Last Man Standing

by Julie Miller

  She nodded, leaned back against his hand and let him pull a taut bud into his mouth. The perfume of her skin went straight to his head. Her husky moan cut straight to his groin. He wasn’t going to last much longer. But he wanted her in the homestretch with him. He laved the other breast, and she was squirming in his lap, squeezing her thighs around his hips, clutching at his hair and holding his mouth against her.

  “Oh God, Cole. Cole?”

  He lifted his mouth to hers and answered every greedy demand of her kiss. He dipped his fingers beneath the waist of her shorts and cupped her bottom, lifting her against his bulging, burning heat.

  “Tori…” He bit back baby so he wouldn’t spoil the moment. “I don’t think I can wait.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Her fingers clawed at the snap of his jeans. She rose up to her knees, and he worked her shorts off her legs. The zipper came next. She peeled the denim from his hips and he sprang free.

  “Cole! There’s nothing—”

  She blushed, and he kissed her for it.

  “You think I sleep in a suit and tie?”

  She laughed and grasped at his bottom as he rolled her onto her back and settled between her legs.

  “I want this, Victoria Westin. I want you.”

  She nodded. “Now.”

  He found her wet, slick heat and eased inside.

  Her fingers skimmed right up his spine and she pulled him down on top of her. “I said now.”

  Yeah, he had his work cut out for him, keeping up with this lady. “Bossy britches.” He grinned and gathered her into his arms.

  She closed those long legs around his hips and Cole plunged into her, again and again. Then, in one blazing moment, her back arched, he thrust, and the world exploded deep inside him, all around him, as their amazing chemistry consumed them both.

  Catching his breath sometime later, Cole pulled up the covers and spooned himself against Tori’s back. He buried his nose in the perfumed silk of her hair and smiled. He’d finally discovered a way to slow her down.

  Her fingers laced through his where they rested against her stomach. She made a valiant effort to speak, but it wasn’t much more than a drowsy slur into the pillow. “I’m not bossy.”

  He grinned. “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not.” She yawned.

  He pulled her hair aside and kissed her neck. “Go to sleep.”

  “Okay, I’ll do what you say. See?” She squeezed his hand and in a few minutes she was snoring softly against her pillow.

  Cole lay awake in the darkness and absently stroked her hair, memorizing every touch, every scent, every imprint of her body. He recalled her shy words and bold actions. He noted how such a strong woman could feel so vulnerable curled inside his arms.

  Holding Tori, he felt a peace and contentment that had eluded him for too long.

  He stayed awake and memorized what this felt like.

  Because he knew it wouldn’t last.

  HOMICIDE DETECTIVE GINNY Rafferty-Taylor looked across the seat at her younger partner, Merle Banning. Of course, a few scars and some hard experiences on the job had stripped him of his youthful edge. Nobody thought of him as the precinct’s rookie computer geek anymore. But then, it had been a long time since she’d thought of him as anything but one of her best friends.

  “Are you thinking this was a wild-goose chase too?”

  “It crossed my mind.” He pointed through the windshield. “The sun’s coming up. Even the hookers have gone to bed for the night. I’m guessing our informant isn’t going to show.”

  Her frustrated sigh stirred the wisps of silver-blond hair that framed her face. “I hope it’s just cold feet and not the alternative.”

  Nine prostitutes had been murdered in downtown Kansas City over the past eleven years. Seven of those unsolved deaths had already been transferred over to the cold-case-file section. Two of the most recent killings shared enough of the same M.O. that Ginny was thinking she had some kind of serial killer on their hands.

  But there were no leads. No fingerprints. The victims had nothing in common except their profession.

  Until that call she took yesterday afternoon at the Fourth Precinct offices. A frightened woman, claiming to be a prostitute, said she had information on the last hooker’s murder. She said there was a client—a man who had threatened her life—who’d been bragging about how he was cleaning up the streets of K.C. when the cops couldn’t. He claimed he was a killer who could never be caught.

