Perry aimed for the back tire. He pulled the trigger.
“Fucking son of a bitch,” he growled when the Suburban made a sharp turn and started coming toward Perry.
Mess with his goddamn family. He didn’t give a fucking rat’s ass about rules or regulations. He would take the asshole out right here and now.
“Sick bastard,” Perry yelled, aiming when the black SUV started at him. “Take me on. You’ll die slow and tortuously. I’ll fucking see to it.”
There was a rumbling behind him as well. Kylie had Dani and was heading toward him and the black Suburban. He didn’t budge, though. All he wanted was that fucking SUV to get close enough so he could dive to the side. He needed to see the driver, confirm for himself his suspicions. Then he would nail the fucking bastard to the wall.
Kylie stood on the damn horn behind him and the SUV swerved, squealing its tires and burning rubber when it took off around the side of the building. He noted the license plate numbers as being the same ones they’d taken down before. It was Peter!
“Scoot over,” Perry yelled, grabbing the driver’s-side door and yanking it open when Kylie slowed.
He was impressed that she had Dani lying on the seat, and didn’t bother waiting for either of them to adjust themselves next to him when he gunned the motor and took off after the Suburban.
“It’s the same truck,” Kylie told him.
“Yup. This time we’re going to find out where he’s going.”
“Watch out,” Kylie yelled, her hand going protectively in front of Dani when a car came at them from the front of the building.
“Son of a bitch.” He was going too fast and slammed on his brakes, barely missing the other car. “Fucking idiot,” he hissed.
Kylie and Dani didn’t say a word, which was in their best interest. Neither one of them dared cross him right now. He needed blood, needed to see the asshole suffer who had tried stealing Perry’s niece from her family.
“Where did he go?” Kylie asked. She’d taken his gun from his lap when he’d gotten in the car and had secured the safety on it, and now had it pressed in her lap.
Perry’s heart beat furiously in his chest when he blew out an exasperated breath, searching the dark lot and the exits. “He couldn’t be that far ahead of us.”
Kylie leaned against him, but when he glanced in her direction focusing on the exit at that end of the parking lot he noticed she shifted her body to put her arm around Dani. Kylie could cuddle his niece all she wanted. When they got home, the kid would be in more trouble than she’d ever known in her life. He shook from the terror of how close they came to losing her tonight. And he’d be damn sure she understood that before he left her with her mother.
“Over there!” Kylie almost yelled, her entire body stiffening when she pointed in front of them.
Dani yelped but didn’t make any further noise when Kylie quickly sunk into the seat and wrapped her arms around the teenager.
“Do you see?” she added, more quietly.
“Where?” He frantically searched the dark, way-too-still parking lot.
“At the edge of the strip mall. There is a car not moving, as if it’s hiding.”
“Not anymore,” Perry growled, cutting across the lot although this time he watched for inattentive drivers. He didn’t have lights in this truck that he could slap on the hood to keep civilians out of his way. They were on a silent run, which meant he needed to be as alert for their perp as he was for everyone else around them. “I’ve got you now, motherfucker.”
Perry drove the truck straight across the parking lot, ignoring the arrows indicating the flow of traffic and cutting across empty stalls until he reached the end of the building. His heart sunk when they pulled up alongside a parked black Ford van.
“I don’t understand how he can keep disappearing so easily when he’s in such a large vehicle.” Kylie voiced Perry’s frustration, her own voice tight with emotions he was sure matched his own. “Let’s take Dani home. I need to make some phone calls.”
“Can I stay at your house?” Dani asked, whispering.
Perry was pretty sure she wasn’t presenting that question to him and opened his mouth to give her a piece of what he had to dish out to her but didn’t get the chance to speak.
“You’re going home.” Kylie sounded stricter than he’d ever heard her sound before. Her soft, sultry tone was gone. “Your mother is worried sick.”
“None of this would have happened if-”
“Don’t even go there.” Now Kylie was pissed. She shifted more in the seat, completely facing Dani, with her ass brushing against Perry’s thigh. “None of this would have happened if you’d thought like an adult, which you obviously aren’t. And until you are, don’t you ever storm out on your mother again like that. Do you understand at all?”
