“Hey, I’m Catholic, I grew up talking to dead people, well dead saints, but it’s the same thing. Anyway, I’m jealous that you got to talk to someone. Do you know how many candles I’ve lit and asked for advice? And not one of them has ever spoken a word back to me, awake or asleep.”
Cali dropped her face into her palms. “I need a vacation from my life. No, I need my life back to normal.”
The door squeaked open, and Cali looked up. Brit stood there—six feet of wonderful. Cali’s heart started to race.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Cali met his gaze.
“Hey.” He nodded at Tanya but focused on Cali. And she suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Tanya stood from the edge of the desk. “Gotta go.”
“Did I come at a bad time?” Brit moved in, watching Tanya skirt out. He tucked one hand in his jeans’ pocket and carried a bag in the other.
“No. I was about to call you.” She looked at the clock.
He glanced at the flowers. “You got them?” He set the bag on the table. “I brought us lunch. Cheeseburgers.”
“Thanks.” Cali looked at the roses. “They’re beautiful.”
“You okay?” Leaning down, he kissed her. Nothing heavy, just sweet. “Am I allowed to do that here?” He glanced back as if to make sure the door was closed. His eyes twinkled, and she saw the heat in his gaze. “Want to join me in the supply closet?”
Nervous, she snatched the clip from her hair and started opening and closing it again. Finally, she just blurted it out. “Stan called.”
Brit’s facial expression flipped from lover to cop.
Her stomach flipped with it, but it wasn’t the good flip this time.
His posture tightened. “When? What did he say?”
She moistened her lips. “I didn’t speak with him. He left messages. I tried to call you to tell you.”
“That was this morning. And you didn’t leave a message.” His brow wrinkled. “He called you this morning and you’re just now telling me. Did he threaten you?”
She shook her head. “No, he wanted me to call him back.”
“You called him?” Suspicion deepened his voice. He held up a hand. “He left a number?”
She nodded. “I didn’t erase the messages.”
“You should have gotten to me immediately. The moment you received these calls.”
He jerked the phone in front of him. “How do I listen to the messages?”
~
Brit pulled into the hotel’s parking lot the same time as Quarles. Brit’s mind had replayed the messages the freak had left Cali. “Cali, baby. Listen, I’m sorry for scaring you. I love you. You know I love you. Call me. I need your help.” He’d left a phone and room number. Brit had called and gotten the hotel’s address. Then he’d dialed Quarles to meet him here.
Quarles jumped out of his car. “Duke and Mark are a minute away, too. Let’s wait on them before going in. You got a vest in your car?”
Ignoring his partner, Brit took off to the office, pulling his badge out as his feet pumped against the asphalt. As he entered, Brit got a whiff of someone’s fast-food lunch and cigarette smoke. He approached the desk and slapped his badge on the counter. “You got a guest in room 103. We’re going to need to clear out the two adjoining rooms.”
The woman’s eyes went big. She dropped her hamburger on its foil wrapper. “Oh, I.... Wait. Room 103?”
“Yeah.” Brit heard Quarles walking in with Duke and Mark.
“The man in room 103 just checked out,” the woman said. “Another guy was in looking for him, ten minutes ago.”
“Fuck!” Brit swung his hand out, accidently knocking off the woman’s hamburger and a crystal bowl filled with jelly beans. The meat, bread, crystal bowl, and colorful candy smacked the wall. The bowl shattered. It became a race to see which hit the white tile floor first, the shards of glass, the multicolored candy, or the dismembered hamburger. The hamburger won.
~
“We’ll get him,” Quarles said five minutes later, standing by the bed in Stan’s former room. “At least we know he’s still trying to contact her. He’ll show up tonight, and we’ll be ready.”
Brit cut his gaze around the cheap motel’s furnishings. The room didn’t offer one clue to where Stan could have gone. They still called CSI for prints. The clerk’s description of the man looking for Stan sounded like Nolan Bright. If they’d been five minutes earlier, they would have caught Nolan.