  Ginny’s gut had responded to that woman’s fear. Her keen intellect had responded to the details about the last murder she’d shared. This prostitute, calling herself Daisy, had promised to meet with Ginny on the street where she worked.

  But the neon lights had been turned off an hour ago. Even the streetlights were starting to fade.

  “I gave up my weekly cooking lesson with my mother-in-law and an evening at home with Brett to do this stakeout.” Her cooking skills were showing improvement, though her husband never once complained about burned dinners or take-out food.

  “How’s that going?” Merle asked, scanning his side of the abandoned street while she studied hers.

  “The cooking or the marriage?”

  He laughed. “Both, I guess.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone yet, and amazing. Brett and I are talking about starting a family, but we both seem to work all the time. We’re trying to change priorities and get our schedules—” A flicker of movement in the doorway of one of the black-painted brick buildings caught her eye. “Half a block down. Check that out.”

  “I see it.”

  A woman dashed out of the tenement building, clutching a shiny silver coat around her neck, obscuring her face. Her garish blond hair bobbed back and forth as she turned her head from side to side. The woman either wore too much makeup or sported two black eyes. She took a couple of steps toward Ginny and Merle’s car, darted a glance behind her shoulder, then spun around and took off as fast as her silver spiked heels could carry her.

  “Do you suppose that’s Daisy?” Ginny asked.

  Merle shot to attention behind the wheel. “That’d be my guess.”

  A man, dressed in black from his stocking cap to his toes, slammed the door behind him as he ran out of the building, cursing and shaking his fist. He spotted the woman in silver and took off after her.

  Ginny had her door open first. “Call it in as an assault and get backup. If it’s anything more, we’ll take it from there.”

  “Ginny, wait!”

  But she was already charging up the sidewalk, her petite legs pumping as fast as they would go. She unsnapped her holster and pulled her gun from her waist. Daisy turned the corner and disappeared into an alley.

  “Police!” Ginny yelled. “Freeze!”

  But the man ignored her warning and darted into the alley.

  She heard a scream, the bang and crash of garbage cans against brick and steel. The man threatened to kill Daisy.

  Ginny slowed her pace as she reached the alley. Before she turned the corner into unknown territory, she pressed her back against the wall, gripped her gun between both hands and steadied her grip.

  “Ginny, wait up!” Merle was running to join her, drawing his weapon.

  Daisy screamed, and Ginny heard another crash.

  With the threat to life imminent, Ginny took a deep breath and rounded the corner, temporarily blinded by the alley’s impenetrable shadows. She held her gun in sure, steady hands. “Police. On the ground, now.”

  Through a trick of the light, she thought she saw Daisy standing on one side of the alley, and the man in black on the other, tossing garbage cans against the wall.

  “What the hell?”

  Daisy wasn’t the woman in trouble.

  “All you Taylors are gung ho hero types, aren’t you.”

  The flicker of movement on the fire escape above her registered a split second too late. Ginny raised her gun. But the second man in black fired first. An explosi
on of pain ripped through her chest and knocked her to the ground.

  Her head bounced off the pavement and her gun flew from her hand. She was vaguely aware of Merle calling her name, firing his weapon. One man in black collapsed in the pile of garbage cans. She saw sparks fly as the other man ran up the fire escape stairs.

  Merle grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket and dragged her back to the sidewalk.

  She never did see where Daisy went. But the other woman’s voice, damning the Taylors for ruining everything, echoed in her ears until darkness claimed her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cole paced the hospital waiting room while the rest of the family huddled around Brett.

  Cole’s oldest brother—big, bad Brett Taylor—sat on the couch, crying and praying and talking tough while he waited for any word from surgery. His mother, Martha, sat on his left, hugging him close. His sister, Jessie, sat on his right, holding his hand.

  Brett was the one who always handled things. He’d taken charge when their father had been hospitalized. He’d worked an extra job through school to help support a family of six siblings. He was the one who shook some sense into his younger brothers when they did something stupid, then stood beside them when they needed a friend.

