“Charge her or release her,” Spike said coolly.
“We’ve got questions…” Wheeling started.
“We aren’t giving answers or interviews,” Spike answered. “It’s two o’clock in the morning. Either you’ve got enough to charge her or you don’t. Now which is it?”
Wheeling stood up. “We’re charging her,” she said.
“No we’re not. She can go, Spike. With the understanding that…”
Spike raised her hand. “I know. She’s not leaving town.” She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Let’s go.”
She waited until we were in the car and safely out of the parking lot before she said anything, and then it wasn’t at all what I expected.
“Want to hear something interesting?” she asked.
I didn’t have the energy to do much more than nod, but it was all Spike needed. She smiled, practically dancing in the driver’s seat as she began singing a made-up, off-key song.
“I know you’re bumming, ’cause you been slumming, but I got something for you! I saw the D.A. He stopped by today. And guess what he say to me?” She drummed on the steering wheel as she sang, thumping it hard as she came to a halt and looked at me, grinning.
When I didn’t answer and instead just stared back at her wide-eyed and slack-jawed, she continued her little song. I was having trouble believing this was the same Spike Montgomery I’d come to know and love, but then I remembered she had left her successful career as a district attorney to move to California and become a performance artist. I reasoned she was probably missing her on-stage days, and this, along with the late hour and lack of sleep, was why she chose to sing a song to me about her D.A. friend.
“The lab took the itsy pieces of Bitsy…. They didn’t send to the feds. They used restric-tion frag-ment length poly-mor-phism and they con-cluded it wasn’t…Bitsy’s itsy pieces that they were stud-y-ing so hard!” She sang, stumbling as she tried to fit the long syllables into her barely recognizable tune.
“What?”
Spike stopped singing, pulled up in front of Aunt Lucy’s house and cut the engine. “Thought that might make you feel better,” she said. “It just ticked the local guys off when the feds demanded every piece of evidence and basically called them yokels. So even though they’d all be fired, if not jailed, and can’t ever admit to anyone they did it, they kept a few minuscule samples. Steve Evans, the lab supervisor, told Barry the results. Is that weird or what?”
I was stunned. “Bitsy wasn’t in the blown-up car in the mall? Then who was in her car?”
Spike shrugged. “No idea. They’re working on what little they had left to work with, but of course, they can’t send any more samples off, not without a good explanation that wouldn’t make the feds suspicious. Personally, I’m hoping Jake can use this information as leverage to get his contact to find out more.”
My mind was racing with possibilities and questions. Where was Bitsy? Did she blow up her car with someone in it? Did someone take her? Was this staged? Was Bitsy being held somewhere?
“Does Jake know?”
Spike nodded. “I called him earlier, before you got arrested and again after you called me from the PD. He should be waiting on us now.”
As if on cue, the front door opened and Nina emerged to stand on the front stoop. She wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered in the frigid early-morning air. She leaned down to peer into Spike’s car.
“Are you two like coming inside? It’s freezing!” she called. Jake appeared in the doorway behind her, and behind him stood Aunt Lucy.
When we were finally inside, Jake wasted no time in taking me into his arms. He kissed the top of my head, rubbed my arms to warm me and sighed softly when I sagged against his chest.
“You had me worried,” he murmured. Then, in a louder voice said, “I know we were going out to try and shake things up, but did you have to shoot the guy?”
Nina whirled around. “You shot him?”
Aunt Lucy shook her head. “Cara mia, of course she didn’t shoot him. Jake is playing.” But she gave me the Italian once-over for confirmation and seemed reassured when I nodded.
What followed was an old-fashioned war council, held around Aunt Lucy’s table over cheese, suppresatta, bread and pot after pot of espresso. Everyone had an opinion about what had happened to Bitsy and what should happen next.
Aunt Lucy thought Bitsy had been kidnapped by terrorists or by Slovenian agents sent to make an example of Americans who attempted to help their nation’s scientific talent defect to the United States. Jake seemed to think this was a plausible idea and slipped down to Uncle Benny’s old workshop in the basement where he stayed for almost half an hour, talking to Shelia Martin.
