"No." Paul's voice was too low and shaken to be reassuring. "It's just a warning. They'll let him go. After. I swear."
She struggled against his hold as horrible sounds drifted with awful clarity through the spring woods. Terrible sounds—threats and thumps—interspersed with even more terrible silences.
The playground taunts of childhood fights sang mockingly in her head. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Tears ran down her face.
Mark groaned.
Tess wrenched her body from side to side, striking out with her feet. Paul grunted and gripped her close. Better hope Connie doesn't find out you're snuggling up with Tess DeLucca. She tried to bite his arm through his dark sweater. She hoped she left marks.
"Ouch." He shifted her roughly.
A light cut across her vision. Tess lifted her head in hope.
And saw a police car pull up to the edge of the graveled strip.
Jarek, she thought. Relief, warmth, triumph expanded her chest.
The cruiser's door opened, and Bud Sweet got out.
Her heart plummeted.
By the time the second police car showed up—three minutes later? five? a crawling eternity?—Tess barely had energy left to raise her head. She was blinded by tears, strangled by snot and the handkerchief Paul Larsen had stuffed in her mouth to keep her from screaming. Her cheeks were abraded. Her wrists were bruised.
Mark sagged between two men. He'd stopped groaning a while ago. Some of the energy had gone out of his assailants' punches.
A red light flashed from the turret atop the second car. A single blip sounded before the cruiser glided to a stop just outside the angled beam of the SUV's headlights. The door slammed, and a lean, compact figure stood backlit by the rotating red light.
"Oh, God," Paul Larsen said in Tess's ear. "I'm screwed."
Bud Sweet hitched his belt over his ample stomach and spoke for the first time since his arrival. "Okay, boys. You've had your fun. Now move along."
"No one goes anywhere," Jarek said in a cold, flat voice.
The group by the tower froze in the lights. Paul shrank deeper into the shadows. Jarek stood, his dark, disciplined figure flickering in the devilish red glow. Unmoving. Immovable.
Tess gulped against her gag. She wanted to cheer. She wanted to shriek a warning. What did Jarek think he was doing? He wasn't going to save her. He was going to get himself killed. He was in as much danger as Mark. What could he possibly do, one man against—
Sweet bridled. " 'Scuse me, Chief, but I don't think you understand—"
Jarek angled his body. His hand was out of sight, behind his leg, but his stance made it clear he had his gun. Maybe he made it clear in some silent way that he would use it, too, because Sweet shut up.
"You can explain it to me," Jarek said mildly. "Back at the station." He pitched his voice to the trees. "Officer Larsen? That your vehicle I passed on the way in?"
Paul cursed softly and fervently. "Yes, sir," he called.
"I want a report on the victim's injuries. Do we need an ambulance here?"
"He's okay," volunteered one of the men still holding Mark. "We just beat the crap out of him."
"Larsen, get his name," Jarek snapped. "Take all their names. And if any of your pals isn't feeling particularly communicative, please remind them that I have already recorded their license plate numbers. Unless they all intend to report their vehicles as stolen within the past twenty-four hours, I already know who they are. Now…" Jarek's voice roughened like winter ice. The temperature in the clearing dropped by another ten degrees. Paul was sweating. "Where is Miss DeLucca?"
Paul dropped her like a burglar caught with an armload of stolen goods. Tess fell down and staggered forward. Her knees were weak. Her heart threatened to pound out her ears. It took her half a dozen paces to work her fingers around the gag and tear it out of her mouth.
"Here," she choked out. "I'm here."
She wanted Jarek to take her in his arms. She wanted to breathe him in, his confidence and his calm and his strength. But he didn't reach for her. If anything, he became more still, a frozen statue of a cop. She couldn't even tell if he was looking at her.
"Can you drive your car?" he asked.
She could barely walk. But she stumbled somehow to Mark's side. The men who had been holding him turned their faces away.
She worked saliva from her numb, dry mouth and spat. "I hate you," she told them. "I hope you die."
