Dangerous Kisses

by Trish Milburn

  Before her voice cracked and betrayed her, she hurried back down the stairs, hoping Jake would attribute her hasty retreat to the biting wind.

  She strode to the refrigerator, berating herself for ruining the closeness they’d shared over the past couple of days. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  She pulled the egg carton from the fridge, then popped two slices of bread in the toaster. Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut? But she’d felt so close to him the night before, closer than she’d ever been to a man, and she’d have sworn on the Pope’s Bible that he’d felt the same.

  Maybe he did feel affection, but there was a big leap from affection to full-fledged love.

  Her nose twitched. Smoke. She whirled toward the toaster. Damn it, she’d burned the toast. She pulled the black slices from the toaster and tossed them into the sink, torching her fingers in the process.

  She turned away from the bread and opened the egg carton. But her clumsy hands fumbled and dropped half the box’s contents. The eggs splattered across the floor and her shoes. She let loose with a string of curse words. In the middle of her tirade, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Jake stood at the bottom of the stairs staring at her with a sorrowful look on his face. She watched as he crossed the cabin to take her in his arms, confusing her even more.

  She pulled away and bent to untie her shoes. She took them to the sink and dabbed at the egg yolk with a wet paper towel.

  "I’m sorry," she said before she lost the nerve. "I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable."

  At least he didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. "It’s okay. People say things in the heat of passion."

  She opened her mouth to tell him that she’d meant it, but she clamped her jaws shut and held her tongue in check. Better to let the subject drop now that they’d given each other an easy out.

  But having it out in the open only made things worse. After Jake made egg sandwiches and coffee, they sat in silence as they ate, neither looking at the other. The tension in the small cabin grew so thick, she thought she might suffocate. The frigid wind above almost seemed preferable.

  She sighed in enormous relief when he received a call and climbed to the deck to talk. She washed the dishes, then flopped on the couch. She wished she’d thought to bring one of her hundreds of mystery novels. No, she wished she was home where she could come and go as she pleased, where she could get away from Jake long enough to regain some measure of composure.

  Needing something to take her mind off her mess of a life and unable to concentrate when she tried to work, she flicked on the TV, hoping to find a talk show with people whose lives were more pathetic than her own. Instead, Donna Fratella’s face greeted her along with a Breaking News banner. Sydney increased the volume.

  "Police have found what may be the latest victim of a serial killer who has been preying on the city’s young women for the past several months. Metro Police have confirmed that the body discovered early this morning at the Waving Pines Apartment Complex matched roughly the physical characteristics of previous victims Stephanie Mortimer and Maggie Field. If police determine this murder is the work of the same killer, this will be his or her third known victim."

  Sydney’s hearing faded, returning to normal only when the morning newscaster moved on to another story. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, and breathing proved difficult. She couldn’t move, couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.

  Oh, God. She’d been so focused on herself that she’d never considered the killer would pick a substitute. He hadn’t been able to get to her, so he’d snuffed out the life of another young woman. Tears sprang to Sydney’s eyes as guilt washed over her in a painful, gut-wrenching wave.

  Jake’s steps descended slowly down the stairs, but she couldn’t look at him for several seconds. When she did, there was no doubting the subject of his phone call. A haunted darkness filled his eyes, and his body seemed to shrink and tighten at the same time.

  "It...it was supposed to be me," she said, her words a ragged sob ripped from the deepest core of her.

  He crossed the room and sat down on the couch beside her. She cried and beat his chest. "He couldn’t get to me, so he killed someone else. It’s my fault that girl’s dead." Her body shook as she stopped her pummeling and sank against him.

  "Shh." He held her tight and stroked her hair. "Don’t say that. It’s not true."

  "Yes, it is. I’m the one he wanted."

  He pulled away and framed her face with his strong hands, not allowing her to divert her gaze. "Listen to me. You’re the one who told me we can’t control what other people do. It wasn’t my fault Krissy Jacobs died, and it’s not yours that some sicko bastard killed this girl."

  "But, Jake—"

  "No. Don’t do this to yourself, Sydney. Trust me, it’ll eat you alive." He held her a few more minutes before speaking again. "I have to go in."

  "I know."

  Earlier, she’d longed to go home, but now all she wanted was to turn the boat away from her life and float away. But the Murder Squad would need Jake. If they had a prayer of catching this guy before he added victim number four, they needed all the manpower they could muster. And no matter what Bill said, she was back on this story.

  ****

  Jake crushed the heel of his hand against his forehead, trying to banish the headache pounding inside his skull. The reports spread across his desk had begun to blur in front of his burning eyes. In the twenty-six hours since he’d dropped Sydney off at her apartment and made sure her guard was in place, he’d gotten a grand total of two hours of sleep, and all that had come while stretched out on the couch at the back of the Murder Squad room.

  Adding weight to his fatigue were heavy doses of anger and guilt. Yes, he’d protected Sydney, but in doing so, he’d left an opportunity for the killer to strike another innocent victim.

  He shook his head and tried to focus on the assertion he and Sydney had batted back and forth about how they shouldn’t feel guilty because of the cruel acts of others. But the guilt plagued him just the same.

