Hot Pursuit

by Suzanne Brockmann

  He settled back to watch as his wife sliced and diced this prick before kicking his ass out into the street.

  And sure enough, before his very eyes, Alyssa seemed to grow about six inches taller. Her eyes—usually so warmly lit with laughter, or so soft when she awoke and smiled sleepily up at him—got positively glacial as she went into ice-queen mode.

  Back in the day, years before they were married, back when Sam himself had been the target of Alyssa’s icicle-sharp contempt, it hadn’t just scared the hell out of him when she’d looked at him like that.

  It had turned him on.

  It still did.

  Alyssa’s tone was frosty. And dismissive. “Thank you for coming in so quickly, Detective. I appreciate what seems like your genuine concern for Ms. Bonavita and her staff. I hope you can set your animosity aside as we work together toward the common goal of providing them with the best possible protection. For the moment, you are in charge of the police investigation, so I suggest you go investigate the whereabouts of Ms. Thorndyke and her cell phone. Nudging the lab for the results from their tests would also be a better use of your time than standing here arguing with me about something that’s not going to change.”

  “For the moment, I’m in charge?” he asked, his voice loaded with amused disdain. “As full of yourself as you are, princess, you don’t have the power to dictate who is or isn’t in charge of the investigation of a crime committed—”

  “The crime committed here today,” she cut him off to say.

  But he raised his voice to speak over her. “A crime committed in my precinct—”

  Alyssa got louder, too. “The crime, or the prank, as you’ve dismissively referred to it more than once, was not merely facilitated by breaking and entering. The perpetrator used the U.S. Postal Service to deliver at least part of their threat. Which means, Toots, that this is a federal crime, and should be investigated accordingly.”

  Sam had—always—found it unbelievably hot when Alyssa used FBI-speak, filled with words like perpetrator and facilitated and accordingly.

  “Oh, come on,” the detective scoffed. “It was a freaking postcard, sent locally. There’s no need to bring in an outside agency—”

  “Someone went to a lot of trouble,” Alyssa informed him coolly, “to set this up.”

  “You bring in the FBI,” he pointed out, “this’ll never get solved. They don’t know the neighborhood, they don’t know jackshit. They’ll send in someone—”

  “They’ll send an agent-in-charge,” Alyssa interrupted him again, “who has the experience and training to recognize the serious nature of this threat. This wasn’t done, Detective, by some irate person who simply wandered in off the street. The caulking on the drawer, put there to keep the smell from escaping? Whoever did this has visited this office. Whoever did this knows about the overheating issues.”

  Sam could tell from Callahan’s expression that he hadn’t considered that—yeah, because he was too busy swinging his dick around like a semaphore flag, trying to catch Maria’s attention. Fucking moron.

  “Whoever did this got in,” Alyssa continued, “with no sign of breaking before they entered. And I’m not willing to cross my fingers and hope this blows over, when every ounce of training I have is telling me that whoever did this wants something. And they’re not going away until they get it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call my contact at the FBI. I’ll let your lieutenant know who they’re sending in to take over the investigation.”

  Oh, snap, as Jules Cassidy would have said, were he here. And Sam was pretty certain that his and Alyssa’s good friend was going to be here rather soon, since Jules was the said contact with the FBI to whom she referred. And he was high enough up the chain of command to ask to be assigned to this case.

  To ask and be given what he’d asked for.

  “Mick.”

  Before Alyssa could march out into the hall to make that call, Maria opened the door to her inner office. Both the detective and Alyssa turned to look at her.

  “I need you to cut me some slack,” she told Callahan. “I agree that some of the measures Ms. Locke is suggesting we take seem … a little extreme. And I also believe—I hope—that once we find Maggie Thorndyke, we’ll find an explanation for all of this. Whether it’s a joke or a prank … Well, we’ll find that out soon enough. Until then, you need to accept the fact that as far as choices about my safety go, I’ve agreed to let the team from Troubleshooters call the shots.”

