The Woman Next Door Read online

  “Elizabeth! What do you think you’re doing?” he growled at her, jumping out of the car.

  “Oh, God! Craig, that man has been following me! I was so scared, and I didn’t know what to do. Thank you for coming!”

  “Is she your guest, Johnson?” the man asked with a puzzled look on his face.

  “Yes, sir, she is. She thought you were going to hurt her, and I’m sure that make her appear suspicious,”

  “Young lady, I put men like that in prison. I’m Judge Weatherby, and you are?” he asked, smiling at her.

  “Oh dear, a judge!” Elizabeth moaned in embarrassment. “My name is Elizabeth Matthews, sir.”

  Craig explained that he brought Elizabeth to the gated community to keep her safe, and then he listened to the judge scold him for permitting her to walk the streets in broad daylight.

  “Judge, I didn’t tell Craig I was going for a walk. I’m sure that if he’d known, he would have forbidden me to leave the house. In retrospect, it wasn’t very smart.”

  “Well, no harm has come to you, and I certainly wouldn’t have permitted anyone to hurt you, I guarantee that.” He looked at Craig and said, “I like her, Johnson. She defended you when she knew she was the one in the wrong. I find that admirable when all I do most of the day is hear people blame everyone else for their wrongdoings.”

  “She is a very sweet young woman,” Craig admitted. He’d been impressed with her defense of him, too. Most of the women he’d dated would have thrown him under the bus, but not his Lizzy. “Thank you for keeping an eye on her, Judge Weatherby.”

  “It was my pleasure.” The judge smiled at them. “I need to get on home before my wife sends out a search party. She would do it, too.” The smile on his face said that he wouldn’t mind if she did.

  “You come with me, little girl. You are in some big trouble,” Craig warned Elizabeth as he opened the car door for her.

  “I’m sorry, Craig. I didn’t think that it could be dangerous. I just needed to clear my head. No one has ever cared about me… And you, well, you are different.”

  “Is that a good thing? Or are you still pouting because I spanked you?”

  “I’m not exactly pouting, but I am wondering why you care so much what I do?”

  “You are special, and I feel as though I’ve known you forever.” It was the truth.

  Elizabeth nodded. “Like perhaps you recognized me even though we didn’t meet until yesterday?” she questioned, looking at him with a serious expression. He was pulling into his driveway and then into the garage.

  “That is exactly how it feels, Lizzy. Does that shock you?”

  “Sort of… I mean, I never thought it could happen, too, but it has… Just like Grandma with Grandpa. He met her on a Thursday and they got married on Saturday! Her parents had a fit, too!” Elizabeth giggled. “They just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and they are still madly in love with each other.” All of a sudden, Elizabeth realized how her words sounded. “I didn’t mean to imply that we would be married, Craig. I was just talking…”

  “I was listening,” he said, pulling her from the car and kissing her.

  It was like an explosion within her body! Elizabeth kissed Craig back, forgetting about anything and everything. She simply couldn’t get enough of his lips, and she wanted him, all of him, in a way she’d never wanted a man before. “Oh goodness!” she whispered when he let her breathe.

  “Sweet goodness,” he corrected her. “Lizzy, I don’t normally react this way to someone I’ve just met and barely know. It’s as though you belong to me already. Two days ago I would have said it was pure nonsense that two people could instantly fall in love, but now that it has happened to us, I am sure of my feelings. It’s as though I’ve known you forever, Lizzy.”

  “Grandma and Grandpa are going to love you, and Mama and Daddy are going to think we’re nuts.” She giggled when he chuckled. They went inside and she noticed that Craig had been busy. “Want some help?” she offered, suddenly hungry.

  “Sure, you can get me a wooden spatula,” he told her, and if she’d looked at him she would have seen the serious look in his dark eyes.

  “Want me to start stir frying the chicken first?” she offered, only to have him take the wooden spatula from her hands and then smack it against her bottom! “Ow! What are you doing?” she screeched, trying to jump out of reach, but he kept his hold on her, and gave her rear another sound spank.

