Last Man Standing

by Julie Miller

  Cole jerked his arm from her tentative grasp, shaking his head. “No. Too many people have been hurt.” Moisture glistened in his eyes. A vein throbbed along his clenched jaw. “Now my family’s being hurt. It never ends. I’m caught up in it and I can’t get out. Jericho’s dying and all the answers are going to die with him. And Chad or Paulie or somebody else will keep right on poisoning my city and hurting—”

  “Cole.” She rose up on her knees beside him and shushed him with two fingers pressed against his lips. She searched deep into those blue eyes until she was sure he was seeing her, hearing her. “You took a stand, just like Dwight Powers, two years ago, when you said you’d do this thing. That courier who was killed believed in you. A.J. believes in you. It sounds as if Josh and your family believe in you.” Her cool fingers slipped to frame his jaw and absorb the heat of his skin. “You have to believe in yourself and what you’re doing. You have to believe you’re making a difference.”

  She had sunk so far into the pain in his eyes that she didn’t see his hands snake out to pull her into his lap. There was only the shock of strong hands at her waist, sturdy thighs beneath her bottom, hard chest beneath the brace of her palms. She pushed to free herself from the enveloping crush of his embrace.

  “Cole.”

  “Stay.” It was a token struggle that he coaxed away with the gentle kneading of his fingers at her nape and in her hair, and the honest hunger shining in his eyes. “Please.”

  As his fierce grip gentled, Tori let her fingers start their own massage, smoothing the wrinkled oxford cloth and loosened silk tie against his chest, stroking the warm leather strap of his holster across his shoulders. For several moments all they did was touch and comfort, give and find sanctuary.

  Tori became aware of that most masculine part of him pressing against her bottom. She was just as aware of her tiny breasts filling with pressurized heat and springing to attention.

  He leaned forward and rubbed his forehead against hers, pulling loose the curling fringe of his dark hair and tangling it with hers. “The good things in life seem so far removed from where I am now. What if I never find my way back?”

  “You will.” Her voice came out as an embarrassingly husky whisper.

  “I guess we both have secrets to keep. And demons to deal with.”

  Demons. Her mother’s criticisms and Ian’s taunts came back to haunt her. Tori pulled away and averted her face. But Cole brushed his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up so that she looked deep into his eyes. There was something infinitely warmer there now, something almost awestruck and hopeful.

  “For a woman who doesn’t do relationships, you sure make me feel like there’s one happening here.”

  “I’m someone who can understand your situation, that’s all.” Tori’s tongue darted out to lick her parched lips. Cole’s breath caught at the tiny movement. His instant excitement rattled her own self-preservation instincts. “I’m just not any good at them. Not in the long haul. Don’t invest your time and energy in me.”

  “I already have.” That sinfully deep, soft voice whispered past all her insecurities. “There’s no camera, no audience here. I’m going to kiss you because I need to. I want to.” He moved imperceptibly closer.

  Caught in the spell of that voice, she was powerless to move away.

  “And if you feel anything at all, I wouldn’t object if you kissed me back.”

  “Cole—” He covered her mouth in a kiss so gentle, so tender, she ached at the softness of it.

  Her lips parted slightly beneath his as his fingers tunneled into her hair to hold her against the sweet seduction of his mouth. Fiery frissons of tantalizing heat melted their way deep inside, building in strength around her heart and creeping outward through every nerve and pore.

  Oh hell. Resistance faded beneath the need that surged within her.

  Tori moved her lips against Cole’s and the world shrank down to just the two of them. Man and woman. Loved and lover. Spark and flame.

  He tilted her head and angled his mouth over hers, plunging his tongue inside and stoking the rising fire. Tori latched her arms around his neck and held on as his thighs rocked beneath hers, sliding her right up against his own blazing tinder. Their tongues teased and twined in a seductive dance that took them ever closer to the fire.

  But it wasn’t enough. Tori raked her hands into the silky cascade of his hair. She worked the band loose and sifted her fingers through its curling length, then gathered up fistfuls of it and traced the fine shape of his head, only to let the hair filter through her grasp and tease her sensitive skin all over again.

