by Mary Burton
Rachel fingered a button on the shirt. “Right.”
Deke stepped aside. “Lead the way.”
The nurse pushed Rachel through the double doors and out next to the curb as Deke followed. Outside, she moved in front of them. “Hold while I get my car.”
“I can take a cab,” Rachel protested.
“Shut up.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up.” She collapsed back in the chair.
Without a backward glance, he moved through the lot toward his car wondering why he was bothering.
Rachel watched Deke Morgan stride across the parking lot, his shoulders back and his gait purposeful. He reminded her of so many cops she’d met over the years. Self-assured and confident. There might have been a time when she’d have believed or followed that confidence but no more. She knew better than anyone that cops weren’t right all the time and the ego that allowed them to charge into darkened alleys after a criminal was the same ego that blinded them when they were wrong.
A self-assured cop had arrested her brother. No amount of talking or reasoning would sway his mind. He’d been sure.
As Deke pulled up in front of the circle in an SUV, he moved around the side of the car opening the passenger door. Without asking, he reached for her good arm to steady her as she rose. His touch was as gentle as it was unyielding. As much as she wanted to deny his help, she needed it. Rachel had her share of quirks, but above it all she was practical.
She’d allowed him to guide her to the car and hover as she eased into the car. He pulled the seat belt out and leaned over her as he clicked it in place. The faint scent of soap and leather wafted around her as he moved with clinical precision away from her and closed her door. Seconds later, he slid behind the wheel and they were driving away from the hospital.
She released a sigh as they drove off. “I do not like hospitals.”
He relaxed back in his seat, his hands resting easily on the steering wheel. “Can’t say they are a favorite of mine.”
She resisted the urge to tip her head back against the seat and close her eyes. In the cocoon of his car she felt safe, protected, a feeling that came rarely. The effects of the meds had softened her mind, lowered her guard and she heard herself saying, “My mom died three years ago and I was on the cancer ward more often than not. Never got over the smell of the place or the glow of those damn lights.”
He sat in the dark, his face in shadows, his hand resting on the steering wheel.
“She’d said over and over she didn’t mind dying. She minded leaving me.”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Where do you want me to take you?”
“Home. There’s no other place.”
He frowned. “What about Colleen’s place?”
“No.”
“Whoever hit you knows where you live.”
She watched as the lights of the city rushed past her. “They didn’t get far. And I have good security. I’ll set my alarm, lock all my doors.”
Irritation darkened his expression. “You should be worried they’ll return.”
Her eyes closed halfway. “You are trying to scare me.”
“Stating the facts.”
A ripple of fear passed through her. If she’d had the choice perhaps she’d have stayed somewhere else tonight. But there was nowhere else. She was on her own. “I’ll be fine,” she said with more emphasis.
He took the exit and wound through the city streets until they’d reached the warehouse district. As he slowed and they grew closer to her place, panic elbowed its way past the calm. She sat a little straighter, grimacing when pain shot through her shoulder.
Deke parked on the street in front of her building. The momentary calm evaporated. When the cops had come, they’d done a complete search and locked the place up. She glanced toward the spot where a stranger had lunged from nowhere and hit with such force her entire body felt as if it would fracture.
“How about I get you inside?” he asked.
“I’d like to play this tough but I’m scared. Stupid. But, there it is.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s smart. Stay put while I come around.” He was out and around the car in seconds. He opened her door and extended his hand to her.
When a family friend had offered her brother a job when they’d first moved to Nashville, he’d refused because he’d been hungover and irritated. But Rachel had doubled back and accepted for him. When her mom had been sick and the church offered to bring meals, she’d pushed pride aside and accepted. She knew when to cut her losses.
She took his hand and gave him a good bit of her weight as he eased her out of the car and helped her to the locked front door where she held up her jogging top. “The officer said he put the key in a pocket.”
He fished through the fabric and dug out the key. Opening the door, the alarm started to beep. “Code?”
“1995. The number of days my brother spent in prison.”
Without comment, he punched in the number and the beep-beep silenced. She flipped on the main light, which flickered on. Her office looked as she left it but the place had a different feel. Before, this had been her haven, her safe place. Now, well it was another place to keep up her guard.
“The nurse said you have to eat,” he said.
She touched the buttons of his shirt. “I’ll grab a bagel in the morning.”
“That’s not what the nurse said.”
She managed a dismissive shake of her head. “She didn’t mean it.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. “She doesn’t strike me as the type to say what she doesn’t mean. My partner has said so often enough. Where’s your kitchen?”
“Beyond the barrier and through the double doors.”
He glanced around, studying the tall ceilings and the large brick walls. “What’s upstairs?”
“Bedroom.”
He guided her beyond the screen and paused when he saw the collection of porcelain figurines, miniature wheels, gears and wire she fashioned into art.
He picked up a white porcelain elephant. “You are an artist?”
Watching him examine her sculpture felt more personal than stripping off her hospital gown earlier. “In name only for most of the last year. I’ve been too busy to do much more than work.”