  “I am spanking you for leaving this house by yourself, and for not bothering to say one darn word to me, young lady! If Wally hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have had the first clue where to start looking.” He spanked her again, and then again. “I want you to think before you do something, Elizabeth! I didn’t just meet you to lose you!” He gave her three more spanks, and then he released her, walked over to the sink and scrubbed the wooden spatula so that he could use it to cook their stir-fry. “You can get out a couple of plates for us.” His voice was perfectly normal.

  “That was totally unnecessary and not one bit fair!” she accused, glaring at him.

  “It was totally unnecessary for you to scare me out of my mind,” he countered.

  “I wasn’t trying to frighten you!” she argued.

  “If I thought you did it on purpose, you would still be getting your pretty fanny spanked,” he said, and the look in his dark eyes assured her that he was very serious.

  “But, I already said I was sorry, Craig. I didn’t need a spanking to remind me that I was foolish. I’m not used to being stalked, or whatever this person is doing!”

  “I know that, too, or you would have found yourself bared.”

  “Craig!” She was blushing and embarrassed by the image of herself in that undignified circumstance. He merely chuckled, and she came to realize that he was once again using a spanking to say that he cared about her. Her parents didn’t believe in corporal punishment, and they would be incensed if they knew that Craig believed in spanking. Her grandparents wouldn’t be surprised, and would welcome him warmly.

  They worked together to make the stir-fry, and then sat on the stools at the counter to eat. “This is very good,” Elizabeth complimented Craig. “Do you do a lot of cooking?”

  “I do. I don’t like to eat out all the time, so I learned to cook. It’s healthier, and it tastes better. Do you cook?”

  “I do, especially on my days off. I sometimes make extra so that I don’t need to cook when I am tired after a crazy twelve hour shift in the ER.”

  “That’s smart. On really long days I find that cooking relaxes me. I’m not much on fast food.”

  “I’m not either.” Elizabeth helped clean up the kitchen and then she asked, “What are we doing this afternoon?”

  “You are going to go to bed to sleep and rest, Miss Matthews. You are recovering from a concussion and you were told to rest for a few days. I know you weren’t paying attention to those instructions, but I was, and I intend to see that you follow them.”

  “But, I thought we’d talk to people and see if we could find a few clues as to who clobbered me. It is driving me crazy not to know who did this… and why.”

  “I’m sure it is, but sometimes it’s better to go slow so we don’t scare off anyone who is involved in any way. I don’t want to let on what information we don’t have, and that is what I would be doing if I started questioning random people at this point.”

  “What if he comes back to my house while I am here?” she demanded.

  “We’ll know. I have cameras hidden all over the place, inside and out.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me any of this, were you?” she demanded.

  “I wasn’t sure how you would react, Lizzy. Some people get freaked out, but now that I know you want to be informed, I will keep you in the loop. Now, no more stalling… unless you want a repeat of this morning?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” she said, her temper bristling. “You can stop threatening me. I am not a child, and I don’t feel like
going to bed. I would just lie there and stare at the ceiling!”

  “So be it,” Craig said softly, and Elizabeth gave him a bright smile. It was obvious to him that she thought she was getting her way. “You won’t be smiling in a moment, little girl. I gave you a chance to go to bed, but you chose to argue the matter, and now I am keeping my promise.”

  “No!” Elizabeth declared, and then she took off running as fast as she could, but the turn in the hallway left her dizzy, and the next thing she knew she was sitting on the floor.

  “Lizzy, what happened?” Craig asked, gently scooping her up in his arms.

  “I got dizzy,” she confessed.

  “You shouldn’t have been running like that, honey.” He carried her to her room and put her down on the bed. He removed her shoes, and then asked, “Do you think you can rest now without the spanking?”

  “Yes,” she replied in a small voice.

