Not Without Risk

by Sarah Grimm

  Death and dying.

  Love and loss.

  Images much too realistic taunted her shattered nerves.

  Blood, so much blood.

  She pushed her hand into her abdomen and doubled over, working the air in and out of her lungs. Her chest burned as if squeezed by a vise. Acid inched up the back of her throat.

  “Breathe.” She shifted to her knees, kicking frantically when the sheet snagged on her legs. “Just breathe.”

  Her breath came in ragged little gasps as she worked for composure. Her eyes swept the room about her, waiting, struggling with the reality that she was awake. It had only been a dream.

  Only it was more than just that, more than a nightmare. It was a memory.

  “Why,” she moaned, her hands fisting the lace coverlet. “Why couldn’t you have stayed buried in the past?”

  The answer came swift and vivid. Since she’d stumbled on Leroy’s blood-covered body just twenty four hours before, thoughts of her past refused to fade into the background. Endless hours of restless sleep and more stress than any person should have to endure only made it more impossible to fight. Brick by brick, the wall she’d built around her memories began to crumble.

  She closed her eyes and tried to push past the horror, past the memories struggling to break through, but they slammed into her with the force of a one-two punch. With no more strength to resist, her mind slipped into the past.

  Rick. With little effort, she could envision him standing before her—his pale hair and eyes, his ruthless good looks. Young and foolish when she’d met him, he was the first man to ever cause her stomach to drop to her toes and her system to go jittery. Cocky, arrogant and quick to charm, he’d walked into her life and swept her off her feet. She’d allowed herself to be carried away by attraction and she’d fallen hard and fast.

  It had nearly been her undoing.

  By the time she realized she would never be able to compete with his job, she’d loved him completely. She withstood his sudden changes in mood and convinced herself that when he shut himself off to her, retreating behind a mask of cool indifference, it was nothing personal. She got good at accepting what little he gave her, even as she craved more. Good enough that his swift, brutal death nearly destroyed her.

  Even though his life had brought her little more than frustration and pain.

  “Never again,” she whispered. “No more cops.” Her breathing regulated, her stomach settled.

  Until dark brown eyes flashed into her mind.

  Stifling a groan, she scrubbed her palms across her face. She closed her eyes and waited for Sergeant Harrison’s image to fade. When it remained wedged in place, Paige fumbled out from beneath her covers and staggered to her bathroom where she splashed cold water onto her face.

  Because she could feel hot tears boiling up, she splashed her face a second time. It was nothing more than the need to reach out to someone. To feel the warmth of a man’s arms around her, the soothing comfort of his voice in her ear. She was lonely, confused, and once again, she had all but witnessed a violent murder. Because she was too shaken to maintain tight control of her thoughts, her mind drifted again to Sergeant Harrison. He’d been the last person she’d seen before finally catching some sleep. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that.

  But she knew it did. For the first time in years, she ached for a man. A man with dark hair and eyes so unlike the blue she usually went for. A man with gentle hands, an inquisitive mind, and a gold shield upon his belt.

  The realization brought Paige up short. She thought she’d changed, had gone out of her way to discard any and all representation of the woman she had been before Rick died. She’d grown stronger, more self-reliant. She refused to remain the same pathetic, hollow person who would allow others to choose her moods, her very thoughts.

  Suddenly looking for affirmation, her gaze settled upon her reflection. She winced, not comforted by what she found.

  Focused on the hollow cheeks and pale hue of the woman reflected back at her, Paige wondered just how much she had changed. She knew all too well how it felt to follow her heart and not her head. The mind-numbing ache of betrayal, that never completely went away. She had no desire to repeat her past, to experience that kind of pain again. So why did she fear she was doing just that—falling for a man she knew to be the epitome of everything she’d vowed to change about her life?

  Sure, through the brief glimpses caught of the man behind the badge, she thought there might be something to Sergeant Harrison that she could care about. But twice now, immediately after showing pieces of himself, he’d closed off swiftly and completely. She’d been down that road before, knew the heartache of it. She wouldn’t go down there again. For that reason, there was no room in her life for Sergeant Harrison. No room for him in her thoughts.

  Paige exhaled slowly and reached for her toothbrush, avoiding her reflection. If she were to look just then, she just might catch a glimpse of regret in the pale, exhausted face that stared back at her, and that just wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

  * * * * *

  Two hours and a half-pot of coffee later, Paige pulled her favorite black pantsuit from her large, walk-in closet. She dropped her bathrobe to the floor, pulled the pants up her legs and fastened them. She slipped into a black, tank-style camisole, followed by the snug, fitted blazer. She glanced in the mirror.

