by Kylie Brant
Cam tended to agree, but that someone was standing before him. And lying through her hygienically-challenged teeth. He slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Yeah, you’re right. There are probably a lot of bars that have a Flat Tire sign situated behind the bar in that exact position. And I’d probably see a bar mirror with a chip in the same place at any number of rat holes like this one.” He got up. “Thanks. Think I’ll just ask your customers. I’ll start with those two in the corner who just finished conducting their drug deal. After that I’ll shut the place down for housing illicit activity and wait for vice to get here.”
The bartender grabbed his arm. “Geez, calm down. I said I hadn’t seen the dude. Could have been any lowlife who came in here and got tanked enough to jump over the bar and try to pour himself a free one. The manager’s in the back. Let me go get him to come out and take a look, okay?”
He gave her a hard look. “You do that.”
She scurried away from the bar, ignoring the calls of the patrons waiting to be served and headed for a side door several feet away. Cam gave her a moment and then trailed after her.
He followed her into a dimly-lit cramped area stacked with cases of beer and liquor cartons. And was just in time to see a flash of sagging denim disappearing through the room’s exit.
The woman placed herself in his path as he attempted to follow. Cam shoved her aside and reached the doorway. Saw a skinny bald-headed man tearing through the alley. As he started after him, the bartender launched at him, clinging to his back like a determined monkey, one arm around his neck, and the other beating him in his already pounding head with a balled up fist.
Prying her arm away, he unceremoniously dumped her on her ass and ran after the fleeing man.
The neighborhood was poorly lit, with many streetlights broken out. But while the man stuck to the pavement, there were enough lighted business signs to keep him in sight. When they hit a more residential area, however, chasing him through backyards and down rutted alleys became trickier.
The man slowed, looked over his shoulder. Seeing Cam, he put on a burst of speed and turned down a narrow passage between two dilapidated houses. Sensing a trap, Cam paused at the entry of the side yards. Drew his weapon. Pressing his back along the side of one dwelling, he sidled through the darkness, gun raised.
One of the buildings was dark. The other home had faint lights showing through the barred and shade-drawn windows. The canned laughter of a sitcom blared from it. Coming to the open area afforded by the houses’ back yards, he swung around the corner, sweeping his weapon in both directions. A body launched itself at him like a heat seeking missile, the force of the contact taking him down.
Cam hit the ground hard, rolled, pressing an arm against the man’s windpipe. His assailant bucked beneath him and Cam saw the flash of a blade a split instant before he leveled his weapon against the man’s temple. “You’re going to want to drop that.”
There was a pause as if the stranger was considering his options. Then slowly, his fingers uncurled from the knife. As Cam reached for it the man screeched, “Do it! Right now, Jesus!”
There were a couple thuds behind him and Cam scrabbled away with his captive, yanking the man up and around as he rose. Then blinked when he saw the woman from the bar on her knees, arms covering her head, a baseball bat on the ground before her.
And Sophie towering over her like an avenging angel, her split-enclosed wrist still raised threateningly, as she reached for the bat.
He gave a shake of his head to clear it. Was dimly aware that his headache hadn’t receded. “What the hell…?”
“I think,” Sophie sounded breathless as she used the bat in the center of the woman’s back to urge her to sprawl facedown on the ground, “that the phrase you’re searching for is ‘thank you.’”
* * * *
It was another twenty-five minutes before DMPD showed up and Cam explained the situation to the officers. “Neither of them have names, apparently. At least none they’re admitting to. I’m guessing once you get their prints you’re going to see a sheet on both of them, and an outstanding warrant starring this guy.” He jerked his head toward the man he’d chased currently handcuffed and sitting in the back of the squad car at the curb next to them. The woman had been secured and hauled away to the police vehicle parked ahead, from which creative profanities could still be heard.
The officer next to him bore a graying buzz cut and the creased face of a seasoned veteran of the force. “You want to be alerted when we get their identities?”