"Tess." Impatience edged Jarek's tone. "Can you drive?"
She sank by her brother. His breathing was loud and shallow. "Yes. I think so."
She fumbled for the pulse under Mark's jaw. It stuttered under her fingers. "Mark? Honey, can you hear me?"
His eyes opened, shining slits in his swollen face. He mumbled something.
She leaned closer to hear. "What?"
"You…alrigh'?" he slurred.
Her eyes filled. Her nose dripped. "I'm fine."
"Get your brother in the car," Jarek instructed. "Take him to the hospital."
"I don't know if I can move him," she blurted.
"I'll help you," Paul said.
She didn't thank him. Together, they loaded Mark into her car, careful of his ribs and his head.
She looked back once over her shoulder. Jarek stood braced in the flickering red light, a solitary figure against seven angry, sullen men.
How could she leave him with nothing but Paul's uncertain support and Bud Sweet's self-serving explanations? But how could she stay? Mark needed a doctor. Needed her.
She drove off with Jarek's reflection wavering in her rear view mirror. One guardian against chaos, like a warrior angel in the mouth of hell.
Her heart splintered. But her faith, which had shattered years ago, or maybe just been worn down by rough handling, formed like a tiny diamond in her chest.
Jarek wanted to pound something. Specifically he wanted to sock Bud Sweet.
He stared across the metal chiefs desk at his second in command. With an effort, he kept his eyes level and his voice even. "I have preliminary statements from witnesses. I'm turning them over to the prosecuting attorney in Fox Hole. And until her investigation is concluded, you and Officer Larsen are suspended with pay."
Sweet's face was red. "You can't treat me the same as Larsen."
"I just did."
"You need me," Sweet insisted. "You've got a murderer on the loose. You get rid of me now, and I'll see the town turn on you."
He probably would, Jarek thought grimly. He probably could. Jarek was the interloper here. Sweet was the hometown operator, a twenty-year veteran of the force…
Jarek's jaw clamped. None of which could be allowed to matter. "This town's already turned on one of its own. You're no good to me or anybody else if you don't follow procedure."
"Protecting the likes of Mark DeLucca?" Sweet sneered.
Contempt burned in Jarek. He exhaled carefully, trying to release it on his breath. The lieutenant honestly didn't get it. "Protecting the rights of all its citizens. Upholding the law means following the law. You blew it with DeLucca when you let personal feelings interfere with you doing your job."
Sweet put both hands flat on Jarek's desk and leaned forward. "You mean like you're doing with his sister?"
Jarek crossed his arms deliberately. "My relationship with Tess DeLucca has no bearing on my handling of this case."
"Bull," Sweet said. "She's putting out so you'll ease up on her little brother."
Jarek didn't realize he'd reached for Sweet until he saw his own hand fisted in the fat man's shirt. He released him in disgust, his own restrictions binding as a Kevlar vest. Upholding the law meant following the law, damn it. Plus Sweet, while he outweighed Jarek by sixty pounds or so, was a good ten years older.
"Turn over your gun and your shield," he said, soft and real precise. "And get out."
Bud Sweet straightened his creased shirt. He shot Jarek a vindictive look. "She's not worth it, you know. Thi
s isn't the first time the DeLucca girl's used her body to reduce a charge."
The words alerted Jarek like a creaking floorboard in an empty crack house. "What do you mean?"
"He means," Tess said from the doorway, "that he groped me in the back of his police car when I was fourteen. And said he would get the shoplifting charges against me dropped if I promised not to tell anybody."
Chapter 14
Tess shrugged, but the careless gesture did not hide the pain in her eyes or the tremble of her chin. "So I promised to keep our dirty little secret. Though I'd disagree with him now about which of us was using the other."
Jarek's blood ran cold and then hot with fury. His hands clenched by his sides.
"Is this true?" he demanded of Sweet.
His lieutenant's gaze slid sideways. He smirked. "I'd say she got the best of the bargain. I hardly touched her. Anyway, she was a real skinny girl."
