by Aimee Hix
“Shit, Will. I’m so sorry. I just missed the … It doesn’t matter. You’re okay?”
I flipped my hand to open the baton and raised it up. “Just fine. Although he’s probably regretting taking up attacking women on the side of the road as a hobby.”
“You know that’s illegal, right? The baton, I mean.”
“Seriously? That’s what’s on your mind? The legality of my defensive weapon? Gosh, I hope he doesn’t call the cops on me.”
“Of course not. I don’t know why … Let’s start over. You said you’re fine. You’re sure?”
I nodded. “He didn’t even get within a foot of me. Finally, these stupid overly long arms came in handy.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
“Good enough. I flashed him in the eyes with the flashlight when his intentions were clear. Not that it’ll help much. He was pretty generic.”
“Well, talk it out. Maybe something will pop while you’re remembering.”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember anything useful from the second I’d had to look at him. But I had tried that exercise while waiting for Seth to arrive and had gotten nowhere.
“Average height, average build but running a bit to fat, short hair. A tattoo on his neck, I think. Maybe. T-shirt and jeans or work pants. Not office work, manual labor. There’s something else. I can’t quite get it to gel yet.”
“Concentrate on the tattoo then.”
I put my hand over my eyes, pressing my thumb and middle finger into my temples. I dug them in a little harder, the pressure allowing me to focus better.
“It might have been a shadow, Seth. I flipped the light up to his face and swung. I don’t know anything for sure except I made contact. It was enough to get him to take off.”
“Okay. That’s fine. Did he speak to you? What about his voice?”
“Ugh. Yes, he was gross. Called me little lady. His voice was greasy-sounding. I know that doesn’t make any sense. But it was smug and one of those voices that puts your teeth on edge. Like Mr. Barlow.”
I knew he’d remember the calculus teacher that didn’t teach so much as berate and humiliate. His voice matched his weasely personality.
“Makes perfect sense. Greasy captures it perfectly, if you’ve heard it before. What about the car?”
“No back plate. I never saw the front. Dark. Early model small commuter box. Maybe a Corolla or a Hyundai. No damage from the view I got of it as he floored it out of here.”
Seth put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze, gently pulling me along to the bike.
“We need to examine the scene. Maybe he dropped the knife.” I eased away from him, taking the flashlight and aiming the beam at the area around and behind the bike.
After a few seconds he reached down and grabbed the flashlight. “Will, we won’t find anything tonight and the reality is there’s nothing usable. The side of the road like this is awash with trace.” He handed me his helmet and got on the bike.
“This is your helmet. You need it,” I said.
“Willa, please, for once in your life, don’t argue. Put the damn helmet on.”
Chapter
16
Seth opened the door to the apartment. “Can I get you something to drink? A soda? Or I could make you some tea. Maybe.” He looked at the door to the kitchen as if he wasn’t really sure what he would find in there. “We might have some left over. I … I might have some, I mean,” he said.
I suspected Seth was regretting the decision to bring me here. I felt it, hanging between us. Michael. The promise I’d made to never get involved with his brother. I was sure he’d extracted the same promise from Seth too. And we’d both broken our word just hours after the memorial service.
“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll see what I can pull together, okay?”
I allowed him to gently drag me over to the couch, where I flopped down. Gracefulness was not my gift. Coordination had been gained by years of practice, but it was beaten out by a bone-deep weariness and the chemical cocktail of adrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine. It was all I could do to keep upright.
I tried to play it cool, but we both knew I wasn’t close to cool. Or calm. Or collected. A perverse part of me thought, for a moment, that Ben seeing me like this might have been a good idea. Nothing better to convince him that being a private investigator was a bad career choice than his big sister scared to the roots of her hair. And I was. It wasn’t every day someone tried to knife me. I’m sure plenty of people have thought about giving me a good smack, some maybe even half seriously. But the guy with the knife was very serious. The feeling that there was something about him that I knew but couldn’t place came back. It was frustrating.
I felt the couch dip down next to me. “I couldn’t find any tea. Sorry.”
I opened my eyes and giggled. What the hell? I was not a giggler. Except, he was holding a honey bear. He looked down at the container and smiled.
“I have no idea why I brought this out with me.”
This was a Seth I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Nostalgia made me lean my head against his shoulder.
“Don’t read anything into this, okay? I’m still pretty pissed off at your cover. He’s a rude jerk and him kissing me like that earlier wasn’t okay.”
Awkwardness tended to bring out my mean side but since I was making an effort to not push his buttons, I thought a joke would be a good idea. Also, I wanted to distract him from the lecture I was sure he was gearing up for regarding my personal safety.
“So let me see if I understand you. I shouldn’t read anything into you leaning your head against my shoulder. Am I supposed to read anything into the fact that you specifically mentioned Undercover Seth’s manner of kissing you?”
My mind blanked for a second. Why had I put it like that? Why did my mind come up with the worst possible way to phrase things? And that wasn’t even a phrasing problem. That was just a flat-out dumbass thing to bring up. I kept my head still and hoped he’d think I’d fallen asleep.
“So if I kissed you right now it would be okay since I’m not him?”
