“I was… I was just passing by,” he lied; he didn’t feel up for a discussion about the envelopes, where they came from, why he left them.
Now it was Jasmine’s turn to squint at him.
She opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the scream of the kettle. A small smile formed on her lips, and she turned her back to him again.
Something came over Drake then. Without thinking, he moved behind her, and slipped a hand around her waist.
Pull away, he urged her. Pull away, slap me, call me a bastard and I’ll leave.
But Jasmine didn’t pull away. Instead, she shifted her hips backward ever so slightly, pressing her ass against him.
Encouraged by her movement, Drake spun Jasmine around. And then he kissed her. Softly at first, but when he felt her tongue probe his lips, he kissed her more forcefully.
He felt Jasmine’s hands wrap around his waist and pull him even closer. Drake lifted his hand from her hip and slipped it beneath the collar of her robe. His searching hand found her breast and he squeezed, feeling her nipple harden between his fingers.
Jasmine moaned, a sound that was barely audible over the kettle’s high-pitched squeal, and Drake suddenly pulled back.
He blinked rapidly, and as he did he felt light-headed.
What am I doing? This is… this is wrong.
Jasmine looked up at him and ground her hips against the front of his pants, which had become uncomfortably tight.
She tilted her chin upward, her mouth open slightly, and a split second before he leaned down to meet her lips, something changed.
Drake was no longer staring at Jasmine Cuthbert’s pretty face, but someone else’s. Someone with short brown hair and smallish features.
He was staring at Chase Adams.
“What the—”
Jasmine suddenly yanked him forward and, eyes wide, Drake found himself kissing her again, tasting her sweet scent, feeling the moistness on her lips and down below.
What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck am I doing?
Chapter 21
Chase finally made it home around midnight. It was dark, it was cold, and the exhaustion that she had felt in the car with Agent Stitts had only grown in his absence.
As had the cloud of… what was it that she felt, exactly? Doubt? Discomfort?
Whatever it was, it gnawed at the lining of her stomach.
With a sigh, she exited her car and made her way toward the door. As was her habit, she tried the doorknob before inserting the key, and was surprised to find it unlocked.
Shaking her head in frustration, she knocked the snow from her boots and stepped inside.
A flicker of movement from down the hall caught her eye and her hand went to the gun on her hip.
“Chase? That you?” a groggy voice asked. Chase took a deep breath and relaxed.
“Yeah, it’s just me. Listen, Brad, you left the door open again. You have to remember to lock it.”
“Sorry, I was beat. Fed Felix dinner and then fell asleep on the couch watching the Yankees game. There’s some left, you want?”
Chase removed her coat.
“The Yankee game’s over by now. Unless they’re playing the Red Sox, then it’ll probably last until tomorrow afternoon.”
Brad tousled his short brown hair and chuckled.
“Not the game, you puffalump; I meant dinner. Made a chili-slash-stew. Pretty good, if I do say so myself. Felix thought it was too spicy, but you know how he is. Garlic is too spicy for him.”
Brad slid an arm around her waist as he spoke, and while at first Chase leaned into him, she eventually pulled away.
The thought of meat suddenly made her feel queasy.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. Could do a beer though.”
Brad frowned, his brow furrowing.
“I’ll join you,” he said as he made his way to the fridge.
After removing her coat and boots, she flopped down on the couch. A smirk crossed her lips when she realized that not only was the TV still on, but so was the game. The Yanks were playing the Sox and it was 7-7 in the bottom of the fourteenth inning.
Chase was just getting comfortable, feeling her eyes droop, when Brad slid in beside her and handed her an ice-cold beer.
She took a large gulp, wincing as the cold stung her throat. Beer probably wasn’t the best thing for her suddenly unsettled stomach, but then again, when was beer a bad idea?
Thoughts of alcohol brought an image of Drake to mind, and she wondered briefly what he was up to at this very moment.
Probably elbows deep in a bottle of scotch, she reckoned.
Brad took a sip of his own beer then turned to face her, concern etched on his handsome face.
“You alright? You seem quiet, even for you.”
Chase stared at her bottle of beer for a moment, before taking another swig.
“It’s this case,” she admitted. “There’s something about it that… that…”
“Reminds you of your past? Of your sister?” Brad offered, his voice so quiet that the words bordered on inaudible.
Chase ground her teeth and ignored the comment.
“It’s just getting to me. I think I’m just tired, is all.”
“Ever think of taking a break? A week off maybe? I mean, we haven’t even been in New York for a year yet, and you’ve led two, and now three, major cases. Not to mention being promoted to Sergeant, and all that bullshit with Rhodes. And how can we forget about the fact that you were kidnapped. Jesus, Chase, take a break. It’ll do you good,” Brad sighed heavily and averted his eyes. “It would do us good, Chase.”
Chase’s eyes shot up.
“What? What do you mean?”
Bard picked at the label on his beer bottle.