Red rage erupted through Jarek's cool.
One hand hauled Sweet across his desk. The other hit him hard in the jaw.
There was a thunk, a gasp from Tess, the scrape of steel legs across linoleum as Sweet fell back against a chair. His meaty arms flailed before he grabbed the chair seat and dragged himself upright.
Jarek stepped around his desk and waited for Sweet's return punch.
But the veteran cop only pressed the back of his hand to his bleeding mouth and sneered, "Upholding the law means following procedure, huh?"
"Get out," Jarek said through his teeth.
"You can't take that bitch's word over mine on something that happened sixteen years ago."
"Yes, I can. You're through. Give me your gun and your shield. Now."
Sweet laid his .38 flat on a stack of reports. He unclipped his shield's leather holder and flipped it onto the desk. "You're going to be sorry," he warned.
"Not for this," Jarek said. No, not for this.
He watched his former lieutenant lurch from the room and then turned his attention to Tess. She stood to one side of the door, hugging her elbows, and all the regret he hadn't felt before crashed over him in a wave. Her golden skin was nearly gray. Her eyes were smudged with makeup and fatigue. He wanted to help her, shelter her, protect her.
He wanted to take her in his arms, but nothing in her expression or her posture hinted she would welcome such a gesture.
So he asked instead, roughly, "You all right?"
He thought her eyes filled with tears. She looked away. "Fine."
She was still keeping her secrets. His disappointment surprised him. But it was his job and his nature to seek answers. And Jarek wanted the key to the riddle of Tess DeLucca more than he'd wanted anything in a long time.
"What was it you took?" he asked.
"A rubber football," she said. "From the five and dime."
Jarek made the connection. "For Mark?"
"It was his birthday," she explained. As if she needed to defend her action to him. "He wanted one so much, and there wasn't anything—" Her voice wavered. She bit her lip to get it back under control.
There was his cue. Jarek crossed the room in two quick strides and took her in his arms. And maybe that was the signal she needed, because instead of shrugging him off, Tess turned her face into his chest and clutched his shirt and started to cry. First slow, leaking tears that soaked his shirt and then big, gulping sobs that shook them both.
He wrapped his arms around her tight and held her while she cried out the fear and frustration of this long night against his chest.
"It's okay," he murmured over and over into her soft hair, even though he didn't know if that was true. Didn't know if he could make it true, could make things up to her somehow. Make up for the hurts of her neglected childhood and the pain of her abuse and the loneliness of responsibility that she'd taken on too young.
Oh, yeah. Like that could happen. Look at the way he'd messed up his own family. He'd already demonstrated he was not exactly prime husband and father material.
But because he was trying, because she was warm and soft and her crying was tearing him up inside, he swallowed the lump in his own throat and stroked her dark hair and said stupid things like, "Shh, honey, it's okay," and "Everything's going to be all right."
After a while the sobs stopped. Her grip loosened. She sniffed against his shirt.
He reached into his back pocket and used his handkerchief to dry the tears from her warm, flushed cheeks. For some reason that nearly set her off again.
She used the heel of her hand to wipe her eyes and said, "If you tell me to blow, it's going to really spoil the mood."
Jarek's arms tightened around her involuntarily. He loved her humor. He loved the strength that allowed her to laugh at both of them even when things were tough and emotions were high. He loved— He caught himself abruptly.
"I'm not going to tell you to blow," he said.
She gave him a watery smile. "Good."
"How's your brother?" he asked quietly.
"Three cracked ribs and some internal bleeding from where the fractures tore muscle tissue. They put a chest tube in in the E.R. The doctor said he was lucky. He'll be out of the hospital in a couple of days."
He hadn't protected her brother. But he could see to it that his attackers were brought to justice. "I'm charging Carl Taylor, Earl Willard, Walter Hotchkiss and Tom Dewey with aggravated assault."
"What about Paul Larsen?"
