by Virna DePaul
Damn it, what was going on? Was this a random break-in? No, that would be too coincidental. This had something to do with the shooting at the courthouse. The guy was here to hurt Linda. The question was whether it was because of him.
* * *
Linda heard the sound of struggling outside and jumped to her feet. She ran to the window, looked out and gasped.
Tony was outside her house, wrestling with a much larger man wearing a freaking ski mask. Quickly she retrieved her Taser and ran outside. She turned the corner just in time to see the larger man punch Tony in the face, then kick his bad leg. Tony crumpled, but even as he did he hung on to the man, refusing to let go. Though she pointed the Taser, she wasn’t convinced she could hit the other man and not Tony.
“Stop or I’ll shoot,” she yelled.
The man looked up before he took off, jumping the side fence.
Linda ran to Tony.
He was bleeding from the nose and mouth, but otherwise his coloring was a pale sickly white. She knelt beside him, cradling his head in her lap. “Tony! What are you doing here? Who was that?”
He closed his eyes, struggled to breathe, then gasped, “Wanted to talk to you. But he was here. Danger.”
More dangerous than him? she thought. She really wasn’t sure that was possible.
“Let’s—” She stopped before inviting him inside. She didn’t want to leave him lying here, but it wouldn’t be smart to invite him back into her house, either. “Stay here. I’ll call the police.”
He shook his head. “No. No police.”
“Tony, we need to report this. You didn’t do anything wrong, so you don’t have to worry about being out on bail. I’ll explain that you—”
He gripped her arm tighter, which made her gasp. “No police...damn it...”
She wasn’t imagining the urgency in his grip or his tone. “Why?”
“He...the man. He—he was here to hurt you. And he might be a cop.”
Chapter 18
Tony passed out with his head in her lap. Linda’s panic spiked and hysteria threatened to break her control until she realized his breathing was normal, as was his pulse. Whatever was wrong with him wasn’t life threatening—at least, not yet. He still needed medical attention. But he’d asked her not to call the police.
Did that mean she shouldn’t call an ambulance, either?
She looked around but none of her neighbors had come outside to check on her. Based on the darkened windows, people were asleep and hadn’t heard enough to think it was worth investigating. Though he’d always been lean, Tony was still considerably larger and heavier than her. So what was she going to do?
There was only one thing she could do. Get to safety. They couldn’t stay here. What if the intruder came back? She needed to get him someplace safe, make sure he would be okay, and think. Only then would she decide whether to call the cops or not.
She bit her lip. Then, despite feeling slightly guilty, she patted him down to make sure he didn’t have any weapons or needles on him. He didn’t. That didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t using or that he’d lied about taking over Guapo’s business, but it was one more reason to bolster her faith in him.
Getting behind him, she tucked her hands under his armpits and with great effort slowly dragged him an inch at a time toward her car. As she did so, she kept a watchful eye on his face. He was still pale. At one point she reached down to lay her hand on his face and cursed. He was burning up with fever. Whatever he’d been fighting off earlier that evening had taken a firm hold. He’d had an infection in the hospital. She wondered if it had come back.
Inadvertently she glanced down and winced. His pant leg was stained with blood, making her again wonder if the fever was caused by some kind of infection.
She had to stop for a few seconds to catch her breath. As she did, she once more swept her hand over his face, missing the curls that she’d often tangled her fingers in when they were together. But the close-cropped hairdo did more than make him look tough. It made it impossible for him to hide from her. His features stood out and with them every hint of vulnerability that he possessed, especially because he was unconscious and unguarded.
He’d said he’d wanted to talk to her. About what? Had he changed his mind about wanting her help? Had he decided to come clean with her? Decided to trust her with the truth of whatever it was he was doing with the drug ring formerly run by Guapo? And why had he thought the intruder—the man who’d wanted to hurt her, he’d said—was a cop?
She bit her lip, knowing what she did now could have a momentous impact on her life. On her career. Certainly on her bid for a judgeship. Tony was out on bail but he’d been charged with a crime and her office was prosecuting him.
She should ignore what he said. She had no reason to trust him. He’d told her over and over again that he was a changed man. Usually when men said they’d changed, they meant for the better. Tony meant he was worse. A bad man. One who didn’t care about her. Yet he’d saved her life once already. And if he was right about that man—whoever he was—being dangerous, he could very well have saved her life again.
And why did she keep thinking he was doing something that needed to be uncovered? Why couldn’t she simply accept he was the addicted, opportunistic man he’d tried to convince her he was?
Because she still loved him.
And if she could love a truly bad man, not just a flawed one, then what would that make her?
* * *
Linda took Tony to the local E.R. but only because Pamela Dexter, a friend of hers, was the doctor on duty. She’d called beforehand to double-check she’d be there and even then she’d known she was taking a calculated risk. That Tony, if he were conscious, would argue against going. But she couldn’t just drive away with him when she didn’t know for sure what they were dealing with.
