by Susan Stoker
“How many bodies have been found so far?”
“Five. All buried alive and called in. Who knows how many more there are, because it’s not like we’d ever find the bodies if the bastard didn’t let us know where they were.”
“What does Calder say about cause of death?”
As one of the medical examiners for Bexar County, Calder was responsible for figuring out the cause of death for all persons who died suddenly, unexpectedly, or violently.
“Asphyxiation, of course. The bastard buries them alive and Calder estimates they stay alive for anywhere from two to ten hours. Fucking torture.”
TJ didn’t have much to say. It was inevitable that their talk turned to work whenever they got together. Both men were committed to their jobs and getting bad guys off the streets, one way or another.
Just as Dax was about to try to change the subject to something a little less depressing, a blue Honda Civic going the opposite direction flew by them. TJ flipped on the rear-facing radar just in time to clock the car going eighty miles an hour in a sixty zone.
“Hang on.”
Dax held on and didn’t bother to protest as TJ slowed just enough to make a safe U-turn and then stepped on the gas to catch up to the speeding car. While technically off duty, every law enforcement officer knew they were never really off duty. Someone going that fast could easily kill someone, and it was TJ’s duty as an officer to stop them.
Dax grinned as they quickly made up the distance between them and the car. Dax didn’t get to work patrol anymore, so it was adrenaline-inducing to be involved in a high speed chase once again. The Honda was no match for the Crown Victoria with its powerful engine, and TJ quickly caught up. He flicked on the police lights while simultaneously radioing the license plate to dispatch. The driver in the car immediately pulled over to the side of the road after seeing the flashing lights in her rear-view mirror.
“Thought you were off duty, TJ,” the dispatcher on the other end of the radio said with laughter in her voice.
“Yeah, well, you know how it is.”
Dax and TJ pulled over to the shoulder behind the vehicle waiting for dispatch to get back with the vehicle information. They didn’t have to wait long.
“Blue, 2011 Honda Civic. Registered to a Mackenzie Morgan, age thirty-seven. Five feet four, one hundred-forty pounds. San Antonio resident. No priors, no record.”
“Ten-Four. Thanks.” TJ told the dispatcher he’d be out on the traffic stop and put down the mic.
“Sorry, Dax. I’d love to let her off with a warning to speed this up, but I’ll have to play it by ear. I’ll try to keep it short so we can be on our way. I’m starved. Be right back.”
Dax watched as TJ eased out of his patrol vehicle and carefully made his way to the driver’s door. The most dangerous part of any traffic stop was making the initial contact with the occupants in a vehicle. There was no way to know if the person or people in the car had weapons and if they would open fire on an officer as he or she came up to the car.
Dax could see the woman in the car holding on to the steering wheel with both hands, as she’d probably been taught.
TJ stood a foot or so away from the door and leaned over a bit, talking to the woman. Dax watched as she reached over to the glovebox and handed some papers out the window to TJ, most likely her license and registration.
Dax couldn’t see much of the woman from his vantage point in the front seat of TJ’s cruiser, but he could imagine how she looked from the description relayed by the dispatcher. Short and probably curvaceous. Just his type. Oh, Dax had dated all shapes and sizes of women, but he always came back to what he liked best. At an inch over six feet, Dax liked the feeling of being taller and bigger than the woman he was dating. He liked it when she fit into the bend of his arm. Dax hated when a woman was skin and bones. There was nothing like being able to have some flesh to hold on to while pounding in and out of her body.
Dax shifted in his seat. Jesus, he had to get ahold of himself. He was too old to get an erection imagining what the anonymous woman might look like. It’d obviously been way too long since he’d gotten laid. He’d have to see what he could do about that.
TJ turned and came back to the vehicle after a lengthy conversation with the woman in the car. He sat back down and pulled the laptop mounted in the center console to him. He quickly punched in the information from the driver’s license in his hand.
“So?” Dax asked, “What was her sob story?”
TJ grinned. “You wouldn’t believe it. She was actually really cute.”
“Cute?”
“Yeah, she started babbling like I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do before. She wasn’t really trying to get out of the ticket, and she wasn’t trying to excuse herself…she was just spilling her guts.”
Dax tilted his head. What did TJ’s words remind him of?
“She babbled about how she’d had a terrible day at work with her boss from hell. Then she explained she had to go home and be tortured by her family for being single and childless. Then she went into the cutest fucking rant about how she hated when people would zoom by her on the highway and not even care they were going so fast. Somehow she then changed the topic and began to talk about eighteen-wheelers on the roads before I cut her off.”
“What was her name again?” Dax asked, the niggling feeling even stronger. He still couldn’t figure out why he had it though.
“Mackenzie Morgan. She’s clean. She’s never even had a parking ticket before, at least not here in San Antonio. I’m going to let her off with a warning.”
“A warning? That’s not like you. You must’ve really thought she was cute.”
Laughing, TJ handed over the driver’s license to Dax while saying, “Yeah, she’s cute, but that’s not why I’m letting her off. She was honestly mortified she’d been going so fast.”
