Hard Evidence

by Pamela Clare

  "He's given you all that without requesting counsel?"

  "He's asked for his lawyer a couple of times. I only manhandled him once."

  Irving poked Julian in the chest. "The next time he asks to call his attorney, make sure you comply. The DPD goes by the book."

  Despite his rage, Julian couldn't help but grin. "Yes, sir. Next time."

  It just so happened the next time came the moment Julian opened the door.

  Dr. Norfolk, apparently having rediscovered his bravado while Julian was out of the room, greeted him with shouts. "I want to call my attorney! I demand to see my attorney!"

  Julian raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you just say so?"

  Tessa listened through her telephone headset, heart aching, as the girl told her story.

  Nicki had run away from an abusive home at the age of fourteen only to end up selling crack on the streets with gang members, who'd taken her in. Actually, they'd "beaten" her in, giving her the honor of walking a gauntlet of other female gang members who'd assaulted her as a rite of initiation.

  "I had a broken rib and was pretty bloodied up, but I was used to that. Besides, they were trying to be my friends. I was proud that I'd been beaten in instead of sleepin' with someone."

  Tessa realized her teenage self, if given that choice, would have done the same thing. "Did the gang members give you a place to stay?"

  "I sold crack, hooked up with one of the boys, stayed mostly in his mama's place in the projects. I carried his pistol sometimes when the cops came round. They'd usually stop and search him if they saw him, but they left me alone."

  By the time Tessa got off the phone, a sad picture had formed in her mind, a picture of poverty, hopelessness, violence, and an urban jungle in which unlucky teens were left to survive as best they could with little help from anyone.

  It was Lord of the Flies on the streets of Denver.

  Nicki had eventually been rescued from the streets by a sympathetic pastor. The rest of her gang mates hadn't been so lucky. The kid who'd been her boyfriend had been shot and killed when a drug deal he was working went bad. The rest of them were still on the streets, selling drugs, watching one another's backs, scrambling to stay alive.

  Tessa had almost finished writing her article when her cell phone rang. For a moment she didn't answer, thinking it might be her mother. She wasn't ready to deal with that, not yet, not with everything else that was going on in her life. Then she remembered her mother didn't have the number to her cell phone.

  She picked up the phone on the fourth ring, answered. 'Tessa Novak."

  "Are you at the paper?" It was Julian.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Stay there. Don't even go out for a cup of coffee. We got the results on the fingerprints. They're a perfect match for one of the sets we found in the basement apartment. The man who attacked you was one of the girl's killers."

  He was saying something about Chief Irving working on witness protection for her, something about a police escort, but she could scarcely hear him over the buzzing in her ears.

  The man who'd come into her apartment, the man who'd followed her, the man who'd crept up on her and squeezed her breast had been one of the girl's killers.

  'Tessa, can you hear me? Are you all right?"

  "Y-yes." It was a blatant lie. "Why didn't he kill me?"

  Pull it together, girl!

  "We'll talk about that later," he said. "Just don't leave the building alone. My guess is he's waiting out there for you. An officer will come for you at five and escort you to the shooting range. See you there."

  She hung up, forced her trembling fingers back to her keyboard, and returned to writing her article, determined to do Nicki's story justice no matter what was going on in her own life. And as she'd worked, she found herself taking strength from Nicki's survival spirit. Still a child, Nicki had seen and endured things most adults could scarcely fathom. She had prevailed.

  So would Tessa.

  After all, the worst thing that had happened to Tessa was that some killer had snuck into her apartment and chosen to grab her breast over shooting her. It wasn't nice, but it could have been a whole lot worse. She'd been lucky.

  This wasn't about her anyway. It was about a girl who had been running for her life and had been ruthlessly murdered. The killers were only interested in Tessa because she stood as a witness to that original violent act. But they were picking on the wrong person.

  Tessa was done being afraid. She was an investigative journalist, damn it! It was her job to find the bastards and nail them to the wall. And that's what she was going to do.

