by Ladew, Lisa
Dani half-climbed on him and kissed him back, hard. They’d made love twice last night, but after not having seen each other for three weeks, that didn’t seem like near enough. Dani’s hands kneaded the strong muscles in his chest. He grasped the fingers of one of her hands and pulled them down to his erection, hard enough to pound nails already, and all for her. He couldn’t get enough of her still, a year after meeting her and becoming battlefield lovers, and four months after moving in with her in their cozy San Francisco apartment. Maybe it was because she was out of the country on reporter’s assignments two to three weeks out of every month.
Dani let out a breath. “JT, we can’t,” she whispered, but she didn’t move her hand. JT took that as a good sign.
“Didn’t you ever babysit Dani, and make out with your boyfriend on the couch after the kids went to sleep? That’s all we’re doing here. Just a little make out session.”
Dani squeezed once, experimentally and her hand fell still, but still didn’t move. JT tried again.
“Sorry, Precious, I just can’t get enough of you. I wish you didn’t have to leave the country so often,” he breathed, teasing his way down her collarbone with his lips and tongue.
Dani shifted again, pushing her breasts into his hand. He grazed an erect nipple, earning a gasp.
“It’s my job,” she said in a breathless whisper, her hand lightly stroking his cock through his jeans.
“I know. I just wish you didn’t have to be away so much. You leave again next Friday. What am I going to do without you?” JT lifted Dani’s shirt and kissed one pert nipple through her lacy bra. He knew Dani’s nipples were one of her most sensitive areas.
Dani pushed her breast into his mouth. “Come with me.”
JT stopped moving and looked up into her face. He’d never been invited before. He had no speaking engagements for a month and his CEO ran the business just fine without him. He could go.
“Would I get to see you?”
Dani opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Yeah. It’s just fact-finding. You could go out with me in the day and I’d be yours every night.” Dani pressed against him, pressing her hand against his straining erection. “I could do this whenever you want,” she said, popping the snap to his jeans, then unzipping the zipper and pushing his boxers out of the way, letting his erection spring free.
JT chanced a glance down the hallway. All quiet. “It’s settled then. I’m there,” he said, and stiffened as Dani’s hand ran up and down his shaft, stopping to tease the head before stroking to the bottom again. Fuck it felt good.
Dani set to work single-mindedly and JT found himself ready to spill in an embarrassingly short period of time. He blamed the separation. “Dani,” he rasped, his teeth clenched together.
Dani dipped her head and wrapped her gorgeous lips around his cock, never letting up the pressure with her hand. JT shuddered as he discharged every drop of cum he had built up into her waiting mouth, his eyes locked onto the connection of her mouth around him. He dropped a hand to her hair and moaned as she swallowed him.
Slowly, Dani sat up and licked her lips. “There. All clean.”
JT laughed and tucked himself back into his pants. “I love you, Precious,” he told her, looking into her eyes. Was that an understatement. He couldn’t live without her.
“You always say that when I swallow,” she said, giving him a mischievous smile that left him gaping at her. She stood up and stretched before he could even think of a response or if it was true or not. He did love it when she went down on him, so maybe. “We should do another check of the house. Then it’s my turn,” she said.
JT threw back his head and laughed, then reached a hand up to smack her on her sexy ass through her jeans. “Yeah it is.”
***
Just as JT was about to declare the house still quiet, a car pulled into the driveway. He relaxed as soon as he recognized it as Jerry’s car. He and Jerry had grown quite close, possibly even closer than he and either of his sister’s husbands. He credited that partially to how close Dani and Sara had grown over the past year. Dani could relate to her in a way she hadn’t seemed to have found with Vivian or Emma yet. And although Vivian and Emma loved Sara, neither of them had the relationship with her that Dani did. Sara was a hard woman to get to know. Her dark, warrior side kept a wall up between her and most other people, one that people seemed scared or unable to try to break through. Dani didn’t care about the wall, though. She said Sara reminded her of a younger version of her Aunt Muriel, the first female General in the marine corps.
“Who’s that,” Dani whispered from behind him.
“Jerry.”
“Oh great!”
Dani ran out on the front porch to greet Jerry, giving him a big hug. “Where’s Sara?”
Jerry gave her a weak smile and JT saw stress lines that hadn’t been there a month ago around his eyes. “She’s not feeling good.”
“Oh no,” Dani said. “She didn’t sound good a few days ago when I talked to her either.”
“Yeah,” was all Jerry said. He climbed the stairs and shook JT’s hand. “Hi, JT.”
JT motioned Jerry inside where he sat down on the couch. He didn’t say anything for a few moments until Dani sat next to him, rubbing his shoulder and peering into his face curiously. “What’s going on, Jerry? Is she sick?”
“She’s having nightmares.”
JT sat down in a chair across from Jerry and watched him closely. Nightmares?
Jerry ran a hand over his bald head, which actually had quite a bit of stubble on it today, which was unusual.
“It’s not just that, you guys. I don’t know what to do for her. I’m really getting worried about her.”
“Talk to us, Jerry,” Dani said. “Maybe we can help you.”
