by Kylie Brant
Telsom rubbed his jaw, then looked at Lindsay. “I suggest you call your family. Advise them to leave town for a while. Maybe stay with relatives.”
Lindsay shook her head. “They won’t go.” She saw the look on both the men’s faces, tried to explain. “My parents have livestock. Dairy cattle. I can only recall two times in my life when they both left the farm for more than a few hours at a time.”
“You’ll have to tell them what’s been going on with you.” Jack leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “Once they understand the danger…”
A wistful smile curled her mouth as she thought of her family. Funny how the very things that drove her to rebellion as a teenager brought on a wave of nostalgia now. “They can’t understand. They’re simple people living a purposefully simple life. And this is completely outside their comprehension. If you could send the sheriff out there, he may be able to convince them.” She hoped. “I don’t want to call them unless it’s from a secure phone. I’m afraid Niko might have had their phones tapped a long time ago, hoping to trace me through a call home.” Certainly he’d known just how to flush her out, once he’d narrowed down her location.
She saw the look Telsom and Jack exchanged. Then the captain nodded. “All right. We’ll reach out to law enforcement there. What county is your family in?” Lindsay told him and he pulled a notebook out of his suit jacket pocket, wrote it down. “The sheriff can send someone out there until we put the rest of the information together here.”
Corroborated her story, he meant. The thought didn’t bother Lindsay. But the time it was all going to take was beginning to burn. She had the sense that time was rapidly running out. “Do what you need to do. Niko Rassi is in Metro City. And I’m willing to deliver him to you.”
Jack’s gaze was sharp. But before he could say anything, Telsom spoke. “What do you have in mind?”
“He’s here for me. Let’s give him what he wants. Use me to draw him out.”
“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Jack surged to his feet, fists clenched.
Telsom gave him a speculative look before returning his attention to her. “You want to play a part in his capture?”
“You won’t catch him without me.” An eerie sense of calmness had come over her. She knew exactly what she had to do. Funny how things simplified when options ran out. “You can take this opportunity to land a cold-blooded killer the NYPD has failed for years to build a case against. Or I can call the New York branch of the FBI and offer them the same deal.” From the expression on both men’s faces, she knew she’d hit a nerve. “Scooping up Rassi gives them a vital informant about the Portino family. Of course, I’d rather the MCPD got him. I don’t want to chance him getting offered a deal from the feds and not paying for what he’s done.”
Although at this point it seemed like a luxury to still hope there would be justice for Niko Rassi. That he’d pay for the deaths of Ricky, Nathan and Wendy. But that didn’t mean she’d stop fighting for it.
When the silence in the room stretched, she gave them a verbal nudge. “Would it clarify things if you saw the pictures on that memory card?”
“You said it was in New York.”
Lindsay shot Jack a bland glance. “I lied.” Rising, she crossed to the steps and returned to the spare bedroom, aware that Jack was behind her. She kneeled next to her suitcase and dumped it on the floor. Then she carefully removed the plastic strip providing support on the bottom. Not without difficulty, she withdrew it from the bag, turned it over. The memory card was wrapped inside a small velvet jewelry bag, taped to the bottom of the strip.
She pulled it free and handed it to Jack. He opened the bag and took out the card, looking from it to her. And his expression made her nervous in a way she could ill afford. “I couldn’t tell you.”
His dark stare had her stomach jittering. “You could have. You didn’t.” Turning his back, he walked back down the hall. Leaving her on her haunches beside the dismantled bag.
Slowly, she fit the plastic strip back inside the suitcase. Repacked her belongings, with more care than she’d originally taken. She wasn’t going to feel regret for not being completely honest with Jack about the pictures. She’d survived this long by being cautious. And it wasn’t as though his actions in the last twenty-four hours merited sainthood.
But he’d believed her without the proof she carried. Which equaled trust. A trust she hadn’t completely reciprocated.