  Since the latest body had been found, he’d not had the opportunity to think about Sydney or their awkward personal situation. Every moment had been consumed with examining the crime scene where Jess Greene had been found, her apartment, interviewing neighbors, friends and co-workers at the Oak Beam Grille, notifying her family in Birmingham and poring over the files detailing the crimes against Stephanie, Maggie and Jess until his vision blurred.

  Kevin plopped down at his desk across from Jake. "Man, you need to go home."

  "I won’t do much good there."

  "You ain’t gonna do much good here either if you don’t get some sleep. Plus, you need a shower. You look like you’ve been on a week-long drinking binge."

  "You don’t exactly look like the belle of the ball yourself."

  "Go on." Kevin nodded toward the door. "I’ll call you if anything changes."

  Jake couldn’t muster the energy to argue further. He could use a long, hot shower and a few hours of rest in his own bed.

  But the moment he stepped on board the boat, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Everywhere he looked, he saw Sydney. Sitting at the table, watching the horizon from the edge of the deck, lying beneath him in the tousled sheets.

  He tossed off his rumpled clothes and stepped into the shower. He let the water blast him in the face, hoping to clear his mind. They’d not spoken since he’d returned to work, and perhaps that was for the best. A clean break would prevent her from becoming any more emotionally attached, and he could avoid the risk of telling her how he really felt.

  But no matter how many reasons he listed why the clean break was the best option, he just couldn’t do it. He might not be able to give her a picket fence and golden-haired babies, but she at least deserved to be told why — and face-to-face.

  Showered and wearing clean clothes, he headed for her apartment — and the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

 
; ****

  Sydney wouldn’t have heard the knock if she hadn’t ended her phone call when she did. She’d been talking to both Bill and the paper’s publisher about her first-person account. The newsroom had been fielding call after call about her front-page article in light of the fact she evidently hadn’t been targeted next. What newspaper readers didn’t know as they read their morning papers and watched the early newscast was Jess Greene was a replacement for her.

  The paper’s publisher overrode Bill and wanted her at least partially back on the story. She wasn’t to put herself in unnecessary danger, but he said the first-person accounts were powerful. AP already was picking up the story and putting it out on the wire.

  At the second, louder knock, her heart leapt into her throat. She glanced out the window to find the Metro policeman sitting in his car, bored and probably counting down the minutes until his replacement showed up to relieve him.

  Well, if he wasn’t worried by who was at her door, then she had no reason to be. When she checked the peephole, her heart thumped wildly again. Jake.

  She tried to smooth her hair, but then scolded herself for worrying about her appearance. He wasn’t there to propose marriage after all.

  When she opened the door, his fatigue struck her. The sag of his shoulders, the dark circles rimming his eyes, the tight line of his mouth. He’d probably worked nonstop since he’d left her the day before.

  "Can I come in?" he asked, making her realize she’d been standing there staring at him.

  "Yeah, sorry." Sydney moved back to allow him to step over the threshold, then closed the door against the cool outdoor air. "Would you like some coffee?"

  "Yeah."

  She retreated to the small kitchen area, trying to calm her instinctive reaction to Jake — all jittery nerves and racing pulse. Even looking like he hadn’t slept in a week, he made her skin flush. She glanced to where he stood next to her patio door. If the wet tips of his hair were any indication, he’d just showered. She imagined the clean, soapy scent of him and nearly moaned in pleasure.

  Jeez, get a grip.

  She poured two cups of coffee, then strode back into the living room as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened between them.

  "You look tired."

  "Been working a lot." He took a sip of coffee, then looked up at her. "How are you doing?"

  "Okay."

  "I saw your article."

  Sydney prepared for his anger, but it didn’t come. "I’m surprised you’re not screaming at me."

  "What good would it do? It’s done."

  She hated the disappointment she heard in his voice. "I needed to write it, Jake. I felt so helpless, and it was the only thing I knew how to do."

  He nodded, like he understood the feeling, and Sydney felt like she was witnessing a miracle. In such a short time, both she and Jake had changed – but without losing their drive and passion to do the right thing. Hope flared that maybe they did have a future together. She watched him lift his cup as if it weighed a ton.

  "Have you found out anything else, anything they’re not saying on the news?"

  "Not much." He sighed. "We found an unopened chocolate in Jess Greene’s apartment in addition to the one on her body."

  Sydney swallowed past the lump in her throat. "She was so young, so pretty. They showed her picture on the news, said she’d just moved here a couple of months ago."

  "Yeah. Graduated from a community college in Birmingham and was working to save up enough money to start classes over at MTSU next fall."

  "I’ve probably seen her. The Oak Beam Grille is only a few blocks from the paper. Becky and I go there sometimes for dinner."

  "We’re checking out the residents of the area. Maggie and Stephanie worked within a couple of miles of both you and Jess." He shook his head. "But it might not turn up anything. This guy’s mobile. He takes the bodies to a different location after he kills them. He could live anywhere."

