Framed

by Karen Leabo

  She struggled to bring the man’s image into sharpness. Keeping her eye on a moving subject wasn’t like focusing on an immobile telephone.

  “Well?”

  She saw a slender man wearing a cap, a jacket with the collar turned up, jeans. “Hard to tell. It could be Terry. But maybe not.” She couldn’t see his hair color, couldn’t be sure of his height. The unidentified man headed straight for the phones. “What do we do?”

  “We wait until he’s done with the phone. Won’t do any good to confront him if he hasn’t completed the call. He could claim he was about to call for time and temperature. Let me see the glasses.”

  “Wait, he’s...no, never mind.” The man had never turned to face her. He was leaning against the brick wall with his back to her, ready to use the phone. Jess surrendered the binoculars, then squinted anxiously out the windshield. The parking lot wasn’t well lighted, and she couldn’t make out much.

  “What time is it?” Kyle asked in an unemotional, allbusiness tone.

  Jess consulted the dashboard clock. “Twelve thirty-five. A little early.”

  “No law says he’s compulsive. He’s chatting away to someone. Doesn’t look nervous, by his stance. And...he’s hanging up.” Kyle all but shoved the binoculars at Jess. “Time to see what he’s all about. If I say ‘down,’ you get down. I don’t want to see your head above the dashboard. Got it?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think he’s—”

  “We don’t even know who he is, much less if he’s dangerous.”

  Good point, Jess thought.

  Kyle pulled the car across the street into the parking lot, not too fast. Their pedestrian didn’t appear to be paying attention to them until they drew close. Then he swung his head around to stare, his face hard with suspicion.

  “It’s not Terry,” Jess said the moment she got a good look at the guy. Disappointment coursed through her. Of course, it wouldn’t be this easy.

  Kyle rolled down his window. “Excuse me, sir? I’m with the Kansas City Police. May I have a word with—”

  At the word “police” the guy turned and bolted. Kyle stepped on the gas and chased him, yelling “Stop! Police!” out the window in between colorful curses. Not that the car couldn’t outrun a person on foot, but there wasn’t any way to stop the guy’s headlong flight except run him down.

  Abruptly Kyle slammed on the brakes, threw the car into Park and opened the door. “Stay put,” he ordered less before leaping out after their suspect, who had a hundred-foot lead on him. Kyle ran like a sprinter.

  Jess stared, fascinated. It was like watching Wild Kingdom , a jaguar after a gazelle—except that prey and predator were men.

  The suspect reached the edge of the parking lot, crossed an alley and scrambled over a low brick wall enclosing a housing development. Kyle, having gained ground, vaulted over the wall in one easy movement only moments later.

  Seconds ticked by, stacking one on top of the other to form several agonizing minutes during which Jess saw and hard nothing.

  The police radio, the volume turned down to a whisper, looked inviting. She could call for help. If she could even figure out how to use the dam thing. Or she could use the cell phone and call 911. Or...she could disobey Kyle’s order, get out of the car, and look for him.

  Was it really necessary for her to worry? she wondered. Surely Kyle knew what he was doing. But if anything happened to him while he was trying to help her cause, she would feel terribly responsible. Terrible, period.

  After picturing herself trying to explain the situation to some skeptical cop or clueless dispatch operator, she decided on her third option. She would run to the wall and just peek over it to the other side, to see if Kyle was in trouble.

  She wrapped her scarf around her neck and opened her door, leaving the engine running. No movement anywhere around her. She got out, swiveling her head this way and that as she made her way across the dark parking lot, her heart in her throat.

  The lot seemed as broad as a football field. The distance covered by the two men in mere seconds seemed to take a million footsteps for her to get across. And when she reached the wall, she realized it was well over five feet tall. She couldn’t even see over it, much less climb over it as the men had.

  Instead she crept down the alley, her senses alert for any noise, any movement. It seemed she walked forever, pulling her scarf more tightly around her neck to ward off the cold. She’d forgotten gloves, and her knuckles ached.

