by Aleah Barley
She’d been letting herself through the door when her Uncle Mike called and asked her to pick up an extra case of beer from the house. She’d known better than to steal a police car. If she hadn’t been tipsy already, she never would have done it.
Never would have ended up in jail for a year and a half.
Jack had done the right thing by sending her up. She’d figured that out after she lost her grandfather.
“You’re nothing but a low-down, dirty, rotten—”
“Is that any way for a gentleman to talk?”
He snorted angrily. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard it before, sweetheart.”
“Of course I’ve heard it,” Honey said. “Just not from anyone with political aspirations.”
“You took my badge and my gun.”
“Uh-huh.” Honey glanced at the passenger seat, where she’d tossed the items in question. “Sure are shiny.”
The crash of the receiver hitting a hard surface was followed by a buzz, then silence.
Honey smiled, dropped the phone onto the seat, and shifted into third.
The inside of the Super Bee smelled like coffee. Underneath that scent, there was another one, masculine and indefinable. When she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine Jack sitting in the passenger seat beside her.
With the windows rolled down and the music blasting, they could drive all the way up the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco. They could stop on the way and eat seafood pulled fresh from the ocean.
She laughed at herself. What a fantasy.
But she could do it alone. She’d never been to San Francisco. After that, she could go anywhere in the world. Chicago, Boston, New York City. Or abroad, maybe. She’d taken French in school, but the Spanish she’d picked up on the streets of Los Angeles was even better. She could go to Mexico.
It would have to wait until she figured out who was trying to kill her. Some people might have seen their house burning down as a reason to leave town. Not Honey. She’d only ever run away from a fight once in her life. At the time, it had seemed like her only option.
It had been a mistake.
She circled her block twice, but she didn’t see anyone lying in wait for her to come home. She parked two houses away, pulling the Super Bee into an empty driveway. At ten o’clock in the morning, most of her neighbors were at work. They wouldn’t mind if she used the space.
Honey grabbed Jack’s gun and his badge as she got out of her car. She hustled down the street toward her house, trying to keep her eyes open, alert to anything out of the ordinary. But she wasn’t a cop. She was a mechanic working out of a rented garage bay near her house. An artist with an internal combustion engine who moonlighted as a bartender for her Uncle Mike to make ends meet. Neither of those jobs had trained her to notice evil men lurking in the bushes.
Luckily, no one jumped out at her.
When she arrived at the house, she remembered that her keys were in Jack’s bathroom, along with the pajamas she’d been wearing the night before. Exactly where she’d dropped them when she changed into Jack’s T-shirt.
Opening car doors was easy, especially on older vehicles without modern alarm systems built in, but she’d never been a burglar. She would have been stuck waiting in the hall the night before if Jack’s landlord hadn’t been too distracted by her pajamas to wonder why she needed his key.
Even if she had her own keys, they would only have helped her get through her front door’s two dead bolts. They wouldn’t have helped with the shiny new padlock the police had put up to stop anyone undeterred by yellow crime scene tape.
Some kind soul had already closed the place up, covering the shattered windows with heavy boards borrowed from the new fence her neighbor had put in a week earlier. It wasn’t a permanent repair, but it would keep animals and teenagers with spray-paint from doing any more damage.
The front of the house was impregnable.
Walking around the side of the building, she let out a breath. The side window had escaped the fire undamaged, and no one had closed it. Honey put a hand on either side of the screen, lifted herself up, and crashed her way through. Her shoulder slammed into the ground, her body crumpling awkwardly against the remnants of her coffee table. Not exactly the most graceful move she’d ever made, but it got her where she wanted to go.
The living room looked like the inside of a charcoal briquette. She bit her lip to keep from crying. If the crater in the floor was any indication, the fire had centered under her couch. The area by the hall door was clearer.
Moving forward, she tested each step before putting her full weight down.
In the hallway the soot merely stained the walls instead of being embedded in it. The house was a mess. Burned plaster was scattered across the floor. Even the parts of the house that had survived the fire hadn’t escaped completely unscathed. A direct hit from a fire hose had turned her bureau into a sodden mess. Standing next to it, the scent of mildew almost overpowered the stench of smoke.
Everything smelled like smoke.
Ducking around the corner, she let out a sigh of relief when she saw her dryer. The door was closed. Yanking it open, she took in a deep breath. The clothing inside smelled like citrus dryer sheets. She changed quickly, pulling on clean underwear, a T-shirt, and a pair of short shorts.
After changing she resumed the inspection. Except for the flame scars and the water damage, everything was exactly where she’d left it. Right down to the jewelry box she kept hidden in her linen closet under the towels.
She opened the box. All her jewelry was still there, everything down to the gold cross she’d been given for her first communion.
“Damn it.” It should’ve been good news, finding her jewelry untouched, but there were only a few things of value in her house, and the jewelry topped the list. If the arsonist hadn’t wanted it—if the fire hadn’t been to cover up a theft—why had he burned down her house?
