by Sandra Brown
“Take good care of him,” he said.
“I will.”
“He’ll complain, but don’t listen. Do what’s needed to get him well.”
“I promise.”
Drex hugged her tightly, too.
He relieved Mike and Talia of their concern immediately upon reentering the waiting room. “He looks poorly, but he’s doing well. His condition has been upgraded to stable.” They were on the verge of asking questions when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “Hold on. This may be Locke.” He looked at his phone. “It is. He’s sent a text.”
Warning! Rudkowski here. On our way up.
Drex read it silently and then out loud. “Dammit.” Gif’s emergency had temporarily distracted him from the other crisis. This jerked him right back into the thick of it.
“He’s still typing,” he told Mike and Talia, then read the new message aloud. “‘Take fire stairs. Look for M.’”
“Menundez,” Mike said. “Go!” He shooed them toward the door.
Drex said, “I can’t leave Gif.”
“He’ll never forgive you if you don’t. Go!”
“What about Rudkowski?”
“I’ll be the sacrificial lamb.” Then, rubbing his hands over his extensive midsection, he said, “Sacrificial ox.”
They hurried down the fire stairs to the ground floor. Menundez was waiting for them where the stairwell opened into a lobby. “How’s Lewis?”
“Out of surgery and in ICU.” Drex gave him a concise update. “I can’t thank you enough for getting word to me.”
“Sure, man.” Menundez called their attention to the unusual amount of activity in the lobby. “As you can see, there’s a large police presence.”
“For us?” Drex asked.
“Busy night. Two assaults, one fatal, in the same area within hours of each other.”
“Mike Mallory stayed behind to stall Rudkowski, but he’ll be demanding to know where Talia and I are.”
“Hear ya. Keep your heads down,” the detective said, and started threading this way toward one of the entrances. Glancing around, he lowered his voice before continuing. “Rudkowski is an idiot. After this thing with Lewis, Locke brought me into the loop.”
“You and he talked to witnesses who were near Gif when he went down?”
“Yeah, but didn’t get much. Boatload of people had just gotten off one of the harbor tours. Word spread about the deadly assault of a woman. The crowd began migrating toward the scene of the crime. Lewis must’ve got caught up and swept along.”
“No one saw the attack?”
He shook his head. “One guy we talked to said that at almost the same time Lewis dropped, he noticed a man making his way through the throng in a hurry. He didn’t think anything about it at the time.”
“Description?”
“He only saw him from the back, and all he remembers is that he had on a rain poncho. And it could have been just a man in a hurry. Security cameras may have picked him up. They’re being checked.”
“I’ll appreciate any information you can pass along.”
“You got it. Locke and me will do what we can to help.”
“If you’re called on it, I swear I won’t let them hang you out to dry.”
“Mr. Easton,” he said grimly, “if it means catching Ford, I wouldn’t mind if I was.”
They were approaching an exit where two uniformed policemen were standing together, chewing the fat more than being vigilant. “Just keep walking,” Menundez said out of the side of his mouth. “We’ll be in touch.”
He veered off and headed toward the officers, saying to them as he walked up, “Hey, guys. Menundez from CID. That second emergency near the wharf? It was an assault.”
“Any connection to the homicide?”
“We don’t know yet, but…”
That’s all Drex and Talia heard before they cleared the door. At the first opportunity, Drex pulled her out from under the bright lights of the porte cochere and into the shadows of the building. There he stopped.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” she said.
“Let’s wait here for a minute or two, see if anybody follows us out.”
“Police?”
“Jasper.” Thinking out loud, he said, “He killed that woman for no other reason than to draw me out, get me to make myself visible, so he could follow me. Follow me to you. I didn’t show, but he recognized Gif.”
“But how? From where?”
“Hell I know. I can’t figure that. Gif doesn’t just fade into the woodwork. He becomes the woodwork. But Jasper picked him out of that crowd.”
His eyes narrowed with wrath over what Jasper had done to Gif. “The calling card he left me was anything but subtle. If Jasper materialized in front of me right now, in any disguise, I swear to God I’d kill him.”
After waiting for several minutes and seeing no one worthy of a second look, he took Talia’s hand. Together they made their way to where she’d parked Gif’s car. Drex asked for the key. “I’m driving.”
“You may get lost.”
“I hope I do. It would make a tail more noticeable.”
Earlier that day, Jasper had bid Howard Clement a fond farewell. The man with a penchant for garishly printed shirts had served his purpose, but it had been time to assume another identity.
Tonight, as he’d moved among ordinary people looking very much like one of them, no one paid him any heed. Even if the woman he’d killed had seen him coming, she wouldn’t have felt threatened. Had she seen him as she walked alone across the dark and deserted parking lot—such a stupid thing for her to do—she probably would have smiled and wished him a good evening before turning her back to him to unlock her car door.
But she hadn’t seen him as he came out of the darkness and moved up behind her. The full nelson had taken her so unaware that she’d barely squeaked in surprise as he clamped his hands around her head like a vise, and forced it forward and down at such a steep angle that the vertebrae in her neck had snapped like twigs. Spine severed. She was dead. It had taken no time at all.