“What are these to be?”
“Chess pieces. I used to sell them in college and law school for extra money.”
“They did well?”
“Yes.” She might not like or trust the guy, but he’d keep her safe and for now safe was good enough.
She moved through the swinging doors and flipped on the kitchen lights, which blinked and brightened to reveal a long industrial counter, a stove designed to cook hundreds of meals daily, and a double refrigerator.
“How did you find a place like this?”
“It went into bankruptcy. A fire sale price and a low interest loan made me a landowner.”
He studied the rooms with blatant curiosity. He snapped his fingers as a memory fell into place. “Used to be a barbecue place?”
“It did. Bad management.”
“When I worked undercover, we busted drug dealers working in the alley behind the place.”
“Its checkered past is part of the reason I bought it. We fit.”
As she moved to the refrigerator, he blocked her path and pointed toward a chair. “Sit.”
Without a word, she took the chair nestled close to the bar. “I’ll be back on my game tomorrow and I won’t be easy to boss around.”
“Good.” He opened the refrigerator and studied the paltry contents. “You live on this?”
“I’m due a trip to the grocery store.”
“I’d say so. How old is the Chinese food?”
“Yesterday.”
“You’re sure?”
“For the most part.”
He left the container in the refrigerator and opened the freezer. “Frozen pizza. A step in the right direction. This been here a year, or two?”
“It might
have been in there when I moved in,” she joked.
Shaking his head, he turned on the oven and unwrapped the pizza. “And they say cops are bad about eating well.”
“My mom was never much of a cook and I never picked up the habit. I eat enough to keep going.”
“Explains why you are skin and bones.”
“I like to think of myself as gristle. Tough and hard to chew.” She shifted, grimaced. “So how long did you work undercover in Nashville?”
“Ten years.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got war stories.”
“A few.” The oven beeped signaling it was preheated. “Shitty eating is going to catch up with you one day.”
“So my law partner keeps telling me.”
He put the pizza in the oven and filled two glasses with water. He put a glass in front of her and sipped his as if a thought stirred.
“So who am I keeping you from tonight, Morgan? I can’t believe you don’t have plans on a Saturday night.”
“You saved me from unpacking.”
“Saved? Don’t like the domestic chores.”
“Not a fan.”
“So where’d you move?”
“Back into the family home.”
She winced. “Ouch.”
“Exactly.” He rested his hands on his hips and let his gaze settle on her.
She arched a brow. “You trying to read my mind? I can promise it’s a dark and scary place.”
A shake of his head confirmed his agreement. “Wainwright, the idea of rambling around in your head scares me.”
“Good.” She cocked her head. “So if you’re not trying to read my mind why are you still looking at me?”
“We had a case a couple of nights ago. A homicide.”
She sipped her water. She’d seen enough crime scene photos to know that he’d witnessed the most grisly. She waited for him to decide what he wanted to share.
“The victim was a young singer. She’d been walking to her car.”
“I saw a mention of that in the paper, but didn’t have time to get past the headline.”
He hesitated as if measuring each word. “She was beaten to death. The medical examiner thinks with a long metal object.”
She straightened, making the pain in her shoulder throb all the harder. “Do you think there’s a connection to my case?”
He met her gaze. “I don’t know. Her killer’s first swing didn’t miss but landed on the side of her head. She wasn’t recognizable by the time the killer was finished.”
She set her water down and traced the rim of the glass. “Who was she?”
“A singer. Dixie Simmons. Popular at the honky-tonks and well-liked.”
“I don’t know her. Or the name. I don’t have much time for the honky-tonks these days.”
“I don’t know if there is a connection but you need to be extra careful.”
“Most women are killed by people they know. A spouse. Lover. Exes.”
“That’s what I thought. But all the men I’ve talked to have alibis. You have any exes that could be a threat to you?”
That made her smile. “I barely have time for a run in the evening. No time for men. No exes. Unless we go back to eighth grade and Jonny Danvers. He had a crush on me.” She frowned. “That sounded flip and I didn’t mean for it to. I know this Dixie woman wouldn’t be laughing.”
“Cops rely on dark humor to survive. We’d go insane if we didn’t joke.”
“Right.”
“When I received the call that you’d been attacked with a blunt object my first thought was Dixie. The similarities were too close for comfort.”
His assessment didn’t sit well.
“What about clients? Could one of your clients have done this to you?”
“It’s always possible. I do a lot of public defender work. See all kinds in that business, but I’ve not had much trouble.”
“You were visible on TV the other night.”
She grimaced. “The punch seen around Nashville. The station received unflattering emails about me.”
“That put you on a lot of radars.”
“Not my intent at all. I was trying to push you on the DNA testing.”
A smile quirked the edges of his lips. He wasn’t a handsome man. Too hard and too many rough edges. But when he smiled he had an appeal. “Really? That never occurred to me.”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor.”
“I never said I was smart.”