When he returned and was sitting next to me at the table, I leaned in to him and whispered. “Well, what did she say?” Aunt Lucy and Nina were in a heated debate over Nina’s theory that Bitsy had run off with a Slovenian man she’d fallen for and had, herself, defected. No one paid Jake any mind at all, but he was too cautious to answer me.
“I’ll tell you later” was all I could get out of him, and in light of the fact that it was almost dawn, I couldn’t imagine remaining conscious long enough to hear and make sense of it all.
Spike tried to stay with the conversation, but once she’d revealed all of her news, she’d slowly started drooping. Now she was asleep on the table, her head resting in her cradled arms as she snored softly.
“Well, we can’t put any more into this when we’re all tired,” Jake said, abruptly rising to his feet and pulling me along with him. “I vote we all get some shut-eye and get back to it later, when we’re all fresh and rested.”
Aunt Lucy nodded wearily and rose to her feet. “You’re right, as usual, Jake,” she said. She looked down at Lloyd and Fang, both of whom were sleeping at her feet. “Come, children.”
The two dogs followed my aunt out of the kitchen as the mass exodus began. Spike and Nina wasted no time carrying dishes to the sink and putting away the food. I looked at Jake and suddenly didn’t want to sleep alone.
“Stay here,” I murmured. “Stay with me. Please.”
I saw his eyebrow shoot up speculatively as a slight grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Why, partner,” he whispered. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“Upstairs, you! Now!” I commanded, gripping his hand tight as I tugged him out of the kitchen.
I started up the stairs thinking about how wonderful it would feel to fall asleep in Jake’s warm arms, but somewhere between the second and third floors, my fantasy began to change. Jake stopped me on the landing, pushing me into a tight corner and bent his head to kiss me with a thoroughness that left no doubt about his intentions.
I felt his tongue slip between my lips to meet mine as my hands ripped his shirt free and I slipped my fingers up and across his taut, muscled torso. Below us, Spike and Nina approached the staircase and started up the stairs toward us.
My fingers changed direction, wantonly straying below Jake’s waistband, taunting him with the threat of exposure.
“Oh, you are a bad, bad girl,” he whispered into my neck and reached, suddenly and with swift proficiency, to swoop me up into his arms. He carried me, effortlessly, up the remaining stairs, down the hallway to my bedroom. He kicked the door open, carried me across the threshold, and dropped me unceremoniously on top of the big iron bed.
I let him think he had the advantage, lay there looking up at him, apparently startled by his take-charge approach as he grinned at me and leaned over to begin undressing me. Then, when I knew he was off balance, I made a counterstrike, pulling him down and rolling as he fell so I emerged on top, seated astride his hips.
“Now,” I said, reaching forward to take his shirt in my hands. “It’s my turn.”
Jake’s eyes darkened. His mouth curved into a slow, dangerous grin. “Make your first shot your best, girly,” he answered. “’Cause then I’m gonna take you apart,
bit by bit, inch by inch. Scared?”
I answered him by ripping his flannel shirt open, spraying buttons everywhere as I bent to answer him with a hot tongue bent on bringing him under my hungry control. He moaned softly and I knew he was mine.
My fingers found a fray in the neckline of his worn T-shirt as I grabbed it and ripped the fabric away from his chest. My tongue, unleashed, covered his nipples as I alternately sucked and nipped, losing myself in his body.
I had him naked before me and was about to enjoy sending him over the edge when he turned the tables.
“Don’t think you can have your way with me and escape unscathed,” he whispered, pinning me neatly beneath him. “I know who I’m dealing with, and your little playtime is over.”
He stretched, reaching for a piece of his torn T-shirt, all the while keeping my wrists firmly gripped in his other hand. With practiced ease he tied my wrists together, secured them to the bars of my headboard, and then leaned back to survey his handiwork, obviously pleased with himself.
“No fair!” I cried softly, but I was thinking exactly the opposite as my body responded to the loss of control with a surge of adrenaline and excitement.