He’d left her where she fell and took a stroll out onto the wharf. It had been crawling with tourists who’d defied the inclement weather. He’d blended in. He’d walked all the way out to the end of it and stayed for several minutes to enjoy the view across the water. He had started back when he heard the first sirens’ whoops and wails like trumpeters announcing his achievement. He’d wanted to stop in his tracks and take a bow.
Wanting to be near the crime scene as the curious began converging, he’d picked up his pace, but not enough to be noticed. A reasonably sized crowd had already collected and continued to grow. He’d meandered among families, teenagers groping each other, packs of rambunctious young men, all bunching together, ebbing toward the concentration of police activity.
Jasper hadn’t cared to see the body. He’d seen it. He’d been on the lookout for Drex Easton.
He would come, just as he had to the beach. Of that Jasper had had no doubt. Easton would want either to confirm or rule out that this slaying was the handiwork of Jasper Ford. And Jasper had wanted him to know that it absolutely was.
Take that, Easton.
He’d wondered at what point Easton had initiated his chase? Jasper had been intuiting him for years, but he couldn’t pinpoint the time he had first sensed him. The knowledge that he had a pursuer hadn’t come to him in a jolt of awareness. It had been a seepage into his subconscious. When had it started? After Pixie? Before Loretta? Did Easton know of all his aliases, he wondered, going back all the way to Weston Graham?
How could he? Weston had existed thirty years ago. Easton would have been a boy.
He’d been speculating on how he had come to be the lodestar of Easton’s vocation when he did a double take on a man in the crowd. He was as colorless as a person could possibly be, but Jasper had recognized him instantly as Easton’s sidekick who’d been with him on the pier above the beach.
The man had bee
n observing the scene and looking into each individual face with the same studied casualness that Jasper boasted himself capable of doing. In an instant he had realized that the man was looking for him. But for Jasper Ford, not his newly assumed identity.
Jasper had really wanted to find Easton. Find him, find Talia.
But this opportunity had been too fortuitous to pass up. The gift horse, so to speak.
Jasper had kept the man in sight and carefully stayed out of his. He’d bided his time, allowing the crowd to thicken until it had become difficult to wade through the newcomers asking what had happened and craning their necks in order to see.
Eventually he had worked his way around until he was walking directly toward the man. There was a cluster of people within touching distance of them, but no one noticed when Jasper socked the man hard.
Easton’s pal went down without a sound. With all the jostling going on around them, no one noticed his collapse for a few precious moments, long enough for Jasper to put some distance between them. He kept moving, sometimes swimming upstream, sometimes being propelled by those around him.
But soon he heard the exclamations behind him, had felt the disturbance rippling outward from the spot where the man had dropped. Like everyone else, Jasper halted, turned to look back to see what this new source of commotion was.
His jab had been hard enough and so well placed that it would have incapacitated Easton’s buddy. To what extent didn’t matter much. Easton would get the message.
As he’d left the vicinity, he’d felt a groundswell of satisfaction inside his chest. It had been a productive night. Much more so than he’d counted on. He’d wished to mark his success, make it an occasion. But he’d foregone a celebration. He was bold, not reckless.
So he’d prudently returned to his car, added his newest trophy to the velvet bag, and zipped it back into an inside pocket of his tracksuit.
Driving away, he’d passed ambulances racing toward the scene of yet another emergency, a scene of havoc, another of his masterpieces.
He’d cruised through the city, in no particular hurry, on the hunt for new lodging.
Chapter 32
Drex took a roundabout route from the hospital. After twenty minutes of aimless driving and doubling back several times, he was convinced that they weren’t being followed.
He considered switching hotels, but that would involve a check-in process he would rather avoid. He returned them to the suite they’d occupied that afternoon and, once inside, plopped into a chair and sent Mike a text. Seconds later, his phone rang, surprising him.
“I expected something more covert than a call.”
“I’m all by my lonesome.”
“Rudkowski?”
“Went apeshit when he learned that you two had ducked out. He threatened to arrest me. I double dog dared him. I hadn’t absconded with a material witness, had I? I was keeping vigil over my friend who could have died tonight.
“Locke told him that he was being unreasonable. Talia’s hotshot surgeon came to see what all the yelling was about, told Rudkowski to pipe down or he’d have security throw him out. Rudkowski told me to tell you that you were ruined, that he would see to it, then he left with Locke and Menundez. I think both of them are solid.”
“Me too. Have you seen Gif?”
He hadn’t, but he was receiving periodic updates that Gif was holding his own.
There had been no developments in the investigation into the homicide or the assault on Gif. “They’re reviewing surveillance camera videos,” Mike said, “but they have a lot more of them to look at. Out of Rudkowski’s hearing, the detectives promised to keep us apprised. The coroner’s report on the woman killed tonight is expected in the morning. Locke said he’d shoot it to us, along with the one on Elaine Conner.”
“Jasper’s got people working overtime tonight.”
