by Karen Rose
Or maybe he’d tell her and it wouldn’t matter. It was possible. She’d taken the Ledger activities with a surprisingly open mind. But that was different. His team at the Ledger was like a modern-day Mission: Impossible team. They’d never actually killed anyone, although he and Diesel had come close a few times.
But what he’d done after Matty died was very, very different. He had killed someone – even if his finger hadn’t been on the trigger. He stared down at the gun in his lap. It might have been a murder weapon – the murder weapon, even. He simply didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.
But he did know that every time he carried it, he put himself at risk. When it’d just been himself to worry about, that had been okay. Hell, it might even have been part of the allure. But he didn’t just have himself to worry about anymore. Scarlett had put her career on the line for him. She’d stood with him.
He’d have to put the gun away, in his safe where it wouldn’t cause her any trouble. He took it from the pocket holster and ran his thumb over the barrel. It was not lost on him that he’d caressed Scarlett’s skin the same way a few minutes ago.
The gun had become more than a mere weapon long ago. It was a talisman, just as his knife was, but for very different reasons. Using a different gun would take some getting used to, he thought. But if it uncomplicated even a portion of their lives, it was a small price to pay. Because now that he’d held Scarlett in his arms, now that he’d tasted her lips and watched her face as he made her come . . . and now that he’d felt her hold him so tenderly that he’d thought his heart would club its way right through his chest . . . He knew that he was not letting her go.
He slipped the gun between his seat and the car door, where he could get to it if he needed it, then took his laptop from its case and opened the threat list. He cleaned it up, removing any references to his staff or the more questionable things they’d done, then emailed it to Scarlett.
A noise had his head jerking up and his hand going for the gun next to his seat, but he relaxed when he saw Scarlett knocking on the passenger window. He unlocked the doors, and she slid in, wearing a tactical vest over her T-shirt, her jacket draped over her arm.
‘Sorry I took so long.’ Her skin was flushed, a light sheen of sweat on her face.
‘Were you running?’
She tossed the jacket in the back seat. ‘Just a little. Didn’t want you to worry about me.’
He poked at the thick, padded bulletproof vest. ‘Where were you hiding this?’
‘I wasn’t. Lynda gave it to me, just in case someone takes a potshot at me too.’
He frowned. ‘You should have been wearing this when we went into and out of the hospital. Why weren’t you?’
‘I left mine at home after we . . .’ She shrugged, a blush coloring her cheeks. ‘After we had sex on my sofa. I think I was pretty rattled.’
‘Don’t get that rattled,’ he said, angry with himself for not noticing. ‘Why don’t you wear Kevlar under your clothes like I do?’
‘A, because it itches; b, because none of my clothes will hide a vest; c, because they make me roast, and d, because I didn’t promise my mother I would. I’d rather wear the vests over my clothes. Besides, you’re the target, not me.’
‘Promise me,’ he said fiercely. ‘Promise me you’ll wear one.’
She met his eyes, growing serious. ‘I promise. Until this guy is caught, I promise.’
‘We’ll renegotiate after this guy is caught,’ he muttered.
She smiled at him. ‘You can start the engine anytime,’ she said, pointing at the keys he’d left dangling in the ignition. ‘In fact, why didn’t you keep the AC going? You could’ve roasted too.’
‘I served two tours in the Gulf,’ he reminded her dryly, closing his laptop and laying it on the floorboard behind his seat. He started the car. ‘I can take a little heat.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘So can I, Mr Macho, but I choose not to.’ She cranked up the AC and leaned her face into the air. ‘Did you finish with the list?’
‘Yes. I emailed it to you.’
‘Must have been after I left my desk.’ She settled into the seat and checked her phone while he drove them out of the garage and on to the street that led from the city to her house on the hill. ‘I got it.’ She took a few minutes to scan it, tapped her screen, then put the phone in one of the pockets of the vest. ‘I forwarded it to Isenberg. She’ll get it to whoever’s doing the analysis.’
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. ‘I thought you weren’t going to your desk.’
