Suspicious Activities
Page 5
The man let his momentum get the better of him. He stumbled when the bat didn’t connect.
Nikki reached out for her wine glass, no longer forgotten, and twisted around just as the intruder was getting his balance back. She held the stem of the glass like the handle of a hammer and aimed for the side of his head. The glass shattered and red wine exploded between them.
“What the hell?” roared the man as he clutched at the side of his face. The hat he’d been wearing dropped to the floor seconds before the bat clattered against the tile.
Nikki gripped the edges of the tub and tried to scramble out of the side opposite him. Soap and water made everything too slick. She lost her footing as she threw one leg over the edge. Her other leg shot out from under her and just as quickly she became a tangle of limbs against the tile floor.
Pain exploded along her chin and elbow on impact, but Nikki knew enough about the kind of men who would assault a woman at home alone to know that they probably didn’t like when their prey fought back. Adrenaline spiked through her, coursing in parallel to the horrible realization that she was caught vulnerable, as she scrambled back to her feet. She slung herself around to face her attacker, putting the tub between them and her even farther from the only exit.
“Who are you?” she questioned, voice cracking despite her resolve to try to grab some control. The man was slightly hunched in pain, holding the side of his face now covered in red wine. Or blood, she couldn’t tell which. She searched the rest of his face for any flare of recognition, but nothing about him seemed familiar. Around the same age as her thirty-four, the man looked gruff with his goatee and slightly wild dark hair. His clothes, however, were as normal as if he was going to the park to play ball. Yet he’d taken a pit stop by her place to—to what? Use her for batting practice? Either way, she didn’t recognize the man in the least. Certainly not the blood-curdling snarl he let out before lunging for her again. Never mind the tub between them.
Nikki used his misjudgment against him. She grabbed the wooden tray from across the tub and swung out at him with it. Another roar tore from his lips as the plank hit his outstretched fist hard. The two of them recoiled from each other, one in pain, one in fear. She might have been thwarting his attempts to hurt her, but she was also making him angrier. Once he decided to pick up his bat again, how long could she really hold him off?
Nikki pictured her handgun in the top drawer of her bedside table, two rooms away. If she could manage to put some distance between them, she’d have enough time to grab it and turn on him. Judging by the almost tangible rage building around him, it was her best option. Without waiting any longer, Nikki threw the wooden plank with everything she had at the man’s head. It forced him to shrink back in defense, throwing up his arms and cutting off his eye contact with her momentarily. She used the small window of opportunity and rounded the tub.
“I don’t think so,” the man ground out as she ran straight for the doorway. Nikki felt his hand in her hair seconds before she was yanked backward. Instead of slamming into him, she slipped on the water trail she’d left behind and lost her balance much sooner than her attacker had probably wanted. He let her go as her side connected to the floor with a slap. Pain, more harsh than when she’d first fallen against the tile, blossomed along her body. She tried to suck back in the air that had been knocked loose at the impact, her coughing interrupting the rhythm of the current song playing from her iPod.
This time it was Nikki who was slow to recover. The man reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair once more, pulling up until she had no choice but to get to her feet.
“I wanted to bring a gun,” the man said, eyes for the first time roaming the length of her body. “I also wanted to do it in the parking lot. But no, pain was what I was asked to deliver and it had to be in the bathtub. Lucky me you were already in the bath.” He smirked.
The fear Nikki was desperately trying to keep back flooded through every inch of her. Nikki, the woman who started a security agency aimed at providing safety against situations like this, was being bested in her bathroom. Naked, too.
She froze.
The hand in her hair tightened. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Fight back, her mind yelled. Do something!
But she didn’t. Fear had clinched like a vise around her heart.
The man smiled wickedly.
He never even saw Jackson Fields coming.
* * *
HE WAS STILL facing Nikki when Jackson’s fist slammed into him. The hit connected with his jaw. It had enough force to make the man stagger toward the tub. In the process he let go of Nikki’s hair, already howling in pain. Or maybe anger. Jackson didn’t care about dissecting the emotion.
Nikki had water dripping off her and slipped as she tried to scurry away from her attacker. Jackson reached out, no time to care that she didn’t have a stitch on, and wrapped his arms around her. Nikki’s eyes were wide as he steadied her.
“Go,” he ordered, already turning her toward the door. She nodded and wordlessly followed the command but didn’t make it halfway there before her attacker let out another war cry. There was no denying he was enraged now.
Jackson turned and instinctively reached up as the bat came down toward his face. He caught the top of it, stopping the momentum just in time. The man grunted, eyes crazed and nostrils flared. Blood ran down his face. When he realized his bat wasn’t going to crush Jackson’s skull, the man tried to yank it back like some kind of yo-yo. As if he could simply try again.
Jackson wasn’t having any of that.
He tightened his grip on the wood and kicked out with all his might. His shoe hit the man’s gut and the force of it pushed the man backward into the tub. Like Nikki had done earlier, her attacker slipped on the water and what Jackson realized must have been wine, and then his legs were up in the air.
