Beside her, Josh set a consoling hand to her arm. “Give yourself some time. Whatever you decide, Frankie would understand.”
Her gaze wandered to the disinfected space on the floor, shining like an eyesore amidst the dingy scuff-marked tiles around it. In an effort to remove traces of Frankie’s death, Crime Scene Clean-Up had unintentionally pronounced it even more.
Watery eyes met his. “Find who did this, Josh. Promise me.”
Her earnest petition overrode Sarge’s glare from earlier. He wanted Josh to do his job. This was it. “I promise.” No matter who stood in his way.
He helped Marie to her feet. “If you come across anything odd while you’re here—anything at all—you call me, okay?” The detectives on the case may have a title Josh didn’t, but this was his turf to protect.
A series of barks drew his attention to the side door. “Stay here.” Glock in hand, he hustled into the empty alleyway. No sign of anyone. He slinked toward the end, reliving the night of the robbery in daylight this time.
At the fence, he scanned the scene inch by inch. The suspect had scaled the wall like it was an obstacle course. He must’ve scoped out the area beforehand and had a game plan for getting past the pit bulls.
The dogs lay in the far corner of the yard now, attention fastened in the direction of a distant handball game.
The top of a bone peeked out of the ground. Josh traded his Glock for his cell and squatted to take a picture. A tiny swatch of fabric caught on a link blew in the wind—black with an almost imperceptible streak of white curving off the corner.
“Hands where I can see them,” someone from behind him called.
Still squatting, Josh hid his phone. He raised his palms, rose, and crept around. Detective Bryant. Figured. The guy had an uncanny way of catching Josh at the wrong times.
“D’Angelo. Should’ve known it was you.” Bryant holstered his gun and shifted his focus to the fence. “Looking for something?”
The accusation in his smoke-abused voice burned into Josh’s skin with the afternoon heat. “Just taking a walk.”
His eyes narrowed and then quirked with the same arrogance radiating off that starched suit of his. He swaggered over. “You know, it’s interesting. Me finding you here.”
Josh’s tight jaw fought back a retort. “Why’s that?”
“You were the first on scene that night. Then the first again at the Ramirez house.” He edged a few steps closer. “Now you show up here, searching a crime scene you have no jurisdiction over.” He tipped his chin. “Seems a little suspicious, don’t you think?”
The insinuation throbbed in his tendons. “You calling me a dirty cop?”
“You tell me.”
He was about to tell the punk a few things, all right. Up in his face, Josh hurled his accusatory stare back at him. “Maybe if you knew how to do your job, you wouldn’t need beat cops showing you up.”
Bryant shoved him into the fence. It rattled against the asphalt, drawing the attention of the dogs. A heated breath launched Josh forward.
“D’Angelo,” Daniels yelled while jogging up the street.
Josh flicked a glance away from Bryant to his partner. What was she doing here?
She butted between them and hedged Josh a safe distance away. “What are you trying to do? Get him to jam you up?” she whisper-yelled.
Behind her, Bryant adjusted his suit jacket. “Keep your partner off my case.” He cast another smug glare at Josh. “Looks like he needs to be reminded of his place.”
Daniels braced Josh with her back as Bryant strutted to the main street. She mumbled a name the pompous jerk deserved. Based on her expression, she must’ve thought Josh fit in the same category right now.
He headed past her. “I don’t need a lecture.”
“You sure about that?” She stopped him by the arm. “What are you doing here, Josh?”
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Bree.”
She squared her shoulders. “No, you’re supposed to be with Bree. I was covering your butt, remember? Which is why I’m here now.”
“What are you talking about?”
The slightest wrinkle knit her brows together.
Without explanation, a pang of reservation clenched his stomach. “Where’s Bree?”
Daniels lifted regretful eyes from the pavement. “She’s at the hospital.”