She made a face. ‘Isenberg called me while I was in Ballistics. Deacon and Agent Coppola had just come back from your apartment building, and Adam Kimble, the detective who was leading the search for Mila and Erica, had just come back from the field. We did a mini-debrief. I got away as soon as I could.’
‘And?’
‘And the security tapes showed the killer leaving about five minutes after he entered with Phillip and shot the security guard.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Forty minutes after eight.’
‘Shit. He left only a minute or two before I got there. I may have seen him. Phillip said he was big and African-American.’
‘The camera didn’t capture his face. He had a ski mask hidden under his cap and pulled it down as he entered the lobby. He was also wearing gloves. The only skin we saw was around the perimeter of the mask’s eye holes. His skin was darker than Caucasian, but that’s all we can say.’
‘We’ll ask Phillip more when he wakes up,’ Marcus said firmly.
‘We will,’ she agreed with a hard nod. ‘When the shooter came out of your apartment, he went down the stairs, made sure the coast was clear in the lobby and then slipped out the front door. He had a towel wrapped around his arm and the knife still sticking out, just like Phillip told you.’
‘He didn’t want his blood spurting everywhere.’
‘But the towel had already soaked through. Phillip got that blade deep.’
Marcus thought of Edgar and Phillip, both fighting for their lives. ‘Good,’ he said coldly.
‘I agree. Agent Coppola talked to everyone in the building. Nobody saw or heard anything. He must have used a silencer.’
Marcus frowned. ‘Silencers for the Ruger are hard to come by. He may have had it custom made.’ His frown grew deeper. ‘But he didn’t use one in the alley. Why?’
‘Good question. But he did use a silencer on his rifle when he shot at you and Agent Spangler in back of the Anders house.’
There was a thoughtful quality in her voice that made him look at her. ‘What?’
‘The surgeon said that the shooter shot Phillip three times. Arm, side and abdomen. Arm was a through and through, but Coppola and Deacon didn’t find the bullet, just the casings. The surgeon said the shooter dug the bullet out of Phillip’s side and tried to dig the one out of his abdomen but gave up.’
‘Because the shooter was bleeding too. He didn’t want the bullets found. He left bullets behind at the alley and didn’t want the ones in Phillip connected through ballistics. The gun he used on me and Agent Spangler this afternoon was a rifle, so there wouldn’t have been a match anyway.’ He frowned harder. ‘But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he go to the trouble of digging the bullets out? He has to know that we know he’s the same guy.’
‘Do we?’ she countered. ‘Tala knew her attacker. I saw it in her eyes.’
‘So did I,’ he murmured. ‘When I watched the video later. So you’re thinking maybe it’s not the same shooter? Maybe the two aren’t related?’
‘But someone wants us to think that they are.’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll know soon enough. The ballistics tech was on her way in to do the test. They don’t usually work nights, but for something like this they get called in.’
‘You mean because a federal agent was killed,’ he said flatly.
‘No,’ she said forcefully. ‘Because we have a human trafficking murderer out on the st
reets. Nobody’s complaining about the extra hours.’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘It’s all right.’ She slid her hand over his thigh and squeezed. Comforting him again, he thought. ‘Some of the time that’s true. But not this time.’
‘Why did the search team come back in?’
She sighed. ‘They lost the scent. Looks like Mila and Erica hitched a ride. We got their visa pictures and those of the husband and son from Immigration and have distributed them to all the officers on patrol now, and they’ll be passed out at the shift meeting in the morning. Officers are being told to approach the women with care and to show them photos of the husband and son and one that Children’s Services took of Malaya. Isenberg had her clerk caption all three photos with “They’re alive and safe” in both English and Tagalog.’
‘Hopefully that helps. I just hope they don’t go under. We might never find them.’
‘I know,’ she murmured, sounding troubled.
He stopped at a red light and turned to study her profile. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just keep thinking about how none of this fits. It doesn’t make sense and it’s giving me a headache.’ She pointed at the traffic light. ‘It’s green.’
