Borrowed Time

by CJ Lyons

  “Coltrane, Miles Davis, Robert Johnson—don’t you have any modern music?” he asked as he scanned her CD collection.

  “No thanks, my fillings get rattled enough by that crap when I’m on patrol.”

  He reached to turn her stereo on. “I’ll bet you listen to NPR.”

  “No bet.” She laughed and moved to intercept his hand. Their fingers connected for an instant before she pulled away. She looked at him, the afternoon sun lit him from behind as he flashed her a smile. This felt so good, so comfortable.

  Something about Lightner—

  The phone rang before she could finish her thought. She reached for it, awkwardly holding it in her right hand. So many things she did with her other hand that she took for granted.

  “Kate, it’s Carter.”

  Figured. He probably clocked them from the hospital.

  “Made it home in one piece,” she told him, nodding to Lightner. He looked around one more time as if searching for something, then gave her a small wave and left.

  Kate frowned at the door as it shut behind him, surprised at her disappointment that he was gone. Of course, he was a busy man, this was his afternoon off, she couldn’t expect him to devote it entirely to her.

  Still, she wouldn’t have minded if he had stayed. Then she caught Carter’s words and she slumped against the door, shaken.

  “We lost another cop,” Carter said. “Bastard hit him at the funeral today.”

  Josh closed the door and slowly went down the stairs, cursing himself a fool with each step. Obviously she wasn’t interested in him. Maybe he was the one who should be seeing a psychiatrist, imagining that she had almost kissed him this morning. He opened the front door, holding it for a blond-haired man carrying a bundle of flowers, and went out to his car.

  He shrugged back into his jacket and sat in the car for a few minutes, letting it warm up. Then he noticed the paper bag on the floorboards beside him. Damn, he had forgotten her prescriptions. The last thing he wanted was the embarrassment of facing her again.

  Josh sighed and grabbed the bag. The front door was ajar, sparing him the necessity of buzzing her apartment. He climbed the stairs and was surprised to see the florist delivery man at her door. Those flowers must have been for her—probably from her boyfriend, Martini.

  As he approached the door, he noticed the flowers peeking out from under the green paper. White funeral lilies.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the delivery man. “What florist are you from?”

  The man turned and Josh saw the handle of a gun sticking out of his waistband. “The Grim Reaper.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Josh’s throat constricted with fear as his vision centered on the very large, gleaming silver gun aimed at him. The killer took a step toward him, tossing the flowers aside, one finger over his lips in the universal gesture for silence. He grinned at Josh as if they were co-conspirators in a warped prank.

  He wouldn’t let him have another chance to hurt Kate, Josh decided, straightening, preparing to charge. Even if the killer shot him—and how could he miss with that huge gun at such close range? —the noise would warn Kate, give her time to barricade herself, call the cops.

  Josh sucked his breath in, balanced on the balls of his toes, ready to spring into action.

  Before he could move, the killer barreled into him, slamming him against the wall. From the corner of his eye, Josh saw the man raise the massive gun up to club him. He dodged forward. The killer hit the wall instead, cracking the plaster instead of Josh’s skull. He rebounded with an elbow to Josh’s back that sent him sprawling.

  “Stop!” Kate’s voice came from behind them.

  Gasping for breath, Josh watched as the gunman whirled. Kate stood in the center of the hall, unarmed except for her phone.

  Go back, Josh tried to call out, but no words would come as pain shot through his shoulder blades. The killer raised his gun, aimed at her.

  Kate didn’t flinch. Stood there like Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. Ready for a fight and not willing to give up, no matter the consequences. Sunlight from the window behind her cast her face in shadow, glinting off the tousled strands of her hair. The faint and very distant sound of a truck backing up penetrated the hush of anticipation.

  The killer moved first, raising his gun barrel to his lips and blowing Kate a kiss. Then he spun on his heel and sped past Josh, his footsteps ricocheting through the empty apartment house.