Cam dug in his pocket and handed them a card. “You can give me a call. But I think I’m done with them.” Once he’d gotten the man in the light afforded by the car’s LED bar, Cam had immediately known the man wasn’t the UNSUB. He was the right height and weight, and there was enough of a resemblance along the jaw to give him a second look, but the mouth was wrong. The nose. He was obviously a scumbag. Just not the one they were looking for.
He strode back to his car still parked a couple blocks away in front of Screwball’s. And the closer he drew to the vehicle—and the woman in it—the more quickly his mind shifted away from the capture and arrest and landed squarely on the danger Sophie had placed herself in.
Opening the door of the vehicle, he got inside. Fitted the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. Instead he considered Sophie for a moment. Noted the way she was cradling her splinted wrist.
“How bad does your arm hurt right now,” he asked conversationally.
Her gaze dropped to her wrist, seeming surprised to find herself holding it. “I took some pain relievers.” Her voice was wry. “So ask me in the morning.”
“Not to be a stickler, but I did tell you to stay in the car.”
“And I did!” Her defense was spirited. “Right up to the time that the busty brunette chased after you from the bar wielding a baseball bat. Then I thought, ‘Oh, hell no.” I had to follow to even the odds.”
He did a double take. “Did you just swear?” Though the word was mild, he’d never heard anything remotely close to a cuss word cross her lips before. She was perfectly capable of verbal annihilation without raising her voice or resorting to profanity. He’d be willing to bet under the dark makeup she was blushing.
“I think hell ceases to be a considered a swear word by about age ten. And you’re digressing. I just thought I needed to even the odds a bit, that’s all.”
Cam couldn’t stop staring at her. The woman was infinitely fascinating. “A fiberglass splint against a Louisville slugger.” He was unable to keep the amusement from his tone. “The woman didn’t have a chance.”
“I also had a small canister of pepper spray on my key chain,” Sophie said sedately. “I was waiting for her to turn around so I could use it on her.”
Lord help him. Every day he spent with this woman he learned something new about her. Something that solidified the tangle of emotion she elicited. Something that added a little bit of light to a world that all too often seemed crowded with darkness.
“Is that what you were waiting for? I thought you said you were waiting for a thank you.”
Her fall of hair shielded her profile as she pulled the shoulder harness over to fasten her seat belt. “I’m not going to hold my breath.”
“You don’t have to.” Leaning toward he cupped the back of her neck. Exerted subtle pressure to urge her closer. And in the first sweet moment that his lips met hers he had an unmistakable sensation of homecoming. So he lingered, savoring the sense of familiarity, which beckoned a desire too long ignored.
He’d meant only to brush his mouth over hers. Not to open the floodgates to past intimacies she’d halted before he’d had enough. Long before. But then her lips opened under his and his intentions abruptly dissipated. The taste of her filtered through his system, had his loins tightening in remembered response. And when their tongues tangled he felt the blood in his veins rev to life.
He’d almost convinced himself that he’d imagined the explosiven
ess between them. But he hadn’t. And he didn’t know whether to be glad for that or sorry. Cam pressed closer for a deeper taste, and for a few instants let the rest of the world recede.
A car door slamming nearby shattered the moment. Abruptly yanked back to their surroundings, Cam eased away, hauling in a long breath as he did so. “Thank you.”
It was a moment before she responded. When she did so her voice was shaky. “You’re welcome.”
* * * *
Getting the wig off had been Sophia’s first order of business once they got back to Cam’s place. Such a simple thing, she reflected as she pulled a comb through her hair still damp from the shower, to provide such utter relief. Each time she’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror she’d been startled by the stranger staring back at her. After only one day she was already hoping her days of disguise would be numbered.
Wrapped in a towel she peeked out of the bathroom to look down the hallway. Cam’s bedroom had an attached bath but the second bath was located in the hallway off the family room.
