Running on Empty

by Michelle Celmer

  “No!”

  Mitch shot up in bed.

  That was no dream. Tossing back the covers, he grabbed his Glock from the night-table drawer and rolled out of bed. How could anyone have gotten in? It would be impossible without triggering the alarm.

  His heart thudding, he crept to the doorway. From there he could see into Jane’s room, and though it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, he realized almost immediately that there was no one in there with her. If her thrashing and carrying on were any indication, he would guess she was having a nightmare.

  The sudden rush of adrenaline abated and he sagged against the door frame. She was safe. For now, at least.

  Watch it, Mitch. You’re getting too close. Too involved.

  Jane moaned loudly and mumbled in her sleep. He couldn’t hear her clearly, but he could swear she said, “He took my baby.”

  Her baby? Glock at his side, he padded quietly across the hall to her room. She lay on her back wearing only a T-shirt, the covers kicked down to her feet. Though the shirt covered her to mid-thigh, it was still a lot more skin than he’d expected to see. It only served to remind him how long it had been since he’d had a woman in his house. In his bed.

  Way too long.

  She mumbled something he couldn’t understand, and thrashed her head across the pillow.

  “Jane.” He grasped her shoulder and shook lightly. “Wake up, you’re having a bad dream.”

  She batted at his hand and groaned, “No! Don’t touch me!”

  He ducked to avoid her flailing arm and grabbed hold of her wrist. “Relax, it’s just me.”

  Her eyes flew open, wild and fearful, and before he knew what was happening, she sprang from the bed like a panther and they both went airborne. The gun flew from his hand, landed somewhere behind him and skidded across the hardwood floor. In the blink of an eye he found himself flat on his back, Jane straddling him, her forearm braced against his throat restricting his airflow.

  He could have easily thrown her off—he should have thrown her off—but he didn’t want to hurt her. “It’s just me,” he croaked.

  She blinked several times as recognition set in, then gasped and jerked her arm away. “Oh, my God, are you okay?”

  He rubbed his throat, swallowing a few times to make sure everything still worked. “Great. At least you didn’t bite me this time.”

  Hands braced on either side of his head, she looked around, dazed. “How did I get down here?”

  “You were having a bad dream,” he said. “I tried to wake you up and you jumped on me.”

  “I did?”

  “Where did you learn a move like that?”

  “I don’t know. Did I hurt you?” She raked her fingers through his hair, checking the back of his head, and every muscle in his body tensed. Her face was only inches from his, her sweet-smelling hair hanging down to tickle his cheek. It would be so easy to wrap his arms around her, pull her down. His mouth, her mouth…

  For a moment he was immobilized by fear, fear that she might actually kiss him—or that she wouldn’t. He closed his eyes and groaned.

  “Mitch? Are you okay?” She shifted, rubbing him in just the right way, and a knot of pleasure tightened his groin. He instinctively grabbed hold of her hips to still her and wound up with two handfuls of smooth, bare skin.

  Jane gasped, and for a moment they just stared at each other as if neither knew quite what to do next. Then she shifted again—deliberately this time, and probably to see how far she could push him.

  At this point, not far. He sunk his fingers deeper into her flesh. “Don’t do that again.”

  “Or what?” Through the darkness he could see the mischievous gleam in her eye, like she got a kick out of torturing him. And what a sweet torture it would be if he let it go any further. God help him, it was tempting as sin.

  She cocked her hips again, creating more of that sweet friction, and he bit his cheek to keep from moaning. She leaned down, until they were chest to chest, and whispered in his ear, “Is that a gun in your pants, or are you just happy to—”

  The sound of shattering glass cut her short as the bedroom window exploded above them.

  Chapter 8

  Jane screamed and Mitch flung her over onto her back, shielding her from a shower of broken glass. The alarm wailed and the outside security lights blazed, streaming light through what was left of the sheer curtains. He heard another crash as the picture window in the living room was blown to smithereens.

  Jane squirmed beneath him and he held her down with the full weight of his body. “Don’t move,” he hissed.

  He scanned the floor for his weapon and discovered it lying several feet away, by the door. He cursed silently. A fat lot of good it would do him over there. There was too much glass on the floor to risk crawling over and grabbing it.

  He lay perfectly still, watching the doorway for an intruder, becoming gradually, and painfully, aware of the woman lying beneath him. He caught the scent of his own shampoo and soap, yet it was distinctly feminine on her—sweeter, softer. Everything about her was soft. Soft breasts pressing against his chest, soft hair tickling his cheek, soft breathing in his ear. Their position should have been an uncomfortable one, yet they seemed to fit perfectly, like a key in a lock.

  His key in her lock—if that wasn’t an inappropriate euphemism, and not the kind of thing he should be imagining at a time like this. The arousal he had all but forgotten roared up inside of him with a vengeance. Thankfully Jane didn’t perpetuate the problem by squirming around. She lay still beneath him.

  After several minutes he raised up on his elbows, looking down at her. “You all right?”

  She nodded, her eyes wide and fearful. “I think so.”

