Lost and Found

by Tamara Larson

  Diego just chuckled, amused at her attempt to get away from him. Roughly he pushed her against the wall, and aligned their legs so she couldn’t kick back at him. “Oh, you’re going to fight, are you? I like that. Struggle some more. It’s always better when they fight.”

  They? Jessie thought to herself. He’s done this before? She panicked and began screaming, She’d read somewhere that people had a tendency to ignore cries for help, and there was no way she was taking any chances, so she shouted “Fire” at the top of her lungs.

  Diego cuffed her soundly across the back of the head. “Shut up, bitch,” he said, and placed his free hand over her mouth. The last thing she wanted was his filthy hand near her mouth. She shook her head from side to side, trying to avoid those dirt-encrusted fingernails. Diego shifted back, trying to avoid her flying hair. Her mind cleared enough for her to have an idea. Maybe not a good idea, but right now it was all she had.

  She brought her head back as hard and fast as she could. Diego didn’t laugh this time. She connected solidly with his nose, and Jessie distinctly heard the crack of bone. Diego released her hands to stem the flow of blood from his face, but didn’t move away far enough to giver her the leverage she needed to kick back at him. Desperate, she did what had worked before. She lunged backward with her head again. Diego’s scream of pain was like a wounded animal’s cry. His hands had cushioned the blow, but it had still jarred his already injured nose. He pulled completely away from her, cursing and threatening her in Spanish.

  Jessie didn’t even pause to look at him. She could feel his warm blood on the back of her shirt, and that was all the confirmation she needed that she’d injured him. She jerked open the door and ran into the hallway, Diego’s angry voice echoing behind her.

  She didn’t stop to knock on doors, she just ran. All she could think about was putting as much distance as possible between her and Diego. She slammed into a heavy brown door at the end of her hallway that lead to the side stairs and scrambled down the gray concrete steps, almost slipping in her high-heeled boots. She could feel hot tears streaming down her face, and there were strange whimpering sounds escaping her throat. Unused to running, her breathing was labored, and she felt a cruelly throbbing stitch in her side, but she didn’t even consider stopping. She would run forever if necessary.

  She burst out onto the street with a joyful cry when large hands grabbed her shoulders from behind. She fought them--kicking out and punching blindly at her assailant.

  “No,” she screeched, attempting to rake her pathetic excuse for nails down his face.

  “Whoa, Jessie,” Duncan said, turning her around to face him. “I know I’m a jerk, but I had no idea you were this angry.”

  Jessie couldn’t believe he was here. She looked up at his face, nearly sobbing in relief. He’d never looked more beautiful to her. “Oh, Duncan. I’m so happy you’re here,” she cried, reaching up and flinging her arms around his neck. Her knees gave way and she found herself nearly sliding down his body until Duncan wrapped his arms around her to keep her steady.

  “Lady, you are mercurial, aren’t you?” Duncan said, smiling into her neck. “One second you’re trying to take my head off and the next you’re clinging to me like you never want to let go.”

  Jessie pulled back to stare up at him. “Duncan. Diego is upstairs in my apartment. I think I hurt him, but--.” She touched the shoulder of her dress and her fingers came back bloody. She held them up for Duncan to see and then shook her head in confusion. She had no idea what the procedure was in a situation like this. What did you do when you had an injured psycho bleeding all over your apartment?

  “Oh my God, are you alright? That’s his blood, isn’t it?” He asked, pulling her tightly against him again. Jessie breathed in his comforting scent for a moment and then nodded. She couldn’t speak. She was afraid she would start babbling uncontrollably if she started talking about what had happened.

  “Jessie, think carefully.” Duncan said, easing back to stare deeply into her eyes, trying to get her to focus. “Did he have a gun?” Jessie shook her head again. Duncan didn’t need to hear anymore, he gently placed her away from him. “Stay here, Jessie. I mean it. Don’t go anywhere. And let the cops in when they arrive, okay?” Not bothering to wait for a response he gave her a stern look, pulled out his cell phone and opened the door to the side stairs that had never closed properly. He touched her face for one second and then slid into the stairwell and away from her.

