In Death - 24.50 - Dead of Night

by J. D. Robb

  She could smell fresh sawdust and wind on him, and the large, calloused hands she so admired were unexpectedly tender as they stroked her cheek and slipped over her throat to the back of her neck, to support her head while he took the kiss deeper.

  She lifted one jelly-muscled arm to his shoulder to cling—pooling on the floor beside him being out of the question. Her arm couldn’t stretch the breadth of his shoulders; the muscles in his arms and back were like stone—and she couldn’t recall feeling safer or more protected…or more vulnerable. Ever.

  She loved it.

  “I knew it,” he said breathlessly, his lips on her cheek and temple, then her throat. “I knew the first time I saw you, that day at school, I knew kissing you would be outstanding.” He kissed her other cheek and then the space between her eyebrows, like he couldn’t stop himself, like he couldn’t get enough. “I knew about your lips, too. So soft.” He caressed hers with his and then looked at her. “I even knew you’d taste special…like that one drop of pure sweetness you get from a honeysuckle. Remember? Did you do that as a kid, suck on honeysuckle?”

  She nodded vaguely, palming his face and stroking the side of her right thumb across the stubble on his left cheek. “I did. I also did it last summer in Pim’s garden.”

  His smile was wide and bright and quite possibly the sexiest thing she’d seen in fifteen years. “You…in the honeysuckle…in the summertime. Pretty picture.”

  She shook her head and gave a soft laugh before averting her eyes. “My mental picture of you is pretty…clichéd, I’m afraid.” She peeked up through her lashes at him. His smirk and his laughing eyes were worth her discomfiture. “Tool belt, no shirt, jeans tight enough not to get caught in machinery…a black metal lunchbox.”

  “What’s in my lunchbox?” he needed to know.

  This was fun. She scooted back against the wall and wiggled around to get more comfortable on the floor.

  “Need a cushion?” he asked.

  “Yeah. But a couch would be better. Oh! Wait!” Too quick to stop him, he reached behind her, took hold of her waist on both sides and hauled her up onto his lap—sidesaddle because of her skirt. She immediately attempted to get off. “Cal, don’t be crazy. I’ll break your legs. At the very least, I’ll put them to sleep. You can’t be comfortable. The floor is hard enough without adding the weight of a second person to—”

  Without word or warning he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around her stiff, awkward body, pulled her close to his chest, and then slowly lowered them back against the wall.

  “Isn’t this killing your back?”

  “Shhh. Relax. You might well be the last woman I hold in my arms for a while.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry…”

  In the near dark his finger found her lips. “That was a statement, not a complaint.”

  “Oh.” She felt her body relax on his, like butter relaxes on hot toast. “I see…”

  “Good. I want you to see. Now tell me what’s in my black metal lunchbox.”

  She laughed softly, then smiled as she picked up the steady, unhesitating rhythm of his heart with her ear against his chest. She realized then that it wasn’t what they talked about now as much as the intimacy of talking in the dark, the touching, the trust and closeness that mattered most. “Two sandwiches, two peach fruit cups, a spoon, a paper napkin, and a thermos of chocolate milk.”

  She bounced on his chest a little when he chuckled. “What kind of sandwiches?”

  “One is peanut butter and marshmallow.” He groaned. “No, it’s really good. You’ll love it. And the other one is this tofu-tuna stuff my sister makes that’ll have you crying it’s so—”

  The clatter of metal on wood came first and immediately after the noise was so loud it took several seconds to determine that the chairs stacked at the door had fallen.

  The signal.

  They were coming in.

  Eight

  Cal pitched her into the darkness but she instinctively knew he’d sent her somewhere toward the table so she could crawl under it for protection.

  “Cal?” She put her head down to let her eyes adjust—and to pick up the reins of what nerves she had left—then crawled cautiously away from the pale light from the street toward the dark shadow of the table. A loud, ramming boom reverberated in the room, and she screamed when they hit the door again. In the near darkness there was no way to tell how much space the table had given them. “Cal!”

  “Right behind you.”

  But he wasn’t. It was true that losing one sense—like sight—made the other senses—like hearing—stronger and more sensitive. And Cal was across the room to her left; he hadn’t moved yet.

  She tried to picture what was there, what he might be after. A third resounding crash and she heard the table shriek in protest as it moved. Still, the noise and the force and the tremor through the room were nothing compared to the pressure and the power of each quaking beat of her heart.

  Finally, she made contact with the table and put her back to it. She knew the other long wall was directly in front of her, the door was on her right and to her left was Cal, the street window, the air-conditioning unit below it, Cal’s jacket…and his gun in the pocket thereof.

  “Cal, what are you doing? Leave it there. Get away from it.”

  “Christ. Go back under the table, Bonnie. Please. I’ll be there in a second.”

  “What are you doing?” Their voices rose and fell with every assault against the door, and with every blow the table moved a little more and the door opened a breath wider.

  For an analytical, numbers kind of girl, she was acutely aware that what felt like slow motion was in fact flashing by in milliseconds, and that wisdom, practicality, and education were meaningless when fear prevailed and instinct took over.

