Breaking the Rules

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Eden wasn’t being coerced by the world’s shortest carjacker. Nor was she insane.

  Although maybe Izzy had to retract that last thought as, while he watched, she stepped on the gas and, with another shrieking metal-kissing-metal sound, separated the rental car from the parked vehicle.

  Baldy had been blocked by a car whose driver had screeched to a halt to avoid the rampaging rental car. But now he took Eden’s lead and he drove on the sidewalk to get around it and onto the street. He stopped only briefly to let the man Eden had tried to flatten climb in, and it was then that Eden stepped on the gas.

  Baldy saw her coming, saw her intention—she was going to ram him in a full demolition-derby move, but another car pulled forward, blocking his escape, and there was nothing he could do but try to back up, gears grinding in his haste.

  Izzy was shouting—he heard himself shouting: “Eden, don’t, don’t, don’t!”

  Because holy shit, the truck dwarfed the rental car. It was like watching Davey and Goliath—except, no, it was like watching all of the guys before Davey went up against Goliath; the guys that Goliath had effortlessly crushed. If anyone was going to get hurt here, it was going to be Eden.

  But craphell! She didn’t hit her brakes, she just hit the truck—bam!—and damn it, the air bag should have gone off, but it didn’t.

  The rental car bounced back, nearly crushing Izzy, who was running toward it. But he danced out of the way, and then he jerked at the door handle, but the fucking thing was locked so he hammered on the window, praying that she was okay.

  The truck was only barely dented, but their bags had deployed, which was more than just a pain in their asses, it was a rule changer. They were dead in the water, so to speak, because most new vehicles were designed with a kill switch that kicked in during an accident. It would have to be reset before they could drive away.

  And yes, those were sirens wailing as police cars approached.

  Eden opened the door for him just as Izzy heard what had to be one gunshot and then another—Holy fuck! Baldy and his partner were using bullets to deflate the air bags that were pinning them into their seats.

  But this was the same crazy-ass motherfucker who’d unloaded his weapon at them at the mall, so Izzy reached across Eden and unfastened her seat belt, pulling her out and around to the back of the rental car, even as he shouted at her, “Are you out of your freaking mind?!” As punctuation, the crazy-ass motherfucker took yet another shot at them, this time putting a hole in the windshield right where Eden’s head had been, seconds earlier.

  And God, if the shooter came out of the truck and around the rental car, they were fucked, because there was nowhere for them to go and Izzy wasn’t armed—he’d left Greg’s handgun back at the apartment—so he couldn’t fire back.

  “Get under the car,” he ordered Eden, ready to do whatever he had to, to take those motherfuckers down and out with his bare hands, in order to protect her.

  She went, immediately, scooting herself along the pavement, as those sirens got louder and louder. But then he stopped her, because, sure enough, the first police car to make the scene was coming from behind them, lights flashing.

  Eden saw it, too, and she gasped, “Thank you, Lord, thank you!” and “Are they running away? North?” At Izzy’s confused look she clarified, “Are the men with the guns heading north?”

  He peeked over the back of the rental, where, sure enough, the bald man and his buddy were nowhere to be seen. They’d deserted the truck and lit out on foot and the only way they could have gone—without Izzy having spotted or been killed by them—was indeed north.

  So he nodded, and she must’ve somehow known he was wondering why the hell it mattered so much to her that they’d gone in that direction, because she told him, “Neesha—they’re after her. She was here. I saw her! And she ran south!”

  And as Izzy looked at Eden, as he looked into her beautiful eyes, into her face that was as drenched with sweat as his was and now smeared with grime from the dirty street, he realized that she’d put herself in mortal peril. She’d fucking driven fucking toward a man that she damn well knew had a fucking weapon, all for the sake of some girl she’d met once.

  One time.

  Jesus H. Christ, for all they knew Neesha was a criminal, a liar, a thief, a con artist.

