by ML Guida
There wasn’t even a hint of fear.
“No. But we don’t want to start a panic, either.” She pulled out her phone, trying to be calm.
Tom answered immediately. “Peters.”
“Tom. I’m in trouble.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Starbucks with Hoss.”
“Who?”
“Anonghos.”
“What? You’re kidding.”
His loud voice hurt her ears, and by Hoss’s smirk, he’d heard every word.
Agnes glanced at the people in Starbucks, which were all potential victims. “We have a situation. I think we may have a bomb, and I need you to call the bomb squad. We need to get these people out of here.”
“Stay calm. I’ll take care of it.”
“I will.” She closed her phone, not taking her eyes off Hoss. “We need to be cool.”
“I’m fine. This isn’t my first mission.”
“You were in the armed forces?”
“Not any of yours.”
She hadn’t detected an accent. “Then whose?”
He grinned. “You won’t believe me.”
She didn’t have time to play his game. “People’s lives are at stake. This isn’t the time to play twenty questions.”
“Okay, I’m a member of the United Planet Confederation.”
“You mean outer space?”
“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”
She slowly stood, trying not to bump the table and risk setting the bomb off. She pulled out her badge and held it up over her head.
“Listen to me,” she said in a loud, commanding voice. “I’m Detective Malloy of the Arvada Police Department. I need you to quietly leave Starbucks. We have a report that there is a suspicious device here. I need you to move outside quietly.”
“I don’t see anything,” an elderly man grumbled. He went back to talking to two of his cronies.
She bristled. They dismissed her like men had done all her life.
A woman picked up her purse and closed her laptop, her eyes wider than chicken little. “Is this for real?”
Agnes nodded. “The police are on their way.”
The woman vacated Starbucks faster than the Flash.
“Whatever.” A bleach-blonde teen-age girl took a long sip from her chocolate Frappuccino, and then slid into a booth. She immediately surfed on her phone.
Agnes wanted to grab her by her pink-tinted lips and toss her outside.
Her red-headed friend grabbed her arm. “Come on, Jen, you’re pissing her off.”
Sirens screamed, then grew louder. Police cars skidded into the parking lot, followed by a firetruck, and the SWAT transport van.
Jen’s face paled. “OMG.” The two girls headed outside lickety-split.
The same grouchy man grabbed his coffee and headed for the front door. “I’ll be darned, this is for real.” His friends snagged their tall coffees and scuffled behind him.
Hoss snapped his fingers at the frozen barristers behind the counter. “You need to exit.”
They looked at each other and abandoned their steamy concoctions.
Hoss put his hands on the back of a chair. “Everyone’s gone. But you have a bigger problem, Detective.”
She studied the mysterious bag. “What could be bigger than a bomb?”
“I didn’t recognize the man sitting at the window.”
“So.”
“You’re hunting an alien with powers that could destroy your world.”
Crap, her number one person-of-interest was loonier than Norman Bates.
6
Hoss’s dragon ears detected screaming police cars and fire trucks. He groaned inwardly. He’d be back in jail soon again with Arvada’s rejects.
The police darted out of their cars. The side door of a black van slid opened, and men, wearing helmets and a heavy suit of body armor, poured out of it armed with tactical rifles. They fanned around the café, pointing their weapons. A red dot fell onto Hoss’s chest. His lungs sucked in air rapidly as if trying to escape from being a target. He stood perfectly still, not wanting to make a single, threatening move. If he were a dragon, the bullets wouldn’t be able to penetrate his thick hide, but in this form, they’d rip through his flesh.
Damn, he couldn’t risk going for his eruptor without drawing their rapid fire.
“I’m not the enemy,” he said, but she looked at him as if he had four heads. He cursed himself for blurting out that Daidhl was an alien. She was too by-the-book to believe in the impossible.
“Maybe,” she murmured. She studied the bag, completely dismissing him. Her lips were pursed shut tight and her skin taut.
A tremor rippled in his cheek. Rather than winning Agnes’s trust, he’d just earned her skepticism.
When he entered the café, he hadn’t smelled any sourness, but then again, the cafe was filled with delightful aromas that could have masked it. He had to admit he was distracted by Agnes with her curvy body and her sexy scent.
He frowned. The first time he got a whiff of Daidhl’s odor it had been very faint. Had the Mistonian discovered a way to hide its stench?
Two men wearing green body armor and helmets entered the café, while the others spread their arms wide to force people back.
One of them gestured toward Hoss. “Hands in the air.”
Once again, Hoss forced himself to comply.
“The bag.” Agnes pointed. “A man asked one of the barristers to give it to Hoss, who claims he’s never met the man. I just have a gut feeling about it.”
Hoss lifted his eyebrow. “Claims?”
“Gut feeling?” one of the armed men asked.
She ignored his quizzical face and concentrated on the suspicious bag. “There’s something terribly wrong with the bag. I know it.”
Two of the armored men looked at each other as if they thought she was short of brain cells. Hoss didn’t think a bomb was inside, but if it was from the creature, it couldn’t be good.
