Private Justice

by Marie Ferrarella

  It still stunned him every time he realized this was where his mind-set was these days. He couldn’t really trace how it had evolved, he just knew that it had. And that he was aware of feelings that he’d never dreamed he would ever experience.

  He supposed he had his father’s chaotic life to thank for that. Odd how things turned out.

  “You really want to go on a picnic?” he asked her, trying not to sound amused, sensing that she would take offense and think he was laughing at her.

  That too, was new to him, this sixth sense he’d developed when it came to matters involving Cindy.

  Life was a mystery all right, he thought not for the first time.

  Cindy already had the picnic basket packed with things she knew he enjoyed eating after paying attention to what he ordered when they ate out. Tucked in on top of the sandwiches and various other things was a tablecloth, checkered, in keeping with classic tradition, as well as all the accessories needed to make this picnic—a first for her—a pleasurable, intimate experience. Dylan had literally brightened her world and she wanted to do something nice, something fun, both for him and with him.

  She had already gathered that his life was fraught with serious responsibilities and she wanted to be able to make him kick back, if only for a little while.

  When he’d called to say they were going to take a few hours off from the investigation, she’d impulsively thought of a picnic. She’d never been on a picnic herself, but she’d always wanted to go on one. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do something about it.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I think it’ll be fun.”

  “Fun,” he echoed, immediately thinking of ants, mosquitoes and grass stains. And then he grinned.

  Oh, what the hell?

  “Yeah. Sure. Why not?” he said gamely.

  After all, he was the one who’d told her they were going to take a little free time today. He’d done all he could right now, pulled all the strings he had available to him to pull. Bart Holden and Gage Prescott, the bodyguards he’d hired, were on their way and would probably be arriving here within the day.

  As for where his father was going to be staying for the indefinite future, he’d called Cole again to update his twin on what was happening on his end. Cole still sounded far from pleased about playing host to their father, but he hadn’t said no, either, so, as far as he was concerned, that was all set.

  The only impasse so far was that he still hadn’t found out who had originally leaked the story about the mistresses—and the fabricated stories about the skimming of campaign funds for personal use—to the media. But he had his people out, digging, and he was still optimistic that he’d get to the bottom of all this.

  And he had more than earned the right to take a little break and enjoy himself.

  More than he already was, he amended, his grin growing wider. Connecting with Cindy had been an unforeseen, remarkable plus. A reward, he now thought, for a good deed, however reluctantly undertaken at first.

  As he reached for the picnic basket to carry it to the car for her, the room suddenly darkened, as if someone had thrown a switch that knocked out all the lights. Except, this was the middle of the morning and there were no lights on to begin with.

  Until a second ago, the sun had been shining brightly, providing all the illumination necessary for the apartment. Now the sun had apparently slipped behind a cloud. More clouds, dark and ominous, appeared, gathering together and filling the sky. A foreboding rumble came to announce the pending rain. And just like that, it wasn’t pending anymore. It was pouring. In what seemed like a matter of moments, they had gone from a perfect early-fall morning to a day plucked out of an early southern California winter with all its dreariness.

  Stunned, as if she couldn’t believe the weather could change so radically, Cindy hurried over to the window and looked out. Huge raindrops were already pelting the glass.

  The storm had come out of nowhere and was now drenching all of her plans. She sighed, resigned. “I guess we’re not having a picnic after all.”

  Dylan immediately picked up on her tone. She sounded more than a little disappointed. For some reason, having this picnic was important to her. He didn’t understand why, but the very fact that it was enough for him.

  “Why not?” he asked her as he came up behind her.

  She turned around slowly, acutely aware that her body was brushing up against his. Acutely aware as well of the electricity that sparked and shot through her from the barest of contacts, warning her that she was going to be absolutely devastated when Dylan left, or changed, or otherwise managed to terminate this magical state she now existed in.

  She looked up at him. He actually looked serious. Was he? “Well, for one thing, sandwiches taste better when they’re not consumed underwater.”

  “Good point,” he laughed. “And, don’t worry, they won’t be.”

  A hint of a smile curved her lips as she looked at him uncertainly. “Are you going to tell me that you’re the reverse of a rainmaker? That with a sweep of your hand, the right words and some kind of an incantation, you can make the rain stop? Magically?” she added, her eyes dancing.

  God, but she looked adorable, he thought. He wanted to forget about the picnic, forget about everything but her and just spend the rest of the day making love with her. But he’d decided to make the picnic happen for her, so picnic it was.

  “Nope, sorry,” he told her. “Magic like that just isn’t part of my repertoire.”

  “Then what…?” Out of guesses, her voice trailed off as she waited for him to clarify his meaning.

  “We can have the picnic here,” he told her, gesturing around the living room.

  He was kidding. “Here?” she echoed, completely confused.

  “Sure,” he told her enthusiastically. “We can spread the tablecloth out on the rug, pretend the rug is really grass, and just go from there. Of course, there won’t be any ants to deal with or any mosquitoes or flies to wave away, but I figure in the scheme of things, that’s pretty much of a plus.”