  “Good. I don’t like being firm with you, but I will be if you keep giving me grief over resting. Are you still dizzy?”

  “A bit. I didn’t think I was this bad,” she admitted, tears pooling in her green eyes.

  “You’ll be fine in a day or two. Do you still have a headache?”

  “Yes; it’s a lot worse now,” she admitted. “I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

  “You aren’t a nuisance, Lizzy. Just lie here and rest. It is exactly what you need right now.” He was going to find the man responsible for hurting her, and make him wish he hadn’t been born.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, but just as he reached the door, she said, “I’m afraid…”

  “Don’t be afraid, honey. I’m right here, and I promise I’m going to find him.”

  “I have no clue who did this; it could be anyone! I could pass him on the street and I wouldn’t know it, and it is going to drive me crazy.”

  Craig crossed the room, sat on the bed and rubbed her back gently. “It may take us a while, but he’ll give himself away. I’m vested in finding him, and I won’t let him get away with hurting you.”

  “It just doesn’t make sense. I haven’t ever harmed anyone, and even though I threatened Mrs. Huffy, I wouldn’t really hurt her. It was my temper talking. Everyone who knows me knows that I am mostly mouth!” she insisted.

  “It could be something as simple as road rage on some idiot’s part, or perhaps a patient thought you overheard something you didn’t. The world is full of paranoid people. The truth is, people don’t always make sense.”

  “Right now I feel like I am the one being punished when I did nothing to deserve it.”

  “Are my attentions unwanted?” he asked her.

  “No! Craig, it isn’t you! Meeting you is the only good thing that has happened to me in a long time. It’s just that we aren’t free to be us because some idiot out there is trying to kill me! I want to enjoy us, but how can I when I can’t even take a walk to reflect on all of this newness?” She kicked one foot. “I probably am sounding like a spoiled brat right now…”

  “You sound like someone who is worrying too much. Let me do that for you, and you close your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up, and we’ll see if we can figure out who this guy is.” Craig sat with her and continued to talk reassuringly while he rubbed her back. Finally, the redhead fell into a deep sleep, and he quietly left the room, hoping she would get some good sleep. He quietly closed the door to her bedroom, and then he went to the kitchen, took out his cell phone, and called the doctor who’d treated her at the hospital.

  “I knew you’d have trouble getting Elizabeth to rest, but that is what she needs to do. Have you noticed any slurring of speech, or any changes at all with her memory?”

  “No, just the headache and now the dizziness,” Craig reported.

  “Just keep an eye out for the other things I warned you about. This headache and dizziness could last for a week or two.”

  “Okay. Could you compile a list of patients that Elizabeth has worked with for the last three weeks or so? I’ll work on getting the court order, but I need this a.s.a.p.”

  “You bet I’ll get a list together, but you’ll have to have the paperwork before I can hand it over.”

  “Thanks, David.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth awoke slowly from a dream that left her smiling. When her green eyes finally opened, she looked around the bedroom curiously. It was extremely pretty. There was floral blue and lavender wallpaper on one wall, and the window drapes and comforter matched the wallpaper. The other walls were painted a pretty shade of blue, and the trim and doors were painted white. The hardwood floor was stained to a dark shade, and an area rug was under the bed. There were built-ins, and she suspected the larger doors right in the center hid a television behind them.

  Elizabeth moved slowly in hopes of keeping the dizziness at bay, and was relieved when the headache seemed better. She got up and was not surprised when she found an attached bathroom. The builders seemed to think of everything, and she was already in love with this home. She made sure the door was closed tight before she used the toilet; she didn’t trust Craig not to barge right in, and she wasn’t ready for that much closeness yet!

  When she was finished, she couldn’t help running her hands gently over her bottom to see how much pain there was. To her vast surprise, her bottom was just fine. She’d just finished pulling up her jeans and washing her hands when the doorknob rattled.

  “Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Are you all right?” she heard Craig call out.

