He checked his watch. “Ten after twelve. I was going to send out—”
The phone beside them rang, startling them both.
Since Tabitha’s phone didn’t have a display, they turned as one toward the doorway.
A second later, Officer Pitner appeared in it. “Unknown name. Unknown caller.”
“Is Dan ready?”
Pitner glanced behind him, then nodded. “Ready to go.”
“Tell him to turn it on.” Jake faced Tabitha. “This could be Hines.”
She took a deep breath. “I know.”
“You ready?”
“I have to be, don’t I?”
Jake looked at Pitner, who nodded. “Anytime you’re ready.”
Tabitha took another breath, then stepped to her desk. Even though they’d had a number of false alarms that morning, she felt a certainty in her bones that this was the kidnapper.
She picked up the phone. “Tabitha Monroe. Can I help you?”
“Call the cops off or you’ll never see your friends again. Not alive.”
The line went dead.
Ten
Jake knew from the sudden blanching of Tabitha’s face that the caller was Hines. “Keep him on as long as you can.”
She shook her head and lowered the receiver. “He’s gone.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me I have to get rid of you, of the police, if I want to see Sam and Cait again alive.”
Jake nodded. “That’s standard operating procedure for kidnappers. Like there’s a manual or something. Don’t worry about it.”
Jake spun and headed into the outer office, which was alive with activity. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. Though it was brief, this was first contact with the kidnapper.
“Let’s hear it,” Jake said to Dan Hammel.
Hammel must have already rewound the tape, because he pressed a button and Hines’s nasal, high-pitched voice came over the speakers.
“Call the cops off or you’ll never see your friends again. Not alive.”
Jake glanced at Pitner, who was on the phone. “Any chance of a trace?”
The officer shook his head. “On five seconds? Not with our equipment. I’m talking to the phone company, to see if they can get anything. Not much hope, since he apparently used a calling card, but they’re trying.”
Jake nodded, then turned to Hammel. “Play it again.”
“Call the cops off or you’ll never see your friends again. Not alive.”
“Interesting that Hines called the victims Miss Monroe’s friends, not her employees.” Jake shoved a hand back through his hair. It helped him think.
“What’s it mean, Chief?” Officer Fletcher asked. He sat on the two-way radio all day, the point man for the coordinated search that had extended to all of Duval County.
Jake lifted a shoulder. “There’s no way to be sure of anything. But unless Hines is smarter than I think he is—and if he is, I’m dumber than I think I am—it means that the hostages are alive, and that he’s talking to them.”
“He sounded scared,” Hammel said.
“And frustrated,” another officer said.
Jake nodded. “It’s hard to pin down anything, with only about a dozen words to go on.”
Officer Pitner hung up the phone with a defeated sigh. “Nothing beyond the fact that he definitely used a calling card. The trace has to come from the originating company, and there’s just no way to know which one it is. Everybody from the post office to Wal-Mart sells them.”
Jake nodded. “We’ll get something next time. Good work for now. Keep it up.”
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Burl Terry’s cell number. The chief of Mission Creek Police Department had returned to the office directly after the press conference. Since he had no experience in hostage situations, Burl was letting Jake handle everything. He was two years away from retirement and didn’t give a damn what the media thought about his role in the crisis. Since the only thing he cared about was having the job done right, all he required was to be kept informed and to be included on any major decisions.
Since the men in the room were analyzing Hines’s call, Jake paced the room as he and Burl discussed it. As he turned, he glanced into the open door to Tabitha’s office.
She remained standing behind her desk, the telephone receiver still in her hand. She stared at the dragon on the left corner of her desk, her face white.
“I need to go, Chief,” Jake said. “I’ll let you know if anything else comes up, but I don’t expect Hines will call again until at least tomorrow.”
Jake ended the call, then stepped into Tabitha’s office. She glanced up, her face bleak.
He closed the door and walked over to her. Gently lifting her arm, he took the phone from her hand and replaced the receiver.
“Oh,” she said. “Sorry.”
“You’re hurting yourself, not me.” He massaged her stiff fingers, which had cramped around the phone, then lifted her chin. “Everything is okay. This is not unexpected. I haven’t run across a kidnapper yet who doesn’t insist the police be called off.”
“He said he’ll kill them if I don’t.” Her eyes finally focused on his. “Didn’t he? You heard what he said, right?”
He nodded and stroked her jaw with his thumb. “They all say that, kitten. He’s just trying to scare you.”
She shivered. “Well, he’s doing a very good job.”
Touched by her vulnerability, and the fact that she was showing it to him, Jake took her hand and led her over to the red couch against the wall. He sat her down in the center, then sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her.
She resisted, but not with any force, so he held her captive until she settled into the crook of his arm with a sigh. “I suck at this.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. Crisis management is part of my job, and I’ve gone through training. What do I do? I fall apart the first time he calls.”