  But indomitable Brett had been leveled when he learned his wife had been shot. That the bullet had pierced a lung, broken two ribs and nicked her heart. That it would take four hours of surgery or longer to maybe—hopefully—save her life.

  Cole stopped in his tracks, some distance away. Was that what love did to a man? Was that the same fierce emotion that had nearly crippled him when he heard the struggle in Tori’s bedroom so soon after she’d been shot at? Love?

  Did Cole Taylor even have it in him to love anymore?

  Or had guilt and cynicism and too much death destroyed his heart?

  He seemed to find enough of it last night in Tori’s arms. It wasn’t just the sex, though that had been a mind-blowing ride. It was the talking and the cuddling and the sharing.

  It was the regret he felt when he took that call from Mitch about Ginny and tried to argue Tori out of investigating the catacombs by herself. It was her game-faced acceptance that it was back to work as usual, that their night together had been a wonderful fling but she didn’t expect him to commit to anything.

  His heart had been reborn with the possibility of loving Victoria Westin. It had been crushed with the idea that he’d already lost her.

  Suddenly, Brett surged to his feet, snapping Cole from his gloomy thoughts. The surgeon, drying his hands on a towel, came out of the OR. The rest of the family gathered around, and Cole drifted closer, as anxious as his brother to hear the doctor’s report.

  Critical but stable, with the expectation that Ginny would be upgraded to guarded condition once she was moved from the surgical ICU. Brett picked up the surgeon and hugged him and there were thank you’s and thank God’s all round.

  “Penny for your thoughts, son.”

  Cole stood a little straighter as his father broke off from the group and walked over to him. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and summoned a smile. “That’s great news about Ginny.”

  “Yes, it is.” Sid’s brown eyes warmed with a smile. “The doctor says it’ll take her a few months to recover, but that’s all right. I can’t imagine she’ll have a more attentive nursemaid than your brother. And, of course, the rest of us will be there to help out.”

  The rest of us. “Yeah.” Cole’s shoulders sagged as his smile faded. “I don’t suppose Brett will be wanting my help.”

  Sid frowned. “He doesn’t blame you.”

  “He should. Mitch said Merle Banning reported specific threats against the Taylors. That it was a setup.” He shook his head, knowing the Meades had to hate him an awful lot to be so cruel and vindictive to his family. “It’s my fault.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “I’m responsible for you guys getting hurt—”

  “You’re not hurting us—”

  “Dad—”

  Sid grabbed him by the arm and led him farther down the hall, well beyond earshot of the others. He turned Cole to face him before releasing him. “Do you remember a few years back, when I went into the hospital for my heart and had bypass surgery?”

  He remembered it all too well. “Yeah. We almost lost you. I couldn’t get there soon enough, then I couldn’t stay, and Brett chewed my butt. Kind of like today.”

  “But you were there. You came to see me in my room. Do you remember what you said to me that day?”

  Cole shook his head. “I just recall being scared and feeling useless.”

  Sid dropped his voice to a whisper. “You said to me, ‘I’m working undercover, Dad. Something long-term, something dangerous.”’

  His dad remembered that five-minute conversation? “I didn’t know how sick you were. I wanted you to know that I was still trying to do the right thing. Just in case…”

  Neither one finished the sentence. Sid Taylor hadn’t died that day.

  “I kept your secret. Didn’t even tell your ma. Though she’d have been relieved to have proof that you were still working on the right side of the law. I didn’t tell her because you said your life would depend on keeping your assignment secret.”

  But someone knew his secret. Someone who’d resort to violence against his family to punish him. To break his will.

  “I guess I forgot that.” A strange sort of feeling—something humbling, something proud—took root inside Cole. “I know it’s hard keeping things from Ma.”

  Sid waved aside that comment. “She’s probably guessed it on her own. She believes all her boys are good guys.”