No dice. He’d clearly not fallen for my Scooby-Doo ploy, genius investigator that he was. I had to just cross my fingers and hope that I wouldn’t get myself further into trouble.
“I’m not sure what I meant. And I don’t think this is a good time to figure out what I meant.” Honesty. Huh. It hadn’t even hurt too bad. In fact, I felt pretty great except for my arm, sore from the baton making contact with the assailant’s body. “You know, I whacked that guy pretty good, Seth. I could have broken his arm. You might think about alerting the hospitals.”
And I had gotten myself back into the other mess of talking about something I hadn’t wanted to get into with him. My brain was on a ten-second delay.
“Will? Look at me.”
I reluctantly dragged my head up off his shoulder.
“You’re really okay, right? You’d tell me if you weren’t?”
“No, I wouldn’t. Mostly because I’m an idiot and I don’t like to admit weakness. And I just can’t listen to you talk at me anymore about my safety. But I really am okay.” Heck, telling the truth seemed to be my new game plan. At least, the game plan of my brain-to-mouth filter.
He just looked at me with an expression that wasn’t amusement but also wasn’t annoyance. The two most common expressions I was used to with him.
I laid my head back down on his shoulder. I figured I could close my eyes for a minute or two.
“After this case is over we’re revisiting the whole mess between us, Willa. Count on it.”
I nodded, trying and failing to stifle a yawn.
We must have fallen asleep because a loud clunk shocked both of us awake. Seth was clearly more startled than me because I found myself bracketed under him on the couch, his eyes wild and unfo
cused.
“Whoa, Seth, it’s okay.” I looked up at him, his eyes scanning the room. It was as if he hadn’t heard me. “Seth, listen to me. Everything’s all right. It was just my phone falling off the couch.”
His gaze sharpened. He glanced down at me, his skin blooming pink from under his shirt and up his neck.
“Sorry. That, uh, startled me. I just reacted.” He eased up off me and offered his hand to help me up. It was clear from the way he refused to make eye contact that he didn’t want to talk about what had just happened. I didn’t push it. We all had our secrets. I knew enough to know that he’d done some work in the Army that was pretty dangerous. I was sure he had some bad memories. Lots of bad memories, if his reaction to a dropped phone was any indicator.
He bent over and grabbed my phone, handing it to me, still hiding his face. “Maybe now is the time to settle all of this. I don’t know if I can do this otherwise,” he said.
I just stared at him, not daring to open my mouth. I eased back, realizing how close we had been standing to each other. I cursed my hormones, which seemed to draw my body to his whether I chose to or not. Feeling like a smart coward, I fled to the bathroom. I just needed a moment and a door closed between us.
Seth was right. My safety was an issue. My emotional safety. I didn’t hate the warm fuzzies I had allowed to flourish as much as I wanted to. How he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get through this case without figuring out what would happen with us. If I wanted to be with Seth, the only thing keeping us apart was my fear. Was it wrong that I wanted him to spell it out for me instead of the vagueness he kept offering? He’d just reappeared in my life after years. Years in which I’d gotten sporadic letters and emails. Years in which he’d kept alluding to what he felt, but never in a straightforward way, never in a way I couldn’t dismiss as his standard surface flirting. I’d never challenged it. Michael hadn’t wanted Seth and me to get together, so I had just ignored it. Years where I’d felt safe because I could ignore it.
Feeling safe with Seth seemed stupid in light of the big, mean guy wielding a knife at me on the side of the road.
My legs started to shake and I sat down on the edge of the tub. I didn’t know if it was training, instincts, or dumb luck that had caused me to take that baton out with me. Sitting in the bathroom staring at the door made me want Seth to continue to fight me about staying on the case. Part of me—the dead-tired, scared-spitless, emotionally empty part—really wanted a hero to come swooping in and make everything better. It was a small part but it seemed to be winning. So I planted my feet and stood up. I locked the bathroom door. No way I was letting that weak bitch out to ask to be rescued. I gave myself a few more minutes before I headed back out to the living room.
Seth was on the phone when I got back to the couch. I heard him give some final details to the person on the other end of the call. It seemed he agreed that getting a description of my attacker out to medical facilities was a good idea. He ended the call and turned to me.
“I hope you did break the bastard’s arm.”
“It’d be nice to get our hands on him so quick, huh?”
His eyes were hard and angry. “It’d be nice to get my hands on him so I could beat him unconscious. Sorry, I know you don’t want me doing that, being all protective. It just kills me that you were alone on the side of the road and some asshole tried to hurt you,” he said.
“No, I get it. If anyone’s going to kill me, you want it to be you.”
He stared at me for a second and then laughed, shaking his head.
“Come on, Anderson, gallows humor. Besides, you’d never be able to pull it off. I’ve seen you fight. You’re all posture and overly ambitious. That takedown at that garage was some weak shit.”
“Any time you want to get on a mat, you let me know, Pennington. I learned some things in the Army.” He had stepped into my personal space aggressively, proving my point.
“I’m sure you think you did but you’ve forgotten that I’ve trained too. What’s say when this is all over we throw on some gloves and I take your ego down a few notches?”
