A little scowl crossed her face. It was partly that attitude of hers that he loved so much. He knew she didn’t take crap from anyone, and especially not from guys fixated on getting into her pants.
“We’ve already discussed this,” she finally said.
“But you did feel that crazy thing I’m talking about.”
Another sigh. “Yes. I felt it.”
“And it’s not nearly as strong today, is it?”
“I guess since we’re not still attacking each other, that’s a yes.”
“I did feel it again when I was hugging you, but I don’t know, it also could have just been my usual reaction to a beautiful woman in my arms.”
She smirked. “You got hard while I was crying on your shoulder. Typical, Ethan.”
“I’m sorry. So you didn’t feel any arousal at that moment?” Stupid guy question, he realized only after the words had exited his mouth.
An awkward pause, and then she said slowly, “Well, um…actually, I kind of did. Which surprised me, given the circumstances.”
“I think it’s just some kind of uncontrollable reaction we’re having. It was the same with climbing onto your balcony. I would have stopped myself if I could.”
“I don’t know. It sounds pretty damn weird if you ask me.”
“Yeah. At least today, I cannot even imagine following you home and climbing up there to watch you.”
“Why are you telling me all this now? Why not just keep quiet since you didn’t get caught?” She was still looking at him as though he was something stuck to the bottom of her shoe, which wasn’t exactly what he’d call progress.
“I kind of did get caught. Your downstairs neighbor spotted me and chased me with a baseball bat.”
“Anita? So she really did spot you and your car.” The look of disgust was gone now, replaced by mild amusement.
“That would be her. She got a few pretty good swipes at my car while she was at it.”
“She’s a one-woman neighborhood watch and lynch mob all rolled into one. She also sees things that aren’t there when she forgets to take her medication, so I wasn’t sure I could believe her.”
“I’m sorry I lied to you.”
Nicole full-on smiled. “So you’re afraid if the police question her, she’ll tattle on you. That’s what prompted you to be honest?”
“Can you think of any other reason I should admit to having done a peeping-tom routine?”
“Because you’re a freak?”
Well, there was that.
“Yes, I’m a freak and I want to make sure you know it so that I can be arrested pronto. Makes perfect sense to me.”
“I think you need to go now,” Nicole said, and Ethan felt a stab of regret in his belly.
Definitely not the reaction he was hoping for, but at least she wasn’t reaching for the phone again. Progress!
Yeah. Um. Right.
“There’s one other strange thing about yesterday—if you can believe it.”
Nicole eyed him but said nothing.
“I went to a little tourist trap shop yesterday during my lunch hour with a couple of friends, and the place sold voodoo dolls. One of my friends even bought a doll, though it looked different than the one that was on your balcony.”
She sighed wearily. “This just keeps getting better and better,” she said, then paused, appearing to mull over the new facts. “Did you get any sense of hostility from Pulatski when you interviewed him?”
“Not especially, but he wasn’t friendly, either. Why?”
“Maybe he followed you, for whatever reason. Maybe he sees you as a threat, or an easy target.”
Ethan had put himself in a few dangerous situations over the years while following a story, so he wouldn’t have been surprised to have an ex-convict on his tail. But it wasn’t exactly a comforting thought, either.
“But—”
“Not another word. Just go. I need to think about this some more, and add these new details to the report.”
Ethan glanced at the couch, where some of his clothes were draped over the back from last night. He started gathering his things, finishing getting dressed, putting his shoes on. All the while wondering if there was anything he could say to change her mind.
Maybe not. At least not right now. She probably needed some space to assimilate things, but…
“Are you really going to feel okay being here alone after that voodoo doll?”
“I have friends I can call to come over, or I can go stay with someone,” she said tightly.
“Okay, um, I guess I’ll be going then. But I’d feel better leaving after you have someone else here with you.”
“I’ve got Anita and her baseball bat downstairs, and a 35 mm handgun in my purse. I’ll be fine. Now get the hell out.”
8
OKAY, SO SHE’D LIED. She’d had no intention of running and hiding behind her friends just because some asshole had left a voodoo doll on her balcony. Nicole couldn’t stand running for cover over every little scare. It was a sign of weakness, and she was determined not to be a weak woman. She was the kind of person people ran to when they needed help, not the other way around.
But a night of clutching her gun under her pillow and jumping at every little noise and sleeping a total of two hours had taught her a lesson about her own bravery. It seemed to have disappeared.
And she was ashamed of that.
A colleague had called her late Saturday evening to tell her that while there hadn’t been any fingerprints on the doll, a second note had been found inside of it. It had been a paper list of police officers who’d died on duty in the past few years, including her own former partner who’d been killed by Pulatski. And then there was her name, at the bottom of the list, with Ethan’s name beside it.
That was the most perplexing part of all. If the perpetrator was Pulatski, what was he doing putting Ethan’s name on the list, and what did it mean? Had Ethan pissed him off somehow during the interview he’d done while Pulatski was still in prison? Had he not really wanted the kind of news coverage Ethan was going to give him, and determined that a dead journalist would be better than a talking one?
