Suspicious Activities

by Tyler Anne Snell

  Sure, he’d kissed Nikki out of an overwhelming sense of gratitude, but now he realized that wasn’t the only thing that made him want to protect her. He wanted to—no, needed to—keep her safe because he cared about her. He didn’t need weeks or months or years to see she was special. She was smart, beautiful, kind to those she felt deserved it and undoubtedly loyal to those same people. Despite everything that had happened in his past and hers, she’d for some reason put him in that category with her other loved ones.

  He exhaled a long breath.

  Then he’d kissed her. His boss. Exactly a week after he was hired.

  Jackson ignored his reflection, knowing he needed to shave and probably had a blooming bruise against his jaw thanks to Reardon, and went into his bedroom to change. It was a small room, as was his apartment in its entirety, but it was where he’d lived since he came to Dallas five years ago. It was the only home he’d really had as an adult and he found himself hoping Nikki liked it as much as he did. His thoughts went to her apartment again, back to her bathroom. He wondered if she’d ever use her tub again after Ronald Dabney had died there.

  Halfway through pulling up his jeans, Jackson froze.

  “—pain was what I was asked to deliver and it had to be in the bathtub.”

  “Know that it was those successes, those wins, that destroyed you.”

  Jackson buttoned his pants and tugged on his shirt. He opened the door and went out into the living room, trying to make sense of something he didn’t think he could. Not alone, at least.

  Nikki was sitting on the couch, phone discarded on the coffee table. She looked up at him and instantly sat straighter.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, voice hardening, her brows pulled together.

  “Did one of Orion’s most successful cases have anything to do with a bathtub?” he asked, sitting next to her. Their shared kiss had flown to the back burner. Right now they needed to deal with Andrew Miller and not Jackson’s growing attraction for the beautiful redhead.

  “What?” she asked, a slight smile pulling up the corner of her lips. “First of all, there’s not really a way to rank the success of our cases. If we hold up our end of the contract, then to me that is success.”

  Jackson rephrased his question. “Are there any cases that got a lot of good press compared to the others? A lot of media attention?”

  Nikki looked like she was about to discard the question with a little laugh. Then her face fell. Jackson saw recognition flare behind her green-brown eyes. “Nikki, which cases?”

  She shook her head a little in disbelief. Maybe because she hadn’t thought about it until now or maybe she didn’t want to entertain the idea she’d just had at all.

  “Nikki?” Jackson prodded.

  She gave a little nod.

  “Even though we tried to keep things relatively under wraps, there have been three Orion cases that couldn’t avoid a lot of media attention,” she said. The color drained from her face. Jackson leaned in.

  “And one of them involved a bathtub,” he guessed.

  Nikki nodded.

  “In a roundabout way. A Jane Doe was found in a bathtub in Maine a few years ago,” she said, voice trailing as if she was ahead of herself remembering other details. “It threw our contract way off, but in the end, Oliver helped catch the killer who put her there. Orion was partially credited with the outcome and given enough money to afford our expansion.”

  “Wait,” Jackson said. “Oliver as in Oliver Quinn? He was the agent on the case?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “But, Jackson, the other two Orion contracts that I’d count as our biggest wins...”

  “Yeah?”

  “The agents in charge were Mark Tranton and Jonathan Carmichael.”

  Jackson titled his head, full understanding seeping in.

  “So Orion’s biggest successes involve Oliver, Mark and Jonathan. The three men Andrew Miller believes you stole from him,” Jackson summarized. “Well, this just keeps getting more and more interesting.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I think we might be reaching a little here.”

  Nikki and Jackson had moved to the small table in the kitchen. He had put a pizza in the oven and passed her a beer. Which she took without hesitation. It was more than welcome after detailing out every part of Oliver’s, Mark’s and Jonathan’s biggest contracts to him.

  They’d been complicated, dangerous and unexpected. They’d also turned out better than anyone could have hoped, bringing Orion wonderful publicity that had only added numbers to their client base and to those who wished to help fund the operation. The more she thought about it, the more Nikki realized that those three contracts really were Orion’s most successful.

  “Maybe for normal people it is,” Jackson countered. “But for Andrew Miller, I don’t think it’s reaching.”

  Nikki moved her beer to the side. She used her hands to try to illustrate her aversion to believing what Jackson thought was happening.

  “Recreating old cases, even in some small part, to get at me,” she said. “That seems like a lot of trouble to go through to kill me, don’t you think?”

  “That’s just it. I think he just wants to hurt you with them and then, whenever he’s done, it’s him who wants to finish the job.”

  Nikki raised her eyebrow at the blunt way he phrased a potential plan that included her being murdered. He held up his hands and gave her an apologetic look.

  “Not that any of that is going to happen,” Jackson assured her. “But you have to admit, Ronald Dabney saying he wasn’t supposed to kill you but hurt you in a tub is oddly specific. And really, it doesn’t make much sense. I mean, if you hadn’t been in the bath already and were, I don’t know, eating in your kitchen, would he have hurt you and then dragged you into the tub?”

  Even though the topic of conversation hadn’t changed, Nikki couldn’t help consenting to his line of thinking.

