Wild at Heart

by Jane Graves

  He came back into the apartment, but when he looked around, he didn’t see Val. He checked the kitchen, then went down the hall and found her in her bedroom sitting at a desk, punching away at a computer keyboard.

  “Your brother’s nice,” she said.

  “My brother’s a know-it-all.”

  “Yeah, but you love him anyway.”

  What was with the two of them? How could they possibly be in collusion when they’d known each other only five minutes?

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked.

  “Question,” she said, her gaze focused on the computer screen. “Do you think Dave can get Henderson to change his mind and go for a warrant?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re absolutely sure about that?”

  “Henderson’s out to get me. He’s not about to back down under any circumstances.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Then we have to go to plan B.”

  Oh, Lord. Her plan A’s were scary enough. The more she moved down the alphabet, the more frightening it got.

  She clicked the mouse, waited a moment, then looked closer at the screen. “Just as I thought. There it is.”

  “There’s what?”

  Alex came around to look at the screen. He recognized the Web site as a subscription-only site used for background checks. Val had pulled up information about Shannon Reichert.

  “See?” Val said, pointing to one of the fields. “March eleventh, 1974. Or 31174.”

  “Shannon’s birthdate. So?”

  “The first time I met with Reichert about putting Shannon under surveillance, I went to his house. I arrived there at the same time he did. I remember three of the five numbers he punched to turn off his security system. Three, one, and one. All I needed were the last two.”

  “Surely Reichert isn’t stupid enough to use something that obvious as a security code.”

  “Sure he is. People do it all the time. The most common things they use are birth dates and the last digits of their social security numbers.”

  “You’re still only assuming—”

  “It’s a safe assumption. Believe me.”

  Val had a knowing look on her face that was starting to make Alex very nervous. He sat down on the edge of her bed and skewered her with a sharp stare. “Val? What are you planning on doing with that information?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I thought maybe I’d take a little stroll through his house, maybe look around for a certain rifle—”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “And I’ll plant a bug, too. If he says anything incriminating, we’ll nail him.”

  “No!” Alex said. “No way! Get that out of your head right now. That’s breaking and entering!”

  “Only if I’m caught.”

  Alex bowed his head, letting out a long breath. “All you have is the code for the security system. It won’t get you past the locks.”

  “Like those would be hard to pick?”

  Her cavalier attitude astonished him. “Do you realize you’re talking about breaking into the house of a man who may have just tried to kill you? He’s probably armed to the teeth in there. If he finds you in his house, he could blow your head clean off and be justified in doing it.”

  “It’s not nearly as risky as it sounds. All I have to do is find a time when I know he won’t be there.”

  “You’ll be breaking the law!”

  “If I find something that incriminates Reichert, nobody’s going to care about that.”

  “And if you don’t—”

  “I will.”

  “No, damn it! You’re not going within a mile of that house!”

  Val narrowed her eyes. “Do you like the idea of prison, Alex? I hear cops get real good treatment in there.”

  “Forget it, Val.”

  “But Alex—”

  “Good God!” he shouted. “You haven’t changed one bit! You’re still just as wild and reckless as you ever were! This is exactly the kind of crap that got you thrown out of the police academy!”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them, but he couldn’t take them back now. Val’s eyes slowly narrowed, her expression hot with anger.

  “No, Alex. It’s you who got me thrown out of the police academy.”

  He did not want to deal with this. “I had no choice. You know that.”

  “You had plenty of choices.” She paused, looking at him pointedly. “About a lot of things.”

  He knew exactly what she was talking about, and he didn’t want to touch that issue, either. “No matter what you think, the only reason I came to your apartment that night was to break the news to you. That’s all.”

  “No. You came to my apartment that night because you wanted to get laid.”

  Alex felt a surge of anger. “I don’t want to talk about this.” He stood up quickly and headed for the door.

  “Of course you don’t,” Val said. “Because it makes you sound like a colossal son of a bitch.”

  Alex stopped, then turned slowly back around. Val was staring up at him, wearing that fierce, defiant expression that made him absolutely crazy.

  “If you’ll remember,” he said, his voice low and angry, “I tried to talk to you afterward. Tried to explain. But you wouldn’t let me.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what would you have said? ‘Sorry, babe, but if I’d told you what was coming down, you might not have put out last night’?”

  “Damn it, Val! It wasn’t like that!”

  “Sure it was. The whole time we were together, you knew you were going to kick me out of the academy the next day!”

  “It wasn’t just me. There were other officers—”

  “But your opinion was the deciding one. You made the difference. Once they knew you didn’t approve of me—”

  “Not of you! Of you as a police officer, and there’s a big difference between the two. It just wasn’t the right profession for you.”

  “Oh, yeah! You’re so damned high and mighty, telling me what’s good for me and what isn’t! You could have given me a chance, Alex. Half a chance. Hell, I’d have settled for less than that!”