"Suspended with pay pending an independent review," he told her honestly. "He'll probably be fined and suspended. If he keeps his job—which is a big if at this point—I'm busting him back to traffic control. It's small payment for what he did to you, but—"
"It's enough," Tess said. "His wife will make him pay, believe me."
A silence fell. Not uncomfortable, but…awkward, Jarek decided. It felt good holding her like this. Maybe too good.
Tess gave this little smile that twisted him in knots. "Hell of a night," she said.
He thought of the reports he had left to write, the follow up calls and interviews he had to make tomorrow. "Yeah, well, it's not over yet."
Tess leaned back in his arms and gave him a look. The angle of her body pushed their hips together, close enough that she had to feel how her nearness affected him. The look was the kind that even a rookie detective could identify as, well, significant. Jarek's blood left his brain and surged to his groin. The contact between their lower bodies became even more revealing and dangerous.
"It doesn't have to be," she said, still looking directly into his eyes. The warmth shimmering in her gaze stopped his breath. "Over, I mean."
Holy St. Mike.
The beautiful, sexy young woman in his arms had just made him an offer—Jarek was sure it was an offer, he might be out of practice, but he wasn't out of his mind— and he was considering saying no.
Okay, maybe he was out of his mind.
He asked, "Why?"
Tess blinked at him. "You need reasons?"
Yes. The drive for answers was part of who he was, of what he did. But this new need had nothing to do with his job. It left him vulnerable in a way that scared him. Carefully he reminded her, "You're the one who wanted to wait until you decided what an involvement between us would mean."
"And you were the one who said it didn't have to mean anything."
He stuck his hands in his pockets. "That was before."
"Before what?"
Before I figured out I could fall in love with you.
Don't tell her that. That was the one thing guaranteed to send commitment-phobic Tess running.
"Before all this business with your brother."
Her full lips pressed together. Was that disappointment in her eyes? "Mark's getting a blood test. He agreed to it tonight."
"That's not what I meant. Tess—"
"It's not a problem," she assured him. But she was already withdrawing from him, Jarek saw, his irritation barely masking his fear. Maybe not physically—he was the one who had set that distance between them—
but in her mind. She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Hey, he's in the hospital anyway, right? What's the loss of a little more blood?"
"Look, what happened—" He stopped, frustrated. Never apologize to a civilian. Never explain. Every cop knew better than to lay himself open to charges of liability. And no police chief in the world handed ammunition to a reporter. But Jarek's own integrity—not to mention his sense of what he owed Tess—forced him to it.
"The attack on Mark should never have happened," he said stiffly. "Not in my department. Not on my watch. I'm trying to tell you I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "There are too many people in this town who remember Mark the way he was seven years ago."
"And more than a few who probably resent what he made of himself once he left," Jarek guessed.
Her eyes widened. "Exactly. So, you see, you weren't at fault."
"But I am responsible."
"No," she said. "You stopped them. You saved him. Saved me. And I appreciate it."
"You have every right to resent me for what happened tonight."
"Well, I don't I'm grateful."
She meant it, Jarek saw. His heart contracted. Her gratitude was harder to bear than shouted accusations. If he accepted her offer now he'd be guilty of taking the worst kind of advantage.
"That's what I'm afraid of," he said.
Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. You honestly think I want to go to bed with you as a way of saying thanks?"
"Basically."
"Boy, are you out to lunch," Tess said.
He almost smiled. Except that he was tired and turned on and losing control of the conversation. He wanted her, damn it. And it was taking every ounce of discipline he had not to take what he wanted. "It's not unreasonable," he said. "It's easy to mistake feelings of, well, gratitude for—"
Her eyes flashed. "Easy for you, maybe." She poked a finger in the center of his chest. "I know what I'm feeling. I know what I want. If you've changed your mind—"
She wanted him. She'd said so in no uncertain terms. Rejecting her now would humiliate her.
And damn near kill him.
Relief rolled through him. He took the hand that was stabbing at his chest and held it in both of his.
All a Man Can Do Page 16
