Man with the Muscle

by Julie Miller

  “Objection.” Demetrius shook his head while his lawyer defended the insinuation. “The prosecution is making a prejudicial statement about my client. Mr. Vaughn was a known gang member. His unfortunate death is under investigation by KCPD, and no arrests have been made as of yet. Mr. Smith has been in a jail cell since his arrest, so he has an airtight alibi. He is not involved in that crime.”

  The ribbing chatter from the two thugs in attendance was quickly silenced with a look from the judge and the approach of one of the uniformed guards. Well, son of a gun. Did those two boys look familiar?

  Audrey continued to argue her point. “Demetrius Smith also has an affiliation with the Broadway Bad Boys—”

  “If that were the case, he’d hardly promote the shooting of one of his own people.”

  “He could order—”

  Judge Shanks pounded his gavel. “The objection is sustained. Jurors will disregard any mention of the defendant’s alleged knowledge of Vaughn’s murder.” He turned from the twelve people in the box at the front of the room to point his gavel at Audrey. “If you can prove a connection between Mr. Vaughn’s death and the proceedings at hand, I’ll reconsider your motion for a delay, Miss Kline. Until then, do you have enough evidence to proceed with the prosecution?”

  Was Smith grinning? Alex sat up straight in his seat. He couldn’t read the bastard’s expression from this angle, but there was no mistaking that Demetrius was looking straight across the aisle at Audrey, no doubt daring her to make good on her promise to put him away. What the hell? He curled his fingers into his palm, fighting the urge to wipe that smirk off his face. Couldn’t the judge see that?

  Audrey apparently did. Whatever message had been silently communicated, she shrugged it off, tilted her chin to that arrogant angle and faced the judge. “Yes, Your Honor. The D.A.’s office is ready to continue with its case against Demetrius Smith.”

  “Very well.” The judge tucked his papers into a folder and closed it before striking his gavel one last time.

  “Court is recessed for this afternoon. We’ll reconvene at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. Bailiff, will you escort the jury out.”

  “All rise.”

  Alex stood with everyone else as the judge exited to his chambers and the jurors followed the bailiff through a door at the front of the room. With the sudden buzz of conversations and movement of people filing into the aisle, it was impossible to make out the exact words being exchanged up front. But Demetrius Smith was tall enough that Alex could see his focus on Audrey. And as two guards turned him and took him away, Alex saw the slight nod of his head out into the crowd. His two bros shouted something in return.

  His body tensed and ready to spring, Alex stepped into the path of the two young gangbangers, reading their faces as they approached, trying to figure out what coded communication had just passed between them and Demetrius. Every gang had their own set of hidden signs, colors, words, symbols that could say anything from “I belong here” to “You’re dead.” But there were a few messages that remained universal between gangs and generations of gang members—even when they went on to become cops.

  Alex widened his stance, breathed in deeply and claimed the path leading to the exit. Both boys were teens, maybe twenty. Both were taller, skinnier, than Alex. And both understood Alex’s silent warning.

  “What?” the first one said, stopping in his tracks, giving Alex his space. “You harassin’ us, officer?”

  So they did remember him chasing them away from the Gretchen Cosgrove murder scene.

  “We ain’t done nothin’,” the second one said, pulling on a white ball cap before turning it to the side and tipping up the brim. “We’s just here for a friend.”

  “What did Demetrius say to you?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Alex wasn’t playing games with these wise guys. “What did you say to him?”

  If he stood there long enough, waited long enough, intimidated long enough, one of them would crack. The first one did. “We told D he was gonna get off.”

  “Any particular reason you’d say that?”

  “Cuz there’s this guy—”

  “Shut up.” The second teen took off his hat and whacked his buddy on the shoulder. So Hat Boy was the brains of the duo. He was smart enough to know when to cut and run, at least. “We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong bein’ here, officer.”

  “You’re the boys I chased off that murder scene in Mission Hills. You wouldn’t be stalking Miss Kline, would you? Intimidating the opposing counsel is a crime, you know.”

