YULETIDE PROTECTOR Read online

  HIS STAR WITNESS RECEIVES THREATS INSTEAD OF CHRISTMAS CARDS IN USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR JULIE MILLER’S MINISERIES THE PRECINCT: TASK FORCE

  As the lone surviving victim who can put her attacker away in prison, heiress Bailey Austin becomes the key to the D.A.’s case against a notorious criminal. As lead detective, Spencer Montgomery must prep her for trial. But he becomes her personal protector when she starts receiving terrifying “gifts” meant to scare her away from testifying.

  Spencer is a cop on the fast track to making captain one day, if he can keep his emotions in check. But as the stalker’s threats escalate, he can’t deny that Bailey has thawed his icy heart. Her courage touches him in ways no other woman has, and reminds him that she’s more important to him than any investigation.

  “If someone gets too pushy or personal for you, call me about that, too. Anything. I’m not taking any chances with our star witness.”

  So the warmth of his hand on her arm and the patient, adult conversation was about protecting the outcome of his task force investigation. “You’re not taking any chances?”

  “No.”

  With a wry smile, Bailey shook her head. Spencer Montgomery had KCPD running through his veins. Any shivers of awareness she might feel at his warm hands or masculine smells or polite attention were misguided responses to a man who was simply doing his job.

  She was the surviving victim who could put away the Rose Red Rapist forever.

  “I’ll call,” Bailey promised. “If I suspect anything’s not right, I’ll call.”

  “Don’t go shopping by yourself. Make sure someone knows where you are at all times. You do whatever you have to to stay safe.”

  She’d had younger, more charming men hit on her with sweet words and shower her with gifts. But she’d never responded so easily, so basically, to any one of them the way she was reacting to Spencer Montgomery today.

  “I’ll try not to let you down, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “You won’t.”

  You won’t.

  Did those last two words mean Detective Montgomery had faith in her ability to get the job done?

  Or were they a warning that he intended to make sure she didn’t screw this up?

  YULETIDE

  PROTECTOR

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author

  Julie Miller

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those books she read growing up. When shyness and asthma kept her from becoming the action-adventure heroine she longed to be, Julie created stories in her head to keep herself entertained. Encouragement from her family to write down the feelings and ideas 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 this teacher serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Julie believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

  Born and raised in Missouri, this award-winning author now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and an assortment of spoiled pets. To contact Julie or to learn more about her books, write to P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162 or check out her website and monthly newsletter at www.juliemiller.org.

  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‡‡

  1367—KANSAS CITY COWBOY‡‡

  1391—THREE COWBOYS

  “Virgil”

  1408—TACTICAL ADVANTAGE‡‡

  1427—ASSUMED IDENTITY‡‡

  1444—TASK FORCE BRIDE‡‡

  1462—YULETIDE PROTECTOR‡‡

  *The Precinct

  †The Precinct: Vice Squad

  ‡The Precinct: Brotherhood of the Badge

  ††The Precinct: SWAT

  ‡‡The Precinct: Task Force

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Spencer Montgomery—Leader of the KCPD task force, Spencer brought down the Rose Red Rapist. He’s on the fast track to a stellar career and has put his personal life on hold. The last thing this stoic, seasoned detective wants to do is play bodyguard to the D.A.’s star witness on the case, even if he is attracted to her—because he knows firsthand the tragic results of mixing business with pleasure.

  Bailey Austin—The last surviving victim of the Rose Red Rapist. The heiress’s pampered life changed dramatically after the vicious assault. She’s no longer certain of her friends, her future, or if she can ever love a man again. But she’s determined to testify against her attacker—if she lives to see her day in court.

  Brian Elliott—Is he really the Rose Red Rapist? He claims to be innocent.

  Kenna Parker—Brian’s defense attorney is the best that money can buy.

  Vanessa Owen—How far will she go to get the story that will make her a superstar in the news world?

  Regina Hollister—Brian’s loyal assistant.

  Corie Rudolf—Bailey’s next-door neighbor is man-crazy.

  Gabriel Knight—The reporter keeps showing up when you least expect him.

  Mara Boyd-Elliott—She runs the Kansas City Journal. Why would she post the half-million-dollar bond for her ex?

  The Cleaner—The Rose Red Rapist’s mysterious accomplice. Has she gone underground to avoid capture? Or is she planning her most diabolical crime yet?

  The Task Force—This dedicated group of crime fighters will see justice done—or die trying.

  For Clarice Metz and Rhonda Glasford Metz,

  two of my Fulton fans. Mom loves it when you

  talk about my books with her. ;) Thanks for

  reading them!

