by Measha Stone
“Who the hell wore this?” she asked. The black cotton skirt flared around her thighs. It was a bit long; his ex had a few inches on Julie.
“An ex-girlfriend left it behind. Now let’s go.” He motioned for her to get moving. “You can go over the details with me in the car.”
“I look like a damn nun,” she muttered while he helped her into the jacket.
Looking down at her body, noticing the curve of her ass, the tightness of the old shirt across her breasts, and her athletically shaped calves, he stepped back from her. No need for her to feel the rod in his pants. Nun. Right.
“Nuns probably don’t curse as much as you. Let’s go.” He grabbed her hand, lacing her fingers with his own and tugging her out of the apartment. He waited for her to pull free, but she kept her hand nestled inside of his own, and though he wouldn’t admit it, not out loud anyway, her touch felt natural. Like holding her hand happened daily.
Julie explained what occurred the night before. Every time he imagined the front door of the apartment being blown out and throwing her against the wall, he gripped the steering wheel harder. So much more could have happened to her than a burnt arm and a banged-up head.
“Wait, go back. The guy. You said he was missing fingers?” The car rolled to a stoplight.
“Yeah, well, at least one. It was kinda gross, I wasn’t exactly taking count.” She fiddled with the hem of the skirt. How easily he could run his hand up her leg, feeling the warmth of her thigh, pulling it toward him so he could graze her pussy.
He cleared his throat and readjusted his seat, focusing on the road when the light flipped to green.
“Okay, then what did you do?”
She gave him a side glance and twisted the skirt with her fingers. Whatever she was about to reveal was going to piss him off. He had no doubt about that.
“I went into the apartment. I had to make sure my mom wasn’t in there. That’s how my arm got burned.”
He took a deep breath and held it for a slow count of ten before releasing.
“So, you went to a shitty part of town to knock on a drug house’s door, got blown up, then went inside the fire-engulfed apartment? I have that about right?” He could hear the terseness in his own voice, but it didn’t seem to bother her.
“I was looking for my mother. You would have done the same thing if you were looking for someone you loved,” she pointed out. Although he couldn’t fault her intentions, the actions were still foolhardy.
Sitting at another stoplight, he looked over at her. The shirt he’d found had been from a previous visitor as well, one not as voluptuous in the chest area as Julie. It tugged tightly across her breasts, pulling the V-neck line down and exposing a healthy helping of cleavage. Her hair, tousled from a night’s sleep, laid around her shoulders, give her a come get me look.
He flicked his turn signal on.
“Where are you going? Isn’t the station straight ahead?” she asked when he turned.
“You need to change before we go. I’m taking you to your apartment.”
“But you said—”
“You need to change,” he said again, ending the discussion. He should have given her one of his t-shirts to wear. She’d be drowning in it, but at least everything would be covered and not on display. He hadn’t been thinking.
“I might as well shower too,” she agreed, pointing to the street he needed to turn down to get to her place. “And I need my phone. I have to call work. I’m going to be really late.”
“Work? You can’t go to work today.” He eyed the parked cars lined up outside her apartment building. “Fuck, parking around here sucks.”
“I have to go to work. It’s my job. I’m supposed to be there in like an hour.”
“You’ll be at the station for a while.”
Finding a spot, he maneuvered the car between two work trucks and popped open his door. As he rounded the back of the car, he noticed a small group of men walking up to her building. One of the men, he noticed, had a bulky white bandage covering his left hand. The other two walked a step behind him, glancing over their shoulders often.
Julie opened her car door, but John shut it before she could get a step out.
“John!” she called from inside the car, banging on the window. Once the guys were inside the building, he bent down and opened the door a few inches, not letting her out.
“You stay right here, Julie. Do not come out of the car. I’m going up first to make sure it’s okay, then I’ll come back down for you.”
Her eyes went wide and she glanced at the apartment. “John, it’s my apartment. I’m going with you.” She tried to shove the door.
“Dammit, Julie. I’m telling you to stay right here. I’m not fucking around.” He pressed a finger to the tip of her nose. “You stay here.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he pinched her nose, cutting off the air flow and most likely surprising her. She yanked back, but he held on tight.
“Not a word, and not one fucking step outside this car. Do you understand me?”
Scrunching up her forehead, she nodded.
“Good.” He released her and shut the door, heading off toward her apartment.
“Fucking bitch isn’t here.” John heard the echo of a voice as he reached the second floor. “George, you stay here. When she comes back, you bring her in.”
“Got it,” a second voice responded.
“I’ll find out where she works and head over there. Maybe she went to work today, stupid bitch,” the first voice said. “Don’t go taking a fucking nap, George. You be ready when she gets here.”
“I said I got it.”
John moved back down the steps and pulled open the storage room door, slipping inside.
“What about the station? If she gets there to make her statement—”
“Nah, don’t worry about that. If she gets there, we’ll know right away. But it’s better for everyone if she doesn’t make it there. Johnny wants to see her first.”
