“Some of the women you protect might find you confusing.”
“You mean you.”
“I’m simply making an observation.”
“If we’re going to take the liberty to make observations about each other, here’s mine of you. You’re a control freak and if using me makes you feel more in control, have at it.” He releases the door, and adds, “Goodnight, detective,” and nothing more. He simply walks away but there is nothing simple about that reply. I don’t know why, but I know that he’s angry. In other words, he’s finally human. I’m probably too satisfied with that fact.
I shut the door and walk back to the bed and lie down. I stare at the ceiling a moment and then turn off the light. An image of the butterfly flashes in my mind, and with it a memory of Tabitha’s funeral. Of a casket. Of tears. Of a sunny afternoon that was so damn hot that my tears evaporated on my cheeks, and that became a challenge to make more.
I shove the memory aside, when I should embrace it, and the clues it might lead me to discover. I dream about my cases. I answer questions in my sleep. It’s how this has always worked, but in this case, doing so means embracing the pain and the guilt from the night of Tabitha’s death. So much guilt. I could have saved her. I should have saved her. “Damn it, Jewel,” I murmur. “Stop. This won’t solve a case.”
I shut my eyes and go ahead and use Jacob. After all, he said I could. I picture him standing in my doorway, broad and all leanly muscled, that perpetual firm set to his mouth. A mouth that was incredibly close to mine just this night. I relive that moment when his hand was on my face and mine was on his. I think of the kiss that didn’t happen and won’t happen. And tonight, Jacob is my hero. Tonight, he protects me from a brutal memory, a past with guilt, pain and murder. A memory I never let visit me in the darkness of any night, ever.
Sleep begins to overtake me, and it’s all Jacob in my mind, until he’s not. Suddenly, I am sinking into a nightmare, into the past. Into the exact place I didn’t want to go. I try to wake up, but I can’t. I’m stuck in the past. I’m back in college, in my dorm room with Tabitha, her sitting at a vanity against the wall. Me on the bed with books in front of me.
“You have to come to the party,” she says, spraying a layer of hairspray on her brown, bouncy curls. She rotates in her chair to face me. “Pull all that gorgeous blonde hair of yours from your headband, and fluff it up into a bedhead look.”
“A bedhead look? Are you serious?”
“Bedhead is sexy. So do it and then throw on some jeans and red lipstick. Come on. Do it. Come with me.”
“I’m preparing for the MCAT. You know that.”
She gives me puppy dog eyes. “You know that I get nervous at these parties alone.”
“I know but—”
I never finish that sentence. Not this time. Everything goes black again, fading into sleep, ending, only it doesn’t end. Suddenly, I’m back in the dorm room and I’m watching her walk out of the room. It’s the last moment I’ll see her ever again. And so, I live it, over and over and over. I see her open the door and disappear, the memory is on repeat.
There is more blackness and then: I’m standing over her casket, staring down at her, and she won’t move. I want to shake her, and I swear I lean in to touch her, to actually shake her, when I’m transported to my uncle’s funeral. Back to the graveyard. I can feel the cold wind, the sorrow, the pain. My father’s hand on my arm. My gaze lifting and finding the man in the distance, watching us. And then it’s darkness again.
Now, I’m back, living that night when I’d seen the stranger again. I’m back at my apartment gate, when I spot him, but I know he will get away. I don’t walk as I did the first time to follow him. I run and I shout, “Stop! Stop now! Stop!” I run harder. “Stop now!” I can’t see him. I’m in the darkness but I still have a sensation of running. “Stop!”
The bedroom door bursts open, shocking me awake and in a fast move I grab my gun from the nightstand. Twisting around, I aim at the door as Jacob stands there a gun in his hand. “What the hell happened?” he demands, scanning the room.
“Why are you in here with a gun?” I demand, trying to get a grip on the fact that the sunlight beaming through the thick gray curtains to my right means I’ve been asleep for hours.
“You screamed,” he says. “You were shouting at someone. Who?”