  Immediately her mood improved. She appeared professional, together, just as she preferred to, as she needed to on a day like today, when she felt anything but together. The cool, collected exterior was a ruse, but a necessary one. She couldn’t conduct business, convince people of her ability to get the job done, if they thought the slightest breeze would blow her over. She couldn’t meet Lucinda Amelia Perenna presenting anything but her best.

  Today was an important day for her, important enough to command the façade. Finally, after years of struggle, her work was receiving the recognition it deserved. Word of her talent, her ability to find and then showcase the unique individual within, had spread. It wouldn’t be long now and she would have the success she strove for. She knew this, for last week she’d received the one phone call that would make it happen for her.

  Enter Lucinda Amelia Perenna, an immigrant who married well and grew to become one of the most influential women in San Diego. Recently widowed, she’d taken over her husband’s money and used it to speak out against racial prejudice. Ms. Perenna had power and spent her life in the public eye. She had connections, knew all the right people…

  And she’d called Conroy Photography to commission her self-portrait.

  It continued to addle Paige’s mind. Her, Ms. Perenna had contacted her! This was her chance. The chance she’d been working for, the chance to prove herself. For if—no when, she corrected—when she completed this assignment, delivering to Ms. Perenna a finished product both women could be proud of, she would know true success. Her name would make its way into the upper echelons of San Diego society and her business would grow.

  She smiled as she slipped into a pair of black pumps. She’d dreamed of this moment for so long…since that day so many years ago when she’d first peered through a camera viewfinder and discovered why she saw the world so differently from the other girls her age. She’d fought self-doubt, ignored the criticism of those who set out to defeat her, for this very moment. This was the beginning of many wonderful things to come.

  A smile on her face, heels clicking across the hardwood floor, Paige made her way to the stairs and down to her studio. Anticipation filled her as she crossed to her darkroom—the place she’d sought refuge in after Sergeant Harrison’s departure the night before. Sleep evaded her and so she’d done the only thing she knew would relax her—she’d worked. Her worries forgotten amidst the task before her, she’d worked long into the night without pause. Now, she would view her end result.

  Several eight-by-tens hung from the drying line, but even from this distance, Paige easily identified her favorite. The
nude of the woman with her back to the camera was her best work yet. It captured both the woman’s disposition, turned away from the world about her, and the woman’s beauty. The former was obvious upon first meeting Gabrielle Sumner. She’d grown up on the street, struggling to show the world she was more, then quickly building barriers against those unable to see past her circumstances. The latter, Paige knew her client would not expect to see.

  Gently, still weighing each photograph’s strengths and weaknesses, she removed them from the drying line. She stacked her favorites and carried them with her out into the studio in search of her briefcase. Along the way, she also collected her cell phone, proof sheets and a notepad. She shoved all but the phone into her briefcase, grabbed her car keys and headed for the door.

  She was already in her car, sunglasses perched atop her nose and engine idling, before she realized she hadn’t activated her building’s alarm system. Digging the keys to the studio out of the depths of her briefcase, she aimed the wireless remote at the front of her building and pressed the arm button.

  Then she saw it. Confusion wrinkled her brow. Her hand crept to her throat while she waited for her mind to process what was taped to her door. From her distance, she couldn’t say for certain, but it looked an awful lot like a photograph.

  She slid out of the car and skirted the hood. It did little good to assure herself that her eyes were just playing tricks on her. Fear settled in even as her legs propelled her closer and closer to the door. Her heart made a beeline for her throat. Her vision blurred. “It can’t be,” she said aloud.

  She never got the chance to find out.

  The explosion came out of nowhere, disturbing the quiet of the morning. Paige flew through the air like a rag doll and bounced off the unforgiving bricks of her building. Pain burst through her body, drove the oxygen from her lungs. She struggled to regain her breath, to pull the thick, hot air into her starving lungs. Glass rained down upon her, hitting her legs, her stomach. Something large and hot crashed into her face, just above her left eye. Her vision doubled, tripled.

  Her world spun in circles, then went dark.

  Chapter Four

  Paige stood before the desk sergeant, lukewarm ice pack pressed against her throbbing head. Body aching, in desperate need of a place to sit down, she listened to the man’s instructions and silently cursed her bad luck. Her ears rang from the percussion of the explosion. Her world had yet to right itself. To top it off, the man behind the desk informed her that multiple flights of stairs stood between her and her destination. Joy at being alive was swiftly replaced with an intense urge to cry.