That certainly had distracted him from the guy with the knife, but not as I intended. The space between us pulsed and swirled. Ben’s ringtone broke the tension slightly and I looked down, out of the reach of Seth’s searching gaze.
“Hey, Benjy.”
“You gotta come home the Horowitzes are here their house is on fire.”
In his excitement, the words had run all together. It was a bad habit we couldn’t break him from but we’d all learned to translate.
“I’ll be right there, Ben. You stay in our house. You don’t go out to help. Fifteen minutes.”
I disconnected the call and jammed the phone in my back pocket. I snatched my jacket up and shoved my arms in the sleeves, then turned around in circles looking for my keys, forgetting entirely the previous events of the evening. Seth grabbed my hand and tugged me to a stop.
“Will, what’s wrong? What are you looking for?”
I yanked my arm out of his grip. “The neighbor’s house is on fire. The one whose granddaughter was living with Joe Reagan.”
Random things happen randomly sometimes. This? So not a coincidence. Not a chance. The whisper of memory floated through my head again. I clenched my fists, frustrated at how it flitted away just as I tried to grab it.
“You got another helmet? Get it now.”
He didn’t even blink, just turned and headed into his bedroom. He was gone no more than a minute and reappeared holding a helmet and a pair of leather gloves. He tossed the gloves at me and pulled open the front door.
Seth’s driving took my breath away. As we sped to the house I wondered if he always drove like a madman. I concluded that he did. Of course he did. Like everything else in his life he pressed the throttle and leaned in. That was why it was so annoying when he accused me of doing it. He wasn’t any different. He just got clapped on the back for it because he was a man. Even my parents, proclaimed feminists, had always admonished me to use care, be cautious, look before I leaped. That guy on the side of the road wouldn’t have approached Seth so casually. It pissed me off.
Lost in my thoughts I barely noticed when we turned into the neighborhood. The scream of a fire engine’s siren broke through my musings. We swerved around the slowing truck, almost clipping the bumper. I tightened my grip around Seth’s middle, squeezing a bit tighter than necessary. I hoped he’d get my message. ATF Seth didn’t need Undercover Seth getting noticed by the cops.
I hopped off the bike and yanked off my helmet, getting a deep breath of smoky air. A gust of wind blew water droplets into my face. Hot and cold at the same time, smoke and water, controlled chaos. The fire seemed to be under control, dying under the assault of the hose.
“Stay here.”
Seth made to dismount too and I planted my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t need anyone getting twitchy and a situation escalating. With the cops, the firefighters, and Seth, we’d have testosterone overload if they all got edgy at once.
“I said, down boy. I don’t need your cover getting mouthy and inviting questions neither of us can answer. Boyd will be here sooner or later. We’ll talk to her together. Until then, discreet and inconspicuous. Okay?”
“Your wish is my command, your majesty.”
He had an annoyed purse to his lips. I had to gently smack him back down.
“Hey, all I’m asking for is a few minutes of patience. Think you can manage that, Ace?”
He nodded. A clipped little gesture, so I knew backing down cost him. As I walked up the path, I mentally patted myself on the back. I won the round without either of us yelling. Yay me. The cop at the door was one I knew slightly from a training workshop. He was well over six feet tall with a baby face that belied being in his early thirties. I remembered he was conscientious if a bit too trusting. But that workshop was ye
ars ago and even though I could remember his personality, his name eluded me. I squinted at his nameplate in the dim light. Lynch.
“Officer Lynch, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Willa Pennington. I live here.”
“Of course I remember you. Good to see you again even if it’s under these circumstances.” He turned and opened the storm door for me.
I was inexplicably nervous passing over the threshold. The idea of David and Susan converging with Boyd and me in my home set my nerves loose. I stepped back to gesture to Seth, who was staring resolutely at the house.
“Officer Lynch, my friend on the bike will be sticking around. Can you let the others on scene know so they don’t think he’s a lookey-loo, please?”
“Will do.”
My legitimate stall tactic spent, I entered the house and headed into the kitchen, where I knew Ben would have the Horowitzes. By now he’d have plied them with tea and cookies, Susan’s currency of comfort. For a split second, I wished Ben was the adult. He was better at it than I was. He got his social graces from Nancy, whereas neither of my biological parents were what you’d call personable. Charming, yes. At ease in social settings, not even close. In crises, Leila would fall apart, fluttering around and trying on accents like she could put on a new identity; Dad reverted to cop mode, interrogation and deduction. It would never occur to either of them to offer tea and cookies. I doubted Leila could even make tea. I knew she couldn’t make cookies.
Sure enough, Ben, David, and Susan sat at the table, steam swirling up from tea cups. On saucers. With cloth napkins. And sitting across from them was Boyd.
“Detective Boyd. You got here quickly.” That sounded more like a challenge than I had intended. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant I only found out fifteen minutes ago and I was nearby. You beating me here is pretty impressive.”
She smiled at me. “No offense taken, Pennington. And nice save, by the way.”
I walked over and gave Susan a little shoulder hug. “I’m so sorry this has happened. Were you able to get out your photo albums and mementos?” I knew those would be the only things truly important to them. Their family photos. Their memories.