So focused on the misery of the cold night, Mia didn’t see the menacing form step out of the dark shadows by the building until he was on top of her.
Chapter 12
Daisy bared her fangs and growled as Joshua Cook took a step toward her. Mia gasped and dropped the leash.
“What are you doing here?” she said, hating how afraid her voice sounded.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, I just want a quick word with you alone. The thing with owning animals—and aren’t they such a comfort?—is that eventually you have to come out into the scary darkness. All I had to do was wait.”
“You can explain to the police why you felt you had to wait outside my condo,” Mia said.
“Waiting in a public parking lot isn’t against the law.”
“What do you want?” Mia lurched forward to snatch up Daisy’s leash again and pull her away from Cook. He was wearing only a thin windbreaker, but seemed impervious to the cold.
“I need to ask a very small favor, sugar, and then I’ll be on my way.”
Mia glanced at the front of her building but there was little chance anyone would be coming home at this hour in the middle of the week. And Jack wasn’t due back for at least another hour.
“Just spit it out,” Mia said over Daisy’s low-throated growls.
“A phone number.”
“Drop dead.”
“Fine. I’m prepared to pay you since, for the right amount of money you were only too happy to do so earlier.”
“That wasn’t for you,” Mia said hotly. “I’m happy for you to sit in jail for life.”
“Charming. But as the old joke goes, we’ve already established you’re a whore, now we’re just haggling over price.” Without waiting for her to respond, he pulled out a small handgun and aimed it at her.
Mia took a step backward. “Are you insane?” Her skin tingled uncontrollable. She found it hard to breathe. There was no place to run. He was close enough he could shoot her several times before she made it back to the building.
“Not at all,” Cook said. “If you don’t know the number offhand, you can email it to me. I trust you. And you can trust I’ll be back if you don’t.”
“You are threatening me at gunpoint? You must be out of your mind.”
Cook laughed and readjusted his aim from Mia to the little dog. “I’m only doing what anybody would do who was out enjoying a little night air and was then attacked by a dog.”
Mia pulled Daisy to her. The fear radiated throughout her chest like a living thing. He could do it and he would only end up paying a fine. She pulled the dog into her arms.
“Shoot her now, you degenerate pervert, and you’ll shoot me, too.”
“Degenerate pervert is redundant—” Cook said and then slowly crumpled to the ground in front of Mia, his gun skidding across the sidewalk.
Jack materialized behind him still wearing his white’s chef’s jacket and holding a wine bottle in one hand. He looked down at Cook’s twitching body on the ground and then up at Mia, her mouth open in surprise, the dog squirming in her arms.
“This is truly starting to become a habit,” he said, shaking his head.
*****
After the police left, Jack and Mia finally fell into bed, exhausted but hungry for each other nonetheless. He let her lead the way but there had never been any doubt. She needed him. She needed his arms around her, she needed the very essence of him embedded deeply within her as she entwined her legs around his waist and drew him closer, tighter, further. He took her hard and completely. To Mia it felt like Jack was ridding himself of the past, his worries, the future and all doubts—all in one perfect connection that ended in tender kisses and murmured words of love.
Even if they’d had to go downtown, which blessedly they did not, Mia knew they still had to connect tonight on every level that was possible. When they lay together afterward, depleted and limp, she couldn’t tell where her body began and his left off. A part of her swore never to let him out of her bed again so that reality might never squirm between them.
“I’m going for a glass of milk,” he whispered into her ear. “Interested?”
“Chocolate?” she said, stirring and then collapsing back into his arms.
“Can do.”
“Only if you can get it without leaving the bed.”
He laughed and disengaged. “You’ll hardly know I’m gone.”
He padded across the room naked. Mia saw the hall light flick on and heard the sounds of Daisy’s nails as she follow him into the kitchen. She put a hand in the spot he’d left. It was warm but grew cold as she waited. Her hand felt the spot and tingles of pleasure and bliss sparked off her fingers as she swept the area on the bed. She smiled.
Jack came back with a tray of cookies and two glasses of milk.
“Oh, my God,” she said, sitting up. “You really are my hero.”
He set the tray down on the bedside table and slipped under the covers.
“I gotta tell you, when I saw that dude standing there holding a gun on you in our own parking lot, this is not how I imagined the night might end, with you raking my back and howling faster-faster to the rafters.”
She slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “You’re fantasizing again.”
“Well, that’s what it felt like, anyway.”
“I can’t believe they didn’t take you downtown, Jack. I was so worried they would.”
“You and me, both.”
“Did the cops tell you what phone number he was after?”
“I think it was one of the twins,” Jack said.
“What a psycho. What will happen to him?”
Jack finished off his milk and took Mia’s drained glass from her. “Well, he’ll be booked and released on bail sometime tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“Do you think he’ll sue you for hitting him on the head?”
“I think the whole pointing-a-gun-at-you thing will prevent the likelihood of that particular turn of events. I’m not worried.”
“I can’t believe he came here.”
