Blinking, I said, “Women’s Center. Why?”
Michael yanked me to him, then further pulled me to the stairwell.
“What, Michael? What is it?” I asked in alarm.
He didn’t stop until we were three floors up, and I was breathing hard from exertion.
He yanked the door open to the sixth floor and pulled me right along with him.
Once he saw that the coast was clear, he visibly relaxed.
He let me go almost immediately, then pulled out his phone and placed a call.
“Yeah, my woman’s been going to the Women’s Center for months now!” he hissed quietly into the phone, looking around him as he inspected the empty hallway. “Why didn’t one of you fucking catch that?”
I blinked in surprise.
“Yes, she’s fine. And no, you told me you had the place under surveillance. You should’ve known!” he half yelled.
I refrained from saying, ‘You should’ve known.’
Instead, I kept my mouth shut and pulled out my phone, taking a seat in a small chair that was next to a potted plant.
I immediately saw that I’d be late if he didn’t hurry up, but I figured whatever it was, was important if he’d reacted the way he had at realizing I was going to a certain center.
Then realization dawned.
He’d only care about where I was going if the place was dangerous.
And there’d only been one case he’d been working on lately that would’ve made sense to warrant this reaction from him.
And I had a feeling I knew exactly what it was.
And I was nauseous again.
Motherfucker!
A cold sweat started to pepper my skin, and I visibly started to shiver as I jumped to conclusions.
Michael continued his seething conversation with the person on the other end of the line, and I started to let my mind wander.
Had I let some killer get close to my baby?
What would happen to us now?
Would the baby and I be in danger?
Could I switch doctors?
I’d have to drive out of town to go.
The Women’s Center dominated the entire Ark-La-Tex. There was only one company in the area that worked with my insurance, and I had a feeling I’d be finding out what panic felt like very soon.
Then sorrow started to fill me.
Had all those women come here, given their trust to one of the doctors or nurses, then had their faith ripped away when they’d shot those poor women and their husbands?
“This is it. We do this today, and tomorrow she finds another doctor. Do you hear me? I’m being one hundred percent serious. If anything happens to her, there’s not one thing on this goddamn earth that’ll save you from me. And no, I don’t fucking care I’m threatening an FBI agent,” Michael growled.
Then slammed his phone shut.
When he turned to me, his eyes immediately went soft.
“I’m so sorry, Nik. Had I known, I would’ve never let you come. I swear on my life I’ll protect you,” he promised, dropping down to his knees beside me and wrapping his arms around my midsection.
I moved my head, resting it on the top of his.
“What’s in the past is in the past. Let’s look forward from now on. You, me, and this baby,” I told him.
He squeezed me a little tighter, and I felt the now familiar flutter in my belly signaling our unborn child’s movement.
“I love you,” he said, looking up at me with his heart in his eyes.
I leaned down and smashed my lips against his.
Our tongues dueled as he thrust his tongue into my mouth. His tongue slid along mine as his hands moved up my back, burrowing under the loose shirt I’d stolen from him.
The one I wore to every doctor appointment because I liked to think that he was there with me.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said against my mouth.
I leaned my forehead down to his.
“Yeah,” I said simply.
“It’s a little big on you,” he surmised.
I laughed.
“Yeah, you could say that,” I agreed.
It was big.
Really big.
I’d tied it into a knot at my waist, at least making it somewhat flattering.
I didn’t really care what I looked like, though.
It was all for sentimentality.
And by the look in Michael’s eyes, he knew why I wore it, too.
“You ready to get this shit over with?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
“Michael,” I hesitated. “There are some good doctors in this office. I’ve seen a doctor and a nurse practitioner so far, and my regular doctor, well he’s a sweetheart. His name is Doctor Mead. He and his wife are the creators of this practice. Even Memphis works here.”
His eyes widened.
“Does Downy know Memphis works here?” I asked carefully. “The place that y’all are investigating?”
He shook his head. “Nobody knows. But he’ll know within ten minutes of me leaving the office. And I’m taking Memphis with me until they’ve discussed it.”
I snorted.
“Yeah right.” I laughed. “She won’t go with you.”
“We’ll see about that,” he muttered, tugging me along to the elevator.
Thank God.
I didn’t think I could do those stairs again.
Even if I was only going down them.
***
“Michael!” Memphis said, clapping excitedly. “You’re here!”
Michael grinned at Memphis, his face lighting up with pleasure.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he nodded.
“Well, how’d the appointment go?” Memphis asked, patting the table.
I handed Michael my purse, and he tossed it onto the chair. Something I could’ve done.
“I had a coke in there,” I muttered darkly.
He winked. “You shouldn’t be drinking coke. That’s what the doctor just said.”
“Michael, you’re not my doctor. Dr. Mead is. He hasn’t said a word about my caffeine intake,” I growled.
He was insufferable!
