A Little Harmless Submission 6

by Melissa Schroeder

  “Okay. I want you to come with me, we’re going to go to the department, and you will file a report against him.”

  She nodded, and he was thankful for that. If he’d had to fight her on it, he might have lost it then and there. One thing was for certain, he didn’t care what he had to do, he was going to find Maria, and if Jack was still alive, he was going to kill the bastard with his bare hands.

  · · · · ·

  Maria came awake abruptly, the sharp smell of ammonia assaulting her.

  “That’s right, Maria, Ms. FBI Agent. Wake up and show me those baby blues.”

  She did and realized that Jack was standing close to her. So close that she could smell the musky scent of his sweat. Jack leaned down closer, bending at the waist. She tried to jerk away, but realized she couldn’t get any further. She tried to move her hands, but they were bound behind her.

  “Tsk, tsk.” He shook his head. “Someone would think that you didn’t like me.”

  He straightened. “I couldn’t believe it when Carino told me you were an FBI agent. Who would have thought such a luscious piece of ass like you worked for the F…B…I?”

  He trailed a finger down her cheek. Inwardly she cringed, but she didn’t show it to him. He would get off on her fear.

  “So Rome told you about me?”

  Jack pulled away. “Yes. Well, not on purpose. See, he thought you were leaving, was not going to see you again, and his heart was breaking. Poor, poor Rome. He is never lucky in love. The women he’s had never seem to last.”

  “Let me guess. You’re Amy’s fiancé. The one nobody could find.”

  He offered her a smile that sent a fresh wave of icy fear down her spine. “Guilty. She was really easy to get to. She was feeling lonesome after my old partner dumped her. Rome apparently has an issue with commitment, but you know all about that.”

  “Like it matters to me?”

  It did, but she would be damned if she would let the bastard know.

  “No? Well, women like you are married to your job.” He sniffed. “Very unfeminine.”

  She said nothing but kept watching. He was pouring chloroform on a cloth. The sickly sweet smell was easy to detect.

  “So you came behind Rome, went after his leftovers.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do, agent. I’ve had the training.”

  But there was a tremor in his hand. She had gotten to him.

  “Oh, okay. I mean, I guess you don’t mind being the ‘sloppy seconds’ guy.”

  His smile tightened as he walked back to her, but he said nothing.

  “I am sure it doesn’t mean you can’t get your own woman.”

  “I’ve had my own woman.”

  “Rome split with them, then you came in behind. They’re vulnerable, needy, and you can satisfy a woman like that.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” His face was turning red.

  “They never seem to stick around with you, though. Is that the problem you had with Amy? Or was it that she started to compare you to Rome? Did they all do that, so you had to go after them? Kill them?”

  “You fucking bitch,” he screeched. He gave her the back of his hand with so much force the chair tipped over onto the ground. Her head slapped against the cement floor, and she saw stars.

  Then she felt his hand slip behind the back of her head, and he pressed the cloth against her mouth and nose. She struggled for a moment and then everything faded to black.

  · · · · ·

  Rome’s nerves were riding a fine line between panic and rage. Fucking hell, he should have seen it. He had dropped off Tina at the department and told them to put a trace on Jack’s phone. He wasn’t even out of the parking lot when his phone went off.

  “Carino,” the captain said. “We got a GPS track on his phone. He has her on Sand Island. Warehouse.”

  The idea had his gut churning. Jack must have had her for at least four hours, and the thought of what he could have done to Maria during that time… He shook his head. He would not think about it.

  “The address?”

  The captain rattled off an address. “I’m sending backup. The FBI had to be notified since she’s an agent.”

  “Tell them to approach without sirens.”

  He hung up without getting the agreement. Right now the only thing that matter was getting to Maria.

  Several long moments later, Rome pulled up to the building. There wasn’t a way to really sneak into some place like this.

  He found a side door unlocked. It was easy, too easy. His suspicions were confirmed when he stepped inside.

  “Nice of you to join us, Rome,” Jack said.

  He followed the sound of his old partner’s voice and found him in the storage area. He looked horrible, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and Rome didn’t miss the gun in Jack’s hand. There was a battered table on one side and to the left of that sat Maria. His head about fell to his feet when he saw her. She had a bloody nose, a split lip, and she was tied to a chair. She looked like she was unconscious.

  “It took you long enough.”

  He glanced at the man he used to trust with his life. Rome knew then he should have seen the signs. They had been all over the place.

  “Well, I had a chat with Tina. She had a lot to say about your relationship.”

  He laughed. The sound of it sent a sick ball of dread to his stomach. He inched closer and saw that Maria was still breathing. He drew in a deep breath and decided he needed to get her out of there, away from the maniac. Then he could deal with the bastard.

  “She’s okay. You know I wouldn’t hurt her until you showed up. Well, not much. She did struggle a bit, so I had to use chloroform on her twice, but she should be okay.”

  “Tina’s giving a statement at the station. Oh, and she called that Mike guy. Someone told me he used to fight in the ring...he apparently has plans to tear you apart.”

  Jack’s eyelid twitched. “What do I care?”