“Addictions make people do strange things,” Jack said as he brushed the crumbs of the oatmeal cookies off the duvet cover and snapped off the light. “And I should know. Come ‘ere, you.” He turned her in his arms and pulled her into his chest. He ran a hand down her body from her hip to her calf and sighed, content that all was well.
“I love you, Jack,” she said. “Thank you for coming home early tonight.”
He kissed her ear. “I love you too, Mia. You’re welcome.”
The next morning, Jack dressed for his day in court and firmly held to his edict that Mia not attend. She sat at the kitchen counter still in her PJs, a plate of buttered toast in front of her.
“Promise me you’ll text me as soon as whatever happens, happens,” she said, her voice low. She watched him move about the kitchen turning off burners, placing coffee mugs in the sink.
“I will.”
“And we’re supposed to have dinner at my mom’s tonight.”
“I know, Mia.” He kissed her briskly and collected his phone and keys from the counter. “It’s going to be fine.”
She followed him to the door, where he turned and took her into his arms.
“Why don’t you go back to bed?” he said into her hair. “Then I can think of you there during the boring parts of the hearing.” He ran a hand down her bottom and squeezed it.
“I have work to do,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and rising up on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth. “But you can still imagine me in bed. And if you do, imagine me naked.”
“That’s a given.” He kissed her again, then turned and left.
Mia fought the impulse to go to the window and watch him drive away. She’d done everything she could and now it was up to the judge—the surely very reasonable judge—and fate and whatever likelihood there was that the ME would swallow his pride and reverse his opinion.
She walked back to the kitchen and picked up h
er toast but her stomach buckled. She had no control over this day. None. She would say one very earnest prayer that Jack would sail through the prelim, and the nightmare would be good and truly over. After that, she’d put it out of her mind as best she could and focus on finding the men on Victoria’s list. There was nothing like a studiously boring, laborious project to semi-engage the mind and distract you from the possibility that your happiness could be atom-bombed by the end of the day.
After walking the dog, showering and dressing, Mia looked at her list of men and decided she could handle two visits today without any problem. Having Jack along was easier—and safer—but she couldn’t afford to waste a single day. She checked the first name on today’s list, a David White, and saw that he lived in Atlantic Station.
Perfect. She plugged his address into her GPS and had just pulled out of the parking lot when her phone began to vibrate. She snatched it up, even though she knew it was too soon to hear from Jack, and saw it was her tracking device activation company.
Wojinziky was on the move.
Her heart fluttered in her throat as she opened the map on her phone to watch the little blue dot that was Wojinziky’s truck move from his driveway. She stuck her phone on the holder affixed to her dashboard.
Change of plans.
She drove to the intersection of I-85 and Ivan Allen, pulled off and waited impatiently to see which way Wojinziky was going. The little blue dot hesitated at the intersection of Monroe Drive and Ponce, and then turned into Monroe going south. Mia pulled out of her holding pattern and followed him. When he stopped, ten minutes later, she located him in a grocery store parking lot not far from where he lived. She parked several rows away from his truck and watched him walk into the store.
By the time he reappeared, twenty minutes later, she had her SLR focused on the front of the store. He carried four plastic bags, two in each meaty hand. She photographed him walking to his truck and placing the groceries inside before driving away. Then she sat in the parking lot and watched the blue dot on her smartphone as it returned to where it came from.
As she headed back to Atlantic Station, noting she still had time to knock on David White’s door before she had to get ready for tonight, it occurred to Mia she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for in staking out Jeff Wojinziky.
But she was pretty sure she’d know it when she saw it.
*****
If he’d just looked at his lawyer, Paul Murray, and nowhere else in the courtroom, Jack would’ve known with complete confidence that he was leaving a free man. Murray was ebullient and sanguine, shaking hands and visiting with the other attorneys in the court as they waited for the judge, winking at the court stenographer and generally giving the impression of a man who knew a sure thing when he saw it. For someone whose neck was actually on the line, it felt a little less certain.
Two hours later, Jack exited the courtroom with Murray pumping his arm and slapping him on the back, his private investigator’s license returned and all charges dropped.
Jack even snuck a quick look at the ME and was greeted by a smile. Nobody wants to be the reason a cop goes to prison. This happy ending was courtesy of a lot of people in the system, he thought, but Mia authored it. And that he would never forget, nor the feeling of walking out into the cold and sunny afternoon on a perfect spring day, a free man.
“Tell your girl she can work my cases any time,” Murray said as they parted. “She’s a bulldog.”
That’s one way to put it. Jack walked to his car in the downtown parking lot adjacent to the courthouse and texted Mia.
He hurried home to collect his tools and ingredients for the run-through of the rehearsal dinner menu he was making at Jess’s tonight.
Two hours later, he pulled up beside Mia’s Toyota in her mother’s driveway. He saw Jess’s car but Maxwell wasn’t here yet, which was strange. The man was never late. As Jack was unloading the back of his car—pans, knives and coolers—Mia came running out of her mother’s house. He barely had time to turn around before she threw her arms around him. He swung her off the ground and kissed her.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said. She grabbed his head with both her hands and kissed him hard again.