  She opened the door to find him standing there, a worried look on his face. To her surprise, he pulled her close and held her tightly, and she knew he’d heard something that had him worried! “What is wrong, Craig?” she asked, suddenly afraid.

  Chapter Four

  Elizabeth instinctively knew that something had upset Craig. The look in his dark eyes conveyed more worry than they should have to finding her in the bathroom! “Craig, what is it? I can see you are upset.”

  “The judge granted us a court order to view the list of patients you’ve taken care of in the last three months.”

  “He did?” she said, shocked. “What about the HIPAA Privacy Rule?”

  “I don’t care about the medical details of Lon McMaken; just the fact that you took care of him a week ago.”

  “I remember; he made me very nervous. His eyes followed me everywhere, and his cell phone was constantly in his hand. He was secretive, and no one was with him, not a wife or girlfriend, no family at all, and no friends. He drove himself there and when he left, he drove himself. We kept him longer because we didn’t know if the medication would make him drowsy. All in all, he was in the ER for nearly my entire shift.”

  “The partial print matches one of his thugs, Terry Mix, called Mixer. He does enforcement for the McMaken Family.”

  “You think this is mob related!” Elizabeth was stunned.

  “I’m not one hundred percent positive, but ninety-nine percent,” he said.

  “That creep! I’d like to smack him one!”

  “Don’t waste your temper on him, Lizzy. Right now I need for you to try and concentrate on anything you might have overheard that day.”

  “It was at night, Craig. I float shifts; I can do that easier than some of our nurses who have a family. I was on a night shift that week.”

  “Okay, just let it all come back to you. You might have heard something and just ignored what you heard at the time.”

  “I’ll try,” she agreed. “Craig, you don’t need to worry. You’ll find this Mixer person, and that will be that.”

  “Honey, we need to make the connection between McMaken, Mixer, and you. I need to get a confession from Mixer, and information from him about McMaken giving an order to hit you. Mixer is well aware that his life wouldn’t be worth one cent if he talked to us. McMaken would have him killed to keep him from testifying, and he would simply send someone else after you. We need to handle this the right way, Lizzy.”

  “Can’t you jus
t bring in Lon McMaken and get him to talk?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid that won’t work.”

  “What if he saw me, and thought I was telling you all about him? I could scare him into admitting something!” She was very excited, nearly jumping up and down.

  “You’ve been watching too much TV, little girl. I’m not going to let you get anywhere near that man! In fact, I don’t want you going to work, shopping, or even talking on your cell phone. Hand it over,” he ordered in a firm tone of voice. She could see that he was determined, and she wasn’t about to thwart him. She didn’t want another spanking, and since she knew he was doing his best to keep her safe, she promptly walked over to her handbag and retrieved it. Then she handed it to him.

  “It’s off?” he asked, obviously surprised… and pleased.

  “It is off. I’ve had such a headache that I didn’t want it to ring, and I haven’t wanted to talk to anyone but you.”

  “Turning this off has probably helped to save your life. I don’t know if the mob has tracking capability, but I am going to have someone take your phone and put it inside your house. You aren’t going anywhere near it.” He punched in a number on his phone. “This is Johnson, who is this? Okay. Hi Melanie. Please ask one of the officers on duty to swing by my home to run an important errand for me. I’ll let Wally know so the officer can get past the gate.” He listened. “Thanks, Melanie.” He then made another call. “Wally, this is Craig Johnson. I have a uniform coming by any minute now. Let them in, please.”

  “Will do, Lieutenant. Thanks for keeping me informed.”

  “You are seriously worried about McMaken tracking my phone, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. If he is watching on a monitor, then he’ll see you moving to your house; only you won’t really be there. We’ll keep you safe, and hopefully catch him.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then we’ll think of something else.”

  “What about my friends? Do you think McMaken will harm any of them, trying to find me? I don’t want that, Craig!” she said, wincing again, and holding her head at the sudden sharp pain.