Because after kissing him, Jules obviously thought—no, he didn’t think, he knew—that Robin was gay.
Sophia Ghaffari was even prettier than Cosmo had remembered.
As he got himself a cup of coffee and carried it back with him into the beach house’s spacious living room, Kelly Paoletti widened her eyes at him. Her unspoken message was very clear. Why aren’t you talking to her?
He just shook his head.
He’d stayed silent through four slices of pizza, biding his time before he could make his excuses and leave, eager to get back to Jane’s.
To Jane.
Murphy’s wife, Angelina, was telling a story about the rustic hotel where they’d stayed in St. Thomas on their honeymoon. When it had rained, a river flowed through their room, from the bathroom and out the door.
She was a perfect match for Murph, quick to laugh, with a sparkling smile and long, dark hair. She was as tall and as full-figured as Jane, too—no petite little thing to be doubly dwarfed by Murphy’s bulk.
“. . . palmetto bugs the size of baseballs,” Angelina was saying. “I swear, there was one with two heads. We slept with the light on in the bathroom, because the thought of running into Push-me-Pull-you Junior in the middle of the night was just too awful.”
“Two heads?” Sophia was skeptical.
“One on each end,” Angelina insisted. She looked at Murphy. “Back me up here.”
“I saw it, too,” Murphy said. “Although I’m still not sure it wasn’t two separate bugs doing some kind of kinky bug thing.”
“Bugs don’t have sex,” Angelina said. “Okay? Let’s start right there. They lay eggs. It’s all very noninteractive.”
Kelly motioned for Cosmo to join her in the kitchen. Good timing.
“I have to go,” he told her as the door swung shut behind them.
She was stunned. “What’s wrong with you? This is fate—you coming here to talk to Tom on the same day that I just happen to invite Sophia—”
“You just happened to?” he asked.
“Well, I may have overheard Tom leaving a message, asking you to come out here tonight. . . .”
Cosmo hugged her—which was very weird. It was like hugging with a basketball between them. “I love you,” he told her. “Thank you so much, but . . . You know how I said I really didn’t like Jane—Mercedes Chadwick? Well, I got to know her, and . . . She seems to like me, too. . . .”
Her eyes widened, and she laughed. “Really? Oh, my God, she called here tonight, looking for Tom.”
“She did?”
Kelly nodded. “It was a little strange. The phone call. I mean, I’m sure she’s nice, but . . .”
Cosmo took out his cell phone, dialed Jane’s number. “She called me, too, while I was talking to Tommy, but when I called her back, I couldn’t get through.”
“Are you sure she’s . . .” She paused, then said tactfully, “You told me once that you seem to attract women who are, well . . . You used the word freaks.”
“No,” he said, laughing. “She’s not like that. What I meant was . . .” His phone was having trouble finding service. Cosmo moved a few feet to the left. Much better. “Most women are . . .” He searched for the right word. “Cautious around me. Sometimes it seems like the only women who, you know, try to, um, meet me have an issue or two or maybe a slightly nasty streak or . . . But Jane’s . . . You’d like her.”
Kelly didn’t seem convinced.
Cos tried again. “I can talk to her, Kel. I’ve . . . told her things I’ve never . . .” He shook his head.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Yeah, me, too.” He dialed Jane’s number again and it finally rang.
Out in the living room, the conversation had moved from bug sex to Angelina’s pictures from their trip.
Kelly pushed open the door and poked her head out of the kitchen. “I want to see them.”
“They’re in the car. Are you really sure . . . ?” Angelina said as—shit—Jane’s cell service bounced him over to her voice mail.
“Yes. Get ’em,” Kelly told her. “I’ll be right out.” She turned back to Cosmo, who was closing his phone. “No luck?”
He shook his head as the screen door screeched open and banged shut as Angelina went outside. “I already left a message. I don’t want to, you know, inundate her. Two messages inside a half hour . . . Look, I have to go,” he said again. “Before the pictures come back inside. Thanks for the pizza and, well . . .”
“The misguided matchmaking?” she finished for him, and the kitchen window shattered with a crash.
Gunshot!
Two of them, three . . .
Cosmo grabbed Kelly. What the fuck?
There was screaming, the screen door slapping, shouting—Murph’s voice, “No!” as he raced outside.
Four gunshots, five!
Tom’s voice: “Kelly!”
Cosmo already had her on the floor, careful of her pregnant girth, shielding her. “In the kitchen!” he shouted. “Kelly’s safe!”
Murphy was still screaming, “No! No! Angelina!”
“What happened?” Kelly said, her voice shaking. “Vinh. My God, is Vinh . . . Cosmo, where’s Tom?”
“We need an ambulance!” Tom roared, his voice coming from the front of the house. “Now! Cosmo!”
