by Nancy Holder
“We’ll help him,” Vincent said.
“It’s just… we can’t help him right now. And I hate it that I can’t go after my father now. And this kidnapping investigation is moving too slowly.”
He rolled over on his side and gently brushed a tendril of hair away from her eyes. He kissed her temple.
“It’s not. It just seems that way because you’re not in the mix. They’re sidelining you and you like to call the shots.”
“No,” she said, and then she thought it over. He was right. “I’ve worked on a team before. But there’s no team here.” “Agreed. And we’ve taken matters into our own hands.”
“But not with my father.” She placed her hand on his broad chest, unaware that she was calibrating his heartbeat until its calm, steady beat soothed her. “At least, not while they’re watching me,” she amended.
“They’re not watching me,” he countered.
She cupped his cheek. “Everyone is watching you. Every time you do anything, you’re putting yourself at risk. Does Nico know who you are?”
“Not so far, but I was pretty surprised that he didn’t. All he knows is that we want to help. He thinks that’s why I went after him in the first place. To scoop him up and keep him safe from Robertson and Gonzales.” Before she could ask the question, he answered. “I took him to J.T.”
Cat’s stomach twisted in a knot. “But Nico will put two and two together. If he figures out that J.T. is your friend, he might make a deal with Robertson and Gonzales—his cousin for Vincent Keller.”
“It’s done. Tess and J.T. took him to a house Claudia had planned to take him to. He had the address, but he’s never been there before.”
She relaxed, but only a little. At least Nico wasn’t compromising J.T.’s home with his presence. “So who does he think all of us are? He talks to me on Claudia’s phone, and you scoop him directly off the street? And does he know Tess is a cop?”
“He thinks we’re part of McEvers’ undercover sting operation after Robertson and Gonzales,” he said. He smiled grimly. “Which is closer to the truth than it’s not.”
She took another bite of her sandwich. She knew she was hungry but she didn’t feel it. She needed to get back in the game, get things done. Claudia’s crime scene was secured, evidence bagged and tagged, and her part was over. There would be an autopsy. Her discovering Claudia had probably red-flagged her, and the more she found out about Robertson and Gonzales, the more she realized that she needed to lay very, very low.
“Hey, busy brain,” he said.
“I was wondering if we could link the blackout to Angelo’s abduction. The blackout has been classified as an act of terrorism,” she told him. They both knew what that meant: FBI jurisdiction. But a different task force would investigate it. Robertson and Gonzales would not be there to obstruct justice.
Thank God.
“I don’t think it was intended to be a terrorist act,” Cat said.
Vincent looked over at her. “Sure it was. Just for a different kind of war.”
She took a drink of coffee. “I want to talk to Nico-face-to face. I’ll need the address of the house.”
“You’ve been working too long. You need a break.”
“Now with all this going on.” She set the coffee and plate on her nightstand. “You shouldn’t come with me. You’ve been out on the streets too much in the last two days. You’re playing Russian roulette.”
He opened his mouth to argue, and she gave him The Look. Instead of acquiescing, as she expected, he wrapped his arms around both her shoulders and eased her onto her back. His eyes flared and his hand trailed to the belt of her robe. He loosened it, all the while his gaze locked on hers. He pushed the fabric away. His hand splayed across her bare stomach, and he stirred.
“We can’t do this now,” she whispered.
“We have to do this now,” he replied.
Then his lips were on hers, and his arms came around her, and he was right. There was no decision to make; choice was an illusion. The imperative to make love with Vincent could not be refused. They were a nimbus of life in a black sky of death. They moved through that shadowy sky together as they had so many times before. Stars gathered in Vincent’s eyes, in his hair, his smile. In the proof of his link with her.
Destined.
“Catherine,” he murmured. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Vincent,” she whispered back.
Weakened by weariness, they gave each other strength; distressed by injustice, they soothed each other with hope. Unclothed and vulnerable, they dressed each other in the armor of warriors.
When it was over, they lay for precious seconds in each other’s arms. Then she called Tess and told her she was on their way. She also told Vincent that he was not coming.
He went to the window and pulled back the curtain so that she could see the darkened sky. The city glow was there. For the majority of New Yorkers, all was right with the world once more.
They both began to dress. Cat wondered if Vincent realized that he was just as sexy getting dressed as he was when he was taking it all off. Then she wondered exactly what he was getting dressed for.
“You’re not coming with me.”
She prepared herself for an argument but all he said was, “I know.”
“Oh.” She was pleased.
“I’ll check Turntable. See what I can glean from there.” When she parted her lips to argue, he kissed them. “I won’t talk to anyone. I won’t let anyone see me.”
She groaned. “You know, just… I guess it was yesterday… I was thinking how much I was enjoying being on a case with you again. It’s like when we first met.”
“I remember. We found out that we made a great team.”
“Yes. Except I think there’s even more danger now, rather than less.” She felt pensive. “I thought once we brought Muirfield down, things would be different. That you would finally be safe.”
He grunted. “At least I never had that illusion.” She felt such a sense of loss for him until he added, “I’ve already accepted that you’ ll never be safe. You’re a police officer.”
