“Yes, thanks for leaving me with nothing. And, that explains how, but not why. Or what happened to you.” She held her ground, knew she could push him right down the stairs if he tried anything. Yet she also knew he wouldn’t. Jake had been many things, but he’d never been abusive.
He inhaled a deep breath and let it out on a shudder. Then met her look head on. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. I can explain everything, if you’ll just take me inside with you. Let me stop running for a while.” His look was pleading, his words sincere. She hesitated. He was an escaped drug dealer, after all.
But, like she’d concluded just a moment ago, he’d already had the chance to rape her. To kill her and bury her on that mountaintop. And he hadn’t. However, she still stalled.
“There’s a Motel 6 just down the road,” she said. “You have money. My money.” She moved aside to put space between them. He radiated so much heat, and her body seemed to absorb it all.
He bit off a curse, ran a shaking hand through his tangled hair. “I used that already for gas. It wasn’t a whole hell of a lot. And then I was too busy escaping the explosion of my partner’s apartment—after he was shot in the forehead by a sniper’s bullet.”
Lucy gaped at him while his statement sank in. Which shocked her more: his calmly stated comment about a sniper’s bullet or the fact that he’d used the word partner?
“Since when do drug dealer’s work with partners? And if you’re in such a dangerous position, why would you bring it all to my doorstep? I like my home. I don’t want it blown up!” She could hear the hysteria in her voice, and she wished she could control the bubble of fear as it gathered within her.
It was his turn to reach out, grasp her elbow. Immediately she yanked free.
“I’m not a drug dealer. I’m a cop. An undercover cop. Please, I can prove who I am if you’ll just give me the chance. Let me inside. We’re sitting ducks out here in the open.”
Lucy cast her eyes about at his last words. She searched the shadows. Was that a man under the stairs across the way? Or was it an overgrown bush? She looked back at the convict. For the first time, she didn’t feel safe in her apartment community. And he was to blame.
Costas held up his hands in supplication. “I promise, after I’ve given you proof of who I really am, if you still don’t believe me, I’ll leave without any argument. It’s just safer if we talk inside.”
Lucy stared at him, conflicted. He’d kept his word the last time, but that was no guarantee. Or was it? She’d been totally at his mercy then. Here at least she had the home court advantage. Neighbors that would hear her if she screamed.
Making up her mind, Lucy pulled out her key and edged around him. She unlocked the front door with a quick flick of her wrist. Waved a hand for him to precede her.
“Company first.”
The look he flashed her before he stepped inside hid humor in its depths, and she felt the knot within her ease ever so slightly. A man intent on committing violence wouldn’t appreciate her sarcasm. She hoped.
Once inside she flicked on the living room light, twisted the knob lock until it clicked, and considered whether or not to flip the deadbolt. Keeping crazy killers out or trapping oneself inside with one…hmm. Tough call.
When he moved past her, limping with shoulders hunched, she opted to bolt the door. Then she dropped her purse on the edge of the couch under the front window and automatically toed off her pumps.
She paused and took the moment to study him and really take in his appearance. In addition to the scrapes and smudges on his face and the debris caught in his hair, his clothes sported rips and tears. It was evident he’d been in some kind of recent altercation.
His brown eyes had lost some of their vacancy. Only an occasional tremor seemed to pass through him now. While she studied Costas, he was busy examining his surroundings, taking in the green-patterned couch under the front window with its closed vertical blinds. He glanced over the light-colored laminate flooring into the shadowed dining and kitchen area, and then returned his gaze to the sofa.
Looking back at her he jutted his chin toward the seat and asked, “May I?”
Surprised at his unexpected courtesy, she took in his filthy attire and shook her head. “Not as dirty as you are. Now, start talking.” She crossed her arms under her breasts and narrowed her eyes. Casting one more look of longing at her couch, he wiped a hand over his face. A smear of blood appeared on his cheek. Apparently one of his cuts was still oozing. She decided his explanation could be postponed.
