The Steve Williams Series Boxed Set

by J. E. Taylor

Shaking his head. “We weren’t together, Jen,” he clarified. “I lost it when I was told there was still no brain activity and she happened to be there.” He shrugged. “She kissed me but that’s as far as it went.”

  Jennifer struggled with the information, her mind going back to his infidelity with Desiree in their efficiency apartment when he was undercover in New York.

  Steve cocked his head. “It wasn’t anything like Desiree, Jen, so don’t go there.” His eyes hardened a fraction and he sent her a sideways glare. “It was only a kiss and considering a year of hanging on when everyone said I should give up, I’m amazed I had the strength to say no.”

  Her scoff set him off. “Look, the shit I dealt with for a year, from the doctors and your parents, wasn’t easy. A year of being told I should pull the plug because, while your body was still running, you weren’t there. That you were brain dead and your organs could help someone else lead a happy healthy life.” He shook his head. “I prayed for a miracle every single day. And every day I was told there was no hope. If I had given in to Sarah, it felt like I was giving up my belief that a miracle was possible.”

  Jennifer offered a hint of a smile. “I guess you got what you prayed for.”

  Steve let out a laugh. “Yeah, a miracle of epic proportion.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I have no idea what my limitations are.” He sighed. “The only hint I have is what I gleaned from Eric’s memories and even that only grazed the tip of what Chris was capable of.”

  Jennifer stiffened in the seat as they pulled into the cemetery.

  “You want to know something even more frightening?” He asked, offering her something else to think about besides the crypt visible in the distance.

  She nodded and met his questioning gaze.

  “Chris’s son, CJ, is a hundred times stronger than I am.” He pulled into a parking space on the far side of the lot and glanced out the window. “And he’s only nine.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot of responsibility for such a young kid.”

  “No shit. Chris expects me to keep an eye on him.”

  “The angel of death wants you to watch over his son?”

  Steve met her gaze. “Pretty much, and apparently Chris is my guardian angel.”

  A small smile broke through her stoic features. “Oh Steve, you are so screwed.”

  Chapter 8

  The knock on the door startled Steve and he picked his head up off the desk. The case file sat open on his computer and a couple of empty beer bottles lay beyond the keyboard. He stood and all the muscles in his back stiffened from his impromptu nap. Groaning, he shuffled to the front door.

  The knocking continued.

  “I’m coming,” he muttered and swung the door open while wiping the sleep from his eyes.

  “You look like shit,” Sarah said.

  “Well, hello to you too,” he shot back, instantly irritated. He held the door open and she carted her suitcase inside, dropping it at his feet. “I’m not your fucking concierge.” He swung the door closed and stepped away from the suitcase, pointing across the cottage. “Guest room’s over there.”

  “You really do look like shit, Steve,” she said.

  Steve glared at her and grabbed the suitcase, hauling it across the cottage and tossing it into the room before he turned to her. “I fell asleep at my desk.” He waved toward his office.

  Sarah crossed the room, stopping inches from him, her hands on her hips. “So, you’re going to answer all my questions?”

  Steve clenched his jaw and met her gaze. “That’s what I said.” His hands slid into his pockets.

  Sarah looked around and returned her brown eyes to his. “You still don’t have furniture?”

  Steve tilted his head. “Still? What do you mean still?”

  Sarah looked at her hands, but her thoughts betrayed her.

  Steve stepped back, his eyebrows rising. “When the hell were you here?”

  Sarah brought her gaze back to his. “I stopped here before I went to Jessica’s house in Maine. Before…” She trailed off and shifted her gaze beyond Steve.

  “The furniture’s being delivered tomorrow.” Jennifer said from behind him.

  Her thoughts, her sizing Sarah up, accosted him. Her observation of the similarity to Desiree sent his blood boiling and he sent a glare in her direction. He was painfully aware of the likeness and the fact that when Sarah was in the room, the friction between them could ignite like an oil spill, obliterating everything around them like the explosion that rocked their cabin. He swung his gaze back to Sarah.

