“Damn it,” she muttered.

“Shh.” He went immediately on alert, pulling his.40-caliber, pushing the unlocked door inward. It made a long, low squeak that seemed to demolish the silence, but probably couldn’t be heard any farther than a few feet away. Putting a hand out to stop her from going in, Dean stepped in front of her. “Let me look.”

She knew what he was looking for. Steeling herself for the possibility that the same sick, twisted bastard had left her another bloody surprise, inside her house this time, she allowed him to enter first. But she stayed close behind him.

There was no sign of anything wrong. Nothing else appeared broken except the window. As far as she could see in the dim lighting, the living room looked normal, everything in place.

But she suddenly wondered something. Why was there dim lighting?

Light shone down the hall from her bedroom. Not too bright, probably not from the overhead but maybe her bedside lamp. “I didn’t leave it on,” she whispered.

He nodded, putting a finger across his lips in a gesture for silence.

They crept down the short hallway, tense and alert, both with weapons in upraised hands, like two matching shadows. Honestly, Stacey wasn’t sure what she was going to find. Someone lying in wait? Another dead animal? Her belongings scattered or destroyed? Anything was possible.

Anything except what she saw when they entered the bedroom.

A tall, lean man stood beside her bed. He had one hand up to his mouth, making low grunting noises into the small bit of pale pink fabric he held there. Judging by the jumble of items spilling out of the open top drawer of her dresser, she immediately suspected he held her panties.

Swallowing her disgust, she looked down. And almost gagged.

His pants were shoved to his knees and he stood directly above her bed, leaning against it. His other hand was wrapped around a fully erect penis, and he was pumping wildly, obviously intending to spew all over her bedspread.

“You motherfucker,” Dean said, sounding not just disgusted but absolutely livid.

The man froze in shock and dropped the panties. Dean leaped, taking the guy down with two sharp blows to the face.

Stacey, meanwhile, couldn’t even move. Or say a word. She was too racked with disgust and humiliation at having been violated, even when she hadn’t even been at home.

With those emotions came pure shock. Because she’d caught a glimpse of the intruder’s face before Dean had beaten him to the floor.

It was Rob Monroe.

16

“He’s a sick degenerate. Is it possible he’s also the Reaper?”

Dean didn’t really expect Stacey to answer; he’d been speaking more to himself. The two of them stood in her office back at the station, having hauled in the pervert who’d broken into her house. The guy had protested, screamed about his father the mayor, claimed it was all a mistake, then started crying.

Well, actually, he’d been crying all along. Ever since Dean’s first punch had crunched into his cheekbone.

“Is it possible?” she asked. “Sure. Anything’s possible, isn’t it?” Stacey, who looked so bone-weary she appeared on the verge of dropping, rubbed an exhausted hand over her eyes. “Do I think so? No.”

“You know he killed your dad’s dog.”

“He swears he hit her by accident when he was angry and out looking for me. That he did the rest only after Lady was dead.”

“And you believe that?”

She didn’t answer, looking as though she really didn’t want to know the truth right now. Maybe it was easier to believe that version, and he supposed it was at least possible. Even if it was true, Monroe was one sick bastard.

“I do suspect he’s the one who’s made some late-night anonymous calls to me this week.”

He gawked, not having heard that part before now. “He’s obviously unstable.”

Judging by the things Monroe said in the back of Stacey’s squad car, he had been for a long time. He seemed to think he was in love with her because she’d had the really bad judgment to go out with him once when they were teenagers. He’d been obsessing about her since the day she’d come back to town.

The hateful act with the dog? All about punishing her for being with Dean at the diner.

Tonight’s break-in? Simple, unrelenting lust. His parents had gone out of town, the leash was loosened, and he’d been unable to resist his depraved urges. Maybe he’d just come over to spy on her and had taken his shot at stealing her panties when he realized she wasn’t home. Who knew what the sick creep had been thinking?

“If he was the Reaper, don’t you think he would have just killed me when I pissed him off so much by being with you? Why the stupid, petty games? Why not grab me, take me somewhere, rape me, and slit my throat for his viewing audience?”

Jesus, did he hate hearing those tired, matter-of-fact words coming out of her mouth. “I want to hurt him,” he growled, still feeling the black cloud of rage that had enveloped him when he’d seen the man in her room. The thought of what might have happened had he not accompanied Stacey home tonight haunted him. Yes, she could take care of herself. But she was exhausted and vulnerable. Any woman walking in on something like that might be slow to react. Even this incredibly competent one.

His whole body shook, and he clenched his fists, pounding them on her desk, trying to force the fury away.

“I’m okay,” she said softly, putting both her hands over his. “Dean, I’m all right.”

Thank God. He couldn’t even imagine what he’d do if something happened to her.

He hadn’t realized it until now. Yes, he’d said the words to her, told her she wasn’t alone. But he hadn’t realized until he’d walked into her bedroom and seen the attempted mind-rape that prick Monroe was trying to inflict on her, that he had fallen in love with the woman. Fallen fast, but fallen hard. And he would do anything to keep her from harm.

“I don’t think I can stand up straight anymore,” she mumbled. Her beautiful face was haggard. Brown, half-moon smudges filled the hollows beneath her eyes.

“Go home,” he said. He looked out the window, where dawn had begun to break. “It’s almost six.”

“You need me.”

“I don’t need you unconscious and collapsing from sheer exhaustion.” Acknowledging that he was on the verge of the same thing, he added, “Come back with me to my room at the inn. We’ll both crash for two hours, then get back here around eight and wait for Wyatt to call. He swears Lily’s had a major break and should know something this morning. And if she doesn’t, we won’t waste time. We’ll get a warrant and search Monroe’s house.”

No, he didn’t really believe that weak, simpering prick was the Reaper. But it was something to go on, a thin lifeline to continue the investigation.

“I want to go home.”

He frowned, hating the thought of her walking back into that house.

“Believe me, I’ll be throwing my underwear and my bedding out, but I really need to be in my own place. Besides, I don’t think it would be good for your fellow agents to see me leave your room later.”

She had a point. “Okay, I’ll come with you, then.”

“No, honestly, it’s all right. I’m tired, but I’m also horny, and if you come home with me, I’ll seduce you so neither one of us gets any sleep.”

That didn’t sound like such a bad thing. At least, not at any other time. But today, there was too much at stake. “All right, you win. But I do demand a rain check.”

“You’ve got it, and I’ll hold you to it.”

Their stares met, and for an instant they were both back in the car, wrapped around each other, acknowledging in silence what he, at least, had already acknowledged in his head: They cared about each other. More than cared, on his part. Yet this wasn’t the place and certainly wasn’t the time to find out if she felt the same way.