Lindsay shrugged impatiently, wishing she could slough off the sense of guilt as easily. Striding down the hall, she headed back to the living room. She’d had no reason in the last several years to offer unconditional faith to anyone. Certainly not the police.
Which made her ties to three cops in Metro City difficult to explain. And her growing feelings for Jack even more inexplicable.
When she re-entered the living room she found the two men huddled around Jack’s computer, a digital camera plugged into it. She didn’t want to look. Just the thought of seeing those images again had nausea stirring. Not knowing the victims didn’t lessen the dreadfulness.
But like lead filings to a magnet, her gaze was pulled to the screen where the first picture had unfolded. Seeing Niko’s satisfied smile again struck her with the force of a blow.
Oh God. She hauled in a breath, but her lungs still felt strangled. With a shaking hand she reached out, grabbed the back of Jack’s chair for support. It was like being catapulted through time, to when Nathan and Ricky first had shown her the pictures. Reliving the horror as revulsion and shock had careened through her system. The realization that she’d fallen for a monster. Had slept with him. Shared with him. Unwittingly exposed her family and friends to danger. Because she’d never once suspected the vile darkness that lurked beneath Niko’s veneer of glossy charm.
She turned away from the computer, made her way to the couch on wobbly knees and sank down on it. The low conversation between Jack and his captain faded to a background buzz. The full magnitude of her plans finally hit her. She’d have to face Niko again. Her stomach twisted in knots. And when that time came she couldn’t allow these emotions to distract her from what needed to be done. It was her only chance to right so many wrongs. The only way to keep her family safe.
And maybe…just maybe…if this thing actually worked and she got out of it alive…maybe she could learn to forgive herself for not seeing the man for what he was before it was too late.
Jack’s cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket to answer it. A moment later he signed off, turning to look at Lindsay over his shoulder. “That was a buddy of mine. Rammed the ballistics tests through in a hurry and then got a definitive match comparing them to those in the database. The bullets shot at us yesterday were fired from the same gun as those dug out of eleven victims in New York.”
After Jack’s news the next hour passed in a blur. Captain Telsom had left, taking the memory card with him, and Jack had spent most of the intervening time on the phone. When he finished, he crossed to the couch where she still sat and dropped down beside her. “I just got verification that the sheriff’s office in your family’s county have checked on them. Everyone’s safe.”
The bolt of worry that had been tightening inside her for the last couple hours eased a fraction. “They need to convince them to get off the farm. Make arrangements to hide them somewhere they’ll be safe until Niko’s in custody.” Would they be safe even then, she wondered? What if he got out on bail? All it would take was one phone call and he could have someone dispatched to Wisconsin to carry out his dirty work.
The thought strengthened her resolve. All the more reason to end it here. Now. To tie Niko up so tightly that he couldn’t concentrate on anything other than his own survival. The fierce feeling of satisfaction at the thought couldn’t be denied.
“Telsom will distribute a BOLO with copies of Rassi’s likeness throughout the department. I’ve contacted security at the Metro City airport and they’ll work on getting us the security ta
pes and passenger manifest. We gotta figure the possibility that he flew into LAX and rented a car. Getting the tapes and manifest from there will take longer. And going through the security tapes will take hours. But something will pop.”
“He could have driven,” she pointed out.
“Possible, but not probable.” Jack settled deeper into the couch cushions, turned half toward her. “He would have had to see the first newscast. Recognized you immediately, without double-checking your likeness to positively ID you. I saw the newscast, remember. There were only fleeting glimpses of you. He would have had to take some time to be sure. Then he would have had to drive nonstop to get here.” He lifted a shoulder. “Like I say, possible, but not very likely. But a gun nut like him probably would have preferred that.”
“Gun nut?” She frowned. “I don’t know about that. He kept a gun in the club, for intimidation in case of trouble, he said. Another in his apartment. But he didn’t have a collection. He never even went shooting, that I knew of.” Not for the first time, she was reminded that she hadn’t known Rassi nearly as well as she’d thought.
