Velvet Ropes

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “How?”

  “He tried to save you.”

  Stella felt as if the air was knocked out of her. She realized he was talking about the rape.

  His business, he’d said.

  “You ordered Rick Lamey to rape me?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t want you hurt, Star. I just wanted you scared so you would keep your mouth shut. It never occurred to me that I needed to spell it out for them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I ran the Vipers. I got the info for the burglaries. You know how people talk to their favorite mechanic? When they’re not gonna be home a particular night. Or when they’re getting the car ready for vacation. The Vipers pulled off the jobs under my direction. Then I fenced the product and gave them a better cut than they could have gotten on the street. And they brought me as many vehicles as they could lift off the street. A chop shop can be a very lucrative business.”

  Leroy’s comment about not liking the way Frank did business came back to her. All along, the family patriarch had been running a chop shop. And he’d used part of that money to help support her and her mom and sister. Stella felt shame for him. Shame he obviously would never experience himself.

  Wondering if the mechanic who’d come into the store the day before had been looking for hot parts—that had to be why Frank had made it a point to introduce her as his cousin the detective—she said, “I don’t know you anymore. I wonder if I ever did. I thought you cared about us.”

  “I did care. I care now. But you’re no good to me. You would betray me faster than Tony did. At one time I thought of Tony as the son I never had. He worked in the store doing odd jobs for cash. And he was the kid who went through windows to open doors for the bigger boys. I took him up to Wisconsin more than once. Treated him like my own. And see how he repaid me? You’re no better.”

  “I’m a cop, Frank.”

  “And I’m the power in this neighborhood! You made a mistake crossing me!”

  Aghast, Stella stared at the man who’d been like a father to her. He looked the same on the outside, but she realized what was on the inside was rotten to the core. She realized he always had been rotten inside, only she’d been too young and naive to recognize that.

  Frank attached himself to people only for as long as they were useful in some way. Like a pretend family. Her family. Then once their usefulness was over, he didn’t care what happened to them. He’d acted hurt that she hadn’t been to see him much over the past few years, when the truth was he hadn’t done anything to see her, either. All an act.

  “You run the neighborhood like you ran our family?” she asked, trying to stay calm. “You pretended to care for us, then turned around and gave orders for a heinous crime to be committed against me. What in the world have you done to the people around here?” she asked, seeing a few neighbors watching from the safety of their doorways.

  He ignored the last. “I told them bastards to scare you, not hurt you! I just wanted your promise of silence! I didn’t want to hurt you this time, either, Star—”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “—but you wouldn’t settle down and quit. You had to stick your nose where it didn’t belong again!”

  “So when you couldn’t discourage me, you decided to hand out your own brand of justice.” Stella blinked and saw the gun in Frank’s hand. She backed up and cursed herself for not being prepared for this. “You ordered Paz Falco to kill me.”

  “You gave me no choice! But he couldn’t get it right. If I want things done right, sometimes I just have to do them myself.” More firecrackers banged behind him, making him raise his voice so she imagined the whole neighborhood could hear him. “You should have died tonight, Star, not Falco!”

  So he hadn’t stuck around long enough to know the man wasn’t dead. At least she hoped not.

  And then the thought struck her. “My God, you were trying to kill me?”

  “I missed and got him instead. But I won’t miss again, not at this short distance.”

  To Stella’s horror, the man she’d thought of as a father aimed and pulled the trigger.

  She saw the blue flash, felt her chest crush and flew back against a car hood. She gasped and tried to speak, but she couldn’t get any air. She tried to reach for her holster but couldn’t manage it.

  She couldn’t move anything.

  “You made me kill you, Star. Remember that.”

  Frank turned his back on her and left her to die alone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Spotting the Frank’s Auto Repair sign, Dermot instinctively slowed the vehicle in time to see the man who must be Frank Jacobek raise a gun and shoot Stella. Slamming on the brakes, he jumped out of the SUV and saw her sprawl back over a car hood. Still armed, her cousin had turned his back on her.

  Dermot thought fast.

  Praying Stella was still alive, he knew he had to get the gun first, then see to her. If he tried to help her first, Frank could simply kill them both.

  Under the cover of nearby fireworks, Dermot crept toward the lot, his focus Frank, who got to a Jaguar with an open trunk before glancing back. The armed man stiffened, and his expression turned horrified.

  Dermot slid behind a tree and followed the older man’s gaze.

  Stella was gone!

  Relieved that she was alive, worried that she was seriously hurt, Dermot was torn about what to do next.

  Frank decided for him. He muttered a curse, grabbed a rifle from the Jaguar trunk and slammed the lid shut. Then he stalked off toward the alley where his neighbors were putting on a fireworks display. He didn’t even bother to hide the two weapons in his hands.

  And Dermot didn’t wait until the man disappeared from view.

  Knowing he had to take Frank as quickly as possible, Dermot broke cover and jogged across the lot. When he got to the edge of the building, he slowed just long enough to see where Frank had gone. Seemingly beside himself—Stella was nowhere in view— Frank was waving the rifle at the families who were holding their Day of the Dead fireworks display in the alley.

