On Dangerous Ground

by Maggie Price

  Trust, Sky thought as she pulled a folded form from her evidence kit. Two nights ago at her apartment, Grant had pressed a kiss against her palm and asked her to trust him.

  The raw emotion she’d seen shimmering in his eyes had ripped her heart in two.

  What he didn’t understand was that she did trust him. She had always trusted him. She just didn’t trust herself.

  With unsteady hands, she unfolded the form, laid it on the table, then closed her eyes for a brief instant.

  Five nights, she thought dully. For the past five nights the vicious monster lurking in her subconscious had flung her back to the most terrorizing moments of her life. She’d thought the months of therapy with Dr. Mirren had given her the strength to free herself, to get on with her life.

  Fool, she silently chided.

  She stared down at her gloved hands, impotent to stop the slight tremor that surged through them. The dream came all the time now. All the time. There was nothing to stop it. Except the day, she reminded herself, twisting her fingers together. Her monster didn’t lurk during the day, so she wouldn’t let herself conjure up the feel of the blade against her throat, the smell of the hand that clamped over her mouth to smother her screams. She wouldn’t remember, wouldn’t let the panic arrow through her, not right now, not here in this brightly lit room that smelled vaguely of prisoners’ sweat and fear. Not while Grant was only a few feet away. She had fallen apart in front of him once.

  That was enough for one lifetime.

  Standing in silence, she studied him though a veil of dark lashes while he conferred with Marcia Davis. How had it happened? Sky wondered. How had this whipcord-lean cop with the whisky-edged voice and appealing sandy blond hair stepped back into her life? She had pushed him away, turned her back on him. Hurt him. Yet, here he was. Granted, it was work that had brought them together again, but there was more.

  He knew. Not about the nightmare specifically, but he knew something was wrong. She raised a hand, rubbed a latex-sheathed index finger against her furrowed forehead. Of course he knew. She had seen the shadows beneath her eyes and the hollow look in her face this morning in her bathroom mirror. She’d lost so much rest that makeup no longer did anything to hide the ravages of insomnia. Of course he knew.

  He had asked her what was wrong. Several times he’d asked. How she wished she could tell him. Just rest her head against the warm comfort of his shoulder and tell him. She didn’t dare, she reminded herself. She was holding on to control by only a thin thread and she didn’t dare do anything around him that might make her lose hold of that thread.

  Expelling a breath, she suddenly realized Grant’s gaze had shifted and was now locked onto her face.

  The sharp assessment she’d felt throughout the four-hour drive to the prison sliced through her once more. She now knew what it was like to be a specimen under the lens of one of her microscopes, to be not just looked at, but into.

  His all-too-personal study unnerved her further, had her shifting her gaze to the nearest drab gray wall. Her already-clenched fingers tightened around each other. She had to get away from him, had to put some space between them. She didn’t want to go somewhere for a cold drink and conversation after they were done here. She wanted to lock herself in her lab’s cool, controlled confines. Hide.

  Her shoulders stiffened against the thought. She couldn’t hide. If she’d made a mistake in her lab, if she’d mislabeled vials of blood, that meant her testimony had helped put the wrong man on death row, and resulted in Carmen Peña’s death. She had to get to the truth. Had to find out if she was at fault and, if so, try to repair some of the damage.

  To do that, she had to work with Grant.

  The sound of the heavy metal door swinging inward had Sky’s head jerking sideways.

  She’d last seen Ellis Whitebear two years ago in a courtroom, the day the jury convicted him of Mavis Benjamin’s murder. He’d changed little since then, Sky thought as she watched the man shuffle through the door in cuffs and leg irons, a guard on his heels. Whitebear was big, broad shouldered, heavy topped, flat bellied. His straight hair flowed over his ears, thick and black, lapping over the collar of his white T-shirt. His copper-tinted skin stretched taut over high cheekbones that attested to his Native American heritage.

  “Ellis, you remember Detective Pierce and Sky Milano,” Marcia Davis stated as the guard escorted his charge to the table where Sky stood.