“You’re bleeding. Follow me.” She stepped around him and headed toward the bathroom. Doubt about whether she was doing the right thing by believing him lessened every second she was in his company. Unlike in their first meeting, tonight Nicky Costas acted lost. Vulnerable, even. And that fact made her bleeding heart beat faster.
Flipping on lights as she went, Lucy pointed to the closed toilet in the bathroom. “Sit.” Surprisingly, he did as he was told.
Although Jobless Bob had lived with her, making her no stranger to a male presence in the little apartment, Costas still seemed to take up more room in the small space than his size warranted. He dwarfed the vinyl fish swimming on the shower curtain and loomed in his corner of the bathroom.
Yet his submissive behavior continued as she brought out cotton balls and antiseptic from the medicine cabinet. Until he pulled a small, snub-nosed gun from the back of his pants and placed it on the bathroom counter. She stared at it as if it were a snake he’d deposited there. At last he cleared his throat and brought her attention back to him.
“It’s to protect us, not to use on you,” he said simply. She blinked and tried not to look at it while she resumed her activity.
“You can talk while I clean you up,” she suggested. All of a sudden, she felt self-conscious in the tiny room, with her hands poised to dab at his abrasions and her breasts practically in his face. The moment seemed too intimate. She tried to ease back and felt her face flame when his gaze dropped to her chest.
His lashes were long and dark, thick crescents that shielded his eyes from hers as they remained downcast. More roughly than she’d planned, Lucy touched the first cheek wound with antiseptic and heard his hiss. She muttered a “sorry,” before repeating the action. His back straightened, and she found him looking up at her once more.
“Jerry and I had infiltrated a drug operation in San Bernardino,” he began quietly, and Lucy picked up a clean cotton ball, drenched it with medication, and moved to a cut near his hairline. This time she dabbed gently, and he didn’t move. Brushing back some reddish strands to better see the wound, she found his hair soft and touchable.
“He worked in the money-end of the business, counting each drug take, while I delivered the goods, and sometimes filled in as one of Anton Farelli’s bodyguards. We’d been working the sting for several months because we wanted enough evidence to actually bring in Farelli and make the charges stick. He’d always managed to slip through the legal system up to now.”
His eyes drifted closed at this point, and Lucy realized with horror that she’d been smoothing his hair off his forehead over and over while he talked, caressing him as a lover might. But it felt so silky, so smooth…
She dropped her hands to her sides for a moment, and his eyes opened. She had trouble meeting them as they bored into hers with desire. Her knees began to tremble from the intensity of his gaze. She struggled to lock them, to continue with her care in a more matter-of-fact manner. But she couldn’t control the gush of warmth pooling in her lower regions. She could only wonder at her untimely reaction.
He looked away, toward the colorful, fishy curtain. “When our captain thought we had enough evidence, the operation was raided and everyone was thrown in jail. Some of us were moved to state prison to await trials. We maintained our covers and knew within a few days we’d be released. Before I was sprung, however, I was visited by some hard-time goons on Farelli’s payroll.”
Lucy nodded. She remembered h
im telling her that back at the cabin. Only then he’d been Nicky Costas, drug dealer.
His hands moved to the top of his shirt. He undid a button, then another. And another.
She gasped.
His eyes widened, but he didn’t stop until his shirt was nearly completely open. He tugged the fabric aside, revealing a mottled collection of bruises along his abdomen and chest. Lucy caught herself reaching toward his chiseled torso and stopped herself. She stared past the impressive muscles and defined abs, noting the yellowish and faded blue bruises marring his perfect skin.
“W-what’s your real name?” she blurted, returning to her ministrations, focusing on his face.
He drew his shirt closed. “Jake. Jake Nicholas Dalton.” She looked at him, nodded, and then looked back at the last cut. With gentle fingers, she pressed under his chin. Lifted it slightly. He started talking some more, his warm breath wafting over her hands, creating goose bumps up her arms.