“You know what I mean. Look, I’m not saying you didn’t warn me—you did. I knew that moving to New York would mean that you would be busy. I also knew that it was a career move, that starting as a Detective would eventually take you to the FBI, but—”
Chase opened her mouth to interrupt, but Brad continued quickly, not giving her a chance.
“But, we also know what happened in Seattle when you were overworked, how…” his eyes darted to her arms, which were thankfully covered by a dark sweater, and his sentence trailed off.
Chase hated how Brad couldn’t bring himself to say the words, as if she were so fragile that just mentioning what had happened in Seattle when she was undercover would set her off.
She wasn’t that person anymore. She was someone different, someone stronger.
Besides, there was only one thing that she refused to talk about, and he had already broached that subject, if only in passing.
So why is this case getting to you, then? A nagging voice inside her head demanded.
“Well, you know,” he said at last.
Chase’s eyes narrowed.
“Say it. Say it, Brad.”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m not going to say it. It’ll do no good to say it—I just—I just think it’s important to let you know that Felix misses you, that I miss you.”
Brad looked down as he said this, making it clear that it wasn’t intended as a guilt trip. It was just him being honest, which was admirable. And Chase couldn’t help but think that she was probably working too hard.
Even poker was failing at taking her mind off her work, which was the main reason why she played.
An image of Melissa Green, her face barely peeking out from beneath a thatchwork of hay, her lips a crusty brown, flashed in her mind.
“After this case, Brad. After this case, I’ll take some time off,” Chase thought of Beckett and his vacation in the Virgin Gorda. “We can go away somewhere, maybe. Somewhere hot.”
She smiled, and while Brad returned the gesture, it also somehow seemed sad.
He patted her knee gently, then stood.
“Come to bed soon, Chase,” he said, finishing his beer. “You look tired.”
“I will,” C
hase lied. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Chapter 22
“I can help you with those.”
The woman looked over and offered a tentative smile.
“No, that’s okay. I can manage.”
“You sure? They look heavy.”
The woman glanced down at the bags, one in each hand, both bursting at the seams with books. They were heavy.
“Sure, my car is just over there,” she said, indicating a gold minivan a couple of spots over.
She sighed as she relinquished her hold on one of the bags.
“Normally I have my son here to help me, but he’s… well, he needs extra help and stayed late at school. Grade four, and already they’re trying to tell me that he’s falling behind in algebra. Algebra! I mean, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t take algebra until at least high school,” she chuckled dryly. “And even then, I’m not sure I had any idea how to solve the damn—excuse me, darn—equations. I mean, letters and numbers are like liquor and beer. They just shouldn’t mix, if you know what I mean.”
They were almost at the minivan now.
“You like books?”
“Oh, I love them,” the woman said cheerily. She moved the bag to her other hand, flexing her sore fingers.
“Let me ask you something: do you ever leave reviews for the books you read?”
The woman hesitated before replying.
“Reviews? S-s-sure, every once in a while. Why do you ask?”
Her pace slowed slightly as she neared her minivan, and the hand no longer gripping the plastic bag clenched. It was only a subtle gesture, but it didn’t go unnoticed by either party.
Something doesn’t feel right.
“I can take it from here,” she said quickly, abandoning her previous line of questioning.
A strange, tuneless whistle suddenly filled the air.
“Oh no, allow me. Here, I’ll grab your keys.”
Second Act
Chapter 23
“Is he coming back, you think?” the woman with the piercings in her face asked.
Colin shrugged.
He was still so furious about Ryanne that he could barely believe that he had actually made it to the writer’s group.
There were six of them again, and ten minutes into the class, there was still no sign of the douchebag Dwight Jurgens.
“Can someone email the guy? Cuz if he ain’t coming, I want my money back,” a young man with a toothpick dangling from between his lips asked from the back of the room.
“Already did. No answer. And the class was free,” a plump woman who had introduced herself as Missy P—why only use a pen name for your books? Why not have one in real life?—replied. “Tried calling him, too, but went straight to voicemail.”
“Whatever,” toothpick boy said as he started to pack up his things.
“Why doesn’t Colin teach again?” the girl with the piercings offered.
Colin’s ears perked, drawing himself out of the scene that replayed over and over in his mind of his wife with the landlord.
“What? No I don’t—”
Missy P interrupted him.
“I thought what you said yesterday was interesting,” she offered with a shrug that sent her entire body quivering. “I’d stick around if you want to teach again. I mean, you don’t have to.”
“Me too,” someone else chimed in.
Toothpick boy strode toward the door.
“No offense, buddy, but I’m out.”
Colin watched him go. The last thing he wanted was to teach these people about something he himself had limited knowledge of.
What had Ryanne said?
If you didn’t write your shitty books… If you got a real job.
Or something like that.
And as much as he hated to admit it, Colin was beginning to think that she was right.
Irrespective of his new life experiences.
