The Marine Next Door Read online

  HE SAW THAT HER SAFETY WAS THREATENED

  Maggie Wheeler never stopped looking over her shoulder. It was a habit she’d learned from being a cop…and from a devastating event in her past. So when John Murdock moved in next door, Maggie didn’t know what to make of the sexy marine. But once her son formed a bond with the mysterious stranger, Maggie knew that past might not remain hidden much longer….

  SHE SAW HIM FOR THE HERO HE TRULY WAS

  With his unwavering sense of duty, John would never let a call for help go unanswered. Especially from the beautiful wounded warrior who refused to give up her secrets. Although she likely knew more about who was after her than she’d ever let on, John vowed to protect those in need. Only then could he find peace, maybe even a door away.…

  Captain John Murdock, USMC, Retired, with the strong hands and gruff sarcasm, was all male, all muscle and a mystery to her.

  Maggie’s mind replayed every moment of that encounter with her new neighbor. She could still hear the deep voice demanding she do the right thing despite her fears—still feel the big hands that had accidentally warmed her and made her feel unexpectedly secure when he’d clasped her fingers. She could easily recall her gratitude that he’d spoken kindly to her chatty son even though she’d done nothing to encourage any type of conversation. John Murdock was bigger and stronger than her in every way.

  She should be afraid of a man like that.

  And yet she’d run to him for answers and assurances.

  But blindly trusting a man like that was a mistake she couldn’t afford to repeat. Was she a fool to believe the military cut of his golden-brown hair and proud carriage of his shoulders meant he was a man who’d defend her?

  Julie

  Miller

  The Marine

  Next Door

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and to shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms. Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

  Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162.

  Books by Julie Miller

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  841—POLICE BUSINESS*

  880—FORBIDDEN CAPTOR

  898—SEARCH AND SEIZURE*

  947—BABY JANE DOE*

  966—BEAST IN THE TOWER

  1009—UP AGAINST THE WALL**

  1015—NINE-MONTH PROTECTOR**

  1070—PROTECTIVE INSTINCTS‡

  1073—ARMED AND DEVASTATING‡

  1090—PRIVATE S.W.A.T. TAKEOVER‡

  1099—KANSAS CITY CHRISTMAS‡

  1138—PULLING THE TRIGGER

  1176—BEAUTY AND THE BADGE‡

  1201—TAKEDOWN*

  1245—MAN WITH THE MUSCLE

  1266—PROTECTING PLAIN JANE‡‡

  1296—PROTECTING THE PREGNANT WITNESS‡‡

  1321—NANNY 911‡‡

  1350—THE MARINE NEXT DOOR***

  *The Precinct

  **The Precinct: Vice Squad

  ‡The Precinct: Brotherhood of the Badge

  ‡‡The Precinct: SWAT

  ***The Precinct: Task Force

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Maggie Wheeler—This KCPD desk sergeant and single mom is ready to make detective. Volunteering for the Rose Red Rapist Task Force is a smart career move. A rape survivor herself, she doesn’t need the threats and violence from her past, or a brooding new neighbor, to interfere just as she’s ready to finally move forward with her life.

  John Murdock—Just home from an eighteen-month stint in a war zone with his marine corps reserves unit. This once-gentle giant is struggling to adjust to normal life again. But there’s nothing normal about the threat stalking the leggy redhead in the apartment next to his. Can he tame his own demons long enough to save her and her young son?

  Travis Wheeler—Maggie’s ten-year-old son. Nuts about baseball and determined to protect his mom.

  Danny Wheeler—Maggie’s ex has a prison record. And a temper.

  Lawrence Boyle—An old friend of Danny’s, who gives him a job as an exterminator.

  Joe Standage—The super at the Corsican Apartment Building where Maggie and John live.

  Gabriel Knight—Reporter covering the investigation—and the task force’s frustrating lack of success.

  Dean Murphy—A firefighter at Station No. 23.

  Miss Applebaum, Bernard Cutlass and the Wongs—The mysterious neighbors on the seventh floor.

  The Rose Red Rapist—He hasn’t stalked a woman in Kansas City for years now. But he’s back.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “Maybe there won’t be a wedding!”

  “How can you say that?”

  Hidden by the trash bins where he’d been working after regular customer hours, the man lingered in the shadows outside the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop near downtown Kansas City and watched as the back door swung open and the young couple stormed out into the parking lot.

  An older woman, her hair gleaming like brass in the illumination of the trendy neighborhood’s wrought-iron lights, hurried after them. “You ungrateful little girl.”

  “Please.” The shopkeeper following behind her tried to intervene but wasn’t assertive enough to be paid any heed. “You shouldn’t be making big decisions right now—”

  “No, Mother.” The young woman whirled around and he caught his breath. She was so classically beautiful. So perfect. So like… No, don’t go there. “It’s young woman. Grown woman. Not little girl. You can’t force this on me. It’s too big. Too much. I don’t want this.”