He turned his attention back to the road. ‘Wait till the ballistic report comes back,’ he suggested. ‘At least you’ll know if the same gun was used on Tala and Phillip.’
‘You’re right,’ she said quietly, but he could tell she hadn’t let it go.
Neither had he. He kept rerunning the events at his apartment building through his mind. ‘I’m trying to remember if I saw anyone that matched Phillip’s description of his attacker, but I’m coming up empty.’
‘Deacon is good at helping people remember things,’ she said, surprising him.
‘Deacon? How?’
‘He’s been trained to do hypnotism to calm you down, help you find things your mind’s filed in weird places. I watched him do it the first time with Faith nine months ago. Since then he’s helped three other victims recall things they either couldn’t remember or were afraid to. Don’t worry,’ she said when he grimaced. ‘He won’t make you cluck like a chicken. It’s just a relaxation technique.’
‘I don’t think that would work on me. It comes too close to an interrogation, or brainwashing even, and . . . well it probably just wouldn’t work.’ He left it at that.
‘You were trained to resist interrogation and mind control techniques when you were in the military?’
He frowned over at her. ‘I never said that.’ It was exactly right, though.
‘Come on, Marcus. Give me a little credit here. You move like a damn ghost. I’m good at being aware of people coming up from behind me, and you’ve snuck up on me twice now. Either you’ve had training or you’re secretly Batman.’
He snorted a laugh. ‘Okay, fine. You caught me.’
‘You mean you really are Batman?’ she teased.
He turned onto the road leading to her house and downshifted, making the Audi cough and rattle. ‘You may wish I were if this thing dies on us. We may end up scaling the side of the hill with a grappling hook.’
‘Big baby,’ she chided. ‘I run this hill every day when I’m training for a race.’
‘Really?’ He considered it, grateful for something to think about other than death and bullets and missing, frightened women. A glance over at her showed she’d accepted the momentary reprieve as well. Her eyes were alert and her mouth was curved in a smile that he wanted to see when he opened his eyes in the morning. ‘I want to see you run. Especially if I’m running behind you.’ The very thought made his mouth water.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ she challenged. ‘Crack of dawn. I triple-dog dare you.’
He shook his head slowly, a very different activity in mind. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You’re refusing a triple-dog dare?’
He pulled into her driveway, turned off the engine and shifted in his seat, resting his forearm on the steering wheel. ‘I would never back down from a triple-dog dare. Game on, Bishop.’ He reached for her when she grinned, releasing her seat belt with one hand and catching her around the back of her neck with the other, then pulling her close for a kiss that left them both breathless. ‘But I think that tomorrow morning I’m not going to want to waste my energy on running that damn hill.’
She caressed his jaw with fingers that trembled. ‘Then I think I should give you a rain check on the triple-dog dare.’ She kissed him again, then smiled against his lips. ‘Mrs Pepper is watching.’
He pulled back far enough to peek around her. ‘How do you know?’
‘I saw the reflection of her porch light coming on in your window. We should go inside before she comes over to talk to us. She can talk for hours,’ she added in a whisper.
He was out of the car and around to her side to open her door in seconds, making her laugh. He tugged her out of the car and put her keys in her hand. ‘Unlock the garage door. I’ll pull it up so that you can drive the car in.’
‘I can open my own garage door, Marcus.’
‘I know you can.’ He gripped her chin gently, kissing her long and wet and hot, making her sigh when he kissed his way to her ear. His hands itched to run over her curves, but as hot as she looked in the tactical vest, it covered her curves all up. Plus he could see Mrs Pepper peering through the curtains on her living room window. ‘Let me open it anyway,’ he murmured. ‘Mrs Pepper will think I’m a gentleman, and I want to get on her good side. She makes great cookies.’
Scarlett shook her head, chuckling while she did as he asked. He waited until she’d parked the car and shut off the engine before pulling the door down, leaving them in semi-darkness. And total privacy. Finally.
He opened the driver’s door and pulled her to her feet and into his arms. Then he held her. Just held her. Her arms wrapped around his waist, her head rested on his shoulder.