  And Izzy’s head damn near exploded—he was so angry. At Neesha, at Eden, and at himself for being stupid enough to leave the keys in the car.

  And his anger mixed badly with the intestine-freezing fear he’d felt over the past few endlessly long minutes as he’d stood there impotently and watched Eden fling herself into danger.

  “God damn you,” he growled now. “Don’t you ever think before you do anything?”

  She flinched as surely as if he’d struck her. And that pissed him off even more—the fact that she should look at him like that, as if he’d somehow wounded her, when mere moments ago she was unflinching as she’d gunned the gas, balls to the wall, as if she were freaking bulletproof and invincible.

  She looked as if she were going to say something, but then the police shouted for them both to get down, facedown in the street, hands on their heads—because for all the cops knew they’d been the ones who’d fired the shots.

  And realization dawned and Izzy could tell from the expression on Eden’s face that she hadn’t thought about the consequences of her actions.

  He pushed her down into the perp position, as he assumed it himself, purposely turning his head away from her as he did so. Not only did he not want to hear whatever it was Eden was going to say, but he knew damn well that anything else that came out of his mouth right now was sure to be something he’d regret.

  He just closed his eyes and waited for the impending joy of a body search and an ensuing police investigation.

  All of which would be endured without coffee.

  Although, truth be told? Jangling the way he was with adrenaline and anger, adding caffeine to his system at this point would’ve been overkill.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2009

  6:49 P.M.

  Danny was silent as Jenn drove the car they’d rented just that afternoon over to the police station to pick up Eden and Izzy.

  Well, they’d pick them up, assuming everything went as smoothly as possible and Eden wasn’t going to be held for whatever various crimes she’d committed.

  “It’s really funny how we can’t seem to hold on to more than one rental car at a time,” Jennilyn said, glancing over at him as she braked for a red light.

  “Yeah.” Dan looked back at her, his smile wry. “That’s the really funny part of all this.”

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “I was just trying to talk about something other than—”

  “The fact that we’re going to bail my screw-up of a sister out of jail?” he finished for her.

  “She’s not a screw-up,” Jenn told him. “She’s actually really brave. I don’t know if I would’ve done what she did. I mean, yes, I would’ve done it without hesitation to protect you or Ben or my brother’s kids … But for someone I barely know? I mean, I would’ve tried to help, sure, but …”

  “What do you call it, though,” Danny asked her, “when those so-called courageous actions put someone else in danger? Yeah, Eden saved Neesha from whatever it was those men wanted from her—assuming it really was Neesha that she saw and not some other weird little Asian hooker-girl. But, okay. Let’s agree it was her. And great. By getting herself arrested, Eden put Ben back in danger from crazy Greg and Ivette. Do you honestly think anyone at CPS is going to want to let Ben anywhere near Eden now? It is called Child Protective Services.”

  Jenn forced a smile, because here it came. The conversation she’d been waiting for ever since Izzy first called from the police station, an hour ago. “Of course not,” she told Danny quietly. “But what if Eden truly believed that those men were going to harm Neesha? She knew she’s not the only one capable of protecting
Ben. She knew that we have a Plan B.”

  The light turned green and she accelerated through the intersection, aware that he was still watching her. She glanced at him again, and he sighed and said, “Plan B. The plan you hate.”

  “I don’t … hate it,” she said. “I just didn’t want to do it until we absolutely had to. And with Eden being arrested …” They were pretty dang close to absolutely having to.

  He was silent, just watching her.

  “Make it nice,” Jenn said, trying to be upbeat and positive in the face of this looming disaster. God, this was not what she wanted—to do this out of sheer necessity. To leave her job and move all the way across the country to live with this man that she loved, a man who said he loved her, too, but really—mostly—only needed her. She forced another smile. “Do it right, and I’ll split the cost of a fancy hotel room with you, so we can have some privacy tonight.”

  “To do what?” Dan asked. “Let you give me head? Terrific.”

  She had to laugh. “Oh, wow, and all this time, I thought you liked it.”