  “You still want me, right?” The tall man in the tailored suit reached for her.

  She shrugged off his touch with an unladylike grunt and no answer.

  “Sweetheart.” The tall man smiled and clasped his hands around her shoulders, trying to soothe her temper. “Let’s go to our dinner reservation and use the time to cool off. It’s been a long day.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She shook him off.

  The man in the shadows smiled beneath the mask he wore over his nose and mouth. That one had fire. An insidious awareness of her feminine strength licked through his veins and made him clench his fist around the bag he carried.

  “Then let me drive you home. We’ll talk.”

  “No!” The young beauty spun around and stamped her high heels toward the sidewalk that ran along the street. “I’ll catch a cab.”

  “Sweetheart?”

  “She really shouldn’t—”

  When the young man and mousy shopkeeper moved to follow, the mother stopped them both. “Don’t bother. She’s been like this for weeks now. I’ll try to talk some sense into her when she gets home.”

  Seriously? They were letting her march off by herself? Not that this was as dangerous a neighborhood as it had once been now that buildings were being re
novated and new shops and young professionals were moving in. And the Shamrock Bar just a couple of blocks over, where a good cross-section of KCPD cops liked to hang out after hours, offered some degree of crime deterrence. Still, a woman alone, brave enough to face the city at night—too upset to be truly aware of her surroundings…

  The man glanced up. The last vestiges of graying twilight were giving way to stars and a dim crescent moon. Night was falling, and it would be a dark one. Traffic was light between the race of rush hour and the incoming surge of the city’s nightlife.

  She wouldn’t find that cab anytime soon.

  The forgettable woman went back into her shop. With a silent nudge, the bossy mother and groom-to-be climbed into their car.

  His pulse raced in anticipation at the opportunity at hand. The shop door locked. The car drove off. It would be so easy. It had been so long.

  “Don’t.” A voice of reason inside his head tried to warn him off the impulse heating his blood. “You don’t need this anymore. You’re better than this.”

  But he wanted. Hungered.

  And she was all alone.

  He dropped his bag to unzip his jacket and reach inside his pocket. Everything he needed was in his vehicle. It would be so easy.

  “I told you to get rid of those things. Don’t think this way. Stop.”

  But he’d done without for so long, he’d been so good. Still, the rage burned inside him every time he thought of…her.

  And the hurt. The humiliation.

  It wasn’t his fault. She couldn’t do this to him. Not again. He wouldn’t let her. He needed her to pay. He needed to take back all she’d stolen from him.

  “It’s not the same. You’re confused.”

  “Shut up,” he muttered, feeling his own hot breath moisten the fibers of the mask he wore.

  He moved from the shadows to peek around the corner of the brick building. The street was practically empty. Storefronts were dark. The apartments above them were far removed from a world that was quickly shrinking to the quick, purposeful strides of the blonde woman and his own raging need.

  Sliding his hand into his pocket, he turned off his phone, in case someone called and distracted him. In case someone thought they could track him down. This was just him and the woman now.

  “Stop. She isn’t worth it,” the voice argued.

  But the white-hot haze inside his brain wasn’t listening. He ran to his vehicle and started the engine. He looked to the right, to the left, then pulled out of his parking space.

  And even though the sun had set, he put on his dark glasses and followed her up the street.

  Chapter One

  I want to see you.

  KCPD desk sergeant Maggie Wheeler had never seen an uglier flower. Not that there was a thing wrong with the cultivated shape and color of the pink spring tulip or the matching ribbon and tall bud vase.

  But the florist’s card burned her fingertips, and everything the flower that had once been her favorite represented stirred like a swarm of angry bees in her stomach. She breathed a measured sigh between tight lips. Why couldn’t the past just stay buried in the past?

  If the young man who’d delivered the gift hadn’t already disappeared, she’d have sent it back to be delivered to a hospital or nursing home where the tulip and baby’s breath could be appreciated. But because that option had left the building, she had no choice but to drop the whole thing into the trash at the end of the counter and empty out the shavings from the front desk pencil sharpener on top of it. She wadded up the card and tossed it in for good measure, too.

  “Maggie.” Fourth Precinct chief Mitch Taylor tapped the counter as he strode by, then flicked his finger toward the bank of meeting rooms on the far side of the maze of detectives’ desks that filled the main floor. “You’re with me. Bring your computer and sit in on this meeting.”

  Maggie shot up to attention, as startled by the order as she was by the interruption. “Me, sir?”

  The chief turned and winked, walking backward without slowing his pace. “If you want to see how a task force works, get in here and take notes for me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She didn’t wait to be asked twice.

  The flower was forgotten as Maggie grabbed her laptop off her counter, made sure Officer Allen could cover her station at the front desk, and hurried down the hallway after Chief Taylor. She followed him through the door into Interview Room A and quickly slid into the closest empty seat around the long conference table.

