by Freya Barker
“If I have to explain it, I obviously didn’t do a good job. Maybe I should try again,” he threatens, stepping back into my body.
In a last attempt at self-preservation before his lips once again suck out every last ounce of common sense, I plant both hands firmly on his chest and shove him back. At least I try to. Unfortunately, he’s like a tree; solid and unmovable. Before I have a chance to pull back, his hands are covering mine, pressing them to his chest, effectively imprisoning me.
“Let me go.” It’s meant as an order but sounds more like a desperate plea. I’m afraid I’m losing the battle when his head bends low. But instead of my mouth, his lips press gently against my forehead.
“Relax,” he instructs. “I’m not going to maul you. I’ll take you out for dinner first and soften you up. I prefer my women willing,” the bastard says on a cocky smile. But I’m not smiling. Those words may work on some, but to me they’re like a red flag to a bull. I’ve been there before, softened up and rendered willing. That didn’t turn out so well for me.
He must’ve sensed my bristles going up because he rolls his eyes dramatically and sighs. “Kerry—I’m joking. Admittedly, not about you needing to relax or dinner but the rest was just kidding around. Let it go. Please?”
It’s the sweet plea combined with the warm look in his eyes that convince me. I’m projecting my own hang-ups on him and that’s not fair. Guys say goofy stuff like that all the time and don’t mean anything by it.
“Dinner,” I say in response, figuring it will get the message across. By the way one corner of his mouth tilts up and his eyes crinkle up, I’d say it worked. “Now...where do I send these screenshots?”
I HAVE TO STICK AROUND the store for the locksmith to finish up after Damian heads back to his office. A few times I have to apologize for being closed to a couple of customers who wander in, curiously looking around. I guess word of the break-in has gotten around town. Something that is confirmed when the phone rings just as the kid starts packing up his toolkit, his cheeks still flushed every time his eyes skip over me.
“Seriously?” Kim’s voice sounds on the other side. “I have to find out from Mrs. Fredericks you had the police over there? The damn woman showed up this afternoon, panting like a racehorse and pissed as hell. Said it was an emergency, she was all out of books and you were closed because of some break-in, so she had to drive in to Cortez to get her fix. She seemed personally affronted, and I didn’t dare poke the witch by asking what happened. But I’m asking you: What the hell happened?”
It takes me ten minutes to give her the sequence of events, calming her down. Not quite sure why I choose to keep any mention of Damian from my report. I leave out the FBI investigation altogether. No need to get Kim all worried. Or maybe I’m just not ready to deal with any potential questions until I figure out the answers for myself. And those questions would come. I know Kim well enough, and more importantly, she knows me. She’d surely pick up on something. Her intuition has only enhanced since becoming a mother. It’s eerie.
“Damn, girl,” Kim mutters sympathetically. “You’ve had quite the couple of days. I’m guessing you aren’t still coming tomorrow?”
“I don’t think so. I have to go into the police station tomorrow morning, and I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ll give you a call after?”
“Sure thing,” she easily says. “Let me know what happens.”
Just then the blushing kid walks up to the counter and lays down two sets of keys.
“I’ve gotta go, honey. The locksmith is just leaving.”
“No worries. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she quickly replies.
“Tomorrow,” I promise before I hang up and turn toward the young man, forgetting all about the box in Kim’s possession. Or its contents, still very much a mystery.
CHAPTER 8
“I’M GETTING IMPATIENT, Mr. Sinclair.”
The slightly nasal twang of his client is grating on his nerves. Bad enough to have to do business with the uncivilized man, but even worse to have to answer to the buffoon.
“I assure you, sir, that we are in the process of recovering your shipment,” he tries diplomatically. Not exactly his strong suit.
“Bullshit. That’s what you said last time, but you almost got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. I have a mind to make my own arrangements for retrieving my property.”