“I can’t believe you’re yelling at me,” Dani said, breaking down into a serious sob session.
Perry knew his niece well enough to know when she started crying that hard there wasn’t any point in continuing the lecture. Dani wouldn’t hear a word of it. Obviously Kylie didn’t know this about her.
“I can’t believe you left every ounce of your intelligence at home when you ran away.”
Dani sniffed and then sucked in a hard, staggered breath. It was quiet for a moment and Perry chanced glancing over at the women after turning out of the parking lot. Let the two of them battle it out. He was getting some new insight into Kylie, one being that she had no problem speaking her mind when she was pissed. The other being that she obviously cared about his niece.
Kylie straightened, facing forward as Perry picked up speed, keeping his eye open for the black Suburban. He relaxed his arm on the back side of the bench seat, which he often did when he drove in the car, especially when he had more than one passenger. Dani looked at him for the first time; her black eyeliner streamed down her face, staining her cheeks clear to her cheekbones. He met her gaze, daring her without saying a word to even try to comment about his arm being around Kylie. Dani looked away first, pressing her hands together in her lap, and stared at them.
“I thought you would understand,” Dani said, stubborn and stupid enough to press the subject.
“When I was fourteen my seventeen-year-old sister stormed out of the house after fighting with my parents. She was running to her boyfriend’s house and I knew it,” Kylie began, relaxing her head against his arm. Her soft hair tortured his already-overstimulated nervous system. She didn’t seem to notice how close they were. “Karen never made it to her boyfriend’s house. She was raped and murdered. We didn’t find her until three days later. There wasn’t Internet back then, or cell phones, or media that is all over everyone’s business like they are today. We didn’t know there was a rapist in the community who’d already attacked twice. He killed one other girl after my sister and was never caught, at least not that we know. My sister’s death destroyed my parents. They never recovered from it. For three years afterward, they forgot my birthday every year. It took me years past that to forgive them for ignoring me after they lost Karen.”
“I understand, I think,” Dani said, still sniffling.
Perry slowed when they reached Megan’s house and realized as he parked that he hadn’t called his sister. “First thing out of your mouth better be an apology,” he told Dani, opening his door as he spoke.
Dani didn’t answer but opened her passenger door and slid out of the truck. Kylie hurried after her, but Perry grabbed her arm and pulled her back against him. “Tell me what she told you on the phone,” he said, wrapping his arm around Kylie’s waist.
Something soothed the tortured frenzy he’d experienced burning him alive since they left Megan’s when Kylie didn’t fight him to be free. She leaned against him, tilting her head against his shoulder so that her soft blonde hair tickled his flesh.
“She went and met Petrie. She didn’t say what happened.” Kylie looked up at him, her blue eyes clouded with her concern and her tone serious, and once again soft and sultry sounding. “I’m going to find out, and I’ll do better if you don’t go in there fully cocked and ready to tear into her. But my guess is that she had a run-in with Peter and for whatever reasons got away. If she hadn’t called me from that pay phone it sounds as though he would have snagged her.”
“And then the motherfucker got away.” He got away with a bullet nick on the side of his Suburban, something that would make it easier to identify. “I’m going to have to call this in.”
“Same here,” Kylie added, and then adjusted herself just enough to look him squarely in the eyes. “Sounds as if you and I are going to be in as much trouble as Dani.”
He doubted anyone inside was looking out the front window right about now, but he didn’t give a damn if they were. Cupping Kylie’s chin, he forced her head back just a bit more and tasted her.
Kylie was warm, moist, and breathless as she greeted him with soft, full lips. For the first time since they’d left to search for Dani he smelled his sex on Kylie. They hadn’t taken time to shower but had raced out of his house and over here without putting themselves back in order. Under different circumstances, at least one of the attentive women in that house would have noticed.
