalian soldiers holding guns aloft, images of Chechen children caught up in a war they didn’t understand, pictures of ordinary Afghan people trying to rebuild their lives among the chaos of conflict. Rebecca captured more than the scene itself. She captured the pain in people’s eyes and the humanity behind the headlines. Her dedication to photographing suffering in the world humbled him, and to see her life’s work discarded on the floor made his anger bubble to the surface. Jack found himself hoping that the intruder had hightailed it out of there, lest he let his anger get the better of him.

      Creaks on the floor above let him know that someone was walking through one of the bedrooms with hurried footsteps. He ascended the stairs with soundless movement, keeping one ear trained on any noise coming from the cell phone in his pocket. The dragging noises in the bathroom had ceased. He hoped it was a good sign.

      Then the house was filled with sounds of dull, repetitive thudding, reverberating through the air on a menacing wave. It was coming from Rebecca’s bedroom, where she was hiding in the adjacent bathroom. He took the last few steps in one bound and burst into her bedroom to see a masked man bringing his foot heavily against the barricaded bathroom door. In one hand, the man held a semiautomatic pistol, raised level with his shoulder. Jack’s sudden presence in the room caused him to jump back from the door and point his gun, ready to shoot.

      Jack dived to the side before the bullet had a chance to seek him out, and he saw Rebecca’s closet door splinter with a powerful impact. He rolled and sprang to his feet, running out into the hallway to see the black-clad man dart into Rebecca’s youngest daughter’s bedroom. The intruder yanked open the window with such force that the frame slammed into the casing, shattering the glass on impact. The guy let out an expletive and tried to force the remaining shards through the frame with his gloved hands, ready to make a quick getaway.

      Jack took his opportunity and ran to the doorway, firing a warning shot into the wall right next to the man. The suspect immediately raised his hands in the air, shuffling on his sneakered feet, crunching on the glass beneath.

      Jack looked at the shards scattered on Charlotte’s dollhouse, and his anger intensified. “You should be grateful the little girl who sleeps in this room isn’t here,” he said through gritted teeth. “What do you want with this family?”

      The man didn’t answer. And neither did he turn around. He remained standing with his back to Jack, hands aloft, still holding his gun.

      “Put the gun on the floor,” Jack ordered. “Slowly.”

      The man began to steadily lower his arms and bend his knees to squat down on the floor.

      “Jack.” Rebecca’s voice was faltering behind him. In his peripheral vision, he could see her walking hesitantly into the hallway.

      He didn’t remove his eyes from the intruder, who was taking his time to lower his weapon to the floor. “You okay, Rebecca?”

      He felt her hand come to rest on his shoulder and glanced down at it. Streaks of blood stained his shirt, and he momentarily let his guard slip.

      “You’re hurt,” he exclaimed, taking her hand and holding it in his. He flipped his eyes back up to the suspect and was faced with an empty space. It had taken the guy barely a second to vault through the broken glass. Jack ran to the window and saw the man scrambling down a tree alongside the house. His wiry figure was illuminated by the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police car that had turned onto the street. He turned to race from the room in hot pursuit, but Rebecca gripped his forearm.

      “Let him go, Jack,” she said. “The police will pick him up.” She looked at him intently. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

      He saw the fear on her face and gave a small nod of his head. He couldn’t leave her when she needed him. He put his gun down and lifted her bloodied hand in his. There was a long cut that snaked down her forefinger to her thumb.

      “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said. “I cut myself trying to move the shelf in the bathroom.” She laughed weakly. “When I bought it, I never thought I’d be moving it to use as a barricade.”

      He took her noninjured hand and led her into the main bathroom. He flipped the light switch before remembering that the power was out, and he used his cell phone to activate a flashlight. He sat her on the edge of the bathtub, pulled a clean towel from the rack and wetted it a little to wrap around her wound. He then positioned himself on bended knee to hold the towel tight against the cut. Her usually honey-warm skin looked pale with a streak of blood across her forehead. He often thought that her skin had a luminous quality, and it seemed to sparkle when the sun shone down on her. Her eyes were the palest blue he’d ever known, in stark contrast to her dark, almost black hair. To say she was striking was a vast understatement. But at that moment her radiance was fading, and she looked exhausted.

      He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “You okay?”

      She