  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

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  September

  “I’ll save you,” she whispered into the phone.

  Brian Elliott looked at her through glass that separated them. The lines of strain around his blue eyes and handsome mouth were more pronounced. And the orange jumpsuit certainly didn’t flatter.

  After all she’d done for him, he still doubted her? “You don’t think they’re screening all my visitors? You’re tempting fate by coming here.”<
br />
  If he wasn’t looking so haggard, so in need of the comfort he normally sought from her, she would have been irritated by his doubt. Instead, she smoothed a smile on her face—for his benefit as well as the guards who might be watching. “It makes perfect, logical sense for me to come see you. Besides, you’ve had a lot of visitors, haven’t you? Too many for the authorities to focus solely on me.”

  “You arranged all those visits?”

  “Not many people can benefit from being associated with an alleged serial rapist.” She’d gone to work as soon as she learned the news of his arrest. “Some of your friends and business associates probably are truly concerned for your welfare. And I might have suggested to some of them how staying in your good graces would prove most beneficial once you’re acquitted.”

  He tipped his mouth closer to the phone that connected them and rubbed at his temple, as though the stress of the past couple of days had given him a headache. “How can you be sure that will happen? The police have eyewitness testimony. Experts from the crime lab to talk about trace evidence and DNA.”

  “The only thing their evidence proves is that you once fathered a child with a woman who’s now in a mental institution. The D.A. will never put her on the stand to argue that it wasn’t consensual sex. Everything else is circumstantial. A good lawyer will make that go away—and you’ve got the best attorney in town on your payroll. Any other charges are minor, and I expect you’ll get probation and time served.”

  Her heart twisted with sympathy when he rubbed at the cuts and scratches on his forearm, painful wounds inflicted during his arrest just days earlier. “All it takes is one woman to stand up and identify me as the man who raped her.”

  “An eyewitness?” Despite his pain, she had to laugh. “How can any victim swear it was you? They were all unconscious, and you wore a mask.”

  “There’s Hope Lockhart.”

  “You didn’t rape her.”

  He cupped the receiver with his hand and revealed a hushed admission. “I wanted to. I wanted to hurt her so badly—”

  “Shh.” She leaned toward the glass and splayed her fingers there, wishing she could physically touch him and reassure him. “A jury can’t convict you for being angry and having these revenge fantasies. But it won’t help public perception if word gets out that you...enjoy the violence.”

  “I’m sitting in a jail cell. My bail hearing isn’t until tomorrow. Public opinion doesn’t matter in here.”

  “You talk as though you don’t believe you’re getting out.”

  She was pleased when he flattened his larger hand close to his side of the reinforced glass, touching her in the only way he could. For now. As long as he needed her, as long as he loved her, she’d find a way to make it work so they could both get what they wanted. “Do you really think we can fix this and make it go away?”

  “Yes. But you have to trust me.” She pulled her hand away, getting down to business. Brian had always appreciated her practical sense about how to get things done. It was one of the things that had drawn them together in the first place, even though the arguments often drove them apart. “I would have taken care of that issue with Miss Lockhart, too, if I had known how upset you were. If you had listened to me before, if you had let me handle the situation, you wouldn’t be sitting where you are now.”

  “Let you handle it? I can’t tolerate a betrayal like that. She needed to understand that I—”

  “Hush.” She quieted him before his agitation drew the guard’s attention to their conversation. “Your emotions are your Achilles heel, Brian. I can think rationally, for the both of us. Let me do this for you. I’ve saved your gorgeous hide more than once. That was our agreement, remember? I take care of you. I know you’re sick. I can live with that. As long as you love me. But you have to trust—”

  “Sick?” He shook his head and leaned back, the boardroom glare that had intimidated many an adversary directed squarely at her. “Trusting a woman is what got me into this mess in the first place.”

  She smiled. Poor thing. Didn’t he know by now she couldn’t be intimidated? “Trusting a woman is what will get you out of it, too.”

  She waited, displaying far more patience than he had ever shown her. At last, his broad shoulders lifted with a heavy breath and he nodded, accepting her promise. Accepting her.

  “I love you.” Pursing her lips together, she blew him a kiss. “Oh, and Brian, darling?” There were rules to this relationship, and he needed to understand them. “I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to save you. But if you betray who I am to anyone—a cell mate, a police officer or even a fly on the wall—I will destroy you.” She smiled again. “Now, say you love me.”

  She held the defiant challenge in his dark eyes until, with a nod of understanding, he lowered his gaze. “I love you.”