Chapter Ten
Defenseless
Bree clasped her elbows, careful not to rub the bandages covering the patches of road rash on her forearms. She wouldn’t have come to the hospital at all if Daniels hadn’t made her. But instead of leaving as soon as they cleared her, she found herself standing outside Mrs. D’Angelo’s dark room.
The tighter she gripped the windowsill, the harder waves of regret banked against her. She’d missed so much. Had abandoned the people she cared about. Did it have to be this way?
Answerless, her blurred reflection stayed trapped in an image of brokenness she couldn’t hide anymore.
Fast footfalls billowed from down the hall. She turned. One look at the collision of concern and relief in Josh’s eyes, and she almost lost it.
He didn’t hesitate, didn’t slow. His arms closed around her, and she simply held on. To him, to safety, comfort. But most of all, to the exchange of forgiveness and grace spoken through the kind of love that had never needed words.
“Are you okay?”
Was she? “It’s just some scrapes and scratches.” Seen and unseen.
“If anything had happened to you . . .” A labored exhale said what he wasn’t willing to. He cupped a hand to her hair, kissed the crown of her head, and kept her cheek tight to his chest. “I’m sorry for getting upset earlier and leaving you.”
He wasn’t the one who’d left.
A knot swelled in her throat. He had every right to say what he had. To be mad—furious, even. She was the one who’d cut their ties without a chance to argue. If she’d given him one, he would’ve annihilated her resolve.
Like he was doing now.
She grasped his Yankees T-shirt, afraid to let go and even more afraid to keep holding on. “This whole time . . . Your mom . . . You’ve been in this alone.” She should’ve been here for him, for Nikki. Protecting her brother had meant everything. Still did. But Gabe wasn’t her only family.
Tears she’d stifled at the block party resurfaced. “I’m so sorry.”
Josh leaned back, his arms still nestling her in their steadfast hold, and without any words, he told her everything she didn’t deserve to hear.
She let go and faced the window to his mom’s room, not trusting herself to cling to him any longer. She slipped her foot in and out of her ballet flat. “How bad is it?”
Fatigue clouded another exhale and cinched around her heart. “Worse than she lets on.”
“Josh, I—”
“Staying wouldn’t have bought her more time.”
But it would’ve made the most of the time Bree had with her. “Should we go in to see her?”
“She needs her rest.” The hint of a smile kept his focus on the room. “Trust me, you don’t want to wake Rosemarie D’Angelo from a sound sleep.” His face contorted into a look of wrath.
Laughter waning, he rested a hand on the doorjamb and picked at a section of cracked paint. “We can come by in the morning . . . if you want.”
We. Could she open herself up to we again, no matter the risks?
She fixed her eyes on Mrs. D’Angelo and the ragged movements of each strained breath. Even asleep, the consequences of living near gangs marked their territory over another victim. The war clashing inside Bree intensified. She had to do something.
“Do you think she’d like it if I brought my violin?” Lip pulled in, she lifted her shoulders. “Music always soothes me. Maybe it’ll help.” Somehow, please let me help.
A gradual, soul-deep smile crinkled the skin around Josh’s eyes. “I think that’d mean a lot to her.” He didn’t step closer, but
everything in the way he looked at her did. So much so, her back creased into the edge of the window separating the hall from his mom’s room.
Her heart beat with enough force to power every echogram on this floor.
He must’ve noticed her reaction. Still hanging on to that darn smile, he circled away from her warm cheeks into the dimly lit room.
Once he’d made it to Mrs. D’Angelo’s bedside and pressed the most tender kiss to her forehead, embarrassment was the least of Bree’s problems. All-out love was much more dangerous.
And impossible to hide.
When Josh crossed the threshold again, Bree summoned the control she channeled on stage.
Some control. All he had to do was curl a protective arm around her shoulders, and her insides melted to the floor.
He led them toward the hospital’s main exit. Either he wasn’t nearly as fazed by their proximity, or he was far more skilled at downplaying. “Let me get you home.”