  Mick looked from Maria to Alyssa and back, and he was smart enough to know that it was time to back down. So he did.

  And Alyssa took the opportunity to further dismiss him—by ignoring him as she moved toward the assemblywoman. “Is this a good time to discuss the logistics of the next few days?”

  “Of course,” Maria said, stepping back to lead the way into her private office.

  Alyssa glanced back at Sam. “Call Jules and fill him in.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, taking out his phone and dialing.

  But Mick had to have the last word. “If you reach Margaret Thorndyke before we do—”

  “I’ll give you a call,” Maria promised him.

  “We’ll make sure your lieutenant is kept in the loop,” Alyssa corrected, and shut the door tightly behind her, as Sam was bumped directly to Jules’s voice mail.

  “Call me,” he said.

  “Fucking bitch,” Callahan added, as he gathered up his overcoat and got ready to face the cold.

  And great, it was going to sound to Jules like Sam had said, Call me, fucking bitch, or maybe Call me fucking bitch, which Jules would do cheerfully and without hesitation, assuming there was a joke behind it. But before Sam could explain, Callahan added, “Have you seen those pictures of your boss, in the National Voice? Nice tits.”

  He’d caught Sam looking at him and taken the eye contact as an invitation to speak.

  Sam laughed, because if this man hadn’t picked up the fact that he and Alyssa were married, then he had to be just about the worst detective ever.

  But again Callahan took it as encouragement, laughing, too. “Am I right or am I right? The woman is totally tappable, but you’d have to, I don’t know, put tape over her mouth because … Jesus.”

  Sam stopped laughing and straightened to his full height, which meant he towered over the prick.

  But Callahan didn’t notice. He was too busy looking over at Maria’s office door as he pulled on his coat. “Bitch obviously needs to get laid. Bet she’s the type likes to get slapped around some, too. No problem, we can line up everyone she’s pissed the shit out of, bend her over and give ’em a choice—”

  Sam had heard enough. He shut his phone and hit Callahan with both hands, pushing him back and slamming him against the wall by the door, knocking both the wind and the fuck out of the fucking windbag and jamming his arm up against his throat to hold him there, gasping and choking, like the impotent misogynist bully that he was.

  He knew he was supposed to use words when dealing with conflict, so he got right up in Callahan’s face to ask, “Does it make you feel better? Does it make you feel like more of a man, you piece of shit? To threaten a woman with gang rape?”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Callahan clawed at Sam’s arms as he rasped, “I didn’t—”

  “Yeah, you fucking well did!” Sam released him, only to slam him back against the wall again and again, as emphasis to his words. “What else is it when you line up a bunch of angry fuckheads and force a woman to bend over? And you didn’t even say it to her face, you had to say it behind her back! I don’t know who your daddy paid off to make you a detective—”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Fuck you!” Sam slammed him harder.

  “Sam!”

  He turned to see Alyssa, standing in Maria’s open door, looking mighty displeased. So he let Callahan go, which was a mistake, because the son of a bitch kicked him.

  If Sam hadn’t moved to block it, his balls would’ve bee
n lodged up in his brain. As it was he was going to have one hell of a bruise on his leg, and oh. Fantastic.

  The prick actually drew on him.

  “On the floor!” Callahan shouted, in between coughing for air, as he waved his sidearm around. “Get the fuck on the floor! Hands on your head! Now! Now!”

  Sam looked at Alyssa, who was trying to shout over the cop.

  “All right,” she bellowed. “That’s enough! That’s enough!”

  But Callahan wasn’t listening, and she looked at Sam and said, “Do it,” even as he was already dropping to the office floor.

  Because he, too, had picked up that extra little shred of crazy in the sumbitch’s eyes. And he sure as hell didn’t like the way Callahan was waving his weapon in Alyssa’s direction. Short of taking him down and disarming him, Sam had only one option.

  So he hit the floor—hardwood and dingy—and put his hands on his head, and braced himself for it and yeah, he got exactly what he expected—a savage kick to his side that damn near lifted him off the ground. It hurt like hell, the pain hot and sharp.