  The sun was setting over the Rockies when Tessa took the exit and turned into the shooting range parking lot, the black-and-white police cruiser behind her. She waited in her car until Officer Petersen met her at her door, then walked beside him into the shooting range, her heart rate picking up, a few irritatingly persistent butterflies flapping in her stomach.

  She'd promised herself she wouldn't freak out again, and she knew she wouldn't. But now that she was here she couldn't stop herself from feeling nervous. Nor could she stop the sense of anticipation she felt at the thought of seeing Julian again.

  It hadn't been easy keeping her mind off him. Okay, it had been next to impossible. It wasn't just the sight of him without a shirt that she kept remembering—though that fine image kept popping into her head at the most inopportune moments— but other things, as well. He'd broken glass to get to her, smashing through the front door of her apartment building as if he couldn't reach her fast enough.

  She didn't know what to think about that, but she liked it.

  Tessa thanked Officer Petersen for the escort, then walked through the hallway back toward the range itself. She found Julian standing at the counter talking with the same man who'd checked them in yesterday. Dressed in low-slung jeans, a black cotton T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, his harness in place, he seemed to radiate raw masculinity.

  If her mind didn't understand it, her body certainly did. Just seeing him left her insides feeling warm and liquid.

  He glanced over his shoulder and turned to face her, his gaze sliding over her. Then he frowned. She realized he was looking at her clothes. She was still wearing her dress and heels—not very practical attire for a shooting range, she supposed.

  "I didn't bring anything to change into," she said, feeling silly.

  "That's fine. I just don't want you to twist an ankle. Did you bring extra rounds?"

  "Yes." She wasn't stupid enough to make that mistake twice.

  "Let's go." Julian turned and led her through the double doors.

  She followed him to what should have been the center stall. But where there ought to have been dividers, there was now only a wide-open space. Two thick panels of vinyl hung from the ceiling, each about two feet wide. Downrange stood six targets, outlines in the shapes of men, each mounted on some kind of frame that seemed to rest on a spring or track.

  "We're going to do something different today. Clearly you can hit a stationary target when you've got time to use that front sight and aim. But most of the time, bad guys don't stand still, and you don't want to be standing still, either. We're going to practice shooting at moving targets under conditions more similar to what you'd encounter in a real firelight."

  "So it's a shoot-out at the O.K. Corral." Those few butterflies flapped their wings harder.

  His blue eyes dark with an emotion she didn't understand, he looked down at her, brushed his thumb down her cheek. "I know all of this has been hard on you, Tessa. I'm going to do my best to catch these guys. But just in case I don't or they get me first, I'm going to teach you how to stay alive and how to kick ass."

  Touched, Tessa reached up, took his hand, and, without thinking, kissed his palm, his skin soft and hot against her lips. "If anything happens to you, Darcangelo, I'll kick your ass."

  He grinned, his smile making her breath catch. "I'd like to see you try."

  First they reviewe
d what they'd done last time. Next, he told her what to do in case of a misfire or a "squib load."

  "In a revolver, the cylinder will usually advance to the next round, and you'll be able to discard the misfired round when you reload. If it's a squib load, meaning that the charge wasn't strong enough to force the bullet out of the barrel, the cylinder might jam. You won't be able to fire again until the round is removed—something only a gunsmith can do. If the bullet lodges in the barrel and you fire again, the barrel is likely to explode. Squib loads are rare, but if they do happen, a revolver is useless."

  "What do you do then? Drop the gun and run like hell?"

  He chuckled. "No, you hold on to the gun and run like hell. They don't know the gun is useless. Point it at them, and they're likely to duck for cover. And if they catch you, you can always beat the crap out of them with it. Steel is steel."

  Then he showed her what she'd be doing. The vinyl panels were intended to simulate cover of some kind—the edge of a wall, a tree, furniture. The targets were the other shooters. Scattered across the room, each would move in its turn and in random order. Her job was to remain safely behind cover while hitting each target in the chest region when it moved. The targets were positioned in such a way that she'd have to turn back and forth to fire, making use of both panels.