“Anyway, you know that part of the story. After I left you, I called my captain. Sorry about keeping your phone, by the way. But I needed it, though I had to destroy it afterwards so I wouldn’t be traced.” She looked into his eyes. “I am sorry. Anyway,” he continued, “my captain told me Jerry, my best friend Jerry, fingered me as the one skimming the evidence money. Then Cap asked me to come in so we could talk about it. I declined. Before I hung up, he told me that some of the marked money showed up in Vegas after the bust.”
“But you were in jail.” His story was becoming a mental Rubik’s cube. And then there was that unasked-for attraction she was feeling. With his face cleaned up and his hair neatly smoothed back—don’t go there!—he was quite handsome.
“Exactly.” Jake had warmed to his tale. Or he was nearing its end, for he kept talking while Lucy fought his magnetic pull. “Someone else was siphoning. So, since I was wanted by Farelli as Nicky, and wanted by my department as Jake, I paid Jerry a visit. And found him waiting for me. Pointing a gun in my face.”
She blinked.
“That was my reaction. Seems ol’ Jer was jealous of me solving our cases. He decided to throw doubt on me and get the glory by cracking this one. And, of course, he was skimming money too, but that’s beside the point. Then someone shot him in the forehead and blew up his place.”
Even though he’d already told her this part, she still sucked in another breath. She couldn’t imagine witnessing such a horrific event, let alone talking about it so calmly. Maybe he was in shock. When she’d recounted her abduction to the police, she’d done it in a level, monotone voice. She’d held it together remarkably well. Her relief at surviving and escaping murder/rape/mayhem had buoyed her spirits. Then, once she’d relayed her tale and made it home, she’d had a meltdown of epic proportions. But Jake didn’t look relieved or calm or even on the brink of some cathartic crackup. He looked…defeated.
Something swelled in her chest and caused her eyes to water.
She bit her lower lip. She was not going to fall for another hard-luck story given by a good-looking man. The new and improved Lucy Parker learned from her mistakes. But he looks so vulnerable…
She took a deep, steadying breath. “So, if I believe you, and that’s a big if, what happens next? If you’re wanted by both sides of the law, what are you going to do now?”
They stared at each other in the brightly-lit bathroom. He held her gaze.
“Next? Next, hopefully I prove to you that I’m one of the good guys, and you let me stay here so I can get back on the case. I have a few leads involving Jerry that I need to check out. A PO box he told me about ages ago that might rustle up some threads to follow, for one. I was going to confront him about it at his apartment, but he was killed before I could.”
Her gaze shifted to his reflection in the mirror. The silence in the small room was absolute while she considered his words and felt her resolve weakening. At some point during their reunion her initial fear at his reappearance had dissipated, replaced by curiosity. Curiosity about whether he was exactly who he said he was: a cop.
She met his eyes in the mirror, squared her shoulders. “How are you going to prove to me you are what you say you are?”
“Do you have a computer?”
Chapter Seven
“He’s holed up in an apartment in East Palm Court, Mr. Delano.”
“That’s not where he lives.” Michael frowned, pacing the budget motel’s thin carpet with his phone to his ear, trying to make sense of the story his gofer was reporting.
After successfully “making a statement” by taking out that stupid schmuck Tommy—a very satisfactory moment—he’d hoped to get rid of Nicky Costas in the subsequent blast. It wasn’t what Farelli had wanted, but putting down both those troublemakers would have gotten rid of a lot of headaches as far as Michael was concerned. He could weather whatever storm Farelli dished out. But he couldn’t withstand an investigation into the missing money.
“No sir, it’s not. And it was too dark to see who let him in. Looked like a girl, though.”
Michael paused in his pacing. A girl? This was a promising development. He hadn’t thought Costas had a piece of tail on the side, had even thought he might swing the other way, the way he schmoozed with all the guys. But having a girl opened up options for Michael. A man was always weakest when the woman he was banging was threatened. He made up his mind.