Jake picked up the remaining half of his T-shirt, ripped it into three pieces and sat back to consider me, slowly running the fabric through his hands as he thought.
“You look like a screamer to me,” he said, grinning.
“No,” I answered, “don’t!”
But it was too late. He tied a strip of fabric across my mouth.
“Now,” he said. “If you fight me, I’ll use these two pieces to tie your legs down.”
With his free hand he slowly trailed his index finger down across my stomach, down lower, between my legs. When it became obvious to both of us that I was enjoying his slow torture, he grinned and lowered his head to take the tip of one breast in his mouth.
He teased my body slowly, working me into a near frenzy of rabid desire as I moaned and longed to be able to tell him to hurry. He worked his way down my torso, pushing my legs apart as his tongue left a trail of fire and longing behind it.
Just before he reached the triangle of dark hair that signaled the point of no possible return for me, he stopped, raised his head and looked deep into my eyes.
“Stel,” he said softly. “You know I’ll untie you anytime you want, right?”
I nodded, hoping he wouldn’t, but welcoming the safety of his words, wanting more than anything now to belong to him, to feel him deep inside me.
“Good,” he whispered. “Because, baby, the things I’m going to do to you now will make you beg me to untie you, and I won’t do that unless I ask you if you really mean it and you tell me yes, okay?”
I groaned, thinking, Just do me! Jake laughed, reading my body, and as he held my gaze, slipped one finger deep inside me and began slowly teasing me with its agonizingly slow movement. I groaned again, louder, as his movement became more forceful and I arched to meet his hand, my body begging for more.
“Oh,” he whispered, still grinning, still looking straight into my soul, “I know what you want. You want me to do you, hard, but I can’t. Not yet. Not until you give me what I want.”
“What?” I cried, but the word was muffled by the T-shirt gag.
Jake smiled up at me, as his thumb began slowly sliding along in tandem with his index finger, mimicking the soft caress of his tongue.
“She knows what I want,” he answered. “Close your eyes and relax. You’re going to be here awhile.”
I felt him slide lower on my body as his tongue joined his fingers in a symphony of seduction that made me grateful for the muffling effect of his T-shirt. He took his time, edging me closer and closer to the precipice, reveling in his ability to bring me right to the edge and then pull me back, only to start all over again.
I lost track of my surroundings, forgot my earlier fatigue, forgot everything but Jake and the way our bodies joined finally on an ocean of pleasure that crested higher and higher with each succeeding wave of sensation.
I fell asleep finally, my body slick with sweat and spent passion. Jake’s arms held me fast as I drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep that held no memory of anything but the uncontrollable emotion I’d felt as he’d brought me to that last, shattering climax and had at last allowed himself to join me. I knew what I was feeling and it was different from anything I had ever felt before, for any lover. It was at once like discovering a new world and returning home after an almost never-ending journey.
I was in love with Jake Carpenter. I was in love for perhaps the first time in my life. What we had shared in high school couldn’t hold a candle to the way I felt now. This was different.
When the cell phone’s incessant ringing interrupted my deep slumber, I once again cursed the bright moment when I’d felt compelled to list the number on my business card. I rolled over to the side of the bed, leaned down and fumbled through my clothes to find the offending object.
Jake, lying beside me, rolled over, wrapped his head in the nearest pillow and groaned.
I flipped open the phone, saw who was calling and echoed Jake’s moaned sentiment. I was not in the mood for Marygrace Llewellen.
“What?” I snapped.
“I’m at the hospital. You two had better get over here. Now!”
I closed my eyes and visualized Marygrace, surrounded by hordes of clamoring old people, all raising their arms in cries of needy protest, and cringed. What did I look like, the police department? Social Services? Why me?
But then the image of Baby Blankenship’s open, trusting face replaced Marygrace and her crowd and I was instantly awake and listening.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know if Baby’s going to make it,” Marygrace answered. “They had to shock her just to keep her around long enough for the ambulance to come and get her. It’s been touch-and-go ever since.”