  Her instinct just then was strong and piercing. She needed to be with Cal. Good thing, too, as she found she’d been following the sound of his voice from the start.

  However, she didn’t have the time to probe that instinct or the meaning of the relief that passed through her body like a frigid chill when she caught the subtle movement of solid in shadow. Her heart embraced this tiny piece of peace, protecting it from a world of fear and noise and danger.

  “Cal?”

  “Oh God, Bonnie!” She watched the black form, low in the shadows below the shine from the streets, lean forward, waving his arms through the space in front of him. “Baby, go back under the table. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Come with me.” She reached out and touched him; he immediately had a solid grip on her and pulled her to her feet…into the light and into his arms. “Be safe with me.”

  “Man, I wish things could have been different for us.”

  “It still can be. There can still be an us. There might be a little jail time but, well, we’ll have the longest engagement ever.” He chuckled and she leaned back so she could see the shadows of his face; her hands moved to his waist. “This reminds me, though…”

  The crash came again and they trembled as one.

  Much better.

  “This reminds me that when we get out of here I may…assault Ted. He’s a lousy negotiator. Both our demands were perfectly reasonable.”

  “Mine, Bonnie. My demands, remember that.”

  “Should we be sitting on the table? More weight?”

  She felt his chest rise and fall with a resigned sigh, felt his arms tighten around her shoulders. She tightened hers around his waist—just in time for another room-rocking wallop.

  “No. We won’t get that much more time,” he said. “And we don’t want to piss them off by resisting.”

  “Then come back and…” She faltered when she moved her arm a little and felt something hard and unbodypart-like beneath her forearm. “…and get under the table with me. Please, Cal.”

  She felt his fingers skim lightly over her face, coming to rest on the closed seam of her mouth as her fingers detected the open seam of the pocket in the jacket he’d put back
on.

  “I can’t,” he whispered, his face so close she could feel his breath on her lips—though she could barely make out any part of him or the pocket that she was slipping her hand into. “I need to stand and take responsibility for what I’ve done here, not cower under the table with my hostage. And I need to know you’re safe. Please. It’s almost over. I promise. Now go!”

  He gave her a light, halfhearted shove and she staggered backward into the dark. But she wasn’t as disoriented as she might have been. The next blow didn’t just reveal the location of the door, it also let in a small wedge of the bright light from the hallway. It was both helpful and terrifying as it shed a momentary light on the gun in her hand.

  The gun she’d pulled from Cal’s pocket. The suspiciously lightweight gun. The gun that wasn’t the cold, smooth, metallic texture of tempered steel, but the tepid, rough, brittle touch of plastic made in China.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “How’d you get that? Bonnie. Give it back.”

  “A toy? A squirt gun? You kidnapped me with a squirt gun?”

  “Bonnie…”

  The police rammed the door again and let in enough light to show Cal searching the air for her with his arms outstretched. Their eyes met briefly before the darkness engulfed them again. He looked angry and determined. She immediately went to the floor and crawled six feet away.

  “I told you I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he said, like she didn’t know that if she spoke he’d have a bead on her location. “And no one will sell me a gun because of my record, you know. A plastic gun from the gift shop across the street was the best I could do.”

  “There is no gift shop across the street.” She shouted over the racket at the door, which probably masked her location, but she moved three feet to her left anyway. “And I bet that squirt gun belongs to one of your nephews. This was your plan all along.” She moved to the right this time, and when the next crash on the door came she was hidden in dark shadow. “No wonder you didn’t have any trouble getting it through security.”

  “The gift shop is in the lobby of the hotel across the street. Between the bar—where I went after getting hammered by your bank—and the men’s room—where I went after getting hammered on my own. It was in the window, and that’s when I got the idea. I just wanted to scare them. I wanted them to feel real fear, fear for their futures, let them see how it feels but…”

  “But what?”

  “Give it back, Bonnie.”

  “But what?”

  “I didn’t want to go back to prison,” he hollered in frustration. Then more calmly added, “I don’t ever want to go back to prison. So I walked back to the elevators and while I was waiting I decided that going back to my brother without the loan again was just another kind of prison I didn’t want to be locked up in.”

  “Then I came by.”

  “And you were everything I said before,” he said, sounding a little uneasy. “In fact, you’d already disappeared into the bathroom before I came up with a way to get my brother what he needed most.”

  “By kidnapping me with a plastic gun. A plastic gun…to kidnap me with.” She knew it didn’t make sense but thought if she said it often enough it would…eventually. “But that’s just stupid. It’s crazy. It’s…”

  It’s suicide came to mind mere seconds before his hand latched onto her left arm.

  “No, Cal. No. Suicide by cop is not what your brother needs.” Struggling to get free of him and to keep him away from what looked like a very real gun at the same time, she knew their fracas wouldn’t last long—he was bigger and stronger than she was.

  However only a few were more clever than she was…

  “Your brother loves you. And your sister loves you. And what about my long engagement?” She brought her knee up between his legs and tagged him with a warning. It made him release her immediately, step back, and bend a little to protect himself—long enough for her to tuck the squirt gun in her bra because her waistband would be the first place he looked for it when he discovered her hands were empty. “I can’t let you do it, Cal. I care about you. Very much.”