Ducking back inside to scoop up her clothes and toiletries, Sophia hurried back to her bedroom. A hot shower had done wonders to refresh her, but hadn’t been especially conducive for wiping the memory of Cam’s kiss from her mind. That remained stubbornly, vividly implanted despite her best efforts to elbow it aside.
As kisses went if hadn’t been nearly as passionate as many they’d shared in their brief time together, she reflected as she swung the bedroom door closed with her foot. It had lacked the new and exploratory nature of their first kiss. The exciting sense of discovery of subsequent ones.
But it had still managed to summon a memory reel of every sensual moment they had shared. To revive the temptation he’d presented from the moment he’d happened upon her that night last month at Mickey’s. The single brief intimacy had opened the floodgates of memories and immersed her in a sensual onslaught she was helpless to escape. She’d struggled to barricade them away when she’d joined the investigation of Mason Vance’s victims.
But her time in captivity had given her too much time to think. Too much time in which to finally admit to herself that her breakup with Cam had been due more to fear of the emotional risk he posed and far to the stilted reasons she’d given at the time.
The memory of Vance chilled. The man was safely behind bars. He couldn’t hurt her anymore.
And he’d never had a chance to hurt her the way he had his other victims. Terrorize her the way he had Courtney Van Wheton, who continued to lie in the hospital still and lifeless.
Her feet halted, and she clutched her clothes and bag tightly to her chest. There had been plenty of time for regrets while she’d plotted her escape, terrified Vance would come back before she could get away. And seeing that body that had been uncovered today had been a devastating reminder that her fate could have been far worse.
Her brain ordered her feet forward. Walk to the closet. Take out her robe. Put her things away.
But the open closet morphed into the cell she’d been held in. The cool cracked limestone wall at its back. The wooden slat sides and sturdy livestock gate secured at the top with heavy galvanized wire.
And the blow-up mattress in the corner that Vance had once pinned her on, his intent obvious until she’d managed a distraction.
Her palms dampened. And the thudding of her heart grew faster, louder. Until the sound of it filled her ears. Kept beat with the rapid pulse in her veins. Tension crept through her muscles and her stomach churned with nausea.
She struggled to haul in a breath. To shove the unwanted pictures of Vance and the stall that had become her prison out of her mind.
Sophia was a professional psychologist. But recognizing her physical response to the sudden flashback didn’t make it easier to overcome it. She battled to find something else, anything else to focus on. To fill her lungs, then release the air slowly in an attempt to calm her breathing.
Before she could be successful, a knock sounded at her door. “If you haven’t turned in for the night already, I have something I want to run by you.” Cam’s voice sounded from the hallway. “Are you decent? Sophie?”
What she was, was frozen. Rooted in place by an involuntarily reaction to events that should no longer wield this kind of power.
When she didn’t answer—couldn’t—the door eased open. And in one quick glance Cam seemed to understand exactly what was happening.
“I…need to get dressed.” There was a quaver in her voice that she hated. Was helpless to control. And still her feet didn’t move.
“Yeah, you do.” He crossed to her and matter-of-factly pried the items out of her grasp and tossed them nonchalantly on the dresser. Then he went to the closet—the closet. Not her former cell—and pulled her robe off a hanger. Came back to drape it around her shoulders. Helped fit her stiff arms into it and tugged away the towel so he could tie the robe around her waist.
“I just…” Her tongue seemed thick, so she tried again. “I was thinking of Vance, and then the closet… For a moment it reminded me…”
“I know.” Gently he turned her and guided her to the bed. Took a moment to yank back the bedcovers before scooping her up and laying her on the mattress. “Exhaustion makes the flashbacks worse. So does fighting them alone.”
He stripped off his shirt and turned on the lamp at the bedside. Then crossed to flip off the overhead light. When the mattress gave beneath his weight, she felt a flare of panic that had nothing to do with the flashback. And everything to do with another sort of weakness, this one caused by his presence.
