RESIDENT EVIL PIERSHERRY

Chapter 20

SHE AND PIERS would be living together.
The practical realities of the situation struck Sherry during the car
ride to Piers's South Loop apartment. He had asked Wilkins to drop them off
so he could pick up his car and "a few things." As they pulled away from the
FBI building, he leaned over the seat and asked if she had any questions
about how the protective custody was going to work.
She nonchalantly answered that there were none she could think of off
the top of her head.
This was not true.
She had lots of questions. For starters, where exactly did Piers plan to
sleep? Could she still go to work during the day? Did he expect her to cook
meals while he stayed at her house? (Certainly the surest way to kill them
both.) Would they do normal, everyday things together, like watch television
at night? (Which reminded her--she really needed to delete those episodes
of The Bachelor from her TiVo playlist.) And where, exactly, did he plan to
sleep? (This particular question consumed such a vastly greater percentage
of her musings, it bore repeating.) Was he allowed to leave her alone at all,
like when he took a shower? Or, purely from a safety perspective, would it be
better for her to join him in such undertakings . . .
"This will only take a few minutes," Piers said as they rode the elevator
to his fourth-floor loft. He looked her over. "Are you okay? You looked like
you zoned out for a moment there."
"I'm still processing everything that happened today," Sherry said,
hoping she didn't spontaneously combust right there in the elevator at the
thought of him naked in her shower.
When they arrived at the fourth floor, Piers led her to the apartment at
the end of the hallway. He unlocked and opened the door, inviting her inside.
She didn't know what she expected Casa Nivans to look like, perhaps
something stark and Spartan with minimal furnishings and lots of gray, but
that was not what she found when she walked through the doorway. The
walls were exposed brick and the ceiling was vaulted. In keeping with the loft style, the main level had an open floor plan, with the living room running into
the modern kitchen and what appeared to be a powder room and a small
office down the hall to her right. There was a second floor; a floating
staircase led to a small balcony. Beyond that were open double doors made
of frosted glass through which she could see the master bedroom.
To say the least, the place was warmer and far more welcoming than
she had expected. But that wasn't what surprised her most. What really
caught her attention were all the books.
An entire wall of Piers's living room was filled with books--hundreds of
them--organized neatly on dark mahogany shelves. More books rested on
the lower shelf of his coffee table.
"Wow," Sherry said, making her way over to the shelves. "You have
some collection here." It looked like a mixture of everything, fiction and
nonfiction, hardcover and paperback. "You must be quite a reader."
Piers shrugged. "It fills my spare time."
Sherry would have loved to own such a collection of books--one of
her plans for her house was to convert part of the third floor into a library. Not
that she got a chance to read as much as she would've liked; a lot of her free
time was sucked up by Collin and Amy. Which made her wonder whether
Piers had a Collin or Amy in his life. Or anyone, for that matter. He seemed
awfully . . . solitary.
He pointed upstairs. "I'm going to grab my things. Do you want
anything to drink?"
"No, I'm fine. Thank you."
As soon as he went upstairs, Sherry checked out the living room
more thoroughly, looking for anything that would give her some insight into
the mystery that was Piers Nivans. He had an impressive flat-screen
television on the wall opposite the sable couch--of course he had a big TV;
he may have been a mystery but he was still a guy--and from what she could
tell from the books underneath the coffee table, he had an interest in
black-and-white photography.
A couple of picture frames on the end table next to the couch caught
her eye. Curious, Sherry headed over. One of the photos had been taken
several years ago--Piers and three other guys at their graduation from West
Point, all formally dressed in their uniforms of gray coats, gloves, white
pants, and caps.
Sherry picked up the frame. In the photo, Piers wore a cocky, wide
grin and had his arms slung over the shoulders of the guys next to him. It was
his smile that struck her--so brash and open. Seemingly so different from the
man she knew now.
She turned to the next picture frame. It held a black-and-white
photograph of a woman in her late twenties who laughed as she pushed a
little boy on a swing. The woman had dark eyes and straight, chin-length hair
pulled back with a headband. She bore a striking resemblance to Piers.
"My sister and nephew," came his voice from behind her.
Sherry started and turned around. He stood before her with a duffel
bag on the floor near his feet. No clue how long he'd been there.
She tried not to reveal how curious she was as she set the picture
frame back down. "Do you see your sister and nephew a lot?"
"Not that much when I was in Nebraska. But hopefully more now." He
swung the large duffel bag over his shoulder with one hand. "Ready?"
