Hotshot

by Mann, Catherine

  “Part of me applauds your bravado, and another part wonders if you still have a death wish.”

  Her head jerked up. Her face paled so white, her freckles stood out in darker contrast.

  Why the surprise? Everyone had known how reckless she was back in the day.

  Only for her father would he put himself through the mind game torture of dealing with this woman.

  Don Bassett rammed his Beemer into fourth gear, plowing down side streets, still a couple of miles away from the Cleveland Community Center. Vince’s text message had come through just as he was checking out Shay’s empty apartment.

  He’d been annoyed that she wouldn’t pick up her cell phone, but she frequently ignored it when the suicide hotline was busy. Or if she was indulging in one of her two-hour-long hydro soaks in a bubble bath.

  And just that fast, the past backhanded him.

  The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. Only a memory, but one seared in his brain until it blocked out the soothing smell of well-oiled leather seats. He’d bitten a chunk out of the side of his tongue when he’d found teenage Shay in the bath, arm draped over the side, slashed wrist bleeding all over the floor. A horror they’d kept from everyone except Shay’s doctors.

  He steadied his breathing until the cool blasts from the air conditioner snaked through. God, he preferred staying busy and numb. He refused to believe his daughter was involved with terrorists. Even so, somehow she’d still landed in their crosshairs.

  Changing from lane to lane around slower drivers cruising a club strip, he thumbed the four on his cell phone, speed dialing to . . .

  “Special Agent Wilson.” Her voice clipped through the airwaves.

  “Bassett here,” he answered even though she had to know it was him from the caller ID.

  Rustling sounded in the background, like sheets tangled around legs. “I’m assuming you have a good reason for waking me up.”

  “My daughter didn’t show for dinner and wasn’t answering her cell. Given current circumstances, we got worried.” He blew through a red light. “Deluca just found her at the clinic.”

  “She works there, so that’s no surprise,” she answered, her voice still raspy from sleep.

  “Shay was in the middle of a break-in.” He roared past a string of half-crumbling old factories. “It appeared to be a drug-seeking teen.”

  “Appeared?” Her voice cleared, all business.

  “I don’t have much in the way of details. I’m on my way over, but the police will probably get there first.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  She’d damn well better. “The sooner the better.”

  “I should have answers by the time you return to D.C. You’re taking the red-eye flight back, right?”

  “That’s the plan.” His jaw unclenched as he felt more in control of his world again, enough so he could allow himself the pleasure of envisioning Special Agent Wilson with her auburn hair flowing unbound to her naked waist. “I appreciate this, Paulina. Will you be at the airport, or should I take a cab?”

  “Oh, I’ll be there, all right.” Her voice went from professional to husky as fast as his pants throbbed. “Pink will be the color of the day.”

  Nothing turned him on more than plucking free the pins from her severe bun and watching her hair tumble over her breasts plumped upward in a merry widow.

  A beep sounded. Call waiting. “Sorry, babe, but I’ve got someone on the other line. See you tomorrow.”

  He checked the LCD panel and flinched. His erection deflated. Fast.

  Cheeks puffing, he switched over. “Yeah, Jayne? What’s up?”

  Conversations with his ex-wife were best kept short and to the point.

  “Hello, Don.” Ice froze the phone lines. “You’re late with your alimony payment.”

  And she waited until nearly midnight to tell him this?

  Of course their communication skills had never been top-notch, even in the beginning when they’d been in love with each other and the wild monkey sex. Eventually their marriage had ended up as yet another casualty of the military way of life.

  Too long apart.

  Too much stress.

  Not enough of everything else.

  “Jayne . . .” He didn’t bother hiding the irritation in his voice anymore. “You know my bank sends it automatically. If there’s a screwup, it’s on their end.”

  “And it’s your responsibility to fix it,” she said as if patiently explaining two plus two to one of the first graders she taught. Of course she always had been a Wonder Woman do it all—without the sequined bra and Teflon wristbands. “I don’t want a penny of your money for me. I never have. But Sean’s tuition payment is due.”