  He laughed, too, exhaling his exasperation. “You know I do—and like is an understatement,” he told her. “I just want … You know what I want.”

  And, God, when Dan looked at her like that, she did know.

  “Three more days,” Jenn reminded him. “Unless … Well, if you were a doctor and your patient was a Navy SEAL, wouldn’t you pad your recommendation for no strenuous lifting or activity by at least three or four days? Knowing that the SEAL was going to cheat?”

  He looked at her with such transparent delight, she had to laugh.

  “You’re going to let me cheat?” he asked, then added, “It’s not really cheating. It’s more like redefining the rules.”

  “Fair enough,” Jenn said as she pulled into the police-station parking lot. It was crowded despite the time of night—or maybe because of the time of night. “Like I said, make it nice, Gillman. And yes, I’ll help you redefine the rules tonight.”

  “I love you,” he told her as she found a spot down at the end, and she used the excuse of parking to keep from looking at him, for fear he’d realize just how difficult this was going to be for her.

  Dan loved her, yes, but in his own way and … Huh. That was funny, that was exactly what he’d said to Ben, about Eden loving Izzy.

  “Jenn, really. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. And to think you’d be willing to do this for me is …” His voice was thick with emotion and he had to stop and clear his throat. “It’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me.”

  And there it was. She didn’t want the fact that she was helping him gain custody of Ben to be the best gift he’d ever received. She wanted her love for him—plain and simple—to hold that coveted status.

  But she was living here, in reality, not in some fairy-tale-flavored alternative universe.

  “Well, you’re lucky,” Jenn said as she put the car in park. “Ben’s such a sweet kid. He makes it easy to say yes—to the question that you haven’t exactly asked me yet. Not today, anyway.” She looked around them at the battered car parked next to them, at the sun-bleached and sagging wooden fence that was in dire need of repair that was in front of them, at the starkly blocklike municipal building she could see in her rearview mirror. “Although this isn’t quite the romantic epicenter of Las Vegas. But then again, this isn’t exactly about the romance, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, taking her hand. “I think it’s pretty perfect. But I never really needed the soundtrack with the swelling violins, or the glorious sunsets … When it comes to romance, LeMay, all I need is you.”

  She smiled at that—how could she not? It was both sweet and poetic. And when he leaned in to kiss her so tenderly, it nearly took her breath away.

  God, he was good. He’d always been good at getting his way.

  He pulled back the merest fraction of an inch to ask her then, his breath warm and sweet: “Jenni, will you marry me?”

  He kissed her again before she could answer, and it was clear from the way he deepened that kiss that his thoughts had already wandered to the rule-redefining part of their evening.

  But he made himself stop, and he was laughing as he put some distance between them. “It’s crazy, but I’m actually nervous that you’re not going to, you know, say yes.”

  He wasn’t kidding, so Jenn put him out of his misery and said it. “Yes.”

  But he didn’t kiss her again as she’d expected him to. Instead he just kept smiling into her eyes. “Right now,” he whispered, “I am the happiest man on the planet. And taking into consideration that I’m sitting where I’m sitting …? That’s saying something.”

  He just kept smiling at her, so she finally leaned in and kissed him. Maybe if she could just keep kissing him, this wouldn’t be so bad, this ache of disappointment that she was feeling, knowing that he was going to marry her because he had no other real choice—at least not a choice he was willing to accept.

  But there were things that needed to be done—and discussed.

  “So what’s it going to be?” she asked, purposely keeping her voice light. “An Elvis impersonator, or—ooh, I know! The Star Wars Chapel. There’s got to be one somewhere in Vegas—complete with costumes. We could get married as Wookiees.”

  Danny laughed, but then his smile faded as he looked at her. “You are kidding, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenn said. “Make it Star Trek and I might not be kidding. To have a ceremony officiated by a Vulcan in a Starfleet uniform?”