“He must be so proud,” Mike returned drolly. “Anyhow, nothing more we can do tonight except wait.”
“I feel guilty for having a bed and you don’t,” Drex said.
“I can sleep sitting up. Do most of the time anyway.”
“Let me know if there’s any change in Gif’s condition. I’ll come immediately.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it, Mike. Any change.”
“Cross my overtaxed heart.” With that he clicked off.
Drex looked over at Talia. “Did you hear any of that?”
“I got the gist.”
“Talia.” He paused in order to give his next words heft. “Thank you.” She tipped her head inquisitively. “For pulling those strings. If you hadn’t, we might still be in the dark about Gif. I’d still be losing my mind.”
“I believe the lady at admissions thought you already had.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t send for the straitjacket squad.”
They smiled at each other. Then he leaned his head back and dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “God, how long has this day been?”
“Long.”
He lowered his hands from his eyes and slapped his knees as he rolled up out of the chair. “I’m going to shower, unless you want the bathroom first.”
“Go ahead.”
He trudged up the stairs, went into his bedroom, and took off his windbreaker and shoes. He unclipped his holster from his belt and considered taking the pistol into the bathroom with him so it would be within reach. But he set it on the nightstand instead. When he went into the bathroom he noticed that Talia’s bedroom door was closed.
By the time he’d undressed, the water in the shower was steaming. Flattening his hands on the wall above the taps and standing directly beneath the spray, he let it pound so hard against the back of his head and neck that it stung.
Then he was shocked into awareness of a softer, gentler touch between his shoulder blades. His head snapped up.
“No, stay as you were.” Talia moved up behind him and pressed her body—all of it—against his. She rubbed her center against his ass. Her breasts sandwiched his spine.
“Oh, my God. Talia—”
“Stay as you are.”
“But I want to see you. And it feels so good.”
“To me, too.” She rested her cheek against his back. “It feels good to be needed. Allow me to do this for you. Okay?”
He answered by saying nothing and staying as he was. She backed away only far enough to reach for something. It must have been the bottle of shower gel, because her hands were soapy when she applied them to the back of his neck.
Starting at the base and working up, she kneaded out the achiness, then slid her fingers into his hair and massaged his head. On their way back down, they gently pinched the tops of his ears and earlobes, then moved across his shoulders, squeezing the tension out of them.
He sighed a long, drawn out ah. “That felt great. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Can I turn around now?”
“No.”
“When?”
“When I’m done.”
“When will that be?”
“When I say when.”
She got a refill of gel, then pressed her hands firmly against his back on either side of his spine, rubbing circles into his lats, working her way down until her hands were on his butt, creating deep depressions in his glutes with her fingers.
“Your muscles are tight,” she said. “Relax.”
“Relax? Are you serious? I’m dying here.”
She laughed softly. “I don’t think so.”
Her thumbs became twin pressure points on the small of his back. They rode the bumpy path of his vertebrae all the way down to the cleft of his ass, then teased it with feather-light brushes that caused his breath to hitch.
“Damn, Talia. Now?”
“Not yet.”
Again she withdrew to get more gel. The bottle must be near empty by now, he thought. Then all thought ceased as her arms came around him, and she covered his pecs with her hands.
“
I like the hair,” she whispered, tweaking it.
“Yeah?”
“Um-huh. Just the right amount.”
After her thumbs glanced his nipples, her hands took a sinuous, crisscrossing, slippery course down his torso, over ribs and abdomen, past his navel, until her fingers slid down the channels above his thighs where they met at the base of his cock.
Christ. He didn’t want to beg.
He didn’t have to. Her hands took turns forming silky fists around him, one massaging upward and moving off, only to be outdone by its alternate that followed just behind. When he didn’t think he could withstand any more, one hand didn’t slide off at the tip. It stayed. Fingers dripping lather made teasing rotations around the crest, over it, again, as though testing its tautness, and then something wicked was done to the slit.
Through clenched teeth, he strangled out, “When.”
He turned around and hauled her against him. He tried to pause and register all the incredible sensations that holding her wet and naked against him induced, but his brain was functioning on a more primitive tier.
He gathered up a handful of her hair and pulled her head back, tilting her face up to his. He looked into her eyes, then covered her mouth with his. It was a ravenous kiss. He couldn’t get enough of her, and she was as hungry.
He skimmed her breast with his palm, then claimed it, reshaping it, lifting it as he lowered his head and took her nipple into his mouth. With each tug, she whimpered in pleasure and clasped his head to hold him to her.
He skimmed her front, marveling over the feminine curves and hollows, the incredible softness of her skin. Briefly he entangled his fingers in the hair between her thighs, then parted the soft flesh beneath.
She was slick and pliant around the fingers he pressed into her. When he began stroking, her head dropped forward against his chest. He felt the scrape of her teeth against his pec. With urgency, she reached down and closed her hand around his erection.
“Talia,” he gasped, pushing her hand aside and withdrawing his fingers from her. “This is going to be some fever-pitch fucking. If we attempt it in this shower, we’ll be the next two patients in the emergency room. Let’s get in bed.”