“I know, keep going,” Eagle said.
“Right, so he had an air filter in his hand, and when he passed me after I opened the door, I smelled him. I’m not crazy,” Taylor said firmly. “There’s no way a maintenance man should smell like he did. Bleach, disinfectant, and urine. I’ve been to the care center enough to know that smell.”
“I believe you,” Eagle reassured.
Those three words seemed to calm her.
“The smell freaked me out. I remember the guy from the care center who sat too close to me—he smelled like that too. So I kept the door open in case I needed to run out of here and then called you. I didn’t really want to let him know that I was uneasy, although I think he knew anyway. As I was talking to you, he finished changing out the filter and left. He didn’t say much, really.”
“You did good,” Eagle reassured her.
“What’s going on, Eagle?” Taylor asked.
He leaned down and kissed her forehead reverently. “I don’t know. But I’m going to do my best to figure it out.”
“Okay.”
One word had never meant so much. Taylor trusted him to keep her safe. To figure out if this guy was the same one from the care center. To find out what the fuck his issue was. He wasn’t going to let her down.
“I called the guys. They’re on their way over. We’re going to take a look around. Will you be all right up here by yourself for a while?”
“Of course. Now that you’re here, I know that guy won’t come back.”
Eagle wanted to tell her that he loved her, but this wasn’t the time or place. He wouldn’t be able to keep quiet for long, however. Everything in him begged to let her know how much she meant to him. That he wasn’t going to let her go. Not ever.
But . . . first he had a mystery to solve.
Brett scowled as he recalled the way the man Taylor was dating had prowled the parking lot, looking for him. The dumb bitch had ruined his fun by calling the guy. He had no idea how she’d gotten an inkling that he wasn’t who he said he was. She shouldn’t have been alarmed at all. He knew she couldn’t recognize him. He had to have given something away.
But even if he wasn’t able to fuck with her head today, he’d loved the way her voice had trembled as she’d talked on the phone. He’d gotten to her—and it had been just as exhilarating as he’d known it would be.
Brett couldn’t help but think of how scared she was going to be when he got her into his basement and tied her down. Completely at his mercy. There wouldn’t be anyone for her to call to come save her.
It was almost time to put his plan in motion. He’d been following her for months, and the more he got to know his Taylor, the more excited he got. But he had one more face-to-face meeting planned for her . . .
Brett had overheard her talking on the phone when he’d followed her around a grocery store just days ago. It was clear by the obnoxiously flirty banter she’d been talking to her boyfriend . . . and she’d called him Eagle.
It was perfect for his last surprise. Using the man’s nickname would make her trust him—then completely freak her out once she’d seen his “delivery.”
As for snatching her, he still had to wait until just the right moment. When there weren’t any eyewitnesses around to describe him to the police. When it was just the two of them.
When he could overpower her and bring her home.
“Donald?” he heard his mother call out from above his basement lair, and he sighed in frustration.
“I soiled myself again. I need help!” she said in a voice that wavered with fright.
“Fuck,” Brett swore. He didn’t mind when his girls peed in terror. That was amusing and exciting. But cleaning up his mother’s excrement wasn’t any fun.
Deciding she could sit in her own shit for a bit longer, Brett went back to planning his last encounter with Taylor. She knew something was up now, which made things trickier, but learning the name of that asshole she was dating would make it easier to gain her trust. She’d find out that she should’ve been more careful, but not until it was too late.
Yes, while it was fun to mess with her head, it was almost time. Time for the real fun to begin.
Chapter Fourteen
Eagle looked over at Taylor and couldn’t help but smile. They were hanging out in the basement of Silverstone Towing, and she had a wrinkle on her forehead as she concentrated on the manuscript she was reading. He’d never thought he’d be enamored of how a woman looked while she was reading.
He and the guys hadn’t found anything in the parking lot at her complex, nor around it. He’d talked to the manager of the place and verified that maintenance was scheduled, but the apartments on Taylor’s floor weren’t scheduled to have their filters replaced until tomorrow. Eagle didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened if she hadn’t had the presence of mind to call him while the man had been in her apartment.
Taylor had been very hard on herself as well, pissed that she’d let the man into her apartment in the first place. He’d tried to reassure her that she’d done nothing wrong . . . but that didn’t mean they both weren’t taking more precautions with her safety.
She’d been spending the night at his apartment since the maintenance-man incident, as they were calling it. Eagle had been mildly concerned he’d feel stifled, that having her in his space twenty-four seven would be awkward. But in actuality, he loved it. Genuinely liked having her there. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, and she was equally happy sitting next to him without saying a word. It was refreshing, and it solidified his decision to do whatever it took to make her want to be with him forever.
During the day, they’d been coming to Silverstone Towing to hang out. She worked while he took a few shifts. He and the team discussed where their next mission would take them . . . it was looking like Africa, to deal with the leader of Boko Haram, who’d recently attacked another girls’ school and taken more hostages. They’d learned that in the latest incident, there had been an American kidnapped along with the girls. No one had heard from her or the others who had been taken. It was a clusterfuck, and the leader needed to be stopped.
Along with keeping an eye on international current affairs, the team was also doing what they could to figure out who the man was who’d been in Taylor’s apartment. They weren’t having much luck. The dementia care center didn’t have any information on the man, and in the surveillance videos they’d gotten their hands on from the center and her complex, the guy kept his head down, and they had no opportunity at all to identify him.
It was around lunchtime when Taylor’s phone rang. Eagle listened in on her side of the conversation.
“Hello? Yes, this is she. Oh . . . hi. Yeah. Of course I remember, I loved that story. Really? Wow, that’s awesome. She would? Um . . . yes, I’m interested—when is it?”
Taylor’s eyes met Eagle’s when she said, “I’m going to have to check my calendar and get back to you. Of course. I understand, and I’m flattered she even thought of me. A proofreader isn’t usually on the guest list for most award ceremonies. I know . . . but still. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Probably sometime today. Thank you for calling. Okay, bye.”