He was shaking like a teenager, dammit. ‘This morning,’ he whispered, ‘was different.’
‘I know.’ She lifted on her toes and kissed his mouth softly. ‘This morning we were different. I didn’t know who you really were yet.’
He smiled down at her. ‘Batman?’
‘No.’ She nipped at his lip, then soothed the hurt with the tip of her tongue. ‘The man I so desperately hoped you’d be.’
‘I’m no hero, Scarlett,’ he said soberly.
‘Neither am I. I’m just me.’
He kissed her gently, because even though his body craved her, his mind knew this was too important to rush. ‘I like “just you”.’
‘Sometimes I’m not very nice,’ she warned.
‘I like my roses with a few thorns.’
Her lips twitched, then stilled as she grew very serious. ‘I’ve been alone a long time, Marcus, and I got used to it. But now, with you, I don’t feel alone anymore, and that scares the hell out of me. This morning was sex, and that was satisfying and fun. And simple. But this, us right here, right now . . . It isn’t simple anymore. This is . . . more.’
He kissed a line down her throat, making her shiver. ‘I want more.’
Her head fell back, giving him better access. ‘Oh good,’ she breathed. ‘It would suck if I were the only one.’
He unsnapped the vest, lowered his voice. ‘What do you want, Scarlett? A husband, children? A picket fence?’
She swallowed, shivering again. ‘Yes. I’m greedy. I want it all.’
He nuzzled her neck. ‘I can build a fence. And I’ve always wanted kids. And a wife. So we’re starting out on the same page.’ He slipped his hand under the vest, cupped her breast, felt the hardness of her nipple against his palm. ‘What do you want this minute?’
She laughed breathlessly. ‘To drag you off to bed and do all kinds of naughty things.’
His control snapped and he took her mouth roughly, too roughly. But she gave as good as she got, shoving her fingers into his hair and kissing him until he was afraid he’d co
me right there in her garage.
He reared back, breathing hard. ‘What do you need to do first?’
‘Walk the dog, take a shower.’
‘Then go. I’ll get my things and meet you inside. Where’s your bedroom?’
‘Second floor.’ She kissed him hard before pulling out of his arms and walking backward toward the door into the house. ‘It’s purple.’
He frowned. ‘What?’
‘My bedroom. It’s purple.’ She grinned. ‘You’ve been warned. I’ll hurry.’
‘Okay,’ he muttered, somehow managing to bend over far enough to gather up his gun and laptop and her jacket and shoulder holster. ‘Purple it is.’ He headed into the house and up the stairs, his pulse racing in anticipation even as he felt his shoulders lighten. Peace, he realized. This is peace.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 11.55 P.M.
Scarlett normally let Zat struggle up the stairs on his own, but tonight she was impatient. She could hear the shower running, and the thought of Marcus under that spray left her knees weak and her pulse thrumming hard. Everywhere. Scooping Zat into her arms, she ran up the stairs just as the shower shut off.
Holding her breath, she put the dog down gently and walked to the open bathroom door. ‘Oh.’ It was more a long sigh of appreciation than an actual word. She’d seen him shirtless. She’d seen all the important parts when they’d gone at it like horny weasels on her sofa that afternoon.
But not even her very imaginative daydreams had prepared her for the whole package of deliciousness that was Marcus O’Bannion naked and dripping wet. Broad shoulders bunched and flexed as he toweled the hair on his head, while droplets of water clung to the dark, crisp hair lightly furring across his chest, making her want to lick it all up. And then keep on licking downward. My God, the man was a fantasy in the flesh, and what flesh he had. Long and thick and hard. Remembering how it had felt inside her had her core muscles contracting so hard she shuddered. Soon. She’d feel him inside her again soon.
He finished toweling his hair and was dabbing at the bandage on his scalp from his run-in with Chip Anders’s splintered door when he saw her standing there, agape. His grin started slow, but spread to his whole face, his cheeks creasing in a way she hadn’t yet seen. He looked happy, she realized. And very relaxed. Except for his erection, which grew even larger and harder as she stared, bobbing to its own beat.