Tania raised her chin and forced a smile to her lips. She was not going to be the object of pity, especially not his. “Like I have my own private hero.”
He didn’t reciprocate her smile. “I’m serious, Tania. I couldn’t get you to wake up at first.” He swept her hair back from her face. “Maybe you should go to the hospital and get checked out.”
Tania stepped back and he instinctively knew he wasn’t going to get her to listen unless he slung her over his shoulder and carried her to the hospital.
“I’m an E.R. doctor. I can check myself out as easily as any of them,” she insisted. “Physician heal thyself and all that stuff.”
“This isn’t funny, Tania. If I hadn’t come back—”
“Come back?” she echoed, surprised. “From where? When I fell asleep, you were right there.” And then it suddenly dawned on her. He wasn’t wearing a sheet, he had his clothes on. He wouldn’t have stopped to get dressed before getting her out of the apartment. “Why are you dressed? When I fell asleep, you were naked.”
He had wanted to avoid having her find out the truth, but there was no getting around it now. “I thought maybe one of your sisters might come home unexpectedly and I didn’t want you to have to explain what I was doing there.”
“I wouldn’t have had to explain. They’re both doctors. They both have a pretty good handle on the birds and the bees thing.” She dropped her sarcastic tone and her voice was low, serious. “So what made you come back?”
There were a lot of ways to couch this, but he gave it to her as honestly as he could. “I realized that if you woke up in an empty bed, you might feel a little abandoned.” His eyes met hers. “And I really didn’t want that.”
She took in a deep, fortifying breath. Her lungs still ached and her head felt a little fuzzy. But not her heart. That felt just fine. “You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t.” He wasn’t about to be sidetracked. Jesse took out his cell phone. Flipping it open, he placed the phone into her hand. “Now call your brother-in-law.”
Tania closed the phone in a fluid movement and handed it back to him. “It’s after one in the morning. I’ll call him at a more decent hour.”
Jesse didn’t accept the phone. Instead he pressed it back into her hand. “He’s a policeman, he’s used to strange hours. Call him,” he said firmly. “Or I’ll call 9-1-1. Your choice.”
She sighed, frowning at the phone. “So much for twisting you around my little finger.”
“I wouldn’t fit.” Jesse nodded at the phone. “Which will it be?”
There was no real choice. “I’ll call Tony. Can I at least get dressed?”
He smiled for the first time, his eyes sweeping over her frame. Remembering what she’d looked like, pliant and giving, in his arms. “For the sake of Sasha and Tony’s marriage, I’d highly recommend it.”
A little more than half an hour later, Tony, Sasha, Mike, who had been called to the scene by Tony, and Natalya arrived almost simultaneously at the apartment. Using Sasha’s old key, Tony unlocked the door and came in first.
Jesse and Tania were on their feet instantly, meeting them in the foyer before they’d taken more than one step into the apartment.
Tony had been filled in about the gas leak over the phone when Tania called him. His concern was evident, even if his expression remained stoic. “Are you all right?” he asked Tania. She nodded. Tony turned toward his wife. “She’s all right.” There was a strange finality about his voice, as if he had just proven a point. “Now will you go back home?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned toward his sister-in-law’s fiancé. “Mike, can you take her—”
Moving forward, Sasha sniffed the air. “I don’t smell any gas,” she said, interrupting her husband. “No need to rush me out of here, Tony. The baby’ll be fine,” she assured him, then turned toward Tania. “My question is, are you sure you’re all right?”
Tania nodded, feeling bad about having dragged not one but four members of her family out of bed. “This is all getting out of hand,” she protested. “It was just a leak, nothing more.”
“This wasn’t a leak,” Jesse insisted. “Leaks don’t suddenly stop when you turn a knob on the stove.” He looked from one detective to another, realizing that the men probably had no idea who he was. “Hi, I’m Jesse Steele. I’m the one who insisted she call you. Or the police,” he tacked on.
“Same thing,” Tony said, shaking Jesse’s outstretched hand. “Tony Santini.”
“Mike DiPalma.” Mike took his turn shaking Jesse’s hand. “And it’s not the same thing,” he corrected Tony. “It’s better.” He looked at his future sister-in-law. “All right, tell us what happened. From the beginning,” he qualified.
“I was asleep,” she explained, then turned toward Jesse. “You fill them in.”
So Jesse did, as quickly and succinctly as he could. Ending his story, he added that he’d just found out from Tania that she’d been pushed in the path of an oncoming bus and that for the last few weeks, she’d been trying to shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Mike nodded, jotting everything down in the small spiral pad he kept in his pocket. When Jesse was finished, Mike went on to ask the usual questions in cases like the one this seemed to be.
He looked at Tania. “Do you have any enemies? Is there anyone who might want to see you permanently out of the way?”
