From Nicki’s vantage point, she could see that Sterne’s neck was turning red. She didn’t know what that meant, but she had her ideas about this guy. She imagined he was like one of those old-time thermometers in cartoons, the ones where—once heat was applied—the red flowed straight up in a rush and then burst out of the top, shattering the glass. Volatile was too mild a word for the guy.
Sterne pulled Melissa away from the door and slammed it. He shoved her back and stuck the gun out. His voice was low as he hissed, “Both of you, get over there!” His gun pointed toward the other end of the kitchen, near the doorway to the living room. “You say one word and someone will die.”
Both women complied as Sterne opened the door. He held his gun in his left hand, just behind the door, ready for use. Sterne stuck his head in the small door opening and said, “You’ll have to excuse my old lady. She didn’t actually talk to the woman who came to the door earlier. Are you talkin’ about that nosy reporter who came by a while ago?”
From where they stood, Nicki couldn’t hear Sean’s response. She did know that she and Melissa had an opportunity to get away from Sterne. From where she stood, she could see a big window on the street side of the living room, and maybe she could get Sean’s attention that way. But, no, if she got Sean’s attention, she’d also get Sterne’s, and then someone would get hurt. No, there had to be a better way. There had to be a back door.
Nicki placed her hand on Melissa’s arm and motioned toward the back of the house with her eyes. At first, Melissa scowled and seemed resistant, but then she nodded, sucking in a breath through her nostrils. The woman’s pupils were wide and dark, and she did look like a doe—her light brown hair pulled back, dark eyes, slender nose. Once they were in the living room, Nicki asked, “Where’s the back door?”
Melissa shook her head and started walking toward the back of the house. Nicki followed. The woman went down a small hallway and turned into a bedroom. And, sure as shit, there were two young boys in the room. They looked much like their mother—same brown hair, same helpless brown eyes. They were as quiet as a Sunday morning, sitting on the floor next to the bed. Both children appeared to be under five years old. Nicki felt an overwhelming sadness as she looked at the two little ones who had already learned how to survive in a house full of anger and abuse. Melissa sat down with them, apparently ready to accept her fate.
Nicki still whispered, but back here she could afford to be a little louder. She still heard Sterne’s voice booming at Sean, so she knew he was distracted. “We’ve got to get out of here.” The woman just looked at Nicki. Nicki didn’t want to leave her, especially now that there were children involved, but she didn’t intend to stay and play victim. “Where’s the back door?” Melissa pointed toward the back of the house to the left and took a deep breath. Nicki said, “Come on. Let’s go.”
Melissa hesitated but then stood. “Mikey, Dale.” Melissa picked up the littler guy and the older one took her hand. Nicki walked out of the room into the hallway first, then waited for Melissa. The woman continued down the hall toward the back of the house and followed it to the left, where it became a utility room complete with a beat-up washer and dryer, both old and not a matching set. The dryer was running, though, so at least they worked. The room had two unadorned windows, and Nicki could see sweet freedom in their near future.
Nicki stepped in front of Melissa to open the door so the woman wouldn’t have to let go of her sons. The door was locked, but Nicki had it open in short order. She moved the door aside, then stepped out to hold the screen door so Melissa and her children could get out. Once outside, they walked down the concrete steps. Nicki saw that they were on the driveway beside the house; in front of them were the blue Chevy and burgundy station wagon she’d seen earlier. She knew that the window on the house just above the vehicles had to be the window to the kitchen. If Sterne was still occupied with Sean, the windows wouldn’t be a problem, but if he was done and now wondering where the hell the women were, that window could prove to be a problem. However, Nicki didn’t want to waste time wondering how to get out of there. She hugged the wall, her back up against it, hoping that position would make them hard to see, and began walking toward the front of the house. She looked over at Melissa, and the woman followed suit, her quiet little boys drinking it all in but saying nothing.
