My next thought left me breathless. “Abby! I have to pick up Abby!”
I tried to sit up, but Cougar gently pushed me back down. “Shhh. Abby’s okay. She’s with Grady and his mother. We tried to get her, but the school wouldn’t let us have her. Said we weren’t on the list or whatever, but Linda called an hour ago and checked on her. She was doing her homework.”
I blinked at him. “Elizabeth’s out of the hospital?” With a trembling hand, I touched the growth of beard on his cheek. “How long have I been here?”
“Since yesterday.” He pressed the cup to my lips. “Drink slow. They said I can’t give you much at once.”
I tried to obey, but the cool liquid felt like heaven on my parched throat. I drained it, and could’ve chugged a gallon more. “What happened to me?”
Cougar set the cup on the tray table and shifted on the mattress beside me. “What do you remember?”
I closed my eyes and tried to collect my thoughts. I remembered meeting with Barnes, but I couldn’t tell him that. “Pizza. At the office. People were bringing in pizza.”
“Someone slipped you something, probably in your drink. Haven’t got the tox report yet, but the doctor guesses a hallucinogen like DXM or PMA.”
“What? That’s era—” I broke off, remembering Maria’s threat.
I can get to you anywhere, anytime.
Cougar gave me a fierce hug. “I know. In the middle of the friggin’ DEA building. Nobody knows what the hell happened, but you’re the only one that got it.” He hesitated. His voice was distraught when he said, “Babe, I can feel your heart pounding.”
Babe?
I pulled back and searched his face. Something in his eyes made my heart thump even harder. My gaze dropped to his lips.
Cougar trailed his fingertips down my cheek. I shivered when his hands lightly caught my shoulders and tugged me closer. He lowered his head. I caught the warm, cinnamon scent of Dentyne an instant before he grazed my mouth with a featherlight kiss. My lips parted beneath his, inviting him deeper, but he tormented me with another soft whisper of a kiss. His hands barely skimmed my shoulders, but they burned through the thin hospital gown. The tip of his tongue darted between my lips. This gentle assault was even more maddening than the raging passion of my dream.
His fingers tightened on my shoulders, and he pushed me away.
“Umm, no. I shouldn’t do this.” He stood and turned his back. “Not until I’m sure it’s really you this time, not some drug.”
I froze. “This time?” Heat flooded my face when I recalled my “dream.” “Cougar, please tell me I didn’t do something to embarrass myself in front of everyone.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, then he chuckled and shot me a devilish grin over his shoulder. “Not everyone. Just me, but I won’t tell anybody.”
“What—” I broke off as the door opened and Tucker stuck his head in.
“Hey, whaddaya know. Sleeping Beauty’s awake.” He walked in and nodded at Cougar. “When you get a sec, Angel wants to see you.”
Cougar rubbed his face, and I realized how exhausted he looked. “Something wrong?”
Tucker smiled. “Nope, something’s finally right. They’re walking him around in the hallway. He’s been asking for you and Necie, but we didn’t tell him …”
“Okay.” He looked at me. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time, and tell him I said hello.”
Cougar surprised me by striding back to me and kissing my cheek. Tucker’s eyebrows lifted, and the corner of his mouth twitched before he covered it with his hand.
“Hey, Coug,” he said. “I’ll stay here. You grab something to eat before you come back.”
“Not hungry.” Cougar winked. “I’ve been taking hits off Necie’s IV when she wasn’t looking.”
He walked out, shutting the door behind him. Tucker pulled a chair up to my bedside. “He’s been here the whole time.” He cleared his throat. “So … what do you remember?”
“That’s what we were just talking about.” Before we started kissing, anyway. “I remember the pizza, and the conference room. I remember Cougar coming in. What happened after that?”
Tucker smirked. “You mean, before or after you danced on the table?”
