Hot Pursuit

by Suzanne Brockmann

  She was halfway to the door before he spoke.

  “You’re that certain you’re never going to fall in love again,” Izzy asked her. “That you’d be willing to give up the possibility, by settling for someone you merely like?”

  “Yes,” she told him. “I’m that certain.”

  And with that, she walked out the door.

  It was weird being home, in her little apartment.

  After being checked and poked and prodded, the doctors had finally released Jenn from the hospital. Dan had come with her, unlocking her door and disarming the alarm system, as if he lived there, too.

  He was on the verge of taking off his jacket and hanging it on the knob—which was rapidly becoming his place for it—when she stopped him.

  “You should go,” she said.

  He honestly didn’t understand, as if she’d spoken to him in some foreign tongue.

  So she put it a different way.

  “I’m really not up for having anyone stay tonight,” she said.

  “But…” He stopped. “Really?”

  Heart in her throat, Jenn nodded.

  “I thought you, you know, accepted my apology,” he said.

  In the hospital, he’d told her, over and over again, how sorry he was—not just for saying what she’d overheard him say to Izzy, but for doing exactly what he’d described. He’d found and seduced the chunky girl with the much prettier friends.

  They’d sat there, in the hospital, while she’d waited to find out if her heart had been damaged from the electrical blasts she’d received, and Dan had admitted that when this had started—just a few short days ago—that his goal had purely been to get some. Since he found her attractive enough—and yes, his bluntly honest words had made them both wince—and since she seemed to be on the same page, it had seemed like a win/win.

  “But then,” Dan had told her, “it changed. I don’t know what happened. But it did. And Jenni, it’s not just about sex anymore. God, when I thought you were dead …”

  He’d kissed her then, and she’d kissed him, too, because it was impossible to not kiss Dan Gillman back.

  And maybe she would’ve been okay with him coming home with her and spending the rest of his two weeks in her bed, but then he’d gone and said it.

  “Jenni, I think I’m falling in love with you,” he’d whispered, and she knew in that moment that she didn’t have to wait for the doctor to tell her.

  Her heart was damaged.

  She didn’t say it right then, because there were too many doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room. Maria dropped in to see her, too, and Robin, and even Sam and Alyssa.

  But now Jenn told Dan, “You helped save my life today. Remember your theory? The one about the hormones and adrenaline?”

  He shook his head as if to dismiss it, but she pressed.

  “You rescue me, and then you say … what you said, that you’re in love with me, and you expect me to believe you?”

  “Yes,” he said, as if that would end the discussion.

  “How was it you described it?” she asked. “Your brain is receiving some deceptive little signal saying Mine. But it’s not real.”

  “It is,” he said.

  “But what if it’s not?” Jenn countered. “God, Dan, I really, really don’t want you waking up in a few months going who’s this numb-nuts lying here next to me…”

  She was fighting him with his own logic, his own theories, and he was not happy about that. “It’s been a bitch of a day,” he said, desperation in his voice. “Can’t we please just call a time-out and talk about this in the morning?”

  Jenn made herself shake her head. “I don’t want two weeks or eleven days or whatever you’ve got left, Dan. I just don’t. I want more than that.”

  “That’s what I want now, too,” he said. “I do, Jenni—”

  “Okay,” she said. “Then call me when you get back to the States.”

  He was flummoxed. “What?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yes. This is how we’ll do it, okay? You go, and come back. And if you do … Then I’ll believe you.”

  He was starting to realize that she was serious. “I’m going to Afghanistan,” he said, which made her stomach twist. “I won’t be back for months.”

  “Give me your address,” Jenn said. “I’ll write.” She forced a smile. “I’ll send you packages.”

  “Jenni,” he said.

  She waited, but he didn’t seem to have more to say than that.

  So she told him, “When you get back, give me a call. If you want.”

  “And you’re just going to be, what?” Dan asked. “Waiting for me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But I won’t wait forever. Just for this one time. I’ll find out from Savannah when you’re back, and if you don’t call me, well, that’ll be that. So you don’t have to feel guilty if you change your mind.”

