“Is it just about sex with her, too? Or is it more? She’s such a vanilla-looking girl. Does she really do it for you?”
“You know, in this tiny little room, I didn’t think I’d have to show you where the door is?”
Shane leaned in as if hoping the sight of her cleavage would make him go weak. Wrong. Now, there was nothing about this woman he wanted, liked, or admired.
She ran her tongue across her lips. “If you call me later, I’ll dress up like a teacher. Get a ruler.” She leaned in.
Brit backed up and stared her dead in the eyes so she’d know he meant what he was about to say. “Go find someone else to screw, Shane. I’m not your fuck toy.”
Shane looked verbally slapped. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a jerk?”
He watched her leave and his chest ached where his heart used to be. Not a jerk, he thought, but a dickhead. Standing, he didn’t know where he was going. He just couldn’t sit here and wait. Snatching his thin, useless coat from the chair, and headed out. He’d lost his leather jacket and his heart. He was going to miss his jacket. His heart was another matter. He recalled how hurt Cali had looked when he said all those terrible things to her.
“Just like dear ol’ dad,” he muttered.
He didn’t deserve a heart. He sure as hell didn’t deserve her.
Once outside, the damp, cold hit and he made up his mind. As soon as he caught Keith’s killer, he’d go to Mexico. Three weeks of warm weather and good tequila, and he might be able to forget.
~
An hour later, Cali sat down in the metal chair and looked at Stan through the glass. He hadn’t shaven, his hair hung even longer, dirtier, but he seemed thrilled to see her. She studied him and wondered how she could have convinced herself she’d been attracted to him. He pointed to the phone. Cali picked it up on her side of the partition as Stan picked it up on his.
“Hey, babe,” he said and his lips spread in a come-on smile.
Cali didn’t smile back. “I’m not your babe.”
“Ahh, sweetie. You love me and you know it. That’s why you came.”
Cali squared her shoulders. “No. I don’t love you. I never loved you. It may sound callous, but I only got involved with you because my mom was dying and I was scared.”
“Yeah, and I was there for you, too. So now you’ve got to be here for me.”
She shook her head, finding it difficult to speak.
“No,” she said. “You weren’t there for me. You never even asked about my mom. You broke into my apartment, you broke into my car, you broke into my mom’s house. And I’m not here for you.”
She pressed her hand on the cold metal table. “However, I told the DA that I didn’t think you killed those guys, but now I want to hear it from you.”
“I didn’t kill them.” He leaned forward. “I didn’t even hit the old man. I asked them to stop. And I even took the bat and hit the wall, hoping he’d do what they said and not hit him anymore.”
She looked into Stan’s violet eyes and believed him. Even villains had soft spots. Stan cared about the elderly.
“I need your help,” he said. “And you’re going to help me. You owe it to me because if you hadn’t called the police, I’d be free.”
She shook her head and kept shaking it. “I don’t owe you anything. I can’t fix you. As a matter of fact, I’m out of the fix-it business. Good luck, Stan.”
He looked shocked, then he looked angry. “I don’t need fixing. I need a really good lawyer. I know you got some money from your mom.”
Cali sat up straighter. “You’re on your own.”
“You bitch!” he snapped.
She almost hung up, but then brought the phone back to her mouth. “I’m working on it.”
~
Brit was sitting in the bar, staring at his first whiskey, when his cell rang. He didn’t check the number, but he prayed it was news about Keith’s killer.
“Yeah?” he snapped.
“We got a name and address,” Quarles said. “The warrant is being drawn up as we speak. We’re going in.”
He flipped the cell closed, dropped a ten on the counter by his untouched drink and took off.
When he got back to the station, everyone was geared up. Adams tossed him a vest. “Put it on or you don’t come.”
Brit put it on.
On the drive over, they filled him in. The suspect in Keith’s murder, Moses Johnson, was barely eighteen and already head of the new gang. He’d earned his position because he’d been the willing tough guy who took out two cops. But tough guy lived with his eighty-six year old grandma in a low-income neighborhood.
Brit prayed he had a chance to prove to the kid what tough was.
At least twelve officers unloaded from the two vans. It took them five minutes to get the place surrounded. The house, once white, had paint peeling off its siding. The yard hadn’t seen a mower in months. The porch steps were concrete and had weeds growing from the cracks. If it wasn’t for the lawn chair on the porch, and the two cars parked in the driveway, one of which was registered to their suspect, the place would have looked abandoned.
Brit, positioned at the side of the porch, covered the side window and had eyes on the porch in case Moses came out fighting. Quarles and Adams were stationed at the back. Duke and Mark, with two officers backing them, took the lead. It was a position Brit had wanted, but Adams refused to give him.
Brit watched Duke and Mark step up on the porch, their guns drawn. The other two officers moved up and bracketed the door. Brit held his breath. Stomach knotted, he waited for them to make their presence known. Brit’s palms began to sweat, the vest heavy on his shoulders. He held tight to his own gun.
We’re going to get him, Keith. We’re going to get him.
~
Cali walked into her apartment. Memories of Brit when he’d helped her clean up filled her heart and she let go of a deep breath.