  Kate pounded down the hall to where Lightner lay, each step lancing through her chest like broken glass. Lightner rolled over, groaning. Thank God, he was all right. She ran past him, intent on following the killer.

  Lightner grabbed her by the ankle and she stumbled, almost fell.

  “Let go!” She caught the railing, yanked her leg from his grasp.

  “Stop. He has a gun.”

  She heard the front door slam shut and relented. Lightner climbed to his feet, latching onto her good arm.

  “What were you thinking?” he demanded.

  She jerked her arm free and stalked back to her apartment. “I was thinking maybe I could see what kind of car he was driving. I was thinking maybe it might be a good idea to catch this guy before he kills someone else. What did you think?”

  He caught up to her at the door of her apartment, stepping over the tumbled lilies in their green florist paper. “I was thinking you might get yourself killed.”

  She turned her back on him, listening as the dispatcher she was on the phone with confirmed that a patrol car was en route. Dark spots danced in her vision, keeping time with the throbbing in her side and shoulder.

  How in hell had the shooter found her? Fear and anger tumbled together, combined with the ebbtide of adrenalin to leave her trembling.

  Why had the shooter left Lightner alive? Or her? He could have easily taken them both in the hallway. What was this guy’s game?

  Lightner closed her door behind them. As she reported the details, she watched warily as he picked up the plastic hospital bag she had dumped on the bed and began to fill it with clothes. When it was full, he started on a gym bag he found beneath her black leather jacket.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked after the dispatcher assured her the patrol unit had arrived at her building. She hung up the phone.

  “He knows where you live. You’re not staying here.” He grabbed her white cotton laundry bag and set it with the other two.

  “You’re not my mother. This is my home, I’m not going to let anyone chase me out of it.”

  There was a knock on the door. She checked the peephole and let Redding inside. “Where’s Zelinski?” she asked.

  “Sweeping the perimeter.” Redding, a short stocky man with bulging biceps, raised a questioning eyebrow at Lightner.

  “This is Josh Lightner. He’s our witness.”

  Redding nodded, pulling his notebook from his too-tight pants. Kate leaned against the windows, arms crossed, hands hidden under the sling, so the men couldn’t see their shaking. Josh told Redding the story and about ten minutes later Redding’s partner, a tall skinny redhead named Zelinski, appeared holding a bedraggled bunch of white lilies and her bag of medications.

  “I found these in the hall, there’s nothing else. No one saw anything.” He held the flowers by the extreme corner, dangling them in the air like something out of a bad detective movie. Kate knew he was okay for a rookie, but prone to theatrics, always trying to impress the civilians.

  “The doctor says he was wearing gloves,” Redding told his partner, “but we’ll have forensics check them out just in case.” He flipped his notebook shut and turned to Kate. “Either of you get a good enough look to come down and go through the books?”

  Kate shook her head. “Not me. He had a baseball cap pulled down low and the light was behind him, put him in shadows.”

  “I don’t know, maybe,” Lightner said, his frown deepening. “It all happened so fast.”

  “Damn, this guy is like a fucking ghost.” Redding sig
hed. “Doc, think you could come down to the station, look at some pictures?” He didn’t wait for an answer and looked at Kate. “Where are you going to be staying? In case anything turns up.”

  “Here. I’m not going anywhere,” she said, her jaw set. “You guys can call in for surveillance, catch him if he comes back.”

  The other officers exchanged glances. Lightner opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again when she shot him a glare.

  “C’mon, O’Hern. Carter told you what happened to Dimeo today. It’s not safe for you here,” Redding said. “Not with that bum arm.”

  “Yeah, this guy is a real psycho and it looks like he’s focused on you,” Zelinski added.

  “What do you want me to do, check into a hotel?” she asked. “I can’t go to my brother’s and put his family in danger, the same holds true for any of my friends. All he’d have to do is ask around the neighborhood—”

  “You can stay with me,” Lightner volunteered.

  All three of them looked at him, Kate with incredulity and the two men with knowing smiles.

