by Mary Calmes
I hit the End button and he was gone.
I turned off the lights and collapsed onto the couch, sore from the day’s events. My phone rang and I let it go to voice mail three times before I answered.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, what?”
“What if it was an emergency?”
“The only emergency is that you’re bored out of your mind.”
“Why don’t you wanna walk the dog?”
I sighed deeply.
“What?”
“That guy I hit today and my wrist—man, I’m beat.”
“Oh,” he said, his voice soft, rumbling. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s no big deal. I’m just gonna lie here and watch TV until I get sleepy.”
“Okay.”
“So try and have fun.”
“Yeah, I—you’re fine, right?”
“Course.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay,” he said and hung up.
I never made it off the couch.
Chapter 4
WHEN I got out of the shower the next morning, I heard movement in my kitchen, so I moved to the railing at the end of my bed—there was just enough room there for me to walk—and yelled down that I was armed.
“Yeah? And?” came back the snide reply.
“You could ring the doorbell like a normal person,” I mentioned, smiling in spite of myself when Ian walked out of the kitchen directly below me and into the living room where I could see him.
“But I have a key,” he countered.
“Which you’re only supposed to use when I’m not here.”
“You’re never not here.”
I sighed. “Which if you think about, is really sad. I need a vacation to some tropical paradise so I can get laid.”
He squinted up at me. “Why can’t you just get laid here?”
The question, asked so innocently as he stood in the middle of my townhouse, was like a punch in the gut. Because I could have sex, right there, on the couch… bent over the couch, on the floor, or even better, in my bed. I could get laid anywhere in my home… if Ian were gay. I could. But I wouldn’t, because he wasn’t.
Christ.
“Well?”
“I need a vacation,” I muttered, turning away since I was in a towel and nothing else. “And why’re you dressed like a lumberjack?” I shouted, wanting to make sure my voice carried.
“Why’re you yelling? I can hear you fine.”
There was no winning.
“Just tell me why you’re dressed like that,” I prodded.
“Homeland Security raid at that youth halfway house in Schaumburg. We have a lead on that girl, what was her name?”
I stopped halfway to my closet, having to make new clothes choices. “It’s Lucy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Lucy Kensington. She skipped out before she could be taken into custody by marshals in Lubbock,” he said as he clomped up the stairs. For a Green Beret, Ian walked really heavy.
“I thought you were supposed to be stealthy.”
“I’m bringing you coffee, don’t be a dick.”
I chuckled as I grabbed a pair of briefs from my armoire, my low-rise jeans, a T-shirt, a Henley, and a pair of socks. “She’s the one who’s supposed to be testifying against some cult leader there, isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Ian answered, reaching the top of the stairs and walking over to me, a mug in each hand. Instantly he grimaced.
“What?” I asked as I took the one he offered me.
“You have bruises all over you,” he remarked before taking a sip of coffee. “And between that and the cast on your wrist, you’re a fuckin’ mess, man.”
I shrugged. “I knocked down a moose yesterday, you saw me.”
“I guess,” he said irritably, frowning, reaching out to touch my shoulder. “Gross, why’re you slimy?”
“It’s lotion, ya heathen. You have to take care of your skin, use moisturizer on your face, or you’re gonna look like a saddle when you get old.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, obviously placating me. “Is your wrist better today? You sounded like it hurt last night.”
“It did, but it’s fine now. Go away while I get changed.” The coffee was good, he’d used the Kona I kept in the freezer instead of the French roast I had in the pantry.
He pointed at the clothes in my hand. “You can’t wear those jeans to a raid.”
“What?” I asked, drinking down more hot coffee. He was good about adding the right amount of cream so I could still taste it but drink it fast.
“I’ve seen those jeans on, and they’re way too tight. You can’t run in them. This is not Starsky and Hutch.”
I stared at him until he groaned, muttered under his breath, and went back downstairs. But he was right; all I needed to do was ruin a two hundred dollar pair of jeans sliding over asphalt. Returning to my closet, draining the mug as I did, I refolded them and picked something else to wear. Once I was changed, I brushed my teeth and then started putting product in my hair.
“Done yet, princess?” he demanded as he strolled into the bathroom.
I glared at him in the mirror. “Do you think I just roll out of bed and my hair looks this good? This is art.”
“It looks like you woke up and ran your hand through it.”
“I know, and that takes time. Each strand has to stand at a different angle or it doesn’t work,” I explained to my ignorant partner. “All the pieces have to be in the right place.”
“Or what?”
“Or it’s not sexy.”
“You’re plenty sexy,” he yawned, snatching my empty cup off the counter before walking out. “Now, can we go before we’re too old to do our job?”
It was as good as it was going to get. I flipped off the light and walked to my bed so I could sit down and put on my harness boots.
“Corduroys?” he said like he was in pain.
“You didn’t notice in the bathroom?”
“I didn’t look in the bathroom,” he said dryly.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t own a pair of Wranglers like you do,” I informed him. “Or Levi’s for that matter.”