  “You should. You’ll lose that job you have in LA.”

  Jack shrugged like he didn’t care, but Rome knew that he did. It was all coming apart now, which made Jack even more dangerous. He had nothing to lose.

  “I’ll figure something out. I always do. As my mom always said, I’m a smart boy.”

  Rome cocked his head to one side. “Really? I would have thought she said you were a loser.”

  Jack’s finger twitched on the trigger. “You’re wrong.”

  “Isn’t that why you attack women? Because you could never deal with mommy being such a total bitch?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Or, hey, maybe it was the other way. Did she smother you?”

  Jack said nothing, his face turning redder by the minute.

  “Did she treat you like you were a man...like a real man? That’s it, isn’t it? What did Mommy do to you? Did she make you sleep with her when it was way past time to do that?”

  “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Romeo Carino, who sleeps with his partners, who trusts the wrong partners. How the fuck are you going to get yourself out of this one? Huh? How will you make sure to convince the HPD that you aren’t a total fuckup. I’m a killer, you’re last partner in Seattle was dealing arms, and this one,” he said, waving the gun in Maria’s direction, “is going to be killed.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it will be a problem. I didn’t hire you, someone else did. That person will probably get fired because you should never have passed the psych evaluation. Hell, I’d be amazed you would be able to clean toilets with any evaluation.”

  “Shut up,” he said, swinging the gun back in Rome’s direction. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I know how to ace those things. Easy.”

  “If you didn’t, I know what they would say. Aggression issues toward women. Uncontrollable temper, psychotic. All because his mommy liked to touch him.”

  “I said to shut the fuck up.”

  Rome noticed that Maria moved her foot.

&nb
sp; “Why don’t you tell me whose fault this is?”

  “What?” Jack asked, his attention temporarily snagged on the question.

  “If you aren’t at fault, which I’m sure you’re not, who did it? Who causes you to do the things you do?”

  “You have no idea what it’s like dealing with this. My father—,” he drew in a deep, shuttering breath. “My father was a bastard.”

  Sweat was gathering on Jack’s lip, and his eyes were starting to glaze a bit. Rome knew the signs of someone going into a complete psychotic episode, and he couldn’t take the chance. When Jack looked away for a moment, Rome looked at Maria. She was awake, and so he nudged his head in Jack’s direction. She gave him a slight nod but allowed her head to drop forward again.

  “So, why don’t you tell me all about that bastard?”

  “Man didn’t know how to treat his family.”

  “But, I thought it was just you and your mother.”

  Jack shuddered. “No. He didn’t live with us. We were Daddy’s other family.”

  “Ah, so you’re a bastard, too.”

  He walked back toward Rome, his gun leveled at Rome’s chest. He stood close to Maria.

  “Shut up. Just shut up.”

  “Your father didn’t want you, and when he was sick of you and your mother, he left. He left you alone with a sick woman. A woman who didn’t know any boundaries. And she turned you into some kind of freak. A freak who doesn’t know how to be a real man.”

  “I said, shut up—”

  His voice ended on a scream, and Maria toppled herself and the chair against Jack. Rome rushed forward, but Jack’s gun discharged. He felt the sting of the bullet in his shoulder, the burning, but he ignored it. He was on Jack, taking his gun away as they fought back and forth. He gained the upper hand and straddled the bastard’s chest. He hit him several times and then wrapped his fingers around his neck.

  “Rome, stop. Rome.”

  Maria was standing next to him, grabbing on his arm. They were surrounded by FBI agents, and it took him a moment to realize they had come in the moment the gun went off. He released Jack’s neck and rose. He needed to touch her, to make sure she was okay. He pulled her into his arms.

  “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

  She shuddered against him. “It’s not your fault.”

  He blinked as his vision started to blur. “I should have known. Should have figured it out.”

  “Rome?”

  The room was spinning, and Maria sounded like she was far away. Very far away. But she was there in his arms.

  “Rome, honey, you need to sit down.”

  “No. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Rome!”

  The spinning increased, and his vision dimmed to black.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Maria watched him sleep. It had been a long night. The shot hadn’t been life-threatening, but Rome had lost a lot of blood. She closed her eyes and said a little prayer. She didn’t know how many times she had done that in the last few hours.

  The door opened quietly, and Micah stuck his head in. “Hey.”

  She smiled then winced at the pain radiating from her lip. “Damn, that hurt.”

  Micah stepped inside, and he was followed by Evan. “How’s he doing?”

  “Okay. Nothing big, although because of the fight, he lost a little bit of blood. That’s why he fainted.”

  “I did not faint.”

  She looked at Rome, surprised he was awake. The nurse had said he would be out a few more hours.

  “What do you call it?”

  “Women faint. Men pass out.”

  She rolled her eyes then looked at his friends. They were both grinning at her. “As you can see, he’s fine.”

  Her voice caught at the end. Evan tossed her a sympathetic look. “You have to be exhausted. First you had to save his ass and then you had to sit here all night.”

  “Hey.”