He’d been going on and on, contradicting the nurse practitioner about damn near every piece of advice she’d given in the hour and a half we’d been here.
Not one single thing had happened, thank God.
But Michael must’ve been trying to provoke the woman.
Whatever his reason, he’d done it.
I could see the usually sweet-tempered woman losing her cool before my eyes, so I’d put a stop to the questions and smiled apologetically at her before I’d left.
“Well, I am a doctor. There’s no reason you can’t listen to my directions,” he said sarcastically.
I shrugged and hopped up onto the table, leaning back and exposing my belly.
“Michael, today we’re doing a scan to make sure the baby is growing alright. Come stand right here,” she said, indicating a spot near my head. “You’ll be able to see this screen or that one.”
She pointed at the large flat screen on the wall, and Michael took them both in before he looked down at me.
“Does he know what you’re having?” Memphis asked happily, squirting a generous amount of lube on my belly before she started to run the wand over it.
I looked at the screen where the black and white grainy picture filled it.
“Yeah, he knows,” I informed her. “He still wants a boy.”
Memphis laughed.
“Weellllll, it’s most definitely a girl!” Memphis said, gesturing to a point on the screen. “Hamburger means girl. And she wants you to see that she is.”
Michael became transfixed with the screen as Memphis went along taking measurements and showing us different parts of the baby’s anatomy.
Then they showed the face, and I looked up to Michael to see his face avidly focused on the scre
en.
His eyes scrutinizing her every feature.
“She’s perfect,” he mumbled, knowing I was looking at him.
He looked down, and I could tell he was on the verge of something big.
Some huge emotion had ahold of him, and I had a feeling it was joy.
“Well, let’s turn it to 3D,” Memphis said excitedly. “I can’t wait until mine’s big enough to see like this…oh shit!”
Memphis eyes were wide. “Don’t tell Downy! I haven’t told him yet!”
Michael laughed.
“He already knows. He’s told everyone he can that you’re expecting again, darlin’,” Michael teased.
Memphis’ eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding.”
Michael shook his head. “No, we’ve known for weeks.”
She turned back to the screen, clicked a few buttons, and then replaced the wand to my belly. “Oh, I’ll be getting him back. He’s such a shit!”
Michael snorted, and I burst out laughing, making the screen flip with my belly’s movement.
When I finally settled down, she ran the wand over my belly once more.
The orange screen was captivating as we saw our child in more detail.
“It looks like an alien,” I surmised. “Like a weird alien.”
Michael’s mouth met mine, and I couldn’t help the butterflies that filled my insides at his unexpected touch.
I was happy that he was happy.
And right now, that was all that mattered.
Thirty minutes later, we were out the door, with Memphis in tow.
“I can’t believe you’re making me come,” Memphis said in awe. “I didn’t think anybody but Downy was that stubborn.”
Michael, who was driving, pulled into the police station’s parking lot and parked in the back of the lot near the rear exit.
“Believe it. This is beyond your capacity. And I have a feeling I’m about to be ripped a new asshole for not sharing this information before,” he muttered grumpily.
Now that the excitement at seeing our baby had worn off, Michael was in protect mode.
His sole focus was on the two of us, and what was about to come.
He’d practically taken Memphis by force, and when Downy met us at the back door; I knew Dr. Mead had called him.
Just like he’d said he would.
Although Memphis had assured him that everything was alright, Dr. Mead had wanted to follow up just in case.
Which was another reason I knew he was a good guy.
I slid out of the seat, bending my knees to help with the impact as I dropped out of Michael’s massive truck, and landed on the balls of my feet.
That wouldn’t work for much longer.
I could just see myself falling on my ass when I had another twenty pounds of baby added to my frame.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Downy asked, holding out his arm for Memphis.
Memphis walked into his arms, burrowing her face into his neck and hugging him tightly.
Michael had given her the bare minimum of what’d been going on to get her to leave with him, and she was obviously freaked way the hell out about the prospect of her employer being involved in something so vicious.
“Inside. To home base,” Michael ordered.
Downy’s brows rose, but he nonetheless turned and followed Michael and I to what I later learned was the SWAT team’s shared offices.
The first person I saw was my brother with his legs propped up on the long table in the middle of the room.
I walked up behind him and hugged him hard around the neck.
“I love you,” I said to him.
He raised his arm up and circled it around my back as best he could from his current position.
“Love you,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I gestured to Michael.
“They’re killing our women.”
Chapter 18
Whiskey is my spirit animal.
-T-shirt
Nikki
His announcement dropped like a bomb in the quiet room.
“I need to call Trance. And we need to get Sam in here,” Michael announced.
Trance was a police officer for Benton, Louisiana. And Sam was an ex-Army Ranger who lived in Kilgore with the rest of us. He was a badass, as was Trance. I couldn’t figure out why they needed to be here, though.