  The teen in the white cap put up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey. We’s just here to support D. We ain’t said nothin’ to your lady friend. Are we free to go?”

  With a nod, Alex stepped aside, knowing he wouldn’t get anything else out of them now. “Be good,” he warned.

  Hat Boy slapped his friend in the back of the head, reprimanding him on their way out the door. Alex watched White Hat turn to the right, away from the elevators, as he pulled on his jacket.

  He tapped on Trip’s arm, interrupting his conversation with Sergeant Delgado. “Don’t go anywhere for a while, okay?”

  “You onto something, shrimp?”

  “I want to check those two out. Sly and Twitch is how they introduced themselves last time. Call it in and see if you can get me their names. Turn on your phone and I’ll keep you posted.” Then he was weaving through the crowd, hurrying to follow the two members of Demetrius’s crew through the closing steel door of the stairwell exit.

  Alex caught the door and slipped inside onto the landing. He hugged the painted cinder-block wall, listening to the sounds of footsteps running down the stairs. Those boys would have been patted down for guns or knives before they even got past the front door. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t have found a way to stash something in the stairwell—not if there was some guy with a plan for them to make Smith a free man again. But the rhythm of their steps was even, continuous. They weren’t stopping to arm themselves.

  Alex took off down the stairs behind them, moving as quickly as he could without making a sound. Sly and Twitch were crossing the lobby when Alex came through the stairwell door behind them. They had no visible weapons, but Sly with the hat was on his cell phone before he even got out the door. They broke into a jog as soon as they were outside, skirting the crowd of reporters waiting on the sidewalk out front. Alex went to the glass and watched them run up to the corner, where a dark red Impala pulled up. The two got in and the car sped away. It was different from the car he’d seen on his way in. That was a lot of Triple Bs out of their neighborhood at one time. Could something be going down if they were all driving away?

  He let his gaze slide across the street to the park. Maybe a third of the people there were wearing some sort of low-slung hat or mask—ostensibly to keep out the cold, but conveniently keeping them from being identified, as well. That’d be an easy enough way to gather enough numbers for an attack of some kind. But no, subterfuge wasn’t a gang’s way. They were about an in-your-face show of strength and violence.

  Alex stood at the window a few moments longer, watching, thinking—wishing he could pinpoint exactly what felt out of place here. The protesters clamored behind the line where they were allowed to congregate. Some of them just wanted their moment on TV; others were taking a stand. Mothers armed with placards. Preachers having their say. The Grim Reaper.

  Maybe it was just that guy’s poor taste in attention-grabbing garb that made Alex think there was more than the usual trial hoopla going on here.

  The elevator dinged on the far side of the lobby and when the doors opened, the noise level inside the building doubled. Audrey, wearing a green trench coat and carrying her leather shoulder attaché, stepped out. Her red hair seemed like a beacon that the security guard, Cade Shipley, a group of print reporters and others followed out. While another guard escorted Mrs. Chambers and her friend toward a quieter side exit, Audrey, Shipley and the reporters all filed through the secur
ity gate at the front entrance.

  The instant the front doors opened, the press contingency outside swarmed upon them. They split into two groups, some following Shipley’s tall, dark, smooth-talking sales pitch, while others circled Audrey until she was hidden from view.

  Hidden didn’t sit well with Alex. So what if she was a striking, recognizable face from the Kansas City society page who could sell papers and give a cogent interview? Their eagerness to get a piece of Audrey’s attention felt more like ganging up on her, as if she was trapped, as if they didn’t give a damn about the invasion of her personal space or the job she was trying to do.

  Even if that job didn’t involve winning a case that was of personal importance to his team, every save-the-day instinct that had been drilled into him since the Taylors had adopted him and inspired him to protect and serve in the first place screamed at him to help out the lady. It took just over a minute for him to check out with the guard and collect his gun, and another thirty seconds to clip his badge on his belt and get through the door.