Sherry couldn't help herself as her eyes drifted over him,
remembering the night at Manor House. The strong shoulders and arms that
had braced her against the door, the lean hips and muscled thighs that had
pressed heatedly against hers, the firm chest and stomach that she'd just
begun to explore with her hands. And the intense look of desire in his eyes.
Now he'd be sleeping in the bedroom next to her.
Perhaps she'd be better off taking her chances with the murderer.
WHEN THEY GOT back to Sherry's house, Piers's first order of
business was to make sure that the doors had been repaired per his
orders--first the front lock, and then the French doors off the master bedroom
balcony. As he'd instructed, the agency had sent over a maintenance crew to
board the door and clean up the glass.
Sherry eyed their handiwork skeptically. "It definitely adds that
certain 'vandalized' quality I was going for with my renovation."
"It's safe. We can worry about style later," Piers said.
The second thing he did was conduct a thorough check of the
premises, with Sherry by his side until he was sure they were clear. This
was no quick feat, given the size of the house. "Did you used to be married?" he asked as he opened the closet in one
of the guest bedrooms.
"No," she said, seeming surprised by the question.
Rules out the rich ex-husband idea, Piers thought.
Another mystery he would soon get to the bottom of.
Third on his list was to get settled in. He took the room closest to
Sherry's--which luckily, unlike the other guest bedrooms, actually had
furniture--and unpacked his bag. He shrugged out of his blazer and hung it in
the closet. He put his spare gun on the nightstand, then opened one of the
drawers of the dresser in the corner.
He discovered a man's sweatshirt inside.
Piers slammed the drawer shut and chose another.
He moved next onto the fourth item on the evening's agenda: taking
care of Sherry.
She was doing a pretty good job with the tough criminal prosecutor
routine, pretending to be fine with everything that had happened that
afternoon. But he had seen the exhaustion that had set into her eyes in the
car ride to her house, had heard the nervousness that belied the sarcasm in
her voice as she'd commented on the boarded-up French doors, and had
noticed the way she'd momentarily hesitated when she'd followed him up the
stairs that led to the second floor, undoubtedly thinking back to the masked
intruder's earlier attack.
He guessed she hadn't eaten in hours. That seemed as good a place
as any to start. Pausing at her bedroom door to make sure everything
sounded okay, Piers headed downstairs into the kitchen. He found her junk
drawer and a well-worn menu from a Chinese restaurant a couple blocks
away and figured that was a safe bet. He had no idea what she'd want to eat,
so he ordered a bunch of things--screw it, he'd charge it to the Bureau.
Besides, this way they'd have leftovers. From the looks of her refrigerator
and freezer, she was an even worse cook than he was. Thank God for
delivery, because a six-foot-two-inch man couldn't last more than an hour on
those skimpy frozen meals. He'd been stranded in a jungle in Colombia for
five nights with four other guys on his Special Forces team and still had seen
larger rations than those things.
Next, he checked out the liquor cabinet in her dining room. From the looks of it, she liked wine and she liked it red, so he went with the safe bet
and chose a cabernet. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, he knew she
would need some help falling asleep that night. While listening to the sound
of water running upstairs, he made his way around the kitchen and poured
her a glass of wine. The doorbell rang a few minutes later, and, after a brief
moment of confusion when Piers frisked the delivery guy, asked him for his
I.D., and called the restaurant to confirm his status, they were set to go.
Piers set the bags of food on the counter, grabbed the wineglass, and
headed upstairs. Sherry had left her bedroom door partially open, as he'd
asked her to. He knocked.
"Come in," she said in quiet voice.
Piers pushed the door the rest of the way open. He found her standing
in front of her closet and walked over. "I thought you might want a glass of
wine to help you . . ." He trailed off as she turned around, stunned by what he
saw.
There were tears in her eyes.
Of course, he realized. The closet where the killer had been hiding,
waiting for her.
He set the wineglass on the floor and went to her. "Sherry . . .
everything's okay now. You know that, right?"
She blinked, and a tear ran down her cheek.
It killed him.
Piers wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He whispered in
her ear. "He's not getting near you again, baby, I promise. No one's laying a
finger on you ever again."
She turned her cheek against his chest and peeked inside the closet.
He could've sworn he heard a sniffle.
"It's such a beautiful dress," she finally said.
Piers took a look. A long, silky, deep-pink dress hung front-out in the
closet. No clue why she was crying over it, but he figured it was best to
simply nod and be supportive under the circumstances. Maybe the killer had
wrinkled it or something.
"It's a very nice dress," he agreed.
Sherry pointed at a pair of silver high-heeled shoes on the closet
floor. She'd positioned them directly underneath the dress, as if an invisible woman was wearing them. "And the shoes . . ." She peered up at him, all
weepy-eyed. "They would've gone so perfectly with it, don't you think?"