Home. Unsettled feelings chafed against the lack of confidence she had in knowing what home truly meant anymore.
“Shoot.” She stopped him as the double doors parted in front of them. “Cassidy. I left her in the waiting room.”
“Actually, it looks like she’s waiting for you out here.”
A glance around his broad shoulder caught Cassidy by her Passat, fending off Jesse. The guy just didn’t know when to quit.
Josh swept Bree behind him. “Wait here.” He charged toward them in the same assertive stride he’d carried long before ever becoming a cop.
The force was exactly where he belonged. She’d known it when he’d first told her his choice to enter the academy. Just like she’d known she couldn’t ask him to change his mind. You can’t ignore what you were made for.
Bree leaned against one of the columns along the outdoor entryway, but when Jesse grabbed Cassidy’s wrists, Bree reached their sides almost as quickly as Josh had.
He twisted Jesse’s arm behind his back and slammed his torso onto the front of the Passat.
With his cheek pressed into the hood, the loser had the gall to laugh. “And RoboCop comes to save the day.”
Josh upped the torque on his wrist hold, and a pained yelp shuddered across the parking lot. “Come near her again, and you’ll end up with more than a sprained wrist. You feel me?”
Cassidy edged forward. “I was handling it.”
The breeze picked up the stench of alcohol from another wheezy laugh. “Why you gotta be messing up my play? You already got your game.” He shot a sideways smirk toward Bree. “Unless you wanna share.”
Josh jerked him around and bulldozed him against the car door with a forearm to his throat.
“What are you gonna do? Use your gun on me?”
“Just give me a reason.”
After two heated breaths, Jesse yielded. As soon as Josh released his hold, Jesse hunched over with his hands on his knees, panting.
Josh jutted his chin toward the subway entrance. “Walk it off, tough guy.”
Still bent over, Jesse peered up through sections of hair falling into his eyes. He straightened and shifted a belligerent gaze from Josh to Cassidy.
“Now.” Josh broadened the shoulders Jesse’d be a moron to go up against.
The jerk barely tipped his head before backing up with his hands in the air again. A disturbing smile twisted his expression as he turned toward the sidewalk.
Cassidy pinned her focus on her car keys as if hoping her intense stare could conceal the tremble in her hands.
Josh faced her. “You all right?”
“Fine.” She glanced at Jesse’s fading silhouette. “You know how he is when he’s drunk.”
With his trademark assurance, Josh steadied her hands and waited for her to look up. “Just because you’re used to something doesn’t make it okay.”
A train of emotions passed her eyes before she batted it away. Her keys jingled together as she sifted for the one to her car. Rather than respond to the truth in Josh’s words, she turned to Bree instead and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I assume you have a ride home.”
She did if she wanted one or not. Bree squeezed her a little tighter than usual. “Call me later, ’kay?”
A weak smile answered for her.
Josh closed Cass’s car door and watched the taillights merge into traffic, like a big brother struggling to accept he could only interfere so much in his sister’s life.
He’d watched all their backs since grade school. Apparently, that hadn’t changed.
Bree wanted to wrap her arms around the shoulders that carried more than they ever should. “She’ll be okay.”
“I know.” The concern in his voice betrayed his words, but he nodded to his Dodge anyway. “I’m glad she was there with you today,” he said as they walked.
“Me too. She’s still as tough as ever, isn’t she? I guess after dealing with all her parents’ baggage and junk with Jesse, who wouldn’t be? The guy’s seriously delusional. I don’t know why he’s still hanging on. Cass moved on years ago. Why doesn’t he get it’s time to do the same?”
The flippant statement voluntarily begged to be retracted the second it left her mouth. The last thing Josh needed right now was a reminder of how much Bree viewed the past as baggage too.
He stopped at his truck, head down. “Maybe letting go is harder than you think.”
“I didn’t mean . . .”
He lifted a steady but wounded gaze. “Running away doesn’t erase the life you left behind.”