  The wall ended abruptly when it reached the street that backed up behind the discount store. Jess paused, trying to decide exactly how to proceed from here. Feeling like a third-class spy, she started to lean around the wall with exaggerated caution. But a man’s hard body barreling around the corner blocked her view and very nearly knocked her down.

  Jess gave an involuntary shriek. “Oh, God, you scared me to—you’re bleeding!”

  “It’s not that bad,” Kyle muttered, holding his hand up to a cut on his cheekbone, frighteningly close to his eye. He continued his pace without slowing. He was breathing hard, his breath steaming the air. And he was clearly irritated. “I thought I told you to stay in the car.”

  “I was worried about you.” She trotted to keep up with him. “You were gone so long, and... What do you mean, it’s not bad? You’re dripping blood all over the place. What happened? Where’s the guy? Did you catch him? Did he do that to you?”

  When Kyle didn’t respond, Jess realized she’d thrown too many questions at him at once. And from the looks of things, he didn’t want to answer any of them. He walked in sullen silence back to the car, got in the open driver door and slammed it.

  She followed suit on the passenger side.

  Kyle flipped on the dome light and peered at his wound in the rearview mirror. “Damn.”

  “‘Damn’ is right. You’re not in any shape to drive.” Jess rummaged around in her purse for a package of tissues. She found one, opened it and pulled out the whole wad. “Here, let me at least clean it up for you so you can tell what you’re looking at.” She reached up to dab at the blood on his cheek.

  He enclosed his hand with hers. “Give it to me. I’ll do it.”

  “Don’t be a baby.” While they argued, the cut oozed more blood. Jess felt suddenly woozy. She surrendered the wad of Kleenex. “Okay, you do it.”

  “Jess?” His surliness was gone, replaced with concern.

  “Sorry. Blood makes me a little queasy sometimes.” It had ever since her little set-to in Massachusetts.

  That got a chuckle out of him. “Wouldn’t Clewis get a kick out of that? The woman he thinks stabbed her boyfriend to death gets sick at the sight of blood?” He swabbed at his face.

  When Jess got brave enough to peek at him again, Kyle still looked like an escapee from a slasher movie. “You have to go to the hospital.”

  “No way. It looks worse than it is.”

  “You’ll have a scar if you don’t get it stitched up by a doctor.”

  “Would a scar be so bad?” He pressed the tissue to his face to stanch the bleeding. “Might give me some character.”

  “You already have character. And yes, a scar would be bad if you got it on my account. Humor me. The emergency room, please?”

  “What about the stakeout? It’s early yet.”

  “I’m not sitting in a car with you all night while you bleed to death.”

  He sighed. “All right. See if you can crank up that heater a bit.”

  Relieved, she began fiddling with the heater controls as Kyle shifted into Drive and steered one-handed. Only then did her curiosity about the events leading up to his injury return. “So what happened?”

  “He was a scared kid with a joint in his pocket. That’s why he bolted. He was calling his mother to let her know he was on his way home. Apparently he’d missed curfew.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “No. I took a big, heroic flying leap and tackled him to the ground. Only between me and the ground, I lost. I hit a rock or
something. Big drama, huh?”

  “Do you know for sure he was calling his mother? And why didn’t you arrest him if he was carrying drugs?”

  The irritation was back. “I delivered him personally to his front door and met the lady face-to-face. From the looks of things, he was going to get worse from her than he would have from the judicial system. Hell, I’m not up to arresting some juvey with a joint tonight, anyway.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”

  “I’m just sorry the stakeout is a bust. The department okayed this for one night only.”

  “Oh. You didn’t tell me that.” She considered her options. “I can do it on my own tomorrow, now that I’ve learned how.”

  Kyle actually laughed. “I’ll be there with you.”

