by Janie Crouch
“I know that. Everyone knows that.”
She seemed tiny inside his blazer, huddled in the seat as he drove out of the Omega parking lot and toward her house.
“You know where I live, right?” she said in a small voice.
Did he know where she lived? Was she kidding? He was guilty of driving by her condo sometimes even when it was almost the opposite direction of the way he needed to go.
And every single time he wanted to stop and knock on her door like that one night three years ago.
Knowing she wouldn’t slam the door in his face, wouldn’t tell him to go to hell, was the only thing that kept him from doing so. She was too gentle, too kind, too soft to send him away.
And he wasn’t so much of a bastard that he was willing to drag her down into the dark world he lived in. He didn’t want her touched by the ugliness of the sordid things he’d seen and done.
But damned if that wasn’t the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“Yeah, I know where you live.”
He could almost see the flush move up her cheeks.
“I just mean... The one time you were there you were...not your normal self. A-and I just wondered.”
“Hey.” He reached over and grabbed her hand. “You’ve gone the entire evening without being nervous around me.”
“That’s because I was upset.”
“Then stay upset, at me if you need to. No need to go back to nervous.”
She shrugged. He knew he made her nervous, made her uncomfortable.
Just like he knew the way she looked at him when she thought he couldn’t see. And he cherished it even as he tried to keep himself distant from it.
Her condo wasn’t far from Omega Headquarters and soon he pulled up and into her parking space. She was already opening her door when he came around to help her.
“I’m okay,” she said, and although her voice was soft, it wasn’t shaky. “Thanks for the ride. My purse was in the lab with my keys in it. Let me get the spare.”
He watched as she hunted around her bushes, and saw her pull it out from where she had used electrical tape to attach it to the main branch. Much better than just slipping it under a front doormat.
“Found it!” The small victory had evidently thrilled her.
“May I?” He took the key when she offered it and opened the door for her. “Do you have another set inside?”
“Yes. This is just for true emergencies.”
“Okay, I’ll put it back out for you.” He slipped it into his pocket.
She stood there in the doorway swamped in his jacket, plaster in her hair, smelling like smoke, smiling her slightly awkward smile that always seemed to be uniquely for him.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
All the lecturing he’d given himself on the drive here about not dragging her down into his darkness completely vanished.
Molly was alive and he had to taste her.
He slipped one arm around her small waist under his jacket and threaded his other hand through the hair at her scalp underneath her long brown braid. He backed her up against the door frame and brought his lips down to hers.
He heard her soft gasp of surprise and took advantage of it to slip his tongue into her mouth. A knot of need twisted inside him as he drew her closer. He felt her arms wrap around his neck as her tongue dueled with his.
His jacket falling from her shoulders and pooling at their feet brought some sense of reality back to Derek.
This could not happen. As much as he wanted it to.
He dropped both hands to her waist and took a step back. “Molly...”
She blinked up at him, arms still around his neck.
“Molly, this isn’t a good idea.”
“Why?” She leaned forward again.
Hell if he could remember why in this moment. Her lips were almost to his. If he kissed her again he wasn’t sure he would have the strength to stop. “You have plaster in your hair.”
“What?”
“Plaster. It’s all in your hair.”
Her face that had just been so flushed and soft from his kisses became shuttered. Her arms dropped to her sides, before one came up to her head to find the plaster he had mentioned. Why the hell had he said that? He didn’t care about anything being in her hair. He’d just meant that she had been through a trauma and that they shouldn’t do anything she might regret.
Or he might regret. Like break her heart.
“Oh. Yeah. I—I probably need a shower pretty badly.”
The thought of Molly in the shower had everything in Derek’s body tightening, but the slight stutter wasn’t lost on him. He hated that he’d made her uncomfortable around him again. And her eyes were wounded.
Damn it. He had to get out of here just to stop the damage he was inflicting.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine, okay?” He glanced down at his watch. “Actually, that’s only about four hours from now, so let’s make it ten. You’ll need to give an official report.”
Molly nodded and stepped inside her door. She picked up his jacket and held it out to him, wary, as if she didn’t know what to expect.
Derek didn’t blame her. He couldn’t run more hot and cold if he tried.
He took the blazer from her. “Just get some rest. It’s been a crazy day for all of us.”
He waited until she closed the door—without a word—then turned and walked back to his car.
Damn it.
Chapter Six
It’s been a crazy day for all of us.
Molly turned on the shower water to let it warm up. She slipped her lab coat off as well as her other clothes, all of which smelled like smoke, and just threw them in the bathtub so they wouldn’t contaminate her clothes in the hamper.
She glanced briefly in the mirror before stepping into her walk-in shower. Yeah, she did have some plaster in her hair.
But let’s face it, Derek could’ve had giant pieces of cement or paint or a dozen more building substances covering his entire head and Molly would’ve kept kissing him.