Tony gained consciousness on the way to the hospital, but just barely. As she’d expected, he argued when she told him she was taking him to the E.R., but she simply ignored him, and he was too weak to argue for long. When they got to the hospital, medical staff helped him inside.
Pam owed her a favor and saw Tony right away. At least he hadn’t been shot, otherwise Pam would have had to report his injuries to the police. He’d suffered a light concussion and had gotten another infection.
“You said he got into a fight at the jail?”
“Yes.”
“That explains the infection, then. A jail’s not the most sterile of places and if he’d been bleeding after the assault... We’ll get him started on the meds and have him stay overnight—”
“No,” Tony said.
“Excuse me?” Pam asked, looking first at Tony and then back at Linda.
“Tony,” Linda began. “You need to listen to her. If she wants you to—”
He stood and began to dress. “I’m leaving, Linda. And so are you. We can’t stay here.” When she remained silent, he paused, taking several deep breaths and obviously struggling to stay focused. Finally he stepped close to her, leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Please. I know I haven’t given you any reason to, but please trust me. Take me to a hotel and let me get better before you do anything. I’ll explain everything to you then. I promise.” He stepped back.
After a second, she nodded. “Okay.”
Relief swept over his face.
“Are you taking him home? If so, I’ll give him his first round of antibiotics and a prescription for more,” Pam said.
Linda nodded. But she didn’t say whose home she’d be taking him to.
She wasn’t going to take him to a hotel. She had a better place. Someplace more private. Not his home, though. And not even hers.
She was going to take him to the vacation home in Grass Valley. The home her father had deeded to her for some reason.
She hadn’t been there in years. During her youth, her family had stayed at the cabin on the creek during the summer, or over winter break. She’d loved the times they’d spent there—sleeping outside under mosquito netting, catching crawdads in the creek, and later, when she was older, hanging out with the neighbor boys who grew a pot patch in the woods and who would take her to the river and get her drunk.
After her father had betrayed her family for the last time, she’d never gone back. She still made sure the taxes were paid and she used a property manager to rent out the property to people wanting to vacation in the idyllic Gold Country. The place was vacant right now, but it would be clean and would have electricity. She figured it would be a while before someone could track her down. That would give her time to think, to plan, without having to worry about whether they were in danger by any of Guapo’s men or, if Tony was right, by a dirty cop.
As she drove the winding country highway that would take them to the cabin, she called and left a message for her secretary. Briefly she explained she wasn’t feeling well and would need another deputy to take over her caseload for a few days. After a brief hesitation she also asked her secretary to inform Norm that she wouldn’t be able to make the fund-raiser tomorrow night, either. “Please give everyone my apologies,” she said, even as she winced. Norm would be furious. She’d likely lose votes, too. But she had no choice. There was obviously something more important at stake here.
After hanging up, she kept an eye on Tony, whose head was cradled in the crook of his arm as he leaned against the passenger’s side window. Had the man fighting with Tony in front of her house truly been a dirty cop? Dirty cops were a part of life, she knew. Just last year it had been discovered that a cop who’d worked with Dom Jeffries, Mattie’s husband, had been working for Guapo. The cop had been charged with everything from assault to kidnapping to murder, then been killed at the hands of a fellow inmate in jail. Though the cop’s killer wasn’t talking, people pretty much assumed the cop had been killed to prevent him from testifying against Guapo.
It was no wonder the people of Sacramento were feeling shaky about government corruption. There’d even been allegations that Guapo had invaded the District Attorney’s Office, though Linda had never believed it. The District Attorney, Norm Peterson, was one of the most honest men she knew. And though Brian Heald wasn’t her favorite person in the world, she couldn’t even imagine him, let alone any of the others that she worked with, being on the take. That went double for Neil. He enjoyed his job and ambition too much. Plus he had money from a trust fund his grandmother had left him. Assuming what he’d told her about that had been the truth, that is. She had her secrets, after all. It probably stood to reason that others did, too.
She turned off the highway onto a gutted dirt road, wincing with sympathy for Tony as the car bounced over a pothole. Soon, however, she parked the car and stared at the two-story cabin with faded gingham curtains on an isolated plot of land. She’d traveled an hour from Sacramento to this place that would always hold mixed memories for her. And she’d done it for one reason only—to keep them safe. She and Tony.
Watching over him, being his partner at the moment, felt right in a way few things ever had.
She looked over at Tony. He was still unconscious and the silence in the car was the perfect backdrop for doubt to sweep over her.
Was she seriously going to take him into the house she’d once lived in with her father and mother, the one she hadn’t been back to, not even after her father had left it to her? Was she going to buy into the paranoid observations of a man that, for all she knew, was having delusional side effects because of the drugs he was taking?
But she had to be fair. She’d concluded at the place he was staying that he might not be taking drugs, after all. He’d seemed genuinely afraid for her safety back at her house. And she couldn’t deny the fact that he’d hurt himself trying to protect her. Twice.
So she’d give him the benefit of the doubt and do what she needed to keep them safe. Even if it meant having to face a past she’d hoped never to face again.