Yeah . . . maybe he should just skip past dinner and put her straight to
bed instead. Somebody was clearly a bit out of sorts.
He cleared his throat. Frankly, this was the kind of thing Wilkins was
better at. "And now. . . you don't want to wear the shoes again because . . .
the killer might have touched them?" Hell, he was a guy, what did he know?
Maybe shoes were as sacrosanct as purses and bachelorette parties.
Sherry pulled back and gave him the strangest look. "What? Oh,
come on, give me a little credit, Piers. It's a bridesmaid's dress. I'm upset
because I was supposed to wear it to my friend Amy's wedding. It's this
weekend, in Michigan. With all the chaos today, I completely forgot about it."
She sighed. "You're going to tell me I can't go, aren't you?"
Piers thought this over. "Where in Michigan?"
"At a hotel in Traverse City. Amy used to vacation there with her family
when she was a kid. She's planned this wedding for years--it means a lot to
her." Sherry forced a smile. "Looks like Collin's going to have to step in as
maid of honor after all. He's going to be so pissed."
Piers saw right through the smile. It was impossible not to notice how
close she was with her friends.
Traverse City was a good couple hundred miles from their Detroit
office, but he could probably get Davis to call in a few favors. Everybody
owed Davis favors.
"I can get you to the wedding," he said.
"Really? You think it will be safe?"
"Assuming we can send a few agents over from the Detroit office as
backup, yes. Actually, this works out well. This is a big house--a lot of space
to be watching over you. I planned to have a security system installed--silent
alarm, motion detectors, the works. Now one of our tech teams can put that
in over the weekend, and when you and I get back from the wedding we'll be
good to go."
She exhaled, seemingly both surprised and relieved. "Great. Okay.
That, uh . . . was easier than I thought."
Piers cocked his head. Wait a second . . . He couldn't decide if he was
pissed or really impressed. He hooked a finger into the waistband of the workout pants she'd changed into and pulled her closer. "Did you fake me
out with those tears, Sherry?"
She peered up at him defiantly, seemingly outraged by the suggestion.
"Are you kidding? What, after the day I've had, I'm not entitled to a few tears?
Sheesh."
Piers waited.
"This wedding is very important to me--I can't believe you're even
doubting me. Honestly, Piers, the tears were real."
He waited some more. She would talk eventually. They always did.
Sherry shifted under the weight of his stare. "Okay, fine. Some of the
tears were real." She looked him over, annoyed. "You are really good at
that."
He grinned. "I know." He picked the wineglass off the floor and handed
it to her. She followed him down the stairs and saw the bags of food on the
counter.
"Why don't you take a seat while I set everything up," Piers said. "I
wouldn't want you to tire yourself out in your emotionally fragile condition."
She watched as he took the white cartons out of the bags and set them
on the counter in front of her. She looked up when he stopped.
"That's . . . pretty much it with the setup," Piers said.
Sherry laughed. "Wow--you sure pull out all the stops for a girl." She
grabbed some chopsticks and the carton nearest her, not looking particularly
bothered by the lack of presentation.
At first, they discussed the Robards investigation as they ate. Then as
they began cleaning up, Sherry steered the conversation toward the three
years he'd spent in Nebraska--previously a taboo subject for them. Aware of
the potential pitfalls of the conversation, Piers decided to tell her about one of
his last assignments there--catching a bank robber the local media had
named the "Butt Bandit" because of the perp's fondness for leaving Vaseline
imprints of his nether regions on the windows next to the ATMs he robbed at
night.
Sherry tried not to laugh as she threw away the empty cartons. She
failed miserably. "Sorry. I'm sure it was a very important case. How did you
catch the guy?" She started laughing again. "Did you have the suspects drop
their pants and do a lineup?"
"Ha, ha," Piers said, reaching around her to throw away the rest of the
garbage. "No, we caught the guy because he got Vaseline on his hands
while smearing it on his ass during one of the jobs. He left some fingerprints
behind and we found a match--he'd been in jail before for robbing a
convenience store."
"I wish I could've seen you making that arrest," Sherry said, leaning
against the counter and taking a sip of her wine.
"It was the highlight of my career," Piers said dryly, putting the leftovers
she'd dished into Tupperware in the refrigerator. He shut the door and saw
her watching him with a sudden serious expression.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I have something to tell you," she said. "About what happened three
years ago. . . I'm not the one who had you transferred to Nebraska."
Piers ran his hand over his mouth as this sank in.
"Talk."