  “Oh, no,” Kate began, glowering at him. She was surprised when his eyes narrowed into a stubborn glare of his own. They faced off, the two uniformed cops watching the silent exchange.

  “Better than staying here,” Redding said, weighing in on Lightner’s side. “He doesn’t know who the doc is.”

  “Probably thinks he’s just another tenant who was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Zelinski added his support.

  “But—”

  “You’ve got to go somewhere,” Lightner said. “I’ve got a spare room. And a dog who’s better than any alarm system. With my hours we probably won’t even see each other.”

  “It’s settled,” Redding said. Kate began to protest, but he continued, “Better than us exposing more cops to this freakazoid. Guy like him, he’d be expecting us to set a trap if you stay here. Give us a few minutes to make sure he’s not hanging around, and we’ll follow you over.” The two left, Redding with a wink to Lightner over his shoulder.

  Kate slammed the door behind them. “Damn it, do you know what they’re thinking? This will be all over the House by dinner!”

  “Who cares what they think? The important thing is we get you someplace safe.”

  He absorbed the glare she gave him without flinching. Her gaze darted around the room, then down to her arm in its sling. She couldn’t risk placing her neighbors in jeopardy. If she had Redding take her to a hotel, Carter would pull men off the street to watch her.

  As a cop, she was useless. Worse than useless, a liability.

  “You win.” She blew her breath out through clenched teeth. “Let me grab some things, and I’ll be ready to go.” She took the gym bag with her into the bathroom.

  The tiny bathroom with its mauve and black tiled walls and old fashioned clawfoot tub never felt more welcoming. Kate closed the door behind her, lowered the lid on the toilet seat and sank down, her head dangling between her knees.

  The soothing scents of jasmine and vanilla swirled through her as she tried to quiet the churning in her gut. Another cop dead. Why hadn’t she seen it? What the hell good were these visions if they couldn’t help her stop a cop from dying or catch the actor responsible? The bastard had come to her home, would have killed her right here. In her home. Her sanctuary.

  Pain spiraled through her chest as she drew in a ragged breath. Any other time and she would have had her service piece and backup Glock-27 close to hand when she opened the door. With both guns locked up in evidence, today she’d rushed out to face a killer armed only with a phone.

  A fucking phone. Hunk of plastic and wires and still she hadn’t hesitated, had opened the door, knowing death was on the other side, rushed out—why?

  To save Lightner.

  All her experience, all her training, cast aside in one breathless moment of fear for his safety. She pounded her fist against the cold enamel of the tub. Damn it, now was not the time to become emotionally involved with a man. Any man. Much less the one who had saved her life—twice now.

  But she couldn’t help herself. All morning she’d relived the moment when Lightner had almost kissed her, had promised herself that given another chance, she wouldn’t let it pass her by again.

  She’d sat alone in her hospital room, imagining soft caresses from those full lips of his, feeling his long, surgeon’s hands pressed against her flesh. A myriad of erotic fantasies, starring her and Lightner had kept her mind occupied and blissfully free of any more mind-wrenching visions.

  As if Lightner had the power to heal her soul.

  Kate jerked her head back, contemplated the cobweb hanging from the ceiling above her, forcing herself to review the real-world situation she was mired in, pushing all thoughts of Lightner as a man aside.

  He wasn’t her sexy surgeon, couldn’t be a sexy anything—not now, not to Kate. He was a civilian who she was sworn to protect. As soon as she reached his house, she’d call a cab, escape to an anonymous hotel in Monroeville or out near the airport.

  Slowly, her composure returned. With it came a bone-chilling weariness that made every movement an effort. She reached for the stack of hand towels on the small table beside the tub.

  Typical single-woman-cop decor. Condoms in the medicine cabinet, Beretta nine millimeter behind the Q-tips.