  “Where’s Stella?” Frank demanded.

  Mothers gathered their children close and retreated into their yards away from the madman. Most of the men stood in mute defiance.

  “You keep her from me and you know what you’ll get!” Frank yelled.

  The handful of people who refused to leave the alley remained steely-eyed and continued to shoot off their illegal fireworks. A teenager lit a bottle rocket, but it fizzled out and did nothing. He flapped around it, frustrated that it was too dangerous to touch.

  Almost as dangerous as Frank Jacobek, Dermot thought.

  Dermot slid closer. A lone woman beyond the bastard looked straight at Dermot…then at Frank…then back to him. She nodded, then made a small gesture toward her gate.

  Stella? he silently mouthed.

  Another nod.

  The knot in the middle of his chest eased a bit. These people were protecting her.

  “Stella!” Frank yelled, then pointed his rifle at the teenager who was still trying to decide what to do about his dud of a bottle rocket. “Where the hell is she?”

  “I don’t know, man!”

  “She came this way!” Spittle sprayed from Frank’s mouth. “She couldn’t have just disappeared. You’re lying! One of you is hiding her!”

  Then Dermot was on Frank and kicked him in the back of his knee so hard that he collapsed to one side. The rifle hit the pavement and went spinning out of Frank’s reach. He was agile, though, and whirled around, handgun raised.

  “O’Rourke! I should have killed you, too!”

  Dermot didn’t wait until Frank finished—another well-placed kick and that weapon went flying.

  Frank was on his feet in a flash and came after Dermot with his bare hands. No matter that he had an extra twenty years on Dermot, he was solid, tough and mean. He pummeled Dermot’s middle with both fists. Dermot struck back with a blow to Frank’s jaw that didn’t seem
to faze him. Neither did the second or third blow. The man simply kept coming.

  Frank moved fast and grabbed a black plastic garbage container and sent it skidding into Dermot. Then he went after the fallen gun that lay a few yards away.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you, Frank!” came an authoritative woman’s voice.

  “Stella!”

  Dermot glanced back to see her standing outside that woman’s gate, one hip resting heavily against another garbage container, Frank’s rifle in her hands and pointed straight at him.

  “Everyone get back!” she said.

  They obeyed, retreating behind fences or in pockets at the side of the alley.

  Dermot quickly scanned Stella for blood, but couldn’t see any. Then he quickly turned his attention once more to Frank, who was very slowly backing down the alley away from her. As if he had anywhere to go where the arm of the law wouldn’t reach him.

  “Frank, stop now!”

  “You wouldn’t shoot me, Star.”

  “Don’t make me. Frank Jacobek, you’re under arrest. Put your hands in the air!”

  While he didn’t try for the gun, neither did he do as she ordered. He kept inching backward.

  Stella tried to move toward him, but she grimaced with the pain. It took everything Dermot had not to go to her to help her. She was a cop. This was her bust. She would be humiliated if he stepped in now. He had to let her handle it, had to let her work through the pain. She could do it—he knew she could do anything she set her mind to.

  “You have a right to remain silent, Frank. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law.” Stella ground out his Miranda rights. “You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford—”

  “Shut your trap, girl!” Frank shouted. “Don’t you know you’ll never best me?”

  He started to move off.

  “Frank, stop!”

  He didn’t so much as look back.

  “Frank, if you don’t stop and let me cuff you,” Stella said, moving after him with difficulty, “I really will have to shoot you.”

  He made a rude gesture and kept going.

  Stella stopped, lowered the rifle barrel and shot him in the leg.

  Frank screamed, “Bitch!” and nearly went down right there.

  Just then, as he was dancing to stay on his feet, someone threw a string of firecrackers into the alley behind him. Frank jerked in surprise, then stepped wrong. His foot jammed against the unexploded bottle rocket. He cursed and kicked it to get it out of the way.

  The jarring awakened the faulty rocket, and as it went spinning, suddenly flared to life. Frank couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. The rocket shot up into his groin, and then Frank flared to life, too, screaming as his whole body was engulfed in flames.

  “Frank, no!” Stella yelled, dropping the rifle and trying to get to him. “Water! Someone get a hose!”

  No one moved to help. His neighbors looked on him with hatred and a sense of satisfaction that was tangible to Dermot. One old lady spat in his direction.

  Frank threw himself down to the alley floor and rolled, but nothing could save him now. His skin was blackening and separating from his body, and his jerky movements were slowing.

  Dermot grabbed Stella before she incinerated herself trying to help someone who was beyond help. He let her sob against him, knowing it was probably the last time he would ever hold her in his arms.

  He turned her away from the ghastly sight.

  The puppet master of the neighborhood was no more.

  “NOW I CAN SAY, yes, it’s worth making Kevlar a fashion statement,” Stella joked with Logan, who had grilled her while medical personnel had come in and out of the emergency room cubicle.

  Not that she had any cause for amusement, having watched Frank die such a horrible death only hours before. Because of her. Because she’d shot him in the leg and he hadn’t been able to move out of the way fast enough.