“I didn’t scream.”
“You did,” he insists, and he doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s already at the bathroom, entering, and I quickly scramble to my feet when the realization hits me. I’d been screaming at the man in my nightmares.
Since my gun does nothing to battle my nightmares, at least not in the present, I set it down on the nightstand, and freeze with an “oh shit” realization. The butterfly isn’t the first thing I’ve found by that security panel in front of the building. That’s what my mind was telling me in that nightmare. Jacob exits the bathroom. “What the hell happened?”
“Nothing,” I murmur, but I’m already moving toward the door, rushing away.
I exit the bedroom, crossing the living area, and entering the kitchen to stand in front of the fridge, where that note is still pinned to the center.
“You’re not ready yet,” I read out loud, and where I’d thought it was a statement that I’d simply chosen to take out of context—perhaps someone late to a date—now I’m not so sure. Maybe the man I’d been chasing left it for me. If that’s true, then that leads me to ask two very big questions:
How long has that man been watching me?
And what does he want?
I shake my head. This is nuts, I think. That note pinned to my fridge is two years old, and what does it have to do with the butterfly? My mind flashes to the Christmas card that had read: Jewel, it’s our time, or something like that. Why am I even going there though? That card was internal; a member of law enforcement gave it to me. It wasn’t connected to this note, and yet—it feels connected. I need to go by the office before court. I need to see that card.
I leave the note behind, keeping it here and safe, and then turn, only to run smack into Jacob. My hands landing on the hard wall of his chest, while his big hands catch my arms. “What the hell is going on?” he demands.
“I had a nightmare and now I need to get ready for court. Let go of me.”
“Do you have nightmares like that often?”
My defenses flare. “Why is that your business?”
“You were screaming,” he bites out, his jaw shadowed, in need of a shave. “I pulled my weapon and I don’t pull my weapon unless I intend to kill someone.”
He’s got a point. He pulled his gun and he did so to protect me. He deserves an answer. “I process my cases in my sleep,” I say, my fingers closing around his T-shirt. “I wake up with answers. I didn’t—I don’t know if I screamed out. I don’t remember doing that.”
He studies me a moment and then flicks a look at the note on the fridge, before his attention returns to me. “What does that mean to you?”
“Unlike you,” I say, “who feels being cocky is a necessity to winning, my uncle told me that the minute I think I’m ready, I’m too cocky, and I’m not.”
“I’m confident, not cocky. And no disrespect to what your uncle meant, but if you think you’re not ready, you aren’t. In other words, I’m releasing but not letting you go. Because you’re afraid, even if you won’t admit it. I know fear is making you spin out of control and that’s why you’re pushing against my control. Stop pushing back and tell me what I need to know.”
“So you can bulldoze the problem and spook the slayer into killing someone?”
“Don’t make me the enemy,” he bites out. “I would take a bullet for you, woman.”
“I’m not making you the enemy.”
“You are, and it can’t continue, because whatever this is, whoever is behind it, I’m standing between you and it. And that should earn me trust and communication,” He releases me, and turns away, walking toward the living room.
Angry.
Oh yes.
So very angry.
I don’t immediately follow, because, damn it, when no one knows how to hit my nerves, he has done so yet again. He’s uncovered my fear of being too confident, that at times creates insecurity in me. He’s found my doubt in my uncle’s words that I don’t want to feel. I inhale and glance to my right to discover Jacob headed towards my bedroom, with his bag in his hand. “Hey!” I round the island and head that direction. “What are you doing?”
He turns to stand in my doorway. “There’s one shower,” he says. “I’m using it first because I’m not giving you a chance to take off while I’m in it later.”
He turns and heads into the bedroom. I stop in my doorway, where he was a moment before, and I don’t like this push and pull anymore. I think about the butterfly, the note, the nightmare that is telling me this is bigger than a protestor trying to freak out my father. And Jacob who has just opened up the shell I’m living in, and seen so much, so fast. But he also, stayed here with me. He pulled a gun to protect me. No one protects me. I protect them.