  The semi-automatic had been her first gun. A present from her father when she was in school, working nights as a waitress. She fastened the leather paddle holster to her waistband, pulled her shirt out over top of it. Steadying herself on the sink after she stood up too fast, she blinked away the wave of dizziness, feeling better with the familiar weight of the gun at her back.

  She grabbed her bag and returned to the living room. “Let’s go.”

  Lightner took the bag from her and handed her her jacket. “It’s not like you’re never going to see the place again.”

  His words sent a new shudder through her, but Kate stepped through the door without looking back.

  “Who’s Dimeo?” he asked as they walked down the stairs. “The cops said something happened to a guy named Dimeo today.”

  “Another cop. One of the pallbearers at Conrad’s funeral. He was shot.” Her voice was flat, words clipped. “That’s what Carter was calling to tell me about.”

  Lightner stopped. “You mean he was killed at Conrad’s funeral? With hundreds of cops around? I don’t believe it—this guy really is nuts.”

  “Apparently he’s also an expert marksman. He was perched in a tree in the cemetery.” She grimaced. “All those cops in their shiny dress uniforms, he must have felt like he was at a shooting gallery.”

  “Dimeo was the only one he killed?”

  She nodded.

  “And then he shows up here? I don’t like the pattern I’m seeing here.”

  “You’re telling me. We’ve got to get this bastard. Soon.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Blake sat in his car, watching the day shift leave from the station house parking lot. He was still angry he’d missed O’Hern at her apartment. He’d been careless. Broken his own rules, letting the excitement of shooting the cop earlier today blind him to the risks of going to her place.

  It was her fault too—hers and Lightner’s. Doctor involved with his patient, tsk, tsk. Seemed like Blake wasn’t the only one breaking the rules.

  He wondered how O’Hern took the news of Dimeo’s death. He wished he’d been the one to tell her—what would she have offered him to make it all stop? Would she have tried to fight or would she bargain, offer herself, surrender to him? Did she realize that he was doing it all for her, that they were headed in the same direction, she and him?

  It didn’t matter; he was enjoying himself. The fun wasn’t going to stop until he said so—and she would be the last one to go. Maybe Lightner too—that man had a hero complex and deserved a comeuppance.

  Blake looked over at the parking lot. No more cars coming out and the same green Explorer sitting by itself at the
end of the row. It had to be hers. Well, if he couldn’t see her tonight, he could leave a calling card.

  He left his car, walking past the police station and into the parking lot. A tabby cat was sitting on a picnic table by the door to the station, watching him. Blake loosened his jacket, sliding his hand down to where his hunting knife was in the leg pocket of his pants. He smiled. “Here kitty, kitty.”

  The cat was smarter than most of the people he knew. It refused to be charmed, instead arching its back and taking a swipe at him with its claws. It scurried away out of sight.

  Blake laughed. The cat reminded him of O’Hern. Feisty. Fearless.

  Cats may have nine lives, but cops didn’t. He smiled at his whimsy. O’Hern had already used up her time on this earth, she was past due. Like a library book, ratcheting up fines for every day before it returned to where it came from.

  He enjoyed the image. Mason Blake, cosmic librarian. Reminded him of a porn movie he’d seen: The Naughty Librarian. Images of naked, writhing women, O’Hern’s face, Lightner, the cops he’d killed collided, sharp and jagged, slicing into his brain…

  Kate and Rob had once chased a pair of Homewood drug dealers into a rowhouse basement. The unlit maze of random, small rooms curtained by cobwebs, where turning every corner left her exposed, vulnerable—that was how she felt now. Conflicting emotions and thoughts fought for her attention, but she couldn’t focus on anything more than keeping her body upright in its seat and her eyes open. She now understood the glazed numbness that enshrouded so many crime victims.

  She wasn’t a victim, she told herself, rebelling at the thought, but the words got lost in the mix of confusion and fatigue overwhelming her brain.

  What if the killer had shot Lightner?

  Damn, how had he talked her into this? It wasn’t like her to back down. She turned to him, started to tell him to stop, take her somewhere else, leave her. Before something happened to him.