  Sarah dug in her pocket and pulled out the badge and letter of instruction signed by none other than Assistant Director Ronald Cleary, handing both to Steve. “Your boss read your report and for some reason he thinks I’d make a good babysitter.”

  Steve stared at the orders in his hands. “You’re my partner?”

  “Yep, and before we go down south, you are going to tell me what the hell happened in that warehouse.”

  Steve handed the papers back to her and took a deep breath. He hadn’t told Jennifer he was going to Georgia after the funeral and Sarah’s timing couldn’t have been worse. The visit to the gravesite drained both of them and Jennifer refused his empathy, pushing him away and retreating to the bedroom. Yet her thoughts had come through loud and clear and they all shouted he was to blame.

  That’s when he dove into the Georgia case and the cooler full of beer until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. And now this.

  “Chris left me fifty million dollars,” he said, changing the subject.

  Sarah took a step back, her eyebrows curving like McDonald’s golden arches. “What?”

  “Chris put me in his will.” Steve met her shocked stare.

  “Why?”

  Steve shrugged.

  “You didn’t know him that long. Did you?”

  Steve shook his head. “Just a couple of weeks.”

  “Why would he leave you fifty million dollars?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he thought it was my fair share of the victim’s fund.”

  “Victim’s fund?”

  Steve allowed a brief smile. “We siphoned all Kyle’s money out of his accounts.”

  Sarah gawked. “Kyle had more than fifty million dollars?”

  Steve chuckled. “No. Kyle only had ten million. Chris put another hundred million in the kitty with a directive that I get fifty and must divvy up the remaining money between the families of Kyle’s victims.” His lips slowly curved. “So I guess I get to figure out how much of a cut you deserve.”

  “I don’t want his blood money,” Sarah snapped.

  Steve let out a laugh and crossed to the cooler by the door. “I need some air.” He reached inside and grabbed a beer, flipping the top off on the cooler’s bottle opener before disappearing outside, leaving both Jennifer and Sarah to stare at each other.

  Chapter 9

  “What are you really doing here?” Jennifer asked, the edge to her voice alerting Sarah that she was not welcome.

  Sarah looked out the window at Steve sitting on the dock with mixed feelings. On one hand she thought he was an arrogant, irritating shit, and on the other, she wanted to kiss him, to seduce him, to love him.

  “He saved my life and I don’t know how.” She brought her gaze back to Jennifer’s. “I need to know what happened. I need to know exactly who Chris Ryan was.”

  Jennifer laughed. “Bullshit.”

  Sarah’s jaw tensed and her eyes narrowed. “Look...”

  “Why are you here?”

  “He’s my new partner.”

  “You are so full of shit. Just like he is,” Jennifer pointed out the window and then spun and marched into the bedroom slamming the door on Sarah.

  Sarah stared at the closed door and then turned, crossing to the cooler and grabbing a beer before she headed outside. She took a seat next to him on the end of the dock.

  “Fifty million? Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know.�
�� Steve glanced in her direction. The gentle breeze blew her blonde hair around her face, bringing a slight curve to his lips. “He left me more than just money.” Steve took a swig of the beer.

  “What else?”

  “His penthouse.”

  “Holy shit!”

  Steve laughed and shrugged. “No kidding. I’m a fucking millionaire.”

  Sarah turned his wrist so she could see it and ran her finger over his perfect skin before tipping the beer to her lips and taking a long swig. She witnessed the crucifixion. Kyle drilled screws through Steve’s wrists and feet before raising the cross that he intended Steve to die on.

  In her nightmares, he died on that wooden cross.

  In her nightmares, when Kyle raked the knife across her throat, it cut through her flesh.

  In her nightmares, blood flooded her mouth, choking her last breath.

  But this time, reality was even stranger than the dream. Steve somehow stopped the blade from slicing her throat, even though he was nailed to a cross ten feet off the ground.