He winces at the crude profanity and shivers at the thought of his client taking matters into his own hands. He’d most certainly be like the proverbial bull in the china shop with the inevitable all-encompassing fallout that would follow. It would mean the end of their more than lucrative network. No, this situation was still salvageable, it simply required a delicate touch.
“I appreciate your concern, sir, but alternative plans have already been put in action to collect your wares. I implore you to be patient.” The plea tastes like cardboard in his mouth and he holds his breath, waiting for a response. It comes seconds later.
“Because the damn Feds are breathing down my fucking neck, I’m giving you one more shot, but this is your last chance. You fuck this up, I’m not pussyfooting around anymore. Seven point three million goddamn dollars you’ve managed to lose, buddy. And it may not make a huge dent in my bank account, but I didn’t get this rich by pissing it away! You’ve got two weeks.”
A click announces his client has hung up. Two weeks. He’d have to speed up his efforts, but that shouldn’t be a problem.
He immediately dials a by now familiar number.
“Hey...” Her sultry greeting makes him smile.
So easy—like taking candy from a child.
CHAPTER 9
Damian
“Sure. That’ll be fine.”
Kerry’s words are understanding, but I can hear disappointment in her voice. It’s both good to hear she may have been looking forward to our dinner, as well as frustrating I can’t capitalize on it. I was about to shut down my computer and call to let her know I’d pick her up at seven when another case landed on my desk, requiring my immediate attention. Unfortunately, that meant I had to cancel our dinner plans. Not something I wanted to do given Kerry’s reluctance to accept in the first place. Her rather bland answer when I suggest another night sounds too much like she’s gearing up for a polite brush-off.
Sometimes I hate my job.
The next twelve hours are spent meeting with local law enforcement officers, digging through piles of case information, and hanging over the opened chest of a body in advanced stages of decomposition at the county morgue. Not exactly the way I imagined my night would be spent.
It isn’t until sometime early the next morning that I head home to my place, just north of Hermosa, about twenty or so minutes from my office. After being elbow deep in the underbelly of society all night, I need the peace and tranquility of my house on the edge of the Animas River. Just driving up the narrow, tree-lined road to my place is enough to drain the tension from my neck and shoulders.
I push open the door and find myself listening for the telltale clicking of nails on my wood floors. A welcome homecoming I still haven’t gotten used to missing since my dog was killed by a mountain lion last year. I would’ve gotten a new dog, but with my increasing workload, and more frequent nights spent on a cot at the office, it would hardly be fair to the animal.
Walking through the quiet house, I head straight for the bathroom. I need a quick shower to wash off the stench of death clinging to me. Five minutes later, I’m face-first in my bed, the towel still wrapped around my waist. With my last thought focusing on the blonde gypsy, who seems to have found a permanent place in my head, I finally give in to exhaustion and fall into a deep sleep.
KERRY
“What happened to you?”
The question erupts from my mouth when I look at Marya standing in her doorway. The blush on her face deepens as she is trying hard to keep from smiling. Something sure as hell happened. Marya is always chipper, but as a single mom of three rug r
ats, she usually looks worn out. It doesn’t really surprise me; three young boys, aged six to eleven, would be the absolute death of me. This morning she looks absolutely radiant. The little smirk persistently tugging at her mouth suddenly hits me like a lightning bolt.
“You got laid!” I blurt out, much too loud. Marya erupts in unfamiliar giggles as she slaps her hands over the ears of her youngest, who managed to slip out between her and the doorpost. At the same time, I slap my own hands over my mouth, in a desperate effort to contain any other unfiltered commentary itching to escape.
“Sorry,” I repentantly mumble from behind my fingers, but she just throws me a wink, shaking her head. I can’t believe it. She never mentioned a thing about seeing someone. “You’ve been keeping secrets,” I scold her, my finger now wagging in front of her face. “And as soon as I get you in my car, you better fess up.”
We’re supposed to be at the Durango PD offices in less than ten minutes to get our fingers printed, and it’s already doubtful we’ll make it on time.