Sasha and Natalya exchanged looks, clearly horrified at the very suggestion, but Tania took the questions in stride.
“No,” she answered firmly. “No to both.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jesse watching her. She knew by the expression on his face what he was thinking. He was remembering what she’d told him earlier. A part of her wished she’d never opened up.
She closed her eyes for a second, letting out a long breath. And then she turned to Mike. “There might be someone.”
“I’ll check it out,” Tony volunteered. “Who is it, Tania?”
Tania didn’t answer immediately. Instead she looked at her sisters for a long moment. So close that they could read each other’s minds at times. She was grateful that neither of them rushed to fill Tony in. That was up to her.
“Jeff Palmer,” she finally said. Tony raised an eyebrow in silent query. “Because of me, he was sent to prison.”
“No,” Natalya cut in firmly. “Because of him he was sent to prison,” she declared.
Tania waited a moment before clarifying. “He raped me,” she said as simply as possible, allowing none of the pain to come through. She could tell by their reaction that neither man knew about this. Her sisters had kept her secret. “And I went to the police about it. There was a plea bargain and Jeff was sent to jail. He’s been out for a few months now,” she concluded.
“Is that when you started feeling that someone was watching you?” Mike asked.
She shook her head. “Not immediately.” She tried to pinpoint the first time. “Just in the last three weeks, I guess.”
Mike had crossed over to the stove and gingerly examined it. He’d pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on, careful not to smear any evidence.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You said all four were turned on?”
It was Jesse who answered. “Yes.”
Mike nodded, as if absorbing what was said. “I’ll have someone dust for prints.” Pulling off the gloves, he crossed back to Tania. “Does anyone else have the key to this apartment?”
Everyone in this room had a key, she thought, except for Jesse. “Just family,” Tania answered.
“And you,” Natalya interjected, looking at Mike with a whimsical expression on her face.
He gave her a patient, fond look. “I believe you’re my alibi.”
Tania thought she saw a blush creeping up her sister’s face.
“The door wasn’t locked when she came home,” Jesse suddenly recalled. The two couples turned to look at him, surprised by this new piece of information. �
��We went to the theater and when we came back, the door wasn’t locked.”
Natalya spread her hands in protest. “Don’t look at me, I locked it when I left—and I left after Kady.” The import of her words sank in. Her eyes shifted toward Sasha. “So, unless you dropped by in the interim…”
“Not me,” Sasha told her. “I was at the hospital until an hour ago. Mrs. Cassidy finally gave birth after four false starts.”
Some of the pieces were coming together and it was apparent that Tony didn’t like the picture they were forming. “So whoever it was let themselves in to check out the place might have even been here when you came home.”
Jesse was quick to set him straight. “I checked out every room, every closet. So unless it was a homicidal monkey hiding in the medicine cabinet, there was no one here when we came in.”
“Then they came to get the lay of the land,” Mike guessed. “And came back later to tamper with the stove.” He turned to Natalya. “You’re coming back home with me.”
In union there is strength, Jesse thought as he addressed Tania. “That’s exactly what I was going to say to you.”
Tania gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. “You want me to go home with Mike? Three’s a crowd.”
Natalya laughed sympathetically. “Personally, I don’t know how you put up with that,” she teased. “As for you,” she addressed Mike, “since I’m here, I might as well stay here. I’m due at the hospital in less than seven hours and this is closer.” She smiled at Tania. “I’ll keep Tania company.”
Mike seemed a little exasperated, but he knew that tone. There was no arguing with her.
“It’s a stubborn family,” Tony told him.
Mike sighed, shaking his head. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He was not about to leave Natalya in a place whose security had been compromised. “Looks like I’ll be here for a while.”
With that, he took out his cell phone to call someone in the crime scene unit who owed him a favor.
Chapter 14
Over the course of the next week and a half, Jesse saw Tania as often as their two schedules permitted. Because he was working against a deadline, he would bring his blueprints and sketches with him and spend evenings working at her apartment when he couldn’t talk her into coming to his. In either situation, he made it a point to pick her up from the hospital no matter how late she got off.
Despite all her efforts to remain nonchalant, Tania quickly grew accustomed to seeing Jesse in the E.R. lobby, waiting for her.
“You know, you really don’t have to play my bodyguard.”
Sitting on a worn, creased brown vinyl sofa, with a rerun of some program droning on in the background, Jesse discovered to his embarrassment that he had dozed off. The sound of Tania’s voice, low and breathy as she’d whispered in his ear, instantly roused him. And aroused him.
Jesse took a deep breath, pulling himself together as best he could. He saw her smile in amusement. “What do you mean ‘play’?” he asked. “I thought I was doing a pretty good job of being the real thing.”