  He put his jacket on, but did it really slowly. “I don’t want to go,” he said. “God, Jenn, come on. What if this guy Mick calls you?”

  “Well,” she said, “if Mick calls, all bets are off. George Clooney’s on my exception list, too, and—look at you. I’m kidding. If Mick or George calls, I’ll say, Thank you, but I’m sorry, I’m in love with Dan Gillman and I’m waiting for him to come back.”

  And great. With her own words, she’d made herself start to cry.

  “Jenni,” he said again and reached for her, but she stepped back, away from him, wiping her eyes dry.

  She could do this. She had to do this.

  “This is where we find out if you trust me,” Jenn told him, using the very words he’d said to her in the stairwell, with Frank. They were the words that made her leave him there—because she did trust him. Very much.

  He just stood there, looking at her, for a long time.

  “I’m serious,” she finally said.

  And he nodded. “I’ll be back.”

  “Okay,” she said, but she knew that he knew she’d believe it only when she saw it.

  He opened her door. But then he shut it again, and he grabbed her and kissed her, long and sweet. But then he let her go.

  “I’ll e-mail you with my APO,” he said.

  And he walked out the door.

  • • •

  Alyssa stood at Ashton’s crib and looked down at her son.

  He was smiling in his sleep, and it was hard not to smile back as she watched him.

  “He’s dreaming about his momma,” Sam said softly, as he put his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind, his chest warm against her back.

  She turned to face him, and he held her tightly, his broken rib be damned.

  “God, I was scared to death today,” he breathed. “When Danny got that text message …”

  “I was scared, too,” she admitted. She pulled back to look at him, to push his hair from his eyes, to look at him searchingly. “Are you really okay?”

  He nodded. “I’m not going to lose any sleep over killing Forsythe,” he told her. “Not a minute. It’s the fact that I nearly killed you in that blast that’s gonna give me nightmares.”

  “He was going to kill Jenn,” Alyssa told him. “I was trying to stop him, but my hands and feet were tied. And he was just laughing. …” She shook her head. “Your timing was perfect.”

  “I was sure I’d lost both you and Jules today,” Sam told her.

  “And I was so sure it was Gene Ivanov,” Alyssa said. “If I’d thought it really could’ve been Douglas, I never would’ve turned my back on him. It was a foolish mistake.”

  “A human mistake,” he corrected her. “You know Gene turned up—did Jules tell you?”

  “No,” she said. “Where?”

  “He was in the hospital. He got himself shot. Apparently Hank the UPS man was running drugs, and he’d blackmailed Gene into making some of his deliveries. So you were right about Gene hiding something. He told the police that he was intending to come back to the office and confess his involvement, when you g
ot tied up in the discovery of Maggie and Winston’s bodies.”

  “I saw him in the alley. And I thought…” She’d thought he was the killer—the Dentist—when all along it had been Douglas Forsythe. “I wish I’d seen you,” Alyssa said, “the way Jenn described you, coming straight through the wall.”

  He smiled. “I have to confess, I went a little caveman.”

  “Every now and then,” she said, “I could use a little caveman.”

  “Aha,” he said. “The truth comes out. It’s all Sam, don’t beat up the cop, and Sam, don’t get arrested, until the caveman saves the day.”

  She laughed, but it faded as she lost herself in his eyes. She stood on her toes to kiss him again. “I knew you’d come,” she told him softly. “I knew you’d find me.”

  “Always,” he told her, and he kissed her back, then shut their bedroom door.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Quite a few years ago when I wrote Gone Too Far, the Troubleshooters book that ended Sam and Alyssa’s story arc, my editor suggested that we include a short story featuring these two extremely popular characters in the back of the next book (Flashpoint). We could let readers see how their lives were going after they’d won their happily-ever-after.

  I liked the idea, but I was wary. Writing short—stories or articles or even birthday cards—is hard for me. (Just see how long this author’s note is …) Plus, I was also adamant that I not write something inappropriately light and fluffy, like “Sam and Alyssa Get a Puppy.”

