by Kylie Logan
“Well, you’re not walking by yourself.” The way the woman’s voice reverberated against the redbrick building told Jazz she was clearly not going to listen to an argument. “David…” She shot the man a look. “You get the car. I’ll walk with her and you can ride along beside us. I can understand you don’t want to get into a car with strangers,” she told Jazz. “David, he’ll be in the car, right there where he can jump out and help if we need him. We’ll get you home safe and sound.”
They did, and when they got there they refused to acknowledge that they’d done anything special. They wished her well and made her promise she’d call someone to come look after her.
Jazz promised, even if she had no intention of following through. She was a big girl and she could take care of herself.
But once she was in the house and the door was locked behind her and she was on the couch giving Wally a hug and crying, the adrenaline drained out of her and left her shaking and bleeding. Her back hurt like hell.
She thought about calling her mom, but Mom would only panic, and she was with Peter, anyway, and Jazz didn’t want to spoil their evening.
She considered giving Sarah a call, but she knew Sarah was spending the evening with Matt.
And who was she kidding anyway?
Jazz grabbed her phone.
She needed someone to talk to. Someone to take care of her and make her feel safe again.
There was only one person who fit the bill.
CHAPTER 14
Exactly fifteen minutes after she called, Nick showed up on her front porch, and once she limped to the door to let him in he didn’t hesitate for one second. He scooped her into his arms and hugged her close.
“You were crying so hard when you called, I couldn’t understand you when you told me what happened.” It wasn’t until he held her at arm’s length and took a good look at her that the concern that had settled into the creases next to his eyes smoothed out. That his jaw went rigid. That his worry turned to anger.
“What the hell?”
“It’s … I…” Jazz sniffled, and since Wally was being a pest, jumping on Nick and demanding attention, she bent to grab his collar. Before she could get hold of him, Nick called to him, led him into the kitchen, got him a treat, and put him in his crate. By the time Nick got back, she was slumped on the couch. She took one look at him with a crumb of Milk-Bones biscuit on the front of his black T-shirt and burst into tears.
“I couldn’t find Wally!” she wailed.
Nick sat down and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “But you did find him. He’s here. He’s fine. But you’re hurt. And something tells me there’s more going on than just Wally running away.”
She nodded. Shrugged. She blubbered. And hated herself for it.
“I was walking Wally and he came up behind me and—”
When her words dissolved in tears, Nick planted a gentle kiss on top of her head. Was it nothing more than a sign of concern from an old friend? She actually might have believed it if she didn’t feel the quiver of anger that tingled through him like electricity. It took every ounce of self-control he had, but Nick played it cool, buying time to understand exactly what had happened—and who was responsible—before he marched out the door and raised holy hell.
She had never loved him more than she did in that one moment.
Maybe he knew it, because he cupped her chin in one hand and smiled. “You go upstairs and get changed. And bring your first-aid kit down with you. We’ll talk once we get you taken care of.”
She was too tired to insist she was fine, and since she was the one who called him it was too late to say she didn’t need his help, so Jazz did as she was told. She was back downstairs in a few minutes, wearing soft cotton drawstring shorts and an oversized T-shirt. She found Nick pacing the living room, his hands balled into fists.
“I called the local station.” As if to prove it, he lifted his phone to show it to her. “I figured you didn’t want to make a statement now. They’ll send an officer over in the morning.”
“You really didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.” It was as simple as that and she wasn’t about to argue, not when blue fire flashed in his eyes. The next moment, the fire settled to a comfortable warmth. “Come on. Let’s take care of you.”
He took her hand and led her to the couch, then took the first-aid kit she carried, set it on the coffee table, and opened it up. She’d brought down a washcloth, too, because she’d tried to clean the blood off her knees and her elbows when she was upstairs and the water hitting her raw skin stung so much, she didn’t have the guts to finish the job herself. Nick took the washcloth into the kitchen to run warm water on it, and when he was in there and when she heard Wally’s treat jar rattle and the puppy give a yip of approval the pain didn’t feel so bad any more.
Nick came back and brandished the washcloth. “This is not going to feel good.”
Jazz had taken an inventory of her injuries when she was upstairs changing. She’d seen the blood and the scraped skin. She’d noted the tiny cut on her throat and the red marks on her back. She braced herself and winced when he touched the washcloth to her left knee.
“I’m going to be as gentle as I can,” he promised.
“I know.” She made herself sit stock-still. “Just get it over with.”
He finished with one knee and left to rinse out the cloth in the kitchen, and when he came back again he had a can of beer with him.
“Thirsty?” she asked.
“It’s for you. I thought wine would be classier. Or brandy. Isn’t that what they always drink in movies after something traumatic happens? Beer is all you’ve got in the fridge in the way of alcohol.” He handed the beer to her and with a motion urged her to drink up. “It will help you relax.”
She sipped while he washed the other knee, took care of her elbows, got the blood off her forehead. When he came back yet another time with the washcloth rinsed and cleaned, he touched it to her throat.
“That’s a knife wound.”