  Catching up to Audrey’s group was easy. Spotting her in the middle proved a little more difficult. What he wouldn’t give for the eight inches Trip had on him in height right about now.

  But what he couldn’t see, he listened for. He tuned in to Audrey’s voice and politely pushed his way toward the sound. “I got the jury I wanted picked this morning—more women than men. They should be sympathetic to our side of the case.”

  He almost grinned when he saw her red hair. She talked as if she was holding court, but there was nothing to smile about when he saw her effort to move forward, to get through them with little success. The uniformed officer who’d escorted her out kept the crowd at arm’s length, but they weren’t letting her pass.

  A reporter who identified himself as Steve Lassen, an independent journalist, asked, “Did your office do anything to protect your witness, Trace Vaughn? Lining him up to testify against his former boss got him killed, don’t you think?”

  That was when Audrey’s chin jerked up, a signal Alex was beginning to think meant someone had struck a nerve. “Mr. Vaughn wasn’t the prosecution’s only witness.”

  “But the fact you subpoenaed him to testify signed his death warrant, right? Any regrets over the deal you made with him?”

  Audrey’s steps stuttered to a halt. “I can’t comment on an ongoing police investigation.”

  Alex gave up on being polite and pushed his way through to the center of the mikes and cameras encircling her. With a nod toward the officer beside her, he slipped an arm around her waist. At her startled gasp, he latched on to a handful of her coat and pulled her into the crowd. “Miss Kline has answered all the questions she can for now.”

  “What are you doing?” She tried to pry his fingers loose.

  “Giving you a chance to breathe.”

  “Miss Kline…” Another round of questions bombarded them, and rethinking her resistance to his rescue, Audrey leaned her shoulder into his chest and hastened her stride to match his. His strong arm and stern look cleared a path for them and he got her through the crowd and onto the street.

  “Thank you,” she said, pulling away from Alex. She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, clutching it between them like some kind of shield. “I never used to be claustrophobic, but sometimes, when they’re all shoving a camera in my face—”

  “Keep moving.”

  One look at the throng of protesters and well-wishers waiting in the park on the opposite side of the street for their chance to be heard, and Alex claimed her waist again. Snugging her to his side, he angled their path up the hill to the intersection and empty sidewalk there. She fit nicely, just the right height for his five feet ten inches, even in those high heels that tapped across the pavement. But if she’d noticed the way her rounder hips butted against his harder angles, she wasn’t savoring the contact the way he was.

  Instead, she was fighting him. “I don’t appreciate your caveman tactics, Mr. Taylor. Those reporters are just doing their job.”

  She wanted caveman? Alex stopped in his tracks, his left hand the only thing that kept her from pitching forward. His right hand settled on the opposite side of her waist and he turned her in his arms, letting her read the warning in his eyes. “And they’re keeping you from doing yours.”

  “Yes, I’m very well aware that you and your friends were there to check up on me—to see if I could do my job or not.” Her green eyes sparked and she flattened her palm against his chest, pushing some distance between them. Even through the jacket and knit shirt he wore, the unexpected touch singed his skin. Probably not the reaction she was going for. Not the one he needed to be feeling right now, when he was trying to maintain the upper hand and get her away from the crowd.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Red. We weren’t spying on you. But two of Smith’s thugs were.”

  “What?”

  “I thought so. The two thugs who threatened you at the Cosgrove murder scene?” Easily overpowering both her hand and that tongue, he tucked her back to his side and crested the hill, checking the crossroads in all four directions. The uniforms were keeping the protesters in the park. The lights kept the downtown traffic moving in a normal pattern. He nodded to the surface parking on one corner, and the parking garage on another. “Where’s your car?”

  “Two blocks down. At the D.A.’s office.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re walking to your office?”

  “We’re walking the two blocks if you don’t let me go.”

  Smart mouth.

  “I always walk if the weather’s nice. The snow has melted off the sidewalks—the wind isn’t bad. The fresh air and exercise clear my head. Are you sure those were the same boys?”