“Detective,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a bomb, but if the bag is from the creature, it’s something awful.”
“Creature?” one of the men asked.
Hoss cursed his stupidity.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No.” Agnes motioned toward the bag. “Peter, I think it’s from the Arvada killer.”
Peter tilted his head into a tiny radio that was attached to his uniform. “We need to know what’s in a bag.”
“Ten-four. We’ll send in Simon.”
“Just to let you know, Captain Morgan’s on his way, so I hope you’re right about this.”
“I am. My suspicions haven’t been wrong yet.” Her face paled a little, but she squared her stance like a warrior.
“There’s always a first time,” he muttered.
Agnes wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.
Hoss glared at Tom, who averted his gaze.
A third man entered that Hoss supposed was Simon, carrying a metal box. “You need to move away in case it goes off.”
A brown sedan with a siren on top rolled into the parking lot. Two men jumped out–Agnes’ scowling partner, Tom, and a tall bald man with crunched thick eyebrows. They rushed toward them. Hoss groaned. He definitely was going back to the dreary cell.
Agnes clasped his arm, and another spark made him jerk, but it wasn’t painful. This time, it was pleasurable, igniting lust between his legs. Images of him seducing Agnes and doing wild things to her flashed in his mind, making his cock grow hard. Sweat glistened over him, and he squirmed underneath his clothes. He fought the urge to kidnap her and make do on those images. Damon had said mating was like nothing he’d ever experience, but he’d never watched his father crumple with grief, either.
By her squirming in her clothes like he did, he knew she felt it too, but neither said a word. They moved outside while Simon set up a tripod and put the metal box on top. He screwed and locked it, then aimed the box at the flowery bag. It was cru
der and bulkier than anything they had on board the Orion. If Hoss could have pulled out his transrecorder, he could have discovered the contents of the box, but he doubted anyone would give him half a chance.
The bald man demanded, “What’s happening, Malloy?”
“Captain, there’s a suspicious package inside Starbucks. I was interrogating a person of interest–”
Hoss gritted his teeth and turned away, annoyed she still considered him the enemy.
“When an unidentified man delivered a package to Hoss–I mean Anonghos, he reported that he didn’t know him. I had a feeling–”
Her captain glowered. “You brought out the SWAT team and the fire department and escorted all these terrified people out of a public place over a damn feeling?”
His voice chirped high like a screeching bingle.
She met his hostile glare and tilted her chin. “Yes, sir, I did.”
“You better be right on this,” he warned.
Simon came outside, holding a twelve-inch flat screen device.
“Simon.” The captain motioned. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
The captain glanced at the screen. “Well, is it a bomb or not?”
Simon shook his head. “No, it’s not a bomb. Some red blobby thing is in a plastic bag. Based on this, I can’t tell what it is.”
Tom crowded next to the captain. “I swear that almost looks like a piece of meat.”
Bitterness burned Hoss’s belly. Something dreadful was inside. Something that would create terror.
Agnes shivered next to him and dug her fingernails into his flesh.
He flinched, but didn’t look at her. He wanted to comfort her, but knowing the little bit he knew of her, she wouldn’t want to look like a helpless female in front of these scowling men. He bet when she was alone is when she broke down. When no one could see the toll the job put on her––the frustration, the terror, the helplessness… He knew those feelings all too well.
She slowly released the fingers that had dug into his arm.
“So, Simon, is it safe to go inside?”
Her voice was back to the hardened detective. Even if she were reluctant to go inside, like him, she wouldn’t allow her fear to keep her from doing her duty.
He nodded. “Yes.”
She motioned with her arm. “Captain?”
“Check it out.” He pulled a radio off his belt.
Hoss followed her. She whirled around on her heels so fast he ran into her.
“You, stay outside.” She tilted her head.
The captain snapped his fingers. “Watch him.”
Five armored police surrounded him. He could easily see over their heads as he watched Tom and Agnes enter the café. He should be with her, not the old man. She was his mate, and it was his job to protect her.
The murmuring crowd had grown quiet. Only the zooming cars driving passed the café broke the silence.
Hoss held his breath and clenched his fists tight.
Agnes reached the brightly colored bag first, her face grim. She slowly pulled out the tissue paper, then immediately put her hand over her mouth. Tom turned his head away, his face gray.
She slowly reached into her jacket and pulled out a portable walkie-talkie––such a primitive device.
“Captain, we need forensics in here.”
The captain spoke softly into his radio. “What is it?”
“I think it’s an organ.”
“I’ll send in a team. In the meantime, we need statements from all the people that had been in Starbucks.”
Tom and Agnes came out immediately, both their faces pale.
“What about him?” Tom motioned toward Anonghos.
His narrowed eyes and growling tone left little doubt that he thought Anonghos knew more than he was letting on.
“Arrest him and take him to headquarters.”
“On what charge?” Anonghos refused to cower from the scowling captain.
“We’re not charging you with anything…yet. You’re a person of interest and we have questions. Lots of questions.”
“Do I get to call my attorney?”
“In good time.”
Agnes’s eyes widened. “Kathy will be pissed if she’s not notified immediately.”