“Take some pictures, but for Chrissake don’t get noticed. I don’t want him aware he’s under surveillance. And give me the address. If anyone is going to approach him, it’ll be me.”
After cutting the connection, Michael tapped the phone against his chin, deep in thought. He needed to make a move soon. Whether he put the lid on Jake’s can of worms or not, Farelli would be more vigilant from now on. And that meant it was pretty much the end of the gravy train for him. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a contingency plan set up for just this sort of occurrence. Airline ticket, an offshore account. A new identity. But it rankled that he would have to walk away.
Those two flatfoots should have stuck to writing traffic tickets.
“Have a seat. I can prove who I am.”
An hour after Lucy agreed to let him stay the night, Jake was finally going to verify his true identity.
First¸ she’d let him shower and rinse away the reminders of Jerry’s death. He still couldn’t erase that horrifying moment when the tiny hole appeared in Jerry’s forehead. That, and Jerry’s betrayal, he knew, would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Lucy had taken his dirty clothes after providing him with some clean ones she’d said had been left behind by her “ex.” That word had given him pause, but he couldn’t explain why.
“You’ve been married?” he’d asked her as she ducked into her walk-in closet. He tried to wrap his brain around that eventuality, but he couldn’t. Once married to the woman in front of him, who in their right mind would leave her? She was pin-up model perfect as far as he was concerned, with all those round curves he still remembered from their tussle at the mountain cabin. Add in those sexy-adorable glasses that made her huge eyes even bigger and all that long, dark hair, he was in danger of forgetting the reason he was here in the first place.
But it wasn’t just her looks that he admired. No, it was also her mind and, holy shit, he’d never thought he’d be praising a woman for her quick wit. He’d observed back at the cabin how she analyzed anything tossed her way. How, though he’d scared her shitless with that shiv and bastard routine of his, she’d stood up to him. Challenged him.
And now, when he showed up at her home, she’d allowed him inside, had even tended to his wounds with his weapon resting beside her pretty little dish of fancy soap. She hadn’t gone all hysterical. Rather, he’d seen the wheels circling in that logical brain of hers while he’d talked, turning over his words to ferret out the truth.
He admired that ability, especially since he went with his gut so much of the time. Found it the ultimate turn-on, actually. No, Lucy was a woman you could sink yo
ur teeth into, physically and metaphorically. One who could tease your dick and your brain. Her ex must have been a schmuck.
Her answer to his question had been a laugh and an, “Oh, pleeaassse, don’t insult me. I wouldn’t marry any of the losers I’ve been with.”
Unexplainable relief had flowed through him. He really needed to dial down his growing attraction. It wouldn’t do for him to act like a poodle with a fuzzy slipper around her. This girl deserved more.
Now he patted the couch seat beside him and tried not to notice how, instead of her latest sweatshirt’s bulky material turning him off, he wanted to reach out and smooth his hand over all that pink softness. He shifted to relieve the sudden tightness in his pants and cleared his throat.
“When cops go undercover their real lives are wiped out, right down to the tiniest details on the internet, but I found an article from years ago in the local paper when I graduated from the academy. A bit blurry, but you can still make me out. Lemme bring it up.” He looked down at the laptop screen, relieved to have someplace else to focus upon. His fingers took command of the keyboard.
“Here.” He turned the computer toward her and she leaned forward, squinting at the screen where he’d brought up an indistinct class picture of squeaky-clean cadets. His graduating class. “Look at the number of people in the row, and then look at the number of names,” he instructed. “My name was cut out, and so was Jerry’s, but you can see us clear enough in the middle of the group. And if this isn’t enough proof, hell, go Google the rest of the names to see if they line up with the other guys in the class.” He sat back on the couch while she pulled the computer onto her lap and studied the group shot.
He knew when she found him. She leaned into the screen, like a pointer who’d caught the scent. He looked over her shoulder to see what she saw. He’d been incredibly young back then, his hair buzzed short. Thank God he didn’t have to wear that haircut anymore.
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