Complete Mia Kazmaroff

by Kiernan-Susan Lewis

  “I need you to go back to your vehicle, sir.”

  “Fine. Only, I’m having a serious attack of some kind,” Jack said, turning to eye the small strip shopping center fifty yards behind where the cop was parked. “I need to find a rest room.”

  He could see the cop hadn’t expected this particular monkey wrench. He frowned, but nodded in the direction of the strip center. Maybe he figures it’s better than sending me back to my car to possibly continue driving on the sidewalk. Before Jack turned away—with every intention of dashing across the parking lot to the residential streets behind it—the cruiser’s radio cackled loudly.

  “Patrol Unit 66. Sixty-one reported at 1502 Grantham Road.”

  Sandy’s address. Sixty-one was police code for help call.

  “That’s it!” he yelled to the cop, “That’s the address! 1502 Grantham.”

  The cop rubbed his chin and gave Jack a blank look. “I thought you said it was a break-in.”

  “Patrol Unit 66,” the radio crackled again. “That is your location. Please respond.”

  Jack turned and ran, leaving the SUV parked on the sidewalk, motor running, and plunged into the shopping center parking lot and down the first residential street he came to.

  *****

  A wave of cold hit Mia in the chest as the man approached the old woman cowering on the bed, knife held high in his fist. It was like watching a movie in slow motion. A horror movie. Mia’s legs felt like hundred pound weights as she took a step toward him. As soon as she moved, the movie sped up. With the sound of her heart hammering in her ears, Mia hurled herself onto his back, grappling to wedge his knife hand in the crook of her elbow. She felt his other hand reach up behind him to jerk at her jacket. He would dislodge her in seconds.

  His muscles rippled beneath her hands and she felt his power coiled and ready. She couldn’t remember what Maxwell told her any more.

  She felt a searing electric jolt of pain stitch down her thigh to her knee and realized he’d twisted across his own body to slash into her leg. Without thinking, Mia clamped onto his ear with her teeth and bit until she felt the cartilage splinter in her mouth. He screamed and reached up with both hands to grab at her on his back. She didn’t hear the knife fall, but when she felt his hands gouging into her arms and neck as he fought to dislodge her she knew he must be unarmed.

  Soft spots, soft spots, soft spots….

  She saw the dropped knife on the bed directly in front of her. Any decision was wrenched from her when he swiveled sharply and slammed her into the half-opened closet door. The air violently gushed out of her, her arms and legs stiffening with the impact, her hands loosening their hold. She crumpled to the floor.

  He looked down at her, but she couldn’t breathe or move away, could only watch as he reached down for her, his face purple with rage and hate. She closed her eyes and felt him jerk her up, nausea swirling in her head and stomach as he flung her against the wall, her hands unprotecting and useless by her sides. When she hit, the lights flickered and went dark in her head. Mia opened her eyes to the sight of her assailant’s face close to hers, his hands around her throat, his fingers squeezing the life from her.

  It must have been only seconds, but long enough for the darkness to beckon again, to flutter in her mind and urge her to retreat into the bliss of oblivion. Harshly, the bliss vanished and her throat was aflame, aching in fiery spasms as breath coursed through her again. She opened her eyes to see him staring, almost curiously, into her face, his eyes blue and clear, an expression of surprise in them as if he wasn’t sure why he was doing this. Then he closed his eyes and slumped heavily forward onto Mia.

  Standing behind him, the old woman held the knife now bloody in her shaking hand.

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  One ambulance, four police cruisers—all with lights on—the other Lexus SUV and Jack’s own car crowded the curving driveway leading to Sandy’s house. It had taken him nearly thirty minutes to run to Sandy’s neighborhood from the traffic knot on Northside Parkway. Gasping from lack of breath, he barreled up the long, winding driveway and instantly saw a flash of gray hair between the white-jacketed EMTs.

  “Vernetta!” He pushed past a uniformed cop and was immediately grabbed and flung across the hood of one of the cop cars, his face pressed into the metal.

  “He’s carrying!” the cop yelled as Jack felt his arms wrenched behind him.