“And…” She gazed at him in wonderment. “…you’d never ask me to give that up?”
“It’s what you are,” he said simply. “Unless you gave it up because you wanted to, you wouldn’t be Catherine Chandler anymore.”
“And I accept you as you are,” she murmured.
“Beast and all?”
“All.” She dimpled. “Well, except for the snoring.” He blinked, affronted. “I do not snore!”
They finished dressing and left Cat’s apartment separately, she directly to her car and he off into the night. Troubled, she watched him go, replaying their conversation in her mind. She did love Vincent, did accept him as he was, but she didn’t know in her heart if she thought of his beast side as a part of him, or apart from him. She had chosen to be a cop. He had not chosen to be a beast.
But I didn’t chose to be Bob Reynolds’ daughter, either, and Vincent has moved on past that.
She left the Village, and then the city, passing boarded-over windows, grim reminders that less than forty-eight hours ago, New York had been caught in a blackout. She called Tess.
“On my way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CLAUDIA’S SAFE HOUSE
Tess and J.T. had driven Nico way out into the sticks in Yonkers. J.T. had left Mr. Boston White Sox at his place with his new litter box, food, and toys, and Tess was charmed by how worried her man was about his new, possibly temporary, pet.
The house was plain and old with solid bars on the windows. Nico didn’t have a key, and neither did anyone else. Finally Tess went around to the back, scoured around under a million rocks and a cracked garden gnome, and found the key. Nico was very impressed when she came out of the front door and ushered J.T. and him inside. They found some canned food and coffee in the cupboard and Nico sat down to a bowl of fruit cocktail and coffee that she, Tess, made, so that her
witness would live another day.
“Stay away from the windows. And what are you doing with your phone?” Tess said. J.T. looked up from his laptop—he was checking for news coverage on Nico’s disappearance and Claudia’s murder—as Tess held out her hand.
“Give it. I told you not to call anybody and you have not been that stupid, right?”
When he hesitated, she cleared her throat and said, “Unless you want Robertson and Gonzales to show up and kill you.”
“Everybody is worried about me,” he said. “My family. If I can just tell them I’m okay. My ma. She already lost my dad.”
Tess was incensed. “You called her. You told her where you are.”
“No.”
This kid could not lie to save his life. Literally. She gave him a stern look and he flushed to his ginger roots.
“Okay, I tried to call my ma but I don’t know, I guess something went wrong but the call didn’t go through. I only tried the one time and—”
“What?” Tess looked at J.T. “Did it not go through because of some kind of jamming? I’m flushing it.”
“In the toilet?” Nico cried. “Do you know how long I had to work to pay for that?”
“You can get another one. Unless they’ve got some kind of trace on it. Then you’ll never need another one.”
“It was the bars! I didn’t have enough bars!” he pleaded. He held it out to her.
“Turn it off!” she yelled at him.
He cradled it against his chest. J.T. rose from his laptop and said in a pretty scary voice, “Give her your phone now.”
“Okay, okay,” Nico said.
Tess was impressed by J.T.’s manly attitude. That’s my man. Supernerd, she thought.
Nico pointed to J.T.’s phone, which sat beside his laptop on the dining room table. “See how many bars you have.”
Tess grabbed the phone at the same time that J.T. looked at his own phone. “One bar,” he reported.
“See? I’m telling you the truth!” Nico cried. “Please don’t flush it down the toilet.”
I’m never having children, Tess thought. She opened it up and pulled out the SIM card. She put the card in one pocket and the phone in another.
“I’m going to take a look around outside. J.T., you have the con.”
“Oh, my God, you made a Star Trek reference,” J.T. breathed, with the same joy that some men said, “The Mets beat the Yankees.”
“I can feel my DNA mutating,” Tess muttered. “I’m going outside.” To Nico, she added, “Stay away from the windows or I will flush it.”
He nodded like a bobble head, then got quiet as Tess pulled out and examined her weapon. Given what a quivering mess he had been when she’d gone over to J.T.’s to drive him up here, she couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been to use his phone when she had expressly forbidden it.
The Palmieri gene pool, Tess thought. Not very deep.
Porch light off, door open, out she went. Cat should be on her way, so she’d keep a lookout for her. The neighborhood was fairly secluded but there was still a bit of traffic from people at the end of their work days. She wasn’t sure how to quantify when this workday had actually started. Or even what case she was on.
Hang on, Angelo, she thought.
A streetlight cast a glow on the house’s cement walkway, which connected to the sidewalk. There were bushes and trees everywhere, and fences and the echo of a couple of barking dogs. She kept her gun drawn but down at her side. Listened carefully for anomalies between the surges of traffic. Looked back at the house. If someone was watching, she didn’t want to get too far away. She retraced her steps and went the other way.
There was a glint of metal in one of the bushes fronting the next house over. Could be a tricycle or a sprinkler head or a .357 Magnum.
Soundlessly, she melted into the foliage and threaded her way in that direction. And just as soon as she had gone maybe ten feet, she knew she was in trouble. At that precise instant, someone jumped down from the tree above her, clipping her, sending her to the ground. Keep the gun, she told herself as she saw stars, then burst into action. The jumper would be disoriented, too, for one or two seconds. She grabbed that advantage and rolled as she fought to regain her equilibrium.
