by Geri Krotow
Mitch grimaced. “You caught me, thinking it was all about me. Of course I’ll talk to them, anytime. Please pass along my number.” God, he’d been so focused on Nika and the case that he’d missed Colt’s backhanded compliment.
He straightened and cleared his throat. “Since you two don’t want to entertain TH coming into the school op, let me ask you—does Nika know anything about TH?”
Colt shook his head. “The only officers who know about TH are the ones who are TH agents. They have to be read into the program to have a clue about it.” Colt shrugged. “That said, SVPD isn’t that large and our team is close-knit. I’m sure several of the officers have thoughts on some of what they see, but they’re law-enforcement pros. They know that each op in Silver Valley is need to know. Hell, when our cases involve FBI, ATF or Homeland Security we only inform the officers working on the case, not the whole department.”
A quick rap on Todd’s door was followed by it opening. Nika’s head appeared. “Oh, sorry, Chief. I’ll come back later.”
“No, no, come on in, Nika.” Colt shot Mitch a glance that said “See, she won’t ask about TH. She doesn’t even know about TH.”
Claudia, for her part, remained the picture of poise. He was relieved neither of them mentioned his concern over Nika’s welfare. Mitch had to shove down the inexplicable urge to pump his fist in the air, he was so relieved to see Nika.
“What can I do you for, Nika?”
“Hi, Mitch, Claudia.” Nika nodded to each before she focused on Colt. “I’m getting ready to go home for the night but I wanted to let you know that I’ve made some headway on the high school case. Bryce isn’t in his office—I thought he’d be here. I just left Rachel Boyle’s house and I’ve collected some evidence.” She cast a quick look at Claudia, then Colt.
“Bryce cut out early to attend to some wedding issues. It’s okay to talk about the case in front of all of us. Claudia’s cut in on the high school case. She has to be—the kids are using social media more than anything else to communicate. We need her eyes on what they’re posting on the school Facebook page.”
Claudia grinned. “Actually it’s Snapchat that we’re following, but the concept’s the same. Just a smaller window to see what’s going on.”
Nika nodded. “Okay.” She gave Mitch a small smile as she slid onto the tiny leather sofa in the corner of the office. Her glance cut through Mitch as she met his and he had a hard time playing the platonic colleague. Her hair was in a straight, shoulder-skimming bob, not styled up in an easy, simple ponytail like it was when she was Nika the Student. She’d traded her teen clothes for dark jeans and a formfitting charcoal turtleneck that emphasized her most un-teenaged figure. Her breasts were...holy cow. Mitch’s fingers had itched to touch her hair, make her straight locks messy, but now all he could think about was holding those ample breasts. Sucking on her nipples...
Crap. He was in too deep. And they’d only met last week.
Chapter 7
The glint in Nika’s eyes conveyed her similar response and the rueful twist to Nika’s smile told Mitch she was on to him. She looked away and took a deep breath.
“Rachel’s started to confide in me. Not as much as we need, but it’s a start. She’s not at all happy with her family. It seems her father is pretty absent since he left them last summer, and her mother is going off the rails with her religious fervor. I spent the last couple of hours at her house, and met her mother. That’s one strange woman, let me tell you.”
“Explain ‘religious fervor.’” Colt spoke.
“It’s not just Bible study or church services, or even a church youth group. A lot of teens fight their parents at some point about things like that. This is different. Her mother is involved in the New Thought ministries. Have you heard of it? She’s insisting that Rachel study about natural herbs and medicinal remedies. Says they need to prepare for the ‘big change’ to come, that they’re going to need a well-stocked pantry.”
“We’ve all learned to keep a stocked pantry after the past several winters. What is she saying that’s concerning you, Nika?” Claudia spoke quietly, almost casually, but Mitch knew Claudia missed nothing.