  And the police were taking their own sweet time…

  She wrangled with him to keep her hand just out of his reach, but he easily overtook her, coiled his arm around her waist with her back against him in quest of the toy, and ultimately put his hand flat on her chest—her second best hiding place.

  Next time she kneed a man she would have no mercy.

  “Help!” She was hoping to distract him until she could get free. “Help me! The gun is plas—”

  He silenced her with his hand.

  “Shhh.” His breath was warm on the side of her neck—and all he did was hold her, seeming to be in no hurry to retrieve his deadly weapon.

  Two easy jerks of her head and he freed her mouth immediately. She felt him at her back—shielding her, supporting her, enjoying her weight and form against him. He sighed and she guessed he was in another world for a few seconds, a happier world, a world where he’d made different choices, had a different life. She wanted to be there with him.

  What they did have was one perfect moment—as warm as a lifelong friendship, as thrilling as sex, as intimate as any kiss—and they relished it.

  Suddenly the table screamed one last time and the door gave way. Light flooded into the darkness of the small conference room like a Hollywood spotlight. Then everything happened at once.

  In milliseconds she felt Cal’s fingers skim across her breast; the cops were shouting and screaming like they were going to war; Cal’s other arm was like something mechanical as it drew her to his left and then pushed her backward, behind him, as far as he could. Hard to throw backward. She did a short spin off the end of his right hand and without hesitation shot straight to his left and the stupid plastic gun it held.

  She heard him say, “Please, Bonnie, get away from me,” like she was accustomed to obeying his orders. Then he refused to give her the toy…so she had to scratch his arm, deeply, and dig her nails into the back of his hand.

  “Son of a bitch!” Either the surprise or the pain loosened his grip enough for her to twist the weapon free. She held it in the air as high as she could and turned away from him toward the officers tripping over chairs as they streamed into the room.

  “It’s over,” she hollered back at them, holding the toy out to them for the taking. “No one’s been hurt. I have the weapon.” Two rapid claps of violent thunder wobbled the room. “It’s a toy. A plastic squirt gun. See?”

  She frowned at the hot, searing pain in the middle of her abdomen and…high on her right shoulder. Not a good time to be sick, she knew, as the room teetered around her. Maybe it’s just aftershock…

  “Oh God, Bonnie!” Cal put his arms around her, so warm and strong, pulling her back and down to the floor so he could cradle all but her legs on his lap. “Why did you do that? Why?”

  The lights came back on with a glaring vengeance. She had a flash of a thought that the light had taken all the romance from the room, made it look small and…functional, but that was when she noticed the blood on Cal’s hands.

  “Cal.”

  “I wasn’t going to do it, I swear,” he was saying, trying to sound at least as angry as he was fearful for her and failing pitifully. “I had everything under control. I was going to surrender.”

  “Are you…? Oh. Oh! It’s me! Cal, I think I’ve been shot!”

  “I know, sweetheart, just be still. You’ll be fine. There’s an ambulance coming.”

  There was a policeman standing behind Cal, but Cal kept jerking away from him.

  “Cal,” she said, turning slightly in his direction and hissing when a stabbing pain ripped through her stomach. She was getting sleepy. “Cal, listen, I’m…I’m really sorry everything turned out badly.”

  “Shhh.”

  “I’m sorry I hid at Chicky’s party.”

  “Me, too.” He leaned forward and quickly buzzed her lips with his, then
barely breathed the word, “Honeysuckle.”

  She grinned and closed her eyes to slow the spin of the room, let her senses float to every part of her body that touched his and soaked in the bliss of being near him.

  Time may or may not have passed, but the next thing she heard was someone asking for directions to the patient.

  “Cal, Cal,” she said, unable to hide the panic in her voice. “Stay with me.”

  “Shhh. The ambulance is here. You’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll never be fine again. They’ll take you away.”

  “Shhh. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  She let her forehead rest on the stubble of his chin and for a moment they shared a minim of peace. Then she whispered, “I wish life could have been better for us.”

  Even with her eyes closed, she felt the spinning begin—not a swirling spinning like inside her head, but spinning-spinning like…a Frisbee…or…a magic carpet…

  Cautiously, she opened her eyes, but either the room or the rug was spinning so fast it made her eyes ache trying to see anything. She closed them again. The next attempt was better as she limited her field of vision to the end of her arm and…there was the beautiful, brightly colored rug she had framed and hung on her office wall. Only she didn’t have an office and…and it was Pim’s rug. And Cal…no, Joe was going to prison and…no, Cal was.

  Suddenly, she cried out in panic and uncurled like a party favor—flat on her back. Her fingers scurried over her torso like crazed spiders, looking for bullet wounds and blood. She found none and for a moment was torn between enormous relief and wretchedness.

  She rested her hands on her soft, loose-muscled abdomen, felt the pull of her tummy-tuck jeans, and came close to weeping with joy. She loved her flab! She did. She didn’t want any more of it but loved what she had. It was a reminder that her original life was so much better than it could have been, that there was some…divine, celestial reason that things turned out the way they did instead of how they might have transpired.