  So much for a quick escape, putting his conscience to rest and getting on with the rest of his life.

  “Fine. Don’t make this easy.” He took her hand and veered south along the sidewalk, heading for the yellow limestone high-rise across the street from the far end of the park. She wanted to walk? Then she could hustle up those expensive shoes and keep pace with him before they got cornered by somebody else. “For your information, we were at the courthouse to support Mrs. Chambers and Sergeant Delgado. Her son died in his arms, and he’s not dealing with it very well. We’re a team—we stick together. We’re always there to back up the other. Frankly, you looked like you were fighting that battle all on your own.”

  Speaking of backup, he owed Trip a call or text message. Alex’s instincts had been right about sensing trouble; it just hadn’t come from the source he’d expected. But he wasn’t about to tell Trip Jones that he was going toe-to-toe with a stubborn woman who was testing his patience. No, sir. An admission like that would only trigger another six months of giving the rookie grief.

  “I know what I’m doing, Officer Taylor,” Audrey insisted. “I’m not afraid of a fight.”

  “You prove that to me every time we meet.”

  She dug in her heels and jerked her hand from his grip. “Officer—”

  “It’s Alex.” He spun around, sparing a glance beyond her shoulder to see a few members of the press sizing up this standoff between the police and the D.A.’s office to see if something newsworthy was about to happen. But it was hard to look away from pink creeping into Audrey’s cheeks. “All I’m saying is that maybe you need to fight a little smarter. Maybe a little less guttin’ it through on attitude, and using a little more common sense.” The blush of temper faded and her gaze dropped to the base of his throat. He’d struck a nerve with that last observation. Hell. That hadn’t been his intention. So all that high-and-mighty society arrogance was a defense mechanism. “I’m just making a point.”

  Her gaze shot back to his. “That I lack common sense?”

  “That you’re not as tough as you try to be.” The breeze whipped a tendril of fiery hair across her pale cheek. Alex caught it with his fingertip and brushed it back into place across her cool skin. He tucked the strand behind her ear, entran
ced by the warmth that colored her cheek beneath his touch. He exhaled a steadying breath, fighting the temptation to press his lips to the same spot to find out how responsively her skin would react.

  But a flash of movement caught his eye at the same time she cleared her throat to break the tender mood. The protesters in the park were drifting this way, following Steve Lassen and his camera as the reporter decided there might be a story in trailing Audrey, after all. Although Lassen was twenty yards away and the protesters were following a parallel course through the park’s walkways, they were getting entirely too close for Alex’s liking.

  He grabbed Audrey’s hand and pulled her into step beside him. “C’mon.”

  This time he slowed his pace so it wouldn’t look so much like they were running away. Audrey seemed to respond to the concession. She laced her gloved fingers through his and lengthened her stride to keep up. “Just because you’ve caught me at a couple of low moments in my life doesn’t mean I lack the skills to be a good attorney who can make a difference in this city.”

  “I’m not knocking your skills, Red.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in Trip’s number.

  “I just think you lack a backup plan.”

  “And you’re it?”

  He glanced across his shoulder at her sarcasm. “Did you want to be stuck in the middle of all that?”

  “All right. Fine. Thank you,” she conceded. “But this is a one-time rescue. I’ll be better prepared for all this chaos tomorrow. I wasn’t expecting this kind of publicity. I’ll just transfer everything I’ve learned about being in the spotlight with my personal life over to my work.”

  “I’m not talking about losing your temper and having it splashed all over the news, or getting claustrophobic in a crowd—I’m talking about your safety. If something happens to you, this trial gets delayed or dismissed.”

  “My safety? Did you not see the security at the courthouse?”

  “Where is it now?” He swung his arm wide, gesturing to the entourage following them through the park. That Reaper creep with his painted face and hooded robe was moving along with the crowd, as well. That guy had some serious issues. Alex texted a message to Trip and pocketed his phone. “You’ve got dozens of people following you—”