“It’s okay. No one was shooting and we didn’t get hit by any shrapnel,” Jake reminded him.
“Yeah, well…” Jamaal shrugged his grip off. “You two scared the crap out of me. I dropped my damned plate of spaghetti when I heard the explosion, and I come running.”
“I’ll make more the minute I get back,” Lacy assured him.
Jamaal shuffled his big bare feet on the icy sidewalk. Damn. The guy hadn’t even put his shoes on.
“You need to get back inside,” Jake said as his heart settled down to a manageable pace.
Jamaal leaned against the side of the stairs. “Not going anywhere ’til I know you’re safe.”
“My car,” Lacy said softly. “It’s gone. Guess I’ll be walking from now on.”
“No, you won’t,” Jake declared. “I’ll find a way. I’ll... I’ll….” I’ll call Zack. He’ll help me.
Lacy didn’t argue, just snuggled into his side like she belonged there. Damn, her pulse throbbed through her whole body. She might not look it, but she was plenty scared. “I’ve still got to get to the clinic. Fire Chief Balthazar is waiting for me. I told him I’d be there.”
“Ernie?” he asked, smoothing a hand over her head, needing to touch her, to feel her trust in him.
“You know him?”
“Sure. Everyone knows Ernie Balthazar. He’s one of the good guys,” Jamaal broke in. He waved at one of the boys in blue with one knee to the ground while taking crime scene photos with his camera. “Hey, Bro. Yeah, you! We got us a real important lady over here who needs to get to the Good Samaritan clinic” —he snapped his fingers— “right now. How about you jump up like a good boy, and give her a ride?”
Jake cringed. Jamaal’s big mouth would be the death of him someday, but asking a police officer to provide taxi service was too much. Calling him boy was another offense all together. Disrespect never ended well, even between two black men.
Sure enough, the officer shot Jamaal an aggravated look, but he did climb to his feet. “Just cuz I’m black doesn’t make me your brother, wise guy, and your lady friend’s not going anywhere. The clinic’s a crime scene. She needs to answer some questions.”
“She ain’t my lady friend. She belongs to him.” Jamaal stabbed a thumb at Jake. “Besides, I know all about the fire at the clinic cuz Captain Balthazar called her to come help him, only now her car blew up, and you’re standing there giving me a bunch of lip when you oughta be offering her a ride in your nice safe cruiser. Don’t you guys know nothing about customer service?”
The officer ignored Jamaal’s rant and strode over to Lacy, raking a suspicious eye over Jake. “Evening, Lacy. This is your car? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I am, Kevin. It’s good to see you, but I’m sorry it had to be for something crazy like my car getting blown up. This is Jake Weylin,” she nodded toward Jake, “and this is Jamaal McCune. They’re staying with me for a while. Guys, this is Officer Kevin Madison. He’s a good friend of mine and one of Anacostia’s finest.”
When Kevin shot Jamaal and Jake another disparaging glance, Jake shifted from one foot to the other with Lacy still in his arm. He was beginning to feel persecuted.
“Sorry, Lacy. I don’t mean to pry, but we received an anonymous report right before the fire at the clinic. The caller said he’d seen two suspicious guys hanging around there tonight, and except for their clothes, these two fit the description. You mind telling me where they’ve been all day?”
“In my apartment,” she answered quickly. “A cabbie brought Jamaal to the clinic early today with a near concussion. He couldn’t stay there, so I brought him home with me at noon. He’s been asleep most of the afternoon, and Jake came to watch over Jamaal so I could go back to work. That’s why they’re in gray sweats from the clinic. Look at them, Kevin. A couple of guys beat them up earlier today, probably the same ones who torched Lamont’s Pool Hall, the clinic, and now my car.”
The young officer peeled his penlight off its belt holster and shone a spotlight right into Jake’s eyes. He squinted and lifted his hand to block the beam. “You always take your male patients home with you?”
“I do when my friends need help,” Lacy replied, her fingers squeezing Jake’s hand. She shot him a determined look. He winked automatically. She was certainly jumping out on a limb for him and Jamaal.