Jackson lost hold of the bat, but it didn’t matter.
The man landed across the tub, his backside in the water and his head and neck against the other side.
A loud crack was heard above the music.
And then the man was dead.
Chapter Six
Nikki watched, speechless, as Jackson bent over the dead man in her tub. Bubbles covered his sinking middle as his limp body settled at the bottom. His neck was bent at an awkward angle, and from her spot just inside the doorway, Nikki could see his eyes were open. But there was no life in them.
For the rest of her life she’d never use the same citrus bath salts again.
“He’s dead?” Nikki still ventured, voice dislodging from the cage of fear she’d built less than a minute ago. It was weak and sounded close to shattering, even to her ears.
Jackson straightened and nodded.
“Broken neck,” he answered. He was breathing heavily, but there was an unmistakable strength behind his answer. He looked from the tub to the floor and the broken wine glass to Nikki herself. His eyes danced the line between blue and gray as they met her stare.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice surprisingly laced with concern.
It earned an honest answer from her.
“I will be.”
Jackson nodded, his gaze firmly planted on her face.
It was then that Nikki remembered she was absolutely naked.
Heat rushed from her toes and, like the fear beforehand, flooded her body.
“Oh, God,” she groaned. The towel she’d had out for after her supposedly relaxing bath was on the towel rack nearest Jackson. He followed her gaze to the white linen and quickly grabbed it. Without another glance her way, he threw it to her. He was smart enough to keep his eyes on anything but her as Nikki covered herself.
Though they both knew he’d already seen everything.
“Thank you,” she said when she was comfortable with him seeing her. Still, when
he turned his eyes stayed high. “But I have to ask, how did you get in?”
“The front door was cracked open. When I saw the lock was broken, I heard him talking.” He shrugged and then said something he probably hadn’t meant to admit to her. “He looked suspicious when I saw him outside.”
Nikki paused what was supposed to be a second thank-you.
“When you saw him outside?” she asked, suspicious. Just as quickly as she questioned his motives, she understood them. “Jonathan told you to watch me,” she guessed.
Jackson didn’t bother to lie.
“He told me to keep you safe,” he admitted. “But it was my idea to keep watch on the apartment.” Throwing his thumb over his shoulder to the man in the tub, he added, “Can’t say I feel any guilt about that decision right about now.”
A plethora of emotions passed through Nikki. The immediate one was anger. She didn’t ask for or want protection from the new recruit. Heck, she didn’t want it from even the most seasoned of agents. If the head of Orion couldn’t even protect herself... Her anger quickly turned to embarrassment. She’d frozen when she should have fought. If Jackson hadn’t shown up... Then all Nikki could feel was gratitude and admiration for the man standing in a puddle of spilled red wine.
And then she felt anger again.
“I’m going to call the cops and then we’re going to talk about what the word privacy means,” she said. If Jackson felt underappreciated or shortchanged, he didn’t show it. Instead he nodded, as if resigned to her future wrath.
Nikki turned and finally left the bathroom.
They’d both pretended not to hear how much her voice broke as she spoke. Or the way her legs still shook as she walked away.
* * *
WHILE NIKKI WENT to her bedroom and changed, Jackson went and stood guard in the living room with his eye on the front door and the open bathroom. He knew the man was dead in the tub, but he still didn’t want his back to him. Not when Nikki was still in the apartment. It was an irrational response, he knew, but he also couldn’t shake it.
Jackson remembered seeing the busted lock on the door—how no one else on the floor had heard him break it off the wood, he didn’t know—and running inside without pause. He’d heard the man speak and then seen him holding Nikki up like a rag doll. He’d also taken in the red across the floor, the fact that Nikki was naked and wet, and the bat discarded near them all within the space of a heartbeat before he’d attacked.
The fear and simultaneous anger that had washed over him had been surprising. But not as much as the nearly overwhelming feeling of protectiveness.
Nikki might have been his boss, but that couldn’t account for such a strong response from a relative stranger. Or could it?
“Not the night you expected, huh?”
Nikki smoothly slid next to him, gaze on the broken front door. She’d changed her towel for a pair of jeans and a flannel button-up. Her hair was twisted up in a wet bun and the mascara that had started to streak her cheeks was wiped clean. If he hadn’t witnessed the attack, he wouldn’t have guessed anything out of the ordinary had happened to the redhead at all.
“To be honest, I’d expected to be bored all night,” he answered.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
Jackson glanced over.
“So you have no idea who that is?” he asked again, just as he had through her bedroom door after she first went in to exchange her towel for her clothes. She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen him before,” she reconfirmed.
“But he spoke to you.”
She nodded but kept her eyes on the door. “He was sent here to hurt me.” Her tone was even, scarily calm.
Jackson didn’t know if her lack of emotion was due to shock or if she was hiding how she really felt. Either way his hands fisted at his sides.