  “Yeah.”

  Sky was aware that Grant had moved to her side before Whitebear fully settled into a chair.

  “How you doing, Whitebear?” Grant asked levelly while the guard took his position just inside the locked door.

  Ignoring the question, the prisoner stared at Grant. Moments later, the man’s eyes shifted, then settled on Sky. “You want to stick me again.”

  Grant leaned in. “That’s right.”

  “Ellis,” Marcia Davis began, propping a hip against the table. “As I told you, something’s come up on another case that Detective Pierce is working.” She flicked a cool look at Grant before shifting her gaze back to her client. “The detective tells me he needs another sample of your blood to double-check a few facts.”

  The silver cuffs surrounding Whitebear’s meaty wrists clacked against the tabletop when he shifted his hands. “What facts?”

  “I’m not at liberty to get into that right now,” Grant advised, his gaze steady on the inmate’s face. “All I can say is that things can’t get much worse for you. Even if they could, I’m not looking to make them worse.”

  Whitebear sneered. “I didn’t kill that bitch. You put me here, and I didn’t kill her.” His narrowed gaze slid to Sky. Her throat tightened at the flicker of pure hatred in the dark eyes that locked on her face. “Both of you lied—”

  “We told the facts as we knew them to be,” Grant stated, his voice intense, unwavering. “If there’s more that needs to be looked at, now’s the time.”

  “He’s right, Ellis,” Davis added. “As I told you, we can use Detective Pierce as a free investigator who might make a positive difference in our situation. He sure can’t make a negative one. We’ve got nothing to lose by cooperating with him, and everything to gain.”

  “Ain’t much to gain by rottin’ in a cell the way I have for two years.”

  “That’s right,” Davis answered, raising a shoulder. “Ellis, it’s my duty to remind you that this is up to you. The police don’t have a search warrant or a court order. You don’t have to let Ms. Milano take a sample of your blood. You don’t have to do anything but go back to your cell.”

  To Sky, it seemed as if the air in the small room grew heavy while the man sat in silence, staring down at his cuffed wrists. Just when she was certain he was about to tell her and Grant what they could do with their request, Whitebear raised his head and met her gaze.

  “Stick me, then get the hell out of here.”

  Nodding, Sky pulled a small rubber ball, tourniquet and syringe from her kit.

  Grant picked up the form she’d laid on the table. “Before we get started, we need you to sign a Waiver of Search of Body form,” he said, then pulled a pen out of the inside pocket of his suit coat.

  Whitebear shot a contemptuous look at the paper Grant laid in front of him. “I don’t read much.”

  Davis stepped forward. “Read it out loud, Sergeant.”

  Using the tip of a finger, Grant turned the form his way. “‘I, Ellis Whitebear, after having been advised of my right not to have a search made of my body…”’

  When Grant finished reading the form, he handed Whitebear his pen, watched the inmate scribble his name.

  Sky retrieved several sealed packets of alcohol swabs and a blood collection tube from the kit. As incongruous as it seemed, she was glad for the distraction. It was easier for her to remain outwardly composed when she had a specific task to do.

  She had taken blood from uncountable suspects and prisoners, could nearly do it with her eyes closed. As she swabbed alcohol across
the inside of Whitebear’s arm, she knew the pinpricks of tension that probed at the back of her neck were not due to the task at hand. It was the thought that this man had possibly spent two years in prison due to a mistake she’d made.

  “Squeeze this,” she stated, handing Whitebear the rubber ball. With brisk efficiency, she wrapped the tourniquet around his thick upper arm, then slid the needle into his vein.

  “You can stop squeezing now,” she said after a moment.

  She had performed this task hundreds of times, she thought as she placed a bandage on Whitebear’s arm. Yet this was the first time her hands had been unsteady while doing it. The first time tension at the back of her head had built into an ache.

  “Thank you, Mr. Whitebear,” she said quietly.

  The man stared up at her through dark, hooded eyes. “Ain’t nobody called me that in two years.”