Fifteen and they could have had them both. “Fifteen minutes,” Brit growled.
Quarles kept watching Brit as if he might explode. Brit waited for the moment right along with him. Why the hell hadn’t Cali contacted him immediately? Part of him defended her, telling himself she’d tried to call him. But damn, why hadn’t she left a message, or called him back?
Did she have some perverted loyalty to the bastard? Didn’t she want Stan caught? Brit pushed a hand over his face and remembered how she’d pleaded for him to be safe as he’d stormed out of her classroom. But for whose safety had she been more concerned—his or the man who’d vowed his love for her over the phone?
His cell phone chirped, and he snatched it out of his pocket. “Yeah?” His tone matched his mood—dark and threatening.
“Lowell. It’s Garcia. I just spotted the truck parked out in the back of the school. I think he’s—” The line went dead.
“Damn!” He looked at Quarles. “He’s at the school.” Brit tore off to his SUV.
“I’ll meet you there.” Quarles darted to his own truck.
Brit had made trips across Texas that felt shorter than the eight-mile drive to the school. He had to remind himself to breathe. His body throbbed with tension. Images of Cali flashed in his head—of her smile, of her resting her head on his chest.
If Humphrey had put one finger on her, Brit intended to beat the man to a pulp—no guns, no handcuffs, no badges. This would be personal.
Flipping his phone open, driving like a man who dared the devil, Brit hit the redial button.
The line rang. And rang. The knots in Brit’s belly tightened. He slung the phone down, and swerved to avoid hitting a car that hadn’t heard his sirens.
He drove up to the front of the school. As someone walked out, he snagged the front door, ignoring the stares from teenagers. His gaze cut to the front office, but he rushed past and headed straight to Cali’s classroom.
He swung open her door. The noise of five or more conversations pierced his ears. Silence suddenly fell. The students stared at him. Brit scanned the room, desperate to see Cali.
His gaze landed on the empty desk.
“Where’s Miss McKay?” he asked.
“She was called to the office,” a girl said.
He left, storming down the hall. “She’s okay. She’s okay.” He kept repeating the words like a speech he needed to memorize. His anger at her for not contacting him about Stan’s calls took a backseat the moment he thought she could be hurt. Right now, he wanted to see her—hold her. Get her friggin’ out of the school before Stan came back.
He slapped open the office door and faced the first woman who looked up from behind the counter. “Where’s Cali McKay?”
The woman stepped back and every eye in the room stared at him as if he carried a pitchfork instead of a badge. “Who are you?” another woman said, her tone only an octave short of panic. One thought zipped through his mind—something had happened. Chills ran a course up his spine and down both his arms.
“I’m police.” He jerked out his badge. “Where is she?”
“Nurse’s office,” the woman said. “We’ve called for an ambulance.”
“How bad?” he asked.
“It looked bad.”
Brit’s heart became a throbbing mass of hurt. “Where is the nurse’s office?”
“Four doors down on the left.”
He turned and went.
Seconds later, he shoved open the door to the nurse’s office. Voices bounced from one of
the back rooms. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding first,” someone said.
Then the smell hit him. His gaze dropped to the white tile where a trail of blood led to the voices. “No.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“I said, don’t move,” the school nurse snapped. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Cali stood back as the nurse applied pressure to Roberto Garcia’s neck and head wounds. The copper scent of blood filled the cubical-sized room, making her stomach twist with guilt. This was her fault. She’d messed up. If she’d told Brit earlier about the calls, maybe Stan would have been caught and Roberto would be okay.
She heard footsteps and when she turned, Brit came to a halt at the door. His face looked as colorless as the white walls.
“Brit?” Had she wished him here?
In two wide steps, he reached out and touched her arm. “I thought...” Relief washed over his expression. He pulled her close. His deep intake of air vibrated through Cali, and she breathed in his scent.