  She was used to handling odd jobs around the precinct office, but anticipation had her perched on the edge of her chair. Her gun and badge were just as real as the other hardware in the room. And even though her expertise was paper pushing and patience, she was more than ready to move up in both pay scale and prestige at the police department. At thirty-five, she might wind up being the oldest rookie detective on the force, but she’d finally earned her college degree. She was ready to take on investigative work, ready to take the professional rank test and do the interviews to earn her detective’s shield. A little casework experience, even vicariously tagging along at the inaugural meeting of KCPD’s new major crime task force, would look good on her résumé when she put in for the promotion.

  Per the chief’s specific request, she’d notified each of the law enforcement professionals gathered here this morning. Detectives. A police psychologist. Uniformed officers like herself. A representative from the crime lab.

  You deserve to be here, she reminded herself. It had taken her a long time to feel like she was worthy of anything good or exciting in her life. Sometimes, a new situation like this one could still make her flash back to that awful time when she hadn’t believed in herself—when she hadn’t even thought she’d survive.

  But she believed now. She was here for herself. Here for her ten-year-old son, Travis, and their future. She was in this room because Chief Taylor believed she should be.

  Letting those positive thoughts drown out the unsettled worry over the message and flower she’d received, Maggie wiped the perspiration from her palms on the navy twill of her pant leg, steadied her nerves with a quiet breath and opened her laptop. All right, so maybe she was just here as a glorified stenographer to take notes, but her pulse still raced. This was the kind of work she wanted to do. Not just man a desk and be the smiling, efficient, nonthreatening face of KCPD that most citizens saw when they came into the building.

  Maggie knew Chief Taylor had a soft spot for her. She’d served in his precinct back when he’d been the newly appointed captain of the first watch. Now he was running the show. She’d lost a little girl, given birth to a son, gotten divorced and worked her butt off to maintain a full-time job to support her child while she’d taken classes to earn the degree her ex had once denied her. The chief understood how badly she wanted that promotion and had no doubt invited her to sit in on this meeting to give her some real experience and a taste of where she wanted her career to go.

  She was expecting formal introductions, maybe some kind of pep talk to get them fired up for a particular project. At the very least, she expected Chief Taylor to spell out the new team’s purpose and why the commissioner had charged him with the job of selecting a task force for a special investigation.

  She wasn’t expecting the terse greeting from her barrel-chested boss when he reached the head of the table. “He’s back.”

  He followed up the cryptic pronouncement by slapping a file folder on top of the table.

  Even from the opposite end of the room, she could see the crime scene photos that spilled out. She could make out a woman’s blond hair and a puffy, bruised face. She could see a lot of crimson on those photographs. Blood.

  Nick Fensom, the stocky, dark-haired detective sitting closest to Chief Taylor pulled the folder in front of him and opened it. “The Rose Red Rapist?”

  “That’s right.”

  Maggie’s stomach knotted beneath her thick leather belt and her gaze darted up to the chief’s
brown eyes, questioning him. Maybe his invitation to sit in on the meeting hadn’t been an impromptu gesture of kindness after all. She’d once been in photos like that.

  But Chief Taylor wasn’t even looking at her. What if she had a unique understanding of that victim’s emotions—shock, betrayal, pain, rage, fear, distrust? That didn’t mean the chief had an ulterior motive for inviting her to the meeting. A decade had passed since that horrific time, and she’d put it behind her to focus on the present and future. She was simply overreacting to a gruesome coincidence. She was a cop. A future detective. A fast typist.

  Not a sacrificial lamb lured into the room to be probed and profiled by the others at the table. Get a grip, Sarge.

  Maggie’s nostrils flared as she eased the prickly instinct to defend herself on a deep, quiet breath, and dropped her gaze to the screen in front of her. While that feverish impulse to guard against any sort of attack dissipated through the pores of her freckled skin, she concentrated on typing in the names and initial comments of everyone in the room.

  Chief Taylor spelled out the details included in the file. “Same M.O. as that unsolved serial rapist case we worked a few years back. Blitz attack. Threat of a weapon once the victim is conscious. None of the victims have been found at the actual scene where the rape occurred, although how they’re moved from one place to another isn’t always clear. We’ve got nothing but the vaguest of descriptions of our perp. Male. Tall. There’s not even a consensus on his race. He wears gloves and a mask. None of them have seen his face although this most recent victim has some other identifiers that might give us a lead.”

  “Other identifiers?” Detective Spencer Montgomery, whose short red hair had occasionally earned a question about whether he and Maggie were siblings—other than her son, Maggie had no relatives in the Kansas City area—sat across from his partner, Nick Fensom. Detective Montgomery adjusted his tie and leaned forward. Glancing around the room, she could see he was the senior detective, and his cool and confident demeanor reflected that status. “Such as?”

  “His voice.”

  “Voices can be altered,” Montgomery pointed out.