As they edged closer to the front of the house, Nicki heard Sean’s voice again. She owed him a beer for this one. Fuck, she’d offer a blowjob too but she didn’t think he’d take her up on the offer. She felt a palpable relief wash over her as they got closer to the front of the house, one step at a time.
She also heard, in the distance, a siren, and it was getting closer to their position by the second.
The foursome continued their slow trek to the front of the house, and Nicki was finally able to make out some of Sean’s words. “I don’t buy that. Why would she just leave her car in front of your house?”
“I have no idea. She’s nosy. Maybe she decided to talk to all the neighbors.”
Nicki and crew had gotten as far as they could to the front of the house without getting to where they could be seen by Sean or Sterne, but they could hear everything clearly…including the siren that was now on the block. Only it wasn’t one siren—it was two. Nicki could tell that by now. She looked to the right and saw her first glimpse of flashing red and blue…not one or two but three cop cars. And they all stopped right in front of Melissa Jacobs’s house, blocking the road from any other vehicles.
Before anyone could get out of their cars, Melissa’s older son broke free of her hand and began running toward the police cars. “Mommy, it’s Cops,” he said, pointing and running in that jolted, awkward way that only toddlers can.
“Mikey, no!” Melissa too began running, chasing her oldest son.
Jesus. All that hard work. Nicki stood for a second, not sure if she should join the melee as well or just stand back. Sterne was more likely to shoot her than his sons. But he was also more likely to shoot Sean. Nicki began walking toward the three of them but looking at the porch. Sean was turned toward the street as well, processing all the developments, and that’s when Nicki saw Sterne, face now redder than ever, wrap an arm around Sean’s neck and point a gun to his head.
Chapter Twenty-one
NICKI HAD NOT asked Sean for his help to get him hurt, and yet that’s what was happening right in front of her eyes. As though it were in slow motion, the action whirred around her, and Nicki just stopped in her tracks to watch everything that was happening.
Little Mikey continued running toward the street, Melissa still holding the smaller child, trying to catch the older one. The police were starting to get out of their cars. They were on high alert, hands reaching for weapons. Their sirens were now off but the lights continued to flash. The driver of the car directly in front of the house held a megaphone. Nicki didn’t know if that was completely necessary, considering there wasn’t much distance. Nicki looked up at Sean. He didn’t see her or, if he did, it was in his peripheral vision. He didn’t look scared or angry. He looked calm. Nicki didn’t know what that meant exactly. It felt like a knife was twisting in her gut as her stomach acid resolved to eat her stomach itself with worry. Sean, I’m so sorry, she thought.
The police officer with the megaphone said, “Mr. Sterne, let the man go.” So the cops knew whom they were dealing with. The budding reporter in her wanted to know how they knew and what had tipped them off to the goings on. Nicki doubted Sean had called them. He didn’t trust the law, and she couldn’t picture him deciding that calling 911 was a good idea. Nicki knew it must have been one of the neighbors. They’d probably seen Sterne one of the times he’d peeked out the window and decided to call.
“No fuckin’ way, man.” Sterne looked like he was ready to blow.
“Listen, Mr. Sterne, you don’t want to hurt the man. Just let him go and no one will get hurt.”
“Bullshit.” Nicki could see from where she stood that Sterne was
desperate. He started to back up into the house, pulling Sean along with him. While Sterne backed up, the gun still pointed at Sean’s temple, Sean shoved his body to the right, slamming Sterne’s arm into the doorjamb. He didn’t drop the gun, but he did lose his aim. In the same instant, Sean twisted around out of Sterne’s grip and punched Sterne straight in the nose.
Yep, it was his BAMF hand.
Nicki’s body was stiff and immovable as she watched the action unfold. Sterne’s gun went off, but the bullet went through the already-crumbling porch roof. Sean punched him in his face again and Sterne dropped to his knees. Sean kicked the gun out of his hand and the gun fell to the ground near the side of the house. Nicki was closest to it, but she didn’t want to touch it.