  “I admit, that doesn’t add up,” she said. “But why pay us the visit at the coffee shop? And why would his men shoot at us if he’s the one who wants to finish the job?”

  Jackson sucked on his beer for a moment. The oven timer went off before he could find an answer he liked.

  “It could be a coincidence,” Nikki tried.

  “That’s always a possibility.”

  She watched as Jackson put on a red oven mitt and started to pull out the pizza pan. Such a simple task seemed so domestic. It caught her off guard in a way. For the first time since she’d stepped inside the apartment, she looked around. Decorating in shades of gray and black, Jackson had cultivated what she believed was a quintessential bachelor pad. No feminine touches of any kind graced the space as far as Nikki could see. Also, she realized with a startling amount of sadness, there were no pictures, either. It prompted a question before she could even police the thought.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked. “To Reardon. I mean when he asked you to help him unload a truck out back and then poof, there’s no truck, you had to know he wasn’t going to leave you alone until he was satisfied with making trouble.”

  Jackson took off the oven mitt but didn’t face her. He went about grabbing plates and searching, she guessed, for the pizza cutter.

  “Men like Reardon are never satisfied,” he said. “Not when they think they are somehow defending someone’s honor or righting a wrong. Even if it’s an old one.” He located the cutter but paused next to the stove. “There’s nothing I could have said that would have made him stop, but I’m sure anything I said would have made things worse.”

  Nikki’s eyes traveled to the red against his jaw. Thankfully, it wasn’t bruising, but the mark was still there. As if he knew she was looking, he pointed to it. “Case in point.”

  Nikki wanted to ask if he’d spoken up before—rallie
d against his aggressors—when she remembered his rap sheet. He had, she was sure, and what he was saying now was a lesson he’d probably learned several times over.

  “Plus,” he continued. “Reardon’s a cop. People typically don’t go around punching those if they can help it.”

  Nikki took a long drink of her beer. Jackson smiled as he cut into the pizza.

  * * *

  CALVIN SHOWED UP as it started to get dark. Since their lunch, Nikki had resumed work mode via her phone. Apparently Oliver, Mark and Jonathan were all headed back to Dallas while Nikki was trying to help arrange their travel. She’d also redirected two agents currently on vacation to the Averys while Oliver’s deputy friend went out to the last one. While they both seemed to believe the addresses had been a way to get her agents out of town, Nikki had refused to leave the Averys without at least someone nearby, just in case.

  Jackson offered to help with something—he was the newest employee, after all—but Nikki told him to take it easy. He’d done enough. The way she’d spoken, however, had seemed weirdly formal. Like she had treated him at work the last week. He tried not to think too much about it and was glad when the detective called through the door. Jackson’s restlessness was in full form and he was thankful for the distraction.

  “You look rough,” Jackson greeted the detective, unable to fake a kind greeting.

  The man’s face was pinched, his body tense, sweat lining his brow. “I’ve had a rough day.”

  Jackson led the man into the living room. Nikki ended her call.

  “What’s happened?” she asked. Calvin didn’t sit.

  “The patrol car that we lost contact with earlier is still missing,” Calvin said, voice clipped. “Along with the two cops who were driving it.”

  “Missing?” Nikki asked. “There’s no way to track the car? What about LoJack? GPS?”

  Calvin shook his head. “Everything’s been disabled. We can’t even track the current locations of their phones.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed under his breath. “We got reports that shots had been fired, but now we can’t even find the witnesses who called in. All we know is that the perps were wearing blazers, despite how damn hot it is outside.”

  “So Andrew’s guys shoot at us and then steal a cop car with two cops,” Jackson said. “Great.”

  “This isn’t good,” Nikki said.

  Jackson had to agree with that. Disarming a cop was hard enough, he guessed, but making two officers and their car disappear?

  “No, it’s not,” Calvin said. He fixed her with a stern look. “Which is why I think we need to revise what we believe Andrew is capable of.”

  “You don’t think Andrew had anything to do with that, do you?” Nikki asked, disbelief clear in her voice.

  “This is why I’m worried,” Calvin answered. “You aren’t connecting dots that are clearly there. You’re underestimating him because you despise him.”

  Nikki opened her mouth to respond, but Calvin held up his hand to stop her. “Nikki, he called these men his bodyguards. They shot at you. Then when a car went to check on a potential sighting, that car and the officers in it disappeared without a damn trace. Thinking Andrew had nothing to do with it is the harder assumption to make, in my opinion.”

  “He’s right,” Jackson agreed. Nikki’s lips thinned.

  “So, what now?” she asked. “If Andrew and his men are truly this crafty, what’s the plan?”

  “You hide,” the detective said. He looked at Jackson. “You keep her hidden. And we will find Andrew and his friends.”

  * * *

  HE LOOKED AT the syringe with a thrill. “You’re sure it will work?”

  Andrew looked across the desk at his hired help and snorted. “No, I just sold my Jaguar to help get it because I thought it might not work,” he deadpanned. The man known to him only as Michael shrugged.

  “Not my problem either way,” he said, hand outstretched. “You’re only paying me to stick her with it.”