But he did.
Damn it.
I enter the bedroom door as the shower turns on, but I don’t care. I cross and enter the open door. Jacob is standing in the center of the room, his shirt off, his jeans unbuttoned. Gorgeous. Really, gorgeous with 12-pack abs that only come from hard work and dedication, but I don’t let that distract me. It can’t. This is bigger than the two of us. It’s about my father. It’s about other innocent people that could get caught in the crossfire of whatever this is, and this feels dangerous.
“You’re right,” I say.
“What does that mean?” he asks, caution in his tone, which is progress beyond the monotone, unreadable questions, he usually directs my way.
“You deserve communication,” I say, “but we have to come up with working rules that you respect.”
“I can live with that but those working rules, have to apply in reverse.”
“I can live with that as well,” I agree. “But that means you don’t charge at this investigation alone or with your people, without my input. We act as a team.”
“Team,” he repeats. “All right. We’re a team. Tell me what I need to know.”
“All I have right now,” I reply, “is a weird hunch and even if I had time to talk about it now, I wouldn’t do it when you’re half-naked. I shouldn’t have come in here now.” I turn and walk toward the door and I don’t know why but I pause at the archway, and look back at him to find that he’s given me his back.
“You staying or going, detective?” he asks, obviously aware I’m still here.
It’s a taunt or maybe it’s an invitation that he follows up by reaching for his pants. Whatever his intent, staying would be a mistake we’d both have to live with and I don’t like mistakes. Staying would make me need him in a far too personal way. And he’ll see soon that I don’t do need.
And so, I leave, but not without my vivid imagination trying to figure out what the ass that goes with those abs looks like, and the certainty that we need a new rule. I’m just not sure any that I come up with at this very moment would protect either of us. But I don’t give it much consideration because my feet have taken me back to the kitchen and I’m standing in front of the fridge reading those damning words on the note: You’re not ready yet.
As Jacob so eagerly pointed out, I’m a control freak, and on his scale of one to ten I’d rank my control right now at a five. That’s what’s on my mind as I settle at the island of the kitchen with a steaming cup of chocolate-flavored coffee and power up my MacBook. I need to fix this problem. I need control. When I don’t have control, things go wrong. People die. I gulp coffee on that note like it’s tequila, because I don’t need to be numbed. I need to get my brain fired up. I need to get my shit together and I won’t even blame anyone for this but me.
This isn’t Jacob’s fault. It’s not even my father’s fault, despite his role in placing a hot, naked man in my shower. It’s all mine. I own any moment where I let the bad guys get ahead, and the note on the refrigerator, the butterfly, the focus of all of this on me screams with my own guilt. I didn’t suspect that note was a problem. Maybe it’s not, but that note didn’t even cross my mind. Not one time. I could blame my grief at the time, but I stared at the damn thing for two years, and still saw nothing but motivation.
My screen flashes with new emails as it juices up and I open the window to find the first entry is from Jacob. I open the message to read:
Detective:
As promised. An in-depth report on potential suspects. I’ve highlighted points of interest.
—Jacob, AKA Not an asshole, but in fact, a man of his word.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re not an asshole,” I murmur, though I’m pretty convinced at this point that he’s not, though it’s too soon to make any definitive judgments. But he did what he said he would. He got me this list. That matters. The list and his word are noteworthy character markers. They also tell me he isn’t intentionally trying to exclude me from this investigation. Or if he was before, he’s recognized that as an illogical idea, considering I’m a detective.
I double-click on the attachment Jacob has included and watch it download. I glance at the time while it’s working and it’s late. I need to get in the shower to get ready for court. The tiny throb in my temples says I also need Excedrin to head off one of the migraines, which I don’t admit to battling to anyone. In my world, I can’t afford to show weakness, and that’s not about being a woman. It’s about being one of the humans on this planet who knows what evil walks amongst us.