The next thing she knew, no fewer than four officers were rushing up to the porch, and Sterne was in cuffs, blood dripping down over his lips.
Sean leaned against the wall of the house, his face pale. One of the officers turned to him and started talking to Sean when another approached Nicki. “Miss, come with me please.” Nicki saw Sterne being shoved into the back of a police car as an ambulance approached and parked behind the last police car. “Are you all right?”
It felt like someone else was controlling her body when she answered, “Yeah. I think so.”
* * *
The cops had asked a lot of basic questions, wanting to know how everything had unfolded, but they wanted to get more formal statements from everyone after they’d checked out the premises. In the meantime, though, they wanted everyone examined by paramedics and needed the area cleared. Several officers were in Melissa Jacobs’s house while Sean and Nicki sat on the curb next to her car. Nicki had seen Melissa’s sons with her in the ambulance as a paramedic was giving her the attention she no doubt needed. Mikey was being entertained by one of the police officers who was showing him the walkie-talkie mounted on a shoulder clip.
Nicki had so much she wanted to say but no clue how to say it. She had to try. “Sean, I’m so sorry I got you involved in all this.”
He looked over at her, a half smile on his face. “It’s cool, Nicki.”
She exhaled. “Yeah, but you could’ve gotten killed.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t.”
She nodded, looking out at the two cop cars that were now parked and no longer displaying their flashing lights. “Still…just accept my apology, okay?”
Sean was still looking at her and maintained his focus until her eyes finally met his. “Fine. But it’s unnecessary. It’s no worse than getting in a bar fight.”
“And when’s the last time you did that?”
He shrugged. “So I’m out of practice. I did all right, though.”
That he had. “I just keep thinking that I’d probably be dead if you hadn’t shown up.”
“Well, stop thinking about it then.”
“No, seriously, Sean. He had said that if the cops showed up, I was dead. But you came to the door, and we made our way out the back while he was distracted.”
“Then stop fucking apologizing, Nicki. You texted me for help, and I did.”
She scowled and pushed him with her shoulder. He was right. “Fine.” He shook his head, smiling. “And thanks.” He nodded. “Guess I should use this opportunity to get my own statements for the paper. A few impromptu interviews, and I’ll have one helluva story.” Her steno book and pen might have been in the house, but she had her car keys and fetched spares out of the backseat.
Chapter Twenty-two
NICKI STROLLED INTO Sean’s garage, grateful for the cool moist breeze she felt on her bare arms. It was the first rainstorm they’d had in two weeks, and she could hardly believe how much better it made her feel, both physically and mentally.
Sean was welding in the corner, causing blue shadows to dance around on the walls. His face was obscured by the helmet he wore, and he was leaning over, so Nicki knew he hadn’t seen her. She wasn’t concerned. She could wait.
He was playing Godsmack again, this time cranking some tunes off their first CD. As “Time Bomb” pounded through the garage, Nicki stood by the long table that ran along the entire east wall of the garage, looking at the framed articles Sean had hanging on the wall above the table. She’d seen them before—the picture where he opened his first shop and then the picture of him moving to a bigger location, the garage where she stood today. There were also other articles of some of his buddies, but there was a new one, she noticed. Sean had framed her first front-page article. She hoped, though, that she was holding one that would replace the one she was looking at right now.
This time her story was above the gutter, and her headline was large font. She was a real reporter now, and Neal had barely altered her words. Not only had she helped police discover where the elusive Michael Sterne was, she herself had seen the action, up close and personal. The hardest part of writing the article was keeping her personal feelings out of it. And the story was big. Sean had said he was going to start regularly subscribing to the paper, but she didn’t know if he had started receiving it yet, so she didn’t know if he’d seen today’s paper. He might be surprised that, after the day they had yesterday, she’d actually not only written the article but had convinced Neal to extend her deadline a bit just so it could be in today’s paper while the news was still fresh.