  “Jack? Is that you?” Vernetta called. “I know him, young man! He’s with me.”

  The officer finished handcuffing Jack and pulled him upright.

  “I’m a private investigator,” Jack said, keeping his voice calm. He twisted around to catch a glimpse of Vernetta. “My license is in my wallet.”

  It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Vernetta was safe. Twyla was safe. Jack relaxed against the cruiser, his shoulders slumped in relief. Vernetta, wrapped in a dark blue blanket, moved through the group of cops and medical personnel to where Jack was standing. Shrugging, the cop released the spring on the handcuffs and handed him back his wallet. No apologies. No comment. Jack wondered if that’s the way he’d behaved too a few thousand years ago when he’d been on the force.

  “Jack! You are not going to believe what happened!” Vernetta said, her eyes glittering in excitement.

  “Twyla’s safe,” Jack blurted. “We found her. She’s fine.”

  “Oh, praise the Lord!” Vernetta flung her arms around him. Jack hugged her, realizing this was the one thing he hadn’t been able to do. When he’d found Twyla alive, when he’d delivered her safely to her mother—before he knew the truth—a part of him just needed to hold another human being, someone who’d been in as much pain and fear as he’d been in, and rejoice.

  Jack pulled away and looked over her head at the cluster of police cruisers. “Where is he? I know Jay was here. Did the cops get here in time?”

  “Oh Lord, Jack, I will never get over this night, never in whatever years I have left. If Sandy doesn’t agree to move us back home now, I swear, I’ll kidnap her myself and drag her there.”

  “Vernetta, what happened? I tracked Jay here.” Jack looked around at the cops, trying to identify someone in charge.

  “They just took him away, Jack,” Vernetta said. “In an ambulance. Not three minutes ago. He tried to kill me! And he nearly succeeded.”

  “He’s hurt? The cops needed to subdue him?” Jack said, feeling the adrenaline of the day give way to an intense exhaustion.

  “The cops didn’t get here in time!”

  Jack repositioned the blanket around Vernetta’s shoulders. “What do you mean they didn’t get here in time? You’re all in one piece, aren’t you?”

  “No thanks to them! Some girl broke into the house and risked her life to save mine. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead—smothered in my sleep with a pillow to the face.”

  As soon as Vernetta said the words, Jack felt his mouth go dry.

  “A young gal. Oh Lord, she’s a firecracker, Jack. You should’ve seen her! Jumped on Jay's back—and he had a knife! It was like watching a movie. I owe my life to her.”

  There was no way it could be anyone else. He turned toward the house and saw her, standing on the front steps, dressed in skintight jeans and an oversized sweater that fell just to her hips. Her long hair flew wildly about her face in the late afternoon breeze. Jack’s heart flew into his throat. She was flanked by two EMTs, who were trying to get her onto a stretcher.

  She pointed at Jack. “Before you give me a hard time,” Mia said, “I want you to know I have a very good reason for being here.”

  Jack reached her in five strides and swung her into his arms. She gave a squeak when he set her back down on her feet, his fingers in her hair, his lips on hers as he kissed her deeply, completely. He pulled back to look into her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispered in a ragged voice. “How the hell did you know?”

  “Know what?” Mia said, her eyes searching his, as if unsure he
wasn’t angry with her. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Jack laughed, relishing the feel of her in his arms. He ran his hand down her back, drawing her close to his body.

  “If I have to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, Mia,” he said, “I swear I will.”

  Mia sagged in his arms. “Damn trick knee,” she gasped.

  “She’s got a seven-inch gash on her right leg,” one of the EMTs said as he stood next to them, his hands on his hips. “She needs to let us put her butt in the wagon so we can get it stitched up.”

  Jack scooped Mia up and placed her on the stretcher. He knelt next to her. She was wearing a loose bandage and already she was bleeding through it.

  “Shit, Mia. What happened?” He felt his anxiety ratchet up again.