Her home phone had several messages on it. The blinking yellow light seemed to flash at the same rate as her heart. And with each beat, it hurt.
Her gaze caught on the lamp, the heavy ceramic that was cracked, and she knew if she could see inside her chest, her heart would probably look worse.
She sat on the sofa and pushed the button to see the numbers of those who’d called her. Most of them were listed as unknown. She almost hit the button to listen, but decided against it. If it was Brit, she didn’t want to hear it.
Or did she?
A new wash of tears filled her eyes as she pushed the button.
None of them were Brit.
He hadn’t called to beg for her forgiveness. Though why she wanted him to, she didn’t know, especially since she didn’t even know if she wanted to forgive him.
Or did she?
You can’t fix him.
Her mom’s words filled her head and she cried harder.
A knock came at the door. Brushing her tears back, she remembered that Tanya had insisted on coming by. She’d tried to tell her no, but Tanya didn’t take no for an answer.
Cali walked to the door, opened the lock, and hadn’t gotten her hand on the knob, when someone shoved the door open.
Knocked to the floor, Cali saw the knife and screamed. As she scooted back, scrubbing her butt over the carpet, she managed to focus on the person wielding the weapon over her.
Nolan Bright.
“Where’s your boyfriend, Bitch?”
~
“Police! Open the door,” Duke shouted.
The door came open and Brit saw an elderly woman standing in the doorway.
He heard Duke spouting out orders. Brit’s heart pounded in his ears, and he didn’t hear the conversation, but he saw the old lady nod her head, and then her shoulders seemed to slump in defeat as she stepped outside.
Another officer took her by the arm and moved her off the porch as Duke, Mark, and three other officers stormed the house.
It took everything Brit had not to follow them inside. He wante
d to be there when the guy resisted. Wanted his own personal revenge.
He inhaled and the air reeked of cigarette smoke. A vision of Cali filled his head. Pushing the image back, he concentrated on what he was doing. On what he was supposed to be doing. Taking down Keith’s killer.
Brit heard a commotion come from the back. He heard Quarles yell out and Brit took off. No way in hell was he going to lose another partner!
Before he got to the back, he heard the shots. He’d barely cut the corner of the house when the bullet knocked him flat on his ass. The pain took him down the rest of the way.
~
“What do you want?” Cali asked and slowly got to her feet, backing up until her legs hit the end table.
“Where the hell is Stan?” Nolan asked and took a step closer, holding his knife out.
Her heart began to pound and the sound of it seemed to echo in her ears. She started to answer him, to tell him the truth, but something stopped her. “What do you want with him?”
“Unfinished business,” he snapped. His eyes looked glassy. Wild. He looked dirty. Everything from his stringy blond hair to his light gray shirt with stains running down the front needed a good washing. “Now talk or die.”
Her breath caught. Was this it? Was she really going to die like this?
“He’s…not here.”
“I know that, bitch. Where is he?” He took another step closer.
She got the crazy feeling that as long she had something he wanted—information—then he wouldn’t attack. But once he got it…
He’d already killed three people; instinct told her he wouldn’t mind making it four.
“Start talking!” he seethed.
She glanced at the door, left ajar. Could she get past him quickly enough?
She had to try, didn’t she? Heart pounding, adrenalin flowing through her veins, she was poised to run, when the door swung open.
“Cali?” Tanya stood in the open door. Her eyes widened when she saw Nolan and his knife.
Nolan turned.
“Run!” Cali screamed. Not thinking, just acting, she reached for the broken ceramic lamp and swung it hard, harder than she knew she could, right at Nolan Bright’s head.
She heard the sound of it hitting his skull, but didn’t care. Then she bolted to the door and prayed she made it in time.
Chapter Forty-Two
“Man down! Man down!”
Brit heard the words. And in some distant part of his brain, he knew they were talking about him. But he didn’t want to be the man down, so he tried to stand up.
“Stay down! We got him.”
It took Brit a minute to realize it was Quarles talking—another minute to realize that his partner was running his hands over his shoulders. Damn, he liked the guy, but not like that. He swatted at his hands.
“The vest caught it, you lucky bastard.” Quarles smiled. “But I know it still hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
Brit pushed Quarles back and jackknifed up. He didn’t hurt. Well, he did, but not bad enough to lay on the ground while his partner ran his hand over him. He balanced himself on his two weak legs, but his lungs still weren’t completely functioning. He scanned the backyard to make sure Quarles hadn’t been lying. Then he stepped forward, needing to see for himself the son of a bitch who’d killed his partner and tried to kill him was in custody.
“Easy,” Quarles said.
Brit saw Adams yank the cuffed suspect from the ground. Brit started forward again, but Quarles grabbed him by the arm.
“Don’t do it.”
Brit’s gaze took in the dark-haired suspect, wearing jeans and a school jersey. He might be eighteen, but he didn’t look a day over fifteen, and he probably didn’t weigh a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. He was just a kid.
Which probably explained why Keith and Anderson hadn’t had any defensive wounds on them. The boy didn’t look like a threat.