John stayed behind the door until the two men had left the building. The entrance way opened again.
A flash of black passed the door he hid behind. Fuck.
Swinging it open, he caught a glimpse of Julie running up the stairs to her apartment. He clenched his teeth and took off after her, taking the stairs two at a time.
He got to her door, just as she pushed through it and went inside. Whipping out his gun from the holster, he barged in.
Julie turned with a shocked expression to see him in the doorway. The living room was empty.
“Get out of here, now,” he whispered and nodded to the door.
“I saw those guys leave.”
“Now.” He reached for her arm just as a toilet flushed down the hall.
Julie turned her frightened gaze on John. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her to the door.
“Wait.” She tugged free, sweeping the pile of papers off the coffee table before running out the door. He clenched his teeth again. If only he could give her a good verbal thrashing, but he had to get them out of there before the asshole in the bathroom came out.
The toilet flushed a second time, and Julie scrunched up her face. John would have laughed over the absurdity of the courtesy flush, but the door to the bathroom opened and he needed to get her out of the building. John jerked a thumb at the stairs and gave her a gentle push to get her moving, while he quietly closed the door.
“Why are we leaving? Shouldn’t you be waving your gun and badge at him?” she stopped at the second floor to ask him.
“Go.” He lowered his tone. Enough repeating his orders, and enough of her disobeying them.
He followed her down the steps, keeping an eye on her apartment. The door never opened. Either the guy left behind to snatch her hadn’t heard them, or he was calling his friends. Hurrying out the building with her at his side, he snatched her arm and started to run to the car. If his friends were turning around to come back, he wouldn’t be able to take them on an
d watch her at the same time.
She didn’t say a word as he opened the car door and waved her in. He slammed it shut and looked back at the building. No one in her windows, no cars coming around the corner, and the front door of the building remained empty.
Unsure of how they had gotten so lucky, he decided not to tempt fate and jogged around the car into the driver’s seat.
Once inside, he put his gun in the side console and fired up the car. Throwing his arm over the back of her seat, he faced her.
“What did I tell you to do?”
Julie licked her lips and hugged her papers to her chest. “I just wanted to be sure—”
“What did I tell you do?” He softened his tone but fixed his eyes on her. Her throat constricted as she swallowed.
“I just—”
“Last time. What did I tell you to do?” He leaned closer to her, taking away the safety of space between them.
“You said to stay put,” she said, just a hair over a whisper.
“And did you?”
“Shouldn’t we be leaving?” she asked, lifting a finger from the death grip she had on the papers to point at the road.
“Did you stay put?”
“No, but—” He clamped a hand over her mouth, pressing her against the headrest. Her brown eyes widened, her lips opened in surprise beneath his hand.
“No buts. No excuses. I told you to stay.”
He held her there, pinned against her seat until her eyes relaxed, until her breathing became heated against his hand.
“Not one word from you until we get home,” he ordered and released her, noting the finger marks on her cheeks.
She nodded, hugging the papers closer to her body.
Chapter Seven
After several long minutes stretched in the car without a word or glance from John, Julie pulled her phone out of her jacket’s inside pocket. She couldn’t just not show up for work. Dr. Conrad would understand a lot of things, but he wouldn’t forgive just not showing up.
She tapped out a quick message to the clinical supervisor, telling her she’d burned her arm pretty badly and would need a few days off. Promising to bring in a doctor’s note, she finished the conversation and tucked the phone away again.
John put his hand out and wiggled his fingers as though he wanted her to hand something to him.
“What?” she asked.
“Your phone. Give it to me.” He gestured again, still not taking his eyes off the road.
“What for?” She scooted further toward the door, twisting her body just in case he got the idea to pluck it from her pocket on his own.
“Cell phones are too easily traced. I don’t want you giving away where you are.”
She scoffed. “This isn’t some great caper, John. No one’s tracking my cell phone.”
John shot her a disapproving glare. “There was just an armed man in your apartment waiting for you to come home so he could snatch you and do god knows what to you, but it’s too far off to think they’ll be trying to track your phone?”
“I’m not giving you my phone. Look, I agreed to let you help me—”
“You have two seconds to hand over your phone before I take it. If I take it, you’re going to be in even more trouble when we get back to my apartment.”
“Trouble? I’m not in trouble! You agreed to help me look for my mom. I never agreed to be in or out of trouble with you.” She pinned her hand to her pocket, protecting her phone.
The light turned green, and several cars instantly began honking. It didn’t put John off his glare even for a second. She looked out the back window then to him.
“It’s green,” she pointed out a bit more sheepishly than she would have liked to hear in her own voice, but the stern way his jaw set, the darkness of his eyes as he focused them on her, made her stomach twist just enough to keep her tone acceptably low.
The ring of his cell phone saved her from the response boiling on his tongue. He punched his finger into the answer button on the call screen of his dashboard.
“Hello.” Pushing the gas pedal, he got them going back with the speed of afternoon traffic.