“What about Brenda? I thought she was taking Baby home. I thought Brenda didn’t want…”
“That was David’s doing, apparently. Now she’s all over the idea of Baby needing protection. Furthermore, Baby asked for you.”
Jake was awake now, the pillow gone from around his head as he propped himself up on one elbow and listened to my side of the conversation.
“She asked for me? By name?”
Marygrace exhaled an exasperated sigh. “Does it really matter? Don’t you think your time might be better spent driving over here? It’s a freaking emergency, okay?”
Click. Once again Marygrace Llewellen had hung up on me, and once again I was about to race to the rescue of a little old lady I’d been told had no further need of my free services. It defied good business logic, but it didn’t defy the hold that woman had on my heartstrings.
I looked over at Jake and felt a similar tug. I was becoming one big sentimental sap.
“Gotta go,” I said, throwing back the covers. “Baby’s in the hospital and Marygrace says she doesn’t know if she’ll make it.”
To his credit, Jake didn’t try and dissuade me. Instead he got out of bed, pulled on his jeans, reached for his shirt and stopped. I looked over, realized what the problem was a second later, and started laughing just as he did.
“I have a couple of your shirts in my closet,” I said. “You know, from when you stayed here after Jimmy Spagnozzi shot you?” Like I really needed to remind him of that. The scar was still a livid streak across his left side and the memory of driving him, unconscious, to the emergency room just as indelibly etched in my mind.
He nodded, no longer laughing, and went to the closet while I hastily finished dressing and ran a brush through my hair. I leaned into the mirror, inspecting the damage lack of sleep and hours of lovemaking had done. Jake found me grinning foolishly into the mirror.
“I look like I’ve been…”
“You certainly do,” he agreed, and smacked the seat of my jeans on his way out the door. “I’ll go warm up the car.”
I glanced at the bedside
clock as he left. It was a little after 8:00 a.m. How long had Baby been in the hospital and what had happened to put her there?
Marygrace wasn’t much help when we arrived. She greeted us at the entrance to the emergency room and led us back through the rabbit warren of cubicles and curtained-off partitions to the tiny space where Baby lay hooked up to machines and monitors. As we stood, peering in through the glass window at her, Marygrace gave us a sketchy accounting of the circumstances leading up to Baby’s hospitalization.
“I guess I got in around six-fifteen this morning. It’s the only way I can get my paperwork done. Otherwise, I’m getting pulled in a hundred different directions all day,” she explained almost apologetically. “Anyway, the alert went out about five minutes after I got there, and when I heard them call a full code on the north wing, well, I just knew.”
Marygrace looked from Jake to me, as if needing validation that instincts were just like that; sometimes one just knew things without benefit of factual corroboration. I nodded and she went on.
“By the time I got to her, one of the night nurses had already zapped her with the defibrillator and the ambulance was on its way. There was little else I could do but call Brenda and get my ass over here.”
I looked around. “Where is Brenda?”
Marygrace gave me a long-suffering look, like I should know the answer, which of course I didn’t. “She got here around seven, stayed long enough to hear the doc say he thought Baby’d pull through, and then she took off again.” Marygrace shook her head. “In her defense, Brenda’s pretty much out of it. Between Bitsy and then her husband getting themselves killed, the poor woman’s a freaking basket case. And I mean, who could blame her? Come on, I mean, she’s probably wondering who’s next?”
Marygrace seemed to think about this a moment and then, as if prompted, started up again.
“See, I didn’t get to this part yet…I got a call from the third shift supervisor while Brenda was talking to me. Anyway, Lisa said she thought I should know they found Baby’s window open when they went in. The nurse closed it as soon as she found it open, but she doesn’t know how long it was open or if it was what triggered Baby’s heart attack, but she thought she should tell me so I could pass it along to the attending doctor. So, I did, but Brenda heard me and that freaked her out even more. She thinks some maniac wants them all dead! I tried to calm her down, but she wasn’t having it. That’s when I said I had asked you to watch out for Baby but David had pulled you guys off. I told her you were even doing it as a favor, you know, in honor of your friend, Bitsy.”
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