  Only a couple hours before, she’d awoken to pulsing red-and-blue lights and thick black smoke. She’d opened her eyes to discover a paramedic checking her vitals, and a uniformed cop pacing in circles about her. Confusion filled her, intensified by the brutal slash of pain that whipped through her when she’d attempted to sit up. She’d blinked away blood, then glanced about her.

  Someone had blown up her car. Her cherished 1959 pink Cadillac lay in pieces. Glass and debris covered her. She’d wanted to scream, to cry. She’d settled on white-hot rage.

  It coursed through her, sustaining her as she reported to the crime scene investigators all that she knew. It fueled her on the ride to the hospital, where they’d put five stitches in her forehead, slipped her a painkiller, and tried their best to admit her for observation. And it would carry her up those flights of stairs to the detectives she sought.

  “Anything so I can sit down.”

  She shifted her ice pack over her eye and winced as pain shot through her temple. A promise that she had someone at home to wake her every few hours combined with not letting on about the extent of her pain got her released from the hospital. She didn’t want to stay there. She wanted her own home, her own bed. Before she could have those things, she had one last thing to do.

  Which is why she’d given the taxi driver the address to the police precinct instead of her home. Why she stood here now, in the last place she ever thought she’d set foot in again.

  One step at a time, she worked her way up the stairs. It was slow going, relying on the handrail as well as her anger as she turned to the right, then to the left. Ten more steps, then another right.

  The noise hit her first, intensifying the ache behind her eyes. She stopped in her tracks, centered in the archway of the detective’s division as she waited for the pain to ebb.

  The room was full of people, young and old, male and female. They sat behind desks squared off against each other and typed on computers. They milled about in groups, deep in conversation. Some were like her, with expressions that ranged from shock to rage, confusion and fear. A woman sat near one of the metal, institutional-style desks and cried. The man at her side—a detective Paige guessed—bent his head closer to his computer screen, as though ignoring the woman’s distress would make it disappear.

  Phones rang. People barked out orders. A man, his enormous belly hanging out below the hem of his shirt, began to curse loudly. Suddenly, he came out of his seat and pushed his weight into the desk before him. The metal screeched as the desk shifted, pinning the officer behind it against the wall before he could even cry out. To Paige’s horror, onlookers began to cheer. Two detectives jumped across their desks and wrestled the handcuffed brute to the floor. His curses intensified in both pitch and ingenuity.

  Noise brought a pounding ache to her left temple. She lifted her hand and then flinched as the swollen side of her head protested loudly to her touch. Second thoughts assaulted her. Unease climbed up her throat. Suddenly rage was not enough to carry her into this room. She didn’t like precincts, couldn’t handle the noise, the smells. She couldn’t handle the memories.

  Her heart began to race. Her breath hitched. A sudden, instinctive urge to flee assaulted her and her body began to tremble.

  Paige turned away. Her sore leg protested loudly as she hurried back to the stairs on feet that felt somehow disconnected. Clutching the ice pack in her left hand, she grabbed hold of the handrail with her right and started down.

  The firm, gentle clutch of fingers circled her upper arm, caused her to stop abruptly. Only her death-grip on the handrail kept her from tipping forward and onto her face for the second time that day.

  “Paige?” a deep, male voice intoned.

  Sergeant Harrison. The small part of her mind that still functioned clearly recognized the voice—latched onto it. She turned, her movements slowed by her intense feeling of unreality. She struggled to keep her thoughts focused, to clear her mind of the panic that clawed at her, but the harder she tried, the greater her anxiety. The walls began closing in on her. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Paige? Are you all right?”

  Run! the voice in her head screamed.

  Survival paramount in her mind, she stepped away from him, down two steps. When his fingers tightened and he refused to release her, she made the mistake of lurching from his grasp. Her world began to spin, the stairs to tilt out from under her. She stumbled, her high heels lost traction and a second wave of fear surged.

  Just when she thought she was going down, she dropped the icepack, placed her left hand beside her right on the handrail, and managed not to plummet down three flights of stairs. Her knees promptly gave out and she sank onto the step.

  Ignoring the curious glances they drew, Justin crouched before Paige and said her name. When she didn’t respond, he pushed the hair that had slipped from her braid behind her ear and tried again. “Paige?”

  Fear burned brightly in her eyes. His insides tightened. Anger clawed at him. Her clothes were torn and spotted with blood. Her blood, based on the appearance of her face. A deep purple bruise marked her left temple, the eye beneath swollen badly enough that she probably couldn’t see out it. An angry red gash, held together with tiny black sutures, bisected her eyebrow.

  Someone had hurt her and he wanted to hurt that someone. Justin glanced from the hands still clutching the handrail to t
he eyes that had yet to focus on him. “Who did this to you?”