Nika leaned back on the sofa, her arms on the back of it and her heel propped on her knee, mirroring his posture. It accentuated her trim waist and sexy hips. Mitch bit back a groan and forced his eyes to stay steady on Nika’s face. If he looked at her breasts or hips again, he’d be hard-pressed to keep from acting out his attraction to her the next time they were alone.
Who are you kidding? You’d love to be alone with her.
If they weren’t involved in a case together, sure.
“What’s different is the amount of time that’s being spent on it. Rachel reports that her mother comes up with these long lists of supplies they’ll need. They took care of the basic foodstuffs two months ago. Now the focus is on preparing their basement for habitation.”
“She told you this, in those exact words?”
“She’s been pretty open about having to follow some kind of rule book that her mother is going by.” Nika air-quoted “rule.”
How had he never noticed her long, graceful arms before?
“Any chance you could get a copy of that from her?” Claudia put her empty mug behind her on Colt’s desk and pulled out her phone.
Nika grinned. “I couldn’t lift a copy from their living room but I did the next best thing.” She waved her phone at them. “If you open up the forensics file I emailed you, we can all look at the photos I took. I couldn’t take the pamphlets—it would have been too obvious. They don’t get a lot of visitors from what Rachel’s said.”
Colt wasted no time opening the correct files on the SVPD system. He turned his monitor around so that they could all see the photos.
“The book about young women—still minors—being the perfect age to bear children in the New Thought family is going to give me nightmares.” Nika pointed to the exact places where Leonard Wise’s dogma was printed.
“We’ll get these bastards.” Claudia’s voice was steady but her knuckles were white as she clasped her hands together.
“Yes, we will.” Colt spoke with conviction. “Nika, how is Rachel taking these demands from her mother? Does she seem to agree with any of it?”
Nika shook her head. “Not at all. If anything, she is biding her time until she can leave for college. Or, at least, she was planning for college. But now she’s truly worried about her mother’s emotional and mental state. Since her father took off she feels responsible for her mother’s welfare, odd as it sounds.” It wasn’t odd to anyone who’d served on the force. Kids with alcoholic or heroin-addicted parents stepped up and took over adult roles as a matter of course. Rachel was no different; her mother’s addiction was the cult.
Colt sighed deeply. “That’s a damn heavy load for a kid to shoulder. It sounds like her mother needs to be in a psych facility. What about Rachel? Do you think you’ll be able to get her to open up more, maybe even help us get to Wise and the cult?”
“I’m trying. I can’t be too obvious, not yet. I can’t risk scaring her. First, she has to trust me one hundred percent, and we’re not there yet. If she found out I was a cop now, it’d be a mess. She’s protecting her mother, remember. Rachel’s beaten down and depressed, but she’s not stupid.”
Mitch’s gut twisted. “By ‘depressed,’ is it something we need to worry about? Should we be pulling in the school counselor?”
Nika shook her head. “She’s a typical teen in that she’s totally unhappy with her parents and her house. She talks a lot about getting away, going somewhere else to find work, taking her mother with her. As if she were thirty instead of seventeen.”
“This is a damn shame because she’s one of my brightest students. Last year she was all set to apply to Penn State or Johns Hopkins. She wanted to be a pharmacist or work in pharmaceutical research. Said she wanted to make a difference. Help people live better lives.”
“Do you still think
she could be the one who’s behind the blood writing?” Colt asked.
At Nika’s silence Mitch continued, “I don’t know. We can’t rule her out, but she certainly doesn’t seem enthused about the cult at all. And since she’s a member of the Rainbows, I’d be hard-pressed to believe it’s her. Although it would be a brilliant disguise—acting as a supporter of the Rainbows while secretly damning them.” He didn’t have to point out to his present company how intelligent many cult members were, no matter how awful the tenets of the cult.