  Sean. Of course. He should have known that would be the only reason for a call from Jayne.

  How many years was that mama’s boy moocher going to stay in college? He should have had two degrees and a six-figure job by now. Weren’t adult children supposed to have suburban lives and give him grandkids? Not his.

  He considered telling her about Shay and the break-in for all of three seconds before deciding to wait for more information. “Can we talk about this later? I’m tied up right now.”

  “Of course you are. Try to take care of it by the end of the week, please.”

  The line went dead abruptly.

  Don slowed his Beemer at the yellow light by the corner grocery, even though the street was pretty much deserted, then accelerated toward the clinic. A fence surrounded the side lot, empty but for Shay’s old Ford, a car on blocks, and a motorcycle, the 1098R Ducati he’d lined up for Vince.

  No security lights or guards surrounded the forty thousand dollar machine. Vince must have been gunning for bear to have left the machine so vulnerable in this kind of neighborhood.

  Where the hell were the police? They couldn’t have already arrived and taken statements that fast.

  He tried the front door. Locked. Thank God. He circled around to the back.

  The light burned dimly, either from a dying bulb or one so smeared with grease it diluted the glow. Motion sensors would be nice. But then Shay had told him often enough they barely had the extra funds to replace the basketball net, much less money to spruce up the place.

  As of tomorrow, he would buy motion sensor lights himself and donate the blasted things. He and Shay had never enjoyed much of a father-daughter relationship, but she wouldn’t say no to anything for the center.

  Don sidestepped a Dumpster reeking of rotten food and a hint of marijuana smoke. One stride past in the dark, and he tripped. What the fuck?

  He grabbed the edge of the rusty trash bin to regain his balance and looked down.

  At a dead body.

  Lying beside a second body, equally dead.

  His heart rate thundered so loudly he almost reached for his nitro tablets. Instead, he grabbed for his phone while searching for details in the dim light without disturbing the scene. Praying he wouldn’t see the face of his daughter or Vince. While dialing, he studied the corpses, the smell of the Dumpster, pot, and death nearly gagging even a seasoned pro like him.

  First, a college-age man wearing a Case Western backpack, his neck sliced so deep his spine notched through the coagulated blood.

  Second, another male, head twisted at an awkward angle but the blood-smeared face still recognizable as the boy they’d been investigating. A machete pierced his hooded sweatshirt and into his bird-thin chest.

  Don gripped the phone. His daughter wasn’t dead. Vince hadn’t been caught in the crossfire.

  His pulse slowed enough that he figured he would live to see tomorrow. The ringing on the other end of the phone stopped.

  “This is nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

  FOUR

  Shay had worked in an emergency room for three years before transferring to the community center’s small clinic. But no amount of trauma training would help the two lifeless bodies sprawled on the unforgiving cement. The murders—the violence and b
rutality—went beyond anything she’d seen.

  She stood with Vince just outside the yellow crime scene tape surrounding the Dumpster. People in uniform ducked under the tape in a back-and-forth dance of the police, medical examiner, detectives.

  The metallic smell of blood hung on the humid night air like heavy raindrops weeping for the dead. Someone had killed the college volunteer and the misguided kid who’d tried to rob her. She may have threatened to shoot Kevin during their standoff, but she hadn’t wanted him dead. If she’d disabled him with a shot to the leg, might the noise have run off whoever had been lying in wait? Or would that person have killed her father instead?

  A quick check reassured her that Don stood safe and alive beside his Beemer with a detective.

  The security guard spoke with a local detective while standing next to a trash can in case he vomited again. She and Vince gave their statements to a cop from a gang violence task force.

  The steely eyed cop cradled his PDA in his hand, his name tag reading Officer L. Jaworski, a newbie who tended to stroke his club like some kind of touchstone for good luck. “Which entrance did you use?”