She flopped over onto her front, then pushed herself up to a standing position with knees flexed. Her assailant bounced back up and darted into the trees. Tess extended her arms and spread her legs, making a tripod to support her weapon.
“Stop. Come out. Or I’ll shoot,” she declared.
Her attacker’s answer was a bullet. It missed Tess and she didn’t pay any attention to where it hit. She stayed small but mobile, hauled ass behind a tree trunk, and worked very hard not to return fire in a residential neighborhood.
She held her breath so he—or she—couldn’t hear her panting. Then she let her air out very slowly despite the protest of her lungs. One person had attacked but there could be others. There could be one behind her right now, in fact. As swiftly as a competitive swimmer drew breath, she looked over her shoulder. Darkness. There were no lights on in the other house. In fact, it looked to be abandoned. Good news; that would give her more leeway to discharge her weapon without the fear of harming civilians.
Her primary goal had to be protecting Nico. Secondary was capturing her attacker. She had to know if someone was after the kid—someone who would try again even if she fended them off this time. But if this was some weird random street crap and some unfortunate gangbanger had just attacked an armed police office, she had to know that, too.
Since Nico was number one, she checked over her shoulder again and ran backwards between the two houses, with the intention of moving to the back door of the safe house and securing her witness. J.T. wasn’t armed, which appeared to be a good thing. It wouldn’t be good for their relationship if he shot her when she came in barreling back in.
She held her breath again, listening as her feet made very soft swishing noises through the grass. She’d played cops and robbers with her five brothers during her entire childhood. That early training had come in handy, since all of them had joined the police force. And it was handy now, as she stealthily approached a wooden fence and dropped down into a crouch as the gate opened.
She waited a beat. Then, as a crouching guy in a ski mask slunk out, she leaped to her feet and put the barrel of her gun to his temple.
“Who sent you?” she whispered.
He swore, also in a whisper. She preferred not to shoot him so she got ready to knee him… just as a bullet zinged past her ear and slammed into the fence.
The first bullet was followed by a second and then things got a little confusing until she heard Cat shouting, “Tess! Tess!”
Then Cat was bending over her with something dark on her fingers. Probably blood; Tess said, “Whose is that?” as she scrambled to her feet… and nearly fell over.
“Whoa.” Cat grabbed hold of her. “Yours. Were there two?”
“That I know of.”
“I fired at two guys. They got into a black truck without plates. They’re gone,” Cat said, clasping her by the wrist. “Nico and J.T. are safe.”
“Did I get shot?” Tess asked in disbelief. Her shoulder stung. “Who were they? Did you get anything?”
“Nothing,” Cat said. “I should have come sooner.” Her voice was strained. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Saving my life?” Tess touched her jacket. Her fingers came away wet. She said something her mother would not have approved of and huffed. “Oh, man. I did get shot.”
“Well, you’re up and walking, so you must have been grazed.”
“Where are all the concerned neighbors?” Tess asked rhetorically.
They went in the back way, as Tess had originally intended. When J.T. saw her, he went chalk-white.
“You’re hurt.” He began to sway.
“Are you going to faint?” she asked him. “Sit down and put your head between your legs.”
“I’m not going t
o faint,” he insisted. Then he fell down heavily into his chair at the dining room table.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Nico said. “I only called the once.”
“Let that be a lesson to you.” J.T. glared at him.
“We have to get out of here now.” Cat said. “They might come back.” She said to Tess, “Are you okay?”
Okay enough was what she meant, and Tess nodded. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll take Nico this time, to mix it up,” Cat said. “This just got more complicated because we have to find a new safe house. I guess a motel.”
“You can go ahead and flush my phone down the toilet,” Nico said. “Please.”
Cat looked baffled. Tess understood the headshake J.T. gave her and said, “I’ll explain later. Let’s just go.”
J.T. opened the passenger door and helped Tess sit down. Her shoulder was burning but her arm was completely functional. She fumbled around for the first-aid kit in her glove compartment and opened a package containing a gauze pad with her teeth while J.T. slid behind the wheel and started the car. The poor guy was completely unnerved.
“I don’t like you getting hurt,” he said flatly.
“Do you think it was his phone call?” Tess asked. “Because we still have the phone.”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” he grumped. “I’d say that would be too much like a spy movie, except that we’re already living in a spy movie.”
“I’m not hurt,” she said. “I’m only grazed.”
“Grazed is a subset of hurt. It intersects with you could have died.”
“Not from being grazed.” She regarded him fondly, then felt a rush of that J.T. mind-control-hotness and began to lean toward him to give him a kiss. Except that it made her shoulder hurt and she didn’t want him any more freaked out than he was.
Besides, she had a job to do.
“Hold on,” she said.
He looked at her quizzically as she opened the car door, got out, and placed the phone under his right front tire. She stood on the curb and gestured him forward. When he smashed the phone under his tire she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The phone was history. But she also wished they could have taken it apart like some superspy couple, found the secret tracing chip, and followed it back to the hideout. Then they’d bust in and rescue Angelo DeMarco. She’d have to put on her cape first.