  Jessie stood motionless, her back against the warm red brick of her building. Not wanting to be alone, she was tempted to follow Duncan, but her legs wouldn’t quite hold her. Looking down, she noticed that her bra was visible, so she tried to button up her blouse, but her hands were shaking too much, so she just held the flaps together tightly. A nearby homeless man stared at her, but she just smiled at him weakly and tried to wipe her tears away with the other trembling hand.

  Duncan hadn’t wanted to leave Jessie alone, but he couldn’t take a chance on Diego getting his hands on her again. She would be safe if she stayed out in public. Diego was a coward, and wouldn’t try to grab her with a bunch of witnesses around who might intervene.

  Duncan had called for back up, but it would be several minutes before the police arrived. It would be up to him to subdue Diego, and in his current frame of mind, he wasn’t sure if he trusted himself not to hurt the man. It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t thought to bring his gun over to Jessie’s apartment.

  Jessie had been nearly crazed with fear. He couldn’t stand seeing her like that. He felt like a complete failure. The way he saw it, his job was to protect her and he’d been unsuccessful twice. He’d had two plainclothes police officers watching her for a week after the other incident with Diego, but when nothing happened, he’d been forced to call them off. He’d really thought Diego was gone—back to Calgary or wherever it was scumbags like him went when the heat was on. He should have known better.

  Moving quickly up the stairs and toward Jessie’s apartment, Duncan looked for any sign of Diego. Duncan didn’t know exactly what Jessie had done to the man, but judging from the amount of blood on her shoulders, he suspected that Diego would leave a trail.

  The door to Jessie’s apartment was still wide open. Duncan saw bright red droplets of blood on the light hardwood floors, and smiled grimly at the thought of Jessie doing that kind of damage to Diego.

  Entering the apartment, Duncan heard a soft groan coming from the kitchen. His body coiled tightly in expectation of a confrontation with this man—the one who had tried to exploit his sister and then assaulted his woman. Diego would not get off this time. He would see to it, and inflict some damage of his own in the process—he only hoped he could stop once he started.

  “Chad Taylor?” he said softly, when he entered the kitchen to find Diego slumped over the kitchen sink holding his nose. The countertops and porcelain were both pink with smeared blood.

  Diego turned slowly, his eyes narrowed at the use of his Christian name. “Sorry Man. You go the wrong guy. Me and my old lady just had a fight. She gave me a pretty good shot. Nothing to worry about. Thanks for checking in though.” He turned back to the sink, apparently unmindful of Duncan’s towering presence behind him.

  Was he insane? Duncan asked himself. Had the pressure of being on the run gotten to him and pushed him over the edge? Duncan didn’t know and he didn’t particularly care. He moved into the room and placed his hand on Diego’s shoulder. “Chad Taylor, you are under arrest for breaking and entering—.”

  Diego turned to Duncan with an evil grin and flashed the small paring knife he’d gone back to the sink to retrieve. “Think again, asshole,” he said, flicking the buttons of Duncan’s plaid shirt with the blade. There was a maniacal look in his eyes as he said, “Did you really think it would be that easy? I’ve been avoiding the cops for the past eleven days. They can’t catch me. Nobody can catch me. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  Duncan could have cheerfully k
icked his own ass. How had he been so stupid? Of course Diego had a knife. The man might be insane, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Despite his anger with himself, Duncan stared at Diego coolly. “So, you’ve got me. What are you going to do now, Chad? Kill me with that?” He glanced at the tiny knife contemptuously.

  “Don’t call me that,” Diego hissed, bringing the knife up to touch Duncan’s cheek.

  Duncan didn’t flinch as the cold blade touched him. It enraged him that Diego would think to intimidate him with such an insignificant weapon. They were almost the same height, but Duncan was much broader. In a fair fight, Duncan knew he could easily pound the living daylights out of Diego. Even with the knife, Duncan was pretty sure he would prevail, but he couldn’t take a chance. Even a tiny knife to the jugular would still kill him, and then Jessie would be vulnerable to this maniac—at least until the police came. All he had to do was keep Diego talking until they arrived.