  She couldn’t believe he’d tried to kill her. Only her Kevlar vest had saved her. And even at that, she’d almost been knocked out cold. She had lots of bruising and a fractured rib, but in a few weeks, the doctor had said, she would be as good as new.

  Rather, her body would be.

  Her heart was a different matter.

  Dermot had called 9-1-1, had followed the ambulance to the emergency room.

  Then he had disappeared.

  And while she’d been poked and prodded, she’d used that time to think.

  “I need to find Dermot,” she told Logan, trying to sit up so she could swing her legs over the edge of the bed.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Logan stopped her from going further. “You haven’t been released yet. Besides, you have—I can’t tell you how much—paperwork to fill out on this case.”

  Logan was right, of course. Dermot would have to wait.

  And then she realized she was being foolish torturing herself over him. Dermot hadn’t waited, had he? Why should he when she’d told him she wouldn’t forgive him?

  And yet, that hadn’t stopped him from following her to Frank’s place. To her rescue one more time…

  Why had he?

  She was trying to get up again when she heard a deep voice ask, “Need some help?”

  Her pulse began to thunder, “Yeah. A little.”

  Dermot—not Logan—was standing over her bed.

  She swung her legs out, and he helped her slide forward so she was sitting on the edge. Any movement of her torso was still difficult—the painkiller was wearing off—but it was worth it to feel his hands on her, if only for a moment.

  His expression neutral, Dermot backed off. “Logan said you needed to find me.”

  “I wanted to thank you—”

  “I don’t want your thanks, Star. In the end I really didn’t do anything. You got Falco and Frank…well, Frank was served justice by a higher court.”

  He sounded so matter-of-fact, as if he’d seen it all in a movie or something, rather than being involved.

  She said, “That’s one way of putting it, I guess.”

  “His death was not your fault.”

  Stella nodded. “I’ll try to see it that way.” And then she met his gaze. “You were there for me, Dermot. But by letting me handle the situation, you showed you trusted me.” That he didn’t see her as a victim anymore. “I didn’t do that for you. Trust, I mean.”

  “You’ve done something great for me that I couldn’t do for myself. The charges against me are being dropped.”

  Stella heaved a sigh of relief and let her chin drop to her chest. “Thank goodness.”

  There was an awkward pause between them for a moment before Dermot asked, “So how are you really?”

  “Physically? A mess.” Emotionally? A train wreck.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything that needs to be forgiven.”

  Dermot gave her a sharp look. “Star…you want to explain that in a little more detail?”

  “I love the way you say my name.” She swallowed hard and steeled herself for possible rejection. Putting herself in the line of fire of a gun was small potatoes compared to this. “I love you, Dermot.”

  “Even though you know the truth.”

  “Because I know the truth,” she said.

  She waited a moment but he didn’t return the sentiment. Her nerves felt raw. Was he simply disappointed in her and angry? Or had what happened between them changed the way he felt about her forever?

  “I was thinking the other day that I never really knew the real you until now.” She had to try to explain, even if it didn’t make a difference to him. “Twelve years ago, I loved you because you saved me. I had a glorified vision of who you were. Now I love you for so much more. For who you were before that. For the person you made yourself into. For your humanity and kindness and strength. Now I know ev erything, Dermot…well…other than those things you can’t talk about…and my heart is filled with you.”

  He shook his h
ead. “But the seal—”

  “Is part of who you are.” Getting to her feet, she moved closer and touched his face. “An honorable man. That’s why there’s nothing to forgive and why I couldn’t ask for more.”

  Dermot smiled down at her then, and she thought his was the most beautiful smile in the world. “I couldn’t ask for more, either, Star. I love you and I always will.”

  He put his arms around her and held her protectively, and Stella decided she liked the feeling just fine. She sighed and snuggled closer.

  Dermot brushed his lips against her forehead, her nose, her lips. His kiss was sweet and lingering and joyful. Exactly the way she was feeling.

  “Can you really forget the past, then, and build a future with me?” Dermot asked.

  His sweet words made her heart sing and erased all the heartache of the past. “I can’t think of anything I want more.”

  Epilogue

  “Another job well done,” Gideon said, sitting on the edge of his desk.

  Dermot O’Rourke was a free man…well, except for his attachment to Stella Jacobek.

  He passed the newspaper he’d been reading so Gabe and Blade and Cass could take a look at the article commending Detective Stella Jacobek for making the key arrest in the Vargas case and cracking a chop shop and burglary ring.

  “We didn’t do a whole lot to help Dermot,” Gabe said. “Stella didn’t really need us.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Cass said. “You found the key to eliminating Marta Ortiz. And the link between Tony Vargas and Frank Jacobek.”

  “But Stella’s the one who nailed it.”

  Blade said, “Stella turned out to be one fine detective.” And he couldn’t sound prouder of his old friend.

  “Indeed she did,” Gideon agreed, thinking they’d have use for her skills in the future.

  Who knew when their next case would come along….

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-3230-3

  VELVET ROPES

  Copyright © 2004 by Patricia Pinianski

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.