“How about you tell us how they’re killing our women, and then we’ll go from there?” Downy asked shortly, curling Memphis into his body.
I sighed and took a seat.
I was sort of interested in hearing what Michael had to say.
I’d gotten bits and pieces, but I still wasn’t fully up to par with what Michael knew.
And apparently, the boys in front of me weren’t either.
Which pissed them off.
Greatly.
Michael started talking, and by the time he was done, not just Downy was fuming.
They all were.
“What the fuck, man? My woman works there!” Downy roared.
I reeled back.
Downy was normally such a good-natured man that it was a complete and utter surprise to see him get so worked up.
It shouldn’t have surprised me, though.
Memphis was Downy’s world.
Anything that put her into danger would be a bad thing in his book.
Downy shook his head. “We’re not even sure that’s where the threat is coming from. We only know that there is one. And that the connection is the women. I didn’t know until today, though, that that was where Memphis worked.”
Downy calmed down slightly, taking a deep breath before he said, “Fuck me.”
“Not now, darling. We’ll get to that later. After you rub my feet and brush my hair like the princess that I am,” Memphis said soothingly, rubbing Downy’s belly like she was coaxing a big beast into sleep.
I snorted out a laugh, then turned in my chair to face my brother.
He’d been awfully quiet, his face a mask of shadows as he studied the wall behind Michael’s head.
Then my eyes narrowed on the awful, heartless man and my mouth opened so I could roar at him in outrage.
“You didn’t tell me!” I yelled loudly. “Why wouldn’t she tell me? I’m her best friend, and you’re my favorite brother!”
Nico didn’t even flinch as he turned his eyes to me.
“It’s been rough. She wasn’t sure she was pregnant at first,” he said simply, shrugging in indifference. “Still not sure.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me. I tell you everything!”
He gave me a droll look.
“You tell me nothing,” he retorted.
“I tell you what you need to know! You’re delicate!” I countered.
He laughed, which was what I’d been trying to accomplish.
Turning back to the room at large, I realized my mistake.
These men didn’t find me and my mouth as funny as my brother did, and I could tell by the looks of annoyance on a few of their faces.
I closed my mouth and inadvertently scooted closer to Nico, because mean, lying, betraying brother or not, he’d always have my back.
Which he proved in the next moment by wrapping his arm around my shoulder and kissing the top of my head.
Have I mentioned I love the hell out of my brother?
“Alright, how many of you have used this particular doctor’s office?” Luke asked, pinching the brow of his nose.
“All of them,” I muttered under my breath. “It’s the only one in Kilgore.”
Silence.
I closed my eyes when I realized the silence was back and they were all staring at me.
Shit!
I pulled out my phone and kept my eyes glued to it, leaning my head against Nico’s shoulder as I listened to them talk, trying my hardest not to butt in where I wasn’t wanted.
A text from my sister, Noel, came in while I was in my latest level of Candy Crush.
Noel: I got a really weird call from your mother.
Me: She’s your mother unless it was something awesome. Then she’s my mother.
Noel: She wants to know why you aren’t paying your doctor’s bills.
My brows furrowed.
Nico’s phone buzzed, and I looked over at him to see his eyes furrow.
“What?” I asked him.
“I just got a really, really weird text from Mom telling me she wanted to know why you weren’t paying your doctor bills. She asked if you were low on money,” Nico said.
Michael, who’d been talking up until that point, stopped and turned to me.
“You didn’t tell me you were having trouble paying your bills,” he left that hanging, and my face flushed in embarrassment.
“I’m not having trouble. In fact, I’ve already pre-paid for the hospital as of last visit!” I replied huffily. “What the hell? Why would anyone call my mother? That’s like against the law or something… isn’t it?”
Silence fell upon the room, and something huge in the air started to radiate around me.
Testosterone paired with fury started to fill the room, and I looked around at the men surrounding me as they comprehended something I hadn’t.
“What?” I asked, settling on Michael whose eyes had gone flat.
He blinked. “Call your mother. Ask her who called.”
Surprised at the way he’d spoken to me, with zero emotion at all, I did just that.
I called my mama.
Dialing her number, I put it on speakerphone and set it on the desk in front of me, keeping my eyes focused on Michael.
He didn’t look right.
In fact, he looked like he wasn’t my Michael at all.
“Nikki?” my mother answered. “What is this about you not paying your bills? You told me Michael was helping you pay when I offered to help you. Why would you lie about that? I only wanted to help you.”
A blush rose to my face, and I dropped my eyes from Michael’s flat ones the moment she called me on my lying ways.
No, Michael hadn’t helped me pay.
In fact, I’d paid all eight thousand dollars that I owed out of pocket myself, and I hadn’t asked him for a thing.
Something I was regretting right now if the fury that was coming off of him was anything to go by.
Code 11- KPD SWAT Box Set Page 138