“There’s nothing hotter than button-fly, my friend.”
He had a point.
“But really, your fuck-me jeans would not have gone over well.”
I ignored him, and when I stood up, he winced.
“What now?”
“How much did those boots cost?”
I lifted my foot to check the bottom. “I dunno, three, four hundred.”
“Please take them off. I know my black leather combat boots are in your closet somewhere; just wear those. I beg you.”
“These are boots.”
“No, they’re not,” he cajoled. “C’mon.”
“I have a pair of Antonio Maurizi wingtip boots that I could—”
“I don’t know what those are, but I can’t imagine they’re any better than what you’ve got on your feet right now. Just change ’em.”
“I have the biker boots that—”
“No, I have your biker boots from that Saturday we went out to the farmers’ market.”
“Oh.” Funny that I hadn’t even missed them. “Do you have the Dolce&Gabbana distressed-leather biker boots or the—”
“I have no idea what I have. They’re soft, that’s all I know.”
I had to think.
“Miro!”
“Yeah, okay,” I muttered, sitting back down and pulling off the boots as he stalked over to my closet, rummaged around, and came back with his beat-up military-issue combat pair. They were worn but still in great shape, and most of all, stupid as it was, they were Ian’s and so I loved wearing them. And they fit like a glove.
“God, I should move in,” he grumbled, oblivious as I stopped breathing. The things that came out of that man’s mouth would be the death of me. “Imagine how much faster this would go in the morning if you didn’
t have to think: should I wear the Antonio-whoever shoes instead of the—”
“Antonio Maurizi,” I yelled as he took the stairs.
“Like I fuckin’ care!”
I followed him down minutes later, and when I went to the hall closet and pulled out my chester coat, he stopped me.
“Grab your uniform parka and let’s go.”
“Yeah, but—”
He growled, so I grabbed what he wanted, made sure I had my badge, gun, ID, wallet, keys, and phone, and then went out ahead of him.
After he locked my front door, he shook his head like I was exhausting and charged down the front stoop.
“Why’re you mad at me?”
“Do you have any idea how long it takes me to get ready in the morning?”
I grinned wide. “That’s because you’re naturally gorgeous. I have to work at it. Getting this level of pretty doesn’t come easy.”
“Get in the car!”
I was still chuckling when I got in and told him I needed more coffee.
“If you didn’t take so long in the bathroom, you could chug down more caffeine.”
“Yeah, well, again. I need time to look this good.”
He pulled away from the curb like he was driving the getaway car in a bank heist, and instantly I had to grab hold of the dash.
“Jesus, Ian.”
The wicked smile was not lost on me.
LUCY KENSINGTON looked like she belonged on the cover of a romance novel in which the heroine is one of the sweet plucky virginal ingénues who the hero falls head over heels for. In reality, she swore like a sailor and went after Ian with a knife, trying to dig out his heart as quickly as possible.
I was guessing she was normally handled more delicately, because she screamed in indignation when he disarmed her, put her facedown on the concrete, and cuffed her. She called him a lot of foul names I’d heard and a few I hadn’t—a real achievement—until the shooting started. Once we were all under fire—Homeland Security, local police, and us pinned down in the courtyard of the halfway house—she shut up, curled into a ball behind Ian, and apologized to both of us over and over.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, her cheek against Ian’s broad muscular back. “But I wouldn’t have made it this far if I wasn’t a total bitch.”
“Well, we’re here to take care of you,” Ian said, trying to soothe her as the rat-a-tat-tat of AK-47 fire echoed in the small space.
If I lived to be a thousand, I would never understand the mentality of people firing at law enforcement when they entered their building. Yes, we were stuck now, but reinforcements would come to surround the building, and then there’d be nowhere for them to go, either. There was no way out. Even if they took hostages, it all eventually ended badly. There was no scenario in which they won. All they had to do was think logically, just for a moment.
“And Javier.”
“I’m sorry?” I had been zoning for a moment, but her comment caught my interest.
“My boyfriend, Javier—Javi,” she explained. “Abel Hardy’s after him too. He’s the guy we were running away from. He’s why we left Texas.”
“And where is Javier?” I asked, not really even wanting to know.
“He was in our room on the third floor.”
Of course he was. We were in the courtyard on the first floor, outside the building. It only made sense that Javier was inside, all the way up on the third. Murphy’s Law and all that.
“I already told the marshals in Lubbock,” she began patiently. “That if Javi and me didn’t get taken in together, that I wasn’t gonna testify. That’s why we ran away, because they wouldn’t listen. But you will, right? You’re different than the Texas marshals.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. She was gazing at us with her big cornflower-blue eyes like we were angels straight from heaven.
“So you and Javier were together when—” I searched my memory. “—the drug bust went down.”
“And we saw Mr. Hardy shoot all those people. Yeah.”
“How many?”
“Five. There were three men and two women. They were those tourists that went missing. It was all over the news in Lubbock.”
I nodded.