  Cole skimmed his hands down her back, squeezed her bottom, then let them skid upward again, sliding beneath her blouse to sear the bare skin along her spine. There were moans and praises, whispers and delights. Tori dipped her fingers beneath his collar, stroking the strong column of his neck. The texture of his skin, the warmth of his pulse tempted her lips to follow the same path. She touched her tongue to the vein that throbbed with the rapid beat of his heart and tasted the tang of his skin intensified by passion.

  Something deeply buried and long-denied throbbed to life inside her feminine core.

  “Tori.” He whispered her name in that mesmerizing voice and kissed her chin. “Tori.” He called to her again, brushing his lips across her jaw. “Tori.” He pressed his lips to the hollow at the base of her throat, and she arched in response as a brand-new flame was kindled within her.

  Cole. She tried to utter his name but couldn’t speak. His hand had closed over one breast, catching the pebbled peak in the crease of his palm. He squeezed, and she jerked at the bolt of fire that shot straight to her budding heat.

  “Cole.” It was more breath than sound, but he gave what her needy plea had asked for. His fingers moved to the buttons of her blouse. He unhooked each one, pushed the material aside and pressed his lips to the skin underneath.

  He had her undone now, the material swept off her shoulders to expose the lacy shield of her bra. The thing was more for propriety than support, a small scrap of elastic and padding. She shuddered a moment in a self-conscious flashback to every flaw that Ian Davies and her mother had so matter-of-factly pointed out.

  “You’re beautiful.” Cole dipped his tongue to the indentation that passed for cleavage. “So responsive. So beautiful.”

  Those words in that voice were her undoing. When he closed his mouth over the straining bud, she bucked against the moist heat. She tipped her head back and let the molten fire rise within.

  She dug her fingers into his shoulders and squeezed her thighs together. He rubbed himself against her hip, seeking the same release.

  “Oh, yeah,” he whispered against her skin. “Just like—”

  A high-pitched chirp echoed inside the car, jarring Tori from her feverish stupor. Her eyes snapped open as a second chirp jolted her back to reality.

  Cole swore. He raised his head and kissed her on the mouth. “Stay with me, baby.”

  “Baby?” It wasn’t the endearment so much as the command that chilled Tori and withered the unsatisfied needs inside her.

  “I wanted to call you something personal.”

  The phone chirped again and Cole cursed the interruption.

  What the hell was she doing? Making love in a parked car in the middle of the afternoon. With Cole Taylor. Virile stud for hire with the delicious voice and the bad attitude.

  And she was Victoria Westin.

  Not Agent Westin, playing a part. Not Professor Westin, interested only in scholarly pursuits.

  Victoria. Of the small chest and the bad choices and the inability to satisfy a man in bed.

  She should have been blushing madly, her humiliation was so complete. But there didn’t seem to be any heat left inside her. As the phone chirped again, she plucked it from Cole’s belt and pressed it into his hand, pushing herself off his lap in the same jerky motion.

  “Victoria?” He swiped his hair off his forehead and dropped his j
aw to take a deep, steadying breath. “Victoria,” he demanded.

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at the questions in those intense blue eyes. “Answer the damn phone.”

  With a snap of his wrist that nearly broke the phone in two, he flipped it open and put it up to his ear. “Taylor.”

  His side of the conversation was terse and strained. It was Jericho, she quickly figured out, going on about something. The shooting, she guessed.

  But the call took long enough for her to rebutton her blouse and pinch some color back into her cheeks. She was trying to smooth the nearly-had-sex look out of her hair when Cole disconnected the call.

  “He’s called a meeting back at the house.” He didn’t elaborate on the meeting’s purpose, but she could guess. “I have to go.”

  Tori nodded and buckled herself in. She needed the support to hold herself upright as much as she needed it for safety. “I suppose he wants retribution against whoever shot his golden boy.”