  So I stomped around my office for a few weeks, thinking about these two characters, and pondering all of the changes that Alyssa surely had to deal with, with Sam-the-optimist now permanently part of her life.

  And I wrote what I thought was a short story in which Sam and Alyssa handle a missing persons assignment for Troubleshooters Incorporated. They go to New Hampshire and search for a wealthy young woman who appears to have eloped with her ski instructor.

  Alyssa ends up finding the woman’s mutilated body stuffed into the refrigerator of an abandoned cabin. It’s a chilling, disturbing, upsetting experience for her. And in the aftermath, as Sam does his best to give her support, she realizes that living with her husband has started to change her. She really thought that they’d find this young woman living happily with her lover, probably in a little house with a picket fence and a flower garden. (And plenty of puppies.)

  The short story ends—or at least I thought it ended—with Alyssa in Sam’s arms, watching the sunrise, welcoming a new day. The killer was, however, still at large, because, come on, people, it was a short story.

  So okay, after Flashpoint came out, I waded my way through the ocean of reader e-mails that asked me about that “excerpt” from the new book with Sam and Alyssa and the serial killer that I’d named “the Dentist.” (Note to my own dentist: Nothing personal, Mark.) When would that book be out, many readers asked, and what was it called?

  I tried, for years, to convince readers that this really was just a short story.

  FYI, I’ve written about a dozen Troubleshooters short stories since that first one. And none are about anyone getting puppies, although some are significantly lighter than people finding dead women in refrigerators. I’ve learned (the hard way!) to give them titles, which help readers believe that they are, indeed, short stories and not excerpts from upcoming books. But I do mention the Dentist—still at large—in at least one other story.

  I think I probably always knew that someday I’d bring the Dentist back, and let Alyssa and Sam go head to head with him. Because I also knew that Alyssa—as happy as she was with Sam—was not going to rest until she brought this killer to justice.

  So that, dear readers, is the story behind Hot Pursuit.

  Which brings me to the story after Hot Pursuit.

  I’m going to anticipate a frequently asked question that I’m expecting to get after this book comes out, and say, yes.

  Yes, you’ll be seeing more of both Dan and Jenn in the next book. Their story is not yet over.

  You’ll see more of Izzy, too. And Eden. I don’t have a title yet, but watch for what’s looking to be the sixteenth book in my Trouble-shooters series.

  It’s also going to be the final TS book—at least for a little while. I’m going to be taking a break from the series for a bit—although I’m hoping to release an anthology of all those Troubleshooters short stories that I’ve written, with a few brand-new ones thrown in. Just to tide you over.

  Because, yes, I know. How could there be a final Troubleshooters book while I’ve left all those characters unattached? Lopez. Jazz. Commander Lewis Koehl. Martell, Joe Hirabayashi, Hobomofo … (I know he’s new, but aren’t you dying to meet the Navy SEAL with that nickname? I am, too.)

  Visit my website, www.SuzanneBrockmann.com, for news about new releases and reissues of older books.

  Oh, and one last Hot Pursuit FAQ that I’m anticipating … Yes, Tony V. is involved with exactly who you think he’s involved with. And it’s going really, really well.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Since her explosion onto the publishing scene, SUZANNE BROCKMANN has written nearly fifty books, and is widely recognized as one of the leading voices in romantic suspense. Her work has earned her repeated appearances on the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists, as well as numerous awards, including Romance Writers of America’s #1 Favorite Book of the Year (three years running), two RITA Awards, and many Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards. Suzanne Brockmann lives west of Boston with her husband, author Ed Gaffney.

  Hot Pursuit is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Suzanne Brockmann

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Brockmann, Suzanne.

  Hot pursuit : a novel / Suzanne Brockmann.

  p. cm. — (Troubleshooters, Inc.; 15)

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51493-6

  1. Government investigators—Fiction. 2. Serial murderers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.R61455H66 2009

  813′.54—dc22 2009021189

  www.ballantinebooks.com

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