“Hamish. Why am I getting calls from an officer over at the twentieth precinct demanding to talk with you? He says you have some girl they need a statement from?”
Fuck.
If his commander was calling him, it could only mean he’d gotten more than one call. He’d shown his badge to the officers at the hospital, but he hadn’t given them his card or told them which house he worked out of. Looking at Julie again, his heart picked up speed.
“Did they try calling her? I’m sure they got her information last night or from the hospital,” he asked his commander.
Julie slid her phone out of her pocket and swiped it back to life, showing him her call screen. No calls since her call to him the previous night.
“Of course they did! She hasn’t answered, and the detective on the case swung by her apartment to find it empty. Do you know where she is, John? Is she with you?” Steve Grover had been John’s commander for over five years, and never in those years had he ever heard a hint of desperation. Until that moment.
John noticed the signs for the highway and merged to the right lane.
“No, sir. She’s not with me. I haven’t heard from her since I dropped her at home last night.”
A soft curse came through the speakers. “Okay. If you do see her or hear from her, I want you to call me first. Then bring her in for her statement.”
“Of course. I’m off today and tomorrow, but if I see or hear of anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
A long, drawn-out pause and then his chief gave a brief goodbye. “Good. Thanks.” The call disconnected as John drove onto the I-90 onramp.
“Where are we going?” Julie asked, looking behind her out the back window. “You’re leaving the city.”
“We aren’t going far,” he said. Just far enough so she couldn’t sneak off and get herself caught or killed.
“Why is your boss looking for me? They haven’t tried calling me, and the hospital has my number. I mean they would have gotten it from them, right? Or wouldn’t they just pull my phone records or something?” Her words came out clipped, with a panicked edge to them.
John patted her thigh. “It’s fine, kitten. I’m just taking us somewhere we can get our thoughts together. He sounded odd, I agree. And they have your number. I gave it to the uniforms last night.” He glanced her way then back at the road. “So, either they haven’t spoken to those two or something else is going on here.”
“I can’t leave the city, John. My mother is there. I know she is. The more shit that happens the more I know she’s in danger.” Julie pushed his hand off her thigh and picked up her phone.
“No. Don’t use that.” He reached over to snag it, but she yanked away. Keeping the car steady, avoiding hitting anyone else on the road, he reached again.
“Stop it!” She swatted his hand away, but he managed to get a hold of her wrist. With a flick of her wrist she tossed the phone into the back seat of the car.
“Fine. Just leave it back there.” He shook her wrist and let go. Even in the midst of trying to figure out exactly where their enemies were coming from, she would disobey and get him riled. Well, he’d put a stop to that as soon as he got them settled and safe.
John tapped a few buttons on the screen of his dash and called up Brian.
“Johnny-boy.” The cheerful voice of his old friend came through the car.
“I hate that name,” John stated. He did, but the more annoyed he became by it, the more Brian used it. If they didn’t have as solid of a friendship as they did, dating back to boyhood, he’d give him hell for it.
“Too bad. What’s up?” Brian asked.
“I know it’s not my weekend, but I need the cabin.” John noted Julie’s expression perk up, but he ignored her. She didn’t need to know anything at the moment.
“Yeah, sure. I wasn’t planning on going up anyw
ay. Katrina’s working a double on Friday, and she has a baby shower on Sunday.”
“Great. Thanks, man. I’m heading there now. Look, if anyone asks around for me—”
“Got it. No idea where you are,” Brian said before John could finish. He wouldn’t need an explanation. “Anything I can help with?”
“Not yet. But I think I may need some help from Kat’s brother. I’ll know more tonight.” John gave a pointed look at Julie.
“Sure, no problem. Just let me know.”
“Thanks, man.” John clicked off the call and settled into his seat. He could feel Julie’s glare on him, but he ignored her. The anger from her stunt at her apartment hadn’t dissipated yet, and then her little defiance with the phone burrowed under his skin as well.
“Are you going to fill me in?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The last time I filled you in, you went all commando on me, running up to your fucking apartment. Right now,” he merged to the right lane, “you just do as you’re told. Once we’re settled, and once you’ve learned your lesson, then we’ll figure out everything.”
“Do as I’m told?” She didn’t hide her frustration well, it made her voice shake. But it only made it easier for him to read her.
“And right now, I’m telling you to keep your lips zipped. We’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Be where in a half an hour? I can’t just leave Chicago, John. I have a job. I have like— you know, a life.” She unbuckled her belt and pushed her way between the two seats to reach her phone in the next row. John reached out to stop her, but without running into the cement wall of the expressway, he only managed a quick smack to her ass as she dove through.
With a curse, he pulled the car to the shoulder and threw on the parking brake. When he turned around in his seat he caught a glimpse of regret in her eye. She didn’t know the meaning of the word just yet. But he’d teach her. He’d teach her a lot of things once he had her at the cabin.
“Give me the phone, Julie.” He held out his hand. “If I have to take it, your punishment doubles.”
“You can’t—”