She didn’t confirm or deny. She didn’t want to think about it. While Nick dabbed antibiotic lotion on the cut, she held her breath and waited for the burning to subside.
He got bandages out of the first-aid kit. “Want to start at the beginning?” he asked.
She stalled with another sip of beer. “We were just walking, me and Wally, like we always do. Someone came up from behind me and—”
“Damn it.” When he smoothed a bandage over the damage on her knee, his touch was gentle enough, but his voice simmered with rage. “I’m going to go over to the park and run in every low-life derelict I find over there.”
“It wasn’t random, Nick.”
She watched the news register on his expression. Confusion. Comprehension. Denial. His mouth thinned. “Of course it was random. There have been other muggings in the neighborhood recently. You don’t think—”
“He told me to mind my own business.”
Nick had opened his mouth to say something and now he snapped it shut again and gathered the wrappings from the bandages he’d already opened and wadded them in a fist. “Are you telling me you’ve been nosing around about that skeleton at school? That the person who killed that teacher had something to do with this?”
“I’m telling you…” He messed up the bandage on her right knee and had to loosen the tape so he could readjust it and she sucked in a breath. “I guess I’ve made somebody mad asking about Bernadette,” she said.
“I guess you have. And whoever it is, I’m going to…” He didn’t need to elaborate. He reached for another bandage. “What else hurts?” he asked.
“My back,” she admitted. “He punched me.”
“That’s it.” He was off the couch in a flash. “We’re going to the ER.”
“No. Please, Nick. I’d have to find someone to stay with Wally.” She wound her fingers through his and tugged him back to the couch. “If I’m not better in the morning, we’ll go then. I swear.”
“Promise?”
“Do I promise to swear?”
“Well, yeah. Do you swear and do you promise?”
“Yes.”
He never actually surrendered. It wasn’t something Nick did. But he did sit back down, and in the great scheme of things she considered that a victory. “You could have been killed.”
“If he wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead.”
Nick grumbled a curse. “It’s not funny, Jazz.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. It’s true, and you know it. He didn’t want to kill me; he just wanted to scare me. And you know what.…” She snuggled close to him. “He did.”
His arm went around her. “Can you describe him?”
“I never saw his face. He hit me from behind, warned me to mind my own business, and by the time I jumped up all set to smash him in the—”
The last thing she expected from Nick was a chuckle. She pulled far enough away to look at him. “I wasn’t trying to be funny about that, either.”
“I know. You’re just being Jazz. That’s why I’m laughing. I’m surprised Wally didn’t join in the fun and bite the guy in the keister.”
“I think he would have if his leash didn’t slip out of my hand. By that time, Wally was scared and he took off. It was awful, Nick. All I could think about was how heavy the traffic is around here on weekends, about how he’s black and brown and he’d be hard to see at night and…” Just thinking about what might have happened made her stomach bunch.
Or maybe it was the beer.
She set the can on the coffee table. “Maybe I can add some attack skills to Wally’s training.”
“Something tells me it just might be easier for you to stay out of trouble.”
“You mean mind my own business?”
He wasn’t looking for a fight, but he wasn’t going to back down, either. He ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, that would be the idea. But I’ve got a confession to make, I haven’t been minding my own business tonight, either. I was at the baseball game.”
The stadium where the Cleveland Indians played wasn’t far away. “That explains how you got here so quickly.”
He nodded. “I wasn’t by myself. I was at the game with Gary Lindsey.”
“What, you two are BFFs now?”
Nick laughed. “Hardly. But I figured if anyone knew about the case, it was him.”
“And you wanted to know about the case because…?”
“I’ve got a sort of vested interest.” He took her hand in his. “I was curious because I figured you were curious. Looks like I was right.”
“And what did you find out?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “You mean other than the fact that Lindsey’s something of a pinhead?”
“He thinks Eileen killed Bernadette.”
Nick nodded. It was not the response Jazz hoped for. “According to Lindsey, Eileen did have a motive. There were tensions between Bernadette and Eileen, and Bernadette talked about suing the school.”
“Maybe but…” Too antsy to sit still, she grabbed the beer and took another drink. “I can pretty much guarantee you Eileen isn’t the one who jumped me tonight.”
“Who do you think did?”
She slanted him a look. “Did Lindsey say he had any suspects who were men?”
“Do you?”
“Bernadette’s cousin, Sam, has taken over her house lock, stock, and barrel. And it’s a fabulous place, by the way. So he sure has motive. And then there’s that paralegal at the firm Bernadette was going to retain to sue the school.” She thought about Mark Mercer. “He and Bernadette were seen at school after hours. And they were arguing.”
“Interesting,” Nick admitted. “Anyone else?”
“Taryn Campbell’s father for one,” Jazz told him. “He was mad at Bernadette for reporting Taryn when she found out Taryn plagiarized a scholarship essay. Taryn got expelled because of it. Leon Campbell is still mad, which tells you how much madder he was three years ago. And then there’s the girls, of course.” Jazz thought about it. It was a man’s voice that had whispered his rough warning in her ear. It was a man’s fist that had slammed her back.