Jerry huffed out a breath and looked at the ceiling. “She talks in her sleep. Awful stuff. About killing people. She screams sometimes too. I wake her up and an hour later she’s having the same nightmare.”
Dani frowned and sat on the edge of the couch. “You should have her see someone! A shrink or something.”
“That’s the thing,” Jerry said. “She is. She’s been seeing him for about six months now. She’d been having some minor issues— feeling paranoid, anxious sometimes. A colleague of hers recommended this guy. Said he’d helped another DCIA agent with the same kind of thing.” Jerry’s voice shook slightly. “At first she was happier, and things seemed to be better for her, but a few weeks ago, everything just fell apart. The nightmares started. The paranoia got worse. I just don’t know what to do for her,” Jerry said and dropped his head into his hands.
Dani rubbed his back and looked at JT pleadingly.
“Jerry,” JT said. “Maybe you should try a different therapist. Maybe this guy isn’t any good.”
“Maybe,” Jerry said, his head still in his hands, his voice muffled.
“What does Sara say?” JT asked.
Jerry looked up at him and his eyes were shining. “A couple of weeks ago when it first started, she told me that they were getting to some difficult things for her to process, and things were going to get worse before they got better. But JT, now she won’t even talk to me. She pretends she’s asleep when I get home. She leaves the room if I enter it. I don’t know what’s going on with her and I’m scared.”
JT’s heart broke for his friend. He knew how much Jerry loved Sara. He also knew how hard things could be for Sara. He’d been out there in the desert with her. And she’d been through things that were many times worse than that.
JT glanced at Dani, then back to his friend. “What if we come over some time this week? We’ll help you talk to her.”
Jerry sat, thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe that would work. She has an appointment with her therapist in two days and I was planning on going with her. He won’t let me in session with her but maybe I can talk to him afterwards, see what he thinks. You guys could come over for dinner.”
Dani nodded eagerly. “We’ll be the
re.” Jerry tried to smile but it slipped off his face before it even showed up. “Great,” he said dully.
Dani looked at JT again, her eyes big and scared. “Jerry, can I get you some tea?”
Jerry looked around the house for the first time. “Where is everybody?”
“They’re all sleeping. We’re watching the house.”
Jerry shook his head and pushed off the couch. “I should get back to Sara. I worry when I’m gone for too long.”
Dani stood up and met JT’s glance behind Jerry’s back again. This was worse than JT ever could have imagined. He and Dani followed Jerry to the door and said their goodbyes. As Jerry walked down the steps, JT had an awful premonition that it was the last time he would ever see his friend again.
***
Jerry drove away slowly, trying to concentrate on the road. He hadn’t even told his friends the worst of it. Sara was wearing her knives again. Even just around the house. She wore long sleeves and boots and he knew she had a spring-loaded knife tucked against each wrist and ankle. What could they possibly be for?
His mind turned back to what had happened that very morning. He shivered, wondering if she was living in the past or having true hallucinations. He had been looking for something in the very back of the closet and found food and water in a corner, plus some books appropriate for a girl about five or six years old. Did she not realize or remember that Lupe, the first girl she had ever rescued from a Mexican brothel, was dead?
Jerry shook his head, and wondered for the hundredth time who the knives were for. An imagined intruder? Him? Or herself?
Each possibility scared him worse than the last.
Jerry didn’t want to admit it, but there was something even worse he was hiding, even from himself. As he drove down the quiet and dark street, unable to think about anything but Sara, he had to face it.
He was almost positive Sara was pregnant. He’d seen the changes in her breasts and her face. Rounder, fuller, with a few mornings of throwing up around the same time the nightmares had started.
More questions crowded his mind. Did she know? Was that what was causing her to become unhinged?
He didn’t think he could handle the answer, no matter what it was.
Chapter 8
Hawk prowled the house and thought about his next move. He felt a thousand times better than he’d felt the day before, after getting so many hours of good sleep. He’d awoken around ten o’clock in the evening and sent JT and Dani back to their hotel. He’d stayed up until almost three in the morning and then woke Craig to watch the house while he slept a few more hours. Emma and Vivian had slept the afternoon and night through, then Emma had gotten up early to go to work. Vivian was still sleeping. Craig was also gone, checking in on a few of the last people in the Oberlin case who were still waiting on the hearing to discover their non-judiciary sentences. Hawk didn’t think any of them were the likely perpetrators of the crap they had been through the last few days, but they had to start somewhere.
Hawk prowled down the hallway and checked in on his sleeping wife. She was exactly as he had left her. He was worried about her, she hadn’t said more than a few words since their house blew up, and she’d slept for almost 18 hours now. He tried to brush the worry away. She was pregnant, or she wouldn’t be sleeping so much. She needed her rest.
Hawk heard his new phone ring in Craig’s office. Craig had bought it and brought it home for him before heading out to do his investigations. Hawk strode back down the hallway and walked into the room, snatching up the phone and answering it.
Craig’s voice rang through it. “I checked in with Scranton. His girlfriend says he’s in the Middle East until the hearing. He’s been there for two weeks.”
Hawk grunted. “Good cover?”