But he was. He’d taken lives. Innocent lives. Brit curled his fist up tight. He thought about Keith’s son and hoped like hell that Keith Jr. was an old man before this punk ever saw freedom.
Fifteen minutes later, the suspect had been carted away and the crowd was beginning to thin. Brit spotted Adams walking over, a huge frown on his face.
Brit had refused medical attention, and no doubt the man was pissed and planned to jump Brit’s ass about it.
As soon as Adams got close, Brit spoke up. “Get that look off your face old man. I’m fine. It’s just a bruise.”
Adams hesitated before speaking. “It’s not that. Nolan Bright got to Cali McKay. We got a couple of units heading to her apartment now.”
~
Three cops were parked in front of Cali’s apartment when Brit brought the unmarked police van to a sudden stop. He spotted a couple of paramedics shutting the back of an ambulance and bolted out of the van.
“Who you got?” He ran up to them, his chest so tight he thought it would crack.
When they didn’t answer right away, he flashed his badge. “I asked you a question.”
One man held up his hand. “Calm down. We got the perp.”
“Cali McKay?” Saying her name brought a wave of pain to his heart.
“She’s in the apartment giving a statement. She’s fine.”
He heard a car screech to a halt behind him. Looking back, he saw Quarles and Adams getting out. But he didn’t wait; he took off, taking the steps two at a time, just wanting to see her for himself.
The officer holding fort at the door recognized him, and shifted back to let him inside.
He took one step inside and then stopped. She sat on the sofa. No blood. No signs of injury, not physically, anyway. Emotionally was another matter.
Just the way she wrapped her arms around herself told him how upset she was. She needed someone to hold her.
The image took him back to when he’d first seen her. She wasn’t wearing a Mickey Mouse nightshirt, but she looked just as vulnerable, just as devastated. A victim.
“A hell of a girl there.” Officer Logan, Mike Anderson’s old partner, stepped beside Brit. “She took the guy out.”
“How bad?” Brit asked.
“Nothing serious. He’s just unconscious.”
“Then someone needs to finish the job.” And Brit would love to volunteer for the job.
Brit noticed Tanya, Cali’s friend, sitting in the chair. Her gaze met his and she frowned at him.
He looked away from her and back to Cali.
“She’s not hurt, is she?” he asked Logan just to be sure.
“Just shaken up.”
Cali bit down on her lip and he saw a sheen of tears in her eyes. And just like that, he remembered what an ass he’d been to her in the beginning. He remembered with clarity the awful things he’d said to her when he’d caught her trying to visit Humphrey.
Then she looked over toward the door, toward him. The hurt and anguish he saw in her eyes made him catch his breath. Knowing he’d been partly responsible for putting it there sent a bolt of regret echoing in his chest.
A hell of a girl. Logan’s words rang in his head. And she deserved a hell of a guy. She deserved someone so much better than him. Not someone who carried the baggage from his dysfunctional childhood—doomed to screw up any relationship he had. Unable to breathe, but telling himself it was the right thing to do, he turned and left.
~
“Is that everything, ma’am?” the moving guy asked.
Cali turned around, her gaze taking in her mother’s living room. “Yes. The sofa stays.”
“Okay. We’ll be here tomorrow with the things from the apartment.”
Smiling took effort, but she managed. “Thanks.” She watched him leave. It was Monday and instead of returning to work, she’d taken the week off to finish getting her mother’s house emptied and her things from the apartment ready to move in.
She hadn’t thought she’d ever want to live here—in the Cancer House. But after what happened at her apartment, sh
e hadn’t wanted to stay there, either. So she’d come here. And once she recovered from her four-hour cry, she’d started remembering things. Good things—like how she and her mom had laughed over dinners, how they spent evenings, each of them with a good book in their hands. Or watching old Burt Reynolds movies.
Yes, her mom had died here, but she’d also lived here. Cali needed to remember those good times. Cancer had taken away her mom—Cali wasn’t going to let it take away her memories or the home her mother had loved.
She still felt as if a part of her was missing, as if someone had come in the dead of night and surgically removed an important limb—an arm or a foot. She continued walking, pretending it was still there, but she kept tripping, stumbling over the pain that hit so hard at certain moments she couldn’t breathe.
She told herself the thing missing was her mom and not Brit. But she lied. She missed them both. The difference was that her mom had died. The other had left on his accord. Brit had just walked out. Walked out without even talking to her. Hadn’t he seen how much she needed him? That had hurt even worse than the things he’d said to her the last time they argued.
However, she refused to dwell on it. Forward. She needed to move forward. That’s what her mother said and that was what Cali intended to do.
She went to the table where she had laid out the paint chips last night. Tanya had offered to come over tonight and help her paint. Cali had chosen pale yellows for the walls, and next week the carpet would be removed and hardwood floors installed.
Walking into one of the extra bedrooms, Cali remembered her mom telling her that the room would make a good art studio. She’d been right.
The large windows allowed in a lot of light, making it a perfect place to paint.
Tomorrow, Cali planned to go to the art supply store and buy paint and canvases. Forward. She would survive. Hadn’t her mama said she’d be okay?
Murder Mayhem and Mama Page 35