  “I gave you more chances than you ever deserved,” he said, jabbing his finger in the air. “You were a wild card. You wouldn’t follow procedures. You always had a better way. And forget following orders. You thought the chain of command was a joke. How is an officer in the field supposed to trust somebody like you? Anyone who was depending on you to watch his back would have ended up with a bullet in it!”

  Val glared at him. “I already know what you think of me. You made that quite clear the day you kicked me out.”

  “Then I guess we don’t have much else to say to each other, do we?”

  Alex went into the living room. He grabbed his socks and boots, sat down on the sofa, and pulled them on. She’d baited him. Baited him into losing his temper so she could continue to believe that he was exactly what she thought he was. Baited him into saying terrible things to her so she could go on hating him. And he wasn’t going to take it anymore. He didn’t need to stay here any longer. Now that she’d slept off the painkiller, as long as she was careful, she could take care of herself just fine.

  As long as she was careful. Who was he kidding?

  It didn’t matter. She wasn’t his problem. She clearly wanted him out of her life, and that was just where he wanted to be: out of her life.

  He stood up. Turning, he saw Val standing at the doorway leading from the hall, probably gearing up to berate him all over again.

  “Lock your door when I leave,” he told her, “and keep a weapon handy. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t go near Reichert’s house.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “I’ve survived quite nicely all these years without your advice, Alex. I expect I’ll survive a few more.”

  This woman was never going to change. Never.

  He put his hand on the doorknob, then stopped and turned back. “What happened that nig
ht was a mistake. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. You can think what you want to, but I never meant to hurt you.”

  She lifted her chin. “Then I’d hate to think what you could do to me if you really set your mind to it.”

  Alex yanked the door open and stepped into the hall, and only through a Herculean effort was he able to keep from slamming the door behind him.

  He headed toward the stairs, anger rolling through him. Shannon Reichert had stood stark naked in front of him, offering him a body that was beyond belief, and still he hadn’t had the least bit of trouble telling her no when he smelled trouble. So why was it that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off Val? Why was it that whenever he was around her he misplaced every bit of common sense he’d ever possessed? And why was it that she was so adept at getting under his skin even now? Hell, he couldn’t remember ever spending more than an hour with her that they didn’t end up in some kind of argument.

  But despite his anger, when he reached the stairs, he stopped and turned back. Listened.

  He heard Val’s dead bolt click. Then the twist of the handle lock. And a second later, the rattle of the chain as she slid it into place. Of course, none of the three would be worth the metal they were made of if Reichert decided to come after her again, but still, it made him feel better to know they were there.

  But why did he give a damn? She hated him for what had happened between them. It was going to stay that way from now on, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

  Absolutely nothing.

  chapter nine

  Val collapsed on her sofa, still shaking with anger, but now that anger was punctuated with tears. Tears. She thought she’d cried her last tear over Alex DeMarco, but it looked as if she wasn’t through yet.

  Damn him.

  It was a mistake, Val. That was how he characterized making love to her. A mistake.

  I never meant to hurt you.

  That was a lie. How could he think that she’d be anything but hurt when she found out what he’d kept from her?

  She’d been so shocked to wake up that morning and find him gone. She’d searched her apartment for a note he might have left, or for some indication that he’d just stepped out for a moment and he’d be back. Nothing. When she tried to call him at his apartment, she got his answering machine.

  She shrugged it off at first, telling herself he’d get in touch with her later in the day. But when noon came, then one o’clock, an ominous feeling crept through her. Something had made him leave before she woke, and she had a feeling she knew what it was.

  Regret.

  He was probably wishing that he’d never come to her apartment last night. He was probably thinking up ways to avoid her, because to him, it had been just sex and nothing more. She thought that was the most awful thing that could possibly happen.

  The reality turned out to be much, much worse.

  About two o’clock, she received a phone call from the lieutenant, asking her to come to his office. She couldn’t imagine why he would want to see her, and her stomach was in knots all the way there. When she arrived, he motioned for her to enter the room.

  And that was when she saw Alex.

  He was sitting in a chair beside the lieutenant’s desk, wearing a perfectly pressed suit, a starched shirt, and a silk tie. He looked official. Businesslike. And when she met his eyes, she saw nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  He seemed to stare right through her with an emotionless demeanor that was agonizing. In his gaze she saw not a hint of the heated passion or the desperate desire to make love to her that he’d shown the night before. Instead, his dark eyes were cold, his lips caught in a firm, unyielding line of detachment. Her stomach clenched with apprehension.

  And then came the dismissal.

  At first she wasn’t certain she’d heard the lieutenant right, but glancing at Alex, seeing his stony stare, she knew she had.

  We believe you’d be better suited to another profession. One with more flexibility. More latitude. One where you’re not required to take orders from a superior officer.

  We. As if anyone else’s opinion had been needed once Alex had spoken.

  Disregard for authority. Unconventional approaches to assignments. Refusal to follow procedure. It had all been in the report, signed and sealed. And with that, she was out. And through it all, Alex just sat there, his arms folded, saying nothing, staring at her as if she meant absolutely nothing to him. As if he hadn’t come to her apartment the night before. As if they hadn’t made love for hours.