If Ethan had been following Nicole Friday, had gone so far as climbing onto her balcony, and Jonas had been watching, he might have seen the perfect opportunity to make things tough on Ethan, at least for a little while, by planting the voodoo doll right where Ethan had been seen lurking.
She’d had to divulge her relationship with Ethan to the detective who’d called, and they’d discussed the possibility that Jonas had spotted Ethan at her apartment.
And so now she had to protect Ethan from his own stupidity. It was Sunday morning, and she was tired and grumpy from lack of sleep, on edge from the whole voodoo doll incident, and fill with a vague sense of dread.
She got herself showered and dressed, feeling guilty now, too, that she hadn’t thought to call Ethan last night to warn him that he might be in danger. Yet another example of how she hadn’t been herself for the past couple of days. She was about to pick up the phone to call Ethan when she heard a knock at her door.
Through the peephole, she saw Cal Mendelson, the same detective with whom she’d spoken last night. Salt-and-pepper hair, permanent worry lines and a chain-smoking habit were evidence of the twenty years he’d put in on the force. She unlocked the dead bolts on her door and opened it, feeling comforted to see one of her most trusted colleagues there, live and in the flesh, after such a long night.
“Hey, Cal, what’s up?” she said, motioning him in.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked, shrugging off his black windbreaker and tossing it over the back of the couch.
“Sure.” Nicole sat down on the opposite end of the couch before belatedly thinking to offer him a drink. “Want some coffee? A soft drink?”
“No thanks. I was just driving by to check up on things. I needed to talk to you about the Pulatski case.”
“Any more leads turn up?”
Cal shook his h
ead. “The address he gave his parole officer appears to be unoccupied now, and no one seems to know where he’s gone.”
“So at least we can get him on a parole violation, if nothing else.”
“Right. Once we track him down, that is. But in the meantime, I’m worried about your safety, and I have an idea I want to run past you.”
“Okay, shoot,” Nicole said, leaning back against the couch and pulling her legs up under her.
“Everyone down at the precinct would understand if you took a little time off, given your situation.”
“Is that why I haven’t gotten any calls on my cell phone all weekend?”
“I asked people not to bother you. I really think you’d do well to lay low until we catch up with Pulatski again.”
“I’m not sure I can handle just sitting around doing nothing, when I know I could be out there helping find him.”
“That’s the thing though,” Cal said. “You can help by keeping an eye on your reporter friend—the one on that list.”
“Ethan?” How did Cal know Ethan was a so-called friend? Had the officer who’d caught them Friday night already blabbed to the entire goddamn San Diego PD?
Shit.
“You want me to be his bodyguard or something?”
“If you want to call it that. Just stick around him, keep an eye out. Strength in numbers and all that.”
“I don’t know,” Nicole said, hating the idea already. “Couldn’t we just have a patrol car follow him around?”
“We want something a little less obvious than that. Pulatski’s no fool. He made sure there were no fingerprints on that doll, but he clearly wrote the note inside in his own handwriting. I think he was trying to send us a message—in more ways than one.”
“You got the handwriting analysis back already?”
Cal nodded. “Just this morning. I put a rush on it.”
“So it’s the usual story. Instead of rehabilitating the scumbag, prison turned Jonas into an even bigger one, huh?”
“Seems that way. He was a small-time thug before he went in, but talking to some of the inmates, he stayed pretty angry the whole time he served his sentence.”
She shook her head. “So of course we let him back out on the street.”
“The problem with Jonas is that he’s smart—way smarter than the average scumbag. He was known on the inside for masterminding drug deals, a couple of riots, and even an attack on a prison guard that left the guy in critical condition. But he managed to avoid leaving any real evidence that he was behind the shit.”
“Great,” she said. She’d heard bits and pieces of his prison activities, but she’d mostly blocked it out. “So he’s all set up for a big-time life of crime unless we cut him off at the pass.”
Nicole bit her lip, contemplating how bad it might look if she really did take time off right now. It would make her look weak, incapable of handling the stressors that went hand in hand with her profession.
“I don’t think my taking time off right now is a good idea.”
“Nicole, everyone knows how tough you are. You don’t have anything left to prove, okay? You proved yourself years ago when you braved the aftermath of Max’s death without ever flinching.”
She blinked away the stinging sensation in her eyes. Not crumbling after Max died had taken drawing from her deepest reservoirs of strength, and even then she’d felt as if she was nearly comatose, going through the motions without really being alive for a while.
As a woman, it was a constant struggle to prove herself in such a male-dominated world. And not just a woman, but a woman like Nicole knew she was at heart—the soft, emotional, impassioned sort. The kind that usually didn’t survive in police work. Somehow, she had managed for this long, and she wouldn’t lose it now.
She wouldn’t let her family history be her undoing. She might have come from a long line of women who’d failed, who’d been undone by the men in their lives, but she would rise above that. She knew that some perverse part of her had even sought out success in a male-dominated arena just to confirm to herself that she could not only avoid being undone by men, but that she could thrive among them.
“Are people talking about…” Friday night. She couldn’t say it though.