  “I think it’s safe to assume your attacker knows we’re here.”

  She clung to him, curling her fingers into his shirt. “What if he’s still out there?”

  “He’s not. He would have found us by now. I think he was sending a message.”

  She looked up at the hole where the window used to be. “Not very subtle, is he?”

  “And I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of him.”

  The alarm ended abruptly and an eerie, all-encompassing silence followed. It was so quiet in the room, he could hear the steady thump of his own heart and the slightly faster beat of Jane’s.

  “What happened?” she asked, her voice filled with fear. “Why did it stop?”

  “It’s programmed to shut itself off after five minutes. The police are on their way.”

  Jane reached up and touched his arm. “Mitch, you’re bleeding.”

  He looked down to see a stream of blood oozing from his forearm. It’s a wonder they hadn’t been cut to slivers. “It’s just a scratch.”

  She raised up on her elbows, looking around them at the scattered shards of glass. The light shining through the window painted a treacherous path to the door. “How are we going to get out of here? There’s glass everywhere.”

  “I hear sirens,” Mitch said, cocking his head toward the window. They couldn’t have been more than a mile away. “They’ll be here any minute.”

  “Any minute?” She planted her palms against his chest and shoved, suddenly panicked. “We have to move. We can’t let them see us like this.”

  “There’s too much glass. Let’s wait till help gets here.”

  “But, I’m not even supposed to be here! What will they think if they see us like…like this.”

  Yeah, what would they think? He had a pretty good idea. “I’m aware of how it looks.”

  “I don’t think you are.” She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, a pained look on her face. “Mitch, I’m not wearing underwear.”

  He caught himself before he looked down. She had to be joking. “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny.” She took his hand and guided it to her waist. “Do you feel a panty line?”

  He slid his hand from her narrow waist, down her hip to one
smooth—and completely bare—buttock. He yanked his hand away. “Christ, why didn’t you say something?”

  “I just did!”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Like what? ‘Sorry I knocked you on your butt, Mitch, and oh, by the way, I’m not wearing panties.’”

  The sirens were getting louder. They would be there any second. He wasn’t worried so much about himself. He could handle the backlash he would catch if anyone discovered them this way. He was more concerned with how it would affect Jane. She’d been through enough in the past two days without dragging her into his personal problems. With his past experiences common knowledge among his colleagues, combined with her suspicious lack of underwear, no one would believe this to be completely innocent. Well, almost completely innocent. But before he could figure out a way to safely and discreetly climb off of her, he heard a noise across the room.

  “I’m sorry,” someone said from the doorway. “It looks like I’ve interrupted something.”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Darren paced the kitchen like a caged animal. “You’re just damned lucky I was on my way home when the call went out. If I hadn’t gotten here first…damn it, Mitch, that was a stupid move.”

  Mitch looked over at Jane. She was still curled up in a blanket on the couch, talking to Officer Greene. She’d come through the event physically unscathed, while he’d suffered a few minor nicks on his arms and legs. They were nothing compared to the lashing he’d been getting from Darren. “I told you already, it was completely innocent.”

  “Oh, yeah, the bad dream. I’m supposed to believe that a woman half your size somehow managed to disarm you and knock you on the ground? I’m not buying it.”

  “Okay, maybe my judgment was slightly compromised—”

  “Slightly compromised? This is Kim all over again.”

  His statement drew several pairs of eyes their way, including Jane’s.

  “Look, I appreciate your concern, but there is nothing inappropriate going on.”

  “Don’t you get it? This woman is playing you. She’s a con artist.”

  Mitch knew Darren meant well. He was concerned for Mitch’s well-being—his job. And he was only half wrong in his assumption—still it was difficult for Mitch to hold his temper. “If Jane had a criminal record, we wouldn’t be standing here wondering who she is.”

  Darren didn’t seem to hear him. Or didn’t believe him. “What I can’t understand is why you brought her here in the first place. She was supposed to be in a friggin’ safe house across town.”

  “Someone is keeping tabs on me. Someone on the inside. I don’t think she would have been safe there.”

  “Okay, now it’s a conspiracy? Are we getting a little paranoid?”

  Mitch wasn’t even going to justify that one with a response.

  “I have to file a report in the morning. How do you expect me to explain this?”

  “You’ll tell the truth and I’ll deal with the consequences. Maybe I broke a few rules bringing her home, but I had her safety to consider.”

  “Her safety is worth your badge?”

  “If doing my job to the best of my ability means taking risks, then yes.”

  “Damn it, Mitch, I can’t stand by and watch you throw away ten years of service for some woman you don’t even know. I won’t. I’m going to recommend you’re taken off the case.”

  Mitch pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep, calming breath. Exploding now would only make the situation more volatile. “Did you not hear a word I’ve said?”

  “I’ve heard every word. I heard the same thing two years ago. If this woman means so little to you, why can’t you pass the case over to someone else? No one will blame you for it.”

  “I told you, I need to solve this myself. She had my name in her pocket. I’m involved somehow. I need to know why.”