Jake kissed the top of her head. Her hair was soft against his lips, and fragrant with herbs. “Nobody is good at this. Especially when you know the hostages. A couple of years ago I dealt with the CEO of a multibillion-dollar international company. He’d been trained in crisis management, too, and had actually handled several kidnapping situations. But those were people he didn’t know—overseas employees. When his teenaged daughter was kidnapped, he fell apart. His wife had to handle the calls.”
“Did you get her back?” Tabitha asked.
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “Alive?”
“Yes, thank God. The last I heard, that guy had quit and moved his family to Idaho where he opened a fishing camp.”
“I don’t blame him.”
Jake rubbed her arm. “This kind of thing should never happen, but it does. The only way you can train for it is to go through a real situation. And chances are that if you do, you’ll never go through another one. Kidnappings happen, but not as often as most people think.”
“Thank God.”
“Yes.”
After a moment of silence, she whispered, “What if Branson Hines does kill them because I didn’t call off the police?”
“I hate to tell you this, but you can’t call us off. It’s a criminal case now, and we’re in charge. Even if you could by some miracle manage to convince us to go away, you’d never be able to call off the press.”
She sighed heavily. “You’re right.”
“Don’t worry, kitten. We’ll make our presence as unobtrusive as possible. I’ll change the positions of the men here at the hospital and put them in plain clothes. That’ll at least give the appearance that you’re complying with his wishes.”
“Thank you.”
“As far as the search goes, we’ve scoured most of the county. He’s either hours away from here, or dug into some hole that we’ll never find until either he comes out or makes a mistake. I’ll make the Feds happy by asking them to search the rest of Texas. Give them something to do besides breathi
ng down my neck.”
He paused. “Does that make you feel better?”
She was still for a moment, then she leaned back far enough to look up at him. “Yes, it does. Thank you.”
He lifted a brow. “You sound surprised.”
Her forehead wrinkled with concentration. “I guess I am.”
“Why?”
She searched his face. “You’re different from other cops.”
He went still. “I am? How?”
She frowned further and tried to lower her head, but he caught it with one finger. “Tell me how I’m different.”
“You seem to care about people like me. What I mean is, the people you’re helping.”
“Other police officers care.”
“Some don’t.”
“That’s true, unfortunately.” He pushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “But in any job you’ll find people who care and people who don’t.”
“I guess so.” Her gaze dropped to his lips. “You’re also…”
Jake didn’t want to push her, but he’d never seen her this open, this vulnerable. “Also what?”
“Different in other ways.”
“What ways?”
Slowly, hesitantly, she lifted her hand. Extending the forefinger, she drew it toward his face.
Jake sat very still, not wanting to spook her. But every cell in his body reached toward her, willing her to touch.
Finally her finger landed on his lips, softly, like a butterfly.
He closed his eyes on a sigh and kissed her finger.
“Like that,” she said breathlessly. “You seem to want me to touch you.”
“I do.” He opened his eyes and met her gaze. “Very much.”
She lowered her gaze to her finger and watched as she drew it slowly across his lips. She gasped softly when he stuck his tongue out just enough to wet her finger as it passed.
With that one tiny noise, Jake went hard.
She was so damn sexy she took his breath away.
“Do you know what you’re doing to me?”
“What?” She seemed inordinately interested, as if she really didn’t know.
“You’re making me want to touch you back.”
“I am? You do?”
A low growl rose from his throat. “Yeah.”
She shivered, but this time pleasure caused the reaction, not fear. “Okay.”
Jake slowly twisted, gently forcing her back against his arm. She went willingly. Her trust touched him deeply and instead of the passionate, tongue-tying kiss he wanted to give her, he rained soft kisses all over her face.
Her hands gathered fistfuls of his shirt, holding him in place, drawing him closer.
Only when she began panting did his lips touch hers.
She gasped, opening her mouth against his.
Even then Jake didn’t force anything. He slipped his tongue along her lips, then beneath them, running along the ridges of her teeth.
She whimpered. “Jake.”
“Yes, kitten?” he breathed against her mouth. “Tell me what you want.”
For an answer, she raked the fingers of one hand through his hair, clamped onto the back of his head and pulled him close. She opened her mouth and drove her tongue into his mouth.
The arm behind her shifted, tugging her around until their chests touched. He could feel the tight points of her breasts nudging his chest.
He sighed with deep pleasure and shifted again. This time he sat back against the couch, intending to pull her on top of him and lay them both down. He wanted to feel her weight against him, against all of him.
As he sat back, however, the cell phone he’d hung on his hip dug into it, reminding him where they were.
Slowly, with regretful kisses, he drew away, but only far enough to break the passion. He held her against him, enjoying the feel of her breath against his neck, her arm around his waist, her leg slung over his. He especially enjoyed the fact that she didn’t move it.
A moment later, when his rapid heart rate had returned sufficient blood to his brain, he sighed. “Damn.”
“I agree,” she said. “It wasn’t half an hour ago that we agreed this was neither the time or place.”
He shifted again, pushing her back along his shoulder until he could see her face. She was flushed with passion, her lips were slightly swollen, and strands of hair crisscrossed her face.