  “I’ll pay you,” she said hopefully, relieved that he’d offered without her having to grovel. She had a strong feeling about this caller. He was the key to solving this case, and so long as there was a chance of apprehending him, she wasn’t giving up.

  “Pay me with what? You already told me you couldn’t afford a P.I.”

  “I’ll owe it to you, then.”

  “No, thanks. Consider it a favor between friends.”

  She thought about this for several minutes.

  “Since when did we become friends?” she finally asked when he’d pulled the car into a parking space. “That’s quite a switch from where we started.”

  He laughed again. She wasn’t sure if she liked making him laugh, especially when that wasn’t what she intended. Although, come to think of it, she did like the sexy dimple that appeared along with his smile.

  “I think we became friends when you started worrying about me.”

  Jess felt suffused with a sudden warmth that seared her from the inside out, driving out the numbing cold that had settled in her bones during her parking-lot trek. “I’d worry about anyone risking his life on my account,” she said, looking at her toes.

  “Oh, Jess, you wound me. I thought I was special.”

  She laughed too, then, because he was trying to be funny. But he’d hit on a startling truth. He was special. At some point during this ordeal, he’d started to mean something to her—something more than a symbol of her salvation from a murder conviction—more than just a sexy bod.

  Not smart, Jess. Kyle Branson was exactly the type of man she’d spent the past few years avoiding—powerful, charismatic, determined. If she fell under his spell, she would be completely at his disposal. He could do whatever he wanted and she would be helpless to prevent it. He could stalk her, abuse her, and who would believe her word against a cop’s?

  With Kyle, she would be in an even more vulnerable position than when she’d gotten involved with Phil Cattrone. She shivered.

  “C’mon, let’s go inside where it’s warm and get this over with,” Kyle said, apparently misinterpreting her shiver. “I’m only doing this to save you from having to look at a scar, you know. You may not care for blood, but I really, really hate needles.”

  Chapter 7

  Kyle hadn’t been kidding about needles. He really hated them. Seeing a person in white approaching with a hypodermic made him want to act like a six-year-old—dive for cover, throw a tantrum. And this needle was coming at his face.

  “Close your eyes,” Jess whispered. She’d come with him into the treatment room because he’d asked the triage nurse to let her. He’d wanted company, he’d said. What he’d really wanted was someone to hold his hand.

  And that was exactly what she was doing. He followed her advice, closing his eyes and concentrating on the smooth feel of her skin against his palm, the delicate fingers wrapped around his. He tried to discern her light, floral fragrance above the Betadine. He even tried to sense the warmth of her body sitting near him.

  His focusing on Jess’s feminine aspects produced predictable results—a tightening in the groin that threatened to become embarrassing. He quickly thought about needles again, solving the problem.

  “I’d never have figured you for a wiggling patient, Detective,” the sober young doctor said. “I make the prettiest sutures in the whole city, but you’re going to ruin my handiwork if you don’t hold still.”

  “Sorry. Why is it that stitches always hurt more than the original injury?” At his good-natured complaint, Jess gave his hand a squeeze.

  “Because you’ve run out of adrenaline by the time you get to the hospital,” the doctor replied in all seriousness as he tied another stitch. “Adrenaline is a great anesthetic.” He snipped the thread. “There, only four stitches. It was a clean cut, despite how you did it. There won’t be much scarring, if any.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” With reluctance he released Jess’s hand. His little ordeal was over; no reason now for her to touch him, unless she just wanted to.

  He wondered if she did, if she’d gotten nearly the pleasure from the feel of his hand as he’d received from hers...or if the whole thing had been perfectly innocent on her part.

  Probably the latter. In her current situation, she wasn’t likely to be dwelling much on him—or any man—as a sexual object. Who could blame her? After the way Terry Rodin had treated her, she had a right to hate the whole gender for the rest of her life.

  He gave his insurance card to the cashier and they got the hell out of there, away from the smell of antiseptic and too many people.

  It was 3:00 a.m.—long past time to take Cinderella home, go home himself and shower and get back to work just in time for his regular shift.