That was the difference between them.
Derek Waterman was out of her league and she needed to remember that. He was glad she was alive and had kissed her. But tomorrow they’d be back to their same old routine: him acting as if nothing had ever happened between them and her acting like a complete nincompoop around him.
As Molly washed the mess from the explosion off her body and out of her hair, she decided it was time to stop the silly way she’d been acting around him all this time. She was a strong, intelligent woman. She needed to act that way.
She completely ignored that she had made that promise to herself multiple times before. This time she was going to do it.
Plus, she had other things to worry about besides Derek Waterman and his kisses. She got out of the shower and dried off, slipping on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt, rebraiding her hair.
The explosion in the lab. She rubbed a hand over her face as she walked downstairs to get something to eat. Even if the explosion wasn’t her fault, the workload resulting from it would be enormous. Sorting through which evidence was completely destroyed, or whether any of it could be salvaged, would be a daunting task.
Without a doubt many Omega cases would be ruined because of what had happened tonight. Crimes would go unsolved, some criminals unpunished. It was frustrating to consider.
Molly made herself a sandwich, poured herself a glass of milk and forced herself to finish both even though she didn’t want to. She was going to need her strength for tomorrow and a full stomach would help her get rest now.
All of the findings for past cases had been backed up on a server in a different building, just in case of a situation like what had happened tonig
ht. But current cases... They would have to be sorted through individually. And almost all findings would now be ineligible in court because they had been contaminated.
Worst of all, a young man—a promising young life—had perished.
Molly got up and put her dishes in the sink and stood there for just a moment, head hanging low. How she hoped they could prove this wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know how she was going to live with herself otherwise.
For the first time Molly wished she was a drinker. That she had some sort of hard liquor in the house that she could use to help alleviate all these thoughts in her head just for tonight. Be drunk and just not care.
And maybe, just maybe, she would go show up at Derek’s house drunk. And they could have sex again. Turnabout was fair play, after all.
Who was she kidding? Like she’d ever have the guts. She’d be thrilled if she could just talk to him like a normal person tomorrow when he came to pick her up. Which was just a few hours from now. She should get some sleep because she was obviously slap happy, thinking about drinking and having sex with Derek.
She went back into her bathroom to brush her teeth and took another look at herself in the mirror. No plaster in her hair, it was all tidy in its braid. Would Derek mention their kiss when he saw her tomorrow or pretend like it never happened? Again. She was interested to find out.
Crossing into her bedroom, she stopped as she realized the door leading to her small balcony was cracked open. Molly racked her brain. Had she opened it when she first got home? Had it been open when she got into the shower earlier? It was a nice night and now that she wasn’t in shock she wasn’t feeling so cold. But she still didn’t sleep with doors open.
As she crossed to shut it, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and gasped. Someone was in the room with her.
She opened her mouth to scream when the arm of a different, second person came around her head and covered her mouth roughly.
“She saw you. Get the drug. Hurry up,” one voice whispered to the other.
Molly began to struggle as hard as she could, throwing her weight back and twisting in the arms that held her. The hand squeezed harder on her face and jerked her head to the side, exposing her neck.
She felt a sharp prick in her neck as the second man injected her with something.
Molly fought to keep her head, to not panic. Whatever they had injected her with would only work faster if she was flailing around. She couldn’t fight them both anyway.
She let her body go slack.
“That was fast. Is that how it works?” the second man asked the first.
“How the hell should I know? Let’s get her to the car. The plane will be waiting for us.” Voice number one.
Plane? Oh God, where were they taking her? Molly struggled to focus over the effect of the drug they’d given her. One man grabbed her feet and the other carried her torso as they took her downstairs, then out the back through her sliding glass door. Molly tried to make her body respond once they got outside. If she was going to try to flee, now would be the best time.
But she couldn’t make her body respond as they threw her in the backseat of their car parked right outside her gate. She watched her row of condos get smaller from the window.
She wasn’t sure how long the car had been moving, and she definitely had no idea which direction they’d been going when it stopped again. But she could see an airplane hangar and small runway. Not the Denver airport, a much smaller regional one.
Through the fog of her mind Molly figured out that this was her only chance. Once they had her on a plane she’d have no opportunity to escape. The movement would send the drug faster through her bloodstream, but she couldn’t wait. And even in the haze she could imagine the terrible things they would do to her.
The men were arguing in the front seat, about something she couldn’t begin to understand, obviously not thinking her a threat of any kind. Using all her focus, she opened the door of the car and poured herself through the opening.
She tried to stand upright to run, but the world was spinning too rapidly. In a sort of three-limbed crawl-run she moved as rapidly as she could toward the tree line surrounding the airstrip.
She couldn’t hear anything but her own breathing, sobs coming from her chest as she tried to force her body to move faster. Her vision blurred as the drug took greater affect.