“Cammi and Juliette are nasty little critters,” she said. “And they took great joy in harassing Bernadette. But Cammi and Juliette sure didn’t jump me tonight.”
“That doesn’t mean someone they know didn’t do it.”
Jazz hated to admit that was true.
“So…” Nick motioned for her to turn around. “Let’s get a look at your back.”
“You really don’t have to—”
“It’s me or the doc in the ER.”
She turned around.
He gave her a gentle tap. “Shirt up.”
She had never been embarrassed with Nick. Never self-conscious or shy. But that was back in the old days. Back when they were a couple. He was more of a stranger now, a stranger who was asking her to lift her shirt so he could check out her back.
And she was acting like some teenaged virgin.
Jazz turned around and lifted her shirt.
“Red in a couple spots,” he said, taking a look. “And you might end up with some bruising. There could be internal bleeding and—”
“He didn’t hit me that hard.”
“Maybe not, but right here…” He touched a hand to her back, and this time when Jazz winced it had nothing to do with pain except the pain of remembrance.
He skimmed a finger along her skin, tracing the outline of the red mark she’d seen when she changed, and Jazz held her memories of Nick’s touch at bay at the same time she held her breath.
“This one’s not as red.” He brushed a thumb over the small of her back and his fingers swept over her ribs. “Does it hurt?”
“I’ve got an ice pack in the freezer,” she told him, because it was the wrong time to say what she wanted to say—that when he was touching her, nothing could possibly hurt. “If you could get it…” She glanced over her shoulder, into his eyes.
His pupils were wide and dark. His eyes were warm, mellow, and the look he gave her said everything neither of them could.
One moment melted into two before he pulled himself away and smoothed her shirt back into place. “Yeah. Sure. One ice pack coming up.”
He went into the kitchen, and when he came back he had the ice pack, another beer for her, and one for himself.
“I’m staying here tonight,” he announced.
Somewhere deep inside her, it was what she hoped he’d say. Except the way he fluffed the pillows at one end of the couch told her she was jumping the gun. And he was being the voice of reason.
“You don’t have to.”
“Sure I do.” He plopped down. “You’re not going to sleep if you don’t feel safe, and you’re not going to feel safe here by yourself.”
She sighed. “I’m not going to sleep, anyway. I’m way too jittery. Maybe we could…” She knew she’d have the upper hand only as long as he was trying to comfort her. After she was better, calmer, less terrified of the memory of all that had happened, he’d be back to reminding her that she needed to leave the investigating to the professionals.
“Maybe we could go over everything we know about the case.”
“You mean Gary Lindsey’s case.”
“That’s the one.” Jazz spun around so she could pile up some pillows and position herself so the ice pack was wedged between the couch and her back. The cold felt heavenly. “Let’s go over my list of suspects again.”
Before they did, Nick went into the kitchen for a pad of paper, and since Jazz said she didn’t want another beer he made her a cup of peppermint tea. He came back with the tea—loaded with sugar—and took notes while they talked, and when they were done he sat back and tapped a finger against the paper.
“This Mercer guy, the paralegal, you don’t know why he suddenly looked antsy when you mentioned Maddie, the girl from school?” Nick asked.
“Not a clue.” Jazz sipped the tea. “Ma
ybe it doesn’t mean anything,” she admitted. “Here he was, trying to mourn a friend’s death, and there I was, this complete stranger asking him questions that were none of my business. Maybe I just imagined his reaction.”
“Or maybe there’s something you’re not telling me?” His voice was gentle enough, but his look was penetrating. When she didn’t answer, he leaned forward. “Jazz?”
It was exactly what Eileen had warned her against—telling too much of the truth.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Eileen doesn’t want to drag the details out into the light.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.”
“Maybe,” Jazz admitted.
“You gonna tell me what happened?”
She drew in a breath. Took another drink of tea. “It’s hard to know where to start.”
“I know the basics. But what happened right before Christmas break?”
Jazz pulled in a breath, then was sorry she did. Her ribs ached. Her back was sore. She finished her tea.
“Bernadette was tutoring Maddie and things were going really well. But right after Halloween, that’s when Maddie’s parents showed up at school. They told us Bernadette was following Maddie.”
Nick sat up. “Stalking?”
A shrug didn’t seem nearly adequate enough to explain. “They didn’t have any proof, Nick. You know if they did, Eileen would have been the first one to call the cops.”
“Or taken care of the problem herself.”
If she had the energy, Jazz would have jumped off the couch, the better to tower over him when she read him the riot act. The way it was, she tried to keep her cool, just as she had the day Scott and Kate Parker showed up at school with fire in their eyes and mayhem in their hearts.
“They said they’d run into Bernadette a time or two when they were out. At a movie, shopping, that sort of thing. Come on, Nick, you know that doesn’t prove anything.”
“No. But it is curious. What did Bernadette say about it?”
“That it was completely accidental and wasn’t it lovely that she had a chance to see one of her students outside of school.”