  But he laughed as he said, “Seriously, baby, let’s do this at least semi-right. I heard Zanella telling Lopez—you remember Jay, right?”

  Jay Lopez was one of the SEALs who’d come to New York last spring to help protect Maria when she’d received threats from a lunatic. “I do,” Jenn said, but then laughed. “Sounds like I’m warming up.”

  “Works for me,” Danny said, and he kissed her again. “Really, Jenni, this is so great. I just … It means a lot to me and … Anyway, Zanella told Lopez that when he and Eden got married, they found this place where they rent wedding gowns, and they’ll do your makeup and … He said it was actually pretty nice. And okay, yeah, they used a cartoon version of the bridal march—Bugs Bunny singing ‘Here Comes the Bride’—but what do you expect from Zanella and my sister, right?”

  “Do they rent tuxes?” Jenn asked. “Because if I’m in a gown …”

  Danny nodded but then shook his head. “Yeah, but no, I’ve got my dress uniform in my bag,” he said. “I was thinking that we could swing back home and pick it up. When we get Ben.”

  “Ben,” she said, surprised. “You want Ben to come …?”

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “And, you know, Eden and …” He rolled his eyes. “Even Zanella. Do you mind? Because if you’d rather it was just me and you—”

  “No,” Jenn said. “No! That’s fine. I’m just … a little surprised.”

  “They’re family,” Danny said. “Regardless of everything, they’re still …” He shrugged. “They’re my family. Maybe we could do something this summer—fly back east—to, you know, celebrate with your family.”

  Oh God, she hadn’t even thought about what she was going to tell her parents and her brothers. Hi, everybody, I’m in Las Vegas and I’m on the verge of marrying a Navy SEAL that none of you have met. And oh, by the way, we’ve got an instant teenage ward, whom I’ll be taking care of while my new husband goes off to war … Yeah, probably better to wait and tell her mother after the fact. Maria was a different story, though. She could call Maria while Dan was dealing with helping Izzy get his sister released.

  “Or, I guess we could wait a few days,” he said, because she hadn’t responded, “so they could fly out, but—”

  “That meeting’s tomorrow,” Jenn finished for him. “You want to do this tonight.”

  “I do,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t—”

  “It’s decided,” Jenn said. “We’r
e doing this tonight.” And then she kissed him, because there was nothing more to say, and kissing Danny always helped to ease any and all disappointment and pain.

  It helped that the blue truck had been stolen.

  And it helped that Eden’s description of what went down matched—exactly—the statements from half a dozen witnesses.

  And it really helped that everyone in a several-block radius agreed that the driver and passenger of the stolen blue truck had definitely had at least one weapon between them, which they’d fired three times.

  No one, however, had seen the little Asian girl that Eden claimed to be trying to protect. Or that the man crossing the street toward her had had a weapon that he looked ready to use on the girl.

  But the City of Las Vegas took child prostitution very seriously, and an investigation had been opened. Unfortunately, that investigation made it impossible for Eden to hide her now-former place of employment. Or her stage name.

  And when her brother came into the interview room where she’d been questioned and requestioned over the past few hours, the first thing he said to her was, “Jennilyn LeMay? Honestly?”

  Eden braced herself for the storm of crap that was sure to come, but all Dan did was laugh his disbelief as he sat down across from her at the gray metal table. He still moved a little bit slowly and carefully, and she knew his injury was troubling him.

  Not that he’d complain.

  “You’re unbelievably lucky,” he told her, “that Jenn thinks it’s funny.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Eden said. “It happened so fast. Her name just popped out of my mouth, and—”

  “I think it also helps that she’s changing her name to Gillman,” Danny interrupted her. “We’re getting married tonight.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Eden said, closing her eyes. “Danny, I’m so, so sorry that I got arrested. Izzy’s right. I honestly didn’t think beyond—”

  “It’s actually a good thing,” he interrupted her again. “I wanted her to stay, and now she’s going to. So, thank you for messing up. There’s a first, huh?”