“I did not!”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, so you didn’t. To be honest with you, I didn’t know anything was going on until Cougar started hollering that something was wrong with you. You were a little quiet while we were eating, kept saying how hot the room was, but you acted normal until Cougar showed up.”
He paused, waiting for a reaction, and I said, “C’mon, Tuck. Don’t do me this way. Tell me what I did.”
He held up his palms. “Okay, okay. No more teasing. You just greeted him a little … enthusiastically. A big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Then you guys disappeared into one of the offices. Cougar came out a minute later, dragging you behind him. You were burning up and mumbling. When we got you here, your temp was 105.” He frowned. “I didn’t see who put the cups on our table. Neither did Ubi. People were passing them around. I don’t know if it was random, or—”
“I think Maria had it done,” I blurted, and his eyes widened.
“But… why? You can’t help it if her old man waived his right to a trial. And you’ve left Grady.”
I hesitated, wishing I could tell him the whole story. “I guess you’re right. But who else? Why else?”
“What about Grady? Maybe someone he knows has access.”
“Grady?”
“He’s probably pretty mad about the way your lawyer handled him. Then there’s Abby … He may not have primary custody, but he’s got her right now.”
“I have to get out of here. I have to go get her. Elizabeth’s not well, and I don’t trust him not to drink around Abby.”
The door flew open. Bill and Cougar charged in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, panicked by the anxiety on their faces. “Is it Abby? Did something happen—”
They looked at each other, then looked at me.
“It’s your house,” Bill said. “One of your neighbors called the station looking for you. She said your house is on fire.”
CHAPTER
12
What?” I could barely process what was happening to me. This wasn’t a grudge, it was war.
Wait until I take everything.
I can get to you anywhere, anytime.
Maria’s hateful words echoed in my head. I felt like screaming, but I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I yanked the IV from my wrist and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
“What are you doing?” Cougar yelled.
My head swam when a bright bead of blood swelled and trickled down my arm. Cougar pushed past Bill into the bathroom. He emerged with a fistful of paper towels. Kneeling in front of me, he pressed them to my wrist.
“Necie, there’s nothing you can do. Lie back down, and I’ll—”
“No!”
He paused and stared up at me in frustration.
I struggled to speak over the lump in my throat. “Take me to my house.”
“But, honey—”
I silenced him by brushing my fingers against his lips. “Jason, please.”
I don’t know what made me use his real name, but I could see it affected him. He looked away, and finally he nodded. “I’ll get your clothes.”
Bill and Tucker slipped outside while Cougar rummaged through the closet. He tossed my clothes on the bed and turned his back.
“Holler if you need help,” he said with none of his usual playfulness.
Having him so close should’ve felt strange, considering I had no idea what had happened between us yesterday, but it didn’t. My life had been turned upside down. Everything—absolutely everything—had changed, including my relationship with Cougar, but he was the only thing that felt right anymore. Part of me longed to tell him that, but I didn’t know how.
The things
I felt for him scared me. I tried to tell myself I could keep it under control, so long as I remembered the rules of the field I was playing on. I couldn’t get hurt if I had no expectations. Cougar wasn’t about commitment or marriage or kids. But still… all my life, there were parts of myself I’d kept guarded, and they didn’t concern Barnes or Maria. Those two had “happened” to me, like a car wreck or a disease. They didn’t have anything to do with who I was. Grady knew my secrets, but he never knew my soul. With Cougar, it was the opposite. Even in the beginning, I feared I couldn’t love Grady enough. With Cougar, I feared I’d love him too much.
“You okay?” he asked, and I jerked my T-shirt over my head.
“Yeah. All dressed except for my shoes.”
He walked over and again knelt in front of me to help. Like a kindergartner, I let him put my sneakers on.
After a five-minute argument with the head nurse, I signed myself out against medical advice. The four of us caught an elevator to the parking lot. I grasped the elevator rail to steady myself when we lurched in motion.
“Bill, how long will it take the arson investigators to move on this?” Cougar asked. “I don’t want Grady to even think he’s going to get away with it.”