  They hardly exchanged a word on the drive back to midtown. He pulled up in front of her duplex, scanning for anomalies, anything out of place. The porch light blazed. All was quiet.

  “Same time tomorrow?” he asked her.

  “Think you’ll be up to it?”

  “Sure, no problem.” He could grab some sleep after his shift later today. If he didn’t have to work overtime. If his pounding head allowed him any sleep.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ve got a list made of Terry’s friends, and I’m going to start paying them visits, like you suggested.”

  For some reason, this bit of news gave Kyle an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Yeah, he’d suggested this line of attack for Jess. Now he wondered whether it was safe for her to go poking around.

  Those telephone calls bothered him. They indicated a real cruel streak, a vein of mental illness.

  “Why don’t you wait—”

  “I can’t wait. The state is busy building a case against me. I’ve got to do something.”

  “Can you take someone with you?”

  “Lynn will go, if she doesn’t have classes. Otherwise, I’m on my own. Amazing how friends sort of disappear into the woodwork when one becomes a murder suspect.”

  Kyle didn’t suppose he could dissuade her. “Be careful, okay?”

  “I usually am.” She smiled faintly. “Now look who’s worrying.”

  “I guess that means maybe we are friends.” The urge to lean over and kiss her was strong. Too strong. She drew him like a black hole sucks in light. He moved slowly, giving her the chance to escape if she chose. Instead she stared at him like a deer frozen by headlights.

  He aimed for her cheek. At the last possible moment, she turned her head and offered him her mouth.

  It was a brief but explosive kiss, the merest brushing of lips that had the same effect as a fistful of firecrackers. Kyle suddenly couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs. His already woozy head felt as if it might spin right off his body and fly into space.

  Jess placed a hand on his shoulder, then gently but firmly pushed him back. “No more, okay?” She was practically gasping for air.

  When he didn’t agree right away, instead staring at her pink, moist lips and contemplating how best to exploit them again, she all at once grabbed her thermos and bolted from the car.

  Kyle stared in disbelief for a second as she ran up the walk to her porch. In moments she was safely locked behind her front
door. “Well, hell, that was smooth, Branson.” He must be losing his touch.

  He put his car in gear with some reluctance and headed for home, his brick ranch house in South K.C., near Swope Park. The area was checkered, had some crime problems, but his immediate neighborhood was nice, with lots of oldtimer residents and mature trees in every yard. He always looked forward to coming home, to puttering around with his never-ceasing home-improvement projects.

  No time for puttering now, he thought with a sigh.

  Kyle cracked open a window to let in some fresh, if cold, air during the drive. It was only after he put some distance between himself and Jess that he fully realized what had happened, what might have happened, and he cursed violently at himself.

  What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been out to a movie with the woman. He’d been on a stakeout, trying to find evidence to save her from a murder conviction. He could muddy the situation irretrievably if there was even a hint that he was involved with her. Easley and Clewis might welcome a deepening of his relationship with Jess, but only because they hoped she would confide something incriminating to him.

  That made it doubly important that he not get involved with her. He couldn’t risk compromising whatever information he did turn up, good or bad.

  The inevitable questions hit Kyle the moment he entered the downtown station. And he had to explain, at least ten times before eight o’clock, that he’d fallen on a rock while chasing a suspect that turned out not to be a suspect, while working on a case that wasn’t really his.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, he received a royal summons from Easley just as he’d started to follow a hot lead on a missing teenage girl.

  “So how’d it go?” the lieutenant asked, staring pointedly at the stitched-up cut on Kyle’s cheek. He was chewing on a fresh pen this morning. The thing bore only minimal teeth marks.

  “A total wash.” Kyle related the bare facts of the disastrous stakeout.

  “What’d I tell you?” Clewis crowed, standing in the doorway stuffing his face with a jelly doughnut. “But never mind that. You make any progress with the babe?”