He’d give a fox a run for its money. “Well, if you’d answered one of my calls, I’d not have been driven to organize the vigil.”
“I answered your first call.”
“And left me a voicemail message that you’d get back.”
“I meant that.”
“That was six weeks ago.”
“I don’t have an answer from the lab.” The slow deliberate clip of his words suggested she was being childish. “What do you want me to do, call each day and chat about the weather so we can connect?”
“No. That’s ridiculous. I want an answer for Jeb.”
He cocked a brow. “Do you really believe the guy is innocent? Really?”
“My gut tells me he is.”
“Your gut?”
“What, you’ve never relied on your gut?”
An exasperated sigh seeped over his lips.
Rachel traced the rim of her glass. “And there are a lot of unanswered questions.”
“Such as?”
The letters came to mind but she wasn’t ready to tell him or anyone else about them. Definitely, TMI. “The arresting officers didn’t allow him counsel.”
“You mean my father?”
“He was the arresting officer.”
“Jeb refused counsel at first and later when he asked for it, he got it.”
“After three days.”
“If he’d waived his rights no cop was going to beg him to call an attorney. All they cared about was closing their case.” No hint of apology softened dark eyes. “That was their job.”
“Their job was to serve justice.”
His gaze cut like shards of glass. “My father was a great cop. And from what I’ve read about Jeb he was an accident waiting to happen.”
Another cop had said the exact words about her brother once. Anger ripped at her good humor and she smacked her hand on the counter, regretting it the instant it triggered jolts of pain up her arm. For a moment, she struggled to catch her breath. “See it’s that kind of attitude I’m worried about. That kind of attitude will get my DNA tests delayed or lost.”
“You calling me a liar?” He was as calm as a hurricane’s eye.
“You are loyal to the job and your family. I think you’d protect them at all costs.”
“I don’t lie. Can you say the same?”
She ignored the barb. “When my brother was arrested he asked me to lie for him. I didn’t lie for him, and I’ve regretted it every day since.”
“You were right not to lie.”
Rachel traced her eyebrow. “Really? You make it sound black-and-white. Easy. One lie would have solved so much.”
“If you’d lied you’d not be here now. You’d have been arrested and you’d never have gotten that law degree.”
The oven dinged and he pulled out the cooked pizza, which he cut into four slices. He removed a white plate from the open shelving above the counter and served up her food.
She lifted her slice, pausing as it neared her lips. “You’re not eating.”
“No. Already ate supper. But you need to eat so I can give you your pill. I’ll lock up on my way out.”
Pill. She didn’t want to take meds or have her mind in a fog. Luke had lived that way for the last decade of his life. But the night would be long and she’d sleep little without help. And she needed to be sharp tomorrow.
She bit into the pizza, quickly realizing she was far hungrier than she first thought. He sipped his water as she ate the first slice and then half of the second. When
she pushed her plate away, he pulled the meds from his pocket and doled out two pink pills into her palm.
“You are taking them.”
She curled her fingers over the pills. “Is it always an order with you?”
“Is it always a major discussion with you?”
She shook her head. “Not this time. I can admit when I’m wrong. The nurse was right. Whatever she gave me at the hospital is wearing off fast.” She swallowed the pills and chased them with water. “Let me give you back your shirt before I pass out.”
“Keep it for now,” he said.
“No, that’s not right.” She eased off the stool and reached for the shirt buttons. Her good hand shook as she fumbled with the buttons.
He moved around the counter and brushed her hand away. “Send it along later.”
Pain throbbed and she glanced at the clock wondering when the meds would take effect. “Fine.”
In the main room he glanced toward the staircase that stretched to a darkened second floor. “Can you make it that far?”
Yeah. Sure. Maybe. “I’m a champ. I’ll be fine.” She moved toward the front door. “I’ll walk you out and set the alarm.”
He moved to the front door, opened it, and stopped. “You sure you’ll be all right here tonight?”
The space behind her felt vast and empty and suddenly filled with dark shadows. But it wasn’t her nature to borrow trouble when it filled her plate. “I’ll be fine. Really.”
“I’m going to have patrols stepped up in your area for a while. And I’m calling your partner.”
“Thanks.”
He stepped outside. “Glad to help.”
Feelings of gratitude triggered a vulnerability that left her brittle and wishing he’d stay. Sentiment wasn’t her style. Must be the drugs. “Don’t forget my DNA tests. I’ll be calling you soon.”
Detective Morgan laughed. “Be surprised if you didn’t.”
Lexis shrugged her shoulders working the kinked muscles free as she rose and moved to the coffeepot filled with black dregs.
She poured the sludge into the cup, sniffed it, and grimaced. As much as she liked to drink coffee and flaunted a cast-iron stomach, even she had standards. She took the glass carafe, rinsed it out at the sink, and refilled it with fresh water. After dumping and refilling coffee grounds, she clicked the machine on and moved to a small fridge. Inside, she found two slices of yesterday’s pizza.