  Vernetta hobbled over to them. “Crazy Jay and a good-sized hunting knife is what happened,” she said. “Do you know her, Jack? Because I have to tell you, this little gal is a firecracker. I wouldn’t have thought she was your type.”

  “Are you kidding?” He gazed into Mia’s face with wonder and relief. “She’s exactly my type.”

  “Well, good for you,” Vernetta said, reaching over and patting Mia on the arm. “I’m thinking of adopting her, myself.”

  “How in the world did you know what was going on here?” Jack asked Mia.

  “I didn’t, did I?” Mia said, repositioning herself on the stretcher with a grimace. “Nobody tells me anything. I just came over so I could start touching shit.”

  “Oh, God…” Jack felt a laugh welling up. He shook his head. If it hadn’t been for Mia, if it hadn’t been for her impulsiveness, her contrary resistance to do what she’s told…

  “Who was that guy, anyway?” Mia asked. “How did he have a key?”

  “He was Sandy’s bodyguard,” Vernetta said.

  Jack looked at her. “Sandy said he was yours.”

  “Well, she would, wouldn’t she?”

  Jack took a deep breath. “Vernetta, listen. I have to tell you, I think…I think Sandy was in on the kidnapping.”

  “There was a kidnapping?” Mia said. Her mouth fell open. “That’s why you were here all this time?”

  Vernetta stared up at the house, her eyes hooded and unreadable. “She sent Jay to kill me, didn’t she?” Vernetta said finally.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said.

  “Don’t try to protect my feelings, Jack,” Vernetta said looking at him. “It had to be her. And of course it was for the money.”

  “I’m confused,” Mia said. “I thought she had plenty of money.”

  “That’s what everyone thought,” Jack said. “But Sandy wasn’t the lottery winner. Vernetta was.”

  Mia whistled. The EMT edged Jack aside and pushed her onto her back.

  “Hey, watch it, Sparky,” Mia said smacking the medic’s hand as he began strapping her in.

  Jack stood up and watched as the EMT worked to secure Mia onto the stretcher. “Are you taking Mrs. Hobson to the same hospital?”

  The EMT eyed Vernetta. “We already checked her out. And the cops took her statement.”

  “Great. Vernetta, you come with me in my car.” Jack turned to the man again. “You, go ahead and bundle this one onboard,” he jerked his head in Mia’s direction, “and I’ll follow behind. And you,” he said to Mia, “I will see you at the ER, and do not make any stops between here and there, do you read me?”

  “Oh, my God, do you hear yourself?” Mia sputtered. “Who put you in charge?”

  Jack pulled out his phone as he turned away.

  “And do not call my Mom,” Mia said as the EMTs began rolling the stretcher to the waiting ambulance.

  “I’m calling her right now,” Jack said. “I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes.”

  He turned to Vernetta and offered her his arm. “Shall we go?”

  When the day began, Jack would never have believed that by eight o’clock the same night he and Mia—stitched up and drugged up, with their little rat terrier between them—would be snuggled on the couch in front of the TV in her mother’s den. Vernetta was asleep in the guest room after Jessie’s famous chicken and dumplings. The murmur of Maxwell and Jessie talking over the day’s events in their room was like a low hum in the background.

  Even Maxwell managed to unbend from his normal preference for social formality and had been practically dewy-eyed tonight. Watching his former boss, the Chief of Atlanta’s Major Crimes Division, interact with Mia surprised Jack to see the two had obviously bonded in the last few weeks. It was downright sweet to see the big man pat Mia on the shoulder in a clumsy but endearing picture of affection when they came back to Jessie’s after the ER.

  Jay survived his surgery after his run-in with Vernetta and his own knife, but, unfortunately, one lung did not. In any case, he’d live to stand trial for kidnapping and attempted murder.

  The only negative to the day as far as Jack could see was that after Sandy was taken into federal custody on charges of kidnapping, Twyla was left alone, if not unguarded, in the hospital in Dahlonega.

  “So Sandy tried to have her own mother killed so she could inherit her lottery winnings?” Mia asked with a yawn. She ran her fingers through the dog’s curly topknot.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “I can’t wait for the DA to explain to her that the Georgia Powerball provides a guaranteed annuity for life—for the lottery winner. When Vernetta dies, the money stops.”