“Hmm. You do look like someone might’ve hit you a good one. You’d better get that eye looked at.” Kevin gave Jamaal the same once over with that damned bright light. “Who’s this guy to you?”
Jamaal shrugged, his hand in front of his face to block the light, too. “All I know is I was going to meet Jake for litter patrol this morning, only I ended up at Lacy’s apartment, and she just fed me the best damned spaghetti I ever tasted, and my head feels like it’s going to explode through the top of my head if you keep sticking that light in my face. You ever had spaghetti with kielbasa sausage?” He rolled his eyes. “Man, that’s some good stuff, brother.”
“I’m not your brother,” Officer Kevin hissed, a definite warning in his voice. “And what’s litter patrol? Some kind of community outreach program you two hooked up with?”
“No,” Jamaal declared, rubbing two fingers together. “It’s just something me and Jake do to make a little cashola. You know, coinage? We collect aluminum cans and Rowdy down at the Flying Angels buys it. It’s what gets us by.”
Kevin grunted. “What you mean is that it gets you a bottle. Listen, I’m going to let the two of you go, but only because I know Miss Wright, and her, I believe. You guys I’m not so sure about.”
“They’re Marines,” Lacy said proudly, and Jake could’ve kissed her. “They’re every bit as honorable as you are, Kevin. The only difference is they served, and you’re still serving.”
“Former Marines,” Kevin bit out.
“Ain’t no such thing as a former Marine. Can you give Lacy a ride to the clinic or not?” Jake asked before Jamaal ruined the trust Kevin had in Lacy by shooting his big mouth off again.
“I will as soon as I finish my report. You going with her?”
“I’d like t—”
“Yes. He is,” Lacy interrupted, her hand clenching his tightly once more. “We’re together.”
Officer Kevin looked as surprised as Jake felt. Once again, threatening brown eyes scrolled over him like a razor with a mission to get to the bottom of all things, but Jake didn’t shuffle his feet this time under Kevin’s intense scrutiny. Lacy’s quiet declaration might have come out of the blue, but it stirred that same protective feeling deep in his gut. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her hanging out with a shabby looking guy like him. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, his eyes pinned to Kevin’s to prove her point.
Kevin’s upper left lip lifted. He took a menacing step into Jake’s comfort zone. “You’d better take damned good care of Miss Wright,” he said, his voice laden with threatening promise. “Do you hear me? Lacy is one in a million, and I’m not convinced you deserve her.”
Neither am I. “Yes, sir,” Jake answered automatically. Hell, any fool could see he didn’t deserve her.
The police report didn’t take as long as Jake feared it might. Within the half hour, Officer Kevin, Jake, and Lacy were at the Good Samaritan crime scene. By the looks of the clinic, the fire had done only minor damage, most of it contained in the lobby. The front glass doors were shattered, but none of the staff was around, not even the swing shift crew. With Chief Balthazar standing at their heels, the medical examiner unzipped the body bag, and the time warp commenced sucking at his limbs and eyeballs, his stomach and his soul all over again. As much as he didn’t want to be there any more, Jake forced himself to breathe in slow and steady breaths. Lacy needed him in the here and now, not time warping to who knew where.
She gathered her hair over her right shoulder and peered down at the corpse. Whoever it was, the decedent’s wrists were wrapped behind its back with wire. Its ankles were restrained the same way. There
was every possibility this guy had been burned alive while seated, possibly tied to a chair, only the chair had burned completely away. The flesh was burned off the blackened skull, leaving no hair, no eyeballs in the sockets, and a twisted, wide-open jaw that still seemed to be screaming for help.
It’s her. It’s Emile. That’s what she looked like, Panic stated emphatically.
But you’re holding onto Lacy, wise Logic intervened. It’s not Emile because she’s asleep at Arlington. She’s at peace, Jake. Let her be.
Logic always did have a euphemistic way about it. Jake nodded that he understood precisely where Emile now was even as he cringed at the gruesome sight. Letting his fingers clench Lacy’s shoulders, he wished he could identify the remains so she wouldn’t have to. Burned flesh was never an easy sight to take in.