  That was before Chris Ryan had shown up. Before Chris unleashed his brand of hell. Before a bullet ricocheted off Kyle’s knife and blew out Chris’s brain.

  She stared at his perfect wrists and then turned her eyes to his. “Jesus, you’re a regular freak show.”

  “A multi-million dollar freak show.” Steve tipped his beer in her direction and then raised it to his lips, draining it in one long pull. “With a badge.”

  “And now I’m your partner.”

  Steve scoffed and stared at the lake, refusing to look in her direction.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sarah snapped.

  “Look, you’re a good cop, but I’m not sure why the hell Cleary brought you on board.”

  “I guess it was the rave review in your report.”

  Steve cocked his head and smiled. “I did tell him you came to the same conclusion I had about the Bondino connection.”

  He glanced in her direction and the playful twinkle in his eyes brushed heat over her skin. She quickly took a gulp of the cold beer, chilling her libido from the raging boil to simmering.

  His eyebrow rose. “You really need to keep those thoughts in check. Especially since we’re partners.”

  Sarah’s cheeks burned and she looked away, blowing a stream of air out with her exhale. He was right. She couldn’t think of him as her unwilling sex toy.

  He sent an endearing dimpled grin in her direction.

  “So are you going to tell me about what happened in New York?”

  His grin disappeared and his eyes darkened before they scanned the lake. “We should be dead right now.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  He rolled his eyes and glanced at her, his expression telling her to shut up if she wanted the score and she did. She nodded for him to continue.

  “We owe our lives to the Ryan’s.” He paused, picking at the corner of the bottle label. “They’re not your normal family.”

  “No shit,” she answered.

  “Don’t be a smart ass!” Steve snapped and drew in a breath.

  “Chris Ryan was actually Ty Aris, wasn’t he?” Sarah asked.

  “No.”

  He kept his gaze straight ahead, and she knew he was lying to her. “You want to start this partnership off by lying to me?”

  “Sarah, he was never Ty Aris.”

  Sarah looked into her beer and back up at him, accepting the statement because this time, he returned her gaze. “Okay, he wasn’t Ty Aris. So tell me what he was, because he certainly wasn’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill billionaire.”

  “You’re right. The Ryan’s are not your ordinary family. For one, you saw, Jessica can heal people. I asked her to bring Jennifer back from the dead and she did.” He turned his gaze to Sarah. “And you saw what she did to me at the warehouse. Not a scar to be found.” He showed her the same wrist she had traced earlier. “And we can’t say a damn word to anyone. Understand?”

  Sarah balked.

  “No, I won’t have their lives ruined because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.” His eyes were hard and unyielding. “Not a word. Understand?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “What about you?” Sarah asked. “You were the one who stopped Kyle from killing me.”

  His sigh filled the yard. “That was from my partner, Jessica’s son. It came along with the mind reading abilities. I guess I have the capability to put myself between danger and people I care about.”

  The admission stunned her and he looked away, leaving only silence to fill the space between them. “Is that it or is there more?”

  “There’s more.” Steve glanced her way. “I got whatever gifts Chris possessed when he died.”

  The crease between Sarah’s eyes deepened. The memory of the warehouse came flooding back—the screws holding Steve to the cross exploding from the wood and embedding in the brick like deadly projectiles, the bonds that held her to the table evaporating, and the furniture moving like a tornado blew through its path. “And what might those be?”

  Steve tossed the empty bottle toward the lake and it stopped just shy of hitting the water. The bottle floated to his extended hand like a boomerang coming home and only when his fingers clasped the glass did he turn and offer a slight smile. “I guess the correct term is telekinesis.”

  Sarah stared between the bottle and his grin of amusement. “Holy shit.” Their weird conversation just catapulted into the land of the bizarre. Psychic abilities were not something in her repertoire of beliefs, and yet, what happened at the warehouse was not explainable any other way. “So now you’re what, super human?”

  “No. I’ll still bleed if you cut me.”