His embrace ended quickly and he looked at Roberto. “What happened?”
“He said Stan caught him in the back of the school. He tried to stop him from leaving. They fought and Roberto fell on some broken glass on the pavement. He cut himself badly.”
“Lowell,” Roberto ground out, trying to sit up, only to be pressed back down by the nurse.
“I told you to stay still,” the nurse said, her voice firm.
Cali moved in closer. “Please listen to her.”
“I almost had him,” Roberto said. “He was trying to sneak in the back entrance. I had them bring Miss McKay in here just in case he tried to come back.”
Cali saw Brit frown at the sight of the blood. “I knew I could count on you.”
“It looks worse than it is,” the nurse replied, obviously seeing their concern. “But he’s going to have plenty of stitches to show off.” She turned when her patient tried to sit up again. “Until you stop bleeding, you don’t move!”
“I’m fine,” Roberto said. “Hell, I’ve been shot before.”
Cali wrung her hands together. “I’m so sorry, Roberto. This is all my fault.”
“Hog wash,” Roberto said. “You didn’t do this.”
The nurse removed a bloody cloth she held against Roberto’s neck wound. “The bleeding is slowing down.”
~
Fifteen minutes later, Brit watched the ambulance drive away with Garcia.
Brit hadn’t left Cali’s side. She looked like a woman about to shatter into delicate pieces and when she did, he’d be there to catch her.
Quarles, who’d shown up a few minutes ago, stepped up beside him. “What now?”
Brit looked over at Cali then moved a few feet away to talk to his partner in private. “You go to the hospital to get a report. I’m going to get Cali situated at my place before I join you at the surveillance.”
The expression on Quarles’ face darkened. “If Adams finds out she’s staying at your place, he’s going to crawl up your ass and camp out for a few days.”
“He can roast marshmallows while he’s there for all I care. And I’ll swear you didn’t know a thing about it.”
Frustration pinching his brow, Quarles left. Brit spotted Mrs. Jasmine walking up to Cali. He never considered himself an opportunist, but damn if he’d let this one pass.
He hurried to stand beside Cali. “You look as if you could use some time off.” He saw Cali cut him a don’t-go-there look, but he had his compass set in just that direction. With Garcia at the hospital, Cali was not staying at the school.
If she’d listened to him about not coming to work today, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. And if she’d called right away this morning, Humphrey wouldn’t even be an issue.
Focusing on the principal, Brit continued, “Don’t you think so, Mrs. Jasmine? Isn’t it best all the way around that Cali take some time off?” He felt Cali’s baby blues blistering him.
“Maybe we should talk about this in my office?” Mrs. Jasmine started back inside.
As Mrs. Jasmine walked away, Cali gave his elbow a squeeze. “Don’t do this,” she seethed.
He didn’t answer her. The way he figured it, he’d be answering for a lot later because there was no changing his mind. If Cali wouldn’t listen to reason, her principal would. And when he got Cali alone, he was going give her a ration of shit for not calling him. No doubt about it, Cali and he were about to have their first “real” fight.
Panic started buzzing in his gut. Normally, this was Brit’s bail-out time. The moment any issue arose that invited tempers to flare, Brit called it quits on a relationship. He’d experienced too many domestic battles growing up; he simply refused to be a part of them as an adult. It wasn’t that he really believed he’d fight unfair, but why the hell take chances?
But this fight, the one brewing right now, wasn’t going to send him running. He’d stay and see it through.
~
“You did that on purpose,” Cali said as they left the school fifteen minutes later. A cold wind made her shiver, or was it her anger?
Brit matched her steps, one for one. Clip, clop.
Fury tightened her shoulders and she turned on him. “You knew how I felt about this and you didn’t care. I told you last night that I didn’t want to stop working and you just overlooked my feelings.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “No, you’ve got that ass-backwards. I care and that’s why I overlooked how you felt.”
She snatched her keys from her purse. Her hands shook, and tears formed in her eyes. Her knees still felt like worn-out rubber bands.