  “What? You don’t like Chad?” Duncan asked mockingly. “That’s right. You actually changed your name to Diego, didn’t you? Not to mention learning Spanish, so you could seem more butch. Theresa says you dye your hair black too. Is that right?” Duncan asked, making it sound like Diego might as well be wearing a dress.

  “Shut up,” Diego gritted out between clenched teeth. “That bitch lies.”

  “Hey, man,” Duncan said, holding up his hands and shrugging his shoulders to indicate his disregard. “No skin off my nose. Might be difficult to maintain in prison though.”His accent completely gone, Diego said in a slightly nasal voice, “I told you. I’m not going to prison. First, I’m going to find your little slut of a sister, and make her pay, then I’m going on a little vacation.” He jabbed the small knife into Duncan cheek for emphasis—not deep, but enough to create a small bead of blood to pool and then trail down Duncan’s tanned face.

  Duncan had had enough. He wanted to do the right thing and wait for back up, but he didn’t trust this man in front of him not to do something crazy. He raised his arm again slowly, and wiped the blood from his cheek, and stared at his red fingertip for a second, making his decision. While Diego was looking at the blood on Duncan’s right hand, Duncan brought his left up in a cruel uppercut to the Diego’s weak chin.

  After a brief struggle for the knife, Duncan found himself standing over Diego’s unconscious body several minutes later, breathing heavily with blood on his knuckles and tan hiking boots. Looking down at Diego’s prone form and bloodied face, it was clear to Duncan that he’d completely lost control. He reached down and touched Diego’s neck, and sighed with relief. He hadn’t killed him. Shaking slightly, Duncan grabbed the nearby phone chord and jerked it out of the socket. He deftly tied the chord around the wrists and ankles of the man he’d just about beaten to a pulp. When Diego was finally secured, he slid down to the cool, black and white tiles, and lowered his head. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so much like an animal.

  Chapter 30

  Two hours later, Jessie and Duncan were alone in Jessie’s apartment, sitting on the purple chenille couch in her surprisingly roomy living room. The cops had come and gone, after questioning them both, and the ambulance had taken Diego away. According to the paramedics, his injuries were mostly superficial—the worst being a badly broken nose, and two cracked ribs. He would be transferred to a holding cell the next day.

  Jessie and Duncan sat close together, not touching, but taking comfort in one another. Jessie had taken a shower immediately after the police left. The sensation of Diego’s blood drying on her skin had made her flesh crawl. She’d tried to remain as strong as possible while the police interrogated her about what had happened, but standing in her shower, she had finally let the tears flow freely down her cheeks to mingle with the warm spray from the showerhead. When she came out, she felt strangely calm, like nothing could faze her now.

  After her shower, she’d entered her newly creepy bedroom and forced herself to look at the bed. Duncan had removed the soiled counterpane and the lingerie Diego had been fingering when she’d walked in on him, leaving her bed looking oddly unfinished with it’s flowered sheets and rumpled pillows. She had dreaded touching the items Diego had handled, so it was a relief Duncan had thought to remove them. He’d also cleaned away the blood in the kitchen and the entranceway. It was almost like Diego had never been there.

  She quickly changed into white, denim shorts and a matching ribbed T-shirt that left her pale legs and pale pink polished toenails bare. She couldn’t stand the thought of wearing much more in this heat, and didn’t think Duncan was in any mood to notice her wardrobe. He was so remote; he’d barely looked at her throughout the entire interrogation process. He’d just stood nearby and offered his silent support as she’d told her story. With his strength behind her, she was able to tell the police officers exactly what happened without losing her composure. But now that they were alone, Jessie didn’t know how to bridge the gap between them. It took all her courage to place her hand on his where it rested on his thigh.

  “Duncan,” she asked, softly. “Are you alright?”

  He gave out a joyless bark of laughter. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the one that he got to—again. Are you alright?” Duncan felt unclean, like he was unfit to touch her with the same hands he’d so enthusiastically driven into Diego’s belly. He couldn’t even look at her for more than a second at a time.