I blame it on Damian. After he called to cancel dinner, which by the way, I’d still had reservations about, I spent the entire night restlessly puttering around my house. My mind twisted in so many different directions, I was giving myself whiplash. Why the cancelled dinner plans left me feeling rejected, when I’d only reluctantly agreed to them, I still can’t quite figure. All I know is that the mental game of ping-pong between ‘I shouldn’t want him’ and ‘let me at him’ was the direct cause of my decision to strip the ugly wallpaper in the bathroom at one o’clock in the morning to shut up the voices. Did I mention it’s really ugly? Pink and gold vertical stripes with a border of roses in the same pink as the stripes and muddy-colored leaves.
It’d been an eyesore since I moved in, I just never got around to doing anything to it. Not that it was my decision to make since the place is a rental, but that little bit of wisdom only occurred to me this morning when I stormed into the bathroom in a panic at eight fifteen, only to find myself knee-deep in wallpaper strips.
So yeah—it’s all Damian’s fault.
In the meantime, Marya has hustled her youngest safely back inside in the hands of the babysitter and follows me to the car. Once buckled up and on the road, I turn to her. “So? Are you gonna tell me anything?”
“Too soon to tell,” she evades. “I don’t want to get my hopes up. We’ll see where it goes, if it goes at all.”
“Fair enough,” I concede, focusing my eyes back on the road. That is something I understand, not wanting to share. When you say things out loud, it feels like you’re tempting fate to piss in your Cheerios. It doesn’t mean I’m not still curious as all get-out, but I’ll try to restrain myself. After all, I’m not exactly forthcoming either and have no intention of giving Marya a blow-by-blow of the twists a certain FBI agent has my stomach in.
The rest of the drive to the police station passes in relative quiet, although the ruckus in my head more than makes up for it. By the time I park the car, I’m sick of hearing myself think. I’m frustrated, which despite the thick layer of self-protection I built up, that man managed to scale my walls and burrow under my skin with alarming ease.
“Detective Blackfoot please? We’re a little late for a nine o’clock appointment,” I tell the stern-looking female officer behind the desk.
“One moment please,” she responds friendly enough as she picks up the phone.
A few minutes later, the familiar form of Keith Blackfoot comes around the corner. After holding my hand in greeting a little too long for comfort, I quickly introduce the detective to Marya, who is looking at me bemused with an eyebrow slightly raised. When Blackfoot turns to lead us down the hallway, I give her a sharp shake of my head. It unfortunately doesn’t stop her from commenting. “Where do all these beautiful men suddenly come from? If I’d known a little B&E would drum up all the hotties in Durango, I’d have orchestrated one myself long ago,” she stage-whispers.
The detective pushes open a door at the end of the hallway and ushers us inside of what looks to be a boardroom but not before turning to me with a barely contained grin and a wink. Apparently Marya’s voice carries.
I’ve never had my fingerprints taken before, and I’d been kind of looking forward to rolling my ink-covered digits over a pristine white card, like you see in the movies. The scanner Blackfoot leads us to is a bit of a disappointment. The image of my fingerprints is digitally stored so I can’t even see them. Marya seems equally bummed. The whole thing is rather anti-climactic.
I tug my purse back over my shoulder and make for the door, thinking I’d have time to indulge in a Starbucks coffee and scone before I open the store, when the detective steps in my path. “We still have your statement to go over,” he reminds me.
“I have to open the store,” I protest half-heartedly, already knowing there really is no way out of this.
“I’ll do it. I just need the new keys,” Marya, the traitor, chirps with a smile. She pointedly ignores my glare as she sticks out her hand, palm up.
“You don’t have a car,” I throw out in a last ditch attempt, which is immediately foiled by the large, smirking man in the doorway.
“One of my officers will give her a ride,” he says, as he motions at someone down the hall.