  A little spark of enthusiasm reared its head within her. She would have been the first one to admit that this was silly, but she found herself loving him more for indulging her like this. For being open to indulging her. No one had ever done that for her before.

  “You’re serious?” she asked Dylan incredulously.

  “Absolutely.” He raised his right hand as if taking a solemn pledge and crossed his heart with his other hand. “Why? Don’t I look serious?” he asked, opening up the basket she’d packed and taking out the tablecloth.

  She took hold of the tablecloth’s other end, then backed away in order to help Dylan spread it out on the rug.

  Cindy had to admit that she was still rather stunned that he was actually going to go through with this. She would have bet anything that Dylan would have said that pretending to this extent was something that children did, not adults.

  He probably had no idea how much this warmed her heart, she thought. But she intended to show him. Right after they finished eating, she was going to express her gratitude to him the best way she knew how.

  The tablecloth down, she knelt beside the basket and started taking out the food she’d packed as well as the two plates and two sets of utensils. Both were of the throwaway kind, but she’d selected a variety that looked like something a person would save to use again in the future.

  Squatting down beside her, Dylan helped her empty the contents of the picnic basket, placing various items in the center of the tablecloth. There had to be a ton of food to choose from, he judged. Just how much did she think he could eat? Especially when his mind was definitely not on food.

  “You really went all out, didn’t you?” he commented, shifting the empty basket over to the side.

  Maybe she had gone a little overboard, she thought. But there was a reason for that. “I wanted my first time to be memorable.”

  He nodded. “Understandable. Every first time should be memorabl
e.” And then he replayed what she’d just said in his head. “Wait a second…you never went on a picnic before?”

  “No,” she answered quietly.

  There were so many experiences common to the average childhood that she had completely missed out on because she had grown up in the modern equivalent of an orphanage rather than in a home with a family. She felt that somehow made her lacking. Did he see it the same way, she wondered.

  For a moment, Dylan just looked at her thoughtfully. Without cracking a smile, he said, “Maybe I can call around to the local pet shops, see if I can scare up an ant farm for you.” And then he grinned.

  He was teasing her, she thought. And then she saw that he was actually reaching for her landline, about to pick up the receiver. Cindy leaned over and put her hand on top of his, stopping him.

  “I think I’ll pass on that if you don’t mind. I have an imagination, and, all things considered, I can visualize them crawling around, thank you.”

  Dylan laughed, drawing his fingers away from the telephone receiver. “You talked me into it. Shall we?” he asked, taking her hand again. He drew her with him as he settled on the floor, sitting cross-legged.

  Cindy sank down next to him rather than across from him. She savored the bit of sunshine she felt bursting inside her. She couldn’t remember ever being this happy for this long.

  She raised her eyes to his lips. They were still curved and he seemed to be taking in her every move. “You’re humoring me, aren’t you?”

  “I’m enjoying you,” Dylan corrected. “And just for the record, I happen to think the idea of having a picnic is great. But it’s not the grass or the ants that make a picnic. It’s not even the food.” He drew a little closer to her, feeling that same strong tug that he’d been experiencing almost from the beginning every time he was around her. His voice lowered a little bit as he said, “It’s the company.” His eyes were already caressing her, the way his hands itched to do.

  He made her feel special, Cindy thought. More than that, he made her want to forget about the picnic and just be with him, make love with him, pretend that there was no tomorrow, no end of the rainbow waiting for her the way she knew in her heart that there had to be.

  She just wanted to pretend that this was going to go on forever. That he was always going to be with her like this, and that there was no empty feeling waiting for her in the shadows, ready to swallow her up whole once he walked out the door for the last time.

  Banking down her less-than-cheerful thoughts, Cindy ordered herself just to enjoy the moment.

  Taking out two of the sandwiches she’d prepared, she held one in each hand and asked, “What would you like to have? Ham and cheese or turkey?” As she asked, she held each one up in turn.

  “I think I’ll pick—”

  Dylan didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Suddenly, there was the chilling sound of glass breaking as shards came flying at them from the direction of the window like tiny, jagged daggers slashing their way through the air.

  Something else came flying as well. Whizzing so quickly that it didn’t seem real.

  Instinctively, Dylan pulled Cindy to him and threw his body over hers to protect her as more glass shattered and a second and then third cracking noise was heard above everything else.

  “What is that?” Cindy cried, confused, too stunned and dazed to be as frightened as she could be. “Is that lightning shattering the window?”

  He’d heard it enough times up in Montana to know that this wasn’t lightning—or thunder.

  “You can’t aim lightning,” he told her, raising his voice to be heard above the noise.

  “Gunshots?” she cried, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Are those gunshots?”

  And then, just like that, the noise stopped.

  The rain was still coming down hard—and coming in, thanks to the broken window—but there were no more sounds of shattering glass, no more sudden menacing cracks or bullets whizzing by.