“Ballistics paints a picture of a gun freak. He measures his own ammunition, or uses a reloader. It’s a painstaking task and kinda pointless when you can buy the ammunition ready to go. Only the real fanatics get that into it, in my experience.”
Lindsay mulled that over for a moment. “That might fit. He’s very precise. Very exacting.” The first time he’d ever struck her had been after she’d left an article of clothing lying on the floor of his apartment. His show of temper had shocked and frightened her. She’d left then, tried to break it off. But after a few weeks he’d wooed her back with flowers and apologies. The memory burned. She’d believed his excuses of stress and exhaustion. And he’d never hit her again. Until after the pictures surfaced.
Another thought occurred then. “What’s a reloader look like?”
“I’ll show you.” She followed Jack to the computer and he typed the word into a search engine. Studying the image he found, she shook her head. “I never saw anything like this.”
“Like I say, not that many people bother with them.”
“No, I mean, there was nothing like this in his office at the club. Not in his apartment or in the house he kept in the country.” She thought for a moment. “Come to think of it, I never saw anything that could be used to engrave the shells, either.”
Following her line of thought, Jack nodded. “So he’s got a safe house. Probably an apartment somewhere in the city rented under an alias. Makes sense. Might be where he keeps his trophies, too, since he’s the type to take souvenirs.”
He swiveled in the computer chair to face her. “There’ll be a half dozen officers here in a couple hours. I think—and the captain agrees—that this place is as safe for you as anywhere else we could come up with. So this becomes the site of operations before much longer.” His eyes were unfathomable. “It isn’t too late to change your mind.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
His gaze never wavered. “We’ll minimize your exposure. Whatever the final plan entails, you won’t be at risk. I’ll make sure of that.”
She wanted, badly, to reach out and lay a hand along his stubbled jaw. To stroke the grimness from his expression and remove the bleakness from his eyes. That he would try to reassure her, even knowing she’d never been completely honest with him, was almost more than she could bear. And she wished with all her might that she could have been a normal woman. Met him under regular circumstances.
Because the strength of that longing frightened her, she gave him a slight smile. “Well, if this is going to become cop central in a few hours, I think I’ll take this time to get cleaned up.” She turned and forced herself to head to the stairs. But before she’d ascended all the way something had her halting, before facing him again. “Lying to you about the memory card…that wasn’t personal. Just reflex, you know?”
He gave a brief nod. “Sure.”
“But I could have told you.” She didn’t miss the sudden stillness that came over him at her words. “I know I could have trusted you.”
He said nothing. She didn’t expect him to. But neither did she expect him to surge out of the chair, and cross the room toward her, his eyes blazing with an emotion that had her catching her breath. He reached her in a few long strides, and crowded her against the wall. Taking her face in both of his hands, he lowered his mouth to hers.
The first taste of him was combustible. Heat beckoned heat as her lips twisted beneath his. It was too easy to remember the last time they’d touched. And everything that had happened since then lent a feeling of urgency to the moment.
She parted her lips and his tongue swept in, certain and demanding. Threading her fingers through his hair, she pulled him closer, reveling in his urgency.
Their mouths battled, lips and teeth and tongue intent on a sensual journey all too easily recalled. Desire was already snapping through her veins, summoned effortlessly by this man. Recognizing that didn’t alarm her as it once had. Exposing that streak of wildness inside was a pleasure when met and matched by his.
Jack moved closer, until she was pressed tightly between his body and the wall. And still it didn’t seem close enough. One taste of her hadn’t satisfied. His hunger for her had only been whetted. The urgency could have stemmed from the situation. The danger that still awaited.
He wished he could believe that.
Sliding his hand inside her loose T-shirt, he felt the smooth, satiny skin beneath and knew the truth. The coiling in his gut was due to this woman, Lindsay or Gracie or whatever she called herself. They matched, somehow, fire and fire, and he couldn’t reason it away. Didn’t want to.