  “I won’t let him hurt anyone. I’ll convince him he can’t waste his energy on anything but Daniel right now.”

  Tori released the brake and shifted the car into gear. “Jericho might not be the only one you have to convince. Chad got shot at too. He might not be so willing to listen to reason.”

  Cole leaned back against the seat and buckled in. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

  She was fine with silence. She drove out of the parking lot and merged with the traffic heading south toward the eternal gloom of the Meade estate.

  Tori felt him look her way, but concentrated on her driving instead of facing him. His answering sigh matched her own dark thoughts.

  “For a few minutes there, I felt normal,” he said. “Being with you is as real as my world’s gotten for two years.”

  Real? Those few minutes in Cole’s embrace had been pure fantasy for her—a wonderful, guilty pleasure that shouldn’t repeat itself. She shouldn’t care that he hurt, she shouldn’t set herself up for failing him—or her mission.

  When she didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m not going to apologize for kissing you.”

  “You shouldn’t.” At least she could be honest with him. “You weren’t in it alone.”

  That small concession seemed to take the edge off his foul mood. He searched the seat for the band she’d discarded and combed his hair back into its tightly controlled style. “You’ll keep my secret, I trust, Agent Westin?”

  She turned onto Highway 71 and headed south. “Just like I know you’ll keep mine, Detective Taylor.”

  “When we get back to the house, I’ll turn off the cameras and let you search a few of the rooms.”

  That surprised her. At last, she dared a glance at his handsome face and found him watching her. She mustered a weak smile. “Thanks.”

  It was what she’d wanted from the start, wasn’t it? As close to free rein of the estate as she could get?

  But it was small consolation for turning her life and her heart upside down.

  BREAKING INTO JERICHO’S office was a piece of cake the second time around. True to his word, Cole had taken her into his office, shown her the bank of television monitors and turned all of them off. Since the guard had been sent outside to patrol the grounds, there was no one around to turn them back on.

  Cole had excused himself for a quick shower and fresh change of clothes, and by the time he was done, Jericho had convened the meeting in the living room, where everyone could be comfortably seated. Chad, Lana, Paulie, Aaron, Jericho and Cole were all there to discuss the shooting, and she hadn’t been invited.

  Tori had already gone through several of the rooms upstairs and come up empty. As long as she didn’t make enough noise to activate the listening devices, she could explore to her heart’s content until dinnertime.

  If she should happen to stumble upon the statue itself, great. She’d wrap it up, sneak out of the house and never look back on any of these people again. But Tori wasn’t holding her breath. A wiser plan was to search for Jericho’s keys to the catacombs or any kind of hidden file or computer disk that might show where the missing items from Jericho’s collection were stored.

  Remembering Cole’s warning to steer clear of the safe and Jericho’s computer, she locked the door behind her and made a beeline for the bookshelves.

  Though the June evening should be casting natural light through the windows, the sky overhead was heavy with rain, blotting out the sun and coating the air outside with a fine, pervasive mist. Tori relied on her penlight to dispel the shadows and illuminate the display of lacquer boxes on the shelves.

  Before opening the first box, she took a deep breath and turned her head to acknowledge the portrait of Daniel and Jericho, who seemed to be looking over her shoulder like constant, silent guardians. Only, there was nothing benevolent in those unblinking, blue-eyed stares. It was as if someone was in the room with her, lurking in the shadows. Watching. Spying. Lying in wait.

  Get a grip. Tori shook off the crawly sensation and chided herself. She’d thrived on fairy tales as wicked as the Grimms’ and as sweet as Andersen’s as a child. But since her father’s death, since surviving her mother’s guidance, since distancing herself from her grandfather and training with the Bureau, she’d become a very practical person. She didn’t believe in ghosts, she didn’t believe in fairy tales, she didn’t believe in knights in shining armor.

  Of course, there was one blue knight who seemed to tangle up fantasy and reality inside her head.

  Tori gripped the shelf and squeezed her eyes shut as a wave of remembered longing swept through her body. She could feel Cole’s pain again. She could imagine his touch against her breasts and mouth. She could sense her self-preserving distance crumbling into dust as he took her hand and insisted she be a part of his world.