“Suuuure that’s the reason.” Dax laughed then looked down at the license he held in his hand. Surprisingly, the picture actually wasn’t as horrible as most tended to be.
Mackenzie A. Morgan. Just as the dispatcher said, she was nine inches shorter than he was. She had brown hair in the photo and was smiling crookedly. Dax had the thought that even her eyes were smiling. Why did she look so familiar to him?
TJ just shook his head at Dax and held out his hand for her license. After Dax handed it over, TJ got out of the car. Before going back to the Honda, he said, “Besides, it’s just too much trouble to write up the ticket. We have reservations.”
Dax laughed out loud as TJ headed back to tell Mackenzie the good news. TJ had always been a sucker for a pretty face, and Ms. Morgan was certainly one of those.
TJ was gone a bit too long to deliver a simple warning to the woman, and Dax frowned, not liking the feeling in his gut.
Fuck, it was jealousy. He was jealous of his damn friend. It looked as if they were in another in-depth conversation and Dax saw the woman shaking her head several times. His leg bounced up and down with impatience. How could he be jealous of his friend? Fuck, it was just a traffic stop, one of thousands TJ had made over his career. It wasn’t as if he was arranging a date with the woman…was he?
Dax himself had pulled over his share of people before he became a Ranger, so why was this one different? Dax didn’t want to admit it, but it was because of the woman behind the wheel. He hadn’t seen her face in person, just the image on her driver’s license, but he still had a feeling he knew her. His gut was screaming at him, but he didn’t know why.
TJ finally nodded at the woman and came back to the patrol car. He sat down and pulled the laptop over to him to close out the traffic stop. Dax watched as the Honda pulled sedately away from the side of the road and continued on until it was out of sight. Feeling as if he’d somehow lost something important, and that he should’ve at least gotten out and met the woman—even if that would’ve been highly unusual—Dax frowned. It was too late now.
“What was that about?�
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“Damn. Did I say she was cute before? Because she was even more adorable the second time. I told her she was off the hook and gave her the warning and she broke into another long soliloquy about how relieved she was and how I’d protected her clean record.”
“So she was flirting with you?” Dax asked sharply.
TJ looked over at his friend. “That’s not how it was.”
“Then how was it?”
“Look, I don’t pick up women I pull over, Dax, Jesus. Besides, she’s not my type. She just started babbling again about how thankful she was. Oh, she also mentioned she’d just helped with the same charity event we were at the other week. She told me she always knew cops weren’t the hardasses we tried to portray and she thanked me for all the money her group raised that night.”
“Holy shit, that’s it!” Dax exclaimed.
“What’s it?” TJ asked, his face scrunched up in confusion.
“That’s where I recognized her from. I saw her that night, at the charity thing. Remember when the waiter dropped the tray?”
“Vaguely.”
“She was the one who came over to help.”
“And? I don’t get your point, Dax.”
Dax remembered how the woman had babbled on and on with him before abruptly turning away to take care of business. He smiled. “Can I have her number?”
TJ looked at his friend in disbelief. “What?”
“Her number. I know it’s in the computer. Give it to me.”
“You can’t call her out of the blue and ask her out, Dax.”
“Why not?”
“She’s gonna think you’re a stalker.”
“No, she won’t.”
“Besides, it’s against the law for me to give it to you, and you know it.”
Dax tried to smile at his friend charmingly. “Come on, man. Please? I never got her name at the thing the other week, but I think it’s fate that you pulled her over tonight. I had no way of finding her before, but now I do.”
“You have it bad.”
Dax just kept smiling.
“Oh all right, but if I get in trouble, I’m siccing the review board on your ass.”
“Cool.”
“Jesus, I feel like a dating service. She really got to you, huh?”
“Yeah. There’s just something about her. I’m not sending out wedding invitations. Hell, I’m not even saying I want to date her. But I’m interested enough to call her up and see if anything comes out of it.”
TJ started the car and, after looking both ways to make sure no cars were coming, did a U-turn in the road and headed back the way they were going before pulling Mackenzie over.
“Ready for food?” TJ was obviously trying to change the subject.
“Oh, hell yeah. Think you can avoid pulling anyone else over in the next thirty minutes so we can actually get something to eat?”
“Funny guy.”
Dax smiled. He loved being part of the brotherhood of law enforcement. It didn’t matter that he was a Texas Ranger and TJ was a Highway Patrol officer. Law enforcement was law enforcement and they all worked together on cases. Neither he nor TJ had ever been married, and they liked it that way. Dax knew it was tough to be married to a cop and he hadn’t been able to find a woman who could handle it yet. At forty-six years old, he figured he never would. He mentally shrugged. He didn’t care. He had his career and his friends. Life was good.
But for the first time in a really long time, he was excited about the prospect of a date. He hadn’t lied to TJ. There was something about Ms. Mackenzie Morgan that got to him. He hoped he could find out what it was and either get it out of his system, or see where it could lead.
“Pedal to the metal then. Let’s go eat.”
Chapter Three
Mackenzie sighed heavily as she made her way up to her apartment. Getting pulled over was the icing on the cake to a very long, craptastic day. She couldn’t believe she’d been so lost in her head she’d been going twenty miles over the speed limit. Thank God the officer decided to give her a warning instead of a ticket.