One terrifying thought kept circling back to her. The fire wasn’t about her house or her things. It was about her. Someone wanted her dead.
She grabbed an old canvas backpack from her bedroom closet and tossed the box inside. Like a thousand other houses in the San Fernando Valley, Honey’s place had been built out of cardboard. It was easy enough to break into. That’s why her grandfather had installed a safe in the crawl space under the house—to keep his valuables away from prying eyes and petty thieves.
Her nose wrinkled at the thought.
The safe wasn’t exactly a secret. Honey had lain awake at night as a kid listening to grown men crawling around under her bed. Most of them were relatives.
The safe was large and old-fashioned. A metal box with a lock built into the door. How much damage could the fire have done to it?
No time like the present to find out. She tucked Jack’s badge into the backpack with an album full of family photos from the top of her dresser and a strand of pearls she’d left on her bathroom sink. She slung the backpack over her shoulder and walked outside, pushing the gun into her waistband. The heavy weight at the small of her back made her walk a little straighter.
“Okay, Honey,” she said. “You can do this.”
It was worse than she’d remembered. The crawl space hadn’t suffered any damage during the fire, but it was dusty, dirty, and small.
Too damn small.
The safe was all the way at the back. Honey took one deep breath, then another, struggling to fill her lungs with air.
When she reached the safe, she found it undamaged. That was something.
Reaching out, her fingers skimmed over the dial, making it spin easily. Four numbers. Not random, the combination commemorated the day that her grandfather had met her grandmother during World War II.
What had started as a light flirtation had turned into a marriage that lasted five years and three days, until the morning her grandmother ran off to greener pastures. That was all the old man would say, that his first wife “ran off to greener pastures.”
&n
bsp; Six months later, he’d remarried, but the combination to his safe hadn’t changed.
After wrenching open the safe’s door, she took a quick inventory. A sheaf of paper, some velvet jewelry boxes, and a black address book.
Nothing to write home about.
Certainly nothing to burn down a home for. It was the same odd collection of artifacts that had been there the last time she’d opened the safe, five days earlier. She tossed everything into the backpack, pausing at the last moment to open the address book. Her fingers fumbled with the heavy envelope she’d slipped inside the safe a week earlier. At the time, she’d thought hiding the envelope in the safe was overkill. Now she wasn’t so sure.
She didn’t know what was inside the envelope, but it was important.
Important enough to kill for?
She tucked it into the backpack and tried to turn around.
It had been too long. Her body didn’t work like that anymore.
She was stuck, suffocating in a tiny little hole. For one long moment, her lungs burned. As she wriggled backward, her knees scraped over the rough gravel. She bit her lip to muffle a painful cry.
“You need some help?”
Honey’s head jerked upward and smacked into a wooden floor joist.
“That’s got to hurt.” A warm laugh. “Think we match?”
“Damn it, Jack.”
Unbelievable. What the hell was he doing here?
Honey squeezed her eyes shut. She reached around behind her to retrieve his gun before wriggling the rest of the way out of the crawl space.
The backpack fell to the ground as she stood up and turned, swinging the gun upward in a smooth, powerful motion.
Firearms were dangerous. Given a choice, she’d rather have a sharp knife and a running head start. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t shoot if she needed to. Her cousins had taken her out to the desert in old trucks with big tires, driving off the road to find someplace to shoot at cans until they got bored.
Jack’s gun was a nine-millimeter semi-automatic. Heavier then she’d prefer, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. She took a perfect shooting stance—feet shoulder-width apart, hands wrapped carefully around the grip. It was only after she knew she was ready for whatever came next that she allowed herself to look at him.
“You’re looking good,” she said.
Freshly showered and clean-shaven, Jack gave her a cool smile. His sea green T-shirt clung to muscular arms and defined abs, and his blue jeans still had creases in them from where they’d been folded.
In a sharp suit and button-down shirt last night—Jack’s detective uniform—he’d been the same rich kid she’d wanted so many years earlier, all grown up. Out of her league. But dressed like this, Jack was more accessible. The man of her dreams.
She braced herself to meet his deep blue eyes.
He wasn’t looking at her face. He wasn’t even looking at the gun. His gaze was locked halfway in between. What the hell?
“What are you looking at?” she demanded. “Is there a spider on my boob?
“No spider, just your T-shirt.”
“It’s a uniform shirt.” Honey let go of the gun with one hand to tug self-consciously at the shirt’s neckline. “I wear it when I’m passing drinks for my Uncle Mike.”
“I like the color.”
“Sure.” The shirt was white. The neckline was rounded and low, revealing more than she cared to show on a sunny morning. Two words were emblazoned across her chest: “Drink Moore.”
Blood rushed to her face, making her cheeks hot. The shirt was one of her favorites. She’d always thought of it as slightly naughty, but the way Jack was staring at her made her feel obscene. Not entirely in a bad way.