  Sarah raised her eyes, meeting his gaze.

  “I can still die, but it does make it much more difficult to get to me.”

  The smile that spread on his lips sent shivers down Sarah’s spine. It was utterly captivating and she exhaled. For an instant, she faltered, letting him sucker her in with his grin and she blinked, clearing her mind. “I feel like I stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone.”

  His laugh echoed off the lake, rich and full, the kind of laugh she could get used to.

  He leaned close. “Seriously, I’m married. You need to stop thinking about me like your private sex toy.”

  “Stop reading my thoughts.”

  “Can’t help it. They’re as loud as you are.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  He raised an eyebrow in her direction, silently challenging her question.

  “Okay, fine, but what the hell can I do?”

  “Stop thinking in a linear fashion.”

  “What?”

  “To create static you need to think of more than one thing at a time. Try it.”

  Sarah nodded and closed her eyes, her thoughts tossing between the incident at the warehouse, seeing Kyle being handcuffed to the gurney, howling in pain and the case in Atlanta.

  “Not bad. All I caught was Atlanta, but you need to master creating static. It’s really important because there are others out there. Others who can get in your head easier than I can.”

  “Are you talking about Jessica?”

  Steve nodded. “And Chris’s son, CJ. I’m sure there are others out there too, but I haven’t run across anyone with this level of psychic power.” He laughed. “Hell, I didn’t even believe in the realm of supernatural until I met Jennifer.”

  Sarah absorbed this and drained her beer, watching the fish pop to the surface of the lake chasing moonbeams and skimming insects. “It’s really beautiful here,” she said.

  Steve nodded. “Yes, it is, but I think we’re moving to New York.”

  “Why?”

  “Too many memories here and not all of them good.”

  Sarah grunted. “And you think New York is any better?”

  “Chris’s apartment doesn’t hold any bad memories for Jennifer. I think she’ll love that place.” He shrugged an
d gave Sarah a sideways glance.

  Sarah nodded. The place was stunning. “You’re probably right.” She glanced out at the water. “Did you read the Atlanta case file?”

  “Yep.” Steve dropped onto his back, staring at the stars before turning his gaze to Sarah. “Jen wants me to quit.”

  “I gather from the way you put that, you don’t share her thoughts.”

  “No, I don’t. Especially not with these new advantages. Imagine the damage I can do now.”

  Sarah’s laugh echoed across the lake. She couldn’t imagine a criminal standing a ghost of a chance against him. Not with what she’d witnessed in the last week.

  “You still have questions?”

  Sarah pursed her lips, biting the inside of her cheek while she formulated her thoughts. “You answered most of them, but I keep getting stuck on why neither you nor Chris Ryan killed that bastard.”

  Steve inhaled and stared at his beer bottle. “If Chris hadn’t died, he would have killed Kyle.” He paused and looked out at the lake. “I can’t say I didn’t want to kill him because I did. I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands. I wanted him to suffer like he made me suffer. But in the end, I believe killing him was too easy. Sitting on death row in the state he’s in is vengeance enough.”

  Sarah glanced at his tight jaw wondering if he was right or not. If he hadn’t stopped her, she would have killed Kyle. He swung his gaze in her direction, his blue eyes shimmering in the moonlight, revealing a hatred so strong she recoiled.

  “I’ll be there the day they inject him and I’ll make hell seem like a country club.”

  Chapter 10

  CJ stood staring at the smooth mahogany of the closed casket, running his hands on the edge, feeling with more than his fingers, trying to reach into the dead mind of his father, but only silence came from the coffin. No thoughts, no feelings, nothing, a sharp contrast to all the strangers filling the mortuary, paying their respects to his mother.

  He scanned the room, gaze flitting from his grandparents to Uncle Danny, to Tommy. The absence of his older brother Eric was clear in the hollow eyes of both his mother and Uncle Danny. Sandy came running over, inappropriately exuberant, smiling, her bright hazel eyes catching his.