Actually, he was. He was quickly becoming her knight in shining armor and everyone knew that knights in shining armor weren’t real. They belonged in fairy tales. Thinking of him that way only set her up for a fall.
“You don’t have to be the real thing, either,” she said as he tucked his sketches away and closed his portfolio. “At this rate, you’re going to wear out in a couple of days and then who am I going to ask to Natalya’s wedding?”
Jesse rose to his feet, his eyebrows momentarily raised in surprise. He was aware of the wedding, but this was the first he’d heard of an invitation. More progress, he thought.
“I won’t wear out,” he promised, walking beside her to the front entrance. He stepped back, letting her out first. The electronic doors slid open and the night air, pregnant with unshed rain and oppressive humidity, instantly met them, providing a startling contrast to the air-conditioned interior. “You keep these hours and you haven’t worn out yet,” he pointed out.
“I keep these hours,” she agreed, threading her arm through his as they walked to the hospital’s parking structure, “but I don’t moonlight as an architect.” She paused for a moment to brush a kiss to his cheek, surprising him again. “In essence, you’re almost juggling two careers. You shouldn’t.” She saw another protest rise to his lips. “I appreciate what you’re doing, Jesse, but really, everything seems to be fine. No one’s pushed me off the sidewalk into traffic lately and the stove’s been behaving itself.” They crossed into the structure and took the stairs down to the basement. “I think I was just being a little paranoid the other week, because I was kind of anxious.”
The classic “which came first, the chicken or the egg” runaround, he mused. “That’s kind of a catch-22 isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” she allowed with a casual shrug of her shoulders. Theirs were the only footsteps echoing in the structure on this level. She was secretly glad she wasn’t alone. But then, if he weren’t here, she’d be waiting for the bus out in the open. It was a trade-off. “If I was anxious about being followed. But that wasn’t why I was anxious.”
Arriving at his vehicle, Jesse took out his keys and unlocked the passenger side. He held the door open for her. “What was it, then?” he probed.
Tania got in. The moment her body met the seat, she realized how very tired she was—and how grateful she didn’t have to wait for public transportation.
She tugged the seat belt into place. “Let’s just say I could feel myself heading for a place I hadn’t been before and I was afraid it would blow up in my face.”
Jesse quickly rounded the rear of his car and got in on the driver’s side. “But you don’t feel that way anymore?”
That wasn’t entirely true. “I’ve decided to take a wait-and-see stance.”
He nodded. The woman was hard to pin down. “Interesting.”
“That’s one word for it.” Jesse closed the door, but made no move to insert the key into the ignition. She eyed him quizzically. Was there something wrong with the car? “Aren’t you going to start it?” she asked.
“In a minute.”
Before she could ask him what he planned to do in that minute, Tania had her answer. Twisting in his seat, his seat belt still in the at-rest position, Jesse cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her.
Tania had already buckled herself in. Her lips occupied by his, she felt blindly around for the release button and pressed it. As the belt slid back from her body, she moved a breath closer to him. She could feel herself sinking further into the kiss. Without realizing it, she sighed, the outward sign of her vulnerability.
She felt his mouth curving in a smile a second before he drew his head back. “Now I’m ready to go,” he told her. Shifting back around, he buckled up and then started the car.
“You certainly are,” she murmured. Tania slid the seat belt back into the groove. “Bucket seats do leave something to be desired,” she commented. “They sure weren’t designed for romance.”
He laughed, comically lowering and raising his eyebrows. “Well, there’s always the backseat.”
Tania did her best to look stern even as his suggestion aroused her. She pointed to the street up ahead. “Just drive,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am.” Both hands on the wheel, Jesse guided the car passed the empty guard hut and out onto the street.
Neither one of them saw the figure hiding in the shadows, watching them.
Watching and silently cursing.
“So, it really wasn’t Jeff?” Tania asked her brother-in-law.
Sitting on the arm of the chocolate-colored sofa in her living room, Tony shook his head. It was several days later and Tony, as well as Mike, had devoted as much time to the private investigation as they could. With frustrating results.
“Sorry.” He was far from happy with the results. “The fingerprints didn’t match. Palmer’s are in the system. The prints that were lifted from the knobs on the s
tove aren’t.”
He’d had the CSU investigator take samples of all the sisters’ prints, using those to pair up with partials that had been found on the knobs and the stove itself. One lone thumbprint did not match any of the sisters. That belonged to the perp, but without matching a set in the system, they were nowhere.
Tania made the best of it. “At least I can stop worrying that Jeff is stalking me.” She tried to sound upbeat. This was, after all, an upbeat evening. Leaning forward, she placed her hand on top of his and gave it an appreciative squeeze. “Thanks for looking into that for me.”
Marie Ferrarella Page 16