For just a moment she was sure she was going to make it. Then a hand grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around and sending her sprawling to the ground. She felt the pin prick again, this time in her arm.
“You’re tricky.” It was the first man. The one she had seen in her apartment. “But that should do it.”
The other man, the angry one, came up next to him. “I’ll take care of this the old-fashioned way.”
Molly tried to move away from his fist flying at her, but there was nowhere to go and she couldn’t get her body to move anyway.
She felt a pain like she’d never known against her jaw, then everything went blessedly black.
* * *
DEREK HAD GONE back to Omega Headquarters after dropping Molly off. But Steve had sent both him and Jon home. There was nothing that could be done until all the firefighters were cleared out, and they’d both be more useful after a few hours of sleep.
Molly’s house was much closer and Derek was tempted to stop there and catch a few hours of sleep on her couch.
Except he knew there would be no sleeping or couching going on if he did.
So he’d headed back to his own house and spent the couple of remaining hours of the morning trying, not very successfully, to sleep. And trying, again totally unsuccessfully, not to think about that kiss in Molly’s doorway.
Or her face when he’d stopped it and told her it was because she had plaster in her hair, for God’s sake. This was a shining example of why he shouldn’t be with her.
He was too rough and she was too gentle. She would always end up getting hurt around him.
But now he was on his way back to her house to pick Molly up. They both had long, hard days ahead of them.
And so help him, if she still had that sad look of rejection in her eyes when he saw her, Derek didn’t know if he’d be able to stop himself from taking her to bed right then and there to prove how much he wanted her. Consequences be damned.
He couldn’t stand the thought of her thinking he didn’t want her. Because he did. Every moment of every day. But he knew he wasn’t good for her. More than not good for her.
Poison for her.
He pulled up at her house and knocked on the door just a couple minutes before ten o’clock. When there was no answer he knocked again.
Nothing.
Had he gotten the time wrong?
Or maybe Molly had finally come to her senses and decided she didn’t want to be around him anymore. He couldn’t blame her for that. But he still wanted to make sure she was okay. He wished he could call her, but knew her phone had been destroyed in the lab.
He grabbed his phone and called Jon.
“Hey, you on your way in?” Jon answered without preamble. “I’m already here. It’s still pretty much chaos.”
“Have you seen Molly around or heard from her? I thought I was supposed to pick her up this morning but she’s not answering her door.”
“No, I haven’t seen her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not here. Let me check with Drackett.”
Derek stepped back so he could get a better look at her condo. None of the windows had any drapes open. If she had already left, then she hadn’t taken the time to open any blinds first.
“Steve hasn’t seen her, either. I don’t think she’s here, man.”
“Okay. I’ll see if I can find her.” No need to panic yet. “I’ll be in soon.”
Derek still had her extr
a key from last night, since he’d been so hell-bent on getting out of there as fast as possible. He knocked harder on the door, but when he received no answer again after a few seconds, he let himself inside.
“Molly? Are you here? I’m coming in.” He had been in law enforcement long enough to know not to enter a building unannounced if you weren’t on some sort of covert op.
He stopped just inside the doorway to listen for any sounds that would give away Molly’s presence: a shower, hair dryer, dishwasher. But there was nothing but silence.
“Molls?” Derek was actually worried now, running through possible scenarios in his head. What if she had been more hurt from the fire than any of them had thought?
He checked her bedroom first, then the bathroom and guest room. Back downstairs he found a dish in the sink, with crumbs from what looked to have been a sandwich. An interesting breakfast choice.
She wasn’t here and her bed was made. Which meant she either hadn’t slept in it at all or had already gotten up and was on her way.
Maybe she really was mad at him and had made her way to Omega on her own. Or maybe she just hadn’t been able to sleep and decided to go in to HQ where she could do some good.
It wasn’t like her to be inconsiderate, but she didn’t have a phone to contact him.
There were a lot of reasons why she could be out of pocket. All of them perfectly reasonable. But something about this wasn’t sitting right in Derek’s gut.
And he knew it wouldn’t ease until he found her.
Chapter Seven
Derek didn’t waste any time getting back to Omega Headquarters. He hoped Molly would be there, even if she was mad and didn’t want to talk to him. At least he would know she was safe.
The scene at Omega was less hectic than the night before. All the rescue vehicles and personnel were gone. Like the fire department captain had said, most of the damage had been contained to the forensic lab. The fire doors had saved the rest of the building.
Derek checked with security first. Everyone had to log in to enter the building. There was no record of Molly’s entry. Derek made his way to the main group of offices where his desk was located. The offices were far enough from last night’s fire to still be operational. Everywhere he looked, Omega agents were doing their normal jobs. Fighting crime and keeping society safe didn’t stop just because of a setback. Even one as large as last night’s fire.