The odor of the place taunted him with pounding flashbacks. One moment he was holding onto Lacy in Anacostia, the next he was back in Kabul, pissed and angry and sick at heart because he hadn’t saved Emile and Aiden. He loosened the fake collar on his sweatshirt and hung on tighter to Lacy, scared the moment he lost contact with her that he’d time warp for good. That he’d never find his way home.
Home. Funny. That was how he felt with Lacy. Safe and sound and—home.
“I don’t know who it is, umm, was,” she said in the quietest voice. “But he… he looks like he was scared when he died.”
An odd buzzing sensation swept up from Jake’s boots, all the way to the roof of his mouth. He clamped onto Lacy’s trembling shoulders and turned her away from the grisly scene before he lost control and the buzzing took over. “Why’d she have to come all the way down just to look at that?” he growled, casting a dark look at the fire chief. “There’s no way to positively ID anyone who’s been burned that badly.” And I would know.
Balthazar nodded sadly. “Maybe not, but I had to be sure. I also needed her to see this.” He led Lacy and Jake to the side of the building. Painted in red across the white concrete wall of the clinic was the threat: Lacy Wright Dies Next!
Chapter Eleven
“It’s blood, isn’t it?” Lacy asked, bile climbing up her throat at this awful night.
“Yes,” Balthazar said. “We just don’t know whose.”
Lacy couldn’t speak. Her pounding heart hadn’t let up since she’d left her apartment. Lacy is next? What was that supposed to mean? I’m nobody. All I wanted was to stay hidden and small and—invisible.
Only Jake’s extra tight hand at her elbow kept her knees from buckling. When an especially vicious shiver jerked up her spine, he pulled her into his side and led her back to the front of the building.
“Wait a minute. Where is everyone?” she asked, her head reeling. “This place should be jumping. There should be patients lined up and ornery because they have to wait their turn. It’s the flu season, guys. Where are all the people? The staff?”
“The clinic was empty when we responded to the call, all except for the deceased,” Balthazar explained while the M.E. rolled the body bag away from the scene on a gurney with squeaky wheels. “The police are canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone saw or heard anything. The clinic was still working a twelve hour, twenty-four-seven shift rotation tonight, correct?”
“Yes, we were. Dr. Anderson, Roxy, and Jeanette should’ve been here, Carol and Bonnie too. Nights are always busy.” She peered through the broken glass door to the demolished office. “Maybe Dr. Presley, too. Where are they?”
“Lacy, look at me. What aren’t you telling me?”
Fire Chief Balthazar’s tone caught her short. The kindest gaze reached out to her from the worry lines of his dark, handsome face. He always did have some kind of weird sixth sense where she was concerned. Maybe he was like that with everyone. The man just seemed to know when she was having a tough day, but there was no way she would betray Marlee’s trust.
“I’ve told you everything I know,” she replied evenly, because I can’t tell you what I don’t know for certain, and I don’t know what’s in that black box. Yet.
Ernie Balthazar’s eyes were the kind of gentle, grandfatherly eyes that could see right through a person and make them feel like a sneaky kid. The kind that could make a girl confess to anything and everything she’d ever done wrong in her life. If she let him get to her.
She returned his gaze, determined he’d only see what she wanted him to see—a strong woman and a Marine, not some hysterical nutcase with bright red burn lines across her forehead, and a rubber plug in her mouth so she couldn’t bite her tongue off. Or scream too loud.
Experimental treatment for hysteria, my ass. That jerk-off lied to my parents. He’d claimed he could cure me with one shock treatment. Then why’d he keep me locked up for seven days? Why’d he keep shocking me? Why’d I finally have to lie and tell him I was cured before he’d take the straps off? Why can’t I ever go back home because I’m afraid of what my parents think of me? Because of what he might’ve told them? The sonofabitch!
Jake must have sensed she’d taken a mental detour down Hysteria Lane. He’d pulled her into his solid body, and her butt once more pressed tight against his thigh. She gulped despite the strength radiating from his touch.
“Are you going to be okay?’ he asked, his lips nearly in her ear. “Do you need to sit down?”