Chapter 19
Tony had been jolted to consciousness several minutes ago and now had to grit his teeth to keep from groaning. Linda drove slowly over a road full of potholes—moon craters were more like it—and despite the obvious care she took not to go too fast and to maneuver around the biggest dips, every rocking movement of the car caused pain to zing through him, refusing to let him pass out again. Instead of telling her he was awake, however, Tony kept his eyes shut and his head in the crook of his arm. When Linda finally brought the car to a halt, set the emergency brake and turned the engine off, he still didn’t open his eyes.
Couldn’t open his eyes.
The shooting spears of pain up his back and his leg was a type of pain he was used to. But the ache in his head, in his joints, in the very marrow of his bones? It was the same pain he’d been in in the hospital after Guapo had been killed. A pain he’d hoped never to experience again. The pain of infection.
Just like it had in the hospital, his blood boiled beneath the surface of his skin, through all arteries and veins, heating him up from the inside out. At some point during their trip he remembered Linda stopping at a pharmacy to pick up antibiotics and codeine. Codeine he wasn’t going to take.
The pain was enough to deal with right now. He couldn’t risk being doped up, too.
Linda’s life had been threatened again. Plus, he’d missed his appointment with the Rapture supplier. If the meeting had been a scam, one meant to ensure he wasn’t around when Linda was attacked, then he needed every clearheaded advantage he could get. And if the meeting had been legit, well, he’d have to come up with a damn good excuse for standing the supplier up in hopes of convincing him to give him another chance.
First, however, he needed to figure out where Linda had taken him.
Some out-of-the-way hotel? Given the condition of the road they’d just traveled, Tony wasn’t too keen on seeing what the hotel looked like.
“Tony?” Linda whispered his name from the driver’s seat.
He couldn’t fake unconsciousness any longer. Couldn’t stay in the car forever. He forced his eyes open, the mere action of lifting his lids causing another blast of pain. Oh, God.
“We’re here,” she said, her voice still soft.
This time he looked at her, and another ache swarmed through his heart. The concern in her eyes, the deep wrinkles in her forehead, the way she held her body tight and curved in, as if scared for him, made him want to erase his very existence from her life.
He could handle the pain of his injuries and the infection, but he couldn’t handle the pain of knowing he was hurting her. Again.
He pulled his gaze off hers and slowly, slowly straightened until he could see out the car window. To his surprise he saw not a hotel but towering pines, filtered moonlight and a faded log cabin. The faint murmur of running water came through the window, which was open a crack. “Where are we?” he asked.
“Just outside Grass Valley,” Linda answered, her voice tight.
“Why?”
“My family used to vacation here and now I own the property. Someone could probably track down that fact eventually, but I figure I’ve bought us a few days, at least.”
“A few days for what?” He clenched his teeth to keep in his groan. The pain brought by speaking undulated like waves through his body. Still, his mind imagined spending a few days in paradise with Linda with nothing but time to hold one another and talk. Too bad he couldn’t talk about anything that was the truth. Faced with that knowledge and what would be her inevitable questions, all he wanted was to slide back into oblivion.
“We need to get you inside,” Linda said. “Can you walk?”
Sure. All he had to do was make his way into her house, then he could find a bed to collapse on. No biggie.
She quickly unclicked her seat belt and came around to his side of the car. “I’m opening your door, Tony. Don’t fall out.”
It took five minutes, but between Linda’s arm around his waist, the flashlight she carried in her other hand to illuminate their path and her murmured words of encouragement, he made it inside the log cabin and onto the bed in some dark back bedroom. There he lay, shaking and sweating profusely.
“Thanks. I’m gonna sleep.”
“Only for an hour. I have to wake you up every hour and ask you questions, just like the doctor said. I can also give you some codeine to make you more comfortable. But first...you’re soaking, Tony. We need to get your clothes off.”
Now weren’t those wonderful words to hear? His mind immediately filled with visions of their entwined bodies. Had it been just yesterday that he’d had her? Been loved by her, at least physically? But he knew she viewed him asexually right now. Probably like a child. The thought made his voice harsher than he’d intended. “Leave me alone, Linda,” he bit out.
Her expression pinched with hurt and he forced himself to look away.
He needed to be alone.
In the dark.
Fighting off the pain.
He needed her to leave. He didn’t deserve her. He was flawed. Had made too many mistakes.
He should leave right now. But he couldn’t.
He was suddenly freezing.
Why was he so cold?
Why was Linda’s voice so far away?
Why was the world spinning, even though his eyes were closed?
And why, oh, why, couldn’t he stop himself from reaching out for her?
* * *
Seeing Tony turn and reach for her, as if he couldn’t help himself, nearly brought tears to Linda’s eyes.
Linda swallowed hard, then pulled off his clothes, even his underwear. She did it to make him comfortable and make sure he got better, but part of her couldn’t help but react to his nakedness. She’d felt him inside her when they’d made love. Seen more of his naked body when they’d been at his house on Tortuga. But now he was completely and totally naked, unable to hide from her devouring eyes. She took in the familiar things about his body and the things that had changed.