“If we hadn’t been together tonight, we wouldn’t be as close to nailing our perp,” he told Kylie, moving his mouth over hers.
“Good story, but the truth is if your niece weren’t such a willful teenager we wouldn’t be closer to knowing who our guy is.”
“Speaking of which.” Perry let go of her long enough to lock his truck. “Let’s go hear what she has to say. We can call in after we leave.”
She didn’t try getting away when he draped his arm over her shoulder and led her to the front door. Kylie put her hand on the door handle before he could, though, and turned, looking up at him. “Promise me now you won’t go off on her.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I tell Megan. I don’t believe in babying any of them just because they’re girls.”
Kylie shook her head and it looked like she almost rolled her eyes. If she did, the action was quick enough in the dark that he wasn’t sure.
“Their gender has nothing to do with it. Yell at anyone and you get less out of them than if you are levelheaded and feel the situation out before interrogating.”
“Telling me how to do my job, Special Agent?” He was poking fun at her, intrigued by her concern that they enter his sister’s house as though it were a crime scene. In actuality he’d already viewed the situation as needing just that kind of approach. Perry was quickly learning Kylie wouldn’t automatically follow his lead. She would jump in fully prepared to command the situation unless he instructed her otherwise.
“I’m just saying…,” she said, licking her lips and shifting her dark blue eyes while searching his face.
Perry put his arms on her shoulders, turning her around, then reached under her arm and pushed open the door. “We’ll work the scene, partner, but you’ll keep in mind this is my family and you won’t undermine anything I tell my nieces.”
“I wouldn’t dream-” Kylie stopped talking when Denise jumped up from where she was watching TV, her eyes wide, but then grinned broadly and ran to Perry.
Kylie stepped away so Denise could climb him, the last of the four still able to do that. “Dani came home, Uncle Perry. She and Mom are upstairs fighting.”
“You’re smart to stay down here and watch TV,” he told her, pecking her forehead with a kiss before peeling her off him and placing her on her feet.
“Will you watch TV with me?” Denise looked ready to fall asleep, her eyes puffy and her light brown hair tousled, probably from her being half-crashed on the couch.
“I’m going to go upstairs and check on things then I’ll be back down.” Knowing it would be harder to get away from Denise without her latching her small body to his leg, he escorted her back to the couch. “But I’ll fluff the pillows just like I would for me if I were getting ready to stretch out at my house and watch TV.”
“You’re the best pillow fluffer.” Denise crossed her arms, watching him seriously, but shot Kylie more than one curious glance. “Can I have a blanket, too?”
“May I have a blanket,” Kylie said behind him, and walked to his side with the folded afghan from behind the large corner chair in her hands.
“May I have a blanket?” Denise asked, sounding sleepier when she crawled onto the couch and straightened so Perry could unfold the blanket and cover her with it. “Everyone says Kylie is your new girlfriend,” she asked, whispering although Kylie stood next to him. “Are we going to have to start calling her Aunt Kylie?”
“No,” he told Denise, not hesitating. That was one response he could give without getting a headache thinking of how to answer. “Now get comfortable and I’ll be back down in a few.”
“Okay, Uncle Perry. Mom said Kylie would see right through you and she would lock horns with Dani and all of that would be bad. So I’m glad she isn’t going to be my aunt.” Denise didn’t look at Kylie but snuggled under her blanket and turned to face the back of the couch.
Perry didn’t even want to think about what his sister meant by Kylie seeing right through him. He didn’t have anything to hide. One look at Kylie’s face and he knew she found his niece’s comment rather amusing. She was a smart woman, though, and hid the smile he saw glowing in her bright blue eyes. Instead, she turned toward the stairs and led the way up to the bedrooms. At least he had a hell of a view while climbing the stairs.
Megan approached the top of the stairs at the same time they did. Exhaustion lined her face and she was several shades paler than usual. God, he hated how hard she worked. And the added stress of the evening was the last thing she needed.
“Oh, Perry,” she cried, reaching for him while fresh tears appeared in her eyes. “Thank you so much for bringing her home.”