“No, I’m good,” she said. I guess. But what moron wrote that creepy message? Why would anyone want to kill me? What could I possibly know? That my secrets are driving me nuts? That I can’t walk this tightrope much longer before I start screaming again and prove I’ve lost my mind? And furthermore, whose freaking blood did that psycho paint this message with? Who’s dead? Everyone, but me?
“Are we done here?” Jake asked.
The steady and strangely calming physical contact with the other half-crazy person at the scene amused her in a verging-on-hysteria kind of way. After the day she’d just had, her nerves were shot, but not so bad that she couldn’t see that she and Jake were at the same level of sane, which, if she guessed right, was mostly just barely. Maybe even borderline cuckoo. Her hands shook despite his arm circling her shoulder and neck to rein her in. Did he know how close she was to falling apart? Could he tell?
Working long shifts at the clinic had kept her moving forward, but some days were just damned hard to get through, and this was the worst. Her mind strayed to the secrets hidden in her closet, the things she’d never let anyone see.
Maybe it’s time to pull them out, and declare to the world in one bright and bloody statement who and what I really am. Maybe it’s time everyone knows.
Hysteria eked steadily up the back of her throat like water from a plugged drain that had nowhere else to go, pushing for release. She ground her butt harder against Jake, scared to death the maniac within her might make a break for it and start cackling any second now.
And how will that look, huh?
Jake circled her neck and shoulders with his arm, sticking his chin into the crook of her neck. He seemed intent on keeping her close to him, but he didn’t seem to think she was crazy.
Ha! What does he know?
Chief Balthazar rubbed the back of his neck and sighed in the patient way of an honest man who’d worked too many long hours in a thankless job. “We’re done here,” he said wearily. “I’m sure the police will have more questions for you, Miss Wright. Call me if you think of anything else.”
Oh, crap. Did he just call me Miss Wright? Not Lacy? Not kiddo?
“My car got blown up tonight, Ernie,” she offered weakly, needing him to know she was in more trouble than she’d ever been in before. Needing him to care like he always seemed to when he’d visited the clinic. Crazy or not, Jake was right. Ernie Balthazar was one of the good guys, and she needed him to see her.
A soft smile tugged the corners of his weary brown eyes. “I know, Lacy. Heard it over dispatch on the way here. Wished I’d been on that call instead of this one.”
Me too. Tears sprang to her eyes. Her heart stopped pumpin
g too much blood for its own good. He still cared about her. See? That’s all I needed.
“You do know I’m always here if you want to talk, don’t you?” he asked. “About any of this? Anything? Anytime?”
“I do,” she sighed. There were good men everywhere, even on the tough streets of Anacostia. “Thanks, Ernie. I’ll be in touch.” There. That didn’t sound crazy now, did it?
“You can bet your next cup of coffee on it, little girl,” he said, his grandfatherly kindness in place once more. “I’m buying. Maybe a piece of that chocolate silk pie you like so much, too.”
Lacy could have cried. The simplest things were all that kept her going some days. How did people not get that? Kindness freaking mattered!
Kevin had stayed to give her and Jake a ride back to her own crime scene, but she knew he’d been watching and listening the whole time. He tucked his handy dandy little notepad into his shirt pocket, no doubt with every word she’d said recorded for his report. She expected more questioning, but he surprised her. “Are you ready to go home, Miss Lacy?” he asked kindly. “I’ve got a nice warm patrol car at your bidding.”
“Yes,” she said. This damned crazy day had to end. It just had to.
Chapter Twelve
He couldn’t hold her tight enough, not in Kevin’s patrol car, not walking up the stairs to her apartment, and not once he got her inside her apartment with the deadbolt and all those other nifty fasteners firmly locked behind them. It didn’t matter that he’d come to his senses earlier during their brief encounter in her bedroom. Jake was a man and he was wrong about Lacy. He needed to prove it.
They didn’t make it past the refrigerator before they devoured each other in one long physical connection that they both seemed to need more than oxygen. She clung to him, trembling with more than just fright. Even Jamaal turned his face out of respect for the hungry kiss Jake covered Lacy’s mouth with.
Jake (In the Company of Snipers Book 16) Page 9