  A shiver ran through Sydney as she considered the proximity she shared with the victims. Had she seen the killer dining at the Grille? Had he ever come into the paper? The area in question was relatively small, but hundreds of people lived within it. Checking all of their backgrounds could take days — ones in which the killer could strike again.

  But not if she could help it. Maybe she could help flush out the killer.

  "I’m going back to work."

  "Sydney—"

  She waved off his protest. "Listen, I’m going crazy sitting in this apartment. Besides, you’ll have your guy watching out for me no matter where I am. And there’s a lot more people around at the office. Safety in numbers, isn’t that what they say?"

  She expected him to argue, but he remained quiet for several seconds. "Be careful."

  Was that the cop or the man talking?

  "I always am."

  He sat his cup on the table and turned his gaze out the patio door again. His visit hadn’t been just to check up on her. Something was on his mind. She could tell by the way the muscles in his jaws tensed.

  "What’s wrong?"

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned back toward her. "I wanted to explain about...about the time out on the boat."

  The look of sorrow tinged with shame coloring his eyes told her she wouldn’t like what he had to say. No matter how much she told herself she’d survive just fine without him, she suddenly wasn’t all that sure. Was this what her mother had felt for her father, this feeling of wanting to latch on and never let go?

  But Sydney didn’t show him her inner turmoil. "There’s no need to explain."

  He stepped forward but thankfully didn’t touch her. If he had, she might have dissolved in his arms.

  "I don’t want you to think that I make a practice of making love to women then just dumping them on their doorsteps."

  "I didn’t think that."

  "Good."

  "I mean, adults have sex. It’s no big deal."

  He surprised her by lifting his hand to her temple and brushing back loose tendrils of hair. He’d done it before, but it seemed out of place considering he was trying to make a break with her.

  "Don’t make it sound so clinical." He paused, as if considering his next words. "It was more than that."

  His fingers drifted down to her cheek, and she forgot to breathe. "I’m confused."

  A pained expression crossed his face. "I didn’t mean for this to happen."

  "What?"

  "Caring about you."

  Her heart leapt, danced in a wild circle. She might live to regret it, but she forged ahead. "If you care, why are you trying so hard not to?"

  "Because you deserve better than me."

  "Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?"

  "I can’t. I wouldn’t make a very good boyfriend."

  "Why not?"

  He dropped his hand and stalked across the room, that wild cat trapped in a cramped cage again. "Because I’m a cop. I work all the damn time."

  "So do I."

  Jake hung his head and raked his fingers through his hair before turning back toward her. "I don’t want you to care about me only to have me end up dead."

  Of all the possibilities for him distancing himself from her, this one had never entered her mind. "Jake, any of us could die at any time. I could get killed in a car wreck on the way to the grocery store."

  "And I could take a bullet like my father did."

  The anguish in his words was so raw she almost could see the little boy he’d been.

  "I saw how my father’s death tore my mother apart. It took years for her to come out of her depression. She was a good, loving mother all that time, but she was lost without my father. I swore I’d never put anyone through that."

  She moved toward him, lifted her hand to his strong jaw. "I’d bet my life that even though it hurt to lose him, your mother wouldn’t have given up the time she had with your father to avoid those years of pain and loneliness. I’ve come to realize only recently that we
can’t hide from our feelings because we’re afraid of being hurt. I’ve done that ever since my mother died."

  He closed his eyes as he placed his own hand over hers at his cheek, seeming to give up his struggle. In one swift moment, she was in his arms and his lips had descended to hers. His mouth plundered hers in a desperate search for...something — fulfillment, peace, love — she didn’t know what Jake sought, but she found herself willing to give it.

  She loved him, and somehow she was going to make him believe that they deserved a chance despite the risks.

  He pulled away with a growl of frustration. "I can’t do this." He set her from him then retreated toward the door.

  "Jake." The single word was a plea.

  He paused, his back to her. "I’m sorry, Sydney." Without looking at her, he stepped out of her apartment — out of her life.

  Tears streamed down her face as she stared at the door, willing Jake to come back. But he didn’t.

  She closed her eyes and let the sobs come.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jake cursed as he sloshed hot coffee onto his hand. He dropped the cup, spilling coffee across the countertop and beginning his Monday morning on a less than stellar note. Figures that he’d come into the Murder Squad room to find a rare fresh pot of coffee only to spill it on himself. No one stepped forward to help him clean up the mess, and he didn’t blame them. He’d been biting the guys’ heads off all morning, the frustration — both professional and personal — boiling over until he snapped and growled like an injured animal.

  In a way, he was exactly that. Not only were his abilities as a detective in question, but he couldn’t help thinking about how he’d left Sydney, ignoring the plea in her voice.

  "Let’s put our heads together here," Kevin said from his seat at the center table.

  Jake turned and saw understanding on his friend’s face despite an edge of annoyance. He finished cleaning up the spilled coffee, then carefully poured himself another. The caffeine was the only thing standing between him and collapse.

  He sank into a chair opposite Kevin as the rest of the squad took up other spots around the table. During the next few minutes, they went over the particulars of the case for what seemed like the hundredth time, hoping they could find some clue they’d overlooked during the first ninety-nine examinations.