  It took everything in him to not grab the fuckwad’s foot and do some serious damage. Maybe pistol whip him with his own weapon a time or two, because it wouldn’t take much to take it out of that moronic grip.

  “Stop it!” he heard Alyssa order as he breathed through the pain, staring at a paper clip and a marker pen that had fallen and lay neglected, beneath the second desk. And, Jesus, it looked like someone had lost a tooth. Not him, though—that kick hadn’t come anywhere near his mouth. Or maybe it was just a tooth-shaped piece of paper there, nestled in a dust bunny.

  Alyssa had more to say: “You so much as breathe on him again, and you will be in deep shit, mister!”

  Maria, too, added her voice to the fracas. “Put that gun away right now!” She clapped her hands for emphasis, as if they were unruly dogs in a spat. “Detective Callahan, this is unacceptable!”

  The pain hadn’t decayed as much as it should have, and Sam knew the prick had done damage to at least one of his ribs when he felt something relatively lightweight hit his back, lighting him on fire again. Yeah, if that hurt, his rib was broken. God damn it.

  Callahan holstered his sidearm—thank God for small favors—as he gruffly ordered, “Cuff him.”

  Who was he talking to? Alyssa?

  She laughed her disbelief and disdain. “What?” as Maria still sputtered, “I can’t believe you kicked him!”

  “I’m calling for backup. I’m taking him in for assaulting a police officer. Check your rule book, Assemblywoman, I have the right to defend myself.”

  “Against a man who has clearly surrendered?” Maria asked.

  “Oh, no,” Alyssa was saying over her. “No, no …”

  “Sam just… assaulted you?” Maria couldn’t believe it. “Out of the blue?”

  “Yes, he did,” Callahan said.

  “Bullshit,” Sam said from the floor.

  “Shut up,” the detective said, and actually started Mirandizing him. “You have the right to remain silent—”

  A broken rib was bearable, but pissing Alyssa off by being dragged to jail was not. “You made a joke, you dumb fuck,” Sam argued, “about gang-raping my wife!”

  That made them all pause—Callahan, too. “Your wife?”

  Sam lifted his head and looked up at him. “Yeah, fuckwad,” he said, using his eyes to point to Alyssa. “My wife. The fucking bitch with the nice tits … ?”

  Alyssa’s cell phone started ringing, and Sam told her, “If that’s Jules—answer it. I left him a message you’re going to want to hear about.” He looked at Callahan again. “Everything you said, moron, was recorded on my voice mail to Jules. And that would be Jules Cassidy, high-level FBI? AIC, coming in from Boston to handle this investigation? Former partner and best friend of Alyssa-of-the-nice-tits, aka my wife?”

  As Alyssa took that call—and knowing Jules, he was going to have a lot to say to her about what he’d heard—Sam turned to Maria, who was definitely aghast.

  Callahan realized, too late, what he’d done. The final shred of his last chance with Maria Bonavita—not that he’d actually had one, but everyone had the right to dream big—was gone, baby, gone.

  “You’re a lawyer, right?” Sam said to Maria, mostly for Callahan’s benefit. “This is a nifty new twist on the old classic case of sexual harassment, isn’t it? Of course, the NYPD probably won’t let it go to trial. They’re not going to want a recording of one of their detectives saying—”

  “I didn’t know she was your wife,” Callahan said, like that made a difference.

  “I’m more interested in pursuing the police brutality case,” Maria said hotly, as Sam pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

  “He had me by the throat,” Callahan told her.

  “He was on the floor, following your orders, when I saw you kick him,” she countered as she helped Sam to his feet.

  “All right,” Alyssa said, snapping her phone shut. “Mr. Cassidy, from the FBI, heard the entire conversation. He’s had some experience with negotiation, and he said to tell you, Detective, that he’s being extremely generous when he suggests that we simply drop all of the various court cases—both criminal and civil. We’ll call it a wash. You might win one, but we’d win the others. So let’s just skip it all, all right?” She tossed his cuffs back to him.