Letting out a gush of air, he took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Cali, try to understand. Humphrey attacked Garcia. Next time, a student or a teacher could get killed. It’s not safe for you to be here.”
She pushed his hand away, not wanting to understand. She couldn’t understand. Not the dreams, not Brit’s willingness to go against her wishes.
“You’re the one who needs to understand,” she said. “You had no right to interfere. None. Zip.”
His jaw muscles tightened. “Let me drive you to my house.”
“No.” Cali leaned against her car and folded her hands over her stomach. The desire to scream, stomp, and to kick a few tires bounced around her head, but sweet Charmin-faced girls didn’t do that, so she just leaned against her Honda and tapped her foot to the cadence of anger and panic pulsing inside her.
He stepped close and pulled her against his chest. Even as mad as a cat with its tail on fire, she couldn’t push him away.
She breathed in, trying not to be lulled by his scent or the warmth radiating from his shoulders. Finally, anger won over and she pulled back. “I’ll drive myself.”
“You’re too upset to drive. We’ll get your car later.”
She looked up at him. “I’m very angry with you right now.”
He gritted his teeth. “I know you’re angry.” A cold gust of air ruffled his hair. “And I can accept that because you’re not the only one angry. I’m pissed that you didn’t call me when you got the call from Humphrey. But let me drive you and we’ll talk about this later.”
Narrowing his eyes at her, he took the keys from her trembling hands. “Please.”
Without keys, she was left with no option but to follow him. The cold cut through her cardigan sweater, but anger still bubbled hot inside her. She got into his SUV and stared out the windshield.
“Seatbelt.” He turned the car’s heater on.
She buckled in, but didn’t look at him. The first half of the drive, neither of them spoke. Then like a shaken soda can, the words spewed out of her. “How could you do this? My work was the last normal thing I have in my life. I need it. I’ve lost everything else.”
“Was Stan normal?” His words came out gritty. “Because you know what? I’m not the bad guy here. I’m the guy who’s trying to make sure your ex-loverboy doesn’t kill you like he has three other people
. And for some reason I’d think you’d be pissed at him instead of me.”
She gripped the seat belt, her anger rising. “This isn’t about Stan. I told you last night I didn’t want to stop teaching. I even explained why it was so important. And you—”
“What does that make me?” He thumped his palm on the steering wheel. “Aren’t I normal? Or is Stan your normal?”
“You didn’t have a right to interfere in my job.”
“I only did it because I don’t want to see you or anyone else hurt. I care about you, Cali. I care so damn much that I can’t let you put yourself in danger just because you want to feel friggin’ normal. And I can’t understand why you didn’t call me right after—”
“Caring for someone doesn’t give you the right to make their choices for them.” The impact of her own words turned on Cali.
They sat in silence, staring at the window, then she spoke, “I couldn’t make my mother’s choices.” Tears of frustration rolled down her eyes. “I didn’t understand that then, but I do now. People have to make their own choices. I can’t make your choices. What if I decided you don’t need to be a cop because it’s dangerous? There’s a nutcase loose killing cops.”
He cut his angry gaze toward her. “That’s what I do, Cali.”
“Yeah, and until about thirty minutes ago, I was a teacher who had a job to go to tomorrow, but thanks to you I’ve been banned from the school until further notice.” Finally feeling as if her point had been made, she stared out the window and dried her tears on her shirt sleeve.
The last five miles were long and silent, except for the lulling sound of his car wheels moving on the pavement and the heater humming warmth. He pulled up in his driveway.
She reached for the door handle, but he caught her arm before she jumped out.
“Cali?” A thousand emotions danced in his eyes. He swallowed as if whatever he had to say was going to cost him a pound of pride. “You’re right. I was wrong to do that. What if I call your principal and tell her I’ll have a security guard posted at the school? She might change her mind.”
Murder Mayhem and Mama Page 31