  "Like this." Julian turned and waved to a man in a control booth Tessa hadn't noticed before. Then he stood with his back to one of the vinyl panels, pretending to hold a gun in his hands.

  The first sprang up, lurching forward by about a foot.

  Julian pivoted, pointed his fingers, and "fired" in one smooth motion. "Bam!" he said, reminding her of a little boy playing cops and robbers.

  But this was anything but a game.

  Then the second moved. Then the third. Then the fourth, fifth, and sixth.

  "Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Like that. Try to hit center mass."

  It didn't look too hard.

  Julian suppressed a grin as Tessa, revolver in hand and pointed at the floor, reached down and slipped off her heels then carried them to the nearby bench. She was being practical—a good thing. Why it should amuse him so damned much, he didn't know. Perhaps it was the sight of her, all feminine curls and curves, with heels in one hand and revolver in the other. He'd seen lots of women packing guns over the years—special agents, cops, killers—but none of them could match Tessa for sheer girliness.

  Given what he'd told her this afternoon, she was doing remarkably well. He hadn't been sure what to expect, and he'd been prepared for the possibility that she'd be too overwhelmed and afraid to fire a single shot. But if she was afraid—and he was certain she must be—she wasn't showing it. He hoped her nerves would hold. She had a rough couple of days ahead of her, and that was if everything went according to plan.

  He would tell her about that later. Right now he wanted her to concentrate.

  Looking determined and focused, she took position as he'd shown her behind one of the panels, the pistol pointed at the ceiling, its barrel pointed a little too much toward her.

  He walked over, adjusted the angle. "Forget what you've seen on TV shows. The only people who hold guns like that are people who want to shoot their own noses off."

  "Oh." Pink spots appeared on her cheeks.

  "Ready?"

  She nodded.

  He gave the signal.

  The first target moved. She spun toward it, and he saw one of her eyes close as she fixed her gaze on the front sight and fired. By then the second target had already moved. Before she could turn to face it, the third had moved. Still, she took aim and shot at each one, hitting three of the six.

  When she was done, she glanced at the targets, a look of satisfaction on her face. "Well, I hit half of them. Not bad for a first try."

  Julian hated to burst her bubble. "If this were real life, that guy," he pointed to the second target, "would have shot you while you were distracted and aiming at the first guy. You were using your front sight. Remember, you can't do that. Just aim and fire. And keep under cover. It's more important not to get shot than it is to hit your target. Okay, reload."

  The targets clicked back into place as she slipped six fresh rounds into the revolver and snapped the cylinder shut.

  "Ready?"

  She nodded. "Lock and load."

  Julian gave the signal.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  This time none of the rounds she fired hit anything.

  She frowned. "I think those ended up in Kansas."

  "That's okay. You're not supposed to know how to do this. That's why we're here."

  For the next hour he repeated the drill, giving her pointers, correcting her, until her cheeks were pink from the exertion and frustration. They'd gone through more than a hundred rounds, and she'd hit her target only eleven times—fairly typical for a new shooter.

  "Damn it!" She looked adorably pissed off. "This is impossible! I keep getting shot, and I can't hit the target if I can't use the sight!"

  Julian crossed his arms over his chest, fought back the smile that kept creeping onto his face. "Sure you can. It just takes practice."

  She glared up at him. "And I suppose you can hit them all."

  He nodded. "Easily."

  "Well, Mr. Armed and Dangerous, let's see it." She pressed her pistol into his chest.

  He pushed her hand away, drew out his Sauer. "This is a three-fifty-seven SIG Sauer. It conceals easily, is fairly lightweight, and packs a mean punch. The magazine I carry holds twice as many rounds as your revolver, and I can reload quickly by popping in a new magazine. If it jams, I can have it operational again in seconds by tapping the butt against a hard surface to make sure the magazine is in place and then racking the slide."

  He demonstrated as he spoke, releasing and reloading the magazine, tapping the butt and drawing back on the slide. Then he looked up to see a dejected expression on her pretty face.