  She hung up the phone and walked away.

  Chapter One

  December

  “That’s him. I recognize his voice. The build’s right and the eyes are the same. He’s the man who raped me.”

  Bailey Austin braced her hand against the chilly window that separated her from the suspect and decoys lined up in the adjoining room at KCPD’s Fourth Precinct headquarters and closed her eyes. They all wore black clothes and surgical masks over the lower half of their faces. But she didn’t need a visual to relive the sounds and smells and every violent, humiliating touch that had changed her life more than a year ago.

  “Shut up!” A fist smashed across her cheekbone when she’d dared to beg him to stop. Pain pulsed through her fractured skull, swirling her plastic-covered surroundings into a dizzying vertigo that made her nauseous. Her stomach was already churning from the stingingly bitter smell of vinegar and soap on the washcloth he was bathing her with. As if he could simply wash away the pain and shock and violation of what he had done to her. Bound and battered, helpless to struggle against him, she tried to blank her mind against the unspeakable things he was doing to her. “I’m the one in charge here, you filthy thing,” he needlessly reminded her.

  Dark eyes swam in and out of focus from the grotesque black-and-white mask he wore. “Please...”

  “Close your eyes and that mouth, or I’ll put the hood on you again.” She squeezed her eyes shut, dutifully doing what she could to save herself more punishment. “Do exactly what I tell you,” he warned her, scrubbing away any evidentiary trace of himself or the crime scene from her body, “and maybe I’ll let you live.”

  Bailey had been one of the lucky ones. She’d survived.

  But she hadn’t been able to erase the memory that night, and she couldn’t now. Even with a simple recitation from a Kansas City travel brochure, she recognized his voice—so bitter and devoid of caring. “That’s him,” she repeated, opening her eyes to see a uniformed officer stop and cuff the black-haired man she’d identified. When he peeled off his mask, she recognized his face from the business and society pages of the Kansas City papers. “Brian Elliott is the man who... He’s the Rose Red Rapist.”

  District Attorney Dwight Powers stood beside her at the one-way window. “You’ll testify to that in court? You’ll point him out to the jury?”

  She swallowed the emotions that rose in her throat. Despite all logic that told her she was invisible to him here in the look-at room, Bailey hugged her orange wool coat tighter in her arms and backed away from the glass when her attacker turned and looked in her direction. She nodded, transfixed by the cruel eyes, warm with color and yet so cold. There was something wrong with that man, something sick or disconnected inside his head. A brilliantly successful businessman, charming on the surface, yet twisted, damaged, inside. And he’d taken all that rage, all that self-loathing out on her. As if she’d been the cause of his pain. Even through the glass she felt his hatred aimed squarely at her.

  She could feel his hands on her all over aga
in, her arms pinned above her head, his body on top of hers, and she shuddered.

  “This is a dubious identification at best, Powers, and you know it.” Shaking off the nightmare crawling over her skin, Bailey turned away from the glass as Kenna Parker, Brian Elliott’s articulate defense attorney, started earning her expensive fee. The taller woman clutched her leather attaché in her fist and looked down with sympathy. “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, Miss Austin. But if the district attorney here puts you on the stand, I can promise you that my cross-examination won’t be pleasant. If you’re certain my client is your attacker, then why didn’t you identify him sooner? He’s a known figure in Kansas City society.”

  “I didn’t know him. Not personally.” Bailey’s gaze darted up to meet the blond woman’s faintly accusatory question. “I identified him by voice. And I did recognize his eyes as soon as I saw them again. Once he was arrested, I picked out his mug shot from a group of several suspects.”

  “You had a head injury, didn’t you? Perhaps your memory isn’t as clear as you’d like it to be.”

  Before Bailey could form the appropriate words to defend her competence as the prosecution’s star witness, Harper Pierce, the family attorney her parents had insisted accompany them down to Precinct headquarters this morning, interrupted.

  “Is that a threat, Kenna?” he challenged.

  The woman smiled up at the attorney in the three-piece suit. “Of course not. I’m good enough I don’t need to make threats.” With a polite nod to everyone in the room, she turned on her Italian leather pumps and headed out the door. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go talk to my client. Chief Taylor?”

  Mitch Taylor, the Precinct commander who blocked the door, folded his arms across his barrel-chest. “My people made a good arrest, Ms. Parker. They pulled a dangerous man off the streets.”

  “Did they?” She waited until he stepped aside to let her pass. “Or did they just find a convenient scapegoat so you could close your investigation and get the press off your back?”