  Vince stepped closer to her. “I entered the front door, followed him as far as the back, then returned to make sure Shay was all right.”

  “Ma’am”—the policeman glanced up from typing notes into his PDA—“did you leave the doors unlocked?”

  “No, I always lock all the doors the minute the center officially closes.”

  “You’re certain?”

  She struggled not to get defensive. These kids made fun of the young cop enough on their own without her showing even a hint of frustration with his bullish tactics. “Positive. Locks are like toys to these kids. Kevin could have easily jimmied the front door.”

  Her eyes traveled back to the dead teen. No one had pulled the ugly machete from his chest. It seemed obscene to leave it there just for evidence photos, even if he was long past feeling pain. “We’ve had at least a dozen break-ins.”

  The young cop nodded while notating. “He probably picked the front lock, then ran out of the back, which left that door unlocked as well. How well do you know the boy?”

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, the late-night wind blowing in off Lake Erie for a chilly summer night. “I only met him once before—when he came in last week, asking for pain medication. Tonight he said he wanted drugs. His machete leads me to believe he must be a member of the Apocalypse gang.”

  Jaworski eyed Kevin’s chest, the teen’s hoodie gaping wide to expose the wound and his Grim Reaper tattoo sliced down the middle. She pressed a hand to her throat and held back a shiver. She was a nurse, damn it.

  Vince shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders before she could argue. And she would have argued. Already his scent wrapped around her as firmly as the coat.

  “It’s going to be okay, ma’am.” The policeman spoke with that universal “calming” tone she’d often used on hysterical patients, except she wasn’t anywhere near hysterical. “We can only speculate at this point, but if this boy was just after drugs, you’re safe now.”

  She didn’t particularly appreciate the condescension, but she held her peace. She and Jaworski had butted heads in the past. Rumor had it he’d once been put on unpaid leave for beating down a kid.

  Vince stepped closer to the cop, edging his shoulder between the man and Shay. “She’s not safe as long as she’s working here with persistent break-ins. Whoever did this moved fast and professionally, because I didn’t hear a thing go down, and believe me, I was listening.”

  Jaworski bucked up territorially. “Maybe we should sign you on to the force.”

  Vince smiled, even though negative vibes rolled off him in waves. “Never one of my top ten career choices as a teen.”

  Suddenly Vince’s attitude became crystal clear. He’d had issues with authority back when she’d known him. He might look different, but perhaps he hadn’t changed that much on the inside.

  He’d been arrested, resisted arrest, taken a billy club to the knee once so hard it sent him to the ground. Back then, there weren’t video cameras following cops around. There’d been fault on both sides. She should know. She’d been there.

  Jaworski tapped in another note on his PDA before looking up. “I’m going to need everyone to come down to the station for fingerprinting to rule you out as suspects.”

  The rasp of a long zipper cut the air as they sealed away the first body. She swallowed back bile just before the second rasp. “Do we ride with you for these prints, or are we free to take our own vehicles?”

  Tapping his baton, the police officer seemed to be weighing the option of cramming Vince into the back of the cop cruiser just for the hell of it.

  Vince eyed the crowd mixed with people in bathrobes and teens decked out with attitude. “If it’s just the same to you, we’d rather not leave the Beemer and the bike unattended in this neighborhood.”

  “Well, pal—”

  “Excuse me, but for the record, that’s Major.”

  She blinked back her surprise. She hadn’t known he’d progressed so far up the ranks.

  “Major, then.” Jaworski hitched his hands on his belt, just beside his service revolver. “Quit busting my chops. We’re doing the best we can with the manpower on hand. I would think you military types could understand what it’s like to be understaffed for fighting a war. And make no mistake about it, we’ve got a war on our hands here.”

  Vince nodded curtly. The cop had been wise to speak Vince’s language.