“Don’t lecture me, Detective. I said he’d get to talk to her soon. Don’t you have some witnesses to interrogate?”
Unfortunately, Hoss was quickly handcuffed again and led away before he could say anything to her. He was shoved in a squad car and taken to headquarters. His weapon and transrecorder were confiscated, but instead of being put in a cell, he was taken to another interrogation room and handcuffed to a table.
The room was stark white, and he faced the infamous one-way mirror, so whoever was inside could examine him as if he were one of Zalara’s tiny purple scets under a microscope.
After an hour, he’d been permitted to contact his attorney, who would undoubtedly get him released again or at least be present during questioning. But all he could think about was Agnes.
Whether she knew it or not, she needed him. The man who had given him the bag definitely hadn’t been Daidhl. Either he’d convinced the man to give it to him or it had been Daidhl in disguise. But how? Daidhl was a thin navigator. That man looked like he could have been one of Hoss’s guards.
The door quietly opened and Agnes stepped inside. Her face was still ashen and weariness reflected in her eyes. She slid into a chair across from him.
“You look exhausted.”
“Your attorney will be here shortly.”
“Did you find out what was in the bag?”
“Yes,” she said wearily as she flicked her hair back. “And who it belonged to.”
Her voice was so soft he barely heard her.
Kathy Strong barged in the room. This time her hair was pulled into a neat bun. She had her same trusty brief case and wore the same crisp blue suit. “Agnes, you know better than to ask my client questions without his attorney being present. Just because we’re friends, doesn’t give you the right to take advantage of the situation.”
Agnes glared. “I wasn’t, Kathy. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize my case, and you know it.”
Hoss raised his hands to stop the two from getting into a nasty grendor fight. “She hasn’t asked me anything yet. Let’s not come to blows, ladies.”
They both gave him a scowl that made him want to go into the corner with his tail between his legs.
Kathy opened her brief case and pulled out a yellow notepad. “Good. Proceed, Agnes.”
Agnes put her hands on the table and folded them. “Did you know what was in the bag?”
Kathy nodded. “Go ahead and answer.”
Hoss shook his head. “No. Not exactly.”
Agnes leaned closer. “What do you mean not exactly?”
“I was at the crime scene, Agnes.”
“It’s Detective Malloy,” she corrected him. “Only my friends call me Agnes.”
Damn, back to formalities again.
“I overheard that it was an organ and not a bomb.”
“Do you know what kind of an organ it was?”
“No.”
“Do you know whose organ it was?”
“No.”
“Do you know the man who gave you the bag?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone that you were going to be at Starbucks?”
“No.”
He frowned. His gut twisted into a ball. That was a good point. The man was there before Agnes and him. How had Daidhl known they would have been there?
“Detective,” Kathy interrupted. “Do you have any evidence tying my client to the organ or the obvious murder of the victim?”
Agnes hung her head. “No, I don’t.”
“Unless you plan on charging my client, we’re done here. Release him.”
Agnes pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked Hoss’s handcuffs. “I suggest you not be at any
more crime scenes.”
“If you’ll excuse us, Agnes,” Kathy said. “I’d like to be alone with my client in another room. One without a one-way mirror.”
Agnes stood and motioned toward the door. “This way, Kathy.”
Even though the two were on the opposite sides of the law, Agnes’s voice had softened when she spoke to her friend––unlike when she’d spoken to him.
They were such a sharp contrast to each other. Kathy was a slender, muscular attorney, while Agnes was chubbier, the kind of woman who a man could be himself with. With her, he wouldn’t have to prove anything. But the old hurt returned, worming into his melting heart. His father had felt that way about his mother, and she betrayed him, breaking him.
He followed them behind, not being able to take his eyes off Agnes’s curvy ass. He’d seen too many perfect asses like Kathy’s. He grew hot thinking about caressing her behind, then digging his fingers into her flesh as he slammed into her. He bet he could squeeze her tight, and she’d wouldn’t cry out in pain like the others. He hadn’t meant to hurt them, but sometimes he forgot about his strength and gripped their butts too hard.
What was he thinking? Love only caused heartbreak. He had to remember that, but every time he was around Agnes, he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her worries away. Sex wasn’t love. Every time he took a woman, he repeated that. No matter how he felt. It had to be the same with Agnes. He refused to be a broken dragon like his father.
Agnes opened a door to a small interrogation room with no one-way mirror. Kathy entered first. When Hoss swept past Agnes, he inhaled her flowery feminine scent that reminded him of the purple chisery fields back home that melted away his stress.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said as she closed the door.
He slid in a chair across from his attorney.
She lifted her eyebrow. “This is becoming a pattern, don’t you think?”
“Possibly.”
She put her hands flat on the table. “You need to talk to me.”
He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Why? So, I can be locked up in one of their little cells?”
“We have client-attorney privilege. You can trust me. What you tell me stays in here.”
She seemed in earnest and so far, talking with Agnes had gotten him nowhere. Maybe he needed another tactic and be more direct. “She’s in danger.”