Cam crowded her on the bed. Fitted himself to her backside so they were spooned together in a way that was all too familiar. “Thing I wanted to ask you,” he said, the low rumble of his voice soothing in the shadows, “I’ve been thinking about getting a dog.”
“A…” The non sequitur was almost successful as a diversion. “That is so not what you came here to talk about.”
“Sure it is.” He stretched his legs along hers. “I need help selecting a breed, though. Remember when you dragged me to the shelter that day? We saw a lot of dogs there. Which one did you like best?”
“Um-m…” A fraction of the tension seeped from her limbs as she thought about it. “It’d be hard to say. One that doesn’t shed much.”
She felt his smile against her hair. “Of course.”
“And one that’s friendly. Likes exercise, because you’d want one that could run with you.”
“Again, you know me too well. So we can cross off the wimpy little yappy dogs. I think we’re on a roll.”
Her heart began to slow to a steadier beat. And Sophia knew the current molten pulsing in her veins had more to do with the man holding her close than the earlier panic-fueled fear that had ambushed her. Both were a type of weakness. But the long hours she’d spent as Vance’s captive had resulted in a jarring shift to her earlier priorities. And she was no longer going to beat herself up for being weak with Cam Prescott.
She let her body soften against his. “Livvie mentioned Portuguese Water Spaniels as active dogs that don’t shed. But I don’t think you’re going to find one in a shelter.”
“Maybe a rescue dog, then. I had looked into Labradoodles because they like a lot of exercise. But active dogs might not like being cooped up in a condo all day. So maybe I need to start looking for a house. One with a yard.
“A house?” He’d managed to surprise her. “Have you looked at any properties?”
“Not yet. It’s just something I’ve been kicking around. I’m not home that much, but I wouldn’t mind more space. An extra bedroom that doesn’t double as an office. A spot for a wet bar. Maybe an exercise room so I don’t have to keep the treadmill in my bedroom.”
There was something oddly intimate about conversing in bed, the shadows cocooning them from the stress of the case. From the rest of the world. Something comforting about the low rumble of his voice in her ear. The weight of his arm around her waist.
There had been a time not too long ago when alarms would have gone off in her head as the steadiness of his presence lulled her. A time when she would have resisted feeling too much for a man so far outside her comfort zone.
Sleep beckoned, even as his words continued to come, low and soothing. Sophia focused on the sound of it, indulging for once in the freedom from her own personal restrictions. The sound of Cam’s voice in her ears, the warmth of his body next to hers successfully banished Mason Vance from her mind. And when unconsciousness sucked her under, she thought only of the man beside her.
* * * *
Sonny clapped his hands over his ears and paced. The static in his head had returned, picking up volume ever since he’d left Lucy Benally’s house to return to his own. Mommy’s voice had lodged in his brain, a constant angry buzzing that no amount of effort could banish. He was done listening to it, though. He had something far more important to think about.
Vance had outlined a plan in case either of them got caught. He’d be counting on Sonny to stay around and follow it through. But Sonny wasn’t stupid. He knew that if he was the one in sitting in jail Mason Vance would already be out of the state on his way to a new place where he could indulge his pastime in peace. Vance didn’t give a shit about his partner and Sonny returned the loathing. The man was a sadistic prick. And as long as Sonny remained in the vicinity, he was in danger of landing in a cell right next to him.
He wasn’t sticking around for his former partner in any case. It wasn’t Vance who had claimed his every waking thought, it was Lucy. Sweet, soft Lucy Benally who shared his affinity for the dead. Sonny didn’t fool himself that she’d understand what he did at first. The things he’d had to do. But given time, he could teach her. Mold her. Eventually she’d come to realize that they were kindred spirits. Soul mates. Meant to be together.
And if she couldn’t be taught…his throat clutched a little at the thought. He shied away from it at first. Then forced himself to circle back to it.
If he was wrong about Lucy…there were always other women.