Perry didn’t make it to the top step before his sister wrapped her arms around him. She seemed thinner than usual, and she almost collapsed against him when he gave her a big hug. Glancing over Megan’s head at Kylie, who’d moved out of the way for the second time since they entered this house to allow his family near him, she stared at the floor, her expression unreadable. Before he looked away, he caught her glancing toward the one open bedroom door and guessed she itched to go talk to Dani.
“Kylie, would you give us a minute?” he asked, hating to admit she would probably be more successful getting information out of Dani than he would right now. In fact, before he calmed down it was probably a good idea if he let his niece alone. “Dani’s bedroom is straight ahead, the open door.”
Kylie didn’t say anything but nodded once, her expression tight when her gaze traveled down Megan’s backside. She left him with his sister and walked silently down the hall, her purse clutched to her side. Kylie disappeared inside Dani’s room, closing the door behind her.
“Dani called Kylie. I really don’t get any credit for finding her. And she kept me from killing your daughter, so she probably should be thanked twice,” he said, still holding Megan tightly in his arms.
“I need to get the girls to bed.” Megan didn’t comment on what he said.
Perry remembered Kylie’s brief story about her sister being killed when Kylie was a teenager and wondered if she wouldn’t do better consoling his sister, too. Emotions were running too high in this house, and he wasn’t the best psychologist on the planet.
“Denise is tucked in on the couch. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already out. I’ve locked the front door.”
“You know, you’re supposed to be a pain in my ass. You’re my baby brother,” Megan said, shifting in his arms but not looking up at him. Instead she made a fist and pressed it over his heart. “I was so scared, Perry. You have no idea-”
“Yes, I do.” He felt her start trembling and knew she held back from a full collapse. “I want you to take a hot bath. I’ve got your back, Sis. Go soak. Make it a bubble bath. The girls will be in bed tucked in and snoring when you get out.”
“Perry, I can’t.”
“Like hell. Quit acting like your daughters and talking back to me,” he growled, putting her at arm’s length and turning her around. Then holding on to her, he guided her to her bedroom, which was the only room upstairs with an adjoining bath. “I don’t want to see you again tonight,” he informed her.
“I’m too drained to fight you tonight.” Megan’s laugh was dry, but there was appreciation in her tone. “If I ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?”
“Do you know how much men hate hearing that out of a woman’s mouth?” He tilted his head, focusing on the dark circles under her eyes and how easily he saw her cheekbones. His sister needed a long vacation, to be pampered. Hell, if he could think of one good man in this town, he would play matchmaker. She was doing way too much on her own, and the girls’ acting up, like Dani did tonight, was more than she could bear. “What is it?”
Megan searched his face, worrying her lower lip for a moment. Even when they were kids she got the same look on her face she did now when she thought really hard about how to say something, or approach an uncomfortable subject. He narrowed his gaze on her, wondering what in the hell she was about ready to drop in his lap.
“What is your relationship with Kylie?” she asked, whispering as she shot a furtive glance at Dani’s closed bedroom door.
“We don’t have a relationship.” It was the second time tonight he’d denied anything was going on between him and Kylie. Tonight wasn’t the right night to suggest anything otherwise.
“Your hands have been all over her ever since you’ve been here.” Megan crossed her arms over her chest, giving him her shrewd mother look that reminded him so much of their mom. “You are having sex with her.”
“Do you really want to know what women I have sex with and when?” He didn’t like this conversation but knew how to throw it back in her face so Megan would back off.
“We’re a very tight, small family, Perry. And you are the main father figure in my girls’ lives. I know you want that role, and I don’t have a problem with it. But if you’re going to have any kind of relationship, then yes, I want to know when and how often,” she said firmly although still whispering. “I should have a right to yea or nay someone else entering into our family.”
“You don’t like Kylie?” He had a hard time believing that.
“Dani told me Kylie took your gun out of your lap while you were driving and Dani was sitting next to Kylie. She told me Kylie handled the gun like a pro, barely looking at it while checking its safety and ensuring it didn’t have bullets in it.”