One by one, he began pushing them back. “Hey, can I help it if you can’t keep your hands off me?”
“Me?” She slapped his chest. “You weren’t exactly fighting me off.”
He grinned and hugged her close, breathing deep of her warm, fragrant scent. “No, and I won’t, either. You feel too damn good.”
“So do you.” Her comment was so quiet, he barely heard.
She seemed so naive, so unguarded at that moment, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and keep here there, always. She made him feel as if he was the only man on earth at that moment, the only man who’d ever touched her. Though he knew it wasn’t true, the possibility made him feel ten feet tall.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“Why…” She shifted so she could see him. “Why are you doing this?”
He blinked. “Doing what? Holding you?”
She nodded, rocking her head against his arm.
“Because I can’t not do it. Because you’re beautiful. Because you’re smart. Because you’re brave. Because you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever known.”
“So it’s not because of my mole?”
He chuckled and bent his head to kiss the tiny nub. “Well, I have to say that your mole started it. If you have to blame something, blame it.”
Her gaze lowered to where her fingers played with a button on his shirt. “Does this happen very often?”
“Does what happen very often?”
“Your not being able to keep your hands off women you’re working with.”
He forced her chin up so she had to meet his gaze. “Never. It has never happened. I want you to know that. I’ve never, ever done this before. I shouldn’t be doing it now. I don’t know why I am except—God help me—I really can’t keep my hands off you.”
Her smile said she was pleased with his answer. “And is it okay if I can’t keep my hands off you, either?”
Laughing, cursing, he hugged her close. “You witch.”
“Witch?” She pushed at his shoulder. “I am not.”
He grabbed her hand and tugged it down to his pants. “It was nearly gone, but just the thought of you not being able to keep your hands off me makes me hard as a rock.”
Instead of being offended, Tabitha seemed fascinated. She rubbed her fingers along the length. “I did this?”
His hips jerked under her touch. “Uh-huh.”
She lifted her wide-eyed gaze to his. “Can I see?”
He nearly choked, and nearly came right there under the pressure of her hand—like a green boy. He dragged her hand away. “No.”
She went still. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just wanted—”
He rolled them both until she was flat on her back on the couch, stretched out beneath him. The eyes she lifted to his were fearful.
What had she been through, to be afraid of a little sex play? She was all over him, then afraid to move. She kissed him like a randy teenager, then touched him as if she’d never even seen a man. She was passionate, then naive. Frisky, then hesitant.
He’d never wanted a woman more in his life, but he wanted this one from the inside out. He knew at that moment that he couldn’t make love to her until she trusted him enough to tell him about her father.
He lifted a strand of hair caught across her lips. “It’s okay to touch me, kitten. I want you to touch me.”
“You do?”
He bent and gently kissed her. “Of course I do. You make me feel so damn good.” He twisted his mouth. “A whole lot better than I should be feeling in here, when one of my men could come through
that door any second.”
She closed her eyes and dragged in a breath. “You’re right. I just…”
“Just what?”
She opened her eyes. “I’m not very good at this, either.”
“Not very good? Hell, you felt how good you are at this.”
“I mean…” She frowned. “I don’t have a lot of…experience with this kind of thing.”
Her admission touched him, but he wanted more. “Why not? You’re thirty-five years old.”
Her gaze slid away. “I just don’t.”
He sighed with disappointment. But he shouldn’t expect miracles. “It’s all right.”
“You probably think I’m about fourteen, the way I’m acting.”
He gently forced her to look at him. “I think you’re wonderful…and soft…and sexy as hell. And when this is all over—assuming we can wait that long—I’ll let you see any part of me that you want to.”
Her eyes began to sparkle. “You will?”
He closed his eyes and groaned. “You’re doing it again, witch.”
She giggled, and the happy sound made his heart soar. He wondered if she’d ever giggled as a girl, if she’d ever been allowed to, if she’d ever been happy enough to even try. He wanted to make her giggle for the rest of her life.
“So being a witch is not necessarily a bad thing.”
He growled against her neck. “Depends on what kind of magic spells she casts.”
His stomach growled at the same time.
“Well, for now I can call the pizza place and in thirty minutes, lunch will magically appear.”
He sat up and pulled her with him. “I think we need to get out of here.”
She gasped softly and at the hopeful, promising look in her eyes, he nearly shoved her back down on the couch.
“In a very public place,” he clarified. “I’m taking you to lunch.”
She frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Where would we go that the press wouldn’t bug us to death?”
“You’re a member of the country club, aren’t you?”
She brightened. “Of course. They won’t let the press in there.”
He stood. “Right.”
She reached out one hand and he pulled her up. “But shouldn’t we stay here?”
He shook his head. “Hines won’t call again today. He’ll give you time to get rid of the police. At any rate, we’ll have all your calls forwarded to the cell phone I gave you. If he does call, you’ll get it.”
The Lawman Page 14