  “Oh, snap.”

  He pulled a strand of hair from her face. “I can’t believe that even without knowing what was going on you managed to save Vernetta’s life.”

  “Well, you were busy recovering Twyla from a shallow grave.”

  “Which was all according to Sandy’s plan,” he said, gruffly. “Sandy had her ironclad alibi at the beauty salon, with me out of the house long enough for Jay to slip in and do the deed. The only thing Sandy didn’t account for was my crazy girlfriend.”

  “Hey, I resent that!”

  “Which part?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that. I’m pretty stoned at the moment.”

  He laughed, and then sobered.

  “Mia, I’m so sorry. So sorry for all the secrets and the way I mishandled everything. I really screwed up.”

  “It’s okay, Jack. We’re good. We’re all good.”

  “Is that the drug talking?”

  “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  He took her chin in his hand and kissed her mouth hungrily, tenderly. She groaned.

  “Jack, I can’t…”

  He smoothed her hair and grinned. “I’m not trying to start something. I just need to finally touch you, that’s all. Just be with you, smell you…”

  “Yeah, about that. I wasn’t able to shower yet.”

  “Hush,” he said, kissing her again.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed heavily as they watched the nearly muted television programming for several more moments. Jack couldn’t remember feeling more genuinely happy in his life. A warm flush tingled through him, starting in his chest and emanating out to his fingers and toes. The soft rumble of conversation from the living room had ceased. Maxwell and Jessie must have retired for the night.

  He shifted little Daisy out from between them. “She figured she could manipulate me. And she was right. I mean, she always could. I was the necessary patsy in the equation.”

  “What about Twyla?” Mia murmured. “Now that you know she’s not really yours?”

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little relieved. And I feel guilty about that. But when you have a kid, you want to give them everything you can. That wasn’t ever going to be in the cards for me and Twyla.”

  “Well, it sounds like she could still use a damn fine uncle, which I know you’ll be. Unless you’ve got another kid tucked away somewhere you haven’t told me about?”

  “No. Nobody else.”

  “That’s good.” She yawned. “As for Twyla, I just hope she got the same pai
nkillers they gave me tonight.”

  Jack wrapped an arm around her and held her against him until he heard her breathing become even and steady. Then he gently lifted her and carried her to her bedroom.

  *****

  Two weeks later, Mia’s leg was still sore. That hadn’t stopped her from riding, much to her mother’s dismay, but it was problematic for climbing stairs, walking any distance, and maneuvering in and out of cars. She swung out of Jack’s car and stifled a groan. He hurried around to get the door for her and gave a gruff noise of irritation.

  “Do you mind if I take care of you just a little?”

  “You do take care of me, Jack,” Mia said. “Where it counts. In the kitchen and in the bedroom.”

  She watched him blush and look over his shoulder, as if afraid someone might have overhead. But deep down, she knew he was pleased.

  Reentry into their new world as a couple had been immediate and without transition. They’d both made mistakes, and Mia knew they’d make a few million more before they were done. But she also knew she hadn’t trusted him—when he’d never given her reason not to before. On the other hand, Jack hadn’t trusted her either.

  She gazed at him as he fussed over her and felt a warm glow spread from her loins downward. The sex was just as earth-shattering and exquisite as the first time. In some ways, better. It wasn’t as intense due to her injury, but what it temporarily lacked in aerobics it made up for in tenderness and thoroughness. Mia rubbed her arms as if reacting to a sudden chill and he glanced at her.

  “If you’re thinking about what happened this morning in the shower,” he said in a low voice, “stop it right now. We have to behave like normal people for at least an hour.”

  He took her elbow and they began to walk up the winding driveway to Sandy Gilstrap’s front door, where Vernetta stood.

  “Hi, you two. I wondered when you’d get here.”

  “Are we late?” Jack asked. “I thought you said dinner.”

  “No, you’re not late,” Vernetta said. “And dinner’s nearly ready.”