“I don’t think she’s behind the blood writing or the rock, Mitch, but your hunch was right in that she’s painfully close to the cult.” Nika uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her breasts pressed against her turtleneck. Her breasts were luscious, of course, but it was the intelligence and dedication with which Nika committed herself to this case that was the real turn-on. “She still does her chemistry homework, still wants to go to the holiday formal, even though she says she can’t, it would be too much hassle from her mother. And it seems her father disappeared from the picture, more or less, right about when her mother started going to the ‘fellowship’ meetings in the trailer park.”
“Trailer park?” Mitch thought he was pretty clever, pretending he had no idea what she was talking about. As a high school chemistry teacher he’d have no idea that the local LEA believed the True Believers Cult was regrouping and had made a previously abandoned trailer park neighborhood their center of operations in Silver Valley.
Nika’s eyes swept over Claudia and landed on Colt. “Chief?”
Colt coughed. “Yeah, well, that’s enough for now, Nika. Any idea how you’ll get more information out of her?”
“She’s invited me to come over again on Saturday. When her mother is expected to be gone.”
“Sounds good. Just be careful out there, Nika.” Colt was the best kind of leader; he empowered his officers while still showing he cared about them.
“Will do.” Nika looked at her watch and stood. “I’ve kept you long enough, Chief. Claudia.” She nodded and turned her head toward Mitch. “Mitch, I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
“I’ll walk you out.” He stood, ignoring the smug glances he saw Colt and Claudia exchange.
Nika didn’t respond as they left the office and went directly to the station’s locker area. Mitch stood a respectable distance away as she gathered her personal belongings. After she’d shoved her arms into a puffy purple down coat, she faced him. “You don’t need to follow me out, Everlock.”
“We’re back to last names? Wait, I don’t even know how to spell your real last name.” He hated lying to her by omission, playing an ignorant crime victim. But unless she was a Trail Hiker, he had taken an oath not to reveal his role or the Trail Hikers’ involvement in the case against the True Believers.
She grinned. “I told you the day we met. P-a-s-c-z-e-n-k-o. But it’s probably best for you to remember me as Nika Collins. You don’t want to slip and call me my real last name in front of the kids, that’s for sure.”
“Do you think they’d notice?” He fell into step with her as she left the locker area and checked out of the station, going past the security guard, receptionist and metal detector. Everyone seemed eager to say his or her own farewell to Nika. She was certainly a bright spot in the otherwise sterile atmosphere of the station.
“Maybe. I just don’t like to take any chances undercover.” They were outside, gravel crunching under their feet as they traversed the large, stone-filled parking lot that was hidden from the road by high hedges on two sides and the long windowless side of the building on the other. It was isolated and he was glad he was with her. Not that she needed his protection, of course.
Nika walked across the tiny stones as though she were wearing hiking boots not fancy cowboy boots. He knew how precarious his balance was on the loose gravel; the fact that she was so even footed underscored her athletic prowess. A must for a capable police officer.
“What?” She caught his stare and stopped, her arms crossed against her chest.
“You look a lot different than you do at school.” Older, sexier, legal.
“What do you mean?” She tilted her head and rested her hand on the roof of her car.
“You’re dressed more...more...”
“Adult? Like I might have a real life outside of high school?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Should I be flattered, professor?”
“I’m not a professor—I still have a few years and a dissertation to go on my doctorate. Stop deflecting, it’s beneath you. You know you’re a beautiful woman, Nika.” He couldn’t keep the gruffness out of his voice if he tried.
“I’d be a liar if I tried to pretend that didn’t mean something to me. Thank you.” She leaned against her car, her back and hips resting against the driver’s door. As they looked at each other in the dimming light, concerns about appearances, her undercover status, his giving away that he was a secret undercover operative...all dissolved into the tangle of emotions that was his growing affection for Nika.
He reached to brush her cheek and stopped. Dropped his arm. “I’m overstepping here, aren’t I?”
“Not at all.” She straightened, putting them mere inches apart, their breaths mingling as an opaque puff in the December evening air. “I keep telling myself this instant kind of attraction has to be because we experienced a dangerous situation together. We both want the same thing—Rachel and your other students safe. But I’ve been in plenty of dangerous situations with other men and I didn’t feel this heat, this pull.” Her voice faltered and pull came out on a whisper.