“Grady didn’t do it,” I murmured, and Tucker shot me a sharp look.
Cougar frowned. “Come on! Surely you don’t think this was a coincidence?”
No, I thought. No coincidence at all.
“Grady’s a lot of things, but he’s not an arsonist,” I said.
“So, he had it done.” Cougar shrugged. “Same difference.”
“He wouldn’t do that to Abby. All her clothes, all her things …”
Bill squeezed my hand, but Cougar scowled. He drummed his fist against the elevator wall. “A guy like that, he thinks he can replace all that stuff. He was mad because you got Abby and you got the house. Now—”
Tucker elbowed Cougar and he fell silent.
“Now he has Abby and I have nothing,” I finished softly.
“We don’t know how bad the fire is,” Tucker said. “Let’s not assume the worst.”
But it was the worst.
Twenty minutes later, I stood in my front lawn, staring in shock at the smoldering remains of my home. Some of the foundation still stood, a weary skeleton of exposed beams being beaten by the relentless blasts from the firefighters’ hoses.
Fury roared inside me, as consuming as the flames that had devoured my house. The structure groaned and shifted. I cried out when what was left of the second story hit the ground with a thunderous crash.
Cougar’s arms encircled me from behind. “It’s only a house,” he whispered.
I broke away from him. “No, Cougar, it’s not only a house! It’s my videotapes of Abby’s first steps. Her baby book. It’s our clothes, my pictures …” I twisted my hands in my hair. “One photo album … that’s all I had left of my mother.”
“I’m sorry.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just glad you and Abby are safe. It could’ve been worse. So much worse.”
He was right, I knew, but what about next time? Would this satisfy Maria’s bloodlust, or merely stoke it? I wondered if Barnes had talked to her yet, and if he could even make a difference.
“What about insurance?” I asked. “If it is arson, will they still pay?”
I didn’t know what I’d do if they didn’t.
Bill nodded. “When I lived in San Antonio, my neighbors went through something like this. They were separated, the husband torched the house. The court determined she was entitled to her half of the insurance proceeds as an innocent spouse.”
“Court? How long was it tied up?” I asked.
“Two years. There was something about the policy, a clause that—”
“Two years? I can’t wait two years!”
I hated the hysterical edge I heard in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. Anxiety tightened my chest, and nausea burned my throat. Realizing I was on the verge of another panic attack, I started walking. To where, I wasn’t sure. I just needed to move. I heard footsteps crunching behind me in the snow and knew without looking they belonged to Cougar.
I stopped in the middle of a vacant lot and stared up at the sky. “What am I going to do?” I asked brokenly.
“First, you have to calm down.”
I hugged myself against the howling wind. “I’m scared of being … homeless.”
Cougar gave a surprised laugh. “Babe, you’re not going to be homeless. Even if the insurance doesn’t pay, you have friends. You have a job.” He paused. “You have me.”
He walked up behind me and grasped my shoulders, pulling me back against him. “You and Abby can stay at my place for as long as you want. No strings. Anything I have is yours.”
“I can’t stay with you. The divorce—”
“Screw the divorce,” he said sharply, then his voice softened. “I know you’re scared, but you’re not alone.”
I laid my head back against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me.
“I was homeless, once,” I said. “Did I ever tell you that?”
He grew still. “No.”
“I was ten. My mom hurt her back and lost her factory job. In a couple of weeks, she found another job working as a maid, but we got kicked out of our apartment building in the meantime. For a month, we lived in the backseat of our old Ford. During the day, I went to school and she worked at the hotel. It wasn’t bad, except sometimes it was a hassle to sneak me into one of the empty rooms to grab a shower in the mornings. But at night, from eight to four, she worked as a waitress at a bar called Buddy’s. I couldn’t go in there with her, and there was no one I could stay with, so I sat in the car.”