“You and Javier were there?” Ian wanted to make sure.
“Uh-huh,” she replied innocently. “He told me to be quiet, but I was so scared—kinda like now, but at least y’all have guns. We didn’t have nothin’. I was sure Mr. Hardy was gonna kill us too, but then the police came, and then the marshals.”
“And you and Javier got separated?”
“Yessir, we did.”
I could see how it happened, how it was reported that Lucy saw it all without mention of her boyfriend.
“So you’ll get him, right?”
Fuck.
“Right?” she pressed.
“Javier what?”
“Valencia,” she sighed. “Isn’t that pretty?”
We both nodded before Ian turned to the Homeland Security agent who had been crouching down beside us the whole time.
“Who’re you?” I got around to asking.
“Agent Gerald Spivey.”
“Okay, Agent Spivey.” Ian sighed. “Marshal Jones and I are going in after another witness, so we need you to secure this one. Do you understand?”
“Yessir.”
“Great.” Ian puffed out a breath before he turned to face me. “Don’t get shot in the head.”
“Ditto.”
The troopers covered us as we ran for the building, and then Ian counted and I had his back as he kicked in the door and we went in. That was as far as we got. Apparently SWAT had come in through the back and they were there, already having breached the interior, fanned out along the corridor, all of them encased in body armor.
“Marshals,” the SWAT commander greeted us tersely.
“Lieutenant,” Ian returned. “Is this level secure?”
“Affirmative, all threats have been neutralized.”
I didn’t even want to know how many people were dead.
“We’re going to the third floor now. Is there a witness here to secure?”
“Yessir.” Ian nodded.
“Follow us up.”
“Do you have snipers on site already?” I asked.
“Negative. We have no higher ground. As this is a residential area, our purpose is containment. No one leaves the grounds that could be considered a threat to private citizens.”
Translation: anyone running from the halfway house who was armed would be shot dead. He had twenty men with him, and even though I could tell Ian wanted to be in the middle of the team, I grabbed hold of his forearm and held him still as they filed by.
“What are you doing?”
“They go first, then us.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then stop tensing up like you’re getting ready to run. Just wait.” I finished talking and let him go.
“I’m waiting,” he retorted, clearly annoyed.
I moved in behind him, my mouth to his ear. “Don’t disappear; stay where I can see you.”
He leaned just enough so he could feel me there, at his back. “I always do.”
“You never do.”
“Okay.”
The rear guard ran by, and Ian bolted after him with me following close.
When marshals searched, we yelled, we announced ourselves, we barked out orders like “freeze,” “get on your knees,” and “put your hands where we can see them.” A SWAT team just moved. With us, if you fired, you still had a chance. We would call out what we were, “Federal marshals, put down your weapons!” With SWAT, if you were stupid enough to fire on them, they fired back and that was it. I was pleased that there was no gunfire in the stairwell as we made our ascent, none on the second floor we searched to make sure the witness hadn’t run, and none when the SWAT team began pounding up more steps to the third.
Ian and I trailed behind, sending down a lot of other scared civilians after radioing ah
ead that we were sending them out of the halfway house. They’d need protection too.
By the time we made it to the third floor, SWAT had already swept it, hyperefficient, leaving two men to guard the stairwell as the rest of them breached the door to the roof. Half of them were outside already, and I could hear gunfire being exchanged. More kids huddled in the hall and peeked out of rooms.
“Javier Valencia!” Ian yelled.
From the second to last door on the right, a kid stepped out with his hands raised above his head. “Please don’t shoot!”
“Federal marshal,” I shouted. “I need to take you to Lucy.”
“Lucy?” he asked hopefully, taking a step forward.
Another kid grabbed his arm to stop him, whispered something, and Javier froze. “How do I know you’re a marshal?”
Turning slowly, I reached down and lifted my parka so he could see the badge on my belt. “I’m sorry the marshals in Texas didn’t listen to you and your girlfriend.”
He raced down the hall to us and didn’t stop until I lifted a hand to slow his approach. I was surprised that he slowed but walked right up against my open palm.
“It’s okay, kid,” I said gently, putting my hand on his shoulder as he started to shake.
His face scrunched up like he was ready to cry, and I understood at that moment that both he and the girl he loved were younger than they looked. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Let’s go see her.”
“All of you,” Ian yelled, making sure his voice carried. “Let’s go.”
Seeing Javier trust us was all the rest of them needed. They poured out of the rooms carrying purses, backpacks, and messenger bags. Ian went first, passed the two SWAT guys stationed at the top of the stairs, followed by the kids, thirty counting Javier, and I brought up the rear.
Even moving as fast as we were, the story came out, the kids explaining in staccato bursts of information. The gunmen were friends of the guy who ran the house. They were just supposed to be passing through, but that was a month ago. They were making homemade bombs, dealing drugs to fund the operation, and stockpiling weapons. No one knew what they wanted, but they had called themselves environmental extremists.
“But they sold drugs, man,” one of the kids said. “That’s not right. Right?”