  Callahan caught them, and turned to look at Maria, who shook her head at him, her disapproval still apparent. “Detective, you were leaving. I suggest you do so immediately.”

  Without another word, he turned and went out the door, closing it oddly quietly behind him.

  Alyssa turned to look at Sam as Maria faded back into her office, to give them privacy, of sorts. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’ll live,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “He kicked you pretty hard.”

  “I’m fine. I am sorry, though,” he told her, then qualified it, “that you had to hear what he said. Son of a bitch.”

  She sighed her exasperation. “You really think I haven’t heard all of that before? I mean, hello.” She gestured to herself. “Nice tits.”

  Sam laughed, but quickly stopped. Ow. “Shit.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “You want to rewind to my question—are you all right? And maybe rework that apology while you’re at it… ? Pull up your shirt, let me see.”

  He gingerly pulled up his shirt, but there was only a red mark on his side. It wouldn’t be until later that it would turn the colors of the rainbow. And it would. It was going to be a piece of art. “Damn it,” he swore, because it was right where he usually carried Ash.

  “Does it hurt to breathe?” Alyssa asked, her fingers cool against his skin.

  “Yeah,” Sam admitted, drawing in his breath when she got too close. It was his lower rib, definitely. “It’s cracked.” He met her eyes again. “I am sorry,” he said, but then had to add, “that I got hurt.” It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t give her that. He was not going to apologize for scaring the crap out of that dipshit. And he had. He’d definitely scared Mick Callahan when he’d had him against the wall—which was what made the man get extra mean.

  She shook her head, clearly frustrated with him as she headed back into Maria’s office. “Call Jules back, will you? And tell him that he can cross bailing you out of jail off his to-do list.”

  Jenn had left her bed unmade.

  “Sorry about the mess,” she told the three Navy SEALs who stood awkwardly, just inside her apartment door, because, really, there wasn’t anywhere else for them to go.

  They’d just come from surveying Maria’s condo—checking the security of the windows, doors, and even the walls, and getting an overview of the lobby, the elevators, and the hallway in the assemblywoman’s building.

  Jenn had witnessed the way their big brains worked as they looked around, as they evaluated the space in which Maria lived, as they thought out loud and strategized what-if
scenarios.

  What if they had to get the assemblywoman quickly out of the building?

  There were both front and back stairways, plus a freight elevator that wasn’t used by the residents, which had a lock that they could easily override if necessary.

  What if they brought Maria in and discovered someone was hiding there, waiting for her?

  That wouldn’t happen if one of them searched the place each time they entered, which they always would do. And if they did surprise someone hiding there, whoever stayed in the hall with Maria would take her out of the building via the freight elevator, while the other dispatched the intruder.

  What if they came under direct attack via the condo’s single door?

  They’d hustle Maria into the master bathroom, which was the safest, most secure room. Positioned in the bedroom, with the proper weapons and ammunition, they could hold off an attacking army if need be.

  What about the windows?

  The drapes and blinds would have to be kept tightly shut, since every building in the area was a potential sniper’s hiding place.

  Which was when Jenn had chimed in, because Maria, absolutely, wasn’t going to like that.

  They’d asked her some questions, then—did the assemblywoman live alone?

  She most certainly did.

  Did she have a boyfriend, either in the area or living elsewhere? Or maybe just someone with whom she was friends, with benefits?

  Dan Gillman—Lucky—had asked that one, and Jenn had looked at him sideways.

  It was more than obvious that he’d wanted to know this for personal reasons. But with a completely straight face, he’d explained that if they were going to be camping out in Maria’s living room tonight, they didn’t want to accidentally kill her boyfriend when he popped in unexpectedly from Chicago.

  But no, Maria didn’t have a boyfriend, not in Chicago or anywhere else. As for friends with benefits, they were going to have to ask Maria directly. Jenn knew that she did have an asshat of an ex-husband named Bobby in Atlanta, but he certainly didn’t have a key.