“I noticed that, too.” He hadn’t given a thought to how professionally she handled the gun. Her actions had made sense at the time and he would probably have done the same thing if their roles had been reversed at that moment.
“The list of qualities and talents you possess is longer than my arm.” Megan placed her hand on his shoulder and stared up at him with dark, all-knowing eyes. “We’re all accustomed to you handling all matters and seldom making mistakes.”
“Thank you,” he said, sensing he wouldn’t like where she was going with this.
“Kylie is a very beautiful woman. Smart and pretty, with a likeable personality. I can see why you would fall for her.” She paused, holding his gaze, and dragging the moment out before continuing. “Is there a chance she might not be being honest with you? Dani told me some of the things she said while in the truck, like how she needed to make some phone calls, and how she easily handled a loaded weapon. Before you left to go look for Dani, Kylie kept her cool while drilling me for information on Dani. Perry, is Kylie a cop?”
Perry saw immediately why Megan believed he would keep information from her like Kylie being a cop. “No, she isn’t. And if she were I would tell you,” he said, not lying.
Megan let out a long breath, once again exhaustion lining her face and making her eyes look puffy like her daughter’s. Perry ran his hand down the side of Megan’s head, hoping his smile reassured her.
“You don’t have time or energy to worry about me. Nor is it necessary. Go get that bath and relax.”
“You’ll make sure all the girls are in bed? They all have school in the morning.”
Perry wasn’t sure he wanted any of them leaving the house, even tomorrow for school. The hit tonight was personal, and he’d be damned if Peter were given another chance to smooth out his failure tonight.
“Bathtime now, young lady. Your girls are in good hands.” Perry turned her around and pushed Megan into her bedroom, closing her in when he pulled her door shut.
As outraged as he was at Dani for pulling the most stupid stunt of her life, one that too easily could have cost her life, it amazed him how perceptive she was. Kylie would need to watch her ass or a sixteen-year-old would blow her cover. He pondered this, going back and forth between being proud and furious with his niece while turning out Dorine’s lamp when he found her asleep in her bed and then carrying Denise upstairs and putting her in her bed next to Dorine’s.
When he opened Dani’s door without knocking, three incredibly stunning women turned their attention to him. Diane looked tired like her mother, Dani leery, and Kylie’s bright blue eyes were guarded for reasons he wasn’t sure of as he entered and closed the door silently behind him.
The bedroom was so quiet he swore he would hear a pin drop on the other side of the house as he walked into the feminine paradise of pink pillows and white lace. Dani sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed facing Kylie, who relaxed in the wooden rocking chair Megan used to have in the living room and where she had nursed all of the girls when they were babies. Diane was stretched out behind Dani on the bed, her head propped up by her hand.
“We’re pretty sure the man I saw tonight was the bad guy you’re trying to catch with your case, Uncle Perry.” Dani offered the information lightly, flashing him a glowing smile as if she were showing off an A on a report. “I can totally ID him for you. I know exactly what he looks like. Caucasian, brown straight hair, shorter than you, probably less than six feet tall.”
“None of that information is worth you almost losing your life tonight,” he growled, the anger that had burned through him earlier quickly returning. “If that man is Peter, he’s raped, tortured, and mutilated girls in town already. Would you like to see pictures of what he’s done to them?”
Dani shook her head and looked down at her hands, her long brown hair draping over her shoulder and hiding part of her face.
“At least she had the sense to figure out before she got in the car with him that he wasn’t the guy she’d been chatting with online,” Diane said, pushing herself to a sitting position and rubbing her sister’s back.
“Yes, he was,” Kylie and Perry said at the same time.
“That’s the whole problem and what had me terrified,” Kylie added, resting her elbows on her knees while staring at the two girls. “All this time, Dani, you’ve been talking to an online sexual predator.”
“That is just so hard to believe,” Dani said, although she sounded more defeated than defiant now. As she collapsed back on her pillows, her long thick hair fanned around her face, which had at some point been scrubbed free of makeup. Dani looked younger and more innocent than ever. “We did our homework together, talked about the future, our families and our brothers and sisters.”