  "Your gun is better than mine."

  He couldn't resist. "And bigger."

  Her gaze collided with his, and she blushed. Then her eyes narrowed. "Shut up, and shoot."

  "Yes, ma'am." Julian took position, shifted his mind from Tessa to the task at hand, nodded to Hal in the control booth.

  As soon as the first target moved, his response became automatic. He registered only sound, motion, and the hard kick of the Sauer in his hands. He fired the sixth round, replaced the half-full magazine with a full one, and slipped the Sauer into its holster.

  When he looked up, she was glaring at him.

  "Show-off."

  He allowed himself one smirk, more to irritate her than because he truly felt smug about his target shooting. "You shouldn't compare yourself to me, Tessa. I was trained by the best and have been practicing almost daily for fifteen years. You've done this once."

  "That won't matter next time that guy comes around and decides to blow my head off." Her gaze dropped to the floor, the fear he'd known she must be feeling finally coming to the surface.

  He closed the space between them, tucked a finger beneath her chin, and lifted her face, forcing her to meet his gaze. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure there isn't a next time."

  "Why didn't he kill me, Julian?"

  "Let's talk about it over dinner."

  Chapter 13

  Julian followed Tessa home, hanging far enough behind her to keep an eye out for Wyatt. There was no sign of the bastard. Perhaps the police escort she'd had to the shooting range had scared him off for the moment. Or perhaps Burien had already rearranged his anatomy for last night's screwup— if what he'd done last night had, indeed, been a screwup.

  Julian watched from a half block away as she turned into her parking lot and parked in her assigned place. He spotted the unmarked police car in a visitor's space nearby, where plainclothes officers had been keeping her building under surveillance all afternoon. The night shift would be relieving them soon—two undercover vice cops handpicked by Julian and strapped to play rough.<
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  If Wyatt came skulking around tonight, he was going to find himself facing more than a soft, terrified woman.

  Julian had asked Tessa to let him sleep on her couch tonight. She'd seemed relieved to know he'd be there, but she'd made him promise not to knock her out again. "No more Molotov cocktails, or whatever that was," she'd said. "I don't even remember getting into bed."

  Julian had thought it best not to tell her that he'd carried her. Instead, he'd gone over the procedure with her.

  As planned, Tessa walked into the building first, the plain-clothes unit keeping a careful eye on her as she strolled up the walk, let herself in through the newly repaired door, and checked her mailbox. Julian waited until she'd been inside for several minutes, then followed her, using the duplicate he'd made of her key to get inside the lobby.

  Ten minutes later he stood in her kitchen trying his best to answer questions.

  "The truth is," he said, uncorking a bottle of red wine, "I don't know."

  He poured the burgundy liquid into a crystal glass, set it down before her, then put the bottle aside. He didn't drink unless his cover demanded it.

  She sat at the table, looking up at him, hands clasped nervously in her lap. She'd changed into jeans and a blue V-neck shirt that drew his gaze to her breasts despite his best intentions. He forced himself to look at her face, forbidding his eyeballs from seeking anything farther south than her chin.

  You're a pig, Darcangelo.

  She looked at the wine without really seeming to see it, then picked up the glass and took a sip. "Maybe my scream scared him away."

  Julian had tried to logic his way through this all afternoon. There were two possibilities: either Wyatt had been acting on Burien's orders when he'd assaulted Tessa, or he hadn't. Because Julian couldn't fathom what Burien stood to gain by having one of his thugs manhandle her, Julian was inclined to believe it was the latter. Perhaps Wyatt hadn't yet been ordered to make the hit and had gotten carried away while watching her. Or perhaps he'd been ordered to kill her and had lost his nerve. If it were the latter, he'd be dead in no time.

  "I doubt it," Julian said at last. "These guys are ruthless. They enjoy hearing women scream. I'm guessing he did something he wasn't supposed to do and lit out of here before you could see him. Either that or he was supposed to kill you and couldn't do it."