“Andrew Miller,” he said. “Do you think he sent him?”
Nikki didn’t answer and they lapsed into a moment of silence.
It was answer enough for him.
“Do me a favor and refrain from telling anyone at Orion about this,” she said after the quiet had stretched for a while.
Jackson turned to her, ready to argue, but for the first time since they’d been in the bathroom, she met his stare with her own hazel eyes. They were darker than he thought was normal, the brown around the pupil rich, but the green and yellow around it wild and entrancing. He nearly forgot what they were talking about until she added, “The guys would leave the Averys, and I don’t want that yet.”
“But what if that’s exactly what Andrew, or whoever is behind this, wants?” Jackson pointed out. “Knowing you’d send your best away, leaving you open for this.” He motioned to the bathroom.
Nikki’s face pinched. He could tell she’d already had the thought, though she didn’t have time for a rebuttal. Footsteps sounded in the hallway and without a knock the front door swung open. Jackson tensed and angled his body a step in front of Nikki, ready to fight if needed.
A stout man, a bit older than Jackson, with light blond hair cut close to his scalp and large brown eyes burst into the room with a look of absolute worry. He wore plainclothes with a badge on his belt buckle. He scanned the room quickly before his attention fell squarely on the redhead. In three long strides he engulfed Nikki in a rather long embrace.
“God, Nikki, you could have been killed,” said the officer when he finally backed away. Nikki’s cheeks were tinted pink. She smiled but tightly. Jackson looked between them. Who was this guy?
“I’m aware, Calvin,” she said before tilting her head to Jackson. “Thankfully, Mr. Fields was here to stop anything from happening.”
Calvin seemed to really see Jackson for the first time. He watched as the cop’s expression went from gratitude to suspicion.
“Why were you here?” he asked outright. Jackson noted potential jealousy there and wondered again who the man was to Nikki. The redhead let out an exhalation.
“This is Orion’s newest agent,” she interjected before Jackson could speak. “I asked him over to talk about a contract and lost track of time taking a bath before our meeting. Had he not shown up when he did, that might be me.” She pointed toward the man in the tub.
It sobered the men.
If he wondered why the meeting was so late, Calvin didn’t voice it. Just as Jackson didn’t question the lie, either.
They had bigger issues to deal with.
* * *
JACKSON WAS GETTING AGITATED, Nikki could tell. The two beat cops who had come in after Calvin were taking his statement as he walked through what had happened in the bathroom. It wasn’t hard to see they were being cold toward him. Even from the living room, Nikki could feel the chill. She had no doubt that they’d already connected who Jackson was and judged him without a second guess. She might have been steely with the new agent before the cops had shown up, but the officers’ negativity ran much deeper and purer than her annoyance at being watched like some errant child.
“Not the warmth a man who just saved my life deserves, don’t you think?”
Detective Calvin Cooper looked up from his notebook, pen paused in his hand. He followed her gaze to the three in the other room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nik,” Calvin responded. She’d known him long enough to spot the lie quickly. He’d known her long enough to spot the fact that she’d spotted the lie. He sighed. “Listen, you know Hannigan and Reardon. When something gets under their skin, they have a hard time getting it out.”
“And what’s under their skin this time?” Nikki asked. “Because I doubt what they feel holds a candle to what I’m feeling right now.” She crossed her arms over her chest to further illustrate her point. Calvin looked from her new defensive stance to the officers, now following Jackson back into the living room.
“And I wanted to take a damn bubble bath in peace,” she interrupted, not whispering one bit. Her volume made the other three look her way. It was then, seeing Jackson’s jaw tight, expression blank, that she felt the dam break. The spark of anger she’d had for Hannigan and Reardon flared a good deal brighter. Though she was sure the suppressed emotions from earlier were now starting to catch up to her.
“Nikki,” Calvin started, but she wasn’t listening. She didn’t move from her spot next to Calvin and his notepad. Instead she fixed the other officers with a sweeping stare and spoke clearly so there was no confusion it was them she wanted a response from.
“Does there seem to be a problem?” she asked. The three men sent her varying questioning looks. She motioned to the officers. “I only ask because you two look like someone broke into your apartment and tried to beat you with a bat. The only one I think should be pulling off such a sour look is Mr. Fields, who fended off the bat-yielding intruder and saved my life.”
Hannigan snorted at that.
Nikki felt her eyebrow rise sky-high. Next to her she heard Calvin sigh and close his notebook.
“Oh, I didn’t realize the situation was funny,” she said, angling her body in direct opposition of the man. “Or maybe I just haven’t been assaulted enough to really understand the humor.”
Hannigan’s small smile faded. He cleared his throat.
“It isn’t funny you were attacked,” he defended. He shared a quick glance with Reardon, who decided it was his turn to piss off Nikki.
“We just thought it was funny how he doesn’t seem to hesitate in saving a naked woman but didn’t bother trying to save—”