  He’d known. The entire time he’d been with her, he’d known what was going to happen. And he hadn’t said a word.

  The lieutenant started expressing his regret over the situation in one of those patronizing tones people use when they want to appear as if they have a heart but they really don’t. Val wanted to scream. She turned midspeech and left his office, knowing she had to get out of there because tears were welling up in her eyes and she was not going to cry in front of Alex.

  She ran out of the building, the heat of humiliation burning her cheeks, tears finally breaking through and cascading down her face. She reached her car, fumbled for her keys, dropped them on the ground. She tried to pick them up, but tears were clouding her eyes so badly that she couldn’t even see to do it.

  She finally located her keys. Stood. Tried to fit the key into her car door. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She whipped around to find Alex standing behind her.

  “Val. I wanted to tell you last night, but—”

  She slapped him. With every ounce of energy she had in her, she slapped him right across the face, her hand stinging with the effort. She doubted that anyone else on earth could have done that to Alex DeMarco and lived to tell about it. But he took it. And that made her even more furious.

  She started to hit him again. He caught her wrist and just held her there, staring at her with the one thing she didn’t want to see on anyone’s face.

  Pity.

  She yanked her arm from his grasp. “How could you have done this to me? How could you have come to my apartment last night, knowing about this, and then—”

  “Val, you don’t understand. Just let me explain—”

  “Don’t ever come near me again!”

  She fumbled her key into the lock and yanked the door open, desperate to get out of there, to put as many miles between her and Alex as possible.

  She spent the next several hours in a daze, sure that her entire world had come to an end, feeling as if she wanted to crawl into a hole and pull the dirt in after her.

  And that was remarkably how she felt right now.

  No. Forget him. He means nothing to you. And you clearly mean nothing to him.

  She had to get herself together. She might have forgotten momentarily what Alex was, but she certainly remembered now. He could hurt her only if she let him. And she wasn’t going to let him.

  Tomorrow was Monday. Under normal circumstances, she’d be going to her office, then heading off to do surveillance work on a couple of insurance-fraud cases she was working on. She hated to admit it, but she’d felt secure when she was with Alex. Now she didn’t.

  She took a deep, calming breath. All she had to do was keep her eyes and her ears open. Refrain from walking in big, open areas. Stop taking elevators. Scan the area before she stepped out of her car.

  Hide in the shadows and pray Reichert didn’t try to shoot her again.

  Then she got angry. Let Reichert come after her. If he did, he just might be surprised to find a gun in his face and a very pissed-off woman on the other end of it.

  She didn’t need anyone. Least of all Alex DeMarco.

  Dave had held Brenda at bay all weekend, not yet prepared to deal with her special brand of input on Alex’s situation. But now that it was Monday morning, he knew his hours were numbered.

  He dropped Ashley off at Aunt Louisa’s house so he could go to work, then headed back out to his car, hoping to make his esc
ape before Brenda showed up.

  No such luck.

  He’d just swung his car door open when he saw Brenda’s Hummer coming around the corner. She buzzed down the street and brought the vehicle to a halt in front of Aunt Louisa’s house, deliberately blocking the driveway. Dave sighed. Unless he wanted to drive his car across the lawn and jump the curb, he was stuck.

  Brenda leaped out of the Hummer along with her six-year-old daughter, Melanie, who also stayed with Aunt Louisa during her summer break from school. Melanie was a tiny blond girl with an angelic face and hair like spun gold, with a sweet little disposition that reminded him of Shirley Temple without all the mugging. That Brenda had actually given birth to her was something the family might have questioned if a few of them hadn’t actually witnessed the event for themselves.

  Melanie started to skip into the house, but Brenda stopped her on the driveway.

  “Mellie, do you remember what I told you about watching TV?”

  Melanie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mama.” She took a deep breath. “June Cleaver and Donna Reed are oppressed females in a male-dominated society who bear no resemblance to the modern women of today.”

  “And?”

  “Mary Ann is a better role model than Ginger.”

  “And?”

  “And Xena: Warrior Princess is on at three o’clock.”

  Brenda gave her a big smile and a kiss on the cheek. “Good girl. Now go on inside. I need to talk to Uncle Dave.”

  Melanie gave Dave a smile and a wave, then trotted off. Dave turned to Brenda. “Did I tell you I’m getting her an Easy-Bake oven for Christmas?”

  “You do, and I’m getting Ashley a G.I. Joe. Complete with miniature Stinger missiles and a functional latrine.”

  Dave had no doubt that Brenda would make good on that threat, even if she had to commission Mattel to create a new toy just for her.

  Brenda yanked off her sunglasses. “So what’s going on with Alex?”

  “I told you he wants you to stay out of this.”

  “Alex doesn’t know shit about what’s good for him right now. I know Henderson’s being a pain in the ass. I can help with that.”