  Her father shouldered in, slipping right back into his role of easing the way for the teens he’d mentored. “I’m sorry, Officer. We’re all a little rattled here. Of course we’re glad to comply with whatever you need from us to find out who’s responsible for the death of these two young men.”

  “Good.” The officer tucked his PDA inside his jacket. “You may drive your own vehicles, but we’ll be behind you.”

  Jaworski eyed Vince a final time before loping away toward his patrol car.

  Her father turned to Vince. “You’ve got Shay, right? I need to make some calls.”

  She should have been used to his brusque ways after all these years, and on most days, she managed to let it roll right off her, how he had more time for others than his own family. She stared at his retreating back, mad as hell.

  “Hey, Dad, I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman, and there are police all around. I’m fine on my own.” And she was just fine and dandy, thanks for asking, old man.

  He pivoted on his loafers. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” he said with no emotion, no hug. “It’s probably best you don’t call your mother. I’ll tell her what she needs to know so she won’t be surprised if she reads something in the morning paper. Thanks, Vince, for looking after her.”

  Her father pulled out his cell phone, his mind obviously already miles away as he turned back toward his Beemer.

  Shay tugged her keys out of her paisley backpack. “Wow, the warm fuzzies are so thick I’m all atwitter,” she muttered, tugging off Vince’s jacket and passing it back to him. “Thanks for the loaner. I really do appreciate it.”

  “De nada.” Nothing.

  Not exactly nothing. Her dad had a jacket, too, and he hadn’t noticed her teeth chattering as fast as the click of the crime scene photographer’s camera. “It seems crazy to be cold in the summer. Must have been shock trying to grab hold of me.”

  “You’re hanging in there better than the security guard.”

  She checked on the old man happily taking a ride from the cop. By morning, their only guard would likely be applying for a job as a Wal-Mart greeter.

  Shay hitched her backpack in place and started toward her car. “Vince, why are you really here?”

  “I told you already.” He walked beside her, his face as unreadable as her father’s had been. “To catch up with your dad while he’s in town. He told me he would be here to offer input for you about starting
up a Civil Air Patrol squadron.”

  Something about his arrival still bothered her. Wouldn’t a guy taking some R & R from battle go on a real vacation to the beach or the mountains? A cruise, even.

  Why was he hanging out at a run-down community center in Cleveland, Ohio? “I spend hours a week listening for nuances in people’s voices. I’m darn near a walking lie detector. There’s something going on between you and my dad.”

  “I can assure you we are both heterosexuals.”

  She ground her teeth. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  Key chain rattling in her hand, she thumbed the Unlock button. He body blocked her and stepped ahead, checking the front and backseat. “Pop your trunk.”

  Even if he was helping, she still resented his steamroller attitude. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Pop the damn trunk,” he barked.

  She startled back a step then braced. She wasn’t a needy teen anymore, willing to take whatever anyone dished out. “Do not speak to me that way.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, then his bare head. “I apologize for my tone. It’s been a long, crappy day. I’m torqued off because one of those overworked cops still should have gotten here faster. I’m even more upset that two people are dead for no apparent reason.”

  “Amen to that.” She thumbed open the trunk on her rust bucket of a car. Salted snowy roads had taken their toll on the Ford compact, but she couldn’t see spending money on something nicer when it could be jacked on any given day.

  Vince clicked on a small flashlight on his key chain. He swept the beam through her trunk, illuminating her rolled-up sleeping bag, hiking boots and—her guilty pleasure—a sealed container of instant hot chocolate. A smile tugged at a corner of his mouth as his beam lingered on the cocoa.

  Then, snap, he clicked the light off. “Get in your car. Lock the doors. And drive very, very carefully to the police station. I’ll be behind you all the way.”

  Don spun the steering wheel on his way onto the highway, heading for the airport, listening to Paulina Wilson chew his hide over the cell phone. Lucky for him, years of combat time had rendered him an expert at numbing himself on command.