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He was ready to talk, and in true “Dawg” style, he was barging right in.
Lips tightening, Piper jerked the sheet Jed had dragged off the bed as they rolled, and wrapped it quickly around her naked body. Peeking over the side of the bed, she growled back at her brother.
“Why are you sneaking into my bedroom?”
Dawg’s brow lifted. “Little sister, I wasn’t sneaking. Your door was unlocked.”
“The hell it was.” Struggling with the sheet with one hand to keep it around her, Piper used the other to push her hair back from her face as she glared at Dawg.
She was all too aware of Jed moving to his feet, completely at ease with his nudity and not the least bit ashamed as he collected his clothes. Dawg’s expression tightened, his mood shifting toward that dangerous mark.
“Don’t call me a liar, Piper,” Dawg warned her then. “I said the door was unlocked. Trust me; it was unlocked.”
“I locked that door earlier, Dawg,” she told him, suddenly aware that something simply wasn’t right where his entrance was concerned. “I remember securing it. And neither Jed nor myself has gone out of it since.”
Dawg’s gaze narrowed. “I wasn’t exactly quiet when I pulled in and called out to Mercedes to tell her I was coming around to your room.” His gaze swung to Jed as he laid his shirt across the table before securing the belt on his jeans. “I guess there’s not a chance in hell you heard anything?”
Jed cleared his throat. As he glanced at her, Piper felt her face flushing heatedly.
She knew exactly why they hadn’t heard anything.
“Figures.” Dawg grunted, drawing Piper’s attention back to him. “You’re certain the door was locked?”
Tipping her head to the side, she stared back at him with mocking disbelief. “Really, Dawg?”
They both knew she was certain. Piper was the one often found checking all the doors and windows in the middle of the night, to be certain no one could slip into the suite.
Lifting his hand, he pushed his fingers through his hair in agitation before staring back at her, his celadon gaze filled with concern. “Piper, please God, tell me what’s going on before someone does more than bruise your face.”
She knew that door had been locked, which meant someone had unlocked it at a time when they would have believed she was otherwise occupied.
They were there looking for something.
She just had no idea who or what they were searching for.
TEN
Staring into her brother’s face and seeing the fear and worry for her reflected in his gaze, Piper was forced to admit that her suspicions regarding the attack couldn’t be ignored any longer. There wasn’t so much as a sliver of a chance that the attack in New York had been random, and she knew it.
It hadn’t been an accident that her room was the one a burglar had targeted. She hadn’t been randomly picked out of a crowd and then followed to her room. She wasn’t just a faceless nobody someone had decided to torment.
And the nightmares . . .
Those vague, shadowy horrorscapes she drifted into once she fell asleep couldn’t be ignored either. Just as the unlocked door couldn’t be overlooked. Someone was desperate enough to get to her that they had picked the lock on her patio doors in broad daylight.
Breaking contact with Dawg’s fierce look, she glanced at Jed, and knew he had reached the end of his patience as well. If she didn’t tell her brother now, then he would.
“As you know, I slipped out of town last week.” She sighed in resignation as she stared back at her brother once again. “A friend drove me to Louisville, where I caught a train to New York City to meet with someone interested in my designs. I was getting ready to leave to come home when I asked the front desk to send up a bellhop to help with my luggage. I had bought lots of materials at the fabric stores.” She waved her hand toward her worktable. “It wasn’t the bellhop who arrived. When I opened the door, I got a faceful of fist, and if it hadn’t been for the kids in the adjoining room, the damage would have been much worse.”
Dawg sat down slowly in the chair beside him before wiping his hands carefully over his face.
“I need to get dressed.” She breathed out roughly. “You can question me when I get back.”
Gathering her clothes, she strode quickly to the bathroom and snapped the door closed behind her before leaning against it and dragging in a ragged, fear-filled breath.
She knew she had locked that door.
She remembered locking it, just as she remembered Jed checking those locks when he’d risen from the bed after they had caught their breath.
