“What’s going on?” I asked.
Both women turned, Fran looking startled that I’d arrived without her knowledge.
“There’s something wrong with my car,” Fran explained, a beautiful smile blooming over her face at the sight of me. “It won’t start. And Mavis’s car has a flat tire.”
I walked toward her and pulled her into my arms, causing her face to heat with the cutest blush I’d ever seen.
I tilted my head, a grin widening my lips. “You don’t know how to change a flat?”
I’d meant to just stop by. To see Fran for a few seconds before heading home to get some much-needed work done.
Only, it hadn’t worked out quite like I’d planned.
I hadn’t expected both women to be sitting there staring forlornly at their vehicles as if they hoped that they would be fixed miraculously on their own.
“Um, negative.” Fran’s eyes went to Mavis.
Mavis, on the other hand, was busy laughing her head off.
“Do you honestly think that we know how to change tires?” she snickered. “When we need something fixed like this, we call that number on the back of our driver’s license. Roadside assistance.”
My lips twitched. “I can teach you.”
“Actually, you can’t.” Mavis sighed. “Because I already called someone. They’re here.”
I turned to look, finding Murphy trudging his way up the drive, looking pissed as hell.
My brows rose at the look of contempt on his face. “Murphy.”
Murphy’s eyes briefly left Mavis to meet mine, and he jerked his chin up. “’Sup, Taos.”
My lips twitched. “Not fuckin’ much. Came to take my girl to breakfast. You?” I murmured, watching in amusement as he sidled up to Mavis’s van and grunted out an expletive.
“Came to help Princess with her car,” Murphy answered, sounding pissed.
I looked at Mavis to see how she reacted to those words and found her scowling hard at Murphy.
I looked to Fran next to see her eyes glittering with laughter.
I had a feeling I was missing something, and I didn’t know what.
“You call me Princess one more time, I’m going to shove my foot down your throat,” Mavis snarled. “And wasn’t that you who said this was a van, and not a car?”
Murphy grumbled something under his breath as he dropped his tools down onto the concrete that Mavis’s car was parked on. From there, he reached for her son.
“Let me have him,” he ordered. “You’re doing this. There’s absolutely no reason in hell that you shouldn’t know how to change your own fucking tire.”
“Don’t curse in front of my kid,” Mavis said as she glared at the man who’d just taken Vlad from her.
I chose that moment to pull Fran into my arms and walk her backward.
Neither adult noticed us leave. Vlad did, though, grinning happily at me as he bounced in Murphy’s arms.
I waited until we were inside the house to say, “What the hell was that?”
Fran laughed and threw her arms around my neck.
I groaned at the feel of her warm body pressing up against my cold one.
“Apparently, when Murphy and Mavis first met, it was at CrossFit. Murphy told Mavis not to do something because she might hurt herself, and Mavis blew him off. She hurt herself, and he’s apparently been pretty smug about it ever since. And Mavis, not liking the smugness, pretty much goes out of her way to give him shit.” Fran shook her head. “Funnily enough, Mavis asked Murphy his thoughts on her buying that particular van. He told her not to get it. And let’s just say they’re like water and oil.”
My lips twitched at that news.
“I can tell,” I mused.
Even from the front bedroom, I could see that they were still bickering.
Mavis was changing her tire, though.
“How did last night go?” Fran asked quietly.
I’d officially handed the case over to the FBI agent.
And though I would help if needed, there was really no reason to. The FBI agent was seasoned, had a good track record, and had resources that I didn’t have, or no longer wanted to have.
“I handed the case off.” I turned from the window. “Now that the FBI is in town and on the cases, I won’t be called in anymore. I can go back to my own work.”
Fran frowned. “But you never stopped working at the gym.”
Mavis snickered as she pushed into the room, startling the both of us and hitting me in the back with the door. “You didn’t know that you were having sex with the world’s most popular horror/suspense author that there is?”
She snatched her spare key off the door hanger that was directly next to my face, then left, leaving me alone with a very stunned Fran looking at me in horror.
There was a long moment of silence and then, “Oh. My. God.”
I blinked, surprised by her words. “What?”
She turned around and snatched her phone off the couch, pulling it up only to go directly to her Kindle app. “You’re my favorite author ever.”
That’s when I saw what she was reading.
My latest book.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re so adorable.”
“But, you know what would make your book even better?” she whispered, her eyes spreading into a mischievous smile.
I couldn’t help it. I had to know.
“What?” I asked.
“Sex,” she breathed. “Lots and lots of sex.”
I threw my head back and laughed. God, I loved this girl.
CHAPTER 16
Am I the only one that calculates how much sleep I’ll get before bed?
-text from Taos to Fran
TAOS
Two weeks later
My days of teaching classes almost full time were almost over.
I’d done my job.
I’d done my duty.
I could now go back to the back of the gym and ignore everyone and everything.