  She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “I’m alright, as long as you’re here. I’m just fine.”

  Duncan’s voice broke and he cleared his throat. “How can you say that? I’ve done a completely shitty job of protecting you. Not to mention the fact that I totally unjustly accused you of something rotten a few hours ago. How can you even want me here?” He said, looking around at her pretty, colorful living room with the hand-braided rugs on the floor and multitude of black and white photos on every surface.

  “Hey,” she said giving his hand a shake. “I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need you to protect me. I did pretty well on my own, didn’t I?”

  The side of his mouth lifted in an attempt at a rueful grin. “Yeah, you did, but he never should have been here in the first place. I should have kept you safe.”

  Jessie rolled her eyes and tried to tease him out of his intense mood. “What? You’re going to follow me around from now on to make sure no more demented psychos sneak into my apartment?”

  “Well, yes, actually. That sounds like an excellent plan. I’d make a great bodyguard,” he said defiantly. “Hannibal could be my partner. We could train him to attack greasy scumbags.”

  “Please, the only thing Hannibal could be trained to attack would be a greasy pork chop, maybe a slice of bacon if he was feeling particularly bold.”

  God, she was incredible. Duncan couldn’t believe that she was joking with him just a few hours after being attacked in her apartment. Did she realize just how strong she was? Most people would be quivering on the floor in reaction after an encounter like that. Her strength humbled him—made him feel unworthy. But also made him want to try to be a better man.

  He attempted to make light of the situation. “Are you insulting my dog’s honor? I’ll have you know he graduated top of his puppy obedience class.”

  She grinned at this, and shook her head doubtfully.

  Duncan gently removed his fingers from her grip and scraped both hands over his face. Burying them in the soft dark hair at his temples he looked her in the eyes for the first time tonight. In a more serious tone he said, “We’re getting off topic. Are you sure you’re okay? Can I take you somewhere? I’d take you to my place but my grandmother is staying with us and I’m pretty sure you’re not up to dealing with her. How about I take you to your sister’s or something? Or a hotel maybe? You can’t possibly want to stay here.” His eyes darted toward the bedroom and he shuddered just thinking about what it must have been like to find Diego sitting casually on her bed.

  “Hold on, your grandmother is staying with you?” Jessie
asked, nearly choking on the revelation, her dark eyes widened in surprise. “How did that happen? I thought she was going to take Theresa away on the next plane.”

  “Well, apparently her and Theresa had a little talk before I got there.” He settled back against the couch cushions like he was getting ready to tell a long story and lowered his hands to his lap. “My sister absolutely refused to go back to Toronto with the old girl.” His mouth tilted up in an admiring half-smile. “Just wouldn’t do it. Eventually Evelyn got her to agree to visit during holidays if she would sign over temporary guardianship to me until she turns eighteen. It was weird, like Theresa had it all planned out or something. Part of the deal was temporary visitation rights whenever Evelyn wants.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I suppose I could have sent her to a hotel, but it seemed kind of churlish considering she didn’t press kidnapping charges against me like she said she would.” He paused and looked thoughtful for a second. “It’s weird, you know, for years I had no one and now I’ve got my sister and my grandmother staying with me. Never expected that a month ago.” He grinned and looked at Jessie expectantly.

  Jessie blinked in wonder. “I can’t believe it. I thought you’d be going to jail for sure.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Me too. You’d have had to come and visit me behind bars and smuggle me some decent food. Not to mention some pepper spray. I’m way too pretty for jail.”

  “No comment.”

  He grinned at her for a moment and then turned serious again. “Jess, I want you to know that keeping Theresa’s whereabouts a secret was not my idea.” He looked down at his hands in his lap again. “I swear, she said she would run away if I told Evelyn where she was. I agreed to keep her safe, but then it just became too late to tell anyone without incriminating myself.” Looking a bit sheepish, he continued, “Plus, I kind of liked having her around. I hadn’t seen my family in so long; I couldn’t quite force myself to do the right thing.”