“Time Bomb” ended, giving way to the next song on the CD, “Bad Religion,” and Nicki started tapping her finger on the table in beat to the music. The music was loud enough that she didn’t hear when Sean shut off the welder. Instead, she heard him speak behind her. “Hey.”
She turned around. Sean was placing the helmet down on a bench and walking over to her. He looked nice as always—snug blue t-shirt, faded blue jeans, black boots, blue bandanna around his hair, and ocean blue eyes framed by long brown lashes. “Hey, Sean.”
“How are you today? Doing all right?”
“Yeah, I think so. You?”
“Business as usual.” He walked over to the stereo and turned the music down. “Actually, that’s not true. I have a lot of catching up to do.”
Nicki winced. That was her fault. “Guess I’d better make this quick then.” She pulled the folded front page of the newspaper out of her jeans pocket. “Check this out.”
Sean smiled. “Yeah, I saw it. Nice job. Your first big headline.” She nodded, smiling back. “I’m proud of you.”
He had no idea how good that made her feel. And she probably wouldn’t tell him either. “Thanks, Sean.”
He grabbed a white towel off the table and wiped his hands on it. “Did you ever find out who called the cops?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It was Mikey.”
“One of Sterne’s kids?”
“Yeah, his older one…the one who likes the TV show Cops. He’d grown up around Sterne and knew Sterne was violent, but Mikey had apparently been watching all kinds of Cops reruns over the past month. So when Sterne kept yelling about calling the cops, Mikey must have thought that was a good idea. Mikey ran into Melissa’s bedroom and made the call to 911.” Nicki shook her head. “They were so quiet, I didn’t even know she had kids there until after you knocked on the door.”
“Well, no harm done, right?” Sean looked up at the huge metal clock that hung over the middle garage door. “I think we should celebrate. How about I take you out to lunch?”
Nicki grinned. They did have lots to celebrate, and she couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had gone to lunch together. Especially just the two of them…but she couldn’t in good conscience not say anything. “But what about Kayla?”
“What about her?”
“Don’t you want to invite her?”
Sean had pressed a button to lower one of the garage doors that was open, and it made a metallic noise as it worked its way down. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
Right now, Nicki’s investigative reporter senses screamed at her but ultimately sucked, telling her nothing. Whatever Sean was trying to tell her wasn’t qu
ite sinking in. “And why not?”
“Because she broke up with me last week when I told her I didn’t want to move in with her.”
Hello. She felt like she’d just jumped in a fifty-degree-Fahrenheit lake and couldn’t catch her breath. Sean started lowering the other open garage door and didn’t seem to notice her surprise. That explained why Kayla hadn’t come with him to her parents’ house and why Sean was acting weird at Napoli with the guys the other night… Nicki finally said, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
He shrugged and turned around. “I don’t know. I just didn’t think about it. Not a big deal, really.” He grabbed the “Be back at” sign that hung on the glass part of the door and moved the plastic clock dial. He walked over to the stereo and shut it off, then pulled the bandanna off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. Nicki wasn’t surprised when it fell perfectly into place. Then Sean walked back to the door and opened it while switching off the lights. “You ready?”
Nicki willed her feet to move. Her first major headline ever and her best friend and biggest crush single again all in one day. She could barely believe it. She felt a smile spread over her face. “Yeah, I think I’m ready for just about anything.” She strolled across the giant room to walk through the open door and relished Sean’s warm arm around her shoulders as they walked to his truck beneath the cool sky.
Nicki Sosebee’s adventures are just beginning! See Nicki again in
Dead
Nicki’s love life might suck, but her sex life is great. The only way both could be spectacular would be if her best friend Sean would look at her as more than just a friend. Nicki knows she’s stuck in the friend zone, so she focuses her energies on her job. She’s becoming a better reporter every day, so when her editor asks her to interview a local politician, Nicki is thrilled. But when the politician’s secretary ends up dead, it’s anybody’s guess as to who did it. Nicki has a few ideas, though, and finds herself in deep trouble as she pokes her nose where she thinks it belongs.
Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) Page 11