Couldn’t I?
“Hey,” came a voice that I now craved to hear.
I turned slowly from my contemplation of the sunset and smiled. “Hey.”
She tilted her head. “Everything okay?”
I thought about that for a second.
Was everything okay?
Not really.
The murders that the chief had pulled me in on had gone unsolved. Maria’s murder was still unsolved.
The teaching classes that kept me seeing a certain someone on a daily basis were now over.
And I already missed her.
I didn’t even know if she was going to keep coming to CrossFit or not.
I mean, sure we’d done ‘things’ that some would automatically assume meant a relationship, but life had gotten in the way over the last two weeks since Maria’s murder.
I’d volunteered myself full time to helping solve the murders with the FBI agent, Easton. Yet another murder had occurred, and we realized that the more manpower on the investigation, the better. Or, I did. I hadn’t quite been able to leave it behind once they’d told me that I could.
Then Fran’s nephew had gotten sick to the point where she was babysitting or working, and barely had time for me when I could find the time to break off.
Which meant, the only time I for sure saw her was when she was here…
“I, uh...” She paused. “I want to sign up for a full membership.”
My heart all but flip-flopped in my chest.
I grinned down at her, unable to help it, and her breath caught, giving me my first official sign that she was into me.
I’d wondered these past few weeks, after very little communication, if she was done with me. She was able to keep a lot hidden and close to her chest.
Hell, half the time I couldn’t even tell if she was struggling with the workout.
Other than sweating, her face was always blank. She had one hell of a poker face.
“Sweet,” I said as I jerked my chin to the office. “Soph
ia is up there. She can get you taken care of.”
Fran’s face fell slightly, and her shoulders drooped. “Oh, okay.”
When Fran started to walk away, I caught her forearm and halted her. “I’d help, but I have absolutely zero idea how to get memberships started. That’s always been Sophia’s domain.”
Fran’s shoulders picked back up, and a small smile lit her face. “I thought you worked in the office.”
I shrugged. “I do… when I’m working on writing. I will do the books now and then, and check to see small stuff on accounts if someone calls asking, but I mostly just stay silent as a partner. And I’m mostly here so people can do open gym if they need to.”
Her lips quirked up another notch.
Together we filed through the people milling about after the class to the office, but before I could go all the way up, she halted me with her hand on my forearm this time.
She looked like she started gathering courage before she started to speak.
“I’ve been struggling the last few weeks on telling you this but… a few years ago, I was running,” she whispered, sounding lost. “I was…”
The moment she said the word ‘running’ I knew exactly what she was going to say. The fact that she’d agonized over telling me the last two weeks had meant quite a bit more to me than she thought.
I’d felt, from the very beginning, that I’d known her. I’d had a connection to her. And I hadn’t been able to figure out exactly why.
But the moment that she said ‘running’ everything started to click into place.
That night. That night that had prompted me to end my career with the police department.
• • •
Two and a half years ago
“Hey, Taos.” The dispatcher who was working tonight got on the line. “I have a girl that needs a welfare check done on her sister.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
That was the last thing I wanted to do tonight.
Most likely, I’d get there, and there would be a dead body to deal with.
Which would then cause me to have paperwork to do, and all I wanted to do at that moment in time was go home, eat, and go to bed.
“Sure.” I paused, sounding just as hesitant to my own ears as I felt. “Where at?”
“Actually,” the dispatcher said, “it’s at the trailhead, I believe. The sister says that her tracker says that she was running, and that she stopped at a spot but never moved from there. When the sister calls, there’s no answer.”
I groaned. “Which one? I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
Two and a half minutes later, I was pulling onto the trailhead that the sister said the tracker was pinging as the location of the missing girl’s phone. I pulled out my flashlight, scanning the ever-brightening area with it in large sweeps, when I heard what sounded like a muffled shout.
My stomach froze, and then I was running.
So not a dead body.
A person, a woman, in trouble.
I could hear her screaming now.
The closer I got to the bend in the trail, the one that went two ways, one up toward a fitness center, and the other that took us toward the main part of the trail, I could hear even more screaming and scuffles.
My flashlight lit the area, and the first thing I saw was a pair of hot pink running shoes that were covered in mud.
The second thing I saw was a male, about two hundred pounds, trying to force that woman onto her stomach as he did something with his hands that I couldn’t see.
I don’t know what came over me.
One second, I was about ten feet away, and the next I was hitting that man like a linebacker.
We hit hard.
The sound of our bodies colliding startled the woman, and she cried out in surprise.
“No!” she cried.
I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me, or the asshole that’d been trying to rape her.
Whatever the reason for her crying out, I ignored it and subdued the asshole underneath me, easily apprehending him, cuffing him, and then ordering him to stay put or else in under twenty seconds.
Clockwork.
