KCPD Protector Read Online Free PDF

for a special night?”
    Yes. Those had been sweet and romantic and fitting for the young couple they’d once been. Not the point. “The flowers I got today weren’t cheap.”
    He snorted. “That cabernet wasn’t cheap.”
    “James, did you—?”
    “I can see I’m not getting anywhere with you tonight.” He shook his head, then adjusted his glasses, glancing skyward before zeroing his gaze in on hers. “Keep an eye on the weather. We’re under a tornado watch until midnight. I wouldn’t want you or the pooch there to get hurt. Good night.”
    And then he was striding away.
    Her mouth opened to call after him to clarify his response to her question, but Elise wisely snapped it shut. Better to just let him leave. “Good night,” she muttered.
    Were straight answers really so much to ask for? Elise plopped Spike down on his feet in the grass as James walked to the curb where he’d parked. A black-and-white police car cruised past on its regular rounds for the night, giving her ex the impetus to climb behind the wheel and start the engine when he hesitated at the open door, no doubt readying another argument as to why she should rethink sending him away.
    Elise waited for James to pull into the driveway behind her car and back out in the opposite direction to leave the neighborhood, and then she turned off the water and picked up her glass. “Come on, boy. Here, Spike.”
    The dog bounded up onto the deck and followed her into the house. He danced around her feet while she locked the back door and headed into the kitchen. She hit the light switch with her elbow, flooding the room with light before setting the wine on the granite counter and rinsing out her glass. She turned on the radio to get an update on the possibility of dangerous weather, got Spike a treat from the jar next to the sink and set about her nightly check of the doors and windows on the first floor.
    She secured locks and pulled window shades and makeshift curtains, listening to the jingle of Spike’s tags as he lapped up a drink of water in the kitchen. She stopped for several seconds in front of the living room air conditioner, unhooking the top couple of buttons on her paint shirt and cooling the perspiration on her skin before turning it down for the night. Moving into the foyer, the growing noise from the wind cruising through the leafy trees outside and knocking twigs and other debris against the house fully registered. Elise paused with her fingers on the front door’s dead bolt.
    She could hear the dog in the kitchen at the back of the house.
    Her breath hitched in her chest at the disquieting thought that crossed her mind. Praying that she’d be proved wrong, Elise quickly returned to the living room and turned the AC unit back on high. The light in the foyer flickered at the sudden drain on the neighborhood’s overtaxed power grid as the machine roared to life and the cold air blasted her again.
    Noisy enough. She couldn’t hear Spike anymore.
    Then she opened the red front door and reached outside to press the doorbell.
    The instant the bell chimed, Spike barked and came running from the kitchen. He barked again, eager to greet or warn off their visitor.
    “Shush. It’s okay, sweetie. It’s just Mommy testing a theory.”
    But the yapping and squealing continued until she picked him up and pushed open the storm door to show him no one was there. Greeted by a wall of summer heat and uncomfortable suspicion, Elise crossed the porch, mentally timing how long it took her to reach the railing at the edge of the house.
    Elise hugged the dog against her shoulder, patting his back as if burping a baby. “He lied to us, Spike.”
    Such a small slip of the tongue. Maybe nothing more sinister than a clichéd response.
    I rang the doorbell.
    No way had James stood on her front porch, announcing his arrival. He would have needed to sprint down the steps and around the side of the house to the back gate to reach her before Spike heard the