  Darren leaned against the counter, shaking his head. “Is it worth your career?”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  “One more incident, Mitch. You know they’ll look for a reason. The D.A. is itching to nail you for something.”

  “That’s why I have to know, why I have to solve this one myself. Am I attracted to her? Sure, who wouldn’t be? Do I plan to do anything about it? Hell, no. I want to solve the case. That’s it.”

  “Excuse me, Detective?” Officer Greene appeared in the doorway. “There’s a call for you.”

  “Take a message.”

  “This can’t wait. They need you at the hospital. There’s been another attack.”

  They’d outsmarted him.

  Rage seeped into his veins and the beast howled, bucking up against its chains. He was getting the urge again. Now that they had a suspect, he couldn’t take the chance. Not without changing his MO. Even then it would be a risk. He was too smart to take risks.

  It was rage that set the beast free the first time, rage that started the game. And his wife, the meddling bitch, she’d found his hiding place. She’d ruined everything. He should have put her in her place long ago. Always complaining, thinking she was smarter than him. Just like his mother.

  He would show them. He was smarter.

  Next time, he wouldn’t fail.

  Jane stood in the hall just outside of the emergency room, watching as Mitch spoke to the doctor on call. She was too far away to hear what was said, but by the solemn expressions they wore, she guessed the news wasn’t good. Mitch listened intently to the doctor, jotting notes. He used the wall for support, looking bone-weary and frustrated. He’d been tight-lipped about the whole situation, though she had overheard that the victim had been attacked at the safe house that Mitch was supposed to have taken Jane to.

  The doctor shook Mitch’s hand and started down the hall, nodding in her direction as he walked past.

  “Stay there,” Mitch called to her before he disappeared behind one of the curtains separating the cubicles.

  Though the smell alone was hauntingly reminiscent of her own hospital stay, and the thought of what she might see behind that curtain terrified her, she had to know what had happened. She had to hear and see it for herself.

  The emergency room was fairly busy for 2:00 a.m. so she was able to follow him unnoticed. She stopped in front of the cubicle he’d entered and pulled the curtain back to see inside. Mitch stood with his back to her, blocking her view of the woman lying in the bed.

  “What were you doing outside that late at night?” Mitch was asking her.

  “Yeah,” a gruff voice answered. “I tell you and you run to my probation officer. I don’t think so, pretty boy.”

  “What’s said here is off the record, between you and me. I’m investigating a case that might be related and I need your help.”

  There was a lengthy pause, then the woman said, “I needed a fix, okay? I had some stuff stashed behind the building. I bent over to look for it, and when I turned around there was some guy standing behind me. He shoved me back and smashed my head against the wall.”

  “Did you get a look at his face?”

  “It was too dark, and he was wearing a hooded jacket. He was probably your height, maybe a little shorter. At first I thought my dealer sent him after me for testifying against him, but he smelled expensive.”

  There was another pause, then Mitch said, “What do you mean by expensive?”

  “You know, like expensive cologne. He was clean.”

  Mitch jotted something in his notepad. “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He asked me where his wife was,” the woman said, and Jane’s heart jumped into her throat. “He kept saying something like, ‘You know where she is. Tell me where she is.’ When I asked him his wife’s name, he stopped, like he was confused or something, then he started wailing on me. He punched me a coupl’a times, and when I went down he started kicking me.”

  Mitch shifted to the left and Jane got an unobstructed view of the woman in the bed. Her left eye was blackened and swollen shut, her lip split a
nd puffy, and a cast covered her left arm from shoulder to wrist. And those were only the visible injuries. She said he’d kicked her, too. She could have broken ribs, or internal bleeding. She could have died.

  Jane’s stomach rolled at the thought of the pain that poor woman must have endured.

  That could have been me.

  “Did he say anything else?” Mitch asked her.

  “He said something about finding his kids. How she couldn’t hide them forever.”

  Jane gasped, then slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Mitch spun around, cursing when he saw her standing there. “I told you to wait in the hall.”

  “Is she the one he was looking for?” the woman spat. “Your husband is a lunatic, lady. Look what he did to my face.”

  Bile rose in her throat. Her husband, her kids? This couldn’t be happening. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “This is all my fault.”

  “If you remember anything else, call me,” Mitch said, thrusting a business card at her. He grasped Jane’s arm and ushered her from the room. “You didn’t need to hear that.”

  “Yes, I did.” She clasped her hands in tight fists, but couldn’t stop them from shaking. “That should have been me. He was looking for me.”

  He pulled her aside and gripped her by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Jane. This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known he would do this. It’s no one’s fault.”

  “How could I be married to someone like that, how could I have children—” The words caught in her throat. “Is that what this is about? Did I hide our children? What if he finds them and hurts them?”

  “We’ll find them first.”

  “What if we don’t?”

  Mitch pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her. She sank into him, pressing her cheek against his chest. How could she feel so safe in his arms, and at the same time, terrified and vulnerable? “I keep thinking it’ll get better, that it’ll be over soon, but it only gets worse.”

  With one arm draped protectively across her shoulders, Mitch led her to the emergency-room exit. “We both need sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning.”