  Sky nodded as she retrieved an ink pad and small card from her kit. “I need your right thumbprint on this card,” she stated. Before she and Grant left the prison, she would go to the clinic and transfer the blood she had drawn onto four areas of the specially treated card. After the blood dried, she would seal the card in an evidence envelope and slip it into her kit to transport back to her lab.

  After Sky rolled Whitebear’s print, the guard approached the table. “Let’s go, Whitebear,” he stated, tapping the prisoner on the shoulder.

  While Marcia Davis followed her client out the door, Sky dropped the sealed tube filled with blood into a plastic specimen bag that displayed an orange-and-black bio-hazard emblem. The used alcohol swabs, bandage wrappings and gloves went into a separate pouch in the bag. She stowed the bag, the card with Whitebear’s thumbprint and the signed form into her kit, then turned to Grant.

  “I need to finish up in the clinic.”

  He nodded, his gaze intent. “I’ll wait for you out front. We passed a café on the way in. We’ll stop there and get something to drink. And talk.”

  She lifted her chin. “We can get our drinks to go,” she said levelly. “I want to get this sample back to my lab.”

  He took a step toward her. “Dammit, Sky—”

  “Don’t push me.” The words lashed out, edged with the searing fatigue and frustration that swirled inside her. The knots of tension in the back of her neck clenched. She couldn’t afford to tell him. Couldn’t afford to risk even one more second of the debilitating nightmare. “I have to…”

  When her voice wavered, his gray eyes glistened behind their sandy lashes. “Have to what?” he asked, his words deathly quiet on the cool, still air.

  “Deal with this case. Just this case. I can’t deal with you. I can’t.”

  Legs unsteady, she grabbed her evidence kit and headed out the door.

  Chapter 5

  When Sky appeared in the prison’s reception area thirty minutes later, Grant was still steaming over what she’d said in the interview room.

  He waited until they were outside and at the edge of the parking lot before he snagged her wrist and spun her to face him. “You’re going to have to deal with me, so live with it, Milano.”

  “On this case.” Her right hand clenched the handle of the evidence kit so tightly, he could see the white of her knuckles beneath flesh. “Outside of it, you and I have nothing to deal with, so you live with it, Pierce.”

  “Like hell.”

  She raised the evidence kit to eye level. “I need to do the DNA profile on Whitebear’s blood sample. We have a four-hour drive back to the lab. Let’s get started.”

  The leaden heat of the afternoon sun hung in the air, yet her voice was cool enough to chill Grant’s flesh.

  “Darlin’, we started a long time ago.” With the dull roar of anger filling his head, he glanced around the parking lot for something to tear apart with his bare hands. Seeing nothing but rows of cars, he settled on grinding his teeth. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  She blinked. “Nothing—”

  “Everything’s wrong! You’ve got shadows under your eyes, lines of fatigue at the corners of your mouth, and your hands weren’t quite steady when you stuck that needle into Whitebear’s arm.”

  Her chin went up as she jerked her wrist free of his grasp. “I didn’t hurt him.”

  “I didn’t say you did.”

  When she took a step back, Grant took one forward. All of his instincts told him if he backed down now she would walk away, for good this time. The past six months had shown him what his life would be without her. The memory of how it had felt to lose her settled a clawing ache in his stomach. He had no intention of reliving that experience, not if he could help it.

  “You know what annoys me the most, Milano?” he persisted. “People who lie to me. So I suggest you start telling the truth before I get really annoyed.”

  “I’m not…”

  When her voice broke, the fist around his heart tightened, instantly defusing his anger.

  Shaking her head, she turned her back to him and stared out at the parking lot. Beneath her white blouse, her shoulders looked board-stiff.

  “Sky.” His hands weren’t quite steady when he cupped her shoulders and gently turned her around. Her face was even paler than before, the shadows under her eyes like flaws in marble.

  “Don’t,” she said, making a halfhearted attempt to shrug from his grasp. “Please don’t…”

  “Tell me why you’ve put the wall back up between us.”