“Alone?” He sounded shocked. “A ten-year-old kid, and you spent the night alone in a bar parking lot?”
“The noises of the city scared me, the people coming and going, the sirens screaming … Most nights I would lie in the floorboard with a blanket over me, pretending I was somewhere else, but one afternoon, I went to sleep sitting straight up in the seat. When I woke up, Mama was gone and it was dark. I thought I heard something scratching on the driver’s window, but I couldn’t see anything. Then I twisted my head to look out my window, and found myself nose to nose with a wild-eyed, stringy-haired derelict. I screamed and crawled backward in the seat. He beat the glass between us with his filthy hands and laughed.”
Cougar’s arms tightened around me, and I was grateful for his warmth. This was the first time I’d allowed myself to think about that night in a long time, but the horror I’d felt never seemed to dissipate.
“He tried for the door handle, and I swear, I thought my heart would explode in terror, though I knew the door was locked. Mama always locked the doors. He yelled at me to let him in, spraying the window with tobacco juice and spit. I screamed louder. I was too scared to look at him, too scared to look away. He fumbled with his pants, and he … he exposed himself to me. He stood there, stroking himself while I screamed and screamed. I couldn’t open the door for the policemen who took him away. I couldn’t even open the door for Mama, but she had the keys.”
“Honey,” Cougar whispered. “What happened then? Did they take you away from her?”
I pulled away and glanced at him. The horror on his face shamed me. This wasn’t one of the cases we’d worked. This was my life.
“Uh, no. Mama borrowed some money from her boss for the rent deposit, and we got another place. It wasn’t much, but she put a whole row of locks on the door. It felt safer anyway.”
He stood there, still as a statue.
I dropped my head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you all that.”
“Hey.” He caught my chin and made me look at him. “You can tell me anything. I only wish … I only wish that had never happened to you.”
The pity in his eyes made me feel a little defensive. “It was a long time ago. The point is, I swore that would never happen to my daughter.�
�
“It won’t,” he said.
Tears burned my eyes. “No, it won’t, but not for the same reasons. If I don’t have a home, Grady and Elizabeth will take her from me. I have to find a place of my own or I’ll lose my daughter. I can’t lose her, Cougar. It would kill me.”
“I know.” He exhaled and ran a hand over his face. “We’ll find you a place tomorrow. Tonight you stay with me.”
He looked so tired and worried that I didn’t argue. Instead, I brushed a kiss on his jaw and thanked him. He smiled and said, “Ready to go back?”
I nodded and he held out his arm. I slid in close to him. deletion Side by side, we walked back to the fire. I realized that the only time I felt safe anymore was when his arm was around me.
Bill was talking to a man in fire gear when we walked up. He motioned me over. Cougar released me and went to stand by Tucker.
Bill handed me a business card with a number scrawled on the back. “Talk to this guy tomorrow.”
“He’ll be in charge of the investigation,” the man said.
“Do you think it was arson?” I asked.
He stared at the still-burning remains. “I’d really rather not comment until you talk to the investigator.”
“Come on, Dave,” Bill said. “Just give us your opinion.”
He sighed. “Well, the neighbor said that she spotted the flames in the living room first, then the whole bottom floor was engulfed within minutes. Rapid lateral fire spreading could be an indication of flammable liquids. But until he gets in there and pokes around, it’s anybody’s guess.” He nodded at me. “Miss, Bill told me you were in the hospital when this happened. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, and looked up to see Tucker walking toward me, holding out my cell phone.
“This thing’s been ringing off the hook. I hate to interrupt, but thought it might be important.”
Abby, I thought, and took it from him. I flipped it open and said hello. I heard a muffled voice, but couldn’t make out the words over the noise at the scene.
I plugged a finger in my other ear and said, “Hang on a sec. I can’t hear you.”
Excusing myself, I walked down the sidewalk until at least I got away from the sound of the other conversations. I glanced at the caller ID but didn’t recognize the number.
Paint It Black Page 17