  The silence could just be to lull them into a false sense of peace. He needed to check it out, but he wasn’t about to take any unnecessary chances, especially not with Cindy here.

  “Stay down,” he warned Cindy, then crawled over to the sofa and pulled down one of the decorative pillows. Judging the trajectory of the last three bullets, Dylan tossed the pillow up in the air into what had been just moments ago the line of fire.

  The pillow fell back to the ground, untouched. Whoever had been firing had stopped. For good?

  “Stay down!” he ordered when he saw Cindy beginning to get up. The next moment, shifting out of the window’s line of sight, Dylan slowly rose to his feet.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded, more angry than frightened.

  “Not sure yet, but someone just played target practice with your windows,” he told her, carefully approaching the damaged window from the side.

  Following with his eyes the path the bullets had taken, he saw that all three had embedded themselves into the wall well above the back of the sofa. They were all much too high to have hit anyone but a tall basketball player.

  “Dean,” Cindy breathed. He saw panic flash in her eyes before she managed to shut it away. “Your ex-husband?”

  Numb, Cindy nodded. She started to feel sick.

  Dylan cautiously moved over to where the bullets had hit the wall. “Is he a lousy shot?”

  “No.” As a matter of fact, it was just the opposite. “He had some medals he won in a competition when he was in the army reserves,” she answered. “He was really proud of his marksmanship.” Her mouth went dry. “He once said he could kill me from so far away, nobody would ever know it was him.” Her eyes shifted to his. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because whoever just fired those shots was either one hell of a lousy shot—which I’m inclined to doubt—or this was just meant as a warning.” She needed reassurance, he could see that. “From what you told me, your husband isn’t in control enough just to send you a warning.”

  Sitting out of the range of the window, Cindy looked small and lost. Dylan crossed to her and put his arms around her, doing his best to make her feel safe.

  “This wasn’t Dean,” he told her. “It’s going to be all right.” His voice was low, soothing and filled with a conviction he didn’t fully feel yet.

  “Dylan.” Shifting her cheek from his chest, Cindy raised her head to look up at him. She thought of the phone call at the restaurant. The one that had no one on the other end. “What’s going on?”

  He knew he had to be honest with her about this. She’d never really trust him if he wasn’t.

  With a frustrated sigh, he admitted, “Beats the hell out of me.”

  Chapter 15

  If Dylan needed a reminder about how fragile life could actually be, he’d just got it.

  Big-time.

  The thought sent an ice-cold chill up and down his spine.

  Over and over again.

  He’d almost lost her. Lost the woman he realized that he loved before he ever had a chance to tell her—or fully acknowledge the fact to himself.

  It was a couple of hours later and the situation—and what could have actually happened—was beginning to really sink in. Coming to grips with the thought that Cindy could have been killed had him far more shaken up than he would have ever thought was possible.

  Once he’d made certain that Cindy hadn’t been hurt either directly or by accident—a ricocheting bullet was not unheard of and could have done as much if not more damage as one that had been aimed—Dylan had called the police.

  A veteran patrolman had arrived within fifteen minutes of the 911 call and taken their statements. Once he’d been apprised of the situation and had looked over the damage to Cindy’s apartment, he had called the desk sergeant at the precinct and requested that a detective immediately be dispatched to the upscale high-rise building.

  The latter, a burly, rumpled man who looked as if he’d slept in his brown suit more than once when the occasion called for it,
had taken a little longer to arrive. Mumbling something about “damn L.A. traffic,” the man, Detective John Weller, examined what he could and then he in turn had called in a crime scene investigation unit. The unit, two men and one woman, proceeded to methodically go over the apartment with a fine-tooth comb, collecting evidence.

  It felt as if this was going to take forever, Dylan thought. Or at least the better part of the afternoon. “Looks like we’re not going to have that picnic today after all,” he said to Cindy, desperately trying to keep things light. Knowing he wasn’t really succeeding.

  The look in her eyes when she turned toward him told him that she was doing her best to seem brave and in control. In reality, he knew she was struggling to keep from thinking about what could have happened.

  With his arm still around her shoulders, she leaned her head into his chest. A host of protective feelings instantly sprang up within him, filling up every available square inch of his soul.

  Dylan made up his mind.

  “You’re not staying here tonight,” he told Cindy. When she looked up at him, he added, “You’re coming with me.”

  “So you do think it was Dean.” It was the only conclusion she could reach, given what he’d just said and his tone.

  “No,” he told her. “Actually I don’t.”

  And he meant that. This incident didn’t have the earmarks of something that had been undertaken impulsively. It seemed too planned out. And from everything Cindy had told him about her ex-husband, despite one verbal threat, for all intents and purposes he had disappeared once she’d had him served with both the restraining order and the divorce papers.

  “But I just don’t think you should be alone tonight with your imagination.” He tightened his arm around her, feeling exceedingly grateful that she was unharmed. He nodded at the yellow tape that had been placed liberally around the area, separating the living room from the rest of the apartment. “And who knows how long this yellow obstacle course is going to be up, marking your living room as a crime scene.”