“Stay down,” Cos ordered Kelly. “Stay on the floor—do you understand?”
“For God’s sake, I’m a doctor. You have to let me help!” she shouted back at him, struggling to get free.
Sophia burst in, blood on her shirt, skidding on the broken glass. “Where’s the phone?”
She saw it before Cosmo did, nearly ripping it off the wall in her haste to dial 911. “Murph and Angelina have both been—” The operator must’ve picked up because she cut herself off. “We need an ambulance and the police,” he heard her say as he ran for the front door, and oh, Jesus God . . . “There’s been an attack, a shooting,” Sophia reported. “We have two people seriously wounded. You need to get here fast.”
“What was that?” Jane asked as she followed Pacific Coast Highway north. Explosions. A bunch of them, in a row.
“Gunshots,” Decker said. “Drive. Drive!”
He stomped on her foot, pressing it down on the gas pedal, and the car lurched forward.
Except then she saw Cosmo’s truck, parked near Murphy’s and . . .
She jammed on the brake with her left foot, because, oh God, oh dear God, Murphy was in the driveway, lying beside someone else. Tom was kneeling next to him, or had he fallen there? Had he been hit, too? She couldn’t tell. All she could see was blood. So much blood.
Please, God, don’t let that be Cosmo lying there with Murphy.
Jane threw the car into park and opened the door and ran toward them. “Cosmo!”
“What’s she doing here?” Tom was incredulous as he looked up at Jane.
But Cosmo wasn’t on the ground. He was coming out the door of the house, a hugely pregnant woman on his heels.
“Oh, Jesus God!” he said as he saw Jane, saw Murphy. “Get down!” he shouted at her. He spun to face the pregnant woman. “Get back in the house!”
Murphy was holding on to a woman. A woman whose long dark hair was matted with blood. Oh, God, oh, God . . . The woman was dead. How could she be anything but dead?
“Kelly, get down or get inside!” Tom roared, and the pregnant woman dropped to the ground, crawling toward him on her hands and knees.
Decker was several steps behind Jane, and he pulled her down to the pavement, shielding them with Murphy’s car.
Her knees were in a puddle of blood.
“I’m now certain,” Decker told her, “that the threat is real. Keep your head down!”
“Angelina,” Murphy gasped, blood flecking his lips.
“Sophia! Grab the first-aid kit from under the kitchen sink!” shouted the pregnant woman—Kelly—who was next to Tom. “Help me,” she ordered him.
“God damn it,�
� he said to her. “You’re pregnant.”
“What, you just noticed that?” she shot back at him. “I’m a doctor—I’m not going to sit inside and let them die.”
“Come on, man,” Cosmo said to Murphy. “You’ve got to let go of Angelina so we can help her.” He was down on his knees, fearlessly helping Tom and Kelly try to stop the bleeding. “Where’s that first aid kit?”
“Murph,” Tom said. “Did you see where the shooter was?”
“One,” Murphy whispered. He touched his watch.
“Ambulance is on its way.” A blond woman came out of the house carrying a plastic case—a first aid kit—that she gave to Tom as she ducked down behind the car, too. She was covered with blood. She had to be Sophia. God, had she been shot as well? “The emergency operator wants everyone inside as quickly as possible. Can we move them?”
“Are you hurt?” Decker asked. He was looking at Sophia.
“Shooter’s probably gone by now,” Cosmo said.
“What can I do?” Jane asked. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Stay down,” Cos barked at her.
Distant sirens. Approaching . . .
“Angelina . . .”
“She’s all right, Murph,” Cosmo said. “She’s hurt but she’s going to be all right. She’s strong—you know she’s strong.” He looked up, met Jane’s eyes briefly. “You’ve got a pretty nasty chest wound, man. You’ve got to lie still or you’re going to drown yourself.”
Oh, dear God . . .
“Sophia,” Decker said, grabbing the blonde’s arm and all but shaking her. “Are you hurt? Were you hit?”
She shook her head, no. Smiled tremulously. “Nice to see you, Deck. It’s been a while.”
Decker seemed to know Sophia quite well. Apparently everyone did. As Jane watched, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her, hard. But only for a second, because then he was over next to Tom and Cosmo, helping them.
The sirens were getting louder.
“What can I do?” Jane asked again.
“Get inside the house,” Tom ordered. “Sophia, get Mercedes inside. I need someone to update the emergency operator.”
Sophia grabbed Jane’s arm, pulled her to her feet, and hustled her toward the door. She was stronger than she looked.
“Keep her covered!” Cosmo shouted.
“Deck, when the ambulance arrives, I need you with me.” Jane could hear Tom’s voice, even from inside the house. “The shooter was positioned at about one o’clock, probably somewhere across the street.”
Sophia picked up the telephone, which was off the hook and dangling from the wall.