“I can’t believe it’s all over,” she said, her voice low and full of emotion.
“I know. Pretty damn great feeling.”
“What about the civil suit?”
“Let’s enjoy our pleasures one at a time, why don’t we?”
“They didn’t drop it?”
“Not yet. Murray is confidant they will once all the evidence comes out. I’m not worried so for God’s sake don’t you be.”
“If that’s your subtle way of telling me not to go back to his house again—”
He kissed her to stop her from speaking.
“As much as I will always be grateful to your bull-in-a-china-shop methods,” he said, giving her a squeeze, “you still scare the shit out of me most of the time.”
“Good,” she said with a laugh. “What can I help you bring in?”
“Whatever you can carry. The chief isn’t here yet?”
Mia pulled a heavy casserole pan out of the trunk. “No and Mom’s acting strange, too.”
“You didn’t mention the whole being-held-at-gunpoint thing, did you?”
She made a face. “No, I don’t think it has to do with me this time.”
“Well, that’s progress,” he said.
*****
Mia worked next to Jack for the rest of the evening preparing the menu. At their place in Atlantic Station he normally shooed her out of the kitchen. Tonight, she got the definite impression he didn’t need her help so much as he just wanted her in the same room with him. Which suited her fine.
Her mother, on the other hand, was distracted—her smiles forced. Mia had been so busy lately that she hadn’t asked how the engagement ring issue was resolved—if it had been. She noticed Jess was still wearing it.
Maxwell showed up a full hour after he’d been expected. He went straight to Jack to congratulate him on the results of the preliminary hearing and then to the living room to turn on the evening news.
That was different, too.
Jess didn’t seem to mind, so perhaps this was their new routine. People can’t stay besotted newlyweds forever, Mia reasoned. But maybe they could at least make it to the stage of being newlyweds? She set the table while Jess and Maxwell sat in the living room watching TV. She couldn’t hear what they said, and most of the time they didn’t appear to speak.
Jack had outdone himself on the rehearsal of the rehearsal dinner. Because Maxwell had left the choices up to Jack and Jess, it had a definite Asian flair to it. Otherwise it would probably have been barbecue. Mia moved into the kitchen, where Jack was pulling the Chilean Sea Bass out of the oven.
“Oh, my God, that smells awesome. Are you really going to be able to do this for fifty people?”
He laughed and tossed down a potholder.
“What is it you think I do most nights when I leave to cook for my clients?”
“Dinner parties for fifty?”
“Not every night but often enough.”
“How can one person do that?”
“I have a staff for those events.”
“I did not know that. They hire servers?”
“And sous chefs, whatever I need. It’s great to be rich.”
“I’ll say.” She slipped into his arms and kissed him. “Why can’t I stay away from you?”
“I don’t know,” he said, kissing her back. “Especially since I have the same problem.”
“We about to eat any time soon?” Maxwell called from the living room.
“He’s in a terrible mood,” Mia said, disengaging from Jack.
“I noticed. Your mom mention any reason why?”
“She just said they were working something out.”
“Clearly. Here, take that into them, will you?” He pointed to a tray of miniature corn dogs on a lace doily. “It should tide them over a few moments longer.”
“This and alcohol,” Mia said, picking up the tray.
“I’m on it.”
Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were seated at the table, the wine poured and a selection of hors d’oeuvres and seafood on the table.
“It all looks beautiful, Jack,” Jess said, surveying the sparkling crystal and china. “And smells even better.”
“Some of it is a little spicy,” Jack warned, serving up a section of vegetable shumai onto Jess’s plate.
“Oh, I think we can handle it,” Jess said teasingly, her eyes going to Maxwell, who was busy scrutinizing the sea bass on his plate. Mia passed him a plate of poached bay scallops with limoncello crème.
“So, Jack,” Maxwell said causally, taking the plate from Mia, “I hear our girl’s been busy.” For a moment no one spoke. Out of the corner of her eye, Mia saw Jess look at Maxwell with interest, her face open but questioning.
Oh, no, you wouldn’t. Mia watched as Maxwell nailed her with a look that eliminated any doubt of what he would or wouldn’t do.
“Busy how?” Jess prompted.
Maxwell turned to look at Jess. “Seems our latest prime suspect in the Victoria Baskerville case paid her a visit last night—at gunpoint.”
Jess gasped and snapped her head to look at Mia.
“Why did you have to put it like that?” Mia asked him.
“I’m kind of wondering the same thing, Chief,” Jack said, a frown on his face.
“A murderer pulled a gun on you?” Jess said, her voice tremulous. “Where was Jack?”
“Jack was sneaking up behind him with a full Merlot bottle,” Mia said.
“Bite your tongue, girl,” Jack said. “It was a Pinot Noir.”
“This isn’t funny,” Jess said, turning to look at Maxwell.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” he said. “I just sit on the sidelines and pick up the pieces.”
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 73