  “Some days, I can’t tell if I am anymore.” Sid gave him one of those ‘Dad’ looks, putting Cole on guard. “What?”

  “You told me you were out to get some very, very bad men. That you wanted Kansas City and your family to be safe from users and killers like them.” His father placed his hand on Cole’s shoulder and didn’t let go. “Don’t you think for one moment that you’re not protecting us, Cole. My brother was gunned down in the line of duty. All my boys give to their community. They make it better. They keep it safe.” That tiny root listened and began to lift up his soul as it grew. “Men like Jericho Meade take advantage of people when they’re down. They take what they want without any concern for what someone else needs. They create fear. They smell it. They feed on it. They don’t raise themselves up to be better men. They put others down so they feel superior, powerful.

  “You, son, and a few others like you, are the only thing that stands between the people I love and men like Meade. You might not be there to hold your sister’s hand when she’s going through something awful—” Sid squeezed Cole’s shoulder, and shook him a bit to make his point “—but she can walk the streets of her town, run her own business, marry the man she loves because you’ve made her world safe. Now, go to work, son. Ginny’s going to be fine. We’ll be fine. You take care of Mr. Meade and his business. So we can continue to be fine.”

  Cole couldn’t help himself. He reached out and gave his father a hug. He crushed him tight and held back his tears and thanked God for this man in his life.

  When he pulled back, he knew what he had to do. “I gotta go, Dad.”

  “I know. I’ll give your mother your love.”

  “Do that.”

  There was no confusion in Cole’s mind as he walked out of the hospital and climbed into his car. Jericho Meade might have a paternal influence on Cole’s current life, but he didn’t own Cole’s loyalty.

  Sid Taylor was a rare breed. A good man who’d raised a family of good men. A strong man who did the right thing, provided enough, talked the tough talk and backed it up, loved—and was there for—his children.

  His father set a mighty high standard to live up to—but he was damn determined not to disappoint him.

  TORI’S MEETING with A. J. Rodriguez went a hundred percent more smoothly than it had the day before
, considering Cole hadn’t spied on her and no one had gotten killed.

  A.J. promised to take the items she’d brought straight to the lab and test them for the synthetic poison, and try to ID her attacker through his DNA. Then he’d pay a visit to the Kramer clinic as well to collect any data related to Jericho’s treatment.

  She’d listened intently to his information about the waiter who was killed. The young man was an immigrant from an Eastern European nation that had once been part of Yugoslavia. Martín Lukasiewicz was from the same country. As were the chauffeur and hit man killed at the Kramer clinic.

  “What do you think they have against the Meades?” A.J. didn’t like to speculate, but his thoughts echoed her own. “Lukasiewicz has traveled to Europe more times than I’ve eaten at the corner deli. He imports and exports rare works of art. I’m guessing Daniel Meade reneged on a deal. Maybe he acquired something they’d already paid for, but conveniently forgot to deliver.”

  “Like The Divine Horseman.”

  “You said Daniel was in New Orleans when the statue was stolen.”

  “He takes a bundle of money from them, then keeps their national treasure for himself.” Players and motives were falling into place. “So Chad didn’t set up Lukasiewicz yesterday. It was the other way around. The waiter got caught in the cross fire.”

  “Cole said he recognized the shooter, though. How does that tie in?”

  And so the conversation turned back to Cole.

  She resisted the urge to ask A.J. about Cole’s personal life. If he even had one, what kind of women he dated, if she had any chance of measuring up. But pride and common sense prevailed. She’d told Cole that it had to be strictly business between them. She’d thrown out a tired excuse about attention to duty and responsibilities that couldn’t be compromised, but inside, she’d simply been a coward. She already loved Cole, maybe she had from that first encounter in Jericho’s office. She’d been afraid then, too. And the only reason was that she didn’t want to hurt the way she had hurt with Ian.

  She didn’t want her last memory of Cole to be the one where he broke her heart.