Instead he wanted to feel the narrow length of her back. His palm swept up her spine. The delicate hollow between her shoulder blades. The baby-soft skin at the nape of her neck. And he wanted—needed—to forget everything else. To shove it aside and concentrate on only the two of them. To mate with her. To brand her so deeply, so intimately, she could never deny their connection. To steep himself in her until he was finally satiated.
He wondered dimly if that would ever be possible.
His hand passed over her stomach, where the muscles quivered beneath his touch, and then cupped her breast. He could feel his pulse churning, like a stallion straining at the scent of a favored mare. His response to her was too immediate. Too primal. But he didn’t try to temper it.
He found her nipple and squeezed it lightly between his thumb and forefinger. Lindsay twisted against him, and he felt a flare deep in his gut. There was something viscerally satisfying in knowing that he didn’t have to rein in the towering need rampaging inside him. That this woman could meet it, return it like two flames melding to burn even brighter. Knowing that drove him a little crazy.
Tearing his mouth from hers, he stripped the shirt off her, dispensed with the bra, and took a moment to look at her. Her nipples were already hard, turgid, begging for his lips. But he was the supplicant here. Lowering his mouth, he took one nipple between his teeth and batted it with his tongue. Lindsay wrapped one leg around his and pressed his head closer to her breast. Obeying her unspoken command, Jack stopped teasing her nipple to draw it more deeply into his mouth.
He suckled strongly from her, his free hand toying with her other breast, and felt her twist against him, her fingers clutching at his shoulders. Her touch was quick and frantic, and she wrestled with the buttons of his shirt, slipped her hands inside and skated them along his flesh to his shoulders. The slight sting of pain from her nails on his skin just fanned the flames hotter. Higher. And he knew he wasn’t going to be able to make this last.
There was a thrumming in his ears, a tightness in his belly that signaled his dwindling control. It was too hot. Too fast. Too wild. But the need wouldn’t be denied.
Raising his head, he hauled in a breath, a greedy gulp of air, hoping to calm his raging hormones. But he made the mistake of dragging his ey
es open, looking at her. And his blood fired, sending a scorching bolt of lust through his belly.
Her torso was willow slender, her breasts smooth, white globes tipped with tightly knotted nipples. He’d never been one to get turned on by piercings, but damned if that tiny hoop in her navel wasn’t amazingly sexy.
The pulse beat madly at the base of her throat, and he couldn’t resist biting that sensitive skin lightly, like a man sampling a delicacy. It was a primitive need, the desire to taste flesh, to steep his senses in her. But it was a craving that couldn’t be satisfied, no matter how he tried.
He nibbled along her jaw, attempting to rein in his rampaging lust. There was more of her to savor, to explore with lips and hands, teeth and tongue. Places he’d learned that made her gasp and sigh. Places he wanted to linger over again.
But he had the self-control of a sixteen-year-old in the backseat of his daddy’s car. And if they didn’t get to a bed soon, he was going take her with a similar lack of finesse.
Hooking an arm around her waist, he half carried her up the rest of the steps into the hallway. She gave a throaty chuckle at his hurry, and the sound torched his passion, a lit match to a gasoline-soaked fuse.
He halted, pressing her up against the wall. Their hands battled as she attempted to pull off his shirt. In the end he let go of her long enough to strip it off and toss it to the floor before crowding her against the wall again. Catching both her hands in his, he pinned them above her head and simply feasted on her.
He skated his lips over the curve of her shoulder. Dipped his tongue in the hollow above her collarbone. Her breasts were flattened against his chest, her nipples stabbing at him, and all he could think of was more. More time. More pleasure. More of her. Only of her.
A hot ball of need tightened in his belly. Desire fogged his brain. He let go of her to undo his jeans, drag them down and kick them away. Then froze when Lindsay hooked her thumbs in the sides of her pants and slowly rolled them down her hips.