“About the Pulatski case? Sure, a little.”
Maybe the officer who’d caught them Friday night hadn’t blabbed after all. Miraculous, if it was true.
“No other weird rumors about me or anything?”
“You’re a hell of a lot more respected than you realize, Nicole. No one’s going to think twice about you being out of the office for a little while, and if anyone asks, I’ll just say you’re on a special assignment, which is pretty much true, right?”
“So is it a leave of absence or a special assignment, for real?”
“We’ll call it whatever makes you feel okay about going along with the idea.”
Nicole sighed. She could have argued more, but the truth was she wanted to make sure Ethan was safe, and she could do that best if she was close by. And while it pained her to admit it to herself, she really didn’t want to be alone right now.
“Okay,” she said grudgingly. “You’ve talked me into it. Now I’ve got to get Ethan to go along with the idea though.”
Cal smiled. “Somehow I doubt he’ll have a problem accepting you as his bodyguard.”
Nicole’s stomach went queasy. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, I just meant, I mean…” Cal stuttered. “I assumed you two are a couple, if Jonas somehow spotted you hanging around together.”
“Oh. Not exactly. I mean, it’s more like we’re, you know, acquaintances.”
“Good. You deserve better than some pain-in-the-ass reporter, anyway.”
Ethan’s reputation was apparently well-known around the precinct. Pain in the ass was an understatement, but Nicole did have to respect his commitment to his work, his drive to keep the public informed. And he was one of the few reporters she’d ever dealt with who hadn’t taken her words and twisted them to fit the angle the reporter wanted to take on the story.
“I’ve got to go run an errand now,” Nicole said, wanting to get to the pharmacy before it closed. She’d let her birth control prescription lapse since her last relationship ended, but having sex with Ethan Friday night had been a wake-up call to get off her ass and go pick up some pills. The pharmacy closed at noon on Sundays, so she needed to get moving. “But I’ll stop and talk to Ethan on the way. I’ll do my best to convince him,” she said, before realizing too late how bad that might sound.
To his credit, Cal kept a straight face. “Everyone around the precinct is concerned about you, Nicole. We just want to make sure you’re okay, so don’t hesitate to ask for anything if you need it. You’ve got my cell number—use it, okay?”
She nodded. “I will, I promise.”
“I’ve got plainclothes cops keeping an eye on your place and Ethan’s. We’ll catch Pulatski—don’t worry. Sooner or later he’s going to trip up.”
Nicole nodded and stood up as Cal put on his jacket and headed for the door. Once he was gone, she grabbed her purse and put on her shoes, then hurried out the door herself. If Ethan agreed to let her hang around him 24/7, she’d have to come back later to pack some things to stay at his place. There was no way she’d allow him to stay here for a prolonged period of time—she’d have no place to escape to if Ethan started driving her crazy.
She had a contact card he’d given her in her purse, and when she dug it out, she recognized the street. Twenty minutes later she was pulling into his driveway, her insides jittery for reasons she didn’t want to examine at the moment.
Nicole peered out the car window at 3915 Rio Los Altos, and she sighed. This was Ethan’s house, then. This was the place where she would have to spend God-knew-how-long holed up playing bodyguard. That is, if she could get him to cooperate.
His house was not exactly what she’d imagined. She supposed she’d have labeled hi
m a postmodern condo dweller. Instead, he occupied a small, low-slung Spanish bungalow with a white stucco exterior, a red-tile roof, and a series of three arches leading onto the front porch. A corner house, it sat at the intersection of two minor residential streets lined with palms and oleander bushes.
Security-wise, the place was a wreck. Lots of unsecured street-level windows and easy hiding spots for lurkers. She made a mental note to recommend he get some decorative grating to cover the windows and keep out the less-determined crooks. She exited her car and walked up the sidewalk, taking everything in, noting each and every detail, from the flimsy-looking screen door on the front to the single lock on the maple door.
Instead of ringing the doorbell, she kept walking around to the side of the house, noting more details, observing every entry point a criminal might use. By the time she’d made it to the unlatched gate to the backyard, she could hear a shower running through an open window. In the back, she checked the sliding glass door and found it unlocked.
Frowning, she slid the door open, and peeked inside. From the living room, she could hear a stereo playing an old Depeche Mode song, and the shower still ran in a bathroom somewhere down the hallway. She stepped into the dining room area, which Ethan had made into a sort of office complete with an old rolltop desk. The only thing that hinted dining room was the pair of bar stools that sat under the bar dividing the kitchen from the room where she stood.
Okay, so she probably shouldn’t have been trespassing, but she had a point to make about Ethan’s safety, or lack thereof, and his clearly idiotic sense of comfort with unsecured doors. He didn’t exactly live in the safest neighborhood, and he was showering with his sliding glass door unlocked. It was like inviting drug addicts in to beat him and take his stuff.
Or worse. Because Jonas Pulatski was far less predictable than a drug addict, and probably more dangerous.
Nicole could hear singing now too, as she walked closer to the sound of the shower. Ethan was singing, bizarrely, an off-key rendition of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”
A Whisper Of Wanting Page 7