“We’ve got two multiple gunshots—the worst is a chest wound and a head wound,” Sophia told the operator. “The female looks bad. We can’t move her.”
“Oh, God, no,” Jane whispered.
From outside, Tom bellowed, “Did somebody call Jules Cassidy?”
At last. Something she could do. Jane got out her cell phone—which was beeping. She’d just received voice mail from Cosmo. She cleared the screen and dialed.
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CHAPTER
NINETEEN
R obin puked in the bushes alongside the Malibu beach house for the second time.
It was the bloodstains on the driveway that got to him.
Or maybe it was the two gin and tonics he’d chugged on an empty stomach.
After sucking face with his gay lover.
Okay, well, maybe that was an exaggeration. Jules had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested in being part of what he called Robin’s science project. What he was interested in, Robin wasn’t sure.
After he’d run out of the hotel restaurant, Jules had chased him down to tell him that Vinh Murphy and his wife had been shot in an attack meant to kill Jane.
The drive up here to Malibu had been tense. Jules had spent most of it on the phone, thank God, talking to the local police, the local FBI, and even his boss, the magnificent Max Bhagat, who was back in D.C.
The reality of what had happened—someone had tried to kill his sister—didn’t hit until Robin saw the blood.
At which point he’d had an intimate conversation with the shrubbery.
He’d eventually gone inside to see Janey, but she was bustling around the beach house, cleaning up the broken glass and helping Kelly, Tom’s very pregnant wife, pack up her things. Some friends—a man who looked like his nose had been broken once a year starting when he was fourteen, and his much younger, much prettier wife—were helping, too. They were going to take Kelly back home to San Diego.
The vacation is definitely over when the dinner guests get gunned down in the driveway.
Robin had explored until he found the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a tall one, then leaned against the wall and watched for a while. Mrs. Broken Nose—her name was Teri—had quite the trim little body. Under normal circumstances, she was the type he would’ve made a play for—cute as hell and married to an ogre.
He’d spent some time mentally undressing her, but Mr. Broken Nose didn’t give him a second glance. The man was not worried by Robin’s obvious attention at all.
No doubt he’d picked up a huge gay vibe from him.
God.
Robin had gone back outside, where the sight of that blood on the driveway had sent him to the bushes for round two of tonight’s puke-a-thon.
Jules was standing with a group of men—police, members of Troubleshooters Incorporated, and other FBI agents. He was clearly in charge, but he glanced over as Robin came up for air, and he excused himself.
And came over. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Robin told him, sitting on the steps that led into the house. He took a solid slug of whiskey to rinse his mouth, but it seemed such a waste to spit it out, so he swallowed.
“Easy there,” Jules said. “You sure that’s going to help?”
Robin was sure of nothing anymore. It was all he could do not to start crying.
Jules sighed and sat down next to him. “Maybe you should go back inside.”
And risk having Janey fold him up and pack him in one of the Paolettis’ suitcases? No thanks.
“How did this happen?” Robin asked, clinging to his glass. “How did this guy know Janey was going to be here?”
“He didn’t, sweetie.” Jules’ eyes were so sympathetic, so warm and kind. “Best we can figure, he followed Murphy when he left your house this morning, caught sight of Angelina, and followed them up here, thinking she was Jane. From a distance, someone could make that mistake.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Robin said. “Isn’t Angelina black?”
“She’s Latino,” Jules said. “She’s got slightly less olive in her skin tone than Jane. They really do look quite a lot alike.”
“That’s so fucked up,” Robin said. “I mean, just because they look alike . . .”
“Yeah,” Jules said.
“Is she going to die?” Robin asked. “Angelina?”
“She’s in surgery right now. She’s pretty badly hurt.”
“And Murphy?”
“Same,” Jules told him. “Although he doesn’t need brain surgery to pull through, so his chances are slightly better. Still . . .” He shook his head.
Robin couldn’t hold it back any longer. He put his head down and started to cry. That could’ve been Jane. As it was, Murphy and his wife . . . God, they’d just gotten married. Murphy had told Robin about Angelina. “My woman,” he’d called her. She did combination security and counseling at some kind of teen center. Murphy made her sound like a cross between Mother Teresa and Lara Croft. And now, because some nutjob didn’t like the movie he and Janey were making, she was having brain surgery.
“It’s times like this that being gay sucks,” Jules said quietly. “Because even if you wanted me to, I couldn’t put my arm around you. Not here, in a work situation.” He stood up, putting distance between them, as if, despi
te his words, he needed help resisting temptation. “I shouldn’t have brought you up here. That was a mistake. You didn’t need this on top of everything else. I’m really sorry, Robin.”
He started toward the other agents and officers.
“Jules.”
Troubleshooters 09 Hot Target Page 36