  Stop it. Someone was laughing at her, laughing at her fanciful notions and womanly dreams.

  “You can’t cut it with a man, baby,” Ian had told her. “Not with that skinny-ass body and those wide-eyed dreams.”

  “Oh, sweetie. You know doctors can fix your inadequacies now.” She distinctly remembered her mother thrusting out her breasts. “They fixed mine.”

  The laughter got mixed up with her pounding pulse and thundered in her ears. She snapped her eyes open and swung the light around to face the painting. Still and lifeless as always.

  Tori forced herself to breathe evenly, in through the nose and out through the mouth, gathering her thoughts, sharpening her senses and firmly dismissing anything that couldn’t be explained by logic or science or evil intentions.

  Someone was laughing. A deep, rhythmic, slowly pulsing sound. A man’s laugh. She frowned, turning her ear to find its source. Not voices from the hallway. No audible screen saver on the computer screen. She crossed to the window and pulled aside the drape, looking for someone outside. But the rain was falling in sheets now, making visibility for any distance impossible. Static electric lightning blinked high in the clouds and seconds later thunder rolled in the distance.

  Thunder.

  “Duh.”

  Tori’s breath rushed out. She shook her head at her own foolishness and hurried back to the shelves to continue her search. Thunder. Of course. Low-pitched. Pulsing. Drawn out like a slow, lazy laugh.

  What an idiot. Specially Trained Agent Spooked by Thunder—Mistakes Storm for Someone Spying on Her. Her supervisor and the two Bills would get a laugh out of that one if they ever found out.

  But no one would ever find out her little inadequacies. She’d do her job, and do it well. All she needed were the keys to the catacombs, and she had a hunch everything else would quickly fall into place. Then she could get out of this would-be haunted house and forget about the Meades and Cole Taylor and fanciful notions for good.

  Of course, she couldn’t really leave Cole without a contact to the outside world. He’d be an undercover cop without any backup. A sitting duck. But there was A.J. Maybe he could be talked into helping out.

  T
ori shook her head. She needed to focus on the job. Her job.

  She spent a few minutes looking through several of the boxes. Most were empty, some held folded-up notes—like an old, well-preserved love letter from Jericho’s wife. She smiled at the murderer’s sentimental streak and gently replaced the letter. One box was filled with pieces of broken toys—a decapitated head from a World War I iron army figure, a metal car with no wheels, beads and a string, a small wooden dagger, warped and split with age.

  Keys.

  Tori smiled at her success, the only outward show of charged adrenaline she’d allow herself. The keys weren’t bunched together on a ring, but lay scattered throughout the box. Some were shiny, others tarnished with age. She picked out all six and stuffed them into the pocket of her black slacks. Mission accomplished.

  Maybe it was a symptom of old age, she thought. Collecting things. Revisiting fond memories, preserving the past. Jericho had certainly been obsessively protective of that blue lacquer box with the silver scrollwork. Even though she’d found enough keys to unlock several doors, curiosity and a nagging instinct that there was more to find made her reach for that blue box.

  Propping her penlight between her lips, she pulled the box down from its eye-level shelf. Its rectangular shape fit neatly within the span of her hand. Hearing the thunder outside like a drumroll of anticipation now, she slowly lifted the lid and peeked inside.

  “Oh God!”

  She dropped the box, the lid, the light, and the stiff, desiccated stump of a man’s finger to the carpet and jumped back.

  A split second later she realized she’d screamed out loud, clearly announcing her unauthorized presence in the room. She slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

  She could hear the shuffle of furniture, doors creaking open and snapping shut, the bustle of footsteps crossing marble flooring and wood and carpet.

  Tori wasted no time cursing her luck. She quickly squatted down, swallowed her revulsion and picked up the mummified appendage by the silver signet ring wedged at its base, and dropped it back into the box. She grabbed her light and the lid and replaced everything on the shelf.