  Andrew nodded but didn’t immediately give it to him. “You understand what else I want, too, right?”

  If Michael had been the sort of man who believed in emotions, or at least in showing them, Andrew would bet that right then he would have rolled his eyes. He didn’t like Andrew and had made that apparent several times over the last two weeks. But he wasn’t being paid to be friends. He was being paid to torment Nikki Waters.

  “I ask again only because of what happened today,” Andrew tacked on. “You were supposed to make her nervous, make her think you were going to hurt her, not shoot up the block.”

  “We thought you wouldn’t mind if we roughed her up a little, considering she and her boyfriend killed your hired help before he could do any real damage.” Michael shrugged. “Plus, we scored a cruiser without any fuss.”

  Andrew wanted to point out that now the entire Dallas police force was looking for their comrades and Michael, his partner Charles and himself, but knew it would just fall on deaf ears. Unlike Ronald Dabney, Michael was a professional. One who had experience in disappearing at the drop of a hat. A man who had also helped Andrew make a plan to do just that when it was all over.

  “Still, this time I would prefer it if you followed the plan,” Andrew said, finally putting the syringe in his hand. “That is why I’ve paid you an exorbitant amount of money, remember?” Again, if Michael had been as dramatic a man as Andrew, he probably would have rolled his eyes.

  “Do you have any issues with us killing the boyfriend?” Michael asked. “Or would you rather play an unnecessarily complicated game with him, too?”

  Andrew ignored his sarcasm.

  “I don’t care what you do with him,” he answered. “Though, killing him would probably break Nikki even more. I’ll trust your judgment on that one, okay?” Michael nodded. “Good, now go make Nikki think about what she’s done.”

  Michael left the office without another word. Andrew continued to sit there awhile longer. He was half-surprised that the Orion building had been empty. If it had been his, he wouldn’t have left knowing a threat was looming in the distance against it.

  Then again, Nikki wasn’t anything like him.

  And that had always been the problem with her.

  His eyes traced over the picture frame on the desk. Nikki, Oliver, Mark and Jonathan stood together smiling outside Orion.

  “You destroyed me,” he said to Nikki’s smiling face, frozen in time. “And now it’s almost time for me to return the favor.”

  * * *

  NIKKI WAS STARING, though pretending her focus was placed on the television and not the man next to her.

  After Calvin’s message of doom, Jackson and she had found their way to the couch. While they didn’t touch on the topic of their kiss, Nikki’s body had started to heat in anticipation of what might happen when they were close again.

  She’d felt the weight of his hand on her waist and on the small of her back. The pressure of his lips against hers. The warmth that was physical... And the warmth that she couldn’t yet define. She’d then imagined what else might happen, and yet she’d kept quiet and as much distance as she could on the small couch.

  While the earlier kiss had happened, it had been impulsive. A man caught up in the rare moment of another person’s kindness.

  Nikki was the boss, Jackson her employee. That was the bottom line.

  Soon their silences had become concrete until Nikki had glanced over at the man who had saved her the night before and found herself smiling. Jackson had fallen asleep sitting up, head tilted back against the couch, arms crossed over his chest.

  The rough-around-the-edges man looked suddenly cute.

  “Staring isn’t polite,” Jackson said. It shocked her so much that she let her mouth hang open. Her cheeks heated as he opened his eyes. “Wow, I didn’
t really think you were staring.” He let out a loud hoot of laughter. Nikki closed her mouth and tried to tell her blush to calm down. But then he kept on laughing and she rolled her eyes.

  “For your information I wasn’t staring,” she defended. “I just happened to look over at you when you accused me.”

  Jackson kept his grin when his laughter died down. Nikki realized how tired he looked. How much sleep had he really gotten in the last week of watching her?

  That question was only the beginning of several more that sprang up. This time, though, Nikki thought to warn him before she jumped in with the personal issues.

  “Can I ask you something that you don’t have to answer?” she said, angling to face him better on the couch. Jackson’s smile wound down. He nodded. An invisible yet nearly tangible wall seemed to pull up around him.

  “Has no one really ever defended you before?” Had it been something he’d just said in the moment or was there truth to the sad statement? She didn’t want to pry, but she found she needed to know. Jackson wasn’t slow to answer.

  “Not in such a public way, no,” he said. “Then again, there haven’t been that many chances to do it. I don’t really hang out with people all that much.” He shrugged, as if it was no big deal, but from one lonely person to the other, Nikki saw it hurt. If only to admit it.

  “But what your father did wasn’t your fault,” Nikki said, more blunt than she’d meant to be. “Surely some people have to understand that.” Jackson didn’t respond. Still, she pressed on. “You just seem like a good guy. I can’t imagine you not having tons of friends willing to stand up for you.”

  Nikki felt her cheeks heat again. She was trying to understand the man—trying to absolve him of his guilt at the same time—and all she was managing to do was insult him in a way. Oh, you seem like a good guy but you don’t have friends. Why? She shook her head, already trying to find a way to express herself in a more flattering way, if possible. But then Jackson did something that threw all thought out the window.