“She didn’t run away.” More of an edge than she wanted sawed into her response. “And what life, Josh? There’s nothing for her in Astoria.”
“Their family flower shop’s nothing?”
“Of course not, but she spent enough time trying to save her mom’s dream. She deserves to live her own. Frieda’s been running it alone since Cass went to NYU. A lot’s changed since high school.”
“And you’d know this since you’ve been around this whole time?”
Bree winced. She obviously wasn’t the only one with a sword.
“I’m sorry. That was out of line.” His shoulders dropped, along with his defenses. He tapped the tip of his sneaker against his tire. “Frieda might not be doing as well as you think.”
Bree’s head darted up. “Are you saying . . . ? You mean she . . . ?” Her chest caved at the look on Josh’s face—the look of a cop who knew and saw more than he probably ever wanted to. “Does Cass know?”
He shook his head. “To be honest, I’m not sure.” With a heavy exhale that she was beginning to sense was a norm for him these days, he opened the truck door for her. “Life doesn’t always move forward, Bree. No matter how much we try to force it to.”
He shut her door, and disillusionment closed in.
Images streamed past her window like a nonstop film projected across building after building. Were they really all just stuck on repeat, never truly moving?
Between the silent questions and invisible strain crowding the car ride to her apartment, there wasn’t any leftover room for conversation.
Josh kept her behind him on the way to her door, not letting her in before he swept the inside first.
After clearing the place, he shimmied his gun in his waistband while Bonnie and Clyde wove between his legs in an apparent match to see which one could leave the most fur on his jeans.
A foot away, his gaze held her in an embrace she craved to feel. She seriously needed to stop letting emotions leave her this unstable. Everything going on was driving her to him again, but she knew where that led, and she wasn’t going to depend on something she could lose. She just had to play it cool like he did.
Right.
Bree regretted hanging her keys up the moment she let go. With nothing left to use for deflection, she scooped Clyde up off the floor.
It wasn’t the first time Josh had been in her apartment—and it wasn’t anywhere near the first time they’d ever been alone—but it might as well have been. It was
like they were teens again, back on Roosevelt Island on their first real date.
The earnestness in his eyes, the urgency mixed with assurance, the promise underlying every touch. All of it—still here, still real. So much so, Bree couldn’t keep her defenses intact. With his presence anchoring her, there was no denying what she’d always longed for.
The exact thing she couldn’t have.
He inched closer like he could see through her eyes into the hidden parts no one else had access to. “Bree—”
“Want some coffee?” Cutting off the nervous twitch in her hands might’ve worked if it hadn’t shot straight to her voice.
Josh stopped himself from reaching for her, lowered his eyes, and held in whatever he’d intended to say. Squatting to pet Bonnie instead, he graciously extended Bree a moment to release the awkward tension making her a wreck right now. “Coffee’d be perfect. Thank you.”
More than perfect, it better have superhero powers if it was going to help her through this. She set Clyde down and strode for the kitchen. “It’ll just take a min—”
A hesitant knock at the door whirled her around.
Josh was on his feet in a second, gun drawn. He motioned her behind him and mouthed for her to ask who was there.
A muffled, “It’s me,” filtered back in response.
Bree took one look at Josh and sprinted to unlock the door.
Chapter Eleven
Sidestepped
Behind Bree, Josh pushed the door closed the second she opened it. For all her street smarts, she could really be naive sometimes. Then again, she’d always been a little blind when it came to her brother.
He sidestepped her glare and peered through the peephole. Other than an anxious-looking Gabe, the hall was clear. Josh reopened the door, tugged Gabe in, and locked up without releasing him from the wall he had him pinned against with one hand.
Bree grabbed Josh’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not the one you should be asking that.”
Gabe raised the free hand not clutching his beat-up skateboard. “Chill, hermano. She’s my sister. What do you think I’m gonna do?”
Still Falling (Home In You #0) Page 6