Blackfoot shuts the door behind my smiling assistant being escorted down the hall by a policeman, who looks young enough to be one of her kids. The detective pulls out a chair in a silent invitation for me to sit down at the long table. I spend the next hour and a half going over the events of two nights ago and hand my phone to the detective with the screenshots I’d taken yesterday. He patiently adds them to the list of items and only raised his eyebrow when I mention I’d already printed out that information once, prior to the break-in, but that those printouts where missing along with the computer.
I pass on the offer of the suspicious black, tarry, liquid substance doubling as coffee, and by the time I put my John Hancock on the updated statement, my brain has been stretched to its limits without the benefit of caffeine. It’s almost noon and I need a fix, stat.
“If anything else comes to mind,” the detective says, his hand in the small of my back as he leads me out of the door, “don’t hesitate to call me right away.”
“Just that I didn’t have that last shipment of books yet. The second order from The Gilded Feather? You probably shouldn’t include it as missing,” I point out.
“I’ll make a note,” he says. “Just give me a call when it arrives?”
My mind is fuzzy from lack of nourishment, and I simply nod. I’d rushed out the door without breakfast, and I am in dire need of coffee and sustenance, in that order. My head is drooping, so I don’t register the broad, looming shape leaning against the front desk at first. But Keith Blackfoot does, as evident from the arm draped over my shoulder without warning. When my eyes flick up at the sudden move, they collide with a set of dark, smoldering ones in an all-too-familiar face. If eyes could kill, the look Damian throws the detective would surely have him torn limb from limb, but the look he points at me is pure heat.
“I guess I didn’t make myself sufficiently clear,” Damian grinds out at the man, who still has a firm grip on my shoulder. His lips don’t even move. Feeling like a prized chew toy between two rabid dogs, I attempt to sidestep Blackfoot’s hold.
“I’d best be off,” I mutter, hoping to avoid bloodshed as I move toward the exit. “Things to do.” I wave my hand in a feeble goodbye and rush through the door.
I get as far as opening my car door and am getting in when I hear footsteps rushing up.
“Gypsy.”
I drop my forehead to the steering wheel. Escape foiled. When I look up, Damian’s holding open my door and leaning in. His face is only inches from mine. “Why are you running?”
“I’m starving,” is my weak response. I don’t want to tell him the tension got so thick in there I could barely breathe. The instant his hand closes on my upper arm and starts tugging me out of
my car, I realize my mistake. Not sure whether he took my words as a veiled invitation, or whether his caveman instincts to protect and provide kicked in, but before I know it, he has me strapped into the passenger seat of the black Expedition parked next to my car and is driving off.
“Hey,” I protest, twisting my body in the seat. “Where are you taking me?”
He barely looks at me before his eyes lock back on the road. “You’re hungry. I’m getting you food.”
Definitely going with the caveman instincts on this one.
Opting to ignore the fact I’ve been manhandled and virtually kidnapped, I change directions. “What were you doing at the police station anyway?”
DAMIAN
I’ve had only a few hours of sleep when my phone rings.
“Gomez,” I mumble, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
“Hey,” my sister replies. “I wake you up? Sorry. Just wanted to let you know I’m hitting the road but I’m heading straight for the hospital. They left a message my interview was bumped to eleven so I’ll pick up the key after.”
I’m already out of bed and moving toward the bathroom. “Okay. If I’m not there, I’ll leave it at the front desk. See you soon.”
A glance at my phone shows me it’s only ten, and when I look up in the mirror, the measly three or so hours of sleep are evident on my face. A nice long shower makes me feel half-human again, and with the first sip of my coffee, my brain kicks in.
Dammit. I just popped a bagel in the toaster when I remember Kerry mentioning something about the police station at nine. Instead of sitting down to breakfast, I end up rushing to get dressed. I don’t trust Blackfoot alone with her for one second, let alone the entire morning.
By the time I’m dressed and getting in behind the wheel, it’s already eleven, my long-forgotten coffee getting cold on the kitchen counter and my growling stomach a worry for later. I call into the office as I pull out of my driveway to check in with Luna, who assures me all is under control.