“If he weren’t as good as he is the police would have captured him already,” Kylie offered soberly.
Dani turned her head, staring at Kylie without saying anything at first. “I swear you’re a cop. I’m going to find a Bible and make you put your right hand on it and tell me you aren’t.”
Kylie’s laughter was melodic. “I would do that for you,” she said easily, pushing herself to her feet. “Tomorrow,” she added. “It’s late and I do believe it’s a school night. I can’t believe your mother hasn’t kicked me out yet.”
“Everyone is in bed or heading there,” Perry announced. “Diane, call it a night.”
Diane didn’t argue with him, but then she seldom did. She gave Dani a quick hug, and her sister pulled her into her arms, hugging her fiercely. It was an act he hadn’t seen between the two of them in ages, and he hated thinking of where the night could have ended up if events had turned out differently. He would give thanks they didn’t, though, and prayed that the reality of the situation would scare some serious sense into his nieces.
Diane crawled off Dani’s double-sized bed and straightened her blouse that hung low over leggings, which showed off her thin legs. Then grabbing her hair at her nape and pulling it behind her shoulders, she turned to Kylie but didn’t approach her. “Thanks for helping our uncle,” Diane said, fidgeting with the bottom of her shirt as if hesitating to say more. “Good night,” she added, then walked around her uncle to her room across the hall.
“Yell at me tomorrow, okay?” Dani said, rolling to the side of the bed. “I just want to crash.”
“Be grateful you are crashing in your bed tonight,” Perry said, wishing he could think of the perfect thing to say that would convince him Dani wouldn’t ever seek out a stranger online again. “And we will discuss this in great detail tomorrow. I’ll be over to get a full statement from you.”
“Like the real deal?” Dani’s eyes lit up, as she once again saw all of this as a great big adventure.
“No,” he barked. “Not like the real deal. This is the real deal, young lady, so damn real you better never forget it.”
“I won’t, I promise.” She dropped her feet off the side of her bed but then sat there instead of standing. “I need to go to the bathroom and get ready to go to sleep.”
Kylie headed toward the door, pausing when Perry didn’t move and hugged herself. Perry looked at his niece, who met his gaze, suddenly looking very sad.
“I guess I wanted someone to care for me and want me for me so badly, Uncle Perry, I refused to look at the obvious. Kylie and I went through a lot of the text messages Petrie and I exchanged and it was kind of obvious he wasn’t who he said he was. Kylie pointed out some things I’ll be sure and check for in the future.”
Perry knew how proud Dani was. She was just like him in that sense. Being wrong sucked. But getting killed over stupidity sucked even more. He still wanted to knock some serious sense into her, but the way she looked at him right now, appearing more defeated and so incredibly innocent with all of that crap washed off her face, Perry was around Kylie before he thought about it and pulling Dani into a huge bear hug.
Lifting her off the floor, he wrapped his arms around her slender, firm body. She was the perfect sixteen-year-old, her future ahead of her and so many doors open and waiting for her to choose. No one would rip her out of his life. This family already had lost a good man, Megan’s husband and the girls’ father. It had nearly destroyed them, and only time and a lot of love kept them from falling completely to pieces. No one would do any more damage to Perry’s girls.
“I love you, Dani,” he said, his voice thicker with emotion than he cared for it to be.
“I love you, too, Uncle Perry,” Dani said, a sob catching in her throat.
Perry did a final walk-through of the house, making sure everyone was in bed and checking all doors and windows. It crossed his mind to take Kylie home and then come back here, camp out on the couch for the night. Then it also hit him to just keep Kylie with him and both of them crash here.
Although he didn’t really like what Megan had to say, she had a point. Bringing a lady around the girls, if that lady wasn’t going to hang around, didn’t help create a healthy environment for any of them. He couldn’t do that any more than Megan could have men coming in and out of her life. Parenthood had some fucking steep criteria.