“Nika...”
“Kiss me, Mitch.”
*
His eyes were half lidded and his pupils dilated under the parking lot lamp. Light snow was swirling around them and she thought this would possibly be the most romantic kiss she’d ever had as she closed her eyes.
And...nothing.
A whoosh of cold air brushed her face and she opened her eyes to Mitch, who was a good foot away.
“Nika, not here, not now.”
What the hell?
“There aren’t any students around, Mitch.”
“That’s the problem.”
It took her a heartbeat to absorb his meaning. “They’d force us to behave, is that what you’re saying?” She closed their distance for the second time, but this time her hormones weren’t driving her. “Let me be clear, Mitch. I’m a grown woman, probably not more than two years younger than you. I’m single, and clearly you are, too. We’re consenting adults. We are both attracted to each other. The timing sucks, yes, but we can handle this if we want to. Apparently you don’t want to and that’s fine with me. Just do us both a favor and grow a pair. I’m not into the tiptoeing routine.”
Before she finished her tirade she felt strong hands on her upper arms as Mitch practically lifted her to him and spun her around into a shadowed part of the lot, near the tall boxwood hedge that protected the parking lot from being seen from the highway.
His lips were on hers without warning and Nika had never welcomed such a surprise. This was no seduction or tentative first kiss. Mitch kissed her like a man kisses a woman he knows wants him just as much as he wants her. It was a kiss to start an equal relationship, not an alpha-male stamp of possession.
It was the best kiss of her life. Screw the romantic part of her that thought a sweet, tender first kiss under the softly falling snow would have been nice. Screw nice. This? This was what she wanted. An equal partner who took what he wanted while allowing her to take her share of the embrace, too.
Her hand went to his crotch as he cupped her breast under her coat. She groaned, their breathing short and sharp as it came out in small billows of white around them. He nipped along her jawline and then gently sucked on her neck. His kisses made clear thinking impossible.
And completely unnecessary.
“God, Nika, you’re killing me.” He thrust his pelvis against her exp
loring hand, his erection mirroring her want. Before she could start to stroke along his length he captured her hand, then her other, and held them to her sides. He lifted his head from her lips. She groaned in protest.
“Let me take you home.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. The stark need in his expression was her undoing. She was in free fall, a long, dangerous jump into the chaos that getting involved with Mitch would lead to. No question.
*
“I... I can’t.” She shook her head but the traitorous web of desire wouldn’t shake loose. “I know I’m giving you mixed messages, Mitch, but as much as I want to be with you, you’re right. It’s too complicated. We’re going to have to wait until this case is solved and I’m not undercover. And even then...” She wasn’t sure how much to reveal to him.
“Even then what?”
“I was involved with someone for a long time. He’s a state trooper stationed in Altoona. We had a long-distance relationship that turned out to be his opportunity to find someone else. It was awful, and I don’t care to do that again. My heart still hurts.”
“I’m sorry you went through that, Nika. But I’m not that guy.”
“No, but I’m the girl who went through the worst kind of breakup.” One she wasn’t sure she’d come back through yet.
“It doesn’t have to be a long-term commitment, Nika. We’re consenting adults, remember?” He stared at her. “Meet me this weekend. Your place or mine?”
It was the cold splash of water her emotions needed. It was one thing when she’d been the pursuer; she’d felt in control. The men she’d dated since Ron took it better when it was time to end a brief relationship, because Nika made it clear from the get-go that she didn’t do long-term.
“I can’t do this now, Mitch. We’re in too deep, too close to catching the bad guys. I’m going to Rachel’s on Saturday, for God’s sake. Your student’s home.”
She saw what she felt—desire, regret and frustration—war to claim his expression. He closed his eyes, his hands on his hips. “Aw, hell. You’re right.”