“I don’t think I can teach you anything. I don’t—” he felt his voice hitch and fought back tears. The woman beside him with the piercings lay a comforting hand on his back. Colin regained control just in time. “I—I don’t know any more than you do. I self-published three books, but they don’t sell. Anybody can do what I did. I’m working on something new, something written to market that I think will do better, something dark, more visceral, but really guys, I’m nothing special.”
The hand on his back squeezed gently, and he turned to look directly at the woman. Her eyes were small and dark, and while he sought comfort and compassion in her expression, he didn’t find any.
But after a moment of contemplation, he thought that maybe this is what he needed all along.
“What you told us yesterday—about writing what we know, about our experiences—I tried that last night,” an older gentleman to Colin’s left said in a dry voice. “It was my best writing session in years.”
Colin raised an eyebrow.
“Come on, impart us with your knowledge, oh wise one,” Piercings joked.
Colin sighed, and reluctantly stood and made his way to the front of the class.
“To write about experiences, the first thing you need to do is to really experience something. Something that affects you so deeply that it changes who you are.”
***
Colin was still out of breath even after all the other members of the writer’s group had left the classroom. He had been up there for nearly an hour talking about…
What the hell was I talking about?
It had all been such a flurry that he couldn’t remember. At one point, he thought he had mentioned Ryanne and his landlord, but couldn’t be certain.
What the hell does it matter, anyway?
He was in the process of shoving his notepad into his messenger bag, when someone approached.
“You really have no idea what you’re doing up there, do you?”
Colin turned in the direction of the voice and was surprised to see the woman with the undercut and tattoos standing in the classroom doorway.
Despite her condescending words, he was surprised to see that she was smiling.
“I thought everyone was gone… was it really that bad?”
Taking several steps forward, the woman said, “Naw, I’m just fucking with you. It wasn’t that bad at all. Better than anything that prick Dwight could do, I bet.”
Colin took her words as a compliment, although he wasn’t sure that this had been her intention.
“Like that shit about, ‘write what you know’?”
“What about it?”
“Sage advice. But makes me wonder… what have you experienced?” she asked, moving closer to him.
Colin’s eyes narrowed and he felt his heart thud loudly in his chest.
“What do you mean?”
She moved closer still, until she was within several feet of him, and for some reason, Colin started to get nervous.
“I mean, we all have our dark side, you know? What’s that pen name you were telling us about? I am really, really interested in reading your work.”
Colin felt uncomfortable and was about to say as much when the woman suddenly sidled right up next to him. Before he had an idea of what was happening, her hand was already at the front of his jeans.
His eyes bulged and he tried to swipe her hand away. Her grip, however, had a hold of him, and it was firm.
“I’m… I’m—” married, he wanted to say, but an image of his wife smoking a cigarette, her sagging breasts pushing up against the cheap t-shirt, Gary or Gerald or Glenn the landlord standing behind her in his stained tighty-whities came to mind and he stopped himself.
The woman, sensing his apprehension, smirked and leaned in close. She snaked her tongue over her lips, which, with a flash of excitement, he realized was pierced.
Fuck Ryanne, he thought suddenly, and this time when she squeezed the front of his pants, he pushed against her hand encouragingly.
Their sex was sloppy and uncoordinated, but it thankfully only lasted a
few minutes. Sweating, his breath coming in short bursts, Colin turned away from the woman whom he had propped up on the desk and pulled up his pants.
He could feel his face flush from his embarrassing performance.
It had been a long, long time since he had had sex.
Ryanne, on the other hand…
When he turned around, he saw that the woman, whose name he still didn’t know, had hopped off the desk and was in the process of pulling up her own pants.
“I’m sorry…” he began, but stopped himself when she chuckled.
Without comment, the woman buttoned her jeans and then quickly grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from the desk and started to write.
“Wh—what are you doing?”
Again, no answer.
Colin repeated the question, and this time the woman looked up at him.
“I’m doing what you said. I’m writing down what I know, my experience, so that I can recreate it later.”
Chapter 24
Drake awoke feeling more refreshed than he had in months. Slightly disoriented, certainly, but his head felt clear and his thoughts were crystal.
And when he leaned over and saw Jasmine’s face pressed against the pillow, her caramel-colored skin a stark contrast to the crisp white pillow, he felt his heart drop.
What have I done?
He slid out of bed and then moved toward his clothes that had been thrown on the chair the night prior. Walking as quietly as possible, trying to overcome his typical elephant-like grace, he somehow managed to put his pants and shirt on without waking Jasmine.
After a final glance at her peaceful face, accompanied by a well-deserved pang of guilt, Drake left the room.
Despite everything that had happened, he was beginning to think that perhaps his luck was changing. He managed to make it downstairs and slip on his boots in near silence, and he was within seconds of heading outside and forgetting all about the horrible mistake that he—that they—had made when the door suddenly flung open.
Suzan stood in the entrance, a bookbag dangling from one hand.
Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 59