  Both his friends ignored him. “Why don’t you call your boss? There are also a couple of FBI agents hanging out in the hallway wanting to talk to you again.”

  She rolled her eyes as she rose. “I already talked to them.”

  “You don’t have to talk to them now. You can just say the hell with them and stay here,” Rome said, frowning. The tone in his voice made him sound like a petulant child, but she knew part of it was being in the hospital. Neither of them were very good at being patients, she was sure.

  She kissed his forehead. “I have to call my supervisor anyway. I’ll be right back. Don’t let him get agitated.”

  She tried to walk by Evan, but he drew her into his arms and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  Then he handed her over to Micah, and he did the same. “We owe you one, Agent Callahan.”

  Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she blinked them away. She looked over at Rome who was watching them with a frown.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  She slipped out of the room, relieved to be out of there. Rome had been giving her such a strange look. Almost angry. Like it had been her fault. Leaning against the wall, she shut her eyes and tried to keep from allowing the fear that had swamped her the night before to take over. She would not let it win.

  “Agent Callahan?”

  She opened her eyes and found the agent she’d talked to the night before. “Agent Brewer.”

  The man smiled at her as if her remembering his name was a gift. “If you have a chance, I’d like to talk to you. Agent Smith is on his way here.”

  Her eyes widened at the news. “He is?”

  “Yes. He has been calling every thirty minutes to check on you.”

  She smiled. “He’s a family friend.”

  “This family friend wants to know just what the hell you were thinking.”

  She looked down the hall at her supervisor. He looked tired. She had always thought of him as an honorary uncle. He and her father had started at the Academy together, came up in the ranks together, and it was Smith who had been beside the bed with her when her father died. Everything she had been holding back came bubbling to the surface. The fear for Rome, for herself, the stress she’d been working under the last two weeks…

  She let the tears fall as she walked down the hall to him. When she reached him, he opened his arms, and she allowed him to pull her close. And then she wept.

  · · · · ·

  “You fainted,” Evan said, chuckling. “Wuss.”

  “I didn’t faint.”

  “Maria said you did,” Micah said as he settled in the chair beside the bed. The one Maria had been sitting in. All night, he had known she was there. He had been drugged to the gills, but he had felt her presence, and it was the only thing that would have kept him in that hospital room.

  “She’s wrong.”

  “I have a feeling she’s hardly ever wrong,” Micah remarked. There was a hint of humor in his friend’s voice, but Rome ignored it.

  “She thinks she knows what she’s doing. Damned if she just thinks she can do what she wants.”

  Evan and Micah shared a look.

  “And another thing, how does she get off acting like she saved me? I’m the one who got her out of the situation.”

  “Jack was your partner,” Micah said quietly.

  The guilt crashed down on him. “Yeah, I know. It’s something I should have seen.”

  “Shit, son, no one could have seen it. He hid it well. His name isn’t even Jack Daniels.”

  That caught his attention.

  “What do you know?”

  “Just what that Agent Brewer told us. They started looking into his background. Jack Daniels died twenty-two years ago. He stole the kid’s identity, built a life for himself. I have a feeling the FBI will be uncovering information about the bastard for years.”

  “Maria blames herself, Rome,” Micah said.

  “He was my partner. I should have known he was killing women. Hell, I didn’t even make the co
nnection with all his trips back to the mainland.”

  “From what I heard, they’re going to have a special commission, and your girlfriend is going to be under the microscope,” Evan said.

  “What the hell are you talking about? They’re blaming her for their idiocy? Feels like she’s going to be the scapegoat. They couldn’t find the man, and she has to come up with some kind of asinine idea of using herself as bait, and this is the way they treat her?”

  “Yeah, well, she’s a trained FBI agent.” Micah’s tone was oddly neutral.

  “So.” It sounded very immature, but he didn’t care. The fear he’d had when he knew that Jack had her, what he could have done to her, came rushing back. “If she thinks that she’s going to be doing shit like that after we get married, she has another think coming.”

  “You’re getting married? You proposed?” Evan asked.

  “No, but we will.”

  “You will?” Micah asked. “Is she coming to live here?”

  Rome hadn’t gotten that far. Hell, he’d just come up with the idea. He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t watch her leave. It would tear him apart. He loved her, loved her like crazy, and there was just no way he could let her go.

  “I’ll probably have to move to DC.”

  “You hate DC,” Evan said. “You called it a cesspool.”

  “That was the Pentagon. And it doesn’t matter. As an FBI agent, she would have to be there. They can’t move around as easily.”

  “You might want to ask her about that,” Micah said.

  Rome shook his head. He couldn’t do that. Truth was, he wasn’t sure she would say yes to moving to Hawaii. He was worried if he asked her to choose between her career and him, he would lose out. That he couldn’t have.

  “No. She’s probably going to easily end up a hero in this. She put her life on the line, picked up that it was someone in law enforcement, and with me, she defeated the bastard. So her career should take off. I can easily get a job there.”

  Even if it would kill him. Hawaii was his home, his love, but he couldn’t be here without her. She was more important to him than anything in the world.

  “No, I’ll move to DC.”