I may not be on the beat anymore, but I could still arrest an asshole with the best of them.
“Now, you can either sit there and play nice, or I’ll make you play nice. Understand?” I ordered as I moved to the woman that was quietly crying in a crumpled ball just a few feet away. I depressed the mic button on my shoulder and said, “Ambulance requested. And backup.”
She had her hands over her face, and she had her head tucked into her upraised knees as if that would help protect her.
Sadly, it wouldn’t.
“Ma’am,” I urged as I walked toward her.
She curled even further into herself.
“Ma’am,” I said, glancing back at the suspect that was glaring daggers at me. “Are you okay?”
The guy got up to leave, and I moved before he could even get to his knees.
I had him hugging the biggest damn tree I could find, face pressed into some sap that was leaking from it, and handcuffed to it in the next second.
Only when he was well and truly unable to take off anywhere did I go down onto the ground beside the woman.
“Ma’am,” I whispered. “I’m going to help you, okay?”
She sniffled, and the damn sound literally tore shreds into my heart. “Okay.”
Her lips were bleeding. Her teeth were stained with her blood. And I could barely make out the white of her eyes.
I placed the flashlight on the ground between us and said, “My name is Detective Taos Brady. Do you think that you can sit up? Or do you want to continue lying there until medical help arrives?”
She shivered. “Lie here.”
I didn’t urge her to do anything differently. Instead, I shrugged out of my sports coat and then laid it over the top of her.
Her shirt was ripped. There were contusions in places that I could make out. And there was quite a bit of bruising.
“I’m going to fucking kill you if you talk, bitch!” the would-be rapist yelled.
The woman squeezed her eyes closed tightly and whispered, “His name is Jackson Norris.”
Before I could get any more information out of her, her entire body went slack.
“That stupid bitch wanted it!” Mr. Jackson Norris, soon-to-be inmate Jackson Norris, hollered.
I pressed my fingers to her throat to ensure that she wasn’t dying, and found a strong pulse.
Then I turned my glare on the asshole. “I’m fairly sure that she didn’t. You know, you might not know this word all that well, but when they say ‘no’ that usually means that they don’t want you to do something. Just sayin’.”
• • •
“That morning, I was nearly raped and assaulted by a man that I’d seen on that trail a hundred times,” she whispered. “One that had asked me out six times, and I’d turned him down all six of those times.”
I instantly wanted to kill someone.
Preferably the asshole that I knew was locked up in a maximum-security prison for serial raping other women exactly like Fran.
“Fuck,” I whispered. “I…”
She looked over at me with those eyes the same color as my blue jeans and said, “You what?”
“I worked your case that night,” I murmured, almost too quietly to hear.
She tilted her head at my words. “What?”
“That night,” I said. “I was there that night. I… your case is why I quit.”
She blinked.
“I know.”
And before I could say another word, she was hauling ass out of the building.
“I gotta go.” She grabbed her stuff and started running, but she didn’t make it far.
In the time that it’d taken for her to talk, everyone but the two of us, Madden and Sophia had left.
It’d also gotten dark, the dumbbells that we’d used during our workout became almost invisible, meaning
that she tripped on them and went down hard.
She hit the ground with an oomph, and I was immediately there to help her up.
She gasped when my hand met her skin, and I instantly pulled back, worried that I was scaring her.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, offering my hand instead of touching her again.
She sighed and pressed her forehead to the mat that was underneath of her. “I’m dumb. It’s okay.”
She didn’t take my hand when she helped herself up. What she did do, though, was bury her face into her hands. “I need a day.”
I didn’t know what to say.
So I didn’t.
She stood up and walked out without another word, and it broke my fucking heart to watch her run across the parking lot to her car, as if the past six weeks hadn’t even happened.
“What was that about?” Madden asked.
I didn’t answer him.
Instead, I pulled my keys out of my pocket and said, “Fran needs a membership. Put it on my tab.”
Then I left and didn’t look back.
When I got home, I sent out a text to Easton and Schultz telling them I was indisposed and proceeded to get drunk.
CHAPTER 17
It’s too early for you to say things.
-Text from Taos to Madden
TAOS
I was once again at the gym teaching a class, and this time, my favorite bootcamper was there working out.
Poorly and slowly, but she was there.
My thought was that she was just there to get her muscles moving more than getting a good workout in. And I couldn’t blame her. Not after everything that I’d learned last night. Both from her, and putting my own two and two together.
I was standing at the door that led to the outside area where we usually ran sprints when Madden came up beside me.
“So…” Madden drawled. “Since you’ve done so good with the last bootcamp, do you want to do the next one?”
I shot him a look that clearly said ‘fuck no’ then turned to yell at one of my athletes.
The man, who looked guilty as soon as I’d caught him walking, picked up the pace.
“I think I’d rather shoot myself in the left molar,” I told him. “I know that you can do it.”
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