“What do you want?”
“For you to take off your shirt.”
For a moment, she thought he was serious. Then he shook his head, the sudden motion indicating a change in topic. “What’s under the house, Honey?”
“You really want to know?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“I was checking for structural damage.” Confidence was the key to any good lie, and there was no way she could tell Jack the truth. The safe had survived for more than twenty years, preserving its secrets from feral cats, burglars, and multiple police raids. She wasn’t about to give it up now. Not even to Jack.
The items she’d pulled out of it didn’t look dangerous, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be used to send a friend of hers to prison for life. And the envelope—well, she didn’t know what to think about that. She needed to make a closer inspection of it without a detective breathing down her neck.
“I’d appreciate your opinion if you think you can fit down there,” she added.
“I’ll take your word for it.” Jack shifted forward slightly. “I saw inside. The place looks like a war zone. Someone doesn’t like you very much.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“How did you find me?” In all the years they’d known each other, he’d only been to her house once before—the night they’d snuck into the movies.
He’d been sixteen for all of two days, still getting used to the Super Bee’s power. The car had stalled twice on the way to the drive-in, and they’d arrived too late to park inside. That hadn’t stopped them from seeing the movie. He’d given her a boost while she climbed over the fence.
As far as she knew, it was the only time in his life he’d broken the rules, and he’d done it because she’d asked.
“What are you doing here, Jack?”
“I came for my gun.” He smiled. “You know how to use that thing?”
Her body was beginning to shake. She bit her lip, forcing herself to remain still. Her arms straightened, regaining that perfect shooting position. “I can hit a bottle at forty paces.”
“Bottles are good practice, but it’s not like hitting a man. Sending your bullet into his flesh. The distance we’re standing, my blood would spray all over you.” He gave her a long, appraising look. “I don’t think you could do it.”
“My soft heart will be the death of me.”
“You just don’t want to go back to jail.”
Here she was pointing a gun at his chest, and he was treating her like some kind of joke.
Damn him for not respecting her enough to think she was a threat, and damn him for not trusting her. Damn him for making her life harder when all she needed was help.
Everything was happening too fast, and it was too much. She couldn’t deal with Jack on top of everything else, not with the burned-out shell of her house only a few feet away.
Tears began to roll down her face. She bit her lip to keep from crying out audibly, but it was already too late. A cruel sob exploded from her throat, making her entire body shake.
“Damn you.”
“It’s all right, Honey.” He was trying to be reassuring, but his voice sounded rough and abrasive. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He took a quick step forward, too fast for her to figure out what was going on. Pushing the gun out of the way, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight against him. The minty scent of his toothpaste overpowered the stench of smoke that still hung in the air. The warm chest and strong muscles that had made her feel so safe the night before were stifling in the mid-morning heat.
No matter how hard she struggled, he just stood there, blocking out the sun.
“You left without saying anything. I was worried about you.”
“Worry.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “You were worried about your badge, your gun, and your car.”
“Damn straight. Do you know what happens if a police officer loses his gun? It’s not like I can go down to the corner store and buy another with my six-pack of beer. Internal Affairs gets involved. That’s something I can’t have.” Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. A bird cried out. Jack dropped his head closer to her ear. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I was going to hurt you.”
“You weren’t going to hurt me, Honey.” His chest rumbled with silent laughter. “You had the safety on.”
“I didn’t know.” Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to calm the screaming in her head.
So much had happened, it was hard to keep everything straight. Between her house burning down and the way she’d felt with Jack’s lips on hers, his hands moving across her body, she was finding it hard to concentrate.
A soft kiss landed on her mouth, real and reassuring. The flutter of his lips against hers. Nothing harsh or predatory, but it touched her somewhere deep inside. Despite everything else that had happened, Jack Ogden was a good man, stalwart and trustworthy.
Damn him.
“Will you help me?” she asked.
And then—because that might not be enough—her lips formed another word. One she didn’t use often. “Please.”
Chapter Five
“Wow.” Jack’s first reaction was shock. It was also his second reaction. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
Please. One word. Six letters. Jack couldn’t have been more surprised if Honey had gotten down on her knees and begged for his help.
“I need you.” Honey flushed. She wasn’t used to asking people for help.
“I know.” He wasn’t going to let her down. Even if she had pointed a gun at him. Her hands were sweaty, her breath coming fast. She was terrified. That wasn’t acceptable. Not while he had air in his lungs. “I should take you down to the station. Get a formal statement.”
As soon as he said it, Jack knew he’d made a mistake. A formal statement was never going to happen. If she’d wanted to go to the police, she’d have stuck around for the cops last night. Honey was the kind of woman who solved her own problems, and this time she was asking him for help. He wouldn’t let her down, even if it meant waiting and taking her statement back at his house.
He nodded toward the burned-out building. “Were you inside?”
