Feisty, even though she still seemed a little groggy. Jackson sent up a quick prayer of thanks. If she’d walked away from this with anything other than a few bruises, he didn’t know what he would’ve done. “Do you remember what happened?”
She sat up slowly with his help. “Yeah. I went to the bathroom to freshen up. I lay down on the bed to wait for you, and I must’ve dozed off. Because the next thing I knew, he was bursting through the balcony door and jumping on top of me.”
“Did he say anything? Give you a reason why he came?” Most sick bastards liked to hear themselves talk. He was hoping this guy would follow suit and leave them some information they could use.
She took a deep breath, rubbing her neck slowly. “Yes. He kept saying ‘die’ repeatedly until I passed out.”
Jackson’s anger pushed against the calm veneer he tried to keep in place for her. She’d experienced a traumatic event. The last thing she needed was him blowing his top, acting like the brute who’d put his hands on her. “Did you recognize his voice?”
She shook her head. “It was like a rough whisper, angry enough for me to hear, but still too low for me to recognize.” She shuddered, the vibration rumbling beneath the palm he used to cup her cheek. “It could’ve been anyone, Jackson.” She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling with the sheen of unshed tears and the distinct smell of fear wafting off her skin. “Anyone.”
She closed her eyes and wet tracks slid down the sides of her face. Something snapped inside him like a brittle branch underfoot. He used the back of his hand to swipe the fat drops away. Then he pulled her into his embrace and let her burrow into his chest. He rubbed soothing circles on her back and didn’t speak until the pronounced shaking of her shoulders quieted to soft hiccups.
“You’re safe, Aja. Whoever this bastard is and whatever he wants with you, he didn’t win. That is the last time I’ll let him get to you. I promise.”
There was a knock at the door and she stiffened in his arms, lifting her face from his chest before looking toward the door.
“Jackson?” He focused on the door to see Storm peeking his head inside the room. “The sheriff is on his way. Colt and I want to take some pictures of the scene for our report before the locals come trampling through.”
Aja moaned, settling her head back against Jackson’s chest. “Please tell them not to come. I want to stay here with you until this is over.”
What he wouldn’t give for that to be possible. But it wasn’t. The sheriff and his team needed to canvass this scene, and he needed to check it out first before they made it up the stairs.
“Aja, come on. You passed out. Please, humor me. Let the EMTs examine you. Not to mention, we really need to get in here and get pictures for our reports. If this sheriff is as bad as you say he is, I don’t trust him not to fuck up this crime scene.”
He gave her one final squeeze, and it seemed to be enough to get her to cooperate. She sat up, rubbing her exposed arms, folding in on herself as if she were trying not to be seen. She was clothed, but after having someone invade her personal space like this, he understood if she wanted to be covered, protected by as many layers as possible to keep the outside world from getting in. “You have a robe or a sweatshirt you want me to grab for you before the boys come in?”
“On the back of my bathroom door.”
He rushed to her bathroom and grabbed the gray cotton garment from the lone hook on the back of the door and hurried back to his perch on her bed. He held it open for her, and she wrapped it around herself with quick hands. “You ready for them to come in?”
“Yeah.”
He waved Colton and Storm into the room. Colton carried what Jackson recognized to be their forensics bag. They couldn’t do a full canvas of the room because local law enforcement would notice. Or at least they should. If they noticed professionals had been there before them, then their cover would be blown.
But for now, they could get some pictures. While Aja recounted the attack to Storm, Colton took pictures of the surrounding scene. And Jackson took on the most important role of all. He held Aja’s hand while she relived it, stroking her knuckles while she spoke, encouraging her to continue. He didn’t care in the least that his men were there to witness it. Aja needed him, and that was all that mattered. He’d deal with the significance of that realization later. Right now, he needed to focus on her.
Chapter 15
Aja knew from the moment Jackson mentioned the local sheriff that things would get worse. She’d been assaulted in her own home, and now she had to deal with the likes of this asshole sitting across from her. Sheriff Leroy Hastings was a tall, lanky man with orange-brown hair that always seemed in need of a haircut. Whenever he removed his hat, he’d undoubtedly have to brush his unruly mop out of his eyes.
He’d walked in her front door thirty minutes ago wearing an ill-fitting sheriff’s department uniform hanging off his beanstalk form, like a child in his older brother’s hand-me-down suit.
If the way he looks in that too-big uniform isn’t a metaphor for the piss-poor job he’s doing as the sheriff, I don’t know what is. Why is this man even in my face right now?
He sat before he was offered a seat. No sign of the grace and manners of a southern gentleman. Instead, he sat facing her with his legs manspread like some kind of barnyard animal. With no notepad or writing instrument, he cleared his throat.
“You wanna tell me what happened, Ms. Everett?”
His voice was heavy with impatience, as if her being attacked were inconveniencing him somehow. Aja sat up straighter in her chair, determined to make this man see her annoyance.
“I was attacked in my bedroom. I went to sleep and awoke to a stranger on top of me, trying to strangle me.”
His eyes finally connected with hers. His mouth tilted in a small, lecherous grin. “Do you make a habit of entertaining strange men in your bedroom?”
She heard Jackson slam his hand against the kitchen counter and take a heavy step toward where she and the sheriff were sitting at the table. She held her hand up to stop him. The last thing she needed was her “employee” getting arrested for assaulting the sheriff.
“Whether I do or don’t isn’t the point, Sheriff. Are you somehow insinuating that I brought this act of violence on myself?”