After opening the door, Mackenzie slipped her keys back into her purse and dumped it on the small table in the entryway. She shut and locked the door, then hung her coat on the hook on the wall in the small hallway.
She then kicked off her shoes and padded down the hall to her living room. Mackenzie collapsed on her sofa, put her head back, and closed her eyes. Damn, she was glad to be home.
The day had started out all right. Mackenzie had arrived at work with plenty of time to spare and settled into her chair at her desk. She’d had a lot of paperwork to reconcile after the charity event, even weeks later, and had been well into it when her horrible boss had called her into her office.
Nancy Wood was one of a kind. She was around four inches taller than Mackenzie, but was about thirty pounds lighter. She was scary skinny. Not only that, but her hair was long and black, like down-to-her-butt long. It swished around her as she walked because she refused to wear it up or braid it. With her hair, her pointed nose, and long face, Nancy was an odd looking woman. She never smiled and loved ordering everyone in the office around. Everyone made fun of her behind her back and called her the “wicked witch of the SAC.”
The woman thought she was much more important than she really was. Nancy had spent two hours going over the spreadsheets of the donations they’d received and the money that had been spent. It drove Mack crazy because ultimately the finances were her responsibility. She hated having her boss double-check her work as if she was a fifth grader.
Not long after she’d finally gotten out of the meeting with her boss, the phone rang. It was her mom wanting to invite her over for an impromptu family dinner.
Mackenzie loved her mom and her brothers, but they simply didn’t understand her. First they’d started on her choice to live in an apartment instead of buying a house. She knew at her age she should have probably bit the bullet and invested in a property by now, but she liked living in an apartment. She liked being able to call the manager when something went wrong and not have to deal with it herself. She wasn’t very handy, so it was nice that she could put the responsibility for fixing whatever was wrong on someone else. Mackenzie was also especially grateful she didn’t have to worry about any kind of yard work.
Nevertheless, every time she got together with her family—every single time—they harped on her for being thirty-seven and unmarried. It wasn’t that Mackenzie didn’t want to be married; she just hadn’t found someone who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
She sighed. Mackenzie knew she was picky. It wasn’t a secret. Every time she thought she’d found the perfect guy, he’d do something or say something to make her reconsider. Then she’d grab hold of that one little thing and eventually it would grow bigger and bigger and she’d become more and more discontent and the relationship would end. Mackenzie’s best friend, Laine, told her all the time she was like Seinfeld, finding stupid reasons to dump men. Most of the time her relationships would end with the man throwing up his hands in disgust and walking out the door.
Mackenzie wasn’t an idiot; she knew it was her fault for nitpicking the men she dated to death and making them not want to stay, but she had no idea how to stop. And if a little voice inside her wanted the man to stay despite her being a bitch, she’d never admit it.
She had some bad habits, she knew it, but she didn’t think they were horrible enough for a guy to break up with her over them. One boyfriend told her he thought her habit of rambling on and on was cute, but toward the end of their relationship, he’d admitted it was embarrassing for him when she said whatever she was thinking around others with no filter, and that if she ever wanted to keep a man, she’d better rein that in. Jerk.
She recalled the conversation she’d had tonight with her brothers. They’d been unusually blunt with her, and their words had struck home all the more because Mackenzie knew they were right on m
ost counts.
“Mack, what do you expect a guy to do when you’re going at him every day for stupid shit? Take it? No way.”
“But Mark, if he loved me, he’d see how upset I am and change.”
“I love you, sis, but no. First of all, I’ve heard you complain about how the men you date want you to change some of the things you do, so I don’t see how you can stand there and say that if someone loved you, they wouldn’t ask you to change, but you can turn around and bitch that he’s not doing things the way you think he should. You can’t expect a guy to alter the way he does the dishes, for Christ’s sake, just because you want him to put the plates in the dishwasher one way and he does it another. It’s ridiculous. You’re looking for ways to push them away and you harp on them over and over until they decide you’re just not worth it.”
Mackenzie lowered her head. She knew Mark was right. Then Matthew had started in on her.
“Seriously, I’ve seen the way you are with them. Remember that one Thanksgiving when we all had to sit around and listen to you bicker with…whatever his name was? It was crazy. You wouldn’t let anything go. Hell, the man couldn’t even sit and watch football without you telling him he was doing it wrong.”
Mackenzie’s mom joined in as well. “All we’re saying, sweetie, is lighten up. You’ll never find a guy who’s perfect. You just have to learn to give a little more when you’re in a relationship.”
Mackenzie sighed and grabbed the pillow next to her on the couch, held it to her stomach, and buried her face in it. She was such a headcase. She didn’t know why she was this way…strike that, she did, but she hated to admit it to herself, or anyone else. Her first real adult boyfriend had done the exact same thing to her, nitpicked everything she’d done, and apparently, she’d committed everything he’d done to memory and decided it was how relationships were supposed to work. It was a self-fulfilling prophesy apparently, because every man she’d dated since that first man, she’d done the same thing to. Nitpicked stupid little things he did, until he got fed up and left.