The file opens on my computer and I immediately go to the summary page with Jacob’s notes and five names of interest, all of which he’s noted to have relevant connections to me or my father. I scan those names, the first three I don’t recognize. They are, however, former classmates, all of whom went on to work in the medical profession, in operations that link in some way to my father’s company.
The last two names, Darren Michaels and Evelyn Michaels, are highlighted, and with good reason. One is my ex-fiancé, and the other is his wife, who at one point, had been my jealous friend. Jacob’s note reads: The wife works for the pharmaceutical company that is being merged with your father’s.
My brow furrows with rejection of Darren as the man behind all of this. It doesn’t fit him, and while I’m not a fan of Evelyn, the build of my watcher at the funeral was male. I’m sure of it. Not that either of them couldn’t have hired someone to follow me, or hell, even kill me, but I’m not connecting with this premise. My gut isn’t screaming in this direction.
That throb in my head is though, and I walk to the cabinet, pull out a bottle and down two Excedrin with a gulp of coffee that amounts to half a cup. I reach behind me and tug free the braids I slept in last night, certain they’re the culprit, and not sure I can dare wear my hair back today without risking a full-blown head explosion. I’ve just finished fingering my way through the waves the braid created in my otherwise straight blonde hair when Jacob exits the bedroom, now dressed in black jeans, boots and a black collared shirt. His bag is not in his hand, which tells me it’s still in my bathroom, because he’s basically living here right now.
He heads toward the living area, where he’s left his MacBook, and I cross to meet him on the opposite side of the coffee table. “I have cereal, milk, and coffee in the house,” I say as I pass him. “There might be peanut butter.”
“There was,” he says.
I settle my hands on my hips. “You ate all of my peanut butter?”
“And a box of stale pastries.”
“Those were really old.” I laugh. “Were they good?”
“No,” he says, shutting his Mac and straightening, “but I was desperate. It takes a lot of calories to be this big.”
“That was a joke,” I accuse.
“I don’t joke,” he says, all stone faced and robot like.
“It was a joke,” I say, liking the way he’s starting to let me see the real him. “But more importantly,” I add, eager for more of him, “let’s talk about your use of the word ‘desperate’. It’s so very human of you.”
“I am,” he says, “in fact, human.”
“Hmm, well. The jury is out on that one, but I don’t want to starve you. Then you might not be able to boss me around and generally be obnoxious.”
“So, you do like me.”
“I’m obnoxiously in like with you, so have some cereal on me. I have Rice Krispies in the cabinet.”
“There’s no milk.”
“Orange juice is underrated on cereal. Try it.” I tilt my head and give his clean-shaven, handsome face a once over. He arches a brow and I head toward the bedroom before calling out, “I liked the whiskers. They helped make you more human.” I enter the bedroom and shut the door, leaning against it with a pulse of pain in the front of my forehead that does nothing to diminish my growing interest in the man beneath the robot. No one is as cold and hard as he is without a reason. And the truth is, I know the reason: death. Death has made him that way. I get it a little too well.
Pushing off the door, I head into the bathroom and since I shut the bedroom door, I don’t shut this one. I’m about to strip for a shower, when I spy Jacob’s razor and a few toiletries on the counter. I’m not even sure how to react. I’ve actually never had a man leave items at my place but right now, there is this funny feeling in my belly, I reject and reject quickly. My gaze lifts to the mirror, and I grimace with the realization that I still have on yesterday’s make up, and it’s all in the wrong places on my face now. My freshly freed hair is no different as it now points in about five random directions. I could write a book on destroying relationships before they ever start.
“I like your hair loose like this.”
At the sound of Jacob’s voice, and the low, gravely quality of his normally monotone voice, I slowly rotate to face him, my right hand settling on the counter. “Shut doors don’t mean anything to you, do they?” I say, rejecting that funny feeling in my belly all over again.
Falling Under: a standalone Walker Security novel Page 9