“I don’t think so,” Craig said. “He sounds like he’s trying to clean up his act. But I have his phone number and I will talk to him as soon as he answers his phone. Who’s next?”
Hawk looked at his list next to Craig’s computer. “Collins. He’s at the state building, working in the comptroller’s office.”
“Got it. Is that it?”
“No. Blitz Palmer, but he’s in San Francisco.”
Craig made a little noise of dissent. “He seems unlikely. He won’t even get jail time with his limited involvement.”
“It’s all we got, man.”
“I know. Do you want me to catch a flight to San Francisco?”
“Let me call down there. See what his schedule is. I’ll let you know.” Hawk heard the doorbell ring. “I gotta go.”
Hawk set his phone down and walked to the front door. JT and Dani stood there and he was glad to see them. “Come in, guys. I’m working. Vivian is still in bed. I didn’t have the heart to wake her but now that you’re here, I think it would be good for her to get up and move around a little bit.”
Dani smiled. “I’ll go get her and see if she wants to go shopping for clothes. You guys lost everything right?”
Hawk nodded grimly. They had. Even their cars were burnt messes.
Dani disappeared down the hallway. Hawk lifted his chin at JT and motioned for him to follow him into the office area. Once they got in there, Hawk closed the door. “JT, I need a favor.”
“Go,” JT said, leaning against the door.
Hawk ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a big favor. I need you to make something disappear. And if you’re caught, it could mean jail time, depending on how you do it.”
JT didn’t even blink. “Anything for you, Hawk. You know that.”
Hawk shook his head. He hated asking his brother-in-law to do this, but he and Craig didn’t think they had any choice. “Thanks man. I need you to go into the woods behind the house and cut to the left. Walk about two hundred yards. You’ll see a falling down shed behind the big black and white house four houses down. It’s all overgrown, like nobody’s been in there for years. Inside you’ll find four containers of butane and a huge tub of marijuana. I need you to make them all disappear. Like they never existed.”
JT nodded, a light coming into his eyes. “Consider it done. How soon?”
A rock rolled off of Hawk’s chest. JT would probably do a better job than even he or Craig could have of making that stuff disappear into the night like smoke.
“It’s gotta be tonight, man. We need it gone.”
JT nodded and Hawk sat down, relieved.
“I need a favor too,” JT said, his voice full of regret.
Hawk looked at him and nodded, knowing he would do anything JT asked, even though he couldn’t think of a worse time for the request to come.
JT held up his hands. “I know you’re out of your mind busy right now but all I need is for you to look up a license plate for me. You have access to DMV records, right?”
“Yeah,” Hawk said. That wouldn’t take long.
JT pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Hawk. Hawk turned around to face the computer and typed away until he got back a result. He read it off the screen. “Battaini Investigations. PO Box 3497A in San Francisco.”
Hawk swiveled around in his chair to face JT. “I know of the company. It’s a private investigator’s office in San Francisco.”
JT shook his head. “Why would a private investigator be following me?”
“Following you?”
“Yeah, I saw this car a couple times in San Francisco last week and now it’s been parked outside our hotel every day.”
“Are you sure it’s the same car?” Hawk asked.
JT nodded. “I saw the guy in San Francisco and then again here. He was watching us a couple of times when we went out for breakfast. A big, heavyset, solid guy who looks former military. That the owner?”
Hawk shook his head. “The owner is Brindi Battaini. She’s a new hotshot PI down there. I’ve heard of some of her exploits over the last year. My boss has worked with her twice. That guy is probably one of her employees.”
“Maybe,” JT said. “All I k
now is he’s freaking me out. I’ve tried to approach him twice and he just took off.”
Hawk gave him an appraising glance. “Look, JT. I’ve got to head down to San Francisco anyway. I’ll try to talk to her, and see what’s going on.”
JT shook his head. “Yeah but she’s not going to tell you anything.”
Hawk stilled, thinking. Finally he spoke again. “She might, though. I can be very persuasive.”
JT stared at him for a long moment. “When?”
“Maybe today. Let me make a call.”
***
Hawk stepped out of the building into the cool San Francisco air. He’d caught a last-minute, military hop flight to San Francisco and promised Vivian he would be back by dinnertime. Blitz Palmer had been a complete dead-end. Definitely not the guy they were looking for. He glanced at his watch. He had exactly ten minutes to get across town to make his appointment with Brindi Battaini. Impossible. But he would try anyway.
Hawk drove the lumbering, borrowed, government sedan as quickly as he dared up and down the inclines of San Francisco. He ended up being only twenty-five minutes late, which was better than he had hoped for, but since it was after five o’clock, he still wondered if he had missed his chance. Luckily the hop flights ran every hour on the hour until eight p.m. He’d have a good chance of getting home for a late dinner.
He hurried into the office of the red brick building on Franklin Street. A woman with waist-length, bouncy blonde hair stood with her back to him, locking the glass door that read Battaini Securities. Probably a secretary. Hawk ran up to her and tried to put on a charming smile. “Wait, I have an appointment with Miss Battaini. Is she still here?”
The young woman turned cold eyes on him and scolded him. “You’re late.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Traffic was awful. Is Miss Battaini here?”