  “It never went down.”

  “It did.” Beneath his palms, her shoulders felt like high-tension wires. “The other day at the Training Center, when you told me about how the guy who attacked you grabbed you from behind, you let that wall down. Not much, but some. Do you know how that felt? Do you know how it felt to have you open up to me?”

  “I had to tell you.” She closed her eyes for an instant, opened them. “I flipped you when you grabbed me. I had to explain why.”

  The edgy desperation in her voice had Grant furrowing his forehead. “Then we went to dinner and started talking.”

  “About the case—”

  “We started talking. For the first time in months we talked.” He had felt something relax between them—he wasn’t mistaken about that. “When I got back from Texas two nights later, you’d put up the wall again.” His eyes probed her face. He wanted answers. Needed them. “Did I say something wrong? Did I hurt you in some way?”

  She winced, then looked away. “No, Grant. No.”

  “Okay, so nothing happened,” he stated. “I didn’t say anything to hurt you. You just shut me out again. I want to know why.”

  When she didn’t answer, he cupped a finger under her chin and forced her gaze back to his. “I’ve developed a big dislike for that wall, Sky. I’ll climb over it, tunnel under it or just knock a hole through it. Whatever way, it’s coming down.”

  She stared up at him through despair-darkened eyes. “I don’t want it to come down.”

  “Tell me why,” he countered. “If it’s a good enough reason, maybe I’ll walk away.”

  “I want you to walk. That’s all the reason you need.”

  Slashing knives of hurt stabbed at his heart. He hadn’t known those words would bring this kind of pain.

  “Dammit, I need more. I want more,” he added through his teeth. “Why do you want me out of your life? Because you don’t care about me? If so, say it, and I’ll be gone.”

  “We…can’t work.” She looked as though she might come apart in his hands at any second. “We didn’t work six months ago, and we can’t work now.”

  The fact that she’d avoided answering his question had a tingle of relief loosening the tightness in his chest. “Do you want me out of your life because you don’t care about me?”

  “As a friend.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I care about you as a friend. That’s all.”

  He remembered the way the pulse in her wrist had jumped, then pounded like a hammer when he’d pressed a kiss to the center of her palm. De
sire. It had been there, probably buried between layers of conflicting emotion, but there all the same. Maybe that was it, he thought. Maybe the desire she’d felt was responsible for the edge of panic he now saw in her eyes.

  “The rape,” he said, his voice quiet and level. “I don’t know what you went through because you haven’t told me. But I’ve been a cop long enough to know how bad it could have been.”

  Her eyes flashed, then went dark. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine, so listen while I talk. We both know I have a reputation around the department,” he continued. “Probably ninety percent of it is talk. If I’d done half the partying I’ve heard I’ve done, I’d be six feet under. But I do admit that all I’ve ever wanted out of a relationship was fun, games and no complications. Until now.”

  He traced his finger along the slope of her chin before dropping his hand and taking a step back. “Maybe that’s part of what’s put the panic in your eyes. I’m not saying I won’t have a tough time keeping my hands off you. I will. But I’ll do it. You’ll be the one calling the shots on this, Sky. I won’t touch you until you’re ready. You have my word.”

  “I’ll never be ready. Never.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Why did it matter so much to him to prove her wrong? Why did she matter? At this point he didn’t have a clue. She just did.

  “You need time,” he said softly. “And care. And patience. I understand that. I’m offering those things. All I want is for you to trust me enough to let me be a part of your life.”

  “It’s not you.” She turned and took a few halting steps toward the parked cruiser before swinging back to face him. The tears welling in her eyes put a knot in his throat. “It’s me, Grant. Can’t you understand? It’s me.”

  “Make me understand, dammit.” He walked toward her, his eyes locked with hers. “What is it about you that makes you want to shut me out of your life? Tell me, Sky. Tell me.”

  “I can’t.” Shaking her head, she took a deep breath. Then another. “Just take me back—”